Crypto-focused VC Paradigm has closed a new $1.2 billion fund — one of the largest in the sector — and says it will now hunt for bets well beyond crypto.

With fresh capital in hand, the firm plans to expand into artificial intelligence and robotics, broadening its mandate past the digital-asset startups it is known for.

The move underscores how top crypto VCs are chasing the AI boom, as the lines between crypto, AI and frontier-tech investing keep blurring.

BNB Chain is building a dedicated Layer 1 purpose-built for “agentic” trading — autonomous AI agents that execute trades on their own — with a testnet slated for late 2026 and a mainnet targeted for early 2027.

The chain targets sub-50ms transaction pre-confirmation and over 100,000 TPS, and removes the public mempool — a change meant to curb the front-running attacks common on open chains.

It complements the existing BNB Chain stack, whose AI-agent ecosystem has already grown to some 150,000 deployed agents across the network.

AscendEX (formerly Bitmax) says it ceased operations on July 1, blaming the EU's new MiCA regime — under which it holds no authorization — plus broader regulatory, financial and operational pressures, cutting off deposits, trading, swaps and staking for all users.

The shutdown follows on-chain sleuth ZachXBT's warning that the exchange had stalled user withdrawals for weeks while still taking deposits, then went silent on X for nine days.

As of July 6, all withdrawals face manual review with automated payouts paused, and AscendEX says it cannot give assurances on timing or amounts. It lost ~$78M to the Lazarus Group in 2021.

Backed by 1kx, Blockchain Capital, Animoca, Sfermion and the Solana and Avalanche foundations, KOR Protocol raised $7.5M in a Series A that values the onchain intellectual-property (IP) network at a $100M post-money valuation.

The raise funds KOR's work bringing IP rights and licensing onchain, letting creators and brands tokenize and monetize their intellectual property directly.

Kraken is pursuing a full banking license in Europe, targeting Lithuania — a move that would make it the only crypto exchange with bank status, mirroring the path Revolut took to offer accounts, lending and stock trading across the EEA.

CEO Arjun Sethi says Kraken plans to secure banking licenses region by region over the next decade — via acquisitions or from scratch — as part of parent Payward's global licensing push.

Separately, Kraken won a $22M arbitration against former auditor Mazars, which dropped the exchange in 2023 during the “Operation Choke Point 2.0” crypto crackdown.

Prediction-market platform Polymarket has switched on native Bitcoin funding: users can now deposit BTC over the Lightning Network in seconds, powered by Spark and without any stablecoin conversion.

“Starting today, Polymarket now supports instant Bitcoin deposits over Lightning, powered by Spark. Deposit BTC straight to Polymarket — faster and more privately,” Spark said. Spark is a Bitcoin scaling network that calls itself “the best way to build on Bitcoin,” part of a wider push to make BTC directly spendable across crypto apps.

GPT-5.6 is OpenAI's newest model family in three tiers: Sol — the flagship for reasoning, coding and agents — plus a balanced everyday Terra and a fast, low-cost Luna.

“GPT-5.6 Sol, along with Terra and Luna, will launch publicly this Thursday. We're expanding preview access globally now,” OpenAI said. The models first reached a small group of partners in a late-June preview under U.S. government review — Thursday marks their first public release.

The tokenized-stock market just hit $1.95B (+34% in 30 days). Two issuers run most of it — and they play completely different games.

The two giants (≈78% combined):

— Ondo (Global Markets): 43.6% share · $870M onchain · 405 assets. The deepest, but flat (−1.3% MoM). An open network: distributed across Binance, MetaMask, Bitget, Euler.

— xStocks (Backed, Kraken-owned): 34.6% share · $690M · 172 assets, but +58.7% MoM — the fastest riser. A Kraken vertical: Kraken, Bybit, Gate, Bitget Wallet.

The challengers:

— Robinhood (Stock Tokens): ~2,000 tokens, but EU/EEA only + reduced rights

— Coinbase (Tokenize): launching this summer, promising real dividends + voting

— bStocks (by Binance): its own issuer, ~6% share in just 8 days

— Dinari (dShares): SEC transfer agent, the only one US investors can legally use (accredited)

Bottom line: Ondo is deepest, xStocks fastest, Binance the newest threat — but nearly everyone blocks the US. Only Dinari lets Americans in.

H1 in one picture — every major venue, month by month. Where the volume actually went, Jan → Jun:

The majors

— Kalshi: a relentless climb: $3.7B → $9.4B, peaking in June. Six straight months of growth, no wobble.

— Polymarket: stuck in a $3.2B–$4.8B range, dipped to $3.2B in May, rebounded to $4.3B in June. Flat while Kalshi ran.

The challengers

— Opinion: front-loaded and fading: $3.3B in January → collapsed to ~$380M by June. The entire −80% share drop is right here.

— Predict.fun: volatile: a $647M April spike, back down to $265M in June.

— Limitless: the quiet grinder: $47M → $327M by May, the cleanest growth curve of the small caps.

Bottom line: Kalshi's lead isn't a one-month fluke — it's six months of compounding. The majors pulled away while the challengers churned.

Tether has invested $20 million in Mercado Bitcoin's strategic financing round. The Brazilian platform is one of Latin America's largest regulated on-chain financial services providers.

Mercado Bitcoin serves 4.5 million users, has issued over R$2 billion in tokenized assets, and operates under more than 10 licenses across Brazil and Europe.

The new funding will support expansion across stablecoin payments, tokenized investments, lending, and on-chain capital markets, while also fueling international growth.