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On-chain yield platform Altura announced that it originally planned to purchase USDT using fiat funds from its Altura bank account through over-the-counter trading partners, but the bank account holding the relevant funds has been temporarily frozen by the bank. Screenshots show that the frozen amount is approximately £16.446 million, about $21.88 million, and this plan has therefore been hindered.Altura stated that it has communicated with the bank regarding this matter, and the bank has requested that it wait for the review to be completed, stating that it will contact them separately if additional materials are needed. The current situation is completely beyond Altura's control, and they must wait for further responses from the bank. Altura also announced that due to limited team resources, it will suspend community chat functions to focus on addressing the current issues, and it promises that subsequent developments will be promptly communicated through its official X account, Telegram channel, and Discord, while urging the community to avoid speculation until official confirmation is received.

The European Union has further tightened restrictions on cryptocurrency assets related to Belarus, prohibiting Belarusian citizens and residents from owning, controlling, or managing cryptocurrency service providers regulated by the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA). According to the Council Decision (CFSP) 2026/1847 passed by the EU Council, this measure is an extension of the EU's sanctions framework against Belarus's involvement in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.The new regulations will officially take effect on July 24, with the expanded restrictions on the cryptocurrency industry set to be implemented from August 25. According to MiCA, the affected services include operating cryptocurrency trading platforms, cryptocurrency exchanges, executing and transmitting customer orders, cryptocurrency issuance services, asset transfer services, investment consulting, and portfolio management.This restriction comes as the MiCA transition period ends on July 1. The EU had previously required unauthorized cryptocurrency businesses to cease related operations, or face regulatory enforcement. The EU stated that this expansion of restrictions is part of its efforts to combat the use of cryptocurrency platforms to evade sanctions against Russia. Previously, in the 21st round of sanctions against Russia, the EU had expanded the trading ban to 14 cryptocurrency-related service platforms outside the EU and established a mechanism to prohibit future transactions with any foreign cryptocurrency service providers identified as helping Russia evade sanctions. Market participants noted that as the MiCA regulatory framework is fully implemented, the EU is further strengthening its regulatory control over the cryptocurrency industry through licensing systems and sanction mechanisms.

According to Jinshi reports, U.S. Treasury Secretary Basant stated that $130 million in cryptocurrency wallets related to the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has been frozen.

According to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York, two Chinese citizens, Chen Zhuoying (also known as "Jolene," 27 years old, Brooklyn) and Zhang Haojie (also known as "Kevin," 38 years old, Queens), were formally charged on July 16 in federal court in Brooklyn with conspiracy to commit money laundering.According to the allegations, the two managed a money laundering network of over ten people in Queens and Brooklyn from 2020 to 2022, using approximately 45 shell companies and 140 business bank accounts to transfer at least $43 million in proceeds from "pig butchering" investment scams to accounts in China. The "pig butchering" scam contacts victims through social media or instant messaging software, gaining their trust with false high-return investment opportunities before absconding with their money. This case is being jointly investigated by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the FBI, IRS-CI, and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. If convicted, both defendants face a maximum of 20 years in prison.

The privacy blockchain Zano announced that Zenith has entered the implementation phase, with plans for a network transition in 2027, depending on the results of testing, analysis, and review. Zano has not yet announced an activation date, and the proposed operating parameters still require verification at the network level.Zenith will transition Zano from a hybrid PoW and PoS mechanism to a privacy-protecting pure PoS protocol, with the block time proposed to decrease from about 1 minute to about 15 seconds, and the recommended number of confirmations reduced from 10 blocks to 4 to 6 blocks, with a typical confirmation time of about 60 to 90 seconds. Zano co-founder and core developer Andrey Sabelnikov stated that Zenith is based on over 12 years of privacy research and aims to provide the network with the advantages of modern PoS while retaining the privacy protection that Zano users expect.PoW miners currently receive about 720 newly issued ZANO daily, which amounts to approximately 21,600 monthly and 262,800 annually. After the activation of Zenith and the end of PoW mining, this portion of issuance will be canceled; Zano will also launch the official Zano Forum for technical discussions and community support.

According to monitoring by Catcher Predict, in the market prediction event "PGA Tour: British Open Champion" on Polymarket, the "Yes" option for the sub-market "Louis Oosthuizen" experienced a dramatic fluctuation in winning probability, soaring from 0.05% an hour ago to the current 29.6% (a fluctuation of 29.55%). Please note the impact of relevant breaking news.

According to BFM News, the Johor state government of Malaysia has requested the federal government to investigate the Network School, founded by former Coinbase Chief Technology Officer Balaji Srinivasan, due to allegations that some Israeli citizens participated in the project using third-country passports. The Johor state government has asked the Ministry of Home Affairs and relevant law enforcement and security agencies to verify the identities, nationalities, and entry purposes of the individuals involved, and to investigate whether the operation of Network School requires registration or approval under Malaysian law.At the same time, authorities will also review whether the project complies with relevant regulations regarding site permits, building usage, land use, accommodation operations, and commercial activities. If any violations are found, actions will be taken in accordance with the law. It is understood that Network School is located in Forest City, Malaysia, founded by Balaji Srinivasan, and is a private residential community built based on his "Network State" concept, with membership fees starting at $1,500 per month, offering services such as accommodation, dining, fitness, and shared office space.

Token Pocket's Chief Business Officer Michael stated that the mnemonic phrase of the Robinhood founder was leaked during a live broadcast. After hackers gained control of the address, they used that address and associated addresses to buy a large amount of the Meme coin at $1, prompting thousands of investors to follow suit, rapidly increasing the market value of the token from about $500,000 to $14 million in a short period.Subsequently, the price of the $1 token fell sharply, with a trading volume of about $20 million within just two hours. After the related addresses were frozen, the hackers quickly moved to the BNB Chain (BSC), using that address and its associated addresses to issue new tokens, and created trading hype through self-buying and selling, ultimately executing a sell-off to cash out. Robinhood's RPC has frozen that address, and nodes do not allow transactions sent from that address to be packaged, so transfers and trades cannot be conducted.

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 Bloomberg, the Federal Police of Brazil simultaneously carried out law enforcement actions in multiple locations in São Paulo to implement the sanctions resolution previously issued by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, targeting cross-border money laundering gangs serving the Brazilian gang "First Command of the Capital (PCC)."This operation executed 11 temporary arrest warrants and conducted 13 searches and seizures, involving two core individuals who have been placed on the sanctions list by the U.S. authorities. As ruled by the court, a total of 1.04 billion reais (equivalent to 200 million dollars) in funds, physical assets, and cryptocurrencies associated with the individuals involved have been frozen.The individual involved, Stella Stefanie Nunes Henrique de Oliveira, has been arrested by the police, while another suspect, Victor Henrique de Oliveira Shimada, is currently at large. U.S. authorities accuse the two of establishing multi-layered financial channels, relying on cryptocurrency transfers, cash transportation, and large transfers between public and private accounts to move criminal proceeds. The suspects will face multiple charges including conspiracy, money laundering, and illegal cross-border transfer of funds.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has added 134 cryptocurrency wallet addresses belonging to the terrorist organization ISIS-K to the Specially Designated Nationals sanctions list. The stablecoin issuer Tether has frozen the funds of 131 of these Tron addresses, while the remaining 3 sanctioned addresses are located on the Monero network. Since 2023, these 131 Tron addresses have received over $1.4 million in cryptocurrency donations and have sent out over $880,000.

According to Decrypt, the Dutch Public Prosecution Service has applied to the Rotterdam court to declare the cryptocurrency platform Knaken and its affiliated payment institution Stichting Knaken Payments bankrupt, stating that this move is in the "public interest."Knaken has ceased operations since early June, leaving approximately 30,000 users unable to withdraw funds from the platform. The prosecution stated that the platform did not obtain the license required by the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) from the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM), and the liquidation process lacks orderly management, having stopped payments to customers and allegedly advised users not to file compensation claims.Meanwhile, the Dutch Financial Intelligence and Investigation Service (FIOD) has launched a criminal investigation and searched relevant locations on Monday, seizing laptops, mobile phones, and some company assets, with no arrests made so far. If the court approves the bankruptcy application, the court-appointed bankruptcy administrator will take over the company's assets and be responsible for determining the repayment arrangements for customers and other creditors.

According to The Block, Sovright (the nonprofit successor organization related to Electric Coin Company for Zcash development) has officially released a wallet recovery tool named "Argos," aimed at helping early Zcash users recover funds that have been "stuck" due to the discontinuation of the old version of ZEC Wallet Lite in 2022.Sovright's Executive Board Chair Michelle Lai stated that Argos can recover affected assets as long as users still hold the old wallet mnemonic phrases, but since it only involves specific shielded addresses, the scale of the impact cannot be precisely estimated. However, it is estimated that the "amount is considerable," primarily concentrated among early long-term holders.She referred to the issue as a "technical pitfall" that the community has long failed to address, which, although not prominent, continues to erode user trust. Sovright currently consists of only three core members, all from the former Bootstrap system. The team is also testing a privacy-focused Zcash mining pool to reduce hash power centralization and enhance network decentralization.The governance structure of the organization has undergone significant adjustments, with Electric Coin Company employees collectively leaving to establish a new entity, Zcash Open Development Lab (ZODL), which has received support from institutions such as Paradigm and a16z, focusing on the development of Zcash-related products.Sovright emphasizes that there is no antagonistic relationship with ZODL and states that it will continue to focus on solving "long-standing issues" in the Zcash ecosystem, including key pain points such as wallet usability and infrastructure stability.

According to a report by Reuters, the latest data released by Citi shows that driven by the demand for companies to cut AI spending, the market adoption rate of low-cost open-source models is rapidly increasing. In June of this year, the proportion of open-source model Tokens processed on the AI aggregation platform OpenRouter surged from 34% in January to 65%.Citi specifically pointed out in the report that the cost difference is a core factor driving this trend. The data shows that some Chinese open-source large models are continuously narrowing the performance gap with leading models in the United States, while their charges are as low as 18 cents per million Tokens, whereas the average charge for leading large models in the industry is about 4 dollars, resulting in a cost difference of over 20 times.

According to an analysis by Tommy, there is a significant gap in valuation and revenue conversion for Chinese open-source AI companies, with their price-to-sales ratio (P/S) far exceeding that of leading counterparts in the United States.Data shows that Zhipu, which developed the GLM 5.2 model, currently has a market value of approximately $137 billion, but its revenue for the fiscal year 2025 is about $107 million, resulting in a price-to-sales ratio as high as 1280 times; MiniMax has a market value of about $23 billion, with a price-to-sales ratio of approximately 290 times. In contrast, the valuations of leading AI laboratories in the United States are more solid, with OpenAI (valued at about $852 billion) and Anthropic (valued at about $965 billion) having price-to-sales ratios of only 34 times and 21 times, respectively.It is believed that due to overseas users' concerns about data privacy, they are unwilling to send data directly to China, resulting in the massive demand for Chinese AI companies not being converted into actual API revenue, leading to significant profit loss to overseas third-party inference service providers (such as OpenRouter, etc.). To support their current high valuations, Chinese AI companies urgently need to prove their data non-retention mechanisms and capture the market at low prices, or explore revenue-sharing and initial licensing collaborations with overseas inference platforms to expand their actual revenue scale.

According to Jinshi citing Al Jazeera, Iranian President Pezeshkian announced more details about the US-Iran agreement. The Iranian president stated that as part of a preliminary agreement to end the war with the United States, the $6 billion in frozen funds currently held by Qatar will be returned. All terms of the memorandum of understanding are favorable to Iran, and the results of these negotiations and discussions will gradually become apparent. The Iranian president also mentioned that Trump "previously prohibited us from doing many things, and now he declares that all of this belongs to the rights of the Iranian people and nation."Pezeshkian also mocked Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, saying he would "be the first to be dissatisfied with the Swiss negotiations." He further stated that the only demand from the United States is that Iran does not possess atomic bombs. Former Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei has also repeatedly stated that Iran does not want atomic bombs. The United States requires Iran to commit in writing not to possess nuclear weapons, and Iran signed it.

According to Solid Intel, the payment of approximately $12 billion in frozen assets from Iran may be completed using the Trump-related stablecoin USD1 (the World Liberty Financial stablecoin launched by World Liberty Financial). Sources say that the relevant transaction is expected to be approved through the democratic voting process of the World Liberty Financial forum, and all payments will be settled in USD1.

According to Whale Alert monitoring, an address with a balance of 72,030,295 USDT (approximately 71,967,245 USD) has been frozen by Tether.

According to the Bangkok Post, Thai police raided a scam base in the Saraphi district of Chiang Mai province, arresting 10 Chinese citizens and seizing 67 mobile phones, 7 iPads, and 13 laptops.

Yuga Labs CEO Michael Figge posted on the X platform that his team has just completed a white hat operation on a vulnerability found in the Flooring Protocol. The following assets are now safely held by Yuga Labs: 29 Bored Apes, 4 Mutant Apes, 1 BAKC, 2 CryptoPunks, 1 Azuki, 2 Elementals; 26 Captains, 1 Moonbird, 2 Doodles.Team Vice President @0xQuit recovered these assets, and @coffeedev discovered that the same vulnerability posed a greater risk to other Flooring collectible series (such as BAYC and CryptoPunks). Figge instructed GrailsOTC trading desk to advance funds and NFTs to rescue the at-risk assets from the protocol. The team will work with the protocol developers to return the assets.