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According to a report by Reuters, the prediction market platform Polymarket issued a statement that it will challenge the decision of the French National Gaming Authority (ANJ) to block its website through legal proceedings.Last week, the ANJ ordered French internet service providers to block Polymarket on the grounds that the platform could lead to significant betting losses for users and that some bets were at risk of being manipulated. Polymarket expressed disappointment at ANJ's sudden decision.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal stated that Coinbase has reached a settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission regarding a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, with the SEC agreeing to pay $150,000 and amend its record-keeping policies. The lawsuit revealed that the SEC lost nearly a year’s worth of communications from former Chairman Gary Gensler and other senior officials during the peak enforcement period in the cryptocurrency industry.Coinbase had previously requested documents from the SEC regarding how it applies securities laws to digital assets, but the request was denied, leading to a lawsuit that received court support. The SEC claimed that some text messages were lost due to an automatic data deletion process. Grewal pointed out that the SEC has imposed billions of dollars in fines on financial institutions for similar record-keeping issues.In February of this year, Coinbase also reached a settlement with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation regarding another Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. Coinbase stated that this lawsuit revealed that the FDIC had instructed nearly twenty banks to suspend cryptocurrency-related activities since 2022, which subsequently led to congressional hearings and resulted in a court ruling that the FDIC violated federal law.Grewal stated that both lawsuits revolve around government transparency and due process, emphasizing that the American public has the right to know whether regulatory agencies are restricting legitimate cryptocurrency businesses from accessing banking services through non-public means.

Artificial intelligence company Anthropic announced on Wednesday that it will make an additional donation of $20 million to the bipartisan advocacy organization Public First Action, bringing its total commitment to $40 million. Anthropic stated that the decision for the additional donation stems from the continuous enhancement of AI model capabilities (including its self-developed Mythos model) and the potential risks it brings.Public First Action is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization dedicated to public education on AI transparency and safety. The organization is associated with three super political action committees (super PACs) and plans to support candidates advocating for AI safety across both parties. Anthropic emphasized that the donations are solely for supporting Public First Action's policy mission and cannot be used to influence the election of specific candidates.In a statement, Anthropic noted that AI policy decisions will impact various aspects of public life, including the labor market and national security, and the company hopes to promote "flexible regulation" to manage risks while reaping the benefits of AI. Currently, the super PAC "Leading the Future," which advocates for rapid AI development and light regulation, has received significant funding from supporters including OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman and venture capital firm a16z. As AI increasingly becomes a topic in elections, public education and lobbying efforts by advocacy groups are continuing to ramp up.

The Polygon Foundation posted on the X platform that the Ithaca hard fork has been successfully deployed on the Amoy testnet and will go live on the Polygon mainnet at block height 50,185,000 (expected at 22:00 Beijing time on July 29).This upgrade aims to enhance payment reliability: automatic failover during rare stalls of block producers ensures smooth transactions, new protective mechanisms intercept transactions that may cause the network to slow down or become unstable, while providing node operators with clearer visibility to ensure seamless integration of underlying operations. All node operators are required to upgrade as soon as possible to ensure compatibility and network security.

According to data from The Block, in the days leading up to the World Cup final, the total open interest (OI) of Kalshi and Polymarket combined has decreased by 20% from a peak of about $2 billion in early July. When smoothed weekly, the total OI rose from about $1.2 billion at the end of May to nearly $1.8 billion in the week of July 5, before falling back to about $1.5 billion in the week of July 19.The decline in trading volume was even more severe: Kalshi's sports trading volume dropped from a peak of about $9 billion in the week of July 5 to about $4 billion (a decrease of about 55%), while Polymarket fell from about $2.3 billion to $740 million (a decrease of nearly 70%). During the event, sports-related trading accounted for about 80% of the total trading volume on both platforms. On July 19, Spain defeated Argentina 1-0 to win the World Cup.According to statistics from DeFiOasis, approximately 194,000 addresses participated in Polymarket's World Cup champion market trading, of which about two-thirds incurred losses, with 54 addresses making over $100,000 (including 5 over $1 million), and 43 addresses losing over $100,000. It is expected that the activity in the prediction market will remain low until the next major catalytic event (the U.S. midterm elections in the fall).

The 2026 World Cup has concluded, and Gate Prediction Market's World Cup section has simultaneously completed its event cycle services. As a one-stop prediction experience portal built around the World Cup, during this event, Gate Prediction Market recorded a total participation of 501,190 users, with a total trading volume exceeding 528 million USD and a total of 2,630,280 transactions, continuously demonstrating user engagement in the sports event prediction scenario. According to data from Polymarket Builders, Gate Prediction Market's trading performance continues to lead, with a single-day trading volume on July 19 ranking first in the Polymarket channel, and the cumulative trading volume for the past week and this month also ranking first in the Polymarket channel.Gate continues to expand its sports prediction scenarios, launching the "E-sports Peak Trading Season" event from July 20, 16:00 to August 10, 16:00 (UTC+8), with a total prize pool of 200,000 USDT. During the event, users can sign up and participate in designated event prediction trading in the Gate Polymarket e-sports section to enjoy newcomer benefits, weekly trading tasks, and prediction trading leaderboards, sharing in generous rewards.As the first centralized trading platform to integrate with Polymarket, Gate has become an important entry point for users to participate in the prediction market. Users can directly access the prediction market through the Gate App, entering the Polymarket page from the homepage Alpha section, and conveniently participate in various event predictions using USDT in their accounts. Users can also utilize the "Smart Money" feature to track high-win-rate traders' positions and market judgments, gaining more reference for event predictions. Gate is continuously expanding the application scenarios of the prediction market, providing users with a diversified experience from event judgment to trading participation.

According to Bloomberg, as prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi expand, the issue of betting using non-public information or informational advantages is receiving more scrutiny. Bloomberg Businessweek analyzed approximately 34,000 potential insider trading cases flagged by Polysights between August 2025 and June 2026; these related trades exhibited characteristics such as newly created accounts, low probability entries, large bets, or high trading concentration, but it cannot be determined that traders violated rules based on this.Data shows that from January 1 to June 30 of this year, the amount of suspicious trades flagged on Polymarket was approximately $200 million, with geopolitical and war-related markets driving a significant increase in abnormal trading volume. The profits from potential insider trading are highly concentrated, with the top 1% of accounts in profit wallets earning more than half of the gains, and 57% of related wallets created less than 24 hours before the trades. Some traders are reducing the likelihood of being discovered by using multiple associated wallets and splitting orders. For example, 38 associated addresses placed bets in 90 geopolitical markets related to Iran and Venezuela, achieving a win rate of 98%, with total profits of $1.6 million, and withdrew funds using the same Coinbase deposit address.Polymarket stated that it will monitor insider trading and other illegal activities, and has so far referred nearly 100 wallets to law enforcement agencies. Kalshi has also strengthened identity and employment information checks, and restricted participation in related markets by political candidates, athletes, and others who may influence outcomes.

According to U.Today's latest in-depth report, as the prediction market continues to heat up, sports events are becoming an important engine driving industry growth. As the world's first centralized trading platform integrated with Polymarket, Gate Polymarket significantly lowers the user participation threshold through a wallet-free, cross-chain-free, and gas-free trading experience. Users can directly participate in predictions using USDT in their Gate accounts without complex on-chain operations.Currently, Gate Polymarket has become one of the largest traffic entrances for Polymarket, with a cumulative trading volume exceeding $622 million as of July 16, and a weekly trading volume surpassing $100 million on July 6, ranking first in daily, weekly, and monthly trading volumes across all channels of Polymarket.The report points out that the 2026 World Cup has become one of the important catalysts for the rapid growth of the prediction market. The World Cup Hub, built around the World Cup, integrates event schedules, leaderboards, real-time scores, match reminders, historical data, and prediction trading, continuously attracting a large number of users to participate in sports predictions, further enhancing the activity and market liquidity of Gate Polymarket.U.Today believes that Gate not only lowers the usage threshold of the prediction market but also further improves the product experience by launching innovative features such as a dual-mode trading interface, AI event analysis, smart money fund tracking, real-time capital flow reminders, and event contracts, helping users discover market opportunities more efficiently. Relying on the convenient experience of a centralized trading platform and the deep integration with Polymarket's decentralized prediction market, Gate is continuously expanding the application scenarios of the prediction market, promoting the on-chain prediction market towards a more open, efficient, and popular development stage.

According to market news, Goldman Sachs reported on July 18 that the Dark Side of the Moon released the Kimi K3 model, with 28 trillion parameters, surpassing Claude Fable 5 and GPT-5.6 Sol on the Arena.ai programming leaderboard, reaching a new high for Chinese models with an API pricing of $2.3 per million tokens. Two days after the release, Zhiyu fell by 28%, MiniMax dropped by 16%, the Nasdaq 100 index futures fell by more than 1.8%, and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index has cumulatively dropped by more than 18% from its peak.Goldman Sachs believes that Kimi K3 marks a turning point: a Chinese laboratory that cannot match the largest pre-trained computing power in the West has rapidly narrowed the gap with top American models through architectural innovation and reinforcement learning, proving that "scaling" is no longer the only winning path. Goldman Sachs warns that the "era of computing power expansion" may be coming to an end, and the investment logic for AI infrastructure built around "the more computing power, the better" needs to be rewritten. Goldman Sachs maintains a buy rating on MiniMax and a neutral rating on Zhiyu. Future attention will focus on the intensive release of 20-50 trillion parameter models such as Zhiyu GLM, Alibaba Qwen, and MiniMax M3 Pro.

According to on-chain detective Specter, an unknown entity withdrew 31 BTC from Wasabi Mixer a few minutes ago, worth 1.98 million dollars, and then cross-chained the funds to Ethereum, exchanging them for 1059 ETH.The wallet then created a new Polymarket account named "yamal19" and deposited the funds into the platform. As of now, the account has purchased YES shares worth 1.16 million dollars on "Spain will win the 2026 FIFA World Cup."

David Sacks, Chairman of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, stated on the X platform that using regulatory uncertainty as a competitive tool is "completely unacceptable." Regulatory decisions should be based on facts, logic, and evidence, rather than deliberately creating fear and uncertainty (FUD). He is unsure whether venture capitalist and AI policy researcher Dean Ball is acknowledging a strategy of "regulatory capture" or merely predicting that such a situation will occur. However, in any case, the practice of issuing "soft law" warnings through regulatory agencies to create market panic, thereby forcing regulated companies away from Chinese open-source models, should not be accepted.David Sacks pointed out that Dean Ball believes there is no need to directly ban Chinese open-source models; it is sufficient to guide regulatory agencies to issue relevant warnings, which can influence corporate decision-making by creating enough doubt and uncertainty, and these reasons "do not even need to be very substantial." Any regulatory decision must have sufficient basis, rather than implementing policies by "artificially creating doubt." He warned that this practice of circumventing public deliberation procedures not only undermines the foundation of the rule of law but may also open the door to regulatory abuse against any company or individual in the future.David Sacks further stated that current AI policy is at a critical turning point. Leading closed-source laboratories, which have already formed a duopoly in AI model revenue, are attempting to use government power to eliminate open-source competitors. He called on other companies and developers in Silicon Valley that still support open competition to make clear statements to jointly maintain an open ecosystem in the field of AI.

According to a report by Reuters, the French National Gaming Authority (ANJ) has stated that it has requested French internet service providers to block the prediction market platform Polymarket, citing that it promotes illegal betting services, which may lead to significant losses for users, and that some bets may be subject to manipulation risks.Polymarket will remain blocked until it complies with French betting regulations.

According to Jinshi reports, Samuel Tombs of Pantheon pointed out that the University of Michigan Consumer Confidence Index rose from 49.5 in June to 54.4, exceeding economists' expectations of 50.5, but still below last year's average level. He stated that the decline in inflation expectations provides some comfort to the Federal Reserve, although Chairman Waller's tough rhetoric failed to further lower expectations.At the same time, the "lack of leverage" for workers means that the likelihood of wage growth rising due to the recent overall inflation rebound is very low.

According to Protos, a gang in the UK disguised as police officers and created a fake police website, convincing cryptocurrency holders over the phone to transfer funds into so-called "safe accounts," stealing $5.4 million worth of cryptocurrency, and were sentenced this week. 23-year-old Hamza Bashir, 25-year-old Kevin Nwamma, and 29-year-old Anthony Ikenwe were sentenced to six years and nine months, eleven years, and eleven years in prison, respectively.The stolen funds were used to purchase luxury items, including a £60,000 car, vacation trips to Thailand and Japan, and products from brands such as Harrods, Hermès, Louis Vuitton, and Rolex. The police also discovered £500,000 in cash in a safe and determined that most of the stolen cryptocurrency had been converted into payment cards. Gang members also falsely reported their annual income, with one declaring only £444. The Metropolitan Police began investigating the gang after receiving reports from victims in January 2025.

Crypto journalist Eleanor Terrett posted on the X platform that the U.S. Senate yesterday passed a resolution by unanimous consent, stating that FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried should not receive a presidential pardon.The resolution was introduced by Senators Ruben Gallego and Cynthia Lummis, formally recording the Senate's political statement opposing the pardon for SBF.However, the resolution is not legally binding, so it will not prevent the U.S. President from pardoning SBF in the future, nor does it have any direct impact on his current legal situation.

Polygon CEO Marc Boiron stated on the X platform that the company is in the final stages of completing the acquisition of Coinme, and will subsequently integrate the relevant teams into Polygon Labs. As part of achieving the profitability goal for 2027, the company has initiated layoffs and is advancing broader mergers and organizational adjustments.Marc Boiron mentioned that Polygon Labs is transitioning from a blockchain foundation-type organization to a blockchain payment company, with the relevant adjustments primarily focusing on organizational structure and talent needs. He also stated that the company's current revenue performance is strong, with stablecoin business volume continuously breaking records, and that compensation and support will be provided to affected employees.

The Crypto Innovation Committee (CCI) announced that Etherealize, Hyperliquid Policy Center, and Tools for Humanity (TFH) have officially joined. CCI stated that the new members will enhance its technical expertise in on-chain finance, institutional finance, and digital identity to better support policy-making.Etherealize stated that as the application of Ethereum in institutional scenarios accelerates, a prudent policy framework is of great significance for unlocking the potential of the next generation of financial infrastructure.

Polygon Foundation CEO Sandeep disclosed that about one-third of the Polygon team paused their daily work last week to participate in a three-day internal AI innovation challenge, with a total reward pool of $15,000 set up by the team.During the three days, 13 projects were produced, of which 6 have officially launched, and 1 has completed real transaction settlement on 5 mainnet chains. Sandeep stated that for the payment sector, the landscape of the next decade will be dominated by teams that truly integrate AI into their daily workflows, and he expressed that this experiment has given him more confidence in the team.

According to Bloomberg, researchers at Stanford University have found signs of manipulation in the Polymarket five-minute Bitcoin betting market. The study analyzed contract data over approximately two months and discovered repeated one-way trading pulses on the Binance exchange that briefly affected Bitcoin prices just seconds before the betting ended, benefiting those with aligned positions. The researchers referred to this pattern as "temporary manipulation to drive up spot prices" and pointed out that such contracts have structural vulnerabilities—participants can influence the outcome by trading the underlying asset itself that determines win or loss.A Polymarket spokesperson stated that the platform uses multiple independent price oracles to ensure accuracy and plans to transition some markets to a settlement method using longer time windows next year to enhance market integrity. The study estimates that suspected manipulators profited about $8.2 million over two months, primarily from losses incurred by retail traders. Similar patterns are not evident in the 15-minute market, where longer time windows make it more difficult to influence outcomes.

The UK's tax authority HMRC announced that starting from April 6, 2027, it will adopt a "no gain, no loss" tax treatment for cryptocurrency lending and liquidity pools, which is expected to affect approximately 700,000 people.