News linked to both this project and an event.
Odaily News: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has once again postponed its plan for a tokenization "innovation exemption." The framework was intended to allow companies to test blockchain-based tokenized trading of U.S. stocks without meeting full exchange and broker-dealer standards. The delay is tied to unresolved negotiations over Section 10505 of the draft CLARITY Act in the U.S. Senate. That provision stipulates that tokenized securities remain securities and requires the SEC to study custody, consumer protection, cross-border issues, and regulatory coordination. The SEC also postponed a vote scheduled for Friday on a proposed exemption for crypto startup fundraising, citing scheduling issues, with no new date announced. The House version of the CLARITY Act passed in July 2025, and the Senate Banking Committee version advanced by a 15-9 vote in May of this year. A procedural Senate vote is not expected before September 15. (Bitcoin.com News)
Odaily News: Cryptocurrency market maker Wintermute plans to invest approximately $1 billion over the next five years in AI infrastructure and high-frequency trading systems, while expanding into equities, commodities, foreign exchange, and prediction markets. The company aims to increase non-crypto revenue to more than 50% of total revenue by the end of 2027. Wintermute founder and CEO Evgeny Gaevoy said the company plans to fund the investment with retained earnings. Wintermute's average daily trading volume this year is around $10 billion, down from approximately $15 billion last year; non-crypto businesses currently account for about 10% of revenue. The investment projects will cover computing power, storage, network, and data center infrastructure, supporting quantitative strategies that rely on large-scale datasets and models requiring continuous training and retraining. Wintermute has already expanded into exchange-traded funds, real-world asset perpetual futures, and prediction markets. Wintermute's U.S. affiliate recently completed its broker-dealer registration, allowing it to trade equities and stock options for its own account and serve as an authorized participant for exchange-traded products. The registration provides a pathway for the company to enter regulated securities markets. (Bitcoin.com News)
Odaily News: Bitcoin fell to $62,912 on Thursday before briefly recovering above $63,000, with its market cap dropping to $1.26 trillion, still down 0.5% on the day. The total amount of liquidations in the crypto market reached $227 million, with long liquidations at $122 million and short liquidations at approximately $105 million. Bitcoin long liquidations amounted to nearly $34 million, an increase of over $13 million from the previous day. AMINA Research noted in its macro analysis that geopolitical risks in the Strait of Hormuz have driven phased increases in energy prices, raising inflation risks and potentially delaying the Fed's rate cuts until late 2026. At the July 29 meeting, three regional Fed presidents supported a 25-basis-point rate hike. (Bitcoin.com News)
Odaily News: Cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX has announced that it will fully shut down its platform at 4:00 (UTC) on September 23, 2026. BitMEX CEO Peter Wilkinson stated that the exchange has been operating for over 11 years and has never lost customer funds due to hacker attacks during that period. Peter Wilkinson noted that BitMEX failed to keep pace with its competitors, having long focused on derivatives business while failing to offer spot trading, yield products, custody, and stablecoin trading services in a timely manner. The exchange also entered the USDT market relatively late, in 2021. He stated that BitMEX once supported its founding team in pioneering perpetual swaps, a product that has since become one of the highest-trading-volume financial instruments in the crypto industry and is now widely used for leveraged cryptocurrency trading. (Bitcoin.com News)
Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase will open access to over 170 derivatives contracts for eligible UK professional investors, covering cryptocurrencies, commodities, equities, and foreign exchange. Perpetual contracts support up to 50x leverage, with services rolling out gradually over the coming weeks to months. The product lineup includes futures, perpetual contracts, and cryptocurrency options. Perpetual contracts have no expiration date and support long, short, and neutral strategies; term futures offer up to 20x leverage with fixed settlement dates. Coinbase previously obtained UK investment services authorization in July, with the related derivatives business operating under CB Payments Ltd.'s investment services license. The initial phase is limited to eligible UK professional investors, and the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) will impose requirements on financial soundness, capital, stress testing, and market integrity. (Bitcoin.com News)
Odaily News: The specification for Bitcoin's proposed soft fork BIP-54 (Consensus Cleanup) was completed in May 2026, aiming to fix four consensus rule boundary issues without adding new Bitcoin features. On August 10, Wang Chun, co-founder of digital asset mining pool F2pool, stated that he does not support BIP-54. He said that if the proposal obtains the required majority through the standard BIP-9 process, F2pool will upgrade its mining nodes, but will not issue a signal of support ahead of time. BIP-54 has been tested in Bitcoin Inquisition, a Signet-based testing environment. Mining pools MARA and ViaBTC have voluntarily produced compatible coinbase transactions; the official activation parameters have not yet been determined, and the mainnet vote has not been completed. Previously, BIP-110, which attempted to restrict certain non-financial data in Bitcoin transactions, failed to gain sufficient miner support and stalled around block height 961,635; BIP-54 does not involve restricting general script functionality. (Bitcoin.com News)
Odaily News: Kostas Chalkias, co-founder and chief cryptographer of Mysten Labs, the development company behind the Sui blockchain, stated that he has leased a dedicated factory at a secret location and plans to scale up production of quantum-safe hardware wallet cards for Sui. The project aims to keep the cost of a single quantum card key under $10, with NFC quantum signing expected to take 1 to 2 seconds. Chalkias noted that the project is being advanced in his personal time outside of work and may include funding to provide cards for users who cannot afford them. The initiative is partly driven by a recent incident involving Coldcard hardware wallets, though the vulnerability was not a quantum attack. Coldcard manufacturer Coinkite disclosed that a firmware vulnerability in Coldcard, traceable to a 2021 update, bypassed the hardware random number chip and generated keys using a predictable software process linked to device serial numbers. Attackers have been moving funds since July 30, with losses climbing to approximately 2,055 BTC, affecting over 7,700 addresses and nearing a value of $130 million. At the protocol level, Sui plans to integrate two quantum-resistant signature schemes approved by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), designed for everyday accounts and high-value Move vaults, respectively. Existing accounts can be rotated to quantum-safe keys based on their original recovery phrases, without needing to migrate to new wallets. (Bitcoin.com News)
Odaily News: The U.S. Senate will hold a procedural cloture vote on a motion related to the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act (CLARITY Act) at 2:15 PM ET on September 15. This marks the first full Senate vote on the bill since it passed the House in July 2025. The bill is numbered H.R. 3633 and was previously passed by the House with 294 votes in favor and 134 votes against. The vote concerns whether to limit debate on the motion to proceed with the bill; supporters need 60 votes to succeed. Republicans currently hold 53 seats in the Senate. If all Republican senators vote in favor, they would still need 7 additional votes; any absence or opposition would increase the number of additional votes required. If the procedural vote passes, the subsequent debate time on the motion to proceed will be capped at 30 hours, after which the Senate will vote on the motion itself. Only if the motion is approved will the bill be formally considered, and the bill itself will still need to pass another 60-vote cloture motion. If the Senate amends the text, the revised version would need to be sent back to the House for a vote. (Bitcoin.com News)
According to Bitcoin.com, cybersecurity company Genians Security Center released an analysis report stating that the North Korean Reconnaissance General Bureau-affiliated hacker group Kimsuky is building and testing an AI-centric cyberattack tool suite. Researchers discovered traces of the deployment of three local AI platforms, Ollama, GPT4All, and Msty, in their infrastructure, as well as AI development framework components such as Microsoft Semantic Kernel and LLaMaSharp, indicating that the organization is systematically developing dedicated AI attack tools rather than just making temporary attempts. Since early 2026, Kimsuky has used high-quality documents created by generative AI for spear-phishing attacks targeting the virtual assets, financial investment, and game development sectors; AI-generated professional documents have significantly reduced the effectiveness of traditional phishing email identification. The attack vector consists of ZIP archives disguised as legitimate documents, containing malicious LNK files that can silently execute PowerShell commands in the background after being triggered.
Odaily News: UAE-based foundation Aqua1 Foundation purchased $100 million worth of governance tokens from decentralized finance project World Liberty Financial (WLFI) on June 26, marking the largest single publicly disclosed purchase of the token to date. The funds trace back to Chinese businessman Guren "Bobby" Zhou, with up to $75 million flowing to entities linked to the Trump family and World Liberty Financial co-founder Zach Witkoff. WLFI tokens confer governance and voting rights and do not represent equity in the company. Zhou was arrested in the UK in March 2021 on suspicion of money laundering, with UK law enforcement investigations still ongoing as of late July 2026. Two of his long-time employees were indicted in September 2025, one of whom has pleaded guilty, with trial scheduled for 2028. Zhou has not yet been formally charged. Zhou met with Eric Trump in Dubai to discuss the investment and described it as participation in the "Trump family's crypto project." The source of the $100 million Aqua1 used to purchase WLFI remains unclear, and public information does not indicate any direct link between these specific funds and money laundering activities. (Bitcoin.com News)
Odaily News: Ethereum developers have proposed a "Tapered Issuance Burn" mechanism, which plans to gradually burn a portion of validators' idealized duty rewards as the ETH staking ratio rises; when the staked amount approaches 50% of the total supply, ETH net issuance will drop to 0%. The proposal's author stated that the ETH staking ratio has already exceeded one-third of the total supply as of April; without adjustments, Jerome de Tychey noted that by January 2028, the staked amount could exceed 70 million ETH, representing over 55% of the supply. Supporters argue that excessive staking could first render small independent validators economically unviable, leading to staking concentration among custodians and large service providers; the proposal is planned to be implemented over an 18-month period, with an additional preparation window of approximately 6 months reserved before any potential network upgrade. Stani Kulechov, founder of lending protocol Aave, stated that once the staking ratio exceeds 50% and rewards drop to 0%, yield uncertainty could weaken institutional staking and DeFi demand. He noted that ETH lending strategies may be affected, and the proposal remains in its early stages. (Bitcoin.com News)
Odaily News: On August 5, the minority staff of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs stated that the July 22 version of the CLARITY Act fails to meet five minimum standards. The bill, numbered H.R. 3633, aims to divide digital asset regulatory authority between the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The analysis suggests that the bill's two-tier system could remove certain blockchain assets from SEC oversight, allowing issuing companies to self-certify exemptions from securities regulation. Healthy Markets and five labor organizations have raised concerns over pension protections and securities law loopholes, while minority staff also noted that investors' private right of action and state and tribal enforcement powers could be weakened. Minority staff stated that DeFi-related companies could be exempt from anti-illegal financing obligations even if they earn millions of dollars from platform transactions; some crypto mixers may circumvent U.S. sanctions by exploiting the "Tornado Cash loophole." The Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) and the Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS) warned that stablecoin yields could drain deposits from community banks, and the Systemic Risk Council has flagged related banking activities as potential bailout risks. Minority staff noted that Donald Trump alone earned over $1.4 billion from crypto businesses in 2025, with related enforcement solely under the purview of his Attorney General, and that obligations would terminate upon his departure from office. Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal, citing $3.8 billion in investor losses, have separately called on the SEC to investigate Trump memecoin. The Senate is scheduled to hold a cloture vote on September 15 on the motion to proceed, with the bill needing 60 votes to advance. (Bitcoin.com News)
According to Bitcoin.com, Fireblocks released the 2026 "Financial Grid" survey report, covering over 600 executives. The report shows that 99% of Continental European institutions and 100% of UK institutions expect regulatory policies to support digital asset development. Influenced by the clarity of the MiCA regulatory framework, 53% of European institutions have completed capital commitments before 2026, higher than the global average of 42%; as the UK's regulatory framework is still being formulated, this proportion is only 36%, but an additional 59% of UK institutions plan to complete budget allocations within 2026. In terms of product strategy, European institutions lead in tokenized money market funds (62% vs 45%) and tokenized securities; the UK is more aggressive in stablecoin issuance, with 50% of institutions planning to issue stablecoins independently, higher than Europe's 40%. Both markets list 24/7 settlement and real-time payments as primary application scenarios.
According to Bitcoin.com, a recent survey report released by Bearingpoint shows that 23% of Swiss adults use cryptocurrency at least occasionally, far higher than 11% in Germany and 18% in Austria. The survey was conducted by YouGov in June 2026 among over 4,000 adults in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. The report points out that Switzerland's leading advantage stems from its Distributed Ledger Technology Act (DLT Act) officially effective in 2021, which provides a clear legal framework for crypto assets, attracting a large number of enterprises to establish operations, and driving the expansion of the "Crypto Valley" ecosystem to 1,749 blockchain companies. Additionally, 37% of Swiss respondents consider cryptocurrency an asset worth investing in, and 45% support it becoming an international reserve currency, both leading Germany and Austria. In contrast, regarding Germany, although retail adoption rates lag behind, the "meinkrypto" platform under DZ Bank and Dekabank's crypto services for the savings bank network are expected to cover approximately 80 million customers, potentially gradually narrowing the gap with Switzerland.
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.
According to Bitcoin.com, Strategy Inc. (NASDAQ: MSTR) Executive Chairman Michael Saylor stated that since the company established Bitcoin as its primary reserve asset in August 2020, MSTR stock has achieved an annualized return of 42%, surpassing Bitcoin itself, the "Magnificent Seven" tech stocks, and the S&P 500 Index. As of July 29, Strategy holds 843,775 BTC, with a cumulative purchase cost of approximately $63.69 billion, and an average price of approximately $75,476 per coin, currently showing an unrealized loss of approximately 17.9% compared to the cost price (approximately $11.4 billion). To address the increasingly complex capital structure, Strategy launched three new metrics on July 24: Net BTC Per Share, BTC Hurdle ARR (minimum annualized return required to cover financing costs), and BTC Floor ARR (minimum annualized return required to maintain leverage ratio sustainability), to help investors more clearly assess the actual value of their Bitcoin holdings. Additionally, the company plans to provide funding for preferred stock repurchases through the future sale of a portion of its Bitcoin.
According to Bitcoin.com, U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis is pushing hard for the CLARITY Act to complete Senate voting before Congress adjourns. Section 303 of the bill grants the Treasury Department the authority to impose targeted digital asset sanctions on foreign jurisdictions, while Section 305 allows exchanges to freeze suspicious transactions for up to 180 days. On-chain data shows that North Korea's Lazarus Group stole approximately $643 million in the first half of 2026, accounting for two-thirds of the total global crypto theft during the same period ($972 million), including a $285 million attack on Drift Protocol in April and a $292 million attack on the KelpDAO cross-chain bridge. The group's cumulative theft amount has reached $6.75 billion since 2019. Currently, Galaxy Research has lowered the probability of the CLARITY Act passing within 2026 to 30%. The bill still requires 60 votes to advance, meaning at least 7 Democratic senators need to vote across party lines in support.
Ripple announced on July 14, 2026, that it has joined the x402 Foundation under the Linux Foundation as a Premier Member, participating in the technical and governance development of the protocol. The x402 Foundation, initiated by 40 member organizations, aims to develop an open payment standard based on HTTP for AI agents, APIs, and applications. Coinbase has contributed x402 to the Linux Foundation, supporting AI agents, APIs, and applications in sending and receiving payments directly during network interactions. Ripple stated that the XRP Ledger already supports agent payments via x402, including transactions using XRP and the Ripple USD stablecoin RLUSD. (Bitcoin.com News).
Interactive Brokers announced on Tuesday an expansion of its digital asset business, adding trading tokens such as Aave, Aptos, Canton, Lido DAO, Monad, NEAR Protocol, Plasma, Pax Gold, and Uniswap, and supporting 24/7 stablecoin wallet transfers via USDC, PYUSD, and RLUSD. As of mid-2026, Interactive Brokers manages approximately $930.3 billion in client assets. Crypto trading commissions start at 0.12% to 0.18% of the total transaction amount, with a minimum of $1.75 per order, and no additional spreads, markups, or custody fees are charged. The company stated that two-way stablecoin deposits are not available for UK and Irish accounts, and clients of the Irish affiliate company will not have access to the newly listed crypto assets. (Bitcoin.com News).
: White House Crypto Council Executive Director Patrick Witt will conclude his final working day at the White House on July 18. He will begin attending the Georgia Army National Guard Judge Advocate Officer training on July 27. Witt was previously responsible for negotiations on the CLARITY Act, which is expected to face a full Senate vote around July 20. Deputy Director Harry Jung will take over the relevant negotiations and will also lead efforts on the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and the GENIUS Act. The consolidated draft of the CLARITY Act is expected to be released this week. The bill needs 60 votes to pass the filibuster threshold, requiring at least seven Democratic supporters. Democrats are demanding the inclusion of ethics clauses regarding the president's personal crypto asset exposure. Disclosure information shows that Trump earned over $1.4 billion from crypto-related businesses last year. (Bitcoin.com News)