Rain applies for a national trust bank license from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), with plans to bypass third-party banks to manage its stablecoin operations.

Savita Subramanian, head of U.S. Equity and Quantitative Strategy at Bank of America, said bonds have become a truly competitive alternative asset to the stock market for the first time in decades. She also warned that current investor sentiment is elevated, making the stock market more vulnerable to negative surprises and leaving relatively limited room for further upside beyond expectations. Subramanian noted that the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note has now topped 5%, while Bank of America’s own valuation models project the S&P 500’s annualized return over the next 10 years may not hit that level. She pointed out that U.S. policymakers are working to prevent long-term interest rates from rising too high, with both the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury Secretary closely monitoring developments at the long end of the yield curve. Meanwhile, demographic shifts mean the ceiling for U.S. interest rates may be lower than it was in the 1970s and 1980s. In addition, artificial intelligence is likely to bring certain deflationary effects in the future, which could ease long-term inflation and interest rate pressures. Against this backdrop, Subramanian believes the environment for allocating to bonds is becoming more favorable, as U.S. Treasury yields are unlikely to sustainably rise above 6% to 7%.

According to HTX market data, Ethereum has fallen below $2,600, with a 3.84% decline in the past 24 hours.

According to an official announcement, Bitget has launched four stock perpetual contracts: USDESTOCK (StablecoinX), VKTX (Viking Therapeutics), PCVX (Vaxcyte), and XP (XP). The contracts are settled in USDT, support up to 20x leverage, and enable 24/7 trading. As of now, Bitget’s platform offers a total of 337 stock contract underlying assets.

According to Bitget’s official data, the real-time cumulative prize pool for its “Peer Program” has reached 3.49 million USDT. Prior data shows that the program’s first two batches have distributed nearly 2.8 million USDT in total rewards to over 1.5 million users. The campaign will run until October 26. During the event, Bitget will allocate 30% of the platform’s transaction fee revenue to establish a dedicated user prize pool, and eligible users can participate in the reward distribution without registration.

According to Bloomberg, citing internal EU meeting minutes, EU member states generally hold that the G7’s announcement last week of a coordinated release of 100 million barrels of crude oil and diesel does not require Europe to further draw down strategic reserves on a large scale beyond its prior commitments. The EU is inclined to cap subsequent releases at the volume agreed in March this year, meaning there may be a significant gap between the G7’s cited "100 million barrels" and actual new supply going forward. The G7 previously announced that, under the coordination of the International Energy Agency (IEA), it would release a total of 100 million barrels of crude oil and diesel over the next four months, and called for diesel to be prioritized and brought forward significantly in the first 20 days. However, as of now, no EU member state has explicitly committed to additional inventory releases within this timeframe. In March this year, IEA members agreed on a plan to release around 400 million barrels of strategic crude oil and refined products, with EU member states collectively accounting for roughly 20% of that volume. As of early October, about two-thirds of the quota has been released, with the remaining part still to be fulfilled. The EU’s current mainstream stance is to fulfill existing commitments rather than expand the overall release volume; some member states have called on the IEA to first assess the impact of prior releases on the market and energy security. On the diesel front, Europe may agree to bring forward its existing quota originally scheduled for later release, but is reluctant to add extra volumes. European policymakers worry that, against the backdrop of fragile Middle East supply chains and rising winter energy demand, depleting strategic reserves prematurely could weaken its ability to respond to future supply shocks.

Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal has responded to controversial marketing content that sparked debate: Polygon’s official X (Twitter) account posted a “Polygon is not dead” announcement, which was widely interpreted as a jab at the shutdown of Abstract. He stated the content’s actual effect differed from expectations, leading to entirely misaligned readings. Nailwal added that he was also deeply shocked when he first saw the post that morning in Singapore. Sandeep clarified that the Polygon marketing team intended the line as self-deprecating—for a long time, people have been claiming “Polygon is dead”, while the network’s fundamentals have actually remained strong and improving. The team had no intention of referencing Abstract’s shutdown, he emphasized. “I have immense respect for Abstract founder Luca Netz and his team,” Nailwal said. “We would never do that, as Polygon itself has experienced the pain of terminating its own zkEVM.” He also expressed support for Luca and the Pengu team, calling Luca one of the industry’s top entrepreneurs and noting he will continue to back his team.