A US official: Iran’s bet that the midterm elections would weaken Trump’s bargaining chips is a miscalculation.

Despite the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield climbing to a nearly 20-year high, U.S. stocks have remained resilient, with the S&P 500 index seeing no notable impact. This divergence has prompted investors to re-examine the historical relationship between surging bond yields and stock market performance. Historical experience shows that rising yields do not necessarily trigger stock market declines. In 1994, the Federal Reserve’s rate hikes triggered a bond market sell-off, pushing the S&P 500 down roughly 8% at one point, before the index clawed back losses as the economy and corporate earnings held up. In 2016, markets viewed rising yields as a sign of economic recovery and policy normalization, leading U.S. stocks to rise in tandem with Treasury yields. By contrast, the Fed’s aggressive rate hikes in 2022 weighed on both bond and stock markets, resulting in a sharp drop for the S&P 500. In 2026, U.S. stocks are facing a similar scenario of rising yields paired with resilient economic growth. Large-scale investments in AI infrastructure by tech firms are supporting the economy and stock market, while a U.S.-Iran deal that could push oil prices lower may also ease inflationary pressures. However, bearish views argue that the Fed may need to keep raising rates until stocks and broader financial conditions are sufficiently tightened. Bank of America interest rate strategist Meghan Swiber noted that current strong performance in stocks and other risk assets has not yet sent the Fed a clear signal that demand is slowing.

Bitfinex released a graphic analysis noting that if Bitcoin breaks through $86,000, market supply above that level will drop sharply, leaving only approximately 23% of upside to reach $125,000. Over 1 million BTC are currently concentrated in the $84,000–$86,000 range, forming a key short-term resistance level. Separately, Bitcoin spot ETFs have recorded a cumulative net inflow of around $2.98 billion over the past seven trading sessions, as the market gradually absorbs this supply pressure. If BTC closes above $87,400 and ETF inflows persist, it will indicate that buyers have successfully absorbed current selling pressure, and the overhead supply wall may subsequently weaken.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin announced in a post today that his original speculative sci-fi novel *Snowmoon* (《雪月》) is complete, spanning 32 chapters. Set in a world deeply reliant on cryptography and decentralized governance, the story focuses on ideological clashes between societies including Veridia and the Arctic Empire, integrating elements such as zero-knowledge proofs, quadratic voting, privacy technologies, and content-oriented tax mechanisms, while touching on mechanism design and digital sovereignty—topics Buterin has long prioritized. The novel is released under the GPL v3 license. Buterin noted that adaptations into films, animations, and other derivative works are permitted, though he requires open-sourcing of related production pipelines, including non-generic materials like AI prompts and scripts. He clarified that all text was written by himself, with AI only assisting in spelling and grammar checks, setting consistency verification, and web formatting, adding the note: “Snowmoon was written with love.”

On-chain analyst Wazz published a post revealing a large-scale suspected series of rug pulls and fund withdrawals on the Robinhood chain, linked to at least 53 token launches over the past two months. The total amount of funds directly involved so far stands at $18.43 million, with the actual scale likely higher. Wazz noted a clear correlation in fund flows between these projects: proceeds from one project are typically used to fund the key wallets of the next project just seconds later. Almost all projects were front-run at launch, seizing over 70% of the total token supply, and bundled through 70 to 200 wallets, with most issued via Pons V2. He also discovered that some projects even conduct "fake launches" first, attracting funds in advance through preheating and hype before disclosing the actual contract address to further increase the amount of funds siphoned off. CRUMBS is the project with the highest amount of funds siphoned off in the ongoing investigation, totaling approximately $3.12 million.

Bitmine Chairman Tom Lee said that the artificial intelligence (AI) and cryptocurrency sectors are gradually integrating, with tokenization and agentic AI poised to become the two key drivers of the next crypto market cycle. Lee noted that BlackRock anticipates more assets will be tokenized, and financial settlement infrastructure is increasingly being built on crypto networks; some fintech firms, including Revolut, have already begun developing related businesses on Ethereum. AI is fueling the growth of the digital economy, while cryptocurrencies provide the digital currencies and blockchain infrastructure required to underpin this economic system.

Beating AI News Flash: AI influencer Max For AI posted that OpenAI appears to be on the verge of announcing a new ChatGPT subscription plan. ChatGPT Pro’s former “5x” and “20x” tiers have been renamed to “Pro Standard” and “Pro More” respectively, while the official pricing page has removed previous descriptions of the “5x / 20x Plus” usage limits. These adjustments likely signal OpenAI is redesigning its ChatGPT Pro subscription system, though the company has not yet released specific details of the new plan and pricing.