Intel will invest 5 billion euros to expand its factory in Ireland.

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) plans to demonstrate blockchain-powered real-time stock trading processes this Wednesday. Market participants believe this technology can streamline the clearing, settlement, and record-keeping workflows underlying Wall Street stock trades, boosting capital market operational efficiency. The test is viewed as a key step for traditional financial systems in exploring on-chain securities infrastructure. However, the project remains limited in scale during its initial phase. After years of research and development, DTCC—one of the largest U.S. securities clearing institutions—this demonstration is more of a verification exercise rather than a full-scale push to migrate the entire stock market to blockchain. Analysts note that while tokenized securities and on-chain settlement are seen as having the potential to reduce costs and enhance trading efficiency, migrating traditional financial infrastructure to blockchain still faces challenges including regulation, compliance, system compatibility, and coordination among market participants. Earlier, Joseph Spiro, DTCC’s Director of Digital Asset Products, said in a May webinar that DTCC plans to launch its tokenized services this year, will demonstrate relevant use cases in a production environment in July, and officially roll out the service in October.

U.S. stock market opens: Dow Jones rises 0.08%, S&P 500 falls 0.32%, Nasdaq declines 0.73%. Tech stocks are mostly lower, with SK Hynix (SKHY.O) dropping over 8%, SanDisk (SNDK.O) down more than 6%, Micron Technology (MU.O) falling 5%, Qualcomm (QCOM.O) down 1%, and Intel (INTC.O) declining 4%.

CryptoRank data shows Coinbase Ventures, with 30 investments completed in H1 2026, is the most active crypto venture capital firm. Animoca Brands, a16z, and Tether followed with 19, 18, and 15 investments respectively. Over the past 12 months, Coinbase Ventures has closed a total of 75 investments, ranking first in the industry, followed by Animoca Brands, YZi Labs (formerly Binance Labs), GSR, and a16z. Despite the crypto market remaining in a slump, industry financing volumes continue to shrink. Total funding for crypto firms fell to $1.4 billion in June, a 63% drop from $3.8 billion in April; the number of financing rounds also decreased from 89 in May to 61. Meanwhile, the number of independent investment firms participating in deals dropped from 452 in October 2025 to 242 in June this year. By sector, DeFi, payments, and AI remain the most capital-favored segments over the past year, with 216, 131, and 128 financing rounds respectively. Coinbase Ventures has focused its investments on payment protocols, DeFi, infrastructure, and RWA tokenization projects.

After the U.S. Congress reconvened, the Clarity Act (Crypto Market Structure Act) has entered a critical legislative window. Industry insiders say the next four weeks will determine whether the bill can complete Senate review before Congress adjourns in August and be formally enacted this year. According to reports, the Senate is expected to release this week the latest version of the bill, which integrates texts from the Senate Banking Committee and Agriculture Committee. Currently, the bill faces two core sticking points: one is the final language of the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act concerning regulatory liability for non-custodial software developers; the other is ethical provisions on conflicts of interest among government officials, particularly those related to Trump’s crypto business. Sources familiar with the matter noted that the White House and Congress have yet to reach an agreement on the ethical provisions, a key factor in the bill’s effort to hit the 60-vote threshold. Alex Thorn, head of research at Galaxy Digital, said the next four weeks could be the Clarity Act’s last chance to pass in the current congressional session; if the bill fails to become law, the U.S. may further lag behind overseas markets in the race for digital asset innovation.

Key pre-market news for U.S. stocks is as follows: 1. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and Goldman Sachs will kick off Q2 earnings reports on Tuesday, while Morgan Stanley will release its results on Wednesday. Markets expect U.S. large banks’ investment banking and trading revenues to surge, driven by SpaceX’s IPO, rising M&A activity, and market volatility sparked by the Iran situation; 2. Trump claimed Iran always breaks agreements, so the U.S. will strike hard at Iran, take control of the strait, and likely dominate it in the future; 3. SK Hynix’s U.S. ADR trades at a 23.4% premium to its South Korean shares; 4. Semiconductor equipment and storage sectors fell across the board pre-market, with KLAC down 3.7%, SanDisk and Western Digital both dropping over 5%; 5. Spot gold and silver fell broadly, with gold down 1.32% and silver down 2.23%; 6. Crude oil markets fell broadly, with U.S. crude up 3.35% and Brent crude up 3.53%; 7. Strategy did not add to its Bitcoin holdings last week, selling 4.82 million units to raise $467 million; 8. Bitmine added 27,801 ETH to its holdings last week, bringing its total staked ETH to 4.917 million, with an estimated annual staking income of $242 million.

According to data from the Korea Financial Investment Association, the recent sharp decline in South Korea's stock market has triggered accelerated deleveraging of margin trading positions. The total forced liquidation volume in July has reached 344.2 billion won, with the single-day forced liquidation amount on July 9 hitting 142.2 billion won. As forced liquidation data lags by two trading days, the clearing pressure from the nearly 9% plunge in the KOSPI on July 13 has not yet been fully reflected, and the market expects subsequent liquidation volumes to rise further. On July 13, South Korea's KOSPI index closed down 8.95%, triggering the Sidecar (seller order suspension mechanism) and Level 1 Circuit Breaker during intraday trading. The semiconductor sector plummeted, with SK Hynix falling 15.37%—its largest single-day drop in history—and Samsung Electronics down 10.7%. Meanwhile, South Korean retail investors' margin sizes, margin loan balances, and investor deposits have all continued to decline, with the market trapped in a deleveraging cycle of "stock price drop—forced liquidation—further decline".