Filtering the noise: July 31, 2026

Important news for today:

Macro

• The Bank of England kept its key interest rate on hold at 3.75% for the 5th time this year after a bigger-than-expected drop in the inflation rate last month gave policymakers breathing space to assess the fallout from renewed fighting in Iran.
• Taiwan’s economy grew 12.92% in Q2 2026 driven by the AI boom and thriving trade and investment ties with the US.
• The Bank of Japan decided to hold its benchmark interest rate steady while lowering its inflation outlook for the current fiscal year.
• US core PCE declined to 3.3% from 3.4% and PCE declined to 3.7% from 4.1% last month as expected.
• Japan Tokyo CPI rose to 2% from 1.7% last month while unemployment rate remained steady at 2.5%.
• Preliminary reports of US annualized GDP declined to 1.5% in Q2 2026 vs. 2.1% in Q1 2026 and below the 2.1% forecast.

Crypto

• Ondo Finance is evaluating a potential acquisition of between $250 million and $500 million. They are considering wealthtech targets, among other subsectors.
• Kamino launched AUTO, the first permissionless onchain RWA backed by near-prime US auto loan yield. The whole stack is built from specialists: Agora Data originates the loans, Figure structures them, Hastra issues. Three things you can do with the token: lend it (deposit and earn), borrow against it, or loop it to amplify the yield.

Corporate

• Gumi will begin operating a 3 billion yen (about $18.3 million) crypto asset fund with SBI Financial Services and backing from Daiwa Securities Group and other investors.
• Coinbase reported a revenue of $1.22 billion, versus consensus expectations of $1.29 billion. Transaction revenue came in at $599 million, compared with expectations of $628 million. Subscription and services revenue totaled $555 million, versus estimates of $599 million, as investors looked for signs that recurring businesses continued to offset weakness in trading activity. Coinbase added 819 BTC to its balance sheet during the 2nd quarter, bringing its total holdings up to 17,211 BTC, an increase of 5% quarter-over-quarter.
• Strategy reported an $8.2 billion second-quarter net loss. The company held 843,775 BTC as of July 26, up 25% from the start of the year. At current prices, the stash is worth roughly $54.8 billion, compared with an acquisition cost of $63.7 billion.
• Kulipa, the Paris startup behind the rails for many crypto payment cards, is winding down over solvency issues, abruptly killing more than 120,000 cards across its partners.

Fundraising and M&As

• Fluid raised an undisclosed amount in a strategic round led by AppWorks.
• Perceptron Network raised $6.5M in a strategic round led by P2 Ventures (Polygon Ventures), QCP Capital, Selini Capital, Momentum 6, DeFi Capital and Sigma Capital. Perceptron Network is a DePIN and AI network rewarding users for sharing bandwidth and data.

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