Y Combinator Publishes Crypto Startup Direction Report: Focuses on Stablecoins, Asset Tokenization, and AI Agents

Nasdaq-listed Canton Strategic Holdings (CNTN) announced an agreement with TSV, a permissioned tokenized securities trading platform on the Canton Network, to offer its common stock for trading in issuer-initiated tokenized form. The target launch date is as early as November 2, and the company expects this to become the first compliant tokenized onshore U.S. equities case under the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)’s Innovation Exemption Framework. The tokenized shares are issued by Fairmint, an SEC-registered on-chain transfer agent that maintains ownership records, with holders entitled to the same rights as Nasdaq stockholders. The trading will run via the Tradecraft protocol as an automated market maker (AMM), enabling nearly 24/7 trading and atomic settlement. Participants must complete identity verification and sanctions screening. The issuer-initiated model avoids the objection and notification processes typical of third-party tokenization schemes.

According to HTX market data, HYPE has continued its rally, breaking through the $97 mark, surging over 20% in 7 hours, and is only $1 away from hitting a new all-time high. Earlier news, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, plans to partner with Trade.xyz to introduce perpetual contract products into the U.S. regulated market.

Strategy’s third-quarter financial results are upcoming, and its perpetual preferred stock STRC has climbed to $99.95, its highest level in 165 days. STRC is designed to trade around $100 via a floating dividend mechanism. When STRC nears par value, the company can raise capital through at-the-market (ATM) share issuances to purchase bitcoin — a route the market commonly dubs the "bitcoin money printer". Previously, after STRC fell below par value, such ATM offerings were temporarily halted.

Axis Robotics has issued a statement addressing the massive on-chain sell-off of AXIS tokens that took place between October 28 and 29. The project clarified that a total of 835 million AXIS tokens—accounting for 83.5% of the total supply, held by its core team, investors, and other locked allocations—remain stored in a vesting contract co-managed with Binance, which is verifiable on-chain. No tokens from these locked pools will be unlocked before the 12-month cliff period, and the recent sell-off was not driven by the team or investors exiting positions. The project added that the sold tokens originated from the initial circulating supply outlined in its publicly released token economics, part of the ecosystem allocation. Given that some ecosystem recipients are not crypto-native users, the allocation was delivered via a single over-the-counter (OTC) counterparty under a written agreement with lock-up clauses. The sales were processed through exchange deposit routes and executed across hundreds of new addresses within hours of delivery. The project suspects the counterparty likely offloaded the tokens on the open market. Earlier, on-chain detective ZachXBT disclosed that insider addresses linked to Axis Robotics (AXIS) dumped tokens, triggering a roughly 40% plunge in the token’s price.

Canadian AI model startup Cohere is undertaking a large-scale financing round, with a valuation of $20.5 billion — roughly triple its value a year ago. Cohere announced Thursday that it has completed the first tranche of this financing round, with a total expected size of up to $50 billion. It has secured investment commitments from backers including the Canadian government and NVIDIA, and the $6 billion investment from European retail giant Schwarz Group, previously disclosed, is also included. The Canadian government has agreed to invest up to $1.14 billion in Cohere. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney stated that Cohere plans to retain its headquarters in Canada and expects to build new computing infrastructure in the country by 2030, with an investment of around $1.2 billion. If the financing round is successfully completed, it will become the largest private financing in Canadian history, far exceeding previous records.

According to Bloomberg, Google parent company Alphabet's quarterly filing submitted on Thursday revealed artificial intelligence-related risk exposures not covered in the prior day's earnings call, and showed its AI risk exposure surpassed $1 trillion. Alphabet cited rapid growth in cloud service demand, with the expansion of its unfulfilled cloud contracts as evidence. Bloomberg noted that over a third of the growth in the quarter's unfulfilled cloud contracts came from a joint venture in which Alphabet holds a partial stake.