Zhibao Technology, a China-based insurtech company listed on Nasdaq under the ticker ZBAO, signed a private investment in public equity, or PIPE, agreement on July 31 that calls for $154.7 million in funding to be paid in Bitcoin. The deal involves 2,380 BTC from 10 investors and, if completed, would materially reshape the company’s ownership and governance structure. Under the agreement, the investors would buy 442 million units at $0.35 per share. Each unit includes Class A ordinary shares and a two-year warrant that allows the holder to buy additional Class A shares at the same $0.35 price. The filing says the issuance totals 884 million shares, with another 442 million shares potentially issuable through warrant exercise. The agreement also lays out management changes. The investor group is set to designate four of the company’s five directors and appoint a new chief executive officer and chief financial officer, while four current directors, the CEO and the CFO would resign. Still, the transaction remains subject to several closing conditions, including shareholder and regulatory approvals, exchange-related clearance, Nasdaq compliance requirements, and the transfer of the pledged Bitcoin into a designated custody wallet.

U.S. stocks finished last Friday with a V-shaped rebound, but the late-session rally did little to change what was still a weak month for risk assets. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.53%, the S&P 500 gained 0.70%, and the Nasdaq climbed 1.00% on the day. For July, however, the S&P 500 was essentially flat, marking its weakest July since 2014, while the Nasdaq fell 3.2%, its worst July performance since 2004. Outside equities, oil sold off sharply after Donald Trump said he had canceled a planned new military strike on Iran following requests from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar, while OPEC+ agreed to lift September production quotas by 188,000 barrels per day. WTI crude dropped more than 8% at the Monday open and briefly fell below $78 a barrel. Gold, by contrast, edged up 0.91% in July and was trading near $4,050 an ounce after a roughly 30% pullback from its January peak. Markets were also digesting confirmed joint U.S.-Japan currency intervention that pushed USD/JPY below 156, as well as rising long-end Treasury yields, with the 30-year yield near 5.281%, the highest level since July 2007. In technology, de-leveraging continued across semiconductors and memory, but cloud names surged. Microsoft, Amazon and Google added nearly $1.5 trillion in combined market value last week, pointing to a clear rotation toward companies seen as converting AI spending into cash flow more effectively.

PANews’ July 31 daily roundup pulled together a wide range of market, regulatory, corporate, funding, and crypto trading updates. The report said New York’s attorney general has sued prediction market platform Kalshi and is seeking at least $36 billion. ByteDance unveiled its Seedance 2.5 video generation model, which can produce a 30-second high-quality clip in a single run, while several companies including XPeng and AgiBot are set to adopt it first through Volcano Engine partnerships. In public markets, South Korea’s KOSPI surged 17.91% to 6,595.44, marking the largest single-day closing gain on record, with SK hynix up 30% and Samsung Electronics up nearly 27%. The roundup also covered a string of crypto-linked developments. Strategy posted an $8.2 billion net loss in the second quarter, largely tied to unrealized losses on its Bitcoin holdings, while Coinbase reported $1.22 billion in Q2 revenue, below the $1.29 billion market expectation, and said its stock fell about 5% after hours. Elsewhere, Block traced a Coldcard wallet theft incident to a random number generation flaw affecting Mk2 through Mk5 devices, though another item in the same roundup noted there is still no evidence of a Coldcard RNG defect or supply-chain attack in the separate transfer of roughly 594 BTC from 500 single-signature addresses. The report also listed fresh ETF flow data, options expiry figures, AI startup financing, and sharp gains in crypto mining stocks pivoting toward AI.

Wall Street rebounded sharply after the prior session’s sell-off, with Microsoft’s earnings report becoming the session’s main catalyst. The company’s Azure cloud business grew 43% at constant currency, ahead of expectations, while lower-than-expected capital spending and a commitment to positive cash flow in fiscal 2027 helped calm concerns that AI investment was becoming too costly. Microsoft shares surged 15.51%, adding about $450 billion in market value in a single day. The move helped drive the Dow up 1.19%, the S&P 500 up 1.66%, the Nasdaq up 2.78%, and the Nasdaq 100 up 3.36%, while the VIX fell 17.33% to 17.08. Semiconductors and memory names led the rally, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rising 8.19% and the Roundhill Memory ETF climbing nearly 17%. At the same time, traders continued to monitor Middle East developments, a possible OPEC+ output increase of 188,000 barrels per day in September, and sharp currency moves in Japan and South Korea. Market participants are also watching several near-term events, including the Trump administration’s AI regulatory framework deadline on Aug. 1, South Korea’s July export data, and the Aug. 2 OPEC+ meeting.

July 31 brought a dense mix of crypto, equity-market, and policy headlines. On the corporate side, Coinbase reported $1.22 billion in second-quarter revenue, down 14% from the prior quarter and below the $1.29 billion expected by the market, while Strategy posted an $8.2 billion quarterly loss tied mainly to unrealized losses on its Bitcoin holdings and said it held 843,775 BTC at the latest disclosure. In one of the day’s most closely watched cross-market stories, people familiar with the matter said Citadel had acquired most of the equity portfolio of Situational Awareness, the $24 billion hedge fund founded by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner, after losses tied to AI-related trades. Elsewhere, Aave said it would retire 50 low-adoption reserves and wind down deployments on six chains, Uniswap launched a beta product for token launches, and ENS DAO proposed creating a full-time operating foundation. On the policy front, U.S. senators submitted a new compromise proposal tied to ethics provisions in the Clarity Act, while South Korea said it had completed a draft digital asset framework bill and is also considering rules that could cover AI agent payments and suspicious-account payment freezes.

Apple’s chief financial officer said App Store mobile gaming revenue is showing signs of weakness, according to a report cited by ChainCatcher and attributed to Jin10. The brief item was published as a 7x24 news alert and did not include additional figures, a time breakdown, or further comments from the executive. No extra financial metrics were disclosed in the source text. The report was limited to the statement that revenue from mobile games on the App Store has shown signs of softness.

Bitcoin News said in a post on X that Strategy raised $17.06 billion through its 2026 capital plan, including $7.53 billion from STRC, and increased its Bitcoin holdings to 843,800 BTC. The company also set up a $3.75 billion USD Reserve, which it said is enough to cover more than 2.1 years of preferred stock dividends and interest payments. In its liability management efforts, Strategy repurchased $1.5 billion of convertible notes at an 8% discount and bought back STRC below par value. It also sold $218 million worth of Bitcoin to help fund preferred stock dividends. The report added that future Bitcoin sales could also be used to replenish reserves and fund stock buybacks. It introduced two new metrics as well, including BTC Hurdle ARR, currently at 10.8%, which the company described as its effective credit cost. CFO Andrew Kang said that when Bitcoin’s annual return exceeds that threshold, net Bitcoin growth per share outpaces Bitcoin itself.

According to Jin10, Apple Chief Financial Officer said a growing number of companies are choosing Mac computers to take advantage of on-device AI capabilities. The update was carried by ChainCatcher as a 7x24 newsflash. The report did not provide further details on the companies involved, the scale of adoption, or a timeline beyond the statement itself. The core point of the item is Apple’s view that enterprise demand for Macs is being supported by interest in AI features that run directly on the device.