South Korea's government has announced a blockchain-based treasury bond tokenization pilot as part of its 2026 second-half economic growth strategy, alongside major investments in semiconductors and AI. The pilot will explore integration with the Bank of Korea's institutional central bank digital currency (CBDC), aiming to modernize financial infrastructure. Over the next five years, the country plans to double memory chip production capacity and launch a nationwide AI chatbot and unified AI education platform later this year.
Japan Advances Tokenization and Stablecoin Adoption
In a major shift for institutional tokenization, Japan's Progmat — the country's largest security token platform — has migrated its entire platform and over $2.7 billion in tokenized assets from a private Corda 5 chain to the public Avalanche blockchain. The move, executed without disrupting existing projects, improves rights transfer processing speed by three to five times and cuts transaction finality to under two seconds. Originating from Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking, Progmat holds roughly 64.6% of Japan's security token market by issuance value, covering most tokenized real estate and corporate bonds.
Meanwhile, Japanese convenience store giant Lawson plans to pilot JPYC stablecoin payments at a Tokyo outlet in early August, marking the country's first stablecoin payment test directly integrated with a point-of-sale system. Customers will scan a digital wallet QR code, with transaction data fed into Lawson's existing store management system. If successful, the program could expand, signaling growing real-world stablecoin adoption in Japanese retail.
DeepSeek Founder Tops AI Wealth Rankings; Samsung Eyes U.S. Listing
Liang Wenfeng, founder of Chinese AI lab DeepSeek, has seen his net worth double to $36 billion, overtaking Anthropic's Dario Amodei and OpenAI's Greg Brockman to become the richest founder of a pure-play AI model company, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. DeepSeek's valuation surged roughly fivefold since April to $50 billion after a $7.4 billion funding round in June, in which Liang personally invested $3 billion, retaining about a 78% stake.
Samsung Electronics is in early-stage discussions with investment banks about a potential American Depositary Receipt (ADR) listing in the U.S., following SK Hynix's record $26.5 billion U.S. IPO — the largest-ever foreign listing. Samsung's complex multi-division structure poses greater challenges than SK Hynix's more focused business, though its market cap has surpassed $1 trillion this year with shares up about 120%.
SoftBank's Son Predicts $5 Trillion Annual AI Investment; Malaysia Probes Digital Nomad Community
SoftBank Group founder Masayoshi Son said global AI infrastructure will require $5 trillion in annual investment by 2040 to support data centers, power supply, and humanoid robots, driving a shift from human-centric to new work models. Speaking at a recent event, Son argued that the transition to "artificial super intelligence" will generate returns justifying the massive spending.
Malaysia's Home Ministry is investigating Network School, a digital nomad co-living community founded by former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan, over allegations it hosted Israeli citizens in possible violation of immigration laws. Malaysia, which has no diplomatic ties with Israel and bans Israeli passport holders, has asked authorities in Johor to probe whether the community received Israelis traveling on non-Israeli passports.
Crypto Market Activity Surges in Asia; Bitcoin NUPL Remains Negative
As South Korea's KOSPI index tumbled, leading crypto exchange Upbit saw its 24-hour trading volume skyrocket 1,016.4% to exceed $4.14 billion, according to Coingecko data. The surge reflects heightened crypto trading activity as equity markets faced sharp declines, with SK Hynix shares dropping as much as 9.9% earlier.
Bitcoin's adjusted Net Unrealized Profit/Loss (NUPL) has stayed in negative territory for a sixth consecutive week near -0.13, signaling that average holders are still underwater, according to CryptoQuant analyst Axel Adler Jr. However, losses have narrowed significantly from June lows, with readings for overall market, long-term, and short-term holders converging around -0.13, down from troughs near -0.22 to -0.27. The synchronized recovery suggests panicked selling pressure is easing, though the market remains in stabilization mode.
Taiwanese Musician Sells Bored Ape at Loss to Boost ETH Long
Taiwanese musician and NFT collector Huang Licheng, known as Machi Big Brother, sold his Bored Ape #251 at a loss of 6.99 ETH (about $12,400) to increase his leveraged long position on Ethereum, according to Lookonchain. He currently holds a 5,264 ETH long position worth $9.38 million with a liquidation price of $1,756.76. The move highlights continued high-risk appetite among prominent Asian crypto figures even amid market downturns.