Crypto venture investing kept its dollar volume but lost its breadth in the first half of 2026, according to a report by Tiger Research and RootData. The study, based on 9,416 investment deals recorded from 2018 through the first half of 2026, found that total capital inflows reached $13.3 billion in H1 2026, roughly matching the $13.2 billion raised in all of 2024. Deal count, however, fell to 435, down 78% from the 2022 peak of 1,978. The result is a market with fewer checks, larger rounds, and far less tolerance for unproven business models. The report says traditional financial institutions now hold a dominant position in the market, participating in 54.5% of investment deals in H1 2026. Seed activity has contracted sharply, later-stage rounds account for 75.2% of deployed capital, and $100 million-plus transactions now make up 7.4% of all deals. Sector leadership has also changed. Infrastructure lost share, while payments and stablecoins, centralized exchanges, prediction markets, and custody drew a larger portion of capital. In contrast, gaming, NFTs, and social sectors saw steep declines in both deal count and funding. Tiger Research argues that the old venture model of broad token-driven bets has largely broken down. Capital is now being directed toward companies with auditable revenue structures, regulatory licenses, or strategic control over core crypto infrastructure.

TechFlowPost compiled several recent research views that cut across crypto and AI, and together they sketch out how investors are rethinking this cycle. One strand focuses on Ethereum: activity inside the broader ecosystem remains large, but the base layer is capturing a much smaller share of that value than many bulls once expected. Another looks at the AI trade through BlackRock’s lens, comparing the current run-up with the late-1990s internet boom and flagging a tension between stretched long-term valuation metrics and still-strong earnings growth. The roundup also highlights Multicoin Capital managing partner Tushar Jain’s positioning in Solana, Hyperliquid and Zcash. His framework separates spot market leadership from derivatives leadership, while treating ZEC as a conviction bet driven by community, use case and social consensus rather than cash flow. A separate analysis examines privacy AI, asking where plaintext is exposed as prompts move between user devices, networks, model servers and external tools. It reviews protocol-based privacy, OHTTP, trusted execution environments, end-to-end encryption, FHE, MPC and local inference, then argues that agent workflows remain the harder frontier. The final theme is tokenized real-world assets, with gold used as a case study. The argument is that simply moving assets on-chain is no longer enough; the next stage is to make them productive. In that view, structured on-chain covered-call strategies tied to tokenized gold may point to a broader shift from passive tokenization toward yield-generating RWA design.

Gate said its gStocks section will list 16 tokenized securities for spot trading at 16:00 on July 15 (UTC+8), according to an official announcement cited by ChainCatcher. The lineup includes VOOG and IVVG, along with tokenized versions tied to Caterpillar, Bank of America, Lam Research, Costco, UnitedHealth Group, General Electric, Chevron, Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, HSBC Holdings, Home Depot, Arm, Netflix and Goldman Sachs. Gate said the gStocks tokenized securities product is backed by 1:1 full native reserves. The company also said the offering gives users one-stop access to 7×24 securities trading.

According to data cited by Odaily from Hyperliquid, the pre-market contract for ChangXin Memory Technologies, listed as CXMT and launched by Trade.XYZ, surpassed $23 million in open interest within just five hours of going live. That put the contract ahead of other U.S. equity-linked contracts on the platform, including HOOD and MSTR, and second only to Tesla (TSLA) by open interest. The update highlights a rapid buildup in positioning shortly after listing, based on platform data reported by Odaily. No additional trading metrics or timeline beyond the first five hours were disclosed in the source item.

Japan’s House of Councillors has approved a revised Financial Instruments and Exchange Act that would formally place crypto assets under the country’s financial instruments regulatory framework, according to a report cited by ChainCatcher. The change means crypto would no longer be regulated only under the Payment Services Act as a means of payment. The revision adds insider trading rules for the crypto market and places the sector under the oversight of the Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission. It also sharply raises penalties for unlicensed operators, lifting the maximum prison term from three years to 10 years and increasing the ceiling for fines to 10 million yen. The amended law is expected to take effect before July 2027. On the tax side, Japan is set to lower the tax rate on crypto trading profits from the current comprehensive taxation system, which can reach as high as 55%, to a flat 20% rate aligned with stocks under separate self-assessment taxation starting in January 2028. The Japanese market is also expected to lift its ban on crypto asset ETFs around the same time, with securities firms already preparing for entry.

Bitunix said on July 15 that it has rolled out Contracts for Difference, or CFD, trading on its platform, adding foreign exchange, metals, indices and commodities under a single-account structure with unified margin. The company said stock products will be added next. According to the announcement, the new setup is designed to let users move across different markets on one platform rather than splitting activity between separate products or accounts. Bitunix said traders can use the feature to react to macroeconomic data releases through instruments tied to the S&P 500, or rotate between assets such as gold and crude oil while keeping trading activity within the same system. The exchange framed the launch as an expansion of its broader product lineup. It said the new CFD offering continues the platform’s Ultra Trust, Ultra Products and Ultra Experience strategy, with the stated goal of building a one-stop professional trading venue for global users.

According to Jinshi, European Central Bank Governing Council member Fabio Panetta said the ECB will focus on keeping inflation expectations stable as it weighs future interest rate decisions. He added that the central bank also aims to limit the indirect and second-round effects of shocks. The remarks center on how the ECB frames its policy response when assessing upcoming rate moves. No additional details were provided in the brief update carried by ChainCatcher.

SBI Holdings used the momentum around Tokyo’s WebX conference to highlight a broader shift in its digital-asset strategy: the Japanese financial group is no longer treating crypto trading, liquidity, tokenization and payments as separate business lines. Instead, it is assembling a layered on-chain finance system built around settlement, asset issuance, markets, treasury yield, distribution and investor access. Over the past month, SBI took part in Morpho’s $175 million financing, invested $125 million in Gauntlet, launched the yen stablecoin JPYSC and rolled out Ripple’s RLUSD in Japan. It has also expanded work with Startale on the Strium blockchain, set up tokenization initiatives with DigiFT, and entered a strategic partnership with the Solana Foundation. At the center of the plan are three stablecoins with different functions: JPYSC for domestic yen-linked flows, USDC for global on-chain liquidity, and RLUSD for institutional and cross-border use cases. Around that base, SBI is trying to connect tokenized securities, RWA infrastructure, lending markets and on-chain asset management. Many pieces are still in early stages, but the outline of SBI’s effort to rebuild settlement, issuance, trading, credit and asset management on-chain is becoming clearer.