The popular AI framework Virtuals Protocol will host an in-person meet-up in Hong Kong on Friday, January 17.

Beating AI News Flash: Bloomberg Intelligence (BI) says the performance lead of U.S. AI firms over Chinese counterparts has fallen to an all-time low, driven by advances from Chinese labs like DeepSeek. After DeepSeek V4.1 Flash launched in September, China’s top models lag U.S. rivals by just 3% in benchmark tests, a sharp narrowing from roughly 9% in May and 15% at the start of the year. DeepSeek V4.1 Flash ranked sixth globally on LiveBench last month, scoring 81.1 points—close to Anthropic’s top score of 83.4. BI Senior Analyst Robert Lea notes the model now delivers performance comparable to leading systems from Anthropic and OpenAI, though only three of the top 15 LiveBench models hail from China. China’s AI progress stems from improved technical expertise and the ability to optimize models for domestic hardware, while also raising questions about the effectiveness of U.S. chip export restrictions. Still, China’s AI industry faces commercialization pressures. Lea forecasts that low-margin token supply, fierce price wars, and competition among over 1,100 large language models could keep the sector unprofitable until 2030. Currently, ByteDance’s Doubao leads in AI application monetization, while chatbots from DeepSeek and Tencent remain free to use.

Zcash has activated its NU7 network upgrade on the testnet, launching real-world testing ahead of the mainnet upgrade scheduled for November. Data from Zcash’s testnet block explorer shows the scheduled activation height 4,465,026 was mined at 18:21:45 UTC on October 4, with Zcash subsequently confirming NU7 is officially live on the testnet. NU7 will reduce Zcash’s target block interval from 75 seconds to 25 seconds, disable version 4 transactions, and introduce a "network sustainability mechanism" that redirects a portion of transaction fees to future block rewards. Once version 4 transactions are disabled, ZEC remaining in the legacy Sprout privacy pool will become unusable unless users transfer those funds before NU7’s full activation. Zcash developers will decide whether to proceed with the mainnet upgrade and set its activation height based on testnet performance, with the mainnet activation targeted for November 5.

CoinGecko’s report shows Ethereum (ETH) rose 70% in the third quarter, outperforming Bitcoin (BTC), which gained 42% over the same period, though ETH’s market liquidity has actually declined. Between July 6 and September 30, ETH’s median daily market depth was only 35% to 45% of BTC’s, compared to at least 60% in the same period last year. Within a 0.15% range from the market price, ETH’s combined buy and sell order book depth is roughly $13 million to $14 million. Market depth measures the total size of orders placed near the current price; lower depth means large orders are more likely to drive price swings. Despite the liquidity contraction, CoinGecko notes ETH remains relatively easy to trade, with market depth exceeding $1 million on both buy and sell sides across most exchanges. Solana (SOL) has also seen a liquidity decline: its one-sided market depth within a 2% range of its price fell from approximately $28 million last year to around $20 million. XRP’s total market depth has stabilized at roughly $30 million, with buy orders totaling about $18 million and sell orders around $14 million. While XRP’s market capitalization is roughly 40% higher than SOL’s, its market depth is lower, a gap attributed to SOL’s average daily trading volume being about 25% higher.

According to Lookonchain's monitoring, crypto personality "Big Brother Ma Ji" (Huang Licheng) has earned two more profits from PUMP trades, notching 12 consecutive profitable PUMP trades over the past week with cumulative gains of $2.14 million. His current long positions include: 34,100 ETH worth approximately $92.98 million; 456 BTC valued at around $39.41 million; 174,500 HYPE worth roughly $15.84 million; and 425 million PUMP valued at about $2.72 million.

Drift Foundation has issued a statement on DFX-related matters, clarifying that DFX is not pegged to 1 USDT. For every verified 1 USDT in user losses, claimants will receive 1 DFX, though the actual redemption amount depends on the recovery pool’s asset balance at the time of redemption. The recovery pool currently covers only roughly 1% of total claims. Redemption is not mandatory: users may hold DFX and retain their claim to the recovery pool as funds are deposited into the pool and DFX supply shrinks, or trade DFX on secondary markets including Raydium. Tether has committed up to 127.5 million USDT to support Velocity’s restart and user asset recovery, but this funding will be matched against Velocity’s net protocol revenue and has not yet been disbursed as a lump sum. The deadline for DFX claims is January 1, 2028. Already claimed DFX will not be burned. Users who previously failed to claim have their allocated amounts intact and can reattempt the process; the website wallet warning issue has been resolved.

Machi(@machibigbrother) won 2 more trades on $PUMP, making it 12 wins in a row over the past week, with a total profit of $2.14M. Current long positions: 34,100 $ETH ($92.98M) 456 $BTC ($39.41M) 174,500 $HYPE ($15.84M) 425M $PUMP ($2.72M)