asset

The Central Bank of Brazil disclosed that in the first half of 2026, Brazil's cryptocurrency purchases reached $14.68 billion, a 135% increase from $6.24 billion in the first half of 2025. The statistics include transactions involving Bitcoin, Ethereum, and stablecoins processed by registered Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASP).In June, Brazil's cryptocurrency purchases amounted to $2.54 billion, higher than the $1.48 billion in June 2025; in May, stablecoin purchases were close to $2.632 billion, a 158% increase from May 2025. Fernando Rocha, head of the statistics department at the Central Bank of Brazil, stated that the country's cryptocurrency market has moved past the initial stage and is expanding while exploring application scenarios. Fernando Rocha noted that the demand for dollar-pegged stablecoins is driving growth, with its demand share exceeding 90%, and they can be used for payments and cross-border settlements. The Central Bank of Brazil classifies VASP as Class 3, and after it takes effect in January 2027, relevant institutions will need to comply with the same requirements as securities brokers, securities distributors, and foreign exchange brokerage firms.

According to Bloomberg, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has warned cryptocurrency holders that scammers are contacting some taxpayers by mailing fake letters in an attempt to steal their digital assets or personal data. The IRS stated that these letters may ask taxpayers to register for a so-called "Digital Asset Compliance Portal," which does not exist. The IRS also reminds users not to scan suspicious QR codes and not to answer or cooperate with calls requesting payment.While phishing and digital scams are not new in the cryptocurrency industry, sending fake IRS notices through physical mail seems to be a new scam tactic. Since the IRS has indeed sent letters related to digital assets to taxpayers in the past, and last year saw a surge in cryptocurrency tax filing notifications, many taxpayers are confused, which may lead scammers to exploit this familiarity for disguise. As the U.S. tax system requires taxpayers to disclose cryptocurrency activities on their tax returns, communication between the IRS and cryptocurrency holders has become more common. This also makes counterfeit tax notices more misleading. For cryptocurrency users, encountering "IRS letters" involving portal registration, QR code scanning, wallet connections, or payment requests should be treated with caution, and verification should be done through official channels.

According to South Korean media Daum, the Financial Services Commission (FSC) of South Korea has announced that it has completed the draft of the "Digital Asset Framework Bill." Currently, only a few matters remain to be coordinated, and as the agenda for the second half of the year is determined by the South Korean National Assembly, efforts will be made to expedite the legislative process.It is reported that South Korea is considering including legal provisions related to AI Agent payments in the "Digital Asset Framework Bill" to address the trend of AI becoming a subject of small and high-frequency payments in the future. It is suggested to provide legal authorization for regulatory frameworks, including establishing customer identity verification (KYC) for AI Agent payments, defining payment responsibilities, foreign exchange declaration for cross-border transactions, and programmable payment standards.

According to Jinshi reports, Goldman Sachs Asset Management has launched the artificial intelligence investment platform AlphaAI.

According to Jinshi reports, White House National Economic Council Director Hassett stated that he does not believe the market is in a bubble due to advancements in artificial intelligence.

Aave founder Stani stated that the recent gradual contraction of low adoption assets and networks on Aave should not be interpreted as a judgment on any L1 or L2. This move is primarily aimed at reducing Aave's risk exposure in operational, technical, and economic aspects, thereby concentrating resources on more impactful key directions, including expanding existing high-value markets and developing securities financing business.He also emphasized that L2 remains an important component of the Ethereum user experience. For example, the stablecoin vault in the Aave application uses L2 as its accounting layer, with the goal of driving mainstream users into decentralized finance. Meanwhile, networks like Avalanche are also promoting the on-chain of real-world assets through institutional business expansion, which has been a relatively weak area for Ethereum in the past.

The second largest institutional real estate asset management company in Europe, Swiss Life Asset Managers, disclosed that its holdings of MicroStrategy shares increased by 38%, currently holding a total of 37,889 shares, valued at 3.55 million dollars.

The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) issued a restriction notice to Futu Securities International (Hong Kong) Limited, prohibiting it from handling or disposing of assets in customer accounts held by a certain entity, limited to HKD 125,247,000. This entity is suspected of participating in a fraudulent scheme aimed at creating a false or misleading appearance of demand for initial public offering shares. Futu is not the subject of the SFC's investigation, and this restriction notice will not affect Futu or its other clients.According to the notice, Futu must not dispose of or handle the relevant account assets in any way without the SFC's written consent, and must immediately notify the SFC if it receives any instructions related to the restricted assets. The SFC believes that issuing this restriction notice is in the interest of investors and the public. The investigation is still ongoing.

According to Aave founder Stani Kulechov, after completing a comprehensive review, Aave will gradually phase out 50 low adoption rate asset reserves across multiple deployment environments and orderly stop deployments on Sonic, Scroll, zkSync, Metis, Soneium, and Aptos, involving an additional 25 asset reserves.In addition, 21 expired Pendle PT assets will also be eliminated and replaced by new expiring assets. This adjustment involves approximately $98.1 million in supply assets and $15.6 million in debt. Stani stated that this move aims to reduce the economic and technical risks of the protocol based on the new Aave risk framework and technical asset listing framework, and Aave will continue to assess the risks of assets in each deployment environment.

According to DigitalAsset, South Korean Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance Koo Yun-cheol stated at a plenary meeting of the National Assembly's Finance and Economy Planning Committee that the taxation of digital assets will be implemented as planned on January 1, 2027, and the system may be supplemented and improved if necessary thereafter.According to the current income tax law, the portion of income from digital asset transactions exceeding 2.5 million won will be subject to a 20% tax rate (including local taxes up to 22%). The implementation was originally scheduled for 2022 but has been postponed three times due to insufficient infrastructure. In response to concerns raised by People Power Party member Kim Sang-hoon regarding the non-application of loss carryforward deductions potentially leading to a decline in domestic demand and capital outflow, Koo stated that stock investments also do not allow for loss carryforwards, and the taxation can be reviewed and improved at any time. Regarding the introduction of a capital gains tax similar to that in overseas markets, Koo mentioned that a comprehensive and systematic consideration of the overall capital market is necessary.

According to Jinshi, Larry Kudlow, the Director of the National Economic Council at the White House, stated that we expect prices to face downward pressure.

According to Jinshi, the Director of the National Economic Council of the White House, Hassett, stated that there is no reason to downgrade the United States' debt rating.

According to Jinshi, the Director of the National Economic Council of the White House, Hassett, stated that our confidence in Federal Reserve Chairman Waller has never been stronger.

Bitcoin News posted on the X platform that New Hampshire Governor Kelly Ayotte has signed HB 639 into law to strengthen legal protections for Bitcoin and digital assets.The law protects self-custody rights, prohibits state and local governments from restricting the use of blockchain, prohibits the imposition of special taxes on cryptocurrency purchases, exempts miners from currency transfer licensing requirements, and establishes specialized court dockets for blockchain disputes. This measure further consolidates legal certainty for Bitcoin users, miners, and the broader digital asset industry.

According to Cointelegraph, the Hungarian Parliament voted to abolish the previously mandated cryptocurrency asset verification requirements that were set to take effect on July 1, 2025. This requirement mandated that specific cryptocurrency conversions must be verified by a licensed third party regarding the source of assets, wallet ownership, and customer information before execution. Finance Minister Kármán András stated that the previously stringent regulatory requirements had led to several service providers exiting the Hungarian market, and the market is currently showing signs of recovery.Meanwhile, the Hungarian National Bank (MNB) officially granted the first local license under the EU MiCA framework to Budapest-based cryptocurrency platform CoinCash operator Tiwala Solutions on July 20, authorizing a range of services including custody, cryptocurrency exchange for fiat, cryptocurrency swaps, transfers, investment advice, and portfolio management.

Binance will add 10 bStocks tokens on July 29, 2026, at 20:00 --- Apple (AAPLB), Bloom Energy (BEB), Amazon (AMZNB), Direxion Semiconductor Bear 3X ETF (SOXSB), Dell (DELLB), Fluence Energy (FLNCB), Applied Materials (AMATB), PayPal (PYPLB), Goldman Sachs (GSB), and VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMHB) --- as eligible collateral assets.Eligible users can use these bStocks tokens as margin collateral, expanding the collateral options for margin trading.

According to Jinshi reports, Gina Kim, the emerging markets equity portfolio manager at Nordea Asset Management in Singapore, stated that the current sell-off in the South Korean stock market seems to have irrational and panic-driven components, primarily focused on technology stocks related to artificial intelligence.Some of the sell-off behavior can be reasonably explained, such as reducing risk before the summer vacation, margin requirements, and recent news reports regarding the sustainability of capital expenditures in artificial intelligence. Due to single stock limits rather than fundamental reasons, the company has reduced some of its larger technology stock holdings.

According to Edaily, the Financial Services Commission (FSC) of South Korea plans to jointly draft a unified government bill for the "Basic Law on Digital Assets" with the ruling Democratic Party, covering the issuance and circulation of stablecoins, business rules for digital assets, exchange admission requirements, information disclosure, internal control, and system resilience standards. Currently, there are 10 related bills pending review in the National Assembly, but there has not yet been consensus on core disputes such as whether the issuers of won-pegged stablecoins must be bank holding companies and whether to impose shareholding restrictions on major exchanges. The FSC has not yet determined the submission date for the bill.Meanwhile, the opposition party's People Power Party lawmaker Song Yeon-sik submitted a proposal to abolish the cryptocurrency income tax amendment to the National Assembly's Finance and Economy Planning Committee for review on Wednesday. Additionally, a tax abolition petition supported by over 50,000 people is also expected to be submitted to the petition subcommittee. According to the current plan, starting from January 1, 2027, cryptocurrency transfers or lending income exceeding 2.5 million won per year will face a 20% income tax plus a 2% local tax. The government and the ruling party support the timely implementation, while the opposition party believes it is unfair to tax cryptocurrencies when most ordinary stock investors remain tax-exempt.

According to DefiLlama data, the Ethereum chain random NFT acquisition protocol Fake World Assets, developed by the two-person team Token Works, surpassed the daily revenue of Collector Crypt on Solana within four days of its relaunch on July 20.On July 25, the peak daily revenue reached $447,604, with total fees of $1.6 million, and approximately 90,000 transactions including about 35,000 draws, with a trading volume of around 2,000 ETH. After that, activity declined, with revenue in the past 24 hours dropping to $167,869, ranking second in daily revenue among Ethereum protocols, only behind Sky ($464,303), and ahead of Aave ($105,282) and Uniswap ($76,028).In this protocol, depositors list NFTs along with their pledged ETH collateral (similar to Uniswap V2 trading pairs), where the collateral determines the weight of each NFT and provides depositors with irrevocable continuous bids to reacquire the NFT. Anyone can pay the acquisition price generated by the liquidity pool to obtain a randomly selected NFT.The pool has accumulated over 1,500 NFTs including CryptoPunks, with randomness provided by Chainlink VRF. The token emission incentives expire 15 days after launch, and daily fees have decreased by about half from their peak. Collector Crypt on Solana remains the leader in this sector, with users spending over $209 million on its card packs in June alone.