Report: Rug Pull Incidents in the Crypto Space Have Decreased, but Their Impact Has Grown

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) released a statement via state media on Friday, claiming it had struck a U.S. early-warning radar site in Bahrain in retaliation for an earlier airstrike on a communications tower in Sirik County, Hormozgan Province, southern Iran. This marks the first time Iran has publicly claimed an attack on a U.S. military facility in a Gulf state since early September. To date, Iran has not disclosed the radar's specific location, damage status, or any casualties, and the attack's outcome cannot be independently verified. The U.S. and Bahrain have not yet responded. The incident comes as shipping security risks around the Strait of Hormuz continue to rise. Earlier, the IRGC said two large oil tankers exploded and lost navigability on Wednesday night after ignoring route warnings. Additionally, Iran has been accused of attacking a ship navigation facility on Oman's Dammar Island. As U.S.-Iran military tensions escalate again, security risks for the Strait of Hormuz, a globally critical energy transport route, have further increased.

Beating AI Flash News: Shortly after Jensen Huang resigned, NVIDIA employees internally called on the company’s board of directors to reinstate him as CEO. A senior engineer previously posted on the company’s internal suggestion box, demanding the board release the investigation results and solicit employee input before deciding Huang’s future. Since Huang’s resignation, the post has garnered over 1,600 comments, most of which support his return. One comment read: “If you align with the company’s mission, bring the boss back.” Another employee said: “Everyone makes mistakes. Jensen Huang has done so much for the company and deserves a second chance.” Some employees even sent company-wide emails publicly backing Huang and demanding the board explain the reasons for his departure. Many employees had expected the board to wait until the conclusion of an independent investigation before deciding Huang’s fate, but Huang resigned shortly after the investigation launched. Employee support for Huang did not emerge only after his resignation. Workplace community Blind surveyed 232 NVIDIA employees between November 9 and 10: 88% of respondents supported Huang remaining as CEO, 11% wanted him to step down voluntarily, and only 1% backed the board removing him from the post. Within hours of Huang’s departure, more than 20 NVIDIA employees publicly voiced support for him on LinkedIn. No employee posts publicly backing his resignation were found during the same period. To date, NVIDIA’s board has appointed CFO Colette Kress as interim CEO and launched a formal successor selection process. The company and new chairman Harvey Jones have not yet responded to employee calls for Huang’s return.

Barclays noted in a new report that the likelihood of the U.S.-Iran conflict ending within the next year is less than 50%, with a "prolonged stalemate" now the baseline scenario. Analyst Michael McLean said both sides believe time is on their side, making a near-term substantive agreement highly unlikely. The U.S. may maintain a "no war, no peace" deadlock with Iran, and even prepare for the conflict to last through the end of Trump’s term. Barclays outlined three potential paths for the U.S.: further escalation, long-term status quo, and withdrawal. Among these, prolonged stalemate is the most likely: both sides will continue intermittent tit-for-tat strikes, nuclear talks will make little progress, and the U.S. will retain control of the Strait of Hormuz. The report added that Middle East oil exports have recovered to around 85% of pre-conflict levels, and the global economy has grown more resilient to oil price shocks, reducing the urgency for all parties to end the conflict quickly. Historical data also shows that the longer a war lasts, the lower its likelihood of ending soon. Citing data on 95 interstate wars between 1823 and 2003, Barclays noted that wars that have lasted 6 to 12 months have a roughly 57% chance of ending within a year; for wars that have already lasted 8 months, the average remaining duration is 1.8 years. By contrast, further U.S. military escalation faces risks including Iranian retaliation and opposition from Gulf states, while a unilateral withdrawal could lead to the U.S. losing control of the Strait of Hormuz and trigger a crisis in its regional influence and international credibility. Barclays concluded that both escalation and withdrawal have clear obstacles, making maintaining the status quo the more likely outcome.

Xiao Feng, Chairman and CEO of HashKey Group, delivered a speech at the 2026 Citi China Summit, noting that "financial digitalization" in the internet era mainly uses digital technology to boost financial efficiency. Entering the AI era, AI Tokens enable intelligent value to be measured, traded, and invested, while AI Agents and robots have begun to use currency autonomously, requiring the financial system to further upgrade from "financial digitalization" to "digital financialization". Citing data, Xiao Feng said that the AI payment protocol x402 on a compliant overseas public chain has recorded around 138 million total payments over the past 12 months, with 87% of the payment amounts ranging from $0.01 to $0.1. He argued that the high-frequency micro-payment demands brought by AI Agents and robots are difficult to be supported by traditional bank accounts and clearing systems, and the proportion of AI Agents and robots among financial institution clients may continue to rise in the future. Regarding infrastructure, Xiao Feng pointed out that the global financial system is accelerating the tokenization of deposits, stablecoins, and assets. When both the funding side and the asset side achieve tokenization, a complete on-chain financial closed loop is expected to form, enabling "transaction-as-settlement" and all-weather trading. In addition, HashKey Exchange is exploring potential cooperation with Citibank in areas such as custody, tokenized deposits, and fund clearing and settlement.

According to TradingBeats monitoring, between 18:00 (Beijing time) last night and 11:52 today, 24 addresses on Hyperliquid each had BTC long positions liquidated exceeding $1 million — all long positions. Total liquidation volume reached approximately $159 million, with corresponding liquidation losses of around $14 million, excluding fees and funding rates. Among these, three whales each had individual liquidation sizes exceeding $10 million, totaling roughly $102 million, accounting for 64.2% of the total liquidation amount. The whale with address starting with 0x6046: $38.77 million worth of BTC long positions were liquidated, resulting in a $5.25 million loss. Around 21:00 last night, this address’s BTC long positions worth approximately $38.77 million were all forcibly liquidated in a short period, at an average execution price of $72,211. It currently holds no BTC positions. The whale with address starting with 0x01e2: liquidated across 17 consecutive rounds, with a total liquidation of $38.15 million. From last night to this morning, this address faced multiple rounds of forced liquidations, totaling a loss of about $1.862 million, at an average execution price of $71,125. It still holds BTC long positions worth roughly $850,000, with an unrealized loss of around $72,000 and an estimated liquidation price of $68,508. The whale with address starting with 0x5f91: $25.15 million worth of BTC long positions were forcibly liquidated this morning, leading to a $1.58 million loss. Around 10:00 today, this address’s large long positions were all liquidated within seconds, at an average execution price of $70,439. It currently holds no BTC positions. The remaining 21 addresses had a combined liquidation of about $56.97 million. Among them, addresses starting with 0x4a20, 0xa674, 0xd412, and 0x4669 had BTC long position liquidation sizes of approximately $8.19 million, $7.48 million, $7.4 million, and $5.06 million respectively.

Beating AI News: OpenAI privately signaled to U.S. members of Congress this week its support for three bills aimed at restricting China’s access to advanced AI chips and manufacturing equipment. This is not OpenAI’s first backing for chip controls on China. Last year, the company actively advocated limiting U.S. firms from selling high-end chips to China, but later stopped pushing for stricter measures in Congress. OpenAI executives have long feared that publicly supporting tighter chip exports to China would anger Jensen Huang and harm its partnership with NVIDIA. The two firms have a close relationship: NVIDIA not only supplies GPUs to OpenAI, but also supports the company’s data center construction via large financing guarantees. For his part, Huang has long lobbied Washington to ease restrictions on chip sales to China. Anthropic has taken a far more unambiguous stance. In September this year, the company directly withdrew from a tech industry association over its opposition to the group blocking chip control bills. Now, OpenAI has reversed course after a prior retreat. The three bills it backs would, respectively, strengthen chip tracking, restrict the supply of chip manufacturing equipment to China, and increase congressional review of sensitive chip export licenses. Jensen Huang resigned on November 12, a move that has weakened NVIDIA’s lobbying influence in Washington. Bipartisan members of Congress are working to include these restrictions in the year-end National Defense Authorization Act.