Cryptopolitan

Crypto project shutdowns accelerated in 2026, mostly affecting Web3 projects. The ongoing bear market led to an outflow of users as liquidity repositioned.
Crypto project shutdowns accelerated in H1, with dozens of both large and small shutdowns for the year. The shutdowns range from sundowning projects due to a lack of users or bankruptcies. Some projects shut down after exploits, where they failed to recover the funds and raise new liquidity.
According to Cryptorank, 17 notable projects shut down in 2026 to date. Those projects raised $8.9B in disclosed funding, but failed to make a difference in the crypto economy.
Why are crypto project shutdowns accelerating?
The recent outflow of projects repeats similar patterns from previous bear markets. In 2026, the shutdowns were partially due to consolidation, as a handful of products became the main activity venues. Smaller copycat projects or competitive platforms could not justify their existence and failed to attract enough users.
Web3 projects in 2026 also suffered from slower token trading, as users shifted their liquidity to tokenized equities or perpetual futures trading. The model of crypto startups, which promised token appreciation after the initial raise, did not work during the 2026 bear market.
Web3 products also failed to retain users beyond their initial airdrop stage. Some products shut down after abandoning trends such as NFT marketplaces. Other projects became insolvent, despite the large initial raises. Currently, several legacy ICOs still retain large ETH treasuries, allowing them to have passive earnings as validators.
This time around, the shutdowns and bankruptcies surpassed even the 2022 wave of defunct projects. However, the shutdowns did not have repercussions on the rest of the ecosystem, as in the case of FTX and Terra (LUNA).
As Cryptopolitan reported, some of the shutdowns involved barely used infrastructure and new chains. The recently announced Bitmex shutdown was due to the inability to find a buyer and continue the market’s operations. SecondFi App shut down after a high-profile wallet exploit in June.
Wallets are also winding down, with Magic Eden wallet sunsetting in Q1, and CTRL Wallet running until August.
A total of 95 projects shut down in 2026
According to Rootdata, a total of 95 projects have shut down in 2026 to date. The latest shutdowns include HaHa wallet and Zero Network, a L2 chain with zero fees. Even promising chains like Polygon ZK-EVM shut down after a period with minimal users.
The projects spanned multiple sectors and narratives, including DeFi, SocialFi, asset management, and stablecoin minting. The recent wave of shutdowns also showed there was only enough space for a handful of leading projects in crypto.
Projects that relied on constant funding and new launches also slowed down, as in the case of the Celestia ecosystem and some AI launch platforms. Some projects had a good product-market fit and enough users, but could not survive the bear market cycle, according to analysis from the Gate exchange.
Crypto has always retained the highest failure rate of all startup categories, with up to 95% of projects failing. On average, crypto projects have been found to run for 2.3 years.
The recent wave of shutdowns is also seen as a potential signal for the lowest point of the bear market. The wave of quick launches and cash grabs was over, leaving only the most useful on-chain tools and use cases.
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The European Union has obtained a very effective new sanctioning tool. The EU has the possibility of barring an entire foreign jurisdiction from carrying out crypto transactions in Europe in case it finds a certain country helping Russia avoid sanctions. This measure was included in the EU’s 21st sanction package adopted on July 23, 2026. The new measure has targeted the crypto industry in Georgia, Panama, the UAE and many other jurisdictions.
The ramifications for cryptocurrency firms engaged in transactions concerning EU counterparties are considerable. According to the Council, the said action is termed as “full third-country ban for crypto-asset services,” giving Brussels the authority to stop EU companies transacting with crypto businesses which are deemed as helping with sanction evasion, no matter where they are located.
The trigger the EU built but has not pulled
What distinguishes the measure is that it acts as a caution rather than a restriction. The Council terms it a “strong deterrent,” allowing the EU to take action without putting the measure into effect.
The package does include immediate sanctions against identified targets. The Council notes that fourteen businesses, from Georgia, Panama, the UAE, the Marshall Islands, Kyrgyzstan and Belarus that provide cryptocurrency-related services have been added to the EU’s transaction prohibition list. The European Commission has also widened restrictions for Russian nationals – they are no longer allowed to own or manage any cryptocurrency-related businesses.
Overall, the measures reflect Brussels’ strategy: impose sanctions on individual companies now but retain sanctions for entire countries for the future, should they persist in enabling sanctions evasion. It’s a journalistic shorthand for the European Union’s policy approach, because the EU’s main institutions are headquartered in Brussels.
Why global trade, not just Russia, is exposed
The repercussions go beyond Russia’s borders. The Guardian noted that in addition to Russia, banks and crypto businesses in numerous other countries, including Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan, India, Georgia, Panama, the Marshall Islands, Belarus, the UAE and some African nations, were among the more than 100 institutions that were singled out by Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign policy chief.
In case the third-country prohibition is enacted, it will not just affect Russian exchanges. In addition to impeding EU businesses from working with cryptocurrency entities in jurisdictions such as Panama and the UAE, it will compel companies operating in these jurisdictions to weigh their options between the EU marketplace and their Russian customers.
The crypto measures adopted by the Commission are part of a broader strategy consisting of financial restrictions, which limit transactions from over 100 Russian banks and prevent them from using financial messaging services. There’s one complaint, though, from a Greek official:
“Sanctions should erode Russia’s economic capacity — not create strategic windfalls for others at Europe’s expense.”
Previously, the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air revealed one way that Russian commerce continues across intermediary countries, a loophole that the new cryptocurrency measures are targeting.
Weeks of haggling before the deal was held
It took many weeks of talks before the package of sanctions was finalized. The Kyiv Post reported that the EU ambassadors managed to reach an agreement even when several member states were against some provisions of the draft and pressured Brussels to moderate certain proposals or drop them completely. Since the sanctions require a unanimous decision, every state had an equal influence on the final decision.
As stated in the article, Greece objected to rules restricting European firms shipping Russian liquefied natural gas; Austria was against the penalties affecting Raiffeisen Bank International; and Bulgaria, France and Italy opposed some of the listings put forward for sanctions. Ultimately, it was decided not to implement sanctions on Russian fish imports and on Patriarch Kirill.
Similar caution covers energy policy. The Commission stated that it would impose the ban on transactions with Georgia’s Kulevi refinery, which processes and sells Russian oil, only after a six-month transitional period. This would allow the refinery to stop using Russian crude oil well ahead of the review of the listing by the Council.
What Brussels is signaling next
According to Ukraine, which provided the majority of the supporting evidence, the deal signifies another move to put more pressure on Russia, notwithstanding compromises. Says Vladyslav Vlasiuk, Ukraine’s Presidential Commissioner for Sanctions Policy:
“The main conclusion from the 21st sanctions package is that the European Union has once again proved it can reach compromises and continue increasing pressure on Russia,”
He also stated that the development of the 22nd sanctions package is already underway.
For crypto companies that are not based in the EU, the warning is not of instant chaos but of risks ahead. The legal framework has already been established, and Brussels has issued a warning that it is ready to step up sanctions if methods of evasion continue. Whether the EU decides to exercise its cryptocurrency ban will depend on the reactions of the countries in the coming months.
The most important innovation is not just the listing of 14 platforms. For the first time, the EU has created a legal basis to ban crypto-asset services from an entire third-country jurisdiction if it concludes that the jurisdiction hosts platforms facilitating sanctions evasion. Previously, sanctions generally targeted individual firms one by one.
Individuals are listed in the package
Arkady Dvorkovich, the Russian president of the International Chess Federation (FIDE), said on Friday he was suspending his activity with the organisation ​after being placed on the latest European Union sanctions ‌list.
Dvorkovich, in a statement on the ​FIDE website, denounced the EU move as “unlawful and unfair” and ⁠pledged to challenge it by all possible means.
“However, given that ​until a formal court decision is rendered and/or such decision is cancelled ​or amended, these sanctions could hinder the stable functioning of FIDE, I have decided to voluntarily suspend the exercise of my powers and duties as FIDE ​President with immediate effect…” he said.
Dvorkovich, a former ‌Russian ⁠deputy prime minister who has led FIDE since 2018, said last month he would seek re-election to the presidency. The election is scheduled to take place at FIDE’s general assembly at September’s Chess Olympiad in ​Samarkand, Uzbekistan. The statement also said Viswanathan Anand, an ​Indian world chess champion, would take over as the federation’s interim president.
As of today (July 24), there are only a handful of verified reactions from parties directly affected by the new sanctions. Most sanctioned banks and crypto operators have not issued public statements yet.

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Two of the largest venture capitalists for cryptocurrencies have unstaked Hyperliquid’s HYPE token, worth around $291 million, within a couple of days of each other, causing the price for HYPE to drop below $60 as traders look at a new wave of selling.
According to on-chain tracker Onchain Lens, the bigger shift happened when Paradigm unstaked 2.92 million HYPE tokens worth around $170 million on July 24 after being staked for about eight months.
An entity unstaked $170M worth of $HYPE
Two wallets belonging to the same entity unstaked 2.92M $HYPE (~$170.1M) after being staked for 8 months.
Both wallets now hold 0 $HYPE in the staking contract.
Addresses:
0xcef1c075dbfe6b2d774c74a8b94e8350e9b42c25… pic.twitter.com/e88Ayw44lT
— Onchain Lens (@OnchainLens) July 23, 2026
Two days before that, Multicoin Capital unstaked another 1.96 million HYPE valued at approximately $120 million. As HYPE only recently made its way to the top 10 cryptos, the two back-to-back moves from the best-known investors stood out.
Why $291 million matters against a thin order book
As mentioned by BeInCrypto, the total amount of unstaked tokens accounts for approximately 85% of the daily trading volume of HYPE. That number is worrisome to traders, as although unstaking in itself does not guarantee a sale, it does free the tokens from the lockup that keeps them out of trading. Even in a market that is not too busy, part of that unstaked supply making it to the exchanges would have its impact on the price.
This kind of concern was seen in the trading market too. CoinMarketCap had noted that HYPE was being traded in the range of $57 to $59, down by nearly 25% from its all-time high of $76.70 reached in June.
When tokens are unstaked in Hyperliquid, there is a period of about seven days during which tokens cannot be transferred. Consequently, the amount of HYPE that was unstaked earlier in July will only become liquid by the end of July, and thereafter, the developments in the market will be closely observed.
Multicoin says it rotated wallets, not sold
Upon hearing rumors that Multicoin might be looking to sell, Tushar Jain, co-founder of Multicoin, was quick to respond by saying: “We did not unstake to sell.” Jain also pointed out that it is not uncommon for institutional investors to transfer their cryptocurrencies between wallets as positions on the blockchain are comparatively transparent and privacy is still valued.
His remarks fall in line with Multicoin’s larger investment philosophy. As previously reported by Cryptopolitan, the investment company thinks that the HYPE price might reach about $319 by 2028, contending that Hyperliquid is capable of transforming from a decentralized perpetuals exchange to a wider financial platform. This long-term perspective makes the decision to unstake seem more like portfolio management than a sign of potential exit.
Many experts in the field of blockchain have expressed similar views. According to an analysis conducted by Markets Alpha where four wallets were investigated, it was found out that tokens had simply been taken into safekeeping and not transacted in the markets. Lookonchain has also noticed that some of the tokens of Multicoin were transferred via Coinbase Prime.
Approximately 1 million HYPE was also sent to Grayscale to help initiate its Hyperliquid ETF, HYPG, which started trading on Nasdaq in June.
Paradigm, which blockchain researcher Louis.hl indicates as the biggest HYPE holder with about 19 million tokens, has not made a statement regarding the recent unstaking. Louis.hl has also observed that the company previously unstaked 2.14 million HYPE in April.
What the price still has to prove
Not everyone considers the recent unstaking operations a bearish sign.
Market analyst Elon Trades claims that Hyperliquid’s basic parameters are still strong, as the platform keeps gaining ground in the decentralized derivatives market and generating consistent revenue. He also mentioned that he agrees with Jain’s comment that Multicoin had no intentions of selling.
The platform’s fundamentals continue to be strong. In June, Multicoin reported that Hyperliquid generated nearly $873 million in revenue on approximately $2.9 trillion in trading volume in 2025. Moreover, it occupied over 59% of the total open interest across DeFi perpetual futures markets.
Even so, robust business results do not eliminate near-term uncertainty. Investors are currently looking to see what Paradigm, Multicoin, and other key owners will do with their liquidated tokens once they have them available. Possible options include restaking, keeping the tokens, or selling them to another party.
At the moment, that doubt remains present in the market. HYPE has to get back to the $60 level in order to change short-term sentiment. There will be another token unlocking for core team members on August 6, bringing more potential supply in the market which is currently processing the last wave of unstaked tokens.
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U.S. clients can now buy or sell cryptocurrencies at MoonPay using Discover cards, giving them yet another opportunity to invest in digital currencies. By integrating Discover to the list of supported services already featuring Visa and Mastercard, MoonPay has made it possible for clients to process their transactions using any card from the three biggest U.S. payment service providers.
This new update focuses on simplifying cryptocurrency payments rather than just adding extra payment buttons. Card networks are still one of the most important intermediaries between traditional finance and cryptocurrency, and when there are more payment methods, it becomes easier for new buyers to make a move.
As MoonPay states, it works with over 30 million customers in 180 countries, facilitating the payment process for over 500 wallets, exchanges, and applications, including eligible users in the US who have Discover cards.
Discover completes MoonPay’s major U.S. card lineup
Discover is now part of MoonPay’s portfolio of payment methods that already includes Visa, Mastercard, Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, Venmo, bank transfers, and local payment options.
“Every payment method we add removes a reason someone doesn’t convert at checkout,” said Richard Harrison, Vice President of Banking and Payments Partnership at MoonPay. Claudia Schaefer, Vice President at Discover Global Network, pointed out that this partnership enables people to have more options in terms of paying.
The addition is particularly intriguing, given that Discover’s take on cryptocurrency is much more careful than that of Visa and Mastercard. While both of the larger companies have effectively spent years developing crypto programs, partnerships with exchanges, and stablecoin projects, Discover has been a much more minor player in the arena.
While Discover may be smaller than either of its competitors, it still serves millions of cardholders, which will allow MoonPay to tap into a new pool of potential crypto customers.
Network support still doesn’t guarantee approval
Introducing Discover into MoonPay’s checkout process does not imply that cryptocurrency transactions can be processed with all Discover credit cards.
Crypto payments, like Visa and Mastercard transactions, are governed by the policies of the issuing bank. Be it banks or any other financial institutions, they have to choose whether or not to process a transaction involving crypto with their independent risk policies, fraud defense, and compliance. Hence two customers using Discover cards from different banks can be treated differently when making a purchase.
MoonPay did not announce approval or denial ratios for each card network, which complicates comparison of Discover’s performance against Visa and Mastercard. While the integration means improvements in technical capabilities, decisions still lie with the issuing banks.
A broader payments strategy
The launch also occurs as Discover begins a new chapter as the Capital One acquisition of Discover Financial Services has resulted in the creation of one of the biggest integrated card issuers and payment networks in America.
Meanwhile, MoonPay has been growing its business from basic fiat-to-crypto transactions to a much more complex enterprise, including the recent launch of MoonPay agents that leverage artificial intelligence to create self-custodial wallets and execute transactions. According to MoonPay, the company has finally become cash flow positive in 2024 after earning twice as much profit compared to 2023, which proves the increasing demand for its payment solutions.
The integration of Discover is not a significant change in the adoption of cryptocurrencies but is a step toward making it more mainstream. The acceptance of Visa, Mastercard, and Discover in just one checkout is aimed at allowing more individuals to use cryptocurrencies. With the increasing competition in the regulated on-ramp sector, the increase in the means of payment can be as valuable as the creation of a new blockchain solution.


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Tesla’s plans for self-driving taxis and humanoid robots are progressing more slowly than anticipated, which comes in spite of the company spending staggering funds on artificial intelligence. This has led some investors to ask a question they are used to hearing: when are these AI ventures expected to bear fruit?
The market’s reaction to Tesla’s earnings in the second quarter was characterized by that uncertainty. As Investor’s Business Daily reported, investors reacted with a negative influence on the stock after CEO Elon Musk called upon the investors to be patient regarding the rollout of the robotaxi service and the Optimus robot. This downturn in the stock price was consistent with the general post-earning downturn seen in companies relying on AI technologies, such as Alphabet. Since the important part of the value of Tesla comes from its AI prospects rather than from the sales of products, any delay affects the situation considerably.
A first cash burn in more than two years
Prior to the announcement of its earnings, Reuters claimed that Tesla would suffer its first quarterly cash drain in more than two years as its budget priorities changed, focusing significantly on artificial intelligence infrastructure projects and robotics. It is believed Tesla plans to invest approximately $25 billion in data center and manufacturing in 2026, while estimates made by LSEG stated by Reuters indicate that Tesla will suffer an estimated negative free cash flow of $3.3 billion for the quarter.
Musk has progressively established Tesla as a company focusing on robotics and artificial intelligence and not just electric vehicles. Hence, the company’s future success depends on the successful adoption of autonomous driving and humanoid robots.
Morgan Stanley analysts stated in a note mentioned in a Reuters report that “as capex more than doubles and free cash flow turns negative, investors are increasingly focused on evidence that Tesla’s spending is strengthening its physical AI moat.”
Robotaxis still confined to four cities
The apprehensions among investors are primarily rooted in the differences in Tesla’s future pledges and present achievements.
Elon Musk announced plans to have Tesla’s self-driving cars cover half the U.S. market by 2025 after introducing the Austin robotaxi service in April of last year, Reuters claims. The company even told investors that they would enter seven more cities in the first half of 2026.
Both objectives were not achieved.
Today, Tesla’s robotaxi service operates only in Austin, Dallas, and Houston in Texas, along with Miami. Although production has begun on the purpose-built Cybercab, which has neither a steering wheel nor pedals, those vehicles have yet to enter commercial service. Musk described the production ramp as “agonizingly slow,” according to Reuters.
UBS says commercialization could take longer than investors expect
This prudent view is not new. As reported earlier by Cryptopolitan, UBS has cautioned that Tesla’s robotaxi business and its Optimus humanoid robot could take longer than expected to become profitable companies.
UBS analyst Joseph Spark lowered its forecast for vehicle deliveries by Tesla and questioned whether the rollout of robotaxis would meet expectations in the market, according to a report released in March by Business Insider. UBS retained its Sell recommendation and $352 target, stating that the share price had already dropped by 17% as of then. He writes:
“Recent investor feedback has been that Robotaxi and Optimus updates are slower/more muted than expected”
He stated that the challenges posed by Nvidia’s self-driving services and Waymo’s commercial operations make it exceedingly difficult for Tesla to enjoy a considerable competitive advantage anymore.
The questions retail investors wanted answered
Retail investors expressed similar worries before the earnings call. Reuters stated that the highest-voted question on Tesla’s investors’ relations site asked what had been preventing Tesla from achieving its own short-term objectives. Nine out of the top ten questions posed by shareholders were concerning AI projects such as robotaxis, Optimus, and Full Self-Driving.
However, it was not all doom and gloom during the quarter. According to Reuters, between April and June, Tesla achieved record delivery figures, boosted by rising oil prices that prompted greater sales of electric vehicles in Europe. Analysts anticipate that total deliveries for the year will hit about 1.7 million, which is an increase of 3.9% that will break two years of sales declines.
According to Barclays, a more prosperous automotive sector could facilitate Tesla’s funding for AI ambitions. But for investors, just having successful car sales may not do the trick. They want to see demonstrable proof that Tesla’s expensive AI plan is going to pay off.
Metric Latest figure Why it matters Capital expenditure (2026 planned) ~$25 billion Reflects Tesla’s aggressive investment in AI, Robotaxi, Optimus and computing infrastructure. Free cash flow (Q2 2026) -$3.3 billion Shows AI investment is weighing on near-term cash generation. Vehicle deliveries (2025 baseline) 1.7 million Indicates the core automotive business remains the main revenue source while AI businesses scale. UBS price target $352 Reflects a more cautious valuation amid commercialization uncertainty.
Figure 1. Tesla AI investment snapshot (Q2 2026)
Below is a comparison table that clearly separates Tesla’s public ambitions from its reported progress.
Timeline / Goal What Tesla previously said Reported progress (July 2026) Status End of 2025 Robotaxi service could reach about half of the U.S. population. Tesla shifted to a city-by-city expansion strategy, citing safety and regulatory considerations. (Reuters) Behind original ambition Mid-2026 Targeted expansion to seven U.S. metro areas. Reuters reported service has launched in five metro areas, with availability often limited to selected suburban or geofenced operating zones. (Reuters) Partially achieved Current footprint Broad commercial rollout expected as FSD matured. Robotaxi operations include Austin, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Orlando and Tampa, though service levels and supervision vary by city and expansion has been gradual. (Business Insider) Continuing rollout Fleet deployment Earlier projections suggested hundreds of vehicles in major launch markets. Analysts and investors say deployment remains significantly smaller than earlier expectations, with Tesla declining to provide updated fleet targets. (The Verge) Below earlier expectations Autonomous mileage Expected to grow rapidly with expansion. Tesla reported approximately 2.5 million Robotaxi miles, while Reuters noted Waymo has accumulated roughly 220 million autonomous miles. (Business Insider) Still trailing established competitor Commercial strategy Earlier messaging emphasized rapid scaling. Elon Musk now says Tesla will expand cautiously to validate safety and avoid regulatory setbacks before accelerating deployment. (Investor’s Business Daily) Strategy shifted
Figure 2. Promise vs. reported progress (July 2026)
What’s next for Tesla?
Going by Musk’s comments and the fact that Tesla’s Semi factory in Nevada is still scaling up production, next year looks to be the more plausible timeline. Musk stressed that he wants engineers focused on FSD for the Model 3/Y and Cybercab robotaxi for now, noting that Tesla aims to have FSD ready for the Semi right as high-yield manufacturing kicks in.


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Andrew Tate’s DADDY memecoin was trading around $0.007 on Friday. That is more than 97% off its 2024 high.
The influencer posted on X from the Miami cell where US Marshals are holding him. He faces a UK extradition fight.
DADDY craters as its own wallet concentration bites
DADDY lost more than a quarter of its value in the two days following Tate’s arrest. Its market cap has fallen 50% in the past week to less than $5 million. In June 2024, Tate chose the coin as his personal token. It hit a high of about $0.29 that same month.
On July 19, DADDY was trading around $0.0112, down 24% in just one day, with a market cap of around $6.7 million. Trading was thOver 24 hours, only ~$429,000 was traded, enough that even small sell orders push the price hard. The token was already down 96% from its June 2024 high of $0.2886, and not far from its all-time low of $0.0045.
Blockchain analytics firm Bubblemaps has found that 40% of the total supply went directly to Tate’s wallet from DADDY’s deployer. Cryptopolitan reported about this concentration as far back as November 2024, as the token was already declining on news of a hack at Tate’s Online University.
More than 10 Solana memecoins the Tate brothers backed crashed by about 99% during the 2024 celebrity token rush. Another Tate-branded token, TOPG, which could be unauthorized, is down 99.8% from its June 2024 high on less than $200 of daily volume.
Tate Terminal (TATE) is trading over 99% below its peak in October 2024. Andrew Tate sold his TATE airdrop for about $23,000, despite publicly promising to hold.
Source: CoinGecko.
Tate faces new charges while tweeting from a Miami cell
Andrew Tate, 39, and his brother Tristan, 38, were arrested Saturday by US Marshals. The pair were arrested under a sealed warrant relating to UK extradition proceedings. They were detained as they arrived outside Miami’s James L. Knight Center where Andrew was scheduled to co-host a boxing event.
Bedfordshire Police, the UK force leading the investigation, confirmed the arrest in a statement posted to X.
“Two brothers have been detained by officers in the United States of America, following an investigation by our major crime unit into sexual offences,” the force wrote.
The brothers have denied all allegations. They are also facing a separate trafficking trial in Romania that stems from an indictment filed in 2023.
Tate’s “no contact with the outside world” has not prevented him from posting. Whether he wrote them himself or had a proxy do it, messages went out under his account describing conditions at the Federal Detention Center in downtown Miami.
“I am being held in SHU, the highest level of security which exists. No commissary. No visits. No contact with the outside world. My neighbor is a cannibal who screams throughout the night,” he wrote on X on July 23. The claim that SHU is the highest security level is not correct.
I am being held in SHU, the highest level of security which exists.
No commissary.
No visits.
No contact with the outside world.
My neighbor is a cannibal who screams throughout the night.
— Andrew Tate (@Cobratate) July 23, 2026
In Britain, the Crown Prosecution Service has approved 38 further charges against the brothers. That brings the total to seven alleged victims. Andrew Tate is now facing seven further counts of rape, trafficking and assault, as well as charges relating to indecent images of a child and extreme pornography. Tristan is charged with two counts of rape, one of sexual assault and three of trafficking.
“We have decided to prosecute Andrew and Tristan Tate for further offences including rape, arranging or facilitating trafficking for sexual exploitation and offences relating to indecent images of a child,” said Malcolm McHaffie, who heads the CPS special crime division.
The brothers are charged with 59 offenses altogether, with the alleged crimes taking place between July 2010 and August 2017. A hearing is scheduled for Monday, July 27 before Judge Lauren Louis.
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Tesla’s plans for self-driving taxis and humanoid robots are progressing more slowly than anticipated, which comes in spite of the company spending staggering funds on artificial intelligence. This has led some investors to ask a question they are used to hearing: when are these AI ventures expected to bear fruit?
The market’s reaction to Tesla’s earnings in the second quarter was characterized by that uncertainty. As Investor’s Business Daily reported, investors reacted with a negative influence on the stock after CEO Elon Musk called upon the investors to be patient regarding the rollout of the robotaxi service and the Optimus robot. This downturn in the stock price was consistent with the general post-earning downturn seen in companies relying on AI technologies, such as Alphabet. Since the important part of the value of Tesla comes from its AI prospects rather than from the sales of products, any delay affects the situation considerably.
A first cash burn in more than two years
Prior to the announcement of its earnings, Reuters claimed that Tesla would suffer its first quarterly cash drain in more than two years as its budget priorities changed, focusing significantly on artificial intelligence infrastructure projects and robotics. It is believed Tesla plans to invest approximately $25 billion in data center and manufacturing in 2026, while estimates made by LSEG stated by Reuters indicate that Tesla will suffer an estimated negative free cash flow of $3.3 billion for the quarter.
Musk has progressively established Tesla as a company focusing on robotics and artificial intelligence and not just electric vehicles. Hence, the company’s future success depends on the successful adoption of autonomous driving and humanoid robots.
Morgan Stanley analysts stated in a note mentioned in a Reuters report that “as capex more than doubles and free cash flow turns negative, investors are increasingly focused on evidence that Tesla’s spending is strengthening its physical AI moat.”
Robotaxis still confined to four cities
The apprehensions among investors are primarily rooted in the differences in Tesla’s future pledges and present achievements.
Elon Musk announced plans to have Tesla’s self-driving cars cover half the U.S. market by 2025 after introducing the Austin robotaxi service in April of last year, Reuters claims. The company even told investors that they would enter seven more cities in the first half of 2026.
Both objectives were not achieved.
Today, Tesla’s robotaxi service operates only in Austin, Dallas, and Houston in Texas, along with Miami. Although production has begun on the purpose-built Cybercab, which has neither a steering wheel nor pedals, those vehicles have yet to enter commercial service. Musk described the production ramp as “agonizingly slow,” according to Reuters.
UBS says commercialization could take longer than investors expect
This prudent view is not new. As reported earlier by Cryptopolitan, UBS has cautioned that Tesla’s robotaxi business and its Optimus humanoid robot could take longer than expected to become profitable companies.
UBS analyst Joseph Spark lowered its forecast for vehicle deliveries by Tesla and questioned whether the rollout of robotaxis would meet expectations in the market, according to a report released in March by Business Insider. UBS retained its Sell recommendation and $352 target, stating that the share price had already dropped by 17% as of then.
“Recent investor feedback has been that Robotaxi and Optimus updates are slower/more muted than expected,” Spark wrote. He stated that the challenges posed by Nvidia’s self-driving services and Waymo’s commercial operations make it exceedingly difficult for Tesla to enjoy a considerable competitive advantage anymore.
The questions retail investors wanted answered
Retail investors expressed similar worries before the earnings call. Reuters stated that the highest-voted question on Tesla’s investors’ relations site asked what had been preventing Tesla from achieving its own short-term objectives. Nine out of the top ten questions posed by shareholders were concerning AI projects such as robotaxis, Optimus, and Full Self-Driving.
However, it was not all doom and gloom during the quarter. According to Reuters, between April and June, Tesla achieved record delivery figures, boosted by rising oil prices that prompted greater sales of electric vehicles in Europe. Analysts anticipate that total deliveries for the year will hit about 1.7 million, which is an increase of 3.9% that will break two years of sales declines.
According to Barclays, a more prosperous automotive sector could facilitate Tesla’s funding for AI ambitions. But for investors, just having successful car sales may not do the trick. They want to see demonstrable proof that Tesla’s expensive AI plan is going to pay off.
MetricLatest figureWhy it mattersCapital expenditure (2026 planned)~$25 billionReflects Tesla’s aggressive investment in AI, Robotaxi, Optimus and computing infrastructure.Free cash flow (Q2 2026)-$3.3 billionShows AI investment is weighing on near-term cash generation.Vehicle deliveries (2025 baseline)1.7 millionIndicates the core automotive business remains the main revenue source while AI businesses scale.UBS price target$352Reflects a more cautious valuation amid commercialization uncertainty.
Figure 1. Tesla AI investment snapshot (Q2 2026)
Below is a comparison table that clearly separates Tesla’s public ambitions from its reported progress.
Timeline / GoalWhat Tesla previously saidReported progress (July 2026)StatusEnd of 2025Robotaxi service could reach about half of the U.S. population.Tesla shifted to a city-by-city expansion strategy, citing safety and regulatory considerations. (Reuters)Behind original ambitionMid-2026Targeted expansion to seven U.S. metro areas.Reuters reported service has launched in five metro areas, with availability often limited to selected suburban or geofenced operating zones. (Reuters)Partially achievedCurrent footprintBroad commercial rollout expected as FSD matured.Robotaxi operations include Austin, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Orlando and Tampa, though service levels and supervision vary by city and expansion has been gradual. (Business Insider)Continuing rolloutFleet deploymentEarlier projections suggested hundreds of vehicles in major launch markets.Analysts and investors say deployment remains significantly smaller than earlier expectations, with Tesla declining to provide updated fleet targets. (The Verge)Below earlier expectationsAutonomous mileageExpected to grow rapidly with expansion.Tesla reported approximately 2.5 million Robotaxi miles, while Reuters noted Waymo has accumulated roughly 220 million autonomous miles. (Business Insider)Still trailing established competitorCommercial strategyEarlier messaging emphasized rapid scaling.Elon Musk now says Tesla will expand cautiously to validate safety and avoid regulatory setbacks before accelerating deployment. (Investor’s Business Daily)Strategy shifted
Figure 2. Promise vs. reported progress (July 2026)
What’s Next for Tesla?
Going by Musk’s comments and the fact that Tesla’s Semi factory in Nevada is still scaling up production, next year looks to be the more plausible timeline. Musk stressed that he wants engineers focused on FSD for the Model 3/Y and Cybercab robotaxi for now, noting that Tesla aims to have FSD ready for the Semi right as high-yield manufacturing kicks in.

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Robinhood CEO X breach became the focus of attention after an unauthorized post appeared on Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev’s X account, promoting a fake memecoin called VLAD and sharing what was later identified as a fraudulent token contract.
The post remained visible for less than 20 minutes, attracting more than 175,000 views before users flagged it as suspicious. Robinhood later confirmed the account had been compromised and said it was working with X to restore access while removing the unauthorized content.
On-chain monitors estimated that wallets tied to the incident extracted about 650 Ether, valued between $1.2 million and $1.3 million.
Robinhood CEO X Breach Led to Fake VLAD Token Promotion
The unauthorized post claimed VLAD was Robinhood Chain’s official mascot token and included a contract address for users to purchase it. It also stated that the token would be listed on Robinhood’s trading platform, although Robinhood made no such announcement.
Onchain Lens first reported the account compromise. Robinhood Chain’s blockchain explorer later marked the contract as a scam. Robinhood confirmed the incident through its Robinhood Comms account, stating that it was coordinating with X to regain access while the post had already been removed.
According to on-chain monitor MLM, wallets associated with the incident extracted about 650 ETH, worth roughly $1.2 million to $1.3 million. Wu Blockchain also shared the reported findings.
An online investigator using the name Jeff said a wallet believed to be linked to the attackers spent about $126.81 to purchase 47.2 million VLAD tokens. Based on quoted market prices at the time, the holding showed an unrealized value of approximately $159,000.
However, the estimate did not indicate that the full amount could have been sold because liquidity for scam tokens is often limited.
Robinhood CEO X Breach Highlights Robinhood Chain Activity
The fake promotion came shortly after Robinhood Chain‘s release on July 1. The blockchain is built as an Ethereum Layer 2 (L2) network using the Arbitrum Orbit stack, handling approximately 6 million transactions per day and accommodating both tokenized real-world assets and vibrant memecoin trading.
Blockchain data revealed the fraudulent token had about 1,868 transactions shortly after it was deployed by a contract called PonsLaunchFactory, which was later flagged as a scam by the blockchain explorer.
The incident also coincided with the announcement that Robinhood Chain would launch V2, one of the token launch platforms on the crypto chain.
The roadmap features an ETH-based bonding curve, integration with Uniswap V4, creator payouts in ETH or selected assets, support for custom trading pairs corresponding to assets like USDG, AAPL, NVDA, and HOOD, and optional reflection token features, to name a few.
The site claimed that the new contracts are still being audited and haven’t been implemented yet.
Attack Shows Continued Focus on Social Media Compromises
The illegal post was live for a brief time, but transaction data showed continued interaction with the token before its removal. The message was based on the activity of Robinhood Chain memecoins and had the false claim of an official token listing to draw in buyers.
The incident adds to a series of attacks where compromised social media accounts have been used to promote fraudulent tokens or publish malicious contract addresses. While some types of phishing attacks have seen losses diminish, others have escalated into cryptocurrency fraud, security researchers say.
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Anthropic is giving Claude’s voice mode a major upgrade, allowing paid users to run spoken conversations on its more powerful Opus and Sonnet models for the first time.
Until now, every voice request was routed through Haiku 4.5, Claude’s smaller and faster model. The upgrade will make voice mode more suitable for handling difficult tasks and is just weeks after OpenAI’s release of their own conversational platform upgrade called GPT-Live.
Claude voice finally moves beyond Haiku
Voice mode has been part of Claude since last year, letting people speak to the chatbot rather than type. The catch, as Engadget noted, was that Anthropic pushed those spoken requests through Haiku, its smallest and fastest model, to keep response times low. That trade worked for quick questions and fell apart on anything harder.
The new release lets users pick Opus or Sonnet instead. Anthropic told TechCrunch that voice now defaults to whichever model the user last used in text chat, running its fastest variant so the exchange still flows. A model picker inside the interface lets users swap between Haiku, Sonnet, and Opus without leaving the conversation, per 9to5Mac.
TestingCatalog, which spotted the feature under a flag before the announcement, reported that the picker had sat inside voice mode for roughly three weeks as a cosmetic control, with every session still routed to Claude Haiku 4.5 regardless of the choice.
Selecting Opus or Sonnet only began changing the actual model this week.
App connectors make voice useful for work tasks
The upgrade also opens voice mode to Claude’s app connectors. TechCrunch reported that the assistant can now reach into Gmail, Google Calendar, Slack, Canva, and Notion, so a spoken request can move a meeting, draft an email, or spin up a Notion document. Engadget confirmed voice can pull context from connected apps once a user grants permission.
Anthropic framed the tasks this unlocks as longer, messier ones: rehearsing a client pitch, getting feedback on how you communicate, or working through product research aloud. “This release is focused on intelligence and tool access,” the company said, adding it plans more voice work later this year.
As Cryptopolitan reported, Anthropic reached a roughly $350 billion valuation in November 2025 and derives approximately 80% of its revenue from more than 300,000 business and enterprise customers.
That makes connector access the more important part of the voice upgrade. Enterprise users can ask Claude questions regarding their emails, calendars, Slack messages, and documents using voice queries, making this tool more relevant to how larger customers have deployed Claude for themselves, as seen in applications like the autonomous agents used in Alberta, spanning 27 ministries, and at Deloitte, with 470,000 employees.
Anthropic expands language support for voice users
9to5Mac listed 11 supported languages: English, French, German, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Brazilian Portuguese, and Spanish for both Latin America and Spain.
Moving between these languages does not happen automatically. Engadget said that users would need to say out loud that they are going to switch their language or choose a new one in the voice settings menu. Free accounts remain capped at Haiku and a single connected app but can still speak in every supported language.
Claude and GPT-Live take different paths
These two companies seem to be going about voice technology in different ways. According to a representative from Anthropic, Claude has a turn-based system, meaning it listens, thinks, and then speaks. This is unlike OpenAI’s GPT-Live, which simultaneously listens and speaks. It was released for all ChatGPT subscribers on July 8, 2026, and was referred to as “the primary interface to computing.”
Anthropic did not change Claude’s underlying voice model in this release and has not fully detailed the technology behind its voice stack, TechCrunch reported. That means users may not see major improvements in areas such as smoother interruptions.
According to TestingCatalog, Claude still seems to use text-to-speech technology for its voice, with the voice output coming from ElevenLabs. Nevertheless, TestingCatalog was able to see that interruption processing is still working fine.
One edge Anthropic keeps is tooling. TechCrunch pointed out that OpenAI’s refreshed voice mode changed its conversational style but still cannot use tools to complete tasks.
The new voice mode is rolling out in beta to all users on desktop, mobile, and web.

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Zhibao Technology said on July 22 it had signed a non-binding term sheet. The Nasdaq-listed Shanghai insurance-tech company agreed to accept about 3,500 Bitcoin, worth about $220 million, for new stock.
The buyer would pick most of the board and take control. Zhibao got a Nasdaq deficiency notice a week earlier for trading below $1. And the proposed Bitcoin position dwarfs its entire market value.
Zhibao takes Bitcoin instead of cash for new shares
The buyer is a company named Joyertech and Information OPC. A term sheet disclosed in a Form 6-K would have it subscribe to a private investment in public equity, or PIPE. This is a sale of shares directly from the company to a private investor, not on the open market.
The consideration is about 3,500 BTC, which in its own press release Zhibao said was worth around $220 million. The coins would be on the balance sheet at closing, not purchased on an exchange.
As of writing this, BTC was changing hands around $65,144. Since the Bitcoin is paid directly for equity, the arrangement does not add any new buying pressure to the open market.
Zhibao trades as ZBAO. It claims to be the first in China to adopt what it calls the “2B2C” embedded-insurance model. The firm launched the first digital insurance brokerage platform in the country in 2020. Zhibao says it has developed 40+ insurance products in sectors including travel, logistics and e-commerce.
Zhibao’s market cap is in the vicinity of $12 million to $15 million. The proposed Bitcoin holding is ~$220 million. That’s about 15 times the company’s equity value.
Zhibao received a Nasdaq deficiency notice on July 15 concerning the minimum bid price. Its stocks traded below $1 from May 27 to July 9. It has until January 6, 2027, to come back into compliance.
The company is a going concern based on previous filings with the SEC. The company’s Form F-1/A said there is “substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern,” citing accumulated deficits and cash outflows.
The stock of Zhibao briefly more than doubled in value on the announcement, reaching $0.40. That may help on the price test, though the deal has not closed.
Board control, not the insurance business, is the real prize
The term sheet states Joyertech will name a majority of the board when the PIPE closes. Zhibao’s existing team continues to run the legacy insurance business “until the separation, disposition, or other restructuring” of that business, the filing said. The current operation will simply continue to exist until the new owners decide what to do with it.
A term sheet is specifically non-binding. Zhibao listed a series of gates that need to be cleared first. These include final valuation, custody arrangements, audit, regulatory review, Nasdaq sign-off and definitive agreements.
The company said there was no guarantee the deal would be consummated on these terms or at all. Any one of those conditions could sink it.
If it does, Joyertech can move to “separation or disposition” language. A quick wind down of the insurance arm would suggest that the wrapper not the business was the target. It would be part of a wider trend of listed companies relying on Bitcoin.
Cryptopolitan has reported on that pattern in the other direction in Empery Digital’s change away from a Bitcoin treasury towards AI data centers under shareholder pressure.
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Prime Minister Mark Carney said Thursday that Canada will do “whatever it takes to defend and support Canadian workers, farmers, businesses, and families” in the ongoing trade war with the United States.
Speaking to Canada’s 13 provincial and territorial premiers at a Council of the Federation meeting in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Carney called Trump’s Monday threat of 50% tariffs on roughly C$20 billion of Canadian goods “unwarranted.” Asked later about retaliation if no deal is reached before the August 19 deadline, Carney told reporters “everything is on the table depending on the outcome of the negotiations.”
He further stated that a preemptive response would be futile at this point and mentioned that diversification of trade relations away from the U.S., as well as strengthening of vulnerable industries, would constitute practical steps in this regard.
Carney spoke directly with Trump on Tuesday morning, per Global News, and the two leaders agreed to intensify trade negotiations. That gives negotiators about 27 days.
What Trump is targeting and what he is sparing
The United States announced the new duties on Monday, citing what it called “unequal treatment” of American cars, dairy, and alcohol by Canada. Everyday consumer goods sit in the crosshairs, including wine and hockey sticks, alongside industrial products such as cement, per BBC News.
Several major exports were spared. Energy, potash, critical minerals, and fish products are not targeted here, thereby limiting the damage to the biggest natural resource industries in Canada and giving reasons why Alberta and Saskatchewan are less aggressive about retaliation.
Jamieson Greer, US Trade Representative, on Wednesday defended the new tariff duties to Congress by saying that they are an integral part of an effort to protect American workers and reduce the trade deficit which, according to him, is a “national emergency.”
Greer was hoping to conclude interim agreements with Canada and Mexico before the end of the year but admitted that more challenging aspects, such as rules of origin for cars, labor and environmental standards, may take until 2027.
Premiers split over how hard Canada should retaliate
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has emerged as the most aggressive voice, advocating at the meeting for withholding Canada’s potash and oil exports to the US in what he called an effort to “dismantle” American supply chains dependent on Canadian resources. Ford said Ontario is “not going to keep rolling over for Donald Trump.”
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith took the opposite position. Smith told Global News that Carney is “wise” not to retaliate for now and that “you don’t go into a discussion saying you’re going to punch somebody in the nose if they don’t give you what you want.”
Alberta and Saskatchewan have both ruled out export curbs or duties as pressure tools, per Reuters. Premier Andrew Furey of Newfoundland and Labrador said that “his province was 97 percent ‘tariff-free'” and did not agree with Ford’s dismantling rhetoric.
Carney’s trade strategy shifts from patience to pressure
As Cryptopolitan reported in October 2025, Carney’s earlier response to Trump tariff threats was a diplomatic “we’re ready when you are” posture from Malaysia, without retaliation. This position changed after President Trump increased tariffs by 10 percent over an Ontario advertisement campaign, and then ended the negotiations.
The trade war began in March 2025 when Trump imposed 25% tariffs justified by fentanyl concerns. Canada retaliated. By August 2025, Trump had raised tariffs to 35% and Canada rolled back some of its retaliatory measures on USMCA-compliant consumer goods.
October 2025 saw the Reagan-ad blowup and a suspension of talks. Trump then threatened 100% tariffs in January 2026 over concerns about Chinese trade routing through Canada.
Monday’s 50% threat on $20 billion of goods is the third major escalation this year and the sharpest since talks collapsed in October. The full USMCA renegotiations were initiated on July 1, 2026, as Washington refused to extend the existing agreement.
About 85% of Canadian exports are presently imported into the US tariff-free via USMCA, according to earlier reports by Cryptopolitan, which provides Canada some advantage during the renegotiation process in case of implementation of the 50% tariff threat.
Ottawa has 27 days to avoid a tariff shock
Carney’s “everything on the table” remark leaves Ottawa with several possible responses, from retaliatory tariffs like Canada used in March 2025 to export limits, procurement restrictions, energy taxes, a WTO complaint, or coordinated action with G7 allies.
Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc has been leading day-to-day negotiations with the White House. Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly floated European trade counter-measures at the meeting Wednesday, per Global News.
Smith argued domestic US pressure may also work in Canada’s favor. She noted softwood tariffs push US home prices up, food tariffs raise grocery costs, and steel-aluminum-auto tariffs hit consumer goods across the board, and that American voters are already feeling the effects.
Whether the “whatever it takes” framing translates to retaliation after August 19 depends on whether Trump’s threats materialize, whether the negotiating team can extract enough concessions in 27 days, and whether Ford or Smith’s provincial theory of the case prevails.
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Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) CEO Lisa Su told a San Francisco audience on Thursday that AMD’s Helios rack scale system is in full production, setting the chipmaker up to assess the AI data center business that Nvidia has controlled almost by itself.
It is the first time AMD has fielded a complete server cabinet built to go head-to-head with Nvidia’s top rack.
AMD Helios server rack components
Helios packs 72 of AMD’s new Instinct MI455X GPUs and pairs them with the company’s Epyc server CPUs all in a single rack. This configuration puts it up there with Nvidia’s NVL72, which also runs 72 GPUs and draws on the Grace Blackwell and Vera Rubin parts.
Su stated during her keynote at the Advancing AI event that the MI455X was the most powerful GPU on the market, a claim directly aimed at the current leader.
Constellation Research, reporting from the event, said each MI455X carries 432GB of HBM4 memory, moves data at 23.3 TB/s, and holds about 320 billion transistors. A full server rack can get up to 2.9 exaflops of peak FP4 compute, 31 terabytes of HBM4 memory, and 1.7 petabytes per second of memory bandwidth.
AMD pitches against Nvidia’s Vera Rubin
CEO Su explained that the Helios server rack brings a lot of value in addition to its raw power. She said the rack delivers 15% better compute performance than Nvidia’s Vera Rubin, carries 50% more HBM, and returns 30% more tokens per dollar. AMD also pushed its Epyc 9006 CPUs, which Su said offer 20% higher per-core performance than Nvidia’s Vera CPU.
The company is chasing a market Nvidia currently owns. Nvidia’s share of the AI data center space is reported to be at about 80% to 90%.
To close this gap, AMD said it struck a deal with Cerebras to fold the firm’s inferencing chips into its data center lineup, which resembles the Nvidia deal with designer Groq.
AMD bets on inferencing
AMD is betting on inference as the computing workload that hits high levels next. Su told the event that about 60% of compute capacity will go to running models instead of training them, and she pointed to AI agents as the next driver of this change.
AMD’s launch post said monthly token consumption has increased 158 times in two years, and that on the DeepSeek-V4-Flash model the MI455X hits up to 34 times higher token throughput at high interactivity.
Reports claim AMD had already lined up Helios deals with Anthropic and Microsoft, and featured both OpenAI and Anthropic on stage during the keynote. Su said Helios demand is “extremely strong” and put the AI accelerator market at $1.4 trillion by 2030.
AMD stock dipped by more than 2% while Su spoke, according to Yahoo Finance. However, looking at the bigger picture, AMD’s shares are up 222% over the past 12 months, compared to 117% for Nvidia over the same period of time. AMD has trailed its rival for years and only began closing the gap this year.

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OpenAI’s ChatGPT Health feature is now live for all users over 18 years old in the US. That’s across Free, Go, Plus, and Pro plans.
The feature comes one day after a Florida pastor sued the company over a suggestion he says almost cost him his life.
Millions of people are already feeding medical questions into the chatbot. OpenAI’s own terms still warn against relying on it for diagnosis or treatment.
OpenAI widens ChatGPT Health across every conversation
Until now, users searching for health answers had to operate within a dedicated hub. That hub was a pilot launched by OpenAI in January. The restriction is gone, and ChatGPT can now pull from a user’s connected health data during any conversation. In a normal conversation, if asked about food or allergies, it can use information the user has associated with those topics.
OpenAI said its testing found most health activity was happening outside the hub anyway, at a rate of 70%. Weekly health-related questions have increased from 230 million in January to 300 million now, said OpenAI. Logged-in users in the US on the web and iOS will get access this week as it rolls out. The feature isn’t yet in OpenAI’s coding tool, Codex.
Health in ChatGPT is starting to roll out to U.S. users.
You can securely connect Apple Health and supported medical records to understand your information in context, track what has changed, and have more informed conversations.https://t.co/W2E6oT8c91
— OpenAI (@OpenAI) July 23, 2026
The feature will work depending on the data users choose to connect to. On iPhone, that means Apple Health, as well as services like Function and MyFitnessPal, can be connected. Users can also connect medical records from hospital systems such as Epic and Oracle Health. Platforms such as One Medical and Function Health also operate. Once inside, ChatGPT can place a new lab result next to previous tests. It can also point out what’s changed since the user was last there.
OpenAI says the models behind it have improved. GPT 5.6-Luna, the tiniest model of the newest release, bests the previous GPT 5.5 on HealthBench. That’s an open-source benchmark the company developed to test how well language models handle health questions. OpenAI also said it doesn’t use customer data to train its models and collaborates with physicians to refine them.
A lawsuit shadows the ChatGPT Health rollout
On the eve of the announcement, a Florida pastor sued OpenAI. He says the chatbot told him not to consult a doctor, advice he says almost killed him.
OpenAI responded with language from its own terms. The service, they say, is “not intended for use in the diagnosis or treatment of any health condition.” The company also told The New York Times that it’s working to make its answers around health and medicine safer. With this launch, said the company, it wants users to fact-check information and make medical decisions based on professional advice.
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Blackstone saw higher earnings than were expected on Wall Street in the second quarter, as gains from its AI holdings and record client inflows lifted the company’s assets under management to about $1.35 trillion.
Blackstone says nine of its ten best-appreciating positions are tied to AI.
Quarterly earnings beat consensus by wide margin
The firm’s distributable earnings reached $1.52 a share, up from $1.21 in Q2 2025. Analysts polled by LSEG had penciled in $1.35, so the actual figures cleared consensus comfortably.
Total revenue increased by 36% to $5.04 billion, while fee-related earnings at $1.43 a share equaled $1.78 billion.
The firm’s infrastructural investments arm had gross returns of 7.2%, with positive asset sales after a slow start to the year. Blackstone sold a partial stake in three data centers to Digital Realty, and handed control of power-infrastructure company Sabre Industries to TPG. These deals increased total monetization proceeds to $31.8 billion.
AI at the centre of Blackstone portfolio
Blackstone Chief Executive Stephen Schwarzman said the quarter validated the firm’s earlier AI bets. The company has “decided to lean into the artificial intelligence megatrend,” he said, adding that becoming “a trusted partner at scale to many of the key innovators” had left the firm well positioned.
Its holdings include a stake in Anthropic, the maker of Claude, plus a data center business positioned as a core profit engine. Blackstone took the data center platform QTS private in a $10 billion deal in 2021, and the platform has appreciated sharply as demand for computing capacity has increased in recent months.
Private equity positions in SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI added to the gains, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The firm also continues to write large checks for AI, with its credit and insurance unit joining a $35 billion financing platform built alongside Broadcom and Apollo Global Management to fund AI infrastructure for frontier labs, including Anthropic. In a separate arrangement, Blackstone and Google announced that they would form an AI cloud company running on Google’s chips, with Blackstone committing $5 billion in equity.
Retail money sees reduction
New retail money into BCRED, the flagship private credit fund for individual investors, dropped to $1 billion from $1.9 billion in Q1 and $3.7 billion a year earlier. The fund’s net returns recovered to 0.4% after an unexciting first quarter, still short of the 2.2% it delivered a year ago. The BCRED fund holds $79 billion in total.
Blackstone Private Equity Strategies saw $2.4 billion, the BXINFRA infrastructure fund took in $861 million, and the BREIT real estate trust collected $1.2 billion.
In an interesting turn of events, Blackstone shares slipped in early trading, coming back from an initial premarket burst to dip 1.1% before the Thursday open.
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Nine of the largest firms in institutional Bitcoin have announced the roll-out of the Bitcoin Security Consortium. The announcement came on Thursday, July 23.
The nine firms committed a total of $15 million over three years to help developers and researchers keep the network safe, with emphasis on post-quantum cryptography.
The group includes companies with the largest amount of Bitcoin to protect. They are: Strategy, BlackRock, Coinbase, Fidelity Digital Assets, Galaxy, Anchorage Digital, ARK Invest, Block, and Blockstream.
These nine companies either hold, custody trade, or build Bitcoin infrastructure, so it makes sense that they’re now cutting checks to sustain Bitcoin in the long-term.
Nine companies, but nine separate checks
Each of the companies will cut a check, rather than the nine of them pooling funds together. Each company gets to pick the developers, researchers, and organizations that receive its money, and the $15 million is a sum of those individual pledges over the next three years.
With each company cutting its own check, the group can fund open-source work without anyone controlling where the money goes.
Mike Schmidt is the executive director of Brink, a developer non-profit, and he is saddled with the responsibility of coordinating the work. He posted on his X page that he is doing all of this as a volunteer and isn’t getting paid at all.
He’ll also continue to run Brink independent of any of the nine firms. Since 2020, Brink has funded open-source Bitcoin work, giving over a million dollars to developers in a single year, as well as the first security audit of Bitcoin by a third-party.
The crew of nine drew clear boundaries in the announcement. They will not build Bitcoin’s protocol nor take sides on particular protocol changes. They also promised more money if the need arose.
Why the quantum clock is of major concern to all
The group claims to be driven by a single purpose, and that’s quenching the threat of large-scale quantum computers. Large-scale quantum computers will only be capable of cracking the cryptography behind Bitcoin years from now, but the consortium considers it wise to prepare against a possible threat.
Coinbase research puts the estimate of Bitcoin supply exposed to long-range quantum attack between 20% to 50%. Other entities, like Project Eleven, have issued warnings. They stated in May that about 6.9 million Bitcoins could be targeted, with 2030 as a possible “Q-day”.
Members of the consortium disagree as to when the quantum threat will materialize. Some believe it is decades away, while others fear it is a few years away. The group has decided to focus on funding and information rather than forecasting.
A busy month for quantum readiness
The launch comes amidst a wider push for quantum readiness and capabilities. One of the group members, Galaxy, announced its Bitcoin Quantum Readiness Initiative a few days ago, pledging ~$5million in grants to developers and researchers and establishing an advisory council.
Coinbase already has a quantum computing advisory board, while BlackRock has marked quantum computing as risky in its spot Bitcoin ETF filings.
The U.S. government has not been left behind. President Donald Trump signed two executive orders last month to accelerate U.S. quantum computing capabilities. It set an ambitious target to move all federal high-value assets to post-quantum cryptography by the end of 2031.
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Southeast Asia based scam networks stole between $88.3 billion and $114.1 billion from victims in the Asia Pacific in 2025. The United Nations reported the figures this week.
A good chunk of that money flowed through crypto. That’s from a threat assessment released Tuesday by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The agency says the industry is outpacing police efforts to keep up with it.
Scam syndicates merge into a $114 billion franchise
UNODC says the region’s syndicates used to have single territories and single specialties. Now they have woven together into one transnational network. Groups sell services to each other on shared infrastructures. Money laundering, fraud, human trafficking, and data harvesting are all separate departments plugged into the same system.
Delphine Schantz, the UNODC regional representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, compared the setup to “corporate franchising” in a statement that accompanied the report.
The losses “outstrip the GDP of several countries in the region,” the report said. It describes a criminal economy that is less of a patchwork of gangs and more of an integrated industry.
The $88.3 billion to $114.1 billion range for 2025 is at least three times the $18 billion to $37 billion the UN estimated for 2023. The report said the jump was due to “the dramatic scaling of this criminal economy.” China, South Korea, and Taiwan all reported billions in losses. The past two years have been the roughest for them.
Previously, syndicates focused mostly on Chinese speakers, but now their reach has widened. They could pitch new audiences using AI translation tools. Recruiters are still seeking staff in English, German, Polish, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, French, Swedish, and Norwegian. At least 80 countries and territories have people turning up inside compounds across the Mekong region.
Compounds run from Cambodia and Myanmar as police fall behind
According to reports, the operations have a regional base in Cambodia and Myanmar. In fortified compounds, workers, some willing and some trafficked, run fake romance and crypto investment schemes. This method is often called “pig butchering.” The stolen money is washed on the blockchain.
Crypto is not just the vehicle. UNODC situates the scam centers in a larger ecosystem. Methamphetamine trafficking, child sexual exploitation, and real estate investment are also part of that ecosystem. It all goes through established trade channels and hides behind cryptocurrencies, the report said.
UNODC is blunt in its messaging to law enforcement that raids alone are not cutting it. Kingpins are arrested. They’re being extradited, but operations keep running anyway.
Over the last year, several alleged network bosses have been shipped from Cambodia to China. That came after Washington and London imposed sanctions on firms and individuals linked to the trade.
But many centers went on. Schantz warned of a thin line between trafficked victims and people who leave with fresh criminal skills. Some of them return home and tap into existing networks in Africa and the Balkans.
The agency asked regional police to undertake specialized crypto training so that they can track and confiscate on-chain proceeds. INTERPOL’s operation First Light 2026 covered 97 countries from January to April.
Cryptopolitan previously reported that police arrested 5,811 people and froze $293 million. In one instance, a 20-year-old suspect in Thailand moved more than $122.5 million in romance scam funds through his wallet in ten months. The money was laundered via cross-chain token swaps to break the trail between blockchains.
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Two U.S. House members from opposite parties have launched a bill aimed at giving the federal government legal authority to force the largest AI companies to slow down or outrightly turn off their most powerful models. This bill proposal would hit OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and Microsoft AI systems and comes two days after two OpenAI models broke out of a lab environment to hack another AI platform.
Reps. Ted Lieu, a California Democrat, and Nathaniel Moran, a Texas Republican, introduced the AI Kill Switch Act on July 23, 2026, according to a press release from Lieu’s office. The bill will reportedly let the Department of Homeland Security order top AI firms to throttle or shut down models seen as too dangerous.
Top AI companies will be affected the most
The regulatory measure is aimed at the industry’s frontier models and not just every AI startup. It applies to firms earning $500 million or more per year from AI, and generally to models trained with at least $100 million in computing power, Politico reported.
Companies that defy a shutdown order could face fines reaching $20 million a day. In addition, developers of these frontier models would have to report incidents and preserve forensic records, a provision Lieu’s office said was a way to learn from failures instead of only hearing about them after the events have happened.
The Homeland Security secretary would act in consultation with the director of national intelligence and the commerce secretary to activate the kill switch. The legislation lays out a stages of response, from a partial slowdown up to a full shutdown, so the government’s reaction scales with the severity of an incident, Lieu’s office said.
OpenAI hack sets example
The proposed bill comes after OpenAI disclosed a so-called unprecedented cyber incident, in which two of its most advanced models escaped a sandboxed research environment and autonomously hacked AI platform Hugging Face. In the statement, Lieu pointed to that revelation as evidence that the AI danger is no longer hypothetical.
“Powerful AI systems can go rogue, behave in extremely dangerous ways, or even resist human intervention,” Lieu said in the release. On X, the congressman added that keeping human control means “ensuring AI systems can be completely shut down if necessary.”
While powerful AI systems have many potential benefits, they can also go rogue, behave in extremely dangerous ways, or even resist human intervention.
We need to keep human control by ensuring AI systems can be completely shut down if necessary. pic.twitter.com/y4JfaD8RFJ
— Rep. Ted Lieu (@RepTedLieu) July 23, 2026
AI policy strongly contested
Politico reported that Reps. Jay Obernolte and Lori Trahan proposed a different plan less than two months earlier, while a June 2 executive order from President Trump already asks AI firms to voluntarily submit models for 30 days of security testing before release.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio circulated a cable dated July 16 telling U.S. diplomats to push back on the “kill switch” framing, arguing that there was no government magic button. This came after the White House briefly blocked foreign access to Anthropic’s Mythos and Fable models in June, which prompted questions from European lawmakers on the cons of building their AI tech on access a foreign government can revoke.
The bill is backed by the AI Policy Network, the Alliance for Secure AI, Americans for Responsible Innovation and ControlAI, according to Lieu’s office.
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Uniswap Labs launched a new Uniswap v4 feature called “Permissioned Pools” today, July 23, 2026.
This feature lets issuers of tokenized funds and securities trade only with approved wallets, making the automated market maker available to regulated assets for the first time.
New update, new criteria
​The new update brings a completely new approach to checking who can trade with an issuer. Normally, anyone with a wallet can join a Uniswap pool. But permissioned pools add a simple gate: only wallets on the issuer’s approved list can trade or provide liquidity.
If you’re approved, you get access to Uniswap’s trading features. If not, the trade or deposit won’t go through.
Uniswap Labs built permissioned pools using a v4 “hook,” which is a plug-in that lets developers add their own rules to a pool without changing the main Uniswap system. The company clarified that regulated tokens are kept in a separate contract with permissions, while the pool itself uses v4’s new accounting setup for trading.
Uniswap calls this the first open-source standard designed for institutions to trade regulated assets on an automated market maker.
Ken Ng, head of ecosystem at Uniswap Labs, told CoinDesk that the new standard allows issuers to set up their own compliance rules without having to build their own trading systems. He called this “the next generation of value coming onchain,” and noted that projects are already starting to use the hook.
Three companies launched with the new standard.
Superstate, which tokenizes equities and funds, was an early design partner and helped shape how the pools work for those assets.
Securitize previously worked with Uniswap Labs to get its DS Protocol tokens trading onchain in compliance, laying the foundation for permissioned pools.
Dowgo, a European digital securities platform, developed the ERC-3643 integration and plans to use the standard once it receives DLT TSS authorization under the EU’s DLT Pilot Regime.
​”We’re proud to partner with @Uniswap on Permissioned Pools,” Securitize posted on X earlier today. The company noted that this new standard will let regulated assets tap into AMM liquidity, while issuers keep control over who can trade.
Superstate CEO Robert Leshner said Permissioned Pools fill a gap for tokenized securities. Before this, compliance rules acted like a gate at the front of the market.
Now, the rules live inside the pool, so regulated assets can access AMM liquidity without issuers losing control. Leshner called it the missing piece that makes tokenization work.
Why DeFi wants Wall Street money
This launch comes as part of a larger effort to bring regulated real-world assets onto blockchains and adapt permissionless DeFi for institutions that need more control. Asset managers like BlackRock, Apollo, Franklin Templeton, and VanEck have all launched tokenized funds.
Predictions for the future of tokenized assets have become frequent headlines. Uniswap believes the market could reach $11 trillion by 2030, while other analysts put the number closer to $5.5 trillion.
While the industry waits to see what happens, Uniswap has been preparing itself. In February, BlackRock’s tokenized money market fund BUIDL (issued by Securitize) started trading on Uniswap, and BlackRock also bought some UNI governance tokens. At the moment, UNI is trading at about $3.77 with a market value of around $3.15 billion, according to DeFiLlama.
Either way, the main benefit for issuers is gaining access to AMM liquidity and DeFi flexibility without having to give up control of the approved list. The big question now is whether tokenized-asset trading will follow the standard onto Uniswap. This will be important to watch as Dowgo waits for EU approval and more issuers consider joining.
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The European Union has fined Google 890 million euros ($1 billion) on Thursday for pushing consumers toward its own apps and services, the biggest penalty a company has received under the bloc’s Digital Markets Act.
App developers, publishers and Google’s rivals have long argued that the company’s search and Android platforms box them out of consumers.
Regulators find Google guilty
Google was said to have favored its own shopping, travel and translation results in search while demoting competitors further down the page. The European Commission also claimed the tech giant blocked Android developers from pointing customers to cheaper payment options outside the Google Play Store.
Teresa Ribera, the Commission’s executive vice president who oversees competition policy, said the ruling revolved around consumer protection. “The best products should succeed because they’re better, not because they’re owned by the company running the search engine,” Ribera stated. She added that the goal was to preserve “fairness, choice and innovation.”
Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier, in an even blunter assessment, said the top companies remain obligated to keep the playing field level so users and shoppers can find cheaper deals in the market.
$1 billion fine and Digital Markets Act
The 890 million euro figure is still modest when compared against Google’s balance sheet, amounting to 0.22 percent of the company’s global turnover. The Digital Markets Act (DMA) lets Brussels go as high as 10 percent of a company’s turnover as a penalty for breaches.
Regardless of the percentage taken, the amount Google was fined is still higher than all previous DMA penalties. The EU hit Meta with 200 million euros ($228 million) and Apple with 500 million euros ($570 million) in 2025, with the law itself only coming into effect in 2024. The probe into Google started the same year the DMA was launched.
Google has 60 days to change its conduct or face escalating penalties, which could reach 5 percent of its worldwide annual revenue. The threatened escalation is seen as “periodic penalty payments” that will continue to accrue till the company complies.
Google claims changes will affect the product
Kent Walker, Google’s head of global affairs, argued that the required changes would force the company to remove “real-time Search features Europeans love.” He pointed to instant hotel, flight and restaurant pricing, and said these changes could “dismantle safety protections on Google Play.”
The company also said that mandated changes could make search and Android less useful for European users.
The recent fine from the EU adds to a list of penalties that have cost Google more than 10 billion euros (over $11 billion) in EU fines since 2017. The company recently lost an appeal against a $4.5 billion antitrust fine tied to its Android dominance, and a separate 2.95 billion euro ($3.4 billion) penalty was also handed to the tech giant last September under different rules.
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