News linked to both this project and an event.
Odaily News: Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has signed an executive order to coordinate virtual asset regulation, enhance cooperation between the country's financial, tax, and capital market institutions, and address the fragmentation of digital asset regulation. The executive order establishes a Virtual Assets Committee composed of heads from Nigeria's major financial regulatory agencies to guide relevant policies. Nigeria's tax authority will update digital asset policies and provide more details on the impact on taxpayers. Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to the President, stated that the executive order does not create new regulatory agencies nor transfer powers between agencies; each institution retains its statutory duties and independence, and registration requirements will be determined based on the nature of the activity and the assets involved. A June report from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) shows that since 2019, Nigeria has accounted for approximately 60% of stablecoin inflows in Sub-Saharan Africa; between July 2023 and June 2024, the country's cryptocurrency inflows reached approximately $59 billion.
TownSquare, an institutional yield and cross-chain lending brokerage service infrastructure, announced the official launch of its ICO public sale. This public sale is technically supported by the Echo Sonar platform from the Coinbase ecosystem. The valuation is divided into two tiers: a $150 million valuation based on a 6-month lock-up, and a $200 million valuation with no lock-up and full release at TGE, with a fundraising cap of $1 million. Currently, 30 minutes into the public sale, over $200,000 has been raised. According to data, most users chose the second tier with the $200 million valuation. This public sale is the first project based on the Monad ecosystem on Sonar, supporting USDC and USDT0 tokens on Monad. Previously, TownSquare completed a total of 3 rounds of financing totaling $16.25 million, with participation from World Liberty Financial, Auros Ventures, Amber Group, Animoca Ventures, OKX Ventures, as well as angel investors and institutions from ecosystems such as Monad, a16z, etc. It is projected that the previous valuation is comparable to this ICO valuation. TownSquare Sonar Public Sale Registration: townsq.xyz/sale
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has responded to recent controversy surrounding his X account profile picture change and claims that the Base community is "unsupported." He thanked the community for their feedback and acknowledged that his previous communication regarding expectations was not clear enough. Users should not interpret the content of his personal X account as investment advice or signals for individual tokens. He stated that he simply shares internet content he finds interesting or amusing, and may not even be aware whether such content is associated with any particular token or project. He pointed out that his tweets and profile picture changes do not represent endorsements of or commitments to any project.Regarding support for the Base ecosystem, Brian Armstrong explained that Base aims to build financial services infrastructure, supporting various application scenarios including stock tokenization, lending protocols, stablecoin payments, and Meme coin trading. Coinbase supports users in freely trading assets but will not use its official influence to "pump" or promote specific tokens. Both Coinbase and the Base team are indeed subject to compliance and regulatory restrictions, preventing them from listing certain tokens on the centralized exchange and from marketing specific projects at the community's request.Base currently supports ecosystem development primarily through offline Base Batches events, developer grant programs, and investments from Coinbase Ventures and the Base Ecosystem Fund. Additionally, based on long-term user value assessment, Coinbase may integrate certain Base ecosystem DeFi protocols into its own products to help projects expand distribution.Brian Armstrong stated that Coinbase will continue to prioritize projects capable of creating long-term user value in the future, and expressed hope that this clarification will help the community set clearer expectations. He added that he may still continue to post Meme content he finds interesting, but such content will not constitute investment advice.
Bybit Alpha has now launched Jimothy trading. Jimothy is a meme coin on the Solana blockchain, based on a viral video of a short-tailed raccoon from Seattle, which quickly gained popularity through its cute and quirky "mutant raccoon" image. The current on-chain price is approximately $0.007, with a market cap of $6.95 million.
the cross-chain protocol Allbridge has issued an official statement confirming that an attacker has withdrawn approximately $1.65 million in assets from the Allbridge Core liquidity pool. A detailed analysis of the incident is currently being compiled, and the full investigation results will be published subsequently. The team emphasizes that there is no further risk to current user liquidity and that the Allbridge Next service is operating normally.In response to this incident, Allbridge plans to relaunch the Core version but will remove the liquidity pool design. Future cross-chain transfers will be facilitated via Circle CCTP and the LayerZero router to eliminate the risk of liquidity pool imbalance and the model vulnerabilities exploited in this attack. This incident has accelerated the previously initiated migration plan to fully transition to the more secure new infrastructure, Allbridge Next. According to the plan, Allbridge Core and Allbridge Classic will cease operations in their current form within the next three months, and users are advised to withdraw their relevant liquidity in advance.It is understood that this attack has exposed the risks inherent in the traditional cross-chain liquidity pool model and has further driven the protocol's transition towards a cross-chain architecture based on message passing and native asset transfer.
According to AMD's official blog, AMD and Microsoft announced an expanded collaboration to jointly provide AI infrastructure for production-scale deployments on Azure. Microsoft will adopt the AMD Helios rack-scale AI infrastructure powered by AMD Instinct™ MI455X accelerators as a significant part of its continued investment in Azure AI infrastructure. AMD Helios is AMD's integrated platform for rack-scale AI infrastructure, integrating AMD Instinct™ MI455X accelerators, next-generation AMD EPYC™ processors, AMD Pensando™ networking technology, and the ROCm™ software ecosystem, supporting large-scale AI training, inference, fine-tuning, and Agentic AI workloads. Additionally, Microsoft will launch new Azure infrastructure products based on 6th Gen AMD EPYC processors, covering high-demand scenarios such as AI data systems and semiconductor design. Both parties stated that this collaboration aims to provide customers with more infrastructure options and drive AI from the experimental phase to scaled production deployment.
Elon Musk has completed the acquisition of APR Energy, a mobile power generation company, with the overall transaction valued at least $1 billion. Documents show that Duos Technologies sold its 5% non-voting stake in New APR Energy, realizing a net gain of $50.4 million, which implies an enterprise value exceeding $1 billion. Headquartered in Florida, USA, APR Energy specializes in modular gas and diesel mobile generator sets, with a total installed capacity exceeding 1 GW. Individual projects can be deployed in as fast as 15 to 30 days, providing temporary and backup power for data centers.Industry analysts suggest that this acquisition aims to support the expansion of xAI's computing cluster and reduce reliance on the public grid. However, the fossil fuel-based power generation model will also bring trade-offs in terms of carbon emissions, compliance, and long-term operational costs. (Techrepublic)
According to a series of tweets posted by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin on X on July 20, he engaged in deep reflection on AI capability growth and the future of humanity. Vitalik divides the evolution of machine capabilities into three stages: the Industrial Revolution (physical repetitive labor), the Computer Age (mental tasks definable by logic), and the LLM Era (mental and partial physical tasks defined based on massive samples). He points out that the current core question lies in: whether LLMs plus subsequent improvements can ultimately cover all unique human capabilities, or if a fourth or fifth technological wave is still needed. Regarding the definition of AGI, Vitalik proposes: AGI refers to AI that, if uploaded into a robotic body and humans suddenly disappear, can still independently continue civilization. He emphasizes that once AGI is realized, it will be an "irreversible turning point," and humanity's dominance over Earth will remain only due to historical inertia rather than capability advantage. Regarding the future path, Vitalik hopes for deep human-machine integration—erasing the human-machine binary boundary through technologies such as brain-computer interfaces and consciousness uploading, enabling humans to remain competitive before the technology ceiling arrives. He also calls for maintaining global political and economic diversification, avoiding monopolization of AI advantages by a single nation or corporation, and expresses support for AI development "slowdown" and "pause" proposals, leaning towards achieving decentralized slowdown via an open-source weights model rather than relying on coercive political means.
According to the latest report released by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on July 16, FATF conducted the seventh targeted review on the implementation of Recommendation 15 (R.15) across global jurisdictions. The report points out that since the last update in 2025, countries have continued to advance in the regulation of Virtual Assets (VA) and Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASP), including conducting risk assessments, improving licensing and registration frameworks, implementing the Travel Rule, and strengthening enforcement actions. However, the report also points out that significant gaps still exist, mainly reflected in: the difficulty in effectively translating risk assessment outcomes into mitigation measures, insufficient implementation of licensing and registration frameworks, difficulties in identifying entities engaged in VASP activities, and insufficient effectiveness of risk-based supervision and enforcement. Regarding emerging risks, the report focuses on the following areas: the intensified "industrialization" trend of organized crime groups using virtual assets to commit fraud, increased risk of stablecoin abuse, risks associated with non-custodial wallet peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions, offshore VASPs operating outside regulatory oversight, and ongoing challenges in the DeFi sector. FATF calls on the public and private sectors to jointly strengthen the implementation of R.15, enhance risk mitigation capabilities, and deepen domestic, international, and public-private cooperation mechanisms.
Odaily reports, according to official sources, Gate Alpha is launching a Robinhood Chain trading contest from 17:00 on July 17 to 16:00 on July 22 (UTC+8). After users click "Join Now" to complete registration, trading any token assets on the Robinhood Chain will qualify them to share in a $30,000 USDT airdrop reward. Sprint Trading Award: During the event, users with a cumulative trading volume on the Gate Alpha platform for Robinhood Chain assets (including both buys and sells) of ≥ $1,000 will proportionally share the $30,000 USDT airdrop reward based on their trading amount. Please visit the Gate Alpha zone, search for the Robinhood Chain token contract address, and participate in trading.Gate Alpha now supports popular public chains including SOL, ETH, Gate Layer, BSC, Base, SUI, ARB, World Chain, AVAX, Polygon, LINEA, ZK, OP, and Berachain, and enables seamless cross-chain token trading through contract address search functionality, breaking down cross-chain trading barriers to provide one-click access to all on-chain tokens.
Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin stated that he has built a toy-level demo version on Aztec based on the concept of a "moderated anonymous bulletin board" via vibe-coded methods, and has published the related experimental project on GitHub. He noted that the project is still in an early stage, but it can already implement some "very interesting and not simple" features; he also added that the project is currently at Stage 2.
David Sacks, Chairman of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, stated on the X platform that using regulatory uncertainty as a competitive tool is "completely unacceptable," and regulatory decisions should be based on facts, logic, and evidence, rather than deliberately creating fear and uncertainty (FUD). He is unsure whether venture capitalist and AI policy researcher Dean Ball is admitting to a "regulatory capture" strategy or merely predicting its occurrence, but in any case, leveraging regulatory agencies to issue "soft law" warnings, creating market panic, and thereby forcing regulated companies to stay away from Chinese open-source models should not be tolerated.David Sacks pointed out that Dean Ball believes there is no need to directly ban Chinese open-source models; simply guiding regulators to issue relevant warnings can influence corporate decisions by generating enough doubt and uncertainty, and these reasons "don't even need to be very solid."In response, Sacks argued that any regulatory decision must be well-founded, rather than implementing policies in disguise through "manufactured doubt." He warned that bypassing public deliberation processes in this way would not only erode the foundation of the rule of law but could also open the door to future regulatory abuses targeting any enterprise or individual.Sacks further stated that AI policy is currently at a critical turning point. Major closed-source labs, which have already formed a duopoly in AI model revenue, are now attempting to use government power to eliminate open-source competitors.He called on other companies and developers in Silicon Valley that still support open competition to take a clear stance and jointly safeguard an open ecosystem in the AI field.
According to Odaily, as of June 23, 2026, Foundry Digital, AntPool, ViaBTC, and F2Pool collectively control over 70% of the Bitcoin network's hashrate, with shares of approximately 31%, 18%, 13%, and 10% respectively. Foundry Digital is a US-based mining pool backed by Digital Currency Group, primarily serving large institutions and publicly listed mining companies. In the first half of 2026, D-Central reported a Nakamoto coefficient of 3, meaning that just three mining pools would be enough to produce more than half of the blocks. ViaBTC faced stricter regulatory scrutiny in 2026, prompting some miners to shift to alternative pools like EMCD.
According to CoinDesk, Zcash has released the full node software Zakura 1.0.0, a new client refactored based on Zebra that supports pruning, snapshot synchronization, and compatibility mode with the legacy zcashd, capable of reducing new node startup time to within two minutes. The project is maintained by Zcash zero-knowledge cryptography founding member Sean Bowe and Valar Group head Dev Ojha, aiming to lay the foundation for Zcash's subsequent scaling to throughput capabilities approaching those of Visa and Mastercard.
Claude announced that effective July 20, Fable 5 will be officially included in the Max and Team Premium subscription plans, and users will receive usage rights equivalent to 50% of the full quota. Pro and Team Standard users can still access Fable 5 by using credits and will receive a one-time $100 quota compensation. Claude stated that due to the difficulty in accurately predicting the scale of demand after Fable 5's launch, a phased rollout strategy was previously adopted, and the scope of subscriber access was expanded multiple times as compute resources increased. This process brought uncertainty to some users, so this adjustment aims to allow users to more clearly understand the model usage rights included in the subscription plans. In the future, continued investment will be made to expand compute capacity, and Fable 5's access policy will be continuously updated based on capacity conditions.
Bitcoin News posted on X platform, stating that Foundry USA Pool has begun soliciting voting opinions from its mining clients regarding BIP-110 signaling. According to the email sent to mining pool account holders, voting weight is calculated based on each participant's 10-day average hashrate. Foundry stated that it will follow the majority result of hashrate votes during the signaling period; if more than 51% of the voting hashrate supports BIP-110, the mining pool will signal "Yes" with 100% of its blocks; if the majority opposes it, no support signal will be issued. Foundry is the world's largest Bitcoin mining pool by hashrate.
: AI reasoning cloud startup General Compute has obtained a $400 million loan from Upper90. This deal is the world’s first financing project to use dedicated inference chips as collateral. The company has built a proprietary AI reasoning cloud platform based on SambaNova’s self-developed ASIC chips, primarily targeting Agent-type AI computing workloads. Compared to traditional GPU clouds, it offers faster token processing speeds and lower operational latency. The hardware requires no water cooling and can be directly deployed in traditional data centers and idle cryptocurrency mining facilities.
Ethereum Layer 2 infrastructure Optimism has officially announced a tripartite strategic collaboration, joining forces with Upbit operator Dunamu, fintech platform Toss, and DB Securities to comprehensively expand into the Korean market. On the cooperation front with Dunamu, both parties will upgrade the GIWA public chain based on the OP Stack and promote its global development. A three-month technical verification will be conducted with Toss to build a compliant Korean won digital financial infrastructure. Optimism and DB Securities are focusing on the STO and RWA sectors, planning to transform Jeju Island's smart agriculture, livestock assets, and Korean intellectual property into tokenized securities and real-world asset products. This will facilitate the phased on-chain commercialization of local physical assets, with the entire cooperation framework tailored to align with Korea's financial regulatory framework.
Peter Brandt, a seasoned trader and renowned chart analyst, has released his latest technical analysis. He points out that the daily chart of Nasdaq 100 mini futures is forming a diamond pattern, indicating a potential market top. Regarding Bitcoin, Brandt offers a forecast based on historical cycles: BTC may first rebound by $10,000, then retreat to the $40,000 range, forming the bottom of the current cycle around early October 2026. With the current price fluctuating near $60,000, he warns of the downside risk associated with false breakouts. Maintaining a long-term optimistic view, Brandt suggests that if Bitcoin continues its four-year halving cycle pattern, the price could reach between $300,000 and $500,000 by 2029.
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.