Japan’s parliament has formally passed a law that explicitly defines crypto assets as financial assets. The move completes Japan’s top-level legal classification for crypto assets and lays the groundwork for bringing them into a financial regulatory framework. The report also said Ripple launched a new round of XRP-related advertising immediately after the bill was passed. XRP is described as one of the few major tokens in Japan with a compliant payments license and a long-running push into cross-border payments, which could support wider adoption and integration among Japanese financial institutions.

Hackers issued an ultimatum to Kenya’s State House, demanding a Ksh41 Million ransom paid in Bitcoin (BTC) by 18:00 on 2026-07-19. They threatened to leak a large cache of classified state secrets if the payment is not made. The incident is in Kenya and targets the country’s top executive office. The ransom is denominated in fiat but must be settled in BTC.

Major economies accelerated crypto institutionalization this week, with BlackRock adding $204M of bitcoin and Morgan Stanley formally filing for SOL and ETH spot ETFs. Japan’s parliament passed a bill to legalize crypto ETFs, while South Korea classified crypto as a “national asset.” Ethereum ETFs recorded $105M of net purchases for the week, the highest in 11 weeks, as BTC and ETH rose to a one-month high and a six-week high, respectively. The developments center on tangible regulatory advances and execution by top asset managers, strengthening the policy backdrop for major crypto assets.

RenaissXYZ is a BNB Chain-based RWA project focused on putting PSA-certified physical Pokémon cards on-chain through RLP vault verification, multisig custody nodes and a “verifiable possession” model. Users can deposit physical cards to mint 1:1 on-chain NFTs or tokens, with gas-free transactions, permissionless peer-to-peer transfers and a Gacha Buyback mechanism. The project is currently in beta testing and supports redeeming physical cards by burning the NFT and requesting shipment. The app is positioned as infrastructure that strengthens BNB Chain’s real-world asset tokenization and DeFi composable collateral use cases.

The headline points to signs of a strong recovery in Solana’s SOL price alongside record-high on-chain perpetual DEX trading volume. The data is framed as evidence of concrete progress in Solana’s derivatives infrastructure. It also suggests that user activity and protocol TVL may be expanding in tandem. No verifiable details are provided on volume figures, protocol names, or the relevant time window.

Velvet Capital has launched a cross-chain smart trading aggregation platform that supports BNB Chain, Solana, Base, Ethereum, Hyperliquid and Robinhood Chain. The product packages typical cross-chain steps—bridging, wrapping and gas payments—into a single click, while adding AI-assisted decision support and portfolio management. The core goal is to speed up asset movement across chains, including strengthening BNB Chain’s role as one of the main supported entry networks for trading.

TermMax Alpha has launched a new derivatives protocol on BNB Chain, offering U.S. equity-mirrored tokens including SPYon, QQQon, Tesla ($TSLAB) and Nvidia ($NVDAB). The protocol supports leveraged long and short positions while promoting what it describes as zero liquidation risk. It says its mechanism design aims to reduce forced-liquidation risk triggered by on-chain price spikes, and it also allows depositors to earn premiums. The rollout is positioned as a DeFi infrastructure upgrade for the BNB Chain ecosystem, adding asset variety, improving capital efficiency and supporting TVL growth, with TSLAB among the first single-asset listings to gain a native on-chain liquidity and trading venue.

Bread (@breaddothot) said all project graduations will now route to Raydium, with 95% of liquidity migrating automatically when the curve completes. The change targets a common launchpad gap where attention stops at launch rather than post-graduation liquidity. Raydium, already Solana’s largest DEX, is positioned to receive more stable, predictable liquidity for newly launched assets. Bread framed the update as an infrastructure-level upgrade that strengthens Raydium’s role in Solana DeFi.