Circle gets final OCC approval for national trust bank
Circle said it has received final approval from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to establish Circle National Trust. The entity will first provide digital asset custody services for Circle and its affiliates, and could later open those services to selected institutional clients based on demand.
The approval would move USDC custody infrastructure deeper into the U.S. federal regulatory framework. It may also support USDC reserve management later on, with the company pointing to gains in security, transparency, and compliance.
Latest Clarity Act draft may arrive next week
According to CoinDesk, people familiar with the matter said the latest merged draft of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act could be released as early as next week, and the Senate is expected to move toward review during the week of July 20.
The merged draft was negotiated jointly by the Senate Banking Committee and the Agriculture Committee. It adds more than 70 pages and strengthens consumer protection provisions. The bill still faces several hurdles. Democrats continue to push for limits on business ties between senior government officials, including the president, and the crypto industry, and no compromise has been reached on that ethics language.
Federal preemption, nominations for the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and the White House’s absence from the latest talks remain unresolved. The bill would need 60 votes to pass the Senate. With only about four weeks left on the Senate calendar in July and early August, and infighting among House Republicans still in play, the path remains uncertain.
SK Hynix raises $26.5 billion in Nasdaq listing
Bloomberg reported that SK Hynix raised $26.5 billion through an American depositary receipt offering, making it the largest initial stock sale ever by a foreign company in the United States.
The company sold 177.9 million ADRs at $149 each. Each ADR represents one-tenth of a common share listed in Seoul. Bloomberg data showed the deal exceeded Alibaba Group’s U.S. listing in size, ranking as the third-largest IPO on record and the largest U.S. IPO by a foreign issuer.
The offering was more than seven times oversubscribed, with total demand nearing $200 billion. Nearly half of the ADRs were taken by the top 10 order accounts. Baillie Gifford, Coatue Management, and others expressed interest in buying as much as $7 billion worth of ADRs. Pricing came at about a 3% premium to the closing price of the Korean common shares, and management stayed involved throughout the allocation process.
The ADRs are set to begin trading on a when-issued basis on the Nasdaq Global Select Market on Friday under the symbol SKHYV, before switching to SKHY for regular-way trading on July 13.
OpenAI rolls out GPT-5.6 models
After a limited preview, OpenAI has formally launched the GPT-5.6 model family for public use. The Sol, Terra, and Luna models will be available across ChatGPT, Codex, and the API.
Pricing is set per million tokens. Sol costs $5 for input and $30 for output. Terra costs $2.50 for input and $15 for output. Luna costs $1 for input and $6 for output.
Robinhood Chain clears $1 billion in first-week DEX volume
Decrypt reported that Robinhood Chain saw rapid on-chain activity in its first week after launch. Data showed more than 17 million transactions processed, nearly 350,000 addresses, about $250 million in total value locked across protocols, and more than $1 billion in cumulative DEX volume.
Daily trading was also heavy. Volume reached $568 million on Wednesday and topped $350 million on Thursday. In a 24-hour window, the chain recorded more than 5.2 million transactions and about 213,000 active addresses.
DefiLlama data showed Robinhood Chain’s 24-hour DEX volume at about $433 million, ranking fifth among blockchains and ahead of Hyperliquid. TVL climbed to about $94 million within a week, while stablecoin balances rose above $260 million. Several Robinhood-themed tokens also posted large gains. ARB rose 20% as Robinhood Chain uses the Arbitrum tech stack and returns 10% of net protocol revenue to the Arbitrum ecosystem.
Bitmine adds another 20,500 ETH
Lookonchain (@lookonchain) said Bitmine, the firm under Tom Lee (@fundstrat), bought another 20,500 ETH from Galaxy Digital about six hours earlier, valued at about $35.92 million.
Over the previous two days, the company had already bought 40,000 ETH from FalconX and Kraken, valued at about $71.6 million. That brings the two-day total to more than 60,500 ETH worth over $107 million.
Polymarket applies for U.S. futures license
Bloomberg reported that prediction market platform Polymarket is seeking U.S. regulatory approval to offer margin trading in a compliant structure. On July 3, its affiliate Coming Home GBA LLC submitted an application to the National Futures Association to operate as a futures commission merchant, or FCM.
If approved, the setup would let users take part in event betting with less capital.
Manus discusses equity deal at $2 billion valuation
People familiar with the matter said Tencent is in talks to become the largest shareholder in AI agent company Manus. Most of the company’s existing investors, including Tencent, ZhenFund, and Sequoia China, are discussing support for a transaction at a $2 billion valuation to unwind Meta’s acquisition.
Bernstein lifts memory interface chip TAM outlook
According to Chaoxiang Research, Bernstein said in a July 9 deep-dive report on memory interface chips that AI’s shift from training to inference is putting CPUs back at the center of task scheduling. The report projected server CPU shipments to grow at a 24% compound annual rate from 2025 to 2030.
Bernstein said three drivers are working together: higher CPU shipments, more DRAM modules attached to each CPU, and MRDIMM upgrades that lift chip value per module from $7 to $70-$80. On that basis, the firm raised its estimate for global memory interface chip total addressable market from about $7 billion to $20 billion by 2030, implying a 65% compound annual growth rate.
Montage Technology, Renesas, and Rambus together account for 92% of the market, the report said. Bernstein raised its A-share target price for Montage from RMB 220 to RMB 400 and its H-share target from HK$320 to HK$520, while keeping an outperform rating on both.