US midterm elections approaching: Control of Congress to be decided by the November 3 vote.

Beating AI News Flash: Elon Musk posted that his AI computing cluster Colossus 2 currently has deployed 110,000 NVIDIA GB200 chips and 440,000 GB300 chips, totaling 550,000 chips, and the total number may exceed twice the current figure by the end of the year. Musk revealed that Colossus 2 is expected to bring online 220,000 GB300 chips next week, with another 220,000 to go online in November; if progress goes smoothly, an additional 220,000 chips could be launched before the end of December. Per the plan, Colossus 2 will add up to 660,000 GB300 chips by the end of the year, bringing its total chip count to around 1.21 million, a roughly 120% increase from the current level. In addition, Colossus 1 currently operates with 150,000 H100 chips, 50,000 H200 chips, and 30,000 GB200 chips. Earlier, xAI announced plans to equip its data center in Memphis, U.S. with 1 million GPUs by 2026.

Former New York Governor and OKX board member Andrew Cuomo published an article in CoinDesk, stating that tokenization of U.S. financial markets is accelerating and the regulatory system needs to keep pace with technological and market developments. Cuomo noted that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) launched a temporary "Innovation Exemption" framework on September 17, allowing qualified on-chain trading platforms to trade tokenized stocks of certain U.S. publicly listed companies under specific conditions, with a 5-year term. This framework provides a testing ground for blockchain to enter regulated capital markets. Cuomo emphasized that the framework does not relax regulation; instead, it allows the market to test new technologies under clear constraints, including requirements that trading platform participants hold licenses, tokenized stocks grant investors the same rights and benefits as traditional stocks, smart contracts are audited and deployed on public chains, and corresponding tokenized stocks halt trading when their underlying stocks are suspended. The U.S. Senate failed to advance the Digital Asset Market Structure Act (CLARITY Act) on September 15, revealing lingering divisions over comprehensive digital asset regulatory legislation. However, the tokenization market will not stop developing due to the slow legislative process. Cuomo believes regulatory clarity is not only a legal and political issue but will also affect the future flow of capital, talent, and financial infrastructure.

SoFi Bank announced it has fully deployed its proprietary stablecoin SoFiUSD for transaction settlement on the Mastercard network, becoming the first U.S. national bank to implement this model. SoFi launched SoFiUSD in December 2025, opened it to users in May this year, and the partnership between the two parties was unveiled in March this year. SoFi noted that migrating its entire credit card business to stablecoin settlements is projected to drive an annual transaction volume of over $25 billion. Radi El Haj, CEO of RS2, said the partnership marks the shift of stablecoin settlement from the pilot phase to large-scale practical application, adding that changes to the settlement layer will not affect the existing card payment experience for consumers and merchants.

Data from the University of Michigan survey shows that U.S. consumers’ assessments of both their current and future personal financial situations have dropped by roughly 10%, while concerns over high prices continue to rise. Conditions for purchasing durable goods have improved slightly, in part because consumers believe making such purchases now will help them avoid future price hikes. Consumer expectations for short-term business conditions have deteriorated sharply, driven by renewed market concerns over high fuel prices and the potential spillover of escalating trade disputes to the broader economy. Overall, the survey shows that respondents across different political affiliations generally view the U.S. economic outlook as weaker than it was at the start of the year. Following this month’s sharp drop in consumer confidence, confidence among Republican-leaning respondents has fallen by 20% since January 2026, while that of Democratic-leaning respondents has dropped by 13% over the same period. One-year ahead inflation expectations rose from 4.0% last month to 4.6% this month, hitting their highest level since June. This current level is significantly higher than the 3.4% recorded in February before the start of the Iran conflict, and also higher than levels seen in every month of 2024. Long-term inflation expectations edged up to 3.4%, ending a three-month stretch of holding at 3.3%. This expectation remains above the 2.8% to 3.2% range seen in 2024. Federal Reserve official Schmid stated that U.S. debt appears very "extreme", adding that the Federal Reserve has not yet resolved the inflation issue.

Bitget announced that its withdrawal recovery plan will be released by 4:00 UTC on September 26 (12:00 Beijing time), and thanked users for their patience. The crypto exchange previously confirmed that approximately $387.5 million worth of assets were transferred to attacker-controlled addresses during the security incident, involving assets including ETH, XRP, USDT, ZEC, USDC, USDT0, XAUt, BNB, AVAX, and TRX. Bitget noted that the incident is now under control, no further unauthorized transfers have been detected, withdrawals remain temporarily suspended, and investigations and asset tracing efforts are still ongoing.

Bitget announced the launch of the "Recovery Bounty Program", inviting exchanges, blockchain projects, security researchers, investigation agencies, and on-chain communities to assist in freezing and recovering assets affected by the recent security incident. According to the plan, participants who successfully freeze funds will receive a bounty equivalent to 5% of the frozen amount, while those who successfully recover funds will also get a 5% bounty of the recovered amount. Bitget stated that it will leverage Bybit’s Lazarus Bounty Program as one of the core channels for this bounty and asset recovery operation. Actions taken via court orders, law enforcement requirements, or other legal procedures are not eligible for the bounty. Final eligibility determination, contribution evaluation, and reward amounts are at Bitget’s discretion.