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According to PRNewswire, Nasdaq-listed company Canton Strategic Holdings announced that it has completed the sale of its biotechnology research and development department, Gravitas Life Sciences, to Gravitas Collective Corp. The transaction was unanimously approved by the company's board of directors and was officially completed on July 17, 2026.This sale marks the company's further transformation into an operational enterprise focused on driving the digitization of traditional financial markets around the Canton Network, promoting asset tokenization and the digitization process of financial markets, as well as financial infrastructure business.

As the second quarter earnings season for US stocks enters a phase of intensive disclosure, the performance of the AI industry chain has become the focus of market attention. Investors are particularly focused on the capital investments of tech giants in AI, the growth of cloud computing, and commercialization progress. The market's focus is gradually shifting from expectations of AI development to the ability to realize profits. Meanwhile, geopolitical risks continue to disrupt global markets, with safe-haven assets such as energy and gold drawing attention, and the demand for cross-asset allocation and risk management among investors further increasing.In response to changes in the global market structure, Gate has continuously strengthened its institutional-level infrastructure and comprehensive service capabilities. Relying on a multi-asset trading system covering stocks, indices, foreign exchange, commodities, and digital assets, it provides professional users with market insights, trade execution, and asset management support. In the second quarter of 2026, the scale of Gate's institutional OTC Loan lending increased by 43.61% year-on-year, and the scale of leveraged lending rose by 14.33% quarter-on-quarter; at the same time, the SBE market service was launched, supporting public and private data channels, and a new contract Book Ticker real-time market push capability was added, further enhancing trading efficiency and quantitative strategy execution capabilities.In the future, Gate will continue to deepen its global institutional ecosystem layout, improve its trading, liquidity, and asset management service system, and assist professional users in more efficiently responding to market changes and seizing cross-asset trading opportunities.

Pendle co-founder TN and Head of Growth Dan reviewed the developments in the first half of 2026 during the latest community meeting and announced the roadmap for the second half of the year. The team stated that in the first half, Pendle's ecosystem focused on building fixed income infrastructure, with Pendle V2 continuing to solidify its position as an on-chain fixed income protocol, while Boros made initial progress in the on-chain interest rate derivatives market.Data shows that Pendle V2 had an average daily TVL of approximately $1.3 billion in the first half of the year, with 9 out of the 11 major markets on the platform adopting real-world assets (RWA) as collateral, reflecting that institutional funds are continuously flowing into the RWA sector. Additionally, Pendle has launched on the Monad network and within less than a month became one of the top five protocols by TVL on that network, with a locked amount of approximately $150 million. In terms of protocol upgrades, Pendle has completed the migration from vePENDLE to sPENDLE, with about 36% of PENDLE currently staked, of which 93% of stakers have not yet unstaked. The protocol has also utilized revenue to repurchase approximately 2 million PENDLE and significantly reduced weekly liquidity incentives from about 90,000 to 21,000, further enhancing capital efficiency.At the same time, Pendle launched an in-app one-click Loop feature to simplify the operational process of leveraged yield strategies. Another core product, Boros, has surpassed $14 billion in cumulative trading volume within less than a year since its launch, with the number of users increasing by 50% since the beginning of the year. It has also introduced four-legged arbitrage strategies, acceptance of block trades, and a funding rate data dashboard to meet professional trading needs. Looking ahead to the second half of 2026, Pendle will focus on advancing curation infrastructure, allowing external teams to create PT/YT markets, and promoting PT assets as collateral for lending protocols; at the same time, it will collaborate with partners like Morpho to launch Pendle-branded yield vaults, expanding distribution channels for fixed income products. In terms of institutional business, the team is working with several RWA issuers in New York, planning to introduce tokenized ETFs, single bonds, and other on-chain yield products to Pendle, creating a platform for institutional RWA yield discovery and distribution. Boros will shift its strategic focus to cross-exchange funding rate arbitrage, prioritizing services for institutional arbitrageurs, and plans to launch a peer-to-peer acceptance market, funding rate visualization tools, and one-click strategy products for ordinary users, further improving the on-chain interest rate derivatives ecosystem.

According to official social media news, Huobi HTX will hold a themed debate titled "The Life and Death of Privacy and Regulation: Will Privacy Coins Eventually Be Eliminated, or Will They Experience a Dark Explosion?" today at 8 PM. At that time, representatives from the affirmative side, including Yi Ge, Dog Treasure, Draco, and Qiang Ge, will engage in a heated exchange with representatives from the opposing side, DaDa, Sasaki Hoshino, Volcano Brother, and FomoDao, focusing on hot topics such as the future development of privacy coins, regulatory pressure, technological value, and market demand.

According to Jinshi reports, Helaba analysts stated that the escalating situation in the Arabian Gulf region and rising energy prices have raised concerns among central bank officials. The European Central Bank will announce its monetary policy decision later today, and analysts pointed out that there are currently no clear signs indicating that the European Central Bank is about to raise interest rates. The money market expects the European Central Bank to raise interest rates by 21 basis points in September, and it is anticipated that the wording of the statement will not undergo significant changes.

According to Edaily, the South Korean government will hold a forum hosted by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance Choi Sang-mok to officially launch the legislative discussion on the "Basic Law on Digital Assets (Phase Two)," focusing on the regulation of stablecoins. This forum is the first stablecoin legislative forum organized and hosted by the government. The South Korean government and the ruling Democratic Party plan to push for the passage of the bill within this year.In the economic growth strategy announced on July 14, 2026, the authorities stated that they plan to advance the legislation of the "Basic Law on Digital Assets" in the second half of the year, segment the digital asset industry, establish a regulatory framework for business conduct, and lay a legal foundation for the regulation of stablecoins.

This week, the focus of the U.S. stock market will shift to the second-quarter earnings reports of tech giants such as Alphabet, Tesla, and Intel, while also paying attention to leading indicators, initial jobless claims, and PMI preliminary values. The market will primarily examine AI capital expenditures, consumer resilience, and interest rate expectations. Key events include: on Monday, the release of leading indicators and DPZ's earnings report; on Tuesday, attention to earnings reports from GM, SCHW, and others; on Wednesday, GOOGL and TSLA will release their earnings reports; on Thursday, initial jobless claims data will be released, along with INTC's earnings report; on Friday, PMI preliminary values and new home sales data will be announced.WEEX Labs believes that this week, AI infrastructure, semiconductors, EVs, and the financial sector may become the main directions of market volatility. Investors need to focus on corporate earnings guidance and the signals released by employment data, managing their positions rationally.

Base announced that Cobalt will be launched in September, with key features including Sponsorship, Batch Calls, and Session Keys.Among them, Sponsorship allows applications to sponsor transaction fees for users, achieving free Gas; Batch Calls support bundling multiple transactions into one, reducing operational steps; Session Keys allow users to authorize applications to sign transactions on their behalf within a specific scope, reducing repeated authorizations.

Crypto journalist Eleanor Terrett posted on the X platform that Patrick Witt, the Executive Director of the White House Cryptocurrency Council, stated that this week will be a "critical week" in the advancement of the U.S. CLARITY Act. As the crypto industry prepares to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the GENIUS Act officially becoming law, the construction of the U.S. digital asset regulatory framework has once again become a focal point for the market.Patrick Witt mentioned that the current U.S. crypto policy is at an important stage, and the advancement of the CLARITY Act will have significant implications for the market structure of digital assets, the division of regulatory responsibilities, and the future development direction of the industry.Previously, the CLARITY Act was regarded as one of the important legislations for establishing comprehensive regulatory rules for the U.S. crypto market, aiming to clarify the classification of digital assets, the authority of regulatory agencies, and the compliance requirements for market participants.Market participants believe that if the bill makes substantial progress, it could further enhance regulatory certainty for the U.S. crypto industry and impact the future strategies of exchanges, stablecoin issuers, and blockchain companies.

According to a report by Reuters on July 13, the South Korean government announced plans to draft a budget expenditure for the fiscal year 2027, which will reach a historic high of over 800 trillion won (approximately 530.97 billion USD). The expansion of this budget scale is mainly attributed to strong tax revenue growth brought about by the prosperity of the AI chip industry.The South Korean government stated that the funding for the budget will rely on increased tax revenue and the restructuring of existing expenditure items amounting to about 50 trillion won. In terms of fund allocation, the three major "giant projects"—chips, AI data centers, and physical AI—will receive the highest financial priority.In addition, South Korean President Lee Jae-myung emphasized that this is a critical period for determining global AI dominance. To this end, South Korea plans to establish a "Future Response Fund" as a strategic investment platform, which will specifically invest excess tax revenue in four key areas: youth, growth engines, regional development, and talent cultivation, to ensure that corporate investments proceed as planned.

According to Jinshi News, Deutsche Bank stated that Federal Reserve officials will speak intensively next week, focusing on their interpretation of the June CPI data and potential interest rate hike tendencies.Waller will give a speech on Monday, Chair Waller will testify on Tuesday and Wednesday, and several officials will deliver outlook speeches on Friday. Waller is expected to reiterate recent statements, while Waller's speech will be closely monitored for signals of his policy inclination.

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 Jinshi reports, the minutes of the Federal Reserve's June meeting focused on several key points, including whether the outlook on the interest rate path remains hawkish, as well as views on forward guidance, the balance sheet, and other issues. In addition, the minutes also mentioned the impact of inflation, employment, and the situation in the Middle East, noting that there are lags due to the decline in oil prices and the cooling of market inflation expectations since the last meeting.

Jack Yi stated that the weekly level of Bitcoin is still in a downtrend, and in the short term, attention should be paid to whether it can effectively break through 68,000 USD.He believes that only by strongly standing above 68,000 USD can a more significant reversal in the market occur; if the breakout fails, the price may once again test the bottom, and there is a risk of falling below 47,000 USD that needs to be monitored.

According to a report by Sing Tao Daily, the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Professionals Association stated that after a meeting with representatives from the regulatory authorities, including Deputy Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Chen Haolian and Executive Director of the Securities and Futures Commission's Intermediaries Division Ye Zhiheng, the Securities and Futures Commission has committed to advancing measures such as the separation of the "Virtual Asset Platform Practitioners Examination" (CVAP) exam and curriculum, optimizing review materials, and reducing assessment fees.The association will follow up on the relevant timeline and continue to communicate with the Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau and the Securities and Futures Commission on practical issues such as self-custody operation guidelines for private equity funds, the boundaries of technology services and regulated activities, and the VA Payment regulatory framework.

EthLabs founder Barnabé Monnot (barnabé.eth) released the Week 2 update, summarizing the team's latest progress in the launch and financing phase as well as the direction of ecological discussions. In terms of interoperability (Interop), the team stated that they are enhancing confidence in asynchronous interoperability based on zero-knowledge proofs (zk), believing this will help build safer cross-chain bridges and improve the native distribution capabilities of assets in Ethereum's multi-layer network.Currently, some cross-chain paths still experience delays, especially in the L2 → L1 direction; in this context, the intents mechanism can serve as a transitional solution, while sufficient L1 liquidity also helps match cross-chain executors (solvers). At the same time, the L1 → L2 path is expected to significantly reduce confirmation delays through the Fast Confirmation Rule (FCR), with clients already beginning to integrate this mechanism.In terms of ecological discussions, PropAMMs (Proposal-based AMM) have become a recent focus for multiple teams and researchers, with the core being the potential optimization space between L1 execution efficiency and transaction building (block building). Meanwhile, ENS is emphasized as a key infrastructure for Ethereum, and the team is continuously communicating with relevant stakeholders to advance its development direction. Regarding team building, Ethlabs has currently received over 300 applications, processed about 20%, with a short-term goal of expanding to around 10 people and a mid-term goal of expanding to about 20 people, focusing on recruiting talents with engineering capabilities and domain expertise.In terms of financing, Ethlabs stated that the current financing is nearing completion and has received early support from BitMNR, Sharplink, and Ethereum Joseph, planning to bring in 1-2 core investors before entering the next phase.