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In response to rumors on social media about "Doubao recommending hotels for a fee," Liu Xing, the head of public affairs for Doubao at ByteDance, stated on the evening of August 10 that the related statements are inaccurate. He indicated that Doubao's life service business currently does not have paid promotions, and Doubao does not charge advertising fees for hotel recommendations; merchants cannot influence recommendations or rankings through payment, and only pay channel service fees after an order is completed.Liu Xing pointed out that some platforms adopt a "commission + advertising" charging model, while Doubao primarily charges based on completed transactions at this stage, making direct comparisons inappropriate. For merchants, the actual channel costs and the effects of new orders are more meaningful references. He also mentioned that Doubao's life service business is still in a very early exploratory stage.

Starting from August 10, hotel orders placed through the Doubao entrance that redirect to Douyin Laike will begin to execute independent rates, with a software service fee of 11.4%, a payment processing fee of 0.6%, and a comprehensive rate of approximately 12%. This policy is implemented based on the "2026 Douyin Life Service Platform Specific Channel Software Service Fee Policy Explanation" released by the Douyin Life Service Learning Center on July 27, and is effective from August 10, 2026.According to industry insiders, the relevant notification has been communicated to merchants through the Douyin Laike backend. The software service fee is based on the "actual amount paid by the user plus platform general coupons and other subsidies." Specific channels include Doubao, and the specific rates are implemented based on differentiated standards according to merchant type, product category, and transaction channel. Whether an order belongs to a specific channel is subject to the display on the settlement statement.

According to CryptoSlate, Nasdaq-listed company Zhibao Technology (a Chinese insurtech company) signed a PIPE (Private Investment in Public Equity) agreement worth approximately $154.7 million on July 31, with investors paying in 2,380 bitcoins (calculated at a fixed price of $65,000 per bitcoin).The agreement lists 10 investor entities, each allocated 44.2 million units, totaling $154.7 million, paid in 238 bitcoins. Investors will purchase 442 million units at $0.35 per unit, with each unit consisting of 1 share of Class A common stock and a 2-year warrant (to buy 1 additional share at an exercise price of $0.35), with a potential total issuance of up to 884 million shares.After the transaction is completed, investors will designate 4 out of 5 directors and choose a new CEO and CFO. The existing 4 directors and the current CEO and CFO will resign. This issuance will significantly dilute the shareholding ratio prior to the PIPE transaction. The 49,001,662 shares will account for approximately 9.98% of the share base after the transaction is completed, while Class B shareholders will lose their 20-to-1 voting advantage.If all new warrants are subsequently exercised, the share base will increase to at least 933,001,662 shares, while the shareholding ratio prior to the PIPE transaction will drop to about 5.25%. The agreement is intended to be settled within 12 business days after July 31, or on another date agreed upon in writing by both parties, but the required capital increase and approval issues remain unresolved.

According to BTCtreasuries, Zhibao Technology announced that it has reached a private placement financing of $154.7 million in Bitcoin with non-U.S. investors, with a financing scale of 2,380 BTC. The company is a publicly listed company in China.

According to exclusive reports from Titanium Media, ByteDance released an internal email on July 30, announcing the integration of the Feishu product team and the Doubao product team to form a new Doubao product team, which will be unified under the leadership of Doubao head Zhao Qi, while Feishu head Xie Xin will report to Zhao Qi. In terms of the GTM system, the Feishu GTM team will integrate with the Volcano Engine team to establish a new ToB GTM organization called the "Creativity Service Platform," which will be responsible for the marketing, sales, and customer service of ByteDance's MaaS and SaaS cloud services, led by Volcano Engine head Tan Dai, with Feishu sales head Lin Chan and Feishu strategy and marketing head Shi Zhijun reporting to Tan Dai.This integration is the largest adjustment to ByteDance's ToB business since it implemented business segmentation in 2021. After the reorganization, Feishu's products and services will remain unchanged, and Feishu will collaborate more deeply with Doubao on productivity scenarios. The Doubao enterprise version, developed with deep involvement from the Feishu product team, has already begun internal testing among some Feishu clients. Feishu currently covers over 10 million enterprise users, and this integration will further enhance the integrated collaborative capabilities of the ToB business.

Nasdaq-listed digital insurance product company Zhibao Technology announced that it has signed a non-binding term sheet with Joyertech and Information OPC, intending to sell shares through PIPE financing and receive approximately 3,500 bitcoins as consideration, valued at about $220 million at current prices. The transaction is still subject to final valuation, custody arrangements, audit verification, regulatory review, Nasdaq compliance, and the signing of a final agreement. The term sheet indicates that at the time of PIPE financing closing, the buyer is expected to designate a majority of the board members of Zhibao Technology, while the existing management team will continue to be responsible for daily operations. Zhibao Technology disclosed on July 15 that it received a deficiency notice from Nasdaq due to its stock price falling below $1 per share. The company has 180 calendar days to regain compliance with Nasdaq's minimum bid price requirement of $1 per share, with a deadline of January 6, 2027.

Gate officially released the 2026 Wealth Management Semi-Annual Report. The report shows that the overall cryptocurrency market faced pressure in the first half of the year, with BTC and ETH dropping approximately 33.1% and 47.1%, respectively, and market risk appetite continued to decline. Against this backdrop, user demand for stable returns and high liquidity assets has continued to rise.Gate's Yubi Treasure position size remained stable at 2 billion USDT, with funds gradually shifting towards demand for liquidity management. At the same time, the GUSD minting rate has stabilized, with funds mainly flowing into on-chain earning scenarios, continuously demonstrating the value of income-generating stable assets. In terms of advanced wealth management, Gate's dual-currency investment maintains an industry-leading advantage, with the low-buy strategy achieving a 0-day term APY of up to 295%, significantly higher than the market average of 166%. Gate's quantitative fund continues to perform steadily, with the interstellar hedge (USDT) achieving a cumulative return of 18.7%. In asset allocation, Gate's stock holdings continue to optimize, with the proportion of Korean stocks rapidly increasing following their launch, accounting for about 75% of the overall holdings by the end of June. The top ten holdings are mainly concentrated in semiconductor and technology growth assets, with SK Hynix holding the largest position. Additionally, Gate's GUSD minting annualized rate reached 3.8%, supporting users to participate in diverse ecological scenarios such as Launchpool and Pre-IPOs; Yubi Treasure USDT wealth management VIPs can enjoy an annualized return of 4.0%.In the future, Gate will continue to improve its wealth management system covering stable wealth management, enhanced returns, and multi-asset allocation, providing more flexible and efficient asset appreciation solutions for users with different risk appetites, helping users achieve long-term value growth amid market cycle changes.

Chinese listed company Zhibao Technology announced that it has signed a non-binding term sheet with Joyer Tech to conduct PIPE financing based on 3,500 bitcoins.

On July 16, according to WEEX TradFi market data, the overall Chinese concept technology sector has warmed up, with market funds refocusing on the valuation repair of leading e-commerce, content, and search companies. Among them, BABAON rose over 6.62% in 24 hours; BILION rose over 4.01%; JDON rose over 3.71%, with multiple Chinese concept tech stocks jointly driving the sector's enthusiasm.WEEX Labs believes that Alibaba's latest release of a real-time voice model further enhances market expectations for AI business development. Coupled with improved profit expectations before the earnings report and capital rotation, this has jointly driven the sector's rebound, with this round of market activity leaning towards the repricing of undervalued tech stocks. In the short term, attention still needs to be paid to performance realization, policy signals, and changes in the risk appetite of the US stock market.

According to Jinshi reports, Doubao has released a "Notice of the Shutdown of Doubao Intelligent Agent Function," stating that the intelligent agent function will be discontinued on July 15, 2026. At that time, users will not be able to create new intelligent agents, and already created and saved intelligent agents will also be unable to be called or run.After July 15, Doubao will process the data related to intelligent agents, and it will no longer be possible to view or restore them within Doubao.

According to reports from Blue Whale Technology, the next-generation Doubao AI phone, jointly promoted by ZTE and ByteDance, may be delayed from its originally expected release in the second quarter due to issues with the filing and certification process. Sources reveal that the phone needs to pass both the large model filing with the Cyberspace Administration and the network access certification with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology; currently, the product is still in the second application filing stage. If the approval goes smoothly, the new device is expected to be launched as early as July to August this year.In terms of the supply chain, the screen supplier for the next-generation Doubao phone has been changed from Shentianma to BOE, the battery will use Desay battery and ATL cells, and the manufacturing will be handled by Zhongnuo Communications, a subsidiary of Furui Electronics. Additionally, reports indicate that this product mainly adopts a technical route that deeply integrates large models into the underlying operating system, but it currently faces ecological barriers due to the lack of data access permissions from leading platforms like Tencent and Alibaba when implementing system-level agent cross-application calls.

According to the "Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily," at the 2026 Volcano Engine Force Conference, ByteDance officially released the latest flagship version 2.1Pro of the Doubao large model. Tan Dai, President of Volcano Engine, stated that the model has made breakthroughs in four dimensions: code delivery, long-range Agent tasks, multimodal understanding, and enterprise-level stable operation, possessing stronger engineering delivery capabilities and being capable of handling complex R&D tasks for enterprises. At the conference, ByteDance CEO Liang Rubo also emphasized that the company will focus on enhancing large model capabilities and firmly invest in MaaS (Model as a Service) business.The report pointed out that ByteDance's AI strategic focus is clearly shifting towards enterprise-level services. Currently, the daily token call volume of the Doubao large model has reached 180 trillion, an increase of over 1500 times since its release, and has grown more than 10 times in the past year. However, due to the bottleneck in monetization on the consumer side and high expenses (with daily computing costs reaching tens of millions and daily revenue below one million), ByteDance has accordingly adjusted its resource allocation. Meanwhile, the video generation model Seedance, primarily aimed at the B-end, has validated its commercialization potential, with current annual recurring revenue (ARR) reaching 2 billion dollars, effectively offsetting Doubao's computing costs. In addition, the new version of Seedance will also be the first in the industry to launch a 3D white membrane preview feature.

According to Jinshi News, Baosheng Group expects the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates unchanged in 2026, while the European Central Bank will raise interest rates once more.

According to "Du Jia," ByteDance's AI assistant "Doubao" is ramping up efforts in the instant travel sector. Currently, the Doubao App is conducting a grayscale test of the one-click ride-hailing feature for select users in Beijing and Hangzhou. After users input their travel needs via voice in the dialogue box, the system can automatically recognize the information and match it with available vehicles. Once confirmed, users can complete the order with one click, and the related ride-hailing services are provided by Cao Cao Mobility.It is reported that Cao Cao Mobility has integrated exclusive orders for Doubao and is offering additional service fees to drivers who complete these types of orders. Last week, Cao Cao Mobility launched its new RoboX strategy in Hong Kong, announcing a comprehensive AI transformation, establishing an AI division, and proposing a "Double 100,000 Plan" to deploy 100,000 Robotaxis and 100,000 Robovans by 2030.

According to reports from major companies, ByteDance's Seed department has internally issued a notice announcing the latest adjustment to the price of "Doubao Stock," with the new price set at $14.85. Compared to the initial announcement of $13.08 in April this year, the price of this virtual equity has increased by 13.5% within two months.It is reported that "Doubao Stock" is an exclusive virtual equity of ByteDance Seed and related upstream and downstream businesses, typically opening buyback windows about twice a year. In comparison, the regular option prices of ByteDance adjusted from $229.5 to $235.5 between April and June this year (an increase of about 2.63%). The valuation growth rate of "Doubao Stock" during the same period has significantly surpassed the overall options of the company.With the continuous growth of the Doubao large model in user scale and commercial revenue, this option may break the previous fixed frequency of "adjusting every six months" and welcome more flexible and frequent pricing adjustments in the future.

According to People's Financial News, the AI version of Alipay has officially launched, named "Abao." Alipay has become the world's first super application to achieve full-end AI integration. Currently, the new version has started an invitation-only testing phase and will gradually be opened to all users in the future.

According to news from Shanghai's Cyberspace Administration, Tesla's in-car voice large model service completed its filing on April 20. The Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily learned from informed sources that Tesla's in-car voice service will integrate the Doubao large model. It is worth mentioning that the "Tesla In-Car Voice Assistant Usage Terms" on Tesla China's official website previously indicated that the Tesla Model Y L will be equipped with both the Doubao large model and the DeepSeek model, both of which are accessed through the Volcano Engine.Among them, the Doubao large model will handle voice command functions, such as navigation settings, media playback control, air conditioning temperature adjustment, etc., and will also have a vehicle owner's manual query function; the DeepSeek model provides AI interactive services.

According to reports, Byreal co-founder Emily Bao shared Byreal's three core strategies for 2026 at the Solana Accelerate APAC event held today in Hong Kong. The event took place during Consensus Hong Kong.Emily stated that Byreal will advance upgrades in 2026 around the following areas:Infrastructure: Byreal plans to launch an automated LP mechanism and AI-assisted LP strategies, including AutoSwap single asset entry, atomic execution, automatic calculation of optimal ratios, and Automated LP & Copy Farming, achieving automatic rebalancing and yield reinvestment to reduce the complexity of liquidity provision operations and provide users with AI intelligent LP strategies.Liquidity Mechanism: Byreal will introduce the Prop AMM strategy, adopting a structure of "protocol-first liquidity management + dynamic fee model" to increase rates on arbitrage flows and gradually open up market-making to participants, optimizing LP yield structure and trade execution quality.On-chain Trading of Traditional Financial Assets: Byreal will launch on-chain perpetual contracts within this year, supporting 24/7 trading of RWA and on-chain asset perpetual contracts, and integrating prediction market data as an on-chain signal layer to build a unified execution architecture.Byreal is a decentralized on-chain trading platform (DEX) incubated by Bybit, which has rapidly become one of the most notable DEXs in the Solana ecosystem since its launch in mid-2025.Emily stated that this upgrade aims to build the underlying infrastructure for Internet Capital Markets, reshaping on-chain liquidity and trading experience.

The Hurun Research Institute today released the "2026 Hurun Quality Life Report for High Net Worth Individuals in China," which states: "The commonly used information platforms are Xiaohongshu and Douyin, the commonly used AIs are DeepSeek and Doubao, and the most followed financial bloggers are Wu Xiaobo Channel, Xiao Lin Says, and Ren Zeping."61% of the surveyed high net worth individuals frequently use Xiaohongshu for information, which is 13 percentage points higher than Douyin. 32% of high net worth individuals frequently watch WeChat Video Accounts, and 24% frequently watch Bilibili. The enthusiasm for Eastmoney and Zhihu exceeds 20%, while Tonghuashun and Wind Info receive 14% enthusiasm.By age group, over 70% of U25 individuals use Xiaohongshu and Douyin as their most common information platforms, while U40 and those over 45 prefer to use Video Accounts. The audience for professional investment software like Eastmoney, Wind Info, and Tonghuashun is mainly U35 and U40.The top three financial bloggers that high net worth individuals most frequently follow are Wu Xiaobo Channel (38%), Xiao Lin Says (23%), and Ren Zeping (17%).The most commonly used AI assistants among the surveyed high net worth individuals are DeepSeek and Doubao. By age group, U25 most frequently uses ChatGPT, while U30, U35, U40, and U45 predominantly use DeepSeek, and respondents over 45 most frequently use Doubao.