PANews

作者：Jae，PANews
On the evening of August 17, Compound DAO approved a record $52 million budget and announced that it would shift its strategic focus to the institutional-grade DeFi market. Following the news, its protocol token COMP briefly surged more than 10%.
Compound, the lending pioneer that once ushered in the DeFi Summer boom, now stands at a crossroads.
Its $12 billion TVL at its peak and industry-first “liquidity mining” have become things of the past. After multiple bull-bear cycles, Compound’s current deposits have shrunk to $1.2 billion, nearly 90% below its all-time high and less than one-tenth of rival Aave’s figure during the same period.
For Compound, continuing to compete for existing funds in the retail lending market is becoming increasingly difficult. Meanwhile, the institutional-grade market remains an incremental segment that DeFi has yet to truly unlock,

Blockchain Association submitted a comment letter to the SEC supporting the proposal to repeal Rule 611 and Rule 610(e) of Regulation NMS, stating that the two rules have failed to achieve their original goals and have instead increased market costs. It called for updated best-execution guidance and formal recognition that tokenized securities transactions conducted on public blockchains can be executed compliantly and efficiently.

PANews August 18 news, according to The Wall Street Journal: AI chip startup Etched has raised $700 million in a funding round led by Jane Street, bringing the company’s valuation to $21 billion. Etched has signed Jane Street as its first customer and has begun shipping chips.

PANews reported on August 18 that Xiaomi Group (01810.HK) recorded revenue of 108.9 billion yuan in Q2 2026, compared with 115.96 billion yuan in the same period last year, down 6.1% year-on-year. Revenue for the first half of 2026 was 208.06B yuan, down 8.4% year-on-year. Adjusted net profit for the first half of 2026 was 12.29B yuan, down 42.8% year-on-year.

Kraken has enabled trading of U.S. stocks and tokenized stocks (xStocks) within the same account for EEA-compliant customers, covering over 7,000 U.S. stocks, more than 600 crypto assets, and over 700 xStocks. Since launching in June 2025, xStocks have recorded more than $3.8 billion in cumulative trading volume. The service is provided by Payward Europe Digital Solutions (CY) Limited, regulated under MiFID II in Cyprus, and Kraken plans to expand the stock and tokenized stock portfolio service to more markets.

Baidu’s total revenue in Q2 2026 was ¥31.3 billion, with AI-related businesses accounting for 50%, exceeding half for the second consecutive quarter. Founder Robin Li said the AI-first transformation has strengthened confidence in long-term growth. Revenue from AI cloud infrastructure was ¥7.3 billion, up 50% year-on-year, while GPU cloud revenue grew 283% year-on-year, marking three-digit growth for the fourth consecutive quarter; AI application revenue was ¥2.5 billion, and AI-native marketing revenue was ¥2.6 billion.

PANews, August 18 — According to Bybit market data, U.S. storage stocks extended their premarket declines: Micron Technology fell 4.47%, SK hynix fell 5.13%, SanDisk fell 6.31%, Western Digital fell 5.54%, and Seagate Technology fell 5.11%.

According to an official announcement, Anuma, an AI application in the ZetaChain ecosystem, has surpassed 200k users. Anuma provides privacy-first, multi-model AI services, offering access to ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, Kimi, and more through a unified interface, while enabling encrypted sharing of memories and context across models. Built on ZetaChain infrastructure, Anuma surpassed 100k users within 38 days; it also launched AI Credits staking rewards, allowing ZETA stakers to access Anuma services.

PANews, August 18 — Ethereum core developer Sina Mahmoodi announced that he is leaving the Ethereum Foundation after more than seven years. Mahmoodi graduated from university and joined the Ethereum Foundation in 2019, subsequently contributing to the development of EthereumJS, eWASM, and the Geth client, with Geth having become key infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem. He said his belief in Ethereum as a decentralized global settlement layer has never changed, and that he will take a break before deciding on his next direction.

August 12 marked an entirely new milestone for Hong Kong’s digital asset industry, as licensing and applications for HKD stablecoins began to materialize. Hong Kong-licensed stablecoin issuer Dingdian Fintech (hereinafter, “Dingdian Finance”) officially announced the launch of the HKD stablecoin HKDAP (HKD At Par), initially opening it to institutional distributors and professional investors, and promoting the gradual implementation of regulated HKD stablecoins in commercial applications. Currently, the first-phase approved distributors include HashKey Exchange and the OSL Group. This move marks the point at which regulated HKD stablecoins have fully moved beyond the proof-of-concept and sandbox testing stages, taking the first real step toward commercialization.
Looking back on Hong Kong’s exploration amid this digital wave, every step has been extremely solid. From the Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s initial release of the stablecoin regulatory framework and consultation documents, to the announcement of the “sandbox” testing list and the gradual issuance of regulatory licenses, and then to

PANews, August 18 — According to an official announcement, based on the results of a recent review, Binance will remove the following spot trading pairs and cease trading at 11:00 on August 21, 2026 (UTC+8): F/USDC, HIVE/USDC, ILV/USDC, LTC/BNB, NMR/USDC, STEEM/USDC, and SUI/BNB.

Compound DAO approved its largest-ever budget of $52 million, announcing a shift in focus from permissionless retail lending to institutional compliance infrastructure, with an emphasis on whitelists, legal entities, risk controls, and KYC/AML. Retail capital outflows, declining TVL, and waning token incentives prompted the shift toward institutions; Aave has already profited from multichain expansion and RWA. If stable institutional revenue is not secured and TVL does not recover within 18 months, the investment will be viewed as a costly failed bet.

PANews, August 18 — According to the official page, Binance Alpha has listed the “Niu Lai” token.

Analysis shows that BTC long-term holder (LTH) supply is approximately 16.35 million, down 58k from its July peak but up 1.38 million over the past 90 days. It declined on only 2 of the past 15 days, indicating extremely low selling pressure. The current price is approximately $64.2k, while the LTH cost basis is around $49.4k, a 1.30x multiple, placing it in the low-risk zone below $74,100 at 1.5x. A break above $74,100 would enter the normal-risk zone, while a drop below $49,400 would put LTHs overall at a loss. The current supply structure is constructive, but it is not yet possible to confirm that demand is sufficient to drive a new round of gains.

PANews, August 18: According to an official announcement, Huobi HTX launched OUST/USDT and GPS/USDT perpetual contracts on August 18, supporting 1–20x long and short positions. At the same time, from now until 15:00 (UTC+8) on August 25, Huobi HTX has launched a new-coin contract trading competition. Users who register, trade the event’s token contracts, and reach the designated thresholds will have the opportunity to share a total prize pool of 1 billion $HTX tokens.

作者：金十数据
Less than three months remain before the U.S. midterm elections, and investors are reassessing the potential market impact of different political outcomes. Citigroup’s strategy team has already developed a trading framework for the post-election government landscape, believing that if Republicans lose their current full control of Congress and the White House, the bond market could see an opportunity to rise.
The U.S. midterm elections will be held on November 3 local time, when voters will elect members of the House of Representatives and the Senate. Currently, Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the White House simultaneously, forming a “trifecta.”
Data from prediction market Polymarket shows that market participants see a 48% probability of Democrats winning both chambers of Congress; another 38% expect Democrats to win the House while Republicans retain control of the Senate.
However, prediction market data is not equivalent to official forecasts or judgments on the election outcome. U.S.

The Shanghai First Intermediate People’s Court ruled that individuals who lure victims may constitute co-conspirators in fraud or be guilty of the crime of illegally using information networks, depending on whether they had clear criminal intent and a stable division of labor with the upstream fraud group. In this case, Bao Mouxia’s team connected with an overseas organization and, posing as an educational institution, lured 30 victims into groups, involving approximately 2.34 million yuan; the three core members were found to be co-conspirators in fraud and sentenced to 13, 11, and 10 years, respectively. If individuals merely recruit people passively and lack knowledge of the upstream scheme, the case is generally handled as illegally using information networks.

PANews, August 18 — According to Bybit market data, spot gold has broken above the $4,400 per ounce mark and is now trading at $4,400.03, down 0.37% on the day.

On August 18, the Korea Communications Standards Commission determined that prediction market platform Polymarket provided access to an illegal gambling environment and decided to block access to it. The commission noted that Polymarket allows betting on political, election, sports, and other events, and that its winner-takes-all payout structure encourages speculative behavior. Polymarket argued that, based on non-custodial P2P transactions and smart contracts, it was not an organizer, had not directly solicited funds or issued related tickets, and did not meet the requirements for gambling. The commission responded that legal requirements could not be circumvented through technological features and that blocking access was unavoidable.