Author: James Wilson

Ripple Swell has drawn reports of a planned appearance by U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, as the company has announced a Robinhood partnership covering RLUSD, institutional financing, and treasury management. Summary A social-media post says Bessent has joined the Swell speaker lineup. Ripple says RLUSD is live on Robinhood Chain and Bitstamp by Robinhood. The company has announced final OCC approval for Ripple National Trust Bank. Robinhood’s planned integrations cover corporate cash management and institutional lending. Ripple’s October 27 announcement describes an agreement spanning both Robinhood’s customer services and its internal financial operations. Separately, a social-media post reproduced by KuCoin…

Anthropic’s IPO filing has brought renewed attention to FTX’s $1.3 billion sale of its investment in the AI company, as an undiluted calculation puts the former stake above $100 billion. Summary Anthropic has filed for a Nasdaq listing, with its offering price and share count still undetermined. Applying FTX’s former 7.84% stake to a hypothetical $1.5 trillion valuation produces $117.6 billion before subsequent dilution. Buyers of the estate’s shares included an Abu Dhabi investment company, Jane Street, Fidelity-managed funds and G Squared. Customer repayments follow allowed bankruptcy claims, with values tied to FTX’s November 2022 collapse. Anthropic announced on Oct.…

Bitcoin whales on Hyperliquid have turned net short for the first time since March, according to Glassnode, reversing their earlier bullish positioning as BTC trades near $80,000. Summary Glassnode says Hyperliquid whales moved from net long to net short last week. The analytics firm has raised both a deeper pullback and a short squeeze as possibilities. Hyperliquid pays funding hourly, with positive rates requiring longs to pay shorts. Earlier Glassnode research placed major liquidation clusters near $85,000 and $87,000. Glassnode said in an Oct. 27 post that the large traders it tracks on Hyperliquid had previously taken long positions near…

Lightning Labs has opened Wavelength to everyone on the Bitcoin mainnet, giving AI agents a way to send and receive payments while setting an initial account limit of 300,000 satoshis. Summary Wavelength’s public mainnet rollout follows a July alpha release that required invitations for mainnet access. AI agents can buy API access through L402 and operate wallets using MCP tools. Lightning payments carry a 0.25% service fee for sending and receiving, plus routing charges. Stablecoin support remains planned, while the wallet uses swaps to connect its balances with Lightning. Lightning Labs announced the public rollout on Oct. 23, allowing developers…

At least 19 wallets linked to prediction market platform Predict.fun have reportedly been drained of approximately 105 ETH, worth $260,000, with investigators tracing the suspected stolen funds through Ethereum to cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash. Summary At least 19 wallets linked to Predict.fun have reportedly been drained of approximately 105 ETH worth $260,000, according to findings shared by on-chain investigator Naeven. The suspected incident first surfaced after a user reported losing roughly $5,000 and raised concerns that other Predict.fun users were experiencing similar unauthorized withdrawals. Investigators traced the suspected stolen funds through multiple intermediary wallets and Ethereum before they were reportedly…

Ripple has expanded its partnership with BNY to support institutional custody of XRP and RLUSD while advancing tokenized trade finance on the XRP Ledger through a separate collaboration with working-capital platform C2FO. Summary BNY now supports XRP and RLUSD through its institutional digital asset custody platform. Ripple and BNY are exploring direct RLUSD minting, redemption and tokenized trade finance. C2FO plans to use XRPL and RLUSD to settle financing against approved invoices. The proposed settlement service targets delays that can leave suppliers waiting days for funds. According to an October 27 announcement, BNY now supports both digital assets through its…

Binance has applied for a cryptocurrency service provider license in Brazil as the country’s October 30 regulatory deadline approaches, while preparing to expand its financial services business beyond digital asset trading. Summary Binance has applied for a cryptocurrency service provider license with Brazil’s central bank ahead of the October 30 deadline for existing exchanges to seek regulatory approval. The exchange has divided its Brazilian operations between two entities, with BBrasil handling cryptocurrency services and Binance Brasil managing fiat balances, payments and traditional financial products. Binance plans to expand its financial services in Brazil with bill payments, international transfers and foreign…

Ethereum developers have merged a fix for a deposit-handling flaw in the upcoming Glamsterdam upgrade that could have allowed a block builder to receive ETH intended for a new validator, following an initial decision to reject the proposed change. Summary Ethereum merged a Glamsterdam deposit-handling fix on October 26. The flaw could have credited staking deposits to builders sharing the same public key. Developers initially rejected the correction before approving additional tests. A separate contract-compatibility investigation has delayed Glamsterdam’s Hoodi activation. According to Ethereum’s consensus specifications, maintainer Justin Traglia merged the correction on October 26 after developer avsetsin identified a…

Hong Kong Gold Exchange (HKGX) has announced plans to integrate Chainlink’s cross-chain technology for its gold-backed XGZ token, allowing the digital asset to move between different blockchain networks. Summary Hong Kong Gold Exchange is integrating Chainlink CCIP through GoldZip and Midas Labs to allow its gold backed XGZ token to move across supported blockchain networks. Currently issued on Ethereum, XGZ represents one gram of 99.99% fine gold per token, with physical redemption available to eligible holders in quantities starting at one kilogram. GoldZip was previously named among the integration partners for Chainlink CCIP 2.0, which introduced infrastructure designed to support…

South Korea has begun considering a new education tax on cryptocurrency exchanges that could leave major operators such as Upbit and Bithumb paying billions of won annually if they are reclassified as financial businesses under the proposed Digital Asset Basic Act. Summary South Korea is considering imposing an education tax on cryptocurrency exchanges if they are classified as financial businesses under the proposed Digital Asset Basic Act. Government officials recently discussed the proposal with domestic crypto exchange executives, although no final decision has been made on the new tax obligations. Financial institutions currently pay an education tax of 0.5% on…