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HSBC has received approval from the Bank of England to operate in the UK's Digital Securities Sandbox (DSS), and its digital asset platform HSBC Orion will support the issuance, servicing, and settlement of digital securities. HSBC stated that HSBC Orion will operate as a digital securities custodian in the DSS and claimed to be the first company approved by the Bank of England to launch in this sandbox.The platform will support the issuance of native digital bonds, including the Digital Gilt Instrument (DIGIT) and corporate bonds planned for launch in the UK. HSBC stated that HSBC Orion has facilitated over $5 billion in digital bond issuances globally. The UK Treasury indicated that the first DIGIT transaction is expected to take place in the first quarter of 2027, and HSBC has signed a memorandum of understanding with the London Stock Exchange Group to develop connectivity capabilities to support investor participation in pilot issuances.

According to BBX data, the integration of traditional financial infrastructure and cryptocurrency settlement layers accelerated simultaneously in two distinctly different tracks yesterday, with the following core dynamics:PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: $PYPL) reported by CoinDesk today as the headline news, the world's largest independent payment technology company Stripe (privately held) has teamed up with private equity firm Advent International to propose an acquisition offer of approximately $53 billion to PayPal; PayPal is currently reluctant to engage actively, but the offer has sparked widespread discussion on Wall Street about the "largest payment merger in the world." Stripe acquired the stablecoin infrastructure company Bridge.xyz for $1.1 billion in 2024 (which has served cross-border stablecoin settlements for institutions such as Visa and Coinbase), while PayPal has its own stablecoin PYUSD (with a circulation size of about $700 million) and independent cryptocurrency trading capabilities, covering over 400 million active accounts. If the acquisition is completed, the combination of Stripe + PayPal will control the largest single payment network globally, while integrating Stripe's stablecoin settlement (Bridge.xyz) with PayPal's native stablecoin (PYUSD)------the combination will create the largest-scale "traditional payment + stablecoin" dual-track infrastructure to date, directly threatening Visa and Mastercard's positions in cross-border settlement scenarios and posing competitive pressure on Circle's USDC in retail payments.HSBC Holdings plc (NYSE: $HSBC) reported by CoinDesk today, the UK government plans to issue the world's first digital sovereign bond for G7 countries, with the issuance scheduled for early 2027; this bond will be issued and circulated on HSBC's blockchain bond platform Orion, operating within the Digital Securities Sandbox framework of the Bank of England (BoE) and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), aimed at testing the feasibility of reducing settlement time (transitioning from T+2 to T+0) and lowering back-office costs. HSBC Orion has completed multiple batches of tokenized gold, green bonds, and Hong Kong government bonds on-chain issuance from 2023 to 2025, and this UK sovereign bond is the first instance of G7 countries introducing blockchain settlement at the sovereign debt issuance level------this milestone will elevate the compliance of tokenized government bonds from "emerging market experiment" to "highest sovereign endorsement," signaling significant implications for institutional adoption of tokenized government bond products like BlackRock BUIDL and Securitize.

On July 10, HSBC announced that it has completed the issuance of its first digital native structured product in Hong Kong, which is a private placement of structured notes denominated in US dollars. The notes are issued directly on the blockchain rather than being digitized after issuance. Asia-Pacific digital market infrastructure operator Marketnode acts as the tokenization agent and digital payment agent, managing the payment process between the issuer and investors.Marketnode is supported by Euroclear, HSBC, SGX Group, and Temasek. HSBC positions this transaction as a pilot project aimed at demonstrating how tokenization can improve the issuance, settlement, and ongoing servicing of products throughout their entire lifecycle. HSBC did not disclose the issuance scale, reference assets, note duration, investor identities, or the blockchain used. This issuance continues HSBC's years of efforts in the field of tokenization, having previously issued digital native bonds through the HSBC Orion platform and launched retail gold tokens in Hong Kong.

Metagent co-founder and former CTO Li Bojie responded to the accusations from ABCDE Capital partner Du Jun, stating that of the $1.5 million stipulated in the investment agreement, only $500,000 has been received, while the remaining $1 million has not been paid, yet the cap table still calculates ABCDE's equity based on $1.5 million. Li Bojie indicated that due to the long delay in funding, he and the co-founders voluntarily reduced their salaries, which hindered the company's recruitment and research and development; he left in October 2024 due to family reasons and compliance issues with Web3 in mainland China. Before leaving, he disclosed the cap table and business progress as required, and stated that future entrepreneurial projects will avoid areas related to non-compete clauses such as Web3, AI infrastructure, and image generation.

According to Jinshi News, Comcast's stock price rose 10.3% in pre-market trading after the company announced the spin-off of NBCUniversal and Sky into independent companies.

The Chief Information Security Officer of Slow Fog, 23pds, posted on the X platform that curl recently fixed 18 security vulnerabilities, involving issues such as authentication bypass, memory safety, and host verification, among which one libcurl vulnerability has existed for about 25 years. The risks are not limited to the curl command line but also widely affect applications, SDKs, containers, firmware, gateways, and CI/CD environments that rely on libcurl. It is recommended to upgrade curl/libcurl as soon as possible and check for the use of old versions of libcurl, especially paying attention to mTLS, proxy authentication, and connection reuse scenarios.

According to Jinshi reports, BCA Research has raised its target for the S&P 500 index at the end of 2026 to 8,100 points, up from the previous target of 7,700 points.

The cross-chain protocol Axelar Network released a statement regarding the recent security incident related to Secret Network, stating that there is a misunderstanding within the community about the event. Both Axelar and the Inter-Blockchain Communication Protocol (IBC) were not attacked or compromised. The affected token smart contracts were neither developed, deployed, nor maintained by Axelar, and Axelar's firewall mechanism also prevented the impact from spreading to other chains.It is reported that the exploited contract is a forked version based on CW20-ICS20, but the developers removed two core security checks, resulting in an "infinite minting" vulnerability. By deleting the verification mechanisms originally used to prevent such issues, this fork altered the original trust model of the contract and did not undergo a new security audit.Axelar Network explained that anyone can deploy contracts for cross-chain asset wrapping through IBC, and similar contracts have also been used to wrap tokens from other chains into Secret Network. However, the Secret side fork version in this incident has vulnerabilities due to the removal of key security checks. This incident is not a unique logical flaw, nor is it an issue with the IBC protocol itself, but rather a security risk introduced by modifications to third-party contracts.

According to Jinshi reports, HSBC analysts pointed out in a report that the current exchange rate of the dollar is below the level implied by the market's expectations for U.S. interest rates. As recent market expectations have shifted from rate cuts to potential rate hikes, the dollar's response has been relatively limited. They believe this may reflect the loose financial environment in the U.S. and the market's expectations for a resolution to the Middle East conflict. If the Federal Reserve fails to support rate hike expectations in next week's meeting, the dollar "may be in trouble."

HSBC Global Custody Products General Manager Gu Zhongyi stated that the plan considers offering non-HKD denominated stablecoins, which are expected to optimize cross-border transfer services in Hong Kong and other regions once implemented; at the same time, HSBC is also considering integrating other regulated stablecoins in Hong Kong.Gu Zhongyi added that HSBC plans to launch HKD stablecoins as early as the second half of the year. The issued stablecoins will be integrated into the investment and payment processes within its own app, supporting investment in tokenized assets.

HSBC released a research report stating that the global commodity market is entering a "super squeeze" situation dominated by supply disruptions. It noted that if the Strait of Hormuz remains substantially closed for an extended period, global commodity inventories will be rapidly depleted, and some varieties may approach critical price turning points.The report pointed out that the Middle East conflict has impacted aluminum smelting capacity, pushing aluminum prices to a four-year high; copper prices are mainly supported by a recovery in end-user demand, nearing $14,000 per ton. HSBC also mentioned that the supply of crude oil, liquefied natural gas, agricultural products, and industrial metals is facing tightening pressures.

According to monitoring by Catcher Predict, in the predicted market event "ACF Fiorentina vs. Atalanta BC" on Polymarket, the "yes" option for the sub-market "ACF Fiorentina" has experienced a dramatic fluctuation in winning probability, soaring from 29.5% an hour ago to the current 60.5% (a fluctuation of 31%). Please note the impact of related breaking news.

According to Catcher Predict monitoring, in the predicted market Polymarket for the event "Counter-Strike: B8 vs BC.Game Esports (BO3) - IEM Atlanta Group A," the "Odd" option in the sub-market "Odd/Even Total Kills" has experienced a dramatic fluctuation in win rate, soaring from 50% an hour ago to the current 90% (a fluctuation of 40%). Please note the impact of relevant breaking news.

According to Jinshi reports, HSBC Research published a report stating that as technology stocks rebound and the S&P 500 index returns to historical highs, the robust earnings season in the first quarter also provides support. The bank raised its earnings per share forecast for the index in 2026 by 8%, incorporating the latest quarterly performance, and expects earnings per share to grow by 20% in 2026, reaching $325. Based on higher earnings expectations, the bank raised its year-end target for the S&P 500 index from the previous 7,500 points to 7,650 points.

According to ETHNews, Ripple Prime has joined the tokenization pilot working group of the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) in the United States, with participating institutions including BlackRock, JPMorgan, HSBC, Anchorage Digital, Bank of America, BitGo Bank, and others.The report states that the working group aims to promote the infrastructure and industry standards related to tokenized securities, covering various market roles such as custodians, asset management companies, brokers, trading venues, application providers, and back-office service providers.DTCC previously stated that it plans to initiate limited production trading of tokenized assets in July 2026 and to fully commercialize related services in October 2026. This plan will support tokenization services for major index ETFs, Russell 1000 index constituents, and U.S. Treasury securities, among other assets.

AI Smart Routing and Infrastructure Network DGrid AI officially announces the launch of its AI inference API integrated with the x402 payment protocol. This API seamlessly merges payment logic with AI model invocation for the first time, allowing developers and AI Agents to complete authorization, inference, and payment within a single API request lifecycle without managing cumbersome API Keys or requiring centralized account pre-funding.It is reported that this API currently supports BNB Chain (BSC) as the underlying settlement network. With the micropayment features of the x402 protocol, the system can achieve extremely low-friction on-chain real-time settlement while ensuring that invocation costs remain absolutely controllable. Additionally, this API supports streaming responses and real-time usage feedback while being compatible with mainstream AI invocation methods, making it suitable for various application scenarios, including model selection for AI Agents, inference billing, intelligent agents, and multi-task execution.DGrid states that this initiative aims to completely break the prepaid barriers of traditional large model invocation and provide a programmable underlying payment infrastructure for building a fully automated AI Agent economy (machine-to-machine transactions).

Lion Global Investors, an asset management company under Singapore's OCBC Bank, has launched a tokenized physical gold fund, with the underlying token GOLDX issued on Ethereum and Solana.This product is aimed at institutional investors, hedge funds, and asset management companies, supporting subscriptions and redemptions through stablecoins or fiat currency. GOLDX is linked to the physical gold fund launched by Lion Global, which is set to go live in December 2025, and currently manages assets of approximately $525 million.

According to TheAsianBanker, OCBC Bank in Singapore and its asset management division Lion Global Investors have disclosed plans to issue a physical gold fund token, GOLDX Token, on the Ethereum and Solana chains. OCBC Bank will support the token issuance architecture design, while Lion Global Investors will provide the investment framework and governance structure for the underlying fund.

According to Financial IT, HSBC's Global Payment Solutions (GPS) business has successfully completed a pilot of Tokenized Deposit Services (TDS) on the public blockchain Canton Network, simulating the entire process of issuing, transferring, and atomic settlement of tokenized deposits with other digital assets. This is the first time HSBC's TDS has been issued and used on a public blockchain. HSBC TDS supports major currencies such as USD, GBP, EUR, HKD, and SGD, allowing fiat deposits to be converted into digital tokens at a 1:1 ratio, enabling instant transfers on the HSBC ledger, and supporting 24/7 real-time settlement and programmable payments.Manish Kohli, Head of HSBC Global Payment Solutions, stated that this pilot demonstrates the evolution of tokenization in the banking industry and the necessary infrastructure, with the company's focus on building secure and interoperable capabilities to enable customers to transfer funds more efficiently across different environments. Yuval Rooz, co-founder of Canton Network and CEO of Digital Asset, stated that tokenized deposits are accelerating in capital markets, corporate banking, and cash management, and Canton has become one of the major deployment networks.

According to Wall Street News, HSBC stated, "We welcome the Hong Kong Monetary Authority's issuance of stablecoin licenses. We plan to launch a Hong Kong dollar-denominated stablecoin in the second half of 2026."