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Samsung SDS stated in its earnings call that its strategic investment in the South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Dunamu is a "strategic layout for entering the digital asset infrastructure business." Both parties are discussing cooperation on stablecoin infrastructure, next-generation AI payments, and virtual asset financial system integration (SI). Samsung SDS President Lee Joon-hee mentioned that they will combine Dunamu's blockchain operation experience with Samsung SDS's capabilities in IT services, AI, cloud computing, and security to strengthen the digital financial infrastructure business.The earnings report disclosed on the same day showed that Samsung SDS's revenue for the second quarter was 3.7178 trillion won (approximately 2.6 billion USD), a year-on-year increase of 5.9%; operating profit was 231.8 billion won (approximately 160 million USD), a year-on-year increase of 0.7%. Among them, the cloud computing business revenue was 779.4 billion won, a year-on-year increase of 17%, with external cloud computing business revenue surging 75% year-on-year. The company plans to expand its AI infrastructure from the current 110MW to 230MW by 2029, and further expand to over 800MW by 2031. Samsung SDS previously announced an investment of approximately 20 billion won in Dunamu in May 2024.

According to Vietnamese media An Ninh Tien Te, the Ministry of Public Security of Vietnam proposed to expand the scope of electronic identification subjects in the draft of the "Electronic Identification and Authentication Law," incorporating data, applications, digital assets, and various other assets. The draft stipulates that electronic identification subjects include not only institutions, organizations, and individuals but also extend to physical entities such as products, goods, and equipment, as well as digital resources and digital assets like databases, documents, images, and videos. The identification of digital assets is executed in accordance with the provisions of the Digital Technology Industry Law.The draft also establishes mechanisms for the suspension, restoration, and cancellation of electronic identities and identification codes. The Ministry of Public Security stated that the current electronic identification primarily serves the digital construction of citizens and the government, but in the context of the rapid development of the digital economy and digital society, a unified identification mechanism needs to be established, covering various entities in both physical and digital environments.

Mirae Asset has completed the acquisition of Korea's earliest cryptocurrency exchange Korbit at 97.15% and has renamed it Digital X.The company plans to develop Digital X into a smart investment platform, integrating real-world assets, security tokens, stablecoins, traditional assets, and digital assets within the same ecosystem. Mirae Asset stated that it will not directly compete with dominant exchanges like Upbit and Bithumb, focusing instead on investor education, research, strict compliance standards, and institutional-grade infrastructure.

Hong Kong, July 23, 2026 - PhotonPay, a next-generation global financial operating system built on a stablecoin-native architecture, has been recognized in the CNBC 2026 World's Top Fintech Companies rankings, Payments category. The list, compiled jointly by CNBC and Statista, covers 500 leading fintech companies worldwide. PhotonPay supports unified fiat and stablecoin transactions with real-time settlement, serving tens of thousands of enterprises globally. Customers have reduced fund transfer costs by over 75% and improved finance team efficiency by 60% (as of December 2025).

According to Cointelegraph, Vietnam issued Decree No. 284/2026/NĐ-CP on July 16, officially establishing an administrative penalty framework for cryptocurrency violations, providing a legal basis for the upcoming regulated cryptocurrency market.According to the decree, investors trading on unlicensed platforms face fines of up to 50 million Vietnamese dong (approximately $1,900); unauthorized issuance of crypto assets and serious anti-money laundering (AML) violations can incur fines of up to 200 million Vietnamese dong (approximately $7,700); authorities are also authorized to suspend related activities, revoke licenses, and confiscate assets.The decree will officially take effect on September 1. In terms of background, Vietnam opened applications for domestic cryptocurrency exchange licenses in January this year, and Deputy Minister Nguyen Duc Chi previously stated that the first batch of regulated activities is expected to launch in the third quarter.

According to the security agency Slow Fog, the malicious TRAE IDE extension juannegro.solidity disguises itself as a Solidity plugin and acts as a cross-platform malware delivery mechanism. This extension automatically executes and establishes persistence after the IDE starts, and it also uses Ethereum smart contracts to store and retrieve dynamic C2 configurations, allowing attackers to update C2 endpoints and payloads without needing to re-release the extension.Although the extension has been removed from Open VSX, it was still available through the TRAE marketplace as of July 18. Users who have installed it should immediately delete it and check their systems for compromise.

According to the Korea Herald, South Korea's financial regulatory agency has issued an investigation report to Upbit's operator Dunamu, initiating sanction procedures. Previously, the company suffered a hacking incident involving 44.5 billion won.Since the incident occurred, the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) has been investigating whether there were violations of the "Virtual Asset User Protection Act." However, as there are currently no direct penalties for hacking incidents or computer system failures, it remains uncertain whether this will lead to severe disciplinary actions. The Financial Supervisory Service plans to notify the company in advance of the sanction opinion letter, which includes the level of sanctions, after the company provides an explanation. Subsequently, the final sanction measures will be determined by resolutions from the Sanction Review Committee, the Securities and Futures Commission, and the Financial Services Commission.

According to the official announcement, BitRing has announced a gradual brand upgrade starting today, and its fitness, AI, and Web3 ecosystem will uniformly adopt a new global brand "BRT.Fit".The announcement pointed out that after this brand adjustment, the name "BitRing" will be retained, continuing to focus on wearable hardware and health technology innovation as a dedicated smart ring brand. The official statement indicated that this brand upgrade marks a new stage in the project's global expansion.

Z.AI Co., Ltd. announced on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that its English name has been changed from Knowledge Atlas Technology Joint Stock Company Limited to Z.AI Co., Ltd.The company's Chinese name "北京智谱华章科技股份有限公司" will remain unchanged.

According to International Cyber Digest (@IntCyberDigest), the core domain name t[.]me of Telegram has been set to serverHold status by the .me registry, causing the domain to go offline from the global DNS, making all t.me links inaccessible. Currently, Telegram, the .me registry, and the backend operator Identity Digital have not provided any public explanation.Analysts have pointed out that .me is the country code top-level domain for Montenegro, which is currently in the process of negotiating EU membership. This blockade may be related to the advancement of EU regulatory matters.

Founder of Strategy, Michael Saylor, stated that Bitcoin is a spontaneously evolved network system, where the influence of wallets is determined by the amount of satoshis held, the influence of nodes is determined by business activities, the influence of miners is determined by computing power, and capital, consensus, and network security together maintain a dynamic balance.

According to the official announcement from NEAR Chain Status, the NEAR mainnet version 2.13.0 has been released, introducing post-quantum transaction signature schemes and dynamic sharding features.Voting will begin at 8:00 AM Beijing time on July 20. Former NEAR core developer Vadim introduced that this upgrade includes features that would typically require a ten-year roadmap for most blockchains: the post-quantum signature ML-DSA-65 becomes the third key type in the protocol after ed25519 and secp256k1, allowing accounts to hold keys that cannot be forged by quantum computers, with only a 32-byte hash recorded on-chain; dynamic sharding enables the chain to automatically monitor the status and size of each shard and to split and re-shard at epoch boundaries without the need for protocol upgrades or manual intervention; Gas Keys provide critical functionality for the proxy economy, allowing a single account to run a batch of proxies to send transactions simultaneously without nonce conflicts.

The Japanese corporate bond issuance and purchasing platform operator Siiibo Securities announced that it plans to change its name to "Metaplanet Securities Inc." on July 13, 2026, and officially join the Metaplanet Group.Siiibo Securities stated that this name change requires approval from a temporary shareholders' meeting. The company previously operated with the mission of "creating free, transparent, and fair direct finance," providing an online private bond issuance and purchasing platform aimed at emerging enterprises and individual investors, and holds a first-class financial instruments business license in Japan.With the integration into the Metaplanet Group, Siiibo will further expand its business direction in the future, planning to leverage its parent company's experience in Bitcoin (BTC) asset operations to develop and offer BTC-based financial products to individual investors, creating a "BTC × Finance" platform.It is understood that Siiibo Securities was established in 2019 and currently operates an online securities platform focused on corporate bonds, providing private bond issuance and investment services. The platform has covered approximately 40 companies and over 100 types of bond products. After joining the Metaplanet Group, it will no longer be limited to the venture debt field but will explore more innovative income products that meet investor return demands.

According to DigitalAsset, Upbit operator Dunamu has been selected as the first priority candidate for the "Management of Seized Digital Asset Custody Business" by the Korean National Police Agency. According to data from the Korean government procurement portal (KONEPS), Dunamu ranked first with a comprehensive score of 94.73 (technical score 84.73, bid price score 10), surpassing the Korea Digital Asset Custody Company (KDAC, 91.29) and Hecto Wallet One (87.27).The project budget is 267 million won, with a contract period of 1 year, aimed at entrusting the digital assets seized by the police during investigations to external professional institutions for secure custody. Previously, there were cases in the Korean judicial system where seized bitcoins were lost, raising concerns about the need for external custody of digital assets.

According to monitoring by Lookonchain, a wallet named Ansem-2 (0x6f5...D3F5) spent $233,000 in the past 3 hours to buy 2.79 million CASHCAT.This wallet is associated with a Solana wallet (CLM6...Kg1Q), which currently holds 10.5 million ANSEM, worth $2.7 million, and has made a profit of $2.6 million through ANSEM.

According to South Korea's Digital Asset, the comprehensive equity exchange date between Naver Financial and Upbit's parent company Dunamu has been postponed again from September 30 to December 31, marking the second delay this year, having previously been postponed from June 30 to September 30 in March.The equity exchange ratio remains unchanged, with 1 share of Dunamu exchanged for 2.5422618 shares of Naver Financial. Dunamu stated that the transaction still requires approval from the Fair Trade Commission for corporate mergers, approval for changes in major shareholders under the Credit Information Act, and reporting of changes in major shareholders under the Specific Financial Information Act, and the progress may lead to further delays or even the transaction falling through.Dunamu also pointed out that legislative discussions on the Basic Law of Digital Assets are progressing, and the content of future regulations may impact the conduct or outcome of the equity exchange.

According to Vietnam's Youth Newspaper, the Ministry of Public Security of Vietnam recently held a press conference to report the latest investigation results of the ONUS cryptocurrency platform fraud case. More than 350 kilograms of gold and silver have been seized, transactions involving 8 properties valued at 20 trillion Vietnamese dong have been frozen, and transactions of over 300 involved bank accounts have been suspended.On March 23 of this year, the police filed criminal charges against 8 defendants, accusing them of using computer networks and telecommunications networks to commit property appropriation and money laundering. Since 2018, the individuals involved have taken advantage of the public's lack of understanding of cryptocurrency, creating digital accounts through applications and packaging them as virtual currency. They established trust and attracted investment through circular buying and selling among affiliated companies, thereby committing fund appropriation, with a total sale of cryptocurrency valued at over 70 trillion Vietnamese dong from 2018 to 2021.The case involves numerous individuals and users, with approximately 5 million user accounts opened. The police have received over 2000 reports from citizens. The public security authorities are investigating the possible accomplice responsibilities of KOLs and other internet celebrities and continue to make every effort to recover the embezzled funds.

According to The Block, Samsung Electronics, Dunamu (the parent company of Upbit), and several other South Korean companies have been listed as members of the Open Standard's OUSD stablecoin alliance, but many companies stated that they have not formally agreed to participate.A relevant person from Samsung Electronics told South Korean media that they have not received a formal inquiry and do not know what role they will play. Shinhan Financial Group, Dunamu, and Kbank stated that they only replied "we will look into this matter," and then their names were listed. Other companies claimed they simply responded casually with "we will consider it if things go smoothly," only to find themselves listed, feeling confused.Open Standard announced this week the formation of an alliance consisting of over 140 institutions, including Visa, Mastercard, and BlackRock, with plans to launch the OUSD stablecoin within the year.

Michael Saylor posted on the X platform, stating that the future of Bitcoin is shaped by the dynamic consensus among nodes, miners, and holders. Among these, the influence of nodes is reflected in transaction validation rights, miners are represented by computing power, and holders are represented by economic weight. Only when validation, security, and capital align can protocol changes be approved.He further pointed out that while the forces of brands, laws, politics, technology, institutions, culture, and the physical realm may influence discussions related to Bitcoin, they cannot directly determine the outcome of consensus. Their role is mainly reflected in persuading, coordinating, constraining, or mobilizing nodes, miners, and holders.