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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.

According to Catcher Predict monitoring, in the market prediction event "Bitcoin Breakthrough on October 3" on Polymarket, the "Yes" option for the sub-market "84,000" experienced severe fluctuations, plummeting from 92.05% an hour ago to the current 53.6% (a fluctuation of 38.45%). Please note the impact of related breaking news.

According to Gate market data, BTC/USDT is currently priced at $83960, with a 24-hour decline of 1.48%.

According to Catcher Predict monitoring, in the market prediction on Polymarket for the event "Dota 2: OG vs BetBoom Team - BLAST Slam Group C", the "OG" option in the sub-market "Match Winner" has experienced a sharp fluctuation in win probability, dropping from 37.5% an hour ago to the current 20% (a fluctuation of 17.5%). Please note the impact of related breaking news.

According to Bloomberg, Absa Bank in Johannesburg, South Africa, has become the first bank in Africa to offer Bitcoin custody services, primarily targeting institutional clients, and will also provide custody services for other digital assets. Rob Downes, the head of digital assets at Absa's Corporate and Investment Banking division, stated that Bitcoin is the largest asset under custody at the bank, with plans to include more asset classes in the future. Absa did not immediately respond to Bitcoin Magazine's request for comment.Many banks around the world are gradually integrating or launching Bitcoin-related products and services. Some banks in the United States and Europe have begun offering crypto asset custody for institutional clients. In 2022, BNY Mellon became the first large bank in the United States to offer digital asset custody services; this month, Deutsche Bank announced plans to launch Bitcoin custody services for European businesses and institutional clients later in 2026.Africa has a large base of crypto-native users. A report by Chainalysis in 2025 shows that South Africa's on-chain value reached $36 billion, ranking second in Sub-Saharan Africa, only behind Nigeria's $92.1 billion; South Africa ranks 30th in the global crypto adoption index. Unlike Nigeria, the South African market is characterized by more institutional features, with a relatively clear regulatory framework that has issued hundreds of licenses to virtual asset service providers, attracting professional investors and traditional financial institutions.

According to Catcher Predict monitoring, in the market prediction event "Bitcoin Price Prediction from September 28 to October 4" on Polymarket, the "Yes" option for the sub-market "Below $84,000" experienced significant fluctuations, soaring from 39.5% an hour ago to the current 56.5% (a fluctuation of 17%). Please note the impact of related breaking news.

According to CoinDesk, informed sources revealed that the custody bank giant BNY is in talks with Payward, the parent company of the cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, for a broad collaboration covering digital assets and financial market infrastructure. The potential agreement may involve areas such as crypto products, custody, wealth management, trading, payments, and infrastructure, with related services provided through Payward Services, which targets banks, exchanges, and asset management institutions.One source indicated that part of the proposed collaboration may be similar to the infrastructure component of the recent agreement Payward reached with Nasdaq. Negotiations are still ongoing, and there is no guarantee that an agreement will be reached; both Payward and BNY declined to comment. BNY, formerly known as Bank of New York Mellon, provides custody, asset services, clearing, and wealth management services to institutional clients and has been developing tokenized deposits to support near real-time on-chain settlements among institutional market participants.Reaching an agreement with BNY would further promote Payward's efforts to connect digital asset businesses with traditional financial institutions. Last month, Nasdaq Ventures agreed to invest $100 million in Payward at a valuation of $21 billion, expanding the collaboration between the two parties in tokenized stocks. Under the agreement, both parties will continue to develop the operational and commercial infrastructure for Nasdaq stock tokens, and Payward will also adopt Nasdaq's market surveillance technology in its cryptocurrency, stock, tokenized stock, futures, and options trading venues, with both parties expecting to launch Nasdaq stock tokens in the second quarter of 2027.

According to Gate market data, BTC/USDT is currently priced at $84997.3, with a 24-hour increase of 0.64%.

According to Coinglass data, on October 3rd at 00:57, 200 million USDT was detected being transferred from Binance to an unknown wallet.

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.

NEAR Protocol officially stated that the newly launched Bitwise NEAR ETF has accumulated net inflows exceeding 50 million dollars, and indicated that institutional investors are choosing NEAR.Relevant data shows that the ETF began trading on September 29, and as of September 30, the accumulated net inflows have exceeded 50 million dollars.

Coinbase's Ethereum Layer 2 network Base announced on X that 26 new tokenized stocks have been launched on Base, available for trading around the clock and can be used in combination within Base's DeFi ecosystem.

According to Catcher Predict monitoring, in the predicted market event "Belgium vs. Türkiye - More Markets" on Polymarket, the "Over" option of the sub-market "Türkiye O/U 4.5" has experienced a dramatic fluctuation in winning probability, plummeting from 35.95% an hour ago to the current 19.65% (a fluctuation of 16.3%). Please note the impact of relevant breaking news.

The cryptocurrency trading platform OKX announced the launch of the QUANTUSDT global perpetual contract, and related trading is now open.OKX introduced that Quant Network builds a programmable currency infrastructure through Overledger and QuantNet to connect banks, blockchains, tokenized deposits, and traditional payment rails.

According to Catcher Predict monitoring, in the predicted market Polymarket for the event "China Open: Bu Yun Zhao Ke Te vs Djokovic," the sub-market "Total Sets: Over/Under 2.5" option "Over 2.5" has experienced a sharp fluctuation in winning probability, soaring from 68% an hour ago to the current 90.5% (a fluctuation of 22.5%). Please note the impact of related breaking news.

According to Catcher Predict monitoring, in the market prediction on Polymarket for the event "Dota 2: 1win vs Team Nemesis - BLAST Slam Group B," the "1win" option in the sub-market "Game 2 Winner" has experienced a dramatic fluctuation in winning probability, soaring from 65.5% an hour ago to the current 96.5% (a fluctuation of 31%). Please note the impact of related breaking news.

Layer 2 network Blast announced that it will cease operations due to the ongoing maintenance costs of the network exceeding the revenue generated by L2. The team believes there is no credible path to achieve economic sustainability.Blast advises all users to withdraw on-chain assets and balances in the Blast PWA to the Ethereum mainnet and plans to shorten the withdrawal waiting time to 24 hours. However, the team will first process the withdrawal of Lido assets held by Blast, which is expected to take about a week, during which the withdrawal function will be temporarily unavailable.Users can complete withdrawals through the regular Blast interface before October 26. After that, assets can still be withdrawn, but it will require direct interaction with the Blast Bridge contract on Ethereum L1. The team will announce specific operational instructions before the deadline.

According to Coinglass data, Binance had a net inflow of 39.7501 million USDT in the past hour.

According to Gate market data, ETH/USDT is currently priced at $2700, with a 24-hour increase of 0.54%.

According to Catcher Predict monitoring, in the market prediction on Polymarket for the event "Dota 2: LGD Gaming vs Xtreme Gaming - BLAST Slam Group A", the option "LGD Gaming" in the sub-market "Game 2 Winner" has experienced a drastic fluctuation in win rate, plummeting from 63.5% an hour ago to the current 15% (a fluctuation of 48.5%). Please note the impact of related breaking news.