Data: Web3 social application Towns has over 400,000 total users, with over 200,000 token holders

Lighter founder and CEO Vladimir Novakovski stated during the Q3 investor meeting: "We are currently pursuing licenses as a Designated Contract Market (DCM) and Derivatives Clearing Organization (DCO). We have spent extensive time communicating with staff at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to align with all its core principles. Many of these principles already have clear correspondences with how Lighter implements them on-chain. For other principles, we have developed entirely new approaches that are unprecedented for regulators, and they are now investing significant time engaging with us to understand how these work. Our next plan is to formally submit these license applications next month. Regulators then have a maximum of 280 days to review them. Since we have completed all this preparatory work, we believe the subsequent process will go smoothly. We are very much looking forward to obtaining these licenses in the U.S. and opening our platform to the American market—not for retail users, but for institutional clients." Earlier, LIT saw a price drop amid news that Robinhood launched perpetual contracts in the U.S. using Bitstamp. At the time, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev told reporters that the decision not to select Lighter was due to regulatory structure. Novakovski’s remarks at the investor meeting have reignited community speculation that Lighter could collaborate more closely with Robinhood once it becomes compliant. According to HTX market data, driven by these remarks, LIT rose as much as 15% in 24 hours and is currently trading at $3.76.

U.S. President Donald Trump said he will not bomb Iran before the midterm elections, but the U.S. is evacuating some non-essential personnel from Saudi Arabia, reducing troops at some Middle East bases, and deploying additional aircraft carriers and amphibious forces. Israeli military sources reported that dozens of fighter jets approached Iran's border this week before turning back, and its strike target list is also being updated. The U.S. State Department has ordered the evacuation of only non-emergency government employees and their families in Saudi Arabia, citing attacks on Saudi civilian targets by Iran-backed Houthi forces as the reason. Separately, the U.S. military has quietly reduced its forces stationed in Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait and other locations in recent days. The Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. is deploying another aircraft carrier to the Middle East, with a third carrier strike group en route from the Pacific, and is dispatching amphibious assault ships carrying U.S. Marines. If the additional forces are in place and existing vessels are not rotated or withdrawn, the total number of U.S. warships in the region is expected to exceed 24, up from around 20 currently. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly continuing to advocate for resuming large-scale strikes on Iran. Israel's Channel 12, citing U.S. sources, said dozens of Israeli fighter jets and refueling tankers flew over Syria and Iraq near Iran's border earlier this week, following a flight path highly similar to that of an attack on Iran, before turning back just before entering Iranian airspace. Israel said the mission was for exercises and deterrence. Meanwhile, Pakistan, Qatar and others are intensifying mediation efforts, but the U.S. is demanding talks on Iran's nuclear program, while Iran wants to first discuss reopening the Strait of Hormuz, with no breakthrough in negotiations so far.

According to monitoring by Onchain Lens, Pump.fun once again transferred 129,800 SOL (worth approximately $14.06 million) from its fee wallet to Kraken in the early hours of today, likely to facilitate sales.

Multiple internet infrastructure software projects rolled out security updates in a single day, addressing vulnerabilities including remote code execution, TLS certificate validation bypass, and certificate trust risks. PHP fixed two critical flaws: CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619, both enabling unauthenticated remote code execution that impacts PHP environments processing web requests. The patched versions are 8.5.12, 8.4.27, 8.3.36, and 8.2.35. Node.js’ advisory details 10 vulnerabilities, four of which are high-severity: these include remote code execution via out-of-bounds write in the Brotli decoder, DNS name truncation, and two TLS certificate hostname validation bypass issues. Fixed versions are 26.12.1, 24.22.1, and 22.23.4. Additionally, Go’s crypto/x509-related risk is tracked as CVE-2026-111943, rated "Important" by Red Hat with a CVSS 3.1 score of 6.8. Attackers with specific network access and valid certificates could impersonate legitimate servers to intercept or alter communications. Go 1.26.10 and 1.27.3 have been added to a deny list, blocking trust for compromised intermediate certificates.

Decentralized data network for AI agents Dataline has closed a $10.6 million seed round, co-led by Lattice and Samsung-backed Dispersion Capital, with participation from Symbolic Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Anagram, and Robinhood co-founder & CEO Vlad Tenev, among others. The round, completed in April, utilized a SAFE agreement with token warrants; valuation was not disclosed. Dataline is now live, covering approximately 50 data sources to deliver on-chain and off-chain data, and scores data reliability, timeliness, and consistency using AI. Proceeds will be allocated to expanding data sources, enhancing data validation, and expanding into robotics, AI training data, and other sectors. Dataline plans to launch a token by the end of 2026 for network payments and data access, and intends to conduct a public token sale on Base via Uniswap’s Continuous Clearing Auction (CCA) system, with details set to be revealed next week. The public sale’s target fundraising amount, token quantity, and other terms remain undisclosed.

White House officials said on October 21 that Trump planned to focus on the U.S. government’s actions to crack down on overseas crypto fraud rings during the White House’s cybersecurity event that day, including recovering funds and shutting down fraudulent operations. These transnational criminal groups steal funds from U.S. citizens via romance scams, phishing, ransomware and other methods. The U.S. government noted that law enforcement agencies have seized approximately $833 million in crypto assets linked to overseas fraud, and shut down 503 fraudulent crypto websites under the supervision of the Homeland Security Task Force. Relevant authorities have also notified nearly 9,000 U.S. citizens to alert them they are being targeted by fraud. The U.S. Treasury Department previously announced the establishment of an inter-agency "Fraud Strike Task Force" to target "pig butchering" scams run by organized criminal groups in Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and the Philippines. Since last year, the U.S. has also imposed multiple sanctions aimed at cutting off support for related fraud websites and their infrastructure.