Today's top news highlights:
Standard Chartered CEO: All transactions will ultimately be settled via blockchain.
Balancer's losses from the attack have risen to $116.6 million.
HumidiFi surpasses Meteora and Raydium in 30-day trading volume, leading the Solana DEX market.
Binance HODLer airdrops Momentum (MMT), spot trading begins on November 4th.
Since 2023, the daily inflow of BTC from retail investors into Binance has plummeted from 552 to 92.
Macro
The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has issued a circular regarding liquidity sharing among virtual asset trading platforms, allowing licensed virtual asset trading platform operators to integrate their listings with qualified overseas platform operators to share liquidity and achieve cross-platform matching and trade execution. Platforms must adopt DVP (Delivered Verified) and intraday settlement and open interest monitoring, and establish a reserve fund and insurance/indemnification arrangements in Hong Kong with a minimum limit to cover settlement asset risks. Market surveillance must be uniformly implemented and able to provide real-time transaction and customer data to the SFC. Before targeting retail markets, platforms must provide full risk disclosure and obtain customer selection, simultaneously applying for written approval with additional terms and conditions.
The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has issued two circulars to facilitate licensed virtual asset trading platform operators in accessing global liquidity and expanding the range of products and services they offer. The circular, "On Expanding the Products and Services of Virtual Asset Trading Platforms," proposes to broaden the products and services offered by licensed virtual asset trading platforms in the following ways: First, it amends the token inclusion requirements, removing the 12-month track record requirement for virtual assets (including stablecoins) offered to professional investors; licensed stablecoins can be offered to retail investors without this requirement. Second, it clarifies that platforms can distribute digital asset-related products and tokenized securities, and can open trust/client accounts for clients with custodians. Third, it allows the custody of digital assets not traded on the platform through affiliated entities, subject to existing guidelines and risk management; the custody of tokenized securities may be exempted from the second-stage assessment on a case-by-case basis.
According to the official website of Shanghai Pudong Development Bank (SPDB), the Technology Development Department released several job postings related to digital RMB on October 24, 2025, covering testing, development, and domain architecture design, with the work location in Chengdu. The job requirements range from 3 to 8 years of relevant experience, emphasizing experience in financial system development and testing, distributed architecture capabilities, and understanding of digital currency protocols.
Opinion
Vitalik Buterin proposed that autonomous driving should be open-source and verifiable, and that accident valuation could be outsourced by third parties signing "payable" algorithms with insurance companies. He suggested that licensed algorithms should be used on public roads. He also pointed to comma.ai's open-source project Openpilot (GitHub).
In his opening address at Fintech Week, Eddie Yue, Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), outlined the "Fintech 2030" vision, aiming to develop Hong Kong into a robust, resilient, and forward-thinking international fintech hub. The vision focuses on four key areas, encompassing over 40 specific projects. Among these initiatives, the HKMA will promote financial tokenization and foster a thriving tokenization ecosystem. The HKMA will lead by example in demonstrating asset tokenization, such as normalizing the issuance of tokenized government bonds, while also exploring the feasibility of tokenizing Exchange Fund Bills and other bonds. The HKMA will soon launch the Ensemble pilot program to support real-world transactions and will continue to collaborate with industry stakeholders and other central banks to cultivate innovative tokenization use cases.
Lu Lei, Vice Governor of the People's Bank of China (PBOC), stated that the PBOC attaches great importance to cross-border payment cooperation with Hong Kong, exploring various fintech innovations to actively promote cross-border payment connectivity and facilitate economic integration between the two places. Speaking at the Hong Kong Fintech Week Entrepreneurship Festival, Lu Lei noted the ongoing expansion of the Cross-border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) in Hong Kong. In recent years, the system has added northbound and southbound bond connect settlement functions and launched Hong Kong dollar payment and clearing services. As of the end of September, Hong Kong had 11 direct participants and 120 indirect participants, providing safe and efficient cross-border clearing and settlement services for international trade and investment. He added that the PBOC is actively promoting the interconnection of the two places' fast payment systems. The Cross-border Payment Connect system was successfully launched online in June this year, providing residents of both places with fast online bilateral local currency and bilateral RMB remittance services. Currently, the system is operating smoothly, processing transactions normally, and receiving positive public feedback. Lu Lei also pointed out the deepening of cross-border QR code payment connectivity. Recently, the PBOC organized the construction of a unified cross-border QR code gateway, serving as a unified interface for international QR code payment cooperation, further facilitating cross-border QR code payment cooperation between institutions in both places. He stated that in the future, the digital yuan will be used to explore new solutions for cross-border payments, including promoting multilateral central bank digital currency bridge cooperation and exploring new paradigms for cross-border payments; relying on the digital yuan cross-border payment platform to provide Chinese solutions for central bank digital currency cross-border payment cooperation; and building a dual platform of blockchain and digital assets to activate a new engine for the value internet.
Standard Chartered CEO: All transactions will ultimately be settled via blockchain.
Standard Chartered CEO: Both the bank and the Hong Kong SAR leadership believe that all transactions will eventually be settled via blockchain and all currencies will be digitized.
HSBC CEO: The bank's tokenized gold product has achieved "massive adoption".
HSBC CEO: Our tokenized gold product has achieved “massive adoption” among retail customers in Hong Kong and is now the third largest such product globally.
Project Updates
GoPlus: All DeFi projects that fork Balancer are affected by the Balancer vulnerability.
The GoPlus Chinese community issued a warning stating that all DeFi projects forking Balancer are affected by the Balancer vulnerability, and multiple protocols have already been compromised. They recommend checking the list of Balancer forks on the Defillama website, immediately ceasing all interaction with them, and withdrawing assets as needed for protection. Previous reports indicated that Balancer's losses from the attack had risen to $116.6 million.
Berachain: Taking preventative measures, it has suspended HONEY minting and BEX liquidity pooling.
The Berachain Foundation posted on the X platform: "We have become aware of the vulnerability attack on Balancer in the past 45 minutes and are taking preventative measures to avoid any potential damage to the Berachain ecosystem, especially BEX. During this time, HONEY minting and BEX liquidity pool/vault operations have been suspended. We will continue to provide updates shortly." Previous reports indicated that the Balancer attack had resulted in losses of $116.6 million.
Balancer's losses from the attack have risen to $116.6 million.
According to Lookonchain, the damage from the attack on the DeFi protocol Balancer has risen to $116.6 million. Previous reports indicated that the attack involved the transfer of assets across multiple blockchains, including various tokens such as WETH, Staked ETH, and wstETH. The incident is still ongoing, and further details are pending.
Binance HODLer airdrops Momentum (MMT), spot trading begins on November 4th.
Binance HODLer airdrop has launched its 56th project, Momentum (MMT), a DeFi hub based on the Sui blockchain, providing deep liquidity and trading tools. Users can receive MMT retrospective airdrop rewards by subscribing to principal-protected earning or on-chain earning products using BNB. Binance will open the MMT deposit channel at 18:00 Beijing time on November 3rd and launch MMT trading at 20:00 on November 4th, supporting USDT, USDC, BNB, and TRY trading pairs. The total supply of MMT genesis tokens is 1 billion, with approximately 204 million in circulation at the time of listing, representing 20.41% of the total supply.
OKX will launch spot trading of Hyperliquid (HYPE).
OKX has announced the upcoming launch of Hyperliquid (HYPE) spot trading, with the opening dates confirmed. HYPE deposits will open at 3:30 PM on November 3rd, allowing users to deposit assets in advance. Following this, pre-order placement will open between 9:30 PM and 10:30 PM that evening. The HYPE/USDT spot trading pair will officially open at 10:30 PM on the same day. Withdrawals are scheduled to open at 10:00 AM on November 4th.
Binance Alpha and contracts will be available on Intuition (TRUST).
According to Binance's announcement, the Binance Alpha platform will launch Intuition (TRUST) at 17:00 Beijing time on November 5th, and the TRUSTUSDT perpetual contract will be launched at 17:30, with a maximum leverage of 50x.
Binance will delist KDAUSDT, AXSUSD, and THETAUSD perpetual contracts this week.
According to a Binance announcement, Binance Futures will automatically settle and delist the USDⓈ-M KDAUSDT contract at 17:00 Beijing time on November 6th, and the COIN-M AXSUSD and THETAUSD contracts at 17:00 on November 7th. New positions for these contracts will be suspended 30 minutes prior to their delisting. Binance reminds users that liquidation using the insurance fund will be suspended one hour before settlement, and related positions may trigger forced liquidation or ADL mechanisms. Users are advised to close their positions promptly to mitigate risk.
Important data
According to SoSoValue data, Bitcoin spot ETFs saw a net outflow of $799 million last week (October 27th to October 31st, Eastern Time), with none of the twelve ETFs experiencing net inflows. The Bitcoin spot ETF with the largest net outflow last week was BlackRock ETF IBIT, with a weekly net outflow of $403 million. IBIT's historical total net inflow has reached $64.9 billion. This was followed by Fidelity ETF FBTC, with a weekly net outflow of $155 million. FBTC's historical total net inflow has reached $12.44 billion. As of press time, the total net asset value of Bitcoin spot ETFs was $147.73 billion, with an ETF net asset value ratio (market capitalization as a percentage of Bitcoin's total market capitalization) of 6.77%. Historical cumulative net inflows have reached $61.19 billion.
Since 2023, the daily inflow of BTC from retail investors into Binance has plummeted from 552 to 92.
According to CryptoQuant analyst Darkfost, retail investors holding less than 0.1 BTC have seen a significant drop in activity during this cycle. Data shows that since the beginning of 2023, the 90-day moving average of daily retail inflows into Binance has plummeted from 552 BTC to the current 92 BTC, a decrease of more than five times. This trend was further exacerbated after the launch of spot ETFs in January 2024. The analysis points to several reasons for the reduced retail inflows, including some users shifting to the ETF market, more investors choosing to hold Bitcoin long-term rather than sell, and some small investors leaving the statistical category due to continuous Bitcoin accumulation. This phenomenon indicates a significant shift in market dominance and behavioral patterns.
HumidiFi surpasses Meteora and Raydium in 30-day trading volume, leading the Solana DEX market.
Data shows that HumidiFi topped the decentralized exchange (DEX) charts with a trading volume of $35.511 billion over the past 30 days, followed closely by Meteora with $33.621 billion. Raydium and Orca recorded trading volumes of $21.353 billion and $20.243 billion respectively, while Pump and Tessera V had 30-day trading volumes of $9.246 billion and $7.229 billion respectively. Previously, Jupiter reported that HumidiFi would be the first ICO project on its DTF platform.
