Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, was supposed to leave China behind when the country made cryptocurrency trading illegal in 2021. Almost two years later, users traded $90 billion of cryptocurrency-related assets in China in a single month, according to internal figures viewed by The Wall Street Journal and current and former employees. The transactions made China Binance’s biggest market by far, accounting for 20% of volume worldwide, excluding trades made by a subset of very large traders.

One of China’s last major developers to have so far avoided defaults amid the nation’s property debt crisis slid in equity and credit markets Tuesday, after canceling a share placement, Bloomberg News reported. Shares of Country Garden Holdings Co., one of China’s largest private-sector developers, fell as much as 11% in their biggest drop this year, and ended down 7.6%. Its closely watched dollar bond due January next year, its nearest such maturity, dropped 2.3 cents Tuesday to 32.5 cents, a level that indicates high uncertainty on repayment.

Chinese ministries, regulators and the central bank on Tuesday pledged more financing support to small businesses, suggesting an urgency among policymakers to revive the private sector amid a flagging economic recovery, Reuters reported. China will encourage financial institutions to offer targeted and diversified financial support to some small and medium-sized enterprises in the manufacturing sector, according to a joint statement by the industry and finance ministries, financial and securities regulators and the central bank.

China's currency regulators are asking some commercial banks to reduce or postpone their purchases of U.S. dollars in order to slow the yuan's depreciation, Reuters reported. The informal instruction, or the so-called window guidance, is the latest in a series of steps taken by authorities this year to bolster a currency that has been hit by China's faltering post-pandemic economic recovery and rising yields for the U.S. dollar and other major currencies.

Hong Kong's June retail sales rose 19.6% from a year earlier in the seventh consecutive month of growth thanks to a tourism recovery and positive consumption sentiment and the outlook is favourable, the city government said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Sales increased to HK$33.1 billion ($4.25 billion). That compared with a revised 18.5% rise in May and 14.9% growth in April. The government launched a promotional campaign in March called "Hello Hong Kong" after lifting all strict COVID-19 restrictions in the city, to bring back tourists and businesses.

Signs of deflation are becoming more prevalent across China, heaping extra pressure on Beijing to reignite growth or risk falling into an economic trap it could find hard to escape, the Wall Street Journal reported. While the rest of the world tussles with inflation, China is at risk of experiencing a prolonged spell of falling prices that—if it takes root—could eat into corporate profits, sap consumer spending and push more people out of work. Its effects would ripple across the globe, easing prices for some products that countries like the U.S.

China’s 200-million-strong army of individual investors has turned away from the stock market, the Wall Street Journal reported. The country’s benchmark CSI 300 index lost around a fifth of its value last year, and has risen much less than major indexes in the U.S., Japan and elsewhere in 2023. That is creating a sense of despair among the office workers, civil servants and other ordinary citizens who are responsible for the bulk of trading in China’s stock market.

Two of Japan’s largest lenders posted profits that beat analysts’ forecasts in their fiscal first quarter, marking a solid start to the year that is projected to deliver bumper results, Bloomberg News reported. Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. said net income for the quarter ending June 30 was 248 billion yen ($1.75 billion), above an average estimate of 236.1 billion yen by six analysts. This was about 1.8% lower than the same period a year ago.

Hong Kong's economic growth slowed in the second quarter from a year earlier, advance government data showed on Monday, with the momentum softening after a strong rebound in the preceding quarter, Reuters reported. Total exports of goods continued to plummet as the external demand for goods remained weak, and overall investment expenditure saw a mild decline amid tightened financial conditions, the government said.

Australia and Luxembourg-registered Kleos Space, which uses small satellites to detect and locate radio frequency signals to uncover illegal activity on land and sea, has filed for bankruptcy in Luxembourg, Advanced-Television.com reported. Trading in its shares in Australia had already been suspended on May 3. It already has 16 satellites in orbit (although there are problems with two) and numerous contracts in place. The business was formed in 2017 but suffered launch delays and problems with satellites. Kleos made a statement on July 26th that it had been unable to source fresh financing.