Coinbase will cease support for USDC deposits and withdrawals on the Noble network starting August 17.

According to the Financial Times, JPMorgan Chase terminated its banking services relationship with prediction market platform Polymarket last October over regulatory concerns, but has not fully cut off business ties with the firm and is currently pursuing the opportunity to underwrite Polymarket’s future initial public offering (IPO). Sources familiar with the matter said Polymarket was barred from serving U.S. customers in 2022 due to an enforcement action by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), prompting JPMorgan to request the firm find a new banking partner. Polymarket has since partnered with a new bank, whose name has not been disclosed. Even so, JPMorgan continues to maintain business dealings with Polymarket. In February this year, the bank also invited Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan to attend a private banking client conference in Miami, where he delivered a speech alongside former NFL star Tom Brady. Sources said JPMorgan aims to retain the possibility of underwriting Polymarket’s future IPO. Polymarket stated that it still maintains a "close, active relationship" with JPMorgan across multiple entities, operational integrations, and client fund processing, adding that any claims to the contrary are a serious misrepresentation of their ties. In recent years, prediction markets have expanded rapidly and drawn ongoing regulatory scrutiny. Since 2026, platforms including Polymarket and Kalshi have faced legal actions from multiple U.S. states over allegations of operating illegal sports betting, though both companies argue they function as exchanges that match buyers and sellers rather than betting operators. According to aggregated data from Dune users, the nominal trading volume of prediction markets has exceeded $250 billion since 2026. Meanwhile, Polymarket is seeking to raise over $1 billion in funding, targeting a $20 billion valuation—more than double the roughly $8 billion valuation from its previous funding round in 2025.

AI investor Leopold Aschenbrenner’s Situational Awareness fund nearly liquidated its entire public market stock position in late July, retaining only its private equity stake in Anthropic. It is reported that Citadel, owned by Ken Griffin, acquired most of the stock assets sold by the fund. Situational Awareness once managed up to $45 billion in assets, but after incurring losses in AI infrastructure-related stocks, the fund significantly cut its public equity positions. With nearly all public stocks sold, Anthropic became the only core holding left untouched. According to reports, Aschenbrenner’s July investor letter cited Anthropic’s potential IPO as a key catalyst. Anthropic is one of the world’s most valuable private AI companies; an eventual IPO would give early investors an opportunity to exit and realize returns. Analysts believe that Aschenbrenner’s decision to retain his Anthropic stake amid sharp corrections in AI infrastructure stocks reflects his continued confidence in Anthropic and his own long-term investment thesis on AGI. Anthropic is not yet publicly traded, so retail investors cannot directly trade its shares. The main public market proxies for exposure to Anthropic include Amazon and NVIDIA, both of which have invested heavily in AI infrastructure.

Washington state court has issued a final ruling ordering prediction market platform Kalshi to cease offering event contracts in the state covering sports, elections, politics, entertainment, culture, technology, science, and "person mentions". The court found Kalshi is likely violating Washington’s gambling regulations. Kalshi is required to implement geoblocking via IP addresses and user residency by August 19, and upgrade to a multi-source geofencing system by September 2 to block Washington state users from accessing restricted markets. The platform is also prohibited from promoting related betting products to consumers in the state. However, the ruling does not restrict all of Kalshi’s operations; contracts related to commodities, climate, and economic and financial instruments may still be offered in Washington. The decision stems from a prior lawsuit filed by Washington state. Kalshi had previously requested a stay of the injunction, but the Washington State Court of Appeals denied the request. Meanwhile, multiple U.S. states and local governments are questioning whether Kalshi’s event contracts constitute illegal gambling under state law, while Kalshi argues its business should be regulated by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) per federal law. On the same day, Baltimore, Maryland’s largest city, also sued Kalshi and Polymarket, accusing them of offering illegal gambling products. Kalshi faces growing regulatory pressure from state and local authorities.

Recently, Web3 AI ecosystem network X-Agent announced the official launch of the "X-Agent AI MCP Hackathon 2026: Build, Verify, MCPize, Monetize" online hackathon. Open to global developers and Web3 AI teams, the event aims to break the limitation of projects being "only a demo" by creating realistically callable, verifiable AI APIs and on-chain capabilities with sustainable monetization potential. Featuring zero-threshold standardization, it covers everything from APIs to Agent business tools. The hackathon runs for nearly 4 weeks, including a 5-day warm-up period and a 14-day development phase. Participants do not need to build complex MCP (Model Context Protocol) frameworks from scratch; they only need to develop core AI or crypto functions based on APIs and submit their source code. Projects that pass technical verification and security audits will be standardized and packaged into MCP tools aligned with Agent architecture with X-Agent’s assistance. A key benefit of the hackathon is direct access to the OKX.AI ecosystem, enabling pay-per-call monetization. High-quality winning projects will be recommended by X-Agent and listed on the OKX.AI Agent Marketplace. Via the A2MCP and x402 protocols (integrating OKX X Layer’s gas-free on-chain USDC settlement channel), developers will earn continuous pay-per-call revenue every time another AI Agent or user uses their tool. The event includes four major tracks focused on AI, Web3, and on-chain automation. The official notes that to ensure ecosystem security, security audit-related projects involving smart contract audits, security risk control, phishing detection, and rug pull checks are not eligible for participation.

According to an official announcement, Bitget has launched the ANET (Arista Networks) stock perpetual contract. The contract is settled in USDT, supports up to 20x leverage, and is available for 24/7 trading. As of now, Bitget supports a total of 272 stock contracts.

Sandisk (SNDK.O)'s upbeat outlook boosted optimism about long-term profits from the AI boom, lifting Asian storage chip stocks. Shares of Sandisk partner Kioxia Holdings jumped as much as 8.7% in Tokyo, while memory chip maker SK Hynix rose 6.5% in Seoul. The Bloomberg Asia Semiconductor Index climbed as much as 1.6%, on track for its fifth consecutive session of gains. Sandisk previously said it expects revenue growth of 15% to 20% between 2028 and 2030, driven by long-term pricing agreements signed with customers. Andrew Jackson, head of Japanese equity strategy at Ortus Advisors, wrote: "A few years ago, it would have been unheard of for NAND flash manufacturers to issue such accurate long-term forecasts. Compared with more volatile spot memory prices, long-term agreements could help smooth out the classic boom-bust cycle."