Meta gives Zuckerberg non-voting shares to fund AI race, keep control
Meta has discovered a way for Mark Zuckerberg to sell a portion of his ownership while maintaining significant control over the firm. The creation of a new class of share with no voting rights may also support the company’s increasing AI initiatives. According to reports from Reuters on October 22, the deal comes in the wake of Zuckerberg’s concerns regarding a forthcoming tax on wealthy residents of California. As for investors, it brings to the surface the age-old dilemma of how much authority founders must keep hold of as their companies expand. Non-voting shares, same votes According to Meta’s SEC filing, shareholders will receive one non-voting Class C share for every Class A or Class B share they own. The arrangement effectively doubles their shares without changing their voting power. The new stock structure is set to take effect on January 19, 2027. Zuckerberg can immediately sell 20% of his Class C shares, worth roughly 10% of his economic stake. Restrictions on the rest ease over eight years if he continues serving Meta. He also agreed to remain a resident of California, or wherever Meta is headquartered, subject to exceptions. The independent committee explained why it supported the arrangement: “critically important to keep Mr. Zuckerberg in a leadership position with our Company” The tax bill behind the deal California’s Proposition 40 proposes a one-time 5% wealth tax on qualifying billionaires who lived in the state on January 1, 2026. Voters will decide on November 3. Most proceeds would fund public health care. Zuckerberg had considered leaving California over concerns that the tax could force him to sell voting shares. As of October 1, he had ownership of 60.6% of Meta’s voting rights, while his stake in the company’s financial assets was only 13.4%. Class C share sales would provide him with funds while retaining ownership of the voting stake. The proposed tax hasn’t been passed yet as a law. Financing an AI buildout It is projected that Meta will require hundreds of billions of dollars in financing in the coming years. Class C shares would give the company another way to raise money, make acquisitions, and pay employees without losing voting power. Meta’s most recent quarterly earnings reveal its vast expenditure. The company made $64.60 billion in revenue and earned a net income of $9.86 billion. The company spent $34.91 billion on capital expenditures, while free cash flow came in at negative $2.12 billion. Overall, the company expects its yearly capital expenditures to be between $135 billion and $145 billion. Meta is part of a larger race for overall AI expenditure. As Cryptopolitan reported, total capex among five top US cloud players has increased from $485 billion in January to around $730 billion in July. The biggest challenge lies in generating enough revenue to justify such spending. Bain estimates that the AI business sector will have to generate $6 trillion in annual revenue by 2031 in order to support the construction. This is a revenue target, rather than a construction cost estimate. Meta AI Spending Hits $135–145B as Zuckerberg Retains 60.6% Voting Control Where the discount risk sits Meta acknowledges that Class C shares could trade below voting Class A shares. If that happens, raising the same amount of money could require issuing more stock, diluting existing shareholders’ economic interests. The concern goes beyond Meta. A Columbia Law analysis cites Lucian Bebchuk and Kobi Kastiel, who warned in their research: “the potential advantages of dual-class structures … tend to recede, and the potential costs tend to rise” An OECD report similarly calls for safeguards around unequal voting rights. Meta is betting that its AI investments will reward shareholders. Whether those returns justify Zuckerberg’s continued control remains an open question. The smartest crypto minds already read our newsletter. Want in? Join them.
PHP2Shell flaws draw millions of attack attempts as AI speeds exploits
October 22, 2026, saw millions of hackers attempt to take advantage of two major vulnerabilities in PHP. Governments and businesses had to take down some online systems while expert teams hurried to put in place emergency patches. This shows how little time have now been given to cybersecurity specialists to counter serious vulnerabilities. Two 9.2-rated bugs that can hand over a server The vulnerabilities, known together as PHP2Shell, are tracked as CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619. Both have a critical severity score of 9.2 out of 10. On October 21, 2026, PHP released four fixes for versions 8.5.12, 8.4.27, 8.3.36 and 8.2.35. The UK’s NCSC says the bugs can corrupt PHP’s internal memory. Under certain conditions, an attacker could run code without logging in. Wiz also showed how sensitive data, including passwords and API keys, could leak from memory. PHP powers 69.3% of websites with an identifiable server-side language, according to W3Techs. That shows how widespread PHP is, not how many sites were compromised. The window between patch and exploit is closing Frontier AI helped researchers piece together exploits for vulnerabilities buried in PHP for years. Cryptopolitan reported that the patches arrived a day ahead of schedule after technical details leaked. Signs of the attack were visible before any attacks were reported. On October 17, 2026, four days before the disclosure, AWS identified the attempt in its MadPot honeypot logs. It is not known whether the attack was successful. AWS security chief CJ Moses warned threats could be created in hours or even minutes after the disclosure by attackers using AI. Thousands of probes became millions in a day Matthew Prince, CEO of Cloudflare, revealed that thousands of attempts were made in the 10 hours leading up to the disclosure on October 21. It did not take more than 45 minutes after that for the attempts to escalate to tens of thousands. In just two hours after that, the attempts crossed the hundreds of thousands mark. And soon after that, there were millions of attempts made. These were attempts, not confirmed breaches. Cloudflare had already deployed firewall protection, but that was no substitute for patching. On October 22, Reuters reported precautionary service suspensions at Nomura, Mitsubishi UFJ, ANA, East Japan Railway and Orange. Government websites also went temporarily offline in Finland, the Netherlands and France. PHP2Shell Attack Timeline: Millions of Exploit Attempts, PHP Patches and AI Spending Finding every copy of PHP is the hard part PHP can hide inside equipment that administrators rarely think to check. The Dutch NCSC’s inventory includes third-party products under review, among them Fortinet offerings. Searchlight Cyber released a scanner to identify vulnerable hosts. It deliberately tests memory exhaustion, so using it requires care. PHP Foundation executive director Elizabeth Barron told WIRED: To our knowledge, there has been no successful attempt at remote code execution. Where the security spend is already heading Gartner’s September 16 forecast puts global AI cybersecurity spending at $51.3 billion in 2026 and nearly $86 billion in 2027. It projects $2.7 trillion for worldwide AI spending in 2026. PHP2Shell was not responsible for that forecasted expenses. Rather, this case is a great illustration of how important it is for firms to be aware of the software they run, to quickly patch vulnerabilities, and to detect threats long before their damaging effect is felt. If you're reading this, you’re already ahead. Stay there with our newsletter.
Musk says Tesla ramps Megapack output as 2027 capacity nears sellout
Tesla’s Megapack batteries are almost sold out till 2027 and Elon Musk says that the manufacturer is working to increase their production. There is an upward trend in demand as utility companies and AI data centers look for more stable energy. “As much as possible” On October 22, 2026, Musk posted on X: We are increasing production of Megapacks as much as possible. He stated that Tesla was nearly running out of its supply for 2027, even before that year had started. He made the remarks a day after Tesla announced its quarterly financial results. The results showed that the firm has set a record for energy-storage orders and backlog, despite a decline in revenue from the division. Megapack allows utilities to deal with fluctuations in electricity demand and supply. It acts as battery storage systems that allow utilities to store extra electricity and deliver it to the grid during times of high demand or insufficient renewable energy supply. According to Cryptopolitan, Tesla signed a deal worth $556 million related to energy storage in Shanghai in June 2025 to help the city manage its electricity supply. Energy revenue slipped even as deployments held Tesla’s energy sector made $2.881 billion in revenue during the third quarter of 2026, a decrease of 16% compared to last year. However, storage deployments increased by 10% to 13.7 GWh. Tesla has begun the production of its Megapacks in Texas, which has a listing annual production capacity of 50 GWh. Its California plant has 40 GWh capacity and its Shanghai plant 20 GWh. Those numbers refer to installed capacity and not batteries produced. Equipment downtime and lack of components can impede production. Tesla also delivered its first Megapacks using lithium iron phosphate cells from its manufacturing facility in Nevada, which will help the company secure its battery supply domestically. Tesla Megapack Q3 2026 Financial Results and Global Factory Capacity What’s driving the orders According to Tesla, storage technology can rapidly provide power to grids. The company coined the term in its October 21 press release as: “critical to data center uptime.” Evidence suggests that the necessity is increasing. International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts that ready-to-use electricity consumed by data centers will rise from 485 TWh in 2025 to 950 TWh in 2030. The IEA has also reported that in 2025, 108 GW of storage batteries installations worldwide, which is a rise of 40%. The number of solar and wind energy plants leads to an increased demand for energy storage. Cheaper than gas, but China leads On October 8, 2026, Wood Mackenzie reported that in the 43 markets that were evaluated, the cost of a four-hour battery was less expensive than that of an open-cycle gas turbine. This fact serves as an incentive for utilities to invest more. However, it should be noted that Tesla is facing tough competition. According to Wood Mackenzie’s research published on June 29, 2026, Chinese companies have captured 76% of global shipments of battery storage systems in 2025. Demand doesn’t guarantee profit Tesla’s overall Q3 revenue was nearly unchanged at $28.046 billion. GAAP net income attributable to common stockholders fell 43% to $787 million. Operating expenses rose 39% to $4.776 billion, while operating income dropped 56% to $718 million. Higher research spending and weaker regulatory-credit revenue weighed on results. The orders are there. Tesla’s challenge is building enough Megapacks to meet them while protecting its margins. The smartest crypto minds already read our newsletter. Want in? Join them.
Underdog taps Zerohash to bring crypto funding to prediction markets
A fresh initiative by Underdog is making it much easier for customers to fund their prediction market accounts even outside banking hours. On October 22, the company announced its collaboration with Zerohash to give qualified customers the ability to deposit stablecoins and other cryptocurrencies. The announcement was made at the NEXTPredict NYC Summit and is expected to be launched before the year comes to an end. Customers will be able to deposit funds into their accounts directly through the Underdog app no matter if it is evening or weekend. “Stablecoins and onchain assets unlock greater choice and speed,” said Underdog payments head Arthik Adla. Zerohash revenue chief Adam Tesan also stressed the ability to move money globally, around the clock. There is already an audience for it. According to IG Group’s October 2026 acquisition presentation, 46% of Underdog customers had traded crypto before. Another 42% said they liked funding Underdog wallets with crypto. Meanwhile, 58% had traded individual stocks. The commercial case for crypto funding IG decided to buy Underdog on July 30, 2026, for a total enterprise value of $1.1 billion, including an earnout of about $200 million. The crossover between sports fans and retail traders is one of the reasons for the deal. From Underdog’s public dashboard, they achieved $7.88 billion in cumulative notional volume in prediction markets and 49.86 million trades until October 21, 2026. In total, the company reported $70.72 million in trades for October 20. These numbers are reported by the company. Where this fits in a crowded market Prediction markets have grown quickly. TRM Labs put monthly volume at roughly $1.2 billion in early 2025 and above $20 billion in January 2026. More than 800,000 unique wallets were active monthly. A snapshot of Artemis data on October 23, 2026 showed that prediction market trading volume totaled around $400 billion in the past year. Sports contracts constituted 42.7% of the recorded volume, whereas crypto contracts accounted for 14.6%. According to Cryptopolitan, Underdog had previously provided sports contracts by making use of Crypto.com’s CFTC-approved derivatives arm. But it launched its own prediction market platform on July 18, 2026. Underdog–Zerohash Crypto Funding: Prediction Market Growth and Key Statistics in 2026 Stablecoin demand and the caveats Smaller transactions in cryptocurrencies are on the rise. According to Chainalysis, transfers of less than $100 into crypto services increased by 78.4% in the period July 2025-June 2026 compared to the previous year. However, the statistics are representative of cryptocurrencies in general rather than stablecoins or deposits in prediction markets. Zerohash has already brought crypto funding to prediction markets. In July 2026, it introduced crypto and stablecoin deposits for ProphetX. Its partnership with Underdog would extend that option to another platform, giving existing crypto holders more opportunities to use their digital assets. There are limitations, however. According to Zerohash’s disclosures, some services may be unavailable in New York. Crypto and stablecoin holdings in its accounts also lack FDIC and SIPC protection. Meanwhile, the regulatory treatment of event contracts continues to evolve. On October 9, 2026, the CFTC proposed explicitly including event contracts within its definition of swaps. Underdog’s funding feature has yet to launch. The partnership could give cryptocurrencies a wider role in funding prediction-market accounts, but there is no evidence yet that it will attract new crypto users, increase token demand, or drive up prices. If you're reading this, you’re already ahead. Stay there with our newsletter.
Attackers target a French crypto worker’s parents in second Landes attack since August
A home invasion occurred in Mont-de-Marsan on Thursday morning. A couple in their 60s were tied up by three masked men who broke into their home and demanded cryptocurrency. The masked men carted away a laptop and phone. This would be the second attack of this nature in France’s Landes region since August. What happened inside the Mont-de-Marsan Residence? Based on reports, the burglars invaded in the early hours of Thursday, around 3 am. The intruders woke the couple from their sleep, tied them up using adhesive tape and plastic zip ties, before forcing them to hand over their crypto. When the intruders were reportedly getting frustrated with their captives, one of them struck the 63-year-old husband on the back of the head using an adjustable wrench. The invaders ended up fleeing with a laptop and a mobile phone. After the invaders departed, the couple phoned the police and were rushed to the hospital for checks by firefighters. Police officers recovered the tools used in the assault, but the three invaders are still at large. Why investigators believe the son was the target Authorities believe the intended target was the son of the couple. They arrived at this conclusion after their investigations revealed the nature of the son’s work. He works in the crypto sector but lives at a separate address. He has been placed under police protection. It is quite unusual for burglars to steal a laptop. However, a laptop or phone can be used to store crypto wallets or private keys, making them quite valuable. The wallet will be worth very little if it is encrypted. This is not the first incident of this kind in the region. A similar incident happened in August, involving a couple in Rion-des-Landes who were kidnapped in their home after their captors demanded access to their bitcoin. Later on, the husband was found naked and injured in Solférino, while his wife was found in a vehicle close by. Two suspects were arrested, and the Bordeaux interregional jurisdiction took charge of the case. France’s wrench attack problem keeps growing Wrench attacks have been on the rise in France lately. Wrench attacks are incidents where criminals make use of physical violence to coerce victims into surrendering their digital assets. The number of crypto-related crimes in the country went up in the first half of 2026, with 77 recorded cases of kidnapping, extortion, or attempted extortion, and about 200 arrests. The Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez made the announcement. Up to 33 of the 52 wrench attacks that have occurred in the first half of the year have happened in France, according to CertiK, a blockchain security firm. CertiK believes the blame lies on the size of France’s crypto sector, public display of wealth, and a run of data leaks that give criminals important information on targets. The tax authority in France fell victim to one of the data leaks sometime this year, and it exposed the records of 678,000 taxpayers, including their names, addresses, and income figures. Prosecutions are mounting, but the pace of the attacks has not eased. France has carried the “crypto kidnapping capital“ label since early in the year. Don’t just read crypto news. Understand it. Subscribe to our newsletter. It's free.
Ireland fines Coinbase again, this time over how it protected customer money
The Central Bank of Ireland has fined Coinbase’s Irish e-money arm €3,252,618 for failing to protect customer money and for leaning too heavily on its US parent to run those controls. This is the second penalty that Ireland has imposed on Coinbase’s European operations in under one year. Five years of safeguarding gaps The regulator stated that the breaches ran from November 1, 2020, to August 19, 2025, and they fall under the Electronic Money Regulations 2011. Coinbase Ireland Limited issues e-money that customers swap for fiat. The customers can then use these funds to trade across the platform. The exchange found itself in hot water as a result of the rules that touch on keeping those funds segregated. The Central Bank listed the problems it had with Coinbase Ireland operations, stating that it lacked an adequate outsourcing framework and depended on the US-based Coinbase Group to run safeguarding controls built for Irish and EU rules. The apex bank also stated that the exchange did not keep enough in-house expertise to supervise that work. It also said that it found that Coinbase Ireland’s designated safeguarding account was underfunded for long stretches because of weak system design and thin control testing. Internal escalation was also insufficient to flag material changes to the Central Bank. Coinbase Ireland admitted to the contraventions and agreed to the facts that the Central Bank levied. The initial penalty that was imposed on it was €4,646,597, but it was later cut by 30% under the settlement scheme, landing at €3.25 million. The penalty also came with a reprimand. However, the sanctions are yet to take effect, as they still need High Court confirmation. What is the regulator saying about the penalty? The settlement itself was reached a day before the announcement. Karen O’Leary, the Central Bank’s Director of Enforcement, said payment and e-money firms have a “fundamental obligation to fully safeguard customers’ funds.” O’Leary said that they have “no tolerance for weaknesses in safeguarding arrangements.” Since the announcement, Coinbase’s share price (NASDAQ: COIN) has dropped by over 3.8%, trading around $170. How did the funds get mixed? According to Coinbase’s own account, five historical issues brought it to the point of being fined, and it says that it has now fixed those issues. It said that during the 2023 US banking stress around Silvergate Bank, it directed 30 customers to deposit into a Coinbase Inc. account at another US bank. It said this action caused the mixing of Irish customer money with funds tied to a different Coinbase entity. A similar mixing happened after a post-Brexit migration, when some customers kept sending money to old UK accounts. Euro withdrawals for US and UK customers of other Coinbase units were also paid out of the Irish safeguarding account for liquidity reasons. The fourth issue was a coding error in the dashboard used to size the daily safeguarding requirement. That left the account short by roughly 0.54% on average across 2023 and the first half of 2024, the company said. The fifth shortcoming was a failure to tell the Central Bank about changes to its safeguarding setup. The exchange said that no customer funds were lost, nor were the customers unable to access their funds. It also stated that it flagged many of the items to the regulator in January 2024. Its spokesperson said the problems “largely arose in the context of Coinbase taking steps to protect customers during periods of significant disruption.” What has Coinbase changed? The company says it has added a €25 million guarantee bond and hired a dedicated head of safeguarding before the Central Bank made the role an industry requirement. It also says that its new safeguarding process has been through two third-party validations since January 2025, with nothing left outstanding. Coinbase has also moved its European headquarters to Luxembourg. This is familiar ground for the regulator. In November 2025, it fined Coinbase Europe €21.5 million over transaction-monitoring gaps that left more than 30 million transactions unchecked for money-laundering risk, a penalty that was called the fourth-largest ever imposed by the Irish financial regulator. Cryptopolitan reported that the settlement was $24.7 million at the time. Don’t just read crypto news. Understand it. Subscribe to our newsletter. It's free.
Fireblocks denies $2.5B Visa talks, but "at this time" leaves a door open
Fireblocks has denied an Axios Pro report stating that Visa is in advanced talks to buy the crypto custody company for roughly $2.5 billion. The company clarified that the news was “not true at present time,” suggesting that a deal could be reached later. Is Fireblocks going to be acquired by Visa? Axios Pro, citing multiple sources, reported that Visa is in advanced talks to buy the crypto custody company Fireblocks. The outlet framed the purchase as what would be Visa’s first acquisition in the crypto space. Mastercard, its larger payments rival, already owns a stablecoin company. A Fireblocks spokesperson cleared up the rumor, saying that the acquisition news is “not true at present time.” Visa’s spokesperson simply said that the company does not “comment on rumors or speculation.” In a separate incident, Fortune reported that Mastercard was in advanced talks to buy Zerohash. The firm responded by flatly saying it was “not entertaining an acquisition by Mastercard.” Zerohash stayed independent, and Mastercard bought BVNK in March for up to $1.8 billion, including $300 million in contingent payments. The deal was closed in August. Visa has expanded its stablecoin business without buying any companies. In August, it teamed with Zerohash to handle stablecoin funding and payouts through Visa Direct, and it later reported that its stablecoin settlement volume had crossed a $20 billion annualized run rate, recording a more than 15-fold increase from the level it was a year earlier. Visa itself had looked at BVNK, according to an early investor in that company, before deciding not to pursue it. Mastercard and BVNK have since launched a joint Global Money Platform. Would Fireblocks be a good buy for Visa? Fireblocks, founded in 2018, provides institutional custody and infrastructure for digital assets. The company was last valued at $8 billion in January 2022, when it raised $550 million in a Series E round. A $2.5 billion price would land well under that figure, but still a deal of that size would be one of the bigger crypto acquisitions on record, just behind Coinbase’s $2.9 billion purchase of derivatives exchange Deribit in 2025 and Naver Financial’s pending $10.3 billion all-stock deal for Upbit parent Dunamu. Notably, in September 2025, Fireblocks launched a stablecoin network that signed up more than 40 participants, including Circle, Bridge, Zerohash, and Yellow Card. The smartest crypto minds already read our newsletter. Want in? Join them.
a16z crypto rebrands as a16z Frontier, 5 months after crypto-only pledge
Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto (a16z crypto) arm has told limited partners it will rename itself a16z Frontier and invest beyond crypto. The move comes five months after the firm called its $2.2 billion fifth fund “100% dedicated to investing in crypto entrepreneurs.” Will a16z invest in AI? When a16z crypto closed Fund 5 in May, a spokesperson for the company clarified that the $2.2 billion fund is “100% dedicated to investing in crypto entrepreneurs.” The company’s communications partner Paul Cafiero also said the money was “100% dedicated to investing in crypto entrepreneurs across all stages.” Now, Andreessen Horowitz crypto arm has announced that it will be changing its name to a16z Frontier to accommodate a broader market. Even before the announcement, a16z crypto was backing companies that aren’t related to the blockchain, including the prediction market Kalshi and Ornn, an AI compute marketplace. a16z crypto is the biggest name in crypto venture capital. It has pulled in close to $10 billion across five funds since launching its first $350 million vehicle in 2018. The company’s fourth fund, which raised $4.5 billion during the 2022 bull market, is still the largest single crypto fund ever recorded. What other crypto companies are pivoting? a16z is not the first large crypto fund to expand into other sectors. Paradigm launched a $1.2 billion fund that invests in AI and robotics. Back in 2023, Paradigm quietly took out the crypto and Web3 language from its homepage, and its co-founder Matt Huang spent weeks insisting the firm had not dropped crypto. Meanwhile, reports of the company reaching into AI, robotics and other frontier technologies kept coming. Haun Ventures, which was run by former a16z crypto general partner Katie Haun, raised $1 billion in May and said it would also back financial startups outside crypto. a16z’s decision might partly be due to fading enthusiasm for crypto startups. DefiLlama data shows that venture funding into crypto startups fell to about $5 billion in the first quarter of 2026, down from roughly $6 billion a year earlier. Notably, the company’s general partner Ali Yahya has told some investors he is leaving to build his own startup. He joined a16z in 2017 as the crypto team’s first full-time hire and was promoted to general partner in 2021. The smartest crypto minds already read our newsletter. Want in? Join them.
Nebius acquires $3.5 billlion debt facility with city for its AI data center needs
AI cloud company Nebius Group has secured a $3.5 billion loan from Citi to build more data centers and buy GPUs. The company announced the deal in a press release and confirmed it on its official X account. Nebius trades on Nasdaq under the ticker NBIS. Where the money goes and what it costs Nebius will use the money to build data centers and buy GPUs, with some funds reserved for other business needs. The loan has a 364-day term, meaning Nebius must repay or refinance it within a year. It will initially carry an annual interest rate of Term SOFR plus 2.75%. This rate can increase to as high as 3.50% and is subject to further adjustments, the company added. Citi will be the mandated lead arranger, agent and security agent. Nebius Chief Operating Officer Ophir Nave said the loan is one part of a plan set into phases, aimed at raising funds and managing borrowing costs over time. He added that the company still has several ways to raise capital. These include loans backed by assets and over $40 billion in long-term contracts with multiple customers. We’ve secured a $3.5 billion financing facility from Citi to support our global growth. The facility provides capital at attractive rates, diversifies our capital structure, and gives us greater flexibility over when and how we raise long-term financing. Full release:… pic.twitter.com/iXDLF6mbF5 — Nebius (@nebiusai) October 22, 2026 Nebius’ second large raise in two months The Citi loan comes about two months after Nebius raised $5.75 billion by selling convertible notes, according to Dealroom. Dealroom said the Citi loan was the largest of 69 debt deals by AI companies in the Netherlands since they went public, ranking it in the top 1% of such deals. The firm also noted that Nebius is now worth more on the stock market than its U.S. rival CoreWeave. Why the short maturity matters The size and rate of borrowing show that AI cloud providers are using debt even more to meet the growing demand for computing power. That approach carries risk. Nebius will be under pressure to deliver on its plans, as the 364-day loan must be repaid or refinanced within a year. Dealroom said funding challenges remain in the sector, citing a recent Reuters report on investor concerns about CoreWeave’s growing debt. Nebius could use its more than $40 billion in customer contracts to get more loans backed by its assets, but it must deliver on its expansion plans to do so. Investors will be watching how Nebius uses the loan and whether it raises more money to fund its growth in 2027 and beyond, as Nave outlined. If you're reading this, you’re already ahead. Stay there with our newsletter.
US banks note unauthorized AI agents in their systems and customer accounts
Several large US banks have found multiple unvetted third-party AI agents operating within customer accounts, with some of these agents performing actions that seem independent of the user’s requests, Axios reported. The discovery is of importance for users who link their bank accounts to AI assistants, as banks are now blocking this access to protect the customers’ money. Agents logging in to US banks with real customer credentials The core problem, according to Axios, is that AI agents are gaining access to these US banks using login details the customer themselves gave up. This action is against the rules at most of these banks, which require account holders to sign in by themselves. Even when a user grants permission to the agents, executives fear the exact capabilities of these agents. A customer giving an agent the authority to buy things or transfer money could lead to an error or a rogue instruction that drains or misdirects funds. Banks have also reported AI agents calling customer service lines. In some cases, they appeared to act of their own volition without a direct request from users. One banking official stated that the industry is deeply concerned about AI agents accessing accounts and making decisions that could affect customers’ money. Morgan Stanley starts blocking, others follow Morgan Stanley is now blocking third-party agents from its platforms, sources told Axios. JPMorgan, Bank of America and Citi have joined to tighten agent access. Wells Fargo is also one of the banks working to contain this new risk. Banks have responded in different ways. Chase warned customers never to share their login details with anyone. Morgan Stanley said it had not seen any cases of AI agents accessing its systems without permission. Banks are changing their rules and limiting outside tools that automate tasks as they try to tell whether an AI agent is following a user’s request or acting on its own. Read-only access seen as middle ground Most of these US banks are gravitating toward pure read-only access. This allows AI agents to view account balances and transaction history without the capacity to make changes or transfer money. This is similar to how banks work with budgeting apps such as Quicken. Banking executives told Axios they expect more customers to use AI assistants, so banks do not plan to block them forever. For now, they believe giving these tools full access is too risky. One problem is that banks often cannot tell whether they are dealing with a person or a bot. They also struggle to tell whether an AI agent has the account holder’s permission or is accessing the account without approval. Why this reads as a policy gap, and not a breach The issue is mainly about how US banks manage risk and follow their rules, rather than its impact on earnings. A security breach could lead to direct financial losses and legal claims. But when a legitimate AI tool misuses login details, the problem becomes more focused on gaps in bank policies. Past bank security scares have often followed a similar pattern. There is an initial news report, after which banks explain their security measures. Then regulators look at whether existing rules cover how AI agents access accounts and verify their identity. Sources have told Axios that US banks are investing in security measures and emergency plans that can help to quickly block or restore customer access if an incident involving an AI agent gets worse. Don’t just read crypto news. Understand it. Subscribe to our newsletter. It's free.
Wall Street is crashing: The Nasdaq fell 2.1%, the S&P 500 lost 1.3%, and the Dow dropped 279 points. AI stocks are getting hammered: Meta, AMD, Nvidia, Micron, and CoreWeave fell as investors questioned massive AI spending. Oil is surging: Brent topped $112, while US crude neared $100 as Trump warned something could happen soon with Iran. Investors are playing defense: Treasury yields and major currencies fell, while Lockheed Martin gained 3% on strong earnings.
Altcoins may need a Bitcoin breakout to escape the sell-off
Crypto money is flowing away from altcoins to Bitcoin as spot ETF demand wanes and other cryptocurrencies experience a sell-off, according to market maker Wintermute and the market overview from Phemex. The message for those holding altcoins couldn’t be clearer – there will be no broader uptrend without Bitcoin’s leading move. Wintermute reportedly estimated that the $82,500 mark is a new key level for Bitcoin’s short-term movement. The line that was considered a barrier turned into a price that the bulls are trying to defend after Bitcoin fell marginally over the week. According to the firm, there are only two ways forward now – either a breakthrough through $87,000, thus opening the way to higher prices, or falling below $82,500, sending the price towards testing the $70,000 mark again. But Bitcoin has already faced one stress test. In its latest weekly report, Wintermute pointed out the drop to $80,400 was caused by $679 million of net outflows from spot Bitcoin ETFs, which was nevertheless defended by the buyers. Wintermute believes the token is “holding up better than the macro tape would suggest,” citing the 3.5-point lead over the Nasdaq. Inflation data put the squeeze on risk assets Pressure can be traced back to the macro level. US inflation reached 3.7%, whereas the core rate increased by 0.3%, indicating that higher energy prices were passed through into the core prices. The response was quick. The Nasdaq index fell 5.5%, but investors went for safer bets – Brent oil rallied 5.0%, and US government bonds increased 2.65%. It is the return of the relationship between conventional markets and crypto that messed up the crypto market, according to Wintermute. Bitcoin price dipped by more than 2% over the last 24 hours. BTC is trading at $81,726 at press time. Ether price took a drop of almost 3% over the last day. ETH is trading at $2,401 at press time. However, the cumulative crypto market cap is down by 2% over the last day to stand at $2.84 trillion. Altcoins bleed as money concentrates in majors The sell-off took a toll on the broader market. The altcoin industry fell by 5.69% in the past week. The trading desk at Wintermute noted that the flow of altcoins is becoming one-sided apart from a select few high-quality large-cap alts as traders take money out and keep it in the two largest cryptocurrencies. For anyone seeking profits in other places, Wintermute concluded that “the risk/reward ratio favors majors over altcoins now,” and Bitcoin “needs to be up for altcoins to have any hope of resuming a rally.” According to Phemex, the rotation could be seen in the form of 60% dominance of Bitcoin as altcoins performed poorly. In addition, a whale liquidated after losing 121.33 BTC, worth about $9.9 million, due to the sell-off, along with plummeting stocks in Asia and China entering a bear market. Why October 28 is the date to watch Wintermute is sure that the present narrow price range won’t hold through the future event calendar. It cited the October 28 FOMC meeting as the most probable catalyst for an upcoming breakout, noting that “it cuts both ways.” A hawkish outlook from the Fed should drag the Nasdaq down along with Bitcoin. On the other hand, a dovish sentiment combined with robust corporate results can be enough for bulls to drive prices higher. If you're reading this, you’re already ahead. Stay there with our newsletter.
Coldcard users sue Coinkite founders over ignored 2025 security warning
A Coldcard customer has launched a class-action lawsuit in Ontario against the hardware wallet maker Coinkite Inc. and its co-founders. The allegation is that the co-founders of Coinkite knew that there was a problem with its seed-generation system as early as May 2025 and did nothing about it. Why is Coldcard getting sued? Amir Reza Naderi filed a statement of claim in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. Coinkite Inc., Rodolfo Novak and Peter D. Gray are named in the lawsuit as defendants. The court file, CV-26-00018158, was issued electronically on September 11, 2026. In it, Novak and Gray are described as co-founders, directors or officers who took part in managing Coinkite and its Coldcard products. Naderi says he lost 1.22940052 BTC, roughly $79,800, on August 6 and accuses the defendants of being aware of the vulnerability in their system from May 2025 onward yet failing to warn customers. He asks the court to rule that Coinkite broke Ontario’s Consumer Protection Act. Naderi wants the court to approve the case as a class action. If it succeeds, he is asking for both compensatory and punitive damages, and for a litigation trust to distribute whatever money is awarded. Coldcard is a Canadian-made hardware wallet. Its job is to generate a recovery phrase, the series of words that gives access to a user’s bitcoin, and it was designed to do this with a special chip built for creating random numbers. In March 2021, a firmware update quietly moved that task from hardware over to software. Coldcard’s settings had the chip’s built-in random number generator switched off, since Coinkite used its own. A backup tool called Yasmarang, which relies on the chip’s serial number and a timer to generate its numbers, was used to create each new seed and some Coldcard wallets ended up with recovery phrases that were much easier to guess than they should have been. There were reportedly only about 40 bits of real randomness on the Mk2 and Mk3, far below the 128 bits that the BIP-39 standard assumes. How much was stolen from Coldcard’s users? The theft started on July 30, 2026. An attacker reportedly stole roughly 594 bitcoin, about $38 million, from around 500 wallets in a 25-minute window. Reports from early August put losses above $88 million and more than 1,300 BTC. A joint analysis by WeirFoulds LLP and Edmonds Marshall McMahon, published on Mondaq on August 7, estimated $116 million lost across more than 5,200 victims. The cumulative losses are estimated to be past $140 million. Much of the stolen bitcoin has since been gathered into a few addresses that haven’t recorded any activity. Coinkite has denied the allegations that it knew about the vulnerability in May 2025, writing in its technical backgrounder published July 30, 2026, that it was “unaware of the bug until today” and suggested an outside party may have used AI to review its open-source firmware and find the flaw first. The company said its own AI-assisted code review weeks earlier had missed it. Coinkite has released fixed firmware for all affected models, but it urged Coldcard owners to create new seeds and move their funds to them. Don’t just read crypto news. Understand it. Subscribe to our newsletter. It's free.
Cypherium pitches GPU mining comeback for AI data centers as compute becomes tradable commodity
Cypherium has presented a custom-made solution for AI data center operators looking for routes to optimize earnings on idle machines with its new COLOSSUS-X, a proof-of-work mining design built for AI hardware rather than specialized rigs. The firm also unveiled plans for a Compute Index that would put a price on computing power on-chain, feeding the growing demand on Wall Street to trade compute like a commodity. What solution is Cypherium pitching to miners? Cypherium’s big pitch is a “compute reservoir” that allows operators to route computing capacity across blockchain mining and AI demands, depending on the more profitable venture at any given moment. The flexibility option Cypherium is offering resembles a lever that makes the process for operators such as Bitdeer, which is simultaneously running its mining alongside a 16-year Anthropic compute deal, run even more seamlessly. While Bitdeer said it will use flexible hashing to fill the gaps around its contracted AI load, others simply abandoned mining altogether for the more profitable AI compute route. Cryptopolitan reported that Keel (formerly known as Bitfarms) expects zero mining revenue in Q3 2026 after the firm took its last sites offline on June 29. With Cypherium’s COLOSSUS-X software solution, such AI sites don’t have to entirely shut off from Bitcoin mining revenue when AI accelerators are not training or running models. How does Cypherium’s COLOSSUS-X work? By design, Cypherium’s COLOSSUS-X relies on memory, giving chips the flexibility to run AI workloads and Bitcoin mining simultaneously, unlike ASIC chips that exclusively secure Bitcoin and cannot be reused for AI. The 32 GiB dataset it uses expands by roughly 10% a year, making memory capacity and bandwidth the deciding factor in mining performance and blunting the edge of purpose-built mining gear. Cypherium is building from a prolific background that includes an October 2025-granted U.S. Patent No. 12,443,569 B2, an appearance in a Google Cloud case study with staffing firm Randstad and the Federal Reserve’s FedNow Service Provider Showcase. Per Cypherium’s founder, Sky Guo, in the statement announcing the COLOSSUS-X, Guo said the firm wants “to turn idle GPU capacity into a revenue-generating asset” and “monetize and hedge the economics of AI infrastructure.” Roadmap items still in the testing stage, such as the Proof-of-Useful-Training, will allow miners to secure the Bitcoin network with verifiable AI workloads. Putting a price on compute, on-chain The financial half of the plan is the Cypherium Compute Index, which the company’s whitepaper describes as an on-chain reference price blending network rental rates, mining economics and outside AI compute data. Cypherium wants it to work as a settlement benchmark for perpetual contracts tied to computing prices, giving data center operators a tool to hedge GPU costs. Traditional exchanges like the CME Group have explored similar paths, launching two compute futures on October 5, 2026, tracking Silicon Data indexes for Nvidia’s H100 and B200 chips out 36 months. CME’s Pete Keavey compared the move to oil’s history, saying the contracts “will now turn compute into a standardized, tradable commodity” the way crude evolved from spot trading into a global derivatives market. The underlying prices swing hard, which is what makes a hedge useful. Silicon Data’s H100 neo-cloud reading sat at $2.86 per GPU-hour as of October 21, up 10% in seven days, with the newer B200 at $6.14. Cypherium is betting its index can serve as the decentralized counterpart to those benchmarks, turning compute capacity into a category of real-world asset that can back financial products. The smartest crypto minds already read our newsletter. Want in? Join them.
Cambodia freezes $1B in Prince Group assets as countries split Chen Zhi's empire
Cambodia has joined the international squeeze on assets tied to the Prince Group after courts authorized the country to freeze nearly $1 billion worth of assets, extending a streak of cross-border crackdowns that started after the group’s founder, Chen Zhi, was extradited to China. It is important to note that freezes are confiscations. The head of the secretariat of Cambodia’s Commission for Combating Technology-enabled Scams, Senior Minister Chhay Sinarith, speaking about the provisional nature of the orders, said the decision on whether the country gets to keep the frozen assets is up to judges, per reporting by The Phnom Penh Post. What did Cambodia freeze from Prince Group? According to Sinarith, the $1 billion in assets that Cambodia froze from Prince Group includes more than $300 million in cash across multiple bank accounts, as well as buildings, casinos, real estate parcels, and movable property. Cambodia has been hot on Chen Zhi’s trail since December 2025, when the Cambodian citizenship Chen earned in 2014 was revoked via a royal decree. By January 6, he was arrested by Cambodian police and extradited to China. Two days later, the National Bank of Cambodia ordered the Chen-founded lender, Prince Bank, into liquidation. Investigators have attributed roughly 198 companies to Chen’s Prince Group, with 98 inside Cambodia and 100 overseas. That sequence of events marked a sharp turn in fortunes for Chen, who at one point advised two generations of Cambodian leaders, Prime Minister Hun Manet and his father, Hun Sen. Other Prince Group members are also in custody Chen Zhi is not the only top-level Prince Group executive to have been arrested or arraigned in court. Others include Li Song, Liu Yin, Eang Soklim, Eng Dara and Huang Ron. There are court warrants out for 32 accused people in total, with four others under judicial supervision and five more suspects still being identified. Eng Dara, a 45-year-old Cambodian businessman and former director of Jin Bei Group, drew sanctions from both the UK and US in 2025 over suspected involvement in scam centers accused of forced labor. Eang Soklim was named as the figurehead of a scam compound in Prey Veng province. Cambodia is seeking INTERPOL Red Notices for another 29 people suspected to have fled the country. It is also sharing intelligence with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and China’s Ministry of Public Security. The US Bitcoin case is still unfinished Washington is in a comparable holding pattern. The US Justice Department seized roughly 127,271 Bitcoin in October 2025, valued at $15 billion then and around $9 billion by March 2026, in what it called its largest forfeiture ever. Blockchain firm Elliptic traced the coins to LuBian, a mining operation with ties to China and Iran. The Bitcoin remains in government custody, and the forfeiture has not been finalized. The ICIJ reported that the Justice Department has rejected claims filed by lawyers for hundreds of alleged scam victims. Other jurisdictions have piled on. Hong Kong’s High Court froze about $1.1 billion in Chen’s deposits, properties and shares, Cryptopolitan reported, and Britain has frozen London mansions tied to alleged Prince Group associate Hu Xiaowei. Chen faces fraud and illegal gambling charges in China and up to 40 years if convicted of US wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy. Prince Group has denied wrongdoing. Don’t just read crypto news. Understand it. Subscribe to our newsletter. It's free.
CoinCDX denies hack as researchers trace outflows to former hot wallets
On-chain data showed suspicious transactions from a wallet linked to the CoinCDX exchange. Over $15M in stablecoins were moved from the wallet, which was exposed in an earlier breach in 2025. The Indian crypto exchange CoinCDX is in the midst of a theft investigation. On-chain data linked a sudden outflow of funds from a wallet previously known to belong to the exchange. The exchange denies that the wallet is currently under its control, claiming it was falsely flagged on Arkham Intelligence. ‘The addresses tagged by Arkham used to belong to CoinDCX before the last year hack ie July 2025. These addresses were generated in Jan 2025 and were compromised in the previous hack in July 2025. The hackers seem to be re-using the old wallet addresses and this sounds like a false alarm,’ explained on X the exchange’s co-founder Sumit Gupta. The wallet transfers were noted late on October 21, moving $15.99M in USDT and 5,783.81 TRX. The funds were sent to an intermediary address, which was then emptied out, with some of the USDT reaching Binance hot wallets, as well as OKX and Gate. CoinCDX wallet was still used in DeFi protocols While CoinCDX denied using the wallet or controlling it, the address was still found to be active long after the 2025 exploit. On-chain researcher ZachXBT noted the wallet has still been used as a liquidity provider, while also sweeping user deposits. Additionally, ZachXBT noted CoinCDX still has to account for around $15.8M in user funds not accounted for in a transparent proof of reserves. As Cryptopolitan previously reported, CoinCDX has been flagged as an exchange used in fraud laundering. In 2025, the exchange also suffered a hack taking up to $44M. The recent movement of funds may not represent another wallet theft, but actually show CoinCDX users still deposited to the wallet for at least 10 months after the 2025 hack. ZachXBT also discovered the current hot wallets still sent gas to the compromised address as late as April 2026. CoinCDX is a relatively small exchange, with $1.15M in daily volume for the past 24 hours. The exchange’s most active pair is between fiat and USDT, with a limited number of assets offered. The exchange is seen as inherently risky, but now there are more doubts that the market operator may have failed to protect user funds, allowing deposits to refill an already compromised wallet. Can the CoinCDX funds be salvaged? In an unusual move, the funds from CoinCDX were moved to centralized exchanges. Most of the funds were also in USDT, meaning either Tether or the exchanges can freeze and revert the loss, but that depends on CoinCDX confirming the exploit. The fund movements from the exploiter wallet also repeated the previous CoinCDX hack, where the funds were laundered through centralized markets. Currently, CoinCDX is suspected of flawed security practices and of actually reusing its compromised wallets, while not giving sufficient proof of the safety of user funds. CoinCDX once again issued a statement that it did not interact with those wallets, going against the on-chain evidence. The CoinCDX exposure is a relatively rare event, as most of the hacks are targeting decentralized protocols. The suspected exploit against CoinCDX arrives at a time when crypto users are becoming more wary of hacks and accidental exposure, including the compromised private keys through Railway and the potential effects of the newly discovered PHP vulnerabilities. The CoinCDX exploit is still not fully understood, but if the exchange diverted user funds to a compromised address, it would further undermine trust in depositing crypto to exchange wallets. On-chain research found additional links between the hacker’s wallets and addresses used by CoinCDX, as noted by @DarcyAri, the account that first noticed the suspicious transfers. The smartest crypto minds already read our newsletter. Want in? Join them.
Robinhood heads to Dubai as Dubai-based Bybit plots its way into the US
Robinhood (NASDAQ: HOOD) has committed to a 2027 date to launch in the Middle East after the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) gave the regulatory green light on the firm’s retail investing app in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC). News of the 2027 expansion into the Middle East landed as the Dubai-based Bybit is planning a move on Robinhood’s home turf in the United States. What Robinhood’s Dubai license covers The DFSA approval Robinhood received allows it to offer trading and custody across all 10 asset classes the regulator permits, including equities, ETFs, crypto, and investment tokens. Salah Kaddoura was named senior executive officer and president of Robinhood MENA, leading the local team that will operate out of a regional headquarters in the DIFC and open to local investors in 2027. Chairman and CEO of Robinhood, Vlad Tenev, noted the importance of entering “one of the world’s most important financial hubs,” as he described the DIFC in the firm’s statement. Robinhood has been on the expansion trail this year, following an April Asia-Pacific entry via Singapore and a June acquisition of WonderFi in Canada. As of July, the broker counted close to 28 million customers across 38 countries, per its own global expansion update. The DIFC that Robinhood is entering now had 72 authorized brokerage firms on its register as of March 31, 2026. The list has only grown since, with Revolut earning in-principle approval from Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) in July, and local app Baraka in September. Older market entrants include eToro in November 2023 and Interactive Brokers in 2024. Is Bybit expanding into the US? The CEO of the Dubai-based Bybit, Ben Zhou, is reportedly exploring entering the US by way of a broker that already serves American clients. Notably, the exchange has not committed to a launch date or partner yet, even though Interactive Brokers has been floated as a potential fit. In the meantime, the exchange, which set up its international headquarters in Dubai in 2022, has continued to consolidate its presence in its home base. “Dubai has made significant progress in building a regulatory environment for virtual assets,” Zhou said after the exchange secured a Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) license from VARA for spot exchange services. Meanwhile, Peter Loo, the exchange’s Chief Legal and Compliance Officer, is already looking at stacking fresh licenses, including for derivatives, “subject to the necessary regulatory approvals.” Building the platform before the market Bybit’s US ambition rests on a product it rolled out on October 12, when it opened trading in more than 1,000 US-listed stocks and ETFs, funded in the USDC stablecoin. Orders are executed and custodied by Alpaca Securities, a FINRA and SIPC member, with Mauritius-regulated Infra Capital Limited acting as introducing broker. For now, the setup excludes US users. The exchange, which says it has more than 80 million users, is effectively selling American equities to everyone but Americans. The service marks a shift from the stock CFDs Bybit has offered since June 2025, giving clients direct economic ownership of shares rather than a bet on price. Don’t just read crypto news. Understand it. Subscribe to our newsletter. It's free.
Sakura Internet moved on PHP flaws hours before Japan's PM
Sakura Internet froze part of its cloud service Wednesday because of two critical PHP flaws. Later that day, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi called on website operators to patch that night or shut down their sites temporarily. Database Appliance loses phpMyAdmin with no restart date Sakura’s notice, published at 1:22 p.m. Japan time on October 21, is withdrawing the web UI tools from its Database Appliance service. Those tools are phpMyAdmin, phpPgAdmin and pgAdmin. The Database Cluster service is still up. Sakura did not give a date for the restart and, in the interim, pointed customers to SQL clients compatible with MariaDB and PostgreSQL. The company apologized to customers for the interruption. Cygames and pixiv also declared emergency maintenance about the PHP flaws. PHP is widely used in e-commerce and other web applications. Japan’s prime minister pointed operators to the 11 p.m. fix Takaichi’s appeal was posted on X at 9:55 p.m. Japan time. She said it was a very pressing request for action that night and asked operators to verify whether their public websites were using PHP. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s PHP appeal in X’s English translation, posted by @takaichi_sanae on X on the night of October 21, 2026, Japan time. She told them to prepare to roll out the patch due at 11 p.m. Japan time. Taking a website offline temporarily was one way to reduce risk if quick patching was tricky, she wrote. She also directed followers to the National Cybersecurity Office’s account on X. The office said at 10:57 p.m. that the updates were out and urged users to install them as soon as possible. The office warned that unpatched sites could be breached. By Thursday, Takaichi’s post had picked up more than 308,000 likes and about 78,000 reposts. Fixed versions: PHP 8.2.35, PHP 8.3.36, PHP 8.4.27, PHP 8.5.12. According to Cryptopolitan, details leaked, so PHP’s maintainers shipped the fixes a day early. The two flaws, dubbed “PHP2Shell” and identified as CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619, each earned a 9.2 out of 10 score and could allow hackers to execute code on unpatched servers. The first bug exploits how PHP deals with out-of-memory conditions. The second exploits request state that survives after its memory is freed. The advisory from PHP puts all installations that serve web requests at risk. That covers PHP-FPM, Apache with mod_php, php-cgi, FrankenPHP and LiteSpeed. The project ranks mod_php as the riskiest setup, and there is a demonstrated exploit that fires before any application code runs. Linux distributors and long-term-support vendors were shipped the patches in advance. No further updates for PHP 8.1 and below come from the project. The security team still put out minimal source backports for PHP 7.4, 8.0 and 8.1. About 70% of all websites whose server-side language is known use PHP. Japan, the EU, the US, Germany, Australia and the UK also issued warnings. Finland, the Netherlands and France took government websites offline as a precaution. Nintendo pulled services to patch. The smartest crypto minds already read our newsletter. Want in? Join them.
Citadel's Ken Griffin sees an AI bubble but backs its survivors to dominate for decades
Citadel founder Ken Griffin told a New York audience on October 20 that AI is “almost certainly” in a bubble. He stopped short of calling a crash but said firms that emerge from it will lead markets for decades. Some Citadel research shrank from weeks to two or three hours Griffin was speaking at the Future of Global Markets Conference, an annual event hosted by Citadel Securities, on Tuesday night. “Any radical transformation of our economy is generally intertwined with a bubble,” he said. He cited the dot-com era and said he wished he had held on to his Amazon stock. The companies that survive a bubble “are the market leaders for decades to come,” Griffin said, adding the froth was no reason to sell. Nvidia shares closed at $216.47 on Oct. 20, hours before the talk, then leapt 2.5% to $221.97 the following day. On October 21, Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) increased 1.1% to $725.20. Citadel’s own desks show the upside. AI agents, programs that carry out multistep jobs without a human at the helm for each step, trim some of the firm’s research from six to eight weeks to two or three hours. Griffin’s view of AI flipped in 2026. He was dismissive of it at Davos in January, then “unsettled” by its capabilities at Stanford’s business school in May. AI is opening up a strong stretch for entrepreneurs, he also said, and already threatens white-collar jobs. Corporate America gets uneven value from OpenAI and Anthropic bills He said that GPUs, the chips that train and run AI models, are like airplane seats. Since it doesn’t cost much to sell one more of either, the price can crash when there are more of them than people want. He brought up the telecom boom around the year 2000, when companies laid a lot more fiber-optic cable than anyone needed and call and data rates went down. Chips that are five or six years old still rent for what he called extraordinary rates. He didn’t think they would keep renting for that much for another five or six years. Buyers are getting more selective, said Griffin. They’re figuring out which jobs need premium models from OpenAI and Anthropic, and which can be handled with cheaper open-source models. “Corporate America has been very uneven in its ability to extract value from its AI models,” he said. He spoke of finance teams reviewing the lab bills, asking where the productivity gains are. Cryptopolitan reported that Google brought out Gemini 4 Argon on October 13, priced at an introductory rate of $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens. Anthropic’s Claude Opus 5.5 costs $4 and $20, while OpenAI’s GPT-6 Astra costs $10 and $50. Meta then published Muse Spark Open, an open-weight model with 816 billion parameters that a number of developers are able to download and use for free under limited commercial terms. Nvidia sells the GPUs Griffin was talking about. It has $279 billion in supply commitments, mostly for memory for its Vera Rubin systems. The company reports its third-quarter results on November 17, with guidance of $108.0 billion. The smartest crypto minds already read our newsletter. Want in? Join them.