Perplexity open-sourced SPACE: The project grants AI full root access while leaving keys outside the virtual machine.

Hong Kong Police’s “Net Guardian” social platform reported that over the past two weeks, it has received more than 150 WhatsApp account hijacking fraud cases, with total losses exceeding HK$15 million. A local employee at a virtual currency exchange firm recently fell victim to the scam: scammers hijacked his WhatsApp account, blocked the original work group and blacklisted members, then copied the group’s images, name, members and avatars to create a fake group, posing as client representatives to request cryptocurrency exchanges. The victim, following standard practice, transferred crypto to the scammers’ designated wallet; he only discovered the fraud later when he found the client’s account had insufficient balance and called to verify, leading to the company losing over HK$4 million. Police warned that WhatsApp groups can be forged, but member phone numbers cannot match those of real groups, and conversation timestamps cannot be replicated. They also advised enabling two-factor authentication, verifying the counterparty by phone before remitting funds, and avoiding logging into accounts on public Wi-Fi or public computers.

On-chain analytics platform Santiment has released data showing that the number of Bitcoin wallets holding between 10 and 10,000 BTC has reached 20,338, a new all-time high, and has increased significantly amid price fluctuations since mid-July. Santiment notes that this wallet cohort is closely tied to Bitcoin’s future price direction. The entry of large investors (whales) into this range amid volatile market conditions indicates that major capital has not exited en masse during the recent price downturn.

According to an official announcement from HTX DAO, the HTX token burn for the third quarter of 2026 was completed on October 15. On-chain data shows that a total of 9,386,358,095,816 HTX tokens (approximately 9.39 trillion) were burned in this round, equivalent to around $15.48 million, marking a month-on-month increase of about 25.6% in the burn volume. To date, HTX DAO’s cumulative burned and donated HTX tokens have reached as high as 127.17 trillion. Per HTX DAO’s established mechanism, Huobi HTX, as an ecosystem partner, allocates 50% of its quarterly revenue to HTX token repurchases and burns. Going forward, HTX DAO will continue to advance HTX token burns and related on-chain information disclosure, while deepening community governance and ecosystem development, and continuously improving the HTX token economic system.

South Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) and Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) have issued an investor alert on perpetual contracts traded on overseas virtual asset platforms. The authorities said they will step up monitoring of overseas platforms offering perpetual contracts linked to South Korean stocks, indices, and other assets. If illegal domestic operations such as soliciting South Korean residents to open accounts or trade are confirmed, they will take stern measures including filing complaints with investigative agencies, and demand that major relevant overseas platform operators comply with South Korean laws. South Korean authorities noted that these perpetual contracts have no expiration date, trade 24/7, and some products offer leverage of 10x to 200x. Taking a 150x-leveraged contract linked to South Korean stock indices as an example, a 0.66% reverse index fluctuation can trigger forced liquidation. Such products are not legally permitted in South Korea. Most overseas platforms are not subject to South Korean financial laws. In cases of bankruptcy, closure, unilateral trading suspensions, or system failures, resolving domestic disputes and providing investor relief becomes challenging, and domestic regulators also struggle to verify client asset custody. The authorities said they will carefully assess whether to introduce similar products domestically and the corresponding regulatory framework.

According to Bitget market data, South Korea’s KOSPI index closed up 113.82 points today, rising 2.05% to end at 5668.04 points. Japan’s Nikkei 225 index closed up 898.34 points today, gaining 1.39% to finish at 65324.29 points. Samsung Electronics rose 2.62%, while SK Hynix gained 0.79%. Additionally, South Korea’s KOSPI index fell 14.5% this week, marking its largest weekly decline since October 2008.

Beating AI Express News: Developer Henry has open-sourced the ESP32 iPhone Agent. Using just a XIAO ESP32S3 development board priced at around 40–50 yuan, paired with a mobile app, this tool enables AI to operate a physical iPhone—opening apps, tapping buttons, and swiping the screen. It requires no jailbreaking and does not rely on Apple’s XCTest testing permissions; its implementation is clever. The ESP32 creates its own Wi-Fi hotspot to act as an AirPlay screen-casting receiver. The iPhone streams its screen to the development board, which does not handle decoding. Instead, it sends compressed video back to the Agent app on the same phone via Bluetooth. The app calls a vision model to identify the interface and determine the next action, then sends commands via Bluetooth to the ESP32, which simulates USB mouse and keyboard operations on the iPhone. To avoid tap position offsets, the system automatically calibrates the mouse pointer and adjusts its position based on the screen when needed. This solution combines screen reception and input simulation using a standard ESP32-S3, eliminating the need for dedicated video capture hardware like the NanoKVM Go. The Agent runs directly on the iPhone, while model inference relies on external APIs or self-hosted servers. Since the phone’s Wi-Fi is occupied by the development board’s hotspot, model access defaults to cellular data. Initial firmware flashing and compilation/installation of the iPhone app still require a Mac and Xcode. Limited by Bluetooth bandwidth, the streamed screen has a resolution of only 480×1040, with a maximum frame rate of 5 FPS. Each operation typically takes several seconds. Currently, touch coordinates only work with vertical interfaces, keyboard input is limited to ASCII characters, and screen casting cannot continue after the iPhone is locked.