A dense run of policy, market, and infrastructure updates hit the digital-asset sector between July 14 and July 15. The biggest regulatory items included a planned U.K. tax change for certain crypto lending and liquidity pool arrangements, the European Central Bank’s selection of 36 payment firms for its digital euro pilot, and a new U.S.-U.K. roadmap centered on stablecoins, tokenized assets, and cross-border financing.
At the same time, exchanges, brokers, issuers, and blockchain watchers tracked a fresh batch of airdrops, product rollouts, funding rounds, on-chain transfers, and legal disputes spanning crypto, payments, AI infrastructure, and macro policy.
HMRC sets “no gain, no loss” treatment for some crypto lending and liquidity pools
HM Revenue & Customs said it will apply “no gain, no loss” treatment to certain cryptoasset lending and liquidity pool arrangements. Under the approach, capital gains tax will apply only when a user makes a substantive economic disposal.
The measure is set to take effect on April 6, 2027. It will apply to individuals and trustees taking part in crypto lending and automated market maker, or AMM, liquidity pools.
HMRC said the policy covers three settings:
- single crypto lending arrangements,
- borrowed assets, and
- liquidity pool participation through smart contracts.
Where users enter and exit with the same type of cryptoasset and the quantity is unchanged, that portion will receive no-gain-no-loss treatment. Any difference between amounts contributed and amounts redeemed will be used to calculate a gain or a loss. HMRC estimates the rule will affect about 700,000 participants and plans to implement it through amendments to the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992.
ECB selects 36 payment providers for digital euro pilot
The European Central Bank said it has selected 36 payment service providers from across the euro area to take part in the digital euro pilot.
The pilot is scheduled to begin in the second half of 2027 and run for 12 months. The ECB and 19 euro-area central banks will test digital euro payments, offline payments, e-commerce use, and in-store spending while refining user experience ahead of any future launch.
The selection follows a March 2026 call for expressions of interest from euro-area PSPs. More than 50 firms applied. The final group of 36 includes providers from several member states, among them Deutsche Bank, Adyen, Revolut Bank, Stripe Technology Europe, and Worldline.
The ECB said that if the European Union passes digital euro legislation in 2026, the target is to be ready for a first issuance decision in 2029. Whether the digital euro is formally issued will still depend on a later decision.
U.S. and U.K. publish digital-asset roadmap
The U.S. and the U.K. released a joint statement through their transatlantic future markets working group, saying regulated stablecoins have the potential to improve the efficiency and competitiveness of the financial system.
The working group was formed last year to deepen cooperation and reduce market fragmentation. The statement called on the Bank of England, the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to develop approaches for tokenized assets. It also directed the FCA and SEC to explore options that could support cross-border financing.
The statement backed competition and innovation in stablecoins and tokenized deposits, while stressing custody standards, segregation of reserves, consumer protection, and clear priority legal claims for stablecoin holders in insolvency situations.
The release came on the first anniversary of the U.S. GENIUS Act. Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh said during a House Financial Services Committee hearing that regulators were “racing to get rules out before the July 18 deadline.”
Kalshi expands products while fighting state-level pressure
Prediction market platform Kalshi launched a forward-curve tool designed to price the cost of AI compute. Using weekly and monthly event contracts tied to compute costs, the tool provides a single forward price for periods as long as one year and is meant to track where rental costs for different classes of GPUs may go.
Kalshi said the tool could serve as a pricing foundation for future derivatives tied to compute, including futures and options, and support hedging and risk management. CME Group and ICE are also working with index providers on futures linked to AI compute, as processing power increasingly gets framed as a commodity class alongside products such as natural gas and jet fuel.
On the regulatory side, the CFTC ordered Kalshi on Tuesday to honor trades involving Michigan residents, even though a state court had previously ordered the company to stop offering sports event contracts and unwind some existing positions.
CFTC Chair Michael Selig said, “A state cannot force a designated contract market to violate its obligations, and federal law does not allow a DCM to discriminate against residents of any state.” He also said canceling executed trades would be “an unprecedented step” that could create knock-on effects across the market.
Michigan had earlier issued a 14-day restraining order. The state’s attorney general said gambling law is intended to protect Michigan residents from unlicensed and predatory operators. The CFTC said it has sued nine states, including Arizona, Connecticut, Illinois, and Kentucky, to defend the authority granted to it by Congress.
Separately, OpenAI’s ChatGPT has started displaying World Cup prediction data supplied by Kalshi in search results. The feature marks the first disclosed cooperation between OpenAI and a prediction market platform. For now, it is informational only, and users cannot trade contracts through ChatGPT.
Broker and platform updates: Interactive Brokers, Binance Alpha Box, Coinbase
Interactive Brokers said it added support for trading 12 additional cryptoassets through Zero Hash and Paxos. It also launched stablecoin withdrawals, allowing clients to convert U.S. dollar balances into stablecoins and transfer USDC, PYUSD, and RLUSD to external wallets.
The feature means users can hold digital assets inside a traditional brokerage account and then move stablecoins to on-chain wallets, linking brokerage balances more directly with the crypto ecosystem.
Binance Alpha Box also went live with an airdrop pool made up of Orochi Network (ON) and Metaplex (MPLX) tokens. Users holding at least 251 Binance Alpha Points can claim one airdrop on the Alpha Events page. After claiming, users are assigned to a reward tier and receive either 315, 395, or 1,125 ON, or 1,038, 1,298, or 3,705 MPLX.
The rewards are distributed on a first-come, first-served basis. If the allocation is not exhausted, the entry threshold drops by 5 points every five minutes. Claiming consumes 15 Alpha Points, and users must confirm within 24 hours or the airdrop is forfeited.
Coinbase Markets said on X that Coinbase will suspend trading in Across Protocol (ACX) on July 28, 2026 because the project team is gradually winding down the protocol. The notice referenced a proposal to change Across from a “DAO + token” structure into a U.S. C-corp.
On-chain transfers: Grayscale and U.S. government wallets
Grayscale transferred 852.7 BTC to Coinbase Prime, worth about $54.4 million at the current price cited in the update.
The U.S. government made further transfers tied to assets seized from the Bitfinex hack. It moved about 901,000 USDC to a new wallet and sent 5,940 ETH, worth about $11.14 million, to Coinbase Prime. The publicly labeled Bitfinex seizure address now has a zero balance, with most assets moved to Coinbase Prime and a new wallet at 0x7d7c1c4ce6c654965072c5988383e3b91eea9558.
After moving Bitfinex-related funds the previous day, the U.S. government also emptied a wallet holding assets seized from FTX/Alameda and dispersed the funds to eight new addresses. The transferred assets included:
- 4,110 AXS worth $4,100,
- 5.37 YFI worth $11,400,
- 1,230 COMP worth $21,100,
- 311,600 MANA worth $21,800,
- 0.533 WBTC worth $34,400,
- 4,050 NMR worth $39,900,
- 138,950 RLC worth $40,700, and
- 209.18 ETH worth $391,000.
The total came to about $564,400, and the original wallet balance dropped to zero.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessent said more than $130 million in Iranian digital assets had been frozen. Earlier reporting said Tether froze four wallets on TRON holding a combined 131 million USDT.
Institutional views, ETF filings, and Ethereum privacy infrastructure
Fidelity said the most compelling long-term use case for tokenized funds is balance sheet management for large global institutions, not just 24/7 liquidity. The asset manager said tokenized money market funds and other on-chain tools could help pension funds, insurers, and corporates use cash held across fragmented accounts and jurisdictions more efficiently. It added that tokenization may take decades to mature into a full balance-sheet management ecosystem.
Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart said on X that Morgan Stanley has filed updated documents for its Ethereum ETF and Solana ETF, with ticker symbols MSSE and MSOL. Both carry a fee of 0.14%, and he said launch timing may be getting close.
Ethereum institutional privacy company EthSystems also announced its official launch, backed by strategic funding from ecosystem supporters including Bitmine, Sharplink Gaming, and Joe Lubin. The company was reportedly founded by the core team behind the Ethereum Foundation’s institutional privacy working group and is focused on privacy tools for banks, asset managers, and other regulated institutions using Ethereum for large-scale financial transactions while protecting sensitive transaction details and client identities.
Circle, USDC economics, and stablecoin competition
Wall Street analysts turned more cautious on Circle. Mizuho cut its rating on the company to underperform from neutral and lowered its target price to $50 from $85, a drop of more than 41%. JPMorgan also cut earnings expectations for both Circle and Coinbase the same day.
Mizuho said Open USD is backed by more than 140 companies including Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, BlackRock, and Coinbase, and uses a “pass-through” structure that distributes almost all reserve income to distributors. In Mizuho’s view, that could pressure Circle to concede a larger share of reserve income to stay competitive.
Mizuho also said Circle’s revenue-sharing agreement with Coinbase is due for renewal next month, and Coinbase may have greater leverage in those talks as a founding member of Open USD. JPMorgan cited Circle’s new agreement with Hyperliquid as an example of a market in which Circle and Coinbase are being pushed to compete by offering more favorable revenue-sharing terms to retain partners. Bernstein and William Blair remained constructive on Circle, saying its liquidity, regulatory lead, and network effects are hard to replicate.
Newly public court documents showed that Circle froze accounts belonging to Heka Funds, a crypto fund backed by Tether, in late 2023. Circle accused Heka of using large-scale arbitrage to manipulate markets and help Tether expand market share. During the 2023 Silicon Valley Bank crisis, when USDC briefly traded below its $1 peg, Heka allegedly bought discounted USDC in size and redeemed it with Circle for U.S. dollars.
Circle said Heka’s redemption volume was far larger than that of other market participants and suspected the proceeds ultimately flowed to Tether to support USDT’s expansion. Arbitration documents showed Tether had invested about $800 million in Heka, representing about 75% of the fund’s assets, and had waived stablecoin minting fees. The arbitrator found that Heka failed to fully disclose its ties to Tether and knew those ties would concern Circle.
In 2024, Heka sought arbitration and claimed roughly $49 million in lost profits after its account was frozen. In February this year, the arbitrator rejected all claims and ordered Heka to pay Circle about $166,000 in costs. Heka denied market manipulation and said it had not been investigated by regulators. Circle declined to comment, and Tether did not respond to media inquiries.
Tether separately said it led a $7 million Series A round for infrastructure provider Pact Labs, with Blockchange Ventures and Lasagna participating. The capital will be used to expand USA₮ in payroll, earned wage access, credit, and everyday payment use cases.
Tether said it plans to work through Pact Labs to embed the U.S. regulatory-compliant digital dollar USA₮ into payroll and payment systems used by American businesses, enabling real-time wage payments, embedded wallets, and an alternative to the delays of traditional batch payment rails.
Funding rounds and company expansion
London payments startup Velocity raised $38 million in Series A funding led by crypto venture firm Dragonfly, with participation from Coinbase, Capital One Ventures, and market maker Wintermute.
Founded in 2025, Velocity provides stablecoin-based cross-border settlement and treasury management solutions to merchants, payment providers, fintech companies, and financial institutions around the world. It is already operating in the U.S., parts of Europe, and Australia. The new funding will go toward licenses in Africa and Latin America, stronger asset-custody infrastructure, and yield-generating stablecoin products tailored to the more complex treasury and cross-border settlement needs of large enterprises.
In China’s robotics sector, Shenzhen-based humanoid robot company LimX Dynamics completed a nearly $200 million pre-IPO round at a post-money valuation of RMB 15 billion, after raising a cumulative $400 million over the past six months. Investors in the round included IDG Capital, Lens Technology from Apple’s supply chain, Europe-based GGG Group and Redstone VC, Huashan Capital, and Hefei Binhu Industrial Development Group. Stone Venture from the UAE continued to add capital across multiple rounds, while existing shareholders including Oasis Capital, Jishi Capital, Nanshan Strategic Emerging Industries Investment, Shangqi Capital, and NIO Capital increased their commitments. Overseas capital accounted for nearly 70% of the round. The company said it will step up core R&D, scale the rollout of LimX Luna, and expand overseas, adding that it has completed its shareholding reform and is steadily moving toward an IPO.
Chinese AI startup DeepSeek, which completed an initial roughly $7 billion financing at the end of May at a post-money valuation of about $52 billion, has begun preliminary talks with new investors on another round this week. The pre-money valuation under discussion is about $71 billion, roughly 37% above the last round. The company plans to raise capital spending, build its own data centers, and buy more AI chips to support rapidly growing compute demand from businesses including AI Agents.
In the first round, founder Liang Wenfeng personally contributed about $3 billion. Other backers included CATL, Tencent, JD.com, NetEase, IDG, Monolith, HongShan, and a national AI fund.
Separately, people familiar with the matter said DeepSeek has started planning for an IPO in mainland China, with an application potentially filed as early as this year and a target listing in 2027. The company is working with accounting firms and aims to complete financial statements before December this year to prepare for the filing. DeepSeek is also reopening private fundraising after the previous roughly $7 billion round, seeking a valuation of at least RMB 480 billion, or about $71 billion, and targeting at least RMB 10 billion in fresh capital, with the ultimate size depending on investor participation and possibly scaling several times higher. Existing shareholders include Tencent, CATL, and the National AI Industry Investment Fund. Liang said the company will prioritize frontier AI research and open-source models in pursuit of long-term artificial general intelligence goals.
Brinc, the drone company backed by OpenAI founder Sam Altman, said it raised $125 million. The round was led by existing investor Motorola Solutions, with participation from Index Ventures and earlier backers including Dylan Field. The company focuses on applying AI-based drone technology to public safety, including replacing some high-risk human response tasks.
Macro releases and geopolitical remarks
U.S. June CPI on a non-seasonally adjusted annual basis came in at 3.5%, down from 4.2% and below the market expectation of 3.8%. The seasonally adjusted monthly CPI figure for June was -0.4%, the largest decline since April 2020.
At a House hearing, Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh said, “We want growth to be broader. We want increases in inflation to be more limited. Inflation is a ‘choice.’ This is not a time for the Federal Reserve to shirk responsibility for inflation. The Federal Reserve is committed to price stability, and our inflation target is 2%. The Federal Reserve has the tools to achieve price stability.”
He also said he had been highly critical of the Fed’s 2020 framework, called it a mistake that did not succeed, and said he would review the inflation framework again to better understand the causes of inflation and what could be done in response.
U.S. President Donald Trump said oil flows are stronger than ever and that the Strait of Hormuz remains open to all ships except those tied to Iran. He said there would be a full blockade, but only for vessels traveling to or from Iranian ports or carrying goods related to Iran. He also said he had decided to cancel the “U.S. 20% compensation fee” and replace it with trade and investment agreements between Gulf states and the U.S.
Trump later said U.S. strikes on Iran would continue until he decided to stop them, repeated that the Strait of Hormuz must remain open, and said U.S. attacks on Iranian energy targets would come later. He said that unless Iran returns to the negotiating table, the U.S. would strike Iranian power plants and bridges next week. Asked whether Iran would reach an agreement, Trump said it should, but added that he did not know whether it would.
Security warnings, token unlocks, and trading activity
Blockaid issued a community alert saying old BarnBridge Smart Yield governance proposals #14 and #15 carry token approval risk. If maliciously executed or upgraded, they could put existing approvals at risk. No funds have been confirmed lost, but users were urged to review and revoke related approvals on Ethereum.
Proposal #14 is in its executable grace period, while proposal #15 has already been queued. The expected on-chain execution time is July 16, 09:23:58 UTC. Affected assets include USDC, DAI, USDT, GUSD, and RAI, and the related contract addresses have been disclosed. Blockaid warned users to use trusted approval-management tools, avoid links in replies or accounts claiming to offer support, not send funds or sign transfer messages to any address, and revoke permissions only through trusted tools.
Pump.fun’s team and investor tokens reached the end of a one-year lockup and entered a three-year unlock cycle. The first unlock took place early today, with 57.279 billion PUMP worth $86.49 million distributed across 121 wallets. Address GsM3...u6ya unlocked and transferred 52.039 billion PUMP worth $78.58 million, while ESRc...ZM67 unlocked and transferred 5.24 billion PUMP worth $7.91 million.
Bitmine, associated with Tom Lee, bought another 6,000 ETH from FalconX seven hours ago, worth about $11.18 million.
AI and technology updates
Apple is evaluating technology from PrismML, a startup that says it can deeply compress high-performance AI models so they can run directly on iPhones. PrismML says memory use can be reduced by as much as 15 times. If that performance holds up in real-world testing, the technology could speed up Siri and strengthen user privacy by keeping more inference on-device.
PrismML also announced Bonsai 27B, described as the first 27-billion-parameter multimodal model that can run on a phone. Its 1-bit variant uses only 3.9 GB of memory and can run on an iPhone 17 Pro, while the 1.58-bit variant uses 5.9 GB and is positioned for laptops.
OpenAI is developing a mobile smart speaker without a screen as its first hardware product. The device is described as an AI companion with human-like traits that can control smart home appliances while drawing on the full capabilities of ChatGPT. OpenAI plans to officially unveil the device this year and begin selling it in 2027, though the project could be delayed by litigation from Apple, which accuses OpenAI of stealing trade secrets to accelerate hardware development.
Rumors that OpenAI had cut the “thinking budget” for GPT-5.6 Sol were denied by OpenAI Vice President Tibo. He said the budget had not been reduced and that optimization of reasoning had actually freed up about 10% more usage. OpenAI has started restoring “thinking budget” resets in batches to 500,000 users, with a target of reaching 7 million users.
Cereblab reported that SpaceXAI’s Grok Build CLI had been uploading entire user code repositories to Google Cloud, including files users explicitly instructed the tool not to read. The feature was shut down after the issue was reported.
Coinbase platform executive Rob Witoff said 95% to 100% of the company’s code is now written or assisted by AI, roughly double the 40% estimate from February. Coinbase cut 700 jobs in May, about 14% of its staff. CEO Brian Armstrong said AI has changed the pace of work “dramatically” and that the company needs to return to startup speed and focus with AI at the center.
Witoff said about 100% of Coinbase employees use AI every day, though core cryptographic coding still relies mainly on humans. Prototype development is now fully automated. Teams have been reorganized around smaller, more senior staffing, with two or three people now able to do work that previously required more than 10. Most engineers run five to 10 AI agents at the same time, and those agents collectively handle coding output equivalent to about 1,200 employees. He said that by 2030, AI agents could deliver work equivalent to 100,000 employees.
Tencent is testing a light social mini-program called Tongpinpai, with the slogan “Find like-minded companions, build fun meetups.” The mini-program is already available inside WeChat and supports one-click WeChat login, though access is currently limited to Tencent employees. According to its service account, users can also receive friend notifications, system notifications, and featured event updates through WeChat. The product includes a radar feature that reads user geolocation and shows nearby people with similar interests, along with AI matching and an event square where users can create and join activities. The product remains in testing, and launch timing is still subject to official updates.
The Czech Ministry of Finance added Polymarket to its list of unauthorized internet gaming services on July 13, giving internet service providers 15 days to block the platform. Jan Řehola, head of the Czech Gambling Regulatory Research Institute, said legal gambling jurisdictions know the operator, participants, suspicious betting patterns, and player protections, while prediction markets allow betting on almost any event without comparable safeguards. “This is not risk-free innovation, but a gambling product unconstrained by rules,” he said.