• 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?

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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.

On Thursday’s broadcast of MS NOW’s “Morning Joe,” New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill (D) responded to a question on whether Democrats winning Congress will make things in New Jersey more affordable, given that people leave the state due to its high

The post Sherrill on High Costs Causing People to Leave NJ: Every Step I Take, Federal Government Takes Ten Back appeared first on Breitbart.

On Thursday’s broadcast of “CNN News Central,” Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-VA) reacted to the GDP report by saying that investment in AI and data centers is boosting GDP, “The question is, are hard-working families seeing the benefits of that? And

The post Dem Rep. Walkinshaw: AI, Data Center Investment Boosting GDP, But Families Aren’t Benefiting appeared first on Breitbart.

America is experiencing one of the greatest technological investment booms in our history. Yet an enormous amount of the equipment we're using to support our Super Intelligence boom is coming from countries that spent the last several decades building the manufacturing industries we allowed, and often encouraged, to slip away.

The post Breibart Business Digest: The AI Boom Is Exposing the Cost of America’s Lost Semiconductor Industry appeared first on Breitbart.

Migration helps grow New York's Democrat government, Governor Kathy Hochul told Politico.com.

The post Governor Hochul: Migration Grows New York’s State Government appeared first on Breitbart.