Crypto News

UC Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez says California’s proposed Proposition 40 billionaire tax could reduce wealth inequality and limit the political influence of the wealthy. The measure would impose a one-time 5% tax on the global assets of California billionaires, with most revenue earmarked for healthcare. Voters are due to decide on 3 November 2026, and the article describes public support as closely divided. A Polymarket contract put the chance of the tax passing at about 23%, reflecting uncertainty despite Saez’s support. Governor Gavin Newsom has raised concerns that the tax could drive wealthy residents and companies out of California. The debate over Proposition 40 may shift with new polls, political endorsements or efforts to block or amend the measure.

Datavault AI shares rose about 31% on Wednesday, despite the company’s disclosure that it cannot withdraw bitcoin held at Biconomy and will restate four sets of financial statements. The company said the bitcoin did not qualify for recognition as its digital assets and plans to record the purchase as a receivable from Scilex instead. The restatement removes all reported bitcoin from Datavault AI’s books, including 837 BTC that Scilex agreed in a June binding term sheet to buy for $50 million. The companies have not disclosed a definitive purchase agreement, and Datavault AI has not set a date for its restated filings. It expects the accounting change to reduce total assets by $92.2 million at the end of 2025 and $49 million at June 30, 2026. Datavault AI is also reassessing its ability to continue as a going concern, citing uncertainty about collecting amounts owed by Scilex. The unresolved access issue and financial restatement raise company-specific risks, even as the stock rebounded.

Datavault AI said it has been unable to withdraw Bitcoin from the Biconomy exchange since requesting a transfer in June, prompting accounting revisions and renewed concern over the company’s liquidity. In an October 26 SEC filing, the Nasdaq-listed firm said four previously filed financial reports should no longer be relied upon because Bitcoin received through a $150 million Scilex equity deal did not qualify as an asset Datavault owned. The company plans to restate the reports, reduce reported assets by $8.1 million to $92.2 million across affected dates, and reverse previously recorded crypto gains and losses. Datavault said it received 1,309.04 BTC after 19.39 BTC was deducted for prior cash advances. It later returned 491.431 BTC to Scilex for about $40.5 million, while the remaining Bitcoin stayed in a Biconomy off-chain account. A proposed $50 million Scilex purchase of the remaining 837 BTC is subject to a definitive agreement. Datavault said collecting outstanding payments from Scilex and accessing the Bitcoin are uncertain, and management is reassessing whether the company can continue as a going concern. It has not provided a timetable for filing the restated statements and warned of possible further reporting delays. Datavault AI shares fell about 50% around the disclosure, closing at $0.067 on October 28 after reaching an intraday low of $0.060. The episode highlights company-specific custody, accounting and liquidity risks for Bitcoin treasury firms; it does not, on its own, signal a broader change in Bitcoin market conditions.

Grass founder Andrej Radonjic says the decentralized data network is saturated and needs 30 to 50 times its current infrastructure to meet demand from AI companies. The Grass network gathers public web data through opt-in residential internet connections, and reportedly has more than 8 million active nodes and has delivered over 1 billion GB of data. Demand comes from AI training datasets and real-time information used by models during inference. Grass reported about $17 million in revenue in 2025 and another $17 million in the first half of 2026. It projects $65 million to $75 million in full-year 2026 revenue from training data alone. The company has added data-center and GPU capacity, while reporting monthly operating expenses of $2 million to $3 million. The compute bottleneck could constrain Grass’s ability to convert rising AI demand into growth. Traders will be watching network expansion, revenue performance and progress in live data retrieval. The figures are company-reported, and the article does not establish a direct effect on the GRASS token price.

Google Cloud revenue more than doubled year over year to $30.71 billion in Alphabet’s third quarter of 2026, beating analyst expectations. Microsoft Azure revenue rose 48% to about $33.17 billion in its fiscal first quarter of 2027. Microsoft also reported $10 billion in quarterly revenue tied to OpenAI. The cloud growth is being driven partly by AI companies that are also competitors. Anthropic has committed about $114.5 billion to Google, $110 billion to Amazon and $44.9 billion to Microsoft through long-term arrangements, while relying on all three providers for a substantial share of its revenue. Google and Microsoft also sell their own AI products, creating potential conflicts as they host or partner with rival AI labs. The spending required to support AI demand is significant. Alphabet reported $51.36 billion in AI-related capital expenditures and negative free cash flow of $9.07 billion for the quarter. Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon and Meta are projected to spend more than $700 billion combined on AI infrastructure in 2026. For traders, the figures highlight strong cloud demand but also raise questions about capital intensity, cash flow and the durability of AI returns.

Zilliqa CEO Alexander Zahnd has stepped down at his own request while the blockchain project investigates security incidents involving X-Bridge. The bridge remains suspended, and the board is managing the company until a permanent successor is appointed. No replacement has been named. Zilliqa said the incidents affected X-Bridge and some ZRC2 proxy contracts used by liquidity pools. It named zUSDT, SEED, kUSD and Zoge as affected tokens, but said native ZIL and the Zilliqa EVM network were not affected. The company has not disclosed total losses and urged users to avoid the bridge and affected pools while it replaces operational keys and works with exchanges and law enforcement. PlunderSwap separately estimated that about $800,000 was stolen from X-Bridge and said several bridged assets had lost their backing. ZIL traded at about $0.001999 on Oct. 28, roughly unchanged over 24 hours. The suspension follows an earlier X-Bridge exploit in February 2025 and adds to leadership and security concerns at Zilliqa.

Switzerland’s financial regulator FINMA approved the country’s first Swiss-law retail Bitcoin ETF on 20 October 2026. The fund invests directly in BTC and is structured under Swiss collective investment fund rules, rather than as a debt security. FINMA classified it as an alternative investment product with specific risks and allowed an exemption from standard diversification requirements, citing Bitcoin’s trading history and liquidity. The approval extends regulated crypto access beyond Switzerland’s 2021 crypto-basket fund for qualified investors. Supervised institutions must manage custody and operational risks under FINMA guidance issued in January 2026. The Bitcoin ETF could make it easier for retail investors, advisers and wealth managers to add BTC exposure through familiar investment channels, without handling wallets or private keys. However, Bitcoin remains highly volatile, and the approval does not guarantee investor protection, liquidity, fund inflows or a price rise. Launch terms, fees and custody arrangements have not been specified, leaving traders to watch for implementation details and signs of actual demand.

PEPE rallied after reports that TRON founder Justin Sun holds about $51 million worth of the meme coin. It rose as much as 15% during Wednesday’s session, lifting its market value above $2 billion, and was recently trading near $0.0000049. PEPE is above its 50-day and 200-day moving averages, with support near $0.0000046 and resistance around $0.0000054. Its next move may show whether the rally can hold after the headline-driven buying fades. Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB) have not followed. DOGE is down about 4% over the week and remains below both key moving averages; SHIB has lost roughly 17% over the past month and is also trading below them. The contrast suggests the current meme-coin rally is concentrated in PEPE rather than spreading across the sector. Traders are watching the Federal Reserve’s rate decision and Binance’s planned delisting of 10 margin and 12 spot trading pairs on Oct. 30. Changes in risk appetite and thinner liquidity could amplify short-term volatility. A break above PEPE’s resistance, alongside a DOGE recovery, would indicate broader meme-coin strength; a loss of PEPE’s support or a SHIB breakdown would point to a fading, narrow rally.

Solana has unveiled the BP Badge, a programmable hardware development kit for attendees at Breakpoint 2026 in London, running November 15–17. Built on an ESP32-C5 chip with Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth, a color display and a rechargeable battery, the badge lets users install apps, complete quests, trade digital cards nearby and earn in-game !LAMPs. Developers can also create and flash their own apps onto the device. Solana says no crypto tokens are currently directly tied to the badge’s game mechanics, so the launch has no clear direct impact on SOL trading. The conference will be held in Europe for the first time.

BitGo has added Jupiter as a Solana validator option for eligible institutional custody clients, allowing them to stake SOL directly from their BitGo accounts without transferring assets to an external provider. Jupiter is the fourth named validator partner, joining SOL Strategies, Helius and HashKey Cloud. Fees for the BitGo option have not been disclosed, and unstaking follows Solana’s standard deactivation period. Jupiter’s main validator held about 9.72 million SOL, worth roughly $993 million, and ranked fifth among approximately 660 active Solana validators. Jupiter charges a 5% commission on inflation rewards and takes no share of MEV tips. StakeWiz estimated its yield at 4.72%, compared with a 3.62% stake-weighted network average. BitGo said Jupiter operates the validator independently and that BitGo does not control its performance.