Morning Scan

The AI trade is getting its first stress test: the people who built the bets are now shopping for insurance, and OpenAI's mega-round is shrinking. Crypto is working through the aftermath of a $6.3B hack, and the physical world keeps intruding on the digital one, from pipelines to tankers to landlines.

Machines & Minds

AI investors are racing to get insurance on the biggest market bet in history (paywall)

The cost of hedging against defaults at Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta, and Oracle is the highest since 2021. Someone is buying a smoke detector. (WSJ)

OpenAI now seeks ~$20B at a $1.25T valuation, down from $30B at $1.4T (paywall)

Some investors trimmed commitments amid the AI selloff. The haircut is real, though $1.25T is still far from a clearance sale. (Financial Times)

OpenAI has secured ~$11B in commitments, less than half its initial target (paywall)

The company expects to raise more in the coming weeks, but "less than half" is not the headline anyone drafted in September. (WSJ)

Sam Altman says supply-constrained DRAM is better used in data centers than in PCs "being used 5% of the time"

The CEO of a company selling compute thinks your RAM should be working for his company instead. (Tom's Hardware)

Crypto's Very Bad Weekend

FBI blames North Korea for $6B Binance crypto hack (paywall)

TraderTraitor, the same unit behind the $1.5B Bybit heist in 2025, has now beaten its own record by roughly 4x. (Bloomberg)

Binance resumes withdrawals in phases after covering 95% of stolen funds

BTC and ETH are back first, the "please don't panic" tier of the reopening. (Reuters)

Binance sees $3.64B in net outflows after reopening withdrawals (paywall)

That's 2.1% of assets in 9.5 hours. The exchange survived the run, but the customers who left aren't coming back on a press release. (The Block)

Connected World

Guidewire to acquire AI underwriting firm Hyperexponential for $1.7B+ in cash

Even in a jittery AI market, AI for boring industries with real customers still commands a real check. (Reuters)

How a little-known company dominated the Persian Gulf oil trade (paywall)

South Korea's Sinokor controls about half of tanker transits through the Strait of Hormuz, thanks to a big bet placed just before the war began. (NYT)

Russia forced to ship grain via Arctic as Black Sea battles rage (paywall)

Exporting from ports thousands of miles away drives up costs for overseas buyers, so someone's bread is about to get geopolitical. (Financial Times)

Connected World

Google's AI satellite sends a very expensive haiku to Earth

The first experimental orbital AI datacenter's inaugural transmission is a poem, either a milestone or the priciest greeting card ever mailed. (The Register)