Crypto Assets Industry Latest Trends

Regulation and Policy

The criminal trial of Tornado Cash founder Roman Storm is ongoing. The prosecution has rested its case, and the defense has begun to call witnesses. Ethereum developer Preston Van Loon, as the first witness, stated that Tornado Cash is a tool built to meet privacy needs, aimed at protecting user identity and transaction security. The defense will continue to call multiple witnesses to refute the prosecution's charges.

Vietnam has launched the national blockchain platform NDAChain, which serves as the core infrastructure of the country's digital ecosystem. NDAChain adopts a hybrid data architecture, combining centralized and decentralized elements, aiming to enhance data security, scalability, and global integration capabilities. The platform will provide a "decentralized trust layer" for multiple sectors and achieve decentralized identity verification and digital contract signing through NDA DID.

A certain investment institution responded to the U.S. Department of Justice's accusations regarding its investment in Tornado Cash. The institution stated that its investment is based on the importance of open-source privacy protection technology and has obtained external legal opinions confirming compliance. The institution does not operate or control Tornado Cash, nor does it have contact with malicious users. If the Department of Justice does indeed bring charges, the institution will fully defend itself.

A woman in Arizona, USA, has been sentenced to 8 and a half years in prison for assisting North Korean IT workers in defrauding $17 million. This case is one of the largest IT employee fraud cases involving North Korea, as charged by the US Department of Justice, and it involves 68 American victims and 309 businesses.

Market View

The CIO of an asset management company believes that the traditional four-year cycle is no longer dominant in the Crypto Assets market. He pointed out that the halving effect is gradually weakening, the interest rate cycle has turned positive, and improvements in regulation and institutionalization have reduced risks. Larger trends such as asset inflows into ETFs, widespread adoption by institutions, and regulatory progress are dominating the market. He predicts that 2026 will be a bumper year for the Crypto Assets market, but also warns that significant volatility will occur.

A co-founder of a trading platform stated that JPMorgan has suspended the platform's account opening services due to its public criticism of the fees. He expressed that he would continue to condemn such anti-competitive behavior.

ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood believes that the surge in demand for Ethereum staking redemption may be due to a trading platform offering a 2% reward. Investors are transferring their staked ETH to a treasury company to double their funds after the lock-up period ends.

Project Progress

A certain wallet will hold the 32nd exclusive TGE event on July 28th, with the project being Delabs Games(DELABS). Eligible users must participate using Alpha points.

A trading platform will launch ZORAUSDT and TAGUSDT perpetual contracts on July 25, supporting up to 50x leverage.

Strategy has increased the issuance scale of STRC preferred shares from $500 million to $2.521 billion. The raised funds will be used for general corporate purposes, including increasing holdings in Bitcoin.

A certain trading platform has added ResearchCoin(RSC) to its listing roadmap. The platform's CEO stated that all listed assets must be approved by the digital asset support team, and individuals do not have the authority to decide on listing approvals.

A certain wallet updates on the progress of the BRC-20 upgrade. The BRC-20 single-step transfer function will be officially enabled on July 29, allowing users to create TRANSFER inscriptions directly to the target address. The BRC-20 Swap module has removed the deposit/withdrawal requirements. More new features will be launched in the future.

Important Data

The Ethereum spot ETF saw a net inflow of $453 million yesterday, continuing a 16-day streak of net inflows. The Bitcoin spot ETF had a net inflow of $131 million yesterday.

Bitcoin mining company Cango mined 147 BTC this week, bringing its total holdings to 4387.1 coins. The company stated that it has fully entered HODL mode.

An early Bitcoin investor sold 80,000 coins through an institution, worth approximately $9 billion, making it one of the largest transactions in Crypto Assets history.

The largest PUMP organization private placement address has completed its liquidation, with a profit of approximately $8.2 million. This address used 100 million USDC to participate in the private placement, obtaining 25 billion PUMP.

In half a month, 9 wallets accumulated 614,000 ETH, worth over 2.1 billion dollars. These whales/institutions helped push the ETH price from $2,700 to $3,700.

Financing/Aquisition

The publicly listed company Mega Matrix has completed a $16 million private placement financing and officially entered the stablecoin sector. The funds raised will be used to build a stablecoin asset allocation system and an on-chain yield mechanism.

Institutional Holdings

Australia's Monochrome spot Bitcoin ETF holdings have risen to 956 BTC, with assets under management totaling 171 million AUD.

SharpLink wallet received 145 million USDC from Circle wallet, or continues to increase its holdings of ETH. Currently, SharpLink holds 360,900 coins of ETH.

Bit Digital, a Nasdaq-listed company, plans to increase its authorized share capital to 1 billion common shares to raise funds for further increasing its holdings of ETH.

Strategy plans to increase the fundraising scale for purchasing Bitcoin from $500 million to $2 billion.