After U.S. Democrats regained control of Congress, congressional investigative powers are set to expand significantly. Robert Garcia, a Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, has publicly urged relevant parties to "get a lawyer"; Ron Wyden of the Senate Finance Committee has directly signaled the likelihood of issuing subpoenas. Multiple law firms have begun compiling potential investigation checklists for their clients, covering topics including allegations related to Trump’s business and family wealth accumulation, the Iran war, immigration enforcement, Dogecoin’s layoff impacts, and AI and the cost of living.

Beating AI News Flash: OpenAI has unveiled an unreleased internal model. In the BenchCAD 2.0 engineering design evaluation, the model posted an average score of 0.875, significantly outperforming GPT-6 Astra’s top inference tier score of 0.594, a relative improvement of around 47%. The model’s name and release date remain unannounced. BenchCAD 2.0 primarily tests AI’s capabilities to reconstruct 3D parts from blueprints, assemble mechanical structures, and identify circuit connections. Astra, which previously ranked first in public evaluations, has also made low-level errors: it misidentified 3.3V, 5V, and ground lines on a circuit board as the same network. Such errors could directly trigger hardware failures if applied to actual circuit design. OpenAI also showcased Astra’s robotics experiment: two employees designed a physical device that can interact with Codex via voice in less than a week, with Astra completing the casing, internal structure, circuit board, and software design. However, actual production still requires multiple rounds of manual review and adjustment; the contract manufacturer took nearly a month to produce the first batch of prototypes. OpenAI is also collaborating with racing team Chip Ganassi Racing to convert 3D scans of parts into editable CAD models and manufacturing drawings, and with Mazda to explore aerodynamic car design by adjusting front-end shapes and simulating airflow to reduce drag.

Ethereum Layer 2 research and risk tracking platform L2BEAT has announced a rebranding to ETHBEAT. The team noted that as more scaling solutions advance at the L1 layer and Layer 2s shift toward offering specialized on-chain products, users are raising consistent questions around privacy, interoperability, DeFi, and related solutions. ETHBEAT has gradually expanded its scope to include ZK Catalog, interoperability, privacy, token and blob usage, and other areas. The platform states that Layer 2 remains one of its core focus areas and will continue to monitor it closely, while also prioritizing privacy, upcoming liquid staking, and developments in interoperability, tokens, ZK, native rollups, and base layer changes.

According to SpotOnChain's monitoring, hackers behind the Mercado Bitcoin breach have moved 31 altcoins to a new wallet and sold all of them for approximately $316,000 worth of ETH, continuing to offload the stolen funds. Across multiple wallets, the total amount converted to ETH has reached around 7,988 ETH, valued at roughly $18.19 million.

According to French crypto media outlet Cryptoast, French banking group Credit Mutuel Arkea has confirmed it was hit by an attack that facilitated fraudulent transactions. The bank stated the incident has been contained, with no customer funds lost, though it did not disclose the exact loss amount. Earlier analysis indicated that fraud losses at Fortuneo, Credit Mutuel Arkea’s online banking subsidiary, could exceed $133 million, with funds laundered via crypto channels.

Morgan Stanley has confirmed it has begun using DTS, the newly launched tokenization service from the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), to tokenize US stocks, ETFs, and US Treasuries on-chain. Other institutions using the service in the same batch include JPMorgan, Citigroup, Bank of America, Fidelity, and Citadel Securities, among others. DTS went live on October 28. DTCC’s subsidiary, the Depository Trust Company (DTC), mints tokenized certificates for held securities under the service, preserving original ownership and investor protection, while enabling conversion between traditional and tokenized forms and transfers to users’ digital wallets. To date, around 20 institutions have signed up for the service, which covers Russell 1000 constituents, major index ETFs, US Treasuries, and other assets. The service is integrated with the Canton network and DTCC’s private Besu network, with plans to expand to additional blockchains by 2027. Amy Oldenburg, head of digital asset strategy at Morgan Stanley, noted that integrating tokenized securities into existing market infrastructure will continue to guide the firm’s digital asset capability development.