Bit Digital to Cease Bitcoin Mining Operations, Double Down on Ethereum Infrastructure, Staking, and High-Performance Computing

Starknet published a post introducing the Quantum-Safe Bitcoin (QSB) scheme, stating that StarkWare researchers have verified on Bitcoin’s mainnet a quantum-safe locking mechanism that requires no soft fork, no new opcodes, and no modification to consensus rules. The first QSB output was spent on August 26, 2026, in Bitcoin mainnet block 964,199, with associated GPU computing costs dropping from an initial ~$320 to around $50. Designed by StarkWare researcher Avihu Levy, the scheme’s core approach is to use hash calculations to build locking mechanisms, avoiding reliance on elliptic curve private keys vulnerable to quantum computer cracking. However, QSB does not mean Bitcoin has achieved full quantum resistance: each transaction requires massive computing power, and transferring existing assets into the scheme still involves traditional transactions with quantum risks. Additionally, QSB transactions do not comply with Bitcoin Core’s default relay rules, requiring submission by miners willing to directly accept such transactions, and there are currently no supporting wallets, address formats, or recovery processes. StarkWare emphasized that QSB is an emergency research solution, not a replacement for Bitcoin’s quantum-resistant upgrade. Long-term solutions will still require a soft fork to introduce post-quantum signature mechanisms. In contrast, Starknet noted that its underlying STARK proofs have used hash-based security mechanisms from their inception and has developed a quantum migration roadmap, but as an Ethereum Layer 2, its full quantum resistance still depends on the progress of Ethereum’s underlying upgrades. At Token2049, StarkWare CEO Eli Ben-Sasson also raised an open question: whether Starknet should transition to a Layer 1 to independently advance post-quantum security upgrades without fully waiting for Ethereum’s upgrade timeline. This idea has not yet become an official decision.

Binance’s Head of Trading and Trading Business, Shunyet Jan, stated that future competition among financial platforms will no longer be limited to crypto asset trading, but will focus on integrating services such as investment, payments, lending, and asset management to build a comprehensive financial ecosystem covering both traditional finance and crypto markets. Jan, who has approximately 30 years of work experience at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan, believes traditional finance holds advantages in regulation, risk management, and functional segregation, while the crypto industry is more competitive in 24/7 trading, fast settlement, and openness. He noted that the two sectors will accelerate integration in the future. Binance aims to let users leverage the financial value of their underlying assets without selling them, via features including unified accounts, cross-asset margin, tokenized assets, and stablecoin payments, and is exploring using AI to simplify asset selection and risk management. Jan revealed Binance currently has over 300 million users, most of whom come from emerging markets; around 90% of its users for direct stock and tokenized stock products are from emerging markets. He added that Binance’s long-term goal is to expand its user base from 300 million to 3 billion, and become a financial infrastructure accessible to more people.

US President Donald Trump is stepping up efforts to oust Federal Reserve Governor Philip Cook. The White House announced Friday it has established a "select committee" to investigate allegations that Cook made false statements in one or more mortgage documents. The move marks the latest step in Trump’s ongoing bid to reshape the Federal Reserve’s leadership. With the Fed’s next monetary policy meeting just weeks away, Fed officials voted unanimously to raise interest rates last month, a decision that runs counter to Trump’s longstanding call for interest rate cuts.

The U.S. is reported to have notified Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir that U.S. military forces may resume operations against Iran by the end of this month. During the call, Zamir noted that if the U.S. renews strikes, Iran could launch retaliatory attacks on Israel, potentially leading to a delay in Israel’s general election originally scheduled for October 27. U.S. President Donald Trump explicitly stated on social media Thursday that the U.S. will not attack Iran ahead of the November 3 midterm elections. He claimed that the U.S. and Iran are engaged in productive negotiations, will maintain their blockade on Iran, and emphasized that large volumes of oil are currently being transported through the Strait of Hormuz. However, Axios previously reported that the Pentagon has ordered U.S. Central Command to complete preparations for resuming military operations against Iran. Sources familiar with the matter said that if operations are restarted, U.S. forces could carry out large-scale strikes on Iran’s energy infrastructure and nuclear facilities. White House officials added that the U.S. currently holds the initiative in the Strait of Hormuz, and Iran’s economy is facing pressure leading to collapse.

Beating AI News: Cloudflare announced that the entire Deno team has officially joined the company. Deno, a JavaScript/TypeScript runtime created by Node.js founder Ryan Dahl, also revealed it will only provide bug fixes and security updates for the Deno runtime over the next year, after which official development will cease. Its cloud hosting service Deno Deploy will shut down in six months. In a notable twist, Ryan Dahl in 2022 named Cloudflare Workers as Deno Deploy’s most direct competitor. Now Deno Deploy is exiting the market, with the team assisting paying customers in migrating to Cloudflare Workers. The Deno runtime will remain open-source, with the community taking over its development. JavaScript package platform JSR will continue operations, with its infrastructure moving to Cloudflare. Moving forward, Ryan Dahl and Deno co-founder Bert Belder will lead the integration of two open-source projects: celld, built by the Deno team to let developers run distributed Workers and Durable Objects on their own servers; and workerd, Cloudflare’s open-source underlying runtime engine for Cloudflare Workers. Durable Objects store application state and handle real-time connections, making them ideal for AI agents that need to continuously track task progress. The two teams plan to integrate celld’s distributed capabilities into workerd, enabling developers to run the technology on their own servers and reduce reliance on Cloudflare’s cloud platform.

Bitget launches multiple wealth management and position reward campaigns. From 22:00 today to 21:59 on October 16 (UTC+8), users can visit "Simple Earn" to subscribe to the following assets, with the highest annual percentage yields (APR) as follows: USDT (8%), USDGO (10%), USDC (8%), BTC (1%), ETH (4.5%); VIP users subscribing to XAUT can enjoy up to 15% APR. Meanwhile, Bitget has rolled out BTC and SOL position rewards. Eligible VIP users who net deposit or hold BTC can unlock a maximum subscription quota of 50 BGBTC; VIP users who newly add and hold BGSOL can get an extra 4% APR reward on their net added portion. Additionally, users who newly add and hold Cash+ can either split a 50,000 USDGO prize pool or enjoy an extra interest hike of up to 4%; if they also hold specified U-based perpetual contracts with a net long position, they can get an extra interest hike of up to 4%, bringing the total APR to a maximum of 12%. For specific campaign details and opening times, please refer to Bitget's official page.