talks

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.

Bitcoin Magazine released an interview video with Hunter Biden. Regarding the $LAPTOP token, which plummeted over 98% within minutes of its launch, he attributed the cause to market makers' liquidity missteps on decentralized exchanges and recounted the process of initially planning to launch on centralized exchanges before switching to decentralized exchanges.In the interview, Hunter Biden also discussed Operation Choke Point 2, lobbying his father, and the Democratic Party's stance on cryptocurrency, as well as mentioning Michael Saylor and Strategy, Bitcoin payments, and global adoption, while providing his prediction for Bitcoin's price in 2028. He also compared $LAPTOP with Trump-related tokens in terms of tokenomics and transparency.

U.S. President Trump stated that he expects U.S. negotiators to have more talks with Iran this week. Despite significant differences between the two sides on key issues, Qatar and other mediators are trying to restart negotiations. Trump said Iran wants to reach an agreement, but their demands are too high.

Slow Fog's Yuxian stated on platform X that the Bitget theft incident has a wide spread, involves a huge amount of money, and the related funds were quickly linked to North Korean hackers. Institutions such as Circle and Tether have promptly assisted in freezing the related funds, with Circle freezing the USDC held by the hackers.Regarding THORChain, Yuxian pointed out that when THORChain previously experienced a theft incident, it also quickly intervened in its so-called "decentralized" platform; however, in response to this major security incident in the industry, it claimed "decentralization and non-interference" and compared itself to Bitcoin and Ethereum, while continuing to earn fees from the hackers' large cross-chain transactions.He stated that decentralization should not just be a slogan; after a major security incident occurs, the key is to distinguish which issues need to be collectively addressed by the industry. He also believes that platforms like THORChain should not be easily compared to Bitcoin and Ethereum, as there are significant differences in the degree of decentralization and mechanisms of different systems.

Ukrainian President Zelensky stated that the United States is promoting three measures to de-escalate the war in Ukraine, including a ceasefire in the energy sector, reopening the grain corridor, and a trilateral meeting involving the U.S., Russia, and Ukraine. The U.S. suggested holding a technical team meeting first and proposed Abu Dhabi as the location for the talks.Zelensky mentioned that the G20 summit in December could also be an opportunity for a trilateral summit. Putin's envoy Dmitriev will arrive in New York on Thursday to meet with the U.S. envoy to discuss the plan.

According to Bloomberg, artificial intelligence inference platform startups Modal Labs and Baseten are negotiating a new round of financing. Modal Labs is valued at around 15 billion dollars, approximately three times its valuation four months ago; Baseten is valued at around 26 billion dollars, doubling from 13 billion dollars in June.As companies accelerate the adoption of artificial intelligence and the development of compute-intensive tools like agents, the demand for model inference services and related computing infrastructure continues to grow.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessenet told reporters after several hours of talks in New York with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng and other officials that the discussions were "very successful," covering topics such as artificial intelligence, trade, and investment. The talks took place on September 20 at JPMorgan Chase headquarters, occurring ahead of the summit this week between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.Bessenet stated that both sides agreed to establish a dialogue on artificial intelligence, aimed at reaching a common understanding of goals and threats, and plan to meet again. Li Chenggang, China's representative for international trade negotiations at the Ministry of Commerce, said the atmosphere of the talks was good, and the working group would continue discussions on Monday.

According to a report by Reuters, informed sources say that South Korea's SK Hynix is in talks with Intel for a deal to produce memory chips in the United States for the first time. One possible option is for SK Hynix to lease part of Intel's long-planned chip manufacturing facility in Ohio; another option is to establish a joint venture with Intel and major cloud service companies eager to secure memory chip supplies.The deal would alleviate pressure on Intel and be a significant victory for the Trump administration. However, sources say that potential opposition from the South Korean side could be a major obstacle, as these technologies are considered sensitive. One source stated that the negotiations are still exploratory, emphasizing that no decisions have been made yet. If an agreement is reached, it is still unclear what type of chips SK Hynix would produce in Ohio.Its product line includes DRAM for servers, PCs, and smartphones, as well as NAND flash memory for long-term storage, and it is also a leading supplier of high bandwidth memory (HBM) used in AI processors.

According to The Information, AI agent startup Instinct is reportedly in talks to raise $1 billion, with a valuation potentially reaching $10 billion.

According to The Information, AI drone company Shield AI is in talks for a new round of financing at a valuation of at least $20 billion. This comes just six months after its $2 billion Series G funding round closed, which had a valuation of $12.7 billion.The company expects revenue growth of over 80% this year, reaching at least $540 million.

According to sources, Anthropic is in talks to bring in NVIDIA as its anchor investor for its IPO, which is expected to be the largest in history.It is reported that NVIDIA is considering investing up to $10 billion in this IPO.

According to TechCrunch, AI lab Thinking Machines, founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, is in talks to raise $1 billion at a valuation of at least $40 billion, with existing investor Accel leading the round. The company was established early last year and launched the open-source weight model Inkling in July, charging for computing power based on usage through the Tinker platform, with annual revenue exceeding $100 million.Previously, Thinking Machines completed a $2 billion financing round at a valuation of $12 billion, led by a16z, with participation from Nvidia, GV, and others. Since then, several co-founders, including Lilian Weng and Luke Metz, have returned to OpenAI. If this round is completed, the valuation will be lower than the rumored target of $50 billion at the end of last year.

According to CoinDesk, Bitget CEO Gracy Chen told CoinDesk that Bitget is in talks with several large global financial institutions, including BlackRock, to help expand the distribution of digital asset products in Asia. Gracy Chen cited BlackRock, the world's largest asset management company, as an example, stating that it hopes to expand the distribution of tokenized ETFs in Asia and mentioned, "We maintain very close communication with BlackRock regarding distribution in the Asian market."A spokesperson for BlackRock responded that the company's cryptocurrency exchange-traded products (ETPs) have been launched in Asia and confirmed that it regularly collaborates with virtual asset service providers on different projects, but did not comment on specific expansion plans in the Asian market. According to an OECD report, as of June 2025, the trading volume of blockchain cryptocurrency assets in Asia is expected to grow by 69% year-on-year, the highest growth rate among all global regions.BlackRock manages assets totaling $11.6 trillion. At the 2026 Hong Kong Consensus conference, Nicholas Peach, head of BlackRock's Asia-Pacific iShares division, stated that Asian household wealth is approximately $108 trillion, and even if only 1% is allocated to cryptocurrency assets, it could lead to nearly $2 trillion in inflows. Bitget has 125 million registered users globally, with about half located in East Asia and Southeast Asia. Company data from Q1 2026 shows that 52% of users hold both cryptocurrencies and traditional stocks.

According to Bloomberg, the decentralized perpetual contract trading platform Hyperliquid is in advanced negotiations with Kraken's parent company Payward, planning to offer some crypto perpetual contract products to U.S. traders through its U.S.-regulated digital asset exchange and clearinghouse Bitnomial. Representatives from Payward and Hyperliquid Labs declined to comment.If the deal is reached, it will mark Hyperliquid's first entry into the U.S. market, headquartered in Singapore. The platform has a daily trading volume exceeding $4 billion, but it cannot be opened to U.S. users due to its design without a centralized operator. Providing access through Bitnomial's regulated infrastructure can meet regulatory requirements for operators and regulatory frameworks. Any agreement still requires regulatory approval, and Payward has submitted a proposal outlining the basic structure to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.This negotiation comes as Trump stated earlier this month that his administration is working to bring the platform to the U.S., and CFTC Chairman Michael Selig is also seeking to pave the way for Hyperliquid. Meanwhile, the SEC and CFTC are pushing to bring offshore perpetual contract trading back to U.S. platforms.

According to The Information, informed sources revealed that SoftBank is negotiating to acquire a majority stake in the startup 1X Technologies, which is a humanoid robot development company supported by OpenAI. This deal would value the company at approximately $6 billion. This investment will support SoftBank's ambitions in the robotics field while also providing 1X with more funding to bring its robots, designed with flexible bodies, into consumers' homes to help users with household chores. The startup, founded 12 years ago, attempted to raise $1 billion last fall at a valuation of $10 billion but reportedly ended up raising less than half of its target.SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son has long been an investor and owner of robotics developers. He predicts that physical devices combining robotics technology and artificial intelligence will give rise to the next trillion-dollar company. Another sign is that OpenAI reportedly discussed the possibility of acquiring 1X last year, but negotiations ultimately broke down.

According to Business Insider, Nvidia (NVDA.O) is in talks to acquire Hugging Face for over $13 billion.