exchange

According to Jinshi, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), Intercontinental Exchange Group (ICE) plans to launch new futures contracts linked to global monetary policy decisions and U.S. natural gas inventories, aimed at providing investors with a way to hedge against economic event risks. ICE plans to introduce futures products based on interest rate decisions from the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, and Bank of England, expected to go live on August 10 after obtaining regulatory approval.

On June 29, WEEX announced that the platform has launched the $GetRichQuick 0 transaction fee event: New users who net recharge 100 U and have their first transaction as GetRichQuick/USDT spot can receive a reward of 10 USDT; both new and existing users whose $GetRichQuick spot trading volume reaches 100 U can participate in sharing a prize pool of 10,000 USDT based on trading volume rankings; invite friends to participate in this event to earn up to 1,000 USDT in rewards. Event time: 6/26 18:00 - 7/3 18:00 (UTC+8).

According to CoinDesk, the cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX has recently made significant adjustments to its executive team, with former CEO Stephan Lutz, CFO Ina Steiner, and Chief Growth Officer Raphael Polansky all having left the company. The company's former Global General Counsel and COO Peter Wilkinson has taken over as the new CEO.The report indicates that amid the ongoing downturn in the cryptocurrency market, BitMEX, which is reportedly seeking a sale, may be aiming to streamline operational costs to enhance its appeal to potential buyers.

According to BBX data, last weekend Japan's largest financial group completed the most important cryptocurrency acquisition, and U.S. bipartisan senators launched a new regulatory offensive against prediction market platforms. The core developments are as follows:SBI Holdings, Inc. (Tokyo Stock Exchange: 8473) announced the acquisition of the Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Bitbank (privately held) for approximately $289 million. After the transaction is completed, SBI's cryptocurrency business will surpass all competitors, creating Japan's largest cryptocurrency exchange. SBI Holdings is one of Japan's largest independent financial services groups, already owning cryptocurrency-friendly network bank SBI Shinsei Bank, cryptocurrency asset custodian SBI Digital Asset Holdings, and multiple Bitcoin mining and cryptocurrency venture capital investments. Bitbank is one of Japan's largest spot BTC exchanges and holds an official cryptocurrency exchange license from the Financial Services Agency (FSA) of Japan. This acquisition marks a shift for traditional Japanese financial institutions from "strategic trial" in the cryptocurrency sector to "scale acquisition dominance," alongside the joint stablecoin plan of the three major banks: Mitsubishi UFJ ($MUFG), Sumitomo Mitsui ($SMFG), and Mizuho ($MFG) (targeting March 2027), forming the most intensive wave of cryptocurrency layout in Japan's financial industry by 2026.U.S. Senators John Curtis (Republican, Utah) and Adam Schiff (Democrat, California) reported on June 28 that they jointly sent a letter to the CFTC, urging it to conduct a formal investigation into the prediction market platform Polymarket (privately held), citing a "concerning" investigative report regarding Polymarket's "deceptive marketing" practices, which accused it of systematic misleading in user acquisition and risk disclosure. This is the third regulatory offensive against prediction market platforms initiated by Congress this year (previously, the House Oversight Committee launched an insider trading investigation on May 22); the two senators come from different parties, which is significant. For Robinhood Markets, Inc. (NASDAQ: $HOOD), this investigation poses indirect pressure—Robinhood's prediction market/event contract business (which achieved a record daily trading volume in June) faces the same regulatory qualitative disputes as Polymarket; however, Robinhood's defensive advantage lies in its ongoing application for a CFTC Designated Contract Market (DCM) license, providing a clearer compliance path compared to Polymarket.

The Sui Network developer Mysten Labs announced a long-term roadmap on June 16, aiming to create underlying blockchain infrastructure that supports the flow of global value, covering stablecoins, real-world assets (RWA), institutional-level financial products, and privacy trading scenarios.The SUI ecosystem decentralized premium trading platform Premium Exchange, incubated by NAVI Protocol, also announced that its core ecological token PST will soon be available for trading. As the value hub of the PRE DEX ecosystem, PST is deeply integrated with the six major sectors of the platform. The operation of each sector will promote token consumption and supply reduction, forming a positive flywheel of "ecological use --- consume tokens --- reduce supply --- enhance value," with scarcity amplifying alongside ecological expansion.

According to SolanaFloor, one of Central Asia's largest stock exchanges, the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE) has listed Volatility Shares' Solana ETF (SOLZ). Earlier this year, KASE launched Kazakhstan's first licensed digital asset platform, which is built on the Solana network.

WEEX officially launches the global recruitment for "Star Alliance Partners," aiming to recruit content creators, community leaders, KOLs/KOCs, and ecological partners from the Chinese-speaking market to jointly create an open and diverse Web3 collaborative ecosystem. Eligible partners can learn about the program details and submit their application through the pinned posts on the official Chinese social media.

Crypto KOL Ansem posted a bullish outlook on the SOL/ETH exchange rate for trading. Ansem stated, "The bottom for Solana has been reached, I was the first to say it! Now everyone is extremely pessimistic about SOL, just like when it dropped to $8 in 2023. I think buying SOL at the current price with a holding period of over 6 months is a good deal."

According to The Block, Spark and Uniswap have jointly launched the stablecoin exchange system FX Layer. It is reported that FX Layer aims to help institutions trade between tokens pegged to the US dollar by creating a shared pool for issuers to access, minimizing slippage.Spark stated that it will migrate $150 million from its USDS ecosystem to Uniswap v4 to establish a liquidity foundation for the swap pool supporting USDS, Tether's USDT, and PayPal's PYUSD.FX Layer acts as a shared liquidity and trading infrastructure on Uniswap v4, allowing multiple stablecoin issuers such as banks, fintech companies, and payment companies to access a universal system instead of building and launching their own liquidity pools, market makers, and inventory management. Spark serves as the orchestration layer, deciding how to allocate, manage, and coordinate liquidity among different stablecoins, while Uniswap provides a programmable AMM architecture.

According to Nikkei News, SBI Group announced the acquisition of the Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Bitbank for 46.7 billion yen (approximately 289 million USD). Through this acquisition, SBI's cryptocurrency custody balance is expected to exceed 1 trillion yen (about 6.2 billion USD), making it the largest cryptocurrency business in Japan. A subsidiary of SBI Holdings will acquire shares of Bitbank from individual shareholders, including the founders, in August, and then Bitbank will acquire shares held by existing shareholders Mixi and Ceres by the end of October. Combining the account data from SBI VC Trade (as of April), the total number of accounts after the merger is approximately 2.92 million, with total managed assets of about 1.1 trillion yen. SBI Holdings disclosed in May that it is negotiating capital business cooperation for the subsidiary status of Bitbank.

Cboe Global Markets announced the launch of a new prediction market platform "Cboe Predicts," along with the rollout of its first prediction products. These products include binary options contracts based on the mini S&P 500 index (XSP) with codes XSPBW and XSPBX. The contract size is one-tenth of the standard S&P 500 index options (SPX).Currently, the contracts are available on Interactive Brokers and are planned to be rolled out to more retail brokerage platforms such as Charles Schwab in the coming months. Additionally, as securities options, these products will be centrally cleared by the Options Clearing Corporation (OCC) and will follow the same regulatory and monitoring framework as U.S. listed options.

According to Onchain Lens monitoring, two newly created wallets withdrew 35,138 ETH ($58.39 million) from BitGo and Kraken, which may belong to Bitmine.

According to The Block, Erald Ghoos, CEO of OKX Europe, stated that after the full implementation of the European Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), about 80% of crypto exchanges will be unable to continue operating in the EU.Starting from July 1, platforms that have not obtained MiCA authorization will no longer be allowed to provide crypto services to EU users. Currently, 20 of the 27 EU member states have ended the transition period, while about 60% of European crypto users remain on unauthorized platforms.As of June 18, more than 200 crypto asset service providers (CASP) have obtained formal MiCA authorization, including OKX, Coinbase, and Kraken, and Ripple has also received preliminary approval from Luxembourg regulators.Ghoos believes that MiCA will drive significant consolidation in the European crypto exchange market, with future trading volumes dominated by a few licensed platforms with stronger compliance capabilities.

According to Bloomberg, Ghanaian cryptocurrency exchange Hyro Exchange is considering reissuing about 10% equity after completing a new round of seed financing to accelerate its expansion in Ghana and key markets in Africa. A local Ghanaian investment firm recently acquired approximately 10% equity in the company, raising its valuation to several million dollars. Hyro plans to sell an equivalent proportion of shares to overseas investors as part of its compliance expansion capital strategy. Currently, the platform has been selected for Ghana's virtual asset trading pilot project, betting on the demand for faster and lower-cost cross-border payments in Africa, which will continue to drive the growth of cryptocurrency usage.

According to SBS Biz, in the past three years, overseas remittances through cryptocurrency exchanges in South Korea have increased by 380%, while remittances through traditional banks have only grown by 20%. Last year, the total amount of foreign currency remittances from South Korea's five major banks was 159 trillion won (approximately 122 billion USD), an increase of 20% compared to 131.8 trillion won (approximately 101 billion USD) in 2022.At the same time, data from the office of Congressman Kim Sang-hoon shows that during the same period, the remittance amount through the five major won-denominated cryptocurrency exchanges in South Korea surged from 34.02 trillion won (approximately 26.2 billion USD) to 163.55 trillion won (approximately 125.8 billion USD), an increase of 380%. Dongguk University professor Hwang Seok-jin attributes the significant growth in cryptocurrency remittances to their lower transaction fees compared to banks.

According to Bloomberg, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), announced a joint venture with cryptocurrency trading platform OKX in the cryptocurrency field called OKXICE.This collaboration marks a deep integration between traditional financial infrastructure giants and leading cryptocurrency trading platforms, seen by the market as an important signal of institutional capital further embracing crypto assets.Currently, both parties have not disclosed the specific business scope and operational details of the joint venture. ICE previously operated the cryptocurrency futures platform Bakkt, and this collaboration with OKX may further strengthen its strategic layout in the digital asset field.Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo will serve as co-chairman of the joint venture between Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) and cryptocurrency exchange OKX, while Trabue Bland, Senior Vice President of ICE Futures Exchange, will serve as the other co-chairman. The joint venture plans to operate a U.S. registered broker-dealer and futures broker, subject to regulatory approval, to help OKX expand its U.S. customer base while allowing its overseas users to access ICE futures and the New York Stock Exchange's tokenized stock market.Cuomo has served as a policy advisor to OKX since 2023 and previously assisted the company in responding to a federal investigation, with OKX pleading guilty in 2025 and paying over $504 million in fines. In March of this year, ICE invested $200 million in OKX, corresponding to a valuation of $25 billion, and obtained a seat on the OKX board.