The US has sanctioned Iranian crypto centralised exchange (CEX) BitBank, accusing it of processing payments for "Hormuz tolls".

According to on-chain analyst Ai Yi (@ai_9684xtpa)’s monitoring, XXAntiWar closed out two ZEC short positions at a loss in the past three days, incurring a $398,000 loss and erasing all profits it made on Hyperliquid over the past week. However, since September, she has opened a total of 8 ZEC short positions across three addresses, with 5 wins and 3 losses (a 62.5% win rate). Having shorted ZEC from $1,120.8 to $1,353, her cumulative profit from the token still stands at $437,000.

Polymarket founder and CEO Shayne Coplan announced in a post that Jacob Horne, former CEO of Zora, has joined Polymarket as Head of Product Development, where he will lead the development of Polymarket’s DeFi segment. Coplan also stated that a Polymarket DeFi community meeting will be held soon to collect feedback from long-term users and lay out plans, with the aim of making Polymarket’s DeFi product the best version ever.

Insight Beating AI Flash News: OpenAI has launched Astra for Law, a GPT-6 Astra version tailored specifically for legal professionals. It integrates legal research, analysis, and writing capabilities, helping lawyers look up case precedents, analyze cases, draft documents, and connect with law firms’ existing workflows. OpenAI has also built a new legal search index, which queries over 230 million URLs including U.S. case precedents, statutes, court rules, etc., covering more than 99.9% of all published U.S. precedent judgments. Among 200 U.S. legal research questions, Astra for Law achieved an overall accuracy rate of 54.0%, compared to 38.7% for standard GPT-6 Astra with web search, marking an approximate 40% relative improvement. In case example questions, it also retrieved 24% more relevant reference cases. Astra for Law will first be rolled out to a select group of U.S. law firms, appearing as GPT-6 Astra Law in ChatGPT and Codex, with an API to follow. Legal AI firms like Harvey and Legora will also be able to integrate it into their own products. OpenAI has also launched 26 legal industry plugins that can access professional legal data and tools from providers including Thomson Reuters, Relativity, and Clio.

According to Bitget market data, Hong Kong stocks opened with the Hang Seng Index up 0.49% and the Hang Seng Tech Index rising 0.41%. Leading gainers across sectors include artificial intelligence, biomedicine, and precious metals; MINIMAX-W climbed nearly 4%, and Zhipu gained 3.58%.

ZEC ecosystem NFT project zkSNARKs has completed its auction, the project announced. A total of 16,971 bids were submitted, with 8,000 NFTs allocated, and the final clearing floor price was set at 1.5 ZEC. The auction adopted a uniform-price sealed bidding format, where winners were selected from the top 8,000 highest bids, and unsuccessful bidders will receive full refunds. The project’s official stated that the secondary market will open tomorrow, and refunds will be processed within 24 hours. Notably, @LeonidasNFT, a prominent builder in the Bitcoin Inscriptions space, publicly accused the zkSNARKs team today of being serial "entrepreneurs" in the Ordinals field, claiming many of their projects are scams.

The Bank of Japan (BOJ) will announce its target interest rate today. Ahead of the decision, multiple institutions have released their outlooks on the BOJ’s rate resolution, summarized as follows: Reuters: Economists surveyed by the outlet expect the policy rate to reach 1.5% by the end of March next year, and hit 1.75% in the second quarter of 2027. Most economists believe the final rate will at least reach that level. BNP Paribas: It forecasts a 25 basis point rate hike to 1.25%, followed by further increases to 1.75% in December and March next year. The BOJ may be concerned about upside inflation risks, as companies could pass on rising costs for energy, metals and chips to consumers. Goldman Sachs: Today’s decision is "a done deal", with a possible additional rate hike as early as December. High energy prices, strong AI demand, a weak yen and loose fiscal policy could all push inflation higher than expected. Japanese government bond (JGB) yields still have room to rise, as current levels do not align with Japan’s economic resilience. TD Securities: It projects a 25 basis point rate hike to 1.25%, followed by 25 basis point increases each in December this year, April, July and October 2027, lifting the target rate to 2.25%. If the guidance does not factor in rate hikes in October or December, the yen could sell off sharply, falling to the 157-160 range. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG): The market expects the BOJ to raise rates by 25 basis points and signal further hikes. If the central bank does not deliver sufficiently hawkish rate hike signals, the yen could weaken. However, since the market has already priced in a total of 90 basis points of rate hikes over the next 12 months, a cautious stance from BOJ Governor Kazuo Ueda could put pressure on the yen.