Key News Overnight and This Morning (Nov 3 – Nov 4)

Nvidia asks data center partners to cut back business with Chinese customers

Nvidia has asked its data center partners to reduce business dealings with Chinese customers. The report, citing five people familiar with the matter, said Nvidia's cloud computing customers must sell at least 51% of their services to non-Chinese companies. The new rule applies only to contracts signed in the future and does not affect existing agreements. Nvidia neither confirmed nor denied the report, but said in a statement that data centers and cloud services built with US chips are the foundation for US model and application developers to compete globally. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said she was not aware of the situation, and expressed the hope that all parties would provide a fair, transparent and non-discriminatory business environment for companies from all countries, including Chinese companies.

China and Oman central banks sign local currency swap agreement and digital currency cooperation memorandum

According to the People's Bank of China website, PBOC Governor Pan Gongsheng recently signed the "RMB/Omani Rial Bilateral Local Currency Swap Agreement" and the "Memorandum of Understanding on Strengthening Cooperation in Digital Payments and Central Bank Digital Currency" with Ahmed Al Musalmi, Governor of the Central Bank of Oman, witnessed by the heads of state of the two countries. The swap line is worth RMB 30 billion / OMR 1.5 billion and is valid for five years. The two sides met the same day and exchanged views on bilateral economic and financial cooperation and other topics. The central bank said the agreements are aimed at deepening monetary and financial cooperation between the two countries, improving the convenience of cross-border digital payments and safeguarding financial market stability.

Putin signs decree: Russian private data centers must reserve 10% of computing capacity

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Monday requiring operators of non-state-owned data centers in Russia to reserve 10% of their capacity to support the operation of state IT infrastructure, which the government can call upon quickly when needed. The decree instructs Russia's Ministry of Digital Development to take stock of the available capacity and floor space of private data centers nationwide. It also creates a special government commission that will order the activation of the reserved capacity, with operators required to provide access within 24 hours of the decision. The decree also allows temporary use of data centers abroad with the approval of the Federal Security Service (FSB). In recent weeks, Russian data centers have repeatedly come under Ukrainian drone attack, with facilities of Yandex and Sberbank hit in October.

Hyperliquid co-founder Jeff Yan goes to Washington, seeking to enter the US market through HIP-3 partners

Hyperliquid co-founder Jeff Yan met with policymakers in Washington. He said that entering the US market should involve HIP-3 partners accepting US KYC and market supervision, rather than Hyperliquid itself. Hyperliquid began testing a revised HIP-3 framework with identity verification support in September. Kraken parent company Payward announced the same month that it plans to use the framework to offer Hyperliquid perpetual contracts to US users. ICE has reached an agreement with and invested in Trade.xyz, intending to bring its perpetual contracts to the US after obtaining regulatory approval. Hyperliquid posted $713 million in revenue over the past 12 months, and its real-world asset trading volume exceeded $115 billion in July.

CZ: All hacks are preventable, calls for an industry security alliance

Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ), in an interview with Talking Tokens host Jacquelyn Melinek, spoke publicly for the first time about the roughly $6.3 billion theft at Binance. Zhao said that "all hacks are preventable," that long stretches without incident can easily breed complacency, and that there are many lessons to be drawn from this event. He believes the incident is not only a corporate security issue but has risen to the level of national security and global financial security, because tokenized stocks, RWAs and stablecoins have deeply bound the crypto industry to the traditional financial system.

Zhao noted that AI is significantly accelerating the pace of attacks, with the frequency of crypto exchange hacks rising from about once a month in the past to almost once a week, "four happened yesterday." The AI industry has not yet managed to release defensive capabilities before offensive ones, leaving the industry able to only "fight AI with AI." He called on the crypto industry to form a security alliance to share best practices, conduct cross-audits and coordinate quickly on freezing funds, and said he hopes to get the alliance off the ground. He also said he has not yet communicated with Trump or Washington on the matter, but hopes for help from the US government, and believes that perhaps only the US and China can talk with North Korea.

On the market side, Zhao said the crypto market's decline on the day of the incident was smaller than that of tech stocks, "which is almost unheard of." He attributed this to Binance stating immediately that user funds were safe and its ability to fully compensate losses. He said less than 10% of the withdrawn funds flowed to other centralized exchanges, and with several hardware wallets also attacked recently, some users compared their options and moved funds back to Binance, which turned to net inflows on an hourly basis in under 24 hours. Looking ahead, Zhao believes that over the medium and long term AI will make crypto and software systems more secure, and may even find vulnerabilities in blockchain software before quantum computing breaks encryption; at the same time, AI will push trading speeds far beyond current levels, and the only financial technology that can support that speed is blockchain. He reminded retail investors to learn more about asset protection tools and to keep close watch on security developments.

South Korean regulator plans to raise exchange cold wallet custody requirement from 80% to about 99%

Industry sources said the South Korean Financial Services Commission (FSC) held an emergency security inspection meeting with major cryptocurrency exchanges and custodians on Nov. 2, using the Binance theft as an occasion to discuss raising the share of assets exchanges hold in cold wallets. The option currently under consideration is to raise the ratio from the 80%-plus required by the current Act on Protection of Virtual Asset Users to around 99%, the level maintained by some large exchanges. Upbit holds more than 99% of user assets in cold wallets, Bithumb about 94%, Coinone 85%, and exchanges such as GOPAX just over 80%. Industry insiders warned that raising the ratio would reduce hot wallet assets available for instant withdrawals, potentially causing withdrawal delays and adding operational burdens for small and mid-sized exchanges; in August this year, Bithumb delayed withdrawals of some altcoins by about 13 hours due to insufficient hot wallet balances. The proposal is still under discussion and has not been finalized.

US pre-market highlights: Apple CEO says memory price hikes are weighing on gross margin; Musk plans to renegotiate with TSMC

According to Cailian Press, the key US stock market news investors need to watch is as follows:

1. US stock index futures were mixed. Dow futures fell 0.70%, S&P 500 futures fell 0.15%, and Nasdaq 100 futures rose 0.35%.
2. International oil prices moved higher in choppy trade. WTI crude futures rose 1.18% to $97.596 a barrel; Brent crude futures rose 0.41% to $105.196 a barrel.
3. Spot gold and silver both fell. Spot gold dropped 0.29% to $3,935.21 an ounce; spot silver fell 2.00% to $49.61 an ounce.
4. Europe's three major stock indexes all declined. The UK's FTSE 100 fell 0.68%, France's CAC 40 fell 0.07%, and Germany's DAX 30 fell 0.52%.
5. Apple CEO Ternus said at the earnings call that rising memory prices are dragging the company's gross margin lower quarter over quarter for the new quarter, and he expects memory costs to be higher in the future.
6. Samsung Electronics will use its second wafer foundry plant in Texas to produce base dies for high-bandwidth memory chips for AMD and Nvidia. The plant is expected to break ground this month.
7. Elon Musk has softened his stance on how the Terafab chip plant will work with TSMC, and the two sides are preparing to renegotiate. TSMC may take on primary responsibility for building and operating the fab.
8. Qualcomm announced that its first-generation high-bandwidth computing (HBC) technology has completed hardware validation, and the AI250 accelerator built on the architecture is scheduled to sample in the first half of 2027.
9. Anthropic said it aims to have more than 3.5 GW of compute by the end of 2026, with a target of doubling next year.
10. Morgan Stanley's CEO said AI capital expenditure could reach $10 trillion to $15 trillion over the next decade. Currently $2 trillion to $3 trillion in funding has been committed or deployed.
11. Voting in the US midterm elections officially began on Nov. 3 local time. The results will determine the balance of power in Congress for the next two years and affect the Trump administration's room to maneuver.

Anthropic prospectus discloses per-employee monthly cost above $100,000

Anthropic's amended S-1 filing ahead of this month's IPO shows that the company's personnel spending exceeded $1.7 billion in the third quarter, or more than $322,000 per employee for the three months across 5,300 staff — over $100,000 a month — including $1.1 billion in stock-based compensation. In the first nine months of 2026, personnel spending totaled $4.8 billion, or 15% of total revenue. As of the end of September, Anthropic still had more than $32 billion in unrecognized stock-based compensation, and personnel costs will rise after listing. The company's revenue per employee is $6.6 million a year, compared with about $3.2 million at Meta and $2.5 million at Google.

US CFTC approves registered exchanges to list single-stock perpetual contracts

US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chairman Michael S. Selig issued a statement announcing that single-stock perpetual futures contracts (Equity Perps) can, effective immediately, be listed for trading on CFTC-registered exchanges for the first time. Only designated contract markets (DCMs) that are also registered with the SEC by notice registration as national securities exchanges and are permitted to trade security futures products may trade the contracts. Selig said the move allows US investors to use perpetual contracts within the CFTC's regulatory framework without turning to offshore platforms. The product is based on the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 and the CFTC-SEC memorandum of understanding.

Binance: Attackers used tampered Homebrew installers and internal AI tools to compromise multiple employees' devices and obtain wallet signing authority

According to Binance's official preliminary investigation report, the Oct. 29 security incident involved about $6.34 billion in digital assets, of which about $2.85 billion has been frozen or blocked. Binance said it will bear the losses itself and had restored 98% of affected token assets as of Oct. 31. The investigation showed that attackers used fake job interviews, tampered Homebrew installation packages and internal AI tools to progressively compromise multiple employees' devices, gained access to the internal wallet signing service, and then used Ethereum's EIP-7702 authorization mechanism to move XRP, SOL, BTC, ETH and other assets out of hot wallets. The FBI said North Korea is responsible for the incident. Binance has rebuilt the affected systems and will hire an independent third party to conduct a review.

Riot Platforms (RIOT) shares rise as much as 10.26% intraday to $13.05

According to Binance market data, Riot Platforms (RIOT) shares rose as much as 10.26% intraday and were at $13.05.

Mercado Bitcoin: $12.9 million of stolen assets frozen, platform still suspended

Brazilian crypto exchange Mercado Bitcoin released an update on its security incident, saying the affected assets are currently worth about $36.3 million, of which $12.9 million has been frozen, with work ongoing. The platform and app remain suspended until recovery is confirmed to be safe; the company said customer assets are secured and balances remain recorded in their respective accounts. The exchange had previously said it had frozen $11 million in related assets.

ARK analyst: Crypto market has lost about 24 basis points of market cap a year to hacks since 2018

ARK Invest crypto analyst Lorenzo Valente posted on X that hacking is an "invisible tax" on trading and storing value in crypto, like shoplifting, whose costs ultimately get priced in and borne by users, and that every hack weakens the competitiveness of crypto networks. According to DefiLlama data, since 2018 the crypto market has lost an average of about 24 basis points of market capitalization a year to hacks, while the US banking system loses about 1.7 basis points of deposits to fraud — a difference of about 14 times.

Binance discloses 57 suspected North Korea-linked cyberattacks blocked in 2026

Binance co-founder Yi He posted on X that Binance's security team has detected and stopped 57 cyber threat incidents suspected to be linked to North Korea since the start of 2026. The tactics include fake job interviews, malware disguised as common developer tools, tampered software packages and browser extensions, fake video conferencing apps, and social engineering attacks used to steal credentials or plant remote-access trojans. Yi He said Binance blocked many of the attacks, but even one failure is very costly, and said "this should not have happened." The post cited Binance's preliminary findings on the Oct. 29 security incident. In the report, Binance said it suffered a serious and highly sophisticated security incident that day and apologized to users.

Documentation platform GitBook hit by AI agent attack, advises users to rotate API keys

GitBook, a documentation platform commonly used by crypto projects, disclosed that attackers used AI agents to launch a highly targeted attack and obtained some of its infrastructure credentials at 2 a.m. Beijing time on Nov. 3. Integration tokens, Git Sync keys, API tokens and questions that website visitors asked GitBook Assistant may have been exposed. GitBook said it has found no tampering with customer content so far, has revoked all personal API tokens and replaced all credentials, and that the affected services were restored at 23:21 Beijing time on Nov. 3. GitBook advised users to rotate their GitBook and third-party API tokens and keys and to re-authenticate the GitBook MCP server. PancakeSwap had earlier taken its GitBook-hosted documentation offline because of the incident.

Robinhood Chain trading volume on Uniswap tops $100 billion

Uniswap posted on X that Robinhood Chain has become the fastest chain to reach $100 billion in trading volume on Uniswap. DefiLlama data shows cumulative volume on Uniswap V2, V3 and V4 on Robinhood Chain totals about $98.5 billion (a measure that excludes wash trading), while total DEX volume across the Robinhood Chain network is about $126.4 billion, with about $612 million in the past 24 hours.

SEC Division of Corporation Finance says Canton Coin is a digital commodity

The US Securities and Exchange Commission's Division of Corporation Finance issued a no-action letter saying it considers Canton Coin (CC), the native token of Canton Network, to be a "digital commodity," and that, subject to certain conditions, it would not recommend enforcement action over CC's programmatic issuance. The division said CC is closely tied to the programmatic operation of the Canton Network, that its value derives from the operation of the network and supply and demand rather than expectations of profit from the essential managerial efforts of others, and that the network has no centralized controlling party. Canton Network subsequently cited the no-action letter in a post on X.

AMD posts $13.4 billion in third-quarter revenue, data center business up 97% year over year

AMD's third-quarter revenue was $13.4 billion, up 45% year over year and 16% quarter over quarter, above market expectations. GAAP net income was $2.4 billion, up 95% year over year, and non-GAAP earnings per share were $2.09, up 74%. By segment, data center revenue hit a record $8.5 billion, up 97% year over year; client and gaming revenue was $3.7 billion, down 8%; and embedded revenue was $1.1 billion, up 29%. AMD expects fourth-quarter revenue of about $17 billion, plus or minus 3%, and a non-GAAP gross margin of about 55%.

Coinbase adds Collector Crypt (CARD) to its listing roadmap

Coinbase Assets posted on X that it has added CARD, the token of Solana ecosystem physical trading card platform Collector Crypt, to its listing roadmap. Its Solana contract address is CARDSccUMFKoPRZxt5vt3ksUbxEFEcnZ3H2pd3dKxYjp. Coinbase said that opening trading in the asset depends on whether market-making support and technical infrastructure are in place, and it will announce a start date separately once conditions are met.

Block to pay about $964 million to settle US DOJ anti-money-laundering probe

Jack Dorsey's payments company Block disclosed in a regulatory filing on Tuesday that it reached an agreement in principle with the US Department of Justice in October over its investigation into the company's anti-money-laundering compliance, under which the DOJ will defer prosecution for three years on allegations that Block failed to maintain an effective anti-money-laundering program, violating the Bank Secrecy Act. The deferred prosecution agreement still requires court approval, and the total amount is expected to be about $964 million, with net payment of about $764 million. Block had previously recorded a $526 million accrual at the end of June and raised the accrual to $764 million at the end of September.

Block posts $3.24 billion in third-quarter gross profit, up 22% year over year

According to Block's third-quarter shareholder letter filed with the US SEC, gross profit was $3.24 billion, up 22% year over year, of which Cash App gross profit was $2.07 billion, up 27%, and Square gross profit was $1.16 billion, up 14%. Bitcoin-related business revenue was $1.8 billion with gross profit of $52 million, down 50% year over year, which Block attributed mainly to cuts to some Cash App bitcoin transaction fees. Adjusted operating income was $923 million, up 92% year over year. Block raised its full-year 2026 gross profit guidance to $12.63 billion, up 22% year over year. According to The Motley Fool, Block shares rose about 8% in after-hours trading at one point.

Clanker appoints Toady Hawk as CEO, plans relaunch with updated branding and features

Token launch platform Clanker has appointed Toady Hawk as its new CEO. Toady Hawk posted on X that Clanker was born on Farcaster about two years ago, where users could issue a token simply by posting and tagging @clanker_world, and later expanded to X, at one point becoming one of the highest-volume token launch platforms on Base and incubating tokens such as BNKR, DRB and FAIR. He said Clanker recently went through founder disputes, a sale to Farcaster and a transfer to Neynar, and is now taken over by Mask Network.

Toady Hawk said Clanker will work with the engineering team on a relaunch. His priorities include updating the brand while keeping its distinctive style; bringing features in line with modern token launch platforms, such as stock trading pairs and new chain support; rebuilding trust among developers and traders; and supporting the existing community. Details of the feature updates and relaunch will be announced later.

King of Bhutan grants Gelephu financial services office central bank functions, including the power to invest in digital assets

The King of Bhutan has granted the Gelephu financial services office central bank functions, including the power to invest in digital assets and cryptocurrencies, along with a path to launch the country's own currency.

Shopify and Coinbase team up to develop stablecoin payment protocol Commerce Payments Protocol on Base

Shopify and Coinbase announced the joint development of Commerce Payments Protocol for stablecoin payments on Base. The protocol aims to simplify the process for Shopify Payments merchants to accept stablecoins such as USDC, allowing customers to pay from supported wallets without needing ETH to pay gas fees, while merchants can choose to receive funds in local currency or USDC.

Ethereum's leanVM completes end-to-end formal verification, full post-quantum security transition targeted for December 2028

Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake announced on Nov. 3 that leanVM has achieved end-to-end formal verification. leanVM is a minimal zkVM used to efficiently aggregate hash-based post-quantum signatures, packing multiple signatures into a compact proof. On performance, leanVM can handle more than 1,000 leanXMSS aggregations per second; leanXMSS is a hash-based signature scheme planned to replace BLS at the consensus layer.

At Devcon 8, Drake shifted the target date for Ethereum's full transition to post-quantum security to December 2028 to leave room for the network fork the transition requires. The plan relies on three open-source projects — leanVM, leanXMSS and leanSpec — and the Ethereum Foundation is developing open-source implementations and advancing formal verification while encouraging innovation through incentives such as the Poseidon Prize. The report noted that leanVM's formal verification proves the code meets its specification, but December 2028 remains a target, not a commitment.

Vitalik flags AI security and social media manipulation risks, calls for technologies such as zero-knowledge proofs to protect personal data

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin warned at Devcon 8 that AI poses new threats to security and privacy while also helping to find vulnerabilities. He questioned the security of hardware wallets and warned against making crypto investments based on social media posts full of bots and manipulated content. Buterin called for decentralized, verifiable technology and zero-knowledge proofs to protect personal data, arguing that companies should avoid collecting unnecessary information.

Kim Yo Jong issues another statement on Binance hack, says North Korea is willing to talk

Kim Yo Jong, a department director of the Workers' Party of Korea Central Committee, issued a second statement on the Binance hack, saying North Korea is willing to talk but that this does not necessarily serve the country's interests. Kim Yo Jong is the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un; she previously criticized the US for blaming North Korea for the $6.3 billion Binance breach.

Morgan Stanley becomes one of the first banks to adopt DTCC's tokenization service

Morgan Stanley announced that it is one of the first banks to tokenize real-world assets after the launch of DTCC's tokenization service (DTS), having converted US equities and US Treasuries into tokenized form. Launched on Oct. 28, DTS can create tokenized representations backed by DTC-custodied securities to improve liquidity, collateral mobility and capital efficiency.

Binance theft began with a fake job offer, tactics closely mirror 2022 Axie hack

Binance's preliminary investigation report on the Oct. 29 security incident shows that the roughly $6.3 billion theft began with a fake recruitment. In September, a Binance software engineer was contacted through a legitimate job platform by someone posing as a "project director"; after a fake HR video interview and a second-round interview with a fake "CEO," the engineer was asked to download a "homework" code repository onto a work computer, which contained a zero-day trojan that bypassed endpoint protection. The attackers then used the compromised device and internal AI tools to take control of two other wallet engineers' computers, stole deployment credentials, and finally ran a malicious script on Oct. 29 to move the funds. Binance said it has frozen or blocked about $2.85 billion and restored 98% of affected assets.

The tactics closely mirror the March 2022 theft of about $625 million from Ronin, the cross-chain bridge of Axie Infinity's sidechain. At the time, the North Korea-linked Lazarus group approached a senior engineer at Sky Mavis via LinkedIn with a high-paying job offer, sent a booby-trapped offer file after several rounds of interviews, and then took control of validator private keys. Binance also said it has detected and blocked 57 cyberattacks suspected to be North Korea-linked this year, using tactics including fake interviews, malware disguised as developer tools, and tampered software packages and browser extensions.

Apple restricts employees from prediction markets, barring bets based on company inside information

Apple has filed its annual documents with the US SEC, updating its insider trading policy to explicitly bar prediction market trading. Apple requires employees not to use confidential Apple information obtained through their work to place bets or trade on prediction market platforms such as Polymarket, and says doing so violates company policy even if the conduct would not constitute insider trading or securities trading under applicable law.

The new rules make clear that employees may not use confidential Apple information obtained during their work to take part in markets that predict the outcome of future events, covering Apple itself as well as other companies, suppliers, manufacturers, sellers, customers and business partners. Apple also bars employees from disclosing such confidential information to people who might engage in such trading. The change comes as prediction markets such as Polymarket and Kalshi have grown in recent years, with some markets even covering the release timing, specifications and pricing of unreleased Apple products.

US midterm sentiment tilts toward Democrats, Asian tech stocks fall

Asian tech stocks generally fell in Wednesday morning trading. Early US midterm election results showed Democrats performing strongly, further reinforcing bets on a sweeping Democratic victory. Investors worry this could slow the flow of AI investment into Asia's tech-heavy markets. Pepperstone head of research Chris Weston said: "The scale of the eventual Democratic win, or Republicans unexpectedly winning the Senate, could both trigger large-scale position adjustments in markets." US futures linked to the Nasdaq index fell further, dropping about 1.5% on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME). South Korea's KOSPI opened higher before turning lower, with weakness in chip stocks weighing on the index.

In addition, as of about 8 p.m. US Eastern Time on Nov. 3, early results from the 2026 US midterm elections were gradually coming in. About 10 Senate races had been called, with Democrats holding 43 seats and Republicans 32, a net gain of one seat for Democrats; about 64 House races had been called, with Democrats holding 45 seats and Republicans 19.