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Strike has launched a U.S. feature that pays interest generated on cash balances in Bitcoin, Crypto Briefing reported. The feature offers 3.6% annual interest on cash held in Strike accounts. Interest is calculated daily, but paid once a month in Bitcoin rather than dollars.

Winklevoss Asset Services has filed an S-1 registration statement with the U.S. SEC for a spot ZEC ETF, Unfolded reported.

Chinese-rooted crypto exchange OKX has raised new investment at a $25 billion valuation, and CEO Star Xu said the funding was driven by strategic alignment rather than a need for capital, Cointelegraph reported. The report added that the investment amount was not disclosed, while participants were said to include Circle, Ripple (XRP), Standard Chartered-backed SC Ventures, and hedge fund Qube Research & Technologies (QRT).

An address believed to be linked to the U.S. government transferred 264 BTC, worth about $22.87 million, to a new address. The funds were seized from the Bitfinex exchange hacker, BlockBeats reported.

Former UBS Asia head Joseph Chee said Bitcoin could enter a new major upcycle if China allows cryptocurrency trading again. Chee said the biggest variable shaping Bitcoin’s direction may lie in Beijing rather than Washington or Wall Street, while adding that the key condition would be effective risk management and that demand from China’s massive user base could be substantial if trading resumes.

AI-linked cryptocurrencies rose 54% through September, far outpacing the broader crypto market’s expected 24% gain over the same period, Zach Pandl, head of research at Grayscale, said in an analysis. Pandl said the segment is expected to be the most promising category among six crypto asset sectors.

DeFi Development, a Solana treasury company, has approved a buyback plan for its CHAD preferred stock. The move allows the company to repurchase all currently outstanding shares as well as any shares that may be issued in the future. The company said it has no immediate plans to begin repurchases and is first aiming to restore CHAD to its $10 par value. If the price stabilizes at par and later falls back below $10, the company may begin buybacks. Funds raised through the program will be used to buy additional SOL.

Crypto self-custody platform Bringin announced plans to launch a corporate banking platform for European businesses that links Bitcoin with traditional banking services. The platform also supports self-custody, allowing companies to hold Bitcoin directly without entrusting it to a third party. It also supports the Lightning Network, stablecoins and cross-border payments. Bringin said companies will be able to receive purchased Bitcoin directly into self-custody wallets and pay employee salaries or supplier invoices in Bitcoin, stablecoins and euros.

Macro economist Luke Gromen said expanding cash-settled derivatives tied to Bitcoin could limit BTC price gains. Gromen said a key issue is the shift in Bitcoin’s long-term returns, noting that the annualized growth rate between cycle peaks fell sharply across the two market cycles following the arrival of cash-settled BTC derivatives. He said derivatives let investors gain leveraged Bitcoin exposure without buying spot BTC, and as the derivatives market grows, more of the trading that sets Bitcoin’s price could take place outside the spot market where actual BTC changes hands. With returns declining as cycles repeat, Gromen said it is difficult to expect that trend to reverse naturally if the cash-settled market continues to expand.

Solana-based perpetual futures trading terminal Imperial has raised $1.5 million in a seed round to expand its platform, SolanaFloor reported. The round was led by Foundation Capital and included angel investors from the Solana ecosystem. The funds will be used to expand Imperial’s portfolio, including an integrated perpetual futures platform, a lending platform, and its flagship project Armada.

Sui has unveiled a verifiable agent arbiter in partnership with Google Cloud, allowing enterprises to verify whether AI agents acted within authorized scopes and guidelines. Evidence needed for verification is recorded using the Sui network and the Walrus protocol. Sui said "AI agents are executing transactions and operating beyond enterprise boundaries," making traditional standard logs insufficient. Counterparties, auditors and regulators require evidence proving the integrity of agent behavior, Sui added, and the verifiable agent arbiter provides that evidence while helping enterprises prepare for future regulation, including the EU AI Act.

Aptos Labs has unveiled MonoMove, an upgrade to the Aptos execution engine. In internal tests, some smart contract tasks ran up to 55 times faster than under the current Move VM, while transaction throughput was up to 11 times higher. Subject to governance approval, MonoMove is expected to complete full feature development by the end of 2026 and be deployed on mainnet in 2027.

Polymarket is piloting a new smart contract system to replace its existing token framework, The Block reported. The upgrade replaces the Gnosis-based framework introduced in 2019 with a single ERC-1155 position contract, while also replacing collateral assets with pUSD and adding exchanges and routers tailored to different market types.

Ripple is deepening its relationship with global hedge fund Brevan Howard, with the firm increasing its use of Ripple’s institutional infrastructure and digital asset products, The Block reported. Ripple Prime plans to provide multi-asset prime brokerage, clearing and financing services to Brevan Howard funds. The partnership builds on Brevan Howard’s existing investment in Ripple and its participation in Ripple’s $500 million strategic fundraising round last year.

South Korea’s ruling Democratic Party has raised the need to tax virtual assets as scheduled next year, Edaily reported. Oh Gi-hyoung, the ruling party’s floor coordinator on the National Assembly Strategy and Finance Committee, said during a government audit of the finance ministry late today that there was a need for predictability and public trust in decisions and legislation made by the National Assembly on virtual asset taxation. Oh added it would be inappropriate to immediately reverse the plan to begin taxation next year.

Raoul Pal, co-founder of financial research firm Real Vision, said a shift toward a weaker dollar could help drive further gains in the cryptocurrency market. On a Cointelegraph podcast, Pal said high bond yields and a strong dollar are constraining market liquidity. If the dollar weakens, he said, the crypto market could show signs of further upside, although a broad bullish signal has not yet formed across the full range of asset classes. On AI agents, Pal said wider use of stablecoins for content and service payments could increase demand for smart contract platforms such as Ethereum and Solana.

Coinbase announced the addition of PONS and WHUF to its listing roadmap.

The three major U.S. stock indices opened higher today. - S&P 500: +0.47% - Nasdaq: +0.58% - Dow Jones: +0.39%

Arbitrum, an Ethereum layer-2 network, has joined the Global Dollar Network, a stablecoin consortium led by Paxos, CoinDesk reported. As a result, Paxos-issued dollar stablecoin USDG has launched on the Arbitrum network. About $3.8 billion worth of stablecoins are currently in circulation on Arbitrum, with USDC accounting for around 60% of the total.

Capital Group’s growth ETF CGGR bought an additional 535,000 shares of Strategy worth $89.41 million, bringing its total holdings to 2.19 million shares valued at $366 million, Crypto Briefing reported. According to a filing, another Capital Group fund also increased its Strategy stake. ANCFX added 4.32 million Strategy shares in April, raising its total holdings to about 10.33 million shares worth $1.78 billion.

Nasdaq-listed AI education company Genius Group announced it has resumed buying Bitcoin as part of its BTC accumulation strategy. According to the company, it purchased about 10 BTC between Oct. 2 and Oct. 5 at an average price of $85,365. Genius Group said it plans to fund future purchases of BTC and AI assets through cash flow, perpetual preferred securities offerings, and its ATM program, adding it does not currently plan to use debt financing or pledge its BTC holdings or AI shares as collateral.

Ether.fi, an Ethereum restaking protocol and DeFi financial platform, plans to launch its own stablecoin, ether.fi USD, using Ethena’s white-label stablecoin infrastructure, Crypto Briefing reported. The service allows projects to issue stablecoins under their own brands. Under the arrangement, Ethena handles the underlying infrastructure, including issuance, collateral management, custody, reserve assets and liquidity integration, while Ether.fi operates the branding and user-facing services.

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin said at the OKX NOW event in Singapore that Ethereum transaction fees will decline further and privacy features will strengthen over time. Buterin also said the convergence of artificial intelligence and on-chain technology is accelerating, which could gradually reduce the role of conventional on-chain applications. He added that bots and AI agents may handle a large share of on-chain tasks on behalf of users in the future. In this model, AI would analyze blockchain-based proposals and transaction terms, then choose trades that match user needs, which could also reduce the importance of users directly navigating traditional app interfaces.

OKX, a crypto exchange with Chinese roots, announced on Oct. 6 it had secured strategic investment from Circle, Standard Chartered and others. It did not disclose the size of the investment and added that the round valued OKX at $25 billion.

Solana-based liquidity protocol Meteora announced the launch of DLMM Pro, a new automated market maker service. Meteora said token issuers can use DLMM Pro to directly design their liquidity allocation structures, including by setting higher fees in the early stage of a launch and lowering them gradually over time. The service also supports automatic fee adjustments based on market volatility, according to Meteora.