Bybit's Dubai entity lands full VASP license from VARA
Bybit Fintech FZE has obtained a Virtual Asset Service Provider license from Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority, covering spot crypto exchange services. The firm set up its international headquarters in Dubai in 2022 and received in-principle approval in August 2024. Chief legal and compliance officer Peter Loo said the exchange plans to seek an expanded license for derivatives trading. Bybit is the world's second-largest crypto exchange by trading volume, with over 80 million registered users.
DeepSeek closes around 100 billion yuan round led by CATL and Tencent
Hangzhou-based DeepSeek has raised approximately 100 billion yuan (about $15 billion) in one of China's largest-ever funding rounds, according to Bloomberg. The AI lab reportedly raised its target at least twice during negotiations, from 50 billion yuan to 80 billion and finally to the reported final figure. Battery giant CATL and Tencent were among the largest investors. The capital will support DeepSeek's push to compete globally against Anthropic, OpenAI and other US AI firms.
South Korea weighs another delay on crypto taxation
Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Lee Hyung-il said the government will collect views from industry and parliament before deciding on crypto taxation. The National Tax Service acknowledged it cannot fully track data from overseas and decentralized exchanges. South Korea's crypto tax has already been postponed three times, and pressure for a fourth delay is mounting. The government met with the heads of five major crypto exchanges on October 20 to hear their views.
ZachXBT: $15.8 million in CoinDCX user deposits untracked
On-chain detective ZachXBT disclosed that CoinDCX's deposit address TQKJQ remained in use by a liquidity provider for 10 months after the Indian exchange's July 2025 security incident. As late as April and May 2026, the address was still consolidating user deposits into CoinDCX's current public hot wallet and receiving gas fees. ZachXBT concluded that $15.8 million in user deposits went untracked. CoinDCX responded that user funds are safe and that the transactions involved old wallet addresses created in January 2025 that were compromised in July 2025.
Bybit CEO eyes US expansion via large broker partnerships
Bybit CEO Ben Zhou told CoinDesk that the exchange will partner with companies that already have US customer bases to compete with Robinhood, citing Interactive Brokers as a possible candidate. Zhou said state-by-state licensing would take two to three years, so the exchange prefers to wait for the Clarity Act or unified federal oversight. He also said the UK has no dominant global exchange and that Bybit is studying market entry there, with a London office location yet to be decided.
Unitree unveils World Physical AI Competition in Hangzhou
Unitree Robotics founder and CTO Wang Xingxing officially launched the World Physical AI Competition at the company's partner ecosystem conference in Hangzhou. The annual competition will offer tens of millions of yuan in prize money and is open to global teams and individuals. It features eight tracks: arbitrary mobility, track and field, combat, dexterous manipulation, production, sports events, multimodal interaction, and eldercare.
South Korea raises cyber alert level over critical PHP vulnerabilities
The South Korean government has raised its cybersecurity alert level over severe PHP remote code execution flaws. The National Security Office convened an emergency cybersecurity meeting, while Korean IT and cybersecurity firms scrambled to respond. An estimated 110,000 internet assets in South Korea — the sixth-highest count globally — may run vulnerable PHP versions. No confirmed intrusions related to the flaws have been reported in the country so far.
China's MIIT issues PHP vulnerability warning, targets industrial AI push
China's National Vulnerability Database under the MIIT issued a risk alert over two critical PHP remote code execution vulnerabilities that could allow unauthenticated attackers to take over servers. Separately, the MIIT and seven other agencies issued a five-year plan calling for accelerated AI adoption across product R&D, design simulation, pilot verification and production operations. The plan promotes industry-specific large models and new business models such as model-as-a-service and agent-as-a-service.
PBOC digital yuan system detailed: eight core services and smart contract framework
The central bank-side digital yuan system — described as the "heart" of China's CBDC infrastructure — offers eight core services, including cross-institution payment settlement, unified liquidity management, issuance management, a smart contract framework, digital assets, unified wallet management, unified data and intelligent risk control. The operating management center said the DCEPS platform underpins the digital yuan ecosystem and provides the technical base for the CBETS bond trading system.
Ant Digital Technologies releases decision model claiming higher accuracy than Microsoft and JEV
Ant Digital Technologies, an Alibaba affiliate, launched LingDT-Decision-1.0 in 4B and 27B parameter versions, now available on its DTMaaS platform. The model is designed for rapid decision tasks, replacing the generate-then-parse approach with direct judgment among constrained options. In real business tests across customer service, risk control and finance, the model cut token consumption by over 90% and boosted response speed up to 10x. Risk identification accuracy in customer service rose from 76% to 89%, while hallucination recall in finance improved from 44% to 70%.
Korean KOSPI and Nikkei sink; BTC breaks below $82,000
South Korea's KOSPI index closed down 3.52% at 5,533.76 points, with SK Hynix falling 5.48% and Samsung Electronics dropping 4.02%. Japan's Nikkei 225 slid 2.65% to 62,907.84. The selling pressure coincided with weakness in US chip and cloud infrastructure names and a global risk-off mood. On the crypto side, Bitcoin slipped below $82,000 on OKX, down 3.02% on the day, while gold dropped below $4,100 per ounce.
Stablecoin remittances from Canada to India, Philippines and China hit $2.36 billion
Chainalysis reported that stablecoin and bitcoin small-value remittances from Canada to India, the Philippines and China reached $2.36 billion in 2026, up 141% year-over-year. The flow comprised 3.56 million transactions averaging $663 each. These three countries now account for 19.4% of Canada's total cross-border stablecoin outflows, up from 10.9% a year earlier. The data underscores how Asian corridors dominate global stablecoin remittance activity.
XRP Ledger vulnerability fix delayed to November
A patch for an XRP Ledger vulnerability has been postponed to November after validator support momentarily dropped to 26 out of 35, resetting the two-week activation countdown. Support has since recovered to 31 validators, but the reset means the fix missed its original activation window. The delay highlights the coordination challenges of maintaining decentralized network upgrades even when a security patch enjoys broad community consensus.
Pirate Chain rolls back chain after minting bug attack
Privacy coin project Pirate Chain has issued a mandatory update v6.0.14 requiring all nodes, mining pools and exchanges to upgrade immediately. On October 14, attackers exploited two validation vulnerabilities to mint approximately 39.82 million fake ARRR tokens, temporarily increasing supply by about 20%. The community reached consensus to roll back the chain to block 4,176,944, removing all counterfeit tokens and restoring the maximum supply to 200 million coins.
Swell investigates suspicious activity in swETH and rswETH contracts
Liquid staking protocol Swell is investigating reports of suspicious activity in its swETH and rswETH contracts after a security analyst claimed the admin key may have been compromised. The attacker allegedly inflated token NAV by up to 1% per hour without asset backing and deployed four malicious upgrade contracts that could steal roughly 2,500 ETH. Swell said no ETH has flowed out of its withdrawal or deposit contracts and advised users no action is needed.
NVIDIA's Jensen Huang: regulation cannot prevent AI safety incidents
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang said at GTC Berlin that regulation cannot prevent AI safety incidents, a striking statement as governments worldwide — including in Asia — accelerate AI governance frameworks. Huang also announced the Vera Rubin platform has entered full production and unveiled the DSX POD modular AI factory reference design, cutting on-site deployment time from six months to 14 days. The comments and product push signal NVIDIA's bet that technical safeguards, not regulatory mandates, will shape AI safety.
eBay China begins sweeping layoffs, possibly 80% of staff
eBay China has initiated a new round of layoffs affecting its Shanghai office and other major sites. Multiple independent sources told 36Kr that the China headcount reduction could reach 80%, with many employees actively seeking jobs on social recruiting platforms. Social security filings show eBay's Shanghai engineering entity employed 611 people in 2025, its information services arm 118, and its management company 189 employees in 2024.
Kling 4.0 API launches globally from Chinese AI video firm
Kuaishou-affiliated Kling has officially launched its Kling 4.0 API, which will gradually open to global enterprise clients and developers. The model supports native generation of up to 30 seconds per clip, with long-take and continuous narrative capabilities. Kling 4.0 is already integrated across partners including iQiyi Nadou Pro, Tencent Design Miora, Meitu, Higgsfield, LibTV and Magnific.
Unitree CTO: aligning AI model I/O with real robots is the core challenge of embodied intelligence
Speaking at the 2026 World Physical AI Conference in Hangzhou, Unitree CTO Wang Xingxing said top AI model companies have essentially achieved internal model self-evolution, with models writing their own programs and collecting data. But he noted it takes 5 to 10 years for technological breakthroughs to diffuse to everyday users. Wang said embodied intelligence has begun to "break through," and the core challenge before it crosses the ChatGPT moment is aligning AI model inputs and outputs with real robots.
Three whales withdraw over 24,000 ETH from exchanges
Three whale addresses withdrew 24,454 ETH worth approximately $60.68 million from centralized exchanges, according to Lookonchain. One address ending 0x4A85 withdrew 10,954 ETH from Kraken after four months of dormancy and staked it. Another withdrew 9,000 ETH from Binance and deposited it into Aave. The third moved 4,500 ETH from Binance. The accumulation suggests large holders are positioning despite broader market weakness.
