Hong Kong-listed Kuaishou rose over 7% after Keling AI completed approximately $3 billion in financing.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has released a new research paper titled "The Extremely Lean Chain," proposing a drastically streamlined design for Ethereum’s consensus layer. The plan leverages "Lean" upgrades including single-slot finality, recursive STARK proofs, and quantum-resistant signature aggregation to significantly reduce consensus chain state storage requirements, shifting most state management and zero-knowledge (ZK) proof responsibilities to validators. Vitalik argues that this proposal would eliminate the Beacon Chain’s current complex periodic state processing workflows, drastically cut system overhead, enable Ethereum to scale to millions of validators in the future, and also improve validator anonymity. Per the design, validators no longer need to store large amounts of data such as public keys, withdrawal credentials, activation and exit records on-chain long-term; instead, they only retain minimal core state like effective balances and public key indexes, while the rest of the data is submitted and verified periodically via STARK proofs. The proposal also introduces mechanisms like daily balance update proofs, ZK-STARK privacy protection, and daily re-randomization of validator identities, which enhance network scalability while further boosting privacy and censorship resistance. Vitalik noted that with an approximately one-day proof period, the scheme can complete proof generation on regular hardware, reduce on-chain burden through proof aggregation, and provide a new technical roadmap for the long-term expansion of Ethereum’s consensus layer.

According to official announcements, the 2026 trading competition "Island Project"—jointly hosted by Deribit and SignalPlus—has officially launched. The event features a total prize pool of up to 600,000 USDC, marking the first time a private island is offered as the grand prize. Multiple winning tracks are open, including daily trading, block trading, and referral rewards, allowing participants to start competing for rewards immediately. Key highlights: 1. Registration: All participants can claim a free option. 2. Balance: Users maintaining a balance of ≥0.1 USDC are eligible for a draw to win a 600 USDC action camera. 3. Block trading: Block trading fees are reduced by 30%–50%, with an additional post-event draw for a 2,000 USDC luxury vacation. 4. Daily trading: 100% of daily traders win rewards, plus a draw for a 60,000 USDC private island in Finland. 5. Referral: Referring friends guarantees rewards, with an additional post-event draw for a 30,000 USDC private island in Canada. The competition runs from July 6 to August 11 (UTC+8, deadline 7:59). Registration details are available in the official announcement.

According to BIT (bit.com) market data, in pre-market trading for U.S. stocks, large-cap tech stocks rose broadly, with Micron Technology up over 3%, SanDisk up more than 5%, and Intel up over 2%.

JP Morgan has adopted a conservative outlook on gold's short-term performance, slashing its Q4 2026 gold price forecast by 25% to $4,500 per ounce, down from its earlier target of roughly $6,000. The U.S. bank also projects an average gold price of $4,300 for the third quarter of this year. The revision is primarily attributed to weak demand in gold's key purchasing segments, paired with gold's heightened sensitivity to real interest rate fluctuations, which has capped short-term upside potential. The institution forecasts gold prices will trade in a range for the remainder of the year, with a recovery rally only materializing after an improvement in the macroeconomic backdrop.

SK Hynix plans to raise 43 trillion won (approximately $280.69 billion) through an ADR listing.

According to Bitget market data, the Nikkei 225 index closed down 6.38 points, or 0.01%, at 69,737.69 points on July 6 (Monday). South Korea’s KOSPI index fell 37.01 points, or 0.46%, to end at 8,051.33 points on the same day, having rallied nearly 3% at the opening.