According to Foresight News, former Galaxy Digital executive Tim Grant has founded a cryptocurrency-focused investment company called Deus X Capital. The firm has already accumulated $1 billion in investment assets and capital, which will be deployed in private equity, venture capital, venture building, and fund allocation. Deus X Capital's announcement reveals that it invests globally, with operations in Malta, London, and the United Arab Emirates. Deus X Capital's current investments include its wholly-owned Netrios, as well as stakes in Hilbert Group and Galaxy, and venture investments in SEBA, HAYVN, and Cryptochill. The firm has also allocated funds to hedge funds in the sector, though the specific amount has not been disclosed. Cryptocurrency market maker AlphaLab40 will be Deus X's first incubation project. Tim Grant, who previously served as the head of Galaxy Digital for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, will assume the role of CEO at Deus X Capital, while Stuart Connolly, formerly of Red Acre Ventures, will serve as Chief Investment Officer.

Forbes has identified Binance Blockchain Week as one of the top 10 crypto and digital asset events globally this year. The conference has become a vital forum for knowledge exchange, networking, and product promotion in the Web3 industry. This year, the event is scheduled to take place on November 8-9 in Istanbul, Turkey. The two-day conference's focus will be "the next billion users and the future of Web3," and it will witness participation from various sectors - developers, policymakers, investors, entrepreneurs, and innovators. With a plethora of blockchain-startups showcasing their technologies, the exhibition promises to be an enlightening experience. The ever-dynamic Turkish region was praised by Binance's co-founder Yi He as "a dynamic destination" for attendees to learn more about the blockchain's potential and witness the dawn of a new era in finance. In addition to Binance Blockchain Week, the Staking Summit that offers a platform for all Proof-of-Stake infrastructure actors, such as protocols, validators, institutions, is set to take place on November 10-11.  

According to Foresight News, former SoftBank executive Akshay Naheta has established a company called DTR in the United Arab Emirates International Financial Free Zone, in collaboration with Hong Kong-based DRAM Trust. The partnership aims to launch a new stablecoin backed by the local currency, the UAE dirham. The stablecoin is designed to provide greater currency stability for individuals in high-inflation countries such as Turkey, Egypt, and Pakistan, helping them to hedge against inflation risks. Additionally, the stablecoin will serve as an alternative to the SWIFT system. The stablecoin will be usable on decentralized exchanges (DEX) such as Uniswap, SushiSwap, and PancakeSwap. Naheta revealed that the team plans to collaborate with centralized exchanges (CEX) in the future.

According to Foresight News, data from The Block reveals that the trading volume for centralized exchanges (CEX) in September amounted to $311.92 billion. This marks the lowest level since November 2020.

According to CryptoPotato, Bitcoin's price has increased to around $28,000 in the past 24 hours, following millions worth of liquidated short positions and increased trading volume. As market sentiment improves, many are curious about how high Bitcoin's price can get during the next bull run. ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence, suggests that the next Bitcoin bull run could begin in late Q1 or early Q2 in 2024, following the upcoming Bitcoin halving. Factors that could determine the beginning of the next bull run include adoption and use cases, institutional investment, regulation, macro-economic factors, and technological developments. Institutional investors, such as hedge funds and large corporations, have shown interest in Bitcoin, and increased institutional adoption could lead to increased demand and price appreciation. The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has recently delayed multiple applications for a spot Bitcoin ETF, including those from BlackRock, Valkyries, Invesco, and Bitwise. Some analysts have based their BTC price predictions on the approval of a spot Bitcoin ETF. Tom Lee from Fundstrat said that BTC could reach $180,000 if a spot Bitcoin ETF is approved. Other price predictions for BTC during the next bull run include $148K by Pantera Capital, $100K before March 2024 by Adam Back, $120K in 2024 by Robert Kiyosaki, and $100K by 2024 by Standard Chartered.

According to Foresight News, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) has partnered with Chainlink, as shown on Chainlink's webpage. ANZ is currently participating in a comprehensive case study of the Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) and plans to deploy the CCIP in its issued stablecoins to promote institutional adoption of tokenized assets. Chainlink Labs and ANZ Bank also highlighted that by utilizing the CCIP, financial institutions can provide their customers with secure cross-chain access to various tokenized assets and digital asset services.

According to CryptoPotato, Pablo Rodriguez, the co-founder of the cryptocurrency pyramid scheme AirBit Club, has been sentenced to 12 years in prison after pleading guilty to wire fraud conspiracy charges in a US District Court in March. Rodriguez and his co-conspirators were accused of orchestrating a global scam, enticing investors with false promises of cryptocurrency riches while misappropriating their investments for personal gain and offering excuses when faced with withdrawal requests. Judge George B. Daniels at the District Court has ordered an extra three years of supervised release for Rodriguez, which will be in effect after his 12-year prison term. Rodriguez and Dos Santos founded AirBit Club in 2015 and orchestrated a fraudulent scheme siphoning over $100 million. The duo lured their victims into investing in AirBit Club by promising guaranteed profits in exchange for cash investments in club “memberships.” AirBit Club was marketed as a cryptocurrency multilevel marketing club, with promises of returns from cryptocurrency mining and trading, along with daily passive returns for members. To promote the scheme, Rodriguez, Dos Santos, Hughes, Millan, and Chairez traveled globally, hosting extravagant expos and local presentations in various countries to persuade victims to buy AirBit Club memberships, including in the Southern District of New York. Victims were given access to an online portal showing supposed profits accumulating, but these claims were fraudulent in nature as it was later found that no actual cryptocurrency activities on behalf of victims occurred. Instead, the perpetrators “enriched themselves,” spending user funds on luxury items while recruiting more victims through lavish expos. In cases where victims tried to withdraw funds from the AirBit Club Online Portal and complained to promoters, they encountered excuses, delays, and hidden fees, often amounting to over 50% of their requested withdrawal. Some of them also had their accounts closed, and their principal investments were allegedly lost due to a false claim related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to Foresight News, SBF disagrees with the prosecutor's request to allow a Ukrainian witness to testify via video conference in a federal court, as reported by CNBC. The U.S. Department of Justice stated that it will subpoena FTX's former customers, investors, and employees during SBF's trial, according to a CoinDesk report cited by Foresight News. A customer witness identified by the Justice Department as 'FTX Customer-1' resides in Ukraine and cannot easily travel to the United States due to legal and logistical reasons.

According to Foresight News, Astar Network founder Sota Watanabe announced that the Astar zkEVM testnet will launch in October and move to the next phase. Previously, Foresight News reported on September 13 that Astar Network, a Polkadot ecosystem smart contract platform, collaborated with Polygon Labs to launch the Ethereum Layer 2 network Astar zkEVM. The Astar zkEVM testnet is scheduled to launch in the fourth quarter of this year, with sETH serving as the gas token on the testnet.

Today’s Fear & Greed Index is 50. The level is Neutral. According to Alternative.me, the Crypto Fear and Greed Index stands at 50 (noon, UTC+0), landing in the “Neutral” segment. This signifies a neutral level of optimism among the majority of cryptocurrency investors. Compared to yesterday, the Greed level has a slight increase from 48 to 50. Throughout the previous week, the index fluctuated from 47 to 50 indicating an increasing level of Greed in the market. The Fear & Greed index is measured from 0 to 100, with 0 representing "Extreme Fear" and 100 representing "Extreme Greed." The index calculates the factors of volatility (25%), market momentum/volume (25%), social media (15%), dominance (10%), Google trends (10%), and survey (15% - currently paused).  

According to Foresight News, interest-bearing stablecoin protocol Lybra Finance has announced the launch of Lybra DAO. In addition, the company has opened a governance Discord channel, which can be used for discussing future proposals.

According to Foresight News, Spot On Chain monitoring has reported that in the past three hours, two whales have jointly converted 1343 MKR to 1158 ETH, which is approximately worth $1.99 million. Whale 0x432 converted 807 MKR to 690.6 ETH at an average price of $1479 per MKR, totaling around $1.19 million, about two hours ago. Meanwhile, Whale 0x6ce converted 536.125 MKR to 467.31 ETH at an average price of $1492 per MKR, amounting to approximately $800,000, about three hours ago.

According to Foresight News, data from Token Unlocks reveals that from October 2 to October 8, SUI, DYDX, TORN, LQTY, 1INCH, GAL, NYM, HFT, IMX, and GLMR tokens will undergo a one-time unlocking. Specifically: Sui token (SUI) will unlock 34.62 million tokens (approximately $17.21 million) on October 3 at 08:00, accounting for 4.02% of the circulating supply; dYdX token (DYDX) will unlock 2.16 million tokens (approximately $4.36 million) on October 3 at 23:00, accounting for 1.23% of the circulating supply; Tornado Cash token (TORN) will unlock 22,840 tokens (approximately $69,900) on October 4 at 11:06, accounting for 1.51% of the circulating supply; Liquity token (LQTY) will unlock approximately 650,000 tokens (approximately $680,000) on October 5 at 08:00, accounting for 0.7% of the circulating supply; 1inch token (1INCH) will unlock approximately 287,000 tokens (approximately $80,000) on October 5 at 08:00, accounting for 0.03% of the circulating supply; Galxe token (GAL) will unlock approximately 416,700 tokens (approximately $550,000) on October 5 at 20:00, accounting for 0.9% of the circulating supply; Nym token (NYM) will unlock 12.5 million tokens (approximately $1.41 million) on October 6 at 08:00, accounting for 2.26% of the circulating supply; Hashflow token (HFT) will unlock 3.23 million tokens (approximately $1.14 million) on October 7 at 08:00, accounting for 1.84% of the circulating supply; ImmutableX token (IMX) will unlock 18.08 million tokens (approximately $11.12 million) on October 7 at 18:00, accounting for 1.55% of the circulating supply; Moonbeam token (GLMR) will unlock 3.04 million tokens (approximately $710,000) on October 8 at 08:00, accounting for 0.4% of the circulating supply.

According to Foresight News, Galaxy Research Vice President Christine Kim summarized the 171st Ethereum Core Developer Consensus Meeting (ACDE), where developers discussed the progress of the Dencun upgrade, early audit results of EIP-4788, beacon block roots in EVM, the launch of the Holesky testnet, EIP-7503, and preliminary feedback on zero-knowledge wormholes. Regarding the Dencun test, the release of Devnet-9 has been postponed again, with developers planning to launch it by the end of September or this week. Developers also stated that after the launch of Devnet-9, a 10th devnet will be needed for the Dencun upgrade, and the lifecycle of Devnet-10 will be relatively short. Developers will also test validator workflows to obtain MEV using MEV-Boost software on Devnet-9 and 10. For EIP-4788, developers reported that three audits conducted by Chainsecurity, Trail of Bits, and Dedaub have been completed. One of the most important findings in the audit was that users can query smart contract addresses with zero timestamps, even if no value is set for the zero timestamp. The Holosky testnet was also launched before this ACDE meeting. Developers also discussed EIP-7503, which proposes a new Ethereum privacy solution based on zero-knowledge cryptography technology. Compared to cryptocurrency mixers like Tornado Cash, this solution will provide stronger privacy guarantees for users' transactions. It will also provide users with a method to prove that the funds in their accounts have not been obfuscated by the privacy protocol supported by EIP-7503, effectively allowing users to submit 'proof of innocence' for their accounts for regulatory and compliance purposes. Finally, Guillaume Ballet from the Geth client team raised a minor issue in the EIP 6780 specification. Ballet pointed out that the EIP specifies the behavior of SELFDESTRUCT in the post-Verkle environment.

According to Foresight News, the dYdX community has approved a temperature check vote for the 'dYdX v4 Launch Incentive Proposal'. The proposal suggests allocating $20 million worth of DYDX from the dYdX Chain community treasury for a six-month launch incentive program on v4 to encourage early adopters. As previously reported by Foresight News, on-chain risk analysis platform Chaos Labs proposed the allocation of $20 million in DYDX incentives to early users of the dYdX v4 version. The incentives will target activities such as deposits, trading, staking, and governance participation.

According to Foresight News, data from DefiLlama reveals that the total value locked (TVL) in the Sui Network has reached $36.63 million, setting a new record since the mainnet launch in May.

According to CryptoPotato, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and the central banks of France, Singapore, and Switzerland have announced the successful completion of a new central bank digital currency (CBDC) initiative called Project Mariana. The project tested cross-border trading and settlement of wholesale central bank digital currencies (wCBDCs) between financial institutions, leveraging Decentralized Finance (DeFi) technology on a public blockchain. The collaboration between BIS Innovation Hub centers in Switzerland, Singapore, and the Eurosystem, together with Banque de France, Monetary Authority of Singapore, and Swiss National Bank, successfully validated the trading and settlement of hypothetical euro, Singapore dollar, and Swiss franc wCBDCs. The project explored crucial aspects such as establishing a standardized technical token and creating bridges to facilitate seamless wCBDC transfers, as well as the Automated Market Maker (AMM) concept for automatic pricing and execution of spot FX transactions. Project Mariana's architecture balances central banks' domestic need for oversight and the interest of financial institutions to hold, transfer, and settle wCBDC across borders efficiently. However, this is still an experimental phase, and BIS intends to investigate further the opportunities and obstacles tied to CBDC and its associated technologies in collaboration with its partners. The project is seen as a cornerstone in improving cross-border payments and will likely feature at the Banque de France conference on Oct. 3.

According to Cointelegraph, Jenny Johnson, CEO of Franklin Templeton, one of the world's largest asset managers, believes that tokenization is transforming the practice of securitization. Speaking at CNBC's Delivering Alpha event, Johnson compared tokenization, the process of converting asset ownership rights into digital tokens on a blockchain, to 'securitization done on steroids,' a term often used to describe something that exceeds expectations. Johnson's remarks were part of an analysis of the future of alternative investment vehicles. She noted that available capital and technology disruption have been attracting more companies and CEOs to invest in 'things for the future,' like blockchain technology. Johnson explained that tokenization allows for a payment mechanism, smart contracts to be programmed into the token, and a source of truth through a general ledger. Using Rihanna as an example, Johnson highlighted how the singer released one of her popular songs as a nonfungible token (NFT), allowing holders to partially earn royalties on streaming. Johnson also mentioned that athletes could benefit from tokenization by selling off tokens worth a percentage of their future revenue streams to fans. Franklin Templeton, a $1.5 trillion asset manager with offices worldwide, is currently awaiting regulatory approval in the United States for a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF).

According to CryptoPotato, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has filed a civil enforcement action in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida against Pennsylvania-based Mosaic Exchange Limited and its owner and CEO Sean Michael for allegedly operating a fraudulent digital asset commodity scheme. The CFTC claims that Mosaic and its operators fraudulently solicited at least 17 people in the US and other countries to give them hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bitcoin or other funds to trade BTC and other digital asset commodities on the customer's behalf, but instead misappropriated them. Between February 2019 and June 2021, Mosaic allegedly made false representations about its assets under management, suggesting it was a significant player in the cryptocurrency trading market. The complaint also claimed that Mosaic had developed a proprietary trading algorithm with an 82% accuracy rate, which was used to generate substantial profits for customers. Additionally, Mosaic and its CEO falsely claimed to have established partnerships or broker agreements with certain crypto exchanges to add credibility to their operation. The CFTC states that Mosaic did not possess the substantial assets under management as advertised and was found to have incurred losses while trading for its customers. The profit margins were also unsubstantiated, and Mosaic did not consistently achieve the high returns promised to investors. The complaint further asserts that the platform did not have the partnerships or broker agreements that were advertised, potentially misleading customers about the platform's legitimacy. CFTC Commissioner Kristin Johnson called the entire scheme a "sham" and a "virtual house of cards" that resulted in unsuspecting investors losing massive hard-earned wealth.

According to Cointelegraph, Microsoft is reportedly forming a new team to advance its artificial intelligence (AI) plans by hiring a professional to develop an energy strategy based on Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) and microreactor energy. The tech giant is looking for a principal program manager to lead its nuclear technology efforts in support of AI model development, according to a job post reported by The Verge. The ideal candidate must have at least six years of experience in the nuclear industry, engineering, or energy market. The position will also be responsible for exploring other experimental energy technologies. Complex machine learning models, like deep learning, can consume a significant amount of energy due to complex computations and large volumes of data. A study published in 2019 by the MIT Technology Review found that training a single AI model can emit as much carbon in the atmosphere as five cars in their lifetimes. A few ways to reduce the energy consumption of AI models involve developing more efficient algorithms and hardware, as well as using renewable energy sources for data centers, such as nuclear power. According to the U.S. Office of Nuclear Energy, one of the main advantages of nuclear power is that it produces zero carbon emissions and doesn’t emit other greenhouse gases. However, researchers at Stanford University argue that this energy source isn’t a solution to environmental problems, since it has a long-time lag between planning and operation, a large carbon footprint, and meltdown risks.