South Korea’s financial regulator is preparing a consolidated digital asset law covering stablecoins and market oversight, Core Scientific reported second-quarter revenue more than doubled on expanding artificial intelligence infrastructure demand, and liquid staking protocol Lido launched an upgrade intended to cut Ethereum’s validator count by about one-third.
The Financial Services Commission plans to introduce a government-backed Digital Asset Basic Act in coordination with the ruling party after months of delay. The measure would address stablecoin issuance and circulation, digital asset business requirements, exchange entry standards, disclosures, internal controls and system resilience. Ten separate digital asset and stablecoin bills already sit before parliament. Outstanding disagreements include whether won-denominated stablecoin issuers must be majority bank-owned and whether ownership limits should apply to large exchanges. Timing for the consolidated proposal remains undecided.
Core Scientific recorded second-quarter revenue of $164.2 million, up from $78.6 million a year earlier. Colocation revenue rose to $136.7 million from $10.6 million, becoming the company’s largest business segment, while gross profit increased to $70 million from $5 million. A non-cash accounting charge linked to the rising value of outstanding warrants produced a net loss of $1.15 billion. The firm also announced a partnership with chipmaker AMD to support artificial intelligence infrastructure. Initial 15-year contracts cover 530 megawatts across multiple United States sites beginning in 2027 and could expand to 2.5 gigawatts of leasable capacity, with potential contracted base revenue exceeding $14 billion.
Lido introduced Curated Module v2 to its staking infrastructure. The update adds support for Ethereum’s 0x02 withdrawal credentials and allows validators to raise their effective balance from 32 ETH to as much as 2,048 ETH. The change is projected to reduce the network’s validator count to approximately 628,000 from 880,000. Migration has not yet begun. The adjustment aims to lower the number of validators and consensus-layer messages required to secure the network without affecting execution-layer activity that determines transaction fees.