Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

TIA price cleared a resistance level that had rejected it twice this week, on heavy volume. Data posted to Celestia fell while the token rallied. Fibre and the Eden experiment are driving expectations ahead of actual revenue. Momentum is overbought and slightly weaker than at the September peak. Celestia’s TIA token climbed about 22.5% on Friday to trade near $0.70, lifting its seven-day gain to roughly 49% and putting it about 73% above its September 18 close of $0.407. The amount of data rollups post to Celestia, which is the service the network sells, fell by about 26% over nearly the same period. That gap matters for anyone holding TIA after this week’s breakout, because the market appears to be pricing capacity Celestia has shown in tests and products that are still experimental.

Price up 73%, data down 26% Celestia works as a data availability layer, meaning rollups and other chains publish their transaction data to it so anyone can verify or rebuild their state without relying on the operator. Daily data posted dropped from 2.77 billion bytes on September 18 to 2.05 billion bytes on October 15. Two daily readings are too few to confirm a trend, and tighter compression or batching by rollups can cut the byte count without any drop in user activity, yet the reading still points the opposite way from the chart.

Celestia scorecard

Earliest available reading vs. latest, September 18 to October 16

Metric Then → Now Change TIA price $0.407 → $0.7022 ▲ 73% Daily data posted 2.77B → 2.05B bytes ▼ 26% Daily fees $82 → $96 ▲ 17% Futures open interest $83M → $358M ▲ 331% Open interest measured from September 23.

$33,000 a year against a $646M token The fee numbers make the valuation hard to defend on current usage alone. The network collected
about $2,701 over the past 30 days, which works out to roughly $33,000 a year, while TIA carries a market capitalization of about $646 million, even though daily fees ticked up from $82 to $96 in the latest reading. Leverage has grown far faster than either number, with perpetual futures open interest, the total value of outstanding leveraged contracts, rising from about $83 million on September 23 to roughly $358 million on Friday, so much of the move rests on positions that can be closed in a hurry.

Fibre’s 3 Tb/s is still a lab result On October 1, Celestia said on its official blog that Fibre, its high-throughput data availability system, sustained an average of 3.07 terabits per second across 120 validators in a 143-second benchmark, roughly triple the 1 Tb/s result it published in January. Encoding a 2 GiB blob now takes 0.9 seconds compared with 6.8 seconds before. The test used 2 GiB blobs while the first mainnet release is planned with a 128 MiB cap, and the team acknowledged that some test configurations will not ship at launch.

Eden, an experimental EVM chain for AI-agent transactions that Celestia announced on Friday, gives traders a second story to trade. It runs on Celestia for data availability, uses the Evolve development stack and charges gas in TIA, and its first experiment, a closed beta called Botfun, let agents launch and trade tokens while paying for every model inference call through the x402 payment standard. Celestia says the test briefly made Eden one of the largest x402 networks by transaction count, although it gave no source for that ranking and the experiment has not produced measurable revenue so far.

What lifted TIA before this week The Sustainable Blob Economy proposal, which aims to tie network usage more directly to demand for TIA, sent the token up more than 19% to about $0.526 on September 23, with roughly $621,000 in short liquidations forcing bearish traders to buy back, although its final form has yet to clear Celestia governance. Derive’s V3 migration on October 8 added another 6%, even if it is unclear how much data the new setup will keep posting to Celestia. Even after all of this, TIA trades about 96% below its February 2024 peak near $20.91, according to CoinGecko data.

$0.6217 gives way after two rejections Friday’s intraday high at $0.7233 marks a new top for the rally that began at the August 18 low near $0.293, a gain of roughly 146%. The Fibonacci retracement is drawn between those two points, and with the daily candle still open, a higher print would shift every level, while the breakout needs a close above the 0.236 retracement at $0.6217 before it counts as confirmed.

TIA/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView / Alexander Stefanov That level capped price on October 11 and 13, when long upper wicks showed sellers active around $0.63. In between, TIA held a tight range with lows near the 0.382 retracement at $0.5589 instead of slipping toward the 0.5 level at $0.5081, and Friday’s candle cleared that range in one session on about 39 million TIA of volume, one of the heaviest days of the uptrend.

The 50-day SMA crossed above the 200-day in late September and the gap has widened since, with the 50-day at $0.4398 against $0.3821. The 200-day sits almost exactly on the 0.786 retracement at $0.3851, which makes $0.38 to $0.39 the deepest support zone that still keeps the trend intact.

RSI lags September’s peak The 14-day RSI sits above 71, past the 70 mark that usually flags stretched conditions. Its late-September peak, set when TIA topped near $0.53, was higher at around 74, so price now trades about 31% above that September high on slightly weaker momentum. That is a small bearish divergence that one strong close could erase, and the last overbought reading led to about two weeks of sideways trade between $0.44 and $0.52 before the next leg up.

A daily close above $0.6217 would turn it into first support and leave the $0.75 and $0.80 round numbers, plus the 1.272 extension near $0.84, as the next references. A close back below $0.6217 would point to a retest of $0.5589, and losing $0.5081 would bring the 0.618 level at $0.4573 and the 50-day SMA near $0.44 into view.

TIA key levels

Next target $0.84 TIA now $0.7022 Breakout level $0.6217 Range floor $0.5589 Trend support $0.44 Red marks resistance, green marks support.

Fibre’s launch and $358M in leverage The Fibre mainnet launch is the first point where benchmark throughput can show up as blobs that paying rollups actually post. Weekly or monthly data averages on explorers such as Celenium, along with the count of active rollups, will say more about demand than the two readings behind this month’s decline. With open interest above $350 million, a failed close above $0.6217 could reverse the September 23 pattern, leaving leveraged longs to sell into a drop where short sellers were once forced to buy into a rise.

Ethereum’s own blob space and rival data availability networks compete for the same rollup teams, and the low fees that help Celestia win developers also mean each extra byte adds little revenue. Usage would have to grow by multiples before fee income looks meaningful against a $646 million valuation.

Alex is a financial markets journalist and co-founder of Millennial Media Group, and he's spent close to ten years trying to answer one stubborn question: what's really driving this? It started in 2016, when Bitcoin refused to make sense to him - and rather than shrug, he stayed with it until it did. That patience became his method. He's less interested in what an asset is doing today than in the plumbing behind it: how liquidity flows, where risk hides, what a chart is quietly telling you that the headline isn't. That lens eventually stretched well past crypto into traditional markets, because the same forces - fear, leverage, incentives, timing - show up everywhere once you know how to look. Most coverage, in his view, insults the reader by stopping at the surface. Price up, price down, moving on. He'd rather leave someone genuinely understanding a move than merely informed that it happened. His path into markets ran through a Tourism degree at New Bulgarian University - proof, maybe, that curiosity beats credentials. With more than 200 deep analyses and over 10,000 articles behind him, he still walks away from most trading days having learned something he didn't know that morning.

Full Profile

SEI perpetual futures have been certified by a CFTC-regulated US exchange. The USD-settled contracts trade 24/7 with no expiry, while three SEI ETFs await SEC progress.

A CFTC-regulated exchange has certified $SEI perpetual futures, @SeiNetwork announced on October 16. The contracts settle in US dollars, trade around the clock and have no expiry date, placing SEI alongside BTC, ETH, SOL and XRP among assets with perpetual futures on CFTC-regulated venues.

What the filing shows The filing was submitted by North American Derivatives Exchange, which operates as OG.com Markets, and the exchange said it intended to list the contract by October 12. According to the exchange's certification document, the contract is settled in US dollars, has no expiration date and tracks the token's spot price through a reference index. The filing also specifies margin requirements and periodic funding adjustments meant to keep futures prices aligned with the underlying market.

Certification is different from a formal approval. Under CFTC rules, a designated contract market can list new products by self-certifying compliance with the Commodity Exchange Act, filing the product terms at least one business day before launch. Trading availability, liquidity and volumes for the SEI contract have not been confirmed, and the listing does not guarantee fresh demand for the token or sustained price gains.

The product adds a regulated route to SEI exposure without holding the token directly. It is designed to let traders take long or short positions without directly holding the token.

US perps market and SEI ETFsUS-regulated perpetuals are a recent development. On May 28, 2026, the CFTC approved the first perpetual futures contract cleared on a US-regulated exchange, a cash-settled Bitcoin perpetual listed by Kalshi. Perpetual futures have no expiration date and have become the dominant form of crypto derivatives trading globally, but were largely unavailable on regulated US exchanges.

On the ETF side, three SEI products from REX-Osprey, Canary Capital and 21Shares are still in the SEC process. REX Shares and Osprey Funds have set October 23 as the target effective date for their proposed fund, after filing a post-effective amendment on Sept. 24. The proposed REX-Osprey $SEI + Staking ETF would hold $SEI and stake part of its holdings through Sei Network's proof-of-stake system. 21Shares filed with the SEC to launch an ETF tracking the price of SEI, following Canary Capital's similar application in April 2025.

Together, a regulated derivatives product and pending exchange-traded funds would give US investors more compliant ways to gain exposure to SEI, though none of the ETFs has yet been confirmed as launched.

Sources

The Crypto Times: SEI joins BTC, ETH, SOL with US-regulated perpetual futuresTron Weekly: SEI perpetual futures gain CFTC certificationCryptonews: REX, Osprey set Oct. 23 target for staked SEI ETF

Starknet now has a velvet rope. The Starknet Foundation introduced the Starknet VIP Program on October 16, 2026, and it targets holders of the network’s native STRK token and strkBTC, its Bitcoin wrapper asset.

According to the program’s page at vip.starknet.io, the program is now open to supported STRK and strkBTC holders.

What VIP status actually gets you The perks lean toward access rather than cash. Qualifying holders are set to receive priority support, direct interaction with the Foundation team, confirmed access to events, and additional benefits the Foundation has yet to disclose.

The program covers two assets with different jobs. STRK serves as Starknet’s governance and staking token, and it is also used to pay fees on the network. In practical terms, STRK is how you vote, how you stake, and how you pay for transactions.

strkBTC is the newer piece. It launched in May 2026 as a wrapped version of Bitcoin built for Starknet’s DeFi applications.

strkBTC was initially secured by a federation of institutions. It also includes optional shielding, which lets users keep certain transactions private.

The Bitcoin push behind the perks The VIP Program did not arrive in a vacuum. It follows a string of Bitcoin-focused moves as Starknet works to build out what the industry calls BTCFi, or decentralized finance built around Bitcoin.

In late 2025, Starknet distributed 100 million STRK as part of its push toward Bitcoin integration.

More recently, the network ran a program covering bridging fees for the first 100 BTC moved onto Starknet.

There is also a weekly strkBTC faucet worth approximately $833.

Starknet recently launched v0.14.4 on mainnet, and the VIP Program arrives in the middle of that ongoing upgrade cycle.

What this means for holders and the network On the market side, research findings note a 47% increase in STRK’s value shortly after the announcement, a move linked to interest in BTCFi and privacy upgrades.

There are open questions worth watching. The Foundation has not yet published eligibility thresholds or how long the program will run.

strkBTC’s security model also bears watching. Because it was initially secured by a federation of institutions, users are trusting that group to manage the underlying Bitcoin.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Estefano Gomez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

After losing $2 support and falling to a low of $1.8, LayerZero [ZRO] made a strong comeback amid a broader market trend reversal.

The altcoin successfully defended the $2 level and climbed to a local high of $2.25 at press time, after gaining 23% on the daily charts. 

Is LayerZero’s demand returning?
The market largely recovered, driven by renewed interest in the derivatives. Previously, ZRO, like most altcoins, saw a collapse in derivatives, which intensified downside pressure. 

Now, it seems the trend has reversed.  As a result, the altcoin’s Open Interest (OI) surged 31% to $275 million, while the derivatives volume rose 63% to $336 million as of writing. 

Source: Coinglass
The rising OI alongside volume implied increased market participation and steady capital flow into new positions. Meanwhile, the altcoin’s Long/Short Ratio rose above 1 across all tracked exchanges.

At these levels, the ratio implied that traders were overly bullish and largely opened new and expanded existing long positions. 

Two major hurdles remain for ZRO
Despite the recent gains, LayerZero faces both short and long-term risks. For short-term concerns, the altcoin is experiencing heavy profit-taking. 

After the trend reversed the past day, inflows into exchanges skyrocketed, with over $26 million entering exchanges. As a result, the Spot Netflow rose above $3.5 million. 

Source: Coinglass
An elevated positive Netflow implied that deposits outpaced withdrawals over the said period, a clear sign of aggressive profit realization. 

Typically, when profit takers dominate the market, it raises selling pressure, which usually precedes market weakness. 

Additionally, community chatters have raised concerns about the upcoming unlocks. On the 20th of October, LayerZero will unlock 25.7 million ZRO, worth approximately $56.5 million at the current price. 

Source: Coinglass
Proxonchain reported that previously, these unlocks have resulted in an over-double-digit slip. This raises concerns about the trend’s long-term sustainability, and given prior behavior, the market could drop. 

What do momentum indicators suggest?
Structurally, even with the recent price hike, the momentum is yet to confirm an upside. At the time of writing, the MACD sat below its signal line, suggesting that downward pressure remains strong.

Likewise, the Relative Vigor Index (RVGI) confirmed this trend of weakness, remaining in the negative zone and continuing to decline. 

Source: Tradingview
These two indicators suggest that bearish pressure is relatively strong and that bullish pressure is insufficient to prompt a trend reversal. 

Therefore, if the profit taking persists, we could see LayerZero fail to extend the rally and fall below $2. The upcoming unlocks will make things worse and intensify the downside, with $1.8 as critical support. 

For now, if the recent speculative demand holds, ZRO could clear the $2.4 resistance and target $2.5.

Final summary

LayerZero surged 24%, defended $2, and rose to a local high of $2.25 amid renewed demand.
ZRO’s rally attracted increased profit-taking, raising concerns about another pullback alongside upcoming unlocks. 

Looking for a stock that has been consistently beating earnings estimates and might be well positioned to keep the streak alive in its next quarterly report? Federated Hermes (FHI - Free Report) , which belongs to the Zacks Financial - Investment Management industry, could be a great candidate to consider.

When looking at the last two reports, this one of the nation's largest managers of money market funds has recorded a strong streak of surpassing earnings estimates. The company has topped estimates by 10.90%, on average, in the last two quarters.

For the most recent quarter, Federated Hermes was expected to post earnings of $1.19 per share, but it reported $1.38 per share instead, representing a surprise of 15.97%. For the previous quarter, the consensus estimate was $1.2 per share, while it actually produced $1.27 per share, a surprise of 5.83%.

Price and EPS Surprise

With this earnings history in mind, recent estimates have been moving higher for Federated Hermes. In fact, the Zacks Earnings ESP (Expected Surprise Prediction) for the company is positive, which is a great sign of an earnings beat, especially when you combine this metric with its nice Zacks Rank.

Our research shows that stocks with the combination of a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) or better produce a positive surprise nearly 70% of the time. In other words, if you have 10 stocks with this combination, the number of stocks that beat the consensus estimate could be as high as seven.

The Zacks Earnings ESP compares the Most Accurate Estimate to the Zacks Consensus Estimate for the quarter; the Most Accurate Estimate is a version of the Zacks Consensus whose definition is related to change. The idea here is that analysts revising their estimates right before an earnings release have the latest information, which could potentially be more accurate than what they and others contributing to the consensus had predicted earlier.

Federated Hermes currently has an Earnings ESP of +0.17%, which suggests that analysts have recently become bullish on the company's earnings prospects. This positive Earnings ESP when combined with the stock's Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) indicates that another beat is possibly around the corner. We expect the company's next earnings report to be released on October 29, 2026.

When the Earnings ESP comes up negative, investors should note that this will reduce the predictive power of the metric. But, a negative value is not indicative of a stock's earnings miss.

Many companies end up beating the consensus EPS estimate, but that may not be the sole basis for their stocks moving higher. On the other hand, some stocks may hold their ground even if they end up missing the consensus estimate.

Because of this, it's really important to check a company's Earnings ESP ahead of its quarterly release to increase the odds of success. Make sure to utilize our Earnings ESP Filter to uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they've reported.

Key Takeaways CBRE reports Q3 results Oct. 22 after four straight earnings beats, averaging a 15.19% earnings surprise.Q3 revenues are projected at $11.89 billion, up 16% year over year, while EPS is expected to climb 23%.Outsourcing demand, leasing strength and higher contractual revenues may offset macro and currency risks. CBRE Group, Inc. (CBRE - Free Report) , the global leader in real estate services, is scheduled to announce its third-quarter 2026 earnings on Oct. 22, before the bell. The company has established itself as a leader in the industry, delivering a comprehensive suite of services such as property sales and leasing, property management, valuation, project management and consulting.

In the last reported quarter, this Dallas, TX-based commercial real estate services and investment firm reported an earnings surprise of 6.12%. Results reflected year-over-year revenue growth across most of its business segments except the Real Estate Investments segment.

Over the preceding four quarters, CBRE surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate on each occasion, the average beat being 15.19%. The graph below depicts this surprising history:

CBRE: Factors at PlayIn the third quarter, CBRE Group is likely to have benefited from its ongoing efforts to create a more balanced and resilient operating model, emphasizing a higher proportion of contractual revenues. The company’s broad diversification across property types, service offerings, geographies and clients, along with disciplined cost management, probably helped sustain solid performance throughout the period.

The increasing demand for outsourcing services offers significant opportunities for major industry players like CBRE to expand their client base and offerings. In the third quarter, CBRE Group is also likely to have capitalized on these favorable trends.

The company is expected to have benefited from the solid leasing business. An improvement in the Advisory Services, Building Operations & Experience (BOE), Project Management and Real Estate Investment segments is anticipated in the to-be-reported quarter.

Ongoing macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainties are expected to have affected commercial real estate transaction activity and client investment decisions. A competitive landscape and foreign currency fluctuations remain concerns.

Projections for CBREThe Zacks Consensus Estimate for quarterly revenues is currently pegged at $11.89 billion, suggesting an increase of 16% year over year.

The consensus mark for total revenues from the Advisory Services segment is pinned at $2.44 billion, up from nearly $2.24 billion in the prior-year quarter. Estimates for revenues from the BOE segment are pegged at $6.81 billion, up from $5.79 billion reported in the previous year.

The consensus mark for revenues from the Project Management segment is pinned at $2.22 billion, up from $2.03 billion in the prior-year quarter. Estimates for revenues from the Real Estate Investments segment are pegged at $213.5 million, up from $211 million reported in the previous year.

Before the quarterly earnings release, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for the July-September quarter’s earnings per share (EPS) has increased 9 cents to $1.98 over the past two months. It suggests a 23% increase year over year. Management also expects core EPS to increase more than 20% year over year in the third quarter of 2026, supported by sustained business momentum.

What Our Quantitative Model Predicts for CBREOur proven model does not conclusively predict an earnings surprise for CBRE Group this season. The combination of a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) increases the odds of an earnings beat, which is not the case here.

CBRE Group currently carries a Zacks Rank of 3 and has an Earnings ESP of 0.00%. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they’re reported with our Earnings ESP Filter. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Stocks That Warrant a LookHere are two stocks from the real estate operations industry, Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL - Free Report) and WillScot Holdings Corporation (WSC - Free Report) , that you may want to consider, as our model shows that these have the right combination of elements to report an EPS beat this quarter.

Jones Lang is slated to report quarterly numbers on Oct. 28, 2026. JLL has an Earnings ESP of +1.17% and carries a Zacks Rank of 3 at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

WillScot is scheduled to report quarterly numbers on Nov. 5, 2026. WSC has an Earnings ESP of +0.07% and a Zacks Rank of 3 at present.

Six Flags Entertainment (NYSE:SIX) may face a smaller financial hit from the fatal Georgia coaster accident than the market is pricing in, UBS said as it lowered its price target to $18 from $27. 

A 42-year-old guest was ejected from the Goliath coaster at Six Flags Over Georgia on Oct. 12, and other guests were injured. The cause is under investigation.  

Six Flags closed nine similar coasters across six parks as a precaution, and the Georgia park is expected to reopen Friday. 

UBS said the accident is a rare safety event and that the direct effect on earnings will depend on whether investigators find a systematic restraint, design or safety failure. The bigger risk, it said, is reputational spillover into attendance and pass sales, which the company’s leverage could magnify. 

The bank’s estimates assume a system-wide drop in October pass sales, equal to a 2 to 3 percentage point cut to 2027 visitation, or $40 million to $50 million of EBITDA. It said the real impact could be more muted. UBS lowered its 2026 EBITDA estimate to $763 million from $789 million and its 2027 estimate to $796 million from $868 million. At current valuation multiples, it said, the market is implying 2027 EBITDA of $700 million to $720 million. 

UBS pointed to the 2013 New Texas Giant fatality at Six Flags Over Texas as the closest precedent. Third-quarter 2013 attendance still rose 2% to 11.8 million, and full-year 2014 adjusted EBITDA reached a record $439 million. 

UBS also trimmed third-quarter visitation estimates on a softer August, partly offset by a stronger September. Its wait-time monitor showed average wait times at tracked Six Flags parks up 19% year over year in the quarter, versus 30% in the second quarter. 

No Investment Advice

Proactive Investors is a publisher of financial news and information. No content in this record, or published on the Proactive Investors website (the "Site"), constitutes a recommendation that any particular security, portfolio of securities, transaction, or investment strategy is suitable or advisable for any specific person. No content is tailored to any specific person's needs, objectives, or financial situation.

Proactive Investors is not a registered investment adviser or broker-dealer and does not provide personalized investment advice. Nothing in this record constitutes investment advice or a recommendation to buy, hold, or sell any security. None of the information providers or their affiliates will advise you personally concerning the nature, potential, advisability, value, or suitability of any particular security, portfolio, transaction, or investment strategy. Any decision to buy, sell, or hold a security should be made only after consulting an appropriately qualified, licensed financial adviser and reading all relevant offering documentation.

This record, and any record we publish by or on behalf of our clients, should not be construed as an offer or solicitation to buy or sell any product or security. Our content is independent financial journalism, produced in a neutral, objective style with full source attribution.

In accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's guidelines on material connections, Proactive Investors discloses the following: we may receive cash or, in some cases, equity compensation from companies whose news is distributed through our platform. This compensation is for news distribution and media services, not for editorial content or coverage decisions. Where Proactive Investors has a commercial relationship with a company covered in this record, that relationship is disclosed within the article. Any such relationship does not determine, influence, or shape the editorial content produced. Where we receive equity compensation, such securities are held independently by a third-party broker and sold at the broker's discretion.

The Site may contain opinions from time to time regarding securities mentioned in other products, including company-related products, and those opinions may differ from those obtained through another Proactive Investors product. Opinions and commentary reflect the views of the named author at the time of writing and are subject to change without notice.

Price and other data is supplied by sources believed to be reliable. Any calculations are made using such data. Neither the data nor the calculations are guaranteed by those sources, by Proactive Investors, by the information providers, or by any other person or entity, and may not be complete or accurate.

From time to time, reference may be made in our marketing materials to previously published articles or opinions. Such references may be selective, may reference only a portion of an article, and are likely not to be current. As markets change continuously, previously published information and data may not be current and should not be relied upon.

Summary

Trading in Hyperliquid’s Tesla contract rose from $2.8 million to $47 million in a single hour overnight. It is already the contract’s second-busiest day since launch.The contract’s price rose about 5% to roughly $378. Binance’s Tesla contract was still the largest, with $279 million in 24-hour volume against Hyperliquid’s $159 million, according to RootData.The contract tracks Tesla’s stock price but is not a tokenized share. It trades around the clock and allows up to 20x leverage.Traders rushed into Tesla-linked crypto markets overnight after Elon Musk unveiled a flying version of the Roadster, with trading on Hyperliquid jumping while U.S. stock markets were closed.

The surge shows how crypto exchanges that never close are becoming the first place investors react to news about traditional companies.

Musk demonstrated the prototype, which uses SpaceX thruster technology, on Oct. 15, after Tesla TSLA$351.98 shares closed at $362.44. Hyperliquid’s TSLA perpetual contract rose about 4.9% to roughly $378, and hourly trading volume leapt about 1,580%, from $2.8 million to $47 million.

TLSA market on Hyperliquid (Hyperliquid)It is already the contract’s second-busiest day since listing a year ago, with the daily candle only nine hours old. Binance remained the largest venue, with $279 million in 24-hour volume versus Hyperliquid’s $159 million, according to RootData, but Hyperliquid held the most open interest, at $99 million. Tesla shares were up about 4.5% in premarket trading.

Hyperliquid’s contract, listed through Trade.xyz, is a perpetual future that tracks Tesla’s stock price rather than a tokenized share. It settles in USDC, allows up to 20x leverage and requires no brokerage account. The contract trades around the clock, so it was one of the few ways to bet on Tesla’s price while Nasdaq was closed. Tesla is due to report third-quarter earnings on Oct. 21.

12345678910

Charles Schwab’s crypto research team says the asset still has strong fundamentals for the future, and it expects regulatory progress to help the broader market.

What Schwab’s researchers are saying
Analyst Adam Lynch made the bullish case on October 15, 2026. He pointed to nearly $60 billion in ETF inflows since early 2024 as evidence that demand runs deeper than a passing trend.

“Bitcoin is strong. It’s powerful… still has strong fundamentals for the future,” Lynch said.

Jim Ferraioli, Schwab’s Head of Crypto Research, noted that Bitcoin’s volatility now sits at about 40, down from a previous range of 50 to 60. He also put Bitcoin’s market cap at approximately $1.6 trillion and said the tokenization of real-world assets has reached around $50 billion.

On regulation, the team cited progress in the US, including clarity on Bitcoin and Ether as digital commodities.

Schwab Crypto goes fully live
Schwab completed the full retail rollout of Schwab Crypto around October 16, 2026. Eligible clients can now trade Bitcoin and Ether directly inside their Schwab accounts. Each trade carries a fee of 0.75%. Schwab plans to add more tokens to the platform by the end of the year.

The service runs through Schwab’s Premier Bank, with Paxos providing sub-custody support and handling execution.

CEO Rick Wurster has described crypto trading as a new source of revenue for the firm. Schwab’s clients hold approximately 20% of the assets in spot crypto ETFs, within Schwab’s $13 trillion in managed assets.

What this means for investors and the industry
Schwab’s research suggests modest allocations to crypto within diversified portfolios.

The 0.75% fee will be one point of comparison for cost-conscious traders. Watch, too, whether Schwab follows through on its plan to add more tokens by year-end.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Kaye Quema. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Cover image via U.Today

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by our writers are their own and do not represent the views of U.Today. The financial and market information provided on U.Today is intended for informational purposes only. U.Today is not liable for any financial losses incurred while trading cryptocurrencies. Conduct your own research by contacting financial experts before making any investment decisions. We believe that all content is accurate as of the date of publication, but certain offers mentioned may no longer be available.

Upbit Korea, the largest crypto exchange in South Korea by trading volume and users, announced its latest delistings. The delistings will take place in November, allowing traders time to act accordingly before the deadline.

Upbit will suspend trading support for Zilliqa (ZIL), including ZIL/KRW and ZIL/BTC pairs. Trading support will be terminated on Monday, November 16, 2026, at 15:00 KST. This follows a recent security incident with the Zilliqa Ledger app in July of this year.

On July 22, 2026, Upbit added Zilliqa (ZIL) to the trading caution list. Afterward, Upbit conducted another detailed review of virtual assets and determined that the reasons for designating Zilliqa as a trading caution item have not been resolved. Upbit therefore decided to end trading support in accordance with its policy on the designation of virtual assets as caution items and the end of trading support.

HOT Stories

You Might Also Like

Sophon (SOPH) was also announced to be delisted, with trading support to be terminated on Monday, November 16, 2026, at 15:00 KST. The affected trading pairs are SOPH/KRW, SOPH/BTC, and SOPH/USDT.

In related news, Hive Dollar (HBD/BTC) and District0x (DNT/BTC) have been designated as trading caution items on Upbit, and accordingly, deposit services will be temporarily suspended. The tokens have been flagged with an investment warning, with deposit services temporarily halted and delisting possible pending further review.

The trading caution item designation period for MANTRA (MANTRA/KRW, MANTRA/BTC, MANTRA/USDT) has been extended until the second week of November 2026, from November 9 to November 13.

XRP/KRW is the most traded pair on UpbitMeanwhile, XRP continues to dominate trading volumes on Upbit, surpassing major cryptocurrencies Bitcoin and Ethereum.

You Might Also Like

According to CoinMarketCap data, XRP's Korean won pair was the most traded market on Upbit over the past 24 hours, with about $87.12 million in volume, ahead of Bitcoin's $74.69 million and Ethereum's $56.33 million.

Korea has long been one of XRP's most active speculative markets, with the cryptocurrency's dominance in trading volumes coming as little of a surprise. However, XRP remains slightly muted, up just 2.76% in the last 24 hours to $1.33, following this week's choppy price action.

XRP is compressing between its 50-day and 200-day moving averages, with the market paying close attention, as is usually the case when it starts leading volume on Korean exchanges. 

Cover image via depositphotos.com Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by our writers are their own and do not represent the views of U.Today. The financial and market information provided on U.Today is intended for informational purposes only. U.Today is not liable for any financial losses incurred while trading cryptocurrencies. Conduct your own research by contacting financial experts before making any investment decisions. We believe that all content is accurate as of the date of publication, but certain offers mentioned may no longer be available.

Japan's largest megabanks (MUFG, Mizuho, and SMBC), together with Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and TISI Inc., have officially reported the successful completion of the first joint trials of a yen stablecoin.

As part of a closed pilot project supervised by the state Financial Services Agency (FSA), the partners tested cross-border settlements for the trading giant Mitsubishi Corporation. The stablecoins, issued with the status of "trust beneficiary rights," went through the full cycle from issuance to final redemption into fiat without failures.

You Might Also Like

HOT Stories

The commercial launch of the system is planned before the end of the current fiscal year.

What does XRP have to do with it? (Actually, quite a lot)Officially, Ripple is not mentioned in the consortium's documents. However, in the context of the Japanese market, this test is inevitably viewed through the prism of the XRP Ledger (XRPL) ecosystem, since all of the "big three" megabanks have a deep history of integration with Ripple's technologies. Any banking blockchain initiatives in the country largely rely on the foundation laid by this network over many years.

Implementation architecture of Japan's multi-bank joint yen stablecoin pilot. Source: Mitsubishi UFJ Trust / PR TIMESBack in 2017, MUFG, Mizuho, and SMBC joined a large-scale banking consortium under the auspices of SBI Ripple Asia, created to implement RippleNet technologies for instant domestic and cross-border settlements. This institutional link continues at the present stage. 

Not long ago, as part of Japan's financial infrastructure innovation program, Mizuho Bank and SMBC's investment arm concluded direct agreements with Ripple Labs to deploy real-world asset (RWA) tokenization infrastructure and institutional DeFi solutions specifically on the XRP Ledger.

The launch of their own digital yen on the Progmat platform (created by MUFG on the Avalanche blockchain) looks like an attempt by the megabanks to build an isolated alternative to external liquidity bridges such as XRP, in order to fully control compliance and fees within the traditional banking vertical.

The resulting configuration points to a possible division of the market in the future. On the one hand, the closed infrastructure of the megabanks and the Progmat platform will likely try to take over the conservative sector of intra-corporate B2B transfers. 

You Might Also Like

On the other hand, the parallel launch of Ripple's regulated dollar stablecoin RLUSD by SBI Holdings and the well-developed liquidity of XRP may preserve dominance in cross-border retail and open fintech services. 

The mutual integration of banking platforms with the Web3 industry, including their participation in XRP Tokyo summits, does not rule out a scenario in which the commercial launch of the digital yen will not displace XRPL, but may instead lead to the formation of a segmented landscape where corporate fiat and open digital assets coexist at the level of liquidity gateways.

XRP’s maximum supply is set at 100 billion tokens, making it one of the most abundantly minted major cryptocurrencies. However, a recent claim from game designer and crypto commentator Chad Steingraber suggesting almost all XRP could disappear from public markets has reignited debate within its community.

Steingraber’s Scarcity ArgumentSteingraber argued that XRP could experience a dramatic price surge if the available tradable supply shrinks to only 21 million tokens. He believes this reduction would result from XRP being pulled out of public markets, leaving a fraction available for trading and causing upward price pressure.

The reason XRP will be a high price is for one simple reason: it will be removed from public access, with only a small amount tradable, like 21 million XRP available.

This viewpoint quickly captured attention among XRP supporters, as it implies an extreme level of scarcity reminiscent of Bitcoin, which also has a 21 million maximum supply.

Exchange Supply Continues to DiminishPrevious data shared by Steingraber indicated that there were 15.7 billion XRP left across 41 exchanges. This number reportedly declined by 3.4 billion XRP, or about 17.77%, since February 2025. The shrinking availability supported his argument that a supply crunch might be emerging. However, community members noted a key distinction: reported exchange balances comprise both user holdings and assets controlled by the exchanges themselves. As a result, the actual liquid trading supply could be significantly smaller than the exchange total figures suggest.

MetricAmount (Feb 2025)Amount (Now)% ChangeXRP on exchanges19.1 billion15.7 billion-17.77%This ambiguity leaves doubts regarding the true scope of available XRP for active trading, with some believing the liquid float may be even lower than the numbers suggest.

Institutional Accumulation and ETF DemandGrowing institutional interest in XRP is also limiting available supply. Spot XRP exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have locked up billions of tokens in ETF custody, preventing those assets from participating in routine trading. The role of ETFs as long-term holdings means this supply is unlikely to return to active circulation soon.

Evernorth, a dedicated investment vehicle established for institutional XRP exposure, recently raised over $1 billion to acquire XRP through public equity channels. The company confirmed holding 473 million XRP—valued at nearly $672 million—alongside $300 million in cash. This kind of accumulation signals a move toward long-term storage of significant XRP amounts by corporate entities and funds.

Mini dictionary: Evernorth is a financial company that specializes in structured products allowing institutions to gain exposure to XRP through regulated public market channels, encouraging greater mainstream adoption of the asset.

Steingraber’s claim that only 21 million XRP will eventually remain tradable met with strong criticism. One respondent emphasized that the XRP Ledger (XRPL) is a permissionless blockchain with a 100 billion token maximum supply, meaning the asset cannot simply be removed from public reach. The commenter acknowledged that while institutional accumulation can restrict liquidity, total XRP supply remains unchanged.

Another community member suggested that major macroeconomic events, such as a potential cyberattack, could influence XRP’s price before any supply-related change. A separate commenter referenced existing institutional contracts, noting that large-scale accumulation has quietly progressed for some time. Others voiced the opinion that experienced XRP investors already anticipate such supply trends.

Institutional accumulation can lower available liquidity, but it doesn’t eliminate public access to XRP. The XRPL remains an open and permissionless platform with a total cap of 100 billion tokens.

Standard Chartered is introducing a cryptocurrency trading solution that lets its wealthy UAE clients buy and sell Bitcoin and Ethereum directly through their existing bank accounts in a closed-loop system with institutional custody.

The bank says this marks a global first for the institution and the UAE’s first such offering by an international bank, regulated by the Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA).

Eligible affluent clients can execute trades within the bank’s ecosystem where Standard Chartered handles custody and settlement to reduce third-party risks through collaboration with its wealth and corporate businesses plus SC Ventures-backed Zodia Markets.

The service launches first for Professional Investor clients in the UAE with expansion planned to other markets later and builds on the bank’s existing crypto access through ETFs, structured products and OTC derivatives.

Samir Subberwal, Global Head of Wealth Solutions at the bank, highlights growing client interest in digital assets.

“With digital assets moving into mainstream wealth conversations, clients are increasingly looking not only for access, but also for the security, trust and confidence that comes from investing through a regulated and trusted institution.”

Rola Abu Manneh, CEO for UAE, Middle East and Pakistan at Standard Chartered, notes the strategic fit with the region.

“We are proud to be the first international bank in the UAE to launch a cryptocurrency trading offering. The UAE was a natural choice for this launch, given the country’s forward-looking approach to innovation, strong regulatory environment and growing leadership in digital assets. This also reflects the strategic importance of the UAE within our network as one of our four global wealth hubs.”

Generated Image: Midjourney

XRP is gaining the spotlight in South Korea as the leading altcoin continues to see increased participation among traders within the country against other major crypto assets.

Amid the heightening interest in XRP, recent onchain data shows that XRP has outperformed Bitcoin and Ethereum in spot trading volume on South Korea's largest cryptocurrency exchange.

XRP sees strong trading activity in South KoreaThe data shows that XRP's spot trading volume against the South Korean won (KRW) reached over $145.6 million on October 15, despite the broad market slowdown seen on that day.

HOT Stories

As such, XRP outperformed both Bitcoin and Ethereum as they recorded $126.5 million and $92.1 million respectively in spot trading volume on the same day.

You Might Also Like

This shows that XRP attracted more spot trading activity than the two largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization on the exchange, signaling strong demand for XRP among Korean traders. 

Further data showed that the trend continued until October 16, as even though trading volumes across all three cryptocurrencies had cooled, XRP still maintained its lead. 

Will South Korea drive recovery for XRP?While XRP was able to extend its dominance for a second consecutive day, it appears that interest in the Ripple-associated altcoin remains strong in the South Korean crypto market.

Market analysts believe that the strong demand for XRP on Korea's largest crypto exchange could impact its broader market value and drive a further rally in XRP's price, as Upbit's trading data have proved to be a useful indicator of local investor activity. 

Ethereum’s proposed approach to quantum resistant security could introduce unnecessary complexity and conflict with its long term privacy ambitions, according to Justin Thaler, a researcher at a16z crypto.

In a Friday research announcement, Thaler and a team of cryptographers introduced Aerie, a system designed to aggregate thousands of quantum resistant digital signatures into a single cryptographic proof.

The researchers argue that lattice based cryptography offers significant performance advantages over the hash based systems being developed as part of Ethereum’s long term roadmap.

The announcement comes as Ethereum works toward making its consensus, execution and data layers resistant to potential quantum computing attacks by December 2029.

Aerie challenges Ethereum’s quantum security approach Ethereum currently relies on BLS signatures, which allow thousands of validator approvals to be combined efficiently. However, the cryptographic system is not considered resistant to sufficiently powerful quantum computers.

Replacing these signatures presents a challenge because existing quantum resistant alternatives are substantially larger and more expensive to aggregate.

Ethereum researchers have been developing leanVM, a system that uses cryptographic proofs to compress signatures and reduce the burden on validators.

However, Thaler argues that the hash based approach requires multiple rounds of recursive proof aggregation, adding computational costs and complexity.

Aerie instead combines lattice based signatures with lattice based cryptographic proofs, allowing thousands of signatures to be aggregated directly.

In tests conducted on an Apple M4 Max laptop without GPU acceleration, Aerie aggregated 32,768 Falcon signatures in 0.65 seconds, equivalent to more than 50,000 signatures per second.

The resulting data averaged approximately 42 bytes per signature, while proof verification took 54 milliseconds on a single CPU core.

According to the researchers, Aerie processed consensus signatures 29 times faster than Ethereum’s leanVM in comparable benchmarks. The advantage increased to roughly 60 times for stateless transaction signatures.

The results are based on the researchers’ published benchmarks and do not establish how the system would perform across a live blockchain network.

Researchers question whether hash based systems can support private transactions Beyond performance, Thaler raised concerns about the compatibility of Ethereum’s proposed cryptographic architecture with its privacy objectives.

The Ethereum Foundation’s draft roadmap identifies both quantum resistant security and native private transactions as long term priorities.

However, Thaler argues that relying exclusively on hash based cryptography cannot provide all the functionality required for private payments.

Private transfers require encryption so recipients can securely receive information about transactions, including when the sender and recipient have never communicated before.

Public key encryption cannot be constructed from hash functions alone in a general black box setting, according to established cryptographic research.

As a result, Thaler argues that Ethereum may eventually need structured cryptographic systems, such as lattices, regardless of whether it adopts them for signatures and proofs.

He also challenged concerns that future AI advances could compromise lattice cryptography, arguing that speculative attacks should be weighed against the complexity of existing alternatives.

Nevertheless, lattice based systems carry their own security and implementation challenges. The Aerie researchers acknowledge that Falcon signing has historically required complex arithmetic and substantial memory, although recent improvements have reduced those requirements.

Ethereum has not committed to adopting Aerie, and its proposed quantum resistant architecture remains under development.

The Ethereum Foundation currently aims to achieve full quantum resistance across the network by December 2029, with research continuing into signature aggregation, cryptographic security and private transactions.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Estefano Gomez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Worry that tech giants may slow spending on optical hardware sent Applied Optoelectronics (AAOI -9.13%) down 23.6% this week, extending a drop that leaves shares down 64.2% (as of the close on Thursday, Oct. 15) from their 52-week high.

Applied Optoelectronics stock changed hands at $83.73 as of the close on Thursday, Oct. 15, down 23.6% from Friday, Oct. 9's close through Thursday, Oct. 15's close. Across those five sessions, the S&P 500 (^GSPC -1.22%) fell 0.9%, the Nasdaq-100 dropped 3.1%, and the Technology Select Sector (XLK -2.96%) lost 4.8%.

Image source: Getty Images.

AI infrastructure spending fears hit optical component makersBroadcom CEO Hock Tan warned that capital access and funding constraints could slow the build-out of artificial intelligence infrastructure. That warning triggered a sell-off across photonics component makers, hitting Applied Optoelectronics harder than peers like Lumentum Holdings (LITE -4.78%) and Coherent (COHR -6.79%). The stock had reached a 52-week high of $233.67 before falling, and it remains down 64.2% (as of the close on Thursday, Oct. 15) from that peak. The drop follows the company's completion of a $600 million at-the-market equity offering, which raised liquidity to expand manufacturing capacity for 800G optical transceivers but also contributed to shareholder dilution. B. Riley also lowered its price target on the stock to $92 from $109.

$76.09-$7.65 (-9.13%)

NASDAQ · As of 2:50 PM ET 10/16/26

Applied Optoelectronics manufactures optical networking components, like transceivers and lasers, for internet data centers and cable television operators. The company's higher-speed 800G optical transceivers are designed to handle high-density data traffic inside AI server clusters. However, customer concentration remains a vulnerability, with its top 10 customers accounting for 99% of total revenue.

In its last reported quarter, which ended June 30, 2026, revenue jumped 86.4% year over year to $191.9 million, driven by data center demand, while the company posted a $22.8 million net loss. Management has been expanding manufacturing facilities in Texas to meet projected demand for next-generation optical modules. This week's optical sector sell-off sharpens concerns that funding constraints among major cloud customers could slow Applied Optoelectronics' rapid capacity expansion.

The stock trades at a price-to-sales (P/S) ratio of 11.9, a valuation that reflects high growth expectations for its high-speed optical components. With cash and short-term investments totaling $509 million as of June 30, 2026, and total debt of $93 million, the company has sufficient cash to fund capital expenditure plans. However, ongoing GAAP losses leave the multiple vulnerable if revenue growth slows.

What's next for Applied OptoelectronicsInvestors will get a clearer view of demand trends when Applied Optoelectronics reports its third-quarter 2026 financial results on Nov. 5, 2026. The key metric to watch will be sequential growth in 800G product shipments, along with progress on gross margin expansion. If capital spending by major data center operators slows, the company's heavy fixed-cost manufacturing expansion could weigh on profitability.

Is Applied Optoelectronics stock a buy?The sharp sell-off in Applied Optoelectronics stock has surely drawn the attention of investors who have been waiting for a pullback in the AI stock. Given the company's significant customer concentration, its failure to generate profits, and valid concerns that a slowdown in AI infrastructure funding could hamper its growth, Applied Optoelectronics is a stock investors must recognize as carrying a fair degree of risk.

Potential investors will want to review the company's report when it announces Q3 2026 financial results. Still, for now, Applied Optoelectronics remains a speculative AI stock. Fortunately, investors have plenty of other AI stocks with robust growth potential and lower degrees of risk that they can consider right now.

AnomaPay users can now swap privately on BNB Chain in addition to Ethereum, with new routes for better quotes thanks to Fynd by PropellerHeads

AnomaPay private swaps are now live on BNB Chain in addition to Ethereum. Starting today, AnomaPay users can trade one token for another on BNB Chain directly from their shielded balance, with your account information kept out of public view.

The upgrade is powered by Fynd, the DEX router built by PropellerHeads, which now runs alongside the existing Bebop integration. Together they give AnomaPay users the best quote possible, with a wider view of available liquidity, and the ability to swap privately on BNB Chain in addition to Ethereum.

Meet AnomaPay

AnomaPay is a private payments app built on the Anoma Distributed Operating System. It enables private transfers, swaps, yield, and tokenized stocks on public blockchains. Zero-knowledge cryptography keeps your balances, transfers, and swaps visible to you and nobody else. You sign up in seconds with an existing wallet or a passkey, send money with simple payment links instead of long addresses, and pay fees in the assets you’re already using.

Two routes to a better price

When AnomaPay Swaps launched, pricing came only from Bebop, whose request-for-quote system connects you with professional market makers competing to fill your order. Bebop remains a core part of every quote.

Fynd adds a second path. It’s a router that searches onchain trading venues for the best available route for your trade. It looks across decentralized exchanges and liquidity pools, simulates how your order would fill in each, and ranks the options by what you actually receive after gas. Fynd supports both BNB Chain and Ethereum in AnomaPay.

Now, every time you request a swap, AnomaPay gathers quotes from both sources and automatically picks whichever one gives you the better result. You don’t need to compare anything, toggle a setting, or know which venue filled your trade. You just get the stronger quote automatically.

For you, that means:

More liquidity to draw from. Market maker quotes and onchain pools combined give your order more places to find a fill.Better prices. Two independent sources competing on every trade tends to mean tighter quotes and better execution.More pairs and more chains. Onchain routing opens up markets that were harder to serve before, starting with BNB Chain.Zero extra effort. The best quote is selected for you, every time.Everything else about AnomaPay Swaps stays the same. The swap still happens in a single atomic transaction from your shielded balance, so it either completes with at least your quoted minimum or nothing moves at all. Your order still never sits exposed in a public mempool, which keeps the usual front-running tactics out of reach.

About PropellerHeads

PropellerHeads builds open infrastructure for onchain trading. Their Tycho stack streams real-time liquidity data from across DeFi and simulates trades against it with exact onchain logic. Fynd sits on top of Tycho as a fast, trustless DEX router that finds the best path across AMMs and other liquidity sources, weighing gas costs so the route it chooses is the one that leaves you with the most.

Why BNB Chain

BNB Chain is one of the busiest networks in crypto, home to a massive user base, low fees, and the most stablecoin transactions of any chain. It’s also where AnomaPay's public beta first went live, so bringing private swaps here closes an important loop for our earliest users.

The ecosystem has grown in new directions too, from deep stablecoin markets to tokenized stocks, which you can also hold and transfer privately on AnomaPay. Private swaps mean all of that activity can now happen without putting your trades on display.

Swap privately on BNB Chain today

Private swaps on BNB Chain are live in AnomaPay now. Open the app, choose BNB Chain, pick the tokens you want to trade, and confirm. AnomaPay handles the routing, the proving, and the privacy.

Head to anomapay.app and make your first private swap on BNB Chain.

Circle’s plan to pursue approximately 40 emerging and developing markets has put a measurable question behind its global expansion: where can a business receive USDC and turn it into spendable local money today? The answer changes depending on whether a market means a wallet can hold USDC, a licensed company can issue or redeem it, or a payment provider can deliver a local currency payout. Circle has published evidence for some of those routes, but no country list or opening dates for the 40-market plan.

Summary

Circle’s chief executive described a push into approximately 40 emerging and developing markets on October 16. USDC circulation stood at $72.7 billion on Circle’s October 12 reserve page. Circle’s pending Tazapay purchase would add payout rails spanning more than 100 markets if it closes in 2027. Circle Payments Network reported 175 enrolled financial institutions and $14.7 billion in annualized volume at the end of June. European supervisors will assume part of USDC’s oversight on November 12 after its significant token designation. Circle has outlined an expansion into approximately 40 emerging and developing markets, putting a fresh number on its effort to distribute the dollar stablecoin USDC outside its established routes.

In a Reuters interview published October 16, chief executive Jeremy Allaire identified Southeast Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East as regions where he sees demand. He did not provide the 40 countries, their licensing status, a sequence for entering them, or a timetable for individual payment corridors. The missing details are material to a payment business that must connect a digital dollar to banks, exchanges and domestic settlement systems.

Forty prospective markets are not forty live corridors The statement describes where Circle intends to expand. It is not a list of newly launched products. A person with a blockchain wallet can generally receive a token over a supported network; that does not give the person a direct account with the issuer, a lawful retail offer in every jurisdiction, or a way to redeem dollars at a local bank. Even a licensed payout provider may serve a limited set of customers and transaction types within the country where it operates.

Circle’s own USDC product page says the coin is available in more than 185 countries. The figure describes potential geographic reach of the token. It cannot be subtracted from, or added to, the 40-market target to calculate newly accessible payment markets. The issuer has not published a common definition linking those two numbers. Its first-party minting and redemption products, commercial network memberships and third-party availability each have different eligibility rules.

Its September agreement to buy Singapore-based Tazapay supplies another number that could easily be mistaken for the new plan. Circle said Tazapay had local payout rails in more than 100 markets and more than 60 banking and fintech partners. The acquisition is subject to conditions, including Singapore regulatory approval, and is expected to close in 2027. Tazapay’s existing coverage therefore cannot be presented as 100 new Circle-owned payment markets in October. The parties said Tazapay customers would see no interruption to their existing service during the transaction. A prior account of the $400 million stock deal sets out the announced price and the prospective payment footprint.

The same announcement puts Tazapay’s annualized payment volume above $25 billion and says approximately 60% of its transaction volume already includes stablecoins. Neither statistic measures dollars of new USDC demand caused by the acquisition. The first is a run-rate measure of Tazapay’s payment activity. The second is a share of its existing throughput, which may involve different stablecoins and business uses. Circle did not publish a before-and-after conversion forecast for each corridor.

The most concrete list of working routes is narrower. In an earlier corridor announcement, Circle identified payouts to India through Saber, Singapore and the United States through Tazapay, the Philippines through Coins.ph, the United Arab Emirates through LuLu, and the European Union through Saber. Circle named domestic rails, including India’s IMPS and RTGS, Singapore’s FAST and Europe’s SEPA. Those are named integrations; their existence does not establish identical access, transaction limits or settlement speed for every user within those places.

JUST IN: Visa moves USDC-powered cross-border payouts from pilot to production

Through Inyo Global, eligible businesses can now pre-fund Visa Direct payouts using $USDC, enabling near-real-time funding for international transfers. pic.twitter.com/hXUPMU1S9U

— crypto.news (@cryptodotnews) October 16, 2026 A payment has at least two separate legs Consider a company that holds dollars in one country and pays a supplier in another. A participating financial institution can obtain USDC, transfer it across a supported blockchain, and instruct a receiving provider to deliver local currency. The token may settle between institutions while the supplier sees only a bank deposit. A recipient who accepts USDC directly follows a different route and takes responsibility for holding or disposing of the token. The availability of one route says little about the other.

The payment also has two prices. USDC aims to retain a one-dollar value against dollars, but the amount of local currency received depends on foreign exchange pricing, fees and the provider executing the payout. A quoted transfer time might measure blockchain confirmation while excluding onboarding, compliance review or the domestic payment rail. Without a standard transaction example in each proposed market, the 40-market announcement cannot tell readers the final sum received or the full time to funds.

Regulated counterparties have practical jobs along this chain. An originator screens the sender, a liquidity provider supplies the token or local currency, and a receiving institution meets the destination country’s requirements. A payment can fail at any of those handoffs despite a successful onchain transfer. The claim that a coin is transferable around the clock establishes the availability of the digital leg; it does not make every bank account or domestic system operate on the same schedule.

Circle’s second-quarter report offers a measure of its existing commercial network. At the end of June, Circle Payments Network had 175 enrolled financial institutions, up 29% from the previous quarter, with $14.7 billion in annualized transaction volume based on the trailing 30 days, up 76%. Both are company-defined operating figures. An enrolled institution is not necessarily an active participant in every corridor, and annualizing a recent month is not the same as reporting a completed year’s volume.

One direct arithmetic check shows the scale distinction. Dividing the stated $14.7 billion annualized network figure by 12 produces an implied monthly rate of $1.225 billion, assuming the 30-day pace persisted. Circle reported $14.8 trillion of USDC onchain transfer volume for the entire second quarter. The measurements cover different activity and periods, so their quotient would not be an adoption rate. The smaller commercial network measure is the more relevant starting point for assessing cross-border payment deployment; the far larger chain number includes token movement outside that specific network.

Circle’s second-quarter disclosure provides all three network inputs, as well as $73.3 billion of USDC in circulation at June 30. The number of coins outstanding can rise through exchange balances, trading collateral and other uses without any corresponding increase in final local-currency payouts. A corridor-level breakdown would be needed to test the specific claim that emerging-market payment demand is driving an expansion.

The unreported unit is a completed local payout An original audit of this plan should count transactions at the destination, not simply supported countries or tokens sent. For each named market it would record the originating entity, licensed receiving partner, eligible customer class, currencies, minimum and maximum amounts, quoted and delivered exchange rates, hours of operation, and whether the beneficiary receives USDC or bank money. A second column would distinguish an announced arrangement from one with observed commercial payouts. Circle has disclosed pieces of that map across releases but not a single verified 40-market table.

The distinction matters even when the technology and counterparties are real. If a company pays an overseas contractor through a licensed institution that accepts USDC, the contractor may never open a crypto wallet. The resulting service can be useful without increasing the number of retail USDC users. Conversely, an individual can hold USDC through an exchange in a country with no Circle Payments Network payout partner. Counting both people under the same definition of availability would obscure what the service actually offers.

Circle’s acquisition plan provides a potential way to supply the missing local end. Tazapay brings bank and fintech relationships, existing customer integrations and payout arrangements, according to Circle’s September release. An agreement to acquire those capabilities is an agreement about future corporate control, not a confirmation that Circle has already integrated every account and corridor. Regulatory approvals and the eventual closing date are observable gates.

The company has a second distribution path through exchanges. Binance made a $100 million equity investment and agreed to a five-year commercial arrangement in September. Its stated goal is to promote and integrate USDC across its platform, especially in emerging markets. Exchange access can deepen liquidity for users buying or selling the coin, but the agreement does not identify a corresponding list of licensed local bank payouts. The reported $100 million investment therefore belongs beside the payment plan without being counted as a new payout corridor.

Exchange distribution and payment use carry different evidence The strongest case for Circle’s expansion is that the necessary pieces are already being assembled. Circle issues a widely traded dollar token, reports substantial reserve assets, operates a network with enrolled financial institutions, and has named bank and payment partners. Tazapay says a majority of its current transaction volume involves stablecoins. Binance has a large international user base and a five-year incentive to make USDC more visible. Each fact supports the feasibility of expansion, even before the company names all 40 places.

The opposing case is about classification and timing, not whether those businesses exist. A token available through an exchange is not a locally regulated payment product. A partner’s coverage can exceed the markets where USDC is the actual funding instrument. A planned acquisition can have a different closing date from a planned market entry. A disclosed annualized run rate can change in the following month. Investors and merchants looking for commercial traction need dated payment evidence for the specific routes under discussion.

Binance and Circle’s company announcement describes equity purchased through a private placement and restrictions on share transfers. It does not commit to a public country-by-country minimum in USDC transactions. The financial investment and commercial contract are related but separate instruments; neither confirms that a consumer in one of the 40 proposed markets can redeem directly with Circle.

There are constraints on the issuer side as well. Circle’s October 12 reserve disclosure showed $72.7 billion of USDC outstanding against $73.0 billion of reserves. It reported $8.6 billion issued and $10.1 billion redeemed over the preceding seven days, a net change of negative $1.5 billion. The date is essential because both circulation and redemption totals move. These figures establish the scale of the existing coin and reserve reporting, not the value transferred to the 40 prospective destinations.

The original arithmetic is straightforward: $10.1 billion redeemed minus $8.6 billion issued equals $1.5 billion more redemptions than issuance during the seven-day window. That movement can coexist with plans to enter new countries. It should not be read as a country-specific verdict because the reserve page does not assign issuance or redemption to individual markets, platforms or payment uses.

Licenses determine who can offer which service Different legal permissions attach to issuance, custody, transfer and local payouts. In the European Union, USDC received the European Banking Authority’s first significant e-money token designation. From November 12, the EBA will directly supervise specified matters including own funds, reserves, liquidity and recovery and redemption plans, while the French authority retains duties in areas such as governance and outsourcing. The European classification changes supervisory responsibilities for an existing token. It does not itself authorize Circle to open 40 new countries.

JUST IN: Circle’s $USDC becomes the EU’s first “significant” e-money token under MiCA

Starting Nov. 12, 2026, the European Banking Authority will directly supervise USDC’s reserves, liquidity and redemption plans, following its assessment under the EU’s crypto rules. pic.twitter.com/5tYj6K4Enn

— crypto.news (@cryptodotnews) October 15, 2026 The EBA says 45 e-money tokens had been notified under MiCA when it made the decision. USDC was the first it classified as significant. Circle’s European issuance sits with its French company, whereas the U.S. issuance sits with a different legal entity. A merchant or institution examining redemption rights needs to know which issuer and intermediaries are involved. A token ticker alone is an incomplete map of those obligations.

Circle has argued for changes to European stablecoin reserve rules, saying only three of the world’s 30 largest stablecoins met MiCA requirements at the beginning of October. Its position illustrates that a firm can be authorized in a major market and still dispute the design of the applicable rules. In prior comments on MiCA reserves, Circle called for more flexibility in the assets and deposits used to back tokens. The EBA designation does not decide that policy debate.

The U.S. national trust bank charter is another category. Circle received final approval for a trust bank in July, allowing federally supervised custody and related trust functions. The charter does not transform a USDC balance into an insured bank deposit. The trust bank approval matters to institutional infrastructure and reserve management, while local payment service permissions remain separate questions in each destination.

The revenue case depends on use, rates and counterparties USDC circulation generates reserve income for Circle when the backing assets earn interest, subject to arrangements with distribution partners and costs. The second-quarter company results showed $668 million of reserve income, up 5% from a year earlier, while average USDC circulation rose 25%; Circle attributed the slower income growth partly to a 66-basis-point decline in its reserve return rate. Those numbers show why a larger coin balance does not translate mechanically into the same percentage of revenue growth.

Other revenue was $34 million for the quarter, up 41%, and included subscription and service businesses. Payment infrastructure could grow that category, but the current filing does not assign a forecast of fees to the 40-market ambition. Distribution contracts may create costs as well as demand. Circle reported $412 million in distribution, transaction and other costs for the quarter. A commercial agreement that raises USDC use can benefit a partner and require Circle to share economic returns.

Reserve income is tied to outstanding balances over time. A cross-border payment that uses USDC for minutes can create substantial transfer volume while adding little average token balance. A recipient who keeps the digital dollars for months has a different balance-sheet effect. One needs cohort and holding-time data to translate payment growth into reserve income. The company has not published those figures for the planned markets.

The operational question differs from the token price question. USDC seeks to be worth one dollar; the variable here is who earns fees, which users can redeem, and whether the payout chain offers a practical improvement. Comparing a week of token issuance with an annualized payment run rate would mix stocks, flows and periods. Circle’s financial disclosures can establish the baseline; corridor-level results would establish whether the new strategy is working.

The quarter’s reported $701 million in total revenue and reserve income can be decomposed from the company’s figures into $668 million in reserve income and $34 million in other revenue, with the one-million-dollar difference due to rounded line items. The composition illustrates a business still heavily tied to income earned on reserve assets. It would be unsound to assign all the planned market expansion to the smaller services category, since payments can increase outstanding USDC balances and distribution costs at the same time. Circle has not published market-specific contribution margins for the proposed rollout.

Payment growth could instead produce very different outcomes across corridors. A business treasury moving USDC to another institutional account may retain a token balance for a longer period. A remittance company that acquires USDC and immediately sells it to fund a local bank transfer may leave a smaller end-of-day balance. An exchange listing can generate repeated trading of the same outstanding tokens. None of these outcomes can be reconstructed from gross onchain transfer totals alone. The accounting question for a feature is how much new average circulation and fee revenue survive after local liquidity providers and exchange partners receive their share.

Circle’s quarterly report supplies one other check on scale. It counted 175 institutions enrolled in its payment network, yet did not state that all 175 conducted transactions in the trailing 30 days used for the annualized volume figure. Dividing $14.7 billion by 175 would yield $84 million per enrolled institution per year only under an unsupported assumption that each member originated an equal share. The calculation is mathematically possible but commercially misleading, so the feature cannot use it as a measure of typical partner activity. An active-institution count and a distribution of volume by corridor would be more informative.

What the October announcement still leaves open Allaire’s description did not name the 40 countries or a deadline for reaching them. The September Tazapay release anticipates a 2027 closing, so any assumption that the acquisition supplies immediate October coverage would move a future event into the present. Existing network integrations and exchange availability do establish channels for USDC. They do not provide a public reconciliation of how many proposed markets have functioning local payouts today.

There is a strong argument for following the buildout even before every country is named. The existing network has identifiable partners and reported transaction volume; the token has substantial outstanding circulation; the company is spending equity and commercial resources to enlarge distribution. The proposition can be assessed against subsequent disclosures: named countries, eligible clients, local counterparties, transaction volumes and completed payouts. A press release that only expands a geographic total without those details would leave the original claim difficult to measure.

Currency conversion is one remaining uncertainty for the beneficiary. A successful onchain transfer can deliver USDC to a receiving institution in seconds while a bank payout waits for a domestic batch, a compliance decision or liquidity in the recipient currency. A provider might guarantee its quoted exchange rate for a period or pass through changes before execution; those terms have to be read in the actual service agreement. Circle’s description of its India, Singapore and Philippines corridors names the local rails, but it does not provide a universal consumer rate or service guarantee for every institution using the network.

Eligibility is equally specific. The originator might be a licensed payment service provider rather than an individual sender. A destination bank might accept only business beneficiaries or require identity data that a wallet address alone cannot provide. An exchange user who can buy USDC in a country may still be unable to send a payout through a particular network partner. Circle’s regional demand narrative can coexist with those restrictions. A definitive map would state the customer class and recipient type for each route before attaching a country flag to it.

Nor does a partner’s market count establish uniform dollar access. Tazapay’s network covers more than 100 payout markets, according to Circle, while its local bank integrations and permitted transaction structures vary by destination. If Circle later counts some of those markets toward its new 40, the distinction between acquired reach and newly built reach should appear in the company’s reporting. The September acquisition statement gives a closing target and footprint but no allocation of markets to the October plan. Counting the same country under an exchange listing, a pending purchase and a live payout corridor three times would inflate progress without adding a single recipient.

On September 8, Circle said its Tazapay transaction was expected to close in 2027 following customary conditions and approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore. The company had not identified the prospective 40 markets in its October 16 interview.

What to watch Country list: A dated Circle disclosure naming the approximately 40 target markets and distinguishing planned from live service. Payout evidence: Named local partners, recipient currencies and completed commercial payments in each newly announced corridor. Acquisition closing: Singapore regulatory approval and completion of the Tazapay purchase, which Circle expects in 2027. Network reporting: Updated enrolled institution and transaction volume figures, with the measurement period and definition preserved. Redemption route: Published eligibility for direct minting and redemption, separately from exchange access and partner payouts. FAQ Which 40 countries is Circle entering? Circle’s October 16 interview described approximately 40 emerging and developing markets but did not publish their names. It identified Southeast Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East as regions of interest. A region is not a list of launched payment corridors.

Does USDC availability mean Circle offers local payouts? No. Circle says USDC is available in more than 185 countries, a different measure from a named banking route that delivers domestic currency. A user may hold or trade the coin without being eligible for direct redemption or a local payout product.

Has Circle completed its Tazapay acquisition? Circle signed an agreement in September to buy Tazapay for $400 million in stock. The company said it expected closing in 2027, subject to conditions and Singapore regulatory approval. Tazapay’s existing operations should not be counted as a completed acquisition.

How many markets does Tazapay cover? Circle’s acquisition announcement said Tazapay had payout rails spanning more than 100 markets and more than 60 banking and fintech partners. Coverage says nothing by itself about each market’s eligible customers or current USDC-funded transaction volume.

How large is Circle Payments Network? At June 30, Circle reported 175 enrolled financial institutions and a $14.7 billion annualized transaction rate based on the trailing 30 days. Enrollment and annualization do not measure an entire year of settled payments in the proposed 40 markets.

How much USDC was outstanding when Circle announced the plan? Circle’s October 12 reserve page showed $72.7 billion in circulation and $73.0 billion in reserves. The balances change with new issuance and redemption. They cannot identify the markets in which the coin was used.

Does Circle’s U.S. bank charter insure USDC holders? No. Circle’s national trust charter permits specified trust and custody functions; it does not turn a USDC holding into an insured deposit. Redemption rights and intermediaries still need to be checked for the relevant issuer and service.

What would demonstrate that the expansion is working? Named operating corridors, local counterparties, eligible client groups and dated completed payout volume would show commercial activity. Those details would let readers separate 40 prospective entries from functioning services. This is educational analysis, not investment advice.

Disclaimer: This article is for information and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. Figures reflect regulatory filings and reporting available at the time of writing and change with each disclosure. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security or asset. Always do your own research. Information is accurate as of October 16, 2026.

Circle Internet Group (CRCL) reported approximately $1.4 billion in revenue in the first half of 2026, paying $819 million to USDC distribution partners and transaction costs while reinvesting about $473 million in infrastructure, compliance, and product development.

The company outlined those economics in a blog post Friday, pushing back against new stablecoin entrants that argue existing issuers retain too much revenue, charge too much for redemptions, and could be replaced by more efficient models.

"That reinvestment is not overhead," wrote Circle COO Kash Razzaghi. "It is what makes USDC useful, and it reflects more than 8 years of building. A digital dollar has to work everywhere: redeemable at any hour, held by regulated institutions, and moving natively across the chains and platforms where businesses operate."

Expand Chart

Circle said it retained roughly 7 cents in net profit for every dollar of revenue. USDC processed more than $36 trillion in onchain transaction volume and accounted for about 77% of global stablecoin transaction volume in June, up from 60% a year earlier.

Stablecoin monthly transfer value has averaged nearly $10 trillion this year, according to Standard Chartered Bank, which published a report earlier this week.

In an investor note last month, William Blair analysts said Circle could benefit from a broader crypto recovery, with regulatory rulemaking, growing tokenized-asset activity and diversification supporting the stock into 2027.

Circle will report its third-quarter financial results on Nov. 4.

THORSday Community Podcast #243 ft. CBarraford, KentonC137 & Patriotsounds | October 15, 2026 | Watch the full episode on YouTube

By Raynalytics

TL;DROne week into the SwapKit Rev-Share trial, Chad said about $430 of discounts lined up with almost $2,000 of protocol revenue, a 4.6x return, while stressing that the sample is small and may not scale.v3.21 was on release candidate 6 with final stagenet checks running. $XMR changes for THORNode ride in v3.21, and any remaining Bifrost patches could follow quickly in v3.21.1.Tether briefly froze THORChain's Tron $USDT vault address before reversing it, prompting a debate over whether protocol-owned liquidity should favor permissionless assets.The devs are weighing whether Huginn, which has already added about 1,300 unit tests and new testing frameworks, should count as one of the two approvals a code change needs.Dynamic fees will move from daily to volume-based measurement windows, THORNode code now runs about 3x faster, and 2-second blocks and a FROST rollout are back on the table.https://raynalytics.net/dashboards/rev-share1. SwapKit Rev-Share's First Week: Early Data Looks PromisingRev-Share has been live with SwapKit for about a week, and Chad screen-shared Ray's SwapKit Revenue Share dashboard to walk through the first results. THORChain kicks back 20% of the revenue it earns from SwapKit-routed swaps into a credit bucket. SwapKit then spends that bucket to discount future quotes and win trades it might otherwise lose. As the hosts clarified, SwapKit does not keep the money: the intent is to spend all of it on better quotes, and SwapKit earns from the extra volume it routes.

So far SwapKit has spent only about $430 of the just under $3,000 accrued. Over the same period, swaps carrying those discounts generated almost $2,000 for the protocol, a 4.6x ratio that had been 3.7x the day before. The discounted swaps totalled slightly over $1 million in volume across 302 swaps, and the dashboard's volume view showed roughly double the baseline over 8 days. Chad assumed that volume was trade SwapKit would not have won otherwise, but said he does not know that for sure. SwapKit is also scaling up slowly while it waits for v3.21 to fix a few THORName issues.

"For every $1 we give SwapKit and they spend that to discount quotes, we get back $4.60 effectively." (Chad)The number Chad is watching is 5x. The protocol already earns more than it gives back below that line; 5x is where SwapKit's bucket becomes self-funding. Because SwapKit receives 20% of the extra revenue, any return above 5x refills the bucket faster than SwapKit can spend it, a flywheel where the discounts fund themselves. If the ratio stalls near 4.6x, Chad agreed that raising the share to 25% would move that point down to 4x. If it climbed toward 10x, the share could instead fall to 10% or 15%. His caution was just as clear: the bucket has so far been applied selectively, and returns could shrink as spending scales into the thousands.

The bigger question is reach. SwapKit is integrated with wallets such as Trust Wallet and Ledger, where it competes with other providers, and THORChain currently wins only a single-digit percentage of SwapKit's trades. The agreement is exclusive in both directions for this feature, so THORChain cannot run the same program with another aggregator, and SwapKit cannot run it with Chainflip or NEAR Intents. Dividing volume by swap count, the hosts put the average discounted swap at about $3,400, the larger trade sizes where THORChain tends to quote well. This builds on the launch covered in last week's recap.

2. v3.21 Is Nearly Cut, With Monero Close BehindChad said every pull request for v3.21 had been merged and the release was on release candidate 6, with final stagenet tests underway. During the show, the hosts relayed a team update that the core stagenet tests had passed and the last chain checks were finishing. Chad expected the release to be cut that day or the next, followed by node voting to adopt it. The release had been held back a few days so it could carry as many Monero changes as possible.

Chad said the THORNode changes needed for $XMR are expected in v3.21, while some Bifrost-specific patches may land in v3.21.1. That split matters because a patch release can be cut at any time, while a full release takes far more testing and coordination. Much of the $XMR work has been handled by Zly Dev and the team. Getting Monero live on mainnet is one of Chad's primary short-term goals.

"You better believe we want the same damn thing you do." (Chad)Chad also hopes to remove the churn as a requirement for adding most new chains in v3.22 or v3.23. For chains using key types THORChain already supports, vaults only need to derive and publish new addresses from existing public keys; chains needing new cryptography, like Monero, would still require more. Progress is tracked on devops.thorchain.org.

https://raynalytics.net/dashboards/pol-income3. Tether Froze the Tron $USDT Vault, Then Reversed ItTether recently froze the address THORChain uses for its Tron $USDT pool. Chad suspects the freeze happened partly because THORChain's external addresses look like ordinary wallets rather than smart contracts. He first saw it when Devel posted in the THORChain mainnet channel, and it took three to four hours to reach the team. With help from Randy, he spoke with Tether's CEO, who was apologetic and had it fixed quickly.

The episode put the exposure in context. The pool held about $200,000, while the freeze covered about $1.45 million, which Chad assumed was largely $USDT arriving from the malicious party that triggered it rather than LP or protocol funds. In a worst case, only the stablecoin side, about $100,000, would be lost. The $RUNE side could be redeployed through the protocol-owned liquidity (POL) module into other pools. Kenton added that THORChain Swap already stops trading when a pool is paused, but this pool was not paused, so the team is adding monitoring of the Tether and Circle blacklists to block affected swaps automatically.

Denny used the incident to revisit a post he made in the dev Discord. POL currently goes to the pools with the best depth-to-revenue performance. He floated always sending some flow to the best-performing permissionless asset, or letting nodes redirect it. Kenton disagreed: $BTC to $USDT is the largest trading pair in the world, and stablecoin pools need to keep growing for THORChain to pull volume off centralized exchanges. Denny granted that his proposal trades economic efficiency for protection against an event that may never happen, and that $XMR would likely win POL flow for a long time anyway.

"I'm willing to sacrifice some efficiency to make sure THORChain is as robust as possible." (Denny)Chad argued a deliberate freeze would be self-defeating for any issuer: every DeFi protocol would have to reconsider the asset, LPs would pull out, and the issuer could face legal claims from LPs whose funds it froze. The POL routing question was left open. For background on POL, see the recap covering its launch.

4. Dynamic Fees Will Measure by Volume, Not by DayChad has been reviewing the dynamic fee model and said it is not as effective as he would like. The first version was deliberately kept as a plain minimum viable product, so real-world data could show what works before the design was refined. The problem that data revealed is sample size: on many affiliate pairs there is not enough volume to tell whether a fee change in bps actually caused more or less volume.

The fix Chad wants is to change the epoch, the window the model studies. Today it compares fees and volume day against day, and a day with only 10 trades says little. Instead, the epoch would close once a set amount of volume has passed through, with $100,000 or $1 million used only as illustrative figures. Quiet pairs would collect data over a longer period, while a busy pair like $BTC might need only an hour. The aim is more signal and less noise.

That change is one of several Chad wants in v3.22. In the meantime, the team may leave the current model running for roughly another two weeks to keep studying how it moves. Earlier results are covered in the dynamic fees recap.

5. Should Huginn Count as a Code Approval?The devs are debating whether Huginn should be able to approve pull requests. Merging a THORNode change currently requires two human approvals. Huginn reviews every pull request and every later commit and is, by Chad's count, the top commenter, but its approval does not count toward a merge. The proposal is to require Huginn plus one human. Chad said no one on the team is arguing to remove humans, devs hold valid views on both sides, and he wants the security team's input before anything is decided.

Chad's case is speed. He said AI has lifted coding efficiency by only about 1.3x to 1.4x, because the slowest part of the life cycle, the human steps, has not sped up. He added that humans and AI both make mistakes, so the real question is which is more likely to, and how severe the mistake would be.

"The thing that is super slow is always me. It is always the human." (Chad)Huginn's role is already growing. Beyond reviews, it runs continuous security audits, fixes issues it finds under human oversight, and has added about 1,300 unit tests (roughly 70,000 lines of code), along with new fuzz, mutation and accounting testing frameworks. Chad would let it run self-directed improvement loops only on tests and on performance work that can be verified by replaying thousands of mainnet blocks and checking that every block's app hash is identical. He would not trust it with open-ended feature work at this stage. The approach was first outlined in last week's recap.

6. A 3x Faster THORNode Brings 2-Second Blocks Back Into ViewChad said THORNode's code is now about three times faster after AI-driven optimization work, merged the day before and expected in v3.21. A large part of that came from pprof profiles supplied by Liquify, which Chad described as an X-ray of a live daemon showing where code spends its time and memory. He still needs a Bifrost profile from an active validator, and the hosts relayed that Devel aimed to provide one the next day. Any operator can help by enabling pprof through an environment variable, and Chad said the profiles contain no private keys. A faster Bifrost should lower the CPU and memory validators need.

The speedup will not shorten block times on its own, but Chad expects it to make them more stable after recent instability. It also gives him more confidence to revisit a year-old pull request that moved THORChain from 6-second to 2-second blocks. He pulled back then because many mimir settings run every set number of blocks and mainnet's reaction was hard to predict, but modern AI tools could help verify the change before it ships. Faster blocks could let arbitrageurs track prices more closely, and Chad expects Rujira, which is working toward perps, would welcome them. The hosts added that shorter blocks might eventually make room to raise the 120-node limit.

Chad also flagged an upcoming Cosmos SDK upgrade that will move THORChain to v4.0, and asked the community not to read the version jump as a major feature release. He would not leave the Cosmos SDK unless forced, and said THORChain could take over maintenance if the Cosmos Labs team ever stepped away.

7. FROST Will Roll Out One Vault at a TimeChad said work on a FROST implementation has started, and he expects it to be finished next week or the week after, followed by integration into Bifrost. The plan is to move away from GG20 toward newer cryptography with a smaller attack surface, building on the work covered in the v3.20 recap.

The rollout would start small: one smaller chain, on one of THORChain's six vaults. If that vault hits a signing bug, outbound transactions would be reassigned to a working GG20 vault, slowing mainnet a little without breaking anything. As confidence grows, more vaults would move over each churn, then more chains. Initially FROST would replace GG20, but Chad said GG20 could return as half of a 2-of-2 multisig, so breaking THORChain's cryptography would require breaking both schemes at once.

DKLS is still planned, just second. FROST comes first because $BTC can use it through Taproot, and $BTC makes up a larger share of TVL. Some chains, such as Bitcoin Cash, lack Taproot and cannot use FROST. Chad ranked FROST, then DKLS, then GG20 by how unlikely each is to have an implementation flaw. Separately, Soda Labs completed a full audit of THORChain's code, done largely by hand, and the team is patching what it found. Chad said none of the issues were serious.

8. A Proposed Public Test of Quotes Versus FillsThe hosts said they keep hearing from wallets that some swap services give attractive quotes but poor fills. Kenton floated publishing an objective report rather than calling anyone out, and Chad suggested how to run it: use marketing funds for real swaps, have Ray run them across providers, and publish the quotes, outputs and transaction hashes so anyone can verify them on-chain. Kenton offered to pay to distribute the results. He also gave Ray a shout-out, saying Ray has never said no to anything he asked.

The design discussion was specific: 30 to 50 swaps per size for a statistically meaningful sample, at sizes from about $500 to $50,000, across 10 to 12 providers including THORChain and Maya Protocol. Kenton plans to start the provider list from the routes Ledger Live displays. Concurrent swaps would use separate pools so they do not affect each other, and the group discussed open-sourcing the tooling so anyone can rerun the test. Chad also said aggregators could one day adjust quotes for providers that consistently overquote.

"We have the moral authority to do that." (Chad)Kenton's other priority is wallet coverage on THORChain Swap. After a week of bug fixes, the next targets are Trezor, Rabby and Brave Wallet, one of the more popular Zcash wallets. Trezor is the priority so it is ready before Monero goes live. New wallets will be left to settle before more are added, but Kenton believes broader wallet support could matter more than new features.

What to WatchWhether the SwapKit Rev-Share return reaches 5x, where the credit bucket refills itself, as SwapKit scales spending after v3.21 adoption, and whether the 20% share changes.The v3.21 cut and node vote, and whether $XMR follows quickly in v3.21.1.v3.22 changes to dynamic fees, plus churn-free chain additions in v3.22 or v3.23.Whether the Huginn approval change is adopted after security-team input.The Bifrost pprof profile, a revived 2-second block pull request, and the Cosmos SDK upgrade to v4.0.The first FROST vault on mainnet, and the Soda Labs audit patches.Kenton's quarterly report, expected next week, and whether the quote-versus-fill test goes ahead.Schedule changes: no podcast on Saturday, October 17, Zodl on Friday, October 23, and Moca on Saturday, October 31, when the Saturday show moves an hour later.More THORChain data, check out raynalytics.net

Follow Raynalytics for more Weekly Analytics and Podcast recaps.

Since its historic initial public offering (IPO) in June, Elon Musk's Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX -2.65%) has become one of the most closely watched stocks on Wall Street. SpaceX isn't simply a rocket company anymore. Musk is evolving the space exploration business into a more diversified technology platform spanning satellite internet, artificial intelligence (AI), and software.

With so much going on at the company, investors are naturally curious about what SpaceX could look like over the next several years. Let's explore what a $3,000 investment in SpaceX stock could turn into by 2030.

Image source: Getty Images.

SpaceX has more going for it than just rockets SpaceX operates across three business segments: space, connectivity, and AI. The space segment provides launch services for commercial customers and government agencies. While this remains central to SpaceX's identity, it is actually the company's smallest revenue generator.

At the moment, the largest contributor to sales and profits belongs to connectivity, which is primarily driven by Starlink. Starlink provides satellite internet services to consumers and enterprise businesses worldwide.

During the second quarter, Starlink generated $4.3 billion in revenue, an increase of 66% year over year. More importantly, the connectivity segment produced $1.7 billion in operating income, making it SpaceX's only source of consistent profitability.

Starlink's opportunity could be on the verge of becoming much larger. SpaceX is making significant investments in direct-to-cell satellite technology, which could eventually allow ordinary smartphones to connect directly to its satellites.

There's another segment growing even faster than Starlink, and that's what Wall Street is paying close attention to.

SPCX Space Exploration Technologies$144.69-$3.94 (-2.65%)

NASDAQ · As of 2:03 PM ET 10/16/26

SpaceXAI could be a hidden gem Following its combination with xAI and acquisition of Cursor, SpaceX has built a unique AI ecosystem. The company's SpaceXAI division brings together Grok, AI-powered software development tools, and computing infrastructure.

Grok competes in the intense market for generative AI assistants like ChatGPT and Claude, while Cursor provides SpaceX with exposure to demand for AI coding tools. Meanwhile, SpaceX's AI infrastructure supports the deployment of new models. This vertically integrated approach creates several new revenue opportunities, including subscriptions, enterprise software, and AI capacity services.

During Q2, SpaceX's AI segment generated $2.6 billion in revenue, representing nearly 247% growth year over year. This makes AI SpaceX's fastest-growing business. However, this growth is yet to translate into immediate profitability. SpaceX's AI infrastructure is operating at a loss as the company invests billions of dollars in accelerated computing infrastructure.

What could SpaceX stock be worth by 2030? SpaceX's market capitalization hovers around $2 trillion. According to Wall Street's consensus estimates, SpaceX could generate $116 billion in revenue next year. Based on its current valuation, that implies a forward price-to-sales (P/S) ratio of roughly 17.

That's a hefty premium given the company's cash burn and uncertainty around the trajectory of the space exploration and AI businesses. Nevertheless, I think Starlink should continue to add millions of subscribers while expanding its relationships with wireless carriers between now and 2030. Meanwhile, SpaceXAI should also benefit from increasing capital expenditures (capex) from AI hyperscalers.

Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley forecast SpaceX could generate more than $300 billion in annual revenue by 2030. If that materializes, I think a market capitalization of $5 trillion is a realistic outcome. If SpaceX's valuation expands from $2 trillion today to $5 trillion by December 2030, its market capitalization increases by 150%. This means a $3,000 investment would grow to $7,500.

Although its valuation leaves little room for disappointment, I think a modest investment in SpaceX stock could become a multibagger by 2030. For investors with a long-term time horizon and who can stomach volatility, SpaceX is an intriguing opportunity.

Apple turned $10,000 into $127,753 over the last decade, but a $5 trillion market cap changes the math in ways most investors overlook. Here is what the model says your money could realistically become by 2031, and which risks could…

Ten years ago, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL | AAPL Price Prediction) traded at a split-adjusted $26.59. Shares now trade near $339.74 in midday trading, a 10-year gain of 1,177.53%. That turned a $10,000 investment into about $127,753.

The question for new money is simpler: what could $10,000 put into Apple today be worth by 2031? The answer below uses the model’s reference price of $336.64. Apple just posted record June quarter revenue on a strong iPhone 17 cycle and has Siri AI on deck, so it deserves a fresh forward look.

What $10,000 in Apple Could Become by 2031
Under the base scenario, a $10,000 investment could be worth about $16,271 by 2031, a total return of 62.71%. The projected five-year share price target of $547.74 works out to an annualized return of 10.23%.

Matching the last decade’s run would take a 10-year window, and the model doesn’t go out that far. Five years is the longest projected horizon, so every concrete number here is grounded to it. Even the most optimistic scenario falls well short of the prior decade’s pace.

That’s what you’d expect from a company with a $4.96T market cap, which can’t compound the way a smaller company can (we studied a lot of recent runners most investors missed and pulled out the pattern in a free report here).

Bull, Base and Bear Outcomes for a $10,000 Stake

Scenario
2031 Target Price
Total Return
Value of $10,000

Bull
$658.79
95.7%
$19,570

Base
$547.74
62.71%
$16,271

Bear
$378.14
12.33%
$11,233

Over one year, the model’s base target is $392.04 (16.46% upside). A $10,000 investment would grow to about $11,646. The one-year bull case reaches $13,214, while the downside scenario slips to $9,912. The model has a confidence score of 0.9.

Wall Street is more cautious. The consensus analyst target is $328.09, which stands below the current price, with ratings split across 6 strong buys, 19 buys, 13 holds, 3 sells, plus 3 strong sells.

Three Drivers Powering the Upside Case
iPhone 17 and Mac Demand Outrunning Supply
iPhone revenue grew 22% to $54.3 billion last quarter, and Apple set a June quarter record for upgraders. Mac revenue grew 29%, with MacBook Neo demand running ahead of supply.

On the July earnings call, CEO Tim Cook said: “This is the most powerful and most popular iPhone lineup we’ve ever had.”

Services Keeps Compounding
Services revenue hit $30.7 billion, up 12%, with records in every services category. It is the high-margin engine behind Apple’s 0.326 trailing operating margin. Total revenue reached $109.42B, up 16.4% year over year, and EPS of $2.02 came in ahead of the $1.88 estimate.

Siri AI and a Huge Capital Return Program
Apple unveiled Siri AI at WWDC, and management framed it as a possible driver of future iPhone purchases. “There are enormous opportunities for Apple moving forward in AI,” Cook said.

Shareholders also get support from capital returns. The board added a new $100B buyback authorization, Apple bought back $25.8 billion of stock last quarter, and the quarterly dividend rose to $0.27.

Risks That Could Shrink Your Return

Valuation: Shares trade at 39x trailing earnings and 35x forward earnings, with a PEG ratio of 2.706. If that multiple shrinks, your returns could be flat even while earnings grow.
Memory costs: Cook called memory pricing “a 100-year flood”. Apple guided September quarter gross margin to 47% to 48%, down from 50.1%. Tariff refunds also helped last quarter’s EPS by 11 cents, a boost that may not repeat.
Supply and iPhone 18: Management expected significantly greater supply constraints in the September quarter. Shares also fell after a report that Apple was cutting iPhone 18 Pro component orders (Barron’s, Forbes).
Regulation: The Supreme Court will hear Apple’s App Store appeal, and the Siri AI rollout in Europe still depends on talks with regulators.

The pessimistic scenario puts numbers on the downside. Over five years it returns just 2.35% a year, and on a one-year view it ends slightly below today’s price.

Where Your $10,000 Could Land by 2031
Across the projected scenarios, a $10,000 Apple investment could be worth between $11,233 and $19,570 by 2031, with a base case of about $16,271.

That’s solid compounding, but it’s far from another 12X decade. These figures are scenarios, not guarantees. This is a projection, not investment advice.

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

SummaryTesla, Inc.'s flying Roadster is impressive, but its commercial potential remains uncertain and does little to justify a $1.4 trillion valuation.Q3 vehicle deliveries exceeded expectations, yet automotive margins remain under pressure, raising concerns about earnings quality.Wall Street expects nearly $10B in negative free cash flow during H2 2026 as Tesla accelerates investments in AI, robotaxi, and Optimus.Even if TSLA triples adjusted EPS by 2029, investors could still face losses at current valuations. My rating remains Strong Sell. Bjorn Bakstad/iStock Editorial via Getty Images

Tesla Roadster Do you remember "Knight Rider"? The 80s TV show featuring David Hasselhoff and the legendary KITT, the intelligent car that would talk, drive by itself, and seemingly perform just about any feat possible. It was the stuff

5.84K Followers

Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have no stock, option or similar derivative position in any of the companies mentioned, and no plans to initiate any such positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Seeking Alpha's Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.

Amazon's (AMZN -2.31%) stock closed at its all-time high of $284.02 per share on Aug. 3, 2026. Today, it trades at about $254. Let's see why it pulled back about 11% -- and how one number could drive it higher or lower when it posts its third-quarter earnings on Oct. 29.

Image source: Getty Images.

What's the number everyone will be watching?
Amazon is the world's largest e-commerce and cloud infrastructure company. It generates most of its revenue from its retail business, but most of its operating profits come from Amazon Web Services (AWS), the world's largest cloud infrastructure platform.

AMZN Amazon$248.88-$5.88 (-2.31%)

NASDAQ · As of 2:01 PM ET 10/16/26

AWS already hosts tens of millions of websites and apps, making it the backbone of the internet. It also hosts Bedrock, a managed service that enables organizations to build their own AI apps, SageMaker, a platform for training custom AI models, and a wide range of customized AI APIs. To support the growth of that AI ecosystem, Amazon is producing its own AI accelerator chips. Anthropic, in which Amazon owns a major stake, is one of AWS' leading customers.

AWS' year-over-year revenue growth has accelerated significantly over the past year, and its 36.7% growth in the second quarter marked its strongest growth in 18 quarters.

Metric

Q2 2025

Q3 2025

Q4 2025

Q1 2026

Q2 2026

AWS Revenue Growth (YOY)

17.5%

20%

24%

28%

36.7%

Data source: Amazon. YOY = Year-over-year.

The AI market's explosive expansion drove AWS' growth, and analysts expect the segment's revenue to grow 30%-35% year over year in the third quarter. If it exceeds that range and accelerates for another consecutive quarter, its stock could soar higher. But if it falls short of that range, its stock could stumble -- since it's allocating most of its projected capex of $220 billion this year toward the expansion of AWS' AI infrastructure.

Will Amazon be revalued as a high-growth AI stock?
From 2025 to 2028, analysts expect Amazon's revenue and EPS to grow at CAGRs of 15% and 25%, respectively. Its stock still looks reasonably valued at 24 times next year's earnings -- but it could command a higher valuation if it's revalued as a high-growth AI infrastructure stock.

That's why investors should keep a close eye on AWS' growth rates in the third quarter, and whether or not Amazon raises its capex guidance again to support that expansion. If it maintains its high growth rates without significantly boosting capex, its stock could reach new highs in the near future.

Daiichi Life Insurance Co. Ltd. bought a new stake in Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT – Free Report) during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor bought 390,723 shares of the software giant’s stock, valued at approximately $145,747,000. Microsoft comprises approximately 3.4% of Daiichi Life Insurance Co. Ltd.’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 3rd largest holding.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in MSFT. Auto Owners Insurance Co lifted its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 56,160.8% in the fourth quarter. Auto Owners Insurance Co now owns 60,116,384 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $29,073,486,000 after purchasing an additional 60,009,531 shares in the last quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC increased its position in Microsoft by 234.5% during the 4th quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC now owns 17,822,280 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $8,619,211,000 after purchasing an additional 12,493,786 shares in the last quarter. Amundi increased its stake in Microsoft by 30.8% during the 1st quarter. Amundi now owns 41,675,076 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $15,426,862,000 after buying an additional 9,814,598 shares during the period. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership increased its position in shares of Microsoft by 64.3% during the first quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 24,264,779 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $8,982,083,000 after acquiring an additional 9,493,778 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Diamant Asset Management Inc. raised its position in shares of Microsoft by 38,442.1% in the 1st quarter. Diamant Asset Management Inc. now owns 6,810,388 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $2,521,001,000 after purchasing an additional 6,792,718 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 71.13% of the company’s stock.

Key Stories Impacting Microsoft Here are the key news stories impacting Microsoft this week:

Positive Sentiment: UBS raised its price target to $675 from $525 and reiterated a Buy rating, citing accelerating Azure and Microsoft 365 growth driven by artificial intelligence. The firm believes Microsoft’s valuation remains reasonable despite its recent rally. UBS raises Microsoft price target Positive Sentiment: Multiple Wall Street firms have lifted their targets, with analysts highlighting Azure momentum, approximately 30 million Copilot seats, Microsoft’s commercial backlog and the potential for a larger-than-usual earnings beat. The October 28 results will provide an important test of whether AI spending is translating into revenue and profit. Positive Sentiment: Microsoft’s Maia 300 custom AI accelerator is expected to scale across Azure data centers and reportedly deliver more tokens per megawatt than conventional GPU systems. The chip could reduce inference costs and Microsoft’s dependence on Nvidia and AMD hardware. Microsoft Maia 300 AI chip Positive Sentiment: AI care-management company Tucuvi joined Microsoft’s Pegasus startup program, potentially expanding Microsoft’s enterprise AI pipeline and go-to-market reach in healthcare. Microsoft also increased its quarterly dividend to $0.98 from $0.91, signaling continued confidence in cash generation. Tucuvi joins Microsoft Pegasus Program Neutral Sentiment: Reports that Azure management is seeking roughly 20% cost reductions could improve efficiency and margins, but also underscore the pressure created by Microsoft’s substantial AI data-center investments. Neutral Sentiment: Microsoft’s $10 million contribution to a White House ballroom project is unlikely to affect near-term financial results, though it could attract political or reputational scrutiny. Microsoft White House ballroom contribution Negative Sentiment: Higher inflation and bond yields have pressured AI valuations and raised concerns about the financing cost and returns of large infrastructure projects. Microsoft’s strong balance sheet makes it less vulnerable than smaller AI companies, but valuation sensitivity remains a risk. Negative Sentiment: Phillip Securities downgraded Microsoft to Hold, while reports of security vulnerabilities, executive share sales and intense competition from rapidly growing AI companies add caution. Amy Hood’s sale was made under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 plan, limiting its significance. Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth A number of equities analysts have issued reports on MSFT shares. CLSA reaffirmed an “outperform” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Thursday, July 30th. Cantor Fitzgerald upped their price target on Microsoft from $522.00 to $608.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, September 21st. Morgan Stanley downgraded Microsoft from an “overweight” rating to a “negative” rating in a research report on Monday, October 5th. Jefferies Financial Group raised their price objective on Microsoft from $575.00 to $650.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus upgraded shares of Microsoft from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price objective for the stock from $530.00 to $575.00 in a research report on Tuesday, September 22nd. Forty-two research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, four have assigned a Hold rating and two have given a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Microsoft presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $589.71. Check Out Our Latest Stock Report on Microsoft

Insider Activity at Microsoft In other news, CEO Satya Nadella sold 86,525 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $501.46, for a total transaction of $43,388,826.50. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 486,763 shares in the company, valued at approximately $244,092,173.98. The trade was a 15.09% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 4,810 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $496.48, for a total value of $2,388,068.80. Following the sale, the executive vice president owned 42,677 shares in the company, valued at approximately $21,188,276.96. This represents a 10.13% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold 150,314 shares of company stock valued at $75,404,992 in the last quarter. Company insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

Microsoft Price Performance NASDAQ MSFT opened at $539.44 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $4.01 trillion, a P/E ratio of 30.04, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.71 and a beta of 1.10. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07, a current ratio of 1.23 and a quick ratio of 1.22. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $504.95 and its two-hundred day moving average is $439.96. Microsoft Corporation has a fifty-two week low of $349.20 and a fifty-two week high of $553.72.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 29th. The software giant reported $4.74 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $4.24 by $0.50. The company had revenue of $90.01 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $87.62 billion. Microsoft had a return on equity of 31.98% and a net margin of 40.31%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 17.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $3.65 earnings per share. On average, analysts anticipate that Microsoft Corporation will post 19.65 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Increases Dividend The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 10th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, November 19th will be issued a dividend of $0.98 per share. This represents a $3.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.7%. This is a boost from Microsoft’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.91. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, November 19th. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio is presently 20.27%.

Microsoft Profile (Free Report)

Microsoft Corporation is a global technology company that develops software, cloud services, devices, gaming products and business solutions. Founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, the company is best known for the Windows operating system and Microsoft Office productivity software. Microsoft is headquartered in Redmond, Washington, and serves consumers, businesses, governments and educational institutions worldwide.

Microsoft’s productivity and business offerings include Microsoft 365 applications such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, along with collaboration tools including Teams.

Recommended Stories Five stocks we like better than Microsoft ASML Can’t Keep Up With AI Demand—Why That’s a Good Thing Enovix’s 100,000-Battery Drone Order Sets Up a Test of Its Production Plans AMD’s Support Could Help Fermi Stock Overcome Its Biggest Hurdle Beyond the GPU: Credo Paves the Next AI Data Superhighway

Receive News & Ratings for Microsoft Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Microsoft and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter.