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According to Hong Kong media HK01, Hong Kong BBB Group (Chinese name: Hao Hao Hao Group) claims to invest in the agarwood industry in Malaysia and sell over-the-counter stocks and digital assets, suspected to be a scam. The company states that it will convert OTC stocks into "digital asset" cryptocurrency by February 2027 or earlier.It is reported that the Hong Kong police have received reports from 21 individuals, involving an investment project amounting to 14 million Hong Kong dollars. The Commercial Crime Bureau is investigating for "conspiracy to defraud," and so far, four people have been arrested. Additionally, according to the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission's official website, "Malaysia Agarwood Plantation Investment, Agarwood Tree Program, Agarwood Potted Trees, APT4" have been listed as suspicious investment products.

As Trump's tariff policy restricts foreign steel supplies, U.S. steel prices have risen to their highest level in over four years, with hot-rolled coil prices increasing by 52%, reaching $1,255 per short ton. This move has boosted the profits of domestic steel producers but raised costs for manufacturers.

According to a report by ZDNet Korea on October 15, Samsung Electronics has lowered its production plan for mid-range and low-end smartphones in the fourth quarter. The reasons include rising prices of memory chips and disruptions in the supply of glass fiber used in PCB raw materials CCL. Japan's Nitto Denko is shifting more production capacity towards T-glass for AI semiconductors, reducing the output of E-glass for smartphone PCBs, leading to supply shortages and price increases. E-glass is used in semi-cured sheets for smartphone motherboards HDI and RFPCB.The report states that after the rise in storage prices increased manufacturing costs, Samsung reduced orders for related components. Models like the Galaxy A have lower profitability, making it difficult to significantly increase production. This year, the prices of basic mid-range models have risen by more than 100,000 Korean Won compared to the previous generation. The outlook for component orders communicated to partners for the fourth quarter corresponds to an annual smartphone shipment volume of just over 230 million units, which is below the component industry's expectation of 240 million units and represents a decrease of 20% to 30% compared to before the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday. Plans for the mobile business next year have not been shared with partners as in previous years.The monthly production outlook for the fourth quarter in mid-September was 14.3 million units in October, 9.5 million units in November, and 7.6 million units in December, totaling 31.4 million units. This was adjusted at the beginning of this month to 9.9 million units in October, 7.6 million units in November, and 6.7 million units in December, totaling 24.2 million units, a reduction of 23%. While the production of mid-range and low-end models has been lowered, the shipment plans for flagship models like the Galaxy S27 at the beginning of next year remain at a high level, and the shipment volume for foldable phones is also planned to increase. The MX and Network divisions reported a loss of 735 billion Korean Won in the second quarter, with the securities industry projecting an annual loss of 400 billion Korean Won.

Lido announced the integration of direct ETH staking functionality for Arbitrum, Base, Linea, and Optimism Layer 2 networks into its official staking interface, which was announced on October 15. This process is supported by Chainlink's cross-chain interoperability protocol CCIP, allowing users to directly obtain wstETH on the originating network without manually transferring ETH across chains to Ethereum and back.Lido stated that users' ETH will be exchanged for wstETH through dedicated liquidity pools on the same L2, with the Chainlink price feed reflecting the exchange rate of the Lido protocol rather than the exchange market price. The underlying staking still occurs on the Ethereum mainnet: the ETH deposited by users on L2 will automatically be transferred to Ethereum and staked through Lido, after which wstETH will be sent back to replenish the local liquidity pool. Users receive the wrapped version of stETH, wstETH, which maintains a fixed balance while its value reflects staking rewards.This functionality integrates existing cross-chain infrastructure into Lido's own interface. Lido previously introduced relevant channels for Arbitrum, Base, and Optimism in October 2024, with third-party frontends including XSwap, OpenOcean, and Interport, while Linea followed up in October 2025. In terms of fees, users will still need to pay L2 transaction gas, and cross-chain costs come from the separately funded contract balance rather than staker deposits;

According to the Gulf Times, Sharjah police have dismantled four interconnected cross-border crime gangs, involving 33 individuals and enterprises.The four gangs are suspected of network attacks and data theft, money laundering using virtual assets, stealing digital wallets through social engineering attacks, and violently coercing victims to hand over wallet passwords. After reviewing hundreds of pieces of digital evidence, the police identified the suspects and launched raids.

U.S. inflation data exceeded expectations, prompting traders to bet on interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve, with the dollar rising to its highest level in over a year. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index surged significantly on Wednesday, rising as much as 0.4% during the session.For the four weeks ending October 9, the dollar has accumulated a nearly 3% increase, marking the longest consecutive rise since early 2025. The market expects the total interest rate hikes in the U.S. to exceed 90 basis points in the future.

According to Bits media, the Russian Ministry of Energy stated that cryptocurrency miners apply for grid access under the fourth category of power supply reliability. Such users can be directly cut off by the authorities at any time without prior negotiation.This category was established by the government in February this year, allowing technical access in areas where energy shortages have been declared and mining has been prohibited. The Ministry of Energy stated that this move can effectively utilize existing energy infrastructure while not threatening the reliability of power supply to residents.

According to official data from Bitget, the fourth round of rewards for the platform's "Peer Program" has been completed. This round of rewards exceeded 1.1 million USDT, and the cumulative prize pool has surpassed 4.6 million USDT.In addition, starting from October 10, each round of winning users will also receive a surprise blind box, with a winning rate of 100%. The blind box rewards include experience vouchers for contract positions worth up to 10,000 USDT, 5% APR financial interest coupons, and GetAgent Ultra experience cards, among other benefits. Relevant users can directly enter the event page to claim their rewards.

According to Arkham monitoring, about 4 hours ago, a certain whale withdrew 440,249 WLD from Bybit through a newly created wallet, worth nearly $250,000.This address had purchased ETH through multiple transactions a week ago, with a total investment of over $1 million.

According to The Defiant, the stablecoin issuer Tether has blacklisted four THORChain treasury addresses, which collectively hold approximately 1.45 million USDT.As a result, THORChain's Tron cross-chain exchanges and liquidity provider-related operations have been suspended. THORChain co-founder Chad Barraford stated that the team did not receive any prior notice before Tether took action.

For the week ending October 3, the four-week average of initial claims for unemployment insurance in the United States was 198,000, revised from the previous value of 200,000 to 200,500.

IT Home cited a report from Money Today on October 8, stating that Samsung Electronics' Mobile Experience (MX) division plans to cut smartphone production, with a maximum reduction of 30% in the fourth quarter of 2026. Several IT industry insiders have indicated that Samsung's MX division has notified multiple partners to reduce product supply by 20% to 30%. IT Home noted that the original text did not specify whether this 30% is compared to the previous quarter, year-on-year, or against earlier expected production.In terms of production, Samsung Electronics originally planned to rely on new products like the Galaxy Z Fold8 to produce up to 270 million smartphones for the year. After the significant reduction in the fourth quarter, the final annual production is expected to drop to just over 200 million units, exceeding market expectations. IDC data shows that smartphone shipments in the first and second quarters of this year were 62.4 million and 62.7 million units, respectively, with previous forecasts predicting shipments of 59 million and 52 million units for the third and fourth quarters, indicating a decline of about 12% in the fourth quarter compared to the third quarter.Money Today reported that the rise in memory prices is the core driving factor behind the production cuts. TrendForce data shows that the price of 12GB low-power DRAM (LPDDR5X) for smartphones was $145 to $146 in the second quarter of this year, an increase of 175% compared to the same period last year. The report also stated that demand for artificial intelligence has driven up memory prices, with smartphone DRAM prices expected to rise by about 20% in the third quarter, reaching as high as $180. IT industry insiders stated that Samsung's current smartphone sales are no longer profitable, and the production cuts are a strategy to maintain overall profitability.

Lido announced the launch of the lending protocol Lido Lend, which is built on a modified fork of Morpho Blue and is planned to go live in the fourth quarter of 2026. Lido stated that the platform is aimed at long-term passive investors, with the goal of enhancing returns while controlling risks. Lido is a decentralized liquid staking protocol on Ethereum that issues stETH.Lido Lend has three core designs: first, an isolated market structure where each lending market operates independently, so issues in a single market do not affect others; second, a deposit screening mechanism to prevent bad collateral and funds that have been hacked from entering the system; third, a reliable lender exit mechanism, allowing lenders to smoothly redeem their funds even when the market reaches full utilization.The market will focus on low-volatility blue-chip asset trading pairs, such as stETH/ETH. The protocol is intended to be governed by Lido DAO, but the relevant governance arrangements have not yet been finalized and will await future DAO votes. Morpho Blue was launched in 2024, supporting users in creating isolated markets with specific collateral and lending parameters through a simple, immutable framework.

Chairman of BitMine, Tom Lee, stated during his speech at the TOKEN2049 summit in Singapore that the cryptocurrency market has entered a "full bull market." If a starting point for this bull market were to be determined, he believes it would be in August of this year. Tom Lee mentioned that, from a four-year cycle perspective, the market bottom has already appeared, and this cycle could become "the largest cryptocurrency bull market in history."Tom Lee indicated that there are four new driving forces behind this bull market compared to previous cycles, including institution-driven asset tokenization, intergenerational wealth transfer over the next decade, the continuous absorption of cryptocurrency supply by Digital Asset Treasury companies (DAT), and the development of AI and Crypto integration scenarios such as AI Agent payments. He believes that the migration of traditional financial assets to the blockchain will become an important source of incremental funds, and that AI Agents are more likely to use cryptocurrency wallets for payments and settlements in the future.

Apple (AAPL.O) will announce its fourth quarter financial report on November 3 at 6 AM Beijing time, and the earnings call will be held on November 3 at 6 AM.

According to Arkham monitoring, the whale 0x355 invested nearly 4.9 million USD in BNB, ETH, LINK, PENDLE, MORPHO, and ENA tokens on Binance four months ago.Currently, the value of this portfolio has increased by nearly 800,000 USD compared to the initial investment, mainly benefiting from the recent price increases of ETH and BNB. The other altcoins held by this whale have seen relatively small price changes due to the later buying time.

ChainCatcher live report, at the OKX NOW Global Product and Ecosystem Conference (Singapore), Star stated that the cryptocurrency industry will enter a mainstream phase starting in 2025. He reviewed that the industry has gone through four stages: geek exploration, formation of financial markets, ICO and DeFi experiments, and compliance construction. Currently, OKX has obtained licenses or is under regulation in markets such as the United States, Europe, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Australia, Brazil, and Turkey.He added that Deloitte has become OKX's global auditing firm, and OKX may be one of the few international exchanges currently audited globally by one of the Big Four accounting firms.

ChainCatcher live report, at the OKX NOW Global Products and Ecosystem Conference (Singapore), OKX founder Star delivered a keynote speech, elaborating on OKX's strategic positioning.He stated that OKX started with spot trading and has since expanded into derivatives, Web3 wallets, payments, and tokenized stocks, "it is no longer accurate to view OKX merely as a cryptocurrency exchange."He proposed that OKX's long-term direction is to provide four types of services for the younger generation: supporting users in choosing between custodial accounts or self-custody wallets for fund holding; low-cost, instant payments; a unified entry for investing in various assets; and AI-driven wealth management tools.