South Korea's National Police Agency has selected Upbit's parent company to hold and manage seized virtual assets under a 1-year contract.

According to BIT (bit.com) market data, U.S. pre-market trading on Friday saw simultaneous gains across the semiconductor, memory, and optical communications sectors. Semiconductor stocks edged higher: Lam Research (LRCX) rose 1.22%, Intel (INTC) gained 1.17%, Applied Materials (AMAT) added 1.43%, and Arm (ARM) climbed 1.77%. The memory sector strengthened, with SK Hynix (SKHY) up 0.21%, Micron Technology (MU) rising 1.28%, Western Digital (WDC) advancing 2.1%, SanDisk (SNDK) climbing 2.15%, and Seagate Technology (STX) up 0.94%. Optical communications-related stocks led the gains, with Astera Labs (ALAB) up 2.36%, Applied Optoelectronics (AAOI) surging 15.5%, Coherent (COHR) rising 5.07%, Credo (CRDO) gaining 2.07%, and Lumentum (LITE) advancing 4.91%.

Microchip Technology (MCHP.O) gained 9% in pre-market trading after forecasting second-quarter revenue and profit both beating expectations.

According to monitoring by Onchain Lens, Chainlink repurchased 139,956.08 LINK tokens today, worth approximately $1.13 million, and transferred these tokens to its reserve wallet. Currently, Chainlink’s reserve wallet holds 5.35 million LINK tokens, valued at around $43.9 million, with an average acquisition cost of $11.19 per LINK.

According to Lookonchain's monitoring, a new address has withdrawn 434.87 BTC from Binance, valued at approximately $27.96 million.

China’s gold reserves stood at 76.08 million ounces at the end of July, compared to 75.44 million ounces at the end of June. The People’s Bank of China has increased its gold holdings for 21 consecutive months.

Whales continue to accumulate $BTC. Another newly created wallet withdrew 434.87 $BTC($27.96M) from #Binance.