Cryptopolitan

Circle Internet Group (NYSE: CRCL) has secured final approval from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish a national trust bank.
The arrangement, which sent Circle’s CRCL stock up more than 14% in pre-market trading, will bring the USDC issuer under direct federal banking supervision for the first time.
Is Circle becoming a bank?
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has given its final approval to Circle (NYSE: CRCL), allowing the company to run a national trust bank carrying the legal name First National Digital Currency Bank, N.A. The regulator first gave a conditional go-ahead in December of 2025.
This move brings USDC custody under direct federal supervision for the first time. The new entity will do business as Circle National Trust, according to Circle’s announcement.
The bank will only handle custody of digital assets for Circle and its affiliates, and it will not take deposits or make consumer loans the way a commercial bank does. However, Circle’s business plan includes provisions to extend custody later to a limited set of institutional clients such as banks and regulated derivatives firms, but only “depending on demand.”
Circle’s USDC is backed by cash and short-term U.S. government securities, which are currently in the custody of Circle’s existing regulated entities. Moving them under the trust bank would put reserve management under federal oversight, but Circle has not said when, or whether, it will take that step.
Jeremy Allaire, Circle’s co-founder, chairman and CEO said federal supervision gives financial institutions “clarity and confidence” to build on public blockchains.
New services that Circle intends to offer will be subject to further regulatory approvals and operational work before they can go live.
Following the news of the OCC approval, Circle’s stock shot up as much as 15% pre-market.
Are other crypto companies opening banks?
Cryptopolitan reported that apart from Circle, the OCC handed conditional charters to five crypto firms in December 2025, including Ripple, Paxos, BitGo and Fidelity Digital Assets. Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould stated that the new entrants are a benefit as they “provide access to new products, services and sources of credit to consumers.”
The Bank Policy Institute (BPI) is considering taking legal action against the OCC. It argues that crypto trust banks could offer bank-like products without carrying the same obligations as full-service lenders.
Other banking groups have also asked the regulator to narrow the policy, citing financial stability and consumer protection.
Despite this pushback, Nomura’s Laser Digital and Sony Bank’s Connectia Trust have since secured conditional approvals of their own. The OCC’s public docket shows that there are pending applications from firms including Morgan Stanley’s digital trust arm and Revolut’s U.S. bank.
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Meta has pushed back on what the European Commission recently said about a preliminary finding that showed that Instagram and Facebook broke EU law with features built to keep users scrolling.
The finding, which was published on July 10 and looked into what the commission refers to as the “addictive design” of the two apps under the Digital Services Act (DSA), could expose the company to fines worth up to 6% of its global annual turnover and force design changes across both platforms.
Features like the infinite scroll, video autoplay, push notifications, and the platforms’ personalized recommender systems are being pointed out as part of the core problem.
According to the Commission, these features “shift the brain into autopilot mode,” and it says that Meta failed to properly weigh their effect on users’ physical and mental health.
A Meta spokesperson stated that the company does not disagree with the regulators’ findings, including the conclusions about its teen accounts. However, the spokesperson also stated that Meta would keep working with the Commission on child safety.
Meta has previously stated that it has put in more than a decade of work and built over 50 tools to protect younger users.
What the regulator says Meta got wrong
The investigation was started in May 2024 and focused on minors and vulnerable adults. The Commission found that Meta ignored what it knew about how long children stay on the apps late at night and about how formats like Reels and Stories can drive what it calls an “excessive or even compulsive use.”
The regulator added that the fixes Meta claims to have put in place did not hold up under review.
It also states that features such as time-management tools, parental controls, and screen-time awareness pages are too weak to offset features engineered for engagement.
A senior Commission official told journalists that the teen accounts Meta rolled out in the EU in 2024 did not meet the standard set by the DSA. The official also added that their default settings “can be easily dismissed” and that parents need to be experts to locate the controls at all.
Henna Virkkunen, the Commission’s Executive Vice President for Tech Sovereignty, Security, and Democracy, said, “The Digital Services Act provides a clear framework to hold platforms accountable for the addictive design and effects of their services,” adding, “We are fully committed to enforcing our legislation in Europe.”
Is this a preliminary charge or a verdict?
The EU has not made a decision or issued any penalty yet. Meta, on the other hand, can respond in writing, examine the Commission’s files, and try to refute the case before any penalty is set.
If the finding is confirmed, Meta could face fines of up to 6% of its total annual worldwide revenue, alongside orders to change the products. The Commission wants autoplay and infinite scroll switched off by default, and screen breaks added. It also recommends that Meta rework its algorithm to serve less personalized content.
In April, the Commission said the company was failing to keep under-13s off Facebook and Instagram, and in October 2025, it accused Meta and TikTok of blocking researcher access to platform data. TikTok was separately found to be unlawfully addictive in February 2026.
Also, an expert panel convened by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is expected to present recommendations on social media limits for children by July 17. At least 10 member states, including France, Italy, and Spain, are already drafting their own rules.
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The Japanese government wants to make crypto ETFs legal and reclassify digital assets as financial products under new finance legislation. Japanese Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama made the announcement on Thursday.
The new plan is expected to open regulated crypto exposure to ordinary Japanese brokerage customers.
Katayama believes Japan needs a stronger legal framework and a strong trading ecosystem to boost investor confidence. She made these comments at the Open Quick 2026 seminar in Tokyo, an event hosted by financial data provider QUICK. She also said Japan wants to allow crypto ETFs, just as many countries have done.
The key behind the policy change is an amendment to the legislation governing stocks and bonds, to the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act (FIEA), the law that governs stocks and bonds.
At the moment, Japan treats crypto as a means of payment and is regulated by the Payment Services Act. Changing the classification of crypto from “means of payment’ to “financial product” puts it under the same regulatory framework as listed securities.
Who is ready to sell crypto ETFs in Japan?
Once the amendment process is complete, brokerage firms can begin offering crypto ETFs, and firms are already lining up in anticipation of the new legal framework.
Firms like BI Securities and Rakuten Securities are prepared to start selling crypto ETFs. While firms like Nomura Asset Management, SBI Global Asset Management, Daiwa Asset Management and Mitsubishi UFJ-linked subsidiaries were already studying or designing crypto ETF products ahead of any approval.
Japanese investors would welcome the access, too. An ETF listed on a domestic exchange means they can hold crypto exposure inside ordinary securities accounts, without jumping through the extra hoops of managing separate exchange accounts or private keys.
The tax piece may matter more than the fund structure. Japan taxes profits from crypto trading as miscellaneous income at progressive rates that reach as high as 55%.
The revision would replace that with a flat 20% separate rate, matching how gains on stocks and investment trusts are taxed. The present tax rate has pushed traders and investors to countries with lower tax rates, and this tax cut is aimed at bringing back many of those who fled.
Where does the bill stand?
The law has not been passed yet, though. The amendment has passed the House of Representatives and is in the House of Councilors. Upon passage, the broader framework is expected to take effect in 2027, with the 20% tax rate applying from January 1, 2028.
The push has support beyond the ministry. On June 1, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party submitted a proposal to Katayama, urging a legal framework for crypto ETF trading. The same party panel said the state should promote yen-based stablecoins.
Japan’s cabinet had approved the draft amendment to classify crypto as a financial product in April.
Besides opening up the markets, the government is keen on protecting investors. A unit focused on crypto assets and stablecoins is to be created this month by the Financial Services Agency.
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Metaplanet (TYO: 3350), Japan’s largest corporate Bitcoin holder, has started a joint study with three partners into Bitcoin-backed credit instruments.
The Bitcoin treasury company made this known via its X account, releasing a “Notice of Commencement of a Joint Study in the Digital Credit Domain Utilizing $BTC, $JPYC, and Security Tokens.”
The study groups Metaplanet with its brokerage arm Metaplanet Securities, yen-stablecoin issuer JPYC, and digital securities platform Progmat. Progmat published its own release on the collaboration the same day.
The four entities are examining how Bitcoin (BTC), the JPYC stablecoin, and security tokens could combine into a blockchain-based system for issuing and managing credit products such as corporate bonds.
What would the study model do?
Each asset plays a unique role in the proposed structure, with Bitcoin sitting as collateral or a reserve asset. JPYC, a token pegged one-to-one to the Japanese yen, handles settlement and payments. Security tokens carry fractional claims on debt instruments like corporate bonds.
Dylan LeClair, who is the managing director of Bitcoin Strategy at Metaplanet, wrote about the partnership on X, stating that the group has “commenced a joint study regarding BTC-backed digital credit instruments capable of supporting 24/7/365 trading and daily prorated interest accrual.”
.@Metaplanet, Metaplanet Securities, @jpyc_official, and @progmat_en have commenced a joint study regarding BTC backed digital credit instruments capable of supporting 24/7/365 trading and daily prorated interest accrual. $BTC https://t.co/0bjH4kq4o7
— Dylan LeClair (@DylanLeClair) July 10, 2026
For now, this is a study with the four firms trying to examine feasibility, and none has published a timeline, a product, or a target size.
Why is Metaplanet carrying out this study?
Metaplanet is the third-largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, only behind Strategy and Twenty One Capital, as it holds 43,000 BTC as of July 7, worth about $2.8 billion, according to BitcoinTreasuries.net.
Metaplanet has bought Bitcoin steadily since 2023, a move that mirrors the treasury playbook Michael Saylor built at Strategy.
Its balance sheet is a major reason a credit business is even on the table. A company sitting on billions in Bitcoin can, in theory, use those reserves to back or collateralize lending as opposed to selling them.
In March, Metaplanet’s CEO, Simon Gerovich, announced two subsidiaries, Metaplanet Ventures and a Miami-based Metaplanet Asset Management unit focused on digital credit and Bitcoin capital markets.
The venture arm also committed 400 million yen (about $2.5 million) to JPYC’s Series B round. JPYC issues its yen stablecoin against bank deposits and government bonds and runs on Ethereum, Avalanche, and Polygon. The new joint study puts that earlier JPYC investment to work.
Which Strategy template is Metaplanet following?
Metaplanet is not inventing the category. Strategy, which rebranded from MicroStrategy, has raised and continues to raise billions this year through equity, convertible debt, and preferred stock. Strategy also unveiled a Digital Credit Capital Framework on June 29. Strategy’s digital credit assets have grown from zero to around $14 billion in 15 months.
Saylor wrote on X on July 9, “Digital Credit is transparent because the principal market risk factor is Bitcoin, an observable, homogeneous asset.”
However, these instruments are leveraged bets on one volatile asset. If Bitcoin falls hard, collateral values shrink while obligations stay fixed, a pressure Strategy critics have flagged.
It is still unknown if Metaplanet’s study will conclude that a yen-denominated version clears Japan’s regulatory bar, but observers, especially investors, will be watching out for the study’s findings and any move from research to product.
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Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is launching an AI avatar of himself called PMX AI that renews licenses, processes payments and answers questions in his voice.
Anwar will become among the first sitting national leaders to hand over routine public jobs to an artificial likeness.
Malaysia welcomes new AI Prime Minister
In Malaysia’s quest to rebrand itself as a regional AI hub before its election due by early 2028, the country’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is rolling out an artificial version of himself built by Zetrix AI Bhd, a Malaysian digital infrastructure firm.
The firm was started by Anwar’s own party, Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR). The AI likeness, named PMX AI, points to Anwar’s standing as the country’s 10th prime minister. The Prime Minister’s Office says the launch is expected within days.
Zetrix describes PMX AI as “agentic,” meaning it can accept tasks and then execute them with little human oversight.
In practice, a citizen could ask the avatar to renew a driver’s license, receive a payment link, and get confirmation the transaction cleared, all inside one conversation rather than across separate portals or counters.
To keep the likeness convincing, Zetrix feeds the model what it calls a “personal knowledge” system that is updated continuously with Anwar’s latest speeches and remarks. The avatar has been trained on his writings and his government’s policy record.
It can hold conversations in both English and Malay, but also recognizes regional dialects and local slang.
The Prime Minister’s Office released a flashy promotional launch video, in which Anwar is cast as an astronaut, while a disembodied voice narrates that the avatar is a digital extension of him that is “ready to listen, assist and serve the people.”
What are the political goals behind launching an AI Prime Minister?
With an election looming, Anwar is attempting to attract younger voters. He wants to be seen as a leader fluent in AI, digital investment and higher-value jobs. Launching the avatar aligns with that plan. It also fits a wider agenda that includes Malaysia Digital 2030, a national plan Anwar unveiled on June 29 that involves having the digital economy contribute 30% of GDP by the end of the decade.
Anwar recently shared that the government is finalizing an AI Governance Bill to sit alongside the Cybersecurity Act and existing data protection law. He has also repeatedly urged the country to prepare its workforce for the AI era.
Critics have pointed out that a synthetic prime minister blurs the line between public administration, party messaging and Anwar’s personal branding.
Adding to that, citizens may trust an answer more when it appears to come from the head of government himself, but AI systems can still give wrong answers or have missing information in their training data. Attaching a leader’s face raises the stakes for those kinds of mistakes.
However, Malaysia is not the first country to have artificial versions of members of government. Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky has appeared in AI-generated multilingual messages, India’s Narendra Modi has used AI to speak in several Indian languages, and South Korea’s President Lee Jae Myung relied on an AI avatar to field voter questions during his campaign.
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Sam Altman’s OpenAI and Sundar Pichai’s Google have provided powerful AI products to overseas businesses controlled by Chinese corporations named on a US military watchlist.
The customers include Singapore units connected to Alibaba (NYSE: BABA), Baidu (NASDAQ: BIDU), and Tencent Holdings (HKEX: 0700; OTC: TCEHY). Washington claims these three companies have links with China’s armed forces.
OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL, GOOG) both allegedly confirmed the commercial relationships to the Financial Times.
Nothing about these deals breaks current US law. That is the problem facing lawmakers who want to slow China’s AI growth. Washington limits shipments of the powerful chips needed to build top AI systems. Its rules are far less complete once those systems become online services.
Chinese corporations can still reach American models through businesses registered in approved markets such as Singapore and Hong Kong. The legal opening remains available even when the parent company appears on a Pentagon blacklist.
Washington lets blacklisted Chinese firms reach OpenAI tools through overseas units
The Pentagon utilizes the 1260H list for naming Chinese firms that can provide assistance to the People’s Liberation Army. Although it was required by Congress that the list be maintained, its inclusion does not completely hinder the firm from purchasing advanced software products from America.
The US has put restrictions on specific software products such as the OpenAI GPT-5.6 and Anthropic’s Mythos and Fable. There are no general restrictions on Chinese companies to use the best American AI online.
OpenAI removed access for API users linked to Alibaba last month after spotting activity that may have broken its rules. The company confirmed the suspension this week after the Financial Times reportedly asked about it.
An API simply lets developers use an AI model through the internet. They can send questions, receive responses, and add those results to their own services without downloading the model itself.
The blocked accounts were suspected of carrying out distillation. During that process, a developer gathers responses from one AI system and uses the material to improve another.
OpenAI notified the authorities in the United States about the activity. The company’s models are not available for use within mainland China. It continues to provide its services to some companies that are owned by Chinese citizens in other countries where OpenAI is able to control their activity.
OpenAI stated that its customers “may be active in countries where we can enforce our safeguards and monitor for distillation.” It also pointed out that more people need access to AI systems based on democratic principles rather than those that are used in authoritarian countries.
The company added, “we don’t think nationality alone should decide access.”
Beijing guards Chinese AI methods as American companies adopt cheaper models
Meanwhile, AI models from China’s DeepSeek and Moonshot AI now handle regular work inside Silicon Valley businesses of different sizes, and their lower prices make them useful replacements for services sold by OpenAI and Anthropic. Some companies also run Chinese and American systems together, choosing a different model for each job.
Beijing previously wanted Chinese AI products used across as many countries as possible. Officials treated their international popularity as another way to increase China’s global influence. Many leading Chinese models were released with open code. Developers anywhere could download them for free, inspect how they worked, and use them with few limits.
Chinese officials are now discussing stronger protection for technology created by the country’s leading AI laboratories. They fear that rival governments, criminals, or hostile groups could take valuable methods and later use them against China.
Research papers and public code can reveal technical ideas that took years and large amounts of money to create. Western laboratories have already adopted Chinese methods that help models complete more work with less computing power.
Anthropic has accused DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, and MiniMax of using distillation against its products. In a letter delivered to Congress last month, Anthropic said Alibaba created 25,000 fake accounts that completed more than 28.8 million interactions with Claude. The company said the operation broke its service rules.
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Bitmine Immersion Technologies (NYSE American: BMNR) has spent about $35.92 million on another 20,500 ETH. The block trade took place around July 10, 2026, through Galaxy Digital (NASDAQ: GLXY), with Bitmine paying close to $1,752 for each token.
The acquisition makes Bitmine’s Ethereum holdings close to 5.7 million Ether, whose current value is just shy of $10 billion. There are currently 120.7 million coins of Ethereum in existence, making Bitmine’s holdings of Bitmine close to 4.7% to 4.8%. The company aims for a 5% ownership stake in Ethereum.
Bitmine keeps buying ETH as Tom Lee chases a 5% supply target
Tom Lee, Bitmine’s chairman and a co-founder of Fundstrat, wants the company to use Ethereum much as Strategy (NASDAQ: MSTR) used Bitcoin. Strategy built its treasury around BTC. Tom is applying that playbook to ETH, although Ethereum has different supply rules, network economics, and uses.
Bitmine started buying ETH heavily in mid-2025 and kept at it through 2026. One purchase added 42,197 ETH for about $76 million, while another brought in 60,976 ETH. Its latest buy of 20,500 ETH was smaller, but it still pushed the company closer to owning 5% of Ethereum’s supply.
The company kept buying even as ETH traded between roughly $1,700 and $2,200 this year. Bitmine seems more focused on how much of the supply it can own than on getting the lowest possible price. Tom calls his outlook a “crypto spring,” where more institutions enter the market and help lift crypto prices over time.
Despite Ethereum having an unlimited supply, the number of new units has remained relatively low following the transition to proof-of-stake validation via the Merge update. EIP-1559, on the other hand, burns some portion of user transaction fees. All these have helped to keep a steady supply growth. Bitmine’s 5.7 million tokens are currently in a corporate wallet.
Ethereum and Bitcoin test major levels while traders watch $80,000 options risk
ETH/USD is stuck between short-term strength and long-term resistance. On the daily chart, the asset’s price is trading above the 20-day SMA ($1,759) and the 50-day SMA ($1,747). The asset’s price is trading below the 200-day SMA ($2,240).
From the Ichimoku Kijun, the closest support level for ETH/USD is at $1,773. RSI is at 56.97, suggesting that there is an advantage for buyers at the moment. Other technical indicators are not as favorable. MACD gives strong bearish signals, whereas ADX is in the neutral zone.
Bitcoin also reached fresh intraday highs after Thursday’s Wall Street opening as U.S. shares recovered on fresh hopes for peace involving Iran. CoinGecko data placed BTC back above $64,000, with the coin gaining almost 5% during the day. CoinGlass recorded close to $100 million in short liquidations across the previous 24 hours.
BTC is now up almost 10% for the month. A bullish crossover has raised the chance of another bounce toward the zone above $70,000, where sellers have stopped several recent rallies. That signal alone does not confirm a new long-term bull run, so traders are watching the next barriers closely.
The third and arguably the most critical level lies around the $71,100 area, where the 200-day moving average of Bitcoin exists at the moment. This technical level prevented the rise in May when BTC rallied to the $60,000 levels from February lows.
Deribit’s options book adds another source of possible turbulence. Notional open interest is the dollar value of outstanding options contracts used mainly for hedging or speculation. Contracts tied to the $80,000 strike carry more than $1.21 billion in notional open interest, the biggest total for any strike on the platform. As BTC gets nearer to that price, hedging by options traders could affect both spot and futures trading and cause sharper price swings.
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Liquid staking is one of the crypto sectors to survive almost unchanged in Q2. Protocols only lost 1.3% of their ETH, as long-term holders still showed confidence in Ethereum.
Liquid staking holds 14.5M ETH, based on Cryptoquant data. The staked ETH lost just 1.3% from its all-time high, when 14.7M were locked for liquid staking. In the past three years, liquid staking deposits increased from 8.6M ETH to 14.5M ETH, a net gain of 68%.
Liquid staking is a key source of reserves for DeFi lending, trading, and other operations. While almost all other crypto sectors have declined sharply in Q2, liquid staking shows its position as key infrastructure in the crypto space.
Ethereum staking overall accelerated in the past quarter, adding another 1M ETH in June alone. Another 2.7M ETH are waiting to be staked in the validator queue. The recent staking inflows are also seen as an indicator of smart money seeking passive income on Ethereum.
ETH staking expanded in the past months, adding around 1M ETH to the Beacon chain in June. | Source: Etherscan
Over 40.3M ETH, or around 33% of the total supply, are now held in the Beacon Chain, supporting the minting of liquid staking tokens. The long-term effects of staking on ETH are offsetting some of the market panic.
Staking has expanded beyond Ethereum, with other networks offering similar incentives. Overall, liquid staking tokens are valued at over $54B.
Liquid staking protocols are among top fee producers
Liquid staking pools are among the key elements of the crypto economy, with ongoing fee generation and positive revenues for most protocols.
Lido DAO remains the leader, with over $16B in value locked, nearly 50% of all liquid staking liquidity. The protocol achieves $1.99M of earnings monthly. Overall, liquid staking protocols generate over $20M in fees, while securing the Ethereum network.
Liquid staking is also supporting the existing ETH treasury companies, ensuring some of the ETH is productive and not just sitting in wallets.
ETH switches from speculation to accumulation
Liquid staking still happened even as ETH hovered around the $1,700 range. ETH markets move with around $10.5B in open interest, showing a slowdown of price speculation.
Exchange reserves on all markets are near multi-year lows, as markets only hold around 15M ETH. Binance holds around 3.86M ETH, with dynamic inflows and outflows. The exchange showed a mix of capitulation selling in the $1,500 range and withdrawals from whales. Ethereum outflows from Binance reached $1.23B, the highest level in the past three years, as speculative trading and leverage slowed down.
Some of the exchange withdrawals are moving into liquid staking, feeding into the Ethereum DeFi ecosystem. On-chain data shows specific whales are also accumulating ETH on Binance and sending it for liquid staking. One whale recently moved 4,491 ETH to Lido staking. The same whale withdrew 34,557 ETH from Binance, building a large position in liquid staking.
The ETH market is still indecisive, as crypto trading still absorbs different price pressures. The Iran conflict is still causing immediate market reactions and sometimes, panic selling. However, the conviction signals of liquid staking show a big part of the liquidity is bound to remain in DeFi space.
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North Carolina was the first state to codify the federal jurisdiction over prediction markets into its statutes, allowing Kalshi and Polymarket to operate legally as long as the two prediction market firms are registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). This is very important as it provides a model for all the trading platforms that are facing lawsuits from states over such issues since it presents a trade-off between the revenue-sharing arrangements and the hands-off approach in regulation.
The provision is part of Senate Bill 257, formally known as Session Law 2026-41, and is part of the roughly 34 billion budget passed. The provision is based on the Commodity Exchange Act, whereby the CFTC has been given “exclusive federal regulatory authority” of prediction markets by this law. If a prediction market is registered with the CFTC, it has fulfilled all of the requirements imposed upon it by the state and does not need to ask for any special license, cannot be required to register separately, and does not face any special gaming rules.
What it does require is a tax. Beginning January 1, 2027, prediction market operators will owe the government 6% of the net revenue earned on transactions involving residents of North Carolina. By comparison, sports betting operators will be taxed at 23% on gross betting revenue in the same budget, which is an increase from 18% and will apply immediately. Licensed sportsbooks also pay $1 million to the government for the license to operate, a cost prediction markets avoid entirely.
A carve-out, not a crackdown
The 17-point difference is the dividing line. Because a wager on a World Cup result appears the same whether it goes through a sportsbook or a prediction market. Critics interpret the lower rate as partiality. Mick Mulvaney, who used to be the acting chief of staff at the White House in the Trump administration and is currently running the organization Gambling Is Not Investing, was quite frank with Axios: “Prediction markets are unlicensed sports gambling apps — full stop.” He believes that the budget creates incentives for operators who disregard gambling regulations of the state while allowing minors to bet on sports.
Republican leaders argued that it has finally come to terms with reality. “A lot of it’s going on in this state anyway,” said House Speaker Destin Hall, adding that it was simply time to address the problem. Senate leader Phil Berger was more cautious regarding the future of this industry: “Whether it’s something that eventually is going to take over from the sports betting, I don’t know.”
While endorsing the budget, some Democrats expressed concern over this gamble. Senator Julie Mayfield from Buncombe County supported the budget but cautioned that sports betting revenues that North Carolina had been relying on will suffer dramatically if platforms simply turn into prediction markets. The WRAL reports that North Carolina has brought in more than $287 million from sports betting since its legalization in March 2024, with the University of North Carolina and North Carolina State University already eligible to receive up to $5.8 million a year to support their athletics program.
Cutting against the national grain
The way in which North Carolina is handling prediction markets differs from that of other legislatures. According to Dustin Gouker, a gaming analyst, who made this observation in his Next Event Horizon newsletter, North Carolina is the first state to allow the use of CFTC-approved platforms, without requiring its own licensing. He characterized the law as “affirming legislation with a relatively low tax rate” and has predicted that the industry would want other states to follow suit.
The rest of the states have implemented stricter measures. For example, Kentucky introduced an excise tax of 14.25 percent back in April and started enforcing it, which led to a lawsuit filed by the CFTC. Illinois enacted its law in June, which imposes a 1.75% tax on the first five million betting transactions made during the fiscal year, and 3.5%, after that, including state licensing. Kashi sued to block it.
The courts are equally divided. In New Jersey and Tennessee, Kalshi obtained preliminary injunctions which in April were upheld by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals but has suffered losses in other states, including Maryland, Nevada, Arizona, and Ohio, and recently, in the Southern District Court of New York. Judge Analisa Torres did not agree to grant an injunction against the state’s activities, arguing that Kalshi had not shown a likelihood of winning the argument based on federal preemption law.
The company filed an appeal with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. Daniel Wallach, a Sports Law attorney, agrees that the decision may have a negative impact on Kalshi’s other fights. The CFTC has taken legal action against nine states to defend its position in regard to event contracts, and according to some experts, the case may end up in the Supreme Court. North Carolina is not fully on the side of the industry in this matter.
Attorney General Jeff Jackson co-signed a letter sent in April in an attempt to object to the federal regulation based on Axios information. The budget has a different approach than the legal aspect of the problem, which is tax collection, while legal issues should be resolved in Washington. A spokesperson of Polymarket informed Axios that the company follows the CFTC rules and that “state-level efforts to regulate prediction markets will likely face significant federal preemption challenges.”
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Russia is preparing additional legislation allowing Rosfinmonitoring, the country’s financial-intelligence service, to have the power to control cryptocurrency transactions and acquire detailed personal information for transactions exceeding 60,000 rubles. This plan can be interpreted as a sign showing that one of the largest channels of digital payments created during the sanctions era is going under the control of state authorities.
The issue extends well beyond Russia’s territory. Deputy Finance Minister Ivan Chebeskov stated in October 2025 that approximately 20 million Russians use cryptocurrency “in one way or another” and that the scale of usage mandates the development of domestic infrastructure capable of ensuring user safety and generating innovations for economic development. In February 2026, he reiterated this point at the Alfa Talk forum when he stated that the volume of cryptocurrency transactions carried out in Russia is close to 50 billion rubles ($648 million dollars) a day, which equates to over 10 trillion a year.
Russia is also the second biggest Bitcoin mining country in the world by hashrate after the USA, according to the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance’s report, the Cambridge Digital Mining Industry Report, underscoring its importance in the global crypto market.
Furthermore, crypto has gained significant traction as a settlement tool for Russia’s foreign trade. According to reports, cross-border crypto payments conducted as part of Russian trade amounted to about 1 trillion rubles in 2025, and a large part of these transactions was connected to China, India, and Turkey.
Russia expands crypto reporting
New reporting requirements are being introduced at a time when the European Union is still assessing additional restrictions related to crypto payments stemming from Russia.
Under the draft regulation, any depository of digital assets working in Russia, as well as foreign financial institutions providing services to Russian clients, should start reporting their crypto activity to Rosfinmonitoring as soon as the amount of the transaction reaches 60,000 rubles. This is a reduction from the previous version of the legislation that set the limit at 100,000 rubles. Crypto settlement transactions related to foreign trade would be subject to reporting starting from the amount of 1 million rubles, while transactions between residents and foreigners would be reported automatically.
Мoreover, the information received by authorities has to be extensive. As stated by Bits.media, transfers over 60,000 rubles would require reporting legal or personal names of both parties, their wallet IDs, addresses, dates of birth, and tax IDs. For payments below the reporting threshold, only the name and wallet ID of the client are needed.
Banks pulled into the perimeter
The proposed legislation will also strengthen oversight over banks. It will establish limits on the volume of cryptocurrencies that banks can own. This is in line with the earlier recommendation from the head of the Financial Stability Department of the Bank of Russia, Alexander Danilov, which states that the exposure to cryptocurrencies should not exceed 1% of the bank’s capital, besides requiring that banks set aside capital to hedge against cryptocurrency exposures.
In addition, the legislation will grant the central bank the right to suspend or limit certain cryptocurrency transactions carried out by banks, a power that applies only to non-banking financial organizations at present. Lawmakers said that the need for intervention will arise only when transactions with cryptocurrency “could destabilize the financial system.”
In the meantime, lawmakers have relaxed one of the bill’s most controversial reporting requirements. After the Financial Markets Committee of the State Duma approved the draft bill “On Digital Currency and Digital Rights” for the second reading, its chairman Anatoly Aksakov said that lawmakers dropped the proposal obliging Russians to disclose their cryptocurrency wallet addresses.
What it changes for the wider market
For international token issuers, Russia’s proposed eligibility rules may prove just as consequential as its monitoring requirements. To circulate legally in Russia, a cryptocurrency would need an average market capitalization above 5 trillion rubles over two years and average daily trading volume exceeding 1 trillion rubles, thresholds that only Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) currently satisfy. Stablecoins including Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC may not qualify under the legislation because they lack an issuer obligated under the proposed legal framework.
The regulatory timetable is becoming clearer as well. The main bill was originally expected to take effect on July 1 but was delayed in the State Duma. Speaking during the Central Bank’s Financial Congress, Anatoly Aksakov said lawmakers intend to complete the legislation quickly, adding: “We will definitely legalize digital currency, the regulatory process will definitely be put in order, and the law will come into force on September 1 of this year.” Interfax separately reported that Bank of Russia First Deputy Chairman Vladimir Chistyukhin expects the package to become operational from September 1 if lawmakers complete the remaining legislative process.
If adopted substantially unchanged, exchanges, banks and foreign counterparties using crypto for trade with Russian entities will have only a short window to adapt before one of the world’s largest crypto markets begins subjecting routine digital asset transfers to comprehensive financial-intelligence reporting.
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Blockchain analyst Specter flagged that CodexField may be engaging in a rug pull scheme. More than $85 million in user funds has been tracked through a series of wallets on several blockchains through this investigation.
In a Tweet dated July 9, Specter mentions that in his investigation, he discovered CodexField’s deposit contract (0x9E6A75b546B65E7B9D34E2c9aB8Fe224B9aA52AA) along with wallets that have recently brought $17.3 million worth of USDT from the TRON blockchain to Ethereum before the funds were then swapped for DAI on Polygon through Bitget Swap. Of the $17.3 million, $10.8 million has still not reached its destination, while $6.5 million has been successfully transferred.
Inside the CodexField probe
Specter raised concerns over the deposit arrangement used by the project, claiming that its multiple official CodexField domain addresses all led to the same deposit contract. According to the blockchain intelligence platform MetaSleuth, the contract is labeled as “Fake CodexField.”
However, Specter claims to have verified that the contract had indeed been used for deposits by checking the official channels of the project and its tutorials. He also stated that there seems to be movement of the treasury funds through the intermediary wallets before they reach centralized exchanges, which needs to be investigated more closely.
It is not being verified whether the claims made regarding both the $85 million in deposits and the fraud allegation. The deposit contract pointed out by Specter is available on BscScan for one to analyze the transaction history, but the analyst’s post has not provided a transaction-by-transaction analysis for the $85 million number and has not done a complete wallet attribution for that estimate. As of the time of writing this article, neither CodexField nor BNB Chain has confirmed the findings of Specter.
The revenue allegations are significant since CodexField is not just some unknown meme token or a brand-new DeFi project.
History of exit scams
In September 2023, BNB Chain promoted the platform after it won first place in the Infrastructure category of its Hackvolution hackathon. CodexField, which is built on BNB Greenfield, is a decentralized code management platform allowing developers to keep their repositories on-chain and monetize their software through a blockchain market rather than through centralized platforms like GitHub.
This high-profile endorsement makes the situation more significant. Instead of charging some unknown project developer, Specter charges someone BNB Chain has previously promoted as part of the ecosystem.
Blockchain security company Immunefi has revealed that from 2020 onwards, the total losses of this network constitute around $1.64 billion, including $368 million lost due to fraud (228 cases). The losses caused by rug pulls made up 44% of the total losses of BNB Chain in 2023, while only 1.7% of losses caused by similar scams were reported by Ethereum, highlighting BNB Chain’s long-standing exposure to exit scams.
Recent events show that the trend is confirmed. In October 2025, OracleBNB vanished after it deleted all its website and social media accounts shortly before the token lost more than 95% of its value. Earlier, blockchain analytical firm TRM Labs connected the SQUID token scam in 2021 to the theft of over 35,000 BNB ($19.3 million in that period), causing huge losses for investors due to the impossibility of withdrawing funds.
These cases do not prove any criminal activity of CodexField. But these illustrate why investigators focus their attention on projects acting in a similar way, especially if there are numerous swaps of assets across multiple chains before reaching exchange-linked wallets.
Whether Specter’s claims gain wider credibility will depend on further on-chain evidence.
Investigators will presumably seek a transaction-level breakdown attesting to the stated $85 million in deposits, greater attribution tying the identified wallets to CodexField’s operators, and explanation for the stated cross-chain movement of treasury funds. Just as important will be whether CodexField or BNB Chain respond to the allegations, or offer proof that the transfers represent genuinely operational activities rather than misappropriating investors’ funds.
At this moment, Specter’s revelations amount to a thorough investigation on the blockchain, raising specific questions about the flow of funds in the project, but not providing verified proof of fraud.
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A shortage of staff at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has stalled the Senate’s efforts regarding the Clarity Act, a delay the proponents fear could allow the rest of the world to dictate rules for the crypto industry worth about $2.2 trillion.
In the case of crypto trading firms with a presence across different jurisdictions, the issue is about governance. The Clarity Act indicates that the CFTC would oversee the spot trading of digital commodities. Yet while this agency’s role is supposed to regulate this market, it currently has just one commissioner instead of five – Michael Selig, a Republican. The White House and Senate Democrats were arguing on Thursday, blaming each other for keeping the other four seats vacant.
Selig has been upfront about the stakes involved. In a recent interview with Fox Business, Selig stated that if Congress does not take action, there is a chance that regulators may end up “writing all the rules” for cryptocurrencies. This is what the legislation was intended to avoid: a US market run by regulatory improvisation instead of legislative rules while other countries implement their own rules.
Blame game over CFTC seats
White House officials wrote to Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer on Thursday, saying they wanted to “set the record straight” after Democrats accused the Trump administration of refusing to nominate commissioners to independent agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
The allegations were dismissed by the administration. Its argument is that Senate Democrats prevented “every civilian nominee” from being successfully nominated by President Donald Trump, who, as a matter of fact, continues to nominate Democrats to other independent bodies, like the International Trade Commission or the National Labor Relations Board. The letter, signed by Director of Presidential Personnel Dan Scavino and Director of Legislative Affairs James Braid, also said the White House had asked Democratic leaders to recommend candidates for Democratic seats at the SEC and CFTC but received no response.
The officials also cited the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Trump v. Slaughter, arguing that Democratic criticism of the administration’s appointments “were answered by the recent Supreme Court ruling,” which expanded the president’s authority to remove leaders of many independent federal agencies.
Records from the White House prove that the administration withdrew Brian Quintenz’s nomination for chairmanship of the CFTC in September 2025, after which Michael Selig was nominated for the position in October. The White House’s official list of nominations and withdrawals presented to the Senate contains data on these actions, thereby allowing one to see the sequence of events regarding CFTC leadership changes.
Why a half-empty commission matters to the market
According to prior reports, the CFTC is a relatively small organization consisting of only approximately 543 employees compared to the size of the SEC which includes about 4,200 employees. Additionally, it appears the agency has lost 21% of its employees. That being said, lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle have raised the question of whether a single commissioner leading an agency with such small numbers of employees will be able to adequately oversee such a large market that operates 24/7.
The problem does not only relate to the amount of capacity. Glenn Thompson and Angie Craig, House Agriculture Committee leaders, argued in a letter to Trump in May that rules imposed by one person could become easier to challenge in court. Consequently, a full panel of five members has “more durable rules.” Durable rules are crucial to global companies making decisions on where to operate.
Senator Cynthia Lummis articulated her concerns about the timing quite clearly. Enacting the Clarity Act is likely our last chance to get real legislation for digital assets on the books before 2030,” she announced on X this week. She added that if Congress does not do so, then “we are ensuring another country will write the rules for digital assets and we spend the next decade catching up.”
What still stands in the way
The Senate is going to reconvene on July 14 and is likely to proceed with voting. However, there are three important clauses that can slow down the voting process. The first of the clauses offers protections to blockchain developers who don’t have custody over cryptocurrencies. The second is Section 604, which would make certain developers and service providers exempt from having to comply with money-transmitter regulations, a carve-out critics say could weaken anti-money-laundering tools. In turn, the third clause concerns the actions of platforms like Coinbase that can still be paying “rewards” on stablecoin holdings, a practice the GENIUS Act bars issuers from offering directly.
The last match indicates the highest market number working with the bill. According to forecasts made by analysts from Standard Chartered, in 2028 the yield provision of stablecoins will bring about $1 trillion in deposits away from traditional banks. This is the reason why the American Bankers Association turned down the compromise proposal on the language from the White House in March.
The broader market did not react strongly to the standoff on Thursday. The total value of crypto was up by about 1% to nearly $2.2 trillion, with the price of Bitcoin at about $63,773, thanks to stabilizing oil prices. The extent of this calm may change with the decisions the Senate makes after July 14 and whether Trump fills the vacancies that legislators say are necessary for the CFTC to start doing its job.
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New Hampshire’s Executive Council on July 8 cast a 3-2 vote to block a $100 million municipal bond that would have been secured by Bitcoin, ending a program promoted by Governor Kelly Ayotte and finance officials as the first initiative of its kind in the country.
The vote halted the approach that the New Hampshire Business Finance Authority (BFA) spent months developing after the board approved a $100 million first issue last November. However, the deal had always required the approval of the Governor and the Executive Council. According to the Boston Globe, Councilor Karen Liot Hill made a motion to table the motion at the meeting on Wednesday, and since no one supported her, it went to a vote to decide what to do.
Liot Hill, the only Democrat in the Council, joined the Republicans Janet Stevens and David Wheeler to vote against the proposal while Joseph Kenney and John Stephen voted pro.
What the bond would have done
The transaction was arranged in such a way that the state bore no repayment risk. According to reports, the BFA would issue taxable conduit revenue bonds, which would be used to transfer money from a private investor to private borrowers with Bitcoin pledged as collateral. The state of New Hampshire was not liable for any debt.
The borrower reportedly would have to hand over Bitcoin valued at 160% of the amount received from the bond issue to BitGo Trust Company, a regulated custodian firm. The report also highlighted that the loan would automatically be sold off if its value fell to 140% of the revenue bonds, thereby redeeming the debt early to protect investors. The bond had a three-year term with repayment scheduled for 2029.
The deal was structured by Wave Digital Assets and Rosemawr Management with the help of BFA and law firm Orrick acting as the advisor. Moody’s assigned a provisional rating of Ba2, of speculative nature, for up to $100 million in taxable revenue bonds related to the initiative, which was linked to a loan to a Bitcoin-collateralized borrower trust.
The authority could receive millions in fees in case of any Bitcoin price increase throughout the duration of the deal. As explained by James Key-Wallace, the Executive Director of BFA, the funds would be used as a seed fund for small businesses, child care, housing, and economic development in the state, and the deal could become a good launch of “several more” deals.
Why the council balked
Council members who opposed the resolution displayed their cautious attitude instead of outright denial. “I’m not opposed to Bitcoin or crypto in general,” said Liot Hill when asked to comment by the Boston Globe. Her concern was that the state would “lend a kind of legitimacy to a financial transaction” involving what she calls a very volatile and still emerging industry.
Key-Wallace rebutted the framing made in the meeting. He explained that Bitcoin has “emerged” and has “been around for a while”. Liot Hill, however, was of a different opinion and stated that being true innovation brings risks along with it because it has not been around long enough for people to decide about it.
Ayotte, who passed a bill last year allowing the state treasurer to have discretionary powers to invest in Bitcoin, defended her choice for New Hampshire to lead the way in embracing new technology. She said that New Hampshire “continues to thrive when we are continuing to be innovative,” adding that this should be done without risking public funds.
New Hampshire is once again First in the Nation! 🎉
Just signed a new law allowing our state to invest in cryptocurrency and precious metals. pic.twitter.com/ua9bawZKbM
— Governor Kelly Ayotte (@KellyAyotte) May 6, 2025
The results demonstrate how much a rated and well-planned crypto transaction can go before being stopped at the decision-making level. The credit issues regarding the way Bitcoin is evaluated, priced, and liquidated were resolved in theory according to the Moody’s assessment. However, the council’s inquiry dealt with a completely different problem: whether public authorities are willing to associate the state name with Bitcoin collateral at all, even taking into account the fact that its supporters claim that no harm would be done to the taxpayers.
The notion is anything but gone. On July 9, Key-Wallace stated in an email that his group had received “lots of support” at the council meeting and agrees that taking time to consider it is “a fair response.” He repeated his commitment to consider the council’s concerns and would present the proposal again.
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OpenAI has released its GPT-5.6 family after the US government completed a security review that had impeded the rollout of the model. The Trump administration had requested federal agencies to review the model for potential security risks.
Enterprise and individual users who purchase AI by the token will find this news relevant, as OpenAI is marketing this model on its cost efficiency rather than raw intelligence.
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, told CNBC that the flagship version is 54% more efficient on agentic coding tasks than its competitors.
Three versions were released after a delayed launch
GPT-5.6 came in three different versions: Sol, Terra, and Luna. Sol focuses on complex reasoning and deep coding tasks. Terra is best for your everyday, run-of-the-mill tasks, and Luna, being the cheapest, is perfect for high-volume tasks.
Getting to Thursday took a detour through Washington. Access had been restricted to about 20 government-vetted partners while the Commerce Department’s Center for AI Standards and Innovation ran its evaluation, with OpenAI sending technical staff to answer the agency’s questions.
Altman said the company “made many changes” to the system during the review, which he characterized as “a collaborative back and forth.” The process pulled in Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross.
Why was the US government involved in the GPT-5.6 launch?
This has to do with the immense coding abilities of some AI models. OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 and Anthropic’s Mythos series can spot software weakness. This has understandably set off alarm bells among government officials who are worried these advanced models could be used to target financial institutions running on older AI models.
This particular review went beyond the voluntary review framework signed by President Trump on June 2. The framework asks companies to allow government agencies to inspect strong AI models before they’re released.
The hoops OpenAI had to jump through are not much different from Anthropic’s experience with the US government. Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models were initially paused by the government over security concerns. But Fable 5 has been fully restored, while Mythos 5 is available only to a few US organizations.
OpenAI ships new AI agent with new model
Alongside the launch of GPT-5.6, OpenAI launched ChatGPT Work, an AI agent built on GPT-5.6 that can operate across a user’s apps and files, if connected. The agent can also assemble documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, and is available on web, phone, and desktop. It is an autonomous user that runs for hours on a single prompt.
Comparisons with Anthropic’s models have already begun, with some labeling Fable as possessing raw intelligence while GPT-5.6 works best for daily tasks. Dan Shipper, CEO of Every, put it in a post on X: “If you need to get across the galaxy, use Fable. If you need to get around town using the best available tool for the job, use 5.6.”
The voluntary framework signed by President Trump is one to watch. Because the government’s actions will go a long way in determining security restrictions.
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South Korean semiconductor company SK Hynix (KRX: 000660) will list itself on Nasdaq via an offering which may hit almost $28 billion, making SK Hynix close to one of the largest-ever initial public offerings in the market. SK Hynix plans to sell 177.9 million American depositary receipts, while investor subscriptions for the IPO have already reached more than seven times the planned number.
According to earlier forecasts, the amount was close to $26.5 billion, but now, according to the prospectus, it’s closer to $28 billion.
SK Hynix’s Seoul-listed shares have jumped about 700% in the past year, giving the company a market value above $1 trillion and putting it closer to Micron Technology (NASDAQ: MU), its main US-listed rival.
SK Hynix uses Nasdaq to reach US investors while ADR demand comes back to life
The use of American Depositary Receipts or ADRs allows an investor in America to invest in a foreign company by using the American market. This helps the company reach out for more money, big institutions, and investors who don’t transact in Seoul.
Why does the structure matter? ADRs used to be one of the most important ways for Asian firms to access financing from the US. This market became unattractive when Didi Global decided to list in the US in 2021 and was subsequently subject to regulation from China.
Meanwhile, Kioxia Holdings (TYO: 285A) is lining up a similar US listing as Hynix. The Japanese chipmaker’s stock has climbed close to 2,800% in Japan over the past year, so it is also trying to catch the US demand while memory chip stocks are still hot.
The SK Hynix deal is not a normal first listing. The company already trades on the Korea Exchange, so the Nasdaq sale is a secondary listing.
Banks collect fees as cornerstone buyers take a huge part of the offering
The main banks on the SK Hynix Nasdaq sale are Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), Citigroup (NYSE: C), Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS), and JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM). Other banks with smaller roles include Cantor Fitzgerald, Mizuho Financial Group (NYSE: MFG), and Stifel Financial (NYSE: SF).
The fee pool could pass $140 million. That includes an underwriting fee of 0.5% of the money raised, plus an extra incentive payment from SK Hynix. The fee rate is low for a deal this large, partly because the sale is huge and partly because SK Hynix is not a private company trying to convince the market from zero.
However, the greenshoe provision does not apply in the listing of SK Hynix. In that regard, the banks will not be able to issue more shares should the demand remain high. Therefore, the underwriting fees will not be increased from the prevailing levels.
It is also worth noting that Citibank (NYSE: C) will gain some revenue from other services provided by the company during the process of the listing. Citibank is the depositary bank for SK Hynix; hence, it will handle all the American depositary shares floated in the US. It will be able to generate some income through the conversion of the shares and dividend payments from the receipts of the shares.
The big bidders have come through. Situational Awareness from Leopold Aschenbrenner and Baillie Gifford have expressed interest in purchasing up to $7 billion out of the total $28 billion on offer. This is a huge chunk of the book, considering allocation will be the battle that follows.
In case SK Hynix takes the whole offer, then the offering is bound to be similar to that of Saudi Aramco’s (TADAWUL: 2222) IPO, which was worth about $29 billion.
For Wall Street, the fee total would rank among the biggest payouts from an Asian company. Alibaba Group (NYSE: BABA) raised $25 billion in 2014, and that listing produced about $300 million in banking fees, based on Dealogic figures.
The ADR setup still comes with work. SK Hynix has to deal with depositary bank rules, the ratio between each US receipt and the ordinary Seoul share, and the process for converting one form into the other. Some emerging-market regulators also worry that ADR listings can pull money out of local markets, affect currencies, and weaken efforts to build stronger domestic capital markets.
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SpaceXAI recently released a new version of its AI chatbot called Grok 4.5. This is a coding-focused model that Elon Musk pitched as an “Opus-class” rival to Anthropic’s Claude at a fraction of the cost.
Considering the rising cost of AI usage, engineering teams are now prioritizing price per completed task over peak intelligence.
Does Grok’s new model outperform Claude Opus 4.8?
Elon Musk, in a post on X, described the newly launched Grok 4.5 as “an Opus-class model” that is faster and more cost-efficient. The model is designed for coding and other complex tasks.
Musk followed up after the launch with a second post, writing, “Looks like Grok 4.5 is #1 on at least a few benchmarks. Better than expected.”
SpaceXAI (NASDAQ: SPCX) lists Grok 4.5 at $2 per million input tokens and $6 per million output tokens, which is significantly cheaper than using Anthropic’s models, which are priced at $5 and $25 for Claude Opus 4.8, or OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Luna, which sits at $1 and $6.
The new model is the first to be developed jointly with Cursor, the AI coding startup that SpaceXAI recently agreed to buy for $60 billion in an all-stock deal. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of 2026.
Cursor said it partnered with SpaceXAI on training, feeding real signals on how engineers write, review, and debug. The training ran across tens of thousands of Nvidia GB300 GPUs, and SpaceXAI says the model runs at about 80 tokens per second with roughly twice the token efficiency of comparable rivals.
Where does Grok actually rank among its rivals?
The independent benchmarking site, Artificial Analysis, scored Grok 4.5 at 54 on its Intelligence Index, placing it fourth behind Anthropic’s Fable 5, OpenAI’s GPT-5.5, and Claude Opus 4.8.
In coding tests, Artificial Analysis gave Grok 4.5 in the Grok Build a score of 76 on its Coding Agent Index. This is at the same level as GPT-5.5 in Codex and just under Fable 5 in Claude Code.
The site measured Grok 4.5 at $2.49 per coding task compared to $11.80 for Fable 5 in Claude Code. Grok 4.5 burned through roughly 1.9 million tokens per task, whereas Fable 5 used 7.2 million.
On one specific benchmark, Grok 4.5 has a clean win over Claude. Snorkel AI ran the model against GPT 5.5 and Opus 4.8 on a sample of about 2,000 professional-work tasks from its GDPval+ dataset.
Grok 4.5 passed 29% of them, ahead of GPT 5.5 at 22% and Opus 4.8 at 21%. The widest margins were in legal, education, and healthcare tasks. Grok 4.5 was paired with SpaceXAI’s own Grok Build agent for that test at the company’s request.
Cryptopolitan reported earlier in the week that Elon Musk’s statement of the model being “close to, perhaps exceeding Opus” originated as a result of the impression from company evaluators rather than a published benchmark. The specific Opus version Grok was measured against was Claude Opus 4.8.
Musk himself later conceded that the model competes with a prior Claude generation rather than the current one.
Grok 4.5 is available now through the SpaceXAI console, the Grok Build agent, and inside Cursor on all plans, with EU access expected in mid-July.
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Meta released Muse Spark 1.1 on Thursday and made it open to US developers through a new Meta Model API, creating direct competition with OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic.
The model is available immediately in Thinking mode inside the Meta AI app and on the Meta AI website.
Developers who want to plug it into their own coding software can now do so through the Meta Model API, which launched the same day in public preview for US accounts. Meta is handing out $20 in free credits to every new account on the API.
What has changed since April?
Muse Spark was released in April as Meta’s return to the AI model race, with the company describing version 1.1 as a “step-change” over that release.
The new update handles more advanced coding work, can spot and repair complex bugs, and runs agentic workflows across multiple apps, including multi-agent setups. Muse can also read images, videos, and documents, a trait the company calls native multimodal perception.
Wang says a bigger model is on the way
The coding push follows public comments from Meta’s AI chief, Alexandr Wang. In a post on X, Wang said a Muse Spark update was near and would bring gains in coding and agentic ability aimed at narrowing the distance to rival models.
Asked when Meta would field a coding model matching Anthropic’s Claude Opus, he answered: “pretty soon.”
Behind Muse Spark, internally codenamed Avocado, sits a larger model in training that Meta calls Watermelon.
At an internal town hall, Wang told staff that Watermelon had caught up with OpenAI’s GPT-5.5 on closely watched benchmarks, citing two people familiar with the meeting. He did not give details as to which benchmarks, and Meta declined to comment.
The money behind the effort
Meta has spent heavily to reach this point. The company told investors it expects to increase spending to $125 billion and $145 billion this year on chips, data centers, and other infrastructure. This includes Iris, Meta’s first in-house AI chip, which is set to enter production in September with Broadcom on design duties and TSMC handling fabrication.
Investors are still in limbo, with Meta stock closing at a record $796.25 on July 1, then falling to $603.12 by July 8 and dropping again to $580.50 in Thursday pre-market trading.
Muse Spark started as a Meta AI feature before it began running the chatbots inside Instagram, WhatsApp, and the company’s latest smart glasses.
With the Meta Model API now open, the next step is to watch whether outside developers pick it over the likes of OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic, and when Watermelon moves from training to release.
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Chipmakers are racing to meet soaring demand driven by the AI boom, reshaping manufacturing, prices, and investment plans.
Micron Technology said it will invest more than $250 billion in its US operations by 2035 to expand memory chip production.
The investment, up from the $200 billion announced last year, reflects strong AI demand and President Donald Trump’s push to boost domestic chip manufacturing.
A large portion of the funding is being used on a semiconductor campus in New York, which Micron claims is operating more than 25% ahead of schedule.
The buildout is anticipated to generate over 90,000 jobs nationwide when combined with expansion at its sites in Virginia and Idaho.
The Trump administration has made bringing chip production domestically a top priority in an effort to reduce the United States’ reliance on foreign chip manufacturers, boost the country’s economy, and maintain its lead in the global AI race.
Micron will invest $3 billion in bolstering the American supply chain as part of the plan, with $500 million going toward improvements at GlobalWafers’ 300-millimeter silicon wafer facility in Sherman, Texas.
Additionally, a 10-year agreement between the two companies secured a substantial supply of unprocessed silicon wafers for Micron’s future requirements.
The business of Micron, which provides memory chips for Nvidia’s AI gear, has flourished. Following Thursday’s statement, its stock increased in early trading, continuing a run that has seen shares rise more than 200 percent this year.
The business reported last month that $22 billion worth of memory chip orders had already been committed by clients in the data center, consumer, and automotive segments.
Asian foundries raise prices under pressure
While Micron is investing for the long term, Asian chipmakers are already benefiting from the AI boom.
After struggling to attract customers just months ago, Samsung Foundry has reportedly raised prices for new customers by up to 15%, particularly for advanced 4nm and 5nm chips.
It has also increased prices for some 8nm automotive chips and recently recorded its first monthly profit in three years.
Samsung Foundry landed a $16.5 billion chip deal with Tesla last year, and business has kept improving since. Reports say AMD, Anthropic, BYD, Google, and Meta are all looking at building chips on Samsung’s 2-nanometer and 4-nanometer lines.
Normally, prices settle once a factory gets good at making a chip in bulk. But AI demand has outpaced supply, pushing both Samsung Foundry and rival TSMC to raise prices.
TSMC has reportedly bumped prices between 5 and 10 percent on its 3-nanometer, 5-nanometer, and 7-nanometer lines.
Taiwan’s central bank flags bubble risk
All this fast spending is starting to worry regulators. Taiwan’s central bank governor, Yang Chin-long, told lawmakers on Thursday that while the AI boom is built on real growth, the risk of a bubble is real too.
Speaking at a parliamentary hearing, he said the bank has to watch closely for companies borrowing heavily to fund speculative spending in the tech sector.
“We do have concerns about the possibility of an AI bubble,” Yang said. “AI is driven by real growth potential, but it’s the possibility of over-expansion via over-leveraging that concerns us.”
Taiwan sits at the center of the world’s AI supply chain, serving giants like Nvidia and Apple through chip maker TSMC, whose stock has helped drive Taiwanese markets to record highs this year.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has made that connection clear with frequent visits to the island, including a trip in June for Computex and Nvidia GTC Taipei.
TSMC said last month that customer demand remains strong and that outlooks on AI are still positive, even as it keeps an eye on rising costs for parts.
At its quarterly meeting in June, Taiwan’s central bank board decided that rising prices tied to the AI boom did not call for higher interest rates, though the vote to hold rates steady was not unanimous.
Yang said holding rates was the right call, given how much traditional industries are lagging behind the fast-growing tech sector.
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China’s use of artificial intelligence has surged faster than expected, with daily AI token usage rising more than 1,000-fold in just over two years. The growth is also expanding into Western markets.
According to China’s National Bureau of Statistics, daily AI token usage increased from 100 billion at the start of 2024 to 100 trillion by the end of the year, reaching over 140 trillion by March 2025. That’s roughly 100,000 tokens per person across China’s 1.4 billion population.
Tokens are the small units of text and data that AI models use to process and generate content, forming the basis of everything from chatbot responses to AI-generated videos.
Industry experts in China say token use has grown so large that it is becoming the basis of a whole economy, with AI services increasingly bought, sold, and priced by the token.
Chinese models gain ground in the West
China’s AI industry is also gaining ground internationally. Since February 2026, Chinese AI models have accounted for at least 30% of corporate AI traffic on OpenRouter, a platform that routes AI requests to different providers.
According to CNBC, the share peaked at 46% by mid-2026, up from an average of 11% over the previous year and just 4.5% in early 2025.
OpenRouter’s overall AI traffic has also grown rapidly, increasing from more than 5 trillion tokens per week in April 2025 to over 20 trillion by April 2026.
The change is being driven by price. Open-source Chinese models are usually 60% to 90% less expensive than the best products like Anthropic and OpenAI, according to Justin Summerville of OpenRouter. Chinese AI models are also much cheaper.
As of June 2026, OpenAI’s GPT-5.5 charged $5 per million input tokens, compared with just $0.14 for DeepSeek V4 Flash. The price advantage helped Chinese models overtake US models on OpenRouter for the first time during the week of February 9–15, processing 4.12 trillion tokens.
With 17.6% of routed tokens, or 5.13 trillion each week, DeepSeek is presently the biggest provider on OpenRouter by firm. Next is Alibaba’s Qwen, with 13.9% and 2.77 trillion tokens per week.
Chinese models generate 46.4% of all tokens routed through the platform, while US-origin models produce 35.7%. The top US provider, Anthropic, owns just 14.8%.
Cost is the primary motivator, according to Ramp’s senior economist, Ara Kharazian, who notes that DeepSeek has emerged as the top trending software provider on Ramp’s own index, indicating that these technologies are now appearing in actual corporate spending rather than simply test projects.
It’s possible that US policy is also encouraging businesses to choose Chinese choices. Currently, only roughly 20 authorized organizations have access to Washington’s most sophisticated model, GPT-5.6 Sol. On July 9, GPT-5.6 became live in tiers: consumers can access Terra and Luna, but federal authorization is required for Sol’s most potent features.
Some in the business contend that the US is pushing consumers toward less expensive, more accessible alternatives from overseas by blocking access to its top models.
Alibaba’s cloud growth and the risks ahead
At the center of this change is Alibaba Cloud. Both Citi Research and UBS analyst Kenneth Fong increased their growth projections for Alibaba Cloud’s fiscal first-quarter 2027 revenue from a previous 40% estimate to over 45% year over year on July 8.
That builds on strong recent numbers: in fiscal fourth-quarter 2026, the company’s Cloud Intelligence Group posted 40% growth in external customer revenue, its eleventh straight quarter of triple-digit growth in AI products, which by then made up 30% of external cloud revenue.
There are concerns associated with Chinese AI’s fast growth.
Companies may be forced to disclose data to the government under China’s National Intelligence Law, which raises privacy issues.
However, access to AI may potentially be hampered by US limitations. For instance, US export regulations halted Anthropic’s Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models on June 12, then reinstated them on July 1.
As a result, businesses and governments must balance the lower cost of Chinese AI models against privacy concerns, geopolitical tensions, and the uncertainty of the US-China trade relationship.
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