News linked to both this project and an event.
Odaily News: Cryptocurrency platform Bybit announced that its local subsidiary, Bybit Payments GmbH, has been granted an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) license by the Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA), enabling it to offer regulated e-money and payment services across Europe via Bybit.eu. Bybit EU GmbH has been authorized as a crypto asset service provider under the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCAR) since May 2025. Bybit stated that Bybit Payments will handle fiat and e-money operations, while Bybit EU GmbH will manage digital asset operations. Bybit Payments plans to roll out peer-to-peer transfers, open banking features, merchant solutions, card programs, and strong customer authentication tools under the EMI framework. A company representative noted that the license will support direct partnerships with European financial institutions and payment processors.
According to CoinDesk, the 30-day implied volatility index BVIV, which measures expected volatility in the Bitcoin options market, has continued to decline, now falling to 36%, the lowest level since May 31, significantly down from the high near 60% in early June. Recent influencing factors include the Coldcard wallet attack incident involving tens of millions of dollars, weak institutional demand, and uncertainty in the regulatory and macroeconomic environment, but there are no obvious signs of panic in the market. However, volatility has mean-reverting characteristics. When the indicator falls to historical lows, a rebound often follows. Currently, BVIV has approached levels that have previously formed support multiple times. If volatility rebounds quickly in the future, it may be accompanied by a significant directional move in Bitcoin; whether up or down, traders need to remain vigilant.
Bloomberg columnist Shuli Ren wrote on Tuesday that the South Korean stock market recently plummeted nearly 40% within 27 trading days at one point, triggering a market reassessment of its investment value. Although Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix still benefit from artificial intelligence chip demand and the KOSPI valuation remains at a low level, market focus has shifted from corporate fundamentals to trading mechanisms, regulatory capabilities, and policy credibility.
Odaily News The market expects SK Hynix to announce a more detailed shareholder return plan as early as the evening of August 4, Korea Standard Time, including measures such as dividends, share buybacks, and cancellations. Analysts believe the company's previous failure to disclose related plans may be linked to U.S. SEC information disclosure restrictions following its ADR listing on July 10, and the plan is expected to be officially announced after the approximately 25-day quiet period ends. Market participants stated that a clear shareholder return policy would help boost investor confidence and drive further valuation re-rating of the company. (The Korea Economic Daily)
Odaily News, July saw the U.S. manufacturing PMI rise to 55.6, the highest since 2022, with both production and employment recovering. However, strong demand and geopolitical inflation concerns have roiled the bond market, with Bank of America warning that the Federal Reserve is facing a credibility test. The hot manufacturing performance, coupled with geopolitical inflation threats, has sent U.S. Treasury markets into sharp turbulence. Long-dated Treasuries have recently faced heavy selling, with yields briefly surging to near two-decade highs.Mark Cabana, Head of U.S. Rates Strategy at Bank of America, commented on this, calling the bond market's violent swings a "textbook inflation credibility shock."Cabana noted that the core driver of the market turmoil is not the data itself, but the Fed's lack of policy communication. He specifically pointed to Fed Chair Kevin Warsh's performance at a recent press conference, arguing that Warsh failed to clearly articulate how the Fed would achieve its 2% inflation target."Standing firm on the inflation target is one thing, but if you don't tell the market the specific path, investors won't buy it," Cabana said bluntly in a Bloomberg TV interview. "The bond market cannot be fooled; it sees through all appearances." (Jin10)
: Asset management giant BlackRock has announced the launch of two tokenized money market products: the BlackRock Select Treasury Based Liquidity Fund (BSTBL) and the BlackRock Daily Reinvestment Stablecoin Reserve Vehicle (BRSRV). BSTBL will offer Ethereum-based tokenized shares of an existing money market fund. These on-chain shares can be transferred between approved wallets, subject to regulatory compliance. BNY Mellon will serve as the transfer agent and tokenization service provider for BSTBL. BRSRV, meanwhile, is a new tokenized money market fund designed for digital-native institutional investors, supporting daily dividend reinvestment and multi-blockchain access, and can be used for a variety of digital asset applications, including stablecoin reserve management. Securitize will serve as the transfer agent and tokenization service provider for this fund.
According to QCP Group, the US Treasury, via the New York Fed, jointly purchased yen with the Japanese Ministry of Finance last Friday, marking the first US-Japan joint foreign exchange intervention action specifically to support the yen since 1998. Meanwhile, the US 30-year Treasury yield briefly rose to about 5.27%, hitting a new high since 2007, before falling back to 5.24%. QCP pointed out that the transmission path of this intervention to the crypto market mainly unfolds through yen carry trades—rapid yen appreciation may force investors holding yen funding positions to deleverage and buy back yen, subsequently affecting risk assets including BTC and ETH, reenacting the market volatility triggered by carry trade unwinding in August 2024. QCP reminded that current macro monitoring indicators should take the USD/JPY exchange rate, Japan funding costs, and US long-end Treasury yields into consideration; fiscal policy operations are increasingly becoming an important variable affecting the direction of global liquidity.
Odaily News: With the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence technology, retail investing is gradually moving toward automation. A growing number of investors have begun using OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude for stock research, building personalized trading systems, automatically monitoring investment portfolios, rebalancing assets, executing tax-loss harvesting strategies, and implementing trading plans based on investment goals.Analysts note that AI-driven automated investment tools are steadily approaching mainstream adoption, though large-scale proliferation still faces challenges. Market attention is focused on the potential impact on brokerage business models, as well as the risks associated with enabling software to understand personal financial goals and autonomously execute investment decisions. Industry insiders believe AI could become critical infrastructure for retail investing, but ensuring algorithmic decision-making transparency and alignment with users' risk preferences remains a challenge that regulators and the industry must address. (CNBC)
Odaily News - South Korea's financial regulatory authorities are pushing forward with amendments to the Capital Markets Act, planning to grant regulators "emergency intervention powers" to directly implement market stabilization measures during periods of severe stock market volatility. The Financial Services Commission (FSC) has initiated related legislative revisions together with the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), focusing on single-stock leveraged ETF products that are believed to have amplified volatility during the recent market plunge. Proposed measures include adjusting leverage multiples and setting investment caps.Currently, certain single-stock leveraged ETFs in the Korean market employ leverage of up to 2x. Regulators are discussing whether to allow temporary reductions in leverage multiples during abnormal market fluctuations to mitigate risks arising from concentrated fund trading. This approach draws on recent regulatory measures in Hong Kong. The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) of Hong Kong has previously permitted institutions that meet asset management capability, risk control standards, and disclosure requirements to adjust the multiples of listed leveraged and inverse products, providing room for dynamic market oversight.Korean regulators believe that under the current system, matters involving changes to return structures may require approval from fund holder meetings, making it difficult to meet the need for rapid response in extreme market environments. Therefore, they plan to establish an emergency regulatory mechanism that can be activated without complex procedures. Additionally, Korean financial regulators are considering: setting individual investment limits on single-stock leveraged ETFs, capping investment limits uniformly at approximately 20% to prevent excessive capital concentration, and introducing a simulation-based trading system to enhance investors' understanding of risks associated with leveraged products.Korean regulators stated that raising the basic margin requirement primarily raises the investment threshold, while investment limits function as a "cap" on capital inflows. Together, the two measures will form a complementary risk control system.Previously, starting July 31, South Korea raised the minimum margin requirement for investors in single-stock leveraged ETFs from 10 million Korean won to 30 million Korean won. Data shows that on the first day of the new rule's implementation, the trading volume of 16 related leveraged ETFs stood at approximately 3 trillion Korean won, only about one-fourth of the 12.4 trillion Korean won recorded the previous trading day and down roughly 80% from the 15 trillion Korean won level on July 29. (NATE)
Analyst Murphy stated that Bitcoin's current chip concentration is similar to that before the 2022 FTX collapse, and a highly concentrated chip structure could amplify price volatility. Jiang Zhuoer believes that if the CLARITY Act fails to pass before Congress adjourns, Bitcoin may witness the final drop of the bear market.
According to Korean media Daum, volatility in the South Korean stock market has recently intensified, investor risk appetite has clearly cooled, and funds are flowing back from the stock market to safe-haven assets such as banks. Due to adjustments in the semiconductor sector and stricter regulation on leveraged investment, idle funds in the South Korean stock market are withdrawing rapidly, and the market is exhibiting a phenomenon of "reverse capital migration". Data shows that as of the end of July, the time deposit balance at South Korea's five major banks (KB Kookmin, Shinhan, Hana, Woori, NH Nonghyup) reached 973.49 trillion won, an increase of 24.09 trillion won from the end of the previous month, marking the largest single-month increase this year. Funds related to the stock market also showed significant contraction. According to data from the Korea Financial Investment Association, investor securities account deposits (idle funds for stock trading) reached a historical high of 139.69 trillion won on June 4, but as of July 28, had fallen to 107.20 trillion won, a decrease of over 32 trillion won in less than two months. The balance of credit transaction financing, representing the scale of market margin trading, fell to 33.19 trillion won during the same period, a decrease of about 4.5 trillion won from the peak of 37.72 trillion won set on July 2, a decline of approximately 12%.
Odaily News: Former US Congressman George Santos has reached a settlement with the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The CFTC stated that Santos engaged in manipulative trading behavior while trading a prediction contract on Kalshi regarding whether he would attend the State of the Union address in February 2026, profiting over $17,500 from the trades.According to the CFTC's Friday announcement, Santos is required to pay $35,000 as part of the settlement, but neither admitted nor denied the regulator's findings.The CFTC stated that in the two weeks leading up to the State of the Union address, Santos repeatedly made public comments about whether he would attend the event, causing significant fluctuations in the price of the event contract. For example, while holding a "Yes" position indicating he would attend, he posted on X asking what he should wear to the State of the Union. Within hours, the price of the Yes position rose, after which Santos closed his position for a profit.The CFTC also alleged that Santos subsequently continued to post updates about his travel to Washington, D.C., including flights and train rides, and profited by trading back and forth based on market reactions to his public statements. The CFTC stated that Santos's conduct was intentional, or at least reckless. He traded in an event contract whose underlying outcome he could influence, and affected the contract price through misleading public statements or omissions of information, thereby profiting from his trading positions.Santos's attorney, Joseph W. Murray, stated in Friday's announcement that the State of the Union contract was Santos's first foray into prediction market betting.
Odaily News: Tom Lee posted on the X platform, stating that given the "panic" among policymakers, the South Korean stock market may be in the final stage of bottoming out. Tom Lee also cited Appaloosa fund manager David Tepper, who said: "When policymakers start to panic, the market stops panicking."
HTX DeepThink columnist and HTX Research analyst Chloe (@ChloeTalk1) pointed out in her analysis that global risk assets continued to come under pressure this week. Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh attempted to weaken forward guidance (Forward Guidance) for the first time, hoping to make market prices a more direct economic feedback mechanism. However, the market did not interpret the rise in long-term interest rates as a natural tightening of financial conditions, but instead interpreted it as inflation risks resurfacing and a decline in Federal Reserve policy credibility. The 30-year US Treasury yield rose to 5.2%, the US dollar weakened, and US stocks retreated, reflecting that investors are beginning to demand higher risk premiums rather than betting on an improvement in economic fundamentals.
According to The Block, the JPMorgan analyst team (led by Managing Director Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou) released a report on July 30 stating that the probability of the "Clarity Act" (Crypto Market Structure Act) passing in the US Senate within the year has dropped to a historic low. The Kalshi prediction market shows a passing probability of only 37%, while Polymarket is even lower at 26%. Analysts pointed out that disagreements on core issues such as ethical provisions, enforcement standards, stablecoin yields, decentralized finance, and illicit finance remain unresolved. Voting is expected to be difficult to complete before the Senate summer recess, and may be postponed until after senators return in mid-September.
analysts at JPMorgan stated that the probability of the U.S. crypto market structure bill, the Clarity Act, passing the Senate by the end of this year has decreased, posing a headwind for the cryptocurrency market. Analysts pointed out that prediction markets show the likelihood of the bill passing this year has dropped to its lowest point of the year, with Kalshi at 37% and Polymarket at 26%.JPMorgan noted that the Senate prioritized other legislative matters before the summer recess. Additionally, unresolved issues such as ethical clauses, enforcement authority, stablecoin yields, DeFi, and illicit finance have made the bill's advancement prospects more uncertain. The bank had previously viewed the Clarity Act as a potential positive catalyst for the crypto market, as it would establish a clearer regulatory framework for the digital asset industry: digital commodities would be regulated by the CFTC, while digital securities would continue to fall under the SEC's jurisdiction.Analysts believe that if the bill is ultimately passed, it would help develop more institutionalized market infrastructure, ease regulatory restrictions on DeFi and stablecoin issuers, boost domestic liquidity and trading volumes in the U.S., and lower the barriers to entry for brokerages, exchanges, market makers, custodians, and bank-related platforms seeking to participate in the crypto industry.
JPMorgan has stated the decreased probability of the Clarity Act passing this year poses an obstacle to the crypto market and institutional adoption. JPMorgan indicated that the legislation would provide regulatory clarity, encouraging banks and asset management firms to expand into the digital asset space. Related delays could shift tokenization towards traditional financial infrastructure rather than public blockchain networks.
According to BeInCrypto, the official verified X account of U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis was hacked on July 29. The account briefly posted a fake Solana Meme coin promotion post named $USA Token, featuring a pump.fun minting link. The post was deleted within approximately five minutes, accumulating around 5,600 views and 37 replies during that period. Crypto community users quickly issued warnings, and there are currently no records of financial losses. Lummis's office had not released any statement as of press time. The timing of this incident is sensitive, coinciding with the stalemate of the "Digital Asset Market Transparency Act" (CLARITY Act) championed by Lummis in Congress.
According to Bitcoin.com, digital asset wealth platform Nexo announced the completion of an upgrade to its European Economic Area (EEA) operational structure to comply with the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCAR). Nexo chose to partner with two entities regulated by the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) rather than directly applying for a single MiCAR license: Tangany holds a MiCAR license and is responsible for providing segregated digital asset custody infrastructure; DLT Finance holds both MiCAR and MiFID II authorizations and is responsible for providing brokerage and execution infrastructure. Currently, all of Nexo's services in the EEA are operating seamlessly without any interruption.
: Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh will announce the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) interest rate decision on July 29. The market widely expects the benchmark interest rate to remain unchanged at 3.50% to 3.75% for the fifth consecutive time. Data from CME FedWatch shows the probability of a rate hold is between 95% and 98%. TD Securities stated that traders are still overestimating the probability of a surprise rate hike, and the related pricing includes a risk premium due to the Iran situation. The institution believes that if the Fed holds rates steady as expected, the deviation between current market pricing and actual policy action will narrow. TD Securities predicts that if the Fed keeps rates unchanged for an extended period, the dollar could fall by about 2% in the second half of 2026. The institution believes that the Fed needs to see clearer evidence of sustained inflation and a strong labor market before considering a rate hike.