Cryptocurrency platform Binance said Friday it was working to resolve a "complex attack" that affected around $6.3 billion in funds, in what is thought to be the biggest ever crypto heist.

The company—the world's largest crypto exchange by daily trading volumes—said investigations had "uncovered additional points of breach", contrary to initial findings that suggested the hack involved a single compromised laptop.

"This was a complex attack, and we are doing all we can in coordination with law enforcement to resolve it," Binance wrote on X.

Blockchain investigation firm TRM Labs said it had "high confidence" that the attack was orchestrated by a group of hackers affiliated with North Korea called TraderTraitor.

"Several features of this attack match earlier North Korea-linked heists," TRM said.

TraderTraitor is believed to be part of Lazarus Group -- which gained notoriety in 2014 when it was accused of hacking into Sony Pictures as revenge for "The Interview," a film that mocked North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Binance confirmed on its X account for Latin America that "the total estimated impact is around $6.3 billion."

That is four times the amount impacted in the biggest-ever cyberattack of its kind to date: $1.5 billion taken in February last year from the Bybit platform.

That heist was attributed at the time to North Korea-backed TraderTraitor.

Binance warned the $6.3 billion figure "may continue to increase as our teams work closely with law enforcement, issuers, blockchain intelligence firms and industry partners to trace and freeze additional assets."

It said around $3 billion in affected assets had been frozen.

Binance earlier posted a series of sometimes contradictory messages, insisting that "user funds are completely safe" but also saying it would "cover all losses.

Fund freeze

At about 0900 GMT Friday, Binance said it was on track to resume withdrawals in 45 hours, after announcing earlier that all deposits and withdrawals had been "temporarily suspended".

"Deposits remain unaffected," it said.

The company had said on X that initial investigation suggested the hack involved a compromised laptop belonging to a "DevOps engineer," allowing the unauthorized party to access a "service container" and execute unauthorized withdrawal transactions.

"We have found no evidence of any private key leaks from wallets," it said, promising to share a detailed technical analysis once investigations were complete.

But it said later that "subsequent investigation has uncovered additional points of breach."

Paolo Ardoino, the boss of Tether -- a company that issues a cryptocurrency known as USDT -- said his firm froze about $1.6 billion "related to a potential Binance exchange hack."

Jeremy Allaire, who runs cryptocurrency platform Circle, said his company had frozen more than $800 million in USDC.

USDT and USDC are both "stablecoins," or digital currencies whose value is linked to a traditional currency, the US dollar.

The US Department of Justice and the FBI did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Crypto prices tumble

For several hours before Binance confirmed the attack, industry observers said hackers had managed to reach the platform.

The prices of most major cryptocurrencies fell on news of the cyberattack, except for the stablecoins, which by definition can only fluctuate within tight margins.

Bitcoin and Ethereum plunged nearly five percent and nearly six percent respectively on the news. BNB, native to Binance, tumbled nearly 10 percent.

The attack on Binance comes as many observers express worries that the ever-expanding capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) models could compromise cryptography and IT security protocols.

• MrBeast has an unusual expectation for ex-employees: Don't talk about MrBeast on social media — at all.
• Labor lawyers said the language in a letter outlining obligations for departing employees was uncommonly broad.
• A MrBeast rep said the language is meant to protect employees and the company from harassment.

MrBeast has an unusual expectation for departing employees: The world's top YouTuber doesn't want them to post about him — even if they're saying nice things.

Employees leaving the company of MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, receive a letter outlining their obligations, including an "expectation" that they refrain from creating, commenting on, or engaging with social posts involving Donaldson, his company Beast Industries, or any of its employees. Business Insider viewed one such letter and confirmed it was the standard version used by the company.

The letter also states that the employee should not disclose nonpublic information about the company or make false or disparaging statements about it.

Three employment lawyers told Business Insider that the letter had a few uncommon features, pointing particularly to the references to social media.

"It does seem like an unusual burden to not be able to comment on social media," said V. James DeSimone, a California-based attorney. Plus, the letter doesn't offer any severance or other consideration in exchange, he added.

A Beast Industries spokesman said the social media language is intended to protect employees and the company from harassing behavior on social media.

Evan Fray-Witzer, of the firm Ciampa Fray-Witzer — who has experience working with creators — said the language in the MrBeast letter was broader than typical nondisparagement clauses he's seen. That's because it covers all comments, not just negative ones, and also extends to every post that references the company.

"If you were to read this literally, the person couldn't hit the 'like' button on a MrBeast post," Fray-Witzer said. "That's absurd."

Donaldson has been chasing YouTube fame since he was a teen, and the colossus he's built is the result of the tight creative control he exerts. He's known to obsess over his videos and his image and to kill projects he doesn't believe meet his standards.

Russell Berger of Offit Kurman said the language might be understandable in the context of a social media star's company, but thought the letter was unusually formal, long, and cold in tone.

"This is more of a putting-you-on-notice way of doing it," he said. "Mostly when people leave a job, they don't get a reminder of what they can and can't do."

Legal bark or bite?

Fray-Witzer said the company's motivation is understandable: It likely doesn't want former employees undermining its brand or profiting from MrBeast's content.

The 28-year-old creator, who has over 523 million YouTube subscribers, has been rapidly scaling up his company, which was valued at around $5 billion last year. The operation has grown to nearly 800 employees as it has expanded into areas like candy and financial services.

"Where it becomes more questionable and heavy-handed is the extent that it is being used simply to silence former employees from saying anything about MrBeast or the company," Fray-Witzer said of the letter.

The lawyers who spoke with Business Insider said the letter isn't a contract and is likely not enforceable.

DeSimone said, however, that if the employee previously signed an agreement saying they wouldn't comment about Beast Industries on social media, and then did so, the company could potentially have a basis for legal action.

It might be hard to get a judge to enforce the provision, however, and MrBeast would likely "have to prove some sort of damages," Fray-Witzer said.

Even if the language isn't enforceable, it could still have a chilling effect.

"The question for the employee is always, what's worth the juice here?" DeSimone said.

• Influencer marketers from Disney, the NFL, and more shared novel ways they're using platforms today.
• They're embracing Substack for cultural cachet, Threads to experiment, and YouTube for entertainment.
• Brands are also bringing creators in earlier, treating them more like creative partners.

Creators are jumping among an ever-wider mix of platforms and formats — and brands are scrambling to follow them.

We asked the most innovative marketers working with influencers which platforms and tactics have their attention right now — and why.

Marketers from Disney, e.l.f. Beauty, and others told us they're using platforms like TikTok to own the red carpet, Substack to align with tastemakers, and Threads to experiment.

"YouTube is a home for creators. TikTok is a great way to get discovery," said Ian Trombetta, the National Football League's senior vice president of global social, creator, and content marketing. "And then Instagram is another big one for us as it relates to discovery. Even platforms like X and Reddit have a really important role to play."

Beyond platforms, brands like Keurig Dr Pepper are also exploring ways to work directly with creators, involving them earlier in the campaign process.

"A major shift has been pivoting away from rented reach to true collaboration," said Samim Sadrzadeh, Disney's director of creator content and partnerships. "For a long time, the industry treated creators as ad placements. We think that significantly undersells the value they actually bring."

Substack, Threads, and more

YouTube and creators are taking over the living room, and marketers like e.l.f. Beauty and St. Jude's fundraising organization ALSAC are leaning in, not wanting to be left behind.

"We have a lot of plans around long-form content, and that's a great place to show up," said Patrick O'Keefe, e.l.f. Beauty's chief integrated marketing officer. "We've been on YouTube for years. We're now looking at it from the lens of entertainment."

Others, like Poppi and Rothy's, are embracing the newsletter platform Substack to partner with creators. For some creators, Substack has become a way for them to get more personal with their biggest fans. That helps Poppi plan collaborations, said Sophia Sesto, Poppi's vice president of culture.

Yahoo has found value in Meta's Threads as a way to try out ideas in a lower-key environment before putting them out on bigger platforms, especially if it's jumping on a cultural moment and isn't sure how the effort will go over. When Taylor Swift released "Patient Zero," Yahoo riffed on it with a Thread that tied the "Os" in its name to the song.

"I think it's a little less precious over there, and it feels like a fun place to kind of gut check certain things, see how they'll perform," said Kemma Kefalas, Yahoo's senior director and head of Creative Lab. "It's just been a nice kind of litmus test for us."

Disney has especially found success with TikTok's Live feature, finding it a customizable way to build excitement for premieres. For "Zootopia 2," it had the viral squirrel character Nibs interview cast on the red carpet, while internet personality Carter Kench played host for the "Hannah Montana 20th Anniversary Special."

"Those moments work because we treated the platform as a canvas for a new kind of storytelling that connects directly to audiences in real time," Sadrzadeh said.

Brands are going direct

Platforms may always be a necessary part of doing business with creators. But going direct has become a bigger buzzword as many brands seek to bypass platforms entirely.

Keurig Dr Pepper, for one, wouldn't typically hire a creator through a platform's marketplace, said Lindsay Burstein, senior director of integrated social and communications, using TikTok as an example.

"We would hire the creator, have them post on TikTok. Then we have the ability to use that content and distribute it across multiple channels, but slice it up in different ways that make sense for that channel."

Influencers spent a long time trying to convince marketers to take them seriously. This year, marketers are expected to spend $44 billion with creators, more than tripling in five years, per the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

As brands increasingly treat creators as long-term partners, they're engaging with them earlier in the marketing process.

Yahoo's approach is to find creators who are entertaining and figure out how to insert itself into their work, rather than vice versa, as it did with TV persona Kyle Cooke to promote its new Yahoo Weather app.

"We're working with them for the entertainment that they bring to people, and we'll Yahooify it," Kefalas said. "Our briefs are often loose in those regards. We're not doing a lot of 'talk to camera, promote products' kind of thing. We've gotten a lot of positive feedback from creators that they've loved that opportunity to just do what they do best."

• The Tiger Sisters shared advice on when to keep friendships and when to walk away.
• Cherie and Jean Luo are applying their signature analytical approach to emotional topics.
• They laid out four factors to consider in evaluating friendships.

The Tiger Sisters became top business podcasters by sharing their educational and career experience at Stanford, Goldman Sachs, and more. Now, the self-described "Silicon Valley and Wall Street big sisters" are applying their mindset to friendships.

"I think everyone privately has gone through a friendship breakup at some point in their life, whether it's passive or active," Cherie Luo said in an interview. "And it's something that doesn't get enough attention because when we think relationships, we mostly think the romantic breakup is the most traumatic."

In a three-part series on the subject this month, the hosts broke down how they audit relationships with pals and when they know it's time to break up with a friend.

The sisters, who just joined the Vox Media Podcast Network, started out in 2024 by sharing lessons from their school and work experiences and have since introduced more emotional content. It's a bet that their formula can extend to a broad array of topics and give them more staying power as they aim to grow into a larger media company.

"We did start Tiger Sisters with a very, very business-oriented approach," Jean Luo said. "It was more so our audience that kept asking us like, 'Well, what about how does this apply to friendships? Who are you guys dating? What's going on in your relationships, in your dating lives?'"

In the friendship episodes, the sisters took a data-driven approach, drawing on academic research and layering in their own experiences rather than just venting about breakups.

"I think it's kind of in our DNA of, 'How do we make sense of something that could potentially be very messy and emotional and bring a framework to help guide us through it?'" Cherie Luo said.

When to end a friendship

The sisters say people should consider four things when evaluating a friendship: who you are, where you are in your life, who the friend is, and how they'll fit into your life going forward.

"By providing this framework, it helps the listener and the Tiger fan take a step back from what is inherently an extremely emotional topic," Jean Luo said. "You can then decide if you want to go through an active or a passive dissolution."

Researchers have found that most friendship endings happen passively when people grow apart, Cherie Luo said. This leaves open the possibility that the friendship could be rekindled, whereas abrupt endings tend to be more acrimonious and permanent.

"It is less disruptive to a broader friend group," Jean added. "Friendships don't exist in a vacuum."

In the podcast, they also discussed alternatives to ending a friendship: distancing yourself or changing the role the friend occupies in your life.

They gave the example of a friend who was tired of always being canceled on by a pal. Rather than break up with them, they addressed the problem by double-booking them.

If you decide a friendship's run its course, you don't have to take the leap and break up with them immediately, the sisters said. It's important to take the rest of your life into account.

"Let's say you just had a baby, and you are starting a new job, and you are helping your parents with their health," Jean Luo said. "If there's a lot of things going on, maybe you actually don't need to address that friendship breakup right now. Even if the right decision is to end a friendship, there are a million different ways in which you can approach it."

Ex-energy secretary Ed Miliband’s agenda appears undermined as money is diverted from renewables to defence

Britain is unlikely to hit its targets on green heating after the cuts announced by John Healey this week, experts have warned, as critics of Ed Miliband claim the former energy secretary’s green agenda is being dismantled.

The chancellor unveiled more than £3bn worth of cuts to the energy department’s budget this week, much of which will pay for higher defence spending.

• Entrepreneurship comes with risk and uncertainty. As one founder put it, "You have to be insane."
• Two successful founders share the mindsets that helped them push through when failure felt possible.
• They explain how anyone can develop the resilience and confidence to take entrepreneurial risks.

A traditional job typically comes with a regular paycheck and benefits — a measure of stability and predictability.

Entrepreneurship offers neither. It comes with risk and uncertainty. There is potential for a big payoff, but no guarantees.

Popsmith CEO Tal Moore put it bluntly: "You have to be insane to be an entrepreneur," he told Business Insider. "Because there's so much risk. There's so much turbulence."

He and his cofounder nearly ran out of money while building their high-end stovetop popcorn popper.

"I ended up selling $600,000 worth of my personal stock to keep us afloat," Moore said.

It was stressful, of course, but Moore felt he had to find a way through — not only because he had invested heavily in Popsmith, but because friends and family had, too.

"They bet on me. They bet on my brand," he said. "If you lose your own money, that's one thing. But there was just no f---ing way that I was going to lose my friends' and family's money."

Kyle Ray had a different source of motivation. In high school, one of his teachers told him he'd end up working at McDonald's.

Rather than feeling discouraged, Ray used the comment as fuel.

He never finished college, but he did turn a window-cleaning side hustle he started with $100 into a six-figure business, Geek Window Cleaning, which now serves hundreds of clients across multiple Texas cities.

Ray said he had doubts "all the time" that the business would work, but wanting to disprove that teacher meant adopting a failure-is-not-an-option mindset.

"I'm going to make this work," he decided. "I'm just going to figure it out."

Throwing "Hail Marys"

When Moore and his business partner had just two weeks of cash runway left, saving the business meant getting attention and moving product without spending much money.

"At this point, I had to throw some Hail Marys," Moore said.

His first idea, which he called "harebrained," was to send poppers directly to the CEOs of Williams-Sonoma and Crate & Barrel. He'd designed the product with those retailers in mind, but couldn't get their attention.

"I know my popper will sell on their shelves," he thought. "I just have to get it in their hands."

Moore bought the most upscale, high-quality paper he could find at Kinko's, handwrote notes to both CEOs, and "blind-shipped" poppers to them. Within two months, buying teams from both companies had reached out, he said.

Then came Oprah.

Moore had no idea how to get on Oprah's annual "Favorite Things" list — "it's just like a total black box," he said — until he spotted an opening on LinkedIn. A junior editor at Oprah Daily had posted about popcorn, so Moore sent her a cold message. She replied, requested a popper, and eventually helped get the product in front of Oprah.

An Oprah Daily editor told Moore that the team considers about 15,000 products each year before Oprah makes her final selections. In 2024, Popsmith made the cut.

After the list was announced, the company sold out of every popper within weeks. Popsmith went on to sell out three more times over the next five months.

As an entrepreneur, "there's a pressure and a will to win," Moore said. "There's an endless drive that just never goes away. I wake up hungry, and I will not stop."

Developing the entrepreneur mindset

Like Moore, Ray has a refusal-to-quit mentality. He views entrepreneurship as a highway without an off-ramp — no Plan B waiting at the next exit.

"If there is no exit, then there's just one path," he said. "And you just have to get through it."

That doesn't mean every business will succeed. In fact, many won't. But Ray believes entrepreneurs need to be willing to take risks, potentially look foolish, fail, and move on to the next idea if necessary.

Often, he said, fear of failure — and other people's judgment — is the real obstacle.

At the core of his mindset is a willingness to care less about both.

"If Geek fails now, I'm going to look stupid, but it's like, 'Okay, cool. What's next?' Like, I don't care," he said. "And the earlier you can develop that carelessness — the 'I don't care if I look stupid' or 'I can fall flat on my face. I am still going to go for it' — I think if you get to that point, anybody can go out and be an entrepreneur."

That mindset can be learned, he said. Like any other skill, from swinging a tennis racket to ballroom dancing, it takes time, consistent work, and patience. Ray recommends three steps:

1. Start with books. They're cheap — or free at the library. Ray's top picks include "Inner Excellence" and "Can't Hurt Me." Moore prefers biographies of entrepreneurs and business leaders, from Warren Buffett and Richard Branson to John D. Rockefeller.

2. Find someone who is already doing what you want to do at a high level. Then ask questions, Ray said: "What are you doing that I'm not? What am I doing that's preventing me from breaking through?"

3. Join a mastermind or hire a coach. Ray has multiple.

"When there's something I don't know, or I need to learn, I start to look for coaches," he said. "It's like a wormhole, right? If you can find somebody that knows something about where you want to be, they can help you collapse time and just jump forward to that spot."

• Halloween is the busiest day for Uber and Lyft drivers.
• Lyft's CEO called it "our biggest day" in 2025.
• It can be a lucrative day for gig workers — if they can stand rowdy passengers.

The busiest day of the year for Uber and Lyft drivers is almost here.

While you might guess that New Year's Eve or St. Patrick's Day would draw the most rider demand as people go out partying, Halloween actually wins the prize for ride-hailing drivers in the US, according to ride volume data and comments from executives.

The culmination of spooky season is likely to be big again this year, with Halloween falling on a Saturday, giving people more time to party — and creating more demand for rides.

Last year, the most ride-hailing trips occurred on October 31, according to Gridwise, a data analytics company. Ride volumes were 23% higher than median rideshare volume for the year, adjusted for day of the week and quarterly seasonal variation, Gridwise said.

The next-busiest days were November 1 and July 3, the day before Independence Day. Ride-hailing volumes were about 20% above the median on each day, Gridwise said. The day after Halloween may be big because rides run late into the night.

Halloween kicks off the busiest season of the year for Uber and Lyft. Besides getting a ride home from Halloween parties, riders also request trips to the airport for flights home around Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Earlier this month, Uber offered some drivers hundreds of dollars in bonuses for driving more — a potential sign that the company needs more drivers working as ride demand ramps up.

For Lyft, Halloween 2025 was "our biggest day" and "our biggest week, and not by a little bit," CEO David Risher said a few days after Halloween 2025 on an earnings call last November.

A company spokesperson declined to say how many trips Lyft drivers completed on Halloween but said that it amounted to "millions of rides."

Uber, meanwhile, "hit a new record over Halloween weekend" in 2025, with about 130 million ride-hailing and delivery trips worth $2 billion, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said on an earnings call last November.

While lucrative, working on Halloween also comes with risks for drivers.

Raymundo Rodriguez, who drives for Uber on the island of Oahu in Hawaii, said he started driving for the app around Halloween two years ago.

There were plenty of riders, he said, but some trips involved dealing with rowdy or drunk passengers. Costumes can also pose risks: One rider dressed as a stripper left glitter on the black leather seats of his car after she got out — a mess that Rodriguez said he had to clean up himself.

This year, Rodriguez said, he's planning to skip driving for the app and take his kids trick-or-treating.

"I don't want nobody throwing up in my car," he said.

Do you have a story idea about Uber? Contact this reporter at abitter@businessinsider.com or via encrypted messaging app Signal at 808-854-4501. Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

TOKYO – Nothing unsettles investors quite like being told not to panic. Yet as the peso trades near all-time lows, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. offers that reassurance, urging Filipinos to stay calm even as financial markets signal the opposite. The peso’s 8.1% drop this year isn’t exactly unique in Asia. The Indonesian rupiah has […]

The post ‘Don’t panic’ about the Philippines? The peso says otherwise appeared first on Asia Times.

Education binds generations. But “provided sovereignty” is ambivalent – can you build it for someone else?

Join us on Telegram, X, and VK.

Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

Reflection and outlook

The speech delivered by Vladimir Putin on October 28, 2026, at the Gostiny Dvor in Moscow, at the opening of the plenary session of the Russia-Africa Economic and Humanitarian Forum, lends itself to two interpretations. The first, the most immediate, reduces it to a catalog: wheat, fertilizers, hydroelectric power plants, scholarships, mobile laboratories, and language models. The second takes it for what it is: a programmatic text that would be translated the following day into the 2027–2029 Partnership Action Plan. The summit is the third in the series, following those in Sochi and St. Petersburg. The continuity of the format already speaks volumes: the Russian-African relationship has moved beyond the phase of declarations and is seeking a framework.

Moscow does not offer Africa a volume of resources capable of competing head-to-head with Beijing or Brussels, and it knows this; instead, it offers a set of infrastructures related to sovereignty – food, energy, finance, digital technology, and education – whose political value exceeds its accounting value. The geopolitical value of this cooperation lies in this gap. Its limitations, which do exist, lie in the very same point.

The word that underpins the entire discourse is “sovereignty.” Putin uses it about twenty times, but what matters is the definition he provides halfway through the text. It is no longer merely about control over territory and borders: sovereignty encompasses the political and financial stability of the system, the availability of food, water, and energy, reliable transportation and communications, and a distinct cultural identity. Added to this list is a further layer: jurisdiction over data, platforms, and artificial intelligence models.

This expanded definition has a precise logical consequence. If sovereignty consists of material and technical elements, then it can be built – and if it can be built, it can also be provided by a partner. Sovereignty thus becomes, in the Kremlin’s discourse, something to be exchanged: Russia provides the technical means by which African countries can reduce their dependence on other suppliers. It is no coincidence that Putin concludes by announcing a “platform for the sovereign development of African states,” designed in Russia and presented at a dedicated exhibition. This formula carries an obvious ambivalence, which we will return to.

The second theme is that of anti-colonial memory. The quote from Thomas Sankara on debt as a form of neocolonialism – in which the colonizers have transformed themselves into “technical assistants” – is no mere ornament. Sankara is a figure who speaks to the new leadership in the Sahel – particularly in Ouagadougou – and whom urban African youth know well. Invoking him in Moscow means situating Russia within an African, not a Soviet, genealogy. The next passage makes the strategy explicit: the continent’s infrastructure was built to export raw materials to the metropolises; manufacturing value-added remains below 2 percent; and intra-African trade accounts for barely 15 percent of a total trade volume of 1,500 billion dollars. This diagnosis is the same as that found in African literature on structural dependence. Moscow embraces this analysis and presents itself as the means to overcome it.

The scale of trade

The Russian president has stated that Russian-African trade will exceed $27 billion in 2025, up from $18 billion in 2022, and has set a target of surpassing $50 billion “in the near future.” This growth is real and, considering that it occurred under the most extensive sanctions regime ever imposed on a G20 economy, politically significant. It indicates that a substantial number of African governments have chosen not to align with Western measures and have paid the price for this choice in terms of diplomatic pressure. Putin openly acknowledges this when he thanks his partners for their “firm and principled stance.”

This is a market thatcan still grow – if that is the goal. China’s trade with the continent is in the range of $300 billion, as is that of the European Union. Russia’s trade is less than one-tenth of either of those figures. Not only that: the balance is highly asymmetrical. Russian agricultural exports to Africa reached 13 million metric tons in the first nine months of 2026, while imports of African agricultural products totaled about $4 billion – 8 percent of Russia’s needs. Putin himself admits that the figure is low and that it will have to grow. This admission is significant because it touches on the most sensitive point of anti-colonial rhetoric: a partner that sells grain, fertilizers, and weapons but buys very little replicates, in numerical terms, the very structure that the discourse denounces.

This leads to an initial assessment. Russia competes in niches where it enjoys comparative advantages that are difficult to replicate: grains and fertilizers, civil nuclear power, hydroelectric power, mining, higher education, and military cooperation. These are sectors in which the quantity of capital matters less than its strategic nature. A country that depends on Russia for wheat and on Russia for its nuclear power plant has a closer tie to Moscow than the monetary value of trade would suggest.

The most important levers: food, energy, currency

The first lever is food security. Over forty African countries import Russian wheat and fertilizers, and for some, supplies have multiplied. This data must be viewed alongside the demographic trends mentioned in the same speech: over 2.5 billion inhabitants by 2050, 70 percent of whom will be under thirty, according to United Nations projections. For a continent with this demographic trajectory, the price of bread is a key factor in political stability, and whoever guarantees the continuity of supply gains a form of credit that does not appear on any trade balance. Putin, however, adds a new element: the provision of seeds, machinery, logistics, and processing capabilities to support African agricultural self-sufficiency within the framework of the African Union’s program. On the surface, this offer reduces dependence on Russian wheat; in practice, it shifts dependence from the product itself to the technological supply chain.

The second lever is energy. The reference to the 55th anniversary of the Aswan Dam serves as historical proof of reliability. The present is entrusted to RusHydro, to modular power generation for isolated areas, and above all to civilian nuclear power, which was mentioned among the forum’s topics. Putin speaks of over thirty energy projects in sixteen countries. Nuclear power has a distinctive feature that makes it geopolitically more significant than any other sector: a power plant binds supplier and customer together for sixty or seventy years, encompassing fuel, maintenance, staff training, and waste management. It is a form of cooperation that outlasts governments.

The third lever – the least spectacular – is probably the most important from a structural standpoint. Putin proposes consolidating settlements in national currencies, expanding banking correspondent networks, opening cross-border branches, and linking Russia’s SPFS to the Pan-African PAPSS. The PAPSS (Pan-African Payment and Settlement System) was developed by Afreximbank in collaboration with the AfCFTA Secretariat and launched commercially in January 2022. The SPFS is the Bank of Russia’s financial messaging system, operational since 2014 as an alternative to SWIFT. The stated goal is to reduce transaction costs and shield payments from “politically motivated interference.” Then comes a sentence that, in the report, goes almost unnoticed: some countries do not have their own financial systems and are tied to European ones, which limits their sovereignty. The reference is to the CFA franc zone. This is the first time, in a speech of this caliber, that the monetary issue has been linked so directly to the question of African sovereignty. The message is directed primarily at the governments of the Alliance of Sahelian States, which have turned the monetary issue into a political one.

This third point warrants careful consideration. The link between the SPFS and the PAPSS, if established, would create a payment circuit between Russia and Africa entirely outside Western infrastructure. The significance of this circuit, however, would depend on the liquidity circulating within it, and liquidity depends on trade volumes, which, as we have seen, remain modest. It is more likely, in the medium term, that the PAPSS will gain significance as an intra-African infrastructure and that the Russian connection will be one component among others, alongside those from China, India, and the United Arab Emirates. Even so, it would be a success for Moscow: there is no need to dominate an alternative circuit; it is enough to contribute to making it possible.

But also technology

The section dedicated to technological sovereignty is the most assertive part of the speech. Putin claims a complete value chain for generative artificial intelligence, two national language models, banking and healthcare platforms, and digital administration systems that he offers to African partners. More than two hundred officials from twenty countries have already participated in skills-transfer programs on digital administration.

Here, the ambivalence of “provided sovereignty” becomes evident. An e-government system, a healthcare data platform, or a language model are not neutral assets: whoever controls the code, updates, and hosting retains the ability to access and influence them. The problem does not concern Russia alone – and applies even more to U.S. and Chinese platforms already entrenched on the continent – but the speech does not address this. From an African perspective, the advantage lies in diversification: having a third provider increases bargaining power vis-à-vis the other two. This is the logic of multi-alignment that many African foreign ministries have been practicing for years, and which Russia supports rather than opposes.

Education is the area where continuity with the Soviet experience is most pronounced. Forty thousand African students are enrolled in Russian universities – a 50 percent increase since 2020 – with 5,500 government scholarships for the 2026–2027 academic year, the Russian-African University Network with over seventy universities in seventeen countries, consortia specializing in mineral resources and transportation, and fifty-eight open education centers in twenty-nine countries. The Patrice Lumumba University remains the symbolic reference point. This is the slowest-moving component of the strategy, and also the one that yields the greatest returns. The engineers, doctors, and civil servants being trained today in Moscow and St. Petersburg will, in fifteen or twenty years, hold decision-making positions in African governments and businesses, bringing with them language skills, technical standards, and personal networks. The generation of African professionals trained in the USSR sustained a significant portion of Russian-African relations for decades, even after 1991.

The same applies to the media. The call to build a “common media space” – through the expansion of regional offices of Russian news agencies and a greater presence of African journalists in Russia – is a response to a narrative competition that Moscow considers an integral part of the game. The African continent is today one of the main arenas where the ability to produce competing interpretations of the international order is put to the test.

Africa is becoming polarized, and Russia is facilitating the process

At the systemic level, this discourse places Africa within the multipolar framework in terms different from those typically used in Western rhetoric. The continent is not viewed as a recipient of aid but as one of the emerging poles of the global economy and politics, represented by three members in the BRICS. The reference to the BRICS’ share of global GDP – which exceeds that of the G7 – must be contextualized, but the political point is clear: Africa is being encouraged to view its demographic and economic growth as a source of power rather than merely a development challenge.

Within this framework, Russia presents itself as a facilitator of African agency rather than as a hegemonic power, and this role suits it for a practical reason: it lacks the means to be hegemonic. It supports Africa within multilateral institutions, where Moscow proposes strengthening the African voice in the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. It consolidates this support through its backing of the AfCFTA, which Putin cites in positive terms and which represents the only project capable of addressing the fragmentation of African markets inherited from the colonial era. The calculation can be interpreted in realist terms. A more integrated and autonomous Africa reduces the scope for Western influence – which is Moscow’s primary objective – without requiring Russia to make investments it could not sustain.

The benefit for Moscow is threefold. First, the vote: 54 African states carry weight in the General Assembly, and their abstention or non-alignment on resolutions regarding the conflict in Ukraine has already demonstrated how valuable this is. Second, access: critical mineral resources, outlets for agricultural and energy exports, and markets for Russian technology excluded from Western markets. Third, legitimacy: a summit in Moscow attended by dozens of African delegations effectively refutes the claim that Russia is internationally isolated. And, throughout all this, the summit did not address the important military alliance between Russia and the Sahel, a topic for discussion on other occasions.

The success of Russian-African cooperation will be measured by the ability to truly transfer expertise, to localize the processing of raw materials, and to rebalance trade. Herein lies Russia’s greatest challenge: to help Africa, not to make it dependent. Sankara, whom Putin quoted, warned precisely against those who present themselves as technical advisors. African governments will judge Moscow on this basis, not on the words spoken at Gostiny Dvor.

Brussels is preparing another round of restrictions against Moscow while Washington explores the possibility of economic concessions. The disagreement exposes a weakness in Europe’s sanctions strategy: its effectiveness still depends heavily on decisions taken outside the European Union.

The European Union has imposed sanctions on almost 1,600 additional individuals and companies connected with Russia’s military-industrial complex. It is preparing a 22nd sanctions package, expanding restrictions on the networks that supply Moscow’s armed forces.

Washington, meanwhile, is considering whether economic incentives could help persuade the Kremlin to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine.

The two approaches are not necessarily incompatible. Sanctions can be used both to constrain an adversary and as bargaining instruments in negotiations.

But they become considerably less effective when the governments imposing them disagree about the conditions under which they should be lifted.

For Europe, the problem extends beyond transatlantic diplomacy. After more than four years of war, Brussels has developed an extensive sanctions regime but still faces difficulties preventing restricted technologies from reaching Russia, limiting its energy revenues and enforcing measures against companies operating through third countries.

A change in American policy could expose those weaknesses more sharply.

Targeting the Machinery of War

On 12 October, the Council of the European Union imposed restrictions on 1,569 individuals and entities.

The measures targeted 826 companies and 743 executives associated with Russia’s defence industry.

Unlike earlier restrictions concentrated on prominent political figures and major financial institutions, the latest designations reach into the industrial supply chains supporting Russian weapons production.

According to the Council, the companies concerned employ more than 250,000 people and generate annual turnover of at least €20 billion.

Their activities include the production and supply of electronics, semiconductors, communications equipment, navigation systems, explosives and components used in missiles, drones and military aircraft.

More than half the listings concern supply chains associated with ballistic missile production.

The approach reflects an increasingly detailed understanding of how Russia sustains its military operations.

Modern weapons depend on complex manufacturing networks. A missile producer may be able to replace a sanctioned supplier, but obtaining specialised components through alternative channels can increase costs, delay production and complicate quality control.

Targeting those networks can therefore be more consequential than imposing restrictions on another senior official whose assets in Europe have already been frozen.

Nevertheless, the number of sanctioned entities is an imperfect measure of effectiveness.

A designation has limited practical value if the targeted company has no assets within European jurisdiction, does not require Western financing and can obtain equivalent components elsewhere.

The more useful questions concern production delays, procurement costs, component availability and the extent to which Russian manufacturers can replace restricted technology.

Sanctions Evasion Has Become an Industry

European restrictions have encouraged the development of increasingly elaborate procurement networks involving intermediaries, logistics companies and financial service providers.

On 15 October, the Council announced additional measures against companies and individuals involved in circumventing sanctions.

The cases illustrate the geographical complexity of enforcement.

Among those targeted were trading and logistics businesses associated with Türkiye, financial intermediaries operating in Russia and companies linked to oil transactions involving the United Arab Emirates, India and the Seychelles.

The EU also identified entities associated with Russia’s shadow fleet.

These networks exploit differences between national legal systems, commercial practices and the willingness of third-country authorities to cooperate with European restrictions.

Brussels can prohibit European companies from supplying particular goods. Preventing those products from being resold through several intermediaries is substantially more difficult.

Enforcement requires customs intelligence, banking supervision, corporate ownership information and cooperation with governments that may have little interest in restricting profitable trade with Russia.

The EU’s 21st sanctions package, adopted in July, extended restrictions to additional shadow-fleet vessels, financial institutions and cryptocurrency service providers.

Such measures increase the cost of evasion. They do not automatically eliminate the commercial incentives sustaining it.

Washington Holds Cards Brussels Cannot Replace

The Trump administration’s exploration of possible economic arrangements with Moscow introduces another complication.

American sanctions possess particular influence because of the dollar’s international role, the importance of US financial institutions and Washington’s capacity to restrict access to American markets.

European sanctions operate independently, but their effectiveness can be reinforced substantially by corresponding American measures.

If Washington relaxes restrictions on selected Russian institutions or commercial activities while Brussels maintains its prohibitions, companies could encounter two increasingly different regulatory environments.

European businesses would remain subject to EU law. American companies might gain access to transactions unavailable to their European competitors.

More importantly, Moscow could recover access to certain financial or commercial channels without obtaining equivalent relief from Brussels.

The scale of the consequences would depend on which restrictions Washington changed. Limited exemptions would not have the same effect as broader measures involving Russian banks, energy companies or international payments.

No comprehensive American sanctions rollback has been agreed.

Nevertheless, the prospect creates uncertainty for European policymakers.

As EU Today previously reported on the disagreement over sanctions relief, European leaders have resisted proposals to reduce economic pressure before Russia makes substantive concessions over Ukraine.

Their position is strategically coherent. Sanctions represent one of Europe’s principal instruments of leverage in negotiations.

But preserving that leverage requires more than refusing to lift existing restrictions.

It requires ensuring that those restrictions remain effective even if American priorities change.

Europe’s Unfinished Economic Strategy

The European Union has considerable economic weight. Its single market, regulatory powers and financial institutions provide instruments that Russia cannot simply disregard.

Yet Europe has often been more effective at adopting sanctions than at enforcing them consistently.

Implementation remains dispersed among national authorities with different resources, investigative capacities and political priorities.

Companies operating across multiple jurisdictions encounter uneven enforcement, while intermediaries outside the EU can exploit gaps in information-sharing.

Brussels has attempted to address these weaknesses through expanded reporting obligations, restrictions on third-country entities and closer coordination among national authorities.

The forthcoming 22nd package will provide another indication of whether the EU intends to deepen that approach.

Its precise contents have not yet been announced.

A credible European strategy would also require greater attention to the relationship between sanctions and defence production.

Restricting Russian access to components is valuable. Expanding Europe’s own capacity to manufacture ammunition, missiles and air-defence systems is equally important.

Economic pressure cannot substitute indefinitely for military capability, particularly when the country being sanctioned remains engaged in a prolonged war.

Europe also needs to consider the conditions under which sanctions might eventually be modified.

A negotiated settlement could require carefully defined economic incentives. But those incentives would need to be linked to verifiable Russian obligations and mechanisms for restoring restrictions if agreements were violated.

Otherwise, sanctions relief could become an irreversible concession in exchange for commitments that prove difficult to enforce.

The immediate challenge for Brussels is therefore not simply to produce another package.

It is to establish whether Europe can sustain an independent economic strategy towards Russia if Washington decides that its diplomatic objectives require a different approach.

The EU has accumulated considerable sanctions authority since 2022. The next test is whether it can turn that authority into durable strategic leverage without relying on American policy remaining unchanged.

The freezing of more than $2.38 billion in cryptocurrency following a suspected attack on Binance has exposed an uncomfortable contradiction at the heart of the digital currency revolution: supposedly decentralised money can still be controlled, immobilised and effectively confiscated by a handful of powerful private companies.

The cryptocurrency industry has spent years selling investors a vision of financial freedom. Digital currencies, we have been told, offer independence from traditional banks, government interference and the restrictions imposed by conventional financial institutions.

But the events surrounding the latest security crisis at Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, have exposed a rather different reality.

Following a suspected cyberattack on Binance, stablecoin issuers Tether and Circle moved to freeze more than $2.38 billion in digital assets associated with the incident. The intervention, reported by Reuters on October 29th, 2026, represents one of the most extraordinary demonstrations yet of the power concentrated within the cryptocurrency ecosystem. It also raises questions that extend far beyond the immediate financial losses.

According to Reuters, Tether froze approximately $1.57 billion in assets, while Circle immobilised more than $800 million. Cryptocurrency company Ripple also reportedly froze around $200 million.

Binance initially described the incident as a potential security issue, assuring customers that their funds remained safe. Its co-founder Changpeng Zhao, who no longer manages the company, subsequently suggested that the incident appeared to be a hack.

The scale of the intervention is remarkable. Within hours, companies responsible for issuing some of the world’s most widely used digital currencies had demonstrated that they could prevent substantial quantities of cryptocurrency from being transferred.

For investors who have regarded cryptocurrency as an escape from conventional financial controls, this is an uncomfortable development.

A $6.3 billion warning

Subsequent reporting has put the potential scale of the breach into even sharper perspective. Reuters reported that hackers stole approximately $6.3 billion from Binance, potentially making it the largest cryptocurrency theft on record.

According to blockchain intelligence companies TRM Labs and Chainalysis, the attackers targeted wallets across ten different blockchains and moved most of the funds within approximately 20 minutes. Both firms attributed the operation to North Korean hackers, although that attribution remains an assessment rather than an independently established judicial finding.

Binance said it had worked with industry partners to freeze approximately $3 billion in affected assets. The exchange also indicated that it would cover all hacking losses and that customer deposits had not been affected. Withdrawals were temporarily suspended while the investigation continued.

An initial investigation suggested that a compromised laptop belonging to an engineer might have provided the attackers with access to internal systems.

The financial markets reacted swiftly. Bitcoin fell by more than three per cent, while Ether and Binance’s BNB token also suffered significant declines. Shares in Coinbase, one of America’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, came under pressure.

The incident is particularly damaging because Binance is not some obscure trading platform operating on the fringes of the financial system. It has more than 335 million registered users worldwide. Its reputation and security arrangements are therefore central to confidence in the wider cryptocurrency market.

The decentralisation contradiction

There is an important distinction that investors should understand. Bitcoin itself cannot simply be frozen by a private company. It operates on a decentralised blockchain without a central issuer possessing the power to block individual transactions.

Stablecoins such as Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC are different. They are issued by identifiable companies, which retain certain administrative powers, including the ability to blacklist wallet addresses and prevent transfers.

Stablecoins have become an essential component of cryptocurrency trading because they offer a relatively stable value, usually pegged to the US dollar, without requiring investors to move continually between digital assets and conventional currencies.

Yet the Binance incident demonstrates that the companies issuing these tokens can exercise considerable control over assets held in their networks.

There is an obvious argument in favour of this intervention: freezing stolen money can prevent criminals from converting it into spendable assets and potentially help victims recover their losses.

But there is also a legitimate question about accountability. Who decides when an account should be frozen? What evidence is required? What safeguards exist against mistakes or abuse? And what happens when a legitimate investor finds their holdings immobilised without warning?

Financial freedom cannot mean that private companies exercise arbitrary powers without transparency or effective avenues of appeal.

Europe’s regulatory challenge

The events also arrive at a particularly sensitive moment for European cryptocurrency regulation.

The EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, better known as MiCA, was intended to establish a common framework for digital assets, improve consumer protection and provide greater certainty for businesses.

However, the rapid expansion of stablecoins and the growing involvement of large financial institutions have created new regulatory challenges.

The European Central Bank has been pressing for stronger oversight, including greater supervision of crypto companies and additional safeguards surrounding stablecoins. Meanwhile, ESMA has been seeking to ensure that trading platforms comply with MiCA’s requirements, including restrictions on unauthorised stablecoins.

For Brussels, the question is no longer simply whether cryptocurrency should be regulated. It is whether existing regulatory arrangements are sufficiently robust to deal with an international industry in which billions of dollars can disappear within minutes.

There is also a geopolitical dimension. The attribution of the Binance attack to North Korean-linked hackers reinforces concerns that cryptocurrency theft has become an important source of illicit revenue for hostile states and organised criminal networks. Governments cannot afford to regard these incidents as merely private commercial disputes.

Trust is the real currency

The cryptocurrency industry has repeatedly argued that its technology represents the future of finance. There is undoubtedly considerable potential in blockchain technology, digital payments and tokenised assets.

But technological innovation does not automatically create financial security. Indeed, the Binance incident illustrates how vulnerable even the largest platforms can be, while demonstrating that the supposed independence of digital money is sometimes more complicated than its advocates suggest.

Tether and Circle deserve credit for acting quickly to immobilise funds suspected of being stolen. Their intervention may ultimately prove essential in limiting the damage.

Nevertheless, the industry must confront the uncomfortable implications of what has happened. If cryptocurrency companies can freeze billions of dollars at the touch of a button, they must also accept corresponding responsibilities for transparency, accountability and due process.

Investors should not have to choose between the promise of financial independence and the basic protections expected of any modern financial system.

The technology may be revolutionary. But trust, once lost, remains exceptionally difficult to restore, and in the cryptocurrency business, trust is ultimately the most valuable asset of all.

The Crypto Mirage: What the Collapse of Key Coin Assets Says About Investment Fraud

Ian Choudri, chief executive for California's High-Speed Rail Authority, resigned on Thursday after investigators questioned spending.

The post California High-Speed Rail Chief Executive Resigns After State Investigators Question Spending appeared first on Breitbart.

Google shares fell 12 percent in morning trading after the company reported its first combined revenue and profit miss in nearly four years, driven in part by a sharp swing into negative free cash flow. The drop, which is the largest in Google's history, wipes out about $500 billion in shareholder value.

The post Google Stock Craters 12% on Disappointing Earnings, Wiping Out $500 Billion in Shareholder Value appeared first on Breitbart.