PANews has released a weekly selection of featured reads spanning crypto markets, macro developments, AI infrastructure, and on-chain trends, with Michael Saylor’s latest comment on STRC among the headline items. The roundup brings together stories on AI agent wallets, the sharp swings in South Korean equities, ChangXin Memory Technologies’ market debut, Federal Reserve policy, token valuation gaps, RWA utilization, Ethereum’s 2030 roadmap, and stablecoin competition. Among the shorter headline updates compiled by PANews, Strategy reported an $8.2 billion net loss in the second quarter while increasing its Bitcoin holdings by 11%. Coinbase posted $1.22 billion in Q2 revenue, missing expectations, and its shares fell 5% in after-hours trading. PANews also highlighted Saylor’s statement that the goal is to push STRC back to its peg around Sept. 8. Other items in the roundup included a 17% jump in South Korea’s KOSPI, SK Hynix rising more than 29%, C ChangXin’s intraday market value topping 4 trillion yuan, new token listings on Upbit and Bithumb, and ETH slipping below $1,900 with a 1.02% daily decline.

Real-world asset markets kept expanding in the week covering July 24 to July 31, 2026, even as stablecoin settlement activity remained weak. Data from RWA.xyz showed on-chain RWA market capitalization reached $36.82 billion as of July 31, up 2.43% from a month earlier, while the number of holders climbed to 1.4469 million, a 40.81% monthly increase and the largest monthly gain on record. In stablecoins, total market capitalization was largely unchanged at $296.63 billion, but monthly transfer volume dropped 29.29% to $5.07 trillion, extending a sharp slowdown in on-chain settlement demand. Regulation also moved across several jurisdictions. South Korea advanced work on a comprehensive digital asset bill that would cover stablecoin issuance and exchange standards, while lawmakers are also set to review an opposition proposal to scrap a crypto tax scheduled for 2027. Kenya lowered the minimum paid-up capital requirement for stablecoin issuers by 40% to about $2.32 million, and Zimbabwe approved seven crypto and tokenization projects for its regulatory sandbox. On the industry side, the Bank for International Settlements-led Project Agorá completed a live cross-border payment test worth about $1 million across six currencies with five central banks and 28 commercial banks. In Europe, 10 financial institutions formed the Regulated Layer One cooperative, or RL1, to build tokenized asset infrastructure for regulated markets. Ondo Finance also introduced Ondo Network, a new execution layer that replaces the prior Ondo Chain direction.

Alex Xu argues that Circle’s latest challenge is not simply competition among compliant stablecoins, but the growing bargaining power of distribution channels. In his view, as the number of stablecoin products expands, exchanges, merchant networks, wallets, card issuers and even AI terminals gain leverage over issuers rather than lose it. He points to remarks from Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, who said the company will renew its revenue-sharing agreement with Circle next month on the existing terms. Under that arrangement, Circle still gives Coinbase half of its profits outside Circle-owned channels, while profits generated by USDC held on Coinbase remain with Coinbase. The article also cites two recent examples. Under a new agreement between Hyperliquid and Coinbase, Hyperliquid will take 90% of reserve income from USDC already on the platform. Robinhood Chain, an L2, is promoting USDG issued by Paxo rather than USDC, and the author says this has had little impact on user growth and activity, even though USDG returns 97% of channel revenue to Robinhood Chain. Xu extends that argument to traditional payments and Agent payments, where he says Circle may face even weaker pricing power against entrenched distribution networks and users who do not care which compliant stablecoin handles settlement.

Visa CEO Ryan McInerney said the payments giant does not see its role in stablecoins as choosing winners, but as helping clients connect to the ecosystem securely and at scale. He made the remarks during an earnings call after questions about Open USD, or OUSD, a stablecoin planned by the Open Standard initiative later this year. Last month, Visa joined more than 140 companies, including Stripe, Mastercard, BlackRock and Coinbase, in backing the standard. After that announcement, the market speculated that OUSD could emerge as a challenger to Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC. Asked directly whether Visa viewed OUSD as a competitor to those leading stablecoins, McInerney said Visa would stick to a “multi-coin, multi-chain” approach rather than bet on any single stablecoin, network or infrastructure stack. He said the company’s goal is to help customers access the stablecoin ecosystem regardless of which token, chain or underlying infrastructure sees adoption. Ark Invest said Visa appears interested in Open USD, though that does not necessarily signal an exclusive strategic bet on OUSD.

A fresh wave of failures in crypto has not stopped larger firms from buying infrastructure. This month, three crypto companies filed for Chapter 11 protection in the United States and two exchanges said they would shut down, yet MoonPay, Circle and Kraken each moved ahead with deals tied to their core operations. The three transactions reflect very different strategic needs. MoonPay is expanding around fiat-to-crypto and cross-platform money movement without tying itself to one blockchain or one stablecoin. Circle, whose revenue is closely linked to USDC, is using a purchase of nearly 1,000 granted blockchain patents from IBM to strengthen the ecosystem around its stablecoin, payments network and Arc platform as competition from OUSD puts pressure on reserve-interest economics. Kraken, meanwhile, is buying Magic Labs’ wallet-as-a-service business to push deeper into an all-in-one trading account model that spans onchain and offchain assets. Taken together, the deals show how crypto M&A is being used less as a simple margin play and more as a way to stay relevant no matter which exchange venue, blockchain or dollar stablecoin ends up dominating the market.

Tiger Research argues that crypto is no longer being carried by a single market-wide story in the way it was during DeFi, NFT/GameFi, Layer 1 and Layer 2 competition, or restaking cycles. In its latest report, the firm says attention and liquidity are shifting toward sectors that can show real user demand, durable activity, and measurable revenue rather than relying on token-driven momentum alone. The report points to five areas that best reflect that transition in the first half of 2026: stablecoins, DeFi, real-world assets, prediction markets, and meme tokens. Stablecoins are expanding from volatility shields into cross-border settlement rails. DeFi protocols are increasingly serving institutional borrowing, trading, and risk-management needs. RWA projects are moving from broad tokenization narratives toward efficiency and operational utility, with tokenized treasuries and stocks drawing heavier participation from established financial firms. Tiger Research also says prediction markets stand out because their growth is showing up in trading volume and revenue rather than token market caps, while meme tokens still function as a fast way to gather early users and liquidity even without clear long-term utility. Its broader conclusion is that projects able to survive this market are the ones with repeat usage, retained capital, and sustainable income. In that framework, token prices may attract early attention, but product-market fit determines who lasts.

Foresight argues that enterprise stablecoins are moving out of the “coming soon” phase and into a more concrete stage defined by distribution, compliance, and real business adoption. On June 30, Open Standard unveiled Open USD, or OUSD, a project backed by more than 140 companies spanning finance, payments, technology, and crypto, including Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, BlackRock, BNY, Google, and Coinbase. The group plans to launch the stablecoin later in 2026. Separately, DefiLlama data showed that USDGO’s circulating supply crossed $1 billion on July 20, placing it among the top six compliant stablecoins by circulation and making it the largest compliant U.S. dollar stablecoin operated by an Asian stablecoin operator. The article says the key question is no longer whether enterprises want onchain dollars, but what kind of network can actually get them used. In that framing, OUSD represents a consortium model that aims to share reserve income across participating banks, payment firms, merchants, and service providers, while USDGO represents a more execution-focused model built around regulated issuance, regional distribution, and concrete enterprise use cases. Foresight says the next stage of competition will hinge less on headline supply and more on fund quality, payment usage, redemption depth, liquidity, and the ability to integrate stablecoins into treasury, settlement, and cross-border business flows.

USDC processed $1.21 trillion in adjusted stablecoin volume in June, more than double USDT's $573B. Circle's stock gained 4% even after Jefferies turned bearish on OUSD competition; ARK Invest bought $17.8M shares.