Franklin Templeton is seeking a U.S. SEC exemption, and plans to enable tokenized funds to trade via blockchain liquidity pools.

A survey of 14,250 consumers in the Asia-Pacific region conducted by Visa shows that 46% of respondents said they would likely use stablecoins over the next five years, higher than the 16% who have actually used stablecoins in the past 12 months. Additionally, 49% of respondents expect stablecoins to become a common method for cross-border money transfers in the coming five years. The survey indicates that consumer interest in stablecoins is growing, but a significant knowledge gap remains: only 6% of respondents correctly understand how stablecoins operate, while roughly half believe stablecoins can only be used to trade other cryptocurrencies. For those who are aware of stablecoins but have not used them, fraud and scam risks are the primary concern. Nischint Sanghavi, Visa’s Head of Digital Currencies for Asia-Pacific, stated that consumers are increasingly recognizing stablecoins’ potential in daily consumption, travel, and cross-border transfers. Visa believes the next critical step is to translate market interest into a trusted, familiar, and scalable payment experience.

SkyAI, which holds over 2M $SOL($220M), appears to be dumping $SOL at a loss! Over the past 3 days, they have transferred 568,000 $SOL ($63.87M) to exchanges. Their average purchase price was ~$194, and they would lose ~$46M if sold.

Dongcha Beating AI News Flash: Alibaba’s Qwen has launched Qwen-Image-2.1-Turbo, an accelerated version of Qwen-Image-2.1 that retains the original’s 7-billion-parameter image generation architecture. The official original model uses 40 denoising steps, while the Turbo version cuts this to 8 steps – an 80% reduction. Denoising refers to the process where a model gradually generates an image from random noise. However, an 80% step reduction does not translate to an equivalent 80% time cut. The new model still produces 2K images, supporting text-guided editing, multi-image reference, and transparent background output. Developers can run it locally via Hugging Face’s Diffusers library, which automatically applies the recommended 8-step sampling setting. APIs for both Turbo and Pro versions are now live. Based on Alibaba Cloud’s Beijing Bailian region original pricing, Turbo costs 0.1 yuan per image, while Pro is priced at 0.25 yuan – making Turbo 60% cheaper. Some users have reported significantly faster generation speeds, but quality reviews are mixed. One user testing on an RTX 5090 found Turbo over-sharpens skin textures in generated characters. There is currently a lack of sufficient independent evaluations to confirm its image quality matches the original. Notably, Turbo is licensed under the Qwen Research License: while model weights are downloadable, free use is limited to non-commercial research and evaluation. Commercial development using the weights requires a separate authorization application.

According to monitoring by AI Auntie, a public real trading account on Binance futures named "Single Wife" once generated an unrealized profit of $2.19 million by going long on LOBSTER (Lobster token). However, the account failed to hold onto these gains, exiting the position with a loss of $907,000 instead. Per the account's disclosures, LOBSTER hit an all-time high of $0.3143 on September 21, before declining sharply thereafter. The account had previously held 18.29 million LOBSTER tokens, with an average entry price of $0.1277. After holding the position for approximately one month, it closed out the trade at an average price of $0.09374 on October 2. The transaction ultimately flipped from an unrealized profit of $2.19 million to a $907,000 loss, wiping out all the gains and incurring additional losses.

According to a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report, a previously undisclosed internal Binance investigation revealed that Iranian financier Babak Zanjani used related companies, shell firms, and multiple trading accounts to transfer funds through Binance, establishing a Western sanctions-evasion financial channel for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The network involved 21 individual and corporate trading accounts, with a total transaction volume of approximately $850 million, of which at least $67 million flowed from two accounts to IRGC-linked wallets. The report noted that Sukhrob Oimakhmadov, a Tajik businessman classified by Binance as a "high-value customer," received over $10 million in funds via his account, with sources including digital wallets later identified by the Israeli Ministry of Defense as belonging to the IRGC. Zedcex, a crypto platform linked to Zanjani, recorded total transaction volume of nearly $830 million, with around $56 million withdrawn to relevant wallets. The network also included Turkish payment firm ZedPay and crypto token USDZ used for transactions. Binance stated it has identified the relevant activities and taken action: all accounts linked to sanctions violations have been restricted from trading and are being phased out. The company also emphasized that total account transaction volume does not equate to funds actually flowing to the IRGC, and acknowledged past process issues in internal approval and execution timeliness. The U.S. Treasury Department had previously imposed sanctions on Zanjani and related enterprises and individuals.

Arc announced in a statement that MoonPay has officially integrated into its blockchain network. Boasting over 30 million users, MoonPay supports purchasing USDC via multiple payment methods including bank cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and bank transfers, with funds transferred to Arc. The integration aims to provide more convenient fiat on-ramp channels for wallets, applications, and developers in the Arc ecosystem, lowering barriers for users to acquire USDC and access the on-chain ecosystem.