Several crypto and tech updates landed around July 16, led by Visa’s new stablecoin platform, Injective’s regulatory filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and a unanimous U.S. Senate resolution opposing any pardon for FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried.
Visa launches a stablecoin platform
According to Fortune, Visa has introduced the Visa Stablecoin Platform, a stablecoin processing system for banks and fintech companies. The company said the product can be embedded into existing payments and money movement workflows, allowing institutions to manage stablecoin activity inside Visa’s current infrastructure.
Visa said it handles about $15 trillion in payments each year and has already completed billions of dollars in stablecoin settlements. With the new platform, it wants to make stablecoin access easier for roughly 15,000 financial institution clients and more than 200 million merchants.
The platform will initially support OUSD, a stablecoin recently launched by the Open Standards Alliance. Visa said this will complement stablecoins it already supports, including USD Coin and Global Dollar. The company said the platform brings together its existing stablecoin-related services and is built to reduce technical complexity for clients adding stablecoins to payments, settlement, and treasury flows. Mastercard and American Express are also accelerating their work on stablecoin infrastructure.
Injective files for SEC transfer agent registration
Injective said on July 16 that it has filed an application with the SEC to register as a transfer agent.
Transfer agents maintain official ownership records for securities and process ownership changes. In traditional markets, that role is usually handled off-chain by specialized institutions. Injective said the filing is intended to move that core market function on-chain, making the token itself the ownership record. That structure would allow tokenized securities to be registered and transferred in seconds while cutting back on intermediary reconciliation.
The filing is part of a broader push by Injective to build compliant infrastructure for institutions moving on-chain. The company also released a MiCAR white paper as it looks to expand in a regulated way across European Union member states.
Fireworks AI raises $1.5 billion
According to CNBC, AI infrastructure startup Fireworks AI said it has raised $1.5 billion at a $17.5 billion valuation.
The round was led by Atreides Management, Index Ventures, and TCV, with participation from Nvidia, Evantic, and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Fireworks AI, which had already received Nvidia backing, provides cloud-based runtime services for open-source AI models aimed at developers and enterprises seeking lower-cost AI deployment.
The company said its platform now processes about 40 trillion AI tokens per day. Customers include Elastic, GitLab, and MongoDB. The report added that more than half of Fireworks AI’s early revenue came from AI coding tool Cursor, though its customer mix has since become more diversified.
1inch co-founder starts Second Tier
1inch co-founder Anton Bukov said on July 16 that he has left the company’s operating team and has started a new blockchain infrastructure project called Second Tier.
According to the disclosure, Bukov led the design of core 1inch architecture including the 1inch Router, Fusion, and cross-chain swap systems. He stopped taking part in 1inch’s day-to-day operations at the end of November 2025 because of differences over strategy and management, but he retains co-founder status and a 50% stake.
Second Tier is focused on building secure and efficient blockchain infrastructure. Bukov said the goal is to shorten the distance between a user’s “economic intent” and final execution.
Kimi K3 begins rolling out to users
Moonshot AI’s website has been updated with the new KIMI K3 model. After signing in, users can now see two versions, K3·Max and K3 Cluster·Max, with an official announcement expected soon.
Earlier reports from sources said the model has between 2 trillion and 3 trillion parameters, which would make it the largest AI model built in China to date. Those reports also said its performance is already close to models developed by Anthropic in the U.S., pointing to a narrowing gap between China and the United States at the cutting edge of AI.
Anthropic has not formally disclosed the parameter count of its own models. Industry speculation, however, has put Opus 4.8 at roughly 1.5 trillion to 2 trillion parameters.
U.S. Senate backs resolution against clemency for SBF
According to CoinDesk, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a non-binding resolution on July 16 local time stating that FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, or SBF, should not receive a presidential pardon or sentence commutation “under any circumstances.”
The resolution was advanced jointly by Senator Cynthia Lummis, a Republican, and Senator Ruben Gallego, a Democrat, through the Senate Banking Committee’s digital assets subcommittee. A jury found SBF guilty on seven counts in November 2023 in connection with the collapse of FTX. More than $8 billion in U.S. customer funds were lost, and he is not expected to be eligible for release until 2044 at the earliest.
President Donald Trump had previously pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao and Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, but said he had no intention of pardoning SBF.
Base shifts back to financial infrastructure
Base creator Jesse Pollak published a review of the network’s strategic mistakes over the past year. He said the earlier bet on social, including Farcaster, Zora, and creator tokens, was the wrong call. The broad collapse of the social market hurt Base and left it behind competitors in key segments such as perpetual futures and prediction markets.
Pollak said the Base app has been handed over to Coinbase, with @cobie taking over. He said his own focus has shifted back to the chain itself, with a renewed goal of building Base into a blockchain for global finance.
He laid out three strategic priorities for 2026:
- Trading: covering tokenized stocks, meme coins, app tokens, and other asset categories
- Payments: pushing stablecoin adoption for individuals and businesses worldwide
- AI agents: accelerating the first two areas, based on the view that crypto is a natural fit for AI and computer-native money
Bank of Korea delivers first rate hike in three and a half years
On July 16, the Bank of Korea raised interest rates by 25 basis points to 2.75%, its first rate increase since January 2023. The move matched market expectations.
TSMC posts 77.4% profit growth in the second quarter
TSMC reported second-quarter net profit of NT$706.6 billion on July 16, up 77.4% from a year earlier. The result was above the market estimate of NT$623.73 billion. Gross margin for the quarter came in at 67.7%, also above the 67.1% estimate.
By TechFlow