The Bank of Japan raised its policy rate by 25 basis points to 1.25%, the highest level in 31 years. Governor Kazuo Ueda said the central bank will continue to hike based on economic, price and financial conditions, while closely monitoring Middle East impacts, yen volatility and AI demand. Citi now expects additional 25bp hikes in December 2026, March 2027 and July 2027, an earlier timeline than previously forecast.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority plans to launch a wholesale central bank digital currency (wCBDC) before the end of this year, part of Project EnsembleTX for 24-hour settlement of tokenized deposit transactions. The project entered real-transaction pilot phase in late 2025, but interbank settlement still relies on the RTGS system that only operates during working hours. The wCBDC will also support derivatives settlement during HKEX off-hours sessions, targeting real-money transactions by year-end.

SoftBank Group has increased its margin loan pledged against Arm Holdings shares from $20 billion to $25 billion, according to Bloomberg. The Japanese tech giant renegotiated terms with multiple creditors this month to raise additional capital for AI investments without trimming its Arm stake. The move underscores SoftBank's aggressive push into AI infrastructure.

South Korean exchange Upbit will terminate ICX/KRW trading on October 19, 2026, with withdrawals supported until November 18. The decision follows an August 27 replay attack on the Icon network, where two signed withdrawal messages were reused 1,492 times, releasing approximately 119.9 million ICX and 531,600 bnUSD. Upbit had already placed ICX on an investment warning list on August 28 and has ceased supporting airdrops, wallet upgrades, migrations and hard forks for the token.

South Korea's KOSPI index closed up 180.14 points, or 2.68%, at 6,895.55, with SK Hynix jumping 6.41% and Samsung Electronics gaining 3.36%. Japan's Nikkei 225 rose 882.70 points, or 1.38%, to 65,018.95, with SoftBank up over 1%. The rallies followed the Bank of Japan's rate decision and broader positive sentiment in Asian markets.

Singapore-based stablecoin payments company dtcpay announced a strategic investment from Japanese financial conglomerate SBI Group, bringing its Series A round to $25 million. The round was led by Temasek-backed Vertex Ventures in April, with participation from Genedant Capital and Capella Hotel Group founder. SBI said the investment launches a strategic partnership to expand Japan-Southeast Asia digital asset corridors. dtcpay is a Visa member licensed in Singapore, Hong Kong, Luxembourg and other jurisdictions.

XRP treasury management company Evernorth raised $30 million through convertible bonds, with Korean institutional investor NH Investment & Securities as the investor. The financing is contingent on Evernorth's SPAC merger completing, with funds used to purchase XRP spot before its Nasdaq listing. The company plans to list under ticker "XRPN" post-merger.

Japan's Financial Services Agency raised concerns that crypto exchanges offering both dealer-style "sales desks" and order-book "exchanges" may be steering users toward the more profitable sales desk model, where the platform acts as counterparty and earns wider spreads. The FSA cited the customer best-interest obligation effective November 2024, and said it will continue dialogue with industry on UI design and self-regulatory rules to prevent such steering.

Binance co-founder He Yi stated that projects applying for Binance listings must go through official channels, emphasizing that the exchange has no "middlemen" or "listing fees." She said Binance only reserves airdrop shares for users in certain cases. Yi urged the community to verify listing contact information through Binance's official website and public channels, warning against scams impersonating Binance.

Alibaba's Tongyi Qianwen released Qwen3.8-Omni-Flash, its first full-modality model built around agent capabilities, integrating native audio-video understanding, reasoning and tool calling into a single model with 1 million token context. In OmniVideoBench testing, its agent perception mode reduced token consumption by 51.8% compared to static understanding, while video input costs fell approximately 89% versus the previous Qwen3.5-Omni-Plus.