The crypto industry has become the largest corporate political donor in the U.S., with $189 million already spent on the 2026 midterm elections.

OKX has officially launched the beta version of its AI platform OKX AI, which supports autonomous AI Agents to collaborate, take orders, and settle transactions in USDT or USDG stablecoins. The platform comprises two core modules: the Agent Marketplace allows developers to publish AI Agents, define services and pricing, and automatically earn revenue upon task completion; the Task Marketplace enables AI Agents to post tasks, source collaboration partners, and only pay fees once tasks are finished. Settlement on the platform follows two models based on task type: escrow settlement or on-demand instant payment. OKX notes that the platform’s key feature is a unified identity system for every AI Agent, allowing them to build consistent credibility across different tasks and payment modes, eliminating the need to establish separate credit records across multiple platforms. Multiple institutions including AltLayer, Amazon Web Services (AWS), CertiK, DAPPOS, Ethereum Foundation, Opentensor Foundation, Solana Foundation, and StraitsX have backed the launch of OKX AI.

Investment bank Jefferies stated in a recent report that the U.S. CLARITY Act still faces major legislative hurdles in the Senate, and progress on the related legislation in the coming weeks could intensify volatility in the crypto market. Jefferies noted that although the bill previously passed the Senate Banking Committee with a bipartisan vote of 15 to 9, with only around 20 legislative days remaining until Congress’s August recess, the Senate still needs to complete bill reconciliation, procedural votes, coordination with the House of Representatives’ version, and submission to the president for signing—leaving very little time. Polymarket data shows the probability of the bill passing by the end of 2026 has dropped to 48% from 70% in mid-May. Jefferies believes that if the bill is enacted smoothly, it will establish a clear regulatory framework for digital assets, pushing banks, asset management institutions, and exchanges to accelerate their deployment of tokenized assets, custody, staking, lending, and other businesses, while spurring more crypto ETFs and crypto infrastructure companies to go public via IPOs. If legislation is delayed, it could prolong regulatory uncertainty, leading traditional financial institutions to slow their advancement of blockchain-related operations. The report forecasts that the bill’s progress will continue to impact the market performance of crypto-related stocks including Circle (CRCL), Coinbase (COIN), and Bullish (BLSH), as well as select crypto assets. Jefferies also pointed out that in the long term, compared with regulatory changes, stablecoin issuer Circle faces a greater challenge from competition with banks, fintech firms, and payment companies.

Binance announced in a statement that to expand trading options and enhance user trading experience, Binance Futures will launch two U-margined perpetual contracts: The BTCU U-margined perpetual contract will go live at 09:00 UTC on July 1 with a maximum leverage of 100x; the ETHU U-margined perpetual contract will launch at 10:00 UTC on July 1, also with a maximum leverage of 100x. Both contracts use U as the settlement asset, with funding rates settled every 8 hours, a funding rate cap of ±0.375%, and support for multi-asset mode and copy trading features. Binance noted that it will dynamically adjust contract parameters including funding rates, maximum leverage, and margin requirements based on market risk conditions.

Nonprofit organization Sovright, founded by former members of Zcash’s original developer Electric Coin Company (ECC) governance team, has launched wallet recovery tool Argos to help early Zcash users retrieve assets from shielded addresses that became inaccessible after ZEC Wallet Lite ceased maintenance in 2022. Sovright Executive Chair Michelle Lai stated that users holding the original wallet mnemonic phrase can recover funds via Argos. While the exact number of affected addresses is unconfirmed, the involved funds are estimated to be substantial, primarily impacting Zcash’s early and long-term users. In addition to Argos, Sovright recently launched a testnet version of its Sovright Mining Pool, designed to help individual miners participate in mining and address Zcash’s overly concentrated hash rate issue. Sovright was established following a prior governance dispute between ECC and Zcash’s governance body Bootstrap. All former ECC staff left to form for-profit Zcash Open Development Lab (ZODL), while three former Bootstrap board members founded Sovright to continue advancing Zcash’s ecosystem on a nonprofit basis.

CNN reported on June 29 that three distinct shipping routes have emerged in the Strait of Hormuz. The first route is located in the northern part of the strait and controlled by Iran. The second runs through the central section, serving as the regular international shipping lane before disruptions to the Strait of Hormuz. The third lies in the southern part of the strait, passing through waters near Oman, and is operated in coordination by Oman, the United States, and the International Maritime Organization. Market analysis indicates that the differing management of these multiple routes has made shipping order in the Strait of Hormuz more complex.

According to CryptoRank data, Ethereum (ETH) fell 25.2% in Q2 2026, notching its third consecutive quarter of negative returns and setting the first-ever record of three straight quarterly declines in Ethereum’s history. The data shows that since 2020, Ethereum has posted gains in 16 out of 26 quarters, with an average quarterly return of 20.1%.