Wednesday Afternoon

Trader Mayne won the $25,000 Hudi Deathmatch at Sui Basecamp after taking the lead in the final 20 seconds. The Singapore trading competition finished with MartyPartyMusic second, MINHxDYNASTY third and CryptoKaleo fourth, while Mayne ended with the highest profit and loss.

Fundstrat's Tom Lee said crypto is roughly two days past a market bottom and could be entering its largest-ever bull market. The call shifts the focus from waiting for capitulation to positioning for a new uptrend, with Lee making the case on the OKX main stage.

Abstract Chain is shutting down less than two years after launch after saying its consumer-focused crypto model is no longer sustainable. Users must withdraw funds through the project’s portal or native bridge before December 15, 2026, with bridge withdrawals carrying an expected three-hour delay.

OKX secured strategic investments from Circle, Ripple, Standard Chartered’s SC Ventures and Qube Research & Technologies at a $25 billion pre-money valuation. The deal extends a March round in which ICE invested roughly $200 million at the same valuation, while OKX did not disclose the latest funding amount.

Moonshot added verification for three Robinhood Chain tokens: CASHCAT, PONS, and AI. The update gives the assets access to Moonshot’s verified-token distribution as Robinhood Chain expands into mining, credit, launchpads, and real-world assets; Robinhood app users reportedly hold almost 20% of CASHCAT’s total supply.

Brevan Howard funds are expanding their relationship with Ripple Prime, adding multi-asset brokerage, clearing, and financing across traditional and digital markets. The move extends the firm’s institutional digital-asset infrastructure while Ripple Prime, formerly Hidden Road, has added $200 million in debt financing and issued $275 million in notes this year.

Paxos launched USDG on Arbitrum One through the Global Dollar Network, with LI.FI providing access for apps, wallets, and trading platforms. The stablecoin is moving into Uniswap pools, Maple Finance’s syrupUSDG lending product, and Morpho markets, where USDG reportedly grew by more than $500 million over three months.

FungoLabs opened whitelist applications for a planned 3,232-piece Ethereum NFT collection built around encrypted minting. Zama’s fully homomorphic encryption keeps NFT data hidden while the contract computes over it and uses encrypted randomness for traits. The collection reserves 500 free mints, 232 team NFTs, and 2,500 public-sale NFTs, with pricing and timing still unannounced.

Metaplanet bought 1,000 bitcoin for more than $87 million, lifting its holdings to about 44,000 BTC and making it the world’s second-largest corporate bitcoin holder. The company also sold 10,000 BTC and repurchased 11,000 BTC in the third quarter to demonstrate liquidity to credit-rating agencies.

The Nasdaq reached a record 27,450 on October 5, marking its third all-time high in 10 trading sessions. Taiwan Semiconductor also hit a record during the session, adding a major semiconductor stock to the market’s latest advance.

An Ethereum ICO investor transferred another 13,330 ETH, worth about $36.37 million, to Coinbase after a six-month gap. On-chain trackers estimate the wallet has sold most of its original 170,000 ETH allocation, bought at roughly $0.31 each, and now holds about 1,484 ETH.

The U.S. added only 29,000 jobs in the latest month, challenging a forecast for roughly 4% GDP growth. White House NEC Director Kevin Hassett says an AI-driven productivity boom would be the biggest contributor, while current productivity growth is running at about 2.5%.

BlackRock’s IBIT bought $195.6 million of Bitcoin in one day and accumulated a net $1.57 billion over the prior month. The buying is happening as holders who entered near $97,000 and $89,000 sell, leaving Bitcoin between roughly $82,500 support and $86,700 resistance.

Hyperliquid’s first AQAv2 reserve-yield payment totaled 14,580,777 USDC and is awaiting transfer to the Assistance Fund. The fund uses the proceeds for HYPE market purchases that effectively burn the token, with future payments tied to Hyperliquid’s USDC reserves.

StonkFun expanded Community Mode to every quote token available on the platform, allowing new memecoins to share holder rewards with holders of the paired asset. Eligible quote-token holders receive 33% of those rewards, while 67% goes to holders of the launched memecoin.

Evernorth is advancing a Nasdaq listing under ticker XRPN with about 473 million XRP expected at closing. The move would give public-market investors direct equity exposure to a large corporate XRP treasury, while the business combination still required Armada Acquisition Corp. II shareholder approval before trading was expected to begin on October 8.

BNB Seoul opened October 2 with programming that went beyond panels, adding networking, promotional activations and a VIP brunch for BNB Chain’s developer and trading community. Sessions focused on stablecoins, confidential transactions and privacy-preserving applications, including an Intelligent Privacy Pool presented by Brevis and developed with BNB Chain and 0xbow.

Frontier Traders announced a Singapore event for the Tuesday after its Korea Showdown, extending the live trading format across two cities. The move follows strong participant feedback from Korea, while Binance highlighted a live Traders League leaderboard with one competitor shown at number one.

Binance continues serving European customers without a MiCA license after receiving an order to wind down. Regulators are examining whether its use of “reverse solicitation,” an exemption for customers who approach non-EU firms on their own, meets the rules. ESMA and regulators in France, Germany, and Greece are involved.

U.S. initial jobless claims fell to 197,000 for the week ended Sept. 26, beating the 200,000 estimate, while continuing claims dropped to 1.701 million. Manufacturing also remained in expansion, with the ISM PMI at 54.5, although that was its lowest reading in three months.

Alloc Init researchers proposed a Shielded Bitcoin system for private transfers without a soft fork. It uses zero-knowledge proofs to hide senders, receivers, and amounts, while separate spending and viewing keys let users share transaction visibility with auditors without surrendering fund control.

France’s public debt reached a record €3.60 trillion at the end of June, pushing the debt ratio to 119% of GDP. That is the country’s highest level since 1946, while ECB President Christine Lagarde says France still lacks a credible path to reduce the burden and needs a clearer budget trajectory.

CoW Swap opened TWAP orders to every EVM wallet on September 30, removing the previous Safe-only restriction. The tool splits trades across a set period rather than executing one large order at a single price, and previously required a Safe, a custom fallback handler, and extra setup.

Brazil’s licensed central securities depository, CSD BR, is recording BTG Pactual fund-share ownership on the XRP Ledger. Ripple Custody will secure the mirrored records, but CSD BR remains the legal registrar. The partnership starts with fund shares, with later phases potentially covering real estate and agribusiness receivables across a system managing more than BRL 22 trillion in assets.

Qatar’s LNG exports through the Strait of Hormuz are barely happening after an Iranian missile damaged a Qatari facility, the country’s prime minister said. Reported gas-sales losses have reached $24 billion, while Qatar uses its sovereign wealth fund to cover the deficit and mediation between the United States and Iran stalls.

U.S. consumer confidence fell 6.7 points to 81.9 in September, missing the 89 forecast and marking the lowest reading since early 2014. Consumers reported greater concern about prices, borrowing costs, hiring and future business conditions, while the jobs differential reached its narrowest level in more than five years.

Nvidia’s board approved an additional $150 billion for share repurchases, leaving about $235 billion available through the fiscal year ending January 30, 2028. The authorization exceeds Apple’s previous $110 billion record, but the new amount equals roughly 3% of Nvidia’s $5 trillion market value. Nvidia bought back $19.7 billion of stock in the latest quarter.

Japan’s underlying inflation is nearing the BOJ’s 2% target as officials expect consumer-goods price increases to expand from summer onward. Several members said future rate hikes need not follow the roughly once-every-six-month pace priced by markets, and one member urged faster action because inflation risks could cause significant harm.