pro

Citi plans to offer Bitcoin custody services for institutional clients through its Custody+ platform later this year. This service will integrate Bitcoin with traditional assets such as stocks and bonds within the same custody framework, allowing clients to access custody, settlement, foreign exchange, cash, and liquidity services through a single system. Bitcoin will be the first digital asset supported by Citi's new custody service, and Citi has not yet announced a specific launch date or the list of initial clients.Custody+ is launched by Citi Investor Services, and Citi's custody business covers over 100 markets, operating its own custody network in 62 markets. Citi states that its goal is for banks to self-custody native digital assets rather than relying solely on external exchanges or other digital asset companies. The project has been in development for about two to three years, with Citi first disclosing related plans in 2025. Custody+ will provide real-time settlement, foreign exchange services, automated hedging, cash management, and liquidity tools. The Single Event Processing in its custody system currently processes over 80% of event volume in real-time; in the U.S., this system has reduced the processing time for some voluntary corporate actions by up to 92%, with 96% of related events completed within two hours. Chris Cox, head of Citi Investor Services, stated that Citi invests over $2 billion annually in its Services platform.

According to Decrypt, the privacy blockchain project Beldex announced the completion of an $8 million financing round, led by Sigma Capital, with participation from institutions such as NTC, Nxgen, Digital Consensus Fund, and EAK Ventures. The new funds will be used for developer tools, privacy applications, protocol security, AI infrastructure development, and ecosystem expansion.Beldex is exploring the use of its privacy technology to protect the identity, payments, communication, and data processing of AI entities, including privacy-preserving AI identities, encrypted AI communication, confidential payments, secure AI execution, as well as research on technologies such as fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) and secure memory.

According to Arkham monitoring, the trader watershedpath has continuously held a long position in HYPE since October 2025. As the price of HYPE rebounds, the value of their position has increased from $55 million to $99.7 million.Currently, the trader has an unrealized profit of approximately $46.3 million and withdrew $10 million from this position to Coinbase last night.

According to Bitcoin.com, in the past 24 hours, 28 long-dormant Bitcoin wallets transferred a total of 1314.41 Bitcoins, worth approximately 94.03 million USD. Among them, the wallet created in 2014 transferred 1214.42 Bitcoins, accounting for 92.4% of the total, worth about 86 million USD.Among these, 21 transactions were made in the form of 50 Bitcoins each, with funds aggregated from traditional P2PKH wallets to new P2WPKH addresses, and some transactions were completed in the same block. Arkham's entity labels have not yet shown any association between these addresses and exchanges.The Bitcoin purchase price for the 2014 wallet holders was approximately between 310 to 427 USD, with the related holdings appreciating by at least 16645%. In addition, three wallets from 2016 transferred 79.99 Bitcoins, and two addresses from 2017 transferred 20 Bitcoins.

BounceBit posted on platform X that the team has discovered an issue affecting the BounceBit Chain and has suspended node deployment to fix the problem. BB trading and exchange deposits and withdrawals are temporarily unavailable.The official statement emphasizes that the issue is limited to the chain itself, and CeDeFi applications, smart contracts, and vaults are not affected. There has been no private key leakage or damage to user wallets. The chain upgrade is scheduled for August 23 at 17:00 UTC+8.

According to on-chain analyst @ai_9684xtpa, the Pump.fun fee address has deposited 72,252.69 SOL to Kraken in the past 15 minutes, worth approximately 6.303 million USD.

Bitcoin News posted on the X platform stating that the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) has proposed new U.S. accounting guidelines, allowing eligible stablecoins to be classified as cash equivalents in corporate financial statements.According to the proposal, eligible digital assets must possess the following key characteristics: redeemable for cash on demand; holders can directly redeem a specified amount of cash from the issuer; reserve assets must be managed separately and fully backed by short-term, highly liquid assets on a 1:1 basis (DART).FASB has not modified the existing definition of cash equivalents but clarified how this definition applies to digital assets such as stablecoins. Companies are also required to disclose the significant components of cash equivalents annually, including categories such as Treasury bills, money market funds, and stablecoins. The proposal is open for public comment until November 19, 2026.

The U.S. Treasury Department has proposed to establish sensible and cost-effective investment rules for the "Trump Account."

In the past week, inflationary pressures in the United States have eased somewhat, but weakening retail sales have raised concerns in the market about economic growth. Overall, U.S. stocks have maintained resilience, while the cryptocurrency market has been relatively weak. BTC ETF saw a weekly net outflow of approximately $385 million, and institutional allocations have cooled; BTC OI rose to about $12.3 billion, with funding rates remaining positive. Meanwhile, DEX weekly trading volume decreased by 5.2%, and the on-chain and DeFi markets have generally become more cautious.Against the backdrop of differentiated market risk appetite, Gate TradFi trading remains active, with weekly trading volume maintaining a high level of approximately $115 billion. Perp trading continues to grow, and the proportion of Korean stock trading has significantly rebounded. In terms of stocks, the latest exchange rankings from RootData show that Gate's stock spot and futures businesses have both entered the industry's top two, currently covering core markets such as U.S. stocks, Hong Kong stocks, and Korean stocks, further connecting traditional finance with digital assets.Based on the needs of professional investors, Gate has comprehensively upgraded its diverse service system covering TradFi, spot, and derivatives, providing a one-stop institutional-level trading infrastructure to assist global institutional investors in efficiently allocating various assets. In the face of market volatility and cross-market allocation needs, Gate continues to promote the construction of multi-market trading infrastructure. Its subsidiary, Gate CrossEx, has supported multiple mainstream venues, providing unified management of accounts, funds, positions, and trading across exchanges, significantly reducing multi-platform operating costs.

Cronos Labs CEO Ryan Wyatt posted that the token economics of CRO need to be re-evaluated. In the coming months, the team has a lot to discuss and plan. In particular, the buyback and burn mechanism corresponding to Cronos App revenue, community burns, and other related arrangements.These topics have been included in the project's Q4 roadmap, and the complete plan will be gradually announced at that time.

On August 19, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange released its mid-year results for 2026. In the first half of 2026, revenue and other income reached HKD 16.702 billion, a year-on-year increase of 19%; profit attributable to shareholders was HKD 10.568 billion, a year-on-year increase of 24%, both figures setting new records. Boosted by the performance, the stock price of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange closed at HKD 414.6, up 2.37%. The performance was driven by strong corporate financing demand and an increase in trading volumes of spot, derivatives, and the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect and Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect. In the first half of the year, 87 new stocks were listed, raising a total of HKD 212.4 billion, a year-on-year increase of 94%.The average daily trading amount in the spot market increased by 18% year-on-year to HKD 283 billion, setting a new high for the same period; the average daily trading contracts in derivatives increased by 6% to 1.8 million contracts; the average daily trading volume of the Shanghai Stock Connect and Shenzhen Stock Connect reached RMB 345.3 billion, more than double that of the same period last year. Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase maintained "Buy" and "Overweight" ratings, respectively. Before the performance announcement, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange announced the renewal of CEO Charles Li's contract for three years, with the new term starting from March 1, 2027, to February 28, 2030, which has been approved by the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission.During the period, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange promoted consultations to shorten the stock settlement cycle, simplify the trading unit for each transaction, and introduced the first ETF tracking the "Hong Kong Stock Exchange Technology 100 Index," announcing the launch of Chinese government bond futures. In response to the extension of trading hours, Charles Li stated that the derivatives market operates until 3 a.m. the next day and will prioritize connecting with the North American market, while the spot market requires more detailed communication.

Bitcoin mining company Bitdeer has signed a five-year underwriting agreement worth approximately $400 million, covering about half of the capacity of its 9.5 MW AI cloud facility located in Malaysia.Bitdeer aims to increase the capacity of its AI cloud data center to a maximum of 350 MW before the first quarter of 2028, with an active project pipeline exceeding $2 billion.

CITIC Securities released its 2026 semi-annual report, showing that the company achieved operating revenue of 49.692 billion yuan in the first half of the year, a year-on-year increase of 50%; the net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company was 23.343 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 69.6%. The basic earnings per share reached 1.53 yuan, a year-on-year increase of 71.91%.The company's 2026 interim profit distribution plan is: it is proposed to distribute a cash dividend of 4.27 yuan (tax included) for every 10 shares, totaling a cash dividend distribution of 6.672 billion yuan (tax included).

Alibaba announced that its latest generation AI processor, Zhenwu M890, has been widely commercialized among over 650 external customers. The chip, through Alibaba Cloud services, has been applied in more than 20 industries including autonomous driving, the internet, and financial services, validating its capability to support end-to-end AI workloads.

Pop Mart International Group Limited (Stock Code: 9992) released its interim results announcement for the six months ended June 30, 2026. During the period, revenue was approximately 17.173 billion RMB, an increase of 23.8% year-on-year; gross profit was approximately 11.966 billion RMB, an increase of 22.6% year-on-year; operating profit was approximately 6.725 billion RMB, an increase of 11.3% year-on-year; profit for the period was approximately 5.100 billion RMB, an increase of 8.9% year-on-year; profit attributable to owners of the company was approximately 5.038 billion RMB, an increase of 10.1% year-on-year.Adjusted net profit under non-International Financial Reporting Standards was approximately 5.156 billion RMB, an increase of 9.5% year-on-year. Basic earnings per share were 3.80 RMB, and diluted earnings per share were 3.79 RMB, both increasing by 10.5% year-on-year. As of June 30, 2026, the group's total assets were approximately 31.028 billion RMB, total equity was approximately 23.288 billion RMB, and cash and cash equivalents were approximately 12.442 billion RMB. The company is primarily engaged in the design, development, and sales of trendy toy products, with operations divided into two segments: China and overseas. The announcement also serves as a supplementary announcement for the granting of awards, approved by the board of directors and published on August 20, 2026.

Alibaba (09988.HK) announced that the external revenue growth of Alibaba Cloud accelerated to 45%, and revenue from artificial intelligence-related products achieved triple-digit growth.

On August 20, according to the Korea Economic Daily, Samsung Electronics plans to announce a shareholder return plan worth approximately 150 trillion won this month, exceeding the previously reported amount of 100 trillion won. It is expected to include measures such as stock buybacks and special dividends, potentially setting a new historical high for listed companies in South Korea. Industry insiders revealed that Samsung Electronics plans to hold a board meeting this month to review the relevant proposals. Earlier, the market had anticipated that the return scale could reach as high as 200 trillion won, but considering the company's basic principle of using 50% of free cash flow (FCF) for shareholder returns, the final scale is expected to be between 150 trillion and 160 trillion won.Samsung Electronics executives stated that with the recovery of the memory chip industry, the company's cash generation ability has significantly improved. Brokerages expect Samsung Electronics' total free cash flow for this year to be approximately 263 trillion won, and the cumulative free cash flow during the shareholder return policy period from 2024 to 2026 is expected to be around 319 trillion won. Based on a 50% return ratio, the total return funds are about 160 trillion won. After deducting the 39.1 trillion won already executed and planned for execution, the remaining funds are close to 120 trillion won.The market expects that Samsung Electronics may use the remaining funds to add a large-scale special dividend in addition to maintaining the regular dividend of 1,668 won per share each year, and to promote large-scale stock buybacks. Industry insiders indicate that following SK Hynix, Samsung Electronics' launch of a large-scale shareholder return plan may become an important factor in driving the valuation increase of the South Korean stock market.

GnosisDAO approved the transformation of the blockchain network Gnosis Chain from an independent Layer 1 network to a zero-knowledge proof Ethereum Economic Zone (EEZ) Rollup. The network will eliminate the independent validator set and instead have Ethereum validators complete transaction settlements.The proposal received support from 123,158 GNO, 115 against, and 151 abstentions, with voting involving 54 participants and a total participation of 123,425 GNO, exceeding the quorum threshold of 75,000 GNO. The upgrade is tentatively planned to start at the end of 2026 or the beginning of 2027, depending on the readiness of EEZ technology.After the upgrade, Gnosis Chain's native smart contracts can call Ethereum in the same transaction and use the returned results, while also accessing Ethereum mainnet assets and liquidity. Gnosis Chain will become the first deployed EEZ instance and will retain existing applications, balances, and xDAI fuel tokens.

According to RootData, among 3,244 cryptocurrency projects with financing records spanning no more than four years and amounts that can be accounted for, 1,617 have a cumulative financing amount of no more than $5 million, accounting for 49.8%. The median financing for this batch of projects is $2.5 million, with about 96% recording only one round of financing.In terms of sectors, DeFi, infrastructure, and gaming projects together account for 59.2%, with small-scale financing mainly flowing to protocol development, underlying technology, and consumer applications. However, a quarter of the projects in the sample have already ceased operations, indicating that while lower regulatory thresholds can improve financing efficiency, they cannot replace product demand and sustainable operational capability.Institutional participation is also higher than the market's usual perception of "small projects": 92.9% of the sample has identifiable investor records, and 83.5% disclosed at least two investors. Among them, Animoca Brands, Shima Capital, and Big Brain Holdings participated in 84, 69, and 67 projects, respectively.It is reported that the U.S. SEC officially proposed the "Regulation Crypto Assets" on August 18. The proposal aims to set up two tiers of issuance exemptions: projects can raise no more than $5 million in a single instance within four years; projects with greater financing needs can raise up to $75 million within each 12-month period, but must submit financial statements and fulfill ongoing reporting obligations. The proposal is currently in a 60-day public comment period and has not yet officially taken effect.

Japan's Bitcoin treasury company Metaplanet will inject 2,100 bitcoins and $2.5 million in cash into the Nasdaq-listed company Super League Enterprise, with a total initial investment of approximately $134.6 million. After the transaction is completed, Super League Enterprise will be renamed Superplanet Inc. and become a subsidiary of Metaplanet; Metaplanet is expected to hold about 93.6% of its issued common stock and acquire 44.86 million shares of common stock, preferred stock, and warrants.Superplanet will continue to be listed on Nasdaq and retain its original gaming and media business, with the transaction adopting a private placement structure. Metaplanet has agreed to a five-year lock-up period, and Superplanet will raise funds from U.S. investors, while Metaplanet continues to finance through the Japanese market. Metaplanet currently holds 43,000 bitcoins, and this injection accounts for approximately 4.9% of its holdings. After the transaction is completed, Superplanet will operate as its Bitcoin treasury platform aimed at the U.S. market.