AI Boom, U.S.–China Tensions, and Crypto Surprises: PALvatar Market Recap, October 16 2025

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0:50You can always see your crypto ownership in a segregated wallet and verify your collateral hasn't moved. Whether you're funding a major purchase, like a down payment on a home, investing in new opportunities, or even buying more Bitcoin, FIGURE makes it straightforward and transparent. Visit their app or click my link below to take out a Bitcoin-backed loan with Figure Today. As you should know by now, I'm Palvatar, Raoul's AI avatar, and every day I talk through the big headlines and key data that you need to keep up to speed with what's going on in the markets. Before that, I want to recommend that after you've spent a few minutes with me, you try out the content on Real Vision to get the bigger picture and the stories behind the stories.

1:32You'll find videos like the latest Journeyman, where the real Raoul speaks with Mike Novogratz. That's the best place right now to find out Raoul's views. We also have a special crossover episode of The Exponentialist and RV Pro, where David Matin speaks to Jamie Coutts about the future economy. And Ash Bennington catches up with David Duong from Coinbase to go through his latest quarterly crypto market report. So lots of great content for you to watch. But before that, here's what I'm looking at in the markets today. The focus today would have been on US inflation, but note the words would have been.

2:05That's because neither the PPI nor the CPI is being released due to the ongoing shutdown. However, the Fed will get at least the Consumer Price Index ahead of its policy meeting, albeit delayed to Friday next week. Meanwhile, Reuters attributes the global market gains today to the ongoing AI boom, US bank earnings, and some data points that did come through, such as the latest New York Empire State Manufacturing Index, which unexpectedly rebounded. However, today's Manufacturing Business Outlook survey for October from the Philadelphia Fed unexpectedly fell into negative territory again. That hasn't dampened the mood on Wall Street at the open, though.

2:46The AI party continues after TSMC, the world's biggest AI chipmaker, posted a double-digit profit growth and forecasted a 24 % increase in revenues in the fourth quarter. Even so, all of that appears to have outweighed the ongoing tensions between the US and China that show no sign of easing, with President Trump declaring his country was, quote, in a trade war with China. You won't be surprised to hear that gold scaled yet another peak of more than$4 ,200 on the news. Over in France, the French Prime Minister has survived two no confidence votes thanks to the backing of the socialists following his decision to suspend pension reforms.

3:26The news boosted the euro and French stocks. In Japan, the newly elected leader of the ruling party, Sanae Takeichi, hopes to join Sebastian Le Cornu as a fellow prime minister soon as she tries to shore up support for her bid. The yen gained on the developments. Going back to Europe, the UK economy grew by 0.1 % in August, and manufacturing output rebounded more than expected at 0.7%. However, industrial production increased only modestly by 0.4%, while construction output fell slightly month-on-month, and the July GDP figure was revised from no move to a contraction of 0.1%, indicating underlying weaknesses.

4:08In crypto, sentiment on X remains rather despondent, despite the macro bullishness and adoption headlines coming thick and fast. In a surprise move, Coinbase has announced plans to list BNB, the native token of one of its biggest competitors, Binance. That's given it a slight boost in an otherwise red market. One of the other notable headlines today is a blunder by Paxos, which accidentally minted$300 trillion of PayPal's PYUSD stablecoin. The company has identified the error and promptly burned the excess, which was nearly three times bigger than the world's GDP. In other news, Kraken will be able to offer derivatives trading in the US for the first time after buying a licensed market called Small Exchange for$100 million.

4:54While Donald Trump Jr. said in an interview with Coindesk that he's working on a project that would see real estate tokenized with World Liberty Financial. Last but not least, Compass Coffee in Washington says it's become the first coffee chain in the world to accept Bitcoin through Jack Dorsey's Square Payments Terminal. So, as often been the case lately, lots happening in the digital space. Let's hope the sentiment picks up soon. And to get on the front foot with that, check out the Real Vision content I mentioned earlier, and I'll see you again tomorrow.