SEC Chair: Facing hurdles from the CLARITY Act, the regulator has decided to first allow on-chain trading of tokenized stocks through an "innovation exemption".

Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, has returned to social platform X after a two-year hiatus. In a post today, he wrote "I'm back." alongside a photo of himself standing on an Australian street, pointing at his mural. His wife Stella confirmed this is his official account, noting more news will be coming next week. Assange, born in Australia in 1971, founded WikiLeaks in 2006. Around 2010, the organization released U.S. military records from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, as well as U.S. diplomatic cables, sparking years of legal battles with U.S. and British authorities. He took refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for seven years before being arrested by the UK in 2019 and detained at Belmarsh Prison. In June 2024, he reached a plea deal with the U.S. Department of Justice, pleading guilty to one count of conspiring to obtain and disclose national defense information in exchange for credit for time served, leading to his release and return to Australia. He has largely remained out of public view over the past two years. After Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and other payment providers cut off WikiLeaks’ fiat currency channels in late 2010, Assange shifted to accepting Bitcoin, making WikiLeaks one of the first major organizations to use BTC as a censorship-resistant settlement tool. Since then, he has repeatedly spoken publicly about cryptocurrency, viewing it as infrastructure to bypass bank blockades, protect sources, and safeguard fund flows. WikiLeaks has long accepted Bitcoin and other crypto assets as donations.

Beating AI Express News: Open-source project Hypit has recently gained rapid popularity on GitHub, currently boasting around 8,300 stars. It serves as a video production toolkit for coding agents like Claude Code and Codex, enabling these agents—originally focused on writing code—to now create videos. After users input a reference video, Hypit breaks down its scripts, shots, subtitles, B-roll footage, and special effects into a reusable, modifiable production workflow. The agent then calls tools including video model Seedance, image models, WhisperX, and FFmpeg to replace characters, scripts, and assets, regenerating the entire video. This approach is particularly suited for batch production of similar videos: for example, if an ad performs well, users can retain its original rhythm and structure, only swapping out products, characters, or copy to quickly generate dozens of different versions. Once a video workflow is set up, subsequent work mainly involves updating content, eliminating the need to start from scratch each time. Hypit is free to use and does not mandate binding to a specific generative model. However, it uses an open-source license with additional restrictions: internal commercial use by enterprises is permitted, but building a SaaS service for multiple clients requires separate commercial authorization.

Arc has announced the launch of its Arc Microgrants program, offering 20 grants of 500 USDC each (totaling 10,000 USDC) to qualified early-stage developers building functional mini-apps on Arc’s mainnet. The initiative is open to early-stage projects, prototypes, and proof-of-concept applications.

According to Coinglass data, the global open interest in ZEC futures contracts totals 2.34 million units, valued at approximately $3.35 billion, surging 29% over the past 24 hours. In the last four hours, ZEC liquidations amounted to $9.08 million, with 24-hour liquidations hitting $58.9 million. On Binance, the ZEC/USDT long-short ratio across all accounts is 0.3646, the long-short ratio for large accounts is 0.3168, and the long-short ratio for large account positions stands at 0.7663. This indicates that there are more short traders, and the relatively lower proportion of long positions is more concentrated among select large investors.

According to HTX market data, ZEC has been surging strongly, hitting a high of $1,443 with a 24-hour increase of over 15%, and is currently trading at $1,434.

SEC Chair Paul Atkins spoke at a 24-hour trading roundtable today, noting that U.S. capital markets are moving toward a "new day and night" paradigm. Key business and economic events are no longer confined to traditional trading hours, and investors want to adjust their positions more frequently to respond to breaking news. Extending trading hours would not only meet investor demand but also align U.S. trading platforms with overseas markets, attract more global capital, reduce risks accumulated overnight or on weekends, and boost market efficiency. Atkins stated that if registered trading platforms evolve to meet this need, investor protection, global access, and liquidity will all improve. In terms of concrete preparations, he revealed that the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) has launched a 23/5 trade capture system to support clearing and settlement; the industry has adopted an overnight price range program, and the Securities Information Processor (SIP) initiative is also preparing for overnight price dissemination. He also highlighted operational challenges, such as sourcing securities to support market making when spreads may be wider. Atkins believes tokenization has the potential to help the securities industry achieve real-time inventory management, improve efficiency, reduce settlement failures, lower the risk of abusive naked short selling, and even eliminate it entirely. He also specifically called on issuers to participate in discussions, providing feedback on how 24-hour trading would impact corporate actions, material information disclosures, and EDGAR filing timelines. He emphasized that these efforts are ultimately driven by industry dynamics, competitive forces, and investor interests, and encouraged the public to submit comments.