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Vitalik posted on the X platform to congratulate the @zksync Airbender team for achieving this milestone. He believes that the speed competition of zkEVMs has achieved a decisive victory, and the primary focus should shift entirely to security.Vitalik stated that this means there is a need to formally verify the equivalence of arithmetic and Ethereum specifications, the hard upper limit of the ratio of prover costs to total block Gas, and the security of the proof system itself.

Liquid Capital founder Yi Lihua published an article discussing the current state of the cryptocurrency primary market. He stated that the main reasons for the decline of the cryptocurrency primary market are: "First, the narrative has collapsed; from white papers to institutional endorsements to TVL manipulation, the basic market is no longer buying in. Second, there is a supply imbalance; now there are tens of thousands of projects, and it is extremely difficult for excellent projects to emerge. Third, the 1 plus 3 unlocking mechanism essentially targets VCs, allowing projects, market makers, and exchanges to run first. Fourth, the cost of listing coins; now primary projects require high valuations and large financing mainly because of several leading centralized exchanges going live, with an average cost needing tens of millions of dollars."Yi Lihua believes that industry leaders need to truly focus on building, such as improving the coin listing selection method on Binance. Under the current model, even if Vitalik Buterin's ETH were to come today, it would not be able to list on Binance. Additionally, the 1 plus 3 unlocking mechanism should be completely abolished; VCs bear the greatest risk and should not be burdened with the worst unlocking terms, as the success or failure of a project is fundamentally not determined by VCs.Finally, cryptocurrency projects need to return to real revenue and buybacks. The sustained prosperity of the U.S. stock market over the years is primarily due to performance growth and the encouragement of shareholder returns. This is what industry leaders should be doing, allowing secondary market investors to truly find quality projects.

Overseas cryptocurrency KOL Brady Dale posted on X, stating that there are three responsible for the failure of the "CLARITY Act": first is Trump, due to his launch of the TRUMP token; second is Tim Scott, who insisted on having the Senate waste time drafting its own version, depleting the legislative momentum that remained after the passage of the "GENIUS Act"; third is Cynthia Lummis. Brady Dale mentioned that he believed last fall that the bill would be difficult to advance, and after Cynthia Lummis announced her retirement, the bill became completely hopeless.He believes that the Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Paul Atkins, will still alleviate the related impacts to some extent, but the movements of that day were not surprising, as the goal was merely to redirect the cryptocurrency political action committee Fairshake towards October.

The political action committee Protect Progress PAC, affiliated with the cryptocurrency industry supporter Fairshake, has spent approximately $189,000 on media advertising ahead of the primary election in Massachusetts's 4th congressional district, supporting Democratic Congressman Jake Auchincloss's re-election campaign. Records from the Federal Election Commission (FEC) show that this expenditure is Fairshake's latest move in the 2026 election, following over $130 million spent on advertising and media promotion during the 2024 election cycle.The Massachusetts primary is scheduled to take place on Tuesday local time. Democratic candidate Jason Poulos sent a letter to Auchincloss on August 16, requesting that he "publicly condemn" Protect Progress's involvement. Poulos stated that some of the funds were used to create "AI-generated spam" supporting Auchincloss, and pointed out that the latter has directly accepted $77,500 in donations from cryptocurrency industry sources since 2020. Auchincloss also voted in favor of the Digital Asset Market Structure Act in July 2025, which is currently under Senate review and has not yet been signed into law.In August, Fairshake and its affiliates invested approximately $3.6 million in congressional campaigns in Alaska, Florida, and Wyoming. Fairshake reported that it has about $122 million in cash ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Massachusetts will be one of the last states in the U.S. to hold its primary this year, with just over two months remaining until the general election in November.

Federal Reserve Chairman Waller stated, "Although the PCE and CPI data released this summer were better than expected, they did not convince me that there has been a meaningful improvement in the underlying trend of inflation." "Market prices reflect that the market believes we will achieve price stability. I can assure you that the market's judgment is correct."Waller then stated that with inflation rates above 2%, the Federal Reserve's "current top priority should be prices." This highly anticipated speech by Waller comes at a time when there is criticism of its streamlined communication strategy. Economists and market participants believe that this strategy lacks clear articulation regarding the recent economic and monetary policy outlook.Waller's speech seems to address these concerns, as he elaborated more deeply than before on his views regarding the economic situation and the focus of Federal Reserve policy under his leadership. He said, "Let us also clarify another aspect of our goals: price stability will not be achieved automatically, and inflation will not necessarily return on its own. Achieving price stability is the responsibility of the Federal Reserve." It is expected that Waller will not answer questions posed by on-site central bank officials and economists.

According to a report by the Securities Times, Baidu Group announced that the company's board of directors has authorized the management to proceed with a voluntary conversion to a primary listing on the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, expected to take effect within this year. After the relevant procedures are completed, Baidu will achieve a dual primary listing in Hong Kong and Nasdaq. Once the dual primary listing takes effect, it will enhance the liquidity of the company's securities, expand the investor base, and provide greater flexibility for entering the two capital markets.

According to RootData, the total financing amount in the cryptocurrency industry in the first half of the year was $9.081 billion, with a total of 259 financing events; among them, the primary market financing amount (excluding IPO/Post IPO/M&A rounds) was $8.658 billion, a decrease of 26.1% compared to the same period last year, and the number of financing events decreased by 28.5% year-on-year.March and May were the two peaks for financing amounts in the first half of the year, with the number of financing events reaching 66 and 68 respectively; in June, the number of financing events fell back to 43, indicating that after entering the end of the second quarter, market funding activity has cooled down. Overall, large financing still significantly boosts monthly financing scale, but the enthusiasm for regular financing rounds has begun to shrink.In the first half of 2026, there were a total of 75 M&A transactions in the cryptocurrency industry, of which 16 disclosed specific amounts (totaling approximately $3.836 billion). M&A activities were mainly concentrated in the CeFi, tools and information services, DeFi, and infrastructure sectors. Representative M&A events include: Mastercard acquiring BVNK ($1.8 billion), Kraken acquiring Reap ($600 million), etc.Leading cryptocurrency venture capital firms still maintain a high frequency of investments, with Coinbase Ventures participating in 25 investments in the first half of 2026, ranking first; Animoca Brands participated in 20, while a16z and Tether participated in 14 each. In the past 12 months, Coinbase Ventures participated in a total of 68 investments, continuing to lead the industry, followed by Animoca Brands, Pantera Capital, YZi Labs, a16z, Tether, and GSR.From the perspective of sectors, DeFi, infrastructure, and CeFi were the three most active directions for financing in the first half of 2026. In the first half of the year, DeFi completed 129 financing events, infrastructure completed 116, and CeFi completed 69. AI, payments, prediction markets, and RWA were also key sub-sectors of capital focus, with AI-related financing at 59 events, payment-related projects at 46 events, and RWA-related projects at 28 events.Overall, the primary market for cryptocurrency in the first half of 2026 has not completely stagnated, but the market structure has changed: the total financing amount is still supported by a few large transactions, institutional investments are more concentrated, sector preferences are more pragmatic, and M&A has become an important means of industry consolidation. Funds are shifting towards structural allocations around infrastructure, DeFi, CeFi, payments, AI, and RWA.

According to CoinDesk, Christian Lopez, head of blockchain and digital assets at investment bank Cohen & Company Capital Markets, stated that as investors rotate funds into other sectors and macro uncertainty continues to suppress risk appetite, the crypto IPO market has noticeably slowed down.Lopez pointed out that although the successful listings of Circle and Bullish had raised high expectations for crypto IPOs in 2026, the subsequent weakening of market conditions, declining trading volumes, and underperformance of some post-listing stocks have dampened enthusiasm for new issuances. Several crypto companies, including Kraken's parent company Payward, Consensys, Ledger, and Grayscale, have postponed their IPO plans, waiting for market improvement; however, Blockchain.com and FalconX are still advancing their listing processes.Lopez believes that the uncertain interest rate outlook and global deleveraging pressures are making investors more cautious about high beta assets like crypto. He expects that the window for crypto companies to go public may not substantially reopen until next year. Additionally, he stated that regulatory clarity is no longer the primary obstacle for crypto companies going public; rather, the ability to access capital and business diversification are more critical.

According to the mid-year open letter released by Bitget CEO Gracy Chen, there has been a significant structural change in user behavior on the platform in the first half of 2026: the trading volume of non-crypto assets peaked at nearly 40% of Bitget's overall trading volume; the daily trading volume of CFDs exceeded $10 billion; 52% of users held both stocks and cryptocurrencies; and 35% held gold and other precious metals, indicating that cross-asset trading has become a mainstream habit.Gracy Chen pointed out that as a panoramic exchange (UEX), Bitget's core goal is not to create an "asset supermarket," but to reconstruct the underlying logic of user participation in the global market around four core values: "asset efficiency, crypto-native experience, financial equality, and reducing burdens." On the business implementation level, Bitget has accelerated its layout through a dual-track solution of U.S. stock tokens and direct connections to U.S. stocks, supporting 24/7 trading of various assets to break the time zone and regional barriers of traditional finance.In addition, with the deep integration of AI tools into the execution layer, 51% of users have already used AI-driven trading tools in the first half of the year, and the number of AI trading users on the platform has surpassed 1 million.

According to Jinshi reports, Federal Reserve's Daly stated that the current monetary policy is in good shape, but the economic situation is too uncertain to clearly determine the direction of interest rates. She pointed out that providing forward guidance at this time is not appropriate, and the inflation issue is particularly concerning, especially with rising energy and food prices. Daly also mentioned that although there is no clear evidence that artificial intelligence has improved productivity, she remains optimistic about the technology and believes that 2027 will be a key year.

At the Ethereum University Tour - Shanghai Station Fudan University special event, SYNBO was invited to give a keynote speech, systematically breaking down the evolution logic of the public chain ecological investment and financing market.Currently, the primary market in the industry heavily relies on offline intermediary models, facing four major disconnection issues in terms of access, trust, capital release, and profit distribution.In response to the existing pain points in the industry, SYNBO is committed to transforming capital operations into on-chain verifiable rules, relying on delivery-oriented capital release, dynamic pricing and financing share trading, continuous asset generation mechanisms, and community co-construction models to build a native on-chain investment and financing protocol system.The SYNBO model will break down traditional VC industry barriers, lower the financing threshold for innovation and entrepreneurship, and promote the industry's development from "asset on-chain" to "on-chain capital efficiency upgrade," creating sustainable endogenous growth momentum for the entire public chain ecosystem.

Liquid Capital (formerly LD Capital) founder Yi Lihua stated on social media, "The war is confirmed to be over, there is no insider information, and neither side has a reason to continue fighting. We will take profits wherever the rebound stops and observe as we go.This year's cryptocurrency market is very similar to 2019, with a cliff-like drop in secondary liquidity, almost no confidence in primary investments, and Web3 companies laying off large numbers of employees, with industry personnel switching careers. Be greedy when others are fearful; this year is definitely the best time for secondary bottom-fishing and primary investment, similar to 2019. Institutions that bottomed out in the secondary market and invested in the primary market in 2019 were the biggest winners in the 2020 bull market, and we are working hard to do these two things well."

According to Jinshi, Federal Reserve's Williams stated that the primary reason for lowering interest rates is to keep real rates unchanged as inflation declines; the second consideration is whether the policy needs to be closer to the neutral rate.

According to Jinshi News, Chris Grisanti, Chief Market Strategist at New York MAI Capital Management, stated that today's Federal Reserve statement and press conference are clearly hawkish. The description of economic activity was upgraded from "moderate" to "robust," while the wording regarding downside risks to employment was removed. Powell indicated that the labor market has "stabilized," and although inflation is stabilizing, it remains "slightly elevated." He believes that there will be no rate cuts in the short term, and under continued economic strength, there may not be any rate cuts even in 2026.

Ethereum core developer Tim Beiko stated that he will shift his focus from primary development to exploring cutting-edge application scenarios of Ethereum in the coming months.Ensuring a smooth transition for AllCoreDevs and his responsibilities at the Ethereum Foundation is his current top short-term goal. He will continue to stay at the Ethereum Foundation and serve as a protocol advisor, working with the foundation and cluster leadership to ensure the establishment of a reasonable organizational structure to support participation from various ecosystems. Tim Beiko emphasized that the Ethereum protocol is nearing its final stage, but we have only just begun to touch the potential of a permissionless, scalable, economically secure, and low-cost verifiable world computer.

According to the “RootData 2025 Web3 Industry Annual Report”, the total financing amount in the crypto primary market will reach $22.73 billion in 2025, a significant year-on-year increase of 120.6%, with the number of merger and acquisition events hitting a historical high.However, behind the impressive data is a serious structural divergence: the growth is mainly driven by a few large financings from companies like Polymarket and Binance, while the financing environment for early-stage projects continues to deteriorate, with the number of financing deals reaching a five-year low. The overall market is still in a deep clearing phase, with no widespread cyclical recovery signals yet.

Slow Mist released the analysis of stolen funds from MistTrack for the fourth quarter of 2025. In the fourth quarter of 2025, there were 300 reports of stolen funds received (excluding cases reported through other channels), with approximately $1 million successfully frozen or recovered in 9 cases.The three main causes of theft incidents are: phishing attacks, scams, and private key leaks. Phishing remains the primary cause of losses, evolving from fake domains to autocomplete hijacking redirects; phishing is no longer limited to "clicking the wrong link." One victim mistakenly sent 50 million USDT to a forged similar address—where the first 3 and last 4 characters were exactly the same.