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Bitcoin rose above $70,000 on 8 February, climbing 1.14% intraday, according to a NetEase user-posted market alert. The milestone underscores continuing investor interest and market volatility, with implications for traders, asset managers and regulators monitoring crypto's systemic risks and adoption dynamics.
China’s Li Auto and Xpeng are reorganising to build ‘car robots’ by fusing smart cockpits and autonomous driving onto a shared AI platform. Technical, safety and organisational barriers mean the transition will be incremental: common base models and compute may be shared, but driving functions will require strict isolation and staged deployment in low-risk scenarios.
Hangzhou’s Market Scene Innovation Center, founded in July 2025 and backed by municipal investment and data groups, is accelerating deployment of AI applications by providing real‑world municipal scenarios, financing and data access. The initiative aims to turn early‑stage AI ideas into scalable products while competing with cities such as Hefei and Shenzhen for national recognition and support.
A leaked draft published by Israeli sources shows U.S. negotiating demands on Iran include a reduction of Iranian oil exports to China, turning a nuclear and regional-security dialogue into a broader U.S.–China contest. Tehran is unlikely to accept terms that undermine its deterrent capabilities and economic lifelines, and the clause risks pushing Iran closer to Russia and deepening great‑power geopolitical rivalry.
A Rocket Force unit conducted a night-time, long-range mobility exercise in sub-zero conditions to rehearse concealment, field repairs and protection against aerial and chemical threats. The drills emphasise winter-specific equipment degradation, the value of pre-surveyed routes and the institutional focus on reducing human and procedural friction under stress.
A viral post showcasing a Chinese military cook squad reflects a broader PLA effort to professionalise logistics and improve public outreach. While modest in subject, the footage highlights how personnel welfare and supply-chain competence are being emphasised as part of China’s wider military modernisation.
A U.S. presidential special envoy, the CENTCOM commander (named in Chinese reports as Brad Cooper), and Jared Kushner visited the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln on February 7, meeting crew who had been involved in shooting down an Iranian drone. The encounter—an F‑35C shot down an unmanned Iranian aircraft near the carrier—illustrates rising maritime tensions, the deployment of advanced carrier airpower against drones, and the political signaling inherent in senior visitors joining forward naval forces.
A PLA Navy unit called "Daigu Company," descended from an Eighth Route Army company famed for resisting Japanese forces in 1943, is marrying revolutionary heritage with hands‑on tactical innovation. The unit has institutionalized political education alongside iterative development of air‑assault and littoral tactics, gaining recognition and seeing its methods promoted within the service.
The Pentagon released video showing a delegation including a former president’s special envoy and his son‑in‑law aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Arabian Sea. The visit highlights tensions between public diplomacy, operational security, and the risk of politicizing military assets in a contested maritime theatre.
A data-entry error at South Korean exchange Bithumb mistakenly credited 620,000 BTC to prize winners, prompting immediate sell orders that caused a 17% intraday price drop. The exchange says it recovered 99.7% of the coins and will compensate customers harmed by the forced selling, while regulators have opened reviews of exchanges’ internal controls.
Tencent updated its Yuanbao app on February 7 to allow sharing red‑packet links into Yuanbao Pai and restored WeChat’s ability to copy Yuanbao red‑packet passcodes after a brief period when such codes were non‑copyable. The move reverses a constraint introduced on February 6 that had curbed how third‑party services distribute viral red‑packet promotions through WeChat.
Reports that a South Korean exchange accidentally airdropped 620,000 units labeled as bitcoin sparked alarm amid a wider crypto market slump. Given the implausible scale, analysts suspect a technical or token‑mapping error; the episode nonetheless underscores operational, regulatory and information risks for centralized crypto platforms.
President Xi Jinping attended a New Year cultural performance for Beijing garrison veterans at the China Theatre, using the occasion to reinforce ideological loyalty and celebrate the PLA’s continuity from the Red Army to today. The gala combined revolutionary repertoire with themes of training and readiness, signalling domestic consolidation of party control over the military as China pursues force modernisation.
A data‑entry error at South Korean crypto exchange Bithumb led to hundreds of user accounts being mistakenly credited with very large bitcoin balances, triggering a brief 17% price plunge on the platform. Bithumb said it recovered 99.7% of the coins, will compensate affected customers, and now faces regulatory reviews that could strengthen oversight of exchanges worldwide.
The Washington Post's CEO and publisher Will Lewis left the paper immediately on February 7, with CFO Jeff D’Onofrio installed as interim publisher and CEO after the paper announced cuts of roughly one‑third of staff. The layoffs — affecting hundreds of journalists across nearly every beat — reflect wider financial pressures on legacy news organizations and could materially reduce the Post’s reporting capacity on international and specialized coverage.
WeChat has blocked in‑chat links from Tencent’s AI app Yuanbao for using share mechanics that the platform said induced excessive forwarding and harmed user experience, forcing Yuanbao to change its sharing approach. The enforcement, which also affected Baidu and Alibaba apps, underscores how platform governance and ecosystem fit now matter as much as model performance or marketing spend in China’s heated AI ‘red‑envelope’ competition.
AI‑generated Lunar New Year greeting videos are proliferating on Chinese social media without the consent of depicted individuals. While major platforms are adding watermarks, contractual bans and automated detection, many open‑source tools lack safeguards, creating civil, reputational and criminal risks and exposing broader governance gaps around synthetic media.
The EU has characterised TikTok’s product features as exhibiting ‘addictive’ design, prompting a swift rebuttal from the app and signaling escalated regulatory pressure in Brussels. The move could force design, algorithmic and safety changes with broad implications for TikTok’s revenues and for global tech regulation.
WeChat briefly allowed users to copy AI app red‑envelope codes on Feb. 7, reigniting viral sharing of digital coupons after Tencent had blocked direct links. Alibaba‑backed Qianwen’s 1‑cent milk‑tea promotion sparked intense demand and a small secondary market selling redemptions, prompting the company to warn that its virtual benefits are non‑transferable and may be revoked if resold.
The European Commission has preliminarily concluded that TikTok’s design features, including autoplay, recommendation systems and a gamified rewards scheme in TikTok Lite, foster addictive behaviour and violate the Digital Services Act. Brussels has proposed design remedies and warned of fines up to 6% of global turnover; TikTok rejects the findings and plans to challenge them. The dispute forms part of a broader global push to curb minors’ exposure to social platforms and tests the EU’s power to regulate product design.
