Crypto and AI markets saw a dense batch of updates between July 23 and July 24, spanning exchange closures, token migrations, regulated tokenization, Bitcoin security, market structure and AI infrastructure.
BitMEX to shut down on Sept. 23 as BMEX plunges
Market data showed that BMEX, the exchange token issued by BitMEX in 2022, dropped 99.69% after the platform said it would shut down. The selloff was accompanied by a bout of liquidity stress.
BitMEX had earlier announced that it will close on Sept. 23 and has already stopped accepting new user registrations. Later, Arthur Hayes responded to the shutdown by saying he was immensely proud of everything that had been built. In a separate update, BMEX was described as having fallen 95% after the closure announcement, while Bubblemaps said 75% of the token allocation had never circulated on-chain.
Vanar shifts to Base and expands VANRY supply to 10 billion
Vanar said it will stop operating solely as a Layer 1 blockchain and instead focus on building an AI Organizations economy, with a migration to Base.
Existing VANRY holders will migrate on a 1:1 basis, and their holdings will not change. Total supply, however, will rise from 2.4 billion to 10 billion tokens to support ecosystem incentives, developers, partners and infrastructure tied to AI Organizations.
During the migration phase, 62% of total supply will remain locked. Newly added allocations will be subject to a cliff and a 60-month vesting schedule, meaning full distribution will take five years. After the cliff, roughly 1% of the total allocation will unlock each month. Vanar also said it will end validator staking on Vanarchain and fold infrastructure into the Base network.
Changxin Technology shares set for STAR Market listing
Changxin Technology said its shares will list on Shanghai’s STAR Market on July 27, 2026.
Binance Alpha opens third TRUTH airdrop round
Binance Alpha has launched the third round of its Swarm Network (TRUTH) airdrop. Users with at least 256 Binance Alpha points can claim 2,501 TRUTH tokens on a first-come, first-served basis.
If the reward pool is not fully allocated, the points threshold will automatically drop by 5 points every five minutes. Claiming the airdrop costs 15 Binance Alpha points, and users must confirm within 24 hours on the Alpha Events page or the reward will be treated as forfeited.
Mubadala Capital teams up with Coinbase on tokenized private equity fund
Mubadala Capital, the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund, said it is working with Coinbase and infrastructure provider KAIO to launch a blockchain-native version of its long-term private equity fund, issued as a compliant token for qualified investors.
Coinbase will use Base as one of the token networks and will also purchase the token for its own balance sheet. The announcement described this as the first time a U.S.-listed company has used a regulated tokenized asset for native on-chain treasury management on an equity balance sheet.
Michael Saylor launches Bitcoin Security Consortium with $15 million pledge
Michael Saylor said the Bitcoin Security Consortium has officially launched. The group is focused on the long-term security and resilience of the Bitcoin network and comes with a $15 million funding commitment over the next three years.
Founding members include Anchorage Digital, ARK Invest, BlackRock, Block, Blockstream, Coinbase, Fidelity Digital Assets, Galaxy and Strategy. The group spans Bitcoin holders, custodians, exchanges, infrastructure providers, payment firms and asset managers.
Day-to-day coordination will be handled by Mike Schmidt, executive director of Brink, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that funds and supports Bitcoin open-source developers. Schmidt is participating in a volunteer capacity.
UN report says scam losses in Southeast Asia may exceed $100 billion
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said in a report that the scam industry in Southeast Asia has hardened into a single, interconnected criminal economy, with losses now comparable to the economic output of some countries.
For 2025 alone, losses from scam-related crime across East Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand were estimated at $88.3 billion to $114.1 billion. The report said that figure exceeds the GDP of several countries in the region. Most of the losses were tied to crypto investment scams, many of them operating from large criminal compounds.
The UNODC urged law enforcement in Southeast Asia to receive dedicated crypto training so stolen funds can be traced and seized. It also warned that disruption-focused strategies are not working.
Empery Digital invests $20 million in Cardinal Data Power
Bitcoin treasury company Empery Digital Inc. (NASDAQ: EMPD) said it completed a $20 million preferred equity investment in Cardinal Data Power, Inc. on July 20, taking roughly an 8% stake.
The investment is part of CDP’s roughly $70 million Series A financing and is intended to support its first data center campus project in West Texas. Hood River Capital Management led the round. CDP, an affiliate of Hunt Properties, develops power-focused data center campuses.
LayerZero and Keeta plan interoperable tokenized commercial bank money
LayerZero and Keeta said they have reached a partnership designed to connect tokenized commercial bank funds across Ethereum, Solana, Base and the Keeta network.
According to the statement, the issuance centers on the Keeta stablecoin, described as a new form of tokenized commercial bank money backed by commercial bank deposits and traded through the Bivo platform. Bivo is a U.S.-licensed fintech platform with access to U.S. payment rails and a partner bank network.
Unlike traditional stablecoins that rely on mixed reserves, the Keeta stablecoin represents actual commercial bank deposits and allows issuers to retain full contract permissions at every step through LayerZero’s Omnichain Fungible Token standard. LayerZero said a U.S. dollar version will launch later this month, followed by euro, yen, yuan, pound sterling, Canadian dollar, Mexican peso, UAE dirham and Hong Kong dollar versions.
The statement also said Keeta is a Visa Direct payment network partner building blockchain infrastructure for regulated financial institutions, and that in a public stress test with Google Spanner engineers it recorded 11.20 million verified transactions per second.
Sky Protocol posts more than $100 million in second-quarter revenue
The Sky Frontier Foundation released its Sky ecosystem report for the second quarter of 2026. It said Sky Protocol remained profitable for a fifth straight quarter, with total protocol revenue of $107.35 million, up 10.5% year over year.
Net protocol revenue rose faster, reaching $40.09 million, up 25.1%. Total revenue over the past 12 months came in at $159.63 million. Net protocol surplus was $33.29 million, also positive for a fifth consecutive quarter.
Protocol collateral increased 45.5% from a year earlier to $12.32 billion, while sUSDS reached $5.52 billion at quarter end, up 149%. Sky Reserve retained $29.87 million during the second quarter, its largest quarterly contribution since the March 14 capital restructuring, lifting reserves to $82.40 million by quarter end.
Ondo Finance says Oasis Pro Markets gains U.S. authorization
Ondo Finance said Oasis Pro Markets, its SEC-registered broker-dealer subsidiary, has received authorization from U.S. regulators to launch a regulated market and services for tokenized securities in the United States under SEC and FINRA oversight.
The authorization allows Oasis Pro Markets to engage in tokenized securities trading in the U.S. through over-the-counter trading, underwriting primary issuance, private placements and related activities. It will also operate a compliant platform for primary issuance by U.S. issuers and secondary trading by U.S. institutional and retail investors.
Under the framework, Oasis Pro Markets can provide access to NMS stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, index funds and securities sold in IPOs and traded in the secondary market. Settlement can be made in fiat or supported stablecoins, including direct wallet-to-wallet settlement on blockchain rails.
Uniswap v4 rolls out permissioned pools
Uniswap introduced Permissioned Pools, a new hook standard for Uniswap v4 that allows permissioned assets to trade through automated market makers with compliance enforced directly on-chain.
The product was developed in collaboration with teams focused on regulated on-chain assets. Initial partners include Superstate, Securitize and Dowgo.
SEC to hold Sept. 17 roundtable on 24-hour stock trading
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission will host a roundtable on Sept. 17 to discuss a possible transition of the U.S. stock market to 24-hour trading. Topics will include preparation for overnight trading, market operations and resilience in a 24-hour structure, and the opportunities and challenges that come with expansion.
The event will be open to the public and livestreamed on the SEC website. The agenda and speaker list will be published ahead of the meeting.
Tom Lee says AI is nearing an “uncanny valley of wealth”
Tom Lee, chairman of Ethereum treasury company Bitmine, reposted an interview on X saying artificial intelligence is approaching what he called an “uncanny valley of wealth,” where income generated by a person’s AI agents could eventually exceed that person’s labor income.
Lee said that moment may push people to ask whether they are working for AI or AI is working for them. He also said AI agents could one day control bank accounts, replace some jobs and even build independent financial systems, adding that the trend “could make people fear the future.”
SemiAnalysis says ASML’s raised outlook points to stronger cycle
Research firm SemiAnalysis said on X that ASML raised its fiscal 2026 guidance for the second time in three months in its second-quarter earnings report, a signal that a fresh upcycle in semiconductor equipment may be strengthening.
The firm highlighted order visibility extending to 2028, management preparing capacity expansion early, potential price increases for comparable products, a renewed pickup in DUV immersion lithography shipments and continued growth in services upgrades. SemiAnalysis said current revenue expectations for ASML may still have room to move higher and it expects further upward revisions to longer-term guidance.
PancakeSwap LP loses about $2.96 million after malicious EIP-7702 signature
Specter said a long-inactive PancakeSwap liquidity provider lost about $2.96 million after signing a malicious EIP-7702 authorization.
The attacker removed about $1.48 million in BSC-USD liquidity and another $1.48 million in BUSD liquidity provided by the victim, then swapped the BUSD into ETH. Roughly $1.46 million has already been deposited into Tornado Cash, while about $1.48 million in USDT remains in the attacker’s address.
Report says Anthropic weighs preset stock-sale plans for employees after IPO
Sources said Anthropic is considering an unusual arrangement after a public listing that would require rank-and-file employees to sell stock through preset trading plans in order to avoid insider-trading issues.
The reported structure would use Rule 10b5-1 trading plans, which set sale timing and volume in advance and then execute automatically. Such plans are usually used by executives, directors and some finance or legal staff. If expanded to ordinary employees, it would be relatively uncommon.
Cognition acquires Poke developer Interaction
AI coding company Cognition announced the acquisition of The Interaction Company of California. Its product Poke is a personal AI agent that runs through text messaging, proactively starts conversations, follows up on user needs and interacts in a way described as friend-like.
Over the past three months, users have exchanged more than 100 million messages with Poke. The company said it is currently the only AI agent with native Apple support that can run directly inside Apple Messages.
Cognition said the Interaction team built agents with initiative, personalization and high engagement, aligning with the direction of Devin, its AI software engineering agent. The two teams had followed each other’s work for years. A Cognition co-founder said both sides had long been betting on “always-on cloud agents.” Existing Poke users will continue using the product as normal, and Cognition plans to improve speed and reliability using its own models and infrastructure.
Senate majority leader says Clarity Act may miss pre-recess window
U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said the Clarity Act may not pass before the Aug. 7 recess, though he hopes the Senate can at least begin formal consideration before lawmakers leave.
Thune said next week the Senate will prioritize the Russia sanctions bill backed by the late Senator Graham, while Graham’s funeral will also take time from the chamber’s schedule. White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt said he was “confused” by Thune’s comments and argued there is still time in the first week of August, adding that he would not “completely rule it out.”
Industry participants and lawmakers had earlier been optimistic that the bill could clear a Senate vote within two weeks. The latest timeline now points to September as the more likely window and sharply lowers the odds of passage in 2026. The final working draft released this week has continued to stir debate. Democrats objected to ethics language covering government officials, while some Republicans raised issues around stablecoin yield treatment and the wording of the ethics provisions. The bill needs 60 votes to advance. If the Senate begins the process before recess but does not pass it, a short window will remain after lawmakers return in September, though election politics and other priorities will compete for floor time. Later, another update said Goldman Sachs’ chief executive publicly backed the Clarity Act, breaking with some Wall Street peers.
Robinhood CEO’s X account hacked to promote fake meme coin
Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev’s X account was apparently compromised and used to post that “Vladhood ($VLAD)” would become the “official mascot” of Robinhood Chain and would be listed inside the Robinhood app. The post included a contract address.
Robinhood’s official account did not publish any similar message, and the Robinhood Chain explorer flagged the token as a “potential scam.” Robinhood later confirmed that Tenev’s account had been compromised and said it was working with X to restore access. The posts have been deleted.
Robinhood Chain launched on July 1 and has become a busy venue for meme coin trading, processing about 6 million daily transactions and roughly $9 billion in cumulative DEX volume, driven mainly by high-risk meme tokens.
Stripe reportedly in talks to buy OpenRouter
According to sources, Stripe is in talks to acquire AI model aggregation platform OpenRouter, and a deal could be reached soon. OpenRouter was previously valued at about $1.3 billion, but a sale could fetch around $10 billion.
OpenAI plans MI500 chip effort with AMD
OpenAI is expected to deploy AMD Helios at scale. OpenAI’s head of infrastructure said the company began using AMD Helios GPU racks three months ago, and OpenAI plans to work with AMD on the MI500 family of AI chips and follow-on products.
AMD says Helios rack-scale AI system is in full production
AMD held its Advancing AI event in San Francisco on July 22 and July 23. CEO Lisa Su said the AI accelerator market will reach $1.4 trillion by 2030, the global data center CPU market will reach $220 billion and the global computing market will hit $2 trillion.
AMD also formally introduced Helios, its first rack-scale AI system. Su said full production has started and shipments will begin soon. CNBC noted that a year ago Su had projected a $500 billion AI accelerator market for 2028. Under the latest estimate, the market by the end of the decade would be roughly the size of the entire semiconductor industry today. Su said GPUs will account for most of that market.
New U.S. tariffs take effect on dozens of countries and regions
As a 150-day global temporary tariff period was due to expire this week, the Trump administration rolled out a new round of tariffs. Citing Xinhua, the report said the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative issued a notice on July 23 under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, imposing additional tariffs of 10% to 12.5% on dozens of countries and regions over an alleged failure to stop “forced labor.” The measures took effect on July 24 Eastern Time.
The tariffs cover 99% of U.S. trade volume. They stack on top of tariffs already in effect, with exemptions only for some agricultural products, pharmaceuticals, aviation parts, steel and aluminum.
Coinbase lets business users accept AI-agent payments through x402
Coinbase said this week it began allowing business customers to accept payments from AI agents through the x402 protocol, which was developed and incubated by Coinbase. Coinbase Business users can accept USDC from agents without additional setup, using Coinbase Payments.
A Coinbase Business executive said the company is trying to bring a familiar checkout experience into the new agent-driven online economy. Agents can create wallets and shop, while merchants can offer services through agent-friendly checkout flows.
Coinbase also offers agent trading, letting users issue natural-language instructions while an agent monitors markets and executes trades in real time. Developers can use the new x402 SDK on Coinbase Developer Platform to add x402 payment acceptance to any API or web service in three lines of code.
DEX aggregator Odos to permanently shut services on July 30
DEX aggregation protocol Odos said its operating company is winding down. The Odos app will switch to read-only mode on July 27, and all services will be permanently shut down on July 30.
As of July 23, new account registrations, new wallet creation and new limit orders have been disabled. From July 27 to July 30, users will only be able to view transaction history and balances. After July 30, no development, support or maintenance will continue.
Users who created wallets through social or email login need to move assets to another wallet or export private keys before July 30. Odos said the ODOS token exists independently of the operating company, which does not custody or market-make the token, so the shutdown does not affect its on-chain mechanics. Odos DAO is separate from the company and will publish its own plans later. The team also warned users against fake migration sites and airdrop scams and told them not to share seed phrases or sign suspicious transactions.
CFTC extends comment period on 24/7 futures and energy perpetuals to Aug. 26
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission said it is extending by 30 days the public comment period on its proposed rule covering round-the-clock trading for standard futures contracts and perpetual contracts tied to physically delivered or storable energy commodities. The new deadline is Aug. 26, 2026.
The agency said it made the change in response to requests from commenters and because it added new questions to the release. The original proposal addressed two broad issues: extending standard futures contracts, including energy futures, to 24/7 trading without changing fixed expiration dates, which would involve major economic changes to delivery or settlement terms; and the treatment of perpetual contracts tied to physical delivery or storable energy products.
The CFTC said additional questions were added after broad consultation with market participants so it could assess the issues more fully.
ARK Invest says Hyperliquid’s weekly RWA share reached 54%
Lorenzo Valente, director of crypto research at ARK Invest, said on X that Hyperliquid’s weekly RWA trading volume exceeded its crypto-asset trading volume for the first time, accounting for 54% of total volume.
Of that, $26 billion came from HIP-3 RWA trades, with single stocks making up 61% of RWA volume and surpassing indices and commodities since June. Valente said total DEX perpetuals volume last week was $79 billion, of which Hyperliquid represented $50 billion. He added that Hyperliquid’s RWA market has now surpassed the combined crypto perpetuals volume of all other DEXs.
Valente said RWA trading is likely to form its own market structure rather than simply mirror crypto-asset activity, and that investors should pay closer attention to the internal mix of RWA categories.
Blockworks researcher says Bitcoin may be near a cycle bottom
Luke Leasure, a researcher at Blockworks, said in a report that Bitcoin may be at or near a cycle low. According to the report, BTC is down 50% from its all-time high, the bear market has lasted more than 40 weeks, and several high-timeframe indicators have simultaneously reached historically rare levels.
Bitcoin posted its most extreme relative oversold reading versus the Nasdaq this month, and in February it also recorded a relative oversold extreme against gold. Realized price, the on-chain average cost basis, is around $53,000, only 18% below spot, while every prior bear-market low traded at a discount below that level.
The report said historical bear cycles have typically bottomed around week 60 after an all-time high, implying this cycle’s low could arrive before the end of November 2026. If the historical pattern holds, Bitcoin may take roughly 120 weeks to reclaim its old high, which would point to a possible new high before February 2028.
Leasure added that as Bitcoin matures, the marginal payoff from passive holding is declining and outperforming the market requires identifying windows for opportunistic overweight or underweight positioning. He said the current cluster of rare conditional signals may create an attractive long-term reaccumulation window between now and December 2026, though sample sizes remain small and structural shifts such as ETFs, corporate holdings and derivatives may weaken historical analogies.
Argentina weighs allowing mutual funds to invest in Bitcoin and crypto
Argentina is moving ahead with capital market deregulation proposals that would allow mutual investment funds, or FCI funds, to invest in Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies and would also permit virtual assets to be used as pledged collateral.
The measure stems from a draft deregulation bill written by Economy Minister Federico Sturzenegger and is awaiting President Javier Milei’s signature before being sent to Congress.
The draft explicitly allows FCI funds to allocate assets to virtual assets and creates funds for “qualified investors.” Argentina’s national securities regulator would limit its supervision of FCI vehicles to legality and technical solvency reviews, while the central bank would have exclusive oversight of registry or transfer infrastructure related to cryptocurrencies and tokenized assets. The draft also explicitly allows securities such as shares and convertible bonds to be issued, stored and traded through crypto networks.
1kx says on-chain protocol fees fell 33% in Q2
Crypto venture firm 1kx said on X that on-chain protocol fees declined 33% year over year in the second quarter. DEX fees dropped by $625 million, or 57%, led lower by Meteora, Raydium and PancakeSwap. Those three protocols had generated a combined $1.5 billion in fees in the first half of last year.
Blockchain and MEV fees fell 40% to $362 million. Launchpad fees dropped 57%, with Pump.fun accounting for nearly half of the decline.
Perpetuals and prediction markets went the other way, rising 22% year over year, led by edgeX and Hyperliquid. Polymarket generated nearly $100 million in fees in a single quarter. Lending and asset-management protocols also kept expanding, with Morpho, USDai_Official and maplefinance each adding $9 million to $19 million in fees. Canton Network added $179 million in Layer 1 fees, most of it incentive-driven.
CryptoQuant says Ethereum shows improvement versus Bitcoin, but bottom not confirmed
CryptoQuant said in its latest weekly report that ETH is trading about 17% below its realized price of roughly $2,300. Historically, ETH trading below realized price has often lined up with undervaluation and long-term bottoming zones.
The report also said Ethereum is showing signs of improvement relative to Bitcoin. ETH’s MVRV ratio has retreated from extremely overvalued levels, exchange inflows have fallen, ETF holdings have started to recover after months of weakness, and ETH/BTC spot volume has dropped into a range that has historically been associated with market bottoms.
Even so, only two of CryptoQuant’s five key bottom indicators have reached historical reversal levels. The others are improving but have not yet reached the extremes seen at prior cycle lows, suggesting Ethereum may still be in the process of forming a bottom.
BlackRock says crypto networks still hold an advantage against quantum threats
BlackRock said in a report titled “Quantum Computing and Blockchain” that upgrading existing cryptographic systems to quantum-resistant standards is technically feasible. The main challenge, it said, is coordinating and implementing the change in time, and that task is much easier than building a practical quantum computer capable of breaking the encryption in question.
The report said roughly 35% of circulating Bitcoin is exposed to potential attack because public keys have been revealed, while 11% to 19% could be permanently lost during migration. BlackRock said crypto networks still hold the advantage in responding to quantum threats and added that “the advantage remains with defenders.”
It also noted that on Thursday BlackRock, Coinbase, Fidelity Digital Assets and Block announced the Bitcoin Security Consortium to fund developers contributing code to open-source quantum-resistance proposals such as BIP-360. BlackRock described BIP-360 as a credible and well-designed approach, though not the final solution.
KULR Technology cuts Bitcoin holdings again, reserve falls to 100 BTC
Bitcoin treasury company KULR Technology transferred 145.8 BTC, worth $9.45 million, to Coinbase Prime five hours ago. After repeated sales over nearly three months, its reserve has dropped from 1,021 BTC, valued at $101 million, to just 100 BTC, worth $6.47 million.
Its average reserve cost basis was $98,923 per BTC, while the average sale price was $74,368, resulting in a loss of $22.62 million. The update said the company appears to have abandoned its Bitcoin treasury strategy.
Whale stakes 2.93 million HYPE through 19 wallets on Hyperliquid
A whale deposited and staked 2.93 million HYPE on Hyperliquid over the past 24 hours through 19 wallets, worth about $172 million.
The HYPE was accumulated nine months ago at an average price of $44, leaving the position with an unrealized gain of about $44.5 million.
AI chip startup Etched closes $300 million Series C at $10.3 billion valuation
AI chip startup Etched has raised $300 million in Series C funding led by Sequoia, with Andreessen Horowitz, SK hynix, Jane Street and Diffusion Capital also participating. The post-money valuation reached $10.3 billion, more than double the $5 billion valuation reported in December last year.
Etched was founded in 2022 by three Harvard dropouts and designs chips specifically for AI models built on the Transformer architecture. The company said it has successfully manufactured its own chips, placed them with customers for testing and has already secured $1 billion in orders.
For inference, Etched designed two new system components: a prefill chip that runs at low voltage to sharply increase speed while reducing heat, and a decode chip that uses cluster-level memory technology to create a shared memory pool across chips. Etched now has 400 employees, operates a 2 MW data center and has opened a new 80,000-square-foot, 10 MW facility in Milpitas.
Time cover highlights Unitree Robotics
Unitree Robotics appeared on the latest cover of Time magazine under the headline, “The humanoid robot revolution is coming — China’s Unitree Robotics is leading the way.”
Three additional AI items
PANews AI Watch also listed several AI developments from the past 24 hours. Liang Wenfeng said publicly that Huawei’s AI chips are improving quickly and could become substitutes for Nvidia products within a year. The remarks quickly climbed Weibo’s trending chart.
Elon Musk posted that Grok 4.5 had solved a graph theory conjecture that had remained open for 30 years. Follow-up discussion pointed to Graffiti Conjecture 284, with the project side saying AI found a counterexample in eight minutes, though independent verification has not yet been completed.
Black Forest Labs also released the FLUX 3 AI model and said it is shifting fully from static image generation into video generation. The new model is centered on video creation and marks a strategic move away from still images.