链捕手ChainCatcher

ChainCatcher message, according to The Block. After research firm Bernstein reiterated an “Outperform” rating and maintained a $140 price target following Circle’s release of its 2026 Q2 earnings, the firm said the company’s latest performance serves as a “contrary validation” of market bearish views. Bernstein analysts said the market currently underestimates two key concerns about Circle—intensifying competition among stablecoins and changes in the interest-rate environment that could affect reserve income—and instead overlooks USDC’s long-term growth potential, as well as Circle’s advantages in distribution channels, liquidity, and regulatory compliance.

ChainCatcher message: On Thursday, MetaMask launched its self-custody wallet, Agent Wallet, enabling AI agents to execute on-chain transactions within limits set by users. It is aimed at traders and developers who use AI agents to monitor markets, identify opportunities, and execute trades autonomously. Users can set spending caps, approve specific protocols, choose risk settings, and select different automation levels between Guard Mode and Beast Mode.
Agent Wallet supports Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenClaw, Hermes, OpenCode, as well as networks compatible with Hyperliquid and the Ethereum Virtual Machine. Agent Wallet supports gas abstraction, allowing users to pay network fees using assets that are currently being transferred—without needing to hold the corresponding network’s native tokens. MetaMask says supported transactions will go through transaction simulation, threat scanning, and intelligent-transaction MEV protection. If a qualifying transaction still incurs a loss after passing the security checks, users can receive up to $10,000 per month in Transaction Protection coverage.

ChainCatcher: The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that Liu Zhou, founder and chief operating officer of the cryptocurrency financial services company MyTrade, was recently sentenced in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts to a $10,000 fine for his role in a conspiracy to manipulate the crypto market.
Prosecutors said that MyTrade, through its “MyTrade MM” platform, provides a so-called “Volume Support” service to cryptocurrency project parties. It uses bots to execute false trades across multiple crypto exchanges, artificially generating trading volume and market activity to mislead investors. Under the plea agreement, MyTrade MM has stopped offering “Volume Support” services, permanently shut down the relevant volume-washing robots, and added a statement to its website acknowledging that “volume support constitutes wash trading, which is illegal under U.S. law.” The U.S. Department of Justice said the case was jointly pursued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Boston Division.

Message from ChainCatcher. According to a report by The Information, the financial technology company Stripe is in exclusive acquisition talks with the AI model aggregation platform OpenRouter, with a transaction valuation of about $10 billion. Insiders say OpenRouter had previously received acquisition interest from several large tech companies, but Stripe has now entered the exclusive negotiation stage. The deal has not been finalized yet, and the specific terms may still change.
Founded in 2023, OpenRouter is positioned as an AI infrastructure platform that connects users with a variety of large language models. It allows developers to call AI models from multiple companies, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and others, through a single unified interface, and to choose different models based on performance, price, and availability. As enterprises accelerate their adoption of generative AI, the importance of AI model-calling infrastructure and model routing services continues to grow. By offering model aggregation, traffic distribution, and cost optimization capabilities, OpenRouter has become a key intermediary layer in the ecosystem for building AI applications.

ChainCatcher message: AI personal assistant startup Pally announced the completion of a $5.2 million funding round, led by Cyber Fund and Y Combinator, with participation from Pioneer Fund, Founders Inc, 468 Capital, and other angel investors. The company is valued at $30 million. Its main business is providing AI personal assistant services through a text-messaging entry point.
Pally launched in 2025, and its latest version went live in June. It can sync with platforms including Gmail, Outlook, Slack, Granola, and Notion. After granting authorization, users can use Pally to book flights, manage their inbox, reply to messages, and reserve restaurants. Pally uses Anthropic’s Claude, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and open-source models such as Kimi K3 and GLM 5.2. Co-founder Haz Hubble said the company will not sell user data and will not use related data to train its models.

ChainCatcher message: According to <wealth> magazine, Michael Saylor, Executive Chairman of Bitcoin Treasury Company Strategy, said that artificial intelligence is changing how wealth is created. Businesses and individuals should not try to compete with machines, but should use AI to amplify their own capabilities. In an interview, Saylor said that he used ChatGPT to help Strategy design a bitcoin-based preferred stock financing plan, ultimately enabling the company to raise about $15 billion through an IPO and related financings. He said, "AI helped me create $1.5 billion."
Saylor believes that in the AI era, the core advantage is not to repeatedly carry out tasks that machines can already do, but to ask better questions and use AI to explore new opportunities that were previously impossible. "Don't try to work harder than robots." In recent years, Saylor has pushed Strategy to make large-scale allocations to bitcoin and to transform the company from a traditional software firm into a publicly listed company centered on bitcoin as its core asset. Although this strategy comes with high risk, Saylor said that major innovations often require withstanding volatility and continuously adjusting direction. He said that in the future, successful entrepreneurs will be those who can combine AI with human creativity, rather than individuals trying to replace AI with work that machines can do.

ChainCatcher message, citing a report by BeInCrypto: Tim Scott, Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, said that the (CLARITY Act) regulating the cryptocurrency market will be put to a vote before Congress adjourns, “undoubtedly it will be voted on.”
In an interview with Fox News, Scott said the Senate may extend working hours, not limited to the next two days, in order to advance the relevant legislation. He said that Republicans are forming consensus on the bill internally and believe that pushing for the implementation of a crypto regulatory framework is “in the best interests of the United States.”
Tim Scott said: “We will get this job done.”

ChainCatcher message: The Ethereum Foundation has published a hiring announcement for a Protocol Security Researcher, who will be part of the Protocol Security team. The role is responsible for identifying security vulnerabilities across the execution layer, consensus layer, network layer, specifications, and client implementations. Job duties include AI-assisted security research and automated vulnerability discovery, hard-fork review, building fuzz testing tools, conducting manual audits of protocol changes, and coordinating vulnerability disclosure.
The team seeks candidates with deep experience in the Ethereum protocol. Engineers who have actively participated in protocol development and who are familiar with execution-layer or consensus-layer specifications are preferred. Common programming languages include Go, Rust, Java, C#, Nim, and Python. This is a remote role open to candidates across Europe and worldwide.

According to a ChainCatcher report citing TechCrunch, OpenAI is countering Apple’s lawsuit over alleged leakage of trade secrets, saying that Apple itself has vulnerabilities in its information security management and employee offboarding processes, and cannot prove that the relevant information constitutes protected trade secrets.
Apple previously accused OpenAI of obtaining hardware-related trade secrets through former employees who moved from Apple to OpenAI, and asked the court to expedite the evidence review. In its latest filed legal documents, OpenAI said Apple allows employees to use personal iCloud accounts to handle work materials and did not promptly revoke access privileges after employees left the company. OpenAI also said Apple has not clearly identified the specific trade secrets that were allegedly stolen, but has instead broadly pointed to information such as product development processes, the supply chain, and testing.