Cryptopolitan

Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) has started a €5 billion ($5.7 billion) upgrade of its Irish campus outside Dublin, the U.S. chipmaker announced Monday.
The work is underway at the company’s Leixlip facility. Intel says it is the most advanced semiconductor manufacturing site in Europe.
The plant produces Intel 3 silicon wafers. The investment will connect the Leixlip factory to other plants at the same campus, push forward research, and fund worker retraining.
Naga Chandrasekaran, executive vice president of Intel Foundry, said it was the rising demand that motivated the company for this investment.
Intel started in Ireland in 1989. Since then, it has invested €30 billion into the country. Most of its chunk was spent between 2019 and 2023 on a fabrication plant that doubled its production capacity there. Intel recently bought back the 49% stake in its Irish Fab 34 facility it had sold to Apollo Global Management in 2024, as previously reported by Cryptopolitan, signaling renewed confidence in its Ireland operations.
New manufacturing equipment now being installed will support Intel Xeon 6 processors and the next generation of Intel Xeon chips, both produced on the Intel 3 process.
Chandrasekaran said the project will add “several hundred” jobs to the 4,900 people Intel already employs in Ireland. Most of the spending will be done by the end of 2027 and accounts for about 30% of Intel’s $17 billion planned capital expenditure for 2026.
Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin called the investment a strong vote of confidence in Ireland and its place as a home for advanced manufacturing.
Ireland leans heavily on foreign multinationals for jobs and tax revenue
Over the past decade, foreign-owned companies have nearly doubled their Irish workforce and now make up 11% of the country’s entire labor market.
Companies investing in Ireland tend to point to the skilled workforce and stable policy setting. What gets less airtime is the country’s low corporate tax rate, officials tend to avoid the subject to keep things smooth in Brussels and Washington.
Whatever the reasons, Ireland’s investment results have been strong. The country’s inward investment agency, IDA Ireland, has just wrapped up its best three-year stretch on record.
In 2023, it secured 248 investments, up 2.5% on the prior year, supporting 19,000 jobs. In 2024, it won 234 projects tied to 13,500 jobs. Last year, with Trump’s tariff threats filling the headlines, it posted record numbers: 323 foreign investments with the potential to create 15,300 jobs, a 38% rise from 2024. Some 65% of the deals came from the U.S., and 78 were first-time investors.
That run has continued into 2026. The IDA’s latest half-year figures show 190 investments in the first six months, up 6% on the same period in 2025.
Trump’s pressure has not slowed the flow
Trump’s second term brought pressure on multinationals to produce in the U.S. or face tariffs. Most EU imports were hit with a 15% tariff. U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick called Ireland’s tax approach a “scam.” Yet the feared drop in investment has not materialized.
Peter Vale of Grant Thornton said Ireland’s appeal goes beyond tax. “You could also argue that for a US group to expand its Irish operation or set up something new here, notwithstanding the less-competitive tax environment here, shows how Ireland is about so much more than tax,” he said.
A housing shortage, high energy costs, and grid capacity remain the biggest concerns for investors, though the IDA has been able to hold them at arm’s length while the numbers stay positive.
Back on markets, U.S. chip stocks have had a shaky start to July. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index has dropped more than 11% since hitting a record high in June, though it still sits 83% higher for the year. Funds tracking U.S. semiconductor stocks saw outflows of around $11 billion in the week ending June 24, the biggest weekly exit this century, according to LSEG Lipper data.
Analyst price targets remain high. Micron (NASDAQ: MU) carries the biggest expected upside among S&P 500 chipmakers at over 60%, while Nvidia is expected to gain more than 40%. Memory chipmaker SK Hynix rose more than 10% in its U.S. trading debut following a $26.5 billion share sale.
Global cloud and AI infrastructure spending is expected to reach nearly $1.5 trillion by 2027, a 40% to 50% jump year on year, according to BofA Securities.
Steve Sosnick, chief market analyst at Interactive Brokers, captured the mood: “We’ve never seen this kind of extreme earnings growth. But the question then becomes, how long can we expect this to continue.”
The smartest crypto minds already read our newsletter. Want in? Join them.

Trump brought in more than $1.4 billion from crypto ventures linked to his family during 2025, but his latest wealth report shows a far bigger sum parked in stocks and bonds.
While Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Eric Trump promoted digital asset projects to investors, many retail buyers later took painful losses.
Meanwhile, the president’s money managers placed a large part of his growing fortune in markets that are usually less volatile than crypto.
The report filed with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics lists income from World Liberty Financial and the Trump meme coin. It also puts Trump’s stock and bond portfolio between $703 million and $2.6 billion at the end of 2025. At the end of 2024, that same group of assets stood between $225 million and $608 million. The lower end alone more than tripled, while the overall portfolio grew at least fourfold during the year.
Trump grew his Wall Street portfolio while keeping billions of crypto tokens
Federal disclosure forms use broad value bands, not precise totals. That makes it impossible to trace each dollar from a token sale or crypto payment into one named stock, bond, or fund. The comparison covered two years of disclosures, including assets held directly and interests managed through Trump-linked companies. It did not identify any exact transfer from a crypto payment into a specific stock or bond.
Nine digital asset experts reviewed the filings and the changes across both years. Their reading was simple: Trump still owns plenty of crypto, but he does not seem to use it as the main place to store his personal wealth. His largest reported increase was tied to conventional investments, even as his family earned huge sums from token businesses.
Trump also reported no share purchases in the two publicly traded crypto companies backed by Eric and Donald Jr. The records reviewed did not identify those firms. His filing did, however, show a much larger total exposure to digital currencies through tokens and company holdings.
At the end of 2025, Trump owned 15.75 billion World Liberty governance tokens valued at more than $50 million. He received them for his role in the company, which he founded with his sons. His allocation comes with a longer vesting period than the schedule offered to regular buyers, so he cannot sell those personal tokens as quickly as the wider public.
Businesses handling Trump’s stake in World Liberty Financial and the Trump meme coin held at least $160 million in Bitcoin and Ether by year-end. They also owned up to $6 million in other tokens. That was far above the $1 million to $5 million in Ether listed in his 2024 filing. Those figures cover his personal accounts and entities that manage his business interests, so the crypto exposure includes both direct tokens and assets held through Trump companies listed in the filing.
Senate Democrats press Republican committees to examine foreign crypto investors
On Friday, five senior members of the Democratic Party called for hearings after the 2025 report from Trump was released on June 30. The Senators have requested that the committees headed by Republicans consider the national security risks that may arise due to foreign investments in the family’s crypto activities.
The request came from Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Gary Peters of Michigan, Dick Durbin of Illinois, and Ron Wyden of Oregon.
“The disclosures heighten concerns about the President pushing Congress to pass crypto legislation in favor of the very industry he’s cashing in on, the Administration’s moves to exempt cryptocurrencies and service providers from existing financial services regulations, and its steps to weaken enforcement, including by disbanding the Department of Justice’s National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team,” the senators said in a statement.
In their letter, the lawmakers wrote that the family’s crypto ventures generated “the vast majority of his income” and placed Trump’s earnings from those businesses at roughly $1.4 billion during the first year of his second term.
Their questions centered on World Liberty Financial, which produced hundreds of millions of dollars for Trump. The senators cited reports that an organization linked to Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the United Arab Emirates’ national security adviser, bought a 49% interest in the company.
Trump’s disclosure also referred to unidentified “Third Parties” without naming them. “We call on our respective Committees to hold hearings to investigate the national security implications of President Trump’s cryptocurrency holdings, including the influence of the UAE or unknown third parties on President Trump’s actions,” said the senators.
If you're reading this, you’re already ahead. Stay there with our newsletter.

The UK government has named a 54-firm industry task force to move tokenization into the country’s wholesale financial markets, seating crypto companies Circle, Ripple and Coinbase alongside BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley.
The task force was announced with the first report from Chris Woolard, HM Treasury’s Wholesale Digital Markets Champion, published July 13 and addressed to the Chancellor.
Woolard spent eight years at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), including a spell as interim chief executive officer in 2020, before taking the tokenization role in April 2026. The City of London Corporation is acting as secretariat, working with TheCityUK, UK Finance, the Investment Association and Innovate Finance.
What will the task force actually do?
According to the City of London Corporation, the firms that make up the task force will build live, end-to-end use cases, starting with tokenized repo over the next 12 months.
Standards across the priority areas in the market value chain will be set by nine action groups.
The Global City, the Corporation’s investor-facing arm, stated that the repo use case is meant to see a live trial by spring 2027, with commodities and other asset classes considered later in the year.
The report also builds on DIGIT, the UK’s Digital Gilt instrument, a tokenized government bond. The first quarter of 2027 is reportedly being projected to see the first DIGIT, sitting inside the Bank of England and FCA’s Digital Securities Sandbox.
Which crypto companies made it to the 54-firm stakeholder list?
The full firm list runs well beyond the four Wall Street institutions. Crypto and adjacent companies that made it to the list are Circle, Ripple, Coinbase, Kraken’s Payward entity, Chainalysis, Fireblocks, Ctrl Alt, Digital Asset Holdings, which is behind the Canton Network, GFO-X, Ubyx, SLIX, Tokenovate, and Wintermute.
The firms are in the same group with HSBC, Barclays, UBS, Citi, State Street, the London Stock Exchange Group, and DTCC, among others.
The task force brings stablecoin issuers and crypto exchanges in the same working group as the banks whose infrastructure they have often competed with.
Kirit Bhatia, chief digital assets officer at Banking Circle, stated that the harder problem is plumbing, not issuance. Tokenized markets “will need payment infrastructure that can support real-time settlement, cross-border movement, multiple forms of regulated money and interoperability between stablecoins, tokenized deposits, and existing fiat rails,” Bhatia said.
Without it, he added, digital assets “risk becoming faster at the edges but still constrained by the legacy plumbing underneath.”
The numbers behind the push
The economic case leans on a large forecast. Woolard’s report cites a Boston Consulting Group estimate that the tokenized real-world asset market could reach $88 trillion by 2035, against a current crypto and stablecoin market of around $3 trillion.
For the UK specifically, the report projects up to £33 billion in additional annual economic output and £14 billion in yearly tax revenue by 2035.
For Woolard, the stakes are more competitive rather than certain. He called tokenized markets “a network game” and warned the UK’s position “is not guaranteed,” writing that the country “needs to move at the speed of the most agile players.”
Chancellor Rachel Reeves said keeping the UK’s lead in global finance means “harnessing technologies like tokenisation,” and City of London Corporation Policy Chairman Chris Hayward described the moment as a chance to “lead a digital Big Bang in financial services.”
The report is open for feedback until September 4, 2026, and membership for the nine action groups is due to be finalized by the end of that month. Woolard’s second report to the Chancellor is expected in July 2027.
The smartest crypto minds already read our newsletter. Want in? Join them.

Tom Blomfield, the co-founder of British digital bank Monzo, is taking a leave of absence to join Anthropic’s compute team.
Anthropic is in the middle of an intense industry contest for AI talent. The company is paying some technical staff base salaries above $1 million and heading toward a possible IPO this fall.
Who is Anthropic’s newest hire?
Tom Blomfield, the co-founder of the British digital bank, Monzo, announced in a post on X that he is taking a leave of absence from the startup accelerator Y Combinator, where he has been a general partner since 2023. He will work alongside Anthropic’s Tom Brown. Blomfield’s title will be member of technical staff, which is the designation Anthropic applies to its senior hires.
Blomfield explained that the availability of compute is an important issue to solve because it is the raw processing power that trains and runs AI systems.
Blomfield is one of the better-known figures in UK technology. He co-founded Monzo in 2015 and ran it as chief executive until 2020, before leaving the company entirely in early 2021 after a brief spell as president. He said at the time that the role stopped appealing to him once Monzo had outgrown its startup phase.
He turned to investing after that, joining Y Combinator in 2021 as a visiting partner before stepping up to general partner.
This move is the latest in a hiring streak for Anthropic. Earlier in 2026, OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy joined the company to lead its pre-training work. Anthropic has also hired top researchers from Google DeepMind, including John Jumper, who won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on AlphaFold.
How much is Anthropic paying for its AI talent?
Two Anthropic employees with the “Member of Technical Staff” title have base salaries of $1.12 million and $1.38 million. Notably, these figures only show base pay. They do not include bonuses or stock options, which often make up a much larger part of total pay at fast-growing tech companies.
The starting base salary for a Member of Technical Staff is $133,952. The same filings also show that a manager in a technical role can earn up to $850,000, and a reinforcement learning researcher can earn up to $500,000.
Anthropic is competing with tech giants like Meta and Google, and other AI labs like OpenAI for AI talent, leading to competitive salary offers and the current inflation.
Anthropic’s valuation stood at $965 billion as of May 2026, and the company could pursue an initial public offering as soon as this fall, the report said.
Axios noted that Anthropic and OpenAI both hold a recruiting edge because their pending IPOs offer upside that already-public rivals cannot match.
The smartest crypto minds already read our newsletter. Want in? Join them.

Michael Saylor’s Strategy (NASDAQ: MSTR) extended its recent conservative streak of managing its billion-dollar BTC reserve as the firm directed the roughly $467 million it raised last week to its dollar reserve instead of buying Bitcoins, according to a Monday SEC filing.
The decision, which pushed the firm’s USD Reserve up to $3 billion, could be setting up for an overdue quiet week for a firm that has stayed in the headlines recently for selling from a BTC stash that its vocal chief had consistently insisted would never be sold.
Cryptopolitan has reported in previous coverage how the firm has drawn criticism and suggestions about the management style of its Bitcoin accumulation playbook.
How much Bitcoin does Strategy have now?
According to a July 13 Form 8-K, Strategy’s Bitcoin holdings remain unchanged from its previously reported balance at 843,775 BTC. Instead, the $466.7 million it raised went to a $3 billion cash reserve set aside for periodic dividend payments to holders of the firm’s preferred stock.
Notably, unlike last time around, this week’s raise came from selling common stock, which is good news for proponents who would rather not see the firm further capitulate in its “never sell” position.
Strategy still retains a big lead over the next largest corporate Bitcoin holder, but its position is also as deep in the red. With Bitcoin trading near $62,800 on Monday, a firm that paid an average price of $75,476 on its 843,775 BTC, the Michael Saylor-led firm is underwater by billions on its $63.69 billion outlay.
Why does Strategy need to hold cash?
Strategy carries heavy fixed obligations on its preferred share classes, and the reserve exists to cover them. The company has said the cash supports dividend payments on its preferred stock and interest on its debt.
Those payments are not small. In late June, Strategy adopted a capital framework that raised the annual dividend on its STRC preferred stock, nicknamed “Stretch,” to 12%, its eighth rate increase.
STRC closed Friday at $87.48 on Nasdaq, below its $100 par value, according to Google Finance. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse called the discount on that stock “a pretty damning indictment” in a CNBC interview, arguing that “financial engineering does not drive long-term value.”
Why did Strategy adapt its accumulation playbook?
The decision to raise cash instead of buying Bitcoin follows a period in which Strategy began doing something it long swore off: selling.
Between June 29 and July 5, the company sold 3,588 Bitcoins for about $216 million, its largest disposal to date, and directed the proceeds toward preferred-stock distributions. Saylor confirmed the sale on X, writing that the coins were sold “to fund dividends on our Digital Credit securities.”
That framework, laid out in a late-June 8-K, gives management discretion to sell Bitcoin, buy back shares, and hold a formal dollar reserve. It authorized up to $1.25 billion in reserve-building capacity through a Bitcoin monetization program, plus two separate $1 billion repurchase programs for preferred and common shares.
None of those buttons obligate the company to act. Last week, the firm used none of the Bitcoin capacity and instead leaned on equity sales to top up cash.
The market read the update coolly. MSTR traded down about 3% before Monday’s open, as Bitcoin slipped over the weekend. Google Finance showed the stock around $94.64 at Friday’s close, near the low end of a 52-week range that once reached $457.22.
Don’t just read crypto news. Understand it. Subscribe to our newsletter. It's free.

Lawson, Japan’s third-largest convenience store chain, has announced that it will test out accepting the yen stablecoin JPYC at one of its Tokyo outlets from early August.
The pilot runs at Lawson’s Takanawa Gateway City location in Minato Ward, according to a Monday report from the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, which is also known as The Nikkei.
Customers pull up a barcode inside a smartphone wallet, and a store clerk scans it at the checkout terminal to settle the bill. Lawson says this is the first stablecoin trial in Japan wired directly into a point-of-sale (POS) system.
The POS system will enable Lawson to track how many payments were made in stablecoin and how efficient the system works, and also measure how long it will take for JPYC payments to register before making the decision for extensive rollout.
Lawson is not running the test alone. The trial is a proof-of-concept with KDDI, Japan’s second-largest telecommunications operator, and HashPort, a crypto wallet firm that handles JPYC transactions.
What JPYC is
JPYC was launched in October 2025 as the first yen stablecoin registered under the licensing rules Japanese regulators introduced in 2023. It has a 1:1 peg to the yen and runs on several blockchains, including Avalanche, Ethereum, Polygon, and Kaia. According to JPYC Inc., every issued token is fully backed by yen deposits and government bonds, in line with Japan’s Payment Services Act.
The token’s onchain circulation crossed 2 billion yen, roughly $12.36 million, last week. Its market capitalization currently sits around $16.28 million. While that is still small, JPYC’s list of physical acceptance points has grown quickly. The okonomiyaki restaurant chain Chibo added JPYC at some locations in April, and shoppers can now buy drinks with the token from Cheerio vending machines in Kyoto.
What is the significance of Lawson’s test?
Lawson operates 14,697 stores across Japan and booked more than 3.02 trillion yen, about $18.68 billion, in net sales for its 2026 fiscal year. Reaching even a fraction of that footprint would put a yen stablecoin in front of ordinary shoppers.
The Nikkei sees the trial as a possible turning point, as widespread adoption by Lawson will also lead to an increase in Japanese stablecoins adoption in offline retail.
JPYC is also looking beyond Japan as the issuer reportedly signed memorandums of understanding last month with LINE NEXT and Danal to build out real-world payments in South Korea, aimed partly at foreign visitors spending in areas like beauty and fashion.
Don’t just read crypto news. Understand it. Subscribe to our newsletter. It's free.

SBI Holdings has announced in a press statement on July 13 that the Solana Foundation will buy into SBI R3 Japan. This joint venture will be renamed SBI Solana Global and used to move Japanese stablecoins, digital assets, and cross-border payments onto the Solana blockchain.
Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMFG), one of Japan’s largest banking groups, will stay on as a shareholder alongside SBI and the incoming Solana Foundation.
SBI Solana Global builds on the Solana network
SBI R3 Japan will change its name to SBI Solana Global Co., Ltd. on a provisional basis, subject to the required corporate process. The new venture has laid out five business interests, all built on the Solana network.
The renamed company will invest in stablecoins, including the yen-denominated JPYSC. The venture will also cover tokenized RWAs, which will involve corporate bonds, commercial paper, investment funds and real estate.
The Solana SBI partnership is also aiming at cross-border settlement infrastructure, on-chain services aimed at institutional investors, and payment structures for what SBI called the era of AI agents, according to the statement.
SBI’s vision with the venture is a single operator handling issuance, distribution and settlement altogether, instead of only supplying the blockchain platform.
Japan seen as doorway into Asia
SBI said it wants to make Japan “a core hub for on-chain finance in Asia,” after which the company would extend the products across Asian and international markets.
It is worth noting that the announcement carried no revenue forecasts and no client commitments. The partners also did not name any particular overseas markets or banking partners, and they did not disclose how much the Solana Foundation is paying for its stake.
Live products will still need to clear Japan’s crypto rules as stablecoins, securities, and market operations each fall under local regulation.
SBI pushes further into digital assets
The Solana partnership is part of an expanding SBI program. SBI and Startale built a regulated yen stablecoin for payments and settlement in March, and the company worked with Ripple to bring the dollar-backed RLUSD stablecoin to Japan through SBI VC Trade after regulatory approval. SBI also remains Ripple’s largest partner in the country.
SBI is also moving to buy Bitbank, an established Japanese exchange, in a transaction valued at 46.7 billion yen. It is not known if Bitbank or SBI VC Trade will distribute SBI Solana Global’s products.
Why has SBI chosen Solana?
For the Solana Foundation, the deal adds an institutional finance partner in an Asian country as activity on the network increases. Solana had a record past quarter where it logged $5.77 billion in tokenized-asset spot volume and processed more than one billion weekly transactions.
Solana’s SOL token traded at about $76.35 as at the time of writing.
If you're reading this, you’re already ahead. Stay there with our newsletter.

Deon Markets has developed a digital platform that provides users with access to a structured online environment for managing their financial activities. The company’s approach focuses on combining technology, accessibility, and practical platform features to create an organised user experience.
As digital solutions continue to influence the financial sector, companies are increasingly focused on creating platforms that are easy to navigate and offer a broad range of useful features. Deon Markets represents this wider movement by developing a platform that brings together account features, analytical tools, and digital services within one environment.
The company’s development strategy centres on improving platform usability and adapting to changing user expectations. Through continuous updates and technology-driven improvements, Deon Markets aims to maintain a platform experience that reflects the needs of modern digital users.
Company Development Focus
Deon Markets has built its platform around the idea of providing a convenient digital experience supported by modern technology. The company focuses on creating solutions that allow users to interact with financial tools through an organised and accessible interface.
The development of digital platforms has changed the way people engage with financial services. Today, users often expect platforms to provide clear navigation, efficient processes, and flexible access. Deon Markets platform structure reflects these expectations by emphasising functionality and ease of use.
The company’s ongoing focus includes improving platform features, refining user interaction, and creating a smoother digital environment. These priorities form the foundation of its approach to platform development.
Platform Design and User Experience Priorities
User experience remains an important part of digital platform development. Deon Markets places attention on creating an interface that supports smooth navigation and efficient interaction.
The platform design focuses on several key elements:
Clear organisation of information.
Simple account navigation.
Accessible platform functions.
Structured presentation of available tools.
Flexible user preferences.
These elements help create a digital environment where users can better understand and use the available features.
Creating a Clear and Accessible Digital Environment
A successful platform depends on how easily users can interact with its features. Deon Markets experience is developed around clarity, allowing users to move between different sections and access relevant functions in an efficient way.
Tools and Features Available Through the Platform
Deon Markets provides a range of digital tools designed to support users during their platform activities. These features are organised to provide access to relevant information and account options.
The company continues to develop its platform capabilities by considering user expectations and changes within the digital financial environment.
Deon Markets Expands Its Technology-Driven Service Model
Technology remains a central element of Deon Markets platform strategy. The company uses digital solutions to create a modern service model focused on efficiency and accessibility.
The increasing use of technology within financial services has encouraged companies to improve their digital infrastructure. Deon Markets follows this direction by focusing on platform performance, usability, and ongoing development.
Digital Infrastructure and Platform Performance
A strong digital foundation supports the overall platform experience. Deon Markets focuses on maintaining a technical environment that allows users to interact with available services smoothly.
The company’s technology approach includes improving platform functionality, maintaining organised systems, and developing features that support a consistent user experience.
Through continued attention to digital infrastructure, Deon Markets aims to provide a platform environment that meets modern expectations.
Accessibility and Cross-Device Compatibility
Deon Markets platform is designed to be accessible across different devices. Users can access platform features through compatible mobile versions, allowing flexibility when managing activities through different devices.
This approach reflects the growing demand for digital services that can adapt to various user preferences and everyday technology habits.
Account Solutions Designed Around User Preferences
Deon Markets provides account solutions developed to support different user requirements. The platform structure allows users to manage their preferences and interact with available functions according to their individual needs.
The company focuses on creating a balanced experience where account features are presented in a clear and organised way.
Deon Markets Highlights Its Focus on User Resources
Alongside its platform features, Deon Markets provides users with access to information resources designed to improve understanding of the available services. The company focuses on presenting useful information in an accessible format, helping users become more familiar with platform functions and available tools.
Digital platforms often require clear explanations to help users understand different functions. Deon Markets provides materials that explain important platform elements and general concepts connected with its services. These resources are designed to support users as they explore the platform and become more comfortable with its features.
Final Thoughts
Deon Markets represents a technology-focused approach to digital platform development. Through its emphasis on usability, accessibility, and structured services, the company continues to build its presence within the evolving digital financial landscape. As online platforms become increasingly important, companies that focus on clear design, practical features, and effective technology solutions are positioned to respond to changing user expectations. Deon Markets ongoing development reflects this broader shift toward more accessible and digitally focused services.

Thailand’s foremost bank has started scrutinizing large stablecoin transfers made in the country, and is now working with the country’s SEC to flag USDT movements that may be hiding illicit money from the authorities.
Bank of Thailand Governor Vitai Ratanakorn said the central bank and the Securities and Exchange Commission are running analyses over high-volume trades, with Tether’s USDT the main target, according to local outlet Thansettakij.
Early audits have already turned up transactions that look structured to intentionally dodge asset disclosure or route money around the usual payment channels.
The two agencies are now comparing their findings to decide what enforcement, if any, should follow.
USDT sees crackdown
Stablecoins are convenient for transferring large sums due to the ease of settling rapidly across borders. This ease and speed are also why regulators have placed a keen eye on them.
USDT is being thoroughly audited in Thailand because it is not a fringe asset. At Bitkub, the country’s largest exchange, the USDT/THB pair is the most-traded market, with about 40% of the exchange’s daily turnover of almost $26 million coming from forex activity, according to figures from CoinGecko.
Crypto trading itself is legal in Thailand and not restricted, however, the Bank of Thailand still bars stablecoins and other digital assets from being used as a means of payment.
Thailand against “gray economy”
The audit of these stablecoin transactions is part of a campaign against the “gray economy,” an entity the Thai officials refer to as the pool of cash traceable to scam operations across the country. Large cash deposits and withdrawals, transactions involving gold, and accounts used in gambling have also come under the scrutiny of the regulators, according to Thansettakij.
Reports state that high-value cash transactions will require a source-of-funds declaration, and cash deposits above 5 million baht (equal to about $150,000) will need full disclosure. Swapping large volumes of high-denomination notes for smaller ones without a clear business reason will also lead to regulator interest.
“The measures being implemented are not short-term fixes but require multiple ongoing, complementary actions,” Ratanakorn said.
Illicit activities trigger audit
Thai police recently broke up a laundering network that pushed romance-scam proceeds through several cryptocurrencies using cross-chain swaps to distort the money trail, investigators said. One suspect’s wallet alone handled more than $122.5 million over ten months.
The country has historically dealt with the crypto industry with a heavy hand, and that has carried a bit of a risk. During a 2025 push against “mule” accounts, Thai banks froze roughly three million accounts, with many legitimate individuals and businesses getting swept up in what local coverage at the time called a crackdown “gone wrong.”
Regulators will therefore need to separate genuine bad actors from ordinary traders as the stablecoin audit and possible enforcements increase.
If you're reading this, you’re already ahead. Stay there with our newsletter.

The South Korean KOSPI index crashed by 8.95% in a single day, with a 15% intraday drop. This triggered a circuit breaker on the market, showing the recent KOSPI rally was fragile.
KOSPI broke its rally in June, with a maximum value of 9,155 points. In the past month, the index has been sliding rapidly, plunging below the 6,800 range.
KOSPI broke down from its peak on June 25, causing more panic-selling and the seventh circuit breaker event for 2026. | Source: Google Finance
As Cryptopolitan reported, KOSPI trading was highly leveraged, and more positions may await liquidation.
The rapid rise of the KOSPI index also took some of the liquidity from South Korean crypto markets. This also meant KOSPI was boosted by retail inflows, which may be more unstable and lead to panic selling.
The South Korean HYNIX index also slid by over 19% in the past week, reflecting the tidal shift of the recent rally.
KOSPI signals the unwinding of the AI and semiconductor trade
The South Korean trade was heavily dependent on the semiconductor sector. KOSPI currently trades at a price/earnings ratio of 6.4% for forward earnings. As semiconductor earnings climbed, the index traded at the lowest ratio since the 2008 financial crisis. This does not mean the KOSPI is still cheap, but rather a distrust of the possibility of keeping up semiconductor sales at these levels.
As the index is highly dependent on semiconductor sales, the current drawdown reflects a worsening confidence in sales for the upcoming quarters.
The recent circuit breaker event shows the unwinding is more chaotic than expected, potentially leading to a further crash and liquidations. For KOSPI, this is the seventh circuit breaker event in 2026, showing the market’s potential fragility and exposure to sentiment shifts.
The unwinding of the AI trade in South Korea may also affect other sectors. The recent market crash further revealed the risk-off attitudes for risky assets. A slide in KOSPI may have diverse effects on crypto, either moving retail investors back to BTC and tokens or creating a bigger risk-off wave of selling.
Can the KOSPI slide affect crypto markets?
Coinciding with the recent KOSPI crash, BTC also rejected the $64,000 level. BTC moved down to a lower range, later recovering to $63,000.
The KOSPI slide also caused more turbulent trading of stock perpetual futures on Hyperliquid. Samsung fell by 8.38% in the past day, with peak volumes. The correction in semiconductor markets may affect trading on HIP-3, leading to liquidations and liquidity.
The KOSPI crash is still watched for its contagion potential. US markets are waiting to react to Asia’s closing. If stock sentiment shifts, overall crypto selling may worsen. The KOSPI crash may have repercussions across markets and asset classes, once again breaking the BTC recovery.
In 2026, BTC and crypto behaved as a risk-on asset, meaning any shocks to other sectors often caused a negative reaction. The index is trading with a strong sell recommendation, as pressure comes from South Korean retail liquidations. Additionally, the KOSPI rally invited foreign buyers, who started divesting at the end of June.
At its 2026 peak, KOSPI accrued 122% in net gains for the year to date. After the recent crash, the net gain shrank to around 60%.
Don’t just read crypto news. Understand it. Subscribe to our newsletter. It's free.

South Korea is preparing a record 800 trillion won ($531 billion) budget for 2027, raising spending more than 10% above this year.
President Lee Jae-myung’s government said that the budget hike is funded by an increase in tax revenue from South Korea’s booming AI chip industry.
South Korea to increase its spending budget by 10%
South Korea’s Budget Minister Park Hong-keun laid out a framework involving raising the country’s spending by 10%, the largest Korea has ever set, at a national fiscal strategy meeting. This year’s spending plan, excluding supplementary budgets, stands at 727.9 trillion won.
Park said the government expects national tax revenue to reach at least 500 trillion won ($331.6 billion) next year, which is well above the expected 412 trillion won.
The extra inflow is due to an increased demand for high-bandwidth memory chips for AI data centers from SK Hynix (KRX: 000660) and Samsung Electronics (KRX: 005930).
Park also said the government would cut roughly 50 trillion won ($33.2 billion) in existing spending, twice what they cut last year, by cutting underperforming programs and reviewing discretionary and mandatory outlays.
President Lee Jae-myung said the additional tax revenue is a precious resource for furthering the country’s global AI ambitions. Cryptopolitan reported in June that Lee unveiled roughly $1 trillion in spending on chips, data centers, and robotics alongside Samsung and SK Hynix leadership.
What is the Future Response Fund?
At the same meeting, President Lee introduced the Future Response Fund. It is a platform used to hold excess tax revenue and then redirect it into set priorities. Lee told the roughly 130 attendees the fund would focus on the future, youth, regions, and education through legislation.
Under Korea’s National Finance Act, “excess tax revenues” have strictly defined uses such as repaying government bonds. But now, the government has coined a new term, “additional tax revenues,” and plans to impose a special law that will allow them to direct that money into the four areas (future, youth, regions and education) which are outside the current existing rules.
The idea first came up a week earlier on July 5, when the presidential chief of staff Kang Hoon-sik suggested the creation of a fund paid for by taxes from semiconductor profits.
Kang linked the fund to housing, starting businesses, and job support for people in their 20s and 30s. He also said it should help spread chip development outside the Seoul area.
Lee also said the government would widen its social safety net as AI reshapes the workforce, pledging protection for nonstandard workers whose numbers he expects to grow.
Don’t just read crypto news. Understand it. Subscribe to our newsletter. It's free.

TSMC (TWSE: 2330, NYSE: TSM) gained on Monday after traders got a much stronger June sales figure before the company’s second-quarter report.
Revenue for the month came to NT$442.68 billion, up 6.2% from May and 67.9% from June 2025. It was the magnitude of the year-on-year growth that really spurred the stock along. Investors now have new sales figures before the chipmaker reports its full results for the quarter on Thursday, July 16.
The six-month tally was significantly more compared to the previous year as well. TSMC generated NT$2.4 trillion ($74.99 billion) between January and June. The sum was up by 35.6% compared to the first half of 2025.
TSMC produces chips for processors developed by other companies, like phone manufacturers, computer makers, data centers, and supercomputers used in large AI applications. TSMC’s customers include Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA), Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), and Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ: AMD).
AI chip orders keep TSMC factories and packaging lines busy
Counterpoint Research pegged TSMC’s pure-foundry market share in the first quarter at 73%. The overall market increased by 30% compared to a year ago during the same quarter. Growth was mostly driven by demand for AI graphics processors, custom CPUs, and advanced packaging.
A variety of manufacturing lines led to that result. Yield from the N3 technology process increased. Plants utilizing N4 and N5 manufacturing were still occupied due to increased demand from AI GPU customers. In addition, older nodes experienced constrained spare capacity while reorganizing the production plan of the firm. Meanwhile, CoWoS packaging increased as well.
The second-ranked company on the list was Samsung Electronics (KRX: 005930), and its market share declined compared to the last quarter. Despite that, Samsung must enhance yield rates in its new manufacturing process, which means that a bigger proportion of the produced chips must go through testing. At the moment, Samsung is working on SF2 and SF2P manufacturing lines.
Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (HKEX: 0981, SSE: 688981) finished third by revenue. SMIC posted another quarterly record and ran its plants at a 93.7% utilization rate in the first quarter.
Counterpoint expects demand for advanced-node production and wafer shipments at major foundries to keep growing through 2026. Some orders are also changing hands as TSMC adjusts how it uses its available capacity.
The industry started 2026 with robust sales performance. The pure-play foundry revenue grew by 20% compared to the previous years’ Q4 2025, thereby reaching a full-year growth of 26%. The demand was driven primarily by GPUs, ASICs, and accelerators based on 4nm and 5nm technology.
In Q4 2025, TSMC had a 72% share of the market. The production of its N3 nodes increased due to growing orders for smartphones and PC chips.
Samsung held a 7% market share as it kept working to improve yields on its SF2 process and picked up more SF4 orders for HBM4 logic dies.
TSMC adds two more Chiayi plants as packaging demand exceeds supply
Meanwhile on Monday, Taiwan’s government said TSMC will build a third and fourth advanced-packaging factory at Chiayi Science Park in southern Taiwan. The site is becoming one of the company’s main packaging bases.
The first factory there is already producing at scale. The second is close to starting full production. At the groundbreaking event, National Science and Technology Council Minister Wu Cheng-wen said, “Today’s groundbreaking marks the start of the second phase, which will include a third and fourth plant.”
When all four factories are up and running, the park is expected to manufacture goods valued at over NT$300 billion or about $9.35 billion annually. The plan is expected to generate over 9,000 new jobs.
One area where development will take place will be that of the chip-on-wafer-on-substrate process or CoWoS. It allows for processors and memory to be placed very close to one another within a single package. Demand is still running ahead of supply. Nvidia is among the customers asking for more capacity as shipments of AI chips continue to rise.
Counterpoint said, “In 2026, we believe not only advanced nodes but also parts of the 8-inch segment to see improved utilization. Combined with a broad-based increase in wafer pricing, this is likely to further support foundry revenue growth in 2026.”
If you're reading this, you’re already ahead. Stay there with our newsletter.

An exposed recovery phrase of a Robinhood co-founder made it possible for a hacker to convince thousands of traders to join one memecoin instantly, proving that herd mentality can rapidly change the crypto market. The incident did not affect Bitcoin or Ether, but it revealed a weakness across the entire crypto market: traders on any platform blindly follow large wallets, and this can be turned into a weapon if that wallet is compromised.
Within the span of about two hours, the token named “$1” increased in value from $500,000 to $14 million before undergoing a correction, accumulating a trading volume in excess of $20 million. The attack was shared by Michael, the Chief Business Officer of TokenPocket wallet, who summarized how things unfolded that night in a series of posts on X on July 13. According to Bitget, a crypto data platform, quoting the same source, this event is a coordinated pump and dump scheme.
How one wallet moved a market
Michael says it was not a hack, but rather an error that led to the breach. He claims the mnemonic phrase – a sequence of words that is used to access a self-custody wallet belonging to the founder – was accidentally shared during a live broadcast on Wednesday. This means that anyone tuning in who managed to note it down could access a wallet containing about $1.5 million.
昨晚可能有兄弟睡早了，不知道发生了什么事情，我给刚起床的兄弟梳理一下这精彩的一夜。昨晚，黑客盗了Robinhood创始人的地址后，做了2件事情：
1. 用这个地址及其关联地址买 $1 代币，导致几千人跟风，一下子把 500K 市值的币拉到了 14M，随后暴跌，2小时交易量就达到了20M 美金。
2.… pic.twitter.com/XJlctMSZtm
— Michael (@0xMichael) July 13, 2026
The attacker was the first to arrive at the address. Now that it had taken over the address, the assailant moved to begin acquiring the “$1” token. Onlookers monitoring the wallet interpreted this acquisition as a gamble by Robinhood’s founder and quickly made their own investments, leading to an increase in the token’s market value by almost 28 times before the buying activity came to an end and the price began to decline. Late investors thus suffered losses.
Why the freeze came too late for traders
Michael stated that Robinhood’s remote procedure call (RPC) service, the software that relays transactions to the network, blocked the hacked address. The nodes using the RPC service stopped processing transactions sent from the wallet, effectively preventing the hacking event from draining the contents of the wallet.
The action to contain does not help those individuals who purchased the “$1” cryptocurrency when the price was near the maximum level. Nevertheless, the freezing of a wallet means that no transactions can be made in the future, but trades made previously on decentralized platforms remain. While the block was being implemented, the criminals moved to different platforms. According to Michael, they have moved to the BNB blockchain, created a new cryptocurrency, and practiced wash trading, which means buying and selling the same tokens to create the illusion of demand, to inflate its volume and cash out.
The memecoin trigger
The exact loss here is small compared to the broader market. Bitcoin was valued at almost $62,800 and Ether at approximately $1,778 on July 13, with both being slightly down on that day but unaffected by this meme coin. What makes this event worth examining beyond one token is its underlying processes which are applicable on a greater scale.
Wash trading and pump-and-dump operations represent the most common types of manipulation that occur on-chain. Suspected wash trading has amounted to about 2.57 billion dollars in trading volume across the blockchains that have been researched by the company in 2025, a figure that was derived using matching trades instead of proving the intention behind trades.
The “$1” run fits this model: it generates signals, relies on a crowd believing in the legitimacy of a wallet without verification, and exits through a different chain.
The lesson on self-custody is actually provided by Robinhood itself. In its guidebook about recovery phrases, it states the fact that a set of words is the only way to recover a non-custodial digital wallet and warns people against sharing them, as this enables someone to access the account with the funds. Streaming is one of the most public ways in which sensitive information can be revealed.
Don’t just read crypto news. Understand it. Subscribe to our newsletter. It's free.

Samsung is accelerating the rollout of its next-generation chip production, bringing forward the opening of its massive Yongin semiconductor plant to 2029—one to two years earlier than originally planned. And it also follows the South Korean government’s push to fast-track strategic semiconductor projects and speed up construction at the site.
The tech giant had expected the first of six planned fabrication plants at the Yongin semiconductor cluster to begin within the 2030–2031 timeframe.
To hit the newly set 2029 target at the recent presidential joint committee, Samsung must initiate land leveling by late this year, allowing for a two-year fab build starting in 2027.
On the other hand, its rival, SK Hynix, pulled off the largest-ever foreign company stock listing, with its shares jumping by double digits on Friday. However, the shares have since dipped after the massive profit-taking.
Samsung plans to finish the construction of the Yongin cluster by 2040
Samsung’s urgency is closely tied to its ambitions for AI dominance. Under last month’s government partnership, the tech giant earmarked roughly $1.4 trillion for Pyeongtaek and Yongin, with another $266.9 billion slated for the Honam area.
The company’s planners have now compressed the entire Yongin cluster’s construction schedule, aiming to finish in 2040 rather than 2047. It intends to complete the construction of the first of the planned six semiconductor plants by 2029.
Market experts have noted that an early schedule does more than just increase output; it will naturally clear the path for future projects to finish ahead of schedule.
An industry official commented: “An earlier start of operations at the first plant will enable Samsung to respond more quickly to rapidly growing global demand for artificial intelligence chips.”
State authorities will support Samsung’s accelerated expansion by fast-tracking approvals for land acquisitions and contractor assignments. The government is also moving up utility schedules. It is looking to build a 3 GW LNG power plant early and shorten the rollout periods for the next phases of water and electricity hookups.
Speaking on the government’s plans, one industry analyst even noted, “If the government’s infrastructure support measures are implemented as planned, the possibility of operation in 2029 is very high. As electricity and water are areas that a company cannot resolve on its own, close public-private cooperation will determine the success or failure.”
SK Hynix shares slid 8.4% in Seoul after the Nasdaq-debut
Meanwhile, shares of SK Hynix recently debuted on the tech-heavy Nasdaq. U.S. markets showed strong enthusiasm for the chipmaker, driving the opening price to $170 from its $149 listing price. Overall, the shares rose 15% in the Friday trading session. However, as of Monday, the shares have dropped in Seoul.
The chipmaker’s shares slid 8.4% at home, pulling down the main Kospi index. Kyobo Life Insurance’s Jason Minsang Kam even contended that because the U.S. momentum has already been factored into the price, investors should anticipate significant pressure from intraday profit-taking and arbitrage unwinding. Even so, the listing has put the company on the radar of global investors as it supplies high-bandwidth memory used in Nvidia Corp.’s AI chips. CEO Kwak Noh-jung even expects customer demand to outpace the company’s production capacity until after 2030.
Nevertheless, the firm, like Samsung, is also investing in building more semiconductor plants across the country. It plans to commit about $734.0 billion to its expansion. About $400.3 billion will fund four new Yongin facilities, alongside a major schedule shift that moves full completion up by 12 years to 2033.
Moreover, the company plans to invest about $66.7 billion in the Cheongju campus to increase NAND flash memory production. It will also invest about ₩400 trillion (approximately $266.9 billion) to develop a new semiconductor cluster in southwestern South Korea.
If you're reading this, you’re already ahead. Stay there with our newsletter.

According to Tom Lee, the co-founder of Fundstrat, smart contract blockchains could prove to be the best defense for society as artificial intelligence assumes a larger share in the global economy. During his speech at the WebX 2026 conference, Lee explained that Ethereum is all set to move into a new phase of growth after a challenging year.
On July 13, Lee, chairperson of Ethereum treasury firm BitMine Immersion Technologies, delivered a special keynote at WebX. In anticipation of the event, Lee referred to the session as an exploration of the “Uncanny Valley of Wealth,” and mentioned to his followers on X that the ETH/BTC ratio is a “signal of a revival of crypto” before taking the stage.
The scenario Lee is warning about
Lee focused mainly on the concept whereby AI agents can make money and carry out transactions without any human involvement at all. He outlined a scenario in which an individual wakes up one day only to find that an AI has labeled him as irresponsible in terms of finances and that his bank account has been frozen. In that case, he claimed, concerns arise as individuals ponder if they continue to be in control of technology, or it is the other way around, and the machines are running the show instead.
Come by today for @WebX_Asia at 11:25am at the CYRL Stage at the Prince Park Tower Tokyo 🇯🇵
I will be speaking about the “Uncanny Valley of Wealth”
PS: keep an eye 👁️ on $ETH / $BTC ratio. Signal of a revival of crypto https://t.co/jwktsEJQhG pic.twitter.com/oTqMFiFi16
— Thomas (Tom) Lee (not drummer) FundstratDirect.com (@fundstrat) July 13, 2026
Lee stated that he believes that there is currently a greater visible public skepticism regarding AI. As CoinPost reported, he cited the student walkout at Stanford commencement proceedings where a Google executive gave a speech and a radical anti-AI group called “Zizians” which has been accused of targeting data centres and founders of AI. He also claimed that machines contributed to 75 percent of trading done on Polymarket, and that they were responsible for more than half of website traffic and almost half of received emails.
For Lee, those developments lead to the same conclusion; existing institutions are unlikely to provide adequate protection on their own. “Smart contract blockchain is the best defense against AI taking over your life,” he noted, describing the combination of blockchain with AI as an emerging “agentic economy.”
His point of view is reflective of a larger discussion happening in the tech space. The venture capital company a16z Crypto claimed that blockchains allow AI agents to possess certain features that typical financial institutions can’t easily provide, such as programmable payments, verifiable identity, digital ownership, and transparent execution.
At the same time, the OECD drew attention to the growing necessity for enhanced accountability and trustworthy governance as agentic AI systems are becoming ever more economically influential. Lee’s thesis puts blockchain at the core of this accountability system.
Why Lee thinks Ethereum’s slump is a bottom
Lee paired that long-term vision with a bullish outlook for Ethereum, even as the asset traded near $1,700 during the keynote.
He pointed out that there are four major pressure points for Ethereum: tightened monetary policy in the United States, uncertain fate of the proposed US CLARITY Act, funds switching from cryptocurrency to AI, and downturn in the financial sector. However, in Lee’s opinion, these problems are starting to wane.
In support of the argument, Lee referred to the analytical work of market-timer Tom DeMark, which revealed the correlation of Ethereum with the recovery pattern of the S&P 500 during 1987, indicating an 89.81% correlation, and predicted that Ethereum would recover in August.
Lee also quoted Ex-Bank of America’s strategist Steve Suttmeier on July 9 in relation to Ethereum, where he indicated that the price of Ethereum going above the resistance zone of $1,846-$1,876 could open the doors to reach the price of $2,200.
Those levels are indicators of the significance of Lee’s thesis. Starting with the initial quoted amount of around $1,700, Ethereum would need to increase by 8.6% in order to achieve the lower resistance boundary and by 10.4% in order to reach the upper limit. The price crossing the $2,200 mark would mean an increase of about 29.4% from that amount.
Lee drew a parallel between the position of Ethereum and the cases of Amazon and Nvidia, two corporations that experienced many years of mediocre performance prior to their periods of exceptional growth. He stated that Ethereum’s next growth phase is going to be based on four components: the reconstructed Ethereum Foundation, development of agentic AI, Ethereum’s position as a settlement layer in finance, as well as the idea that “ETH is money.”
BitMine’s accumulation
Lee also shared an update about BitMine’s strategy regarding Ethereum. BitMine revealed it owned about 5.74 million worth of Ethereum, or approximately 4.8% of Ethereum’s overall circulating supply. The company went on to state that the total value of its cryptocurrency and cash reserves had reached an impressive $11.1 billion, and that nearly 85% of the assets in its Ethereum holdings had already been staked ‘via its MAVAN operations’.
The figures correspond with what Lee said in the presentation and indicate that BitMine is making efforts to become one of the largest institutional holders of Ethereum. Independent news source Decrypt has reported that the firm is continuously growing its treasury in 2026 while attempting to achieve its overall goal of owning approximately 5% of the network’s supply.
Lee claimed that there is no rush to cross that mark. He remarked that Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, has said before that no organization should control more than 5% of the network in order to preserve decentralization. The investors’ next big concerns are tracking whether Ethereum can break decisively through the resistance barrier of $1,876, as well as how much progress has been made by Bitmine toward achieving its accumulation objectives.
If you're reading this, you’re already ahead. Stay there with our newsletter.

Robinhood Chain has already crossed $3 billion in DEX volume and at the time of writing, its 24- hour DEX volume is in the third spot amongst all networks just behind Binance Smart Chain and Solana, according to DeFiLlama. All of this is happening less than two weeks since its mainnet launch. The network has reached another milestone within this timeframe of becoming the busiest Ethereum Layer 2 by daily transactions.
Source: Growthepie
Data from Growthepie shows that the network crossed 7 million transactions yesterday, edging past Base at 6.32 million. Moving ahead of a Coinbase-backed chain with two years of history is a quick climb for a network that had no track record at the start of the month.
The catch is in how those transactions get paid for. Robinhood is covering gas for eligible wallet users on swaps, bridges and perps for the first 90 days since launch until the end of September. Transacting costs close to nothing right now, which pulls in exactly the high-frequency activity that can inflate transaction counts.
The 90-day Fee Waiver is Fueling the Early Numbers.
The gas waiver covers the first 90 days of mainnet and runs out in late September. Normally a network makes money from the fees users pay to get their transactions processed, and on Robinhood Chain that revenue would flow to Robinhood as the operator. At the moment, Robinhood is covering this for its users. This incentive along with a memecoin frenzy has rapidly bolstered the network, briefly flipping Base to the number 2 Uniswap deployment behind Ethereum mainnet and pushing past Hyperliquid in daily DEX volume during the same stretch.
Memecoins are Outrunning the Tokenized Stock Thesis
Robinhood built the chain around 24/7 tokenized equities, now live in more than 120 countries. The activity showing up so far looks nothing like that pitch. Since Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev engaged with memecoins being a legitimate corner of the market for the chain with his tweet on July 8, the average number of tokens created across several launchpads is at around 18,600 per day. As of today, there are 20 memecoins with a market cap of over $1 million.
Source: Dune
The Fee Spike Shows How Event-Driven This Is
The fee number and the subsidy can look like they clash, so it’s worth spelling out. Free gas doesn’t make fees disappear. Every transaction still costs something to get processed and posted back to Ethereum, and the subsidy only changes who covers that cost, and only for people going through the Robinhood Wallet app. Everyone else on the chain pays their own gas in ETH. So when network fees jumped past $300,000 on July 11, that figure is the total cost the day’s activity generated, part of it paid by users directly and part of it absorbed by Robinhood for its wallet users. The spike tracked the memecoin rally, not any steady baseline. That’s the tell. A transaction count measures how much is happening, not whether people would keep showing up if they had to pay for it themselves.
The Real Test Comes After September
Everything about the current lead is front-loaded. Free gas, a fresh chain, a viral memecoin and access to roughly 23 million Robinhood brokerage users all landed inside the same two weeks. The figure that matters is not July’s peak but whatever holds once users start paying their own way. Base cleared its own launch-week speculation and kept a real developer base underneath. Whether Robinhood Chain does the same, and whether its activity shifts toward the tokenized-asset flows it was meant to carry, is what the transaction count can’t answer yet. Q2 earnings in early August will be the first report to fold in live mainnet activity, and September is when the subsidy stops flattering the numbers.
Don’t just read crypto news. Understand it. Subscribe to our newsletter. It's free.

A 70 year old Indian chartered accountant gave fraudsters ₹21.06 crore, or about $2.2 million, after they became friends with him on social media and led him to a phony cryptocurrency trading platform. The case is regarded by Madhya Pradesh police as one of the biggest online investment scams in the state.
Senior CA Ashok Vijayvargiya is the victim. Additionally, he serves as the Chief Returning Officer of the Madhya Pradesh Chamber of Commerce.
“Hello, this is Divya,” the scam’s opening message said, according to the paper. A slow-build confidence trick followed. He saw early gains on his cryptocurrency holdings from scammers. His investment increased steadily as a result of those seeming profits, reaching over $2.2 million.
The money only went in one direction. The operators kept coming up with excuses to withhold the payout when Vijayvargiya attempted to withdraw his money. The returns on his screen were never real, he realized.
The State Cyber Cell of Madhya Pradesh filed a case against anonymous suspects. The DSP in charge of the cell is Sanjeev Nayan Sharma.
According to the Free Press Journal, he stated that investigators are conducting technical tracing of 20 bank accounts, three WhatsApp numbers, and the URL of the fake trading portal. Before the operators proceed, the team wants to follow the IP trail and freeze the associated accounts.
Same template repeats across Indian states
Divyesh Patel, a 29-year-old software engineer, was detained by the City Cyber Crime Cell in Surat, Gujarat. A complainant in the online investment scam lost over ₹72.73 lakh, or about $76,000, after being tricked into trading cryptocurrencies via Telegram.
The victim was led to a fraudulent trading website and promised enormous profits, just like in Gwalior. After that, the funds disappeared into a series of other accounts.
According to the police, ₹17 lakh or about $17,700 of the victim’s money ended up in Patel’s IDBI Bank account. In exchange for a 2% cut on the transactions, he allegedly rented out his banking account to a fugitive accomplice. The same account has already appeared in eight cyber fraud complaints from various states, investigators told IANS.
This is connected to ₹24.72 crore or about $2.5 million in alleged fraud. Patel was charged by Surat police under Section 66(D) of the Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008 and several sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023.
According to Cryptopolitan, the Enforcement Directorate detained Bengaluru hacker Srikrishna, also known as Sriki, in May in connection with a Bitcoin theft case valued at roughly ₹11.5 crore, or $1.3 million. According to Cryptopolitan’s coverage of that report, the FBI recorded $11.4 billion in cryptocurrency losses in the US in 2025, a 22% increase over the previous year.
The arrest was accompanied by a warning from the Surat Cyber Crime Cell. Police advised people to confirm any unsolicited offers related to cryptocurrency, stock trading, or forex. They advised leaving and blocking unfamiliar Telegram or WhatsApp groups and viewing modest early returns as bait.
Additionally, they advised people to report suspected fraud immediately through the cybercrime helpline and cautioned against sending money to strangers they met on social media or marriage websites.
If you're reading this, you’re already ahead. Stay there with our newsletter.

According to federal prosecutors in Oregon, Karen Serobovich Vardanyan entered a guilty plea on July 8 to aiding in the operation of a Ryuk ransomware campaign that stole over $15 million in bitcoin from US businesses.
Extradited from Ukraine, Vardanyan is a 34-year-old Armenian national. This autumn, a judge sentences him. For both counts, he could spend up to 15 years behind bars.
Ryuk ransomware broke into corporate networks
According to the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Oregon, Vardanyan admitted to conspiracy and computer fraud. Every count has a maximum of its own. Conspiracy carries a five-year sentence; computer fraud carries a ten-year sentence. A $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release are also associated with each. In February 2024, he was charged with a third count of extortion by a federal grand jury in Portland. That one was not resolved by the plea.
According to the prosecution, the scheme operated from November 2019 to April 2020. After breaking into corporate networks, Vardanyan and his accomplices used Ryuk. Ryuk is a type of malware that locks down and encrypts a victim’s files until a ransom is paid. The group allegedly installed the software on hundreds of workstations and servers, according to investigators. It then left ransom notes, each requesting an email address and bitcoin so that victims could negotiate their way back into their own systems.
The DOJ stated in a press release on July 9 that “a ransom note was placed on the computer systems demanding ransom payments in Bitcoin, a form of cryptocurrency, and provided an email address that victims could use to communicate with the cybercriminals.” The wallet was under the group’s control. The attackers gave the victim the decryption keys after the victim paid into it.
According to prosecutors, a Michigan company paid 200 bitcoin to regain access to its network. At the time, the bitcoin was worth over $1.1 million. A Wilsonville, Oregon, technology company was also targeted by the campaign. And in February 2020, it struck a Texas school. According to the DOJ, the operation received ~1,610 bitcoin in total, which was worth more than $15 million at the time of the payments.
A complete list of victims has not been released by the prosecution. Additionally, there is no wallet history or breakdown of which payments originated from which attack.
Vardanyan consented to make restitution totaling more than $1.1 million as part of his plea. Portland will host a US District Judge review on September 22, 2026. The restitution amount, the plea deal, and federal sentencing guidelines will all be taken into consideration by the court.
FBI investigated, and Ukraine handled the extradition
The FBI investigated. Assistant US Attorney Katherine A. Rykken is prosecuting, and US Attorney Scott E. Bradford announced the plea. The Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs helped secure Vardanyan’s arrest and extradition from Ukraine. And the US Attorney’s Office credited Ukrainian authorities for their help.
Cryptopolitan recently reported on a separate operation. Attackers used a fake Polymarket trading bot to push credential stealing malware to more than 50 developers.
Don’t just read crypto news. Understand it. Subscribe to our newsletter. It's free.

On Sunday, Michael Saylor uploaded Strategy’s bitcoin acquisition tracker to X. Days after the company completed its largest $216 million bitcoin sale, the caption, “Orange dots tell only part of the story,” was more ambiguous than his typical buy signals.
The market now regularly follows Saylor’s weekend tracker posts. They are searched by traders and Strategy shareholders for hints regarding the subsequent Monday SEC filing. The most recent post deviates from the custom of hinting at a purchase. It makes room for a purchase, sale, or other capital transaction.
Saylor’s captions stop signaling bitcoin buys
It used to be easy to decipher Saylor’s Sunday posts. Just before Strategy revealed new bitcoin purchases, captions like “A good time to add more dots” and “Looks better with more dots” appeared.
The post from June 28 stated, “We’re gonna need more charts.” It preceded a new capital structure rather than a Bitcoin acquisition. The largest sale in the company’s history was preceded by the caption on July 5.
Before making significant announcements, Saylor has also used ambiguous language. “What if we start adding green dots?” he inquired in November. The following day, Strategy disclosed a $1.44 billion reserve financed by sales of common stock in addition to a modest 130-bitcoin purchase.
Saylor did not provide an explanation for the caption, and Strategy has not confirmed any transactions for the week ending Sunday.
Over the course of about a week, the sale that reframed the tracker took place. On June 29 and 30, Strategy sold 1,363 bitcoin for $80.8 million. Then, according to Cryptopolitan’s coverage of the SEC filing, another 2,225 bitcoins for $135.2 million were sold between July 1 and July 5. The total value of the batches was ~$216 million and 3,588 bitcoin.
Preferred stock distributions received the funds. The balance covered the portion of Strategy’s dollar reserve that was used for those payments.
Saylor wrote on X, “Strategy has sold 3,588 $BTC for $216 million to fund dividends on our Digital Credit securities,” adding that as of July 5, the company had reserves of $2.55 billion in dollars and 843,775 bitcoin.
For a company built on hoarding rather than selling, analysts called it an about-face. Saylor stated in October, “You do not sell your Bitcoin.” After the disclosure, Strategy’s stock fell nearly 5%, but it eventually recovered to about $100.
Orange dots tell only part of the story. pic.twitter.com/HFZd2z7fus
— Michael Saylor (@saylor) July 12, 2026
Strategy sits $9.7 billion underwater on its stack
For its stack, Strategy paid a total of $63.69 billion. That equates to $75,476 per coin on average. The position was worth ~$54 billion on Monday, when bitcoin was close to $64,067. This resulted in unrealized losses of ~$9.63 billion, or nearly 15% of the cost basis.
The business continues to hold more bitcoin than any other publicly traded company. It has slightly more than 4% of the fixed supply of 21 million. According to Cryptopolitan, Strategy reported a $8.32 billion digital asset loss for the second quarter, almost all of which went unrealized.
Last week, STRC traded at $89 after breaking its $100 peg. That’s Strategy’s perpetual preferred stock nicknamed “Stretch,” and it promises a rich biweekly dividend. According to Google Finance, STRC closed Friday trading at $87.48. The broader corporate treasury trade has decreased. Solmate, the Solana holder, lost nearly all of its value.
Purchases are represented by the orange dots on the tracker. However, Strategy expanded its use of bitcoin with its late June capital framework. Preferred dividends, debt interest, securities buybacks, and the dollar reserve can all be supported by sales under the framework. It also authorized two separate $1 billion repurchase programs, one for preferred securities and one for Class A common shares.
The entire $1.25 billion reserve building capacity of Strategy’s BTC Monetization Program is still available. As of July 5, that capacity was unutilized. The company may have more room to sell bitcoin than the headline figure suggests because the recent sales did not deplete the stated capacity.
Don’t just read crypto news. Understand it. Subscribe to our newsletter. It's free.