Vitalik Buterin says he is testing a privacy AI architecture
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said he has been testing a privacy-first AI architecture that uses personal health and travel data to produce diet and exercise suggestions, while trying not to expose that data to remote large language models.
The arrangement uses the local model Qwen 3.8 Flash Next as the coordinator and is built in three layers meant to limit identity exposure. The local model rewrites queries to mask personal details and writing style. zkAPI hides payment links. Tor hides network and IP information.
Buterin said the system already works. But he also said Tor latency is still around 10x to 100x higher, the local model runs at about 20 to 30 TPS, and tighter privacy protections leave the remote model with less information to work with.
Hong Kong woman loses about HK$21.5 million in fake crypto investment scheme
Hong Kong police said on Oct. 3 that they got a report from a 60-year-old woman who said she had been cheated in a fake cryptocurrency investment scheme.
The victim had earlier met someone online who presented himself as an "investment expert" and was later convinced to invest in crypto through a fraudulent investment website. The platform then told her to pay a "deposit," claiming she had to prove the investment account had not been used for money laundering.
From April 14 to Sept. 22, she sent money multiple times to designated investment accounts and lost about HK$21.5 million, or about $2.74 million. She later began to suspect fraud and contacted police.
Police first classified the case as obtaining property by deception. The Sau Mau Ping district crime squad is investigating, and no arrests had been made at the time of the report.
Philippine court freezes 25 virtual asset wallets in corruption probe
The Philippines' Anti-Money Laundering Council, or AMLC, said the Court of Appeals had frozen 25 virtual asset wallets tied to a member of Congress and related individuals and entities. The order also covers 86 bank accounts, four investment accounts, and one insurance policy.
The assets are connected to an investigation into alleged corruption and embezzlement involving flood-control projects. According to the AMLC, the funds under investigation were moved through virtual asset service providers and multiple virtual asset wallets, then sent through several recipients and different financial channels to make tracing harder.
The AMLC did not name the lawmaker or the related entities. It said the freeze order is a preservation measure at the investigation stage and does not mean the people involved have been convicted.
Japan adds Garantex to new Russia sanctions list
Japan's government said on Oct. 2 that it had rolled out a new round of sanctions on Russia, adding 33 entities and nine individuals to a list subject to asset freezes and other restrictions. Russian crypto exchange Garantex was included.
Japan also imposed service and financing restrictions on 35 vessels in Russia's so-called shadow fleet. Garantex had already been sanctioned by the United States, the European Union, and other jurisdictions over allegations that it helped Russian-related entities evade financial sanctions.
DWF Labs partner comments on Trump's proposed $5,000 payment plan
DWF Labs managing partner Andrei Grachev said that if Republicans keep control of Congress in the U.S. midterm elections and Donald Trump's proposal to send $5,000 to every American adult is actually carried out, the scale could reach about 150% of the large fiscal stimulus seen during the pandemic period.
Grachev said some of that money could end up in crypto markets and fuel a bull market similar to 2021. But he also said it could lead to a more severe economic crisis afterward.
Trump has previously made the $5,000 "Trump Dividend" pledge, but it is still a political promise and has not been approved by Congress.
Weekly project updates from Sept. 27 to Oct. 3
Utexo plans to issue USDT on Bitcoin this month
Utexo, backed by Tether, plans to issue USDT on the Bitcoin network this month. Co-founder Viktor Ihnatiuk said the company has secured a commercial license to issue USDT on Bitcoin and plans to offer APIs, SDKs, and cloud infrastructure for exchanges, wallets, and payment service providers.
Utexo will use the RGB protocol and Bitcoin's UTXO model, with most transaction data kept off-chain. It is targeting three use cases: private USDT transfers, direct swaps between native BTC and USDT, and lending backed by native BTC without wrapping BTC onto another blockchain.
USDT was first issued on Bitcoin in 2014 through the Omni protocol. Later, Ethereum and Tron became its main circulation networks. Utexo also plans to expand to the Lightning Network after USDT goes live on Bitcoin.
Ethereum Foundation and Open Anonymity launch zkAPI
The Ethereum Foundation and the Open Anonymity Project have launched zkAPI on Ethereum mainnet, using zero-knowledge proofs to separate API usage from payment identity.
Users can first deposit ETH, USDC, and other balances into an on-chain vault, then approve one-time or session-based API usage through zero-knowledge proofs. Service providers can verify that payment is valid without learning the exact source of the deposit or the payer's identity, while the payment layer cannot see the request content.
zkAPI supports short-lived, capped API keys for compatible interfaces such as OpenAI and Ollama, with settlement based on actual usage. Funds are held in smart contracts, and users can exit and withdraw on-chain. Right now the system is aimed mainly at AI inference. But it can also extend to RPC, image generation, VPN services, and machine-to-machine services. It does not hide IP addresses, request timing, or identity links created by the prompt content itself.
TRUMP token holders dinner set for Nov. 22
Fight Fight Fight, the promoter of the TRUMP meme coin, plans to host a token holders dinner on Nov. 22 at Trump National Golf Club. The top 185 TRUMP holders will qualify to attend, and Trump is listed as a guest.
Trump has attended similar events for TRUMP holders before. The token has dropped about 95% from its post-launch peak, though its price rose about 9% at one point on the day the event was announced.
At the same time, Democratic lawmakers are watching Trump and his family's crypto businesses and have said they may investigate those commercial activities if they control either chamber of Congress after the November midterm elections. The White House has previously said Trump does not participate in the day-to-day management of family businesses and has denied that his crypto activities create a conflict of interest.
Aave Labs files ARFC proposal to set up Aave Foundation
Aave Labs has submitted an ARFC proposal to create a memberless Aave Foundation in the Cayman Islands to hold, protect, and license Aave trademarks, key domain names, protocol code, and related intellectual property.
This first phase covers only registration of the foundation and the appointment of independent directors, a supervisor, and a secretary. The DAO would pay reasonable registration, legal, and setup costs, with no ongoing budget. Aave Labs and DAO service providers would not be allowed to appoint or serve as directors or supervisor. Governance powers over listings, parameter changes, budgets, and service-provider selection would stay with the DAO.
Any later transfer of trademarks, domains, and code IP would be submitted separately for governance review. The foundation would disclose its holdings, operating expenses, and related legal actions every quarter.
Base rolls out its third mainnet upgrade, Cobalt
Base said its third mainnet upgrade, Cobalt, is now live, adding Validity Transactions and several B20 asset features.
Validity Transactions let users submit time-limited transactions ahead of time so they execute only when preset conditions are met. The B20 standard now includes Composite Policies, combining rules such as KYC whitelists and sanctions blacklists with AND or OR logic. Schedule Multiplier Updates allow scheduled changes to how asset balances are displayed, such as stock splits. And a new seizeWithMemo function lets authorized administrators reassign holder balances when an asset seizure mechanism is enabled, while recording the source, destination, amount, and memo on-chain.
Base said it also plans in the coming months to cut block times from 2 seconds to 200 milliseconds and add native protocol-level support for smart accounts, gas sponsorship, and transaction batching.
OP Enterprise begins managed operations support for Soneium
OP Enterprise now supports Soneium's on-chain operations. Under a fully managed model, the Optimism Foundation and OP Labs will handle deployment, upgrades, sequencers, node infrastructure, daily monitoring, and incident response, with a service-level target of 99.9% monthly uptime and 24/7 emergency response.
Soneium will keep ownership of its blockchain, control of its roadmap, and engineering participation. The team said it will continue working on tokenized intellectual property and on-chain entertainment applications, including on-chain royalty distribution and AI-focused IP tools. Soneium was already running on the OP Stack. This arrangement covers only OP Enterprise's managed operations support. No interoperability or cross-chain functions.
Stable integrates with Visa Direct
Stable said it has integrated with Visa Direct, linking its stablecoin settlement infrastructure to Visa's global money movement network and enabling real-time payouts to bank accounts and mobile wallets.
The integration gives Stable an off-ramp from stablecoin settlement into traditional payment rails for cross-border payments, connecting on-chain settlement to bank accounts and mobile wallets.
Balancer community approves an orderly shutdown
The Balancer community has passed BIP-928, approving an orderly shutdown of the protocol, while the fork proposal BIP-929 failed to pass.
Existing pools will keep operating through Oct. 30, and withdrawals will remain available during that period. Oct. 16 is the deadline for partners to apply for designated V3 pools to keep running until Nov. 30. Starting Oct. 30, pools will become withdrawal-only where contracts allow, the bug bounty program will end, and the V3 Vault will pause on Nov. 30.
BAL holders do not need to do anything now. Starting from late May 2027, they are expected to be able to burn BAL and claim treasury assets on a pro rata basis. tetuBAL holders will receive BAL equal to 50% of their locked assets.
Blast says it will cease operations
Ethereum Layer 2 network Blast said it will stop operating, saying the ongoing cost of maintaining the network now exceeds the revenue generated by the L2 and that it does not see a credible path to economic sustainability.
Blast asked users to move assets back to Ethereum mainnet and said it plans to shorten the withdrawal waiting period to 24 hours. Users can keep withdrawing through the normal interface until Oct. 26. After that, assets can still be recovered through the Blast Bridge contract on Ethereum L1.
Blast launched in November 2023 and raised $20 million at launch from investors including Paradigm and Standard Crypto.
Porsche ends its Web3 project and PIONΞERS CIRCLE community
Porsche said it is shutting down the Porsche Web3 project and the PIONΞERS CIRCLE community. PORSCHΞ 911 NFTs will stay with holders and continue to exist on-chain. The PIONΞERS Discord server will become a read-only archive preserving community history and content, and the @eth_porsche account on X will no longer get ongoing updates.