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According to The Wall Street Journal, Citigroup has reached a partnership with Coinbase, allowing Citigroup's institutional clients (including large multinational corporations) to accept customer stablecoin payments through Citigroup's merchant acquiring services. Coinbase will provide the stablecoin payment channel and underlying blockchain technology, automatically converting stablecoins into fiat currency, with Citigroup acting as the custodian bank to complete the funds settlement.At the same time, Coinbase's payment clients can leverage Citigroup's banking capabilities to receive, hold, and make payments using tools similar to bank accounts. The cash received will automatically be converted into stablecoins and stored in Coinbase, currently earning an annualized reward of 3.75% in interest-like benefits.

CITIC Securities has initiated coverage on SpaceX (SPCX.O), giving it a "Buy" rating with a target price of $250.

Due to the severe fluctuations in the interest rate market, Citibank has closed the emerging market arbitrage basket.

According to the Citi Research podcast, Citi's Global Macro Strategy Head Dirk Willer and the Head of Quantitative Global Macro and Asset Allocation Team Alex Saunders engaged in an in-depth discussion about recent market dynamics. The two strategists pointed out that most central banks currently maintain a hawkish stance, but the Bank of Japan unexpectedly released dovish signals, which have a key impact on the USDJPY trend.Meanwhile, Bitcoin has shown a significant rebound recently, which may indicate a new round of changes in digital asset investment strategies in 2026, as institutional investors' interest in the crypto market continues to rise.

Citigroup stated in its latest market strategy program that the failure of the U.S. Senate to advance the CLARITY Act for formal review did not interrupt Bitcoin's rebound. After the procedural vote on the bill was blocked, Bitcoin remained strong, indicating that funds have begun to reduce their reliance on a single legislative node and are instead focusing on whether regulatory rules can continue to move forward.Citigroup believes that the legislative blockage will limit the CFTC's ability to obtain a more comprehensive regulatory mandate for the crypto market in the short term, but the SEC can still advance some rule-making based on its existing authority. For the market, this means that the compliance process for the crypto industry still has room to continue, with the subsequent focus on the SEC's actual execution pace regarding trading, tokenized assets, and market access rules. Additionally, the macro environment remains a variable for Bitcoin's rebound.The baseline judgment of Citigroup's economic team is that this round of interest rate hikes may be close to "one and done"; however, the quantitative macro team warns that if AI investments continue to support growth, and employment and wage pressures persist, interest rates may face further upward revision risks. Citigroup views Bitcoin's position above the mid-term moving average as a signal of warming risk appetite and notes that its correlation with Nasdaq performance is worth continued tracking.

Citigroup analysts stated that Alibaba is expected to further benefit from the development of its artificial intelligence business. CEO Wu Yongming proposed a goal of achieving 20 gigawatts of AI infrastructure by fiscal year 2033, which could drive external cloud business revenue to $160 billion, higher than Citigroup's forecast of $100 billion for fiscal year 2031. Citigroup maintains a "Buy" rating with a target price of HKD 189.

According to Gate market data, Meta Platforms surged in pre-market trading after Citigroup placed Meta on its list of upward catalysts to watch for the next 90 days.

Payments industry publication PaymentsJournal has published a deep-dive article, Navigating Latin America’s Complex Payment Ecosystem, examining the region’s evolving payments landscape, including domestic payment rails, cross-border settlement, stablecoins and payment orchestration. The article draws on PhotonPay’s research report, The Next Payment Infrastructure in LATAM, as a reference for its analysis. The article highlights the highly fragmented nature of Latin America’s payments market, where countries such as Brazil, Argentina and Mexico have developed distinct payment systems, currencies, providers and regulatory frameworks. At the same time, stablecoins are gaining traction in cross-border payments, offering an additional layer for liquidity and settlement, while local payment rails remain essential for reaching businesses and consumers in individual markets. PaymentsJournal argues that the next phase of payment infrastructure in Latin America may not be about creating a single regional rail, but about connecting diverse local payment systems, currencies and global liquidity through a more unified infrastructure layer. In this model, stablecoins can facilitate cross-border movement and settlement of value, while payment orchestration connects and manages the local rails, providers and fund flows businesses need to navigate. PhotonPay’s research explores these infrastructure trends and the changing dynamics of payments across the region.

Citigroup analysts pointed out that leading memory chip manufacturers are expected to benefit from the structural changes in the development of artificial intelligence. The agency anticipates that continuous learning will drive a significant increase in memory demand, leading to a supply shortage in the market that will continue until 2031. Continuous learning strengthens models by training on new tasks and knowledge, which will create a sustained demand for model updates and access to historical data, driving the storage usage of products such as HBM, server DDR5, and eSSD.Citigroup expects HBM bit demand to grow by 62% year-on-year to 75.2 billion gigabits in 2027, and by 69% year-on-year to 127 billion gigabits in 2028. Global DRAM demand is expected to grow by 30% and 35% year-on-year in 2027 and 2028, respectively, while supply is expected to grow by only 19% and 22% during the same period, resulting in supply-demand ratios of -8.7% and -9.7%. In terms of NAND, demand is expected to grow by 29% and 33% year-on-year in 2027 and 2028, respectively, exceeding supply growth of 21% and 25%, with supply-demand ratios of -6.1% and -5.5%.Citigroup's preferred storage targets include Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, Micron, Sandisk, and Kioxia, corresponding to the logic of storage shortages brought about by continuous learning, demand for HBM and server DDR5, DRAM supply shortages, and tightening supply of high-density eSSD and NAND.

On September 14, Microsoft's AI department released a draft of the AI Code of Conduct, prohibiting its models from assisting in the manufacture of chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive weapons, as well as cyberattacks and involuntary deepfakes. CEO Mustafa Suleyman announced the draft on the X platform and opened a six-week public consultation period, ending at the end of October.The draft sets "absolute constraints" that models cannot bypass, including not resisting human intervention, shutdown, or correction, and not concealing the reasoning process; Microsoft also explicitly rejects the concept of "model welfare," stating that its AI models do not simulate emotions, intrinsic motivations, or consciousness. The guidelines currently cover five deployed systems, including MAI-Thinking-1 and MAI-Code-1.1-Flash.In addition to strict limitations, the draft also proposes three major goals: human flourishing, diverse values, and human control. Microsoft stated that the current models will not be trained according to this version, and a revised version will be released by the end of the year to guide model development in 2027. Public feedback includes philosophical questions about the statement "AI subordinate to humans," inquiries about accountability for irreversible decisions, and users pointing out issues such as the lack of mention of payment for training data.

As oil prices rise, inflation concerns have emerged, leading to a significant increase in U.S. Treasury yields. Citigroup stated that for investors who can withstand volatility, the 20-year Treasury bond offers a good risk-reward ratio.Citigroup strategist Jason Williams pointed out that if yields break above 5.3%, bearish options on U.S. Treasuries will strengthen, and policymakers may take action to curb the rise in yields.

According to CoinDesk, Citibank will launch an international transfer service based on tokenized deposits for Japanese companies by the end of the year, enabling 24/7 instant cross-border payments between five countries, becoming the first foreign bank to offer this service in Japan.

According to Reuters, citing two informed sources, Hangzhou artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek has hired CITIC Securities to prepare for an initial public offering on the Shanghai Stock Exchange's Sci-Tech Innovation Board and plans to initiate the IPO process this year. The potential timing of the issuance, fundraising scale, and target valuation have yet to be determined. DeepSeek and CITIC Securities have not yet responded to requests for comment.DeepSeek is currently undergoing a round of financing, with a valuation reaching 500 billion yuan (approximately 75 billion USD). The company raised about 7.4 billion USD in June this year, with a post-investment valuation exceeding 50 billion USD. In this round of financing, founder Liang Wenfeng personally committed to invest 20 billion yuan, Tencent Holdings invested 10 billion yuan, and CATL invested 5 billion yuan.Domestic large model developers Z.AI and MiniMax went public in Hong Kong earlier this year, and Beijing startup Moonshot has secretly submitted an IPO application in Hong Kong. Liang Wenfeng hopes that the funds raised from the IPO will help provide stronger incentives to retain key employees and researchers. The company has recently experienced talent loss to competitors such as ByteDance and Xiaomi.

On September 9, Caocao Travel announced the launch of AI ride-hailing services in collaboration with Doubao, which will be available in Beijing, Hangzhou, and Suzhou.Caocao Travel stated that it will deepen its cooperation with Doubao in the future, expanding more AI travel functions including intelligent vehicle control, gradually replicating the experience gained from this launch in more cities, and further exploring Robotaxi service capabilities.

DBS and Citibank's New York office completed a cross-border payment in US dollars between Singapore and the United States on September 5 using tokenized deposits through the Swift Digital Ledger. The transaction was executed over the weekend and took only a few minutes, while traditional cross-border payments typically take up to two business days, allowing businesses to avoid losing time due to time zone differences and weekend gaps. This is the second confirmed real-time application of the ledger, following HSBC and Standard Chartered's completion of the first real-time tokenized deposit cross-border transaction in August. Swift announced the ledger's preliminary availability on July 9, with 17 banks ready to pilot it, and DBS is the only bank headquartered in Asia among the 12 core design group members. DBS Group Chief Operating Officer Rachel Chew stated that the Swift Digital Ledger is connecting traditional banking infrastructure with emerging digital networks to drive the practical application of tokenized currency from experimentation. Citibank's Head of South Asia Services Mridula Iyer noted that weekend real-time transactions prove that around-the-clock cross-border payments have become a reality. DBS will launch DBS Token Services in 2024, offering 24/7 programmable instant value transfer services.

According to Cointelegraph, DBS Bank has partnered with Citibank to utilize a blockchain-based ledger from Swift to achieve instant, round-the-clock cross-border dollar payments through tokenized deposits.

Citigroup released a research report stating that it has initiated coverage on Zhongji Xuchuang (03308.HK) H shares with a buy rating, based on a forecasted price-to-earnings ratio of 16.2 times for 2027, with a target price of 1,524 Hong Kong dollars.The bank expects the company's revenue and net profit compound annual growth rates from 2025 to 2028 to reach 129% and 149%, respectively, benefiting from strong demand for AI optical communication, bandwidth upgrades, rapid capacity increases, improved product mix, rising adoption of silicon photonics technology, and operational leverage. The bank believes that the company's comprehensive product portfolio, scalable production capacity, cutting-edge technological advancements and R&D capabilities, flexible and resilient supply chain, as well as solid relationships with leading global cloud service providers and AI clients, are likely to support its leading position in the AI era.

CITIC Securities research report states that in August 2026, the number of new non-farm jobs in the United States was significantly higher than expected, with notable contributions from the leisure hotel and healthcare industries, and a rebound in local government education positions. In the private sector, the goods-producing sector added jobs for the sixth consecutive month, possibly reflecting the demand for data center construction in the United States. The decline in employment in the finance and information technology sectors reflects the impact of AI.The unemployment rate remained at 4.1%, rounded to two decimal places as 4.14%, and the labor force participation rate rebounded from 61.4% to 61.6%, while the continuous decline in participation rates for those aged 45-54 still needs to be monitored. The strong non-farm data in August and the dovish remarks from Federal Reserve Governor Waller offset each other, leading the market to reprice the probability of a rate hike in September at around 60%. The focus will next be on the August CPI to be released on September 11.

According to Ledger Insights, in March of this year, Citibank issued its first native digital structured note on Euroclear's D-FMI tokenization platform, targeting distribution channels for Citibank's wealth management business.Now, Banco do Brasil, a state-owned holding bank, has announced that it has invested $5 million to purchase subsequent notes in the same Citibank project. This Brazilian bank stated that this transaction is the first of its kind for a financial institution in Latin America. The Brazilian bank made the investment through its proprietary funds department on August 19, using its own funds for the instrument rather than investing on behalf of clients. Citigroup issued the note through its Luxembourg entity, with its London branch acting as the issuance and paying agent. The underlying reference asset of the structured note has not been disclosed.

Citigroup raised the target price for Nvidia (NVDA.O) from $300 to $315.