Cryptopolitan

Circle (NYSE: CRCL) has announced that it has acquired fundamental assets from IBM’s (NYSE: IBM) blockchain portfolio, a purchase the issuer of USDC says makes it the biggest holder of blockchain patents in the United States.
The portfolio comes with over 680 patent families and close to 1,000 issued patents worldwide, as in Circle’s press release.
Beyond core blockchain technology, the patents touch banking, financial services, insurance, enterprise infrastructure, supply-chain verification, and secure cloud operations.
Circle did not disclose the cost of the acquisition. Also, it is not yet disclosed if IBM kept any licensing rights.
Circle’s general counsel and corporate secretary, Sarah Wilson, who mentioned in a statement that IBM has been a pioneer in technological innovation, stated that intellectual property is critical to advancing their “mission and expanding adoption of on-chain infrastructure.”
Where will Circle be applying the patents?
Circle stated that the IP will back its existing suite, which includes USDC, the Circle Payments Network, and Arc, the company’s enterprise blockchain. It also named financial tools built for AI agents, an area Circle has pushed through its Agent Stack products. The two companies also added that they plan to look at further commercial deals together.
The acquisition reshuffles a small league table. IBM ranked among the top US blockchain patent holders before the sale. A December 2025 study by patent analytics firm PatSnap put IBM at 790 patents, level with Advanced New Technologies and Bank of America. The latest acquisition of most of IBM’s patents pushes Circle past its rivals.
Circle received its first patent, covering parallel blockchain data processing, in December 2023 and had earlier joined the LOT Network, a group that shields members from patent-assertion firms.
How is the market reacting to Circle’s acquisition of IBM’s blockchain portfolio?
Investors nudged both stocks up in premarket trading. Circle shares rose 2.5%, with IBM up 1.6%.
The bump lands against a rough year for Circle stock. Yahoo Finance reported CRCL down 66% over the trailing 12 months to $62.36, while IBM had slipped 18% to $214.19 on July 27. Circle’s slide follows a turbulent 2025 in which the stock swung from roughly $81 to a $293 peak before giving most of it back.
Why the timing lines up
The patent deal fits a run of moves that push Circle further into regulated finance. On July 10, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency granted final approval for Circle to set up a national trust bank, operating as Circle National Trust, which will offer custody for digital assets.
In May, Circle raised $222 million selling Arc tokens ahead of that blockchain’s launch, landing a $3 billion network valuation.
Owning IBM’s patents gives Circle a defensive and offensive asset as it competes for the infrastructure layer beneath stablecoin payments.
The smartest crypto minds already read our newsletter. Want in? Join them.

China’s Ministry of Commerce has told the United States to stop threatening to impose sanctions on Chinese artificial intelligence companies.
The ministry has warned that it will take “all necessary measures” to defend its interests if Washington acts against them.
Why did the U.S. sanction China’s AI?
A spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Commerce said the continuous sanction threats from the United States lack any factual or legal grounding and amount to what China calls “AI hegemony.”
Senior U.S. officials reportedly want to investigate Chinese labs over the alleged “distillation” of advanced American models and might sanction them on claims of intellectual-property theft.
The same spokesperson argues that several of the Chinese models shipped at roughly the same time as leading U.S. systems and already rank among the best in certain areas, including front-end coding. Innovation, the spokesperson added, belongs to no single country.
China’s sharpest point is that many U.S. AI firms have distilled Chinese models during research and training, according to the Ministry of Commerce. The ministry also noted that close to 200 U.S. startups have asked their own government not to cut off access to Chinese open-source models, arguing a cutoff would blunt their competitiveness, as Cryptopolitan reported.
A government spokesperson also previously dismissed the theft allegations, calling them an unfounded “smear” rooted in prejudice.
Beijing closed by suggesting both countries honor a consensus reached by the two nations’ leaders.
Why is the money moving to Chinese models?
Cryptopolitan reported that Chinese models now account for 46.4% of routed token traffic on OpenRouter, a platform that lets developers swap between systems, against 35.7% for US-built models. DeepSeek alone contributes 17.6% of that total as of July 2026. A Hugging Face study published March 16, 2026, found Chinese open-source models made up 41% of all open-source model downloads.
The reasons for this massive adoption of Chinese technology are that its compute runs far cheaper, and the U.S. export limits that were imposed earlier in 2026 on frontier models such as Anthropic’s Claude Mythos 5 and Fable 5 created openings that foreign systems filled.
Following Moonshot AI’s launch of Kimi K3 and developers’ claims that the model’s performance is close to Anthropic’s Fable and OpenAI’s ChatGPT, offered at a far lower price, the U.S. has been considering new measures against Chinese technology.
OpenAI’s most recent valuation stood at $852 billion and Anthropic’s at $965 billion, against a reported roughly $30 billion for Moonshot.
Cryptopolitan reported July 20 that the U.S. is likely to impose new procurement rules, renew its threats to add Chinese labs to the Commerce Department’s Entity List, and apply public pressure on American companies that use Chinese models. The Entity List already restricts hundreds of Chinese firms from buying U.S. goods without a license.
If you're reading this, you’re already ahead. Stay there with our newsletter.

Emorya has launched its AI Health Module inside the live app, marking a major product update for the Web3 health and fitness platform as it continues to move beyond its original move-to-earn foundation.
The new module brings AI-powered food scanning into the Emorya app, allowing users to scan meals, analyze what they eat and add calorie intake data directly into their daily health tracking. The feature is now connected to the app’s existing calorie burn system, creating a more complete calorie balance experience where users can compare what they consume against what they burn through activity.
Why Emorya is launching its AI Health Module
This is an important step for Emorya because it changes the app from a movement-focused rewards platform into a broader health tracking product. Instead of only recording activity, the app can now begin to connect both sides of the daily health equation.
Users can see calories burned, calories consumed, macronutrient targets and body progress inside one interface, supported by a visual human-body system designed to make the information easier to understand.
Inside the updated experience, users are shown their daily calorie burn progress alongside their calorie intake target. The app also displays macronutrient categories including protein, carbohydrates and fats, while allowing users to update their weight and scan food directly from the same screen. This gives the product a clearer daily use case and brings Emorya closer to the type of health app experience mainstream users already understand.
Emorya is expanding its product foundation
The launch follows a wider rebuild of the Emorya app, which has included a new user interface, improved user experience, better speed, stronger analytics and a more structured product foundation. These updates give the app a cleaner base for the AI module and help move the platform towards a more accessible consumer experience.
For Web3 health apps, that accessibility is becoming increasingly important. Early move-to-earn products often placed the reward mechanism at the center of the user journey, which appealed to crypto-native users but did not always create a simple experience for broader audiences.
Emorya’s latest update points in a different direction by putting health utility first and allowing the Web3 reward layer to support the product from underneath.
According to Emorya CEO Oliviu Jurjica, the launch of the AI Health Module represents a major milestone in the project’s development.
“It is extremely exciting to see Emorya reach this stage. In the beginning, the app was much simpler, focused mainly on movement tracking and rewarding users for activity. That foundation was important, but the vision was always much bigger.
Over the last phase of development, we have rebuilt the app with a new UI, improved UX, better speed, stronger analytics and more control across the ecosystem. Now, with the AI module approved and live in the app, users can scan their food, analyse what they eat, track calorie intake and compare it live against what they burn through a visual human-body system inside the app.
This changes what Emorya is. It is no longer just a crypto project or a simple move-to-earn app. It is becoming a bridge between Web2 usability, real health utility and Web3 rewards. We are seeing blockchain technology become more abstracted into everyday products, and that gives Emorya a very strong position because the Web3 foundations are already built into the app. As users look for smarter health tools and more rewarding digital experiences, Emorya is ready for that next chapter.”
Is Emorya a health app now?
The launch also gives Emorya a clearer position in the wider health app category. Food scanning, calorie tracking and activity monitoring are already familiar behaviors for many users, but Emorya is combining them with a reward-based model that was built into the platform from the beginning. That gives the app a different route into the market, where users can interact with a familiar health product while also accessing the added value of Web3 participation.
The most important part of the update is that the experience does not need to feel technical. A user does not have to understand blockchain infrastructure to see the benefit of scanning food, checking calorie intake, comparing it with activity and following progress over time.
That is where Emorya’s mainstream potential becomes more practical. The product can lead with health, fitness and daily habit tracking, while the Web3 layer remains part of the underlying value structure.
With the AI Health Module now live, Emorya has moved into a new phase of product development. The app is no longer only about tracking movement and rewarding activity. It now gives users a more complete way to monitor calories consumed, calories burned and nutrition data in one place, supported by a redesigned interface and a clearer health-focused user journey.
For Emorya, the launch is a product milestone as well as a positioning shift. It gives the project a stronger foundation in the mainstream health app category, while maintaining the Web3 reward structure that made the platform different from the start.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has pushed back against calls for crypto founders to pivot to AI.
In a post on Sunday, Armstrong took aim directly at the years-old slogan “If you’re in crypto, pivot to AI,” which seems to have become popular in recent months, amid the growth of AI.
“It’s zero sum, scarcity thinking,” he wrote, saying crypto is a general-purpose technology.
"If you're in crypto, pivot to AI."
I used to hear versions of this, and it's the wrong way to think about the world. It's zero sum, scarcity thinking.
Crypto is a general purpose technology. It's infrastructure, the same way electricity or the internet is infrastructure. It…
— Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) July 26, 2026
Coinbase CEO says crypto will power agentic payments
Armstrong put crypto in the same category as electricity and the internet, saying it’s an infrastructure that doesn’t compete with AI, but rather underpins it.​
“AI being a megatrend takes nothing away from crypto. If anything, it makes crypto more important,” said Coinbase CEO.
He noted that the opportunity lies in crypto being a real-time programmable money, a new sector coined as “Agentic Finance (AiFi).”
According to Armstrong, AI agents will eventually need their own financial infrastructure to trade, hold funds, and pay for items, among other things. He believes crypto will power most of all agentic payments.
“They can’t open a bank account, they can’t wait three days for a wire, they reside in one country,” Armstrong argued. “They need real time programmable money (and that’s crypto).”
Bitcoin miners are already jumping ship to AI
The crypto industry already sees a trend of participants shifting focus to AI, especially in the mining sector.
Core Scientific, CleanSpark, and DMG Blockchain Solutions, among others, have rented out their facilities to serve clients, including Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and other hyperscalers chasing more computing capacity.
Adam Sullivan, the Chief Executive at Core Scientific, said: “The opportunity for miners to convert to AI is one of the greatest opportunities I could possibly imagine.”
In fact, the company plans to stop all mining operations by 2028, as Cryptopolitan reported in December.
More recently, in July, Grayscale announced it would rename the Grayscale Bitcoin Miners ETF ($MNRS) to the Grayscale AI Compute ETF, effective September 15. The fund will now target the AI and high-performance computing sector.
The smartest crypto minds already read our newsletter. Want in? Join them.

Strategy Inc. (MSTR) raised its cash reserve by $525 million over the past week.
The company filed Form 8-K on Monday, reporting it sold 5.4 million MSTR shares last week for $544.5 million. In that period, it also repurchased 288,930 shares of its STRC preferred stock for $25 million.
Michael Saylor, the company’s executive chairman, confirmed the news, writing on X that Strategy has now achieved 2.1 years of coverage for dividend and interest payments.
As of the filing, Strategy has a total of $3.75 billion in its USD Reserve.
Saylor announced the update a day early, as Cryptopolitan reported. On Sunday, he posted the same tracker chart with the comment “We’re gonna need another color”, a behavior that had in the past consistently been followed by a disclosure on Monday regarding a coin purchase.
We’re gonna need another color. pic.twitter.com/AqZO5UeXDx
— Michael Saylor (@saylor) July 26, 2026
But this time, the follow-up was a reserve building; Strategy failed to buy any Bitcoins during the week, which meant it was the fifth week in a row.
The company holds a total of 843,775 BTC, worth $54 billion, sitting on paper losses of more than $8 billion.
Critic Peter Schiff argues Strategy should have sold BTC
Long-time Bitcoin and Strategy Peter Schiff said that selling MSTR was a wrong move, arguing that Strategy should have sold BTC instead of the “discounted MSTR shares.”
“So, another week when you chose to destroy common shareholder value by selling discounted MSTR shares (thereby reducing Bitcoin per share) to raise cash and buy back STRC rather than sell Bitcoin,” Schiff posted.
He argued that the common stock sell-offs leave investors with no legitimate reason to own MSTR.
Strategy will report its Q2 earnings results on Thursday, July 30th. The company’s earnings are expected to increase by 6.40%, reaching $121.88 million.
MSTR currently trades at $97.46, up 6.44% in the day, following the news.
MSTR price chart. Source: Yahoo Finance.
The consensus price target for MSTR is around the $360 price mark, which implies an upside potential of over 290%.
The smartest crypto minds already read our newsletter. Want in? Join them.

South Korea’s KOSPI index closed up roughly 1% for the day on Monday, July 27, as markets reacted to a wave of commitments from the government and private investors buying into the Asian country’s push to claim a stake in regional and global semiconductor, AI and robotics relevance.
The positive wave that started with Seoul’s $1 trillion plan for semiconductors, AI data centers, and robotics grew bigger this week as KB Financial Group rolled out its own 150 billion won venture fund backing for the sector.
By the time the markets closed for the day, the conviction pushed the benchmark to 6,755.75, up from its 6,690.62 close the week before on Friday, according to Google Finance data.
Where is KB Financial investing its 150 billion won bet on Korean tech?
The 150 billion won (roughly $100 million) KB Kookmin Growth Unicorn Scale-up Fund, revealed on July 27, plans to support about six South Korean firms in advanced fields such as AI, semiconductors, secondary batteries, aerospace, mobility, robotics, and bio.
The plan was waved through at the group’s fourth Productive Finance Council on July 24, with the funds coming from affiliate capital and run through KB Securities’ PE Growth Investment Division.
KB is also shaking up the process to decide which companies will get a slice of the $100 million its council approved. For example, the group said that future value, based on firms’ adoption of advanced technology, will rank higher than financial statements in its criteria for testing candidates’ compatibility with its fund.
“For early-growth-stage companies that will be eligible for support from the Unicorn Scale-up Fund, it is difficult to judge growth potential based on financial statements alone,” a KB Financial Group official was quoted in local media.
The group also said it is setting up an “Advanced Strategic Industry Study Forum” to train its screening staff. The same official continued that the goal is “to cultivate screening personnel with the expertise and foresight to look ahead to the future development potential of industries and technologies.”
The advanced tech push comes from the top of the Lee government
The Lee Jae Myung administration has been a major catalyst for the funds coming into the country. The latest headline came after the South Korean president lobbied executives from six Silicon Valley venture firms to consider Korean startups in their investment meetings during a July 25 San Francisco stopover that punctuated his trip to Brazil.
Lee pitched the pairing of US venture capital with Korean tech and manufacturing capacity as the formula for building “the next-generation Samsungs, Hyundais, SKs, Navers.”
The National Pension Service, which holds 1,690 trillion won in assets, signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on investment cooperation at the end of the meeting. The six-firm group, which includes Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, and General Catalyst, collectively manages a combined $313 billion.
Before the 150 billion won KB fund and Lee’s San Fransciso meeting, the Financial Services Commission and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism announced the “K-culture Value-up Fund” on July 22. The ministry will invest in K-culture firms, AI content and technology. Of the total, 100 billion won is earmarked for AI and intellectual property, and 50 billion won for content.
The 150 billion won will be contributed by the FSC, which is putting 50 billion won by itself, 30 billion won each from the Korea Development Bank and the Advanced Strategic Industry Fund, with private investors expected to add more than 70 billion won.
The FSC called it the first time its Public Growth Fund has scaled up by pairing with a ministry’s own policy money.
South Korea is moving on from June’s selloff
The activity follows a rough stretch for Korean equities. Cryptopolitan previously reported that the KOSPI fell nearly 10% on June 23, with Samsung Electronics down 12.3% and SK Hynix off 12.5% as foreign investors rotated out of AI trades.
That correction landed on a market heavily tilted toward chipmakers, and it came shortly before Seoul unveiled a roughly $1 trillion plan for semiconductors, AI data centers, and robotics anchored by Samsung and SK Hynix. Monday’s higher close, alongside the new private funding, suggests the sector’s backers are still committing money rather than retreating.
If you're reading this, you’re already ahead. Stay there with our newsletter.

Decentralized cloud storage provider Storj Labs has become the latest in crypto to file for bankruptcy, over what the company described as “legacy obligations.”
Storj voluntarily filed for a Chapter 11 restructuring on July 26th at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of West Virginia.
Kaloyan Raev, Director of Engineering at Storj Labs, said filing a Chapter 11 was “a decisive, positive step” toward clearing certain legacy debts holding back the company.
“What holds it back are legacy obligations from an earlier chapter,” Raev said. “This process lets us resolve them in an orderly way and come out the other side with a clean foundation.”
Storj to cut off non-essential operations
Storj said it will dispose of previous acquisitions and non-essential operations as part of the Chapter 11 restructuring.
The filing comes roughly nine months after Storj was acquired by Inveniam, becoming a subsidiary of the latter.
The company runs a decentralized cloud storage network, where it incentivizes companies and individuals to rent out spare hard-drive space instead of building and running its own data centers.
Storj plans to focus on its core business going forward, which Raev says “is strong and right-sized.” It said the network will continue to operate normally and meet its obligations without any interruptions in service to customers throughout the restructuring process.
At the time of writing, STORJ token was down 17.9% over the last 24 hours, trading at $0.06044, amid the news.
Crypto sees more operation wind-downs
Storj’s filing follows Movement Labs, which also declared bankruptcy on July 15, Cryptopolitan reported.
Movement Labs has been embroiled in a controversy over a market-making deal that saw the company hand over 5% of MOVE token supply to an obscure market maker known as Rentech.
Rentech dumped the entire 5% supply, about 66 million MOVE, shortly after the token launched, profiting $38 million. MOVE never recovered from the incident.
Several crypto businesses have been forced to close amid the bear market this year.
As of July 24th, 95 projects have shut down so far in 2026, with the recent ones being SecondFi, BitMEX, and BitMart, among others.
If you're reading this, you’re already ahead. Stay there with our newsletter.

Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) is using the fallout from OpenAI’s attack on Hugging Face to launch an AI security campaign in the tech industry built around open models.
On Monday, the chipmaker joined Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Palantir (NASDAQ: PLTR), SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX), and dozens of US and European companies to create the Open Secure AI Alliance, promising to create a security software that users can download, inspect, alter, and run.
Details of the Hugging Face breach triggered the launch. Its team could not use leading US frontier models because their safety controls treated attackers and defenders alike. Hugging Face instead ran a Chinese open-weight model on its own hardware.
As Cryptopolitan previously reported, that system did not block the same defensive actions. The case surfaced while US lawmakers considered limits on Chinese AI products, including advanced open-weight models.
Nvidia and its partners give cyber defenders control over open AI tools
Open-weight models allow users to read and modify system files locally. Anthropic and OpenAI’s closed services are still housed on corporate-owned platforms, so customers are unable to host, modify, or thoroughly inspect those products. During the attack, Hugging Face was harmed by that very restriction.
“The Open Secure AI Alliance will work to remediate and disclose vulnerabilities using open technologies,” Nvidia said. “The recent Hugging Face security incident delivered a clear reminder: cyber defenders need open, frontier agentic systems for self-defense.”
Members of the alliance plan to share fixes created with open technology and also publish security vulnerabilities. Additionally, they want defenders to operate AI agents within private networks and customize the software to each threat without having to wait for a third-party source.
Nvidia referred to the OpenAI and Hugging Face incident as a “practical truth.” Last week, a letter was issued to lawmakers by Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META), Palantir, and over 20 other companies. It requested that authorities refrain from imposing “premature restrictions” on open-weight models that would “stifle competition or push innovation overseas.”
As you know, right now Chinese developers provide virtually all of the powerful downloaded models, which raises the urgency of stricter US regulations.
Nvidia is making infrastructure commitments in addition to the security project. It had already inked letters of intent for projects worth more than $500 billion with the SK Group of South Korea. Future memory supply, AI factories, and collaborative development of new memory technology are all guaranteed under the contract.
Nvidia backs major computing projects across South Korea and southern Ohio
In South Korea, SK Telecom (KRX: 017670) wants to build a 2-gigawatt AI cloud. They plan to use SK Hynix (KRX: 000660) HBM4 memory, Vera Rubin computing system, and Nvidia’s DSX platform. In first half of 2027, the first facility is projected to open.
Nvidia’s DSX full-stack design, which combines accelerated processors, integrated systems, software, networking, and partner equipment, will be used in the plants too. As demand for AI grows throughout Asia-Pacific, particularly in South Korea, companies want to reduce energy consumption and processing expenses.
Nvidia is also planning to offer a cash guarantee of around $250 billion for an OpenAI data center facility in southern Ohio. According to the Wall Street Journal, the project’s total value might approach $500 billion after all of the chips are counted. The location would provide 10 gigawatts, making it the largest announced data center project.
A SoftBank energy subsidiary is building the campus. Nvidia’s backing may enable SoftBank Group (TYO: 9984) to borrow on easier terms. OpenAI is private, unprofitable, and has no investment-grade credit rating, and so it has spent multiple weeks in advanced negotiations to lease the property.
OpenAI has shown the strongest interest. Anthropic, Microsoft, and Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) have also discussed the site with Howard Lutnick. A signed lease would make OpenAI a direct data center tenant for the first time. It currently rents most computing capacity from Microsoft, Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), and Oracle (NYSE: ORCL).
OpenAI recently raised planned computing spending through 2030 to about $750 billion, from roughly $600 billion earlier this year.
Nvidia is currently worth about $5 trillion and wants larger long-term chip orders. Its latest annual report warned that data center financing could reduce near-term cash flow and increase exposure to customer credit risk.
Don’t just read crypto news. Understand it. Subscribe to our newsletter. It's free.

Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, has revealed that a large share of the traders using its newest tokenized stock product had never engaged with equities on the exchange before.
The exchange has spent the past several months building out three separate routes into traditional market exposures, launching pre-IPO exposure through perpetual futures, direct access to US-listed stocks, and bStocks, its tokenized on-chain securities.
One of the standout figures is that four in ten bStocks users had their first-ever exposure via Binance’s TradFi via the product.
Why are new Binance users choosing the tokenized version first?
Binance’s figures show that 41.5% of bStocks traders had not previously used perpetual futures or direct stock trading on the platform, meaning the token was their first exposure to equities on Binance at all.
According to the platform, bStock listings grew from 5 to 36 within a month, and combined market capitalization across the tokens reportedly passed $300 million over the same period.
Binance also says that the ease of use on the platform has made it easy for users to make certain moves that may require more steps on traditional platforms. It used SPCX, a recent pre-IPO listing of SpaceX stock on the platform, as a case study, stating that 8.6% of the users who traded its pre-IPO perpetual contract went on to buy the bStock version, as opposed to 0.6% who moved into the direct stock.
What happens once conventional markets close?
Traditional US equities trade on a 24/5 schedule. bStocks trades around the clock every day, and Binance said that difference shows up directly in its volume data.
During regular US market hours, bStocks and direct stocks split equity-linked volume on Binance almost evenly, with bStocks at 48%. However, it goes up to 58% once the market closes for the day.
The exchange says that reasons for this go beyond extended hours. Each bStock is meant to be backed one-to-one by a share held with a regulated custodian, a claim the exchange says can be checked through its own Proof of Collateral page, and dividends are paid out automatically through a rebasing mechanism it calls the Multiplier.
Holders can also deploy bStocks in decentralized finance, supplying them to liquidity pools or using them as collateral. Binance cited PancakeSwap liquidity pairs, which show yields ranging from roughly 32% to 228%, and native credit pools offering a steadier 5% to 10%.
Instant, fee-free conversion between a bStock and its underlying share is intended to keep the two priced closely together; however, gaps can still open when conventional markets are shut and on-chain trading continues.
Binance said a sample of users generated $216 million in trades exploiting these gaps between June 11 and July 8. A small group of systematic traders accounted for most of that volume, even though most individual participants only traded once.
Does Binance’s data reflect a wider industry pattern?
Binance’s own figures suggest its products aren’t being used in isolation, as it pointed out that 58.5% of bStock users also traded perpetual futures or direct stocks in the same window, split across users combining perps and bStocks, all three products together, or direct stocks and bStocks.
Independent data shows tokenized stocks have become the largest real-world-asset (RWA) category by wallet count, with newcomers favoring tokenized equities as their entry point into the RWA market rather than as an add-on. The current distributed value tokenized stocks market is $1.88 billion, with a monthly transfer volume of over $7.6 billion per rwa.xyz data.
Several exchanges have expanded tokenized equity offerings into new markets this year, and clearing infrastructure providers like the DTCC have begun testing tokenized securities settlement, while major exchanges such as Nasdaq and the NYSE have launched their own tokenization initiatives.
Set against that backdrop, Binance’s numbers look less like an isolated marketing claim and more like a snapshot of a shift already underway across the industry.

Mitsubishi has now joined a growing list of automakers around the world pushing to start making their own robots.
The Japanese automaker is teaming with Tokyo-based Highlanders Inc. to mass-produce humanoid robots, according to a Sunday report by The Mainichi.
Highlanders, a startup that spun out of the University of Tokyo in 2023, builds general-purpose humanoid and quadruped robots using domestically sourced parts.
“There is no company (in Japan) that can compete with global companies in the realm of physical AI,” said Highlanders CEO Hiroya Masuoka. “We want to take a step forward.”
Mitsubishi targets making 1,000 robots by 2027
Mitsubishi intends to leverage its manufacturing expertise in this alliance, with a target to hit a production capacity of 1,000 humanoids per month before the end of 2027, according to the report.
The company mentioned labor shortages as one reason behind the move. It also plans to deploy humanoid robots on an engine manufacturing line at its factory in Kyoto, Japan.
“In Japan, we are the ‘leadoff hitter’ in mass producing’ humanoid robots, said Mitsubishi Motors CEO Takao Kato.
The companies signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for the partnership earlier this month.
Highlanders agreed to work with Mitsubishi to develop robots for use in the automaker’s facilities. In turn, Mitsubishi Motors’ Kyoto Plant will be used to mass-produce Highlanders’ robots.
The announcement revealed Mitsubishi Motors already has a stake in Highlanders, and it plans to make additional investments in the future.
Meanwhile, the deal puts a Japanese automaker into a contest that already includes Hyundai, Tesla, BYD, Xiaomi, and XPeng, all of which have moved to put walking robots on their own assembly lines.
Automakers are investing heavily in humanoids
Xiaomi is already testing humanoid robots in its car production facility. On July 15th, Cryptopolitan reported that Xiaomi’s robots hit 98% success rate, just 1% below the performance level of human workers.
The tech giant plans to deploy “a large number” of humanoid robots in its factories over the next five years.
Another Chinese automaker, XPeng, plans to launch its humanoids globally by next year, as part of its plan to become a “physical AI company.”
South Korea’s Hyundai took the acquisition route. The Korean group agreed in July to buy SoftBank’s remaining 9.65% stake in Boston Dynamics for an estimated 500 billion won, or about $338 million, Cryptopolitan reported.
Having full control of the robotics firm, Hyundai intends to deploy Boston Dynamics’ humanoid robot, Atlas, at its Metaplant America electric-vehicle complex in Georgia starting in 2028.
Don’t just read crypto news. Understand it. Subscribe to our newsletter. It's free.

If you’re a Bitget user in Canada, you’ve probably noticed something’s off lately. Since January 2026, Bitget has been rolling out restrictions for Canadian accounts. No new sign ups, no Interac or bank transfers, and a countdown on any positions you still have open.
If you’re trying to figure out what to do next, BTCC is worth considering, especially if you’re mainly a futures trader who cares about leverage and a solid safety record.
To be clear, this isn’t a “BTCC vs Bitget, who wins” kind of article. Bitget still does a lot of things well, copy trading and its huge coin selection being the obvious ones, and BTCC doesn’t try to compete on those fronts. This is really just an honest look at what BTCC offers, so if you’re a Canadian user who needs a platform you can keep actually using, you have enough to make your own call.
What Happened with Bitget in Canada
On January 12, 2026, Bitget sent a notice directly to Canadian IP addresses. Following updated guidance from the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) around stablecoin custody, Bitget ended up being geofenced out of offering new or expanded services to Canadian residents.
Here’s what that actually looks like for users:
No new Canadian KYC is being accepted as of January 2026, so new users can’t sign up at all
Interac and bank wire funding have been shut off for Canadian accounts
Existing positions are limited to “Reduce Only” orders, meaning you can close trades but not open new ones
Canadian users have been removed from Bitget Earn pools
Open positions are being force closed over a 90 day window
Withdrawals to external wallets still work, at least for now
The core issue seems to be that fully serving Canadian users would have required Bitget to register as a FINTRAC Money Services Business and go through a Pre Registration Undertaking with the OSC and CIRO. That’s a slow, expensive process that also means segregating Canadian user funds from the platform’s global operations, and it looks like Bitget chose not to go down that road, at least for now.
If you’re a Canadian Bitget user, the practical upshot is that you’re on a clock. That’s the situation this article is meant to help with.
A Quick, Honest Comparison
Before anything else, here’s a side by side look at the basics. Bitget genuinely has some advantages here too, so this table isn’t cherry picked to make BTCC look perfect.
BTCCBitgetFounded20112018Registered users12M+120M+Futures pairs400+840+Spot pairs380+840+Max leverage500x125xFutures maker fee0.025%0.02%Futures taker fee0.05%0.06%Copy tradingyesyesDemo tradingyes ($100,000 virtual)yesZero cut liquidation protectionyesyesCanadian availability (mid 2026)No restriction observedSupport Interac depositrestricted since Jan 2026
**Fees change with VIP tier and volume, so always check the current rates on each platform before trading.
The short version: BTCC is a futures focused exchange with a high leverage ceiling and a clean security history. Bitget is a broader platform with more coins. Which one fits you depends a lot on how you actually trade, but if you’re a Canadian user, the “can I even use it” question matters more than usual right now.
What You’d Actually Pay in Fees
Futures Trading
Fee typeBTCCBitgetMaker0.03%0.02%Taker0.048%0.06%
If you mostly place market orders, BTCC works out a bit cheaper. If you’re mostly placing limit orders, Bitget has the edge. Either way the difference per trade is small, it just adds up with volume.
At Different Trading Volumes (Taker Orders)
Monthly volumeBTCC (0.048%)Bitget (0.06%)Annual difference$10,000$4.8/month$6/monthabout $12/year$100,000$48/month$60/monthabout $120/year$500,000$240/month$300/monthabout $600/year
For casual trading this is basically pocket change. If you’re trading heavily, it’s worth a few hundred dollars a year, so not nothing, but not the main thing to decide on either.
VIP Tiers
BTCCBitgetVolume needed for VIP1No volume needed, just $200 deposit$5M/monthVIP1 taker fee0.045%0.04%VIP1 maker fee0.025%0.018%
BTCC’s VIP1 tier is easier to reach. Bitget’s fees end up a touch lower once you’re actually there. If VIP tiers matter to your trading, it’s worth running the numbers for your own volume.
Leverage, and What It Actually Means
BTCCBitgetBTC/USDT max leverage250x125xETH/USDT max leverage250x125xOther pairsup to 50 to 250xup to 75x
Say you’re putting up $100 margin on a BTC long:
BTCC (250x)Bitget (125x)Max position size$25,000$12,500BTC equivalent at $100K/BTC0.25 BTC0.125 BTCP/L on a 1% BTC move$250$125
The flip side of high leverage is worth spelling out clearly:
LeverageMove to liquidation$100 wiped out at250xabout 0.4%BTC $100,000 to $99,800125xabout 0.8%BTC $100,000 to $99,20050xabout 2.0%BTC $100,000 to $98,000
At 250x, a move as small as 0.4% (something BTC can easily do within an hour) can wipe out your margin. Both platforms use zero cut liquidation, so you’ll never owe more than you put in, but the margin itself can disappear fast at the higher end.
Honestly, the real benefit of a 250x ceiling isn’t that you should trade at 250x all the time. It’s more about flexibility, being able to size positions the way you want across a portfolio. If you like trading futures with real leverage room, BTCC gives you more of that. If 125x is already more than you’d use anyway, this difference won’t affect you much.
Security and Track Record
BTCCBitgetYears operating15+ (since 2011)7+ (since 2018)History of hacksnonenoneProof of Reserves147%175%Zero cut systemyesyes
BTCC’s story here is simple: no hack in 15-plus years, through a period that included Mt. Gox, FTX, and the 2025 Bybit breach, all of which made a lot of traders rethink how they pick an exchange.
Bitget’s story is a bit different. A 175% Proof of Reserves means more reserve coverage on paper than BTCC reports.
Neither one has an obvious weak spot. It really comes down to whether you’d rather trust “this platform has never had an incident” or “this platform has more of a cushion if one happens.”
Where Bitget Still Has an Edge
It wouldn’t be fair to skip this part. If a really wide coin selection matters to you, that’s genuinely an area where Bitget is stronger, and BTCC doesn’t try to match it.
BTCCBitgetFutures pairs370+840+Spot pairs370+840+Tokenized stocks/commoditiesyesnot availableStakinglimitedextensive
If you like following experienced traders instead of building your own strategy, or you want exposure to newer or smaller coins, that’s a real reason to miss Bitget. Where BTCC pulls ahead is if you also want tokenized exposure to things like stocks or gold alongside your crypto futures, all on one platform.
Is BTCC Worth Trying
If you…BTCC might work well because…Mainly trade futures and want high leverage250x ceiling with zero cut protectionCare most about a clean security history15 years, no incidentsAlso want exposure to stocks or commoditiesTokenized products alongside crypto futuresAre new to futures and want to practice first$100,000 demo accountMostly place market ordersSlightly lower taker feeNeed a platform that can still onboard you as a CanadianBitget isn’t accepting new Canadian sign ups right now
Moving Your Funds from Bitget to BTCC
If you’re a Canadian Bitget user in the reduced window, here’s roughly how the process goes:
Log into Bitget, go to Assets, then Withdraw.
Pick a coin that both platforms support for transfers. USDT is usually the simplest option, just make sure the network (like TRC20) matches on both sides.
Copy your BTCC deposit address for that coin and network exactly.
Send a small test transfer first, something like $10 to $20, before moving everything over. Getting the network wrong can mean losing funds permanently.
Once the test transfer arrives safely, move the rest and close out your Bitget position before the reduce only window ends.
Getting Started with BTCC
Sign up on the official BTCC site with your email or phone number.
Complete KYC by uploading a government ID, approval is usually quick.
Deposit funds and start trading, or try the demo account first if futures trading is new to you.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Bitget still usable in Canada? Existing users can reduce or close positions and withdraw to external wallets, but no new Canadian accounts are being accepted, and CAD funding methods are turned off. Full service hasn’t resumed as of this writing.
Is BTCC available to Canadian users? Yes. BTCC does offer service to users in Canada. They have Interac e-Transfer for Canadian users to deposit CAD.
Is higher leverage always better? Not really. It increases how efficiently you use your capital, but at 250x a move of just 0.4% can wipe out your margin. The real upside is flexibility in how you size positions, not maxing out the leverage every time.
Can I use both platforms? Outside Canada, sure, plenty of traders use BTCC for futures and Bitget for copy trading or spot. For Canadian users right now, that’s less of an option given the restrictions described above.
One Last Thing
Bitget’s restrictions in Canada aren’t a rumor or a marketing talking point, they’re a real, dated regulatory situation that puts current users on a timeline. If that’s you, and futures trading with solid leverage and a long clean safety record sounds like what you need, BTCC is worth checking out for yourself. The demo account is a good low pressure way to get a feel for it before moving real funds over.
This article is for general information only and isn’t investment advice. Please confirm current fees, leverage limits, and regulatory status directly with each platform before trading.

ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) had its long-anticipated IPO on Monday, July 27. The sale coincided with a spike of activity on Hyperliquid, as CXMT drew the attention of whales and retail traders.
The CXMT IPO was expected to become the biggest offering on the Shanghai stock exchange since 2011. As Cryptopolitan reported, the China AI stock rush was seen as a new opportunity, and was immediately taken over by crypto traders.
CXMT saw a record trading spike, as well as an inflow of crypto whales taking directional positions for one of the biggest IPOs in Mainland China. | Source: HIP-3
CXMT is already available through TradeXYZ, after the platform bought the rights to the ticker on Hyperliquid for 500 HYPE.
As of July 27, CXMT had over $45M open interest on HIP-3, with a new peak of daily volumes above $9M after the initial record spike. The day of the IPO coincided with significant selling, as both the perpetual futures contract and the stock were in price discovery mode.
CXMT surges in Shanghai trading
The chipmaker CXMT became China’s most valuable AI infrastructure firm, after surging between 470% and 530% in its Shanghai debut. The company’s total market cap is estimated at over $483B, making it the most valuable listed company in mainland China.
The stock market debut also tests the strength of the chipmaker and AI stock narrative. CXMT is a major DRAM producer, a basic component powering user electronics, as well as data centers.
The IPO proceeds are expected to go toward expanded production and additional research and development.
Beyond the business model of CXMT, the main driver for the rapid price expansion was the peak demand for shares, far exceeding the IPO offers.
The demand spilled over into on-chain trading, as Hyperliquid offered an entry point to speculating on the early price discovery. On the first day of trading, the HIP-3 market for CXMT reached 1.14% of the volumes on the Shanghai stock exchange, with a spike to $234M in the first hours of post-IPO trading.
Former BTC whale jumps into CXMT
On HIP-3, the price of CXMT ranged from over $8 to $5.99. The price range set by perpetual futures traders was closer to the actual IPO price, compared to the company’s initial target of $1.20 per share.
After the IPO, HIP-3 held 13 whale positions for CXMT, of which seven were showing bullish confidence with long positions.
The leading position is still short, with $17.87M in notional value. The leading whale has an unrealized loss of $1.24M after the price rally.
Another whale, mostly known for BTC positions, fully switched to trading CXMT. The whale still holds a $4.81M position, fluctuating between gains of $300K and small temporary losses. The whales are still waiting for the stock to choose a direction in the initial post-IPO days.
At this point, it’s unknown if any of the whales have also succeeded in gaining IPO shares directly from the company. In this case, shorting CXMT would be a hedging strategy in case the shares took a nosedive after the initial hype. This scenario would also point to Hyperliqid as a hedging tool, to be used in other upcoming high-profile IPOs.
If you're reading this, you’re already ahead. Stay there with our newsletter.

A North Korean hacking crew screens crypto wallets before it strikes. The group tricks victims into fake Zoom and Microsoft Teams calls.
UK security firm JUMPSEC released the source code analysis this week. BlueNoroff’s operation targets the people who hold private keys. It just needs one person to click the wrong prompt.
BlueNoroff screens crypto wallets before choosing who to infect
JUMPSEC was able to retrieve the kit’s true source code after its operators left JavaScript source maps exposed on live infrastructure.
The files describe a workflow that scans a target’s browser as soon as they land on the fake meeting page. JUMPSEC found that the kit looks for Ethereum connections with the EIP-6963 standard and with legacy browser techniques.
It also probes for non-EVM wallets like Solana tools. The results are pushed directly to an operator dashboard. And the person on the call never gets a prompt or warning.
The malware on Windows computers has a list of browser extension IDs for Chrome, Edge, Brave, Opera, Vivaldi, and Firefox. Hackers then use these IDs to check against known wallet extensions like MetaMask.
Attackers can check each wallet, decide which ones are worth a full break-in, and then send payloads to those targets. The lure is based on the victim’s existing trust in someone else.
Attackers take over a crypto contact’s Telegram account and send a convincing Calendly invite to a fake meeting domain. Each hijacked account leads to that contact’s own crypto contacts, who become the next round of targets.
As soon as the video call starts, the page asks for a name and webcam access. It then sends the camera feed to the attacker’s panel in the background.
A screenshot from a victim saying their Telegram account was hacked. Source: JUMPSEC.
Victims then see a screen that says “waiting for other participants.” Then the operator plays a pre-recorded video and says to the victim, “Your mic isn’t working.” After that, a fake “Zoom SDK Update” message pops up.
The face on the call isn’t real, according to JUMPSEC. Attackers stitch AI-generated headshots onto body movements captured in earlier meetings.
The fake Teams meeting page includes emoji reactions, device settings, background effects, and wallet scanning. JUMPSEC also found an incomplete Google Meet clone inside the exposed code.
Every operating system has dedicated malware payloads
On Windows, the copied ClickFix command launches a small PowerShell loader that downloads a VBScript. Then it adds a Microsoft Defender exclusion and restarts Defender to make the change permanent.
The payload collects system information and searches for wallet extensions in browsers. It also searches for Telegram Web files. And it can receive later payloads that researchers never quite recovered.
Hackers drop a fake Zoom or Teams installer on macOS while a stealer runs silently. It steals system data and Chrome master keys from Apple’s Keychain and sends them via Telegram.
Security researchers found four macOS versions from April 22 to July 15. Arctic Wolf and JUMPSEC found five phishing kit versions shipped between May 31 and July 14, with full compromise in under five minutes.
Arctic Wolf’s research identified more than 100 victims in over 20 countries, including 41% in the United States. In April, Arctic Wolf tallied more than 80 typosquatted meeting domains registered since late 2025.
About 80% of those targeted work in crypto or blockchain finance, and 45% are founders or CEOs. The timing of the attacks also corresponded with business hours in North Korea.
BlueNoroff is a subgroup of the Lazarus Group. Cryptopolitan reported earlier that Lazarus targeted banks and crypto firms with a fileless RemotePE trojan, using similar Telegram and fake-scheduler lures.

If you're reading this, you’re already ahead. Stay there with our newsletter.

On Sunday, July 26, Michael Saylor posted Strategy’s Bitcoin purchase chart to X. The caption said, “We’re gonna need another color.” It was his fifth such post since the company’s last disclosed Bitcoin purchase on June 22.
MSTR trades as a leveraged proxy for Saylor’s Bitcoin buying, and dozens of treasury companies copied his model. For the first time in two years, Strategy has gone four weeks without adding a single coin to its portfolio.
Saylor’s Sunday chart stops signaling Monday Bitcoin buys
For years, a Sunday night Saylor chart was a reliable predictor of an 8-K filing on Monday. That filing would reveal another tranche of Bitcoin. The signal has been weakening lately. He posted on June 28, “We’re gonna need more charts,” but it was a new capital framework. And then there was the July 5 post right before the largest Bitcoin sale Strategy had ever done.
Saylor floated “green dots” in late November, a day before Strategy announced a $1.44 billion dollar reserve with a 130 BTC buy. On January 4, he posted a hint for whether coins or cash were coming, asking followers, “Orange or Green?”
The Sunday post drew a lot of engagement with more than 11,000 likes and over 1,400 replies. Saylor, however, never explained the caption, and the company confirmed no transaction took place.
Strategy’s market value against its Bitcoin, enterprise mNAV, fell below 1 on June 27. MSTR is trading at a discount to the value of the coins it holds. Selling shares to buy more Bitcoin doesn’t grow Bitcoin per share anymore, it shrinks it. Meanwhile, the preferred stock dividends of Strategy, with STRC lifted to a 12% rate, have to be paid in cash.
We’re gonna need another color. pic.twitter.com/AqZO5UeXDx
— Michael Saylor (@saylor) July 26, 2026
Strategy has 113 buys totaling 843,775 BTC, paid for at an average of $75,476 per coin for $63.69 billion. That stack is worth about $55.1 billion with Bitcoin at $65,283.96, leaving the position about $8.6 billion underwater.
The late-June capital framework created new exits for cash. It approved a $1 billion digital credit securities buyback, a $1 billion common stock buyback, and a program of as much as $1.25 billion in Bitcoin sales. On July 23, Strategy changed the way it calculates mNAV and warned that figures prior to that date are no longer comparable. Shares of MSTR closed at $91.67 on Friday, down from $94.85 a week ago.
Strategy sends cash to reserves
Strategy is still in the process of raising capital. It’s just parking the proceeds now. The company sold 2,732,318 MSTR shares for net proceeds of $263.5 million in the period July 13 to July 19 and did not purchase any Bitcoin. Its SEC filing of July 20 put the new dollar reserve at $3.225 billion. The reserve now covers ~1.8 years of dividend commitments.
The room to keep raising isn’t the constraint. Strategy can continue to sell up to $23.53 billion of additional common stock under its existing at-the-market programs. But the pause is a choice, not a dry well.
The pause comes after a warning Strategy received in June. CryptoQuant head of research Julio Moreno has urged the company to stop buying Bitcoin and rebuild its cash buffer, Cryptopolitan reported on June 24. Reserves dropped about 38% from early 2026.
Moreno said Strategy’s dividend obligations ballooned about fourfold in six months to $1.2 billion, and dividend coverage collapsed from more than seven years to about 14 months.
“Buying whenever capital is available is not a strategy,” he said, calling that “a formula for accumulating at cycle peaks.” Instead, he suggested a model-based approach to time future purchases.
The next hard data point is Thursday, July 30, when Strategy reports second-quarter results after the U.S. market closes that day.
The smartest crypto minds already read our newsletter. Want in? Join them.

Dormant Bitcoin activity dropped in the second quarter. It fell to its lowest level since the third quarter of 2022. The figures were shared by Alex Thorn, head of firmwide research at Galaxy Digital, in a post on X.
The reawakening of old coins has historically coincided with profit-taking by Bitcoin’s longest-term holders.
Dormant Bitcoin awakenings slow after two-year sell-off
Dormant coin movement is when Bitcoin sits still for years, then moves again. It’s closely watched by analysts, and activity from long-held wallets has often coincided with selling. Quiet wallets indicate holders are holding tight.
“OGs taking profit,” Thorn said, comparing the pattern to Bitcoin’s 2017 bull run. Most of the Bitcoin veterans who wanted to sell into 2024 and 2025 strength, in his reading, are done. That’s one less local selling pressure on the market. Coin days destroyed tells a similar tale. That metric, which measures spending weighted by how long coins were sitting idle, also fell in Q2.
Thorn called the two-year period “a great distribution” in mid-July. He wrote that 2024 and 2025 moved as much long-dormant Bitcoin onchain as the entire 2017 rally, and nothing in between came close. And he pegged the pace for 2026 to be less than half of last year’s dormant coin reactivations.
Galaxy’s charts go back to 2016. They show a repeating cycle, with old coins waking up during the rallies of 2017, 2021, and again across 2024 and 2025. Holders of coins aged 1 to 10 years moved large amounts, mostly to sell. The distribution peaked at the end of 2025, with coins aged between one and two years representing about 900,000 BTC moved in one month. This year, that flow dried up.
Q2 dormant coin awakening volume was the lowest since Q3 2022 and down substantially from the elevated levels of 2024 and 2025 pic.twitter.com/thrC9K6Gdx
— Alex Thorn (@intangiblecoins) July 25, 2026
Bitcoin hovers near $65,000 as whale selling eases
Bitcoin’s cooling comes after a steep drop. The token reached an all-time high of over $126,000 in October 2025. It then fell to around 48% to trade around $65,265 by mid-July. And it’s trading at $64,808.55 at the time of writing.
But Thorn pushed back against one theory circulating online. “We are not seeing whales selling on quantum computing risk,” he said. Galaxy works with a large pool of institutional investors, and not one cited quantum risk as a reason to close a position, Thorn said. Quantum fear more often discourages outside buyers than it encourages existing holders to sell, he said.
The big holders had been visibly selling for months before the slowdown. On July 3, Cryptopolitan reported that several whale wallets, including one belonging to venture capitalist Tim Draper and other wallets containing mining-firm reserves, were moving coins to exchanges. Bitcoin was trading at about $57,950 at the time, a 21-month low.
Don’t just read crypto news. Understand it. Subscribe to our newsletter. It's free.

Crypto traders are getting access to China’s AI stock rush through a route Beijing did not build for them. Instead of buying mainland shares, offshore investors are using perpetual futures tied to Chinese chip companies.
The contracts let users to wager on share values without actually holding the shares, and they are traded continuously on cryptocurrency exchanges.
Due to this arrangement, a distinct market for names has been established that is difficult for foreign capital to access through regular exchanges.
The biggest target is CXMT, a Chinese memory-chip maker due to start trading in Shanghai on Monday. TradeXYZ and Gate.com have listed perpetual contracts linked to the company before its public debut.
CoinGlass recorded about $19 million in CXMT perp volume over 24 hours. The chipmaker wants to collect nearly $10 billion, which would make the deal mainland China’s largest IPO since 2010.
Crypto platforms give offshore traders a way around China’s stock access rules
Beijing maintains a controlled framework to prevent foreign investment in Shanghai and Shenzhen stocks. Typically, foreign investors participate through the Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor framework or Hong Kong’s Stock Connect program.
There are restrictions to both methods. While limits limit the amount of money that can go through the authorized routes, Stock Connect only covers a limited number of businesses.
CXMT will enter Shanghai’s STAR Market, which has strict entry requirements for locals. Retail traders are required to maintain a minimum of 500,000 yuan, or around $74,000, in qualifying assets.
Additionally, a two-year trading history is necessary. This prevents many mainland purchasers from taking the company’s pricing into consideration.
Since the trader never receives the shares, perpetual futures eliminate those account regulations. The product started out in cryptocurrency marketplaces as a means of placing bets on assets like Bitcoin without acquiring ownership.
Also, it has no expiration date. Stablecoins are typically posted as collateral by users, who then take a long or short position depending on where they believe the price will move.
It now encompasses more than just tokens. Benefits linked to stocks, commodities, and private businesses are posted on cryptocurrency exchanges. They have already been employed by traders to gain early exposure to SpaceX and OpenAI prior to their public offerings.
SpaceX contracts have also been used by Chinese users to circumvent laws intended to prevent the flow of funds out of the nation.
On Wednesday, TradeXYZ added a new Chinese chip contract. The new perp gives ten-fold leverage and tracks GigaDevice Semiconductor (SSE: 603986). This implies that losses can increase at the same rate as gains, yet a small deposit can manage a much larger position.
CXMT’s crypto price runs far above the company’s planned Shanghai valuation
A pre-IPO perp trades on guesses about what a company may be worth once its shares begin public trading. A buyer makes money when the listed stock opens above the derivative price. After the debut, a market data feed is expected to pull the contract closer to the live share price.
Theo’s chief investment officer, Iggy Ioppe, stated that the perp should match the underlying stock. Tokenized real-world assets are used by Theo. Instead of closing the position on a predetermined date, traders can continue to use the contract after the listing because it never expires.
The CXMT contract on Hyperliquid was trading close to $6.35 per share on Thursday. Before declining again, it had reached $8.60. The suggested corporate value was close to $425 billion, or around 2.9 trillion yuan, on Thursday.
That valuation would place CXMT above Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (SSE: 601398; HKEX: 1398). ICBC, the biggest mainland-listed company, is valued at about 2.56 trillion yuan.
The official IPO figures are far lower. The first sale price announced by CXMT was 8.66 yuan, or around $1.28 per share. As a result, the chipmaker’s initial worth is close to 579 billion yuan. The sale would still be the biggest IPO on the STAR Market in spite of this.
Without purchasing the underlying assets, hyperliquid enables users to trade futures linked to commodities, stocks, and cryptocurrencies.
Due to the inability of overseas investors to directly join the listing, offshore demand contributed to CXMT’s contract being significantly higher than the Shanghai offer price. As a result, before the official share is transferred, a second price is created on cryptocurrency rails.
If you're reading this, you’re already ahead. Stay there with our newsletter.

Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh enters this week’s policy meeting with traders pricing a rate increase. Renewed fighting between Iran and the United States has pushed crude oil above $100 a barrel, raising fears that energy costs will feed into inflation.
The meeting starts on Tuesday and will be Kevin’s second as Fed chair. One week ago, futures markets placed the chance of a quarter-point increase below 10%. By Friday, that probability had climbed to 36%.
Investors now fully expect one increase by September. They also expect one or two more quarter-point hikes within nine months. Oil has been unstable since the war began in late February as Washington and Tehran alternated between pauses and fresh attacks.
Traders had bet that closing the Strait of Hormuz would cause only a brief inflation problem, even though about one-fifth of the world’s oil normally passes through that route.
Rising oil prices push traders to prepare for tighter Fed policy
That belief weakened after crude broke above $100. Investors sold government debt across the United States and Europe, sending bond prices lower and yields higher.
The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield reached its highest point in 18 months. Ten-year yields in Germany and France also climbed to levels not seen in more than 15 years. Long-term yields rise when markets expect lasting inflation.
Kevin has still another reason to think about higher rates, given the most recent U.S. statistics, which show a robust labor market as weekly unemployment claims dropped to their lowest level since 1969 on Thursday. Although consumer inflation decreased to 3.5% in June, it is still much higher than the Fed’s target of 2%. Officials may be less inclined to wait if the economy is doing well, there are few layoffs, and oil prices are high.
Kevin does not provide explicit clues prior to making judgments. As a purposeful return to policy decisions, he has advocated the termination of advance signals. “If we get policy right, and we will, the inflation surge of the last five years will be a thing of the past,” he said to lawmakers this month.
Kevin doesn’t say anything more. He has not disclosed which inflation metric he favors or which economic data he believes to be most reliable. Rather, he has requested that internal task groups examine those inquiries. This contrasts with the Fed’s more liberal approach over the previous 20 years.
Kevin keeps policy debates private as Congress presses for clearer answers
At his White House swearing-in ceremony in May, Kevin thanked former Fed chair Alan Greenspan for being the first person to “show me what this role demands.”
Alan died last month at age 100 and was known for answers that left listeners guessing. He once joked, “If I seem unduly clear to you, you must have misunderstood what I said.”
Kevin gave more than five hours of testimony before Congress this month but offered few firm views. Some answers differed from his earlier statements. Representative Ritchie Torres, a New York Democrat, read part of Kevin’s April nomination testimony back to him.
During that hearing, Kevin had spoken favorably about an inflation gauge that removes the largest monthly price changes instead of using the measure the Fed has relied on for years. When Ritchie asked about it, Kevin denied backing one.
“None of those are very good measures of underlying inflation,” Kevin said. “If I had a preferred measure, I wouldn’t have called for a task force to go back to first principles.”
Kevin has not promised to keep the press conference schedule used by his predecessor, Jerome H. Powell. Jerome spoke after every policy meeting, explained how officials saw the economy, and described views inside the rate-setting committee. Kevin’s communications task force is reviewing that schedule.
Reporters asked Kevin last month what would lead the Fed to raise rates. He replied, “I can’t give any forward guidance about what we’re going to do next. The good news is, we’ll be meeting in six weeks,” referring to Tuesday’s meeting. He has said he wants every policy gathering to be a “family fight,” with officials arguing in private instead of announcing the result before the meeting begins.
Don’t just read crypto news. Understand it. Subscribe to our newsletter. It's free.

Trump’s latest tariff plan faces a lawsuit, and the path may be as rough as the last one. Courts killed his earlier “liberation day” duties after ruling that the White House used a law that did not let the president tax imports from most countries.
Trump has returned with another broad tariff program, but the new case says the administration is keeping the policy alive under another law.
The duties started on Friday and cover products from more than 80 countries. Those partners account for 99.4% of U.S. trade. The White House says the tariffs target governments that have not done enough to block goods tied to forced labor.
Trump is relying on Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which lets Washington answer unfair practices with tariffs.
Trade lawyers say Trump is stretching Section 301 far beyond its usual limits
Section 301 has been used by several presidents, including Trump during his first term, when the United States imposed duties on China. Peter Harrell, a visiting scholar at Georgetown University Law Center’s Institute of International Economic Law, said this use is broader than usual. He told CNBC, owned by Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA), that Trump is “using the statute in a fundamentally different way.”
Harrell said Congress did not create Section 301 so a president could rewrite the U.S. tariff list or leave wide duties in place without an end date. He said courts could “for sure” cancel the policy.
Trump is also using Section 301 for trade fights. On Friday, he said the United States would immediately investigate the European Union after regulators issued penalties against American technology companies. The administration has also placed a 25% tariff on Brazilian imports and threatened a 50% rate on Canadian products.
Two small companies filed the first case hours after the duties began. Their complaint went to the U.S. Court of International Trade. They say the forced labor claim is legal cover for rebuilding the worldwide tariff system that judges rejected five months earlier.
The timing is central. The Section 301 duties began as another tariff group expired. Trump announced those charges under Section 122 of the 1974 law hours after the Supreme Court rejected his global policy on February 20. Section 122 allowed temporary import charges, so those duties had a fixed end date.
The International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, does not permit Trump to impose tariffs on nearly all trading partners by himself, the Supreme Court ruled. The White House cannot circumvent that decision by selecting a different legislation while maintaining essentially the same structure, according to the current complaint.
The filing says Section 301 does not give the president power to tax almost all imports at rates chosen to copy the failed IEEPA system. It argues that duties must be tied to specific foreign conduct and designed to stop it.
Two businesses ask the court to block Trump’s replacement tariff system
The administration denies that it is bringing back the earlier program. A senior official told reporters Thursday that forced labor has concerned Trump “for many years.” The official said the Friday start date was chosen “really to avoid complexity.”
The two companies’ case was brought by the Liberty Justice Center. The challengers who won the previous IEEPA lawsuit were represented by the same NGO. It states that the White House cannot maintain a tariff strategy that was predetermined by changing legal provisions.
Sara Albrecht, the group’s chairman and chief executive, said forced labor is “morally indefensible,” but a serious goal does not allow the government to ignore legal limits. Sara said one tariff package expired and another began immediately under a different law. “Changing the statute doesn’t change the law,” she said.
Patrick Childress, a Holland & Knight partner and former U.S. trade official, said the Section 301 duties could last much longer than the expired Section 122 charges. “These tariffs will be with us for the long haul,” Patrick said.
Countries may not get relief even if they adopt every rule Washington requests. Patrick said each government must prove that it is enforcing those rules to satisfy U.S. officials before Trump’s tariffs are removed. He said there is no short-term route for a country to escape the new rates.

Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN), Bybit, Circle (NYSE: CRCL), and Gemini lead the names on CNBC and Statista’s 2026 ranking of 500 global Fintechs. Coinbase, listed as decentralized, returned after appearing in an earlier edition.
Bybit is based in Dubai, while Circle and Gemini are in New York. Statista’s ranking covers eight market groups and includes companies of different sizes.
According to McKinsey, the fintech industry generated $650 billion in sales in 2025, up 21% from 2024. The $15 trillion financial services industry as a whole grew by 6%. Public listings also began to rebound, with 31 major fintech initial public offerings (IPOs) in 2025. To McKinsey, those agreements have “returned to prominence.”
Fintech companies represented about 12% of the total value of the world’s 100 biggest IPOs. Listed Fintechs reached a record combined value of $850 billion, helped by Adyen (AMS: ADYEN), Nu Holdings (NYSE: NU), and Robinhood (NASDAQ: HOOD).
At the same time, software suppliers spread throughout banking systems, challenger banks obtained financial licenses, and big institutions began to employ blockchain more frequently.
Digital asset companies turn blockchain tools into services for banks and businesses
The digital asset category in the Fintech 500 covers companies that make crypto services usable, but leaves out individual coins and blockchain protocols.
Crypto demand has risen and fallen, but companies building the working parts of the market have kept attracting customers. Companies that create and manage tokens for other businesses also earned several places.
The Singapore group includes Amber Group, ChainUp, Crypto.com, Triple-A, and previous winner StraitsX. US entries include Bakkt (NYSE: BKKT) in Atlanta; previous winners BitGo in Sioux Falls and Blockdaemon in Los Angeles; Digital Ascension Group in Dallas; Everstake and Securitize in Miami; Payward in Cheyenne; and Zero Hash in Chicago.
San Francisco contributes previous winners CoinTracker and VGS, plus Phantom. New York adds previous winners Fireblocks and Turnkey, alongside Gauntlet, Lukka, NYDIG, Paxos, and Zebec. Galaxy Digital (NASDAQ: GLXY), another earlier winner, is also based there. Fort Worth is home to previous winner Consensys.
Canada has Blockstream in Montreal and previous winner, Figment, in Toronto. London has BVNK, Copper, and TIMVERO. Previous winner Finery Markets is in Limassol, Cyprus. Hong Kong includes HashKey Group and previous winner OSL Group (HKEX: 0863). The remaining names are Kem in Abu Dhabi, previous winner Ledger in Paris, and Wavebridge in Seoul. Blockchain services from these companies now support payments, recordkeeping, asset storage, issuance, and other commercial uses as crypto becomes part of formal finance.
AI and stablecoins force Fintechs to rebuild products and controls
McKinsey expects four trends to shape the next fintech era, though its report detailed two major ones here. Artificial intelligence comes first. “Fintechs are deploying AI to build products in weeks that once took years, to serve customer segments that were previously not economically viable, and to compress cost structures so that legacy operating models cannot compete on price. Early-adopter incumbents are seeing real returns,” said McKinsey.
McKinsey said, “With instant, near-free settlement, the promise of stablecoins for cross-border payments and remittances is clear. However, of the $35 trillion reported annual stablecoin transaction volume, only about 1 percent, or $390 billion, represents true end user payments, such as paying suppliers or sending remittances.”
Trading, arbitrage, and crypto-only transfers make up the rest. Industry forecasts place the stablecoin market between $2 trillion and $4 trillion by 2030. Reaching that range would require an average annual growth of about 40%.
Other tokenized assets on blockchains could grow faster as banks and companies use them for settlement, custody, payments, ownership records, and issuance.
McKinsey predicts that, “A range of industry estimates suggests that by 2030, the market value of stablecoins will be between $2 trillion and $4 trillion, implying a compounded annual growth rate of about 40 percent, with a broader range of on-chain tokenized assets potentially even higher.”
The smartest crypto minds already read our newsletter. Want in? Join them.