According to Foresight News, Digishares, a real-world asset tokenization platform, has announced the completion of a $2 million funding round, including $1.2 million raised through crowdfunding platform Republic. The specific investors have not been disclosed. Digishares stated that the new funds will be used to launch its blockchain-based real estate real-world asset (RWA) tokenization trading market, 'RealTstate.Exchange'. The platform will support 24/7 trading and control corporate behavior through smart contracts to ensure transparency.

According to Foresight News, Chainlink has announced the launch of Chainlink Automation 2.0 and Chainlink Functions (beta) on its mainnet. The new version of Chainlink Automation allows developers to perform off-chain smart contract computations in a verifiable and highly reliable manner, enabling Web3 use case automation support and reducing gas costs. Chainlink Functions, on the other hand, enable smart contracts to support application programming interfaces (APIs) without the need for servers, allowing access to API data, AI models, cloud services, and more.

According to Foresight News, the US Securities and Exchange Commission's Office of Investor Education and Advocacy (OIEA), Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), National Futures Association (NFA), Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC), and North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) have jointly released an investor alert for 'World Investor Week 2023', covering three main themes: investor resilience, crypto assets, and sustainable finance. The alert states that investors should be aware of the potential extreme volatility and speculative nature of crypto asset investments. Platforms for buying, selling, borrowing, or lending these assets may lack protection. Providers of crypto asset investments or services may not comply with applicable laws, including federal securities laws. For individual investors involved in transactions involving crypto assets (including crypto asset securities), the risk of loss remains significant.

According to Cointelegraph, blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis has reduced its headcount by 15% this week, amounting to approximately 135 staff. The decision was made due to the need to reduce expenses amid continued bear market conditions. Chainalysis Vice President of Communications, Madeleine Kennedy, stated that the company remains committed to its mission to build trust in blockchains among government agencies, financial institutions, and cryptocurrency businesses. Before the most recent cuts, Chainalysis had around 900 employees. This is the second round of cuts for the company this year, as the ongoing crypto bear market has reduced the demand for commercial products. In February, Chainalysis cut around 40-50 jobs as part of a reorganization in light of worsening market conditions. Digital asset market capitalization has fallen by 64% from its peak level almost two years ago, and markets have remained mostly flat with volatility, liquidity, and trading volumes dwindling. A Forbes report citing an email from CEO Michael Gronager to staff suggests the cuts will come mainly from marketing and business development teams focused on the private sector.

According to Foresight News, Polygon-based GameFi platform NexGami (formerly known as Light eSports and MetaVirus Games) has announced the completion of a $2 million seed funding round, with a post-investment valuation of $20 million. The round saw participation from Polygon Ventures, Fundamental Labs, and Ledger Capital. NexGami primarily provides seamless integration solutions for gaming products on the Polygon blockchain. The company plans to use the newly raised funds to enhance user gaming experience and focus on the esports ecosystem.

According to Foresight News, Volatility Shares co-founder Justin Young confirmed that the company has canceled its plans to launch an Ethereum futures ETF. He stated that 'we do not see an opportunity at this point in time'. When asked if the company still plans to launch an Ethereum futures ETF later, Young said they will continue to apply, but the timeline for the application is yet to be determined. Foresight News previously reported that sources claimed Volatility Shares abandoned its Ethereum futures ETF plans due to losing the first-mover advantage.

According to Foresight News, cryptocurrency payment provider FCF Pay has announced that it will support its users in purchasing Mercedes-Benz vehicles using cryptocurrencies. The supported currencies include BTC, ETH, BNB, XLM, DOGE, and FLOKI.

According to Binance Blog, Binance has recently joined forces with the Royal Thai Police in cracking down on criminal networks involved in large-scale crypto scams. Two major operations led to the arrest of key criminals and the seizure of significant assets, fortifying Binance’s commitment to global cybersecurity and regulatory compliance. In a particularly noteworthy case, Binance and the Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau (CCIB) of the Royal Thai Police dismantled a criminal ring behind a "pig butchering" scam, affecting thousands and resulting in seized assets valued at around $277 million. In another operation, Binance aided in capturing suspects across three Thai provinces, leading to the confiscation of 16 luxury residences, 12 top-tier vehicles, and $440,000 in cash. Binance's Investigations team actively supports global law enforcement in the fight against cybercrime by supplying key intelligence and expertise. This collaboration is a key element of Binance's ongoing effort to enhance user security and uphold regulatory compliance in the digital-asset ecosystem.

According to Foresight News, blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis is planning to lay off around 150 employees, slightly more than 15% of its total workforce of 900. The reason for the layoffs is the company's decision to withdraw from several markets and focus on more stable government contract businesses, which currently account for 70% of Chainalysis' revenue. This is the second round of layoffs for the company. In April this year, Chainalysis announced the layoff of about 44 employees, representing 4.8% of its total workforce. Chainalysis CEO Michael Gronager stated that most of the layoffs will once again come from the private sector's marketing and business development teams.

According to Foresight News, Bitwise Asset Management has announced the launch of two first-of-their-kind Ethereum futures ETFs, the Bitwise Ethereum Strategy ETF (AETH) and the Bitwise Bitcoin and Ethereum Equal Weight Strategy ETF (BTOP). For the first time, investors can invest in Ethereum futures through regulated ETFs. The Bitwise Ethereum Strategy ETF (ticker symbol: AETH) invests in regulated CME Ethereum futures, focusing on front-month contracts. The Bitcoin and Ethereum Equal Weight Strategy ETF (ticker symbol: BTOP) provides equal exposure to regulated CME Bitcoin futures and CME Ethereum futures. Both ETFs have the Bank of New York Mellon as their fund custodian and have an expense ratio of 0.85%.

According to Cointelegraph, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon believes that artificial intelligence (AI) could be applied to every single process of the firm's operations and may replace humans in certain roles. In an interview with Bloomberg on October 2, Dimon said he expects to see various models, tools, and technology for AI in the future. He added that AI is already being applied to processes such as errors, trading, hedging, research, and databases at JPMorgan. Dimon acknowledged that AI could replace some jobs, but emphasized that technology has always done so. He also expressed concern about AI being used by malicious actors, particularly in cyberspace, but is hopeful that legal guardrails will curtail such conduct over time. If JPMorgan replaces employees with AI, Dimon hopes to redeploy displaced workers in more suitable work environments, such as different branches or functions.

According to Cointelegraph, a group of investors behind a class-action lawsuit against Terraform Labs and its co-founder Do Kwon over fraud allegations have dropped the case. In a September 28 filing in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, lawyers representing plaintiff Nick Patterson, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of investors, filed a notice of voluntary dismissal only against Terraform and Kwon. The notice did not explicitly state the reasons for dropping the case without prejudice. Patterson's legal team filed the lawsuit in June 2022 following the collapse of Terraform Labs, which many attributed to kicking off a major crypto market crash. Kwon and the company have since been the target of many authorities globally for their role in an alleged scheme aimed at defrauding investors. In February, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil suit against Kwon and Terra for allegedly 'orchestrating a multi-billion dollar crypto asset securities fraud'. Authorities in Montenegro arrested Kwon in March and subsequently sentenced him to 4 months in prison for using false travel documents. At the time of publication, it was unclear if he will be released in Montenegro or face extradition to the U.S. or South Korea.

According to Cointelegraph, United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) chair Rostin Behnam discussed the agency's activity in the crypto sphere and the need for updated legislation at the Financial Industry Association Expo 2023 event in Chicago. He highlighted the CFTC Enforcement Division's efforts as a "nonstop drumbeat." In his keynote address, Behnam mentioned that his agency collected $6 billion in penalties in fiscal year 2023, with 45 of those enforcement actions involving digital asset-related misconduct, representing over 34% of the 131 such actions brought by the Commission since 2015. Behnam also discussed the precedent-setting litigation against Ooki DAO, which resulted in the closure of the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) and a $643,542 penalty. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California found that the DAO was a "person" under the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) of 1936. Behnam noted that the limits in the CEA create barriers to engaging in rulemakings and policy necessary for the agency's mission, forcing the CFTC to engage in resource-intensive quests for assurances that they are acting within the bounds of their intended remit. Behnam's statements contrasted with Securities and Exchange Commission chair Gary Gensler's position that Depression-era financial legislation should not be tampered with. Behnam also indirectly addressed limitations on the CFTC's enforcement authority, stating that he has continued to advocate for additional authority in the crypto space.

According to CoinDesk, a report from the Federal Reserve’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) has found that Silvergate Bank was able to transform from a community lender to a high-flying crypto bank without its Federal Reserve examiners raising concerns. The OIG report concluded that the bank's change in course should have required a different type of registration, which its government supervisors failed to demand. The report also found that examiners were too slow to deal with several problems as the bank headed toward its voluntary wind-down in March after last year’s crypto mayhem shattered its customers. The OIG made several internal recommendations for how Fed examiners should handle similar situations in the future, and the Federal Reserve Board of Governors has agreed to develop new and expanded guidance on rapidly growing banks that change their focus.

According to Cointelegraph, a team of scientists from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, recently published pre-print artificial intelligence (AI) research that highlights the difficulty of removing sensitive data from large language models (LLMs) like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard. The researchers found that while it is possible to delete information from LLMs, verifying that the information has been removed is just as challenging as the removal process itself. This difficulty arises from the way LLMs are engineered and trained. They are pre-trained on databases and then fine-tuned to generate coherent outputs. Once a model is trained, its creators cannot go back into the database and delete specific files to prevent the model from outputting related results. This is the 'black box' of AI. Problems occur when LLMs trained on massive datasets output sensitive information, such as personally identifiable information or financial records. To address this issue, AI developers use guardrails, such as hard-coded prompts that inhibit specific behaviors or reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF). However, the UNC researchers argue that this method relies on humans finding all the flaws a model might exhibit and, even when successful, it still doesn’t 'delete' the information from the model. The researchers concluded that even state-of-the-art model editing methods, such as Rank-One Model Editing (ROME), fail to fully delete factual information from LLMs, as facts can still be extracted 38% of the time by whitebox attacks and 29% of the time by blackbox attacks. The researchers were able to develop new defense methods to protect LLMs from some 'extraction attacks' — purposeful attempts by bad actors to use prompting to circumvent a model’s guardrails in order to make it output sensitive information. However, they noted that the problem of deleting sensitive information may be one where defense methods are always playing catch-up to new attack methods.

Ethereum futures Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) have commenced trading with a moderate volume, which is typical for newly launched ETFs, said Bloomberg's senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas via a social media post on October 2nd. The total volume for the nine Ethereum futures ETFs is currently slightly less than $2 million, as reported by BlockBeats. However, compared to the Bitcoin futures ETF BITO's trading volume, which reached $200 million within the first 15 minutes of trading, Ethereum futures ETFs have started with a smaller volume. This could reflect cautious investor sentiment towards Ethereum as it navigates through regulatory scrutiny and market uncertainties. The introduction of Ethereum futures ETFs is seen as a significant development, providing investors with an additional investment instrument to speculate on Ethereum's price without actually owning the underlying asset. These ETFs also offer the cryptocurrency market increased visibility and direct access to a broader range of investors.  

According to CoinDesk, the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is concerned about the poor quality of responses it has received from unregulated overseas crypto firms regarding the upcoming promotions regime for the sector. The new rules, which require crypto firms to have appropriate warnings on websites and implement a 24-hour waiting period for new investors to confirm they want to enter into a contract with companies, will take effect on October 8. Firms have the option to apply for a three-month extension to comply with the rules. Lucy Castledine, director of consumer investments at the FCA, said the regulator is concerned about a lack of engagement from some unregulated overseas firms. However, crypto firms like ByBit, Luno, and payments platform PayPal, who recently announced they were halting certain services to the UK market in order to comply with the rules, received a nod of approval from the watchdog. The FCA is prepared to monitor firms' compliance and has the ability to scan 100,000 websites on a daily basis, according to Castledine. Unauthorized ads or promotions could mean jail time, the FCA warned in February. The regulator will also have powers against overseas companies serving UK clients without registering with the FCA, but how they will handle them will vary case by case, Castledine added. The regulator submits information on non-compliant firms to global watchdogs like the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) to be added to alert lists.

According to Cointelegraph: Haru Invest, the bankrupt South Korean yield platform, has signaled its intention to return assets to investors, despite not providing a specific time frame for the process. During a Q&A session on October 2, Haru Invest's CEO Hugo Lee explained that the firm is planning a "phased asset recovery and distribution" in multiple stages through the sale of recovered assets. However, he acknowledged that predicting an exact distribution schedule is impossible at this stage due to ongoing legal procedures and cooperation with investigative agencies. Lee assured investors that their money would be returned via an equitable distribution process that doesn't favor South Korean creditors over international investors. Notably, about 60% of Haru Invest's users are from abroad, while the remaining 40% reside in South Korea. Haru Invest previously experienced suspicion of fraudulent activities involving a consignment operator, B&S Holdings, in June. Subsequently, the platform suspended all deposits and withdrawals before filing for bankruptcy. The situation sent shock waves through the crypto sector, affecting the fellow crypto lender Delio, which held $1 billion in Bitcoin and $200 million in Ether. At its peak, Haru Invest served over 80,000 members and reported 9.8 million crypto-earn payouts, alongside $2.27 billion in total transactions. The firm once aimed to offer a 12% annual yield on most of its earn products and raised $4 million last September in funding, valuing the company at $284 million. As of a September 25 update, Haru Invest is being maintained by a minimal operating team, rendering its website login functionality non-operational.  

According to CryptoPotato, October is shaping up to be an important month for several major projects, including Axie Infinity, Optimism, and Aptos, as they prepare for significant token releases. Collectively, the three projects are set to release over $130 million into the market, with Axie Infinity experiencing the largest increase in the circulating supply of its AXS token at 11.5%. Axie Infinity, a blockchain-based NFT game, leads the token unlocks this month. Data from TokenUnlocks indicates that the project will release 15.1 million AXS tokens on October 20, representing 11.5% of its circulating supply and valued at approximately $71.8 million. The distribution of these tokens will primarily benefit the project's team, who will receive $28.9 million, followed by $16.3 million allocated to staking rewards, $16 million for play-to-earn incentives, $8 million for an ecosystem fund, and $2.6 million going to advisors. Optimism is also set to unlock tokens this month. On October 30, 24.2 million OP tokens, equivalent to 3% of its circulating supply, will be released, with a total value of $35.3 million. Of this amount, $18.6 million will be allocated to core contributors, and $16.7 million will go to investors. Aptos will release 4.5 million APT tokens on October 12, equivalent to 1.91% of its circulating supply and valued at approximately $26 million. The community will receive most of these tokens, with $18.4 million allocated, while $7.6 million will go to the Aptos Foundation. Other significant ventures releasing tokens in October include ApeCoin ($19.7 million), Sui ($17.2 million), ImmutableX ($11 million), and dYdX ($4.5 million). In November, Avalanche is preparing for a token unlock, with approximately $93.5 million of AVAX tokens, equivalent to 2.7% of the circulating supply, set to be released on November 24.

According to CoinDesk, Chainlink, a blockchain data oracle provider, has launched a new product called 'Data Streams' designed to reduce network latency. The product has entered early access on the layer 2 platform Arbitrum. Chainlink Data Streams combines low latency market data and automated execution to enable a new generation of ultra-fast and user-friendly derivatives products. The product uses a pull-based data oracle solution, which reduces latency and allows users to retrieve oracle reports off-chain and validate them with their on-chain transactions. Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov said in a press release that Data Streams enables decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols to support execution speeds and user experiences that rival centralized exchanges without compromising on the core Web3 value of fair, transparent, and decentralized infrastructure. Additionally, Chainlink announced new decentralized computing capabilities with Functions Beta and Automation 2.0 on the main network. Chainlink Functions will enable developers to connect decentralized applications to any application program interface (API), while Chainlink Functions allows high-value jobs to be automated at a tenth of the cost, saving up to 90% in gas costs. Kemal El Moujahid, chief product officer at Chainlink Labs, said in a statement that these updates create a standard for developers to connect heterogeneous Web3 components with any existing system, move data and value seamlessly across multiple chain ecosystems, and create new verifiable applications.