US Treasury sanctions Iran’s Hormuz Strait Insurance Network for using Bitcoin to evade sanctions.

Agent of the "BTC OG Insider Whale" Garrett Jin released a market outlook, stating that Bitcoin bulls are currently in an unfavorable position. BTC has been stuck above the $76,500 level, and he is not keen on this grinding bottom market. The longer this consolidation lasts, the more likely it is that this support level will be broken, leading BTC to seek a lower support rather than reversing immediately. For Bitcoin to look stronger, it must first reclaim and hold above the $78,300 level at minimum.

Beating AI Insight News Brief: Amp Launches Free Hobby Tier. Amp, a coding agent company spun off from Sourcegraph, offers tools similar to Claude Code and Codex, enabling AI to autonomously read, modify code, run commands, and execute tests. Users can now access Amp for free by using their own computers and connecting their existing ChatGPT subscriptions or model API keys, with no additional monthly fees or BYOK (Bring Your Own Key) token charges. When Amp rolled out its subscription model in July this year, connecting a ChatGPT subscription required at least the $20/month Megawatt plan. For BYOK users, Amp previously charged extra token fees and imposed restrictions even when using their own model keys. Both of these charges have now been eliminated. Users remain responsible for their own ChatGPT subscription fees or API-related model costs. Amp also offers Orb, a remote cloud computer product that creates isolated environments for each task. With code and development tools hosted in Orb, the agent can continue working even after the user shuts down their local computer, and it supports running multiple tasks simultaneously. Orb remains pay-as-you-go; users who don’t want to pay for Orb can instead run Amp directly on their local computers. Additionally, Amp is expanding its BYOK support. Paid users can already connect to OpenRouter, Amazon Bedrock, Azure Foundry, Ollama Cloud, and custom model APIs, with plans to roll out this access to all users soon.

Beating AI News Brief: ElevenLabs has launched Music v2.5, making it the default model for ElevenMusic. The new version focuses on improving melody, arrangement layers, and instrument realism. The company conducted 47,885 blind tests, generating versions of identical prompts with both v2 and v2.5; v2.5 won most comparisons, with the biggest performance gaps seen in R&B, soul, hip-hop, rock, metal, orchestral, and film soundtrack genres. Additionally, licensing terms have been relaxed: Free users can download 5 lossless songs daily, and generated content is eligible for commercial use, provided it is labeled "Made with ElevenMusic". Pro users get 400 lossless downloads monthly, no labeling required, and can distribute their songs to streaming platforms. Permissions granted at creation will not change if a user downgrades their plan or cancels their subscription. Adaptations of other artists’ songs cannot be downloaded or publicly distributed. ElevenLabs also clarified that Music v2 will not be retired. Separately, Suno recently launched v6 while retiring all its previous models, sparking dissatisfaction among many long-time users. A Hacker News (HN) user who tested both tools noted that ElevenLabs’ v2.5 has better audio quality, but they still prefer Suno v5 for musicality.

Cathie Wood noted that David Sacks, co-chair of the U.S. President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), believes recent reports about "AI destroying humanity" may be orchestrated. The comments originated from a long-inactive X account belonging to an Anthropic employee who left the company just six weeks after joining, and the content quickly made its way into mainstream media. Sacks also named the parties involved in the incident and criticized The Wall Street Journal for its role. Recently, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published a lengthy essay calling for slowing the advancement of frontier AI capabilities, arguing that AI is increasingly involved in developing the next generation of AI. Paired with multiple recent incidents of AI agent malfunctions, he added, security research is failing to keep pace with capability growth. Sam Altman soon publicly backed the call, stating that OpenAI has also been discussing "pacing the frontier" in recent weeks, and announced the company will introduce similar long-term independent assessors. Sacks, former White House AI and crypto chief and current PCAST co-chair, then fired back: "If you truly believe internal models are dangerous, shut them down yourselves." He argued that requiring government approval for the largest AI firms to collaborate on setting speed limits would amount to a cartel, and also singled out METR, questioning whether it is fit to serve as an independent referee for the entire industry. METR has long conducted external evaluations for companies including Anthropic and OpenAI, and recently hired Joe Benton, an Anthropic security researcher who left the firm. However, METR clarified that it does not accept funding from these frontier AI companies, only model access and free tokens.

According to GMGN market data, the market capitalization of EMBER, the platform token of Solana-based token launch platform Ember Curve, briefly exceeded $40 million and currently stands at $35 million. The token has rallied 48.7% in the past 24 hours, with a 24-hour trading volume of $27.3 million. Ember Curve is a new token launch platform on Solana built on Meteora. BlockBeats reminds users that token prices are highly volatile, so investment requires caution.

According to on-chain analyst Ai Yi (@ai_9684xtpa)’s monitoring, today, the so-called "meme coin" LSK’s project-linked address deposited 3.29 million tokens to Binance five hours ago, valued at $3.79 million. The deposit came after LSK’s first sharp drop from $2 to $1, and shortly afterward, the token saw a second plunge, falling from $1.22 to $0.7 before rebounding to $1.17. Per Coinglass data, LSK’s liquidation volume over the past 24 hours hit $44.66 million, second only to ETH.