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The Southeast Asian cryptocurrency industry is expected to double its funding to $680 million by 2026, with Singapore taking the lead.Japan's Metaplanet faces shareholder backlash due to the executive stock incentive plan.

The latest report from the market intelligence platform Tracxn shows that since 2026, the Southeast Asian blockchain industry has accumulated $680 million in equity financing, more than double the $319 million for the entire year of 2025. However, this round of recovery is mainly driven by a few mature companies: only 25 rounds of financing were completed this year, compared to 46 rounds in 2025 and a peak of 206 rounds in 2022; the $400 million Series D financing of the cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com accounted for nearly 60% of the total.From a segmented perspective, crypto financial services are the biggest beneficiaries, receiving a total of $498 million in financing this year (19 rounds), a year-on-year increase of 48.4%; tokenization platforms received $114 million, and decentralized application development platforms received $77 million. Among the 3,957 blockchain companies tracked by Tracxn, 1,323 have received equity financing, but only 167 have entered Series A and beyond, 50 have entered Series B, 14 have entered Series C, and only 4 have entered Series D and beyond.In terms of geography, Singapore dominates the Southeast Asian crypto investment market, accounting for 82.5% of the region's cumulative blockchain financing amount of $6.2 billion, and has 2,285 tracked companies, while Jakarta, ranked second, accounts for only 3%. In terms of exits, there have been 43 acquisitions and 4 IPOs in the region, including SBI Group's acquisition of the Singapore exchange CoinHako and Bybit's acquisition of NOBI. Southeast Asia has produced 6 blockchain unicorns to date, including Sygnum, Bitkub, Sky Mavis, and Amber Group.

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) of the U.S. Department of the Treasury released an analysis and alert on Thursday, linking approximately $12.7 billion in suspicious financial activities to cryptocurrency investment scams operated by Southeast Asian parks. About 1,300 institutions submitted 33,904 suspicious activity reports covering the period from September 2023 to December 2025. Cryptocurrency-focused money service businesses submitted 55% of the reports, involving $5.5 billion; banks submitted 41%, involving $6.4 billion; and securities firms accounted for the remaining $784.5 million.The number of reports has been growing at an average monthly rate of 10.9%, with the amount involved increasing by 18%. Scammers used at least 22 types of digital assets, with Ethereum, USDT, and USDC being the most common. On-chain analysis shows that regardless of the asset victims initially purchased, the funds are almost always converted into stablecoins, with nearly all converted to USDT, and then transferred through DeFi protocols or exchanges outside the U.S. Scammers also reused collection addresses across multiple victims, which is one way some institutions identified this pattern.The report indicates that about 25% involved elderly individuals, which is comparable to the 24.4% of the population that is over 60 years old, leading FinCEN to conclude that the elderly are not disproportionately targeted. The FBI estimates that in 2024, the U.S. population over 60 lost $4.8 billion to scams. These parks are primarily located in Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar, and U.S. authorities have seized over $25 million related to the associated scams this year.

Web3 fitness application BRTFit announced that it is preparing for significant expansion in the Southeast Asia region and reiterated the arrangement for the distribution of 1 million BRT genesis airdrops. The final weighting will be 50% tBRT snapshot and 50% valid invited users. The genesis airdrop is not only aimed at early users; new joiners can also improve their ranking by staying active, exercising continuously, and inviting real users.Regarding the testnet rules, according to the latest iOS application version, if users stop exercising and do not meet the specified activity conditions, the testnet mechanism may deduct 10% of their total tBRT holdings. BRTFit calls on users to exercise more, invite more, and stay active to compete for shares of the genesis airdrop, and it states that the Southeast Asian market is coming soon.BRTFit is an application based on the BNB Chain's Move to Earn and DePIN direction, combining exercise data with token incentives, allowing users to join the ecosystem by searching for relevant entry points.

According to DIGITIMES, the NB supply chain has reported that brand manufacturers are significantly returning to production in China, with "returning to China for production" becoming a new trend. Brands such as HP, ASUS, and Acer have recently noticeably reduced their originally planned capacity shifts to Southeast Asia, with production focus returning to Chongqing or Kunshan in China, and increasing orders to Chinese ODM or EMS manufacturers and the proportion of private label products. This involves production lines at Quanta, Inventec's Thailand factories, and Compal, Wistron’s Vietnam factories, which may be affected by customer transfers. Lenovo, Dell, and Apple, on the other hand, remain relatively unchanged.The supply chain indicates that after the U.S. equivalent tariffs were ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, the impact of substitute tariffs is smaller, and the production costs for NB in Southeast Asia are on average $9 higher per unit than in China. The gross profit margin for brand manufacturers per unit of NB is mostly between 3% to 10%. Based on a low-priced model with an average price of about $300, the $9 difference is close to or even exceeds their profit, resulting in unprofitable shipments. Local Chinese governments are also demanding increased production due to reduced tax revenues, or they will reclaim past subsidies, creating a pull for returning production.Relevant ODM personnel stated that they will respect customer decisions, and if they cannot take on a single product, they will shift production locally to servers and other product lines such as networking. Lenovo is more cautious due to its diversified layout, with limited relocation; Dell has not significantly returned due to the high proportion of U.S. government orders; Apple targets the high-end market and promotes automation, with the main reason for relocating MacBook production from Shanghai being the pandemic-related supply chain disruptions, and its plans in Vietnam remain unchanged to date.

According to official news, Fuyo Markets, a brand new prediction trading platform designed for the Southeast Asian market incubated by CMC Labs, has been launched.Fuyo Markets offers a range of unique market categories, including 1-minute cryptocurrency predictions (the fastest in the industry, exclusively provided by Fuyo Markets), "Trending Markets" that closely follow real-world hot events, regional markets focusing on local stocks and businesses in Southeast Asia, and "Sad Markets" designed around bear market conditions.The platform supports 10 Southeast Asian languages and integrates Binance Connect fiat payment functionality; Fuyo Markets is committed to providing a simple, accessible, and culturally preferred prediction trading experience for the new generation of traders in the region.

According to Jinshi reports, the UK Maritime Trade Operations Office stated that a cargo ship was attacked 20 nautical miles northeast of Haiseb in the Strait of Hormuz.

According to Jinshi reports, on August 1, the Southern Theater Command of the People's Liberation Army organized joint sea and air exercises in the territorial waters, airspace, and surrounding maritime areas of Huangyan Island. This action is a necessary measure in response to the current situation in the South China Sea and the actions of certain regional countries that undermine peace and stability in the area, aiming to test and enhance the troops' practical capabilities in safeguarding national territorial sovereignty and maritime rights.

According to Bloomberg, Thailand's True Internet Data Center is seeking approximately $2 billion in equivalent loans to build new data center facilities to help Thailand develop into a regional AI and cloud services hub.In terms of financing structure, the loan will be divided into three parts, with about $1.8 billion denominated in US dollars, and the other two parts denominated in Thai baht. Sources familiar with the matter requested anonymity as the details of the transaction have not yet been publicly disclosed.

According to Jinshi, the Southern Theater Command of the People's Liberation Army of China has organized combat readiness patrols in the territorial waters and airspace around Huangyan Island.

SBI Holdings announced that it has completed the acquisition of a majority stake in the Singapore cryptocurrency platform Coinhako on July 16 and will include it within its consolidated subsidiaries.The transaction has received the necessary approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

The predictive behavior AI network THEA, focused on risk markets, has completed a $8 million financing round to build its coordination layer based on Solana and expand its AI infrastructure. This round of financing was led by Maven11 Capital, Spartan Group, Manifold Trading, Hack VC, and Fisher8 Capital.Founded in 2024 and headquartered in the Cayman Islands, THEA's AI model is trained on over 35 billion real-world decision data, with its core product providing predictive behavior AI for risk markets. The company plans to launch THEA Network—a coordination layer that routes inference requests and settles transactions on Solana while keeping large-scale data processing off-chain. THEA also plans to introduce a utility token to tokenize access to its autonomous system.

According to monitoring by Catcher Predict, in the event "Dota 2 OG vs Grind Back Southeast Asia Qualifiers" on the prediction market Polymarket, the win probability for the sub-market "Match Winner" for the option "OG" has experienced significant fluctuations, rising from 59.5% an hour ago to the current 84.5% (a fluctuation of 25%). Please note the impact of relevant breaking news.

According to Catcher Predict monitoring, in the market prediction event "Dota 2: REKONIX vs OG Southeast Asia Qualifiers" on Polymarket, the "Yes" option for the sub-market "Both sides defeat Roshan" has experienced a dramatic fluctuation in winning probability, soaring from 50% an hour ago to the current 90% (a fluctuation of 40%). Please note the impact of related breaking news.

The Ministry of Interior of Thailand, in conjunction with provincial electricity authorities, police, and local administrative officials, conducted a joint law enforcement operation this Saturday in five provinces: Ubon Ratchathani, Yasothon, Amnat Charoen, Roi Et, and Maha Sarakham, inspecting 14 locations in total. The operation confiscated 315 digital currency mining devices, and investigators found that the individuals involved supplied power to the mining machines by tampering with electricity meters and illegally connecting to the power supply. The total estimated loss reached 40.38 million baht (approximately 1.227 million USD), which includes a 5.38 million baht fine for electricity violations and about 35 million baht in unpaid electricity bills. Relevant evidence has been collected, and authorities have filed lawsuits against the individuals involved.

Global technology company Electric Soul (EST) has disclosed the latest progress in its global deployment. As of June 2026, the company has deployed tens of thousands of standardized commercial shared charging devices in multiple countries across Europe, America, and Southeast Asia, covering high-traffic scenarios such as business districts, transportation hubs, and dining clusters, while maintaining stable operations.As the scale of devices reaches tens of thousands, Electric Soul is transitioning from regional market expansion to a phase of global-scale operations. The project enhances replication efficiency between different countries and cities through unified hardware standards, cloud-based SaaS operation and maintenance backend, localized payment adaptations, and city agency cooperation models, providing support for the continuous expansion of the global shared charging network.Electric Soul stated that leveraging the large-scale implementation experience in the European, American, and Southeast Asian markets, the next step will be to expand into incremental markets such as the Middle East, South Asia, and Latin America, continuously promoting the vision of "global reach, boundaryless charging," and further exploring new models of global energy infrastructure in RWA and DePIN scenarios.

According to Cointelegraph, Coinbase has frozen over $3 million in cryptocurrency related to a Southeast Asian crypto fraud network. This action is part of the "Disruption Week" initiative led by the U.S. Department of Justice's Fraud Center, aimed at combating crypto fraud targeting American citizens. Meta, Microsoft, and Starlink also participated in this operation, collectively cutting off servers and hosting infrastructure associated with the fraud network, disrupting criminal activities across more than 1.4 million social media and email accounts. The Royal Thai Police's Anti-Fraud Center has carried out multiple arrests. The U.S. Department of Justice stated that investment fraud and pig butchering scams are the fastest-growing and most financially destructive types of fraud targeting Americans. Coinbase stated that blockchain technology provides law enforcement with transparent, immutable, and permanent transaction records that traditional financial systems often cannot offer.

According to an official announcement from the U.S. Department of Justice, the "Fraud Center Strike Force" announced today a series of coordinated actions against Southeast Asian criminal organizations: two Chinese managers, Huang Xingshan and Jiang Wenjie, working at the "Shun Da Fraud Center" in Myanmar, have been indicted for allegedly forcing trafficked laborers to engage in cryptocurrency investment fraud and have been arrested in Thailand; a Telegram channel with over 6,000 followers, used to lure individuals to Cambodia's fraud centers for forced labor, has been shut down; and 503 fraudulent domain names disguised as legitimate investment platforms have been seized.On the financial side, the task force has frozen over $701 million in cryptocurrency suspected of being related to fraud and money laundering, and through "Operation Level Up," notified 8,935 victims, estimating the recovery of potential losses at approximately $563 million. Additionally, the U.S. State Department announced a reward of up to $10 million for information related to the "

According to FinanceFeeds, the Central Bureau of Investigation of India has arrested suspect Sunil Nellathu Ramakrishnan (also known as Krish), who is suspected of being involved in a transnational human trafficking network related to Southeast Asian online fraud activities, and is identified as a key coordinator of the cross-border fraud network.This network lured Indian citizens to Thailand through fake recruitment and then transported them to scam hubs in Myanmar, Cambodia, and other places, forcing them to engage in activities such as cryptocurrency investment fraud and romance scams. Law enforcement agencies stated that such crimes utilize cryptocurrency assets for cross-border fund transfers, increasing the difficulty of tracking, and related investigations are still ongoing.