Equities update | July 17th, 2026

Week 29 was characterised by heightened volatility, led by a sharp unwinding of crowded and leveraged AI trades across South Korea, Japan and Taiwan, which subsequently spread into US technology markets and triggered a broader risk-off move. The sell-off appeared largely positioning-driven rather than a deterioration in underlying earnings, with strong results from semiconductor companies failing to offset concerns around elevated valuations, aggressive capital expenditure and the returns hyperscalers can generate on their AI investments. The release of Moonshot AI’s highly competitive Kimi K3 model added to Friday’s pressure by reinforcing concerns that lower-cost Chinese models could challenge the pricing power and capital intensity of Western AI platforms. This overshadowed softer US inflation data, which reduced expectations for further near-term Federal Reserve rate increases and helped Bitcoin hold up better than equity markets. Against the weaker market backdrop, structural momentum across crypto payments and financial infrastructure remained strong, supported by Stripe and Advent’s proposed acquisition of PayPal and a series of stablecoin, tokenisation and public-blockchain partnerships announced by SBI Holdings in Japan.

Week 29 key developments in Blockchain Equities:

• Index performance: The Index fell -6.5% during the week, underperforming Bitcoin’s -1.5% decline, as a broad risk-off move across AI and semiconductor equities outweighed softer inflation data. June headline CPI slowed to 3.5% year-on-year, while core CPI eased to 2.6% and producer prices fell 0.3% month-on-month. Although the readings reduced expectations for an imminent rate increase, Fed Chair Kevin Warsh remained cautious on inflation. 

• Block Index key movers: 7-day top performers: PayPal (+25.2%), Monex (+10.2%), Sharplink Gaming (+7.9%) 7-day worst performers: Cipher Digital (-23.8%), Keel Infrastructure (-18.7%), Iren (-16.5%) 

• Stripe and Advent make US$53bn bid for Index constituent PayPal - Stripe and Advent International submitted a joint offer to acquire PayPal for US$60.50 per share, valuing the company at more than US$53bn and representing an approximately 28% premium to its unaffected share price. The transaction would combine Stripe’s merchant-processing and developer infrastructure with PayPal’s approximately 430m consumer accounts, Venmo and global checkout network. A successful acquisition would also give Stripe control of PYUSD alongside its Bridge infrastructure and involvement in Open USD. Stripe would likely retain PYUSD initially and integrate it into its merchant acceptance, wallet and cross-border settlement products, but over time could use Bridge to enable fee-free conversion into Open USD and gradually sunset PYUSD as a standalone token. PayPal and Venmo would then provide a significant consumer distribution channel for Open USD, materially strengthening its position against USDC and other payment stablecoins

• Index constituent SBI Holdings continue to build an integrated onchain financial ecosystem - SBI Holdings announced a series of initiatives spanning each layer of the digital-asset value chain. The group partnered with the Solana Foundation to develop Japanese real-world assets and stablecoins for international markets; began tokenising its Japanese high-dividend equity fund through DigiFT; and partnered with Ondo Finance to distribute tokenised Japanese assets and explore JPYSC as a settlement and collateral asset. SBI VC Trade also launched a JPYSC lending product with an initial annualised rate of 3%, while SBI expanded its Asian distribution through the acquisition of a majority stake in Singapore-based Coinhako and a separate XDC Network partnership targeting enterprise applications in Japan and Korea. Collectively, the opportunity is to generate revenue across asset-management fees, token issuance, stablecoin circulation, lending spreads and exchange activity, while using its existing banking and securities network to connect Japanese assets with global liquidity. The principal risk is execution: commercial adoption must justify the complexity of integrating multiple chains, partners and regulatory jurisdictions.

• Earnings Recap – Key holdings:

  • Taiwan Semiconductor Corporation, ASML, BlackRock – Positive

  • CitiGroup - Mixed

Other news - index constituents:

• CleanSpark signed a 20-year triple-net lease with an investment-grade global technology company for 175MW of critical IT capacity at its Sandersville, Georgia campus. The agreement represents approximately US$6.6bn of contracted revenue, potentially increasing to US$11.6bn with extension options, with initial capacity expected from the fourth quarter of 2027. The customer also entered an exclusivity agreement covering CleanSpark’s Texas portfolio of up to 885MW, providing a potential route to a substantially larger partnership.

• Galaxy Digital introduced the Galaxy Onchain Financing Rate, or GOFR, which aggregates financing from protocols including Aave, Morpho, Spark and Kamino into a single managed borrowing rate. Institutional clients face Galaxy rather than individual protocols, can post native Bitcoin as collateral and avoid independently managing wallets or smart contracts. Galaxy will initially provide up to US$100m of first-loss capital, with minimum loans of US$1m. GOFR creates potential lending-spread, structuring and servicing revenue while allowing Galaxy to cross-sell custody, trading and collateral-management services.

• Strategy raised US$466.7m through the sale of 4.82m MSTR shares but did not purchase additional Bitcoin or repurchase any securities. Bitcoin holdings remained at 843,775 BTC, while the USD reserve increased from US$2.55bn to US$3.0bn.

• Monex Group announced that Monex Securities had surpassed three million general securities trading accounts. Although the announcement is not solely crypto-related, it expands the domestic distribution base through which Monex can cross-sell Coincheck, digital-asset and Web3 services, particularly following the broader integration of Monex with NTT Docomo.

• Sharplink became an anchor investor in EthSystems, a spinout from the Ethereum Foundation’s Institutional Privacy Task Force. EthSystems is developing privacy and compliance infrastructure that would allow banks and asset managers to transact on Ethereum without publicly exposing client identities, positions or transaction details.

Other news – Non-index constituents:

• Morgan Stanley’s E*Trade launched direct cryptocurrency trading for eligible customers, initially covering Bitcoin, Ether and Solana through infrastructure provider Zerohash. The move increases competitive pressure on Coinbase and Robinhood by enabling an established brokerage customer base to access crypto without transferring funds to a separate exchange.

• DTCC is working with almost 40 financial and technology institutions including BlackRock, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange on the tokenisation of equities and US Treasuries. The proposed structure records tokenised entitlements to securities held within existing DTC infrastructure, preserving economic and legal rights including dividends and voting. A formal service launch is reportedly targeted for October, representing a potentially important bridge between conventional securities custody and public or permissioned blockchains.

• Crypto.com raised US$400m from Citadel Securities in its first institutional funding round, valuing the private exchange at US$20bn. The capital is expected to support expansion into tokenised securities, derivatives and additional asset classes.

• New York State introduced a one-year pause on state environmental permits for new hyperscale data centres while it develops rules covering electricity costs, grid investment and environmental impacts. The announcement created particular concern around TeraWulf, given its Lake Mariner platform and wider New York exposure, although the company stated that its existing operations and current development plans were unaffected.

• Velocity, a London-based stablecoin treasury and settlement platform, raised a US$38m Series A co-led by Dragonfly and FirstMark, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Ripple, Capital One Ventures, QED and others. Velocity helps businesses hold, transfer and settle funds using stablecoins while connecting those activities to banking rails and compliance systems.