News linked to this event type.
According to Reuters, the PayPal board believes the $53 billion acquisition offer ($60.50 per share) jointly proposed by Stripe and private equity firm Advent International undervalues the company, and has concerns regarding regulatory approval risks and financing certainty; it has not yet formally responded to the proposal. The PayPal board believes that if management successfully executes the existing transformation strategy, the company's future potential value will far exceed the current offer. Meanwhile, the acquirers have obtained approximately $50 billion in financing support from JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley, with Stripe and Advent contributing a combined $17 billion in equity. Reportedly, if the parties encounter antitrust hurdles, they may consider divesting assets such as PayPal's Braintree to Advent. Despite differences, Stripe and Advent are still regarded as the most serious potential buyers at present, and negotiations are expected to continue for some time. PayPal will release its quarterly earnings report on July 28, and the market will closely monitor the growth of its core checkout business.
According to Fortune, Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky's X account was hacked this Monday, and the account posted a series of AI-generated tweets about "real-world asset tokenization." The relevant posts were subsequently deleted. According to analysis by AI detection tool Pangram, the content was flagged as 100% AI-generated, and users characterized it as "AI slop" (AI garbage content). The incident was labeled as a "high-profile account intrusion" and reported to the X platform security team. X completed account security handling on Tuesday evening, and Chesky subsequently regained control of the account. Airbnb declined to comment publicly.
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 Xinhua News Agency, Beijing Moonshot AI Co., Ltd. officially released the new generation large model Kimi K3 on July 16, with a parameter scale reaching 2.8 trillion, becoming the largest open-source model by parameters globally at present. Kimi K3 natively supports visual understanding, features a 1 million token context window, and is optimized for complex task scenarios such as software engineering, knowledge work, deep research, and multimodal understanding, with a comprehensive intelligence level approaching global frontier closed-source models. The model is trained using a self-developed underlying architecture. Moonshot AI stated that nearly 3 trillion parameters mean the model can store more knowledge and patterns, achieving "knows more, thinks deeper, answers more accurately."
Bilal bin Saqib, Chairman of the Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (PVARA), has requested Jamia Darul Uloom Karachi to clarify the distinction between speculative cryptocurrencies and asset-backed digital tokens, following the religious institution’s ruling that cryptocurrency-based purchases are not compliant with Islamic law. The ruling pertains to a consultation on using cryptocurrencies to pay for books and online course fees. Waqas Ghani, Head of Research at JS Global Capital, stated that the ruling could hinder bank-led cryptocurrency adoption in Pakistan, but trading volumes have not yet been affected. Saqib stated that PVARA is working with scholars to evaluate digital assets by category, rather than treating them as a single class. He noted that blockchain-recorded Sukuk represent ownership of real income-generating assets, while gold-backed tokens and fully-reserved stablecoins correspond to redeemable value. He added that speculative tokens without underlying assets fall into a different category, and scholars' concerns must be taken seriously. PVARA will continue to collaborate with scholars as it develops a licensing framework in Pakistan and advances efforts in stablecoins and the tokenization of real-world assets.
Sui announced on X platform that gas-free stablecoin transfers are now live.
: Privacy blockchain Zano has announced that Zenith has entered the implementation phase, with a network transition planned for 2027, subject to testing, analysis, and review results. Zano has not yet announced an activation date, and the proposed operational parameters still require verification at the network level. Zenith will transition Zano from a hybrid PoW and PoS mechanism to a privacy-preserving pure PoS protocol. The proposed block time will be reduced from approximately 1 minute to about 15 seconds, the recommended number of confirmations will be lowered from 10 blocks to 4 to 6 blocks, and the typical confirmation time will be around 60 to 90 seconds. Andrey Sabelnikov, co-founder and core developer of Zano, stated that Zenith is based on over 12 years of privacy research, aiming to provide the network with the advantages of modern PoS while retaining the privacy protections that Zano users expect. PoW miners currently receive approximately 720 newly issued ZANO per day, equivalent to around 21,600 per month and 262,800 per year. After Zenith is activated and PoW mining ends, this issuance will be discontinued. Zano has also launched the official Zano Forum for technical discussions and community support.
security firm Project Eleven has introduced a post-quantum proof technology designed to help users prove ownership of their Bitcoin wallets after quantum computers become capable of deriving private keys and generating valid signatures. Project Eleven CEO Alex Pruden stated that the technology utilizes the wallet's key derivation path, enabling users to prove control without disclosing the parent key, thus distinguishing legitimate owners from attackers. The solution was developed in collaboration with Jim Posen, a primary maintainer of the open-source Binius zero-knowledge proof system, and is based on the "signature lifting" technique proposed by Alon Sattath and Robert Wyborski. Project Eleven noted that the prototype has not yet been audited and requires blockchain protocol support before it can be deployed. It is primarily aimed at users who miss the window to migrate to quantum-resistant addresses in the future.
: Crypto payment company BitPay announced that it has received approval from the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets to obtain a crypto asset service provider license, allowing it to operate within EU member states under the Markets in Crypto-Assets regulatory framework. BitPay stated that this license will support the company in expanding services such as crypto payments and stablecoin payments across Europe. According to relevant requirements, starting July 1, all entities providing crypto-related services must be subject to regulation. Jonathan Arler, BitPay's Head of Europe, stated that Europe is one of the most important regions for the future development of payments. Previously, Ripple announced that it had obtained a crypto asset service provider license from the Luxembourg financial regulator.
: Prediction market platform predict.fun has announced that all Up/Down markets now feature a Maker order rebate mechanism. Users who complete trades via limit orders can receive a 25% rebate on Maker fees.Compared to Polymarket, predict.fun's Maker rebate offers two key advantages that are more direct: a higher rebate rate, and real-time settlement immediately after the trade, without waiting for finalization.For high-frequency traders, professional market makers, and users who frequently employ limit orders, real-time rebates allow for faster capital release, reducing the continuous impact of fees on trading profits. The higher rebate rate also means that as trading frequency and volume increase, the actual cost savings become more significant.This mechanism now covers all Up/Down markets on predict.fun. Users do not need to register or apply separately; rebates for qualifying orders will be automatically credited to the account upon execution.
tokenization platform Tradable plans to bring up to $1 billion in private credit assets onto the Stellar blockchain to expand institutional access to tokenized RWAs. The initiative is expected to launch with $500 million in nominal assets under management, with plans to increase to $1 billion over time. Tradable will leverage the Stellar network to support institutional functions such as compliance, investor onboarding, and asset lifecycle management. The specific launch date has not yet been disclosed. Tradable stated that it has already tokenized $1.7 billion in private credit assets across nearly 30 institutional-grade private credit positions. Stellar Development Foundation CEO Denelle Dixon noted that this agreement reflects growing institutional interest in using the Stellar network for tokenized RWAs. Stellar has recently focused increasingly on tokenized RWAs and has attracted institutional partners such as the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation.
Ethena announced on the X platform its official launch on the Monad blockchain. USDe and sUSDe are now available across the entire Monad ecosystem, including integration with Monad's Aave instance, enabling Ethena users to borrow stablecoin liquidity at scale. Additionally, parallelized EVM USDe is now live.
According to monitoring by the BlockFlow KOL opinion aggregation platform, NVIDIA (NVDA) is collaborating with Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and Noetra to build a 140MW AI factory, utilizing Vera CPU and Rubin GPU to support trillion-parameter model training and robot ecosystem development, with multiple KOLs optimistic about the prospects of this collaboration.
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is investigating a potential insider trading incident involving the prediction market platform Kalshi. A staff member allegedly responsible for operating President Trump's teleprompter is accused of placing bets on related prediction event contracts.According to reports, this individual may have used early access to information about Trump's public remarks to wager on the Kalshi platform regarding whether Trump's related statements would be released or contain specific phrasing. Currently, the CFTC is investigating whether the relevant trades involved the use of non-public information and whether they violated prediction market trading rules.This investigation has once again raised market concerns about the risk of insider trading in prediction markets. As trading volumes on platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket grow rapidly, prediction contracts involving political, economic, and public events are increasingly coming under regulatory scrutiny. (CNBC)
: X platform product lead Nikita Bier announced that the platform is upgrading the anti-cheat mechanism of its Creator Revenue Share Program, targeting engagement baiting and content plagiarism.Bier stated that if an account posts "engagement baiting" content multiple times—such as "reply to me and I'll follow everyone" or similar actions to solicit engagement—cumulatively three times or more, it will be removed from the creator revenue share program and referred to the policy team for further action, including the risk of account suspension. Currently, X has identified such behaviors through the Grok AI system, and nearly 4,000 accounts have been removed from the revenue program today.Additionally, X's updated content identification model can detect duplicate content three times more efficiently than before. The platform stated that merely adding watermarks, intros, or making simple modifications will not qualify for revenue. The related commercial display revenue will be returned to the original content poster. This mechanism also applies to copying popular text posts, such as high-engagement content like "Twitter is the smoking area of the internet."According to Nikita Bier, during this detection cycle, X found approximately 1.5 million instances of stolen content. For accounts that repeatedly or deliberately attempt to evade detection, the platform will revoke their creator revenue eligibility.X stated that through these governance measures, it is expected that over $1 million in revenue will be redistributed to original content creators, aiming to improve the quality of the platform's content ecosystem.
OpenAI Chairman Bret Taylor said in an interview with CNBC that the company currently has no update on its Initial Public Offering (IPO) plans. Taylor's interview centered on OpenAI's newly launched AI agent tools, and discussed topics including the outlook for enterprise AI spending, a lawsuit related to Apple, and development trends in the artificial intelligence industry.As OpenAI's valuation continues to climb and competition in the AI industry intensifies, the market has maintained a high level of attention on its listing timeline. However, Taylor's statement indicates that OpenAI has no new IPO arrangements to announce in the near term.
According to FinanceFeeds, Dubai crypto trading platform Quote Trade announced the completion of a $4 million financing round, which will be used to expand support for more blockchains and digital assets, strengthen liquidity partnerships, recruit engineering and trading teams, and continue building infrastructure for human traders and AI trading agents.
Odaily Odaily A new study by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance reveals that approximately 31% of Ethereum node activity is located in the United States, with another 39% distributed across EU countries excluding the UK, indicating that the geographic distribution of Ethereum nodes remains relatively concentrated in Western nations.Lead researcher Alexander Neumuller stated that while node distribution is not currently concentrated in any single country, it is heavily reliant on a few major cloud service providers, including Hetzner, Amazon AWS, and OVH. Notably, the Ethereum network does not require half of its validators to fail for problems to arise. If more than one-third of validators go offline simultaneously, the network may be unable to finalize block checkpoints (finalization). Neumuller pointed out that nodes and validators do not have a one-to-one correspondence; a single node may run multiple validators. Therefore, it is currently impossible to precisely assess the actual impact on the validator network from the failure of a specific node or service provider.Furthermore, the study reassessed the energy consumption of Ethereum following The Merge. Data shows that Ethereum's current annual energy consumption is approximately 7.9 GWh, equivalent to a continuous power draw of about 1 MW. This represents only about 0.02% of pre-merge levels, a reduction of approximately 99.98%. Currently, over 56% of the energy used by the Ethereum network comes from sustainable sources, exceeding the global average.The study also noted that client software diversity is another potential risk. If a dominant client software has a vulnerability, it could affect a large number of network participants. The report was published by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance and supported by the Ethereum Foundation. (The)
E*TRADE, the online investment platform under Morgan Stanley, has launched spot cryptocurrency trading functionality. Eligible clients can now directly buy, sell, and hold Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Solana (SOL) through the E*TRADE platform.This crypto trading service is powered by digital asset infrastructure provider zerohash. Users can trade through a linked zerohash account and view both their digital asset and traditional investment portfolios within the E*TRADE platform.E*TRADE stated that the fee for spot crypto trading is priced at 50 basis points (50 bps), with asset transfer functionality expected to be launched later this year.This launch marks a further step in Morgan Stanley's digital asset strategy. Previously, E*TRADE has been continuously upgrading its investment service system, including launching retirement planning tools, fractional share trading, an upgraded IPO center, and feature optimizations for Power E*TRADE Pro aimed at active traders. (Businesswire)
Odaily U.S. Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren released a report stating that the Trump administration's reform measures at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) may have resulted in up to $26.5 billion in additional costs for American consumers.Warren stated that approximately $22.5 billion of this comes from the CFPB's repeal of policies limiting credit card late fees and bank overdraft fees, with the remaining roughly $4 billion stemming from the agency's abandonment of certain enforcement cases and consumer restitution agreements.The report notes that a previous CFPB rule limiting credit card late fees had planned to cap most late fees at $8, which was expected to save consumers about $10 billion annually. Furthermore, a new rule targeting overdraft fees had aimed to push banks to limit certain overdraft charges to $5.It is reported that Trump implemented sweeping changes at the CFPB, including staff cuts, pausing or reducing multiple enforcement actions, and rescinding some consumer protection rules enacted during the Biden era. Warren criticized that these reforms have weakened the CFPB's role as a consumer financial regulator, exposing consumers to more unfair fees and financial risks. Currently, the CFPB and the White House have not immediately responded to the allegations in Warren's report. (CNBC)