Gate has added Quanto perpetual contracts and launched four Hong Kong stock-linked products in its stocks section at 16:30 UTC+8 on July 21, according to an official announcement. The newly listed contracts are TENCENTHKD for Tencent Holdings (00700.HK), ZHIPUHKD for Zhipu (02513.HK), MINIMAXHKD for MINIMAX-W (00100.HK), and XIAOMIHKD for Xiaomi Group (01810.HK). All four products support leverage ranging from 1x to 20x. The exchange said Quanto perpetual contracts quote the underlying asset in local fiat currency, while margin and profit and loss are settled in USDT. That structure allows users to trade overseas stock derivatives priced in local currencies, including Hong Kong equities, without converting funds into HKD in advance. Gate also said the model can reduce the impact of exchange-rate swings on trading returns and make cross-market trading more straightforward for users.

Circle’s stock has fallen from more than $260 in June last year to $62 on July 19, a decline of roughly 76%, as investors reassess how to value stablecoin issuers. The company’s long-term strategy remains central to management’s message, but Wall Street has turned more cautious. Mizuho cut CRCL to “underperform” from “neutral” and lowered its price target to $50 from $85, arguing that even if interest rates stay elevated through 2027, pricing pressure and tougher competition could erode margins. The competitive picture is also shifting. USDC still has scale, with about $73 billion in circulation across 34 blockchains, yet Circle is now facing a fresh challenge from Open USD, a new stablecoin backed by around 140 companies and designed to attract partners by sharing reserve income. Visa has also launched its Visa Stablecoin Platform, initially supporting Open USD while remaining compatible with USDC and Paxos’s USDG. At the same time, regulatory pressure is building elsewhere in the sector. The report says Tether may have about two years to bring USDT in line with the GENIUS Act, while in Hong Kong, Standard Chartered (Hong Kong) and Anchorpoint Financial Technology could announce a Hong Kong dollar-pegged stablecoin, HKDAP, before the end of this month.

PANews’ July 21 daily roundup tracked a broad set of crypto and market developments, led by Donald Trump agreeing to an ethics provision tied to the Clarity Act and Ant International closing an approximately $1.2 billion Series A round. The ethics language is designed to limit the ability of senior U.S. officials, including the president, vice president, and members of Congress, to profit from digital assets while in office. Debate around the clause has centered on Trump’s meme coin and World Liberty Financial, with the bill text expected in the coming days and a Senate vote required before the first week of August. The digest also covered fresh product and platform updates from Binance, Robinhood, Base, Solv Protocol, and others, along with several security incidents. Among them were the reported theft of about 515 million NIGHT tokens from Wanchain’s Cardano bridge treasury and ZachXBT’s claim that TeleSwap may have suffered an exploit worth more than $735,000 that had still not been publicly disclosed five days later. On the market side, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs posted $227 million in net inflows on July 20, extending the streak to five straight days. Strategy did not add to its Bitcoin holdings last week but added $225 million to its dollar reserves, while one company executive said the firm’s Bitcoin treasury could support dividend payments for 31 years.

Bitget has listed the MINIMAX Quanto perpetual contract, ticker MINIMAXHKDUSDT, with up to 20x leverage and round-the-clock trading. The exchange described it as the industry’s first TradFi Quanto perpetual contract. The product lets users trade Hong Kong stocks and other overseas equities priced in non-U.S. dollar currencies directly with USDT, removing the need to exchange into foreign currencies first. The contract is quoted in Hong Kong dollars, while margin deposits and profit-and-loss settlement are both handled in USDT. According to TokenInsight’s Q2 2026 report, TradFi perpetuals were the fastest-growing segment, with monthly trading volume rising from about $52 billion in January to $268 billion in June, a fivefold increase. The same report said Bitget recorded about $69 billion in TradFi derivatives volume in the second quarter, giving it an 11.01% market share and placing it second in the industry.

Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol, or CCIP, has been adopted in central bank-related projects tied to Brazil, Hong Kong, Australia, the UK, and mBridge, according to Techub, citing CryptoBriefing. The protocol is being used for data exchange involving central bank digital currencies and for cross-border settlement of tokenized assets. The report said the network has already enabled automated payments in a cross-border trade settlement pilot linked to Brazil’s central bank Drex project and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s e-HKD initiative. It also said Chainlink worked with Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, or ANZ, to complete a cross-chain atomic settlement involving stablecoins. Separately, the Bank of England selected the technology in February 2026 for securities atomic settlement testing. The mBridge project has also adopted the solution to address interoperability challenges across multiple currencies. The report centers on infrastructure use cases, with the cited deployments spanning CBDC connectivity, settlement automation, and multi-currency coordination.

Discussion around an AI bubble reached a new pitch in July 2026, with warnings appearing across on-chain markets, macro institutions and public market positioning. MarsBit’s analysis does not argue that an AI crash is imminent. Instead, it lays out a scenario test: if AI valuations see a sharp reset and $2-3 trillion in capital starts looking for a new home, where could that money go next? The article points to three possible paths — defensive assets such as Treasuries and cash, selective crypto-native assets, and most notably real-world assets and tokenization. Its core case is that RWA/tokenization now has an unusual structural edge because infrastructure signals are appearing across multiple layers at once. In the same week that AI bubble talk intensified, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation processed its first production-grade tokenized securities transaction, Cantor Fitzgerald and Securitize announced a blockchain IPO channel, and broker Alpaca raised $135 million for tokenized equities infrastructure. MarsBit argues that this cluster of developments matters for Hong Kong as well, where existing regulatory rails for virtual assets and tokenization could become an advantage if institutional capital rotates toward regulated digital asset exposure. The piece repeatedly stresses that this is a conditional scenario, not a firm market call.

Amid falling domestic revenue and loan volumes, Chinese consumer lenders like Lexin, Yiren Digital, and Vcredit Holdings are diversifying into Southeast Asia, Latin America, and cryptocurrency. Vcredit invested in a 15% stake in crypto exchange Thousand Whales and HKD 23.95 billion in licensed Hong Kong platform EXIO Group.

Ant Group has started the public beta of its self-custody wallet TOPNOD in selected overseas markets, with availability in regions including Singapore. The product remains inaccessible in Hong Kong, where both app access and website entry are restricted.