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Visa stated that its stablecoin-linked card program's payment volume has increased by nearly 200% year-on-year, currently supporting over 160 consumer, business, and commercial card programs. Since the beginning of the 2026 fiscal year, approximately 17% of the stablecoin-linked card transaction volume has come from business and commercial card programs. Mark Nelsen, Visa's Global Head of Products, Commercial, and Cash Flow Solutions, stated that businesses are seeking reliable and trustworthy methods of fund transfer, and stablecoins are increasingly appearing in commercial applications such as vendor payments, treasury operations, and cross-border commerce.Allium research shows that payments are the fastest-growing use case for stablecoins, with annual payment volume estimated between $401 billion and $527 billion, including service fees, payroll, and vendor payments of $56 billion, $43 billion, and $28 billion respectively, with B2B cross-border payments accounting for 43%.

Grayscale Research Director Zach Pandl published an article on September 28, 2026, in the company's column The Stack. The article states that among American investors, Generation Z starts investing at an average age of 19, Millennials at 25, Generation X at 32, and Baby Boomers at 35. Based on a retirement age of 65, Generation Z has an investment horizon of 46 years, which is over 50% longer than the 30-year horizon when Baby Boomers started investing.Zach Pandl: Starting to invest earlier not only benefits from compound interest but also expands the capacity to take on risk. When young, labor capital accounts for a larger proportion of wealth, and a longer horizon means more time to recover from fluctuations, as well as more future income available for continued saving and investing, thereby expanding the lifetime risk budget. He believes that the returns on digital assets are both volatile and potentially asymmetric, making them more suitable for longer and more flexible horizons.Zach Pandl also mentioned that for early investors, the cost of recent volatility may be less than the opportunity cost of missing out on long-term upside. With decades available for rebalancing, adding funds, and compounding across cycles, early starters may allocate a higher proportion to digital assets while keeping their lifetime risk balanced. Starting to invest earlier gives investors more time to absorb fluctuations, potentially enhancing the utility of digital assets in long-term portfolios.

According to information from the Google Gemini application help center, starting from October 2026, the availability of models when accessing the Gemini application with a personal account will change. From October 9, 2026, free personal users on the Gemini web and app versions will no longer have default access to the full Flash model and Pro model, and will be uniformly adjusted to the smaller and lighter Flash-Lite model.After the change takes effect, non-subscribers will only be able to use Flash-Lite and will not have access to Flash and Pro. The AI Plus plan will have access to Flash-Lite and Flash, but Pro model access will no longer be provided. Users subscribed to this plan will receive an email explaining when the changes will take effect for them. Users of the AI Pro and AI Ultra plans will still have access to Flash-Lite, Flash, and Pro.

On October 2, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced the establishment of the Prime Minister's National Artificial Intelligence Advisory Council in Ottawa, which will provide independent and pragmatic advice on Canada's artificial intelligence transformation. The council will bring together stakeholders from the public and private sectors to provide input on the evolution of the AI for All national strategy, covering areas such as accelerating adoption, nurturing national leading enterprises, building sovereign artificial intelligence infrastructure, enhancing AI safety, protecting democracy, and ensuring that all Canadians benefit.Council members include Ajay Agrawal, Yoshua Bengio, Sanja Fidler, John Graham, Gillian Hadfield, Jordan Jacobs, Eric Lamarre, Valérie Pisano, Senator Thomas Pitfield, Jody Thomas, Louis Vachon, Michelle Zatlyn, and of course, Patrick Pichette as a member. The council is supported by a small team from the Privy Council Office, while policy decisions and implementation remain the responsibility of the relevant ministers and departments.Carney stated that the prosperity and sovereignty of the artificial intelligence era belong to countries that can build, adopt, and govern artificial intelligence according to their own conditions, and the council will provide recommendations on how to manage risks, seize opportunities, and improve the lives of all Canadians.

Ripple and the XRP Ledger Foundation have jointly established a new organization, XRP Asia, headquartered in Singapore, focusing on ecological development in the Asia-Pacific region. The organization is led by Sabrina Tachdjian, who previously managed the Asia-Pacific and fintech and payment operations at the Hedera Foundation and oversaw blockchain investments at LINE.XRP Asia will provide learning resources, system integrator collaboration programs, hackathons, office hours, and product implementation guidance for developers and startups. Market expansion support includes partner referrals, incubation and funding project connections, founder story dissemination, and introductions to relevant investors.The organization will rely on the existing communities of XRPL Korea and XRPL Japan and assist in establishing new communities in major cities and development hubs across Asia. Officials stated that Asia has long been an important region for the XRP Ledger, with an active digital asset market, developers, and the XRP community.

According to monitoring by Glassnode, investors who previously bought at high prices in the Bitcoin market are currently selling off. Data shows that there are two groups currently in a loss state: one group consists of investors who bought at a price of $97,000 one to two years ago, and the other group consists of investors who bought at a price of $89,000 six to twelve months ago.Analysis indicates that investors who entered during the price increase in 2025 are currently selling the most Bitcoin daily, while those who bottomed out during the market decline show a strong willingness to hold and are not selling off in large quantities.

According to Catcher Predict monitoring, in the market prediction event on Polymarket "LoL: RED Canids vs Natus Vincere - Demacia Cup Global Invitation Group Stage," the "Yes" option for the sub-market "Both sides kill Baron" has experienced a dramatic fluctuation in winning probability, soaring from 0.5% an hour ago to the current 48% (a fluctuation of 47.5%). Please note the impact of relevant breaking news.

According to Matthew Sigel, the head of digital asset research at investment management company VanEck, Bitcoin is currently in the early stages of a bull market, with strong market performance. VanEck has set a mid-term target for Bitcoin's market capitalization to reach half of gold's market capitalization (approximately $500,000) and believes that in the long term, if Bitcoin can capture a significant share of global energy trade, its price could reach $3 million by 2050.Sigel pointed out that the correlation between Bitcoin and gold has reached a multi-year high, and the continuous inflow of institutional investors through channels such as spot ETFs has provided support for the market. Additionally, Bitcoin mining companies, due to their possession of scarce electricity resources in the AI economy, have seen a significant increase in the value of their mining equipment and energy contracts, providing new opportunities for investors. Regarding the quantum computing risk that the market is concerned about, Sigel stated that while this is a problem that needs to be addressed, the community has already begun to pay attention and actively respond, and this does not constitute a reason to sell Bitcoin.

According to the New York Times, the negotiations between the United States and Russia regarding the Ukraine issue involve a multi-billion dollar oil deal related to allies of Trump. This deal involves large oil fields, refineries, and gas stations owned globally by Lukoil.

According to Catcher Predict monitoring, the predicted market on Polymarket for the event "Counter-Strike: Legacy vs PARIVISION - ESL Professional League Group Stage" shows that the "Legacy" option in the sub-market "Map 1 Round Spread: Legacy (-3.5) vs PARIVISION (+3.5)" has experienced a significant fluctuation in win probability, rising from 38.5% an hour ago to the current 60% (a fluctuation of 21.5%). Please note the impact of relevant breaking news.

Analyst Ali posted on platform X that Bitcoin recently faced resistance at $87,000, during which whales took profits and sold over 30,000 BTC. At the same time, $87,000 is also the upper boundary of the price channel that has been suppressing BTC for more than the past two weeks.Ali stated that in the short term, attention should be focused on the lower boundary of the channel at around $82,500. If BTC falls back to this level and whales begin to accumulate again, it will serve as a confirmation signal for considering buying on dips, with the next rebound target looking towards $87,000.

According to Coinglass data, the cryptocurrency Fear and Greed Index is currently at 68, down 3 points from yesterday. The average for the past 7 days is 71, and the average for the past 30 days is 68.

According to Bitcoin.com, Microsoft's official X account was hacked and used to promote a meme coin themed around its classic Clippy assistant character, CLIPPY. The related violating content has been removed, and Microsoft has confirmed to the media that the account was subject to unauthorized access and stated that it is continuing to investigate the incident.

The Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Paul Atkins, issued a statement saying that the Commission proposed a plan this week to fill the regulatory gap regarding the custody of cryptocurrency assets by investment advisors and funds, providing a clear custody framework and compliance path for an asset class with increasing client demand.Atkins stated that the existing custody rules under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 and the Investment Company Act of 1940 were established before the advent of the internet, primarily targeting traditional assets and requiring the use of approved custodians. The custody capabilities for new cryptocurrency assets often lag behind the launch of the assets by several months. This proposal aims to address this issue while updating the custody rules for advisors and regulated funds that have not been revised for decades to align with current industry practices and feedback.The statement noted that this proposal is part of the SEC's regulatory framework for cryptocurrency assets. Related efforts include stopping the replacement of regulation with enforcement, issuing a no-action letter regarding the pilot program for the tokenization of securities by custodial trust companies by December 2025, publishing a classification description for tokenized securities in January 2026, and subsequent initiatives regarding the securities attributes of cryptocurrency assets, broker registration, Regulation Crypto Assets, and innovative exemptions for trading tokenized NMS stocks. Atkins indicated that more regulatory proposals will be forthcoming.

AI startup Tavus released a new model called Griffin on October 1, referring to it as the first "human interaction model" that can understand and generate face-to-face conversations, paying attention not only to wording but also to expressions and pauses. Tavus stated that in tests, after a one-minute video call with Griffin-Lite, 26 out of 54 participants (48%) believed the other party was a real person; its previous generation system only convinced 1 out of 41 participants.Participants were told they would have a one-minute video call with another person to discuss things they were looking forward to this year, and only at the end of the call were they asked if they suspected the other party was not a real person. Tavus noted that those who became suspicious typically noticed within 20 seconds. This result comes from Tavus's own research page, where participants were recruited through a channel they call an independent research platform. Community comments on X pointed out that these results have not been independently verified and do not meet standard protocols.In the NVIDIA VideoFDB benchmark, Tavus claimed Griffin-Lite ranked first, with a generation dimension score of 3.83, the next best system scoring 2.8, and human reference scoring 3.92; the perception dimension score was 3.73, with the strongest baseline at 3.44 and human reference at 4.2. Tavus stated that NVIDIA independently conducted this evaluation. Griffin supports full duplex, allowing it to listen, see, and speak simultaneously, with an average audio-video delay of 0.43 seconds on the NVIDIA H100 chip. Tavus completed a $40 million Series B funding round led by CRV in November 2025.

Market news reports that hackers have infiltrated the propulsion system of a tanker heading to the United States.

According to The Information, citing informed sources on Friday, Anchorage Digital, a federally chartered digital asset bank in the United States, has laid off 17% of its workforce. CEO Nathan McCauley informed employees of this decision earlier this week. Anchorage was valued at $4.2 billion earlier this year, and as of February, the global workforce was approximately 400 people, meaning this layoff affects about 68 positions.The Information attributes this layoff to the ongoing downturn in the cryptocurrency market that has lasted for a year. Bitcoin briefly rose above $87,000 on Friday but remains far below the peak of $126,000 reached in October last year.At the time of the layoffs, Anchorage is continuing to expand its presence in the regulated U.S. cryptocurrency industry. The company became the first cryptocurrency firm to obtain a national trust charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in 2021 and has since developed into a major cryptocurrency custodian. Recently, its business has expanded into the stablecoin issuance sector, including participation in Tether's newly launched U.S. stablecoin USAT; earlier this year, the company also received a strategic investment of $100 million from Tether.

Aave Labs has proposed a new plan regarding the ownership of brands and intellectual property, intending to gradually hand it over to a DAO for oversight and management. According to the schedule for the first phase, the team will first promote the establishment of a legal entity located in the Cayman Islands and appoint independent senior management for that entity.However, the transfer of ownership for the trademark rights related to the Aave brand, domain names, and code repositories is not included in the action scope of the first phase. Instead, it will be subject to approval through multiple rounds of governance voting that will be initiated later.

The liquidity pledge protocol Lido announced an update to the EarnUSD fee model, which will reduce fixed fees and make fees more directly linked to the performance of the treasury. Previously, the EarnUSD fees were more platform-oriented, consisting of a 1% management fee plus a 10% performance fee.According to the announcement, the new model caps the management fee at 0.5% plus a 20% performance fee, with the initial rate set at a 0.2% management fee plus a 15% performance fee. Lido stated that after the management fee is reduced from 1% to 0.2%, the costs of holding EarnUSD will be lower when returns are low, and the higher performance fee will make the charges more aligned with actual returns. Relevant fees will be displayed on the EarnUSD treasury interface.