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Justin Drake posted on the X platform that Ethereum L1 will no longer use the SNARK-friendly hash function Poseidon, which has dominated since 2019, and will instead turn to traditional hash functions such as SHA2 or BLAKE2s.This adjustment is based on advancements in the field of SNARK design, shifting the focus from "SNARK-friendly hashing" to "hash-friendly SNARK." By aligning Boolean operations in traditional hashing with binary field native, the proof performance of traditional hashing in SNARK has reached 1 million per second, with an overhead of about 100 times.Research from Binius and Flock has driven relevant progress. The Ethereum Foundation's post-quantum team is advancing this route, with a roadmap that includes deploying production-level leanVM in 2027, and deploying in the consensus layer, execution layer, and data processing layer in 2028.Justin Drake also stated that the enhanced capabilities of AI in cryptanalysis have recently led to setbacks for the lattice-based scheme HAWK and the homomorphic scheme SQIsign, with hash-based schemes being used for post-quantum signatures on the blockchain. The trend of open-source automated research is also accelerating, with SNARK.fast achieving 1.8 million BLAKE3 proofs per second.

According to The New York Times, Chinese AI models are rapidly gaining popularity in the African developer community due to their low cost, open-source customization, and better handling of local languages, while leading American models like OpenAI and Anthropic are primarily closed-source and paid. Ugandan developer Ernest Mwebaze chose Alibaba's model over Meta or Google products when building a multilingual AI system called Sunflower aimed at local languages, which is now widely used by local farmers to obtain weather and planting information.The report states that similar adoption trends are spreading in countries like Kenya, Nigeria, and Ghana, covering multiple fields such as law, education, and business services. Chinese open-source models (such as DeepSeek and Qianwen) allow for free download and modification, while leading American models are often closed-source and paid, creating significant cost and accessibility differences in middle- and low-income countries. Industry insiders point out that the rapid penetration of Chinese AI in Africa is bringing long-term competitive pressure to American AI giants.

According to official news, Marvell Technology announced the launch of a new generation of memory solution portfolio for AI infrastructure, covering server-level AI storage, rack-level CXL memory expansion and pooling, as well as multi-rack optical interconnect shared memory, aimed at addressing the growing memory capacity and bandwidth bottlenecks in Agentic AI inference processes.Marvell stated that as AI model sizes increase, context windows extend, and KV Cache demand grows, traditional tightly coupled architectures of computing and memory are limiting AI inference efficiency. Through memory disaggregation, memory resources can be made more independent of computing resource expansion, improving GPU utilization and reducing data movement latency. The products released include:Bravera SC6 PCIe 6.0 SSD controller: Designed for AI inference storage scenarios, it helps cloud service providers migrate more KV Cache to high-performance SSDs, enhancing infrastructure efficiency. This product features an architecture compatible with multi-vendor NAND and is expected to begin sampling in the fourth quarter of 2026.Marvell Structera X memory expansion solution: Based on CXL technology, it supports rack-level memory expansion and resource pooling, helping data centers share and allocate memory resources more flexibly, reducing AI infrastructure costs.Marvell Photonic Fabric optical interconnect memory solution: Constructs a shared memory architecture across multiple racks using optical interconnect technology, supporting up to 32TB warm KV Cache offloading and helping AI inference clusters enhance throughput capacity.Marvell stated that the Photonic Fabric solution can achieve a 2 to 3 times increase in Token throughput under existing data center space and power consumption constraints, supporting larger scale models and longer context AI applications.Marvell executive Will Chu stated that AI infrastructure is transitioning from a single server architecture to a system where computing, memory, and connectivity operate in synergy, and in the future, memory needs to expand more independently to enhance resource utilization and Token efficiency.As the demand for AI Agents and large model inference continues to grow, memory capacity, bandwidth, and data transfer efficiency are becoming new focal points of competition in AI infrastructure, following computing power.

According to Wall St Engine, "AI stock god" Leopold Aschenbrenner's Situational Awareness fund faced liquidity pressure during the market crash in July, with behind-the-scenes details revealed.The report states that after the market rapidly cooled in mid-July, the decline in stocks held by Situational Awareness triggered margin monitoring by banks such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, leading to margin calls.Insiders said that other hedge funds began shorting related stocks after learning about its positions, creating a cycle of "price drop → margin call → forced selling → further price decline."In late July, while Leopold was hosting a wedding in Carmel, he continued negotiations with his team to maintain fund operations. On the evening of July 29, he reached a preliminary agreement with a consortium led by Greenoaks and Sequoia Capital to sell approximately $3.5 billion in Anthropic equity.However, in the early hours of July 30, before the U.S. stock market opened, Leopold changed his decision, opting to retain the private equity portfolio and instead sell publicly traded stocks. Subsequently, Citadel and Millennium entered negotiations with the fund team, and Citadel ultimately acquired most of the fund's public stock investment portfolio at a discount of more than 10% below market value before Thursday's opening.This transaction helped Situational Awareness meet margin requirements and avoid formal default. After the deal was completed, related AI and semiconductor stocks rebounded on Thursday, benefiting Citadel.As of around July 31, Situational Awareness disclosed to investors that the fund had a net loss of about 67% in July, but was still up about 80% for the year. Leopold stated that he "takes full responsibility" for the incident, and the fund has removed bank leverage, planning to continue operations and invest in the public market while adjusting its portfolio management and risk control systems.

According to Jinshi reports, BlueBay Chief Investment Officer Mark Dowding pointed out in a report that if Federal Reserve Chairman Waller abandons forward guidance, it may increase the market's risk of losing confidence in the Federal Reserve. He stated that during the periods when previous Federal Reserve chairmen implemented forward guidance, the institution enjoyed a high level of trust and credibility. However, if it falls into a state of information vacuum, market doubts may intensify, and trust in the Federal Reserve may begin to waver.Dowding also noted that the current level of U.S. debt has reached a historic high, and if a laissez-faire attitude is taken towards market trends, it could lay the groundwork for significant risk hazards.

According to The Defiant, ENS Labs Chief Operating Officer Katherine Wu released an executable draft proposal for the establishment of the ENS Foundation on Thursday, abandoning the plan to transfer the DAO operational wallet to a new entity after weeks of opposition from representatives to previous versions.As disclosed, the draft will keep approximately 54.6 million ENS tokens and an operational wallet holding about 16 million dollars in ETH and stablecoins under the control of token holders. The only ENS token transaction in the proposal is a one-time transfer of 1 million tokens, solely for the compensation of foundation staff with a multi-year vesting period. The foundation's board will gain management rights over an approximately 65 million dollar donation fund treasury, but each transaction must go through a time lock, and the security committee has the right to cancel.ENS DAO officials summarized this revision as authorizing the foundation to manage the donation fund while token holders retain control over the protocol, the remaining ENS held by the DAO, the operational wallet, and the appointment and dismissal of foundation directors.

According to official news, the prediction market Polymarket announced a significant adjustment to its settlement mechanism for cryptocurrency price fluctuation markets starting from August 7, to protect market integrity. From midnight UTC on that day, the affected markets will no longer settle based on a single price snapshot at a specific time but will instead use a time-weighted average price.Markets of different durations correspond to different TWAP windows: all cryptocurrency 5-minute markets will use a 30-second TWAP, 15-minute markets will use a 60-second TWAP, and 4-hour markets will also use a 60-second TWAP. The previous single snapshot settlement method was prone to price manipulation during periods of low liquidity, and this change is a proactive reinforcement of the market integrity system by Polymarket after facing regulatory scrutiny.To support this transition, Polymarket will inject $1 million in liquidity rewards into all affected markets throughout August. On the technical side, Chainlink TWAP testnet data streams are now available, and mainnet data streams along with Polymarket real-time data stream services will go live on August 4, at which point developers can access TWAP prices directly through Chainlink Data Streams or Polymarket's public WebSocket.

The tokenized asset issuer Ondo Finance has abandoned its traditional Layer 1 blockchain plans and launched the Ondo Network instead. The platform is positioned as a trading network catering to institutional needs, designed to support private and high-speed trade execution.The first application of Ondo Network, Ondo Perps, will allow users to trade perpetual futures using tokenized assets as collateral, separating fast and private trade execution from public chain settlement. Ondo Finance has issued tokenized U.S. Treasury bonds and stocks, and is advancing broader trading infrastructure in the context of rising interest in tokenization and 24/7 markets on Wall Street.

Ondo Finance announced the launch of the new Ondo Network, positioned as a high-performance execution layer, aimed at combining the trading speed of centralized exchanges (CEX) with the non-custodial and secure settlement capabilities of blockchain. Ondo CEO Ian De Bode stated that the Ondo Network is an "evolutionary version" of the previous Ondo Chain plan, and the company will not operate two networks simultaneously, but will adjust its original plan of building a complete blockchain to focus on the execution layer architecture.According to reports, Ondo initially planned to fully bring real-world assets on-chain through Ondo Chain, but after developing the Ondo Perps perpetual contract trading platform and communicating with users, it was found that the current market's core bottleneck is not asset settlement, but trading execution efficiency. The Ondo Network adopts a separated architecture for execution, validation, and settlement, using secure hardware to isolate the execution environment, which enhances trading speed while maintaining user asset self-custody, verifiable transactions, and permissionless blockchain characteristics.Currently, Ondo Perps has become the first application built on this network, supporting 24-hour trading of stock and commodity perpetual contracts, and allowing the use of tokenized real assets as collateral. Ondo stated that in the future, the network will also support applications requiring high performance, privacy protection, and verifiable execution, such as spot trading, lending, and structured products. In addition, the launch of the Ondo Network will not change the positioning of the ONDO token. The CEO stated that ONDO will still serve as the governance and incentive token for the Ondo RWA ecosystem and market infrastructure, and as the network gradually decentralizes, ONDO will be used to coordinate the incentive mechanisms for validation nodes, observers, and ecosystem participants.

Galaxy Research Director Alex Thorn posted on the X platform revealing that there has been a significant development in the case of abandoned bitcoins, where "Noah Doe" is attempting to obtain ownership of Satoshi Nakamoto's bitcoins through legal proceedings. The Bitcoin Policy Institute (BPI) has officially applied to intervene in the case as a defendant and seeks to push the court to dismiss all lawsuits.It is reported that BPI, represented by the law firm White & Case, has not only applied to intervene in the case but has also submitted a proposed defense document, 15 active defenses, and plans to file a motion to dismiss.Alex Thorn disclosed that BPI claims it is qualified to intervene because the organization has long self-custodied a portion of its bitcoin reserves intended for indefinite holding. The plaintiff's theory that "long-term inactivity constitutes abandonment" could potentially include similar assets in future lawsuits. If the legal logic of this case is ultimately supported by the court, it may set a precedent for depriving long-term self-custody users of asset ownership, making this lawsuit not only related to Satoshi Nakamoto's assets but also concerning the legal foundation of the entire bitcoin self-custody ecosystem.

The Ethereum Foundation Protocol Support team has been dissolved. This team was primarily responsible for coordinating the Ethereum protocol development process, including organizing and coordinating core developer meetings, tracking network upgrade progress, supporting EIP advancement, operating the Ethereum Protocol Fellowship (EPF) program, and providing educational, community, and infrastructure coordination support.This adjustment is part of the recent organizational restructuring of the Ethereum Foundation, which has seen multiple team and personnel changes recently.

According to CoinDesk, Wall Street market-making giant Citadel Securities has abandoned its U.S. trade secret lawsuit against crypto market maker Portofino Technologies and is instead seeking to recover nearly £6 million in arbitration compensation previously awarded through the UK bankruptcy process.On Wednesday, Citadel submitted documents to a U.S. court, jointly requesting the dismissal of the New York trade secret case with Portofino, stating that continuing the U.S. litigation lacked economic significance, as the judgment won in the London arbitration remains difficult to enforce.It is reported that this case lasted nearly three years, but the U.S. litigation ultimately did not make a substantive ruling on the trade secret allegations previously raised by Citadel. Citadel emphasized that the withdrawal of the lawsuit is not due to a lack of basis for its trade secret claims, but rather because the company has already achieved a victory in another London arbitration proceeding.

According to Bloomberg, Micron officially broke ground on its factory expansion project in Higashi-Hiroshima City, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan on Saturday. The total investment for the project is approximately 1.5 trillion yen (about 9.3 billion USD), aimed at producing advanced memory chips for the AI era.The new production line will focus on key chips such as high-bandwidth memory (HBM), which are core components supporting the performance of AI processors like those from Nvidia. The related chips are expected to start shipping as early as the summer of 2028.The Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has provided up to 500 billion yen in subsidy support for the project to strengthen domestic semiconductor manufacturing capabilities and enhance supply chain resilience.This expansion project is seen as an important step for Japan to strengthen its semiconductor manufacturing layout in the global AI chip competition.

According to Coin Bureau, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino explained the reason why USDT has not applied for the EU MiCA license, stating that the regulation is "very dangerous for stablecoins."He mentioned that MiCA could force issuers to keep 60% of their reserves in uninsured cash deposits at small European banks, which may not be able to handle large-scale redemptions. Ardoino believes the legislation is "poorly considered" and stated that "skipping MiCA is to protect Tether's over 400 million users."

DeFi structured protocol Thetanuts Finance issued a statement in response to the security incident involving its Vault. Preliminary investigations indicate that the relevant Vault is an old version contract that was deprecated and migrated years ago, and it is not associated with any currently running contracts or products. Further details are still under investigation, and a complete post-incident analysis report will be released once more information is available.Earlier reports suggested that Thetanuts Finance may have suffered an attack, with preliminary estimates of losses around $2.1 million.

DeFi structured protocol Thetanuts Finance issued a statement in response to the security incident involving its Vault. Preliminary investigations indicate that the related Vault is an old version of the contract that was deprecated and migrated years ago, and it is not associated with any currently running contracts or products. Further details are still under investigation, and a complete post-incident analysis report will be released once more information is obtained.Previously, it was reported that Thetanuts Finance allegedly suffered an attack, with preliminary estimates of losses around 2.1 million USD.

According to on-chain analyst Ai Yi's monitoring, the ETH whale nemorino.eth has opened a $10.71 million ETH position after 12 days. 11 hours ago, it purchased 6,328.6 WETH at an average price of $1,690.7 through Cowswap, and has deposited 2,000 of them into Aave. In the previous ETH position that ended on May 28, it incurred a loss of $480,000.

According to Bitcoin News, a Bitcoin wallet that has remained silent since 2011 transferred 35.55 BTC (approximately $2.54 million) yesterday to prove it has not been abandoned.Previously, the wallet was listed as a defendant in a lawsuit in New York, which claimed that nearly 3.8 million dormant Bitcoins are legally considered abandoned property. Earlier reports indicated that an American man filed a lawsuit against two companies to claim ownership of over 39,000 dormant Bitcoin addresses.

The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of South Korea plans to no longer advance the mandatory suspicious transaction reporting (STR) requirements for large cross-border virtual asset transfers and personal wallet transfers, but will continue to expand the regulatory coverage of the Travel Rule and further strengthen the tracking of digital asset transactions.