Gate Crypto Flash News and Market Updates

According to Google Trends, XRP search interest plummeted to 9 on July 18, 2026, exactly one year after hitting an all-time high of 100 on July 18, 2025, marking a 91% collapse in retail attention. The token has fallen to $1.08 from its peak of $3.65, down over 60%, while market sentiment remains deeply pessimistic with a Fear and Greed Index reading of 25. XRP is currently trading near its 200-day moving average of $1.10, with technical resistance overhead at $1.18-$1.20.

According to NSPK CEO Dmitry Dubynin, Mir cards have captured 85% of Russia's payment market, while Visa and Mastercard cards are now "effectively absent" and provide no value to users, as they do not work abroad and offer no access to international loyalty programs. Dubynin stressed that remaining international cards will eventually fail as they endure physical wear and their security certificates expire. On July 2, Bank of Russia Governor Elvira Nabiullina announced that the phase-out of inter

According to the Israeli Defense Forces, earlier today the military fired an interception missile at a misidentified target in a southern Lebanon operational area. The incident did not trigger air raid sirens and there are no indications of a security event, the IDF said. The matter is under investigation.

According to CoinPost, Bitcoin Japan (TSE-listed, ticker 8105) recently completed approximately 9.657 billion yen ($64 million) in funding through unsecured convertible bonds and warrants issued to Cayman Islands-based investment fund EVO FUND. The company allocated 662 million yen (7% of total funding) to Bitcoin purchases for the first time since its rebranding. Remaining funds were allocated to undisclosed private equity investments (3.756 billion yen), South African rare earth mining operati

According to SBS, on July 16, U.S. semiconductor stocks plummeted, with SK Hynix ADR falling 13.69%, alongside declines in Nvidia (-2.40%), Alphabet (-4.40%), Micron, and other chip-related equities. The selloff rippled across Asia on July 17: Japan's Nikkei 225 index dropped 4.03% to its fifth-largest daily loss on record, while Kioxia Holdings collapsed 16.1%. Taiwan's Taiex fell 6.47% despite TSMC beating profit forecasts. South Korea's stock market avoided direct impact due to the Constituti

According to SlowMist, MistEye detected a malicious activity on July 18 targeting developers through fake Web3 job postings. Attackers impersonated recruiters on LinkedIn, built trust by discussing job experience, and sent a deceptive GitHub repository disguised as an "interview MVP." When developers ran the project, a hidden Node.js loader triggered and deployed multiple payloads. The malicious code was designed to steal browser credentials and wallet data, collect sensitive files, execute remo

According to ChainCatcher data from Coinglass, Hyperliquid whales currently hold $5.451 billion in positions with a long-to-short ratio of 0.97. Long positions total $2.687 billion while short positions account for $2.764 billion. A major whale address shortened 3x leveraged ETH at $1,700.06, currently facing $7.2297 million in unrealized losses.

According to public product statements and announcements as of July 16, major technology companies including Microsoft, AWS, Google, and Oracle are prioritizing digital asset ecosystem infrastructure over issuing their own stablecoins or tokens. Microsoft's Azure provides transaction, custody, and CBDC support through partnerships like HKVAX in Hong Kong and Brazil's Drex project. AWS offers managed blockchain services and stablecoin development tools, while Oracle launched its Blockchain Platfo

This week, semiconductor stocks retreated while equal-weighted S&P 500 outperformed traditional market-cap-weighted indexes by over 1 percent, signaling a healthy market rotation rather than a broader selloff, according to market strategists. As chip stocks declined, energy, retail, banking, and transportation shares rallied to support overall market performance. The S&P 500 index trades roughly 2% below its June 2 record closing high. Market breadth remains sturdy, with approximately 69% of S&P

According to Saudi media Al-Hadath citing Lebanese sources, U.S. Central Command leadership is expected to visit Beirut next week to follow up on the implementation of a framework agreement.

According to Glassnode, Bitcoin's options put/call ratio has fallen to 0.59 as of July 18, marking a six-month low. The metric reflects reduced hedging activity as BTC holds near $64,000.

According to Korea Economic TV, inverse 2X ETF RISE 200 Futures recorded a 41.10% return for the month of June 17 to July 16, topping the ETF performance rankings. The product, which gained from the approximately one-month sharp decline in South Korea's domestic stock market, benefited from its structure designed to profit from downward market movements.

According to BlockBeats citing Fars News, Iran's environmental protection organization submitted an implementation plan today (July 18) for charging environmental service fees on vessels passing through the Strait of Hormuz. Fees will be determined based on vessel type, cargo nature, passage history, and environmental risk level, with specific payment mechanisms and enforcement details to be formulated by relevant authorities. Iran said the plan is based on international law frameworks including

According to South Korea's stock exchange, the country's pension funds recorded net buying of 100.7 billion Korean won in the week of July 13-16, marking two consecutive weeks of net purchases after months of net selling. SK Hynix led buying activity with 141.2 billion won in purchases, followed by SK Innovation (103.5 billion won) and Samsung Electronics (80.5 billion won), as pension funds capitalized on sharp declines in the Korean stock market during the week.

According to SodaBot's official X account, the platform announced a partnership with Wager Predict on July 16 to integrate AI-driven automation with non-custodial on-chain prediction infrastructure built on BNB Chain. The collaboration combines SodaBot's multi-agent artificial intelligence framework with Wager Predict's decentralized prediction infrastructure to enable automated forecasting, intelligent task routing, and more efficient execution of blockchain-based operations. SodaBot's AI agent

According to Com Feed monitoring, the attacker behind the Trusted Volumes exploit has returned 1,122 ETH (~$2 million) while retaining approximately $2 million as a "bounty." The attacker originally stole roughly $5.8 million through the vulnerability.

According to Bank of America's FX trading team, the U.S. dollar is expected to continue strengthening in the second half of 2026, buoyed by three main factors: geopolitical tensions in the Middle East supporting high oil prices, strong capital flows driven by the AI boom attracting overseas investors, and higher-than-consensus interest rate expectations. BofA strategist Alex Cohen noted that the Fed may raise rates three times in 2026, compared to the market's current pricing of just one hike, w

According to BlockBeats, on July 18, Trezor Chief Commercial Officer Danny Sanders responded to on-chain investigator ZachXBT's criticism that "all hardware wallets are garbage," arguing the assessment is overly one-sided. Sanders acknowledged that firmware updates can impact high-value transactions and security-usability trade-offs exist, but noted ZachXBT's scenario applies mainly to advanced users managing large asset holdings—not a reason to dismiss the entire hardware wallet category. Sande

According to the Financial Times, the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) released short-selling data on July 18 containing multiple errors and unrecorded modifications. Under the new regulation, the FCA replaced name-by-name disclosure of major short positions with aggregated data by stock. Data provider Breakout Point identified numerous errors in the published information, with some positions subsequently deleted or amended without any modification records. The dataset also included position

According to F&Guide, South Korean brokerage firms issued 323 downward price target revisions versus 249 upward revisions during the first 16 days of July 2026, marking the first month this year when downgrades exceeded upgrades. The shift reverses a sustained upward bias that began in January, when upward revisions outnumbered downward ones by 4.1 times, peaking at 9.7 times in February before narrowing to 2.2 times by June. The trend extends to major semiconductor stocks: SK Hynix and Samsung