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Gate Research Institute recently released the market report titled "June Market Structural Adjustment, Funds Concentrated on Impulsive Volume Opportunities," indicating that in June 2026, the cryptocurrency market weakened again under the multiple influences of macro pressure, institutional capital outflows, and a decline in risk appetite.From the market structure perspective, June did not see a widespread recovery, but rather a localized profit effect driven by a few long-tail assets. About 71% of the top 500 tokens recorded a decline, with only a quarter achieving an increase. BTC, ETH, and most mainstream assets faced pressure simultaneously, while low market cap tokens like CYDX, ANSEM, VELVET, SYN, and CX recorded increases of several times or even hundreds of times due to event catalysts and capital speculation, significantly raising the overall average returns.Volume analysis shows that the average trading volume amplification factor for 450 valid samples is 2.54x, with a median of only 0.49x. Only 17 tokens had a volume increase of more than 3 times, and 8 tokens exceeded 10 times. TEMPLE (289.05x), CX (259.13x), and MTBILL (128.15x) ranked at the top of the volume list.Overall, the market in June is still in a phase of shrinking risk appetite, and true recovery signals still need to be observed in the stabilization of leading assets like BTC and ETH, as well as the re-diffusion of funds from long-tail speculation back to mainstream assets.

According to the Ethereum Magicians forum, developer Leo Glisic officially released Privacy Guardians 2 and announced the open-sourcing of its design. The project is positioned as a decentralized privacy payment system aimed at maximizing privacy protection for on-chain payments to combat issues such as freezing and monitoring present in centralized payment solutions (like OUSD launched by Corpo Consortium).The current V1 version includes multiple modules such as private payment mechanisms, insurance mechanisms, honeypot designs, exchange rate management, liquidity pools, and metadata processing. Glisic stated that this version is still in the early stages and has significant room for optimization in areas such as cryptographic security, incentive mechanism alignment, and capital efficiency, and he called on the community to participate in its improvement. The white paper has been simultaneously published on glisic.xyz.

Ethereum Foundation (EF) researcher Francesco D'Amato (fradamt) announced his departure from EF to join the newly established protocol development organization Ethlabs. D'Amato worked at EF for 5 years and was involved in several core research areas including MEV, consensus mechanisms, data availability sampling (DAS), and execution layer pricing.

The latest research from the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance shows that approximately 31% of Ethereum node activity is located in the United States, with about 39% distributed in the EU region excluding the UK, indicating that the geographical distribution of Ethereum nodes is still relatively concentrated in Western countries. The research leader, Alexander Neumuller, stated that the current node distribution is not concentrated in a single country but primarily relies on a few cloud service providers, including Hetzner, Amazon AWS, and OVH.It is noteworthy that the Ethereum network does not require half of the validators to fail for issues to arise; when more than one-third of validators go offline simultaneously, the network may be unable to complete the finalization of block checkpoints. Neumuller pointed out that nodes and validators do not have a one-to-one correspondence; a single node may run multiple validators, making it currently impossible to accurately assess the actual impact of a specific node or service provider failure on the validation network. Additionally, the research reassessed the energy consumption situation after Ethereum's Merge. The data shows that Ethereum's current annual energy consumption is approximately 7.9 GWh, equivalent to about 1 megawatt of continuous power, which is only about 0.02% of the pre-Merge level, with energy consumption decreasing by approximately 99.98%. Currently, the proportion of sustainable energy used by the Ethereum network exceeds 56%, higher than the global average. The research also pointed out that the concentration of client software is another potential risk; if a dominant client has a vulnerability, it could affect a large number of network participants. The report was published by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, with support from the Ethereum Foundation.

According to Tiger Research and RootData based on research of 9,416 investment transaction data from the first half of 2018 to 2026, the capital inflow in the cryptocurrency market reached $13.3 billion in the first half of 2026, which is basically on par with the total of $13.2 billion for the entire year of 2024. However, the number of financing rounds was only 435, a decrease of 78% from the peak of 1,978 rounds in 2022, indicating that market funds are accelerating towards a few large transactions.The report points out that the current cryptocurrency investment market is dominated by a few large crypto-native VCs focused on leading investments, as well as venture capital departments of exchanges with liquidity and marketing support, while medium-sized institutions are being rapidly squeezed out. In terms of financing structure, the number of seed round transactions decreased by 88% from 2022 to 81, while financing in Series A and later stages accounted for 75.2% of total investments, with Series A financing amounting to $745.8 million, exceeding the total amount of all seed round financing of $423.3 million during the same period.In terms of sectors, payments and stablecoins, centralized exchanges, and prediction markets have become the most concentrated areas of capital. The payments and stablecoins sector attracted $2.85 billion in funding in the first half of 2026, but about 84% of this was driven by mergers and acquisitions such as Mastercard's acquisition of BVNK and Payward's acquisition of Reap; the investment share in the CEX sector rose to 18.2%, while prediction markets rose to 17.5%. In contrast, the number of financing rounds in the gaming sector plummeted from 141 rounds in 2024 to only 5 rounds, a decrease of 96%. Additionally, traditional financial institutions participated in 54.5% of all investment transactions in the first half of 2026.It is reported that Tiger Research is an independent research institution established in 2022, covering the Asian digital asset market, with business operations in South Korea, Japan, China, and Indonesia, publishing institutional-level research content in five languages, with over 100,000 monthly readers and more than 200 institutional clients.

According to Bloomberg, researchers at Stanford University have found signs of manipulation in the Polymarket five-minute Bitcoin betting market. The study analyzed contract data over approximately two months and discovered repeated one-way trading pulses on the Binance exchange that briefly affected Bitcoin prices just seconds before the betting ended, benefiting those with aligned positions. The researchers referred to this pattern as "temporary manipulation to drive up spot prices" and pointed out that such contracts have structural vulnerabilities—participants can influence the outcome by trading the underlying asset itself that determines win or loss.A Polymarket spokesperson stated that the platform uses multiple independent price oracles to ensure accuracy and plans to transition some markets to a settlement method using longer time windows next year to enhance market integrity. The study estimates that suspected manipulators profited about $8.2 million over two months, primarily from losses incurred by retail traders. Similar patterns are not evident in the 15-minute market, where longer time windows make it more difficult to influence outcomes.

Galaxy Digital's research director Alex Thorn stated that a large amount of long-dormant BTC will be reactivated and transferred on-chain during 2024 and 2025, with the scale only second to that of 2017.He pointed out that the current phase of "Great Distribution" brought about by the awakening of old BTC is basically coming to an end, and it is expected that the amount of BTC awakened in 2026 will be less than half of that in 2025.

According to Onchain Lens monitoring, the U.S. government has emptied another wallet holding assets seized from Alameda Research and FTX, distributing the assets to 8 new addresses. The transferred assets include 4,110 AXS, worth $4,100; 5.37 YFI, worth $11,400; 1,230 COMP, worth $21,100; 316,000 MANA, worth $21,800; 0.533 WBTC, worth $34,400; 4,050 NMR, worth $39,900; 138,950 RLC, worth $40,700; and 209.18 ETH, worth $391,000.The current balance of the original wallet is $0.

According to Techcrunch, Nous Research, the developer of the open-source agent Hermes, is finalizing a new round of financing, expected to be led by Robot Ventures, with participation from institutions like USV. The company's valuation is approximately $1.5 billion. Sources indicate that the scale of this round of financing is at least $75 million.Its core product, Hermes, as an open-source local AI agent, has accumulated 214,000 stars and nearly 40,000 forks on the GitHub platform. It supports users in deploying and running locally on personal computers and virtual servers, with autonomous execution capabilities such as web retrieval and code generation.

According to monitoring by Onchain Lens, Alameda Research FTX transferred approximately 201,000 SOL, worth about $15.14 million, to BitGo custody through multiple transactions within a few minutes, and the funds were distributed to multiple BitGo custody addresses.

According to a report by Jinshi Data on July 13, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and three other departments issued guidance on promoting the high-quality development of internet infrastructure resources. It mentioned strengthening the planning of internet technology innovation, promoting the implementation of relevant national key research and development programs and major national science and technology projects, enhancing original technology innovation, and carrying out technical research on the integration of artificial intelligence, blockchain, distributed identifiers and internet infrastructure resources, breaking through key technologies such as network dynamic optimization, intelligent resource scheduling, and data security interaction. Strengthening the innovation of the IPv6 technology system to solve key issues such as protocol compatibility and high-performance transmission. Breaking through key technologies for satellite internet mega-constellation networking, rapid routing switching, and reliable anti-jamming transmission. Breaking through key technologies for the large-scale deployment and application of resource public key infrastructure.

According to a post by CoinMarketCap on X, Geoff Kendrick, the Global Head of Digital Assets Research at Standard Chartered Bank, expects that the number of announcements related to traditional financial institutions accessing DeFi may increase by 10 to 20 times in the next 3 to 12 months.

Sharplink Research Director Steven Ehrlich published an analysis pointing out that Ethereum started strong in July 2026, with an increase of about 11% so far this month. Historical data suggests that investors should pay attention to ETH's performance in July. Steven Ehrlich noted that the core advantage of ETH's July performance is not merely volatility, but the asymmetry between rises and falls: when July sees an increase, the average rise is about 43%, while in years of decline, the average drop is only about 5% (from 2020 to 2025).Historically, months of significant gains for ETH are usually driven by "Ethereum-specific catalysts + supply-demand imbalance." The current market environment also presents similar opportunities, such as: institutional infrastructure is being built, the Ethereum roadmap is continuously upgrading, and corporate funds are consistently increasing their holdings of ETH. Currently, Ethereum is entering a new development phase, where institutional adoption, technological upgrades, and capital allocation may become important factors driving ETH's market performance.

Galaxy Research Director Alex Thorn posted on the X platform revealing that there has been a significant development in the case of abandoned bitcoins, where "Noah Doe" is attempting to obtain ownership of Satoshi Nakamoto's bitcoins through legal proceedings. The Bitcoin Policy Institute (BPI) has officially applied to intervene in the case as a defendant and seeks to push the court to dismiss all lawsuits.It is reported that BPI, represented by the law firm White & Case, has not only applied to intervene in the case but has also submitted a proposed defense document, 15 active defenses, and plans to file a motion to dismiss.Alex Thorn disclosed that BPI claims it is qualified to intervene because the organization has long self-custodied a portion of its bitcoin reserves intended for indefinite holding. The plaintiff's theory that "long-term inactivity constitutes abandonment" could potentially include similar assets in future lawsuits. If the legal logic of this case is ultimately supported by the court, it may set a precedent for depriving long-term self-custody users of asset ownership, making this lawsuit not only related to Satoshi Nakamoto's assets but also concerning the legal foundation of the entire bitcoin self-custody ecosystem.

According to The Block, the latest report "Merged Ethereum" released by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) shows that approximately 31% of Ethereum node activity is located in the United States, and 39% is distributed across the European Union (excluding the UK), presenting an overall Western centralization pattern.The report points out that there are potential centralization risks in the Ethereum network—nodes are highly concentrated among three major hosting service providers: Hetzner, AWS, and OVH. If more than one-third of the validators go offline simultaneously, the network checkpoints will stop finalizing.In addition, the report recalculated Ethereum's energy consumption, estimating that the annual electricity usage after the merge is about 7.9 gigawatt-hours, a decrease of approximately 99.98% compared to before the merge, with sustainable energy accounting for over 56%. The cost needed to offset its annual carbon emissions is only about $33,500 to $73,800.

Binance Research released a report on tokenized stocks showing that bStocks has increased the number of tokenized stock assets from 5 to 25 in less than a month since its launch, with a market capitalization approaching 300 million USD.In terms of user participation, among 190,417 bStocks users, 41.5% only trade bStocks, while 58.5% participate in perpetual contracts and/or stock products. The report also indicates that a total of 2,806 users engaged in cross-market arbitrage, with 206 systematic arbitrage users contributing 198.2 million USD in rapid matching transaction volume, accounting for 96.5% of the relevant transaction volume.The report states that bStocks' appeal is particularly evident during non-trading hours. During regular trading hours, the share of stock spot transaction volume is 52%, while bStocks accounts for 48%; however, during non-trading hours, the share of bStocks transaction volume rises to 58%, surpassing the stock spot's 42%.Additionally, bStocks has begun to extend into on-chain yield scenarios. Currently, the relevant liquidity pools can offer an APY ranging from 32% to 228%, while the yield of the native credit pool is between 5% and 10%, indicating a total TVL of approximately 1.15 million USD.

MINIMAX (00100.HK) announced that it will raise approximately HKD 16.041 billion through the placement of new shares and the issuance of zero-coupon convertible bonds. According to the announcement, the company will place 35.6 million new Class A shares at HKD 268 per share (approximately a 9.89% discount to the closing price of the previous trading day), expecting to raise about HKD 9.541 billion; at the same time, it plans to issue zero-coupon secured convertible bonds with a total principal amount of HKD 6.5 billion due in 2027, with an initial conversion price of HKD 335 per share (approximately a 12.64% premium to the closing price). Morgan Stanley and UBS are acting as arrangers for this transaction, and the placement and bond issuance are independent of each other and not conditional upon one another. If all the bonds are ultimately converted into shares, the two transactions will add up to approximately 55 million shares, accounting for nearly 15% of the company's expanded total share capital. Regarding the use of funds, MINIMAX stated that about 80% of the net proceeds are intended to strengthen AI infrastructure and model development, 10% to accelerate the global commercialization of products, and the remaining 10% for working capital and general corporate purposes.

According to Decrypt, researchers from Tel Aviv University, the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, and Intuit have discovered a new type of attack method called "adversarial illusion injection." This technique exploits the illusion phenomenon of AI models to trick AI agents into downloading malicious code and potentially forming a botnet.Attackers predict the false resource links that AI models might generate and register them in advance, embedding malicious instructions within. When the AI agent retrieves the resource, it treats it as legitimate content and executes it. Tests show that the illusion occurrence rate in code repository cloning scenarios reaches 85%, and in skill installation scenarios, it reaches 100%. AI coding assistants such as Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Gemini CLI, and OpenClaw are all affected. This attack is similar to "typo-squatting" in traditional cyberattacks, but it targets the errors of AI models rather than human input errors. Previous research has shown that malicious websites can inject prompts to hijack AI agents, and OpenClaw users have reported over 6,000 attempts to trick AI agents into leaking sensitive information.

According to KPMG's latest survey report involving 2,145 executives from 20 countries, as technology companies like Anthropic, OpenAI, and GitHub recently shifted some of their AI services from fixed subscription models to usage-based billing, businesses are facing challenges in cost forecasting and management during the scaling of AI deployment.The report indicates that 29% of corporate executives find it difficult to understand and control operational costs when scaling AI deployment, and one-third of executives believe that insufficient understanding of AI economics hinders the deployment of AI entities. Due to costs exceeding expected value, nearly half (about 49%) of corporate organizations have chosen to delay or readjust their AI deployment plans; meanwhile, low-cost, high-fidelity large models are accelerating their impact on corporate AI strategies.In addition, tech giants are increasing capital expenditures to build AI capacity. Amazon plans to spend about $200 billion on capital expenditures this year and is investing $1 billion in its AWS frontline engineering organization to assist customers in adopting AI entities; Microsoft's total capital expenditure is expected to reach $190 billion this year, with $2.5 billion allocated to the new entity Microsoft Frontier Company. KPMG emphasizes that, in addition to cost pressures, accountability in AI governance, employee engagement rules, and the prevention of system "hallucinations" remain core challenges faced by businesses today.