Alphabet said demand for AI compute is still rising faster than it can build internal infrastructure, prompting the company to increase its use of third-party computing capacity starting in the third quarter. Chief Financial Officer Anat Ashkenazi made the comments during the company’s latest earnings call, where Alphabet also raised its 2026 capital expenditure forecast to $195 billion-$205 billion from a prior $180 billion-$190 billion range and said 2027 spending would rise sharply as well. The company described third-party capacity as a temporary substitute while internal buildouts continue, though management said the move would pressure margins in the near term. The comments lifted a group of emerging cloud and AI infrastructure names in after-hours trading on July 22, including Nebius, CoreWeave, IREN, Hut 8 and TeraWulf. The report also highlighted recent developments across the sector: IREN signed multiyear cloud contracts worth up to $2.8 billion, Hut 8 disclosed a 15-year lease valued at $9.8 billion for its Texas data center campus, and Nvidia disclosed a 9.3% stake in Nebius, totaling 22.26 million shares.

Crypto markets saw another mixed 24-hour session, with major exchange volume leaders mostly in the red while a handful of smaller tokens posted strong gains. BTC fell 1.06%, ETH slipped 0.44%, SOL lost 1.12%, and RE stood out with a 15.6% rise among the most actively traded names. OKX’s top gainers list was led by ZAMA, PROS, and RE, while msx.com’s crypto-linked stock leaderboard featured SMCI.M, SKHY.M, and TSLQ.M. On-chain meme activity tracked by GMGN centered heavily on Robinhood Chain. The broader news flow was equally busy. U.S. President Donald Trump said the federal government is expected to face a shutdown in September as Republicans and Democrats remain split on spending priorities. Samsung Electronics said at Galaxy Unpacked 2026 that Samsung Wallet will add stablecoin support and combine payments, rewards, and digital assets in one service. Kraken parent Payward is expanding xStocks beyond the U.S. by bringing equities from Hong Kong, the U.K., South Korea, and other markets on-chain. Other developments included a reported update on the CLARITY Act, the U.K.’s plan for a tokenized sovereign bond before early 2027, projections for crypto’s economic contribution to the U.S. in 2026, Japan’s possible launch of a Bitcoin ETF by 2028, and comments from Grayscale’s Zach Pandl on whether Bitcoin may already have bottomed.

A broad set of market, security, regulatory, and infrastructure developments emerged between late July 22 and early July 23. Binance said it will add 10 tokenized bStocks securities as eligible collateral and open margin trading for their related pairs, while Upbit designated Zilliqa’s ZIL as a closely watched asset and suspended deposits and withdrawals after security concerns tied to its wallet or distributed ledger. Zilliqa then disclosed a serious Ledger app nonce flaw affecting native, non-EVM ZIL transactions, saying private keys could be recovered from around five affected signatures. Security incidents also hit B² Network and an AFX-operated bridge in the Arbitrum ecosystem. Elsewhere, Payward said xStocks is expanding tokenized equities beyond U.S. names, Sui launched the Hashi Bitcoin interoperability testnet, BNY Mellon outlined plans for round-the-clock Treasury settlement, and several firms including OpenAI, Alphabet, Revolut, Tesla, and Samsung disclosed major product, spending, or financial updates. The flow also included U.S. legislative movement on the Clarity bill, SEC commentary on on-chain vaults and lending strategies, whale ETH purchases, and fresh market views from Grayscale and Bitwise.

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.

MARA Holdings rose 16% after partnering with Starwood Capital to convert bitcoin mining facilities into AI data centers; Block gained 20% after announcing over 40% workforce reduction. TerraWulf fell 3.5%, CoreWeave dropped 12%.

Binance will add 10 bStocks tokenized securities trading pairs at 21:30 on July 22, 2026, according to ChainCatcher. The new pairs are AXTIB/USDT, CRWVB/USDT, INTWB/USDT, KORUB/USDT, MUUB/USDT, MVLLB/USDT, ORCLB/USDT, QNTB/USDT, SNXXB/USDT, and TQQQB/USDT. Binance said the listing is aimed at improving the user trading experience. The exchange also rolled out a fee-free conversion promotion tied to the launch. Users will be able to access the zero-fee conversion service within one hour after the pairs go live. The promotion will remain available until 07:59 on Sept. 1, 2026.

CoreWeave (Nasdaq: CRWV) signed a multi-year cloud agreement with Anthropic to power Claude AI models using its GPU infrastructure. Deployment begins in H2 2025. Anthropic joins nine of the top ten AI model providers as CoreWeave clients. The company reports $66.8B backlog, $5.13B 2025 revenue, and expects $12-13B in 2026 revenue.

CoreWeave announced a multiyear agreement with Anthropic to provide GPU cloud infrastructure for Claude model workloads. The deal brings Anthropic into a client list that already includes Microsoft, OpenAI, and Meta, underpinning the surging demand for AI compute capacity.