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Crypto asset manager Hyperithm has decided to give up its virtual asset service provider, or VASP, license, Seoul Economy reported exclusively. The company determined it has been difficult to find a viable profit model as approval for corporate crypto investment remains delayed and legislation on a basic law for digital assets continues to be postponed. Oh Sang-rok, Hyperithm’s CEO, said the company had been unable to launch user-facing services in South Korea after its VASP filing was accepted. Oh added Hyperithm decided to withdraw its renewal filing after reviewing its business plan and is proceeding with the related steps. With Hyperithm set to be removed from the list, the number of South Korean VASPs has fallen to 28 from 42 at the start of last year.

Alex Svanevik, CEO of blockchain analytics platform Nansen, deposited about $1.41 million worth of cryptocurrencies to Coinbase an hour ago, AmberCN reported. The transfer included 382 ETH worth about $957,000, 1 million LDO worth about $423,000, and 14 YFI worth about $33,000.

Japan’s SBI Holdings said on Oct. 14 it agreed with entertainment company Yoshimoto Kogyo Holdings to establish a joint venture to explore content financing through security tokens, or STs. The venture plans to jointly develop and invest in intellectual property aimed at global markets, while using SBI’s ST infrastructure and on-chain finance expertise to create new funding methods for IP and content. The two companies also plan to pursue content investment and overseas expansion through the 100 billion yen ($844.2 million) SBI Neo Content Fund, which will be created by SBI Group and backed by Yoshimoto Kogyo.

BTC trading activity remains subdued, and a sustained move above $86,000 could signal renewed upside, according to on-chain analyst Axel Adler Jr. Adler said a market activity index that combines price volatility, exchange inflow and outflow ratios, and aggressive buying and selling ratios currently stands at 1,768 points, below its one-year average of 1,828. The index’s 30-day moving average fell below its 356-day average on Sept. 12 and hit a low on Oct. 6. Market activity remained weak while the index stayed below its one-year average, and a move back above that level would indicate a recovery in trading activity, Adler said. He added that BTC Bollinger Band width narrowed from 11.6% to 4.9% of the average price between Oct. 6 and 13, while the price fell from $85,800 to $83,200. If BTC stabilizes above $86,000, the uptrend could reemerge, but a drop below $81,900 would suggest the downtrend continues.

South Korea’s Upbit, Bithumb and Coinone announced the delisting of BLAST. The exchanges said they determined the reasons for placing BLAST on a delisting watchlist had not been resolved and decided to end trading support under their policies on caution-designated digital assets and trading support terminations.

DigitalX, Mirae Asset Group’s cryptocurrency exchange formerly known as Korbit, said on Oct. 14 it will move its office to Mirae Asset Securities’ headquarters next month. According to Yonhap News, DigitalX is preparing to relocate in early November to the Mirae Asset Center1 building in Jung-gu, Seoul. The exact date has not been finalized.

South Korean won-based exchange GOPAX and coin-only exchange Prabang were also hit in the recent cyberattack wave targeting the financial sector, marking the first confirmed exchange breaches in the incident, News1 reported. The scope of the damage and whether personal data was leaked have not yet been confirmed. South Korea’s Financial Services Commission said at the second emergency response meeting held at the Government Complex Seoul on Oct. 14 that the number of affected financial companies had risen to 16, including GOPAX and Prabang.

Hong Kong actor and singer Alex Fong suffered heavy losses from NFT investments, Chinese outlet Hongxing News reported. Fong said he lost a large amount of money after buying NFTs and has not been able to tell even his family the size of the loss, while his wife asks about it every day. He added the losses were bigger than what he had previously lost in stock investments.

South Korea’s newly appointed presidential chief of staff, Lim Kwang-hyun, had pushed ahead with cryptocurrency taxation and tougher tax policies more broadly, People Power Party leader Jang Dong-hyuk said on Facebook. The comments came after Presidential Chief of Staff Kang Hoon-sik said at a briefing at the Chun Choo Hall on Oct. 14 that National Tax Service Commissioner Lim had been appointed as the new presidential chief of staff. Jang said the appointment meant the administration ultimately intended to impose an even heavier tax burden. Jang added that Lim had taken the lead in what Jang described as a real-estate tax offensive, including the abolition of the long-term special deduction, and had also pressed ahead with virtual asset taxation despite opposition from young people.

OneKey founder Yishi said using an iPhone as a crypto cold wallet requires at least an iPhone 17 and iOS 27 or later. In a post on X, Yishi said that even if internet connectivity is blocked, there is still a risk an attacker with physical access to the device could reach the crypto assets. Yishi recommended keeping the latest security updates installed and replacing the device every one to two years. Yishi also said users should use a random password of at least 12 letters and numbers and store the recovery phrase separately offline. Even so, Yishi added that an iPhone 17 running iOS 27 still does not guarantee safety, and recommended a dedicated hardware wallet for long-term storage of large sums. Meanwhile, hardware wallet maker Ledger recently asked sellers in six Southeast Asian countries and Hong Kong to halt sales and remove products from stores after unauthorized installed devices were found in some hardware wallets distributed in Southeast Asia.

Sell orders in Binance’s BTC perpetual futures order book exceeded buy orders by about $9.58 million, according to market data platform Liquid247. The sell side stood at about $42.08 million, compared with roughly $32.50 million on the buy side. Coinbase’s spot market also showed more sell orders than buy orders, although total order-book volume there was lower than on Binance’s BTC perpetual futures market.

The following are the 24-hour long/short ratios for BTC perpetual futures on the world’s three largest crypto futures exchanges by open interest: Overall: 48.45% long, 51.55% short - Binance: 48.85% long, 51.15% short - OKX: 50.69% long, 49.31% short - Bybit: 50.35% long, 49.65% short

Cho Man-hee, head of the Tax Policy Bureau at South Korea’s Ministry of Economy and Finance, said authorities are aware of both support for taxing digital assets as scheduled and concerns over tax infrastructure and the potential outflow of funds overseas, Digital Asset reported. Speaking at the Korean Academic Society of Tax Law’s fall conference on Oct. 14, Cho said some argue digital assets should be taxed as planned to improve tax fairness with other income such as wage and business income. Cho added the ministry will listen closely to views discussed at the forum and seek sufficient discussion during deliberations in the National Assembly on digital asset taxation.

OpenAI has entered talks to acquire Trail of Bits, a security firm with experience reviewing Web3 security, The Block reported, citing The Information. Founded in 2012, Trail of Bits has reviewed the security of smart contracts, blockchain nodes, bridges, decentralized finance protocols, and governance systems, according to The Block. Its clients include Uniswap (UNI) and Aave (AAVE).

Binance announced the delisting of all spot trading pairs for Epic Chain (EPIC) and QuickSwap (QUICK) at 3:00 a.m. UTC on Oct. 28.

Standard Chartered said it has launched Bitcoin and Ethereum trading services for high-net-worth clients in the UAE, marking the first such offering in its global business and the first among global banks operating in the UAE. Eligible clients can buy and sell BTC and ETH directly through existing Standard Chartered bank accounts without using a separate wallet or an external exchange. The service is overseen by Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority, or VARA. Last month, Standard Chartered launched spot BTC and ETH trading and custody services for institutional investors in the UAE.

A whale investor sold 100,276 HYPE worth about $8.17 million six hours ago, BlockBeats reported. The investor bought 257,928 HYPE two years ago at $3.5 per token.

The spot CVD chart is an order-book analysis chart for the BTC/USDT spot trading pair. The upper panel shows the volume heatmap, while the lower panel shows cumulative volume delta, or CVD. - The upper volume heatmap tracks trading volume at each price level. The background becomes brighter when the price stays in a specific range for an extended period or makes a large move. Brighter zones may act as support or resistance. - The lower cumulative volume delta, or CVD, indicates buy and sell orders by order size. As buy orders increase, the line in the corresponding color moves higher. The yellow line represents orders between $100 and $1,000, while the brown line represents large orders between $1 million and $10 million, among others.

Ripple is expanding payment functions for AI agents on the XRP Ledger by integrating wallet technology from Privy, a Stripe subsidiary, CoinDesk reported. The integration lets users store and send XRP and Ripple’s dollar stablecoin RLUSD without directly managing private keys. AI agents can also automatically handle paid data purchases and online service fees using the x402 payment standard. More than 13 million x402-based AI agent payments have been processed on XRPL so far, accounting for about 25% of total network activity. Data from payment infrastructure developer t54 also showed cumulative transactions at 169 registered merchants exceeded 14.3 million. Still, the total payment volume was about 6,991 XRP and 12,752 RLUSD, indicating activity was concentrated in small-value payments.

An anonymous crypto trader known as 0xnobi bought $2,200 worth of PONS on the token’s launch day in July and has held the position ever since, leaving the trader with about $1 million in unrealized profit, according to blockchain analytics firm Arkham. That amounts to a roughly 468-fold return. Arkham added, "The trader bought PONS on the token’s launch day in July and has not sold a single token to date. The trader’s PONS turned $2,200 into $1 million." PONS, a token launchpad in the Arbitrum-based layer-two Robinhood Chain ecosystem, was recently trading at $0.3417, up 20.75%, according to CoinMarketCap.

U.S. spot Ethereum ETFs recorded net inflows of $24.84 million on Oct. 13, snapping a 10-session streak of net outflows, according to SoSoValue. - Fidelity FETH: +$8.1 million - Grayscale Mini ETH: +$16.7 million

U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded a net inflow of $175.62 million on Oct. 13, according to Farside Investors, rebounding a day after turning to net outflows. - BlackRock IBIT: +$65.89 million - Fidelity FBTC: +$103.06 million - Morgan Stanley MSBT: +$6.67 million

On-chain tokenomics analytics platform Inflecta said on its official X account that Ethena insiders deposited about $50 million worth of ENA to exchanges within a week of a large internal token unlock, with most of the tokens coming from early investors, including VCs. Exchange deposits are typically interpreted as intended for selling. According to CoinMarketCap, ENA was trading at $0.2116, down 0.17%, at the time of writing.

An over-the-counter client of Galaxy Digital deposited 134,000 LINK worth $1.73 million into Binance, according to Onchain Lens. Exchange inflows are typically interpreted as a sign of potential selling.

Crypto exchange KuCoin said on Oct. 14 it had restored some services that were disrupted by an Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure issue. The outage occurred on Oct. 13, and all affected services are now operating normally. KuCoin said user assets were not impacted by the disruption. Earlier, South Korea’s Financial Intelligence Unit under the Financial Services Commission blocked domestic access to 27 illegal virtual asset operators, including KuCoin, following a review by the Korea Communications Standards Commission.