India's central bank has recommended a hardline stance against crypto, advocating for a ban on regulated financial institutions dealing with digital assets and privately issued stablecoins. In submissions to a parliamentary committee, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) warned that treating crypto like traditional assets could create a false sense of safety around "economically unproductive" speculative products and pose risks to financial stability. It stressed that widespread stablecoin adoption could undermine monetary sovereignty, disrupt policy transmission, and fragment payment systems, reiterating that the country should strengthen its digital payment infrastructure through a central bank digital currency (CBDC) instead.

Authorities in Malaysia have arrested a local man and a foreign national, aged 20 and 31, for allegedly stealing electricity to run cryptocurrency mining operations. Police raided the site and seized all mining equipment. The suspects have been remanded for four days, from July 4 to July 7, to facilitate further investigation. Power theft for illegal mining remains a persistent issue in Southeast Asia, where low electricity costs attract operators but often lead to crackdowns by utilities and law enforcement.

Chinese tech giant Alibaba will ban employees from using Anthropic's Claude Code starting July 10, after security assessments flagged a risk of embedded backdoors. The company has designated the AI coding tool as high-risk software and is recommending its own Qoder as a replacement. Recent reports revealed that from version 2.1.91, Claude Code contained "invisible code" that could secretly transmit location data when a network proxy was enabled, raising alarm across China's tech sector over supply-chain vulnerabilities in foreign AI tools.

Several South Korean companies, including Samsung, have expressed confusion after the OUSD alliance published a list of over 140 partners without prior consultation. The firms said they were unaware of their listed roles, raising market concerns about the transparency and authorization process behind the stablecoin consortium's partnership disclosures. The controversy highlights growing scrutiny in South Korea over how blockchain projects represent corporate relationships.

Goldman Sachs maintained its "buy" rating on Chinese AI firm MiniMax with a HK$860 target, arguing that DeepSeek's upcoming peak/off-peak pricing for its V4 model validates MiniMax M3's cost efficiency. MiniMax's M3 model doubles reasoning efficiency over its predecessor, offsetting a doubling of parameters. Goldman views the upcoming larger M3 series and H3 video model as near-term catalysts. DeepSeek V4 is set for mid-July launch with peak pricing at double the off-peak rate.

Bitmine Chairman Tom Lee advised that any pullback in SpaceX presents a buying opportunity, citing upcoming share unlocks that may create temporary selling pressure. He also predicted the ETH/BTC ratio will trend higher in the second half of 2026, fueled by stablecoin growth, asset tokenization, and new Ethereum ecosystem forks reinforcing ETH's store-of-value narrative. Lee cautioned against chasing SpaceX at current levels but said dips are attractive.

The Royal Government of Bhutan has moved 700 bitcoin, valued at approximately $43.75 million, to Binance, according to on-chain data. The deposit by the Himalayan kingdom, which has been mining bitcoin using its abundant hydropower resources, comes amid broader government bitcoin movements that often draw market attention. Bhutan’s sovereign crypto holdings have been built up over years through state-backed mining operations.