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The post answers rumors from the previous few days that Qwen4 would be the last open-weight Qwen series and that later models would be available only through an API. It shares an image of a statement it attributes to Qwen head Liu Dayiheng, saying future Qwen 4.0 and Qwen 5.0 models will continue to be open source, that AI's value should not belong to only a few people, and that the series has passed 3 billion downloads, 460 open-source models and 300,000 derivative models. We could not find a separate report of the Qwen 4/5 wording; 36Kr reported very similar remarks, and the same figures, from Liu's first appearance as Qwen's leader at Alibaba's conference in Hangzhou on September 22.

It was the top thread of our sweep relative to community size: about 4,800 upvotes and 500 comments in a 329,000-member community. The most-upvoted replies celebrate the pledge; others praise how capable Qwen's models are for their size. Skeptics point out that a company's 'forever' promise lasts only as long as its current management and business conditions, and a few add that it holds only as long as China's government allows it.

The threads link a TRM Labs report on the theft of about $6.36 billion from Binance wallets on ten blockchains, most of it in roughly 20 minutes starting at 20:05 UTC on October 29. TRM calls it the largest crypto theft on record, about four times the $1.5 billion Bybit hack of 2025, and attributes it with high confidence to TraderTraitor, which it describes as North Korea's premier hacking unit. TRM says the attacker likely gained the ability to make Binance's hot-wallet signing system sign arbitrary transactions; on Ethereum it used pre-signed EIP-7702 authorizations to take over a wallet. Binance had not published a root cause. As of TRM's snapshot, about $2.7 billion had been frozen, led by Tether and Circle.

About 34,000 upvotes in r/technology and 1,200 in r/cybersecurity. Top replies point out that an industry built on avoiding regulation ends up wanting governments to step in, question keeping crypto on an exchange at all, and ask who actually bears the loss.

The Register reports that Revolut says it cut its AI coding inference costs by roughly 90 percent in under a year by making self-hosted models its default rather than relying mainly on commercial services such as Claude. Speaking at the AI Engineer conference in New York, ops and infrastructure lead David Abitbol said the fintech rolled AI coding tools out to about 2,000 engineers, adopted Z.ai's open-weights GLM-5.1 and now serves GLM-5.3 on 56 Nvidia B200 GPUs. Self-hosting cost about $0.30 per million tokens, roughly a tenth of Codex or Claude Code, and he said cheap tokens let engineers hand the AI debugging and ticket work, which is where the biggest gains came from. He also called very long context windows "a scam" in practice.

About 1,900 upvotes and 340 comments in a 329,000-member community. The top reply says this is why running models locally is not a waste of time; another argues that self-hosting means a company knows exactly which model it is running, while a cloud provider can change it without notice. One commenter who says they know people at Revolut describes its engineering culture as cautious.

The thread links a Business Insider article reporting that Texas voters chose Democrats James Talarico for the Senate and Gina Hinojosa for governor, despite heavy Republican spending backed by Elon Musk. It says no Democrat had won statewide in Texas since Ann Richards in 1990, and that Talarico is the first Democrat to win a Texas Senate race since Lloyd Bentsen in 1988. The article collects reactions from tech figures who moved to the state: investor Jason Calacanis wrote on X that he never expected Texas to turn blue; his All-In co-host Chamath Palihapitiya said on a livestream that the way to sink the AI trade runs through West Texas power for data centers; Hello Patient CEO Alex Cohen posted "RIP AI it was fun while it lasted." LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman, a Democratic donor, called the results "an overwhelming wave against Trump and his cronies."

About 54,000 upvotes and 3,000 comments in an 18-million-member community. Most top replies focus on Musk and are sharply critical of him; one argues Texas would have stayed red had he kept out of politics, and a self-described IT director says he is puzzled that tech work is so often linked with the political right.

The thread was posted on a CNBC live blog that, overnight, reported Dow futures jumping after the midterms. By the close on Wednesday, November 4, CNBC reports, the Dow rose 1,569.40 points, or 3.03%, to 53,356.12, with the S&P 500 up 1.58% and the Nasdaq up 1.44%. CNBC says Democrats won majorities in the House and Senate, removing political uncertainty; U.S. crude fell more than 8% after Vice President JD Vance blamed the Iran war for Republican losses; and Trump told The New York Times he was "absolutely willing" to accept the results. Jay Woods of Freedom Capital Markets said "there will be gridlock and historically this is good for the market." Tesla fell in early trading.

About 9,000 upvotes in a 5.2-million-member community. The top reply warns against both blaming and crediting a party for a single day's market move; others agree with the gridlock argument, and several point to declines in Tesla and other companies whose leaders were close to the administration.

NBC News projects that Democrat Annie Andrews, a pediatrician, defeated Republican Sen. Darline Graham in South Carolina, making Andrews the state's first Democratic senator in more than 20 years. Gov. Henry McMaster appointed Graham in July after her brother, five-term Sen. Lindsey Graham, died suddenly; she then won the GOP nomination for a full term. NBC reports that Trump carried the state by more than 17 points two years ago, that Andrews raised more than $4 million in the final pre-election period against about $90,000 for Graham, and that the GOP-aligned Senate Leadership Fund spent $13 million backing Graham. In debates, Andrews called Graham a "rubber stamp" for Trump's agenda, and Graham accused Andrews of having "flip-flopped on everything."

About 52,000 upvotes and 3,900 comments in a 29-million-member community. The top reply criticizes the choice to run the late senator's sister; others call it one of the biggest upsets they can remember, including a commenter who says they have voted Democratic in South Carolina for 25 years.

FOX 2 Detroit (via FOX 11) reports that Democrat Abdul El-Sayed beat Republican Mike Rogers in Michigan's U.S. Senate race, for the seat left open by retiring Democrat Gary Peters, after a campaign it describes as bitter, with personal insults on both sides. El-Sayed declared victory after 1:30 a.m., leading 52% to 46%, and the Associated Press called the race at 2:27 a.m. FOX 2 describes him as the first Muslim to win the seat. A Newsweek piece from election day, linked in the r/Music thread, reports that Springsteen endorsed El-Sayed on Instagram while Minaj appeared with President Trump at an October 25 rally and led chants for Rogers and gubernatorial candidate John James.

The r/news thread drew about 67,000 upvotes and r/Music's about 82,000, whose title says all the candidates Minaj endorsed lost by landslides (the linked article predates the results). r/news commenters call it a big win for the party's progressive wing and praise his victory speech. In r/Music, most replies are criticism of Minaj; others note that a celebrity endorsement carries little weight with voters.

For purchases on or after Nov. 1, international visitors in Japan no longer skip the consumption tax (8% on food and non-alcoholic drinks, 10% on most other goods) at tax-free shops. They pay the full price and claim a refund after a customs check when they leave, Nippon.com reports. The split between general and consumable goods ends, along with the daily cap on consumables and the sealed anti-tamper bags; items must be bought within 90 days of departure and carried out personally.

Time Out Tokyo says the minimum spend stays ¥5,000 before tax per store per day. At the airport, travellers scan their passport at a tax-free kiosk before checking bags (or use Visit Japan Web), and customs may inspect goods. Refunds are per receipt, so eating one tax-free snack can void a whole bill; refunds go to a card, an app or, for cash buyers, a bank transfer. Nippon.com notes suspected resale of tax-free goods inside Japan, and a 2025 ruling-party proposal to scrap the exemption.

Instead of paying cash and mixing snacks with gifts on one receipt, pay by card and keep consumables on a separate bill, unopened, until you fly.