Elliott Alexander, a member of the Ethereum Foundation, has joined BitPay after being laid off.

In response to yesterday's U.S. stock market plunge, most Wall Street traders and analysts attribute the main cause not to fundamental deterioration, but to hedge fund liquidation. Noel Smith, co-chief investment officer at Kai Asset Management, said: "A decline of this magnitude without major market news is extremely rare. This reeks of liquidation." Besides Bloomberg's report last night that multi-strategy hedge fund Walleye Capital will streamline its internal equity long-short business, the market widely expects several funds are undergoing full liquidation, or "pods" (independent investment teams) within multi-strategy funds are being forced to close out positions. According to a list released this morning by leading financial research community Special Situations, multiple hedge funds are facing distress, including Axebrook, Walleye, Engineers Gate, Lone Pine, Millennium internal pods, Verition pods, and Samlyn, mainly involving large redemptions, internal team closures, or portfolio manager (PM) replacements. Notably, during the U.S. stock market's major turmoil in July this year, AI hedge fund Situational Awareness also experienced a similar incident: its assets shrank by 67%, and it subsequently reached an emergency exit deal with Citadel, selling most of its public stock holdings at a discount.

According to Bitget market data, the Nikkei 225 index fell below 57,000 points, dropping 6.72% on the day. Tokyo Electron declined 13%, Advantest fell 13%, and SoftBank dropped 14%.

According to Kraken’s disclosure, the crypto exchange has announced plans to launch a tokenized product for the IPO of Anthropic, the developer behind Claude. Kraken noted in an accompanying graphic that IPO allocation decisions are not made by Kraken, and allocations may be granted in full, in part, or not at all; funds not allocated will be refunded. The product is not offered to U.S. persons or residents and is subject to geographic restrictions.

According to Bitget's market data, South Korea's KOSPI index resumed trading after a circuit breaker halt, with its decline narrowing to 6.8%. Among heavyweight stocks, SK Hynix fell 7.99% and Samsung dropped 7.3%.

The Nikkei 225 index fell below the 58,000-point mark, dropping 5.06% on the day; the Tokyo Stock Price Index (TOPIX) also declined by 5%.

Per YuJing Monitor, as the Nasdaq index fell 5.52% overnight, pre-market contracts for Anthropic – set to debut on Nasdaq via IPO in about 10 days – also dropped 8%. The whale holding Anthropic’s largest short position, which is shorting $50.34 million worth of the company, has now booked an unrealized profit of $3.76 million.