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ALPHEA announced the completion of a $5 million financing round to accelerate the construction of its next-generation distributed AI infrastructure.The project party stated that this round of funding was participated in by institutions such as MH Ventures, IBC Group, Titans Ventures, Becker Ventures, and Yellow Labs. It will be used to expand the distributed AI computing power network, launch new products aimed at developers and enterprises, and expand the core team in positions such as engineering, research, and ecosystem development.

Gate today announced that Lucas Sum has officially joined Gate as Head of Market Development, Equities. In this key position, Lucas will be responsible for driving Gate's global equity business market development strategy, coordinating business growth, ecosystem collaboration, market expansion, and user growth, strengthening Gate's business layout between traditional finance, digital assets, and the global capital markets, and promoting the sustainable development of a multi-asset investment ecosystem.Lucas has nearly ten years of industry experience, with a career spanning multi-asset brokerage, wealth management, payment fintech, and financial services. Before joining Gate, he was deeply involved in the market construction and business scaling development of Longbridge Securities and Moomoo Singapore (Futu Holdings) from 0 to 1, accumulating rich business development and collaboration experience in areas such as ecosystem collaboration, business model building, market strategy formulation, and user growth.Lucas stated, "I am very pleased to join Gate. Against the backdrop of the increasing integration of traditional finance and digital assets, the global investment market is ushering in new development opportunities. As global investors' demand for stock investment and diversified asset allocation continues to rise, I believe Gate will continue to improve its global equity business layout, creating a more open and convenient one-stop global investment experience. I look forward to working with partners and various parties in the financial ecosystem to further expand investment opportunities in the global capital market, continuously promote the development of Gate's equity business, and create long-term value for global investors."Lucas's addition will further enhance Gate's global equity business development strategy, strengthen the partner ecosystem, accelerate market expansion processes, and assist the platform in building a one-stop multi-asset investment platform for global investors, providing richer and more diverse asset allocation options.

Well-known trader Killa (@KillaXBT) posted that the Bitcoin cycle is accelerating, with the last cycle taking only 476 days from the bottom to a new ATH, much faster than the previous two cycles. It is expected that this cycle will also reach a new high before the next halving.Killa, as a quantitative trader focused on BTC, predicted the peak of this bull market in May 2025 and has over 200,000 followers on platform X. In mid-April, he shorted Bitcoin at $74,688 and switched to long during the market-wide decline on June 5.

According to The Block, the World project’s foundation, World Foundation, raised $52.5 million through a strategic sale of WLD tokens, with all tokens locked for one year. This round of "initial delivery" was led by Pantera Capital, with participation from Bain Capital Crypto, Eightco Holdings (NASDAQ: ORBS), Selini Capital, Susquehanna Crypto, and others.The foundation stated that the WLD sold this time is only for internal use within the World Network and does not represent equity or revenue rights in Tools for Humanity. The funds will be used to expand the World ID technology aimed at enterprises, individuals, and AI Agents. Currently, World ID has been integrated with platforms such as Zoom, DocuSign, Okta, Vercel, and Tinder, with over 39 million people having joined the network, of which more than 18 million have completed Orb real-person verification. The current price of WLD is approximately $0.37, with a total market capitalization of about $1.31 billion.

Coinbase is undergoing the largest executive reshuffle in recent years. Chief Talent Officer Lawrence Brock has stepped down and transitioned to an advisory role, while co-head of the institutional division Greg Tusar has moved to a policy position; previously, General Counsel Paul Grewal planned to leave, and Jesse Pollak has stepped down as head of the Base app. After laying off 14% of its workforce in May, Coinbase is accelerating its transformation into a comprehensive trading platform that includes stocks and prediction markets.

The cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX accelerated the delisting of 65 derivative contracts and spot trading pairs in July, far exceeding the 19 that were delisted in the first six months of this year. The platform attributed the delisting to "insufficient trading interest" and stated that this move is related to its decision to close the exchange. Previously, BitMEX announced that it would officially cease operations on September 23, but did not disclose the specific reason for the closure.Restructuring advisor Roshan Dharia stated that the shutdown of BitMEX reflects the structural pressures faced by mid-sized centralized exchanges: liquidity continues to concentrate on leading platforms, while compliance costs are continuously rising. Earlier, the on-chain analysis platform Bubblemaps revealed that 75% of the total supply of BitMEX tokens BMEX (originally intended for employee incentives, ecosystem growth, and long-term reserves) was never allocated as planned, with the only claim occurring in November 2022. After the shutdown announcement, the price of BMEX dropped by approximately 95%.

Former Fox Business reporter Eleanor Terrett stated that the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (USHCC), which claims to represent millions of Hispanic businesses across the country, sent a letter to Senate leaders this week expressing concerns similar to those of community banks that the Clarity Act could accelerate deposit outflows. The organization believes that the bill will reduce loans to Hispanic small businesses and weaken investments in underserved communities.

According to IT Home, ByteDance announced today the official launch of the Seed STEM Scientist Program, inviting 100 outstanding scholars from the forefront of scientific fields to collaborate on real research problems and promote AI-accelerated scientific discovery.This program is initiated by the Seed Edge research team, providing ample computing resources and competitive salaries. Participation is divided into two categories: scientific advisors and doctoral interns. The first phase of the program is expected to last about 6 months, with the work location in Haidian District, Beijing. The application deadline is September 30, 2026.

The Chinese AI large model company Dark Side of the Moon is accelerating its capitalization process, planning to start the final round of pre-IPO financing negotiations in August, with a target pre-investment valuation of $50 billion. Reports indicate that Dark Side of the Moon expects to complete a round of financing soon, corresponding to a valuation of approximately $31.5 billion. After completing this round of financing, the company will immediately engage in discussions for the next round of financing with potential investors, which may become its last private placement before entering the Hong Kong capital market.Market participants believe that if the financing plan proceeds smoothly, Dark Side of the Moon could initiate the process for a Hong Kong stock listing as early as this year. One of the key driving factors for this valuation increase is the company's recent release of the new generation large model Kimi K3. It is reported that Kimi K3 has a parameter scale of 28 trillion, supporting a context window of millions of tokens, making it one of the largest open-source models in the world by parameter scale. After the model was released, it quickly attracted market attention, prompting the company to adjust its new user subscription arrangements to ensure the user experience for existing customers.As the competition in generative AI enters a phase of comparison in computing power, user scale, and commercialization capabilities, large model companies are accelerating their search for capital support. Dark Side of the Moon's financing plan also reflects the market's ongoing interest in leading AI foundational model companies. However, the $50 billion valuation target also implies higher commercialization requirements. In the future, investors will focus on Dark Side of the Moon's revenue growth, control of computing costs, and whether the Kimi series models can form a stable business model. If the financing and listing plans proceed smoothly, Dark Side of the Moon may become an important case of capitalization for Chinese AI large model companies.

According to Gate Ventures' latest weekly report, influenced by the escalation of geopolitical risks and changes in the AI competitive landscape, all three major U.S. stock indices fell last week, energy prices rose significantly, and the trends of safe-haven assets like gold and U.S. Treasuries diverged. The cryptocurrency market continued its structural trend, with Bitcoin and Ethereum rising by 1.5% and 3.6%, respectively, while both spot BTC and ETH ETFs maintained net inflows.In terms of industry development, regulation and real-world applications continued to be the focus this week. Japanese convenience store giant Lawson, in collaboration with Netstars, is advancing a stablecoin payment pilot, further promoting the use of stablecoins in everyday consumption scenarios; South Korea plans to officially incorporate digital assets into its national asset management framework and explore the tokenization of government bonds and state-owned assets, with the construction of RWA infrastructure continuing to accelerate. In Europe, after the transition period of MiCA ended, the total number of licensed institutions increased to 294, although the number of new licenses has slowed down, institutional participation remains strong.In terms of investment and financing, the cryptocurrency industry recorded a total of 16 financing events last week, highly concentrated in the infrastructure sector: among them, Alpaca completed a $135 million financing to enhance tokenized securities and AI financial infrastructure; Flex completed a $70 million financing to further expand its stablecoin cross-border payment network, continuously confirming the capital market's long-term optimism towards digital financial infrastructure. Gate Ventures believes that as the global regulatory framework gradually improves and the integration of traditional finance and blockchain deepens, the digital asset ecosystem is expected to enter a more mature and diverse development stage.

Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) latest forecast shows that by 2035, electricity consumption by data centers in the United States will account for about 20% of the nation's total electricity consumption, a significant increase from the current level of about 5.9%. The agency has raised its forecast for data center electricity demand in 2035 to 106 GW, which is 36% higher than the 78 GW predicted in April this year. Currently, the operating capacity of data centers in the U.S. is about 40 GW, accounting for approximately 3.5%-4% of the national electricity demand, while under BNEF's baseline scenario, this proportion is expected to reach 8.6% by 2035. The high-growth model from the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) indicates that if the combined effects of cryptocurrency mining and AI computing power are taken into account, the upper limit of this proportion also points to 20%.In response to the explosive growth in AI computing power demand, Bitcoin mining companies are actively transforming. Companies like Core Scientific and Riot Platforms have partnered with tech giants such as AWS and Google to convert their existing mining sites into AI data centers. Currently, Bitcoin mining companies have secured about 6 GW of electricity capacity, which is expected to expand to 12 GW by 2027, with some analysts estimating that about 20% of mining companies' computing power capacity will shift towards AI workloads by then. Data from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) shows that data centers now account for about 90% of local large load applications, with many sites originally used for cryptocurrency mining being repurposed as AI computing facilities. This trend is also directly reflected in the capital markets, as Core Scientific has seen a significant rebound in its stock price after emerging from bankruptcy and partnering with AI cloud service provider CoreWeave.

Selini Capital has just requested to unstake 504,000 HYPE, worth $31.7 million. This address deployed the HIP-3 Dreamcash market.After announcing the closure of the market, Selini is unstaking the HYPE required for the deployment and maintenance of the market, having profited nearly $20 million from this "investment."

According to official news, the ENS DAO has approved the proposal to activate a new security committee, with a term of two years. The committee consists of eight members and has veto power, allowing it to cancel proposals during the waiting period after malicious proposals are passed but before execution. The committee's authority is limited to canceling transactions within the time lock and cannot access treasury funds, submit proposals, or rewrite approved proposals.The committee can only exercise its power under emergency conditions specified in its charter. ENS points out that governance itself may become an attack surface—voting rights can be borrowed to initiate attacks, proposal codes can hide malicious behavior, and credential leaks can be used to push harmful transactions. The new committee adopts a 5-of-8 multi-signature, requiring at least five members' agreement to cancel a proposal, and must seek DAO voting for extension after the two-year term.

Cryptocurrency analyst Amr Taha pointed out that the dynamics of the Bitcoin holder community have recently shown a clear divergence, with large whales continuously accumulating, while medium-sized wallets are selling off at an increasingly rapid pace. Specifically, wallets holding 1,000 to 10,000 BTC have seen a net increase of approximately 66,700 BTC over the past 60 days, nearing the level of 68,000 BTC reached on June 16.In contrast, wallets holding 100 to 1,000 BTC have a net sell-off of about 77,800 BTC, marking one of the most aggressive selling periods in the current data. Historical data shows that the behavior of wallets holding 100 to 1,000 BTC aligns with significant short-term market turning points. On April 25, this group had a net increase of over 92,000 BTC. About 10 days later, Bitcoin entered a short-term correction, ultimately declining by approximately -29%. Amr Taha believes that the continued accumulation by large holders will reduce the immediately available supply, especially during periods when smaller groups are actively distributing Bitcoin. While group data alone cannot determine future price trends, the current shift in supply towards large wallets may signal positive indications for Bitcoin in the medium term.

According to The Block, Bank of America has appointed Sonali Theisen as the head of its global digital asset platform and Kevin Milsom as the head of AI transformation to drive the development of digital asset and artificial intelligence strategies.Sonali Theisen will be responsible for the design, development, expansion, and governance of the bank's digital asset platform, while continuing to serve as the head of electronic trading and strategic investments for fixed income, foreign exchange, and commodities (FICC) business. Her focus will include promoting the integration of blockchain products into Bank of America's existing financial market infrastructure and collaborating with the digital asset transformation head Adam Dixon to advance tokenized deposits, stablecoins, digital collateral circulation, cryptocurrency trading settlement, and custody services.Kevin Milsom will be responsible for promoting the application of AI in Bank of America's global markets platform. Reports indicate that this move continues the trend of Wall Street financial institutions accelerating their layout in digital assets and AI. Previously, Vanguard had initiated the recruitment of its first head of digital assets, and Morgan Stanley appointed Amy Oldenburg earlier this year to lead digital asset strategy to promote the integration of crypto assets and asset tokenization with traditional financial infrastructure.

According to Cointelegraph, Piero Cipollone, a member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank (ECB), stated that the large-scale adoption of stablecoins could weaken the retail deposit base of commercial banks and alter the competitive landscape of the traditional banking system. Cipollone pointed out during a speech at the Italian Banking Association in Rome on Friday that digital payments are reshaping the banking industry while increasing Europe’s reliance on non-European payment infrastructures.Banks are currently facing declining payment fee revenues and loss of transaction data due to the development of mobile payment service providers. As payment tools like stablecoins and other digital assets become more widespread, commercial banks may face increased pressure from deposit outflows. Cipollone emphasized that the digital euro will help maintain the status of public money and ensure that banks continue to participate in the payment ecosystem while meeting the evolving financial needs of customers."The digital euro can both maintain the role of public funds and ensure that banks retain an important role in the payment system," Cipollone stated. This Tuesday, the European Central Bank selected 36 payment service providers to participate in a 12-month pilot project for the digital euro, including banks, fintech companies, and payment firms.The pilot program is set to launch in the second half of 2027, aiming to test the feasibility of retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) operating in the eurozone. The European Central Bank has previously stated that if relevant legislation and testing progress smoothly, the digital euro could be officially issued as early as 2029.

Celestia Labs announced that it has acquired the high-performance blockchain framework developer Sovereign Labs. The latter has been deeply engaged in the Celestia ecosystem since 2021, and its framework has provided underlying support for projects such as the cross-chain bridge Relay Protocol and the high-performance perpetual contract trading platform Bullet.After this acquisition, Celestia Labs' technical capabilities will extend from Layer 1 to the execution layer and application layer, becoming a full-stack custom blockchain development partner for enterprises. As projects like Hyperliquid, Polymarket, and Robinhood choose to build their own chains, the demand for full-stack blockchain infrastructure among enterprises is accelerating.