A dense stream of crypto, regulatory and security developments landed between Nov. 3 and Nov. 4, spanning central bank cooperation, exchange security, derivatives market access and AI-related cyber risk.
Nvidia reportedly asks data center partners to reduce China-linked business
Nvidia has asked its data center partners to reduce business with Chinese customers, according to a report that cited five people familiar with the matter. The report said Nvidia’s cloud-computing customers must sell at least 51% of their services to non-Chinese companies. The new rule applies only to future contracts and does not affect existing agreements.
Nvidia neither confirmed nor denied the report. In a statement, the company said data centers and cloud services built with U.S. chips are foundational for U.S. model and application developers competing globally.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said she was not aware of the matter and added that all parties should provide a fair, transparent and non-discriminatory business environment for companies from all countries, including Chinese firms.
PBOC and Oman central bank sign swap deal and digital currency cooperation memorandum
According to the People’s Bank of China, PBOC Governor Pan Gongsheng and Central Bank of Oman Governor Ahmed Al Musalmi signed a bilateral local-currency swap agreement and a memorandum of understanding on stronger cooperation in digital payments and sovereign digital currency, with the two countries’ heads of state present.
The swap line is set at RMB 30 billion, or 1.5 billion Omani rials, and will remain valid for five years. The two sides also met the same day and exchanged views on bilateral economic and financial cooperation. The PBOC said the agreements are intended to deepen monetary and financial cooperation, improve cross-border digital payment convenience and help maintain financial market stability.
Putin orders Russian private data centers to reserve 10% of capacity
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Monday requiring operators of non-state data centers in Russia to reserve 10% of their capacity to support national IT infrastructure, allowing the government to access that capacity quickly when needed.
The decree instructs Russia’s Ministry of Digital Development to inventory available capacity and floor space across the country’s private data centers. It also creates a dedicated government commission that can order the reserved capacity to be activated, with operators required to provide access within 24 hours of a decision. The decree also allows temporary use of overseas data centers with approval from Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB.
In recent weeks, Russian data centers have been hit multiple times by Ukrainian drone attacks. Facilities belonging to Yandex and Sberbank were struck in October.
Hyperliquid co-founder seeks U.S. market entry through HIP-3 partners
Hyperliquid co-founder Jeff Yan met policymakers in Washington and said entry into the U.S. market should come through HIP-3 partners that comply with U.S. know-your-customer and market rules, rather than through Hyperliquid itself.
Hyperliquid began testing a revised HIP-3 framework with identity verification support in September. Kraken parent Payward said that same month it plans to use the framework to offer Hyperliquid perpetual contracts to U.S. users. ICE has also reached an agreement with Trade.xyz and invested in the company, with plans to bring its perpetual contracts to the U.S. pending regulatory approval.
Hyperliquid generated $713 million in revenue over the past 12 months, and its real-world asset trading volume topped $115 billion in July.
CZ says hacks are preventable and calls for an industry security alliance
Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, or CZ, spoke publicly for the first time about Binance’s roughly $6.3 billion theft in an interview with Talking Tokens host Jacquelyn Melinek. Zhao said, 「All hacks are preventable,」 adding that long periods without incidents can lead companies to relax and that the event carried many lessons.
He said the incident is no longer only a corporate security issue, but also one tied to national security and global financial security, because tokenized stocks, real-world assets and stablecoins have linked crypto more deeply with the traditional financial system.
Zhao said AI is sharply accelerating attack speed. He said the frequency of exchange hacks has risen from about one a month in the past to almost one a week, adding that 「there were four yesterday.」 He said the industry has not yet reached a point where defensive capability arrives before offensive capability, leaving firms to 「fight AI with AI.」
He called for a crypto industry security alliance to share best practices, conduct cross-audits and coordinate quickly on freezing funds, and said he hopes to help make that happen. Zhao also said he has not yet discussed the matter with Donald Trump or officials in Washington, but hopes for help from the U.S. government. He added that the only countries that may be able to talk with North Korea are the U.S. and China.
On markets, Zhao said crypto fell less than tech stocks on the day of the incident, calling that 「almost unheard of.」 He attributed that to Binance’s immediate statement that user funds were safe and that the exchange could fully cover losses.
He said less than 10% of the withdrawn funds moved to other centralized exchanges. With several hardware wallets also attacked recently, some users compared options and redeposited funds to Binance, allowing the exchange to turn net inflow on an hourly basis in less than 24 hours.
Zhao said that over the medium to long term, AI will make crypto and software systems safer and may even find blockchain software vulnerabilities before quantum computing can break cryptography. He also said AI will push trading speeds far beyond current levels, and that blockchain is the only financial technology capable of supporting that speed. He urged retail users to learn more about asset-protection tools and follow security developments closely.
South Korea weighs raising exchange cold-wallet custody ratio
Industry sources said South Korea’s Financial Services Commission held an emergency security inspection meeting on Nov. 2 with major crypto exchanges and custodians. Using the Binance theft as a trigger, officials discussed raising the cold-wallet custody ratio for exchanges from the current legal minimum of more than 80% under the Virtual Asset User Protection Act to around 99%, a level already maintained by some large exchanges.
Upbit reportedly keeps more than 99% of user assets in cold wallets, while Bithumb is around 94%, Coinone 85%, and GOPAX and some others just above 80%.
Industry participants warned that a higher ratio would reduce hot-wallet balances available for immediate withdrawals, which could delay withdrawals and increase operating burdens for smaller exchanges. In August, Bithumb saw withdrawals of some altcoins delayed by about 13 hours because of insufficient hot-wallet balances. The proposal remains under discussion and has not been finalized.
Anthropic filing shows monthly employee cost above $100,000 per worker
An amended S-1 filed by Anthropic ahead of its IPO this month showed personnel expenses of more than $1.7 billion in the third quarter. With 5,300 employees, that worked out to more than $322,000 per employee over three months, or more than $100,000 a month. Stock-based compensation accounted for $1.1 billion of the total.
For the first nine months of 2026, personnel expenses reached $4.8 billion, equal to 15% of total revenue. As of the end of September, Anthropic still had more than $32 billion in unrecognized stock-based compensation expense, and personnel costs are expected to rise after listing. The company’s annual revenue per employee was $6.6 million, versus about $3.2 million at Meta and $2.5 million at Google.
CFTC says U.S.-listed single-stock perpetuals can begin trading
CFTC Chair Michael S. Selig said in a statement that equity perpetual futures contracts can now begin trading for the first time on CFTC-registered exchanges in the United States.
To list the product, a venue must also be registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission by notice as a national securities exchange and be a designated contract market that can trade security futures products. Selig said the move gives U.S. investors access to perpetual contracts within the CFTC regulatory framework instead of pushing them to offshore platforms. He said the product is grounded in the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 and a memorandum of understanding between the CFTC and SEC.
Binance says attackers used a tampered Homebrew package and internal AI tools
In a preliminary investigation report, Binance said its Oct. 29 security incident involved about $6.34 billion in digital assets, with roughly $2.85 billion frozen or intercepted so far. Binance said it will absorb the losses itself and had replenished 98% of affected token balances by Oct. 31.
The exchange said attackers used fake job interviews, a tampered Homebrew installation package and internal AI tools to gradually compromise multiple employee devices and obtain access to an internal wallet-signing service. They then used Ethereum’s EIP-7702 authorization mechanism to move XRP, SOL, BTC, ETH and other assets out of hot wallets. The FBI said North Korea was responsible for the incident.
Binance said it has rebuilt the affected systems and will hire an independent third party to conduct a review.
Mercado Bitcoin says $12.9 million in stolen assets has been frozen
Brazilian crypto exchange Mercado Bitcoin said in its latest update that the affected assets are currently worth about $36.3 million and that $12.9 million has been frozen so far, with related work still ongoing. The platform and app remain suspended until security is confirmed restored. The company said customer assets remain protected and balances are still recorded in user accounts. It had previously said $11 million in related assets had been frozen.
ARK analyst says hacks have cost crypto about 24 basis points of market cap a year since 2018
ARK Invest crypto analyst Lorenzo Valente wrote on X that hacking is an 「invisible tax」 on transacting and storing value in crypto. He compared it to shoplifting, saying the cost is ultimately priced in and borne by users, and that every hack weakens the competitiveness of crypto networks.
Citing DefiLlama data, Valente said the crypto market has lost about 24 basis points of market capitalization per year on average to hacks since 2018, compared with about 1.7 basis points of deposits lost to fraud in the U.S. banking system, a gap of roughly 14 times.
GitBook hit by AI-agent attack and urges users to rotate keys
GitBook, a documentation platform widely used by crypto projects, said attackers used AI agents in a highly targeted attack and obtained some infrastructure credentials at 2:00 a.m. Beijing time on Nov. 3. Exposed data may include integration tokens, Git Sync keys, API tokens and questions submitted by website visitors to GitBook Assistant.
GitBook said it has found no evidence that customer content was altered. It revoked all personal API tokens and rotated all credentials, and related services were restored at 11:21 p.m. Beijing time on Nov. 3. The company advised users to rotate GitBook and third-party API tokens and keys and to re-authenticate GitBook MCP servers. PancakeSwap had earlier taken down documentation hosted on GitBook because of the incident.
Robinhood Chain tops $100 billion in Uniswap volume
Uniswap said on X that Robinhood Chain has become the fastest chain on Uniswap to reach $100 billion in trading volume.
DefiLlama data showed cumulative volume across Uniswap V2, V3 and V4 on Robinhood Chain at about $98.5 billion, excluding wash trading under that methodology. Total DEX volume across Robinhood Chain stood at about $126.4 billion, with roughly $612 million traded over the past 24 hours.
SEC corporate finance staff says Canton Coin is a digital commodity
The SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance issued a no-action letter saying it views Canton Coin, or CC, the native token of Canton Network, as a 「digital commodity」 and would not recommend enforcement action against the programmatic issuance of CC if certain conditions are met.
The division said CC is closely tied to the programmatic operation of the Canton network, that its value comes from network operation and supply-demand dynamics rather than an expectation of profit from the essential managerial efforts of others, and that the network has no centralized controlling party. Canton Network later cited the no-action letter in a post on X.
AMD posts $13.4 billion in third-quarter revenue
AMD reported third-quarter revenue of $13.4 billion, up 45% year over year and 16% from the prior quarter, above market expectations. GAAP net income was $2.4 billion, up 95%, while non-GAAP earnings per share came in at $2.09, up 74%.
By segment, data center revenue hit a record $8.5 billion, up 97% year over year. Client and gaming revenue was $3.7 billion, down 8%, while embedded revenue was $1.1 billion, up 29%. AMD said it expects fourth-quarter revenue of about $17 billion, plus or minus 3%, and a non-GAAP gross margin of about 55%.
Coinbase adds Collector Crypt (CARD) to listing roadmap
Coinbase Assets said on X that it has added CARD, the token of Solana-based physical card trading platform Collector Crypt, to its listing roadmap. The Solana contract address is CARDSccUMFKoPRZxt5vt3ksUbxEFEcnZ3H2pd3dKxYjp.
Coinbase said trading will depend on market-making support and technical infrastructure being in place, and that it will announce a launch date separately once those conditions are met.
Block may pay about $964 million to resolve DOJ AML probe
In a regulatory filing submitted Tuesday, Jack Dorsey’s payments company Block said it reached an agreement in principle with the U.S. Department of Justice in October over an investigation into its anti-money-laundering compliance. Under the proposed deferred prosecution agreement, the DOJ would defer for three years charges that Block failed to maintain an effective AML program and violated the Bank Secrecy Act.
The agreement still requires court approval. Block said the total amount is expected to be about $964 million, with a net payment of about $764 million. The company had previously recorded a $526 million reserve at the end of June and raised that reserve to $764 million by the end of September.
Block reports $3.24 billion in gross profit for the third quarter
According to Block’s third-quarter shareholder letter filed with the SEC, gross profit reached $3.24 billion, up 22% year over year. Cash App generated $2.07 billion in gross profit, up 27%, while Square contributed $1.16 billion, up 14%.
Bitcoin-related revenue was $1.8 billion, with gross profit of $52 million, down 50% year over year. Block said that was mainly due to lower bitcoin trading fees on parts of Cash App. Adjusted operating income rose 92% to $923 million. Block raised its full-year 2026 gross profit guidance to $12.63 billion, up 22%. According to The Motley Fool, Block shares rose about 8% in after-hours trading at one point.
Clanker names Toady Hawk as CEO and plans a relaunch
Token issuance platform Clanker has appointed Toady Hawk as its new CEO. In a post on X, Hawk said Clanker was born on Farcaster about two years ago, where users could issue a token simply by posting and tagging @clanker_world. It later expanded to X and at one point became one of the highest-volume token launch platforms on Base, incubating tokens including BNKR, DRB and FAIR.
He said Clanker has recently gone through founder disputes, a sale to Farcaster and a handoff to Neynar, and is now under the control of Mask Network.
Hawk said Clanker will work with its engineering team on a relaunch. Priorities include updating the brand while keeping its distinct style, bringing features in line with modern token launch platforms such as stock trading pairs and support for new chains, rebuilding trust with developers and traders, and supporting the existing community. More details on the relaunch and feature updates will be announced later.
Bhutan grants central bank powers to Gelephu financial office
The King of Bhutan has granted the Gelephu Financial Services Office central bank functions, including the power to invest in digital assets and cryptocurrencies and a path to issue its own currency.
Shopify and Coinbase build stablecoin payments protocol on Base
Shopify and Coinbase said they are jointly developing the Commerce Payments Protocol for stablecoin payments on Base. The protocol is designed to simplify how Shopify Payments merchants accept stablecoins such as USDC, allowing customers to pay from supported wallets without needing ETH for gas, while merchants can choose to receive local currency or USDC.
Ethereum’s leanVM completes end-to-end formal verification
Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake said on Nov. 3 that leanVM has completed end-to-end formal verification. leanVM is a minimalist zkVM designed to efficiently aggregate hash-based post-quantum signatures, packaging multiple signatures into compact proofs. In performance terms, leanVM can process more than 1,000 leanXMSS aggregations per second. leanXMSS is the hash-based signature scheme planned to replace BLS at the consensus layer.
At Devcon 8, Drake moved Ethereum’s target date for a full transition to post-quantum security to December 2028 to leave room for the network forks required for the shift. The plan depends on three open-source projects: leanVM, leanXMSS and leanSpec. The Ethereum Foundation is developing open-source implementations and advancing formal verification while encouraging innovation through incentives such as the Poseidon Prize. The report noted that leanVM’s formal verification shows the code matches the specification, but December 2028 remains a target rather than a commitment.
Vitalik Buterin warns about AI security and social media manipulation
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said at Devcon 8 that AI is creating new threats to security and privacy while also helping identify vulnerabilities. He questioned the security of hardware wallets and warned against making crypto investment decisions based on social media posts filled with bots and manipulated content.
Buterin called for decentralized, verifiable technologies and zero-knowledge proofs to protect personal data, and said companies should avoid collecting unnecessary information.
Kim Yo Jong issues second statement on Binance hack
Kim Yo Jong, a department director of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, issued a second statement on the Binance hacking incident, saying North Korea is willing to engage in dialogue, though that may not align with national interests. Kim is the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. She had previously criticized the United States for blaming North Korea for the $6.3 billion Binance exploit.
Morgan Stanley among first banks to use DTCC tokenization service
Morgan Stanley said it is among the first banks to tokenize real-world assets after the launch of DTCC Tokenization Services, or DTS, converting U.S. equities and U.S. Treasuries into tokenized form. DTS launched on Oct. 28 and can create tokenized representations backed by securities held at DTC to improve liquidity, collateral mobility and capital efficiency.
Binance says theft began with fake recruitment, echoing the 2022 Axie case
Binance’s preliminary report on the Oct. 29 incident said the roughly $6.3 billion theft began with a fake recruitment process. In September, a Binance software engineer was contacted on a legitimate job platform by someone posing as a 「project director.」 After a fake HR video interview and a second fake interview with a supposed 「CEO,」 the engineer was asked to download an 「assignment」 code repository onto a work computer. Binance said a zero-day trojan in that repository bypassed endpoint protection.
Attackers then used the compromised device and internal AI tools to take control of the computers of two other wallet engineers, steal deployment credentials and run a malicious script on Oct. 29 to move funds. Binance said it has frozen or intercepted about $2.85 billion and replenished 98% of affected assets.
The method closely resembled the March 2022 theft from the Ronin bridge tied to Axie Infinity. In that case, the North Korea-linked Lazarus group approached a senior Sky Mavis engineer on LinkedIn with a high-paying job, sent a trojanized offer file after multiple interview rounds, gained control of validator private keys and stole about $625 million.
Binance also said it has detected and blocked 57 suspected North Korea-linked cyberattacks this year, including fake interviews, malware disguised as developer tools, tampered software packages and browser extensions.
Apple bars employees from using inside information in prediction markets
Apple has filed its annual report with the SEC and updated its insider trading policy to separately prohibit prediction market trading. The company said employees may not use confidential Apple information obtained through work to bet or trade on prediction market platforms such as Polymarket, even if the conduct would not qualify as insider trading or securities trading under applicable law.
The new rule says employees may not use confidential information obtained during work to participate in markets tied to future event outcomes involving Apple itself or other companies, suppliers, manufacturers, sellers, customers and business partners. Apple also barred employees from sharing such confidential information with people who may engage in those trades.
The change comes as prediction markets such as Polymarket and Kalshi have expanded in recent years, with some markets covering unreleased Apple product launch dates, specifications and pricing.
Early U.S. midterm results weigh on Asian tech stocks
Asian technology stocks broadly fell in early Wednesday trading. Preliminary U.S. midterm election results showed Democrats performing strongly, reinforcing market bets on a broad Democratic victory. Investors worried that outcome could slow AI investment flows into Asia’s technology-heavy markets.
Pepperstone head of research Chris Weston said, 「The scale of a Democratic victory, or a surprise Republican win in the Senate, could trigger large-scale position adjustments.」 U.S. futures linked to the Nasdaq fell further, down about 1.5% on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. South Korea’s KOSPI gave up early gains, with weakness in chip stocks dragging on the broader market.
As of around 8 p.m. Eastern Time on Nov. 3, early results from the 2026 U.S. midterm elections were still coming in. About 10 Senate races had been called, with Democrats holding 43 seats and Republicans 32, a net gain of one seat for Democrats. In the House, about 64 races had been called, with Democrats at 45 seats and Republicans at 19.
AI watch: Google, Anthropic and OpenAI updates
PANews AI Watch highlighted three AI developments from the past 24 hours.
- Google said AI tools in K-12 campus software will be turned off by default starting in early 2027, and schools will need to opt in to enable them. If a district bans AI entirely, students will also lose access to Google Search. Google for Education Vice President Chris Phillips said, 「Search and AI are deeply integrated.」
- Anthropic open-sourced FlashProve, a hash-based zkSNARK system that can prove a given output was generated by a specified model without exposing model weights. It has been tested on the 400.7 billion-parameter Llama 4 Maverick, delivering about 110 tokens per second on a single H100 and generating a proof of about 19 MB per 1,024 tokens.
- OpenAI raised bug bounty payouts. The cap for critical vulnerabilities affecting ChatGPT, Codex and API Platform was increased to $30,000, while especially severe issues can reach as much as $172,000 after adding bonuses for report quality, loyalty and priority testing of new features. Median payouts for medium- and high-severity bugs were increased by more than four times on average.
