News linked to both this project and an event.
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.
据 The Block 报道，INTERPOL 主导的全球反欺诈专项行动共逮捕超过 5800 名嫌疑人，并成功揭露一个利用跨链代币交换手段掩盖非法资金流向的加密货币洗钱网络。其中一名嫌疑人的数字钱包在短短 10 个月内处理资金逾 1.225 亿美元。链上分析人士指出，跨链操作虽增加追踪难度，但并不意味着资金流向无法溯源，此类案例表明金融犯罪正持续随区块链技术演进而升级。
According to The Block, Block agreed to pay $45 million to settle with regulators in nearly 50 U.S. states. Regulators alleged that its Cash App exaggerated platform security safeguards, describing it as having fund protection capabilities comparable to traditional banks, but failed to effectively prevent fraud and did not provide adequate customer support and fraud reporting channels.
According to The Block, BNB Chain is building a new Layer 1 blockchain designed specifically for agent trading, targeting transaction pre-confirmation in under 50 milliseconds, and suppressing MEV behaviors such as sandwich attacks by eliminating the public mempool (adopting the TxStream mechanism). The new chain will also reserve block space for oracles, liquidations, and cross-chain bridges via PriorityLane, with a designed throughput target exceeding 100,000 TPS, and supporting sub-second block finality. This chain will become the fourth chain in the BNB Chain ecosystem, connected to BNB Smart Chain via a native bridge, with BSC serving as the settlement hub. The testnet is planned to launch at the end of 2026, and the mainnet is expected to deploy in early 2027.
BNB Chain is developing a new Layer 1 blockchain designed for Agentic Trading, releasing the first detailed architectural information after months of research and development. According to BNB Chain's disclosed technical roadmap for the second half of 2026, the new chain will run in parallel with the existing BNB Chain ecosystem, targeting transaction preconfirmation times of less than 50 milliseconds. The goal is to deliver an execution experience close to that of centralized exchanges (CEX) while retaining the advantages of on-chain self-custody and transparency.In terms of technical architecture, the new chain will remove the traditional public mempool and introduce a transaction transmission mechanism called "TxStream," which directly sends transactions to block producers to reduce latency and minimize MEV extraction behaviors such as sandwich attacks. (The Block)
: According to official sources, the BNB ecosystem prediction market platform predict.fun has announced the launch of an institutional-level block trading feature. It offers off-chain matching and on-chain settlement services for large transactions on the platform, supporting institutional users in conducting large-scale prediction market trades. Through a dedicated matching service, buyers and sellers can directly match with counterparties and complete large orders via single peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions, avoiding issues such as slippage, insufficient liquidity, and position exposure found in traditional order book trading. It is reported that predict.fun will waive all over-the-counter (OTC) trading related fees for the next two weeks.
crypto trading platform Gemini has announced the launch of zero-commission stock trading services in most U.S. states, further expanding its traditional financial business and moving toward the goal of becoming an "all-in-one financial super app."Gemini stated that the service is currently not available to users in Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Massachusetts, Texas, Puerto Rico, Washington D.C., and Guam. Real-time market data services will be provided by Nasdaq. (The Block)
the official Bonk Inu X account announced that BonkDAO was attacked via a malicious governance proposal, resulting in the theft of approximately $20 million worth of BONK tokens from its DAO treasury.According to reports, the attacker exploited a suspicious governance proposal to transfer assets from the BonkDAO treasury. The stolen BONK subsequently began flowing to exchanges, putting downward pressure on the BONK price. Data from The Block shows that the BONK price has dropped over 9%.South Korean exchange Upbit subsequently issued a notice stating that it has temporarily suspended BONK deposits and withdrawals to address the incident and mitigate potential risks. (The Block)
tokenized sovereign debt startup M1X Global has completed a $5.5 million seed funding round, led by Paradigm, with participation from Breed VC and others.It is understood that M1X Global previously collaborated with the Republic of the Marshall Islands to assist in the issuance of the on-chain sovereign debt instrument USDM1. This product is a dollar-denominated tokenized sovereign debt instrument, 1:1 backed by U.S. Treasury bonds, and natively issued on a public blockchain by a sovereign nation. USDM1 was initially issued on Stellar and is now also available on Canton and Solana.Jordan Goldman, President and COO of M1X, stated that sovereign debt is one of the largest asset classes globally, but prior to USDM1, it did not exist in a native on-chain form. The company aims to establish USDM1 as on-chain sovereign collateral and expand its use within regulated financial markets.The initial application scenario for USDM1 is domestic government aid distribution. Citizens of the Marshall Islands can receive funds via the Lomalo wallet, with payments settling in seconds, bypassing the need for traditional correspondent banking networks. M1X also indicated that its recent integration with Bank of Guam, a U.S. FDIC-insured bank, further connects USDM1 to regulated banking infrastructure. (The Block)
On the eve of the U.S. Independence Day holiday, sentiment in the crypto market is gradually stabilizing. Bitcoin is holding above $61,000, and Ethereum has climbed above $1,700, continuing the rebound from the previous day. The unexpectedly weak U.S. non-farm payroll data earlier had cooled market expectations for further tightening by the Federal Reserve, rekindling demand for risk assets. Volatility in the options market has notably declined, with short-term implied volatility falling from recent highs into the low 30s range, as market sentiment shifts from panic hedging to relative calm. However, some institutions believe the data is not a one-sided "dovish signal." Accelerating wages and resilient consumer spending still support the Fed in maintaining a hawkish stance. The divergence between U.S. Treasury yields and stock market performance further indicates lingering disagreement over the policy path. (The Block)
According to The Block, tokenization leader Securitize (stock ticker: SECZ) officially listed on the New York Stock Exchange on July 2 local time, with an opening price of $12.45, an intraday high of $13.70, and a closing price of $12.30. Meanwhile, Securitize simultaneously launched tokenized stocks on the Solana and Avalanche chains, becoming the first company to achieve "traditional market + on-chain" dual-track issuance on the first day of listing, supporting 24/7 trading. Securitize President Brett Redfearn stated that the company is actively negotiating with the capital markets departments of major investment banks such as JPMorgan Chase, and plans to distribute IPO shares in tokenized form to crypto wallets such as MetaMask and OKX within the next 3 to 6 months.
Crypto bank Anchorage Digital has announced its integration with Lido, the largest liquid staking protocol on Ethereum, offering institutional clients direct access to its derivative asset, wstETH. Institutional users can now mint and redeem wstETH, earning Ethereum staking yields while benefiting from Anchorage’s custody and governance compliance framework. (The Block)
Ethereum Layer 2 project Taiko has reopened its cross-chain bridge. Taiko stated that the network is now fully recovered, all user funds have been replenished, and it will soon release a full post-mortem report on the vulnerability incident. (The Block)