News linked to this event type.
According to a Grayscale research report, as AI-driven financial monitoring capabilities continue to expand, the demand for financial privacy is experiencing a third wave of renewed interest, potentially benefiting Zcash (ZEC). The report notes that Zcash’s zero-knowledge proof-based shielded transaction technology conceals the sender, recipient, and transaction amount, establishing a differentiated positioning compared to Bitcoin’s transparent on-chain records. Current on-chain data shows that shielded transactions now account for approximately 90% of Zcash’s total network transaction volume, while shielded supply has reached around 4.2 million ZEC, representing 25% of the circulating supply, with both figures hitting all-time highs. In terms of valuation, ZEC holds a market capitalization of approximately $8 billion, accounting for only 0.6% of the total market cap within Grayscale's "Cryptocurrency Monetary Sector". If its market share increases to 5%, the theoretical valuation space would be roughly nine times the current level. The report also cautions that Zcash faces multiple risks, including regulatory compliance, legacy issues from historical trusted setups, quantum computing threats, and protocol upgrade execution challenges, requiring investors to conduct prudent assessments.
Odaily Planet Daily reported that Lorenzo Valente, Head of Digital Asset Research at investment firm ARK Invest, stated that Hyperliquid is in discussions with the CFTC and SEC to facilitate the offering of perpetual futures on its public chain by U.S.-regulated companies. He suggested that Hyperliquid acquire Gemini to position it as a U.S.-regulated HIP-3/4 deployer. He noted that Gemini's current market value is approximately $450 million, representing a decline of over 85% from its $3.3 billion valuation at the time of its 2025 IPO. Hyperliquid could obtain Gemini's entire U.S. regulatory infrastructure—including the NYDFS Trust Charter, DCM, DCO, FCM, MTLs, and Broker-dealer—for approximately $450 million.He further proposed that Hyperliquid could use approximately 7.9 million HYPE tokens from its community reserve, valued at around $550 million at $70 per token, to complete the acquisition at a premium of roughly 20% over Gemini's current market value. Following the transaction, Gemini would handle KYC, custody, fiat on/off ramps, brokerage, clearing, and compliance for the U.S. market, while Hyperliquid L1 would provide the underlying market infrastructure, liquidity, and on-chain settlement. He cited Polymarket's acquisition of QCEX as a similar precedent for re-entering the U.S. market, and stated that the core of this potential deal is not acquiring an exchange, but rather securing the regulatory bridge for HIP-3/4 to enter the U.S. market.
CZ posted on X, stating that tokenization is one of the best methods for countries to "raise capital" or attract foreign direct investment (FDI), and allowing global investors to purchase tokenized stocks presents strong appeal to both nations and businesses. He voiced support for advancing tokenization across all blockchains. While this may result in "liquidity fragmentation," collaborative efforts from various participants remain the fastest path to accelerating industry growth, and high interoperability among different issuers will help alleviate the fragmentation challenge.
Odaily News, according to sources familiar with the matter, Anthropic expects its IPO scale to match or exceed the record level set by SpaceX. The company is conducting relevant calculations and preparing to publicly submit its IPO application documents as early as the end of August. SpaceX's initial IPO raised $75 billion, which reached $86.2 billion after including the overallotment option.In May of this year, Anthropic raised $65 billion at a valuation of $965 billion, and by the end of July, its revenue run rate reached $65 billion. In addition, the company is working with Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan to advance the IPO, and is considering adopting super-voting shares to grant CEO Dario Amodei and other co-founders greater control over the company. (BloomBerg)
Odaily News: Privacy blockchain project Beldex has announced the completion of an $8 million funding round, led by Sigma Capital, with participation from NTC, Nxgen, Digital Consensus Fund, EAK Ventures, and other institutions. The new funds will be used for developer tools, privacy applications, protocol security, AI infrastructure development, and ecosystem expansion.Beldex is exploring the use of its privacy technology to protect the identity, payments, communications, and data processing of AI agents, including privacy-preserving AI identities, encrypted AI communications, confidential payments, secure AI execution, as well as research into technologies such as fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) and secure memory. (Decrypt)
According to Bloomberg, Jeff Sprecher, CEO of Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, stated that the company will monitor the new funding round for prediction market platform Polymarket and consider participating if it helps facilitate the round. Previously, ICE had invested over $1.6 billion in Polymarket.
据 Businesswire 报道，Solmate Infrastructure PLC（NASDAQ: SLMT）宣布，于 2026 年 8 月 20 日收购约 1,000 枚 SOL。截至当日，公司持有约 125 万枚 SOL。按 Kraken 8 月 19 日 16:30（美东时间）SOL 价格 85 美元计算，其 SOL 持仓估值约为 1.022 亿美元。
According to Bloomberg, AI space satellite company Muon Space has announced the completion of a $250 million Series C funding round, led by Eclipse Capital, with participation from Google, Salesforce Ventures, Galvanize, Wellington Management, I Squared Capital, Woven Capital, as well as Radical Ventures and Congruent Ventures.
Odaily News: AI space technology company Muon Space announced the completion of a $250 million Series C funding round, led by Eclipse Capital, with participation from Google, Salesforce Ventures, Galvanize, Wellington Management, I Squared Capital, Woven Capital, as well as Radical Ventures and Congruent Ventures. The new funds will be used to accelerate large-scale satellite constellation production, expand dual-use spacecraft platforms, enhance on-orbit AI computing capabilities, and provide real-time ultra-high-bandwidth satellite connectivity in partnership with SpaceX Starlink.
According to Bloomberg, AI startup Callosum has closed $100 million in early-stage funding. The round was led by venture capital firm Atomico, with participation from Plural and DCVC, alongside significant investment from the UK Sovereign AI Fund. Callosum primarily develops software designed to match specific AI tasks to different models and chips. The company did not disclose its valuation.
Odaily News - Japanese Bitcoin treasury company Metaplanet will inject 2,100 Bitcoin and $2.5 million in cash into Nasdaq-listed Super League Enterprise, with an initial total investment of approximately $134.6 million.Upon completion of the transaction, Super League Enterprise will be renamed Superplanet Inc. and become a consolidated subsidiary of Metaplanet; Metaplanet is expected to hold approximately 93.6% of its issued common shares and will receive 44.86 million common shares, preferred shares, and warrants.Superplanet will continue to be listed on Nasdaq and retain its existing gaming and media businesses. The transaction adopts a private placement structure. Metaplanet has agreed to a five-year lock-up period. Superplanet will raise funds from U.S. investors, while Metaplanet will continue to raise capital through the Japanese market.Metaplanet currently holds 43,000 Bitcoin, with this injection accounting for approximately 4.9% of its holdings. Upon completion of the transaction, Superplanet will operate as its Bitcoin treasury platform targeting the U.S. market. (Bitcoin.com News)
This funding round is supported by MH Ventures, Amber Group, ArkStream Capital, 0G Foundation, Kirin Capital, CatcherVC and New Oak International.
According to STAR Market Daily, humanoid robotics company Current Robotics (Yuanliu) has publicly disclosed its financing progress for the first time, having completed seed, angel, and Pre-A funding rounds with a cumulative total of several hundred million RMB. Financial investors include Baidu Ventures, Hillhouse Capital, Oasis VC, Monolith Capital, Qianhai Ark, FSG Investment Management, and Junshan Capital; strategic partners include Agibot, StarSea, and JiKe Technology. The proceeds will primarily be used to advance large-scale acquisition of human full-body data, with a key focus on the research and development of core technologies such as whole-body dexterous manipulation foundation models and interactive world models.
Odaily News: According to the official announcement from MSX, the platform has officially opened redemption applications for Phase 2 Pre-IPO projects, Anthropic and Polymarket.Official data shows that as of the latest valuation, the Polymarket subscription price has risen from $152/share to $202.67/share, representing an unrealized gain of 33.3%. Anthropic's latest valuation also exceeds its subscription price.With this redemption window now open, users can choose based on their own needs to either apply for redemption at the latest market price and settle in USDT, or continue holding until the underlying projects complete their IPOs.Previously, MSX had already completed the full trading cycle for Phase 1 Pre-IPO projects, $CBRS.M and $SPCX.M, from subscription to listing. Users can log in to the MSX platform to view specific redemption rules and asset status.
Odaily Planet Daily reported that AI chip startup Fractile is in advanced negotiations for a new funding round, planning to raise approximately $600 million at a pre-money valuation of $6.5 billion, a significant increase from its valuation of around $1 billion three months ago. Sources familiar with the matter revealed that this round of financing is expected to be co-led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Redpoint Ventures; other sources also indicated that Thrive Capital and Founders Fund are participating as co-leads. The funding round has not yet been finalized, and specific terms may still change.Additionally, sources said Fractile has reached a preliminary chip supply agreement with Anthropic worth approximately $250 million, with plans to further expand the contract scale in the future. The related chips are expected to be deployed in 2027. (Bloomberg)
According to TechFlow Research, Goldman Sachs pointed out in its August 19 research report that SK Hynix announced after hours a 40 trillion won (approximately 28.3 billion USD) stock buyback and cancellation plan, equivalent to canceling approximately 3.3% of issued shares; the buyback will start on August 20 and be executed within three months. Goldman Sachs maintained its Buy rating and target price of 3.5 million won, representing 133% upside compared to the current 1.5 million won. Goldman Sachs estimates cumulative free cash flow from 2025 to 2027 will be approximately 252 trillion won; based on a shareholder return ratio of approximately 55%, this would ultimately return approximately 140 trillion won to shareholders, and after deducting this 40 trillion won buyback and approximately 30 trillion won in dividends, there is still approximately 70 trillion won of additional buyback capacity. The research report indicates that the company hinted this is not a one-off event, and more follow-up buyback and dividend plans will be announced at the Q3 earnings conference at the end of October. This buyback can cancel approximately 24 million shares, far exceeding the 17.7 million share dilution effect brought by the recent ADR listing. Goldman Sachs raised its expected shareholder return rates for 2026 and 2027 to 3.5% and 8%, respectively, and raised its earnings per share forecasts for 2026 to 2028 by 4%, 10%, and 10%, respectively. The current stock price corresponds to a P/E ratio of approximately 3.8 times for 2026 and approximately 3.0 times for 2027; Goldman Sachs believes the valuation is still at the lower end of the historical range.
According to Business Insider, Waymo founder Sebastian Thrun announced the founding of new robotics startup Dulo at the San Francisco robotics conference Actuate; the company is currently still in stealth mode. According to a webpage hosted by Stanford University, Dulo is dedicated to building a "foundation model for hardware design," with the goal of achieving "hyper-fast manufacturing." The team includes core talent from Waymo, Google Brain, and the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL). Thrun did not disclose funding details, product details, or launch timeline. Notably, in the first quarter of 2026, financing in the physical AI sector reached a record $16.3 billion.
According to Bloomberg Businessweek, SpaceX approached AI programming startup Cognition to discuss a potential acquisition, but Cognition CEO Scott Wu explicitly stated that the company "will not sell and is not engaged in related negotiations." Sources familiar with the matter revealed that both parties are still discussing collaboration, including the possibility of Cognition using SpaceX's compute resources. Cognition achieved a valuation of $26 billion in a funding round this May and is currently seeking a new round of funding at a valuation of at least $40 billion.
Odaily News, "Fed Whisperer" Nick Timiraos stated that the US Treasury recently announced it will raise the single-operation buyback cap for long-term nominal coupon Treasury securities from $2 billion to at least $4 billion starting September 9.Timiraos, citing interest rate strategists, noted that the timing of this decision is worth attention: it comes only about two weeks after the Treasury's previous quarterly refunding announcement, and just hours after the announcement, the Treasury had planned to issue $16 billion in 20-year Treasury bonds. This unconventional timing may indicate that Treasury officials "do not like what is happening in the market."
Odaily Odaily News: AI company OpenAI is advancing its IPO preparations with the goal of completing an initial public offering (IPO) next year. OpenAI Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Sarah Friar stated at an all-hands meeting that OpenAI will become a publicly listed company next year.Sarah Friar noted that competitor Anthropic may go public in September, ahead of OpenAI, but this does not affect OpenAI's focus on its own development. She pointed out that an IPO is just a milestone and another form of financing. OpenAI completed a $122 billion funding round in March this year and currently has considerable room for choice.If business growth outpaces expectations, OpenAI does not rule out launching its IPO earlier than originally planned. In the second quarter of this year, OpenAI's revenue was surpassed for the first time by latecomer competitor Anthropic. During the same period, Anthropic achieved its first quarterly adjusted operating profit, while OpenAI's operating losses further widened.OpenAI and Anthropic each confidentially filed IPO applications with securities regulators in June. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman had previously considered delaying the IPO to seek a corporate valuation exceeding $1 trillion; after its March funding round, OpenAI was valued at $852 billion. (ETNews SW)