Analysis: Bitcoin block call options logged $1.65 billion in trading volume today, as traders are bullish on the cryptocurrency’s performance in the latter part of this month.

According to CNBC, Bank of America reiterated its 'Buy' rating on JPMorgan Chase stock and raised its price target for the firm from $408 to $420, implying roughly 21% upside from Wednesday’s closing price, following JPMorgan’s release of strong second-quarter results. JPMorgan’s adjusted earnings per share (EPS) for the second quarter came in at $6.14, beating Wall Street’s consensus estimate of $5.85; revenue totaled $52.42 billion, also exceeding the forecast of $50.19 billion. Bank of America analyst Ebrahim Poonawala noted that JPMorgan holds advantages in capital markets operations, AI capital expenditure, digital asset adoption, operating leverage, and capital flexibility, with its large-scale investments spanning branches, wealth management, and online banking in the UK and Europe. JPMorgan’s management also stated that the U.S. real economy has shown resilience amid multiple macroeconomic shocks. Bank of America believes that the resilience of consumers and businesses to the high-interest rate environment may continue to support JPMorgan’s performance and stock price. The stock has rallied nearly 8% so far this year.

According to a Reuters report, three sources disclosed that Iran has asked Yemen’s Houthi movement to prepare to close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait if the U.S. attacks Iran’s power infrastructure, which would pose a new major threat to global energy supplies. The plan has been discussed within Iran’s leadership, and the information has been conveyed to Iran’s Houthi allies. Sources added that the Houthis have recently received Tehran’s request, though they did not provide further details on how the request was communicated, nor confirm whether it was made following U.S. President Donald Trump’s Tuesday threat to strike Iran’s power infrastructure. (Source: Jinshi)

ARK Invest Research Director Lorenzo Valente published a paper refuting a16z crypto’s view that “traditional finance will adopt blockchain rather than DeFi”, arguing that institutions will increasingly rely on DeFi infrastructure in the future. Valente noted that public blockchains have outperformed private chain projects in real-world development, citing the growth of tokenized assets on open networks like Ethereum as evidence. He also argued that crypto-native firms such as Circle and Coinbase are better positioned than traditional financial institutions to build next-generation financial infrastructure. a16z crypto had previously stated that banks and asset management institutions would not directly adopt DeFi, but would instead opt for blockchain technologies that meet existing compliance, governance, and operational requirements—including features like tokenization and atomic settlement—while retaining permissioned systems and institutional control. Sentora co-founder Jesus Rodriguez also took issue with a16z’s stance, arguing that institutions could adopt DeFi’s underlying infrastructure and layer on compliance, custody, and other enterprise-level controls on top of it.

According to BIT (bit.com) market data, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) saw its pre-market trading drop 4.64%, currently changing hands at $400. Earlier, TSMC announced that its capital expenditure over the next three years will be significantly higher than the prior three-year period, with a full-year capital expenditure forecast of $60 billion to $64 billion, up from the previous estimate of $52 billion to $56 billion. The chipmaker also plans to add $100 billion in investment in Arizona, United States. TSMC released its Q2 2026 financial results today: net profit surged 77% year-on-year to NT$706.6 billion, marking a record high and beating market expectations; Q2 revenue rose 36% year-on-year to NT$1.27 trillion, with high-performance computing (HPC) segment revenue increasing 20% quarter-on-quarter.

According to an official announcement, Binance’s derivatives platform will launch the following perpetual contracts at the specified times: - July 17, 2026, 11:00 (UTC+8): MINIMAXUSDT USDT-denominated perpetual contract; - July 17, 2026, 11:05 (UTC+8): ZHIPUUSDT USDT-denominated perpetual contract; - July 17, 2026, 11:10 (UTC+8): HK0700USDT (Tencent) quanto perpetual contract; - July 17, 2026, 11:15 (UTC+8): HK1810USDT (Xiaomi) quanto perpetual contract; - July 17, 2026, 13:00 (UTC+8): TENCENTUSDT USDT-denominated perpetual contract. Quanto perpetual contracts allow users to trade non-USD-denominated stocks in local currencies without any foreign exchange conversion. These contracts are priced in local currencies (such as Hong Kong dollars or Japanese yen), but settlement and profit/loss payouts are made in USDT, eliminating cross-currency exchange rate volatility risks.

According to market data from BIT (bit.com), U.S. pre-market semiconductor stocks are broadly lower. Arm fell 4.70%, TSMC dropped 4.52%, Marvell Technology declined 3.77%, AMD fell 3.25%, Lam Research dropped 3.12%, and Nvidia slipped 1.62%. The storage sector led losses, with Western Digital down 7.13%, SK Hynix ADR falling 6.66%, SanDisk dropping 6.69%, Seagate Technology down 5.46%, and Micron Technology declining 4.11%. Optical communication-related stocks weakened across the board: Astera Labs fell 4.45%, Coherent dropped 4.43%, Corning declined 4.19%, Applied Optoelectronics fell 3.98%, Nokia dropped 3.82%, and Credo fell 3.61%.