A whale conducted a 1x leverage long position on 21,000 ZEC, worth approximately $8.44 million.

A crypto whale using the handle "先定 10 个大目标" posted on X, stating that his recent Bitcoin trades have all been short-term long positions—he hasn’t taken any short trades because shorting at this point offers poor cost-effectiveness. He added that Bitcoin is currently at a relative temporary bottom, and he anticipates the asset is about to break out and enter a new upward trend. Worried about missing the breakout signal, the long position of 69.4 BTC he opened on the 18th could be treated as a medium-to-long term trade, though he may adjust it based on market conditions and doesn’t rule out locking in short-term gains from fluctuations. He also noted a major correction in U.S. AI-related tech stocks is possible over the next six months.

According to data from @defioasis, among more than 194,000 unique trading addresses in Polymarket’s World Cup winner prediction market, nearly 130,000 addresses made incorrect predictions and suffered losses, accounting for 66.7% of the total. Of these losing addresses, 114,000 lost less than $100, with an average loss of under $10. A total of 43 addresses incurred losses exceeding $100,000, combining for over $15 million in total losses. On the profit front, most gains were under $100, with an average profit of less than $5. Large profits were concentrated among a small group of traders: 54 addresses successfully earned more than $100,000 each, totaling over $22 million in profits.

Zilliqa’s official statement notes that the project has learned of a security incident involving one of its centralized exchange (CEX) partners, resulting in the theft of some ZIL tokens from cold wallets. The incident remains under investigation, and the team is collaborating with relevant parties to identify the root cause and scope of impact. As a preventive step, Zilliqa has notified all CEXs to temporarily suspend ZIL deposits and withdrawals, to block stolen funds from being transferred or sold via centralized platforms. The project added that it will release further updates after verifying details, and reminded the community to only follow information published through official channels.

According to blockchain security firm SlowMist, the malicious TRAE IDE extension "juannegro.solidity" disguised as a Solidity plugin acts as a cross-platform malware dropper. The extension automatically executes upon IDE startup and establishes persistence. It leverages Ethereum smart contracts to store and retrieve dynamic command-and-control (C2) configurations, enabling attackers to update C2 endpoints and payloads without republishing the extension. Though the extension has been removed from Open VSX, it remained accessible via the TRAE marketplace as of July 18. Users who have installed it should delete it immediately and check their systems for potential compromise.

Tensions between the U.S. and Iran have reignited and persisted for several days, though both sides have so far remained restrained and rational. U.S. operations have focused primarily on targets linked to the Strait of Hormuz, while launching limited strikes on "soft" national infrastructure such as bridges and railways. Iran has responded by targeting U.S. assets in the region, including sites in Jordan and Saudi Arabia, but has not directly attacked Israel for now. The two sides have maintained an unspoken truce: the U.S. avoids hitting Iran’s core national infrastructure, and Iran has not expanded its actions to Israeli territory. Analysts say there is no clear timeline for when the current conflict will end. However, three main factors could drive Israel’s involvement in the future: First, the U.S. expanding its strike scope. If U.S. forces attack Iran’s nuclear facilities or ballistic missile programs—including the previously unmentioned key target Pickaxe Mountain—it could prompt Iran to widen its retaliation. Second, the two sides could escalate the conflict due to miscalculation. Either Israel or Iran might attempt to seize an advantage through sudden actions, triggering a larger-scale confrontation. Third, Israel could proactively seize a military opportunity to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities and missile capabilities, to fulfill the unachieved military objectives of Operation "Roaring Lion". Analysts note that Iran currently has no intention of dragging Israel into the conflict on its own initiative, as it is well aware of the military capabilities of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and its air force. It is widely believed that the rivalry between Iran, the U.S., and regional countries will continue, with this being just another phase in the long-term strategic game.

According to official announcements, Bitroot’s African community ecosystem round financing has been successfully completed. The subscription price for this round is $2 per BRT, primarily targeting African community builders and ecosystem participants, with the aim of advancing Bitroot’s community expansion, localized operations, and on-the-ground application scenarios in the African market. Bitroot is positioned as a high-performance parallelized EVM-based AI public chain, dedicated to providing infrastructure support for AI Agents, Real World Assets (RWAs), decentralized computing power, Physical AI, and high-frequency on-chain applications. According to public data, Bitroot’s testnet boasts a TPS of over 100,000, a block time of approximately 0.3 seconds, and has exceeded one million testnet addresses. Additionally, Bitroot is advancing exploration of RWA scenarios such as gold on-chain, and recently held a business exchange meeting with Tencent Cloud, where the two parties discussed areas including cloud infrastructure, AI computing power, Web3 technical services, and global ecosystem support. This African ecosystem expansion is regarded as a key milestone in Bitroot’s global strategy and the implementation of its AI public chain ecosystem.