MeNews

U.S. stocks closed higher on Wednesday, with technology shares strengthening, Dell surging, and oil prices stabilizing. U.S. Treasury yields approached 5%, and global stock markets may face a 5%-8% correction. Trump said the strikes on Iran would end soon and that the Strait of Hormuz would be renamed the Trump Strait. The former British prime minister warned that failure to control debt would force emergency spending cuts. The Beige Book said the U.S. economy grew moderately, with AI and data centers serving as key supports. Tron’s USDT supply surpassed Ethereum’s for the first time. Broadcom’s Q3 results exceeded expectations, and its AI revenue guidance was raised. Robinhood Chain generated $3.75 million in daily fees, exceeding the combined total of Solana, ETH, and Base.

A BIS working paper using weekly U.S. data from 2019–2025 found that, after controlling for relevant variables, higher deposit rates were associated with slower stablecoin market capitalization growth. A 1-basis-point increase in a single week was associated with stablecoin market capitalization growth over the following ten weeks falling by about 3 percentage points, from a 15% baseline to around 12%. The response was greater for USDC than for USDT. The study stresses that this does not establish that total bank deposits or lending declined, and that the sample covers only one rate-hiking cycle.

According to Qichacha, Shanghai Solana Enterprise Management Co., Ltd. was registered in June this year, with registered capital of 5 million and Claire Du, co-head of Solana China, as its legal representative. In August, Shanghai Yaokun Qiuzuo Digital Technology Co., Ltd. was established, with Solana Enterprise Management holding a 45% stake. Jiang Yiwen is the chairman of Yaokun Qiuzuo, and Du Yanjing serves as a director. Yaokun Qiuzuo’s main business covers technology services and information technology-related activities. It should be noted that the name “Solana” was independently chosen by a sole proprietorship owned by a natural person. There is currently no equity evidence showing that either company is affiliated with the Solana Foundation. This week, the Solana team announced plans to open an office in Shanghai.

The New York Fed’s October survey showed that service-sector activity in the New York area slowed markedly, while the pace of increase in businesses’ selling prices accelerated to its fastest since 2022. The business activity index fell to -20.7, its lowest level since March. Input costs continued to rise rapidly, supply conditions deteriorated, and capital spending remained subdued. Over the next six months, activity is expected to decline slightly, while expected increases in input costs and selling prices remain elevated.

ME News reported on 10/17 that immigration police in Bangkok, Thailand, arrested a 37-year-old Chinese man wanted by Chinese police for his alleged involvement in a cross-border criminal network and money laundering. The network handled transactions worth more than 500 million yuan. The suspect used 133 accounts to process cryptocurrency and foreign exchange transactions for the criminal group and helped its members obtain visas. He had falsified residence registration documents, altered license plates, and modified vehicles to evade capture, before finally being arrested at a luxury home in Bangkok. Thai authorities will address his overstay and cooperate in deporting him to China for investigation.

Hong Kong’s BBB Group claims to invest in Malaysia’s agarwood industry and sells OTC stocks and digital assets, with plans to convert the OTC shares into cryptocurrency before 2027. Police have received 21 reports involving approximately 14 million. The Commercial Crime Bureau has launched an arrest operation on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud, and four people have been arrested. The Securities and Futures Commission has listed the related projects as suspicious investment products, including Malaysia Agarwood Plantation, Agarwood Tree Plan, Agarwood Potted Trees, and APT4.

On-chain analyst Darkfost pushed back against the scenario that BTC would fall to $10,000 after a sharp correction in U.S. stocks. By his calculation, a drop to $10,000 would represent a roughly 92% drawdown from BTC’s all-time high; historically, only in 2011 did BTC’s daily closing price experience a drawdown of more than 92%. As BTC’s market cap has grown, it has become more resilient to drawdowns, so a 20% drop in the S&P 500 cannot simply be equated with BTC falling to $10,000. He also noted that since BTC’s inception, the S&P 500 has fallen by more than 20% on only five occasions, leaving a limited historical sample.

JustLend DAO completed its fifth JST buyback and burn on 2026-10-16, totaling 170,723,144 JST, all of which was transferred to a burn address and is verifiable on-chain. This buyback advances deflation and community governance resolutions, enhances JST’s value and the ecosystem’s long-term sustainability, and provides a verifiable governance model for future buybacks.

The Arbitrum Foundation has launched the Stablecoin Growth Program for protocols with stablecoin balances of at least $1 million. To qualify, protocols must use USDG as their primary stablecoin on Arbitrum One. The program has a 2 million ARB reward pool. The top 10 participants with a 30-day average USDG balance of at least $10 million can receive up to 200,000 ARB, with rewards capped at $200,000. The program runs through 2027-12-31, and each participant can claim only once.

Apple has appointed Scott Tucker, Meta’s former longtime deputy general counsel, as vice president of worldwide litigation and financial services. He will oversee global commercial and patent litigation, as well as legal matters related to financial products, and will work again with General Counsel Jennifer Newstead. The appointment is part of a restructuring of Apple’s legal team amid U.S. antitrust litigation, the Epic App Store dispute, and lawsuits related to privacy and delays in Siri features. Apple and Meta declined to comment.

Capital Economics’ Hamad Hussein expects gold prices to gradually decline over the rest of this year, as the Fed continues to raise rates and concerns about the end of the AI boom are seen as temporary. TD Securities says gold remains range-bound, with a bias toward the lower end, as the Fed’s next moves remain highly uncertain.

ME News, October 17 (UTC+8) — According to an official announcement, crypto wallet D-Wallet has launched its Guardian Signature feature, which adds an exclusive channel for guardian rights on top of multisig. Users can create a Guardian Signature based on multisig and use their rights to transfer assets to a guardian-exclusive address with one click. Guardian Signature makes multisig asset storage more secure while allowing guardian rights to be used flexibly, integrating security with flexible interaction. It overcomes the conflict between security and flexibility in self-custody, enabling secure storage and flexible interaction in the same account, at the same place and time. (Source: PANews)

ME News, October 17 (UTC+8) — Tom Lee, chairman of Ethereum treasury company BitMine, said in a CNBC interview yesterday that if fundamentals remain stable, cryptocurrencies, chip stocks, and neocloud companies will be “coiled-spring” opportunities. They have all “pulled back to support.” Tom Lee

European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said that euro area inflation stood at 3.8% in September, driven mainly by high energy costs, and that price pressures may ease next year. However, inflation could remain above target through the first half of 2027, requiring continued caution. She said the digital euro is in preparation for everyday retail payments and to complement cash, and will foster innovation and competition in payments. The ECB has launched the Pontes system, which allows financial institutions to settle wholesale tokenized assets in central bank money. It will initially provide core services, with full deployment targeted for 2028.

ME News reported that Aiden Pleterski, who called himself the “Crypto King,” is on trial in a Toronto court. An Ontario Securities Commission forensic accountant testified that Pleterski raised about $36.3 million from investors between 2020 and 2022, nearly half of which went toward personal expenses, including luxury cars, credit card bills, travel and private flights, security, and transfers to his parents. He also paid investors about $16.1 million in returns. The funds were not deposited into the FXChoice platform, and about $113,000 went to other forex and crypto platforms. Prosecutors allege that he promised profits but did not actually trade. Pleterski denies the allegations, and the case is ongoing.

According to Panews, in the seven days leading up to October 15, Circle issued approximately 10.9 billion USDC and redeemed approximately 11.4 billion, resulting in a net decline of approximately 500 million in circulation. USDC’s total circulating supply was 72.5 billion, backed by approximately $72.7 billion in reserves, comprising approximately $35.6 billion in overnight reverse repurchase agreements, $25.8 billion in Treasury bills with maturities of less than three months, $10.6 billion in deposits at systemically important institutions, and $600 million in deposits at other banks.

Vlad Tenev reflects on rebuilding after going public: cutting staff, flattening management, and delegating decision-making to business lines; strengthening services for active traders and expanding into high-yield products, retirement, banking/wealth management, and credit cards, while using Robinhood Gold to add recurring revenue and reduce reliance on speculation. He says the company achieved GAAP profitability by the end of 2023; in 2025, revenue was about $4.5 billion, growth exceeded 50%, its market cap surpassed $100 billion, and it joined the S&P 500. In Q2 2026, revenue was about $1.3 billion, net income topped $570 million, and assets exceeded $350 billion.

Recently released U.S. court documents show that, after receiving valid legal requests, Telegram provided U.S. law enforcement with information about individual users, including phone numbers, user IDs, display names, and last-seen IP addresses and timestamps. The disclosures were described as voluntary and did not involve chat content. Since September 2024, Telegram’s privacy policy has allowed it to disclose IP addresses and phone numbers under certain conditions. In 2024, Telegram responded to about 900 U.S. law enforcement requests involving 2,253 users.

Intersect’s weekly report says the Cardano 2026 treasury reserve smart contract holds 201.67 million ADA, 26.1 million USDCx, and 4.8 million USDM, making some development budgets no longer directly exposed to ADA price fluctuations. On October 2, two budgets were minted into USDM by Moneta Digital and deposited into the contract: a governance/technical custodial budget of approximately 4.506 million USDM, scheduled through 2027-07-29; and a Daedalus wallet budget of approximately 316,300 USDM, scheduled through 2027-09-29. USDCx is fully backed by Circle xReserve, and burning it releases an equivalent amount of USDC, usually within 2–4 hours; the bridge can be paused. Moneta USDM requires identity, anti-money laundering, and sanctions screening, and is currently available only to residents of 20 states.

ME News reports that on October 17 (UTC+8), in response to recently deleting a large number of old crypto-related retweets, CZ said he was just testing an AI tool and took the opportunity to clean up old retweets. CZ emphasized that he had not deleted any original posts and urged people not to read too much into it. (Source: PANews)

ME News, October 17 (UTC+8) — European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde stressed the importance of maintaining sound public finances, calling them a key pillar of economic stability. She said countries should ensure that fiscal measures to address energy shocks are temporary and targeted. Lagarde reiterated that the eurozone economic outlook faces downside risks, while inflation risks are tilted to the upside. (Source: ChainCatcher)