Ledger Southeast Asia Supply Chain Attack Losses Near $90 Million as Tether Freezes Funds
A compromised Ledger hardware wallet supply chain centered on Malaysian dealer CryptoBillis has escalated dramatically, with SlowMist's MistTrack now estimating total losses approaching $90 million. Tether has begun freezing USDT at addresses linked to the theft, while the suspected hacker is converting frozen USDT into USDD via SUN.io and PSM mechanisms, with some funds already routed to Binance hot wallets. On-chain data shows the attacker still holds roughly $70.6 million in assets including 11,406 ETH, 213.37 BTC, and 13.65 million USDD. One victim alone lost 80 BTC (about $5.2 million) after purchasing a compromised device from CryptoBillis roughly a week ago.
CryptoBillis Halts All Hardware Wallet Sales Across Malaysia, Philippines, and Indonesia
CryptoBillis has suspended sales and shipments of all hardware wallet brands across its stores and online channels in Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia, with physical locations temporarily closed. The suspension comes as Ledger investigates user asset losses tied to devices purchased through the dealer, and independent experts review internal processes. CryptoBillis confirmed that outstanding orders will be handled proactively by customer service, while users who already activated Ledger devices are urged to transfer assets to new hardware using fresh seed phrases. The company expects to release further updates within three business days.
CryptoBillis Was Secretly Sold Earlier This Year With a Confidentiality Clause
The Malaysian Ledger dealer at the center of the supply chain attack, CryptoBillis, was sold by its original founders this spring under a non-disclosure agreement that prevents disclosure until October 19. The store and its "Ledger authorized" branding have remained in place under new ownership. Former team members said the new management took control while the original team was bound by confidentiality, and no official evidence yet directly links the new owners to tampered devices. SlowMist's 23pds has analyzed the likely attack vector: a malicious module intercepting the screen data line to record seed phrases displayed during setup, then transmitting them via LTE or eSIM to the attacker.
US Justice Department Reviews Binance Compliance With 2023 Settlement Over Iran Flows
The US Department of Justice is reviewing whether Binance has complied with its 2023 settlement agreement, focusing on transactions that may have violated US sanctions on Iran after the deal. The review involves Hong Kong entities allegedly assisting in moving Iranian oil sales proceeds. According to a Wall Street Journal report citing internal Binance documents, 21 accounts linked to sanctioned Iranian financier Babak Zanjani traded about $850 million, with at least $67 million flowing to wallets associated with Iran's Revolutionary Guard. Binance said it has banned the accounts and maintains zero tolerance for sanctions violations, having previously paid over $4.3 billion in fines and accepted compliance monitoring.
HSBC and Ant Digital Complete AI Agent Tokenized Deposit Micropayment Test
HSBC and Ant Digital Technologies have completed a technical proof-of-concept for AI agent micropayments, where AI agents can discover and invoke digital services on behalf of users and complete payments in a single step, typically under $2 per transaction with real-time settlement. The test used HSBC's Tokenised Deposit Service for settlement and real-time risk controls via an MCP interface, while Ant Digital's Anvita Flow handled service invocation and micropayment settlement. On-chain transactions were executed on the Layer 2 blockchain Jovay testnet. Both parties emphasized the test was exploratory and not a commercial launch.
SoftBank Seeks Up to $100 Billion From Gulf Investors for AI Expansion
SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son is seeking to raise up to $100 billion from Gulf region investors for a new round of AI investments, according to the Financial Times. Son has held recent talks with senior figures in the UAE and other Gulf states. The capital would establish a fund for acquiring companies and improving their operations using AI and other advanced technologies. The move follows SoftBank's completed $300 billion additional investment in OpenAI, underscoring the Japanese conglomerate's aggressive push into artificial intelligence infrastructure across Asia and the Middle East.
Alibaba Releases Open-Source Qwen-Image-2.1-Turbo With 8-Step Generation
Alibaba's Qwen team has open-sourced Qwen-Image-2.1-Turbo, an accelerated image generation model that produces and edits images in just eight denoising steps. The model builds on the 7-billion-parameter architecture of Qwen-Image-2.1, supports 2K image generation, and enables continuous natural language editing. Weights are available on Hugging Face and ModelScope, with Pro and Turbo API access already live. The release reinforces the intensifying open-source AI race between Chinese tech giants and Western labs, with potential downstream applications across content creation and crypto-adjacent media.
Hong Kong SFC Plans Extended Trading Hours and T+1 Settlement
Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission is studying an extension of securities trading hours, to be rolled out first in the derivatives market, CEO Julia Leung said at an ASIFMA conference. Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing will publish a discussion paper on extending spot market trading hours in the fourth quarter. The city also plans to shorten its settlement cycle to T+1, with HKEX to release consultation conclusions shortly. Leung noted that the first phase of a bid-ask spread narrowing initiative covering 300 stocks had reduced spreads by 38% and improved execution times by 26%, and that extended hours would be complemented by tokenized currency and digital Hong Kong dollar settlement measures.
F2Pool Co-Founder Wang Chun Withdraws 5,173 ETH From Binance
An address linked to F2Pool co-founder Wang Chun withdrew 5,173 ETH worth about $12.86 million from Binance over a seven-hour period at an average price of $2,485.89. The move came one day after the same address swapped 235.51 WBTC for 7,848.53 ETH worth about $19 million. The ETH/BTC ratio has declined from 0.03212 to 0.03013 since the start of October, suggesting the veteran Chinese miner may be positioning for a rotation into ether. F2Pool is one of the oldest and largest Bitcoin mining pools, founded in China and now operating globally.
Binance ETH Reserves Hit Six-Month Low as Withdrawal Transactions Set Record
Binance's ETH reserves have fallen to a six-month low, while ETH withdrawal transactions on the exchange reached an all-time high, according to CryptoQuant data cited by Cointelegraph. The trend indicates mounting accumulation behavior among Asian traders moving ether off exchanges into self-custody, a pattern often associated with medium-term bullish positioning. The record withdrawal activity comes amid broader market volatility that saw $609 million in total liquidations over 24 hours, with long positions accounting for $431 million. The largest single liquidation was a $19.98 million ETH position on Hyperliquid.
