A wide set of crypto and adjacent market developments landed over the past 24 hours, led by DeepSeek’s latest financing and a fresh policy push in South Korea. DeepSeek’s operating entity, DeepSeek SeekDeep, completed the first signing round of its new fundraising in Hangzhou on Aug. 10. The round is sized at 50 billion yuan with a pre-money valuation of about 500 billion yuan, up more than 40% from the roughly 350 billion yuan valuation attached to its first round completed in June. The first batch of capital is due as early as Aug. 30, and the company said the proceeds will go toward compute, model research, hiring, and possible domestic listing preparations. In South Korea, People Power Party lawmaker Jeong Seong-guk plans to submit a bill that would delay taxation on income from virtual assets by three years, moving the effective date from Jan. 1, 2027 to Jan. 1, 2030. Under the current framework, gains from virtual asset transfers or lending would be treated as “other income,” with profits above 2.5 million won taxed at 22%, including local income tax. The digest also highlighted the fallout from the Coldcard wallet vulnerability, which Forbes said has now led to about $130 million in stolen bitcoin tied to roughly 2,000 BTC and more than 5,200 addresses. That episode has revived the debate between self-custody and institutional custody, while U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs and spot ether ETFs posted weekly net inflows of $854 million and $245 million, respectively.

A packed 24-hour news cycle brought fresh signals from crypto markets, policymakers, security researchers and public companies. CryptoQuant analyst Axel Adler said Bitcoin’s rebound is still facing four pressures: compressed volatility, weak U.S. spot demand, thin buy-side liquidity and continued loss realization by investors. In Washington, Aave founder Stani said the CLARITY Act has entered the "last mile," arguing that even in imperfect form it could become the first U.S. law to directly address DeFi and give institutions, fintechs and banks a clearer legal path into on-chain finance. In Europe, attention is shifting from winning a MiCA license to paying the ongoing cost of compliance. Market participants cited in the report said that dynamic could push the sector toward consolidation, including mergers, joint ventures and bank partnerships, with the U.K. likely to follow a similarly strict path through its own framework. Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, meanwhile, said acquisitions of smaller centralized exchanges remain possible, but post-deal security incidents are hard to attribute, making due diligence and risk controls much harder. Other major developments included updated figures on public-company Bitcoin holdings, Lido’s response to a stETH reward calculation issue, Cascade’s statement that funds tied to the CLS incident had been recovered, and new reports on wallet-targeting malware campaigns and U.S. crypto seizure actions.

A packed 24-hour cycle in crypto brought a mix of regulatory developments, exchange stress, security breaches and fresh ETF flow data. Coinbase said it has settled its Freedom of Information Act lawsuit with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, with the SEC agreeing to pay $150,000 and revise its record-retention policies after missing communications tied to former Chair Gary Gensler. In South Korea, combined daily trading volume across the country’s five largest won-based crypto exchanges fell 88% from a year earlier, while Korbit sold BTC and ETH holdings to raise cash. SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce also warned that moving vaults and lending strategies on-chain does not automatically place them outside federal securities laws. On the security front, algorithmic stablecoin Balance Coin crashed more than 99% after an oracle attack, and several other incidents highlighted operational and key-management risks across the sector. Meanwhile, spot Bitcoin ETFs logged a sixth straight day of net inflows and spot Ether ETFs extended their inflow streak to three days, according to SoSoValue data.

A broad set of regulatory, fundraising and market-structure developments shaped the crypto sector over the past 24 hours. South Korea formally opened discussions on the second phase of its Digital Asset Basic Act, with stablecoin oversight at the center of the agenda, while Hanwha Group emerged as the largest shareholder in tokenization platform Securitize. In Russia, lawmakers advanced and then passed a bill establishing rules for crypto market participants and cross-border trade, though the measure still requires presidential sign-off. In the U.S., the Securities and Exchange Commission cleared Ionic Digital’s registration statement ahead of its planned July 28 Nasdaq direct listing, received Grayscale’s registration filing for a Worldcoin ETF, and sued Mining Automatic and Zan Shaikh over an alleged $22 million crypto mining investment fraud. Elsewhere, spot Bitcoin and Ether ETFs posted fresh net inflows, Nigeria set up a virtual asset coordination framework, Pakistan created a virtual asset investigation unit, and Arcus launched 24/7 tokenized stock trading and a perpetuals beta on Robinhood Chain.

South Korean regulators took center stage in the past 24 hours after launching a sanctions process against Dunamu, the operator of Upbit, and outlining a broader push to tighten oversight of the virtual asset market with artificial intelligence. According to Yonhap, authorities have sent an inspection report to Dunamu following a 44.5 billion won hacking incident, starting a formal sanctions procedure whose outcome remains uncertain because there is no direct penalty rule for hacks or computer system failures under the current framework. Separately, KBS reported that South Korea’s Financial Services Commission said it has completed about 40 investigations into unfair virtual asset trading in the two years since the Virtual Asset User Protection Act took effect, and has referred or reported more than 30 cases to judicial authorities. The FSC said the next phase of oversight will include an AI-based monitoring system capable of real-time market surveillance, second-level price manipulation analysis, and automated detection of suspicious accounts and trading ranges. The broader market update also included missed U.S. stablecoin rulemaking deadlines under the GENIUS Act, a South Korean roadmap for won internationalization and won-denominated stablecoins, fresh liquidation data from Coinglass, new figures on Bitcoin mining concentration, tokenized stock activity, and security developments involving Ostium.

Base’s largest Chinese-language community, which is not officially affiliated with the project, has changed its name to “Base 太狗了中文社区,” according to PANews. The move appeared to reflect frustration over an earlier social media episode involving Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, whose avatar change was read by parts of the community as a signal that Base was preparing a major move. Armstrong had switched his profile picture to a Superman image and hinted that he was about to do something significant. That led some community members to interpret the post as a sign that Base might follow Robinhood’s lead and roll out a notable development in the near term. Against that backdrop, meme token $BRIAN surged to a market capitalization of $37 million, while Base’s total value locked rose by $100 million on the same day. The momentum faded quickly. PANews said Armstrong changed his avatar back just one day later. $BRIAN’s market capitalization now stands at $1.97 million.

A trader who bought BRIAN near yesterday’s high is now sitting on a steep unrealized loss, according to on-chain analyst Ai Yi, cited by BlockBeats on July 18. The analyst said the trader accumulated $179,000 worth of BRIAN at an average entry price of $0.01311. Based on the latest tracking, the position is now showing an unrealized loss of $159,000. That leaves the holding down 88.7% from the initial value. The update was attributed to monitoring by Ai Yi, whose X account is listed as @ai_9684xtpa.

An on-chain address tracked by analyst Ai Yi has posted a steep paper loss after buying Base meme token BRIAN. According to Odaily, address 0x378…1c476 bought $179,000 worth of BRIAN yesterday at $0.01311. The token later fell after Coinbase CEO changed his X profile picture, pushing BRIAN’s market capitalization down to $1.43 million. Based on the latest tracked position, the address is now sitting on an unrealized loss of $159,000, with total assets tied to the position down 88.7%. The update was cited by Odaily from Ai Yi’s on-chain monitoring.