News linked to both this project and an event.
According to The Block, U.S. "Clarity Act" crypto legislation has entered a critical phase, with Representative William Timmons stating, "Legislation will definitely be completed; this is one of the president's priorities and also a bipartisan consensus." Senate Majority Leader John Thune hopes to complete the Senate vote before the recess on August 7, but even if passed by the Senate, the bill still needs to return to the House of Representatives for deliberation, and the overall timeline may extend into the coming months. The current main point of contention lies in the ethics clauses regarding how to restrict federal officials, such as the President, Vice President, and members of Congress, from benefiting from digital assets during their term. Trump, Republican Senators Bernie Moreno and Cynthia Lummis, along with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, held a meeting on Thursday afternoon regarding the ethics clauses, seeking Trump's endorsement. Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego stated that if the ethics clauses do not meet standards, Democrats will not vote in support. Blockchain Association CEO Summer Mersinger is cautiously optimistic about the bill's prospects but warned that if prediction market-related amendments are included, they will become a "poison pill" and should be addressed through separate legislation.
According to The Block, Nasdaq-listed Hyperliquid treasury company Hyperion DeFi (HYPD) announced a HYPE Asset Usage Service Agreement (HAUS) with Skew Technologies and will deploy 500,000 staked HYPE (approximately $33.59 million) to Skew to support Skew's launch of a new suite of institutional-grade perpetual futures products on the Hyperliquid HIP-3 permissionless market. In return, Hyperion will receive equity in Skew and a revenue share from market listing services. Previously, Hyperion had terminated similar staking agreements with Felix and Native Markets because both built HIP-3 markets based on Hyperliquid's deprecated native stablecoin USDH. Currently, Hyperliquid has shifted to using Circle's USDC as the primary quote asset, with Coinbase serving as the stablecoin vault provider.
According to The Block, BlackRock CFO Martin Small disclosed during the Q2 earnings conference call that the company's digital asset assets under management (AUM) fell to $49 billion, down approximately 40% from a year ago, primarily weighed down by the price correction of BTC and ETH. Despite this, BlackRock's long-term strategy in the blockchain and tokenization sector has not contracted. Small stated that the company's long-term goal is to enable investors to "efficiently allocate crypto assets, stablecoins, and long-term equity and bond assets without leaving their digital wallets," and plans to gradually launch tokenized Treasury funds, iShares ETFs, and private market products. Specific progress includes: • Tokenized Money Market Funds: Two product applications have been submitted to the SEC, supporting investors to subscribe and redeem with stablecoins across multiple chains • Stablecoin Reserve Management: Currently manages approximately $60 billion of Circle's reserve assets, accounting for about one-quarter of the global $300 billion stablecoin market, aiming to become the industry's preferred reserve manager • Bitcoin ETF: Its iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) has an AUM of approximately $60 billion, making it the largest spot Bitcoin ETF globally • New Products: Launched the iShares Bitcoin Premium Income ETF (BITA) last month, providing Bitcoin exposure and comes with
Bitwise released a report stating that while crypto asset prices fell by approximately 36% in the first half of 2026, crypto-related stocks rose by 23%. This performance trailed only emerging market stocks, outpacing all other major asset classes. Bitwise Head of Research Ryan Rasmussen noted that the 30 crypto-related publicly listed companies in the Bitwise Crypto Innovators 30 Index outperformed the U.S. stock market by a factor of two, driven by factors including AI computing demand benefiting mining companies, stablecoin issuers, and asset tokenization platforms.Furthermore, according to Token Terminal data, the top ten crypto applications generated cumulative revenue of $5.9 billion over the past 12 months. PancakeSwap, Hyperliquid, and Aave ranked in the top three, with cumulative revenues of $923 million, $912 million, and $877 million, respectively.During the same period, the scale of tokenized real-world assets reached $33 billion in the second quarter, an increase of 45% from the beginning of the year; open interest in prediction markets hit an all-time high of $1.8 billion, with quarterly trading volume reaching $43 billion. (The Block)
Odaily President Trump will meet on Thursday with Republican Senators Bernie Moreno and Cynthia Lummis, along with White House crypto policy advisor Patrick Witt and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, to focus on the ethics provisions in the CLARITY Act. These provisions are considered one of the main obstacles to advancing the crypto market structure bill.Kristin Smith, President of the Solana Policy Institute, stated, "The purpose of the meeting is to present some proposals on the ethics issue to Trump and hope to gain his support. I believe this is a very positive signal." She described the meeting as crucial for pushing the CLARITY Act through.Earlier, it was disclosed that Trump family-backed World Liberty Financial had received hundreds of millions of dollars in crypto-related revenue, raising concerns among Democrats about potential conflicts of interest. (The Block)
According to The Block, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) officially ordered prediction market platform Kalshi on July 14 to honor all trades involving Michigan residents, directly countering a 14-day injunction previously issued by a Michigan court—which required Kalshi to stop offering sports-related event contracts and cancel some executed trades. CFTC Chairman Michael Selig stated that state governments lack the authority to compel registered Designated Contract Markets (DCMs) to violate federal obligations, as forcibly canceling executed trades would create a ripple effect across the entire market, severely undermining market contractual certainty. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, however, maintained that Kalshi is essentially an unauthorized online gambling platform and that state gambling laws apply to it.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury and the UK's His Majesty's Treasury have issued a joint statement and recommendations as part of the "Transatlantic Working Group for Future Markets." The working group recommends that the Bank of England, the FCA, along with the U.S. CFTC and SEC, develop regulatory frameworks for tokenized assets while requiring the FCA and SEC to explore measures to facilitate cross-border financing. In terms of specific recommendations, both the U.S. and UK propose: supporting the development of stablecoins, tokenized deposits, and similar digital assets; promoting market competition and innovation; and establishing higher standards for asset custody, reserve segregation, and consumer protection. (The Block)
Interactive Brokers has announced the addition of support for trading 12 new cryptocurrency tokens via Zero Hash and Paxos. With this expansion, its users can now trade a wider range of digital assets. The platform has also launched a stablecoin withdrawal feature, allowing clients to convert their U.S. dollar balances into stablecoins and withdraw USDC, PYUSD, and RLUSD to external wallets. This functionality means users can not only hold digital assets in their traditional brokerage accounts but also transfer stablecoins to on-chain wallets, further bridging the gap between traditional financial accounts and the crypto ecosystem. (The Block)
Odaily Benchmark has raised its price target for Hut 8 (HUT) from $85 to $165, citing the company's accelerated commercialization of its AI data center business and a total of $16.8 billion in long-term contracts for AI infrastructure. Analyst Mark Palmer stated that the commercialization progress of Hut 8's Beacon Point AI data center campus in Texas "has changed the company's valuation logic," significantly increasing the project's value.Currently, Hut 8's stock price is approximately $97, meaning Benchmark's new target implies roughly 69% upside. The stock had previously fallen nearly 30% over the past six weeks.According to Benchmark's estimates, the redesigned first phase of the Beacon Point campus will support 352MW of IT capacity, a 57% increase from the original 224MW plan. The base term value of the lease for this initial phase is approximately $9.8 billion, with an estimated annualized net operating income of around $655 million.Additionally, the lease agreement for Hut 8's River Bend data center, signed with Fluidstack and supported by Google, is valued at approximately $7 billion. The combined base term value of the two contracts reaches $16.8 billion. If tenants exercise the included 5-year renewal options, the potential total value could rise to $42.8 billion. (The Block)
According to The Block, Hyperliquid's HIP-3 framework—a permissionless mechanism that allows developers to freely deploy perpetual contract markets—has seen its trading volume share surge from about 2% at the beginning of the year to nearly 50% currently, with growth primarily driven by demand for on-chain stock trading. Currently, this sector is dominated by TradeXYZ, whose products include XYZ100, which tracks the Nasdaq 100 Index, as well as perpetual contracts for individual stocks such as NVIDIA and Tesla, all settled in stablecoins. Analysts point out that the core appeal of on-chain stock perpetual contracts lies in two aspects: first, the no-expiration design avoids time value decay compared to traditional options, making it more intuitive for retail traders accustomed to simple long/short positions; second, 24/7 non-stop trading enables users to respond immediately when news is released, without waiting for traditional markets to open.
Odaily, Jupiter, a decentralized exchange on the Solana ecosystem, has launched the Jupiter Gacha beta, allowing collectors to purchase authentic, graded Pokémon and One Piece cards and trade them on-chain.Jupiter stated that each "card pull" purchased by a user corresponds to a physical card that is certified and encased in a plastic grading slab, while simultaneously generating an on-chain token, enabling free trading on Jupiter.This model combines physical collectible cards with on-chain liquidity: the cards themselves are real, graded cards, while the on-chain tokens represent their ownership or trading credentials, reducing the friction of transfer and settlement in collectible trading. (The Block)
Odaily Planet Daily – Japan's digital asset issuance and management platform Progmat has completed its migration to the Avalanche blockchain, transferring security token assets worth over 452 billion yen (approximately $2.7 billion) from its existing private permissioned ledger to a dedicated Avalanche Layer 1 network.Progmat stated that this migration was not a simple swap of the underlying ledger but a redesign of the platform's architecture, ensuring the system no longer relies on a single blockchain and laying the foundation for supporting a multi-chain ecosystem in the future.During the migration process, all existing smart contracts were transferred to the EVM environment while maintaining the functionality and rules of already-launched projects. The entire migration process had no impact on the operations of financial institution users, with all business continuing to run normally.According to Progmat, following the migration, the processing speed for transferring asset rights has improved approximately 3 to 5 times compared to the previous environment, with final confirmation times reduced to under 2 seconds.Progmat was initially incubated by Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking, part of one of Japan's largest banks, MUFG, and became independently operated in October 2023. The platform is currently supported by institutions including Mizuho Financial Group, Tokyo Stock Exchange, and SBI Holdings. (The Block)
According to Borderless' Q2 2026 Stablecoin Payment Benchmark Report, stablecoin cross-border payment prices remained below interbank foreign exchange rates for three consecutive months in the second quarter, indicating that the cost of on-chain USD settlement is further converging with, and even surpassing, the traditional financial system. Based on data analysis from 108 countries and 260 payment corridors, the report shows that the median "Parity Gap" (the difference between the stablecoin delivery price and the interbank exchange rate) for stablecoin payments in Q2 was negative 3.2 basis points (bps). In June, this metric reached its lowest level this year at negative 5.9 bps, meaning the overall delivery price for stablecoin cross-border transfers was lower than the interbank market mid-rate.Borderless stated that achieving a final delivery price below the interbank exchange rate is quite rare for any cross-border payment mechanism. This data reflects the actual cost paid by customers, including fees, rather than the pure foreign exchange execution price.The report points out that the "transfer cost" for stablecoin payments is becoming commoditized. In Q2, the average cost of transferring $10,000 via mainstream corridors was approximately $27, and has remained near this level for five consecutive months. As competition among different service providers intensifies, the lowest quoted price changes continuously, but market prices are gradually stabilizing.As payment costs converge, the choice of service provider becomes the new core cost factor. Borderless refers to this phenomenon as the "Routing Tax": if a company relies on a single payment service provider over the long term, its costs may be higher than the optimal market price. Data shows that for every $1 million in funds transferred, choosing a single provider compared to the optimal route could result in an additional cost of approximately $2,330. (The Block)
According to The Block, Japanese financial group SBI Holdings has recently made a series of aggressive moves, completing multiple major crypto investments in succession: exclusively investing $125 million in Gauntlet's Series C, $76 million in EDX Markets' Series C, spending approximately $289 million to acquire Japanese crypto exchange Bitbank, and taking a stake in Singaporean exchange Coinhako. In addition, SBI also participated in Digital Asset's $355 million financing, Morpho's $175 million token round, and Circle's $222 million token presale, and launched Japan's first trust bank-backed yen stablecoin, JPYSC. SBI stated that the company is driving the group's overall on-chain transformation, aiming to provide end-to-end services across exchanges, asset tokenization, market platforms, and other segments, to position itself ahead of the upcoming "token economy" era. Analysts point out that SBI is building Asia's first scaled on-chain asset management business; its strategic core is not purchasing crypto exposure, but controlling the infrastructure of the next-generation financial system. On the regulatory front, the Japanese parliament is advancing legislation to include cryptocurrencies as regulated financial instruments, and plans to significantly reduce the capital gains tax on crypto assets from 55% to 20% by 2028, aligning it with stocks and bonds, providing policy support for institutional entry.
According to The Block, the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF)'s newly released report "Ethereum After the Merge" shows that approximately 31% of Ethereum node activity is located in the United States, with 39% distributed across the European Union (excluding the UK), presenting an overall Western-centric centralization pattern. The report points out potential centralization risks in the Ethereum network—nodes are highly concentrated among three major hosting providers: Hetzner, AWS, and OVH. Once more than one-third of validators go offline simultaneously, network checkpoints will stop finalization (Finalization). Additionally, the report recalculated Ethereum's energy consumption; annual electricity consumption after the Merge is approximately 7.9 GWh, a decrease of approximately 99.98% compared to before the Merge, with sustainable energy accounting for over 56%, and the cost required to offset its annual carbon emissions is only about $33,500 to $73,800.
Standard Chartered stated that it maintains its Bitcoin price prediction of reaching $100,000 by the end of 2026, believing that the recent market decline triggered by Strategy's (formerly MicroStrategy) related activities is not due to a deterioration in the company's balance sheet, but rather a strategic adjustment that the market has not fully understood.Geoffrey Kendrick, Head of Digital Assets Research at Standard Chartered, noted in a report that Strategy's recent behavior is disrupting short-term market expectations for Bitcoin. The market had previously accepted the company's narrative of "never selling Bitcoin," but now Strategy appears to be shifting towards a more complex capital operation model. How clearly the company can communicate this change will determine when market pressure eases.Currently, Strategy holds 843,775 Bitcoins, representing approximately over 4% of the total 21 million Bitcoin supply. From 2020 to mid-2025, Strategy's mNAV (Market Value of Enterprise / Bitcoin Asset Value) was consistently above 1, allowing the company to raise funds through stock issuances to purchase Bitcoin and achieve shareholder value growth. The commitment to "never selling Bitcoin" was central to this model gaining market acceptance. However, with the current mNAV approaching 1, the leverage effect of this financing model is weakening.Kendrick believes Strategy is transitioning from a "Bitcoin accumulation tool" to a "Bitcoin credit support tool." This involves using its Bitcoin holdings as the credit basis for its perpetual preferred stock, STRC. Currently sized at approximately $10 billion, STRC is the largest financial instrument launched by Strategy, offering an annualized dividend rate of 12%, paid semi-monthly in cash, and is designed to maintain a price near its $100 par value through interest rate adjustment mechanisms.Standard Chartered indicated that STRC is currently trading around $90, while Strategy's dollar reserve for paying dividends stands at approximately $2.55 billion, covering an estimated 17.4 months of dividend expenses.Kendrick stated that Strategy's policy adjustment allowing for Bitcoin sales does not necessarily mean the company will continuously sell. He believes that as long as the market believes the new capital structure arrangement can stabilize the STRC price, Strategy may not actually need to sell Bitcoin. He compared this mechanism to a central bank's commitment to "do whatever it takes": mere restoration of market confidence may mean actual intervention never occurs. (The Block)
According to The Block, Ledger's security research team Donjon disclosed a security vulnerability in Tangem hardware wallet cards. After obtaining the physical card, attackers can use laser fault injection equipment to bypass recovery state verification in the firmware and reset the password, thereby controlling the wallet and initiating transactions. The research states that this vulnerability affects all Tangem cards currently in circulation, and since the product does not support firmware updates, it cannot be fixed via patches.
Hyperliquid and non-custodial wallet Phantom have jointly submitted a comment letter to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), calling for updates to regulatory rules for on-chain trading infrastructure. The two parties argue that current CFTC rules were designed for the traditional financial system, which relies on centralized intermediaries, and are not applicable to DeFi. They suggest clarifying that developing software for on-chain trading protocols does not require registration as an exchange or clearing agency, and that non-custodial wallet front-ends should not need to register as introducing brokers. They also propose allowing regulated institutions to use blockchain for trading and clearing operations. Previously, the CFTC and the U.S. SEC jointly released a request for comment in June, seeking industry input on regulatory rules affecting financial innovation. (The Block)
According to The Block, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in favor of Trump, expanding the president's power to remove heads of independent federal agencies (excluding the Federal Reserve). The case originated from Trump's dismissal of Democratic FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter in 2025. As the ruling takes effect, the SEC and CFTC are in a new cycle of crypto regulation—the SEC currently has only three Republican commissioners, while CFTC Chairman Michael Selig is the agency's sole commissioner. Former regulatory officials warned that insufficient commissioner seats will undermine the quality of rulemaking and continuity across administrations, stating, "Fewer people participating in discussions may lead to suboptimal outcomes." Meanwhile, Congress is deliberating landmark legislation to reallocate digital asset regulatory authority between the SEC and CFTC and has urged Trump to appoint CFTC commissioners as soon as possible. Analysts pointed out that against the backdrop of Trump's close ties with the crypto industry, while this ruling is beneficial for the industry to advance regulatory reforms in the short term, if the political landscape shifts in the future, rules established by a sole commissioner will be more likely to become "targets for reversal," bringing long-term policy instability risks to the industry.
According to The Block, the Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong (SFC) issued a circular requiring licensed virtual asset trading platforms and internet brokers to stop using one-time passwords (OTP) for user login and device binding within 12 months, and instead adopt stronger authentication methods such as passkeys (Passkey) and device binding. This move stems from deception attacks accounting for up to 57% of Hong Kong cybersecurity incidents in 2025. The SFC also requires all institutions to establish monitoring systems for suspicious logins, transactions, and withdrawals, and promptly notify customers of unusual account activity; large brokers must implement the new authentication measures immediately. The SFC emphasized that if internal control deficiencies within an institution lead to customer losses, relevant parties will be held accountable.