A South Korean lawmaker criticizes single-stock leveraged ETFs, stating that the country has turned into a casino.

Bernstein cuts Circle’s price target from $190 to $140, while maintaining an Outperform rating. Analyst Gautam Chhugani noted that the Open USD Alliance—backed by over 140 institutions including Visa, Mastercard and Stripe—poses a smaller threat to Circle than the market had anticipated. As of July 28, Circle closed at $64.32.

Renowned crypto trader 0xLeaf (@3ethtomoon) posted on X today that he is experiencing the "darkest moment of his life," noting he has lost roughly $60 million over the past month, wiping out all his crypto holdings. According to public records, 0xLeaf entered the crypto space around 2021, scoring multiple 100x gains by trading meme coins including BOME, MOONDENG, ACT, PNUT, and TRUMP. After the TRUMP coin rally, his centralized exchange (CEX) account once peaked at $6 million. However, this year’s extreme AI-driven market trend has left the prominent trader reeling. Market volatility is an inherent part of trading, and downturns often serve as opportunities for reflection and consolidation. We hope these traders, who have delivered impressive results in the past, can regain their rhythm amid adjustments and continue writing their own stories moving forward.

Crypto wallet protocol Safe’s latest report shows it processed nearly 130 million transactions in the second quarter, with over 63 million total accounts created to date, a 20% year-over-year increase. Roughly $1 of every $48 in global stablecoin supply is held in Safe. However, its revenue for the quarter dropped to around $1.98 million, down from $2.88 million in the first quarter, a decline likely tied to pressure on cryptocurrency prices. The report notes that consumer applications on World Chain and Polygon contributed the majority of Safe’s transaction volume this quarter, with World App accounting for 52% and Polymarket making up 35.7%. Additionally, the beta version of Safe’s on-chain security network Safenet, launched in April, had processed 456,000 transaction checks by the end of the quarter, secured by staked SAFE tokens, with around 54.8 million tokens currently staked. (The Block)

MoonPay launches AI payment tool PayBox, which users can integrate with ChatGPT or Claude to let AI assistants directly process payment transactions including flight bookings, restaurant reservations, and online shopping. Users can opt to require passkey approval for every transaction, or set a spending limit for AI to complete transactions autonomously. PayBox integrates crypto wallets and payment cards, supporting cross-chain transactions based on the x402 agent payment standard, with initial support for Solana and EVM-compatible blockchains. MoonPay noted that wallet private keys are protected via multi-party computation (MPC) and trusted execution environment (TEE), meaning no single party can independently access the full private key or sign transactions. Over the coming month, the platform will expand support for additional AI platforms and DeFi features such as token swaps.

JPMorgan said in a morning research note that the sharp deleveraging process in South Korea’s market since mid-June indicates that liquidations of leveraged ETFs are largely complete, with hedge funds having completed roughly 90% of their operations and related ratios returning to more acceptable levels. JPMorgan strategists including Mixo Das wrote in the report that overall, current positioning in South Korea’s stock market is quite attractive, with low valuations and strong earnings growth momentum. "Amid the market pullback, the size of this capital has now fallen to $170 billion," the report noted, adding that the previous rapid inflow of large amounts of capital into leveraged ETFs has slowed significantly in recent days. However, the recent sharp stock plunge could still trigger further deleveraging in the coming days. Meanwhile, given the risk of interest rate hikes at the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting and market expectations for upcoming earnings reports from mega-cap tech companies, many investors remain cautious.

Jiang Zhuoer, founder of BTC mining pool BTC.TOP, stated in a post that with the U.S. Federal Reserve’s FOMC interest rate decision meeting just 5 hours away, there remains a massive divergence in market pricing on rate hikes: 65% expect no hike, while 35% predict a hike. Typically, futures market pricing aligns closely on the eve of such meetings, making this level of disagreement extremely rare in recent years—an "outlier" level of divergence. Jiang’s personal forecast scenario is: the Fed will hold interest rates steady, but Fed Governor Waller will adopt a hawkish stance to balance the market. The crypto price will first surge to liquidate short positions, then plunge to liquidate long positions. Additionally, Jiang warned to watch out for the "FOMC curse" effect in the crypto market, noting that Bitcoin has fallen following all 8 past FOMC meetings.