Major crypto news and announcements last night and this morning (July 19–July 20)

Trump confirms he will attend the World Cup final at 3:00 a.m. on the 20th; the U.S. initiates the highest level of security

The US-Canada-Mexico World Cup final will be held at 3:00 a.m. on July 20 at MetLife Stadium in New York and New Jersey. U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed that he will attend and watch the match, and the U.S. side has already launched a “Level 1” special security operation. F-16 fighter jets, military snipers, and thousands of FBI agents will be deployed on site, and temporary flight restrictions and no-fly zone controls will be implemented in the New York and New Jersey areas. On the day of the event, roads around the stadium will be subject to traffic control, and fans are required to arrive at least four hours before kickoff. Media must complete entry and security checks by 12:30 p.m. Eastern Time on the 19th.

South Korea releases roadmap for the internationalization of the won: plans to issue won-denominated stablecoins and launch a government bond tokenization pilot next year

Today, the South Korean government released a “Won Internationalization Roadmap.” The goal is to drive a transition for the won from a regulated currency to a freely convertible currency and to build an offshore won settlement network. It is reported that the Bank of Korea will introduce an “offshore won settlement network” (tentative name), with a planned trial run in September this year and an official launch in January next year. It will also build a digital-asset payment infrastructure to lay the foundation for the issuance, distribution, and trading of won-denominated stablecoins. In addition, it plans to launch a pilot program next year to promote the tokenization of government bonds linked to the Bank of Korea’s digital currency (CBDC). South Korea will also officially join “Agora,” a cross-border digital payments project led by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) that brings together central banks from eight countries.

Data: ZRO, KAITO, H, and other tokens will see major unlocks next week, including ZRO unlocking value of over $20 million

Token Unlocks data shows that ZRO, KAITO, H, and other tokens will undergo major unlocks next week, including: LayerZero (ZRO) will unlock about 25.71 million tokens at 7:00 p.m. Beijing time on July 20, with a ratio to circulating supply of about 4.6% and a value of about $20.9 million; KAITO (KAITO) will unlock about 17.60 million tokens at 8:00 p.m. Beijing time on July 20, with a ratio to circulating supply of about 4.3% and a value of about $16.0 million; Humanity Protocol (H) will unlock about 266 million tokens at 8:00 a.m. Beijing time on July 25, with a ratio to circulating supply of about 8.6% and a value of about $15.5 million; Plasma (XPL) will unlock about 88.89 million tokens at 8:00 p.m. Beijing time on July 25, with a ratio to circulating supply of about 3.44% and a value of about $7.3 million; SoSoValue (SOSO) will unlock about 23.46 million tokens at 5:00 p.m. Beijing time on July 24, with a ratio to circulating supply of about 6.78% and a value of about $6.9 million; aPriori (APR) will unlock about 31.88 million tokens at 8:00 a.m. Beijing time on July 23, with a ratio to circulating supply of about 11.28% and a value of about $6.8 million; SOON (SOON) will unlock about 20.24 million tokens at 4:30 p.m. Beijing time on July 23, with a ratio to circulating supply of about 3.91% and a value of about $3.3 million; MBG By Multibank Group (MBG) will unlock about 27.15 million tokens at 8:00 p.m. Beijing time on July 22, with a ratio to circulating supply of about 6.96% and a value of about $3.3 million; Undeads Games (UDS) will unlock about 2.15 million tokens at 8:00 a.m. Beijing time on July 21, with a ratio to circulating supply of about 1.11% and a value of about $2.4 million.

David Sacks criticizes using regulation to manufacture FUD and suppress open-source AI competition

David Sacks, co-chair of the US President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, reposted and responded to remarks by OpenAI strategic future director Dean W. Ball on China’s open-source AI models. Sacks said that if a government intentionally manufactures uncertainty (FUD) by issuing regulatory guidance lacking sufficient basis to pressure regulated entities into giving up China’s open-source models, it will damage the rule of law and set a dangerous precedent for future regulatory abuse. Sacks said regulatory decisions should be grounded in facts, logic, and evidence, rather than intentionally amplifying fear and uncertainty. He also noted that AI policy has entered a critical phase: leading closed-source model vendors are trying to weaken open-source competition with government power, and he urged Silicon Valley to support open competition.

BANK Foundation appears to have transferred 84 million BANK tokens to Aster

On-chain data shows that 84 million BANK tokens have been transferred from the BANK Foundation Wallet (0xEde6…3B11a) to a new address (0x5721…22Bd8), and the related tokens will then be transferred from that address to Aster’s deposit address (0x1284…87974). Market data shows: the BANK token price has surged more than 3x over the past few days, and is currently around $0.16. The market is highly volatile—investors should pay attention to risk control.

Abraxas Capital deposits $3 million USDC into Hyperliquid, adding to BTC and ETH short positions

Abraxas Capital deposited 3 million USDC into Hyperliquid and again increased its short positions by 796.4 million BTC (about $51.5 million) and 316.4 thousand ETH (about $59.2 million). Since its last disclosure two days ago, its BTC and ETH short positions have both increased significantly.

Analyst: Bitcoin in August may dip to $50,000; only in October will it truly hit the bottom

Analyst Noname posted on X that Bitcoin will not bottom this quarter. Sideways trading reflects indecision; at these prices, indecision often breaks downward first before breaking upward. At least another quarter is needed for the market to become clear. Its forecast for the 2026 trajectory is as follows: July: false stabilization. A rebound from the bear-market trap. The market shakeout eliminates the uncommitted. August: the real crash begins. First test of the $50,000 zone. September: continued pressure. A W-shaped bottom structure starts to form. October: the real bottom. An accumulation zone. Individuals may take aggressive strategies at this stage. November: signs of recovery, and the bottoming rebound begins. December: the first breakout above the $100,000 level since the bear market began.

A whale adds BTC long positions worth $108 million; currently up $1.38 million at 40x leverage

A whale continued adding to its position 50 minutes ago, opening a BTC long position valued at $108 million (1,662.5 BTC). The whale’s average long entry price is $63,958. It is currently floating profit of $1.38 million because the leverage is relatively high (40x), and the liquidation price is $63,142.

Bitvavo withdraws 3.89 million LINK from Coinbase Prime, worth about $32.59 million

Bitvavo withdrew 3.89 million LINK (about $32.59 million) from Coinbase Prime and transferred them to a new wallet.

Cross-chain bridge Allbridge Core suffers an attack; losses may exceed $1.1 million

Cross-chain bridge protocol Allbridge Core experienced a security incident. The official has paused the protocol for an investigation and advised users holding affected liquidity pools (LPs) to withdraw funds immediately. The incident led to an imbalance in liquidity pools and created temporary arbitrage opportunities. The official called on arbitrage users to return the funds to compensate affected liquidity providers (LPs). In addition, according to Onchain Lens monitoring, Allbridge Core’s losses have exceeded $1.1 million.

A mysterious whale created a new wallet betting $1.95 million that Spain will win the 2026 World Cup; profit of $1.35 million within hours

A mysterious whale created a new wallet 10 hours ago and placed a bet of $1.95 million at 59.1% odds that Spain will win the 2026 World Cup. After Spain won, the whale earned $1.35 million within just a few hours.

Crypto KOL Ansem buys PUMP

Crypto KOL Ansem posted that he bought PUMP around $0.001675. He believes that Pump.fun still maintains monthly revenue of $30 million to $40 million during the bear market. If Solana once again dominates retail activity in this cycle, Pump.fun is likely to be a beneficiary. If the team conducts large-scale airdrops (for example, 300 million or more), it could boost trading volume, attention, and platform activity similarly to how Jito and Jupiter did at the end of 2023. In addition, Pump.fun competes with Hyperliquid and Polymarket as one of the most profitable crypto protocols, and the team holds a large amount of tokens—these tokens are only just starting to unlock, and the business core revolves around retail speculation, giving the team incentive to push token performance. During the sell-off wave during the unlocking period, the token’s value may fail at a low of $0.0014.

Vitalik: Developed an experimental demo version of a permissioned anonymous message board on Aztec

Vitalik said on Farcaster that he has developed an experimental demo version of a “permissioned anonymous message board” on Aztec via Vibe Coding. Users can deposit ETH on the L1 layer, anonymously post messages on the L2 layer, and then withdraw the ETH back to the L1 layer. All posts are fully anonymous: the sender address will not be shown in publicly available call data, and they will not be associated with L1 deposit accounts. Vitalik said that the project is still in an early stage and can achieve some “fun and unusual” features.

PeckShield: Allbridge Core losses about $1.65 million; attacker moved funds from Solana to Ethereum

Cross-chain bridge protocol Allbridge Core was stolen, with losses of about $1.65 million. The attacker transferred the stolen funds from Solana to Ethereum.

Analyst: Binance and Bybit stablecoin outflows exceed $2.3 billion in 30 days; Bitcoin liquidity dries up; market sentiment is bearish

CryptoQuant analyst Darkfost wrote that over the past 30 days, the combined stablecoin outflows from Binance and Bybit exceeded $2.3 billion, and Bitcoin liquidity has dried up. Bitcoin has tested the key $60,000 level for nearly 165 days in a row; although it briefly broke above $80,000 in May, it failed to hold or reignite Bitcoin’s upward momentum. One reason for this situation is a lack of new liquidity inflows into the market. Whether investing directly in Bitcoin or investing in the entire crypto market, it is difficult to generate new demand. Looking at changes in exchange stablecoin reserves, conditions have been especially bad since the beginning of the year: reserves have been declining almost continuously, reflecting that outflows have clearly exceeded inflows. In just the past 30 days, Binance’s stablecoin reserves have shed $1.55 billion, while Bybit lost $786 million over the same period. The decline in reserves sent a clear signal: demand and liquidity are shrinking, and investors seem inclined to withdraw stablecoins from exchanges, even exiting the market entirely. Therefore, it is this overly pessimistic overall market sentiment that continues to deprive Bitcoin of the resources it needs to break out of the current consolidation range.

AI already knows

Curated: the most worth-watching AI news from the past 24 hours—helping you filter AI noise. Source: PANews AI Observation Room

Kimi: pauses new subscriptions to safeguard the current user experience

Demand for Kimi K3 surged over the past 48 hours, and GPU computing capacity is nearing the current capacity limit. To ensure the experience of existing subscribed users, Kimi has temporarily stopped accepting new subscriptions and will prioritize allocating computing resources to current members; existing subscribed users’ service will not be affected. The official says it is accelerating capacity expansion and will open new subscription slots in batches. At the same time, the membership system will be split into two categories: “Kimi Membership” for Web, App, and Work scenarios, and “Kimi Code Membership” for code workflows, to match computing resources more precisely.

AI agents infiltrate the Hugging Face platform

Brian Roemmele posted on X that the Hugging Face platform has been infiltrated by AI agents, and related discussions have rapidly heated up. The incident has sparked broad attention on the platform’s security and AI agents’ autonomous behavior.