Bitcoin Surges Beyond $68,000

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has backed the Bank of Japan (BOJ) to raise interest rates in the near term, with the next move likely coming in September or October. The BOJ’s concerns over the weak yen pushing up prices, paired with the government’s desire to boost the effectiveness of recent joint U.S.-Japan foreign exchange market interventions, have aligned both sides on the necessity of a near-term rate hike. The Prime Minister’s Office holds that specific monetary policy measures, including rate hikes, should be decided by the BOJ, but the central bank should work closely with the government to achieve the 2% inflation target in a "stable manner." (Bloomberg)

According to Bitget market data, Hong Kong-listed Lenovo Group staged a sharp rally in the afternoon, jumping more than 12%. The company released its first-quarter financial results at noon: adjusted profit attributable to equity holders rose 176% year-on-year, while AI-related business revenue surged 60% year-on-year to 63.4 billion yuan, hitting a new all-time high.

The Bank of Korea has purchased gold-linked assets for the first time in 13 years to hedge against geopolitical and economic uncertainties. According to a filing submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), as of the end of the second quarter, the Bank of Korea held 679,765 shares of SPDR Gold Shares, valued at roughly $250 million. The document shows the central bank held no shares of the world’s largest physically backed gold ETF three months earlier. The Bank of Korea stated that this investment marks its first purchase of gold-linked assets since 2013. The purchase will not boost the central bank’s official gold reserves, as gold ETFs are classified as securities and fall under foreign exchange reserves. Choi Kyuho, an economist at Hanwha Investment & Securities, said: “The Bank of Korea’s current gold allocation is quite low. From the perspective of aligning with global standards, there is still room for the central bank to further purchase gold. I believe they will gradually increase their gold holdings.”

According to monitoring by Farside Investors, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded a net outflow of $61.1 million yesterday, with IBIT seeing a net outflow of $14.3 million and FBTC a net outflow of $46.8 million. U.S. spot Ethereum ETFs posted a net inflow of $7.4 million, all of which came from ETHA.

A residence in France’s Somme department was targeted by three groups of robbers in less than a month, who demanded cryptocurrency ransom from the current owner. The incident stems from the former resident’s past crypto wealth, as their financial information was allegedly leaked to the dark web. Notably, the current owner does not hold the relevant crypto assets, and one of the robberies even resulted in the victim being bound and beaten. Two men involved in the third break-in have recently been sentenced to 3 years and 18 months in prison respectively. (Protos)

L1 public blockchain Harmony tweeted that it is advancing a rollback plan and has reached an agreement with validators and exchanges on the specific implementation path. The fix for the minting vulnerability has been activated, and the full list of attacker wallets will be released soon. Earlier reports noted that the number of abnormally minted ONE tokens on the Harmony network exceeded 3 trillion, involving six anomalous blocks.