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Market news shows that Bank of America hedge fund clients continue to increase their positions in U.S. stocks, with weekly buying intensity reaching a new high since 2008.

According to Crowdfund Insider, Bitcoin mining company MARA Holdings disclosed in its latest quarterly SEC filing that it has pledged 18,750 BTC as collateral for two Bitcoin-backed loans, with a total principal of $750 million.The financing provided by Coinbase Credit includes refinancing of an existing $150 million credit line and an additional $300 million; Two Prime Lending also provided a $300 million loan. Both loans have been fully drawn, with a combined financing cost of approximately 7.56%, primarily maturing in August 2028.The pledged 18,750 BTC was valued at approximately $1.2 billion at the time of the transaction. If the price of Bitcoin falls and the collateral ratio drops below the agreed level, MARA may face additional collateral requirements; otherwise, the related BTC is at risk of liquidation. The new funds will primarily be used for general corporate purposes and to support MARA's acquisition of Long Ridge Energy & Power.The transaction values the company at approximately $1.5 billion, with Long Ridge owning a natural gas power plant in Ohio, USA, with an expected installed capacity of 505 MW, as well as over 1,600 acres of industrial land. MARA plans to further develop the area into a base for Bitcoin mining, AI, and high-performance computing infrastructure.

According to official news, the fintech and asset tokenization company Anchored Finance announced the launch of three tokenized funds, with underlying strategies involving funds from asset management institutions such as Point72, Millennium, D. E. Shaw, and BlackRock.The first batch of products includes the Anchored Diversified Hedge Fund (aDHF), Anchored Liquid Strategy Fund (aLSF), and Anchored AI Strategy Fund (aAIF), providing on-chain alternative asset allocation channels for qualified investors.Anchored Finance stated that this is the first time such traditional hedge fund portfolios have been introduced on-chain in the form of tokenized funds.

According to The Block, New York-listed fintech company Broadridge announced that its Distributed Ledger Repo (DLR) platform processed over $8 trillion in transactions in July, averaging about $365 billion per day, a year-on-year increase of 28%.DLR allows companies to use distributed ledger technology to settle repo transactions in existing trading and post-trading environments, enabling real-time financing and tokenized collateral liquidity. In addition, Broadridge also offers on-chain proxy voting and governance services, as well as digital asset infrastructure management.

Morgan Stanley announced the launch of the "U.S. Innovation Infrastructure Initiative," which aims to drive approximately $1.5 trillion in capital raising and investment activities over the next 10 years to support U.S. economic growth.The initiative will focus on strategic areas such as artificial intelligence, quantum technology, and semiconductors, and will promote the construction of digital and physical infrastructure.

CryptoQuant founder Ki Young Ju stated that hedge funds on the CME have turned into net long positions in BTC futures, which is a rare situation.He pointed out that basis trading usually causes hedge funds to structurally hold short positions, which is also the reason why related data has remained negative for years, and basis trading cannot be conducted in a net long position. This shift of hedge funds to net long positions in BTC futures indicates that institutional investors are optimistic about further increases in BTC prices.

Bitcoin mining company MARA has completed two loans, obtaining $600 million in new debt after pledging 18,750 bitcoins to expand its power generation and AI infrastructure business. The collateral was valued at approximately $1.2 billion at the time of the transaction. The total principal of the two loans is $750 million, with Coinbase Credit providing $450 million, which includes refinancing of the existing $150 million credit line and an additional $300 million; Two Prime Lending provides another $300 million, and both loans have been fully drawn.The interest rate on the Coinbase loan is the midpoint of the Federal Reserve's target rate range plus 3.875 percentage points, maturing on August 4, 2028; the Two Prime loan has a fixed interest rate of 7.65%, maturing on August 3, 2028. If the principal remains unchanged, the annual interest expense for both loans is approximately $56.7 million. MARA stated that the loan funds will be used for general corporate purposes, including paying part of the cash consideration for the acquisition of Long Ridge Energy & Power LLC. The enterprise value of the transaction is approximately $1.5 billion, and Long Ridge owns a 505-megawatt gas power plant and over 1,600 acres of industrial land, which MARA plans to use for power generation, bitcoin mining, and potential AI and high-performance computing parks.

According to on-chain detective Specter, the same attacker is running similar phishing activities targeting Ledger. The relevant screenshots were taken two days ago, and the sponsored advertisement has now been removed.As of now, these activities have stolen over 3 million dollars.

According to Onchain Lens monitoring, a certain whale staked 4,000 ETH through Lido 2 hours ago after being silent for 3 months, worth approximately 7.68 million USD, and received 4,000 stETH in return.Previously, this address supplied 1.216 million USDC to Aave, worth approximately 1.22 million USD.

The latest software version 3.3.0 of the XRP Ledger (XRPL) introduces multiple upgrade proposals, among which the "Confidential Transfers" feature aims to provide higher privacy protection for institutional users, supporting the encryption of token balances and transfer amounts while maintaining visibility of account and token types. This feature is primarily targeted at Multi-Purpose Tokens (MPT) on the XRPL, with application scenarios including tokenized financial assets such as funds and bonds. Through cryptographic technologies like zero-knowledge proofs, the network can verify the validity of transactions without disclosing specific amounts.According to market news, the XRPL currently has approximately $1.38 billion in on-chain real-world assets (RWA), including about $845.7 million in RLUSD. In addition to RLUSD, there are over $530 million in tokenized assets on the XRPL, involving issuers such as Ondo, VERT Capital, Archax, and Société Générale. Besides Confidential Transfers, the XRPL 3.3.0 version also includes five proposals: Batch, Sponsor, Permission Delegation, and Dynamic MPT, which address institutional needs for batch transactions, fee payment, permission management, and dynamic adjustment of token attributes. However, these upgrades have not yet been officially launched and will need to gain over 80% support from trusted validation nodes on the XRPL for two consecutive weeks before activation. The market is paying attention to whether institutions like Aviva and Ondo, which have issued assets on the XRPL, will adopt this privacy feature.

The prediction market platform Kalshi announced the launch of the AI tool Blanket, aimed at helping small businesses hedge operational risks related to weather, energy prices, tariffs, elections, and more using event contracts.Blanket was developed by independent fintech entrepreneur Lauris Zminsky, based on Kalshi's CFTC-regulated prediction market operations, but it is not an internal product of Kalshi. The tool does not directly execute trades or handle funds, but instead analyzes the risks faced by businesses through AI and recommends Kalshi event contracts that can be used for hedging.

According to BBX data, yesterday and in recent days, globally listed companies disclosed the latest developments in cryptocurrency assets and debt restructuring, with the core information as follows:Cipher Digital reports losses in the second quarter due to Bitcoin sell-off: Bitcoin mining and digital infrastructure company Cipher Digital (NASDAQ: CIFR) released its financial report for the second quarter of 2026. Its total revenue was $24.84 million (entirely from mining), with a net loss of $267.5 million (mainly impacted by a $150.5 million loss due to changes in the fair value of warrants), and adjusted EBITDA was a loss of $29.99 million. As of June 30, its total cash and restricted cash amounted to approximately $4.56 billion. Notably, the company's Bitcoin holdings have significantly decreased in book value from $125.4 million at the end of 2025 to $37.8 million, with realized Bitcoin sale losses of approximately $23.51 million in the second quarter.PowerCompute restructures debt with Bitcoin collateral to lower interest rates: Bitcoin mining company PowerCompute successfully restructured three debts totaling $18 million using 307 Bitcoins from its reserves as collateral, replacing previous loans from institutions such as Galaxy Digital. The new financing adopts a non-recourse, 30-day revolving structure with an annual interest rate of about 2% (far lower than some old loans at 12%), allowing the company to significantly reduce interest expenses without selling Bitcoin spot.West Main Self Storage slightly increases holdings: Storage company West Main Self Storage disclosed an increase of 0.155 Bitcoins in the secondary market, bringing its total holdings to 16.188 BTC.

The Kobeissi Letter stated that hedge funds net bought $4.8 billion in U.S. stocks last week, marking the second-largest single-week buying scale since 2008. Based on the total market capitalization of the S&P 500, this buying scale ranks 24th in history.During the same period, institutional investors net sold $3.8 billion, ending four consecutive weeks of net buying, with their average net buying scale over the past four weeks dropping to $3.9 billion.Retail investors slightly net sold $200 million during the same period, with their average net buying scale over the past four weeks decreasing to $600 million. Hedge funds are significantly buying U.S. stocks again.

The real-time cross-border capital flow platform OpenFX announced the acquisition of Global Ledger, with its founder Tyler McIntyre appointed as the head of banking. At the same time, it launched a multi-currency account service. McIntyre previously co-founded the new bank Novo, which serves over 300,000 businesses and is valued at over $700 million.The account allows customers to make payments in local currency, and companies can hold received funds directly without the need for immediate conversion. OpenFX has launched the USD account in its first phase, which can receive and send funds to over 100 countries through ACH, Fedwire, and SWIFT, and supports instant connection with stablecoins like USDC.

According to Bloomberg, informed sources revealed that a recent wave of complex cyberattacks targeted several large asset management firms on Wall Street, with attackers attempting to infiltrate the information systems of the relevant companies. Several large hedge funds globally became targets of the attacks, including Two Sigma Investments, Citadel, and Point72 Asset Management. In addition, several private equity firms were also attacked.It is currently unclear who the attackers are, the methods used in the attacks, and whether any sensitive data has been compromised. Informed sources requested anonymity due to the involvement of undisclosed information. This incident has once again raised market concerns about the cybersecurity risks faced by financial institutions. As asset management companies increasingly rely on complex information systems, algorithmic trading, and cloud infrastructure, the financial industry is becoming a primary target for cyber attackers.

According to Jinshi reports, despite Iranian officials repeatedly denying it, U.S. President Trump still stated that Washington and Iran are having "very good discussions." "We are having very good discussions. They are reluctant to acknowledge this, which is indeed a bit unsettling," Trump said in an interview with Fox News. "The only thing that matters is action; they want to reach an agreement, and we will wait and see. If they ultimately fail to reach an agreement, that would be too bad," he added.

According to Reuters, citing three informed sources, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are testing the etching equipment from Chinese semiconductor equipment manufacturer AMEC to assess its potential application in their factories in China, aiming to hedge against the risk of the U.S. potentially tightening export controls in the future. The testing began about two years ago, coinciding with rising uncertainty over whether the U.S. would allow Korean companies to import U.S.-made chip equipment to China.The report noted that although no decision has yet been made on large-scale deployment, verification from Samsung or SK Hynix would be an important commercial endorsement for AMEC. The gap in etching, deposition, cleaning, and other areas for Chinese equipment has gradually narrowed, with prices typically 20%-30% lower than similar overseas products. Samsung officially denied having tested AMEC equipment for its factories in China, while SK Hynix declined to comment. Deutsche Bank expects Northern Huachuang, AMEC, Tuojing Technology, and Shengmei Semiconductor to each exceed $1 billion in revenue by 2026, collectively expected to capture 25%-30% of China's approximately $28 billion wafer fabrication equipment market this year.

According to Decrypt, Ledger's Chief Technology Officer Charles Guillemet stated that the Coldcard vulnerability incident exposed weaknesses in hardware wallet random number generation and emphasized that AI is reshaping the cybersecurity offensive and defensive landscape. Guillemet pointed out that the security model of hardware wallets "lives or dies by random numbers," and this incident proved that in the most expensive way.Ledger stated that its hardware wallets were unaffected because their mnemonic phrases are generated by a hardware random number generator within a certified secure element, with no software fallback path, generating a complete 256-bit random number each time. Guillemet believes that open-source code, if not thoroughly reviewed, does not equate to security, and AI is enabling attackers to scan code and identify vulnerabilities at machine speed, requiring defenses to advance at the same speed, which relies on secure design, hardware, and mathematics. Guillemet suggested that users should understand how the random number generation of a hardware wallet works and whether it has been independently certified when choosing one.

According to Bloomberg, citing informed sources, Chinese officials are concerned that cutting-edge AI models from the U.S., such as Anthropic's Mythos, could be used as offensive cyber tools to launch cyberattacks against China. At the same time, the Chinese side questions why Anthropic does not allow Chinese companies to use the relevant models normally, yet cannot rule out the possibility of these capabilities being used to attack China. Anthropic has long advocated for the U.S. to tighten restrictions on advanced chips and AI capabilities related to China, and last year it stopped providing services to companies controlled by China.The report states that the Chinese side is currently not prepared to take immediate action, but if the U.S. further restricts Chinese AI companies, relevant departments are studying response plans, which may include imposing sanctions on U.S. AI companies or placing them on a restricted list. Currently, neither Anthropic nor relevant departments have publicly responded to this.

According to TradingBeats (formerly Hyperinsight) monitoring, the whale starting with 0xf17 began synchronously selling HYPE spot today and buying to close an equivalent amount of perpetual short positions, planning to continue exiting the carry trade positions. This address previously held HYPE spot and contract short positions at a nearly 1:1 ratio, earning positive funding rates by hedging against price fluctuations. Based on a pre-reduction position of approximately 146,800 units, both legs have now been reduced to about 107,900 units, each decreasing by nearly 39,000 units, a reduction of about 26.5%.Currently, two sets of TWAP orders still in execution plan to handle a total of 90,000 HYPE: approximately 33,200 units have been sold on the spot side, with a transaction amount of about 1.8 million USD; approximately 33,100 units have been closed on the contract side, with a transaction amount of about 1.795 million USD. Including previously completed orders, the current round of contract short positions has cumulatively decreased by about 39,000 units, with the current nominal value of spot and short positions each around 5.87 million USD, and the total scale of both legs approximately 11.74 million USD, reduced by about 4.24 million USD compared to before the reduction.As the whale withdraws, the HYPE carry trade yield has also fallen from its high. According to daily statistics: the cumulative funding rate for HYPE dropped from +0.0279% on August 1 to +0.02227% on August 3, a decrease of about 20.2%; in the last 4 hours: the cumulative funding rate also decreased by 19.1% compared to the previous 4 hours. Based on the current short position size, its daily gross funding income has fallen from about 1,638 USD to 1,308 USD. Weekly statistics: from July 28 to August 3, the cumulative rate was about +0.17803%, down 16.9% from the high week of +0.21425% from July 14 to 20. The HYPE funding rate is currently reported at +0.0013%, with an expected annualized yield of about 10.9%.