The co-founder of darknet market Empire Market has been sentenced to 40 years in prison and ordered to forfeit $101 million in Bitcoin.

City of London Police said 25-year-old Ajay Shinjin was sentenced to two and a half years in prison for his involvement in a SIM swap fraud. The case involved the theft of nearly ￡200,000 (around $265,000) worth of cryptocurrency, with Shinjin receiving more than ￡44,000 in proceeds. He had previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation and transferring criminal property. In November 2021, UK telecom operator BT discovered that customer mobile phone numbers had been unauthorizedly ported to SIM cards controlled by criminals. The scammers used this tactic to intercept one-time passcodes (OTPs) sent via SMS by banks and crypto platforms. After BT traced the devices receiving the affected numbers, police identified multiple suspects, four of whom were linked to Shinjin. Data from anti-fraud organization Cifas shows that unauthorized SIM swap cases recorded in the UK National Fraud Database rose by 402% year-on-year in the first half of 2026. Cifas noted that this method is increasingly being used to intercept security verification codes and bypass account protection measures.

According to Axios, senior executives from Anthropic, OpenAI, and other AI companies are privately running through various scenarios to prepare for potential widespread public backlash and political pushback in the event of a catastrophic AI incident. These executives anticipate a major incident could occur in the future, most likely in the form of cyberattacks that disrupt financial services, internet connectivity, and even power and water supply systems. Once unsafe AI causes its first major real-world harm, the already AI-skeptical public could turn further against the technology and its leaders. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and U.S. President Donald Trump—who has faced criticism for opposing stricter AI regulation—could all face public scrutiny. Multiple AI industry insiders believe such a major incident may be unavoidable. An OpenAI spokesperson stated: "OpenAI conducts emergency preparedness drills where teams discuss and work through a range of potential scenarios. These scenarios are not viewed as inevitable events, but rather to help us prepare for various possible situations."

Barclays has initiated coverage of SpaceX (SPCX.O), assigning an "Overweight" rating with a target price of $254.

According to TradingBeats' monitoring, a crypto whale today opened long positions in Google (GOOGL) and NBIS, with total actual trading volume of approximately $7.458 million. The two positions currently hold an unrealized profit of around $67,000. Position details: GOOGL: 15,000 shares purchased, for approximately $5.239 million at an average price of $349.25; current long position value stands at about $5.265 million, with an unrealized profit of roughly $27,000. NBIS: 10,000 shares purchased, for approximately $2.219 million at an average price of $221.90; current long position value is around $2.26 million, with an unrealized profit of about $41,000.

Beating AI Insight News Brief: Open-source AI penetration testing tool ARTEX was discovered to have been used in attacks on multiple South Korean financial institutions. In response, developer Autumn-27 announced on October 8 that the project would be closed-sourced, with updates halted, no new versions released, and maintenance support discontinued. ARTEX’s original GitHub repository was subsequently taken down. ARTEX is a multi-agent system that integrates various large models, automatically identifies vulnerabilities, and conducts penetration testing. Earlier, cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike detected that attackers linked to the South Korean bank attacks utilized ARTEX, leaving tool configurations and Claude Code chat records on their servers. Autumn-27 stated in a release that ARTEX was originally developed for learning, research, and enterprise-authorized security testing. The tool’s misuse for illegal attacks completely violates its intended purpose. The author condemned unauthorized use and disclaimed liability for related incidents. However, ARTEX’s source code has been backed up by other developers. Even after the author removed the original repository and ceased maintenance, previously public versions remain accessible for use and modification by others.

According to TradingBeats monitoring, two whale traders using 40x full leverage opened short positions around $81,700 today and are now facing liquidation pressure as prices rebound. Their combined Bitcoin (BTC) short positions amount to roughly $21.62 million, with details as follows: The whale wallet starting with 0x4b62 opened a short position of 101.82 BTC at an average price of $81,771, with a position value of approximately $8.4086 million and an unrealized loss of around $82,200. Its liquidation price is $82,731.81, only $153 (0.19%) higher than the current market price. The other whale wallet starting with 0x1f25 opened a short position of 200 BTC at an average price of $81,743, before 40 of its positions were partially liquidated, incurring a loss of roughly $38,500. It currently holds 160 BTC in short positions, valued at about $13.2126 million, with an unrealized loss of approximately $133,700; its liquidation price is $82,959.25, around $380 (0.46%) higher than the current price.