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According to reports from South Korean media, SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won received a salary of 1.75 billion won in the first half of this year.According to the Financial Supervisory Service, SK Corporation disclosed this information in its semi-annual report released that day. The chairman's salary level in the first half of this year is the same as the same period last year, and he did not receive any bonuses apart from his salary. The chairman's younger brother, SK Group Vice Chairman Chey Jae-won, received a salary of 1.5 billion won during the same period. SK Corporation President Chang Yong-ho received a total of 1.8 billion won, including 1 billion won in salary and 800 million won in bonuses.In addition, SK Supex Pursuit Council Chairman Yoon Bong-yong was disclosed to have received a total of 7.715 billion won, which includes 500 million won in salary, 800 million won in bonuses, and 6.415 billion won in compensation from 12,103 performance stock units (PSUs) granted three years ago. SK Hynix's sales from Nvidia in the first half of this year exceeded 17 trillion won, accounting for about 13% of the company's total sales.The average salary of SK Hynix employees reached 144 million won (approximately $104,000) in the first half of this year, an increase of 23% year-on-year. SK Hynix significantly increased its capital expenditures and research and development (R&D) investments in the first half of this year. Cash expenditures for acquiring tangible assets exceeded 18 trillion won, an increase of over 70% year-on-year. The number of small shareholders of SK Hynix has grown more than fivefold in a year, surpassing 3.46 million.

According to CNA, the Singapore Police Force (SPF) and the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA) reported that a cryptocurrency scam involving fake job postings and compromised software systems resulted in losses of $11.8 million.The scam group impersonated cryptocurrency company recruiters on LinkedIn, used forged domain names to send emails, conducted video interviews, and induced victims to download malware on company devices to complete "technical tests," thereby stealing session tokens, bypassing multi-factor authentication, and ultimately transferring cryptocurrency.

The Chief Financial Officer of SanDisk stated that it is expected to obtain a total contract amount of $93.9 billion from 8 customers during the contract period, with a Non-GAAP gross margin of approximately 80% for the fiscal years 2028 to 2030, and a Non-GAAP operating profit margin expected to reach about 75%. It is anticipated that the adjusted free cash flow profit margin will remain at 50% for the fiscal years 2028 to 2030. The company stated that in the future, after fulfilling strategic investment and business development needs, it will return 100% of excess cash to shareholders.SanDisk expects that as the storage industry cycle improves and the demand for high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence infrastructure grows, the company's profitability will further enhance, and shareholder value will be increased through high-margin businesses and capital return strategies. This capital allocation plan shows that SanDisk will prioritize business expansion and strategic investments in the future while returning remaining cash to investors through stock buybacks, dividends, and other means.

EtherFi announced that the existing lending infrastructure of EtherFi Cash can no longer meet development needs. A dedicated Aave V4 instance is currently being deployed on the Optimism chain to support the credit card backend.EtherFi Cash currently has an active loan amount of 22 million USD, and it is expected that the lending capacity will reach 500 million USD by 2027. There are already 70,000 cardholders using cryptocurrency for consumption without the need to sell their cryptocurrency.

According to ChianCatcher news, as reported by CoinDesk, the U.S. SEC's Investment Management Division has issued a no-action letter to Franklin Templeton, allowing its registered funds to use the on-chain money market fund FOBXX (also known as BENJI) to manage cash and collateral via blockchain, rather than following traditional custody rules.This letter is based on Section 17(f) of the Investment Company Act of 1940 and Rule 17f-2, allowing registered funds to hold shares of FOBXX without meeting certain physical custody requirements. This supports intraday trading, hourly net asset value calculations, and faster transaction processing. FOBXX primarily invests in U.S. government securities and aims to maintain a stable share price of $1, and has expanded to multiple blockchains.

Bitget has launched the US stock bottom-fishing interest-earning product FCN (Fixed Coupon Note), allowing users to use USDT to subscribe to structured products linked to US stock rToken and set target purchase prices. According to the product rules, if the observation price at maturity is greater than or equal to the exercise price, users will receive the USDT principal and the agreed USDT interest; if the observation price at maturity is lower than the exercise price, the USDT principal will be converted into the corresponding number of US stock rToken at the exercise price, while also receiving the agreed USDT interest.At the same time, the platform has launched a first-time rebate activity. Users who successfully subscribe to FCN for the first time with a single amount of no less than 1,000 USDT can receive up to 20 USDT; if the cumulative subscription amount reaches the specified threshold, an individual can receive a maximum cashback reward of 10,000 USDT. For more details, please refer to the official Bitget platform.

According to Digital Asset, a South Korean court has made a first-instance ruling regarding Delio CEO Jeong Sang-ho involved in a cryptocurrency fraud case amounting to approximately 250 billion won (about 180 million USD), sentencing him to 15 years in prison.The 11th Criminal Division of the Southern District Court of Seoul stated that Jeong's criminal conduct was serious, and he continued to shift responsibility to other companies while attempting to evade accountability. This ruling comes about three years and two months after Delio suspended withdrawals in June 2023.

According to Harmony monitoring, Harmony stated that it is advancing the rollback plan and has reached an agreement with validators and exchanges on the specific path. The minting vulnerability fix has been activated, and a complete list of attacker wallets will be announced soon.Previously, the number of ONE tokens abnormally minted on the Harmony network had exceeded 30 trillion, involving 6 abnormal blocks.

Design software company Canva has lowered its annual revenue growth forecast by one-third to 20% due to AI feature delivery costs far exceeding expectations. CEO Melanie Perkins stated that user demand for AI features "significantly exceeded expectations," but the company has decided to postpone the large-scale launch of related products until it optimizes its architecture, reduces unit costs, and improves its business model. Since the release of Canva AI 2.0 in April, the cost per task has decreased by nearly 90%, but the volume of designs generated by AI users is three times that of previous versions, and economic pressures remain.This case reflects a common dilemma in the software industry: the cost of AI inference is breaking the traditional software "zero marginal cost" profit logic. Pitchbook analysts pointed out that Canva and Figma are the "most obvious signals" of this trend. Figma's free cash flow profit margin in the second quarter has dropped from 27% in the first quarter to 14%, and revenue growth in the third quarter is expected to slow from 48% to 36%. Canva previously sold employee shares at a valuation of $42 billion, and the market had anticipated its IPO in 2026, but analysts now believe the IPO may be delayed until next year.

According to CoinDesk, Fidelity plans to add ETH staking functionality and a quarterly cash distribution mechanism for its spot Ethereum ETF—Fidelity Ethereum Fund (FETH). FETH currently has a net asset size of approximately $898 million, and under normal circumstances, up to 100% of the held ETH can be staked.According to the arrangement, Fidelity will retain 85% of the staking rewards, with the remaining 15% distributed to the fund sponsors, custodians, and node operators (including Blockdaemon, Figment, and Galaxy). The net staking rewards will be prioritized to cover the fund's operating expenses, with the remaining portion distributed to investors in cash on a quarterly basis. This move is driven by the safe harbor announcement issued by the IRS in November 2025, which allows eligible crypto trusts to stake without losing their grantor trust tax status.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has lowered its global oil demand forecast for this year, primarily due to ongoing export disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz and high fuel prices. The IEA expects global oil demand to decline by 1.56 million barrels per day by 2026, reaching 103.29 million barrels per day. It is anticipated that global oil demand will decrease by 4.9 million barrels per day year-on-year in the second quarter, with a recovery in the fourth quarter, increasing by approximately 580,000 barrels per day.

Empery Digital sold 1,635 bitcoins from July 1 to August 6, cashing out $102.2 million, reducing its holdings to 1,279 bitcoins. Among them, 954 bitcoins have been pledged to secure $35 million in debt, leaving only 325 bitcoins unrestricted, a significant decrease from 1,375 bitcoins on June 30.In the first half of this year, Empery Digital also sold 1,167 bitcoins, raising $80.1 million, and spent $54 million on stock buybacks, repaying $50 million under the buyback financing and another $10 million loan. The company repaid $20 million in debt after June 30, and the lender returned 585 bitcoins, reducing the pledged amount from 1,539 bitcoins to 954 bitcoins.Empery Digital has invested $2.9 million in the independent real estate project EMHU managed by Texstack, and if the acquisition is completed, an additional investment of $62.1 million may be required. The company has also completed a $20 million investment in Cardinal Data Power, acquiring approximately 8% equity; as of June 30, the company held $3.7 million in cash, including restricted cash, with a working capital shortfall of $5.7 million.

According to CoinDesk, the cross-border payment company MoneyGram announced the expansion of its cash and cryptocurrency exchange service MoneyGram Ramps to Solana, allowing wallets, exchanges, and developers within the Solana ecosystem to access its global cash network.The service supports two-way exchanges between cash and digital assets, with cash deposits covering over 25 countries and cash withdrawals covering over 170 countries and regions. MoneyGram had previously launched a cash deposit and withdrawal service based on USDC in partnership with Stellar and issued the dollar-backed stablecoin MGUSD, continuously expanding its stablecoin payment and remittance business.

Gate has completed the cash dividend distribution for 100 US stock targets including ASML, MA, etc. The platform has proportionally settled the USDT dividend distribution for users holding the relevant stocks at the snapshot time, all processed automatically, requiring no action from users.This dividend distribution covers US stock targets with corporate dividend dates from 2026-08-03 to 2026-08-07, encompassing various industry sectors including technology and semiconductors, financial services, energy, consumer goods, healthcare, industrial manufacturing, real estate REITs, utilities, materials manufacturing, media and entertainment, telecommunications, and strategic ETFs. Representative targets include ASML, MA, COST, GD, etc.

A U.S. judge has suspended the CFTC's civil case against Army Sergeant Van Dyke. The sergeant is accused of using non-public information to profit over $400,000 on Polymarket regarding the fate of Maduro.

The publicly traded company STRATEGY disclosed in its latest filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that it has sold 1,690 bitcoins at an average price of $64,262, cashing out approximately $108.6 million.In addition, Michael Saylor posted on the X platform stating that Strategy has increased its dollar reserves by $650 million and repurchased $109 million of STRC. This move increased the dollar duration by 143 days to 2.7 years and narrowed the bitcoin credit spread of STRC by 10 basis points. As of August 9, 2026, Strategy holds 840,447 bitcoins, with dollar reserves of $4.65 billion.

A wallet security incident involving approximately $130 million in Bitcoin losses is reigniting discussions in the crypto industry about asset custody models: should Bitcoin holders rely on personal self-custody or turn to institutional custody? Hardware wallet manufacturer Coldcard had a vulnerability in its firmware in 2021 that led to some mnemonic phrases generated by the device being predictably risky. This vulnerability was discovered years later, and approximately 5,200 addresses and about 2,000 BTC have been stolen, with losses amounting to around $130 million.After the incident, some investors began to turn to Wall Street custody products. Data shows that the U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF saw a net inflow of about $626 million within days of the incident. Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas stated that such security incidents could further drive funds into ETFs. However, the Bitcoin core community still insists on the self-custody concept. Casa co-founder Jameson Lopp stated that recent events should not undermine users' confidence in self-custody and pointed out that third-party custody also carries risks. Bitcoin Core early developer Peter Todd also believes that self-custody has a better long-term safety record than centralized institutions.Onramp co-founder Michael Tanguma believes that both options have flaws. He stated that concentrating a large amount of assets in a single institution creates a "honey pot," while hardware wallets face risks related to supply chains, firmware, and random number generation. Tanguma proposed a "multi-institution custody" solution, where multiple regulated institutions hold keys through a multi-signature mechanism, requiring multiple institutions to jointly sign any transaction to reduce single points of failure. However, this model has also sparked controversy. Critics argue that while multi-institution custody enhances security, it also introduces permissioned management, conflicting with the decentralized ideals originally pursued by Bitcoin. As Bitcoin gradually enters the fields of pensions, trusts, and institutional asset allocation, the industry is seeking new custody solutions suitable for long-term wealth management. The Coldcard vulnerability incident once again highlights that achieving a balance between security, decentralization, and usability remains a core challenge facing the Bitcoin ecosystem.

This week will see several important events and data. On Monday, the Bank of Japan will release the summary of opinions from the July monetary policy meeting. On Tuesday, the Reserve Bank of Australia will decide on interest rates and hold a press conference. On Wednesday, the United States will release the July CPI data and EIA crude oil inventory. On Thursday, the UK and Eurozone will publish various economic data, and JD.com and Tencent will release their financial reports. On Friday, France and the Eurozone will release CPI and GDP data, and a new round of pricing adjustments for domestic refined oil will begin.

ZEC financial company Cypherpunk disclosed on platform X that Ironwood has surpassed Orchard to become the largest shielded pool on Zcash.The latest data shows that the Ironwood shielded pool has locked a total of 1,976,378 ZEC, worth over 1 billion dollars.