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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.

According to Whale Alert monitoring, at 23:01 Beijing time today, an unknown wallet unlocked 956,610 SOL (approximately 115.62 million USD) in staking.

The Chief Information Security Officer of Slow Fog Security, 23pds, stated that Alex Shevchenko, the General Manager of NEAR Intents, indicated that the exploiters of the NEAR Intents vulnerability transferred 1 BNB to the recovery wallet and left a message expressing willingness to cooperate and requested the other party to provide a Signal contact.This transfer came from the same address that previously moved approximately 3.8 million USD. About an hour ago, that address also transferred 0.295 ETH on the Ethereum network and sent the same message.

The founder of Liebit Mining Pool, Jiang Zhuoer, posted on the X platform stating that the number of ETH queued for withdrawal from staking has risen to 850,000, with the waiting time increasing to 14.77 days, both of which are the highest within 2026. This indicates that a group of coin holders believes the current coin price is relatively high and needs to sell coins to lock in profits.

In September, the seasonally adjusted non-farm payroll employment in the United States increased by 29,000, with an expectation of 90,000, and the previous value was revised from 162,000 to 133,000.

The employment participation rate in the United States for September was 61.8%, higher than the expected 61.6%, and the previous value was 61.6%.

The unemployment rate in the United States for September was 4.2%, higher than the expected 4.1%, and the previous value was 4.1.

The U6 unemployment rate in the United States for September is 7.6%, lower than the expected 7.7%, and the previous value was 7.7.

Linea's official statement indicates that some validators supporting the Yield Boost treasury are withdrawing as a precaution due to the MetaMask staking incident. Linea emphasizes that the funds and control of the staking treasury itself have not been affected.The impact of this incident is that during the period when relevant validators withdraw and are replaced by new validators, the net staking rewards that provide funding sources for ecosystem incentives will temporarily decrease. Linea stated that it is closely monitoring the situation's progress.

S&P Global Ratings confirmed on October 1 that the issuer credit rating of the stablecoin protocol Sky Protocol is B-, with a stable outlook. S&P stated that Sky is advancing the Prime Agent ecosystem (formerly Stars or subDAO), which includes strategies such as over-the-counter lending with a scale of approximately $1 billion, accounting for about 10% of the total assets supporting USDS and DAI; these semi-independent entities use the Sky balance sheet for specialized investments within the risk parameters set by governance, while increasing management and monitoring complexity.The total supply of USDS and DAI increased from $7.7 billion in August 2025 to $9.5 billion. As of September 17, 2026, reserves are approximately $92 million, with a target of $150 million. Robust assets USDC and tokenized money market funds backed by government bonds total approximately $4.92 billion, accounting for about 50% of circulating USDS and DAI, up from 36% in August 2025. On-chain crypto lending has decreased to about 25% of the balance sheet, while over-the-counter crypto lending has increased to approximately $1 billion. Newly included assets include RLUSD, PYUSD, and USDG totaling approximately $392 million, as well as a tokenized fund investing in AAA-rated CLO shares of about $500 million.As of September 2026, the four major Prime Agents account for approximately 65% of the combined assets, with Spark accounting for 36%, Grove for 24%, Obex for 4%, and Osero for 1%.

According to CoinDesk, Cboe is exploring the launch of perpetual futures linked to the VIX index, which is still in the early stages, with no contract specifications yet and no filing documents submitted. This news comes from Bloomberg.The VIX index measures the expected volatility over the next 30 days as reflected by the pricing of S&P 500 options. As investors buy options to hedge against sharp market declines, the demand for options during downturns surges, thereby raising the index, which is why it is regarded as Wall Street's "fear gauge." Perpetual futures were first proposed by economist Robert Shiller in 1993 and were subsequently commercialized by the cryptocurrency industry.A mature derivatives ecosystem has already formed around the VIX, covering futures, options, and exchange-traded products tracking the index. However, futures come with expiration dates, and when contracts terminate, traders must roll over their positions or shift their bets to the next available contract. This rolling operation is costly and erodes returns, which was a major criticism faced by Bitcoin futures ETFs when they debuted at the end of 2021.In contrast, perpetual swaps never settle and instead anchor contract prices to the spot index through a funding rate mechanism, theoretically providing investors with the closest investment channel to the actual VIX spot price. Martin Lee, Head of Market Insights at DWF Labs, told CoinDesk that traders do not need to worry about expiration and value decay, as they can focus solely on assessing the direction of the underlying asset. He expects a strong trend of "perpetualization" to emerge in the coming months.

According to Decrypt, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control has designated the Russian shadow banking network A7 Network as a significant transnational criminal organization, listing its relevant addresses in Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network has proposed a draft rule that aims to prohibit U.S. institutions from participating in any fund transfers involving the network's "sub-agent companies," covering convertible virtual currencies and not limited to fiat currencies, which is expected to affect approximately 348,000 institutions, including several cryptocurrency exchanges.The proposal is based on six special measures granted by Section 9714 of the Countering Russian Money Laundering Act, ultimately selecting the sixth measure, which is the fund transfer ban. The fifth measure, which restricts correspondent accounts, is considered to have loopholes: research by blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs shows that A7A5 transactions completely bypass the correspondent banking system, which the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network views as a core aspect of its business model. A7A5 is a ruble-backed token issued by Old Vector, registered in Kyrgyzstan, operating on Tron and Ethereum, with reserves held at the Russian state-owned defense bank Promsvyazbank.The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network stated that between February 2025 and June 2026, over 180 entities handled at least $17.91 billion in A7A5, which historically circulated almost entirely through the sanctioned exchanges Garantex and Grinex, often used as a non-frozen bridge to convert into USDT and then into fiat currency.

Morgan Stanley has reclassified NVIDIA (NVDA.O) as a preferred stock.

According to Catcher Predict monitoring, in the market prediction event "LoL Solary vs T1 Academy World Star Challenge Playoffs" on Polymarket, the "Yes" option win rate for the sub-market "Any Player Pentakill" has experienced a sharp fluctuation, rising from 25% an hour ago to the current 50% (a fluctuation of 25%). Please note the impact of related breaking news.

According to The Block, the European Central Bank has proposed three models for introducing central bank digital currency on the blockchain, including direct issuance, establishing bridging mechanisms, and implementation through private intermediaries.These models can provide settlement support for transactions such as tokenized securities, bank deposits, and stablecoins on distributed ledger technology networks.