Odaily News Tether-backed bitcoin treasury company Twenty One Capital (NYSE: XXI) has released its financial results for the second quarter of 2026, reporting a net loss of $413.5 million, primarily driven by a decline in the value of its bitcoin holdings.

According to the financial report, approximately $401.5 million of Twenty One Capital's second-quarter loss was attributable to a decrease in the book value of its bitcoin assets. As the company uses bitcoin as its core asset allocation, fluctuations in BTC prices directly impact its financial performance.

New CEO Raphael Zagury stated that Twenty One Capital can no longer exist solely as a "Bitcoin treasury" company, but needs to transform into a broader financial services platform. Zagury outlined that the company's next phase of plans will focus on three key directions, including: expanding its business footprint through mergers and acquisitions; enhancing financing capabilities through capital market instruments; and exploring bitcoin-collateralized lending businesses. (The Block)

Odaily News ENS DAO has voted to pass the "Next Era of ENS DAO" proposal and completed on-chain execution, officially establishing the ENS Foundation to usher the ENS ecosystem into a new phase of governance.

According to the proposal, the ENS Foundation will become a fully operational organization, equipped with a full-time executive director, a professional team, and a board of directors consisting of 5 members. It will be responsible for ENS's institutional work in legal, policy, standards-setting, and brand protection. ENS stated that over the past nearly decade, it has developed into critical infrastructure within the Ethereum ecosystem, with millions of registered domain names and integration across numerous wallets, applications, and Layer 2 networks. However, the DAO itself lacks a legal entity status, which prevents it from effectively participating in internet naming system governance, signing institutional cooperation agreements, hiring full-time employees, safeguarding trademark rights, or engaging in regulatory discussions. The establishment of the ENS Foundation aims to fill this gap. Going forward, the Foundation will be responsible for:

1. Representing ENS in internet standards organizations such as ICANN, IETF, and W3C, to promote the recognition and management of the ".ens" top-level domain (TLD);

2. Participating in policy discussions as a legal entity, communicating with regulators and government agencies;

3. Holding and protecting ENS trademarks and intellectual property, and combating phishing and impersonation activities;

4. Hiring full-time employees to manage ecosystem operations, grant programs, and treasury management;

5. Serving as the formal cooperation entity between traditional institutions such as registrars and standards organizations and the ENS ecosystem.

Odaily News: According to Arkham monitoring, Galaxy Digital just transferred 600 BTC to Binance, worth $38.4 million, suspected to be a sell-off.

Odaily News: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Paul S. Atkins has sent a letter to Robert Walley, Chairman of the Operating Committee of the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT), stating that the SEC plans to undertake a comprehensive overhaul of the CAT system, including adjustments to its governance structure, funding sources, and operational model.

Atkins stated that during his tenure, the SEC has significantly reduced CAT's annual operating costs by issuing exemptions and approving amendments to the CAT NMS Plan, and has eliminated the requirement to report personally identifiable information (PII) to the CAT system. These reforms have lowered system costs and reduced the scope of data collection, but CAT still faces fundamental issues regarding costs, governance, and funding mechanisms.

To address these issues, the SEC issued a concept release on April 16, 2026, initiating a comprehensive review of CAT and other audit trail systems and data sources used in U.S. securities market regulation. The SEC stated that it has received hundreds of comments, with one core consensus emerging: investors and market participants want the SEC to assume greater responsibility for CAT's management and funding arrangements. Atkins noted that he has directed SEC staff to develop deep-seated reform proposals for CAT, including:

1. Exploring new funding sources for CAT, including the use of congressional appropriations and Section 31 transaction fees under the Securities Exchange Act;

2. Drafting rule proposals that, if approved, would rescind Rule 613 and require exchanges, FINRA, and broker-dealers to continue utilizing existing CAT infrastructure and reporting standards to submit CAT data directly to the SEC or its designated agency;

3. Assessing the SEC's internal resource requirements to prepare for the SEC to assume CAT governance responsibilities in the future.

The SEC anticipates that this reform involves multiple components that need to be advanced concurrently, with the overall transition potentially extending through the end of 2027.

Odaily News: According to MSX.COM data, Circle's stock price has risen over 8%, breaking above $72, currently trading at $72.84, marking a new high since its June low.

Odaily News: U.S. President Trump stated that the United States can use "overwhelming force" against Iran, where inflation has reached as high as 300%, rendering its currency worthless, and Iranians are not paying soldiers' wages. (Jinshi)

Odaily News, fintech and asset tokenization company Anchored Finance has announced the launch of three tokenized funds, with underlying strategies involving funds managed by asset management institutions such as Point72, Millennium, D. E. Shaw, and BlackRock. The initial products include the Anchored Diversified Hedge Fund (aDHF), Anchored Liquid Strategies Fund (aLSF), and Anchored AI Strategies Fund (aAIF), offering eligible investors access to on-chain alternative asset allocation. Anchored Finance stated that this marks the first time such a portfolio of traditional hedge funds has been brought on-chain in the form of tokenized funds.

Odaily Planet Daily News: AI infrastructure startup Trajectory announced the completion of a $40 million funding round, with a post-investment valuation of $300 million, featuring participation from Sequoia Capital. The specific funding round and other investors have not yet been disclosed. Trajectory was founded by researchers from former tech companies such as Google and Apple, and primarily helps enterprises customize open-source AI models for specific business needs, while optimizing the software toolchain that supports AI Agent operations (i.e., the "Agent Harness").

As the cost of using closed-source large language models continues to rise, more enterprises are seeking alternatives: on one hand, they reduce costs by fine-tuning and customizing open-source models; on the other hand, they improve Agent execution frameworks to enable AI models to call tools and execute tasks more effectively. This trend is driving a new wave of entrepreneurship centered around model adaptation and Agent infrastructure.

Trajectory aims to address key challenges enterprises face when deploying AI Agents, including model performance optimization, task execution reliability, and adaptation to enterprise scenarios. The company hopes to help enterprises build more efficient and cost-effective AI applications by providing model customization and Agent operation infrastructure.

Investors believe that as AI evolves from simple chatbots to Agents capable of autonomously executing complex tasks, a new infrastructure layer centered around model optimization and Agent engineering will become a significant market. Sequoia has also been continuously increasing its investment in the AI infrastructure field in recent years, including investments in AI Agents and enterprise AI applications. (The Information)

Odaily News: Prediction market platform Polymarket is undergoing an organizational upgrade in preparation for the upcoming fall trading peak, bringing in several new executives, restructuring its marketing system, and strengthening its compliance team in preparation for U.S. market expansion. Polymarket recently hired Travis VanderZanden, founder of shared e-scooter company Bird and former Uber and Lyft executive, as Chief Growth Officer, responsible for the company's growth strategy and marketing system development. VanderZanden stated that the prediction market is at a critical stage of rapid development, and the company needs to further improve its management team to support long-term growth.

This adjustment comes as Polymarket faces regulatory scrutiny. Previously, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) had launched an investigation into its business model, related to the platform's marketing activities and promotional partnership policies. Sources say Polymarket has restructured its marketing department, updated rules for promotional partners, and provided relevant training to employees, while also hiring consulting firm AlixPartners to oversee whether content published by partners complies with the new standards.

Meanwhile, Polymarket continues to strengthen its compliance and risk management capabilities for its U.S. operations. The company's U.S. trading platform has added several new executives in regulatory and risk roles, including former Robinhood executive Megan McGrath as Chief Compliance Officer for the U.S. platform, former Coinbase executive Natalie Oblazny overseeing U.S. regulatory affairs, former FBI and Coinbase employee Shana Bautista as Head of Global Investigations and Intelligence, and former Nasdaq executive Paul Jordan as Chief Risk Officer for the U.S. platform.

Polymarket's U.S. trading platform went live in May this year and operates independently from its international business. With the NFL new season kicking off in September and the U.S. midterm elections approaching in November, the market expects a new wave of growth in prediction market trading activity.

Previously, Polymarket had already become one of the representative platforms in the prediction market space and continues to seek expanded fundraising. According to reports, the company is currently seeking a new funding round at a valuation exceeding $20 billion. As institutional investors and professional traders gradually enter the prediction market, Polymarket is attempting to transform from a retail-facing, betting-style prediction platform into a more mature financial market infrastructure. (CNBC)

Odaily News: U.S. President Trump recently stated, "If we don't strike Iran, it will acquire nuclear weapons. So, this war is about preventing Iran from having nuclear weapons. But I'm frustrated with Iran's negotiating style—they always play tricks, agreeing at the table, then turning around and rejecting it through the media. Iran's economy is in chaos." Regarding oil prices, Trump said, "Oil prices are even lower than during Biden's administration." (Jin Shi)

Odaily News: Manus announced that it will resume operations as an independent company in the future. Some users are required to complete data backup before 7:59 AM Beijing Time (Singapore Time) on August 23, 2026, and initiate data recovery after 8:00 AM on August 25 to ensure normal service usage.

Manus stated that affected users will be notified of the specific arrangements via email and in-app notifications. If users registered through Apple ID or Facebook accounts, they need to pay attention to in-app notifications. Users can perform backups multiple times before the backup deadline; even if new data is added after backup, they can re-run the backup process. Starting from 8:00 AM on August 25, affected users can import data through the recovery portal and continue their previous usage status. Manus stated that affected users will not be charged during the migration period and will receive a welcome-back reward.

For unaffected users, Manus stated that no action is required and they can continue to use the service normally. The system will confirm their status through in-app notifications. Manus stated that this adjustment is an important step for the company's next phase of development, and a series of new features will be launched in the future to further expand the capabilities of general-purpose AI Agents. The company also committed to supporting users through the transition with help center guides and round-the-clock customer service.

Odaily News: According to Gate data, Brent crude oil futures extended losses to 1%, trading at $86.821 per barrel. WTI crude oil futures fell 0.96% to $81.338 per barrel.