emilyvuong

🔥Ethereum ETFs log a record month of outflows
🔴U.S. Spot Ethereum ETFs saw outflows for 5 consecutive weeks in October. Net outflows totaled more than $1.42B, surpassing the previous record set in November 2025. The heaviest week ended on 09/10, with $542M withdrawn from ETH ETF funds.
🔴This caused ETH ETFs’ total net assets to fall from $17.6B to $13.22B. The 3-month streak of positive net inflows totaling $3.05B (July to September) ended, leaving cumulative flows at $12.29B.
🔴Coinbase Premium hit -0.21 on 29/10, also its lowest level since the start of this year. The premium has edged u

Gold just had its worst October since the 2008 crisis.

🔥U.S. Q3 GDP grew 3.4%: AI and inventories carried growth
🔴Real GDP grew 3.4% in Q3 (annualized), beating the 3.2% forecast and up from 2.2% in Q2. Nominal GDP slowed to 5.6% from 8.5% as inflation cooled: the PCE price index fell from 5.0% to 2.1%.
🔴Sector contributions to growth (bps):
- Consumption: +2.52
- Fixed investment: +1.66
- Government: +0.9
- Inventories: around +1.6
- Net exports: -3.32
-> Business investment rose 9.4%. Spending on equipment contributed more to GDP than at any time since 2011, excluding the Covid period. Data centers and computers are the largest investment cat

🔴Anthropic may receive a below-investment-grade credit rating after its IPO
According to the FT, Blackstone warned investors that after its IPO, Anthropic may receive only a BB-category rating, below the Investment Grade threshold.
Just last week, some funds were praising the IPO, but now they’re changing their tune:
- Blackstone’s view is that the deal relies too heavily on debt, up to $63B ($42B guaranteed by Broadcom, $18B is subordinated debt, and Anthropic borrows from other sources itself).
- Blackstone also holds all of the unguaranteed portion $18B $9B at 10% interest.
- KBRA has as

🔥The Fed held rates at 3.75% - 4.00%, with one more hike this year almost certain.
🔴The Fed held rates unchanged in a 10-2 vote. Lisa Cook and Beth Hammack wanted an additional 25 bps hike. Last month, the Fed raised rates by 25 bps in a 12-0 vote (the first hike since 2023).
🔴Statement changes from September:
- The economic assessment was upgraded from “solid” to “strong”.
- The sentence “today’s action helps inflation return to 2% in a timelier manner” was replaced by “more information is needed to determine the appropriate stance”.
- Unchanged: inflation “remains elevated” and the Fed “w

🔥Google launches Gemini 4 Carbon — its most advanced model ever
🔴Google has just announced Gemini 4 Carbon, its most powerful model, focused on cybersecurity and long-horizon engineering tasks.
- No. 1 on Artificial Analysis's Index v5 with a score of 59, ahead of Claude Opus 5.5 (58) and GPT-6 Astra (57)
- Introductory price: $2/$10 per 1 million input/output tokens, half the price of Opus 5.5
- Currently available only to a group of cybersecurity experts, with no date set for a wider release
🔴Google finally has a new model to get back in the AI race. Tech folks often joke that Google is s

🔥CFTC reopens investigation into Polymarket over suspected violation of pledge to block U.S. users
🔴The CFTC is investigating whether Polymarket violated its 2022 agreement, which required it to block U.S. users from its international platform. The review covers:
- Geolocation systems
- Ability to block access from restricted regions
- Advertising activity in the U.S.
🔴The CFTC and DOJ’s previous investigation closed in 07/2025 without any charges. Polymarket later bought a licensed derivatives exchange to return to the U.S., but its 2022 commitment remains in effect. Everyone probably reme

🔥Bitwise raises its Bitcoin price target to $1.6M by 2036
🔴On October 28, Bitwise raised its 2036 BTC price forecast from $1.3M to $1.6M, equivalent to an annualized return of 34.3%, 5 times that of US stocks and 3 times that of private equity.
🔴Bitwise outlined three scenarios:
- Base case: BTC captures 25% of the store-of-value market ($110T) and 1% of institutional assets ($303T), reaching $1.6M.
- Bear case: 2.5% market share, with a price of around $131K.
- Bull case: 50% market share, with a price of $3.67M.
🔴Capital flow drivers for $BTC according to Bitwise:
- Institutions manage a

🔥Vietnam’s first 3 crypto asset exchanges pass Level 4 security assessment
🔴CAEX, SCEX, and TCEX are the first three businesses to have their Level 4 information system security dossiers assessed and approved by the Ministry of Public Security (A05). This is a mandatory requirement for the technology systems of organizations providing crypto asset services under Resolution 05/2025/NQ-CP, as part of the pilot program.
🔴Details of each exchange:
- CAEX (VPBank), announced on 22/10: is building infrastructure for order matching and custody, hot and cold wallet management, and cryptographic key

🔥Ethereum delays Glamsterdam over gas fee vulnerability
🔴The Ethereum Foundation has canceled the Glamsterdam activation on the Hoodi testnet, which was scheduled for October 26, and has not announced a new date. The reason is that security firm ChainSecurity found that gas changes in the upgrade could disable a defense layer used by many contracts on mainnet.
🔴Where the problem lies
- The bug stems from EIP-8037 and EIP-8038, two proposals to reprice the costs of creating new state and accessing state data.
- EIP-8037 separates the gas allocated for creating new state into its own “bucket.

🔥The PHP2Shell vulnerability forces the world to shut down websites in self-defense
🔴What happened
- A 9.2/10 vulnerability in PHP’s core, the language behind nearly 70% of websites, allows servers to be taken over without a login
- The flaw had existed for years, and AI-assisted analysis demonstrated its exploitability
- Disclosed on 20/10, with an emergency patch released on 21/10
- Updating plugins has no effect; only upgrading PHP fixes the issue
🔴Hackers began exploiting it early. Cloudflare received millions of requests within just a few hours of disclosure. ~2.24 million servers run

🔥Anthropic posts $80.7B net loss in H1 2026: mostly paper losses
🔴Anthropic’s draft IPO prospectus reveals two contrasting sides: revenue rose nearly 15-fold, while net losses and infrastructure commitments hit record levels. Revenue surged:
- H1 2026 revenue: $16.3B, versus $1.1B in the same period of 2025
- Q2 reached $11.6B, up ~147% from Q1. Q3 reached $16.8B, up only 45% from Q2
- About 1/5 of H1 revenue came from 2 customers
-> The $80.7B loss that made sensational headlines in the press is nearly 90% an accounting entry.
🔴Net loss in H1 2026 was $80.7B, versus $13B in the same period

🔥NVIDIA GTC Berlin 2026: Jensen Huang Bets Big on Europe
🔴Nvidia has invested nearly $10B in Europe’s tech ecosystem over the past year. Just last week, ahead of the event, it announced investments in 14 startups.
-> This brings its total number of partners in Europe to over 12,000. However, the old continent currently accounts for only around 5% of global AI computing capacity, while the US accounts for as much as 75%.
🔴Nvidia will launch DSX Pod: modular AI factories
- The Vera Rubin system integrates all computing, networking, power, and liquid cooling in a container, tested at the fact

🔥Mortgage rates are falling, but homebuying demand is still in free fall
🔴The 30-year mortgage rate fell to 7.41% from 7.50%, its first decline after 7 consecutive weeks of increases. Last week's 7.50% was the highest since 11/2023.
🔴Total mortgage applications fell 5.3% WoW (down 2.7% the previous week). Purchase applications fell 7% WoW (down 2.1% the previous week), their lowest since 01/2025 and 18% below the same period last year. Refinance applications fell 2% WoW (down 7.5% the previous week).
🔴Rates fell, but purchase applications dropped even more sharply than the previous week. B

🔥US budget deficit in FY2026 hits $1.99T, the 3rd highest in history
- FY2026 deficit reached $1,992B, up 12% from $1,775B in FY2025
- Highest in 5 years and 3rd highest in history, behind only FY2020 and FY2021
- 25th consecutive fiscal year with a deficit
- Deficit equivalent to approximately 6.2% of GDP, up from 5.8% the previous year
🔴Record spending of $7.40T, up 6%, causing revenue to fall behind:
- Social Security: approximately $1.7T, up from approximately $1.6T
- Medicare: nearly $1.1T, up from below $1T
- Net interest: over $1T, up from $970B
- Defense: approximately $965B, up 5%
-

🔥BlackRock files for PBIT: Bitcoin ETF offers a “buffer” against losses in exchange for capped upside
🔴On October 19, BlackRock filed with the SEC for the iShares Bitcoin Managed Protection ETF, expected to trade under the ticker PBIT. This is the firm’s third Bitcoin ETF filing, after IBIT (01/2024) and BITA (06/2026).
🔴How the fund works:
- PBIT does not hold BTC or IBIT shares. The fund uses options on IBIT, combined with cash, money market funds, and investment-grade bonds.
- The options portfolio is divided into multiple groups, which start at different times.
- Each group has an initi

🔥Warsh declined to comment on interest rates, saying AI is an inflationary shock
🔴The Fed raised rates by 25bps in September—the first hike in three years. September CPI rose 3.7%, exceeding the 3.6% forecast. Meanwhile, the labor market added only 29K jobs.
The next FOMC meeting will take place on 27-28/10, just one week before the midterm elections.
🔴At the annual IMF-World Bank conference in Bangkok, Warsh declined to comment on interest rates. Warsh said he does not prejudge the outcome of meetings. He continued to oppose forward guidance and said, "the market must read the data for its

🔥Polymarket teases a token launch again, but an IPO looks more likely
🔴Polymarket is weighing an IPO or the issuance of a digital asset on the blockchain, with no concrete roadmap yet. The repeated hints about a token launch are likely aimed at stringing along crypto investors hoping for an airdrop.
🔴At TOKEN2049 (Oct. 7), CEO Shayne Coplan mentioned a “programmable” on-chain asset but confirmed there are no near-term plans for a token or airdrop. Trademark applications for POLY and $Poly were filed in February 2026. To date, there has been no TGE and no airdrop eligibility criteria.
🔴Poly