News linked to both this project and an event.
According to CoinDesk, Project Agorá, led by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), recently completed a cross-border payment test with real funds. Participants included 28 commercial banks such as JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, UBS, Deutsche Bank, and Standard Chartered, as well as five central banks. The test processed approximately $1 million (about 800,000 Swiss francs) in real transactions, covering six currencies: the US dollar, euro, pound sterling, Japanese yen, Swiss franc, and South Korean won. The test utilized tokenized central bank reserves and commercial bank deposits, settling funds on a shared ledger with an average settlement time of about 80 seconds. Unlike traditional cross-border payments that require intermediation by multiple correspondent banks, the platform achieved shared single ownership records and supports synchronized settlement of bilateral foreign exchange, effectively reducing principal risk. The BIS stated that the platform can operate in parallel with existing payment systems, rather than replacing them.
According to CoinDesk, Swiss digital asset bank AMINA is partnering with Wall Street firm Cantor to evaluate potential listing options. Sources familiar with the matter said the company had explored paths such as mergers with special purpose acquisition companies, but currently favors entering the public market through a reverse acquisition by a digital asset treasury company. However, AMINA stated that relevant discussions are still ongoing and no final decision has been made; the core goal at this stage is to raise capital to support strategic growth, rather than pushing for a rapid listing.
According to CoinDesk, Lido has launched its largest upgrade since V2, planning to integrate more than 8 million staked ETH, valued at approximately $16.5 billion, into the new validator architecture following the Ethereum Pectra upgrade.
According to CoinDesk, the new draft of the CLARITY Act has been officially released. This draft merges the two versions from the Senate Banking Committee and the Agriculture Committee and includes ethics provisions for the first time. Voting procedures are expected to commence this Monday or Tuesday, with the formal vote potentially taking place as early as the week of August 3.
According to CoinDesk, Eddy Zervigon, CEO of quantum computing security infrastructure company Quantum Xchange, stated that cryptocurrencies, due to their decentralized nature, will become the "canary in the coal mine" for quantum computing attacks—that is, the area where vulnerabilities will be exposed first. Latest assessments by Google researchers show that the number of physical qubits required to break Bitcoin's elliptic curve encryption has decreased 20-fold compared to previous estimates, and multiple institutions have brought forward the expected date of "Q-Day" (the day quantum computers can break existing encryption systems) to 2029. Deutsche Digital Assets pointed out that the real risk lies not in the encryption technology itself, but in the speed of governance—Bitcoin upgrades require 90% miner consensus, which has historically triggered hard forks (such as the 2017 SegWit upgrade leading to the birth of Bitcoin Cash), whereas traditional financial institutions only need a board resolution to complete encryption infrastructure migration. Additionally, experts caution that the quantum threat is not a binary event that "arrives suddenly on a certain day"; even if quantum computers require months to crack data, as long as the cracking is completed while the data is still valuable, the threat is established.
the race for the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) is coming to an end, but the real challenges for companies are just beginning. The high cost of maintaining ongoing compliance systems may reshape the European crypto landscape. The future competitive focus in the industry is likely to shift from "who can obtain a license" to "who can afford the regulatory costs," driving companies towards scaling through mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, or partnerships with banks. As MiCA is gradually implemented and the UK's crypto regulatory framework takes shape, the European crypto industry is entering a new phase of consolidation. Insiders believe that high-standard regulatory requirements could fuel a new wave of M&A, and cooperation between crypto-native companies and traditional financial institutions will deepen further.This trend may be even more pronounced in the UK market. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is developing a new regulatory framework for crypto assets, which is expected to bring crypto businesses under the existing financial services regulatory system, subjecting them to capital, operational, and customer asset protection requirements similar to those for traditional investment firms. Steven Lightstone, a partner at Morgan Lewis in London and co-head of the global fintech team, stated that while the FCA aims to promote market competition and support new entrants, its regulatory standards will be very strict when it comes to consumer protection. Unlike the EU's standalone MiCA framework, the UK's approach will directly leverage the existing financial regulatory system to manage crypto firms.Meanwhile, increased regulatory certainty is accelerating the entry of European banks into the digital asset space. Simon Schneider, CEO of Sygnum Europe, noted that currently fewer than 20% of banks in Europe offer crypto-related services, indicating a significant market gap. The greatest value of MiCA is not just creating a new licensing system but providing legal certainty for financial institutions to enter the digital asset market. Citing Switzerland as an example, he pointed out that after the introduction of distributed ledger technology regulations, most major Swiss banks have begun offering digital asset services, a path that other parts of Europe may follow in the future. Banks are unlikely to replace crypto-native companies altogether; instead, they are more likely to rely on specialized infrastructure providers and collaborate in areas such as custody, brokerage, staking, and asset tokenization.As companies that fail to secure MiCA licenses gradually exit the European market, assets may become further concentrated among regulated entities. However, Schneider believes that self-custody models and institutional custody models will continue to coexist for the long term.Industry insiders suggest that the European crypto industry is entering a "regulatory-driven consolidation cycle." For crypto startups that previously
Goldman Sachs Group CEO David Solomon stated that while the CLARITY Act is not perfect, he supports its advancement, believing it will establish a clearer and fairer regulatory framework for the digital asset market, enhance market stability, and promote innovation.Solomon said the most significant implication of the CLARITY Act is "creating a level playing field, allowing the market to develop healthily." This stance contrasts sharply with that of some banking executives, such as JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon. They argue that the bill, by allowing crypto companies to offer stablecoin products similar to interest-bearing deposits without assuming the same regulatory requirements as banks, could weaken the competitiveness of traditional banks.Currently, Republican senators in the U.S. have released a revised text of the CLARITY Act, which could be submitted to the Senate for a vote as early as next week. The bill aims to clarify the division of responsibilities between the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in regulating digital assets, and will continue negotiations on terms related to stablecoin issuance, consumer protection, and yield-bearing stablecoins. (CoinDesk)
According to CoinDesk, the UK government plans to complete the first tokenized sovereign bond issuance tests through HSBC and the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) in early 2027, but industry experts point out that on-chain cash settlement issues remain the core obstacle hindering the implementation of the plan. Varun Paul, Global Head of Central Banks and Market Infrastructure at Fireblocks, stated that the project has secured sufficient institutional support, and a change in government (UK Prime Minister changing from Keir Starmer to Andy Burnham) is unlikely to reverse it, and tokenized government bonds are expected to boost market demand given the UK's current debt scale of nearly 3 trillion pounds (approximately 4 trillion USD). Jannah Patchay, Founder of Markets Evolution, pointed out that tokenized bond technology has been validated for nearly seven years since Santander Bank issued the first tokenized sterling corporate bond in 2019, but the absence of on-chain counterparty risk-free settlement assets has remained unresolved. She called on regulators to promote the use of compliant sterling stablecoins to provide an on-chain settlement mechanism. Currently, the global stablecoin market size reaches $300 billion, but TGBP, the largest pound stablecoin by market capitalization, is only worth about $34.2 million, accounting for a negligible proportion.
According to CoinDesk, the Cardano wallet SecondFi was attacked due to a vulnerability in its transaction signing software. A total of 16.1 million ADA (approximately $2.4 million) across 374 wallets was stolen, and the platform has announced permanent closure. The vulnerability allowed attackers to derive private keys from transaction data visible on-chain. The Cardano network itself was not affected, nor were hardware wallet users. An investigation by Groom Lake, a blockchain intelligence company hired by EMURGO, revealed that the primary attackers were sophisticated and well-funded. Some indications point to North Korea's Lazarus Group, but this has not yet been officially confirmed. SecondFi plans to release a wallet export tool in early August and launch a zero-knowledge recovery portal later in the month. EMURGO has established an asset recovery wallet, with the specific distribution time to be determined.
According to CoinDesk, Kraken's parent company Payward announced it will expand its tokenized stock platform xStocks to markets outside the United States, planning to partner with investment infrastructure provider GTN to bring listed stocks from Hong Kong, the UK, Europe, and South Korea on-chain, with further expansion to other asset classes subject to regulatory approval. Currently, xStocks supports over 500 tokenized securities, with cumulative trading volume exceeding $35 billion and nearly 200,000 holders, but the product is not currently open to US investors.
Odaily Odaily News The Cardano network completed the Van Rossem hard fork upgrade on July 18, upgrading the mainnet protocol version to 11 (Protocol Version 11). This upgrade not only brings smart contract performance optimizations but also marks the first time Cardano has completed a protocol upgrade led by its community governance system, rather than being directly driven by the founding team.Previously, Cardano hard forks were mainly coordinated by core organizations such as the engineering firm Input Output (IOG), which is responsible for development. In contrast, the Van Rossem upgrade was fully facilitated through Cardano's on-chain governance system for proposal, discussion, and voting, becoming the first major upgrade autonomously approved by network participants since Cardano entered the Voltaire governance era.According to on-chain data, the Cardano mainnet upgraded from version 10 in epoch 643 to version 11 in epoch 644, officially activating on July 18 at 21:44 UTC. The upgrade received final approval on July 13, requiring consensus from the representative bodies, the Constitutional Committee, and stake pool operators.Among them, DReps (Delegated Representatives), who vote on behalf of ADA holders in governance, approved the proposal with a 78.97% support rate, exceeding the 60% requirement; all seven members of the Cardano Constitutional Committee confirmed the upgrade complies with constitutional requirements; and stake pool operators, responsible for running the network's infrastructure, approved the upgrade with a 53.02% support rate.The Van Rossem upgrade primarily includes technical improvements such as optimizing the Plutus smart contract platform, reducing smart contract execution costs, and enhancing ledger validation rules. This upgrade also paves the way for the future Dijkstra-era hard fork and the Ouroboros Leios scaling solution.Ouroboros Leios aims to enhance the processing capacity of Cardano’s proof-of-stake consensus mechanism. It is expected to launch in 2026, potentially significantly increasing the network's transaction throughput while maintaining security.For ordinary ADA users, this upgrade does not bring significant operational changes; wallets do not need updating, and transfer methods and fees remain the same. However, in the long run, Plutus optimizations could lower the operational costs of decentralized applications (DeFi, NFTs, etc.), providing lower-cost infrastructure for ecosystem development.Cardano stated that the greatest significance of Van Rossem is not merely the technical upgrade, but the shift in governance model—the future direction of the network will be determined by community votes, rather than being entirely controlled by the founding team. This means ADA holders now truly possess governance rights to participate in protocol evolution for the first time. (CoinDesk)
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.
Robinhood is betting on the decentralized finance (DeFi) market by building its own blockchain, Robinhood Chain, aiming to bring over 10 million active users into the on-chain ecosystem. However, current trading activity on the network is still primarily driven by meme coin speculation, while the initial vision of tokenizing real-world assets (RWA) has yet to gain traction.Trading volume on Robinhood Chain has seen rapid growth recently. On July 12, the chain’s 24-hour DEX trading volume reached approximately $878 million, briefly surpassing Coinbase’s Base and Ethereum to rank among the top in decentralized trading volume, sparking interest in the crypto community. However, Robinhood Chain is still in its early stages. Data shows:1. On July 13, the chain’s perpetual contract trading volume was only about $5.9 million, while leading on-chain derivatives platform Hyperliquid recorded a trading volume of $8.9 billion during the same period;2. Robinhood Chain’s bridged TVL is reported at around $734 million, but the actual on-chain total value locked (TVL) is approximately $211 million, with some assets remaining in wallets and not entering lending or yield protocols;3. The market capitalization of tokenized RWA assets currently stands at just about $12.66 million.Currently, most of the trading activity on Robinhood Chain comes from meme coins. The CASHCAT token, recently launched on the chain, surged over 2,100% in one week, reaching a market cap of $156 million at one point—12 times the size of the entire RWA market on the chain.Robinhood stated that early on-chain activity is meeting expectations, with developers building out the ecosystem and users actively engaging with the network. The company emphasized that the long-term goal remains to bring real-world assets like stocks and ETFs on-chain, enabling services such as 24/7 trading and on-chain lending.Analysts believe Robinhood Chain’s development trajectory mirrors the early stages of some new public chains: gaining initial traction through speculative trading before proving whether it can convert this into long-term users, a developer ecosystem, and real financial applications. The key going forward will be whether Robinhood can leverage its massive retail user base to transform the short-term meme coin frenzy into a sustainable on-chain financial ecosystem. (CoinDesk)
crypto financial services firm Galaxy Digital (GLXY) has announced the launch of an institutional-grade vault management service, “Galaxy Curator.” Built on the decentralized lending protocol Morpho and made available through Fireblocks Earn to over 2,400 institutional clients, the service helps them generate stablecoin on-chain yields without the need to directly manage DeFi infrastructure.Galaxy stated that the product aims to address the issue of large sums of stablecoins held by institutions remaining idle for extended periods. Due to settlement, capital deployment, and operational requirements, large-scale stablecoin assets often sit in custody accounts, while direct participation in DeFi protocols presents high technical and risk barriers. (CoinDesk)
According to CoinDesk, crypto communications company Chainstory released a research report stating that among the top 1000 crypto projects ranked by CoinGecko, only 67 have Wikipedia entries, with well-known projects such as Hyperliquid and Sui not included. As AI tools like ChatGPT have 7.8% of their citation links pointing to Wikipedia (far higher than Reddit's 1.8% and Forbes's 1.1%), the lack of content on Wikipedia is having a substantial impact on AI's understanding of the crypto industry. The report also noted that Wikipedia lists crypto vertical media (including CoinDesk) as "generally unreliable" sources, while mainstream media, although recognized, rarely provide in-depth coverage of DeFi niches, further exacerbating the information gap. Chainstory concluded, "The crypto industry barely exists on Wikipedia."
According to CoinDesk, U.S. Senators Chris Murphy, Chris Van Hollen, and Jeff Merkley held a press conference on Capitol Hill on July 14, publicly announcing opposition to the cryptocurrency market structure bill, the "Digital Asset Market Clarity Act" (Clarity Act), and characterized it as "corrupt legislation." The core focus of the three senators' opposition is that the bill currently still fails to incorporate ethical provisions prohibiting the President and senior government officials from personally participating in the crypto industry. Van Hollen stated bluntly that the bill "will cause great harm"; Murphy used even stronger language, stating that if the bill cannot cut off the entanglement of interests between the Trump family and the crypto industry, it "is itself an umbrella for corruption."
Odaily News: Three Democratic U.S. Senators expressed opposition to the cryptocurrency CLARITY Act during a press conference in Washington, stating that unless the bill directly addresses the "corruption" issues related to President Donald Trump's personal cryptocurrency ties, it should not receive support. (CoinDesk)
the European Central Bank (ECB) has selected 36 banks and payment companies to participate in the digital euro pilot project, preparing for the potential issuance of a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) possibly in 2029. Selected institutions include Deutsche Bank, Revolut, Adyen, SumUp, UniCredit, and Worldline. The list was selected from 50 applicant institutions.The digital euro pilot program is scheduled to launch in the second half of next year, lasting for 12 months. It will test the Beta version of the digital euro across various payment scenarios, including: online person-to-person transfers, offline payments, in-store payments, and e-commerce payments. The pilot scope will cover the ECB and the central banks of 19 eurozone countries. ECB employees and staff from national central banks will participate as users, while some restaurants, cafes, and online merchants will support digital euro payments.Although the digital euro currently lacks legal tender status, its design will closely align with the relevant legislative framework being developed by the European Union. The ECB stated that the final decision on whether to issue a digital euro will await the passage of relevant regulations and a decision by the ECB's Governing Council.One of the key reasons for the ECB's push for a digital euro is concern that the development of private dollar-pegged stablecoins could impact Europe's monetary sovereignty. In recent years, dollar-backed stablecoins like Tether's USDT and Circle's USDC have grown rapidly in global payment volumes, drawing the attention of European regulators to financial autonomy.However, the CBDC project still faces privacy controversies. Some privacy advocacy groups worry that a central bank digital currency could lead to transaction tracking or even pose a risk of restricted account access. In contrast, the United States has recently passed laws restricting the Federal Reserve System from issuing a digital dollar before the end of 2030.Currently, Europe's digital euro project is entering its practical testing phase, while EU legislative bodies are advancing the relevant legal framework. If the regulatory process proceeds smoothly, the digital euro could potentially be officially launched as early as 2029. (CoinDesk)
BIP-110 aims to temporarily restrict certain types of transaction data on the Bitcoin blockchain. The proposal has sparked discussions on whether Bitcoin should distinguish between "benign" and "malicious" uses. Currently, the proposal has limited support from miners and the broader industry, making it seem unlikely to be activated. (CoinDesk).
As the tokenization of capital markets intensifies, the Securities Transfer Association (STA) recently submitted a comment letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), warning that stock tokens issued by third-party entities could undermine market integrity. The association is calling on regulators to prioritize tokenized securities authorized by listed companies in future rulemaking.The STA represents numerous Wall Street transfer agents, whose members argue that genuine tokenized stocks should be formally authorized by the issuing company and recorded on the official shareholder register, rather than consisting of "wrapped" token products created by independent platforms.The association points out that third-party stock tokens could confuse investors regarding their actual holdings and expose them to platform credit, custody, and operational risks, without establishing a direct legal relationship with the listed company. Therefore, any innovation exemptions, pilot programs, or permanent regulatory frameworks for tokenized securities should be prioritized for the issuer-supported model. The STA also urges the SEC to reform the existing Direct Registration System (DRS), arguing that the current U.S. securities depository system struggles to meet the real-time transfer and settlement demands of on-chain securities. It recommends that regulators collaborate with the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) to optimize the digital securities infrastructure.Currently, the global tokenized stock market, valued at approximately $2 billion, is predominantly led by the third-party model, including products launched by Ondo Finance and Kraken, while institutions like Securitize and Figure adopt the issuer-authorized model. (CoinDesk)