Key events for the week
The Nov. 2-8 calendar includes a dense mix of crypto-specific events and macro catalysts. Bitway (BTW) is scheduled to unlock about 101 million tokens at 4:00 p.m. Beijing time on Nov. 2, equal to roughly 3.37% of circulating supply and worth about $114 million. Kite (KITE) is set to unlock about 640 million tokens at 9:00 p.m. Beijing time on Nov. 3, or around 17.42% of circulating supply, valued at about $75.6 million. The U.S. midterm elections will be held on Nov. 3. Apple will report earnings after the U.S. stock market closes on Nov. 2. U.S. October nonfarm payrolls are due at 21:30 Beijing time on Nov. 6. Zcash plans to activate its NU7 upgrade on mainnet on Nov. 5.
Nov. 2
Hong Kong outlines FinTech Week 2026 schedule
Hong Kong’s fintech project executive coordination group held its sixth meeting, chaired by Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Christopher Hui. Participants exchanged views on several fintech areas, including a proposed regulatory regime for virtual asset trading, custody, advisory, and management services. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority also briefed the group on Project Ensemble and the banking sector’s quantum readiness.
According to the meeting disclosure, Hong Kong FinTech Week 2026 will run from Nov. 2 to Nov. 6 under the theme "Global Connectivity for a Shared Future," alongside the StartmeupHK Festival. The main forum is scheduled for Nov. 2-3 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre.
North America shifts to standard time, U.S. stock open moves to 22:30 Beijing time
North America switches to standard time at 2:00 a.m. local time on Nov. 1, which is 14:00 Beijing time on Nov. 1. Trading hours for U.S. and Canadian financial markets, along with the release times for economic data, move back by one hour compared with daylight saving time. Starting Nov. 2, international gold, silver, and U.S. crude will open at 7:00 Beijing time, while U.S. equities will open at 22:30 Beijing time.
TSV may begin trading tokenized CNTN shares
TSV LLC, a tokenized stock trading platform built on Canton Network, plans to begin trading tokenized shares of Canton Strategic Holdings (CNTN) as early as Nov. 2. The company uses an issuer-led tokenization model and has appointed SEC-registered on-chain transfer agent Fairmint to issue the tokens and maintain the official ownership record. That structure is designed to avoid the 30-day issuer objection period required for third-party tokenization.
If it proceeds as planned, TSV could complete the first tokenized U.S. stock trade under the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s "innovation exemption" framework before the joint platform backed by OKX and ICE, the parent of the New York Stock Exchange.
NEAR vote closes on proposal to cut maximum annual issuance
NEAR governance body House of Stake has opened voting on proposal HSP-029, which would lower the token’s maximum annual issuance rate from 2.5% to 1.6% on a linear path over 24 months after a buffer period of about 90 days. Under the proposal, around 11.8 million fewer NEAR would be issued over the next two years, and about 66.1 million fewer over six years. That would reduce supply by about 4.36% compared with the current policy. Total staking yield is expected to fall from 5.27% to 3.37%.
The proposal requires supermajority support and must then be adopted by validators through a network upgrade before it can take effect. Voting closes on Nov. 2, 2026.
Akash holders vote on proposed move from Cosmos to Solana
According to an official Akash Network announcement, the decentralized cloud computing network has launched governance proposal 346 to migrate from its Cosmos sovereign chain, akashnet-2, to Solana mainnet. Voting began at 23:02 Beijing time on Oct. 26 and ends at 23:02 Beijing time on Nov. 2. Support currently stands at about 98.29%.
If the proposal passes and audits of the token and migration portal are completed, a process expected to take two to three weeks, AKT would launch on Solana as an SPL token on a 1:1 basis while keeping the same ticker. A one-way migration portal would remain open for two years. Staked AKT would first need to be unstaked, with a 21-day unbonding period, before migration. The proposal does not set a cutover date. A separate switch proposal would still be needed for market migration. Akash said the choice of Solana was driven by operating costs under load, the absence of a single operator, and concentration of the DePIN ecosystem.
Initia plans to restart L1 and rollups
Initia said on X that Initia L1 and its rollups are scheduled to resume operations on Monday, Nov. 2, 2026. The chain upgrade will apply an independently audited MoveVM patch, isolate the attacker’s remaining forged balances, and enable additional safeguards without rolling back transaction history. Support for AUSD0, USDC.n, and WETH will be fully restored before the restart, and users do not need to take action.
To protect users and liquidity providers, Initia DEX will pause briefly while designated accounts rebalance pools to market prices. Any profit from that rebalancing will be returned to affected liquidity providers. Bridges and exchanges are expected to resume transfers after network monitoring. Withdrawal times for LayerZero OFT WETH and AUSD0 are set at 24 hours. Initia said it will provide more details after the network is fully back online on Monday.
Polymarket delays Protocol V2 launch to Nov. 9
Rajath Alex, Polymarket’s protocol lead, said on X that the company has introduced Polymarket Protocol V2, a new generation of prediction market smart contracts that rebuilds the protocol’s underlying architecture. The current system is based on Gnosis’ 2019 Conditional Tokens Framework. As market types and features expanded, the protocol added adapters and extra contracts, increasing complexity over time.
Protocol V2 uses a modular design with ERC-1155 position tokens, pUSD collateral, dedicated exchanges and routers for each market type, and support for Binary, Atomic Neg-risk, Incremental Neg-risk, and Combinatorial markets. It also adds an OracleAggregator that can connect to settlement sources including UMA and Chainlink, while laying groundwork for cross-chain support for positions, collateral, and settlement outcomes.
Polymarket said the code has been audited by Cantina, Certora, Quantstamp, SigmaPrime, Zellic, and Pashov, and has also gone through Certora formal verification. The team had planned to launch some test markets between Oct. 5 and Oct. 30 and tentatively begin routing new markets to V2 on Nov. 2. It also introduced Data API V2 to support the new protocol and on-chain indexing.
To avoid the week of the U.S. midterm elections, the release date for Protocol V2 has been pushed back from Nov. 2 to Nov. 9. A final schedule and launch plan, including exact timing and the order of market migrations, will be released in the coming days. Users do not need to take action for now.
Unagi enters court-ordered liquidation in France
Web3 game developer Unagi said it has entered court-ordered judicial liquidation in France, and all assets will be offered for public sale under the supervision of a court-appointed liquidator. Unagi’s products include Persona Journey, Ultimate Champions, and Records.
Assets for sale include the intellectual property for Persona Journey, NFT contracts and creator royalty rights, 957 Persona NFTs held in treasury, community accounts and related AI products, the UNA token and its contract, the fantasy football and basketball game Ultimate Champions and its NFT card economy, a white-label fantasy sports platform, the completed but unreleased prediction game Fantasy Brainz, and Records, an AI user-generated content platform launched in March. Assets may be acquired individually, and bids are due by Nov. 2.
DeFi Development raises CHAD preferred dividend rate
SOL treasury company DeFi Development Corp. said the annual dividend rate on its CHAD preferred shares will increase from 13% to 14%, effective Nov. 2. Based on the company’s disclosed method, annual dividend income per share will rise by about 7.7%. Dividends, once declared, are paid on each business day.
Token unlocks on Nov. 2
- Bitway (BTW) will unlock about 40.63 million ENA? No. Ethena is separate. Bitway (BTW) is scheduled to unlock about 101 million tokens at 4:00 p.m. Beijing time on Nov. 2, equal to roughly 3.37% of circulating supply and worth about $114 million.
- Ethena (ENA) will unlock about 40.63 million tokens on Nov. 2, worth about $7.7 million.
Nov. 3
U.S. midterm elections take place
The U.S. will hold its midterm elections on Nov. 3, with all 435 House seats and 35 Senate seats up for election, including two special Senate elections in Florida and Ohio. Republicans currently hold 218 House seats to Democrats’ 214, and 53 Senate seats to Democrats’ 47. Democrats would need a net gain of three seats in the House and four in the Senate to flip control. If the Senate ends 50-50, Vice President Vance would cast the deciding vote.
Control over appropriations, tax legislation, and confirmation powers will shape the difficulty of advancing fiscal policy, tariffs, and industrial subsidies. Betting markets currently price the probability of Democrats sweeping both chambers at 67%. Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. said the election’s impact on U.S. Treasuries may be limited, but if Democrats control both chambers, expanded healthcare spending could push Treasury yields modestly higher.
Apple earnings due after the U.S. close
Apple is scheduled to report earnings after the U.S. market closes on Nov. 2, which falls on Nov. 3 in Beijing time. Options markets imply a move of about 4.3% in the stock. Based on Apple’s Oct. 27 closing price of $347.10, the combined premium of the at-the-money Nov. 4 expiry $347.5 call and put was about $14.98, implying a stock range of roughly $332 to $362.
For comparison, Apple’s stock has moved about 2% on average the day after earnings over its past eight reports. Six of those eight sessions were declines, and the largest drop was 7.4% in July this year. Implied movement for options expiring Nov. 13 rises further to 5.2%. The note in the source says the options quotes were taken after the U.S. close on Oct. 27, and that 4.3% reflects implied movement in options pricing rather than a guaranteed trading range.
Binance expects full zero-knowledge proof of reserves
According to a Binance announcement, about 90% of affected assets had been replenished as of Oct. 31, up from the previously disclosed 80%. BTC, ETH, USDT, BNB, SOL, USDC, XRP, USD1, RLUSD, and ZEC have all reached 100% reserve backing. The remaining roughly 10% consists of tokens outside the previous top 10, and Binance said lower liquidity in those assets may mean it takes longer to complete purchases.
Binance said the replenishment funds came from part of the SAFU fund, expected to be completed within 24 hours, part of the futures insurance fund, and Binance corporate funds. The exchange completed a new proof-of-reserves snapshot at 08:00 on Oct. 31, UTC+8. Because generating the zero-knowledge proof requires substantial computing resources, the full proof is expected on Nov. 3 UTC. Withdrawals are expected to resume on Nov. 1 as planned.
Binance to suspend deposits and withdrawals for old VELODROME and old AERO
Binance said it will support the merger of Velodrome Finance (VELODROME) into Aerodrome (AERO) and an AERO contract swap. At 11:00 Beijing time on Nov. 3, 2026, Binance will halt trading and remove all existing VELODROME spot pairs, specifically VELODROME/USDT, and cancel all pending orders. Trading in existing AERO spot pairs will not be affected.
At 11:30 Beijing time on Nov. 3, 2026, Binance will suspend deposits and withdrawals for the old VELODROME token. After the merger is completed, Binance will no longer support deposits or withdrawals for the old VELODROME token. Binance will also suspend deposits and withdrawals for the old AERO token at 11:30 Beijing time on the same day. The reopening time for deposits and withdrawals of the new AERO token will be announced separately after the contract swap is completed.
Token unlocks on Nov. 3
- Kite (KITE) will unlock about 640 million tokens at 9:00 p.m. Beijing time on Nov. 3, equal to roughly 17.42% of circulating supply and worth about $75.6 million.
Nov. 4
Coinbase to launch global trading competition
Coinbase said it will hold its first global trading competition, the Coinbase Champions Cup, from Nov. 4 to Nov. 25, with a prize pool of up to $2 million. Registration is already open. Participants may also get a trader seat at Coinbase’s next offline event. The competition is offered by Coinbase Bermuda Ltd. and is available only to eligible users in designated jurisdictions. The minimum trading volume requirement is 100 USDC.
Kimi K3.1 Pro released, open weights planned before Nov. 4
Moonshot AI released Kimi K3.1 Pro, the first model in its K3.1 series, along with Kimi K3.1 Pro Highspeed, which runs two to three times faster than the standard version. Both models support a 1 million-token context window. Company data shows K3.1 Pro scored 65.70% on Terminal-Bench 4.0, above GPT-6 Astra at 58.20% and slightly below Claude Opus 5.5 at 66.40%. In an internal hallucination test, the hallucination rate for single statements fell from 23.40% on K3 to 8.30%. The new models are already live on Kimi.ai, Kimi Work, Kimi Code, and the API. Full model weights are planned to be opened before Nov. 4.
Apple Intelligence testing opens in China
Apple said the first batch of Apple Intelligence features will soon launch in China, including live translation, writing tools, visual intelligence, a photo cleanup tool, and Genmoji-style features. Testing will open from Nov. 4 through the latest iOS developer beta, and the features will be released to users in China with iOS 27.3 in December.
Apple also said it has partnered with Alibaba, allowing users in China to access Qwen directly in Siri, writing tools, and visual intelligence. Supported devices include the iPhone 16 and later models, the iPhone 15 Pro lineup, and iPhone Air. This update does not include next-generation Apple Intelligence features such as Siri AI that Apple introduced at WWDC 2026.
HyperLabs requests unstake of 179,706 HYPE
HyperLabs, the development team behind Hyperliquid, requested the unstaking of 179,706 HYPE about 10 hours earlier, worth about $14.49 million, with the tokens expected to arrive on the evening of Nov. 4. According to the disclosure, the process matches the team’s previous token unlock flow: the tokens are first unstaked, then allocated to team members, and later sold over the counter through market maker Flowdesk.
XRP Ledger patch delayed to Nov. 4
An XRP Ledger vulnerability patch was delayed until November after validator support briefly fell to 26 out of 35, resetting the activation countdown. Support has since recovered to 31 validators, but the two-week countdown had to restart, causing the patch to miss its earlier activation window. XRPLWin shows the fix is scheduled to go live at 14:46 UTC on Nov. 4.
According to the xrpld 3.4.0 release notes, the patch fixes a bug that could, under certain conditions, allow an account that is only permitted to burn issuer tokens to create new tokens. It also fixes how lending code determines when a loan is overdue or in default.
Token unlocks on Nov. 4
- Momentum (MMT) will unlock about 252 million tokens at 8:00 a.m. Beijing time on Nov. 4, equal to roughly 294.38% of circulating supply and worth about $32.3 million.
Nov. 5
Zcash NU7 upgrade expected on mainnet
According to the latest information from Zcash and GitHub, the NU7 network upgrade has completed key deployment preparations and is expected to activate around Nov. 5 at mainnet block height 3,543,405. A proposal submitted by Zcash developer Sean Bowe to set the mainnet activation height for NU7 was formally merged into the ZIP specification on Oct. 21. The Zcash Foundation released Zebra 7.0.0 stable with NU7 support on Oct. 22, and Zakura released version 1.7.0 with upgrade support the same day. NU7 was activated on testnet in early October.
Forma mainnet expected to shut down
Forma, built on Astria and Celestia, said its mainnet will shut down at block height 34,567,890, expected around Nov. 5. Users have about two weeks to withdraw funds before the chain stops. After shutdown, the team will take a snapshot and migrate remaining TIA to Eden. Both chains are EVM-compatible, so users can use the same wallet address. Modularium will migrate to Ethereum. NFTs will need to be claimed manually through a relaunched website and will not be airdropped automatically. A separate announcement will follow after the migration is complete.
Slop Cash to launch on Umia
On-chain venture protocol Umia said Slop Cash, a funding and incentive platform for open-source software with token ticker SLOP, will launch on Umia on Nov. 5 as the first project on Robinhood Chain. Slop Cash’s co-founder and CTO is Shaw, the founder of ai16z.
Its pre-bidding phase will begin at 1:00 Beijing time on Nov. 6. Formal bidding will begin at 1:00 Beijing time on Nov. 8. The auction will end at 1:00 Beijing time on Nov. 11, with bids denominated in USDG.
Token unlocks on Nov. 5
- Ethena (ENA) will unlock about 93.75 million tokens on Nov. 5, worth about $17.7 million.
Nov. 6
U.S. October payrolls due at 21:30 Beijing time
The U.S. October nonfarm payrolls report will be released on Nov. 6 at 21:30 Beijing time, with the unemployment rate due the same day. The source notes that payroll growth in September was only 29,000, while the market expects 65,000 for October. It describes the report as the most important global data release of the week.
The source also says the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield closed the week at 4.9%, and White House adviser Hassett said that if inflation remains elevated, the case for another rate hike would be strong. A stronger-than-expected reading would reinforce rate-hike expectations, with the dollar, Treasuries, and gold moving together, while U.S. equities shift between competing narratives.
Monochrome Exchange lists MCR
Multi-asset trading platform Monochrome Exchange said it has listed its platform token MCR and opened MCR/USDT spot trading. The company said MCR can be used to reduce trading fees, participate in Launchpad offerings, and join a planned digital IPO product. It also said the token is supported by a quarterly buyback-and-burn plan funded by platform profits. During the initial period, MCR can only be traded on the exchange. On-chain withdrawals for all MCR holdings will open on Nov. 6, the same day the IEO lockup ends.
Nov. 7
mETH Protocol to phase out cmETH
mETH Protocol said it will gradually shut down its liquid staking token cmETH to strengthen long-term protocol alignment. cmETH once reached a peak TVL of about $620 million. New minting has already stopped, while existing positions can still be redeemed and bridged across chains. The team said final EigenLayer rewards will be distributed by mid-June 2026, and the claim window for prior campaign rewards will close on Nov. 7, 2026. Any unclaimed rewards will expire at that point. If related AVSs or partners conduct future TGEs that include retroactive rewards, eligible users will still receive them. No action is required for the mETH staking product.
Nov. 8
Token unlocks on Nov. 8
- Avalanche (AVAX) will unlock about 1.67 million tokens at 8:00 a.m. Beijing time on Nov. 8, equal to roughly 0.30% of circulating supply and worth about $14.7 million.
