participation

The Vice President of Technology at the Solana Foundation, Jacob Creech, responded to the controversy arising from the recent adjustments to the Solana Foundation Delegated Program (SFDP). The adjustments include: setting the participation period for validators in the SFDP to 12 months, automatic graduation after staking 300,000 SOL, capping the number of validators at 100, and requiring participants to run their own validator nodes.Jacob Creech stated that the SFDP originally had three main tasks: to help new validators get started, to establish a healthy testnet, and to allow some validators to test network updates early. As the Solana ecosystem expands and the validator community matures, the original mechanisms have struggled to adequately meet the ever-changing demands of the network. The foundation hopes to shift towards a more proactive and flexible delegation mechanism, focusing on supporting network health and ecosystem contributors. The SFDP will continue to support new validators, and the foundation will also reward validators who make significant contributions to network health through delegation outside of the program. Previously, the foundation had delegated staking to ecosystem contributors like Blueshift and supported validators who were the first to test Frankendancer.In response to community concerns that the adjustments might lead to a decrease in the number of validators, Jacob Creech stated that reducing the number of validators is not the goal of this adjustment. However, if enough high-quality contributors cannot be found, a decline in the number of validators may become a side effect. He also revealed that over 100 validators have submitted materials to apply for continued support.

According to The Block, DECA Labs, a software commercialization network led by AI agents in the Base ecosystem, announced that it has completed a total of $12 million in financing, with investors including Polychain Capital, Pantera Capital, Accel, and dao5. The new funds will be used to accelerate its agent infrastructure, expand the network, and enhance distribution partnerships.DECA Labs aims to address the oversupply of products resulting from the significant reduction in software development costs due to AI. Its agents do not blindly generate software in bulk but instead identify opportunities from real-time market signals, testing demand thresholds with real buyers before allocating budget, and only assigning development and distribution resources to projects that meet the criteria. DECA stated that its platform waitlist has exceeded 100,000, agents have analyzed over 50,000 market signals, the first batch of products has over 80,000 monthly active users, and products have been developed for brands such as Balmain and Crocs, generating approximately $1.5 million in total revenue to date.

AI reading knowledge network Readora announced the completion of a $6.5 million financing round, with investors including Becker Ventures, GaeaVentures, and Aurumx Capital.Readora is committed to transforming reading behavior into accumulable and reusable intelligent value through AI reading assistance, personalized information discovery, and attention incentives. Currently, Readora's products support BNB Chain (BSC) and Morph, continuously improving the product experience around AI content understanding, intelligent discovery, and reading incentives.As AI technology accelerates its integration into information acquisition and knowledge management, how to efficiently discover valuable information from vast amounts of content and enable users' attention to create long-term value is becoming a new development direction. Readora will continue to promote the construction of AI reading and intelligent discovery capabilities, expand ecological cooperation, and explore more possibilities for the integration of human attention and AI networks.

Canadian AI model startup Cohere is undergoing a large-scale financing round, with a valuation reaching 20.5 billion USD.Cohere stated that it has completed the first tranche of this financing round, with the total amount expected to reach up to 5 billion USD. The Canadian government and investors such as Nvidia have committed to funding, with the Canadian government agreeing to invest up to 1.14 billion USD.

The cross-chain trading platform Cancore, built on the Canton network, has completed a $7.2 million seed round financing. This round of financing was conducted through a Simple Agreement for Future Tokens (SAFT), corresponding to a fully diluted valuation (FDV) of $60 million for its planned CNRX token.This round of financing was participated in by Paper Ventures, dao5, ArkStream Capital, X Ventures, MH Ventures, and Proof of Talk, with Paper Ventures and dao5 receiving the largest shares. Cancore co-founder and CEO Wasif Rashid stated that the company began reaching out to investors in June of this year, officially launched the financing in July, and completed it in mid-September.

Arthur Hayes posted that Flop Labs will open the development network (Devnet) in the coming days, allowing anyone to participate in the network as a miner or validator, and supporting AI entities' access. However, participation in the Devnet testing will not count towards any token distribution.This opening aims to conduct public testing in preparation for the project's subsequent entry into the test network (Testnet) phase and airdrop.

According to official news, the crypto technology startup Orochi Network announced that it has raised an additional $8 million in funding, bringing the total funding amount to $20 million. This round of investment received support from MEXC Ventures, Plutus VC, Bolts Capital, Ant Labs, and previous round shareholders. At the same time, Orochi Network also received funding from the Ethereum Foundation.Orochi Network utilizes zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP) to provide audit-compliant infrastructure for RWA tokenization, ensuring the authenticity and security of data. It is committed to building a foundational support for verifiable data infrastructure to enhance institutional trust, promote the tokenization of real-world assets (RWA), and provide secure, auditable solutions for enterprise systems.

According to Financewire, payment infrastructure provider X Pay, aimed at AI entities and APIs, announced the completion of a $1 million financing round, with investors including DCI, Credit Scend, Skyland Ventures, Zerra Ventures, and 5 other institutions.The funds from this round will be used to expand the supported blockchain networks, conduct independent security audits, launch an API marketplace, and prepare for EU compliance requirements, including MiCA.

Vantage Bank and Rio Bank completed principal and interest payments for loan participants using the loan service platform Participate, utilizing tokenized deposits from Hazel Network. Participate stated that after Vantage submitted the payment, the platform completed the distribution of principal and interest, with tokenized deposits reaching the recipient's digital wallet in less than 3 minutes. The loan balance and payment notifications were automatically updated in sync, connecting the traditional processes that relied on wire transfers, spreadsheets, and email notifications. This payment was announced on October 19.This payment marks the first implementation of the collaboration between the two banks that began in April this year. Custodia CEO Caitlin Long confirmed that the transaction occurred on the Ethereum mainnet. Hazel was jointly developed by Vantage and Custodia: Participate (a subsidiary of BankLabs) provides loan workflows and payment instructions, Vantage offers banking services and reserves, and Custodia is responsible for wallets, blockchain operations, compliance, and reconciliation monitoring.According to the Hazel white paper, this settlement model includes both on-chain and traditional bank ledger records, with transactions permitted only for authorized participants, while customer identities and account information are kept off-chain. Participate plans to offer tokenized deposits and Fedwire payment automation services to 750 banks for loan participation and syndicate payments.

The decentralized data network project Dataline, aimed at AI intelligences, announced the completion of a $10.6 million seed round financing, with participation from Coinbase Ventures and Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev.The project also plans to conduct a public token sale through Uniswap's auction platform, with specific details expected to be announced next week, and aims to launch the token by the end of this year.

According to the Ant Group's WeChat official account, the company Today AI has announced the completion of over 200 million dollars in financing. The investors in this round include Ant Group, IDG Capital, Tencent, Wuyuan Capital, Sequoia China, Transsion Holdings, Tongge Venture Capital, and Shanghai Jiao Tong University Hanyuan Asset.Today AI is developing a personalized proactive AI system that provides each user with an AI assistant. Its functions include schedule management, life services, work assistance, travel planning, note-taking, data research, health management, information push, and learning practice. The product has completed internal testing and has been launched for the first time in the domestic market.

According to a report by Reuters, AI computing company Tenstorrent has completed a $1.5 billion Series E funding round, with a post-money valuation of $6.2 billion. This round of financing was led by Trace Capital and Innovation X, with participation from both new and existing investors, including Agostinelli Group, ARK Invest, Brett Barna, Cadence Ventures, Eclipse, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Maverick Silicon, Morgan Stanley, Protagonist, Sandisk, T. Rowe Price, Tether Investments, Troluce Capital, Virtu Financial, and XTX Markets.Tenstorrent will use this funding to deploy Galaxy servers on a large scale, continue to serve open-weight models for large language models (LLMs) and video generation, and advance its AI and CPU IP business towards licensing its own chip designs to customers.

The tokenized US stock collateral lending platform Spout announced the completion of a $2 million strategic round of financing, with investors including Draper Dragon, Anchorage, Flow Traders, Taisu Ventures, Vessel VC, Solayer Labs, 2Square Capital, Bering Waters, Solana Labs, Solana co-founder Toly, former CFTC chairman Chris Giancarlo, and others participating.According to the product mechanism announced by Spout, users can collateralize tokenized US stocks to borrow USDC at a fixed loan-to-value ratio of 50%, with no interest charged to borrowers during the loan period. The income earned by lenders comes from the premiums generated by selling covered call options on the aforementioned collateral weekly, rather than from the interest rate paid by borrowers.

TRON DeFi Summer S3 is ongoing, and JST, as the governance token of JUST and JustLend DAO, is opening new on-chain revenue opportunities for holders. Users can access JustLend DAO through Binance Wallet DeFi and participate in the $300,000 JST Boost reward pool. By depositing 1000+ JST, users can join the S3 event and enjoy Boost incentives. Holding JST not only allows participation in protocol governance and community voting but also enables additional earnings in S3, releasing dual value from the governance token. The real-time APR fluctuates with market conditions and is subject to the final display on the event page.

According to Globenewswire, the stablecoin payment infrastructure company Noah announced the completion of a $38 million seed round financing, with participation from Endeit Capital, FJ Labs, LocalGlobe, Felix Capital, and several well-known angel investors.The new funds will be used to expand international remittance services, develop regulatory frameworks, and provide cross-border payment services based on stablecoins for businesses and individuals.

According to Bloomberg, cryptocurrency exchange platform OKX has completed a new round of financing with a valuation of $25 billion, with existing partners and hedge fund Qube Research & Technologies participating in the investment.OKX stated that Circle Internet Group, Ripple, and SC Ventures, the investment arm of Standard Chartered Bank, all participated in this round of financing. OKX declined to disclose the specific amount of financing but indicated that this round is an extension of the financing from March of this year. At that time, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, invested approximately $200 million in OKX at the same valuation of $25 billion.

According to Businesswire, AI security company Hadrian announced the completion of a $40 million financing round, led jointly by Forgepoint Capital International and SmartFin, with participation from existing investors such as HV Capital, Motive Partners, Picus Capital, and Oetker Ventures.The company simulates an attacker's perspective for enterprises by combining Continuous Exposure Management and AI-driven penetration testing, helping to identify external attack surfaces, validate real risks, and optimize remediation priorities. After this financing round, Hadrian's total funding amount reaches $65 million, and the funds will be used to expand into the European and American markets, grow the engineering and research teams, and further develop its AI-driven cybersecurity platform.

According to official news, the broker HyperLink, based on Hyperliquid, announced the completion of a $2.5 million financing round, with participation from Alliance, North Island Ventures, Reverie, Node Capital, Breed, and smartestmoney.hl.HyperLink stated that the routing transaction volume on the protocol reached $254 million last month, accounting for 0.1% of Hyperliquid's trading volume, with the next phase goal being to capture 10% of the trading volume.

The employment participation rate in the United States for September was 61.8%, higher than the expected 61.6%, and the previous value was 61.6%.

According to Finbold, the AI perpetual trading platform PERPTools developed by DEXTools has raised a total of 8 million dollars through two rounds of token financing, including 3 million dollars in the pre-seed round and 5 million dollars in the seed round. Investors include BigBrain Holdings, NEAR, Animoca Brands, Sfermion, and Shima Capital.The platform plans to conduct its Token Generation Event (TGE) in the fourth quarter of 2026.