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The Financial Services Agency of Japan announced personnel appointments. As part of an organizational restructuring, the agency has established a new "Department of Crypto Assets and Stablecoins," specifically responsible for regulating crypto assets and stablecoins. Toshiaki Adomi has been appointed as the first section chief.Toshiaki Adomi graduated from Osaka University Faculty of Law in 2002 and then joined the Financial Services Agency. He later obtained a Master of Business Administration from the University of Birmingham in the UK and a Master of Laws from the London School of Economics. He has held positions in bank supervision and policy coordination, and from July 2025, he will serve as a councilor in the Comprehensive Policy Bureau. Until August 1, 2026, he served as the councilor overseeing postal savings and insurance supervision.

On August 7, local time, U.S. President Trump will convene executives from several major mining companies at the U.S. Department of State to take action to secure the supply of critical minerals for the U.S. and its allies.Expected industry giants in attendance include Rio Tinto Group, BHP Billiton, and Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. The Trump administration plans to announce multiple transactions and memoranda of understanding.

According to Bloomberg, informed sources revealed that the U.S. government department responsible for investigating violations of chip export controls is currently conducting a systematic review of how Chinese AI companies obtain advanced chips from Nvidia through legal means, focusing on their behavior of renting computing power in third countries. This move stems from recent technological breakthroughs achieved by Chinese AI companies, indicating that they still have the capability to acquire and use top-tier hardware despite U.S. export restrictions on chips to China. Analysts believe that this review may prompt the U.S. to further tighten regulatory rules on computing power leasing in third countries to close existing loopholes in the export control system.

On July 29, the U.S. Department of Commerce signed letters of intent with seven companies, totaling up to $874 million, to support seven "post-GPU era" underlying technology routes such as CPO, ferroelectric memory, and 3D packaging in the form of equity investments. This marks a shift in the U.S. chip strategy from "capacity reshoring" to "technology route selection."The seven companies and their technology directions include: GlobalFoundries (CPO silicon photonic integration, $300 million), Kepler Computing (ferroelectric 3D memory, $245 million), Multibeam (multi-electron beam direct-write lithography and advanced packaging, $140 million), Extropic (thermodynamic sampling unit TSU, $75 million), Thintronics (ultra-low loss dielectric materials, $50 million), Aeluma (large-size phosphorus-free optoelectronic device substrates, $30 million), and OBSIDIA (hardware zero-trust chip anti-counterfeiting, $34 million). All companies are required to provide non-controlling minority equity to the U.S. government.This move shows that the funding usage of the CHIPS Act is shifting from subsidizing wafer fabs to directly holding equity in cutting-edge technology companies with national capital, in order to secure rule-making authority in the post-Moore era.

Cyprus-based enterprise AI customer service company Omilia announced the completion of a $67 million Series B funding round, led by Expedition Growth Capital. The funds will be used to accelerate business expansion in North America and globally, with plans to open its first U.S. office in the second half of 2026.Omilia was founded in 2002 and focuses on providing self-learning agent CX solutions for enterprise call centers using its proprietary voice AI technology. The platform supports compliance standards such as FedRAMP, PCI-DSS, SOC 2, HIPAA, and GDPR.

According to CoinPost, the Financial Services Agency of Japan has announced a partial revision of the "Comprehensive Supervision Guidelines for Major Banks and Others," which will unify the reporting format for cybersecurity incidents across 17 regulatory areas, including cryptocurrency exchange operators.A new "Common Format for Other Cyber Attacks and Related Incidents" has been added, which, along with the existing formats for DDoS attacks and ransomware, constitutes a three-category reporting distinction system. As a transitional measure, non-specific social infrastructure operators may continue to use the old reporting format until the end of March 2027, with the deadline for public comments set for September 7, 2026.

The Korean National Police Agency has selected Upbit's parent company, Dunamu, through public bidding to be responsible for the custody of seized virtual assets, with a contract period of 1 year.The confiscated digital assets will be managed through the digital asset custody service Upbit Custody, responding in real-time to regulatory infrastructure and conducting custody and management within 365 days. This service employs 100% offline cold wallets, 24/7 monitoring, and introduces MPC, DKG multi-key management, and multi-signature technology to ensure asset isolation and security.

According to CoinPost, the Financial Services Agency of Japan and the National Police Agency recently jointly sent a letter to the Japan Virtual Currency Exchange Association (JVCEA), requesting exchanges to strengthen anti-fraud measures. This request includes 11 specific requirements, such as the need for withdrawal addresses to be registered in advance, enhanced transaction monitoring, strict verification of identification documents when opening accounts, and setting a withdrawal limit for a certain period after users deposit fiat currency or purchase crypto assets.The background of this action is the increasing prevalence of investment scams and "pig butchering" schemes on social media, where criminals frequently use crypto accounts to transfer illegal funds. The Financial Services Agency also suggested that exchanges flexibly set withdrawal limits based on customers' risk levels and transaction purposes, and that suspicious transactions should immediately result in account restrictions or freezes, while enhancing intelligence cooperation with the police. For system renovations that are difficult to implement in the short term, exchanges are allowed to proceed in phases. In addition, the Financial Services Agency has officially established the "Cryptocurrency and Stablecoin Division," responsible for related regulatory affairs.

According to Lookonchain monitoring, the mining company MARA, which holds 36,303 bitcoins (worth $2.34 billion), deposited 200 bitcoins, valued at $12.86 million, into the institutional custody platform NYDIG 10 hours ago.The mining company Riot Platforms also continues to send bitcoins to NYDIG, depositing 381 bitcoins, valued at $24.51 million, 10 hours ago.

According to the WSJ, Wintermute's U.S. subsidiary has registered as a broker-dealer, marking the company's official entry into the regulated U.S. financial market. This registration qualifies it to apply to become a designated market maker on securities exchanges such as the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ, providing a foundation for its expansion into the traditional financial services sector. The report noted that Wintermute is competing with large market-making institutions such as Jane Street Capital and Citadel Securities.

AI personal assistant startup Pally announced the completion of a $5.2 million financing round, led by Cyber Fund and Y Combinator, with participation from Pioneer Fund, Founders Inc, 468 Capital, and angel investors. The company is valued at $30 million, and its main business is providing AI personal assistant services through a messaging interface.Pally was launched in 2025, with the latest version going live in June, capable of syncing with platforms like Gmail, Outlook, Slack, Granola, and Notion. After user authorization, Pally can book flights, manage inboxes, reply to messages, and make restaurant reservations. Pally utilizes Anthropic's Claude, OpenAI's ChatGPT, as well as open-source models like Kimi K3 and GLM 5.2. Co-founder Haz Hubble stated that the company will not sell user data and will not use related data to train models.

Google's parent company Alphabet's massive bond issuance attracted about $115 billion in subscription demand.

According to Wired, a security researcher who has been infiltrating a North Korean hacking organization for nearly two years has issued a warning, pointing out that the attack methods targeting individual employees and contractors are extremely effective and have a wide-ranging impact, leading to numerous organizations worldwide suffering breaches.Greek cybersecurity researcher Vangelis Stykas stated that since gaining access to the North Korean system 22 months ago, he has found evidence indicating that 1,640 companies in 57 countries have been affected by North Korean hacking operations. Among them, approximately 700 to 800 affected organizations have suffered "highly destructive" breaches.

Tether officially announced that its asset tokenization platform Hadron by Tether has reached a strategic cooperation with the Saudi fintech company First Advanced Data for Artificial Intelligence (First Data) and BKN301. The cooperation will use Hadron as the core technology platform to promote the tokenization of institutional-level real estate assets in Saudi Arabia.According to the cooperation agreement, First Data will act as the issuer of tokenized real estate assets and will also undertake primary market operations; Hadron will provide asset issuance, management, and full lifecycle infrastructure; BKN301 will be responsible for banking system integration, payment, compliance, and operational integration.Tether stated that this project aligns with Saudi Arabia's "Vision 2030," and future business is expected to expand into other real-world asset (RWA) areas such as energy and infrastructure.

According to CryptoSlate, Bitcoin mining company Cipher Digital sold 1,619 Bitcoins for $123.4 million, confirming a loss of $47.7 million. The documents submitted show that interest expenses were $66.7 million, while mining revenue was $24.8 million.As of the end of June, Cipher held 646 Bitcoins, worth $37.8 million. Quarterly mining revenue decreased compared to $43.6 million in the same period last year, with a loss of $23.5 million in the second quarter.

According to Bloomberg, the UAE is considering investing up to 1 trillion yen (approximately 6.3 billion USD) in the construction of an artificial intelligence data center, led by the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala Investment Co. The project is planned to be located in Akita Prefecture in northern Japan, with a planned installed capacity of 500 megawatts, and may involve other domestic and foreign investors participating together.Currently, this information has not been publicly disclosed, and relevant details are still in the evaluation stage.

According to CoinPost, the Financial Services Agency and the National Police Agency of Japan jointly issued a request to the Japan Virtual Currency Exchange Association (JVCEA), asking all cryptocurrency traders to strengthen withdrawal restrictions to prevent fraud victims, proposing a total of 11 new measures.The main content includes: the introduction of a pre-registration system for withdrawal destinations, setting a certain period of withdrawal restrictions after depositing fiat currency or purchasing cryptocurrency, establishing withdrawal limits based on customer risk assessments, and enhancing transaction monitoring and information-sharing mechanisms with police in each prefecture. The background is that the damage from social media investment inducements and "pig butchering" scams continues to expand, with criminal methods becoming increasingly complex.

According to Dealstreetasia, Singapore-based AI infrastructure startup Acrab announced the completion of a $130 million Series B funding round, with participation from Vertex Growth and others. To date, the total funding raised has exceeded $480 million.The company has built a full-stack AI computing platform that includes self-developed chips, edge AI models, and software orchestration to support the real-time operation and task execution of AI Agents. The new funds will be used to expand product capacity, enhance the technology ecosystem, and accelerate the development of the next-generation AI computing platform.