News linked to both this project and an event.
ByteDance announced today the launch of the Seedance 2.5 video generation model, capable of generating 30-second high-quality video clips in a single run. It will be rolled out on Jimeng AI and Doubao Pro sequentially, and API services will also be integrated into Volcano Ark in the near future.
Visa CEO Ryan McInerney stated during the earnings call that Visa's role in the stablecoin space is not to pick winners, but to help clients securely and scalably connect to the stablecoin ecosystem.Last month, Visa joined forces with over 140 companies, including Stripe, Mastercard, BlackRock, and Coinbase, to support Open Standard, which plans to launch the stablecoin Open USD (OUSD) later this year. Following the announcement, market speculation arose that OUSD could challenge Tether's USDT and Circle's USDC.When asked whether Visa views OUSD as a competitor to USDT and USDC, McInerney said that Visa will maintain a "multi-currency, multi-chain" strategy going forward and will not bet on a single stablecoin, network, or infrastructure.He stated that Visa's goal is to support clients in accessing the stablecoin ecosystem, regardless of which stablecoin, network, or underlying infrastructure is ultimately adopted.Ark Invest analyzed that Visa is clearly interested in Open USD, but this does not necessarily mean it views OUSD as an exclusive strategic bet. Overall, Visa appears to be keeping its participation open at the stablecoin infrastructure level, rather than directly aligning with a specific stablecoin issuer.
According to the official press release, Anchorage Digital, ARK Invest, BlackRock, Block, Blockstream, Coinbase, Fidelity Digital Assets, Galaxy, and Strategy, nine leading financial institutions and Bitcoin companies, jointly announced the establishment of the Bitcoin Security Consortium on July 23, 2026. The members independently committed to contributing a total of $15 million over the next three years to support long-term security research for the Bitcoin network, with a focus on development work in the field of post-quantum cryptography. The consortium's daily affairs are coordinated on a voluntary basis by Brink Executive Director Mike Schmidt; it will not intervene in protocol development or specific change decisions and will regularly release Bitcoin security status reports to investors and the public.
Lightning Labs announced on X platform that it has launched Wavelength, a self-custodial Bitcoin payment toolkit designed to make integrating Bitcoin into applications as simple as calling an API. Built on an Ark-like settlement layer, the platform enables developers, AI agents, and vibe coders to connect any application to Lightning payments without running a node, managing channels, or acquiring liquidity. It also supports AI agents in using Bitcoin payment APIs, data sources, and other services through MCP tool calls. Wavelength is currently available in alpha on signet and testnet, while mainnet access requires an invitation.
Bybit has added 6 perpetual contracts for US stocks/ETFs today, including WENSTOCKUSDT, DKNGUSDT, RIVNUSDT, FLYUSDT, ARKKUSDT, and TSLLUSDT, supporting up to 20x leverage. A limited-time fee discount is also available during the launch: 0% maker fee rate and 50% off the taker fee rate.Among them, WENSTOCK (Wendy's) is a globally renowned fast-food chain brand, DKNG (DraftKings) is a leading US online gambling and sports betting company, RIVN (Rivian) is an electric vehicle manufacturer, and FLY (Firefly Aerospace) is an aerospace launch vehicle and space services company; ARKK is the ARK Innovation ETF (tracking disruptive innovative tech stocks), and TSLL is the Direxion Daily TSLA Bull 2X Shares ETF.
ARK Invest's "The Bitcoin Quarterly" report for Q2 2026 indicates Bitcoin fell approximately 14% in the second quarter, closing around $58,544, and broke below three major technical moving averages. Historically, this technical pattern is often associated with bearish market conditions. The report shows that despite price pressure, Bitcoin Long-term Holders continued to accumulate, pushing their holdings to a new all-time high of approximately 14.85 million BTC, absorbing coins released during the market correction.ARK Invest stated that on-chain data is signaling signs of seller exhaustion: the supply of BTC in loss exceeds the supply in profit, and the rate of realized losses once surpassed the rate of realized profits. Historically, similar phenomena have often clustered near the bottom of market cycles.The report also pointed out that institutional demand in the Bitcoin market is facing pressure. Both corporate Bitcoin reserves (Treasury Companies) and the ETF ecosystem have shown signs of weakness:The STRC preferred stock price once fell to approximately $74.57, below its $100 par value;U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs experienced net outflows for 7 consecutive weeks, with cumulative outflows totaling approximately 70,000 BTC.ARK Invest believes that ETF outflows indicate a weakening of important marginal buying pressure for Bitcoin, but continued accumulation by long-term holders suggests a redistribution of coins is occurring within the market.The firm stated that a clear divergence is currently forming between BTC's price performance and the behavior of long-term holders. Historical data shows that such divergences can often serve as important observation signals for market cycle turning points.
Lorenzo Valente, Director of Crypto Research at Ark, stated on X that Robinhood Chain is the clearest case study for examining the evolution of the ETH economic model over time.Since its inception, Robinhood Chain has generated a total of approximately $816,000 in revenue; Arbitrum, serving as the middleware provider, took a 10% cut, amounting to about $80,000; Arbitrum then paid settlement fees to the Ethereum mainnet, totaling approximately $1,538. A rough breakdown of the profit distribution in this model is as follows — Robinhood 89%; Arbitrum 10%; Ethereum 0.15%.If your thesis is "ETH is money," then Robinhood building an L2 within the Ethereum ecosystem is a major positive. However, if your thesis is "ETH is a revenue-generating asset," then this is an extremely bearish case.
Cathie Wood posted on X, stating that in ARK Invest's view, stablecoins are monetary networks. Relying on trust, collateral utility, and integration, their network effects compound over time. The network effects of USDT and USDC have always been strong. LorenzoARK explained why OUSD is unlikely to replace them.
According to official sources, Summer.fi released a post-mortem stating that on July 6, the attacker manipulated the share prices of two Lazy Summer USDC vaults by injecting overvalued Silo tokens into an offline Ark still included in the NAV, and extracted approximately $6.04 million in a single atomic transaction.
: Lorenzo Valente, ARK Invest's Director of Digital Asset Research, has questioned the stablecoin consortium project OpenUSD, expressing high skepticism about whether such consortium-style stablecoin initiatives can achieve scale. He believes that similar alliances have emerged multiple times before, including Diem and Global Dollar, but ultimately failed to form dominant network effects. Currently, the stablecoin market remains dominated by Tether and Circle, whose core advantages lie in strong network effects and instant liquidity. OpenUSD, however, may face a "cold start" problem, as its joint governance structure will severely slow down decision-making efficiency, making it prone to coordination failures under decentralized governance—resembling the governance dilemmas of DAO experiments: high collaboration costs, slow execution, and difficulty deploying capital efficiently.Furthermore, OpenUSD's economic model appears unsustainable for long-term operations. If it relies on a low-fee split mechanism, it will be unable to cover the costs of infrastructure, incentives, and market expansion.Lorenzo Valente concluded that OpenUSD resembles more of a "collection of letters of intent" than a unified product system with strong execution capabilities. He argued that in the long run, the more likely winners are single operators capable of rapid iteration and independent decision-making, rather than joint governance structures requiring multi-party consensus.
Odaily, ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood released her latest market views on X, stating that a series of current macroeconomic data continues to dispel market concerns about a renewed rise in inflation. The US economy is entering a new upward cycle driven by technological productivity and will not repeat the stagflationary scenario of the 1970s. On the data front, US productivity growth is at 3%, unit labor costs at 0.5%, and Truflation's core CPI is near 1.3%. Multiple indicators confirm that inflationary pressures remain low. Even with strong employment data, short-term market pullbacks only reflect investor sensitivity to interest rates and macro risks. The current market is in a classic "climbing the wall of worry" phase, similar to the 1980s and 1990s, where innovation dividends support long-term asset appreciation.Cathie Wood points out that core technologies such as AI, robotics, autonomous driving, and multi-omics are still in their early stages of development. The productivity-enhancing effects have yet to be fully reflected in economic statistics. This is the early phase of a tech-driven expansion cycle, and technological innovation will dominate medium- to long-term economic growth.
Hydra Host, a data center software startup and AI server intermediary platform, has completed a $100 million funding round at a post-money valuation of nearly $800 million. The round was led by Kindred Ventures. Other investors include Nvidia, ARK Invest, Magnetar Capital (an early investor in CoreWeave), and existing shareholders Founders Fund and Flume Ventures.Founded in 2021, Hydra Host initially served cryptocurrency miners but has since pivoted to providing automation software for data center operators. This software enables them to rent out idle Nvidia AI server computing power and operate a GPU matching marketplace connecting GPU holders with renters. The company has now deployed its technology across 50 data centers globally, expanding from 30 in February of this year. (The Information)
Odaily ARK Invest stated that SpaceX's upcoming IPO could become a historic capital markets event, with the company's overall valuation potentially approaching the $2 trillion level. Brett Winton, Head of Portfolio and Research at ARK, said on CNBC that SpaceX's IPO is priced at approximately $135 per share, corresponding to a valuation of around $1.77 trillion, and plans to list on Nasdaq on June 12.Winton pointed out that SpaceX's core value comes not only from its rocket launch business but more so from its rapidly expanding satellite internet network, Starlink. This network currently has a bandwidth capacity of approximately 500 Tbps, generating an annual revenue of around $13 billion. It is expected to significantly reduce launch costs with the Starship rocket, accelerating satellite deployment and network expansion. He believes that as AI applications proliferate rapidly, the demand for global communication and computing infrastructure will further increase, positioning SpaceX as a key infrastructure provider in this trend. ARK also estimates that the AI foundation model industry could create between $15 trillion and $20 trillion in enterprise value by 2030.Currently, ARK holds approximately 11.4% of SpaceX's private shares through its venture capital strategy and considers it one of its core long-term holdings. The fund has risen about 15% so far this year, with gains exceeding 70% over the past 12 months. (CNBC)
Odaily reports, ARK Invest stated that the choice of implementation for post-quantum cryptography and its on-chain deployment should be kept separate from the handling of tokens that remain quantum-vulnerable. (Bitcoin News)
Odaily. Bernstein stated in its latest research report that the newly reached compromise on stablecoin yields under the U.S. CLARITY Act is structurally beneficial for Circle and the USDC ecosystem.The report notes that the current version of the bill prohibits stablecoin issuers from paying interest to passive holders that is "economically equivalent" to bank deposits, but allows reward mechanisms tied to actual transaction, payment, and usage activities to continue. Bernstein believes this means Circle's current model, which relies on partners like Coinbase to provide USDC reward programs, will gain regulatory recognition, while also limiting the industry's ability to compete for market share through high yields.Bernstein points out that the bill effectively reinforces the positioning of stablecoins as "payment tools" rather than "deposit substitutes," helping to protect Circle's current business model that relies on reserve income. The firm maintains an "Outperform" rating for Circle with a $190 target price.Data shows that the total global supply of dollar-pegged stablecoins has surpassed $300 billion, with USDT and USDC collectively accounting for approximately 97% of the market share. Bernstein notes that USDC's share in on-chain payments and wallet transfers is steadily increasing, and its share of payments in the AI Agent payment protocol x402 has exceeded 99%.Additionally, Bernstein mentioned that Circle's ARC chain has cumulatively completed 244 million testnet transactions. The ARC token pre-sale previously raised $222 million, with investors including a16z crypto, Apollo Funds, ARK Invest, and BlackRock.However, the report also points out that the CLARITY Act still needs to complete multiple legislative procedures before it takes effect, including a 60-vote threshold in the full Senate and coordination with the House version. Polymarket currently estimates its probability of passage by 2026 at approximately 62%. (The Block)
Cathie Wood posted on X platform, stating that ARK participated in Kalshi's latest funding round, believing that prediction markets are emerging as a new layer of financial infrastructure, enabling real-time price discovery around events, probabilities, and the evolving state of the world. Kalshi is at the forefront of this innovation, and ARK supports the team in pushing the boundaries of how information is aggregated and expressed through markets.
Circle has released its financial results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2026. The data shows that as of the end of the first quarter, the circulating supply of USDC reached $77 billion, a year-over-year increase of 28%; on-chain transaction volume for USDC in the first quarter reached $21.5 trillion, up 263% year-over-year.The financial report indicates that Circle's total revenue and reserve income for the first quarter was $694 million, a 20% increase year-over-year; adjusted EBITDA was $151 million, up 24% year-over-year; net profit was $55 million, a 15% decrease year-over-year.Additionally, Circle disclosed that its ARC Token pre-sale raised $222 million, with a fully diluted valuation of $3 billion. Participants included institutions such as a16z crypto, BlackRock, and ARK Invest. The company also announced the launch of the "Agent Stack" infrastructure for AI agent scenarios, including products like Agent Wallets and Agent Marketplace, designed to support AI agent payments and commercial activities based on USDC.
According to Forbes, ARK Invest, led by Cathie Wood, released a report forecasting that Bitcoin’s market capitalization will expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of approximately 63% over the next five years—rising from its current level of nearly $2 trillion to $16 trillion by 2030. The report states, “Bitcoin is maturing into the leader of a new institutional asset class.” ARK Invest analysts project that Bitcoin will drive the broader cryptocurrency market to reach $28 trillion by 2030 (up from roughly $2.8 trillion today). “Smart contract networks and pure digital currency markets may grow at an approximate annual rate of 61% to reach $28 trillion by 2030, with Bitcoin capturing 70% of the market share and the remainder dominated by smart contract platforms such as Ethereum and Solana.”
According to an official announcement, Binance Alpha Box is now live, powered by the latest Alpha Box model. The airdrop pool consists of tokens from three projects: Ark of Panda (AOP), Rekt (REKT), and Yei Finance (CLO). Users holding at least 240 Binance Alpha Points can claim the token airdrop once via the Alpha Events page. Upon claiming, users will be assigned to one of three reward tiers, receiving either 715, 860, or 2,860 AOP tokens; 192,307,700, 230,769,230, or 769,230,770 REKT tokens; or 335, 400, or 1,335 CLO tokens. Rewards are distributed on a first-come, first-served basis. If all rewards are not fully claimed, the point threshold automatically decreases by 5 points every 5 minutes. Claiming the airdrop consumes 15 Binance Alpha Points, and users must confirm their claim within 24 hours—otherwise, the claim will be forfeited.