A whale deposited 5 million USDC and placed multiple orders in batches to open a 1x short position on Changxin Technology.

According to data from Farside Investors, on July 14, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded a total net inflow of $181.1 million the previous day. Among them, BlackRock’s IBIT saw a net inflow of $138.9 million, Fidelity’s FBTC $21.1 million, Bitwise’s BITB $3.5 million, ARK’s ARKB $3.6 million, Morgan Stanley’s MSBT $7.4 million, and BTC ETFs $6.6 million; flows for the remaining products were largely flat. U.S. spot Ethereum ETFs posted a total net inflow of $58.3 million, all from BlackRock’s ETHA, with all other ETFs registering zero net inflows that day.

Japan’s House of Councillors plenary session passed amendments to the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act and Payment Services Act on July 15, redefining crypto assets from payment instruments to financial products. Key revisions include: raising the maximum prison term for unregistered financial operations from under 3 years to under 10 years, and increasing the corresponding fine cap from under ￥3 million to under ￥10 million; introducing for the first time regulations on crypto asset insider trading, which ban transactions using non-public material information; and mandating annual information disclosure by specific crypto asset issuers. On the tax front, the system will shift from a maximum 55% comprehensive tax to separate declaration taxation (at a rate of around 20%), with loss carryforward allowed for up to three years. The reforms are scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2028. Additionally, the proposed amendments will establish a regulatory framework to support the launch of crypto asset ETFs.

Binance will add 10 bStocks tokenized securities as eligible collateral assets for cross-margin, unified account mode, and unified account pro at 21:30 (UTC+8) on July 15. The assets include Applied Optoelectronics (AAOIB), Arm (ARMB), Broadcom (AVGOB), Alibaba (BABAB), Robinhood (HOODB), IBM (IBMB), Marvell Technology (MRVLB), Nokia (NOKB), Rocket Lab (RKLBB), and TSMC (TSMB). Meanwhile, leveraged trading for these bStocks trading pairs will be enabled. Currently, these tokens are only supported as collateral assets, with borrowing functionality unavailable. This feature is exclusively open to VIP 3 and above users in approved jurisdictions, and does not apply to users in restricted regions.

According to Bitget market data, the Nikkei 225 index closed up 1,008.01 points on Wednesday, July 15, a 1.49% gain to end at 68,751.51 points. Individual stocks: Kioxia rose 5.4%, Ibiden gained 7.7%. South Korea’s KOSPI index closed up 427.58 points on the same day, a 6.24% increase, finishing at 7,284.41 points; the South Korean KOSDAQ index rose 5.79%. Individual stocks: SK Hynix rose 8.8%, Samsung Electronics gained 6.2%, and Hanmi Semiconductor jumped 29.8%.

According to Hyperinsight monitoring, the whale with an address starting with 0x4c7, which established short positions during the "fateful week" of South Korean semiconductor stocks, has now fully liquidated all short positions on SK Hynix (SKHX). The average entry price of the position was approximately $1,453. The closing trade amounted to around $9.0325 million, with an average closing price of roughly $1,424.47. The whale earned about $230,000 from this round of liquidation; adding earlier partial take-profits, its net profit totals approximately $560,000. On the midday of July 14, when SKHX dipped to a low of $1,146.40, the unrealized profit of the position once reached around $1.991 million. Following that, Hynix staged a strong rebound, causing the unrealized profit to shrink rapidly, leading the whale to finally exit its position near the break-even line. Separately, Whale Discovery reported that one major address shorted South Korean semiconductor stocks during that "fateful week", with combined short positions on Samsung and Hynix reaching $14.8 million.

Crypto market analyst gaah cited CryptoQuant data in a post, stating that the ratio of Bitcoin’s long-term holders (LTH) to short-term holders (STH) has climbed to a 30-month high. This metric measures the distribution of Bitcoin supply between long-term and short-term holders. The analysis notes that extreme highs in this indicator typically do not coincide with market euphoria peaks, but rather occur during the re-accumulation phase. Historically, bull market tops often form when this metric starts to drop from its high, not when it hits a new record. Currently, with BTC still around 50% below its previous all-time high, long-term holders are steadily absorbing circulating Bitcoin supply.