Report: Rug Pull Incidents in the Crypto Space Have Decreased, but Their Impact Has Grown

Serenity noted in a report that stocks related to AI cloud and data centers have rebounded sharply. IREN rose 19.69% after the company raised its annual recurring revenue target to over $4 billion following the signing of a new AI cloud services contract; its current clients include Microsoft, NVIDIA, Perplexity, and Figure. Hut 8 (HUT) gained 10.45% after signing a 15-year, $9.8 billion AI data center lease agreement. Cipher Mining (CIFR) climbed 16.76%, CleanSpark (CLSK) advanced 13.7%, and WhiteFiber (WYFI) added 9.18%. In contrast, Nebius (NBIS) and CoreWeave (CRWV) have not seen significant gains so far. Serenity believes that driven by catalysts including news of Kimi’s computing power shortage and new contracts, emerging AI cloud service providers and data center hosting firms are witnessing a clear recovery.

According to Bloomberg, South Korea’s KOSPI index has posted a volatility of over 60% this year, nearly twice that of Japan’s Nikkei 225 index and even higher than Bitcoin’s. South Korean exchanges have triggered circuit breakers seven times so far this year through mid-July, compared to zero times in 2025 and just once in 2024. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix together hold over 50% of the KOSPI index’s weighting, making index funds largely a concentrated bet on AI chip performance. When the KOSPI hit an all-time high at the end of June, over 650 of its 831 constituent stocks still fell, underscoring the index’s heavy reliance on a small group of large chip stocks. South Korea’s leveraged ETFs have also expanded rapidly. Goldman Sachs data shows assets of South Korean leveraged ETFs tracking indices and individual stocks have surged from $5 billion at the start of the year to over $40 billion. These products, along with Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, account for over 70% of South Korea’s daily stock trading volume, further amplifying price volatility. South Korean regulators suspended the listing of new individual-stock leveraged products on July 16. This year, South Korean retail investors have poured more than 100 trillion won into KOSPI stocks, while foreign investors have net sold roughly $108 billion in the same period, including over $40 billion withdrawn from SK Hynix. Goldman Sachs flags leveraged ETFs as a major risk to closely monitor in South Korea’s current market.

A crypto contract whale, who "set 10 major goals first", has posted on social media about its Bitcoin trade: it went long on the leading cryptocurrency with 4x leverage, with unrealized profit once surpassing $4.5 million, delivering a 7.12% return on investment. Earlier, the whale noted in a post that recent trades have been dominated by short-term long positions, with no short positions opened so far. Currently, the risk-reward ratio for shorting Bitcoin is low, as the asset is relatively near its phased bottom. Its subsequent trend may gradually emerge and kick off a new upward rally, prompting the whale to avoid missing the potential entry signal. The current position may be held for medium and long term, but adjustments will still be made based on market conditions, and further short-term trading is not ruled out. Additionally, a large-scale correction in U.S. AI-related tech stocks over the next six months is not ruled out.

According to monitoring by Lookonchain, a newly created wallet withdrew 74,033 ETH (valued at $136.17 million) from Gemini and staked all of it.

The U.S. military has carried out airstrikes on Iran for the 10th consecutive day. Trump stated that Iran will "pay the price" for the recent deaths of U.S. service members. Meanwhile, the Iran-backed Houthi movement in Yemen announced a blockade of Red Sea shipping lanes leading to Saudi Arabia, further escalating regional tensions. This week, major tech companies including Tesla and Google will release their second-quarter earnings results one after another. Markets will focus on whether these reports can validate the rationale behind large-scale AI investments via revenue and profit performance. Against the backdrop of ongoing Middle East tensions and the approaching tech earnings season, the three major U.S. stock indexes closed lower on Monday, marking their third consecutive session of declines. According to market data from BIT (bit.com), the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.59%, the S&P 500 dropped 0.19%, and the Nasdaq Composite declined 0.05%. Both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 fell back below their 50-day moving averages. The sell-off in chip stocks paused, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rising more than 3% at one point before paring gains to around 0.6%. Among individual chip stocks: Marvell Technology (MRVL) rose 3.32%, Intel (INTC) gained 2.13%, Broadcom (AVGO) increased 1.98%, KLA Corporation (KLAC) fell 2.42%, and Lam Research (LRCX) dropped 2.09%. Optical communication-related stocks mostly advanced: Credo Technology (CRDO) climbed 4.63%, Lumentum (LITE) gained 4.47%, Marvell Technology (MRVL) rose 3.32%, Coherent (COHR) increased 2.82%, and Broadcom (AVGO) added 1.98%. The storage sector strengthened, with SanDisk (SNDK) up 2.67%, Western Digital (WDC) gaining 2.14%, Micron Technology (MU) rising 1.94%, and Seagate Technology (STX) adding 1.88%.

According to market data from BIT (bit.com), SpaceX’s native token SPCX closed 3.34% lower on Monday, trading at $119.85, hitting a new all-time low since its listing. SpaceX was scheduled to launch a Falcon 9 rocket on July 20 to transport 24 Starlink satellites, but the launch suffered a rare failure: after the countdown reached zero, the engine ignited but the rocket failed to liftoff, with the live stream commentator immediately announcing the launch was canceled, marking the second aborted mission in recent times. SpaceX subsequently announced it would suspend all Starlink launches with immediate effect to ensure safety. Additionally, SpaceX said it will release its Q2 2026 financial and operational results on August 4. Last week, the company’s Starship rocket was set to conduct its 13th test flight from Texas, but triggered an automatic abort sequence just 1 second before liftoff. Source: Jin10