Over 320,000 retail leveraged accounts in South Korea were forcibly liquidated by securities firms, with some investors still owing funds to their brokers after the liquidations.

According to a study cited by Fortune, the rapid expansion of AI data centers in the United States has driven a sharp rise in public power costs. PJM Market Monitor, the entity overseeing power grids across 14 U.S. Mid-Atlantic and Midwest states, projects that the additional power demand from data centers will lead to power users bearing roughly $230 billion in extra costs, an impact that will persist through at least the end of 2028. The report notes that while multiple major tech companies have committed to covering the costs of new power infrastructure, since public utility expenses such as transmission lines, substations and grid upgrades are typically shared uniformly by regulators, some costs may still be passed on to residential and general commercial users. The study also points out that some data centers can reduce their power usage during grid peak periods by flexibly adjusting their load, thereby cutting their share of grid costs allocated based on peak load. However, they still consume large volumes of electricity, meaning their actual cost burden may be lower than the strain they exert on the grid. Analysts believe that as AI infrastructure construction continues to accelerate, issues such as power cost allocation mechanisms, data center power pricing and rising residential electricity rates are emerging as key challenges facing U.S. energy regulators.

According to an official announcement, Binance will delist and halt trading for four spot trading pairs—GLM/BTC, KNC/BTC, ONT/BTC, and XAI/USDC—at 03:00 UTC on July 17. The exchange stated that this adjustment is based on results of its regular reviews, with key factors including trading pair liquidity and trading volume. Corresponding spot trading bot services will also be terminated at the same time; users are required to update or cancel their related strategies in advance to avoid potential losses. Binance emphasized that only the above-mentioned spot trading pairs are being delisted, and the move does not affect trading of the relevant tokens on other spot trading pairs available on Binance.

Goldman Sachs’ latest research report points out that the recent sharp volatility in global tech stocks is mainly driven by liquidity deleveraging triggered by highly leveraged transactions, rather than a deterioration in the semiconductor industry’s fundamentals. The U.S. investment bank noted that newly launched single-stock 2x leveraged ETFs in South Korea have amplified market volatility, with multiple leveraged ETFs tracking Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix once posting single-day declines of over 30% recently. To maintain their leverage ratios, the funds were forced to offload underlying stocks, creating a liquidity stampede feedback loop of "price drops → forced selling → deeper declines." Goldman Sachs estimates that around 62% of recent net selling by South Korean institutional investors comes from the liquidation of these ETFs. Meanwhile, the Leuthold Group pointed out that the U.S. margin balance has risen by roughly 54% over the past 12 months, entering a historically high range. Leveraged funds are heavily concentrated in the AI and semiconductor sectors, making the market structure more fragile. However, Goldman Sachs believes the semiconductor industry has not yet reached its cycle peak. The firm noted that earnings expectations for Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix have not been revised down. Limited expansion of memory chip production capacity means supply tightness is expected to persist until the second half of 2028, and the current pullback is more a position adjustment than a fundamental reversal of the industry.

According to on-chain data platform Arkham’s monitoring, U.S. government-associated wallets transferred approximately $288 million in seized crypto assets to Coinbase Prime on Monday. The sum includes 2,875 BTC (valued at around $178 million) from the seized address linked to Ryan Farace’s "xanaxman" case, and 925.512 BTC (about $57 million) from the closed BTC-e exchange case—both were routed through newly created intermediate addresses before reaching Coinbase Prime. Separately, a wallet tied to the Brian Krewson money laundering case directly sent 30,007 ETH (worth roughly $53.09 million) to the platform. The transfer follows a March 2025 executive order signed by Trump, which mandates that seized Bitcoin for the strategic Bitcoin reserve should not be sold in principle. Notably, the funds’ transfer to Coinbase Prime does not signal a sale, as the platform provides services including custody, financing, and asset management. As of press time, U.S. government-related wallets hold approximately $20.65 billion in crypto assets, comprising 324,552 BTC, 28,394 ETH, and 145.5 million USDT. The latest transfer represents only a small fraction of their total holdings.

BlackRock’s U.S. institutional digital liquidity fund BUIDL has reached an on-chain assets under management (AUM) of approximately $2.93 billion, continuously hitting new all-time highs, reflecting sustained growing demand among institutional investors for tokenized U.S. Treasury products. Currently, BUIDL is deployed across multiple public blockchains including Ethereum, Avalanche, and Solana, with Securitize handling its tokenized issuance and BNY Mellon providing custody services. Data shows Ethereum remains BUIDL’s largest deployed network, holding over $1 billion in locked assets; Avalanche has seen the fastest recent growth, with its asset size doubling in a single week of July to roughly $900 million, while Solana’s on-chain assets exceed $550 million. Reports note that BUIDL primarily invests in U.S. Treasuries, repurchase agreements, and cash equivalents, maintaining a $1 net asset value (NAV) per share and offering an annualized yield of around 3% to 5%. As more DeFi protocols adopt BUIDL as collateral and liquidity assets, its use cases are expanding beyond institutional cash management to on-chain financial infrastructure. Market analysts view BUIDL’s rapid expansion as a key case of convergence between traditional finance (TradFi) and blockchain, driving continued growth in the global tokenized Real World Asset (RWA) market.

Gold prices have fallen roughly 25% from their year-to-date all-time high, weighed down by elevated interest rates, a strong U.S. dollar, and higher energy prices that have lifted holding costs, leaving the metal under notable short-term pressure. However, multiple market participants argue that this correction has not altered gold’s long-term investment thesis. Paul Wong, a market strategist at Sprott, attributes the recent gold decline to a stronger U.S. dollar, rising expectations of Federal Reserve rate hikes, and concentrated liquidations by quantitative funds. He notes that the current gold price drop has significantly outpaced the actual rise in the dollar and short-term interest rates, indicating that the headwinds from high rates and a strong greenback have been largely priced in. Wong points out that while a stronger dollar tends to weigh on gold in the short term, over the long run, the stronger the U.S. currency, the greater the global incentive to seek alternative reserve assets to the dollar, which in turn boosts gold’s strategic standing as a neutral reserve asset. Against a backdrop of widening global fiscal deficits, central banks’ continued gold purchases, and rising geopolitical fragmentation, gold is gradually evolving from a mere inflation hedge into a currency hedge, reserve asset, and even a potential international financial collateral. He believes that gold and the U.S. dollar could strengthen in tandem over the long term for different reasons: the dollar benefits from its core role in the global financial system, while gold benefits from the trend toward diversification of global reserve assets. However, at the cyclical level, gold prices still tend to maintain an inverse correlation with the U.S. Dollar Index.