Last night and this morning’s important news (July 20 - July 21)

FATF issues seventh virtual asset/VASP standards implementation update: global regulation advances, but major gaps remain in enforcement and DeFi oversight

The international anti-money laundering standards setter FATF (Financial Action Task Force) recently said that as of 2026, regulation of virtual assets (VA) and virtual asset service providers (VASP) continues to progress globally: 86% of jurisdictions have completed risk assessments, 83% have legislated implementation of the Travel Rule, and the share of “substantially compliant” under R.15 has risen to 34%. However, there are still clear shortcomings in enforcement, VASP identification, offshore VASP regulation, and DeFi regulation. The report also warns about emerging risks such as stablecoin misuse, P2P transactions involving non-custodial wallets, offshore VASPs, DeFi, and AI-assisted scams, and calls for strengthening international cooperation, risk-based supervision, and public-private collaboration.

Trump agrees to ethics provisions, clearing the last hurdle for the “Clarity Act”

U.S. President Trump has agreed to ethics provisions, clearing the final obstacle for the passage of the “Clarity Act.” Industry sources said that after months of negotiations, both sides reached an agreement on the ethics provisions. The provisions were discussed at a July 16 meeting between Trump, Republican senators, and White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt, where no agreement was reached at the time—but on Monday, the provision was signed by Trump. The bill text is expected to be published in the coming days, and the Senate will need to vote before the first week of August. If it passes, the bill will return to the House of Representatives and then be sent to Trump for signature. The ethics provisions are the last hurdle for the passage of the “Clarity Act.” The aim is to limit senior officials such as the president, vice president, and members of Congress from profiting from digital assets during their terms. The core dispute centers on Trump’s Meme coin and its family company World Liberty Financial. White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt has postponed military training to stay at the White House pushing the bill, and his deputy Harry Jung will resign two weeks later.

Zilliqa: ZIL stolen from an exchange’s cold wallet; has notified all exchanges to temporarily suspend ZIL deposits and withdrawals

The project team learned that a security incident occurred involving one of its exchange partners, leading to some ZIL being stolen from its cold wallet. The incident is currently under joint investigation by all parties, and the specific amount stolen and the cause have not been disclosed yet. As a precaution, Zilliqa has notified all exchanges to temporarily suspend ZIL deposits and withdrawals to prevent stolen funds from being transferred or sold through centralized platforms. The team said it will publish further updates after exact information is obtained, and reminded users to rely only on official channels.

Strategy did not add to its Bitcoin holdings last week; deposited $225 million into its U.S. dollar reserves

Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), led by Michael Saylor, did not purchase any Bitcoin in the past week. Meanwhile, the company added $225 million to its U.S. dollar reserves, bringing the total size of its U.S. dollar reserves to approximately $3.2 billion.

Coinbase to list CRCL, HOOD, and MSTR perpetual contracts on July 21

Coinbase announced it will launch perpetual contract products related to CRCL, Robinhood (HOOD), and MicroStrategy (MSTR). The platform plans to start trading the three perpetual contract markets—CRCL-PERP, HOOD-PERP, and MSTR-PERP—at 9:00 UTC on July 21 (17:00 Beijing time) or after.

BitMine increased its holdings by 7,430 ETH last week; repurchased 5.5 million shares of common stock in parallel

BitMine increased its holdings by 7,430 ETH last week. Its total ETH holdings are now 5,777,468 ETH, about 4.8% of Ethereum’s total supply. The company disclosed that the total value of its crypto, cash, and other investment assets is approximately $11.5 billion, including $385 million in cash and marketable securities, 207 BTC, $180 million in Beast Industries equity, and a $58 million investment in Eightco Holdings (ORBS). BitMine has staked 4,917,189 ETH (about 85% of its ETH holdings), valued at approximately $9.2 billion at $1,879 per ETH. Its current annualized staking revenue is about $247 million, and it earns yield through its self-built MAVAN staking network. Bitmine also repurchased 5.5 million shares of common stock last week, under the authorization for a previously announced $4 billion stock repurchase plan.

Media: Google’s “Frozen V2” chip is expected to be 6 to 10 times more efficient than its current TPU

Two people familiar with the matter said Google is developing a new server chip whose design blueprint can be directly integrated with its Gemini AI model, enabling the company to deliver AI model services to users more efficiently. The insiders said Google hopes the new chip codenamed “Frozen v2” will help ease the severe shortage of AI compute power. The lack of compute not only triggers competition for internal resources, but also forces Google Cloud to turn away some external customers. According to the insiders, Google employees involved in the project expect that after the chip is released, the efficiency—measured by the number of Tokens the chip can process per unit of power—will be 6 to 10 times higher than Google’s current latest-generation in-house AI chip. At present, engineers are still deciding the chip’s main functions and how its components work together. The insiders said Google plans to deploy the chip as early as 2028. Google (GOOG.O) shares rose in premarket trading in the U.S., up 1.2%.

Neo, an AI security control platform, completes a $100 million funding round; Andreessen Horowitz and Bessemer Venture Partners lead

Neo, founded by former SentinelOne executives, announced it completed a $100 million funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz and Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from Craft Ventures and Merlin Ventures. Neo positions itself as an “Agentic Software Control” platform, providing enterprise SecOps teams with AI agents, AI applications, browsers, real-time inventory of identity and traditional software, capability and risk intelligence, behavioral attribution, and fine-grained policy controls—able to natively block high-risk actions and malicious models. Gartner expects the proportion of enterprise applications with agentic capabilities by 2026 to rise from 5% in 2025 to 40%. Neo plans to use this round of funds to accelerate product development and market expansion, helping enterprises enhance security governance while adopting AI agents at scale.

Hut 8 signs a $9.8 billion long-term deal to expand AI data centers; related compute stocks rise

Bitcoin miner and AI infrastructure developer Hut 8 (HUT) has signed a second-phase, 15-year lease agreement with the same investment-grade tenant for approximately $9.8 billion to its Beacon Point AI data center campus in Texas, United States. The new agreement will add 352 megawatts of Nvidia-architecture AI compute power, bringing the tenant’s total contracted capacity at the campus to 704 megawatts, and enable full commercialization of the campus’s 1-gigawatt power capacity. The total value of the campus’s base contracts will rise to approximately $19.6 billion. Boosted by the news, shares of IREN, Cipher Mining (CIFR), TeraWulf (WULF), and CoinShares Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI) rose in sync during early trading.

Exodus cuts 25% of staff to reduce costs and focus on stablecoin payments and card infrastructure

Exodus Movement (EXOD) will lay off about 25% of its global employees to cut costs and shift its business focus to stablecoin payment and card payment infrastructure. In its latest filing, the company said this restructuring is part of its strategy to build a full payments-stack platform following its acquisitions of electronic money institution Monavate and crypto payments company Baanx. Exodus expects to accrue approximately $2.5 million to $3.5 million in pre-tax restructuring expenses, mainly for severance and employee-related costs, and expects to save about $10 million to $13 million in cash operating expenses annually by 2027. EXOD’s share price rose about 2.2% in early trading, but is still down nearly 85% versus the same period last year.

ZachXBT: TeleSwap allegedly suffered a $735,000 attack; five days later, the incident still hasn’t been publicly disclosed

The cross-chain bridge TeleSwap is suspected to have suffered an attack worth more than $735,000 on July 15, 2026. As of July 20, 2026 Beijing time, the project team still has not publicly disclosed the incident. Shortly after the attack, TeleSwap’s Bitcoin hot wallet stopped processing transactions. About two hours ago, the attacker moved the stolen funds to Tornado Cash, apparently to mix the funds. ZachXBT also published the suspected involved addresses and TeleSwap’s Bitcoin hot wallet address for the community to track.

Skyfall AI plans to use AI to take over operations of small and medium-sized businesses, validating the feasibility of an “AI CEO”

Skyfall AI, founded by a former Microsoft AI team, plans to invest up to $1 million to acquire a small B2B SaaS or e-commerce company, with AI serving as the “CEO” responsible for key decisions including pricing, marketing, customer service, finance, and operations, aiming to double revenue while gradually reducing human involvement. Its founders Sam Pasupalak and Kaheer Suleman believe current enterprise AI paths centered on LLMs and “digital workers” cannot continuously learn in dynamic environments. Skyfall instead is developing “Enterprise World Models,” simulating the long-cycle business impact of decision-making by building enterprise evolution world models and latent world models, and will validate whether this architecture can support highly autonomous enterprises in real business scenarios.

Superseed will abandon its self-built Layer 2 and return to Ethereum mainnet; users must bridge assets out before August 15

The project announced it will deprecate its self-built Layer 2 and will focus going forward on launching self-repaying loan products on Ethereum mainnet. The team will deploy a native lending protocol and stable asset suprUSD, automatically repaying users’ debts and improving collateral asset utilization through “Super Strategies” yield strategies. The native token SUPR will be used to improve strategy efficiency and for potential fee-sharing. The official requirement is that users must bridge out all assets on the Superseed chain—such as USDC, USDT, oUSDT, cbBTC, OP, ETH, etc.—before August 15, 2026. If users are late, besides SUPR being made whole via subsequent contracts, the other assets may not be recoverable.

Bloomberg: correlation between Korean stocks and the Nasdaq is nearing a two-year high, becoming a global AI investment sentiment bellwether

As linkage between the Korean stock market and U.S. tech stocks continues to strengthen, global fund managers are treating Korea’s market as a leading indicator to watch AI investment sentiment. It has become a new norm in the industry to closely monitor the movement of Korean tech stocks such as Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix before the market opens. The 60-day correlation coefficient between the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) and the Nasdaq-100 index has risen to 0.46, close to the highest level in the past two years—about three times the average value of 0.16 over the past five years. Especially during market downturn phases, Nasdaq’s sensitivity to KOSPI has increased significantly, with related metrics hitting the highest level since 1990 on the 7th of this month.

Analyst: falling stablecoin reserves releases a liquidity contraction signal; Bitcoin breakout still lacks funding support

CryptoQuant analyst Darkfost wrote that Bitcoin has been ranging around the $60,000 key support level for nearly 165 days, failing to hold and reigniting upward momentum. One core reason is that the market lacks newly added liquidity: in the past 30 days, stablecoin reserves have had net outflows of nearly $2.3 billion from Binance and Bybit. Whether for inflows into Bitcoin or for new demand across the entire crypto market, the activity has been relatively weak. Since this year began, exchange stablecoin reserves have been steadily declining. This relatively bearish market sentiment is still limiting the funds needed for Bitcoin to break out of its current consolidation range. However, as regulatory measures such as the “GENIUS Act” require stablecoins to improve compliance, the decentralization characteristics of stablecoin ecosystems may be weakened. Over the long term, Bitcoin’s decentralization traits may therefore stand out even more.

Analysis: a “volatility storm” for Bitcoin may be on the way; the market could face another round of turbulence

Market analysts remind traders to closely watch Bitcoin’s potential “volatility storm,” meaning a market where volatility spikes quickly. Such events are often accompanied by price declines. This warning is mainly based on the trend of Bitcoin’s 30-day implied volatility index (BVIV), which is often seen as crypto’s version of the “fear index” (VIX), with changes influenced by options demand. Options are derivatives used by investors to hedge the risk of sharp market volatility; the higher the demand, the higher implied volatility is typically. The opposite is true as well. Currently, BVIV is hovering in the 34%-38% range. Historical data shows that this zone has repeatedly been a key location before volatility bursts, and often followed by a pullback in Bitcoin prices. Although historical patterns can’t guarantee a repeat in the future, the market generally believes volatility has a mean-reversion characteristic. Typically, after a low-volatility phase, volatility amplification tends to follow, while high-volatility phases may gradually return to stability.

Tom Lee responds to slower ETH buying pace: due to large-scale stock buybacks

Bitmine chairman Tom Lee said that because the company also conducted large-scale stock buybacks in the same period, Bitmine’s recent ETH buying pace has slowed. However, since the launch of the ETH Treasury Strategy (Ethereum treasury strategy) on June 30, 2025, it has maintained a weekly rhythm of buying ETH. Bitmine repurchased about 5.5 million shares of common stock over the past week, with an average repurchase price of $15.6156 per share. This stock buyback will help increase shareholder value. In addition, the yield generated from Bitmine’s self-operated staking business over the past 7 days is 2.67% (annualized). It will continue to strengthen its digital asset treasury strategy by expanding its ETH reserve size and staking yields.

Arthur Hayes bought another 1,332.5 ETH about 3 hours ago, worth about $2.53 million

BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes bought another 1,332.5 ETH about 3 hours ago (about $2.53 million).

An Ethereum pre-mine address dormant for 11 years has been activated, containing 2,000 ETH

At 03:30 Beijing time today, a dormant pre-mined address containing 2,000 ETH was activated after sleeping for 11 years. In 2015, the address was worth about $620, and its current value is about $3.785 million.

Grayscale has filed with the U.S. SEC for a Worldcoin ETF registration statement

Grayscale has submitted a Grayscale Worldcoin ETF registration statement to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund will hold the native token WLD of World Network as a passive investment instrument, aiming for each share’s value to reflect the value of the held WLD minus fees and liabilities. If approved, the ETF will be listed on Nasdaq, with Bank of New York Mellon as transfer agent and BitGo Bank & Trust as custodian.

Russia’s State Duma will hold second and third readings on a crypto market regulation bill on July 21

Anatoly Aksakov, chair of the Financial Markets Committee of Russia’s State Duma, said the crypto market regulation bill will undergo second and third readings on July 21. Aksakov said the bill will “crack down on illegal use of cryptocurrencies,” while also creating lawful space for international settlements. Under the bill, non-professional investors who buy cryptocurrencies must pass special tests, with an annual limit of 300,000 rubles, can only trade through licensed institutions, and can only buy the most liquid crypto assets. The bill was originally set to take effect on July 1 but was postponed to September 1. The Duma’s Financial Markets Committee previously rejected several easing amendments, including increasing the purchase limit for non-professional investors and allowing the use of non-custodial wallets. If it passes on the 21st, it will still require approval from the Federal Council and the signature of the president.

Coinbase executive: Democrats in the U.S. added consumer protection rules in the “CLARITY Act”

Coinbase vice chairman Ryan VanGrack said that U.S. Democratic lawmakers have added provisions on customer protection to the digital asset market structure bill “CLARITY Act,” currently under consideration in the Senate. These added terms are intended to ensure that digital asset trading platforms better protect consumers’ rights during operations, including strengthening transparency requirements, preventing fraud, and ensuring customer funds safety. He added that these consumer protection measures are the result of bipartisan cooperation, reflecting lawmakers’ growing attention to the digital asset market. As of now, the bill is still under consideration in the Senate and has not entered the final voting stage. VanGrack’s comments were made during a public discussion on digital asset regulation, in which he emphasized that Coinbase supports building a balanced regulatory framework that promotes innovation while protecting investors.

About $200 million in suspicious trades flagged for prediction market Polymarket in the first half of this year

As prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket become increasingly popular and scaled, trading using insider information has surged. Bloomberg’s analysis of Polysights-flagged Polymarket transactions—about 34,000 suspicious trades—shows that from January to June 2026, the total value of Polymarket flagged suspicious trades was about $200 million. Geopolitical and war-related bets were the main drivers, with Iran-related bets hitting a peak in late February. Among the flagged trades, the proportion funded through U.S.-regulated crypto exchanges is as high as 71%. Profits from the flagged trades are highly concentrated: the top 1% of profit wallets captured more than half of the profits, and 57% of the wallets were created within 24 hours before the trade. Multiple cases have triggered investigations: U.S. soldiers were accused of profiting more than $400,000 on Polymarket using military secrets; Israeli reservists were accused of betting on events related to Iran using classified intelligence. Polymarket prohibits U.S. users, but users can bypass restrictions via VPNs. Goldman Sachs has banned employees from trading prediction markets, and the U.S. Senate has banned lawmakers and staff from participating.

Korean KOSPI index volatility above 60%, higher than Bitcoin; AI chip dual giants and leveraged ETFs are the main causes

Korea’s KOSPI index volatility has exceeded 60% this year, nearly twice that of Japan’s Nikkei 225, and even above Bitcoin—known for volatility. This year, Korean exchanges have triggered circuit breaker mechanisms seven times (zero times in 2025, only once in 2024). The root cause of the volatility is that two AI chip giants—Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix—together make up more than 50% of KOSPI’s market value. The AI boom has driven their stock prices soaring, but valuations for this sector are highly dependent on investor sentiment, while AI has not yet generated enough revenue to cover construction costs. The proliferation of leveraged ETFs further amplifies market volatility. Korean retail investors actively use leveraged products; this year, more than $4 billion has flowed into leveraged ETFs tracking individual stocks, representing more than 70% of the related stocks’ average daily trading volume, magnifying price swings. Retail investors’ net buying of KOSPI stocks this year exceeds 100 trillion won (about $6.7 billion), while foreign investors have net sold about $10.8 billion. A strategist at Goldman Sachs pointed out that “leveraged ETFs are the main risk to watch.” Although margin debt has fallen back from its June peak, it remains significantly higher than the same period last year.

A new wallet withdrew 74,000 ETH from Gemini and staked it all, worth about $136 million

A newly created wallet withdrew 74,033 ETH from Gemini ($136.17 million) and staked it all.

Japanese media: “hidden debt” of America’s five tech giants surges to $1.65 trillion

A study by Nikkei reported that as investment in artificial intelligence has surged, the hidden debt of U.S. tech giants has increased eightfold in just four years, estimated to reach $1.65 trillion. The figure exceeds their recorded on-book debt, making it harder for investors to assess related risks. Nikkei analyzed recent financial statements and other materials for Google’s parent company Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and Oracle. Meta’s off-balance-sheet debt is particularly high, at about $420 billion—nearly three times its recorded on-book debt.

London Stock Exchange Group plans to roll out around-the-clock trading in the first half of 2027 to win back retail market share

LSEG plans to launch an independent night trading venue in the first half of 2027 to win back retail investors and compete with 24/7 operating crypto platforms. In the initial after-hours market, this platform will provide trading services for exchange-traded products (ETPs), including funds tracking UK and U.S. equity markets.

Solv: BTC+ contracts were attacked due to a deployer’s private key leak; deposits and withdrawals expected to resume within two weeks

Solv Protocol said in a post on X that on July 13, a BTC+ contract on BNB Smart Chain suffered a security incident. After investigation, the attacker compromised the deployer’s private key and upgraded the BTC+ minting proxy contract on BSC, minting unauthorized BTC+ tokens. The team completed emergency response within three hours, isolated the malicious contracts, and froze, destroyed, or isolated all unauthorized BTC+. All underlying BTC assets are safe. As a precaution, BTC+ deposits and withdrawals have been paused and are expected to resume within two weeks. BTC+ has never set up an official liquidity pool on any DEX; users should obtain and hold BTC+ only through Solv’s official channels. The team has upgraded deployer security measures, rotated all affected access credentials and signing keys, and initiated a comprehensive external re-audit. A detailed post-incident analysis report will follow.

A whale spent 20 million USDC to buy 10.5 thousand ETH

A whale has just transferred 20 million USDC to Binance, bought 10,501 ETH at a price of $1,904 per ETH, and withdrew it back to an on-chain wallet.

Robinhood opens its platform to AI agents; users can authorize AI to trade and manage portfolios

Robinhood announced on X that Robinhood is now open to AI agents. Users can create an agent account, connect it to the AI agent, and authorize it to research, trade, and manage portfolios on their behalf. Users only need to add the Robinhood MCP server to the agent platform, and the setup process takes less than a minute.

Anchorpoint fintech led by Standard Chartered is expected to launch HKD stablecoin HKDAP as early as this month

Anchorpoint fintech, founded with Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong) taking the lead, is expected to announce the launch of a stablecoin as early as the end of this month. Anchorpoint plans to issue HKDAP, a stablecoin pegged to the Hong Kong dollar. Virtual asset trading platforms including OSL Group and HashKey Exchange will act as distributors. A spokesperson for Anchorpoint told The Standard that it is advancing preparations for the phased issuance of the regulated stablecoin HKDAP pegged to the Hong Kong dollar as planned, and will announce the latest progress in due course.

AI already knows

Curated AI news from the past 24 hours that’s most worth your attention, helping you filter out AI noise. Source: PANews AI Observer

China’s open-source AI strategy is winning

The article points out that closed and proprietary AI strategies in the U.S. are failing, while China’s open-source-weighted models are gaining leading position, which could weigh on the U.S. economy. The author believes the AI model itself has a shallow moat; the moat lies in the enterprise services ecosystem.

Anthropic’s $1.5 billion landmark copyright settlement is approved

A court has finally approved the record $1.5 billion settlement between Anthropic and the copyright holders. However, the settlement only resolves a single case and does not fundamentally address the broader controversy over training AI models using copyrighted works.

Google is developing a new, more efficient AI chip to run Gemini

According to TechCrunch, Alphabet, Google’s parent company, is developing an AI chip designed to significantly improve Gemini’s execution efficiency. The new chip could be used end-to-end from the cloud to data centers to reduce operating costs.