Afternoon Alexa Flash Briefings of October 30 2026

Binance is dealing with what could be the largest cryptocurrency hack in history, reporting an estimated $6.3 billion in impacted client assets. The exchange says approximately $3 billion has been frozen on-chain, including more than $800 million in USDC frozen by Circle, and over $1.5 billion in USDT frozen by Tether. Bitcoin fell below $80,000 as the breach rattled crypto markets. Binance says it will cover all losses using its Emergency User Protection Fund and company resources, while temporarily suspending withdrawals as it strengthens security. The exchange says customer funds are safe and is working with law enforcement and blockchain investigators to recover the assets. Microsoft has priced a $25 billion debt offering as the technology giant continues investing heavily in artificial intelligence and cloud infrastructure. The offering includes bonds with maturities ranging from 2028 all the way to 2066. Microsoft says proceeds will go toward general corporate purposes, potentially including capital expenditures, acquisitions, stock buybacks, and repayment of existing debt. The massive offering comes as big tech companies face growing pressure to finance the enormous costs of building AI infrastructure. President Trump's push to replace the term artificial intelligence with superintelligence is finding support among some of his biggest technology allies. Elon Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg used the terminology on their company's recent earnings calls, with Musk referring to advanced AI as SI, and Zuckerberg describing Meta's goal of delivering personal superintelligence. But other major tech executives, including the leaders of Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet, The divide shows Trump's preferred language is gaining traction in some corners of the industry, but has not yet been universally embraced by corporate America. Alphabet suffered its worst trading day since going public with shares plunging 12.6% on Thursday and wiping out approximately $482 billion in market value. The sell-off followed slower than expected Google search growth, which rose 12% in the third quarter to $63.35 billion, below analysts' expectations. Bank of America now values Google's search business at roughly 10 times earnings, below the 13 times multiple assigned to the energy sector. Meanwhile, Google Cloud revenue has more than doubled, but Alphabet's $51.4 billion in quarterly capital expenditures and negative $9.1 billion in free cash flow are raising questions about whether its massive AI investment will pay off.