According to Odaily Planet Daily on July 13th, crypto KOLs like @amathxbt have revealed that Circle's public blockchain Arc may have been launched privately. Cross-chain protocols LayerZero and LI.FI have been deployed to the Arc network, but are not yet publicly available for community testing. Arc is a public Layer 1 blockchain, positioned as an "economic operating system for the internet," providing shared, composable infrastructure to support economic contracts, stablecoins, tokenized assets, and global market operations. In May of this year, Circle officially released the ARC white paper, outlining the design framework for ARC as the native coordinating asset of the Arc blockchain network. The Arc public testnet is scheduled to launch in October 2025, with the mainnet expected to launch in the summer of 2026.

Odaily Planet Daily reports that qinbafrank, in an article published on the X platform, stated that KorProtocol has announced the completion of a $7.5 million Series A funding round, led by 1kx and Blockchain Capital, valuing the company at $100 million post-money. Other investors included Republic, Animoca, Solana, and Avalanche. KOR utilizes three engines—Verify, Route, and Settle—to transform creative assets into verifiable, matchable, and automatically settled on-chain assets. The Verify engine allows creators to register their work on-chain, recording its origin, ownership, and licensing terms. The Route engine uses data and AI to match creators, assets, labels, brands, platforms, and brokerage firms. The Settle engine uses smart contracts and USDC for instant, automatic revenue sharing on the Base chain, supporting complex revenue sharing rules and recurring income. KOR currently boasts over 1 million registered users, over $2 million in revenue, over 285,000 NFTs, over 1,000 IP partners, and collaborations with deadmau5 and Black Mirror. Following the funding round, KOR will continue to expand its IP supply, deepen partnerships, and advance its network expansion.

According to Odaily, South Korea's Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment has begun formulating an early-stage power supply plan for the new semiconductor industrial park in the Honam metropolitan area, and plans to finalize new energy storage systems (ESS) and pumped storage projects through the 12th Basic Electricity Supply and Demand Plan. The 11th Basic Electricity Supply and Demand Plan estimated that, considering factors such as the construction of the Yongin Semiconductor Industrial Park, South Korea would need a total of 21.75 GW of long-term energy storage systems by 2038. The South Korean government previously disclosed that the first phase of power supply for semiconductor wafer fabs in the southwestern region is 6.3 GW. Industry insiders predict that the domestic ESS market will expand to over 40 trillion won in the future. (ZDNet Korea Semiconductor)

Odaily Planet Daily reports that SBI and the Solana Foundation have announced a strategic partnership to jointly promote the development of Japan's on-chain financial market. According to the agreement, the Solana Foundation will acquire a stake in SBI R3 Japan and, together with existing shareholders SBI and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, will jointly promote a new growth strategy. The company plans to change its name to SBI Solana Global Co., Ltd. SBI Solana Global will focus on supporting the issuance and circulation of stablecoins such as the Japanese yen stablecoin JPYSC, supporting the composition and circulation of social bonds and tokenized RWAs, building cross-border payment infrastructure, providing on-chain financial services for institutional investors, and developing next-generation payment infrastructure for the AI Agent era.