Crypto’s route to mainstream adoption may be changing in a fundamental way. Instead of requiring users to first learn blockchains, open wallets and buy tokens before they can participate, some of the most familiar financial and commercial use cases are beginning to absorb crypto infrastructure in the background. This shift can be seen across three areas highlighted in the source article: prediction markets, stablecoins and tokenized stocks. Prediction markets are moving beyond a niche on-chain trading experiment toward a more intuitive pricing tool for uncertainty, especially when tied to mass-interest events such as the 2026 FIFA World Cup hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico. Stablecoins, meanwhile, are increasingly being framed less as crypto trading instruments and more as settlement rails for payments, remittances and business transfers, with Open USD from Open Standard cited as a recent example involving more than 140 companies. Tokenized stocks point to a different form of convergence, one in which traditional assets such as equities, ETFs and funds are brought into crypto-native accounts and platforms. Taken together, the article argues that crypto is no longer only trying to bring users into a separate financial system. It is starting to function as infrastructure that traditional finance and mainstream products can call on directly, often without the end user needing to notice the underlying technology.

Bitwise’s 2026 second-quarter report painted a split picture for the digital-asset market: prices, ETF flows and on-chain activity weakened, while tokenized real-world assets, prediction markets and some crypto-linked equities kept expanding. The firm said its top-10 crypto index fell 15.4% in Q2, with eight of its 10 constituents posting negative returns, while spot Bitcoin ETFs saw $4.9 billion in net outflows, their worst quarter on record. Bitcoin also dropped below $60,000 in June and sat 52% below its October peak of $126,080, according to the report. At the same time, Bitwise highlighted areas that continued to grow through the downturn. Prediction market open interest reached a record $1.8 billion and quarterly volume climbed to $43 billion. Tokenized real-world assets rose to $33 billion in Q2, up 12% for the quarter and 45% year to date. The firm’s Crypto Innovators 30 Index gained 30.6%, helped mainly by AI-linked Bitcoin miners. Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan said the industry mood is among the worst he has seen in eight years, but argued that current prices do not reflect the sector’s stronger fundamentals relative to the prior bear-market bottom in 2022.

IDC has released its 2025 China AI Coding Market Share Report, outlining both the current size of the sector and the competitive picture shaping it. According to the report, China’s AI coding market will total RMB 399 million in 2025 and is projected to climb to RMB 1.173 billion by the end of 2026. IDC said Alibaba ranks first in the market through its core AI coding product, Qoder, with a 47.6% share. The report added that this figure is larger than the combined share of vendors ranked second through fifth. IDC analysts said AI coding is moving beyond being a simple code-generation tool and is becoming a software productivity platform that covers the full software lifecycle. The report also said Alibaba’s Qoder product lineup now serves hundreds of thousands of enterprises, including FAW China, CITIC Securities and AsiaInfo Technologies, while its global user base has exceeded 5 million.

Binance Alpha is scheduled to run an airdrop at 7:00 PM UTC+8 on July 16, according to BlockBeats. Users with at least 250 Alpha points will be eligible to claim tokens on a first-come, first-served basis. Distribution will continue until the airdrop pool is fully allocated or the event ends. Binance Alpha has not yet released the full details, and more information is expected later. The update was published as a 7x24 flash report by BlockBeats.

HTX has rolled out a new referral campaign, according to an official announcement, with a total reward pool of 600,000 USDT for inviters and new users. The event runs from now until 10:00 on August 16 (UTC+8). During the campaign period, users can generate and share a referral link through the HTX invitation page. Once the inviter and the new user complete the required tasks, both sides can unlock token rewards. The program is positioned as a direct incentive campaign aimed at bringing benefits to both existing users who refer others and newcomers who join through the referral link.

Crypto derivatives traders saw $349 million in liquidations across the market over the past 24 hours, according to data from Coinglass cited by ChainCatcher. Long positions accounted for $180 million of the total, while short positions made up $169 million. Among major assets, Bitcoin recorded $33.2839 million in long liquidations and $36.2946 million in short liquidations. Ethereum posted $46.5219 million in long liquidations and $90.0377 million in short liquidations, making it one of the largest contributors to the day’s total. Coinglass data also showed that 79,747 traders were liquidated globally during the same period. The largest single liquidation order was recorded on Binance in the ETHUSDT trading pair, with a value of $11.8811 million. The figures reflect two-way pressure in the market, with both bullish and bearish positions seeing large losses within 24 hours.

South Korean retail investors lost an estimated KRW 2.15 trillion, or about $1.45 billion, from leveraged trading over the past month, based on combined estimates from Financial Supervisory Service data and a Goldman Sachs trading desk report cited by BlockBeats. The figure includes principal wiped out in forced liquidations, declines in leveraged ETF net asset value, debt created by margin calls, and losses on option premiums. On July 13 alone, more than 1.2 million personal credit trading and leveraged-product accounts received margin call notices. Of those, about 320,000 to 360,000 accounts were forcibly liquidated by brokerages and saw their principal fully erased. Goldman Sachs said those liquidations were a major part of institutional net selling that day. The report also said 62% of the liquidated accounts belonged to investors in their 20s and 30s, with trading concentrated in 2x leveraged semiconductor ETFs tied to names such as Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. Separately, South Korean authorities said they will launch a nationwide debt counseling hotline, 1375, in October 2026 and have tightened rules on single-stock leveraged ETFs, including raising minimum margin requirements and banning new listings of such products.

Odaily reported, citing data from MSX.COM, that AI-related U.S. stocks moved lower in premarket trading. Among the names listed, Marvell Technology (MRVL) fell 2.61%, Micron (MU) dropped 2.74%, Broadcom (AVGO) slipped 1.55%, and NVIDIA declined 1.46%. The update also noted that MSX is a major RWA trading platform that has listed hundreds of RWA tokens. Those offerings cover tokenized exposures tied to popular U.S. equities and ETF underlyings, including NVDA, GOOGL, MSFT, AMZN, META, TSM, and AMD. The note was published by Odaily as a market snapshot rather than a broader analysis.