Huang Renxun has left Beijing, and NVIDIA has not disclosed whether Huang Renxun met with the DeepSeek founder.

Last week, the number of new US jobless claims fell to its lowest level in nearly 57 years, with layoffs easing and the labor market stabilizing. Data from the US Department of Labor shows that for the week ending October 17, initial state unemployment benefit claims dropped by 6,000 to a seasonally adjusted 194,000. This figure is approaching the 189,000 level hit in mid-July, marking the lowest since 1969. Economists believe that strong US domestic demand has driven rising profits, shielding workers from layoffs. However, as the conflict between the US, Israel and Iran intensifies, tighter financial conditions and rising interest rates may weigh on the labor market’s performance next year.

Meme coin project Zipcoin, built around a narrative from Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin’s novel, has announced its shutdown. The team stated it received a notice from Railway on October 21, alerting that the entire project codebase had been compromised, including all associated credentials and private keys. After attempting to migrate or rotate credentials, the team failed to identify a viable secure operating solution. The team will offer a six-hour selling window for existing holders, and will liquidate remaining holdings and pool funds at 00:00 Beijing Time on October 23 to prevent attackers from siphoning assets. According to GMGN data, ZC (Zipcoin) has dropped over 90% in the past 24 hours, with a current market capitalization of less than $300,000. Zipcoin’s narrative originates from a fictional currency in Vitalik Buterin’s novel *Snowmoon*. Designed as an on-chain currency with features including anonymous payments, burnable for advocacy, and real-time taxation, the project sought to translate concepts from the novel to the real blockchain.

Pre-market major news for US stocks are as follows: 1. SK Hynix is advancing its next-generation iHBM technology toward mass production; the tech will be applied to next-gen products like HBM5, cutting HBM thermal resistance by over 30%. 2. Elon Musk said his self-developed chip factory project under Terafab is progressing rapidly, targeting large-scale mass production of a practical chip in Q3 2028. 3. Micron Technology noted that after over 20 years of evaluation, the 4F2 architecture is "currently not on its roadmap". It plans to continue expanding its 6F2 architecture while developing 3D DRAM as a long-term alternative. Micron added that DRAM bit density depends mainly on capacitor spacing, not just cell architecture. 4. Meta disclosed that as of September 30, it holds conditional cloud computing capacity procurement obligations, with potential total procurement value of up to $147.2 billion over the next five years. Meta’s future spending commitments have surged to $825 billion. 5. The US government is discussing a series of reform plans related to the "Trump account", including allowing adults under 40 to participate. This idea is similar to the previously widely debated universal basic income system. 6. Elon Musk stated that humanoid robots will become the world’s largest industry, with Optimus robots expected to begin external deliveries by the end of next year. 7. Anthropic announced the launch of its AI agent Claude Duet. Built on the Opus 5.5 model, Duet is available as a standalone app on iOS and Android, and can be accessed via the claude.ai website on desktop.

Crypto market maker DWF Labs has released a research report arguing that daily fund flows into U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs are not a reliable indicator for predicting Bitcoin’s next price moves, as investors tend to buy high and sell low. The study analyzed 694 trading days since the ETFs launched in January 2024, finding that in 7 out of 8 instances where Bitcoin prices dropped by at least 15%, there were corresponding outflows; all 9 cases of equivalent price gains recorded net inflows. Data shows the correlation coefficient between same-day ETF flows and Bitcoin’s price movement over the past five trading days is 0.54, while the correlation with the next five days is only 0.03. The report concludes that "ETF fund flows confirm trends, rather than predict them." In terms of specific fund changes, outflows were most severe during the two latest major sell-offs: investors pulled a net $6.9 billion from October 2025 to February 2026, followed by another $8.2 billion outflow during the May-June 2026 price drop. DWF noted the data cannot distinguish selling sources between institutions and retail investors, and estimates roughly one-fifth of fund flows may be hedging trades—buying ETF shares while shorting via CME futures to earn spreads. Additionally, the report found that since the ETFs’ launch, Bitcoin has seen roughly three 15%+ sell-offs annually, down from about four in 2022-2023 and eight in 2021. Sell-offs have become more gradual, with a median drop of 21.3% versus 19.4% in 2022-2023. This shift is not solely due to ETFs; volatility and sell-off frequency had already started declining before the ETFs launched in 2024.

Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) has removed "Crypto" from the name of its flagship blockchain fund, renaming it "a16z Frontier", alongside news that long-time general partner Ali Yahya is stepping down. The move is not a retreat from crypto investment, but rather an effort to broaden its investment scope. The fund has raised nearly $10 billion in total capital, including its Fund 5 which secured $4.5 billion in 2022 and $2.2 billion this year, making it one of the largest institutional funds in the industry. During the Fund 5 fundraising round this year, a16z emphasized that the sector is shifting from a "price cycle" to a "usage cycle", with a focus on infrastructure such as stablecoins, on-chain finance, prediction markets, and asset tokenization, rather than merely chasing market trends. The removal of "Crypto" from the fund's name is a signal of expanding investment scope, not an abandonment of crypto. Chris Dixon, founder and managing partner of a16z Crypto, remains in his role. Crypto asset and blockchain-related investments remain a core focus, but the fund's branding and strategic priorities have clearly adjusted to cover a wider range of frontier technology areas, allowing the fund to retain its original advantages while gaining greater flexibility.

According to Bloomberg, the Central Bank of Ireland has fined and reprimanded Coinbase Ireland Limited 3.252618 million euros, for violating customer fund safeguarding and outsourcing obligations under the 2011 Electronic Money Regulations between November 1, 2020 and August 19, 2025. The penalty was settled on October 21, with the original fine of approximately 4.6466 million euros reduced to the aforementioned amount via a 30% settlement discount, pending confirmation from the High Court to take effect. The Irish central bank stated that Coinbase’s Irish subsidiary relied excessively on its U.S. headquarters to implement safeguarding processes and compliance controls, lacked sufficient local capacity to continuously oversee customer fund management, had long-term underfunded safeguarding accounts, and had inadequate internal reporting and governance. A Coinbase spokesperson said the issues were voluntarily disclosed to the central bank by the company, and no customer funds were lost or inaccessible. This marks the second penalty for the company’s Irish entity; in November 2025, it was fined 21.5 million euros for anti-money laundering and transaction monitoring violations.