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On October 2, at 11:30 AM Eastern Time, the Arbitrum Security Committee executed an emergency upgrade on Arbitrum One and Nova, suspending the activation of all new Stylus contracts on both chains, while adding a protective mechanism against BoLD single-step proofs in the dispute system of Arbitrum One. The Arbitrum Foundation stated that this action is part of ongoing proactive security measures aimed at protecting the security and integrity of the network.Stylus allows developers to write smart contracts using languages such as Rust and C++, while maintaining compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine, with its programs compiled into WebAssembly format. This suspension primarily targets manually written WASM programs that do not use the standard Stylus compiler toolchain and have not yet been patched by the current version of ArbOS. The Security Committee increased the gas required for activation to the theoretical maximum by calling ArbOwner.setWasmActivationGas(2^64 - 1), making new activations economically unfeasible. Activated Stylus contracts are unaffected and can continue to execute and renew, and the deployment and execution of Solidity contracts are also unrestricted.The newly added BoLD protection allows anyone to pause the settlement from Arbitrum One to Ethereum when two conflicting and accepted answers appear in the same dispute step, which may delay unconfirmed withdrawals to allow the Security Committee to deploy fixes. Officials pointed out that the currently discovered Stylus-related vulnerabilities mainly affect the activity of the chain, such as denial-of-service attacks, and do not jeopardize user funds.

The Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) filed a lawsuit against the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in federal court on Friday, accusing it of exceeding its statutory authority when issuing national trust bank charters to cryptocurrency companies. The ICBA stated that the OCC is implementing "broad new powers not authorized by the National Bank Act," allowing these companies to enter the U.S. banking system without being subject to the same level of regulatory oversight as community banks, putting small banks at a "serious competitive disadvantage."The ICBA is one of the largest banking advocacy organizations in the United States, primarily representing small institutions. Last month, the organization strongly opposed the Digital Asset Market Structure Bill, which failed to advance in the U.S. Senate, arguing that its stablecoin provisions did not protect community banks from direct competition for deposit accounts. ICBA President and CEO Rebeca Romero Rainey stated that Congress did not establish the national trust charter to provide a "backdoor" for cryptocurrency companies seeking to enter the banking system with the credibility of a federal bank charter, as these companies do not bear the same obligations regarding capital, liquidity, regulation, and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insurance requirements. An OCC spokesperson responded to CoinDesk that the agency does not comment on ongoing litigation.Recently, the OCC has continued to issue trust charters to cryptocurrency companies, but these companies' business models differ from those of typical community banks and do not offer cash deposit accounts that require FDIC insurance. Approved institutions include cryptocurrency banks Protego and Erebor, as well as existing cryptocurrency firms like Coinbase, Circle, and Crypto.com.

According to The Block, the Solana ecosystem perpetual contract exchange Velocity (formerly Drift) has opened compensation claims for the April theft incident. Users can receive 1 DFX token for every 1 USDT lost, with the current payout rate being approximately 0.0104 USDT per DFX, which is about 1% of the loss.The current compensation pool is approximately 3.11 million USDT, with a total supply of DFX being around 299.5 million tokens and no further issuance planned. The Drift Foundation stated that the compensation pool will continue to be funded with protocol revenue, and Tether has committed to providing up to 127.5 million USDT to support the restart and user compensation, with the claim deadline set for January 1, 2028. Previously, Drift suffered an attack in April, resulting in a loss of approximately 295.4 million USD.

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.

The SpaceX team completed 3 Falcon rocket launches and 4 first-stage rocket landings in less than 13 hours, and docked the "Dragon" spacecraft with the International Space Station, completing SpaceX's 21st crewed space mission.

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 CoinDesk, Hester Peirce, a commissioner of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), has completed her term today. She served in the agency for over 8 years and voted against the committee's decisions to take enforcement actions instead of creating industry-compliant rules multiple times, and she was an early proponent of the token safe harbor proposal.Hester Peirce previously led the Crypto Task Force and stated that the SEC's duty to protect investors includes using regulatory authority to provide regulatory boundaries for the rapidly expanding digital asset industry.

Binance Chinese announced on platform X that it will release significant news.

German government bonds have become the primary safe-haven asset in the global bond sell-off due to concerns over overheating in the U.S. economy and the fiscal situation in other parts of Europe. This week, the yield on 10-year German bonds fell by 0.2 percentage points, while yields in countries like the United States and France rose by 0.05 and 0.22 percentage points, respectively.

HL HUB (Community) posted on platform X that Hyperliquid expects to receive its first AQAv2 reserve yield distribution tomorrow. Approximately $14.5 million in passive income generated from USDC reserves will flow into the Assistance Fund for the purpose of repurchasing HYPE.It is reported that the revenue sharing mechanism of AQAv2 stipulates that Hyperliquid stablecoin deployers must allocate 90% of the reserve income from the stablecoin to the Hyperliquid protocol, and these earnings will be used 100% for the repurchase and destruction of HYPE tokens.The stablecoin reserve income distribution is settled on a 30-day cycle, and the income will automatically transfer to the Assistance Fund on the 8th day after the cycle ends. The formal revenue accrual will begin on August 26, and the first income payment will occur on October 3.

According to The Defiant, SMBC Nikko Securities announced on October 2 that it has signed a memorandum of cooperation to develop a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform called "DeFi Gateway" aimed at Japanese investors.Participants include blockchain development company Nethermind, Uniswap Labs, the general incorporated association Nyx Foundation, and Coinbase Technologies, which operates the Ethereum Layer 2 network Base. The project will develop a liquidity provision protocol and proprietary liquidity pool, complying with Japanese laws and regulations, with plans to complete development by mid-2027.The cooperation mainly focuses on three areas of development: first, creating a "proxy vault" with verifiable and reproducible AI and an intuitive user interface; second, utilizing Uniswap v4's Hooks feature to build a compliant liquidity pool public framework that incorporates anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CFT) and investor protection mechanisms; third, developing asset management strategies covering digital assets such as stablecoins and real-world assets (RWA).The project is jointly led by SMBC Nikko Securities and Nethermind. SMBC Nikko Securities leads communication with regulatory agencies and provides compliance, risk modeling, and portfolio management expertise; Nethermind is responsible for technical design and development, including AI strategy and integration, smart contract security, as well as automated market making and Uniswap v4 Hooks strategies.

The perpetual contract protocol Drift (now Velocity) Foundation has opened claims and redemptions for the security incident on April 1. Affected users can claim newly issued compensation tokens DFX at a rate of 1 DFX for every $1 of verified loss. DFX is a Solana standard SPL asset, with a fixed total supply of approximately 299.5 million tokens, corresponding to about $295.4 million in verified losses, and no further issuance will occur.Users can destroy DFX on the official portal and redeem it for USDT at the redemption price, or trade it on secondary markets like Raydium. The redemption price is determined by the balance of the recovery pool divided by the number of DFX tokens that have not yet been destroyed. Currently, there are about 3.11 million USDT in the pool, with a redemption price of approximately $0.0104, allowing for about $1 back for every $100 lost, covering about 1% of the losses, which has caused dissatisfaction in the community, believing there is a significant gap from the expected full compensation.The plan also includes a maximum support commitment of $127.5 million from Tether, up to $20 million from partners, as well as subsequent sources such as transaction fee sharing from the new trading platform Velocity and the recovery of stolen funds, most of which are upper limits or installment arrangements, and were not included in the pool on the opening day. After the DFX launch, the redemption price remains around $0.0104, while the secondary market trading price has risen from about $0.01 to approximately $0.03, with a 24-hour increase of about 210%, and liquidity at that time was around $200,000. The tokens can be freely transferred, and the trading price does not have to equal the redemption price; buyers are mainly concerned with subsequent funding, protocol revenue, recovered funds, as well as the impact of early redemptions and the destruction of unclaimed portions after the window closes on January 1, 2028.

The Financial Services Commission of South Korea has proposed regulatory guidelines for the issuance and trading of security tokens, intending to allow stocks, bonds, funds, and certain fractional investment securities to be issued and circulated in token form. The relevant regulatory framework is scheduled to take effect on February 4, 2027.According to the proposal, securities token issuance companies that directly manage client accounts must have a paid-in capital of at least 4 billion Korean Won and be equipped with dedicated compliance and technical personnel. The revision of capital market regulations will also introduce an over-the-counter trading license for bonds and limit individual investors' annual net purchases at each over-the-counter exchange to within 100 million Korean Won.The proposal will be open for public consultation from Friday until November 11, after which it will enter the approval process. South Korea previously announced a roadmap to advance the transition of securities issuance and trading to distributed ledger infrastructure in three phases.

The SEC recently made public the comments submitted by Stove Finance regarding the exemption for tokenized stocks.The comments focus on the infrastructure issues after tokenized stocks enter the on-chain market, including asset conversion between traditional securities systems and on-chain ledgers, inventory replenishment, reconciliation, and how corporate actions such as dividends and stock splits maintain consistency across different systems.Stove suggested in the comments that registered broker-dealers be allowed to further participate in the construction of on-chain securities record, reconciliation, and delivery infrastructure, and that a unified standard for asset conversion, settlement status, and corporate actions be established collaboratively by broker-dealers, custodians, transfer agents, and on-chain trading venues.As tokenized stocks gradually enter DeFi scenarios such as AMM and liquidity pools, settlement, asset services, and cross-system interoperability beyond trading are becoming the next issues that the industry needs to address.

Broadcom (AVGO.O) raised $60 billion to supply chips for Anthropic.

NEAR Protocol posted on platform X that Sal Ternullo, CEO of NEAR Treasury Company SVRN, has introduced a new proposal on the NEAR governance forum to reduce the maximum annual token issuance rate from 2.5% to 1.6% for a duration of 24 months, and to lower the staking yield from the current approximately 5.4% to about 3.5%.The proposal is currently seeking feedback from validators, House of Stake delegators, and NEAR community members, with a complete plan expected to be announced next week for voting.In response to the recent NEAR Intents security incident, NEAR Protocol further clarified that the blockchain network is operating normally, and the related incident was not caused by vulnerabilities in NEAR Protocol or the native token NEAR. The NEAR Protocol network continues to produce blocks and process transactions without any downtime.

The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission has included FNXAI token and 1FNXAI token in the list of suspicious investment products related to digital tokens.The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission stated that the related products claim that investors can automate trading of U.S. stocks and a range of financial instruments through an AI-driven trading platform to generate stable returns, and involve staking arrangements related to virtual assets.

According to Cryptopolitan, the International Financial Association's Global Debt Monitor on September 23 shows that global debt has reached a historic high of 365 trillion dollars, an increase of 10 trillion dollars in six months, with emerging market debt rising by 6.5 trillion to 110 trillion dollars, with China contributing the most.The San Francisco Federal Reserve's report on September 28 pointed out that the share of U.S. Treasury bonds held by foreign investors has decreased from over 50% at the peak in the late 2000s to about 30% in early 2026. Since 2023, stablecoin issuers have been increasing their holdings of short-term U.S. Treasury bonds at a pace faster than Japan; the bank expects that by 2030, the demand for short-term U.S. Treasury bonds from stablecoins may nearly double to about 400 billion dollars.

Global payment infrastructure company Walapay announced the completion of a $4.6 million seed round financing, led by Gen Venture Capital, with participation from Commerce Ventures, Polygon, AAF Management, Verda Ventures, NGC Ventures, FGV Capital, JSquare, Reflexive, Big Brain VC, and others. Walapay stated that the funds will be used to acquire more licenses, expand banking partnerships, and grow the team.According to Walapay, the company is building a global payment infrastructure from the ground up, allowing users to open accounts, receive payments, exchange currencies, and make payments globally with a single integration. The underlying infrastructure includes licenses, banking partnerships, and local payment channels. The company claims that this capability is primarily aimed at cross-border capital flows in emerging markets, covering Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, with default support for global payments and extending to the local last mile.

SpaceX (SPCX.O) announced that the rideshare deployment sequence has been completed.