Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
HONG KONG, September 8th, 2026 — Liquidity Arena 2026, an AI quantitative trading competition organized by global institutional prime broker LTP, will enter its dual-track main competition on September 9, bringing together AI developers, research teams, hedge funds, proprietary trading firms, high-frequency trading teams, and professional traders.
The competition has attracted more than hundreds of teams across its two tracks. During Track A Phase 1, held from July 20 to August 21, participating AI agents executed more than 70,000 trades. Thirty teams advanced to the final stage.
Two Tracks, Different Measures of Trading PerformanceBeginning September 9, Liquidity Arena will run two distinct tracks designed for different types of trading talent and strategies.
Track A — Logic FrontierTrack A enters its final stage with the 30 teams that advanced from Phase 1.
Designed for AI developers, agent builders, universities, research labs and professional traders, Logic Frontier goes beyond conventional PnL-based competition. Teams are required to use LTP’s RapidX environment, while the competition incorporates MCP-based Reasoning Log verification to examine how autonomous agents interpret market information and make trading decisions.
The competition therefore evaluates not only trading outcomes, but also the reasoning quality, consistency and market interpretation behind those decisions.
The core question is no longer simply who makes the most money? — but how reliably can an autonomous trading system reason and perform under changing market conditions?
Track B — Liquidity ProLaunching on September 9, Track B is designed for hedge funds, proprietary trading firms, HFT teams and professional traders.
Liquidity Pro puts the emphasis on performance, capital capacity, execution quality and slippage control. Teams can deploy their strategies through flexible trading infrastructure, including DMA, RapidX and other supported venues.
The objective is straightforward: prove that a strategy can perform effectively in live market conditions while managing execution and scale.
Registration for Track B remains open until 23:59 GMT+8 on September 23, 2026.
More Than $300,000 in Total Prize ValueLiquidity Arena 2026 features a total prize pool of more than $300,000, combining cash rewards with AI incentives, institutional trading benefits, partner products and career opportunities.
The reward structure includes:
$100,000+ in cash prizes for the top three teams in each track
AI agent credits and token incentives to support AI usage and reward outstanding performance
LTP VIP trading tiers and clearing-fee benefits for eligible teams after the competition
Products and benefits from sponsors and ecosystem partners
Career opportunities, including internship opportunities from LTP and additional opportunities from partners
The goal is to create a reward ecosystem that extends beyond the competition itself — giving high-performing teams access to capital-efficient trading infrastructure, technology, ecosystem resources and potential career opportunities.
Institutional-Grade Infrastructure and Global EcosystemLiquidity Arena is organized by LTP, with AWS and Calais serving as co-organizers. MiniMax, SoSoValue and AIVIX support the competition across AI, market data and analytics. 1ndex by 1Token serves as an Ecosystem Engine Partner, while Amsterdam Investment Club and THEO QUANT are Community Partners.
The competition is also supported by more than 20 academic and institutional partners and more than 20 media partners.
During the competition, LTP provides the institutional-grade trading infrastructure and operational support for participating teams. Teams will test and evaluate their strategies in trading environments designed to reflect market conditions, where performance is influenced not only by theoretical returns or backtested results, but also by liquidity, execution quality and slippage.
For AI-focused teams, the environment provides a setting to evaluate autonomous reasoning and decision-making in financial market scenarios. For professional quantitative teams, it provides a framework for assessing strategy performance under practical considerations, including capital scale, market impact and execution costs.
About LTPLTP is a global institutional prime broker, purpose-built to meet the evolving needs of digital asset market participants. By applying traditional financial standards to blockchain innovation, LTP provides end-to-end prime services spanning trade execution, clearing, settlement, custody, and financing. Its offerings further extend to institutional asset management, regulated OTC block trading, and compliant on/off-ramp solutions — delivering a secure and scalable foundation for institutions across the digital asset ecosystem.
The Group operates under a multi-jurisdictional regulatory framework, holding licenses and registrations in Hong Kong, Australia, the United Arab Emirates, and the British Virgin Islands, among other jurisdictions, enabling it to serve institutional clients globally on a compliant basis.
How Overledger Routes Your RequestEvery API call made through @quantnetwork's Overledger passes through a Connector, one per blockchain family. That Connector checks node health and routes the request to a healthy node drawn from its pool. In practice, that routing is not random. The system scores each node in the pool using a rolling measure of latency and recent error rate, then selects the highest-scoring candidate. Nodes that breach their error or latency limits are dropped from rotation and only readmitted once a reconnection policy is satisfied. Quant's own shared nodes act as the fallback when no pooled node scores well enough.
Where Staked $QNT Enters the PictureOn public networks, Quant's documentation lists a third input alongside latency and error rate: the amount of $QNT staked against a node. In other words, the token is not just a payment mechanism; it appears in the routing logic itself, giving nodes with larger stakes a potential advantage in selection.
That context matters when reading the current documentation. The staking chapter is explicitly marked as "under construction" and tied to a testnet experience. No live rewards mechanism is active, and no claims about live yield should be read into the current docs. The routing logic referencing staked $QNT reflects a design direction rather than a fully deployed feature.
For developers building on Overledger today, the practical takeaway is straightforward: latency and error rate are the live routing signals. The staking input is documented but not yet fully operational, and its exact weight in the selection formula has not been publicly specified. Readers looking for updates should monitor the official Quant developer documentation as the Trusted Node rollout progresses.
Sources:
Quant Network: Overledger Platform Overview
Bitget: Can You Stake Quant (QNT)?
They know the setups they look for: follow the trend, trade the breakout, buy the pullback, or wait for confirmation before entering. The difficult part is turning that idea into exact rules, testing whether those rules have held up in different market conditions, and watching for the next opportunity without living on a chart.
Today, we are launching Quant Trading Strategy in Sorin: a complete no-code workflow for building, backtesting, and monitoring crypto trading strategies.
Start with a strategy you already understandQuant Trading Strategy launches with 10 starting frameworks organized around three familiar types of market behavior.
Trend strategies look for price moves that continue while trend, volume, and funding conditions remain aligned:
Time-Series Momentum
Turtle
Ichimoku
Breakout strategies wait for price to leave a defined range and require additional confirmation before producing a signal:
Bollinger Squeeze
Darvas Box
Dual Thrust
Opening Range
Pullback and reversal strategies look for signs that a move has stretched too far and may begin moving back toward its recent range:
Bollinger Mean Reversion
Connors RSI
Stochastic RSI
You can use any framework as it is or treat it as the starting point for your own strategy. Instead of building the entire system from a blank page, you begin with defined entry and exit logic that you can inspect, understand, and change.
See exactly how each strategy works
Quant Trading Strategy is not a library of unexplained buy and sell signals.
Open any strategy to see what it is designed to do, the market and timeframe it uses, its long and short entry conditions, the filters that can block a signal, its exit logic, and its risk settings.
From the same strategy page, you can review the full analysis, customize the rules, create a backtest, or set up a monitor.
That visibility matters. Before testing a strategy or acting on one of its signals, you should be able to understand what conditions Sorin is actually evaluating.
Customize the rules around how you tradeEvery starting strategy is customizable.
You can change the timeframe, indicator thresholds, entry and exit rules, confirmation filters, funding limits, and risk settings through Sorin’s guided workflow or by describing the changes directly.
For example, suppose you want fewer, higher-conviction BTC trend signals.
You could start with Time-Series Momentum and tell Sorin to:
Use four-hour candles to reduce short-term noise
Raise the trend and volume thresholds
Add a funding cap to avoid entries when the perpetual market has become too crowded or expensive
Sorin turns those changes into a new strategy version that you can review and test separately. The original framework remains available, allowing you to compare different variations without losing the setup you started from.
Backtest any strategy you create against real market history
Every saved strategy version can be run directly against historical candle data. Sorin applies the exact entry, exit, filter, and risk rules you created, candle by candle, so the backtest reflects the strategy you actually intend to monitor.
Choose the market, starting balance, and historical period you want to test. You can evaluate the strategy against:
The closest historical analog to today
A previous market window that most closely resembles current conditions.
A favorable regime
Conditions that should align with the strategy’s intended behavior.
An adverse regime
A market environment that should challenge the strategy.
A peak-stress period
An extreme market window designed to expose potential weaknesses.
Your own dates
A specific rally, selloff, market event, or range that you want to examine.
This makes it possible to test more than whether a strategy worked during one convenient period. You can ask how it behaved when conditions changed, when volatility increased, or when the market moved against the type of setup it was designed to trade.
Every Sorin backtest includes:
Net return and final equity
Performance compared with buy-and-hold
Maximum drawdown
Win rate
Profit factor
Average profit and loss
Total trade count
The full equity curve
Every entry, exit, and exit reason
Trade count is especially important. A strong return built on only two or four trades should not carry the same weight as a result supported by dozens of trades.
Sorin gives you the performance, risk, sample size, and trade-level evidence together so you can judge the result in context rather than relying on a single headline percentage.
You can also test the same saved strategy across different markets while keeping the rules and historical dates fixed. Compare BTC, ETH, and SOL, for example, to see whether the behavior repeats across markets or whether the strategy only appeared to work on one coin.
Turn a backtested strategy into a live market monitor
Once you have a strategy version that is worth watching, you can turn it into a live monitor on one of 30 USDC perpetual markets.
The monitor keeps the exact entry conditions, exit conditions, and filters from the version you tested. Sorin checks the selected market every five minutes and alerts you only when the full setup appears.
Alerts can be delivered through:
Web
Email
Telegram
This closes the gap between research and live monitoring. You do not have to reconstruct the strategy in a separate alerting tool or manually watch every indicator on a chart. The same version you reviewed and backtested is the version Sorin continues to evaluate.
When the conditions line up, Sorin sends the signal. You decide whether you want to act on it.
Get started today!With Quant Trading Strategy, Sorin now gives traders one connected workflow for:
Choosing a strategy → inspecting the rules → customizing the setup → backtesting the exact version → monitoring it live
V1 is focused on strategy research, customization, historical testing, monitoring, and alerts. It does not execute orders.
Next, we plan to expand the strategy system with additional capabilities and user controls as we work toward closing the loop with autonomous execution.
Build, test, and monitor your own crypto trading strategies in Sorin: https://heysorin.ai/quantitative-trading
A single dollar stablecoin like $USDC does not actually exist as one thing. For large financial institutions operating across multiple chains, that means managing seven balances where one would suffice.
The problem is structural. A Bank for International Settlements working paper noted that
One Asset, One Pool
The core mechanism is what @quantnetwork calls a unified asset model.
A Layer 2.5 Built for Institutions Quant describes the architecture as a Layer 2.5, because unlike a conventional Layer 2,
Sources:
Quant Network: A new category of infrastructure, the Fusion Rollup is live on mainnet
CoinTrust: Quant Launches Fusion Rollup Mainnet Across 74 Blockchains
Disruption Banking: Quant's Fusion Rollup Goes Live, Unifying 74 Blockchains for Institutions
Most crypto projects sell decentralisation as the product. @quant_network sells something closer to enterprise software, and it is deliberate.
An API Gateway, Not a Blockchain Overledger is not a blockchain. Rather than imposing its own consensus layer, Think of it as middleware: instructions and data pass through Overledger, but the underlying chains handle their own settlement.
Access to the platform works the way enterprise software licensing typically does. There is no foundation or DAO involved in that process. For most crypto projects, that structure would be a red flag. For the banks and corporates Quant is selling to, it is exactly what they expect.
The $QNT token, an ERC-20 contract at ethereum:0x4a220e6096b25eadb88358cb44068a3248254675, sits at the centre of that commercial model. which creates recurring, non-speculative demand for the token.
Fusion Extends the Same Logic Quant's newer Fusion rollup follows the same corporate architecture. Approved node operators participate on permissioned terms.
The overall picture is a project that has consciously traded community governance and open participation for the kind of structured, auditable, commercially familiar model that regulated financial institutions can actually sign off on. Whether that tradeoff pays off depends largely on how much institutional blockchain adoption materialises, and how central Quant's rails end up being to it.
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
Bitget exchange has announced the Project Archimedes. The project will mobilise institutional investment in the amount of $300 million. It is aimed at firms in the quantitative trading business, asset managers and market makers.
Bitget’s $300M Capital Program Targets Quant Firms
There are two funding tracks in the Bitget program. There is an allocation of $100 million for the first one. It is aimed at new and developing quantitative companies. Eligible companies will have to be engaged in market neutral strategies. Bitget will issue capital based on the terms agreed upon for returns and risks.
Interest free loans are available on the second track for $200 million. Designed for existing institutions with proved strategies. Bitget noted that qualifying is based on specified trading volume and/or position criteria. The idea behind the structure is to reduce funding expenses and increase trading capital.
The first stage of the program will begin with strategies that are market neutral. Firms need to have operating records in place. They will also be subject to strategy reviews and due diligence. An assessment of drawdown will be carried out as part of the evaluation.
“Strong strategies often reach a point where talent is no longer the constraint but capital might,” stated Bitget CEO Gracy Chen. She even added, “Project Archimedes gives capable teams the acceleration it needs to scale, while aligning capital, risk and execution around sustainable performance. Our goal is to boost over fifty projects in the next six months with this capital.”
Bitget stated that quantitative companies are facing new difficulties within the market. The profits of the traditional crypto arbitrage have been narrowed. Competition has risen in well-established markets.
Companies are thus looking for other ventures. Examples of these are basis spreads and funding-rate differences.
Focus On Tokenization Push
The crypto exchange has also placed its focus is on tokenized assets. One such use case that Bitget mentioned was tokenized US stocks. Spot and derivatives markets can be used for arbitrage strategies. These types of trades often involve money on both sides. This can result in account margins being locked as a result of different accounts.
It also has another structure, its Unified Account. rToken spot positions that are eligible may be used as collateral in derivatives trading. Institutions are not required to transfer funds from one account to another. The underlying stock Friday closing price will be used for weekend collateral values.
Project Archimedes will be accepting participants on a first come first served basis. Capital will be used in a phased manner. Bitget Institutional will update participation and deployed funds. It will also provide research and institutional case studies.
The program will match the participating firms with Bitget’s liquidity and trading services. It will also make available its institutional network.
For prediction market updates, visit our tool on Prediction Markets.
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
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Money was the first thing the industry tried to tokenise, and the first place it hit a wall.
Stablecoins proved that a digital bearer instrument could move globally in seconds. Tokenised deposits are now being piloted at scale, with GBTD in the UK demonstrating that regulated bank money can live on a ledger and settle synchronously between participating banks.
But the same problem appears when money needs to move beyond a single programme’s boundary, whether that’s a different currency, a different jurisdiction, or a different ledger entirely. The money exists on one network, the counterparty exists on another and getting them to settle against each other safely means a bridge, a wrap, or a trusted intermediary.
The GBTD live pilot in the UK is testing exactly this shared-layer need for tokenised deposits. GENIUS in the US and MiCA in Europe are building regulatory foundations for tokenised money more broadly, covering stablecoins and digital assets rather than deposits specifically. Together, this work points to the same conclusion, which is that tokenised money needs a shared layer to be useful. Fusion is that layer.
The shape of the problem Tokenised money has split along the same public-versus-permissioned lines as the rest of the industry. Stablecoins live primarily on public chains. Tokenised deposits live primarily on banks’ permissioned networks.
The use cases that matter, settling a trade, moving liquidity between venues, making a non-CLS cross-border FX payment, almost always require two forms of money on two different networks to change hands at the same instant. Without a shared fabric beneath them, that timing cannot be guaranteed.
Where the cost case is strongest, and where it isn’t The cost case for synchronised settlement clears decisively on non-CLS currency pairs and same-day FX, where the settlement-risk window is measured in hours or days and no multilateral netting exists. It does not apply to domestic instant payment rails (FedNow, RTP, SEPA Instant) and CLS-eligible flows, where the rails already work and the switching cost is not justified. The opportunity sits in the gaps those rails do not cover.
Synchronised settlement: the property that changes everything Fusion’s multi-ledger rollup executes transactions touching multiple ledgers as a single atomic operation. Either every leg completes or none does. There is no window in which one party has paid and the other has not yet delivered.
Payment-versus-payment across two currencies on two different ledgers settles synchronously, with no FX settlement risk and no Herstatt-style exposure between the legs. This is the non-CLS PvP use case: the flows that CLS does not cover, executed with equivalent settlement assurance.
Delivery-versus-payment brings together a tokenised security on one ledger and tokenised cash on another as a single event. For Securities Services, this is the cash leg that makes synchronised DvP possible.
Cross-network transfers of stablecoins and deposits preserve origin-chain trust, with movement handled through a controlled transfer layer rather than lock-and-wrap into a synthetic copy.
Stablecoins without the bridge tax Moving a stablecoin across chains today usually means a third-party bridge: lock it here, mint a wrapped version there, trust the machinery in between. The cost is not only the fee. It is the de-peg risk, the bridge-exploit risk, and the reconciliation burden it introduces.
On Fusion, regulated token holders can reach liquidity on permissionless chains while remaining inside their compliance perimeter. Built-in KYC and whitelisting controls let a regulated entity trade with vetted counterparties and stay protected from unvetted ones, even while accessing public-chain depth.
Tokenised deposits and the bank’s perimeter Tokenised deposits are bank money, a liability of a supervised institution. They are also the form that needs the most control. A bank cannot issue deposit tokens into an environment where it cannot govern who holds them.
Fusion closes this gap. A tokenised deposit can stay native to the bank’s permissioned network, governed by the bank’s rules, while still settling against assets and counterparties reached through the fabric. The deposit never leaves the bank’s control. It simply gains the ability to settle synchronously against money and assets on other networks.
One important boundary condition applies to cross-border flows. Full inter-bank settlement in central bank money requires both institutions to be members of the same RTGS, or the payout leg must route via a correspondent or sponsor bank that is a member of the target jurisdiction’s RTGS and falls within its settlement window. Within a shared RTGS jurisdiction, synchronised clearing and settlement is achievable. Cross-border flows require this correspondent layer for the final obligation to move in central bank money: clearing in seconds is achievable, while settling cross-border in CeBM depends on the right rails being in place on both ends.
For institutions already operating tokenised payment infrastructure, including live pilots such as GBTD, Fusion is the connective layer that lets those islands of bank money interoperate without any of them giving up the control that makes a deposit a deposit.
What this enables Cross-border payments clearing in seconds on non-CLS flows, with no settlement-risk window where the right RTGS rails exist PvP and DvP across heterogeneous ledgers as single synchronised events Regulated access to public stablecoin liquidity without wrapping or bridge risk Tokenised deposits that interoperate across institutions within a shared RTGS jurisdiction, with cross-border flows enabled via correspondent banks for the payout leg A path from today’s siloed pilots to a connected market for tokenised money The value of each of these depends on the other leg being tokenised, and on the fabric connecting them. That is the network reality, and it is also why early participants have an advantage. The connections they establish now are the connections that will define the market.
OKX’s Flash Earn Lite launches SLX "Stake to Earn" program, allowing users to split 2,000,000 SLX in rewards.
According to official announcements, OKX’s Flash Earn Lite will launch SLX (Solstice) from 15:00 UTC+8 on July 31, 2026 to 15:00 UTC+8 on August 5, 2026. During the event, users can participate in the subscription by locking BTC, OKSOL, OKB, or SLX to share a total of 2,000,000 SLX in airdrop rewards. Additionally, users can join the subscription in advance starting today, with rewards being calculated from the official start of the event. Users can find and participate in the relevant activity via the "Flash Earn" entry at the top of the OKX App’s Explore page.
3 minutes ago
AEON is set to launch on Bitget Launchpool, with users able to stake BGB and AEON to unlock 1.16 million AEON tokens.
Bitget Launchpool is set to list the project AEON (AEON), with a total reward pool of 1,166,666 AEON. The lock-up period runs from July 27 at 19:00 to August 1 at 19:00 (UTC+8). This round of Launchpool offers two lock-up pools: - BGB Lock-up Pool: Total airdrop allocation of 1,000,000 AEON; VIP users have a lock-up cap of 50,000 BGB, while regular users face a cap of 5,000 BGB. - AEON Lock-up Pool: Total airdrop allocation of 166,666 AEON; individual users have a lock-up cap of 4,200,000 AEON. Additionally, AEON will be listed for spot trading on Bitget. Deposits are now open, and trading will launch at 19:00 UTC+8 on July 27.
3 minutes ago
Circle has minted an additional 250 million USDC on the Solana blockchain.
According to monitoring by Whale Alert, USDC issuer Circle’s USDC Treasury has newly minted 250 million USDC on the Solana blockchain.
3 minutes ago
US stock index futures continue to rise, with Nasdaq 100 index futures up 1.6%.
According to market data from BIT (Bit.com), U.S. stock index futures continue to climb: Dow Jones futures rose 1%, S&P 500 futures gained 0.96%, and Nasdaq 100 futures climbed 1.6%.
3 minutes ago
Binance will list three TradFi USDT-margined perpetual contracts: TMF, TBT, and BITO.
According to official announcements, Binance Futures will launch three TradFi USDT-margined perpetual contracts on July 27: TMFUSDT (launch time 21:30), TBTUSDT (21:35), and BITOUSDT (21:40). All contracts are settled in USDT, with a maximum leverage of 25x. Specifically, TMF corresponds to Direxion Daily 20+ Year Treasury Bull 3X Shares ETF, TBT corresponds to ProShares 20+ Year Treasury Bear 2X Shares ETF, and BITO corresponds to ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF.
3 minutes ago
The user is asking me to write a headline for a Lookonchain tweet. The tweet describes: - A mysterious whale buying ETH - 3 newly created wallets (likely same whale) - Spent 50.04M DAI to buy 25,425 ETH - Average price: $1,968 Requirements: - Max 120 characters - Keep tickers ($ETH, $DAI), key amounts and names - Concise English news headline - No quotes, no hashtags, no trailing period - ONLY output the headline Key elements to include: - Whale (mysterious/unknown) - $ETH (ticker) - Amount: 25,425 $ETH or 50.04M $DAI - Action: buying/purchased Let me craft concise options and count characters: Option 1: "Mysterious whale buys 25,425 $ETH with 50.04M $DAI across 3 wallets" - Length: 68 characters ✓ Option 2: "Whale purchases 25,425 $ETH spending 50.04M $DAI via 3 new wallets" - Length: 67 characters ✓ Option 3: "Unknown whale spends 50.04M $DAI to acquire 25,425 $ETH" - Length: 56 characters ✓ Option 4: "Mysterious whale buys 25,425 $ETH for 50.04M $DAI" - Length: 50 characters ✓ I think Option 1 or 2 are best - they include the key detail about 3 wallets which adds to the story. Option 1 is cleaner. Let me verify it has no forbidden elements: - No quotes ✓ - No hashtags ✓ - No trailing period ✓ - Includes tickers ✓ - Includes key amounts ✓ Mysterious whale buys 25,425 $ETH with 50.04M $DAI across 3 wallets
A mysterious whale is buying $ETH! Over the past 2 hours, 3 newly created wallets (likely belonging to the same whale) spent 50.04M $DAI to buy 25,425 $ETH at an average price of $1,968.
OKX’s Flash Earn Lite launches SLX "Stake to Earn" program, allowing users to split 2,000,000 SLX in rewards.
According to official announcements, OKX’s Flash Earn Lite will launch SLX (Solstice) from 15:00 UTC+8 on July 31, 2026 to 15:00 UTC+8 on August 5, 2026. During the event, users can participate in the subscription by locking BTC, OKSOL, OKB, or SLX to share a total of 2,000,000 SLX in airdrop rewards. Additionally, users can join the subscription in advance starting today, with rewards being calculated from the official start of the event. Users can find and participate in the relevant activity via the "Flash Earn" entry at the top of the OKX App’s Explore page.
3 minutes ago
AEON is set to launch on Bitget Launchpool, with users able to stake BGB and AEON to unlock 1.16 million AEON tokens.
Bitget Launchpool is set to list the project AEON (AEON), with a total reward pool of 1,166,666 AEON. The lock-up period runs from July 27 at 19:00 to August 1 at 19:00 (UTC+8). This round of Launchpool offers two lock-up pools: - BGB Lock-up Pool: Total airdrop allocation of 1,000,000 AEON; VIP users have a lock-up cap of 50,000 BGB, while regular users face a cap of 5,000 BGB. - AEON Lock-up Pool: Total airdrop allocation of 166,666 AEON; individual users have a lock-up cap of 4,200,000 AEON. Additionally, AEON will be listed for spot trading on Bitget. Deposits are now open, and trading will launch at 19:00 UTC+8 on July 27.
3 minutes ago
Circle has minted an additional 250 million USDC on the Solana blockchain.
According to monitoring by Whale Alert, USDC issuer Circle’s USDC Treasury has newly minted 250 million USDC on the Solana blockchain.
3 minutes ago
US stock index futures continue to rise, with Nasdaq 100 index futures up 1.6%.
According to market data from BIT (Bit.com), U.S. stock index futures continue to climb: Dow Jones futures rose 1%, S&P 500 futures gained 0.96%, and Nasdaq 100 futures climbed 1.6%.
3 minutes ago
Binance will list three TradFi USDT-margined perpetual contracts: TMF, TBT, and BITO.
According to official announcements, Binance Futures will launch three TradFi USDT-margined perpetual contracts on July 27: TMFUSDT (launch time 21:30), TBTUSDT (21:35), and BITOUSDT (21:40). All contracts are settled in USDT, with a maximum leverage of 25x. Specifically, TMF corresponds to Direxion Daily 20+ Year Treasury Bull 3X Shares ETF, TBT corresponds to ProShares 20+ Year Treasury Bear 2X Shares ETF, and BITO corresponds to ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF.
3 minutes ago
The user is asking me to write a headline for a Lookonchain tweet. The tweet describes: - A mysterious whale buying ETH - 3 newly created wallets (likely same whale) - Spent 50.04M DAI to buy 25,425 ETH - Average price: $1,968 Requirements: - Max 120 characters - Keep tickers ($ETH, $DAI), key amounts and names - Concise English news headline - No quotes, no hashtags, no trailing period - ONLY output the headline Key elements to include: - Whale (mysterious/unknown) - $ETH (ticker) - Amount: 25,425 $ETH or 50.04M $DAI - Action: buying/purchased Let me craft concise options and count characters: Option 1: "Mysterious whale buys 25,425 $ETH with 50.04M $DAI across 3 wallets" - Length: 68 characters ✓ Option 2: "Whale purchases 25,425 $ETH spending 50.04M $DAI via 3 new wallets" - Length: 67 characters ✓ Option 3: "Unknown whale spends 50.04M $DAI to acquire 25,425 $ETH" - Length: 56 characters ✓ Option 4: "Mysterious whale buys 25,425 $ETH for 50.04M $DAI" - Length: 50 characters ✓ I think Option 1 or 2 are best - they include the key detail about 3 wallets which adds to the story. Option 1 is cleaner. Let me verify it has no forbidden elements: - No quotes ✓ - No hashtags ✓ - No trailing period ✓ - Includes tickers ✓ - Includes key amounts ✓ Mysterious whale buys 25,425 $ETH with 50.04M $DAI across 3 wallets
A mysterious whale is buying $ETH! Over the past 2 hours, 3 newly created wallets (likely belonging to the same whale) spent 50.04M $DAI to buy 25,425 $ETH at an average price of $1,968.
OKX continues to upgrade its asset protection system, rolling out large withdrawal protection and night-time withdrawal protection.
According to official announcements, OKX has now launched large withdrawal protection and after-hours withdrawal protection. Large withdrawal protection allows users to independently set a 24-hour cross-channel cumulative withdrawal threshold, with a maximum equivalent of $10 million. After-hours withdrawal protection enables KYC-verified users to set a daily protection period of up to 12 hours, during which operations including on-chain withdrawals, C2C sales, API withdrawals, and Pay top-ups will be blocked. Users can configure these features in the "Security Center" → "Advanced Security Settings" section.
1 seconds ago
Summer Fi attacker transfers most of the stolen funds, leaving approximately $565,000 worth of ETH remaining.
According to monitoring by OnchainLens, following the Summer Fi attack on July 6, the attacker stole approximately 6.017 million DAI, and has since been converting and transferring funds via Tornado Cash. Currently, the remaining funds in the attacker’s wallets include: 11.3 ETH (valued at around $21,600) held in the original wallet, and 282.9 ETH (worth approximately $543,500) in a second wallet.
1 seconds ago
A certain whale has bought a total of 54,449 ETH and 600 WBTC since the end of June.
According to monitoring by The Data Nerd, wallet address 0x2684 has been steadily accumulating ETH and WBTC since June 30, with its current unrealized profit exceeding $12.5 million. The whale has purchased a total of 54,449 ETH (valued at roughly $94 million, at an average price of ~$1,726) and 600 WBTC (worth ~$38.37 million, with an average purchase price of ~$63,950). The position turned to unrealized profit after the whale added to its holdings during a market downturn.
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Optical module and storage stocks pull back collectively in pre-market US stock trading.
According to BIT (Bit.com) market data, ahead of U.S. stock market opening, the optical module and storage sectors saw a slight pullback after rallying sharply yesterday, with pre-market funds showing signs of profit-taking. Optical module stocks: Coherent (COHR) closed up 11.15% at $317.220 yesterday, trading at $306.260 pre-market, down 3.46%; Lumentum Holdings (LITE) closed up 9.41% at $837.560, pre-market at $812.060, down 3.04%; Applied Optoelectronics (AAOI) closed up 15.76% at $119.260, pre-market at $115.940, down 2.78%; Nokia (NOK) closed up 5.46% at $10.630, pre-market at $10.530, down 0.94%; Marvell Technology (MRVL) closed up 6.68% at $207.960, pre-market at $202.720, down 2.52%. Storage stocks: Seagate Technology (STX) closed up 11.14% at $891.830 yesterday, pre-market at $864.500, down 3.06%; Western Digital (WDC) closed up 12.51% at $548.390, pre-market at $530.000, down 3.35%; SanDisk (SNDK) closed up 14.27% at $1589.400, pre-market at $1546.080, down 2.73%; Micron Technology (MU) closed up 12.17% at $970.820, pre-market at $944.550, down 2.71%. Pre-market, optical module and storage stocks generally pulled back 2%-3.5%, a technical adjustment following yesterday's sharp rally. Funds remain concentrated in the AI infrastructure chain, with storage and optical interconnection continuing to benefit from the expansion of AI server demand.
1 seconds ago
Bitcoin crosses $66,000, down 0.32% in 24 hours.
According to HTX market data, Bitcoin has broken through $66,000, currently trading at $66,005.32, with a 0.32% drop over the past 24 hours.
1 seconds ago
Iran's Ministry of Interior: No negotiations are currently underway with the United States, but "information exchanges" are possible.
According to Iran's Mehr News Agency, a spokesperson for Iran’s Ministry of Interior stated that Iran is not currently negotiating with the United States, but "information exchange" between the two sides is possible.
The preliminary offline placement results for Changxin Technology show that a total of 2,459 products under 113 private equity firms secured offline placements in the company, with a total of 161 million shares allocated, amounting to 1.436 billion yuan. The announcement notes that offline institutional investors are divided into Category A (public funds, social security funds, pension funds, enterprise annuities, bank wealth management products, insurance companies, QFIIs) and Category B (private equity firms, broker-dealer proprietary trading, trusts, financial companies, etc.). Category A investors, dominated by public funds, received 1.978 billion shares, accounting for 91% of the total offline issuance; while Category B investors, led by private equity firms, secured 196 million shares, making up only 9% of the total offline issuance. Among the private equity placement list, the top ten by number of placement objects are all leading quantitative private equity firms. Shanghai Yanfu has a total of 282 placement objects allocated, ranking first among private equity firms; Century Front, Jiukun Investment, Shanghai Chengqi, and Huanfang Quant have 209, 194, 167, and 153 placement objects respectively; Lingjun Investment, Shanghai Jinde, and Minghong Investment also have over 100 allocated products each, at 107, 105, and 100 respectively. Notably, Liang Wenfeng, founder of DeepSeek and a prominent private equity figure, took the largest share among private equity placements. Public information shows that the actual controllers of two leading 100-billion-yuan private equity firms, Ningbo Huanfang Quant and Zhejiang Jiuzhang Asset Management, are both Liang Wenfeng. This means that through his two private equity firms, Liang Wenfeng has a total of 194 private equity products allocated, with a total of 20.2497 million shares secured, amounting to approximately 175 million yuan. (The Paper)
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Trump announces 100% tariffs on generic drugs will be imposed two years from now.
US President Trump announced in a post that starting August 1, 2026, all generic drugs imported to the United States will remain subject to zero tariffs for the next two years. After the two-year period, a 100% tariff will be imposed on the relevant products for one year; thereafter, the tariff will be further increased to 200%. Trump stated that the policy is designed to drive the reshoring of generic drug manufacturing to the U.S. Companies that fail to build production facilities and related equipment in the U.S. within the specified timeframe will face tariff penalties. The current policies for patented drugs, branded drugs, and innovative drugs will remain unchanged as they have achieved good results. In an announcement released by the White House on April 2, U.S. President Trump signed a document under Section 232 of the 1962 Trade Expansion Act, imposing a 100% tariff on imported patented drugs and pharmaceutical ingredients. The measure also provides paths for tariff exemptions or reductions, aiming to force pharmaceutical companies to reach agreements with the White House on issues such as drug prices and industry reshoring.
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The Nasdaq 100 index extended its gain to 2%.
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SpaceX’s massive lock-up period is approaching, with over $100 billion worth of its stock set to become tradable.
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Nuveen global investment strategist Laura Cooper said in a report that following June’s interest rate hike, the European Central Bank (ECB) will likely hold interest rates steady at this week’s meeting while maintaining a hawkish stance. Cooper noted that if renewed tensions drive energy prices higher, the ECB will remain open to further policy tightening. She added that inflation is milder than feared, the Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) pricing subindex shows almost no signs of reaccelerating, and producer price data confirms upstream cost pressures are easing. “These factors provide a reason for holding steady this month,” she said. The complication is that commodity supplies are being disrupted again, which could reignite energy price pressures just as the ECB gains confidence in its inflation decline path.
PANews July 17 news, according to Shenwang Tencent News, the issuance announcement for Changxin Technology’s initial public offering shows that national-level long-term capital such as social security funds and basic pension insurance funds, along with leading upstream and downstream industry players and large insurance funds, participated in the strategic placement. Shenzhen Sankuai Network Technology Co., Ltd., NIO Power Technology (Hefei) Co., Ltd., ZTE Corporation, Chery Intelligent Automotive Technology (Hefei) Co., Ltd., and others were allocated an amount of RMB 157,999,993.98, with a lock-up period of 18 months; Hangzhou Alibaba Cloud Feitian Information Technology Co., Ltd. was allocated an amount of RMB 157,999,993.98, with a lock-up period of 36 months.
High-Flyer Quant participated in this offline IPO subscription at a proposed subscription price of RMB 8.78 per share, with a maximum proposed subscription quantity of 230 million shares per offline bid. Most of High-Flyer’s products placed bids in the range of 70 million to 140 million shares. High-Flyer Quant primarily consists of two entities: Zhejiang Jiuzhang and Ningbo High-Flyer Quant. Both are registered with the Asset Management Association of China, and the actual controller of both is Liang Wenfeng, who holds an 85% stake in Jiuzhang Asset and an 85.15% stake in Ningbo High-Flyer Quant.
A fresh AI bubble warning is cracking memory chip stocks. SanDisk, SK Hynix, Micron, and Samsung all show bearish reversal patterns after a hot 2026 rally.
The damage may not be even. This looks less like one sector move and more like a stock-by-stock reckoning, where even Samsung, the relative leader, is breaking down.
An AI Bubble Warning Splits the Chip TradeThe trigger came from Wall Street. On July 1, Bank of America’s Bubble Risk Indicator hit 0.91 out of 1 for semiconductor stocks, and the SOXX chip ETF dropped 6.4% in a day. BofA called it an air pocket, not a full crash.
The backdrop is stretched. The Kobeissi Letter notes AI investment now drives more than 25% of US GDP growth, above the dot-com peak, a sign of peak euphoria.
The US economy is now dependent on AI spending:
AI investment now accounts for more than 25% of US GDP growth, the largest contribution on record.
This includes spending on software, IT equipment, R&D, and data centers.
In other words, for every $4 of US economic growth today,… pic.twitter.com/IzbrsFOt7E
— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) July 11, 2026 Yet the smart money is not running. Analysts keep raising SanDisk targets, with Goldman Sachs at $2,200 and Evercore at $3,100 on tight NAND pricing. Money flow shows who is winning.
Money Flow Points to Quiet AccumulationChaikin Money Flow (CMF), a gauge of institutional buying and selling pressure, tells a contrarian story. Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron all show positive CMF even as prices fell over 20 days, which suggests quiet institutional accumulation under weakness.
Key AI Memory Stocks And Money Flow: Charlie Quant LabSanDisk is the outlier. Its money flow has slid since July 10 and is nearing the zero line, a sign that buyers there are backing off. However, the CMF is still not in the negative territory.
SanDisk CMF: TradingViewThe strength is uneven. Samsung’s flow score leads, SK Hynix sits barely positive, and Micron reads negative.
Relative Strength Of Memory Stocks: Charlie Quant LabAll three still trail the broad chip index and Nvidia, so the price charts of the AI memory stocks settle the AI bubble discussion.
SanDisk Builds a Second Double TopSanDisk (SNDK) fell to $1,673 and is tracing a second double top, a bearish reversal marked by two peaks near $1,951. The first, near $2,354, already produced a drop of about 21%.
SanDisk Price Analysis: TradingViewVolume favors sellers, with steady distribution from July 7 to July 13. The levels that matter are $1,520 and $1,418.
A daily close below $1,418, a technically strong floor, would confirm the pattern and expose $1,088. A reclaim of $1,951 weakens the immediate bearishness. But a weak SNDK chart isn’t the one-off.
SK Hynix Loses Its Head-and-Shoulders NecklineSK Hynix trades at 1,913,000 won, about $1,276, up 3.7% on the day. It has broken the neckline of a head-and-shoulders top, a three-peak reversal projecting a slide of roughly 32%.
Buyers are trying to return, and CMF from earlier shows accumulation. But the rebound stalls at the 0.618 Fibonacci level near 1,910,000 won, about $1,274.
SK Hynix Price Analysis: TradingViewLosing that level exposes 1,751,000 won ($1,168), then 1,548,000 won ($1,032). Until buyers reclaim it, the bounce risks trapping them.
Micron Forms a Downward-Sloping TopMicron (MU) slipped to $937 and is shaping a head-and-shoulders top with a downward-sloping neckline. A falling neckline is more bearish than a flat one, because sellers keep stepping in at lower prices.
The pattern is still forming, and buying from July 7 to July 13 has stayed too weak to break it. Micron also holds the weakest money flow and softest relative strength of the group.
Micron Price Analysis: TradingViewIf it loses the neckline near $811, the decline can accelerate. A move back above the right shoulder or $1,036 would ease the pressure.
Samsung Stands Out, but Must Prove ItSamsung Electronics rose to 263,000 won, about $175, and looks the strongest of the four. Its growth is real, as IDC data shows Samsung was one of only two vendors to gain smartphone share last quarter, aided by chip demand.
Even so, it broke a double top on July 8 and has trended lower since. So even the strongest name is bearish, a sign the sector-wide rally has likely passed and each stock now trades on its own.
Samsung Price Analysis: TradingViewTo turn bullish, Samsung must reclaim 268,000 won, about $179, then 290,000 won ($193). Failure risks 252,500 won ($168), 233,000 won ($155), and 220,500 won ($147).
That 268,000 won line, near $179, separates a genuine Samsung recovery from a deeper 23% breakdown.
The AI Bubble Test is NowPut the four memory stocks together and one picture forms. Every chart flashes bearishness. Only money flow and Samsung’s IDC-backed growth give any name a floor.
So the AI bubble narrative has not burst everywhere. But it already looks broken in the weakest names, SanDisk and Micron, while Samsung and SK Hynix cling to support.
AI Bubble Memory Scorecard With 24-Hour Price Move: BeInCryptoThe clearest warning sits outside the stock market. In San Francisco, some home sellers now take OpenAI and Anthropic shares instead of cash. Those shares do not trade and have no set price.
THIS IS THE CLEAREST SIGN YET THAT THE AI BUBBLE IS OUT OF CONTROL.
People are now trading real houses for stock that has no price.
OpenAI and Anthropic have not gone public, and their shares cannot be freely traded as no market has priced them. But still, San Francisco… pic.twitter.com/aw3jCoaIhC
— Bull Theory (@BullTheoryio) July 12, 2026 When buyers treat unproven AI money as good as cash, a market top is usually near. These memory stocks rose on the same AI wave, so they are among the first to fall if that confidence breaks.
UBS Group has assigned a "Buy" rating to SpaceX, with a target price of $210.
UBS Group initiates research coverage on SpaceX (SPCX.O), assigns a Buy rating, and sets a target price of $210.
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Arm Holdings (ARM) stock is up 194% this year. However, it has stalled and slipped since mid-June, and big investors are quietly selling. The reason is simple. Arm is the chip stock most exposed to rising interest rates.
The next test comes on July 14, when new inflation data is due. A hot reading would push the Federal Reserve closer to a rate hike. And Arm has the most to lose.
ARM Holdings Stock Price Chart. Source: Google FinanceBig Money Started Leaving in Mid-JuneThe clearest warning comes from money flow. Chaikin Money Flow (CMF), a proxy for institutional buying, peaked at 0.37 around June 15 and has since fallen to 0.01. In plain terms, big buyers nearly vanished.
Arm Money Flow Rolls Over: TradingViewNote: Arm is based in the United Kingdom, but its shares trade in New York in US dollars, so Federal Reserve rate moves drive it like any American chip stock.
The timing is not random. Inflation hit 4.2% for the year on June 10, the hottest in three years. Days later, on June 17, the Federal Reserve held rates but signaled it may raise them. More so, institutional money began leaving in the run-up to the June 17 Fed meeting.
Since then, markets have gone back to pricing hikes. Robin Brooks, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former chief economist at the IIF, says one number will set the tone.
Markets are bracing for a hawkish speech from Warsh today and we're back to pricing almost 40 bps in hikes for this year. He will repeat his mantra of "price stability," but that doesn't mean much. The only thing that really matters is the CPI on July 14.https://t.co/9h3RQKGgJH pic.twitter.com/asewL8Q3Vn
— Robin Brooks (@robin_j_brooks) July 1, 2026 Here is why that hits Arm (ARM) hardest. A hot inflation report makes the Fed more likely to raise interest rates. Higher rates make profits expected years from now worth less today. Arm is the priciest big chip stock, and most of its profits sit far in the future. Investors are paying mainly for growth from its AI chip designs in the coming years, not for the money it makes today.
That makes Arm the most rate-sensitive name in its sector. Its price tends to move in the opposite direction of interest rates, and by more than any other big chip stock.
Arm Rate Sensitivity vs the Sector: Charlie Quant LabSo it falls more than the average chip when rate fears rise. When a major bank warned of up to three more hikes on June 23, Arm dropped over 10% in a day.
Bank of America now expects three Fed rate hikes in 2026 with 25bps increases in September, October and December taking rates to 4.50%.
The bank also doesn't expect cuts until 2028 while Polymarket now gives a 61% chance of at least one Fed hike next year. pic.twitter.com/W4VyvboQtU
— Shay Boloor (@StockSavvyShay) June 22, 2026 Options Traders Turned Defensive TooThe options market flashed the same signal. Arm’s put-call ratio compares bets on a fall against bets on a rise. On June 15, with Arm near $412, the volume ratio was 0.51, so traders still bought more calls than puts.
Yet the open interest ratio was already 1.22, meaning longer-standing bets leaned bearish.
Arm Put-Call Ratio on June 15: BarchartBy July 1, with Arm near $337, both had turned bearish. The volume ratio jumped to 1.75, and open interest sat at 1.17.
Arm Put-Call Ratio on July 1: BarchartIn short, traders went from hopeful to defensive as rate-hike talk grew louder. The ARM price chart tells the same story.
The ARM Stock Chart Confirms the WarningThe rally was already running on empty. From May 6 to June 30, Arm rose, but the buying volume behind each move kept shrinking.
Want more insights like this? Sign up for Editor Harsh Notariya’s Daily Newsletter here.
That weakness stalled Arm at about $362. The stock now trades near $337, just under the $340 level it needs to hold.
If it breaks lower, $303, then $298, come into view. Far deeper support sits near $198 if the selling speeds up. To turn things around, Arm must reclaim $362 with strong buying, which would pull money flow back up. The real line, though, is $399 (the $400 zone).
Arm Price Analysis: TradingViewAbove $400, ARM regains genuine strength. Below it, with a hot July 14 report threatening another rate scare, every bounce is likely to be sold. The $400 mark separates a fresh leg higher from more selling into every rally.
China’s quantitative hedge funds are having a moment. The country’s private fund industry hit a record 23.5 trillion yuan, roughly $3.5 trillion, by the end of April 2026, with quant managers grabbing an increasingly dominant share of that pile.
For three consecutive months starting in February 2026, new quant fund registrations have outnumbered their non-quant counterparts.
The numbers behind the boom The average return across the Chinese quant fund sector hit approximately 30.5% in 2025. Some shops did even better. High-Flyer, one of the country’s leading quant managers based in Zhejiang, posted average returns of roughly 56-57% in 2025.
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By April 2026, 71 securities-focused quant managers had crossed the 10 billion yuan AUM threshold, with 11 new entrants joining that club in April alone. The number stood at around 61 by March 2026, with the top cohort collectively managing more than 1.8 trillion yuan.
China’s A-share market delivered what industry observers describe as a “high volatility + structural bull market” environment, exactly the kind of setup where quantitative models tend to feast.
AI enters the chat Leading quant managers like High-Flyer, Minghong Investment, and Ubiquant have aggressively scaled their operations with AI-enhanced strategies.
The ghosts of quant quakes past Chinese quant funds experienced a significant boom in 2021, partly fueled by regulatory crackdowns on other sectors that redirected capital into systematic strategies. What followed was a painful stretch from 2022 through early 2024, marked by losses, regulatory scrutiny, and growing skepticism.
The most dramatic episode came in February 2024, when a so-called “quant quake” rattled the sector. State-driven purchasing that favored large-cap stocks effectively kneecapped many quant strategies that were positioned in smaller, more volatile names. Regulators subsequently tightened constraints on high-frequency trading and short-selling.
What this means for investors With 71 managers now running over 10 billion yuan each, and the number growing monthly, concerns about strategy crowding have emerged, with excess returns potentially dwindling as more capital competes for the same market inefficiencies.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
The way money moves is about to change fundamentally. AI agents, not humans, are increasingly the ones initiating payments.
They are making transactions, executing trades, procuring services, and settling obligations autonomously and at machine speed. The question is no longer whether autonomous payments will happen, but whether the infrastructure behind them will be fit for purpose when they do.
Quant already builds and runs tokenised deposit infrastructure that is interoperable and programmable by design. That is why we have joined the x402 Foundation, hosted by the Linux Foundation.
What is x402?
x402 is an open-source payment protocol designed specifically for machine-to-machine transactions. It provides a standard that allows AI agents, automated services, and software to pay each other directly using stablecoins or other digital tokens, without requiring human approval at each step.
The name references HTTP status code 402: ‘Payment Required.’ Reserved in the original HTTP specification decades ago, it anticipated a future where payments would be native to the internet. x402 is the protocol that finally makes that a reality.
This is familiar territory for Quant. Our heritage is in internet technologies, protocols and security, and our vision has always been to connect the internet to money. In 2016, we helped establish the new technical committee ISO TC307 – Blockchain and distributed ledger technologies, responsible for developing ISO standards. And in 2026, we helped publish ISO 82098 (ISO/TS 23516:2026), the first international standard for blockchain interoperability.
We have led contributions through the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force), building the technical standards at the intersection of finance and the open internet. When foundations form around protocols that matter, Quant is there shaping them.
Connecting the internet to blockchains has been Quant’s mission since our founding in 2015. Joining the x402 Foundation builds on that history, applying the same standards work to the emerging world of autonomous, machine-to-machine payments.
The problem with autonomous payments today
Most autonomous payment infrastructure today operates in a parallel financial system. Stablecoins and crypto-native tokens enable fast, programmable transfers, but they sit outside the regulated banking system. That means they lack the guardrails like deposit protections, settlement finality, and compliance frameworks that institutional finance requires and are there to protect both consumers and money.
For autonomous payments to reach systemic scale, where AI agents are transacting billions across borders on behalf of banks, corporates, and governments, they need to connect to the infrastructure where real economic value moves. A machine-speed payment layer built on unregulated rails will not be adopted by institutions with obligations to regulators, counterparties, and clients.
Where Quant comes in
Major UK banks are already working with Quant through the Great British Tokenised Deposits initiative, building interbank settlement infrastructure with full regulatory compliance and settlement finality. These are not synthetic tokens representing value.
They are commercial bank deposits, tokenised and made programmable, carrying the same trust, protections, and guarantees as traditional interbank payments.
By joining the x402 Foundation, we are connecting these two worlds, internet-native payment protocols and the regulated banking rails that underpin the real economy.
Autonomous agents will settle in tokenised bank money with the compliance, counterparty assurance and settlement certainty that wholesale markets demand, not confined to stablecoins operating outside the banking perimeter. It also closes the risk we have already seen play out, where agents drain wallets in response to a prompt because nothing stands between the instruction and the spend.
Banks authorise transactions and provide safeguards for our money. Agentic AI transactions should be no different, operating within the secure guardrails of bank security and protection.
Fusion: x402-ready from day one
Our Fusion Layer 2.5 multi-ledger roll-up already supports x402 payments out of the box. Fusion apps are designed to deploy in under a day, enabling developers and institutions to have x402-enabled applications running across any public or private network connected to Fusion’s network layer almost immediately.
This is production-ready infrastructure, available now.
Whether the use case is an AI procurement agent settling invoices across jurisdictions, an autonomous trading system executing cross-border FX, or a machine-to-machine micropayment layer for API services, Fusion provides the deployment framework, and Quant’s network provides the institutional connectivity. Currently spanning over 70 networks, that connectivity is available from day one.
Beyond developer tooling
Our decision to join the x402 Foundation goes beyond supporting an open-source protocol. It reflects a considered view that the next generation of payment infrastructure must be interoperable across both internet-native and bank-native inter-bank systems and networks.
The payments industry has spent years discussing programmable money, tokenised assets, and embedded finance. x402 represents the point where those concepts meet a real protocol, with real demand from AI infrastructure behind it. Through Quant, it now has real connectivity to the banking system.
The future of payments is not a choice between decentralised and institutional. It is the interoperability between them. That is what we are building.
Bitcoin (BTC) buyers in the United States have gone quiet. The Coinbase Premium Index, a gauge of US Bitcoin demand, has stayed negative since May 6, its longest weak stretch in more than a year.
The signal matters because it shows who is stepping back. A negative premium means American investors are paying less for BTC than the rest of the market. That helps answer why is Bitcoin going down.
What the Coinbase Premium Is ShowingThe index tracks the price gap between US-based Coinbase and offshore exchanges. When it turns negative, US Bitcoin demand is fading. When it climbs, American buyers are leading.
Coinbase Premium Index: CryptoQuantRight now it is stuck below zero. The current negative premium streak began on May 6, with Bitcoin near $81,429, and has held for roughly eight weeks. That is the longest such run since early 2025.
Want more token insights like this? Sign up for Editor Harsh Notariya’s Daily Crypto Newsletter here.
Since then, the Bitcoin spot price has slid toward $59,500, down about 27% and still falling.
Where Is Bitcoin Money GoingThe weak US Bitcoin demand lines up with a historic move in stocks. American money is not sitting idle. It is chasing chips.
The semiconductor index has beaten the S&P 500 by about 85 percentage points this year, its widest first-half lead on record, according to Kobeissi. That tops the dot-com peak of 2000.
US chip stocks are on a historic run:
The semiconductor index, $SOX, has outperformed the S&P 500 by +85 percentage points year-to-date, on pace for the best half-year outperformance in history.
This would exceed the previous record set during the Dot-Com Bubble in H1 2000 by… pic.twitter.com/Qdah3TVmgr
— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) June 30, 2026 Chips now dominate the market. Semiconductors make up roughly 18% of the S&P 500 and have driven close to 70% of its 2026 gains, data shows. Micron has jumped about 300% and SanDisk more than 760%.
The rotation is visible in fund flows. Since April, US gold and Bitcoin ETFs have lost about $12 billion, while chip ETFs pulled in around $20 billion.
Retail investors appear to be rotating out of gold and Bitcoin into semiconductor stocks:
Since April, US gold and Bitcoin ETFs have posted -$12 billion in cumulative outflows.
Over the same period, US semiconductor ETFs have attracted +$20 billion in cumulative inflows.
This… pic.twitter.com/VHuDTB0nyN
— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) June 27, 2026 BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), the largest bitcoin fund, led June’s record ETF outflows, the worst month since spot ETFs launched.
The January WarningThis is not the first time US Bitcoin demand vanished this year. The pattern already played out once.
Bitcoin’s premium turned negative around January 15, when BTC traded near $95,583. By the time that streak ended on February 24, Bitcoin had crashed to about $64,100.
Coinbase Premium Index January: CryptoQuantThat was a drop of roughly 33% in six weeks. The current slump is longer and shows the same fading US demand.
One Caveat Before the PanicThere is a catch to the rotation story. Bitcoin and the Nasdaq usually move together, with a six-month correlation near 0.46. That link normally means both rise and fall on the same macro forces.
BTC-NASDAQ Correlation: Charlie Quant LabThis year, though, the two have split but the correlation stays intact. Bitcoin is down about 33% in 2026, while the tech sector has gained more than 20% in the first half.
Tech 6-Month Performance: FinVizThe reason for the gap points straight back to chips. Semiconductors drove close to 70% of the market’s 2026 gains, so this tech rally is really a chip rally. In other words, the asset class Bitcoin usually tracks is being lifted by the exact sector US buyers are moving into.
That is why the split matters. When a normally correlated pair breaks apart this far, capital moving from one into the other is the simplest explanation.
What Happens NextBitcoin’s next move may hinge on US buyers. If the premium stays negative and chip inflows continue, the path of least resistance points lower for BTC. The January-February price slump of 33% shows that BTC can still correct further.
Yet, a flip back to positive would be the first real sign that domestic BTC demand is returning. Until then, the January script remains the one to watch.
Quant hedge funds are having a rough start to 2026. The first two weeks of January produced the worst 10-day stretch for systematic long-short equity managers since October 2025, driven not by a broader market meltdown but by crowded trades blowing up: their own crowded trades blowing up in their faces.
UBS estimated that US-focused quant funds dropped approximately 2.8% in the first two weeks of January 2026. Goldman Sachs prime brokerage data put the average loss for systematic managers at around 1% over the worst 10-day window, but individual firm numbers tell a sharper story.
## Who got hit, and how hard
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Renaissance Technologies reported a loss of approximately 4% in the early days of January. Schonfeld’s quant strategies fell roughly 3.9%. Cubist was down around 2%. Qube, Man Group’s AHL division, Two Sigma, and Engineers Gate all felt the same headwinds.
The culprit was not a market-wide crash. The S&P 500 remained relatively buoyant during this period. What actually drove the losses was a combination of crowded positioning and a short squeeze in lower-quality stocks. Lower-quality, highly shorted equities surged, forcing funds that were short those positions to cover. That covering pressure drove prices even higher, which forced more covering.
## Context: 2025 was already a bruising year for systematic strategies
Quant funds spent much of 2025 underperforming, with a slow bleed of approximately 4.2% from June through July last year. October 2025 then delivered a sharper shock, particularly for Renaissance’s publicly available funds. When early January 2026 produced the worst 10-day performance since that October episode, it landed with added weight.
## What this means for investors watching systematic strategies
The core tension is that quant funds are most useful to institutional portfolios when they are uncorrelated to traditional equity beta. When quant funds lose money in a period when the S&P 500 is stable or rising, that uncorrelation argument gets harder to sustain. Crowded factor exposure is effectively a hidden beta: it looks like alpha until a lot of funds hit the exit simultaneously, at which point it behaves like a leveraged momentum trade that went wrong.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Systematic long-short equity managers, the algorithmic strategies that parse mountains of market data to find statistical edges, just posted their worst multi-day run since 2023.
According to Goldman Sachs prime brokerage data, the first half of January 2026 was the weakest period for systematic long-short equity managers since October 2025, with the cohort losing approximately 1% over a critical 10-day stretch. UBS went further, estimating that US-focused quant funds were down around 2.8% in the first two weeks of 2026 alone.
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Who got hit and how hard Renaissance Technologies saw its strategy down roughly 4% by early January. Schonfeld’s quant operation dropped approximately 3.9% through mid-month. Engineers Gate fell around 6%.
UBS identified one-day deleveraging events as a key driver, describing the unwinding as the sharpest seen since December 22, 2025.
This has happened before, recently In the summer of 2025, quant equity managers suffered their worst run since the end of 2023, with average losses approximating 4.2%. That episode was driven by momentum unwinds and a sharp rally in lower-quality stocks.
Crowded trades and violent reversals in factor-based positioning were cited repeatedly across the recent reports as the primary mechanics behind the losses.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
