727 FinanceWeekly Preview | U.S. midterm elections, nonfarm payrolls data, and Apple earnings on the horizon; Bitway (BTW) to unlock over $100 million worth of tokens
Key events preview:
Bitway (BTW) will unlock approximately 101 million tokens on November 2 at 4:00 PM Beijing time, representing about 3.37% of circulating supply, valued at approximately $114 million;
The U.S. midterm elections will be held on November 3, with all 435 House seats and 35 Senate seats up for election. The market widely expects Democrats to have a chance of winning control of the House, but control of the Senate remains highly uncertain;
Apple will report earnings after U.S. markets close on November 2, with the market expecting stock price volatility at twice the historical average;
Kite (KITE) will unlock approximately 640 million tokens on November 3 at 9:00 PM Beijing time, representing about 17.42% of circulating supply, valued at approximately $75.6 million;
U.S. October nonfarm payrolls data will be released on November 6 at 21:30;
The Zcash NU7 upgrade will go live on mainnet on November 5.
Policy and Regulation:
Hong Kong Financial Technology Project Executive Coordination Group Sixth Meeting: Hong Kong Fintech Week 2026 will be held from November 2 to 6
Hong Kong Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Christopher Hui chaired the sixth meeting of the Financial Technology Project Executive Coordination Group, exchanging views on various areas of fintech, including the proposed regulatory regime for virtual asset trading, custody, advisory and management services. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority reported on the Ensemble project and Hong Kong's banking sector quantum readiness. In addition, Hong Kong Fintech Week 2026 will be held under the theme "Fintech Hub Connecting the World, Building the Future Together" from November 2 to 6 jointly with the StartmeupHK Festival, with the main forum to be held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre from November 2 to 3.
Special Focus:
North America begins standard time; starting November 2, U.S. stock market opening time adjusts to 22:30
North America switched to standard time at 2:00 AM local time on November 1 (2:00 PM Beijing time on November 1). Trading hours for U.S. and Canadian financial markets and economic data release times will be delayed by one hour compared with daylight saving time. Starting November 2 (Monday), international gold and silver and U.S. crude oil will open at 7:00 Beijing time, and U.S. stocks will open at 22:30 Beijing time. Investors are advised to take note.
Project Updates:
Canton Network tokenized securities trading platform TSV plans to begin trading CNTN tokenized stock as early as November 2
TSV LLC, a tokenized stock trading platform based on Canton Network, plans to begin trading tokenized shares of Canton Strategic Holdings (CNTN) as early as November 2. The company adopts an issuer-led tokenization model and has commissioned SEC-registered on-chain transfer agent Fairmint to issue tokens and maintain official ownership records, thereby avoiding the 30-day issuer objection period required for third-party tokenization. This move is expected to allow TSV to complete the first tokenized U.S. stock trade under the U.S. SEC's "innovation exemption" framework ahead of the joint platform of OKX and ICE (the parent company of the NYSE).
NEAR initiates vote on proposal to "reduce the maximum annual issuance rate from 2.5% to 1.6%," voting closes on November 2
NEAR's governance body House of Stake has launched voting on proposal HSP-029, which proposes that after a buffer period of about 90 days, NEAR's maximum annual token issuance rate be linearly reduced from 2.5% to 1.6% over 24 months. According to the proposal, about 11.8 million fewer NEAR tokens will be issued over the next two years, and about 66.1 million fewer over six years, reducing supply by about 4.36% compared with the current policy; the total staking yield is expected to fall from 5.27% to 3.37%. The proposal requires supermajority support and must be adopted by validators through a network upgrade before taking effect. Voting closes on November 2, 2026.
Akash initiates governance vote on proposal to "migrate the network from Cosmos to Solana," voting ends November 2 at 23:02
According to an official announcement from Akash Network, the decentralized cloud computing network Akash has initiated governance proposal No. 346, which proposes migrating the network from its Cosmos sovereign chain akashnet-2 to the Solana mainnet. Voting began on October 26 at 23:02 Beijing time and will end on November 2 at 23:02. Currently, yes votes account for about 98.29%.
According to the proposal, if the proposal passes and audits of the token and migration portal are completed (expected to take 2 to 3 weeks), AKT will launch on Solana as an SPL token, migrated 1:1 with the token ticker retained. The one-way migration portal will be open for 2 years, and staked AKT must first be unstaked (21 days) before migration. The proposal does not set a switch date, and the market migration must be approved separately through a switch proposal. Akash said the choice of Solana was mainly due to operating costs under load, the absence of a single operator, and the concentration of the DePIN ecosystem, among other factors.
Initia: Initia L1 and rollups plan to resume operation on November 2
Initia posted on X that Initia L1 and rollups plan to resume operation on Monday, November 2, 2026. The chain upgrade will apply an independently audited MoveVM patch, isolate the attacker's remaining counterfeit balances, and enable additional security measures without rolling back transaction history. Support for AUSD0, USDC.n, and WETH will be fully restored before restart, and users do not need to take any action.
To protect users and liquidity providers, Initia DEX will be paused for a brief window, during which designated accounts will rebalance pools to market prices. Profits generated from the rebalancing will be returned to affected liquidity providers. Bridges and exchanges are expected to resume transfers after network monitoring, and withdrawal times for LayerZero OFT WETH and AUSD0 are set at 24 hours. Initia will provide further details after the network is fully online on Monday.
Polymarket releases Protocol V2, launch date postponed from November 2 to November 9
Polymarket protocol lead Rajath Alex posted on X that Polymarket has launched Polymarket Protocol V2, a next-generation prediction market smart contract system, restructuring the underlying architecture of the existing protocol. The team said the existing system was built on Gnosis's Conditional Tokens Framework from 2019, and as market types and features continued to increase, components such as adapters and additional contracts had to be layered on, causing system complexity to keep rising.
Protocol V2 will adopt a modular architecture, uniformly using ERC-1155 position tokens, pUSD collateral, exchanges and routers corresponding to each market type, and supporting market types such as Binary, Atomic Neg-risk, Incremental Neg-risk, and Combinatorial. The new protocol also introduces OracleAggregator, which can connect to different settlement sources such as UMA and Chainlink, and provides cross-chain support for positions, collateral, and settlement results for future multi-chain expansion.
Protocol V2 code has been audited by firms including Cantina, Certora, Quantstamp, SigmaPrime, Zellic, and Pashov, and has passed Certora formal verification. The team plans to launch some test markets between October 5 and 30, with a tentative plan to begin switching new markets to V2 on November 2. Polymarket has also launched Data API V2 to support the new protocol and on-chain data indexing.
To avoid the week of the U.S. midterm elections, the release date of Protocol V2 has been postponed from November 2 to November 9. The final timetable and launch plan will be announced in the coming days, including the specific time and the migration order for each market. Users currently do not need to take any action.
Web3 game developer Unagi enters judicial liquidation proceedings in France: assets may be acquired individually, with bid deadline on November 2Web3 game developer Unagi tweeted that the company has entered court-ordered judicial liquidation proceedings in France, and all assets will be publicly sold under the supervision of a court-appointed liquidator. Unagi's products include Persona Journey, Ultimate Champions, and Records. The assets for sale include: the intellectual property, NFT contracts, and creator royalty rights of Persona Journey; 957 Persona NFTs in the treasury; community accounts and related AI products; the UNA token and its contract; the fantasy football and basketball game Ultimate Champions and its NFT card economy; the white-label fantasy sports platform; the developed but unreleased prediction game Fantasy Brainz; and the AI user-generated content platform Records, which launched in March this year. Each asset may be acquired separately, with bids due by November 2.
DeFi Development's preferred stock CHAD annual dividend rate will be raised to 14% on November 2
SOL treasury company DeFi Development Corp. announced that the annual dividend rate on its preferred stock CHAD will be raised from 13% to 14%, effective November 2. Based on the company's disclosed basis, annual dividend income per share will increase by approximately 7.7%; once declared, dividends will be paid every business day.
Token Unlocks:
Bitway (BTW) will unlock approximately 101 million tokens at 4:00 p.m. Beijing time on November 2, representing about 3.37% of circulating supply, valued at approximately $114 million
Ethena (ENA) will unlock approximately 40.63 million tokens at Beijing time on November 2, valued at approximately $7.7 million
Key Focus:
U.S. midterm elections on November 3
The United States will hold midterm elections on November 3, with all 435 House seats and 35 Senate seats up for election (including 2 special elections in Florida and Ohio). Republicans hold 218 House seats to 214, and 53 Senate seats to 47; Democrats need a net gain of 3 seats in the House and 4 in the Senate to flip control; if it ends 50:50, Vice President Vance would cast the tie-breaking vote. The allocation of appropriations, tax legislation, and personnel confirmation authority will thereby reshape the difficulty of advancing fiscal, tariff, and industrial subsidy measures. Betting markets currently price the probability of a Democratic "sweep" of both chambers at 67%.
Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation analysis says the U.S. midterm elections will have limited impact on U.S. Treasuries, but if Democrats control both the Senate and House, they may push for expanded healthcare spending, causing Treasury yields to rise slightly.
Key Focus:
Apple will report earnings after the U.S. market close on November 2 (Beijing time November 3), with the market expecting stock price volatility at twice the historical average
Apple will report earnings after the U.S. market close on November 2, and the options market expects the stock price to move by about 4.3% at that time. Based on the October 27 closing price of $347.10, at-the-money call and put options expiring November 4 with a strike price of $347.5 total about $14.98, corresponding to a stock price range of about $332-$362. By comparison, Apple's stock price has moved by an average of about 2% the day after its past 8 earnings reports, falling 6 times, with the largest drop of 7.4% in July this year. Options expiring November 13 imply a further increase in implied volatility to 5.2%. This means the market has already priced in a relatively high premium for earnings risk; if actual volatility is insufficient, even if the direction of the stock price is judged correctly, buying options may still result in a loss; only if the stock price movement is enough to cover the premium can option buyers profit. Note: Option quotes are taken after the U.S. market close on October 27. 4.3% is the implied volatility reflected in option prices, not a range within which the stock price must move.
Exchanges:
Binance expects to generate full zero-knowledge proof of reserves on November 3
According to a Binance announcement, as of October 31, approximately 90% of affected assets have been backfilled, further improving from the previously disclosed 80%. BTC, ETH, USDT, BNB, SOL, USDC, XRP, USD1, RLUSD, and ZEC have all achieved 100% full reserve backing. The remaining approximately 10% of assets not yet backfilled are tokens other than the previous top ten tokens, which, due to relatively lower liquidity, may take longer to purchase in full.
Binance said the funds for this asset replenishment came from part of the SAFU fund (expected to be completed within the next 24 hours), part of the futures insurance fund, and Binance's own corporate funds. Binance completed a new proof-of-reserves snapshot at 08:00 on October 31 (UTC+8). Because generating zero-knowledge proofs requires substantial computing resources, the full proof is expected to be generated on November 3 (UTC). Withdrawal services are expected to resume as planned on November 1.
Binance will suspend deposits and withdrawals of old AERO tokens on November 3; the opening time for deposits and withdrawals of new AERO tokens will be announced separately
Binance will support the token merger of Velodrome Finance (VELODROME) into Aerodrome (AERO) and the AERO contract swap. Binance will stop trading and remove all existing VELODROME spot trading pairs (VELODROME/USDT) at 11:00 on November 03, 2026 (UTC+8), and will automatically cancel all open orders; trading of existing AERO spot trading pairs will not be affected.
In addition, Binance will suspend deposits and withdrawals of old VELODROME tokens at 11:30 on November 03, 2026 (UTC+8). After the token merger is completed, Binance will no longer support deposits or withdrawals of old VELODROME tokens. Binance will suspend deposits and withdrawals of old AERO tokens at 11:30 on November 03, 2026 (UTC+8). After the contract swap is completed, Binance will separately announce the opening time for deposits and withdrawals of new AERO tokens.
Token Unlocks:
Kite (KITE) will unlock approximately 640 million tokens at 9:00 p.m. Beijing time on November 3, representing about 17.42% of circulating supply, valued at approximately $75.6 million
Exchanges:
Coinbase will launch a global trading competition on November 4, with prizes of up to $2 million
Coinbase announced that it will hold its first global trading competition, Coinbase Champions Cup, from November 4 to 25, with a total prize pool of up to $2 million, and registration is now open. Participants will also have a chance to win trader seats at Coinbase's next offline event. The competition is provided by Coinbase Bermuda Ltd. and is only open to eligible users in designated jurisdictions, with a minimum trading volume requirement of 100 USDC.
Project Updates:
Moonshot AI releases Kimi K3.1 Pro, model weights to be open-sourced by November 4
Moonshot AI released the first model in the K3.1 series, Kimi K3.1 Pro, and the high-speed version Kimi K3.1 Pro Highspeed, which runs 2 to 3 times faster than the standard version. Both models support a 1 million token context. Official data shows that K3.1 Pro scored 65.70% on Terminal-Bench 4.0, higher than GPT-6 Astra's 58.20% and slightly lower than Claude Opus 5.5's 66.40%; in internal hallucination tests, the hallucination rate for single statements dropped from 23.40% in K3 to 8.30%. The new models are now available on Kimi.ai, Kimi Work, Kimi Code, and the API, and the full model weights are planned to be released by November 4.
Apple: Apple Intelligence will begin testing in China from November 4, integrated with Alibaba's Qwen
Apple announced that the first batch of Apple Intelligence features will soon launch in China, including real-time translation, writing tools, visual intelligence, photo eraser tools, and Genmoji, and will begin testing with the latest iOS developer beta from November 4, and will be rolled out to Chinese users with the official release of iOS 27.3 in December. In addition, Apple has reached a partnership with Alibaba, allowing Chinese users to use Qwen directly in Siri, writing tools, and visual intelligence. Supported models include iPhone 16 and later models, the iPhone 15 Pro series, and iPhone Air. This update does not include next-generation Apple Intelligence features announced by Apple at WWDC 2026, such as Siri AI.
HyperLabs applies to redeem 179,700 HYPE, expected to arrive on November 4The Hyperliquid development team HyperLabs applied 10 hours ago to redeem 179,706 HYPE (US$14.49 million) from staking, with arrival expected on the evening of November 4. This operation follows the same process as the team's previous token unlock procedures: after exiting staking, tokens are first distributed to team members, then conducted as over-the-counter trades through market maker Flowdesk.
XRP Ledger bug fix patch delayed to November 4 due to decline in validator support
The XRP Ledger bug fix patch was delayed to take effect in November after validator support once dropped to 26 (out of 35), resetting the activation countdown. Support has now recovered to 31, but because the two-week countdown needs to be recalculated, this fix missed the time window in which it was originally about to take effect. The XRPLWin website shows that the fix will go live on November 4 at 14:46 UTC. According to the xrpld 3.4.0 release notes, the patch fixes a vulnerability that could allow accounts only permitted to burn issuer tokens to create new tokens under specific conditions, as well as how the lending code determines when a loan is overdue or in default.
Token Unlocks:
Momentum (MMT) will unlock approximately 252 million tokens at 8:00 AM Beijing time on November 4, a ratio of approximately 294.38% to circulating supply, valued at approximately US$32.3 million.
Project Updates:
Zcash NU7 upgrade to go live on mainnet on November 5
According to the latest information from Zcash official sources and GitHub, the Zcash network upgrade NU7 has completed key deployment preparations and is expected to activate around November 5 at mainnet block height 3,543,405. The proposal submitted by Zcash developer Sean Bowe to set the NU7 mainnet upgrade activation height was officially merged into the ZIP specification on October 21. The Zcash Foundation released the NU7-supporting Zebra 7.0.0 stable version on October 22, and Zakura also released v1.7.0 supporting the upgrade the same day. NU7 was activated on testnet in early October.
Forma mainnet expected to shut down on November 5
Forma, built on Astria and Celestia, tweeted that its mainnet will shut down at block height 34,567,890, expected around November 5. Users will have about two weeks to withdraw funds before the chain stops. After the chain stops, officials will take a snapshot and migrate the remaining TIA to Eden. Both chains are EVM, and users can use the same wallet address. Modularium will migrate to Ethereum, and NFTs will need to be manually claimed through a relaunched website and will not be automatically airdropped. A separate announcement will be made after the migration is completed.
Slop Cash to launch on Umia on November 5 and deploy on Robinhood Chain
On-chain venture capital protocol Umia tweeted that Slop Cash (token SLOP), a funding and incentive mechanism platform for open-source software, will launch on November 5 as the first project on Umia and will be deployed on Robinhood Chain. Slop Cash co-founder and CTO is Shaw, founder of ai16z. Its pre-bid will open at 1:00 AM Beijing time on November 6; the official bid will open at 1:00 AM on November 8; the auction will end at 1:00 AM on November 11, with bids in USDG.
Token Unlocks:
Ethena (ENA) will unlock approximately 93.75 million tokens on November 5, valued at approximately US$17.7 million.
Macroeconomics:
US October nonfarm payrolls data to be released on November 6 at 21:30
On November 6, US October nonfarm payrolls data will be released. September added only 29,000 jobs, while the market expects an increase of 65,000 in October. The unemployment rate will also be released the same day. This is the most important data release globally this week: the 10-year US Treasury yield closed at 4.9% this week, White House's Hassett said that if inflation remains high, there will be sufficient reason for another rate hike, and a stronger reading will reinforce rate hike expectations, with the dollar, US Treasuries, and gold moving in tandem, while US stocks switch back and forth between the two narratives.
Project Updates:
Monochrome Exchange lists platform token MCR, on-chain withdrawals to open on November 6
Multi-asset trading platform Monochrome Exchange tweeted that it has listed its platform token MCR and opened MCR/USDT spot trading. The official statement said MCR can be used to reduce trading fees, participate in Launchpad and the upcoming digital IPO, and is supported by a quarterly buyback and burn program funded by platform profits. During the listing period, MCR will only be tradable on this exchange. On-chain withdrawals for all MCR holdings will open on November 6, the same day the IEO lock-up period ends.
Project Updates:
mETH Protocol to gradually cease operations of cmETH, reward claim window to close on November 7
mETH Protocol announced that to strengthen long-term protocol alignment, it will gradually shut down its liquid staking token cmETH. cmETH's peak TVL once reached approximately US$620 million, and new minting has now stopped, while existing positions can continue to be redeemed and bridged across chains. The project team said it will complete the final EigenLayer reward distribution before mid-June 2026, and the claim window for previous campaign rewards will close on November 7, 2026, after which unclaimed rewards will expire; if relevant AVS or partners have a future TGE that includes retroactive rewards, eligible users will continue to receive distributions. The mETH staking product requires no user action.
Token Unlocks:
Avalanche (AVAX) will unlock approximately 1.67 million tokens at 8:00 AM Beijing time on November 8, a ratio of approximately 0.30% to circulating supply, valued at approximately US$14.7 million.