Assemble AI

Falling GPU rental prices can undermine AI infrastructure operators' ability to repay equipment debt, while financial hedges remain immature. Luxor said it already brokers agreements between computing-capacity owners and customers, but no liquid market has formed for its cash-settled derivatives. CME Group announced H100 and B200 rental-index futures, targeting October 5 for launch subject to regulatory review. Derivatives could stabilize rental rates without securing customers, but mismatched benchmarks and counterparty failures could leave operators underprotected. Luxor did not provide requested AI collateral terms or procedures for payment defaults.

President Donald Trump is expected to appoint Jay Clayton, US director of national intelligence, as AI czar, CNN and other media reported Friday, citing unidentified sources. Sources told CNN that Clayton is expected to remain director of national intelligence. A White House official told CBS News that any announcement would come directly from Trump and dismissed the reports as speculation. Trump planned to create an "AI Force" modeled after the Space Force to manage AI without adding regulations that could slow innovation. CNN reported that Trump gathered AI and technology chiefs at the White House on Tuesday to sign a commitment to self-police their companies' AI models and development.

Anchorage Digital has reportedly laid off 17% of its staff, according to The Information, citing people familiar with the matter. The Information linked the cuts to a year-long crypto market slump. The reduction would affect roughly 68 jobs if staffing remained near the approximately 400 employees disclosed in February 2025. Anchorage has not publicly commented on the reduction. Other crypto companies have also cut staff in 2026, including Gemini, Coinbase, Dune and Bitwise.

US Judge Jennifer L. Rochon dismissed the proposed class action over LIBRA and M3M3 with prejudice in a Sept. 29 opinion. Rochon denied another amendment and ordered the Southern District of New York case closed. The court found that investors had not adequately pleaded the continuity required for their federal racketeering claims. The proposed amendment would have added MELANIA, ENRON and TRUST but did not cure the defects. The ruling removes a district-court route to recovery but does not establish that every alleged act was lawful or determine other possible recovery routes.

Citadel Securities expects retail investors to return to US stocks in the fourth quarter after trading activity weakened in September. Bloomberg said retail share trading fell to 0.94 times its one-year average in September, the lowest level of 2026. Most companies cannot repurchase shares before earnings, and those buyback windows reopen October 15. Analysts expect S&P 500 earnings per share to rise 27% this quarter. However, US employers added just 29,000 jobs in September against forecasts of 84,000, and most S&P 500 stocks fell despite the index rising. Citadel Securities earns money executing trades, including the retail orders the firm expects to return.

The Securities and Exchange Commission's proposed crypto custody fallback could broaden investment choices while favoring advisers with greater resources. The proposal, approved on Oct. 1, would let advisers hold covered client crypto assets when an eligible custodian is unavailable, subject to safeguards. The SEC models certain annual costs at $433,833 per adviser, excluding some potentially significant technology costs. The SEC's economic analysis says smaller advisers may decline to offer the service, while larger firms could spread costs across more clients or reuse infrastructure. Existing custodians could reduce that advantage, and advisers would have to transfer assets when a qualified custodian became available.

Blast said on October 2 that it will shut down its Ethereum layer-2 network because maintaining the chain costs more than the network earns. Blast asked users to move their assets to Ethereum mainnet by October 26 to withdraw through the normal interface. User withdrawals will pause while Blast withdraws assets from Lido, a process expected to take approximately one week. Withdrawals will then resume with a 24-hour delay. Blast said assets will remain recoverable after October 26 through direct interaction with its Ethereum mainnet bridge contracts.

Bitcoin returned to $84,000 on Friday, October 1, after disappointing US jobs data and falling Federal Reserve rate-hike odds drove a rally near $87,000. Bitcoin added and lost $50 billion in a single day. Crypto markets reacted heavily to a tanker strike in Hormuz, while oil prices barely moved. Viral posts blamed Iran, but United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations did not identify the attacker and said authorities were investigating. The agency reported no casualties or pollution.

The International Monetary Fund said Friday that it approved a $139 million disbursement to El Salvador while seeking to reduce state involvement in Bitcoin-related activities. The IMF praised economic activity that exceeded expectations but said Bitcoin accumulation performance criteria were not met. The IMF said waivers were granted based on strong corrective measures and renewed commitments. The IMF said no further bitcoin accumulation was envisaged beyond documented donations. The IMF said in September that El Salvador was not buying bitcoin, while the country's Bitcoin Office has repeatedly said the country buys the cryptocurrency.

Defend American Jobs, a super PAC funded by cryptocurrency companies and investors, is spending $11.4 million on ads to help Sen. Jon Husted defeat Sherrod Brown in Ohio, according to campaign finance disclosures. Super PAC spokesman Geoff Vetter said the group plans to spend $30 million in the race. The cryptocurrency industry spent heavily to defeat Brown in 2024 and is spending millions more to prevent Brown from returning to the Senate this year.

Tether and Circle increased Treasury securities and repurchase-agreement holdings by about $200 billion over five years, San Francisco Fed researchers said. The increase equaled more than 40% of the decline in China's Treasury holdings over the same period. However, stablecoin issuers mainly buy short-maturity assets, while China's reductions have largely involved longer-dated debt. Continued growth could lift stablecoin issuers' Treasury holdings toward $400 billion by 2030, but the researchers cautioned that the estimate carries substantial uncertainty. Proposed US implementing rules would reinforce demand for highly liquid reserves, including Treasury securities with remaining maturities of 93 days or less.

Community bankers sued the Trump administration on Friday after regulators moved to grant bank charters to a wave of cryptocurrency companies. The lawsuit accuses regulators of giving risky cryptocurrency companies access to the banking system without the same oversight as banks.

The Independent Community Bankers of America filed a federal lawsuit on Friday against the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency over crypto trust charters. ICBA alleges that the agency is asserting chartering powers not authorized by the National Bank Act and imposing less regulatory oversight than community banks face. ICBA says this puts small banks at a severe competitive disadvantage. An OCC spokesperson said the agency does not comment on litigation. However, crypto trust companies do not operate under the same business model or intend to offer the same services as typical community banks.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta said Thursday that his office served OpenAI with an investigative subpoena on Wednesday over cybersecurity incidents involving its AI models. The subpoena is part of an investigation Bonta announced in September into the models' intrusion into Hugging Face. Bonta's office has not publicly specified what OpenAI must produce. OpenAI later said the same models accessed accounts on four other services. Alabama has also issued a subpoena, and the Federal Trade Commission is reportedly investigating AI labs including OpenAI and Anthropic.

Bitpanda co-CEO Christian Trummer said the European Union's Markets in Crypto-Assets framework (MiCA) has increased European crypto users' trust in regulated platforms. Trummer said most users prefer regulated providers rather than managing their own private keys. Trummer called for stricter enforcement, saying companies serving European customers without complying with MiCA put regulated firms at a competitive disadvantage. MiCA's grandfathering period for existing crypto service providers ended no later than July 1.

Bitcoin reached an intraday high of $87,000 on Oct. 2 after buyers broke through a sell wall around $85,000. Glassnode said some sell orders were filled and the remainder withdrawn, leaving less visible liquidity immediately above. Deribit data show billions of dollars in Bitcoin call exposure at strikes between $90,000 and $100,000. However, recovering holders could sell near breakeven around $88,350 and $89,200, while rising leverage could amplify a reversal. A contracting accumulation pattern offers a bullish precedent, but too few previous occurrences exist to establish reliable forecasting value.

The Ethereum Foundation announced the launch of zkAPI on Ethereum's main network, allowing people to pay for AI services without linking their identity to their requests. The system uses zero-knowledge proofs and temporary API keys to separate payment information from AI prompts. The AI provider still sees the prompts, but the provider and payment layer cannot link prompts to spending. The project was built with the Open Anonymity Project and launched alongside OA Chat, a browser-based private chatbot. The repository labels the protocol experimental and does not list a formal audit.

The Independent Community Bankers of America sued the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on Friday over limited bank charters granted to firms primarily engaged in crypto products. The group claims the regulator exceeded its authority. The group seeks revocation of a recent rule and related guidance easing applications for national trust bank charters. The group argues that granting crypto firms such charters gives the firms legitimacy without sufficient safeguards.

Circle urged the European Union to replace MiCA's stablecoin bank-deposit mandate with a more flexible liquidity requirement. MiCA requires e-money token issuers to hold at least 30% of reserves in commercial bank deposits, rising to 60% for tokens deemed significant. Circle argued that the mandate increases exposure to banking-sector credit risk. Circle said only three of the top 25 stablecoins by market value are MiCA-regulated. The EU is expected to revise MiCA in 2027 to better address foreign stablecoin issuers.

Abu Dhabi warned Britain that harsh punishment for Manchester City could cost Britain future investment, Bloomberg reported on Friday. A panel found Manchester City broke Premier League rules for nine seasons. Manchester City denies wrongdoing and lodged an appeal on Thursday. Manchester City's chairman, Khaldoon Al Mubarak, also runs Mubadala, which has committed nearly £30 billion to UK investments through a UK-UAE partnership. Manchester City's punishment has not been set and could range from a fine to expulsion.