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Solana posted on platform X that it has gradually reduced the target Slot Time from 400 ms to 250 ms, during which the network's block skipping rate remained stable, and the downtime caused by continuous block skipping has also been shortened.However, the shorter Slot Time has led to an increase in voting delays, with nodes in Asia and South America being the most affected. Therefore, further reducing it to 200 ms before the launch of Alpenglow still requires caution.

According to GMGN data, the top 5 tokens with net inflow in the past 24 hours are as follows:SI (DEW9....WDP): Net inflow of $20,000, with a 24-hour increase of -20.1%, currently priced at $0.0053.NVDAx (Xsc9....qEh): Net inflow of $9,000, with a 24-hour increase of -0.4%, currently priced at $224.7415.GRASS (Gras....Xjs): Net inflow of $8,000, with a 24-hour increase of 0.5%, currently priced at $0.4477.CARDS (CARD....Yjp): Net inflow of $7,000, with a 24-hour increase of -0.1%, currently priced at $0.1675.COLLECT (nDZk....ump): Net inflow of $4,000, with a 24-hour increase of 23242%, currently priced at $0.001.

According to Bloomberg, the UK digital bank Revolut launched the UK's first facial recognition checkout system "Pay with Smile" on September 23, allowing customers to complete payments in-store through facial recognition.This feature operates on the Revolut Register terminal, where users can complete facial identity verification by clicking "Pay with Smile" on the screen during checkout, a process similar to unlocking a smartphone or accessing a banking app. Facial data is end-to-end encrypted, merchants do not store personal data, and users must actively choose to opt-in in the Revolut app settings, with the ability to withdraw consent at any time. Revolut charges a 0% processing fee for Pay with Smile transactions to alleviate the burden on independent merchants.The pilot will take place from September 24 to 26 at three Kiss the Hippo cafes in Bloomsbury, Chelsea, and Soho in London, with plans to roll out the feature to all 12 locations later this year. Sales promotion for the Revolut Register terminal will be launched at the appropriate time.

According to The Information, Microsoft (MSFT.O) will increase the discount on Copilot while launching an AI "super app."

The Bank of Korea (BOK) has launched the first 24-hour Korean won settlement network pilot, aimed at allowing foreign investors to settle won transactions outside of normal banking hours in South Korea. The central bank announced on Monday that its international wire transfer network has begun trial operations with four domestic banks: KB Kookmin Bank, Woori Bank, Hana Bank, and Shinhan Bank. Full operations are expected to start in January 2027, at which point participation will expand to other institutions and foreign banks.The network operates 24 hours a day on weekdays, excluding weekends and public holidays. Foreign investors can settle won transactions during their domestic business hours by registering a Foreign Institution (RFI-K) account for won services, without the need to open an account directly with a South Korean financial institution. The Bank of Korea stated that the network is expected to enhance the international status of the won by improving foreign investors' access to won settlement infrastructure.In addition, the Bank of Korea is also experimenting with tokenized settlement infrastructure through the Agorá project led by the Bank for International Settlements, which completed a cross-border payment trial using tokenized central bank reserves and commercial bank deposits, including the won, in July. The Bank of Korea is simultaneously advancing the Hangang project, a blockchain-based pilot that utilizes wholesale central bank digital currency to settle tokenized commercial bank deposits.

On September 18, Solana reduced the target slot time from 300 milliseconds to 250 milliseconds, marking the third acceleration since August. As the computation and data capacity per slot is proportionally reduced, the overall throughput of the network has not increased.This adjustment is the third phase of the SIMD-0525 four-phase plan, with slot time decreasing from 400 milliseconds at genesis to 350 milliseconds, then 300 milliseconds, and now to 250 milliseconds. The final step down to 200 milliseconds has not yet determined a mainnet activation date, provided that the validator block skipping rate remains stable.

According to Decrypt, Solana will shorten the target block time slot from 300 milliseconds to 250 milliseconds on Friday, increasing the block generation frequency by nearly 17%. The computational resources and data available for each time slot will be correspondingly reduced, while the overall transaction processing capacity of the network remains unchanged.This adjustment is the third phase in the four planned stages of the SIMD-0525 proposal. The block production permission window for validators over four consecutive time slots has been reduced from 1.2 seconds to 1 second, and the expected duration of the epoch fixed at 432,000 time slots has been shortened from about 36 hours to about 30 hours. The next phase aims to further shorten the time slot to 200 milliseconds, but the mainnet launch time has not yet been determined, with the implementation condition being that the block skip rate remains stable.

The Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Xu Zhengyu, stated at a press conference on financial development measures for the first five-year plan for economic and social development and the Chief Executive's 2026 Policy Address that digital assets and financial technology are new growth engines for Hong Kong, with digital bonds issued in Hong Kong accounting for about 50% of the global share.Before the end of 2026, a pilot program for the tokenization of Exchange Fund Bills will be implemented, and the Central Moneymarkets Unit (CMU) will establish a digital asset platform within 2026 to provide one-stop services for digital bond issuance and settlement. In terms of regulation and market development, this includes improving the licensing system for virtual assets, enhancing the regulatory framework for tokenized investment products, promoting the trading of regulated stablecoins on licensed platforms, and encouraging the expansion of compliant stablecoin application scenarios.

According to GMGN data, the top 5 tokens with net inflow in the past 24 hours are as follows:CARDS (CARD....Yjp): Net inflow of $20,000, with a 24-hour increase of 6.9%, currently priced at $0.14.NEAR (3ZLe....wBG): Net inflow of $2,000, with a 24-hour increase of 28%, currently priced at $3.3584.GP (HTmQ....gUQ): Net inflow of $2,000, with a 24-hour increase of 215.5%, currently priced at $0.0128.FAR (3u3T....3yZ): Net inflow of $2,000, with a 24-hour increase of 633.7%, currently priced at $0.0001.ZATOSHI (y2sC....fav): Net inflow of $1,000, with a 24-hour increase of 1323.9%, currently priced at $0.0001.

The median of the Federal Reserve's dot plot indicates that there will be one more rate hike in 2026.

Coinbase Chief Policy Officer Faryar Shirzad commented on the failure of the CLARITY Act to pass a key procedural vote, stating that the U.S. Congress has given their answer: the legislative path is blocked, and there should be no further expectations. The SEC and CFTC, the two major regulatory agencies, can issue clear regulatory rules using their existing authority.With about seven weeks until the midterm elections, crypto voters should use their ballots to retaliate against the lawmakers who voted no.

According to CoinDesk, the European Central Bank (ECB) called on e-commerce and mobile commerce merchants in the Eurozone on Tuesday to participate in the digital euro pilot program, preparing for the potential issuance of a retail central bank digital currency in 2029. The pilot will test the technology, operational processes, and user experience of the currency's beta version, which, while similar to the digital euro, is not legal tender.The pilot will last for 12 months and is scheduled to launch in the second half of 2027, with the final issuance still requiring legislative and management committee decisions. In the weeks prior, the European Central Bank selected 36 banks and payment institutions to participate in the testing phase. The pilot will involve the European Central Bank, the central banks of 19 Eurozone countries, and selected merchants, with central bank staff testing scenarios such as online and offline transfers between individuals, in-store payments, e-commerce, and mobile commerce payments.European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde stated that the digital euro is essential for maintaining European monetary sovereignty and reducing dependence on dollar-pegged stablecoins. The European Central Bank believes that the proliferation of private dollar stablecoins like Tether's USDT and Circle's USDC poses a threat to European monetary autonomy. Isadora Arredondo, Vice President of Global Policy at Hedera, stated that the success of the digital euro depends more on commercial viability, and merchants need incentives, while payment service providers may consider lowering the fees for merchants accepting digital euro payments.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) announced on Thursday that three issuers raised a total of 102.5 million rupees (approximately 10.72 million USD) through its Demat 2 pilot program by issuing tokenized corporate bonds. This pilot utilizes distributed ledger technology to issue, hold, and settle corporate bonds.REC Ltd. was the first to issue on September 7, raising 50 million rupees (approximately 5.23 million USD) from 18 investors; L&T Ltd. raised a similar amount from 4 investors on September 9, and IIFL raised 25 million rupees (approximately 2.6 million USD) from 1 investor on the same day. SEBI stated that the pilot infrastructure records corporate bonds in the form of native digital tokens on a distributed ledger owned by the depository and achieves atomic settlement of bonds and funds through a unified market interface connected to the Reserve Bank of India’s wholesale central bank digital currency.This mechanism can reduce settlement risks arising from the separation of securities and funds transfer, allowing issuers to receive funds on the same day as the bidding, whereas the existing process typically takes two to three days. The regulator noted that the information of bondholders on the shared ledger is instantly visible to all authorized entities, and at maturity, e₹ payments will go directly into the bondholders' central bank digital currency wallets. SEBI clarified that this pilot does not create a new category of corporate bonds; tokenized bonds retain the same ISIN, issuer obligations, coupon, maturity, covenants, ratings, and investor rights as traditional paperless bonds. The pilot will be implemented in three phases, with the first phase covering institutional issuance, while secondary trading and retail access will be conducted in subsequent phases within SEBI's regulatory sandbox.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) launched the Demat 2 pilot this week, issuing corporate bonds in the form of digital tokens on a distributed ledger operated by regulated market institutions, and settling through the wholesale digital rupee of the Reserve Bank of India. The size of India's corporate bond market is approximately $620 billion.The state-owned power financing institution REC raised ₹50 billion (approximately $56 million) through this system, engineering and construction giant Larsen & Toubro refinanced ₹50 billion, and non-banking financial institution IIFL Finance raised ₹2.5 billion (approximately $2.8 million), totaling around ₹102.5 billion. The bonds retain fixed interest rates, maturity dates, and investor rights, but the tokenized bonds can be settled simultaneously with the digital rupees used for purchase, thereby reducing transaction risk.Subsequent phases will introduce smart contracts to handle corporate actions such as interest payments and redemptions, and there are plans to open secondary market trading, ultimately allowing retail investors to participate. India maintains a cautious attitude towards private cryptocurrencies, and this pilot is an attempt to introduce tokenization into its controlled financial system.

According to The Block, the U.S. Department of Justice reported that California man Adam Iza was sentenced to 15 years in prison for his involvement in a kidnapping conspiracy in August 2024.He assisted in planning and funding a kidnapping operation targeting the parents of a person involved in a multi-million dollar Bitcoin theft case, directing six men from Florida to carry out a violent carjacking and kidnapping in Connecticut via mobile phones and encrypted messaging apps. Currently, his brother and six participants have pleaded guilty, while the remaining conspirators are awaiting trial.

Ethlabs stated that it has reviewed over 60 EIPs proposed for the Ethereum Hegotá upgrade and updated its priority recommendations, focusing on four areas: censorship resistance, transaction confirmation speed, native account abstraction, and performance optimization.Specifically, Ethlabs supports FOCIL to enhance Ethereum's censorship resistance and neutrality; it recommends shortening time slots for the first time in the Hegotá upgrade through Quick Slots and creating conditions for further reductions in the future; it supports achieving native account abstraction through Frame Transactions, introducing passkey wallets, transaction delegation, using tokens to pay Gas, batch transactions, as well as better privacy and quantum security support. Additionally, Ethlabs emphasizes that client and protocol design should continuously prioritize performance, using optimization results to increase L1 capacity, shorten time slots, and reduce node operation requirements.

Uzbekistan has launched a pilot project to test government securities-backed som-pegged stablecoin payments. The National Project Agency (NAPP) announced on Monday that it has registered Humo Digital as a special mechanism participant under joint regulation with the central bank. This pilot will test the issuance, circulation, and redemption of HUMO tokens, with each token pegged to 1 Uzbek som. According to NAPP, over 20 merchants are already prepared to accept HUMO payments, and the project will also integrate payment processing and blockchain infrastructure from participating banks, with licensed cryptocurrency exchange Asterium as a project partner. The Central Bank of Uzbekistan stated that the initial trial will last for 12 months, with a total project duration capped at 3 years. Regulators will assess the adequacy and security of the token collateral, cybersecurity, consumer protection, anti-money laundering controls, and financial and price stability risks. This pilot follows the framework approved in November 2025, when Uzbekistan indicated plans to allow stablecoin payment experiments under a sandbox mechanism while providing relevant terms for tokenized stocks and bonds.