News linked to this event type.
Odaily News: Payment company Stripe did not sign long-term supplier contracts with third-party stablecoin APIs. Instead, after Bridge achieved $5 billion in annualized cross-border transaction volume, Stripe acquired it outright for $1.1 billion and integrated stablecoin infrastructure into its global checkout layer. Fintech platform Robinhood did not expand internationally through external trading venues. Instead, it acquired cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp for $200 million, obtaining more than 50 global regulatory licenses and institutional liquidity. From 2012 to 2018, early B2B fintech startups paid traditional banks for proof-of-concept pilot fees. From 1996 to 2001, telecom infrastructure startups raised over $50 billion to lay dark fiber. (Bitcoin.com News)
"White-Haired Stock God" Serenity posted on X, stating that Unitree Technology's IPO has seen over 8,000x oversubscription from retail investors, reflecting an "extremely huge" market demand for pure humanoid robot companies. Serenity currently holds a bullish view on investment opportunities related to the U.S. humanoid robot company Agility Robotics, a project backed by SoftBank, NVIDIA ($NVDA), Amazon ($AMZN), Foxconn, and others, with a pre-money valuation of approximately $2.5 billion.Serenity stated that Unitree Technology's perpetual contract market valuation before its IPO already indicated relatively high expectations. If the company's market cap exceeds $30 billion after listing, it could further boost market attention on leading U.S. humanoid robot companies in the next one to two weeks. Regardless of the final outcome, the market demand demonstrated by Unitree's IPO is "truly astonishing," and the humanoid robot sector is emerging as a new hotspot for global capital attention.
Odaily News AI company Anthropic is holding pre-IPO meetings with potential investors to boost market confidence in its listing plans.According to reports, Anthropic is currently valued at approximately $965 billion. If successfully listed, it could become one of the largest IPOs in history. The company has recently faced multiple challenges, including intensifying competition from low-cost AI systems, strained relations with the Trump administration, and opposition to data center construction in various parts of the United States.Sources say investors have asked Anthropic executives during the meetings about the potential impact of these factors on the company's growth. Anthropic's management, however, downplayed the impact of competition from low-cost AI systems, stating that the company will continue to focus on developing frontier AI models.It is understood that Anthropic plans to go public in September or early October, though specific offering prices and timelines have not yet been announced. Additionally, during the pre-IPO meetings, the company revealed to some investors that it will further expand into AI applications in healthcare and biology in the future. (The Wall Street Journal)
According to Yonhap News, Naver D2SF announced the completion of a follow-on investment in physical AI data startup NdotLight (엔닷라이트). This round of financing was led by the Korea Development Bank, with a total size of 15 billion Korean won. This is also Naver D2SF's third investment in the company following the Pre-A round in 2021 and the Series A round in 2022. NdotLight independently developed the 3D data generation solution TRINIX, which can automatically generate high-precision 3D data containing physical properties (mass, friction), joint structures, and collision range information, and is deeply integrated with NVIDIA's simulation platform Omniverse, achieving mass supply of large-scale high-quality 3D simulation datasets.
According to Bloomberg, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently issued an internal letter explicitly exempting asset-backed securities (ABS) related to AI data centers from core investor protection regulations introduced after the 2008 financial crisis, including the "risk retention" clause requiring issuers to retain a portion of the debt. The SEC determined that data centers are not financial assets that liquidate over time, therefore securities linked to them should not be subject to the same regulatory constraints as ABS related to auto loans or mortgages. Although this move does not constitute a formal rule change, since companies had previously voluntarily complied with relevant regulations out of compliance prudence, the substantive impact cannot be underestimated. In terms of market size, the annual issuance volume of data center ABS has surged from $2.4 billion in 2020 to $15.5 billion in 2025, growing more than sixfold in five years, and is expected to hit a new record high in 2026.
Odaily Planet Daily Report: Arthur Hayes stated on the X platform that his article "Yen-quake" will introduce how Buffalo Bill Bessent plans to manipulate the dollar-yen exchange rate and restart the money printing press. Arthur Hayes said that over the past decade, the continued weakening of the yen has driven gains in global asset markets, but this situation will eventually come to an end. The yen is the lowest-valued currency globally and is also a point of contention among the United States, China, and Japanese everyday voters. There are three ways to resolve the yen issue, but the U.S. Treasury and Japanese politicians tend to favor only one of them. He will explain the operating mechanisms of each yen appreciation method and why the final option is the preferred approach; he will then discuss how to execute the third option at the political level. He stated that as dollar liquidity rises significantly, Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies will rally. The three options include: 1. The Bank of Japan sharply raises interest rates, causing the dollar-yen interest rate differential to disappear, at least on the short end. 2. The government persuades domestic institutions and public bodies such as GPIF to change their investment mandates, selling overseas assets and buying local assets. 3. Preferred option: The Japanese Ministry of Finance conducts repurchase transactions of its U.S. Treasury holdings with the Federal Reserve in exchange for dollars; it then sells dollars and buys yen in the foreign exchange market. Arthur Hayes said that before getting into the details, speculators should consider why yen appreciation is being discussed now. Over the past few decades, many have claimed that the yen was about to appreciate and trigger a global unwinding of carry trades. Two weeks ago, monetary policy officials from the United States and Japan conducted a joint exchange rate manipulation operation, though they euphemistically called it intervention. U.S. Treasury Secretary Buffalo Bill Bessent indicated a desire to raise the counterparty limit for the FIMA repo facility, enabling Japan's Ministry of Finance to use its massive asset reserves to defend the yen. Japan's Ministry of Finance also stated it is working closely with the United States to push the dollar-yen exchange rate lower. Relevant officials are signaling to the market their support for a shift in global currency relations, so the market must pay attention to this.
According to Bloomberg, U.S. AI data center startup Global AI announced the completion of a $441 million (approximately 626 billion Korean won) financing round, led by JPMorgan Chase. Founded in 2024, Global AI positions itself as "the world's first sovereign AI hyperscale provider," specializing in designing, building, and operating exclusive AI data centers physically isolated (Air-gapped) from external networks for national and corporate clients, focusing on high-security sensitive task processing scenarios.
Odaily News Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announced that the company has partnered with Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs, and KKR to establish an independent financing platform, planning to mobilize over $500 billion in third-party capital over the long term to support AI infrastructure development.Huang stated that the AI industry is transitioning from a phase where "enterprises purchase chips and build data centers project by project" to a new stage where AI factories serve as financeable productive infrastructure. AI computing power is becoming an investable asset, characterized by long-term institutional capital support, repeatable construction, and usage by diverse customers.Nvidia noted that AI factories encompass not only GPUs but also high-speed networking, system software, AI frameworks, and the CUDA ecosystem. Built on globally widely adopted architectures, AI factories can serve different customers, cloud providers, and application scenarios, while possessing strong asset liquidity and residual value.In this collaboration, Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs, and KKR will independently evaluate specific projects, including customer demand, compute utilization, cash flow, and asset value. Nvidia will provide the AI factory platform, while the financial institutions will handle long-term capital and financing capabilities.Huang indicated that in some projects, Nvidia may provide up to 25% residual value support, but this will be prudently assessed on a project-by-project basis. The mechanism is designed to supplement, not replace, the independent judgment of institutional investors.He believes that AI factories will become the "infrastructure of the intelligent era," much like how electricity, transportation, and communication infrastructure drove past industrial revolutions. Going forward, growing demand for AI computing will create a virtuous cycle where "more compute drives stronger AI, stronger AI generates more revenue, and more revenue further fuels compute demand."
According to Bloomberg, OpenAI has completed an employee share buyback transaction worth approximately $7 billion. This move aims to provide liquidity exit opportunities for current and former employees and is widely regarded as a significant precursor to the company's IPO preparations. Sources familiar with the matter disclosed that the funding for this buyback came from OpenAI itself, rather than involving external investors in a tender offer. Following the transaction, OpenAI's valuation remained at $852 billion, consistent with its most recent financing round valuation.
According to Cryptopolitan, Bitcoin mining company Keel Infrastructure (formerly Bitfarms) released its Q2 2026 financial report this Monday, disclosing that the company has completed the shutdown of all its US Bitcoin mining farms, and sold 1,085 BTC between April 1 and August 7, cashing out approximately $75 million, and currently still holds 1,861 BTC on its balance sheet, valued at approximately $121 million. Financially, Keel's Q2 revenue was $30 million, down 50% year-over-year, mainly dragged down by weak Bitcoin prices and the shutdown of the Moses Lake mining farm; operating loss reached $141 million (including $84 million in non-cash depreciation), net loss from continuing operations was $64 million, and adjusted EBITDA was negative $24 million. Following the announcement, KEEL stock price fell more than 11% in a single day. In terms of strategic transformation, Keel is converting its core sites in Pennsylvania, Washington State, and Quebec into high-performance computing data centers; currently, permitting approvals for the three priority sites are nearly complete, and negotiations with potential tenants are underway. The company's current liquidity is approximately $819 million, including $698 million in unrestricted cash and $121 million in Bitcoin, and during the quarter, it also raised $458 million through convertible notes.
According to CNBC, Nvidia has signed a memorandum of understanding with Apollo Global Management, Blackstone, BlackRock, Brookfield Asset Management, Goldman Sachs, and KKR to jointly establish a financing platform for Nvidia customers, aiming to mobilize over $500 billion in third-party capital for hyperscale data center construction and Nvidia hardware procurement. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang characterized this as the first time AI chips have become an "investable asset class," stating they possess revenue-generating capabilities, long service lives, and can be transferred across customers, while analogizing compute infrastructure to electricity and the internet. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink defined the project as the "next future of financial engineering" following the securitization of mortgages in the 1970s, and stated that more funds would be raised as soon as possible. Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon revealed that this collaboration was initiated by Jensen Huang. Currently, some funds have already been raised; the parties will provide financing support for GPUs and data centers through institutional credit, insurance capital, and private capital, helping end users complete AI infrastructure construction without tapping their own balance sheets.
According to The Information, citing people familiar with the matter, Applied Compute, an AI startup founded by former OpenAI researchers, is in discussions for a new round of financing, with a valuation expected to reach approximately $3 billion, more than doubling the valuation announced during its previous funding round four months ago. The company is dedicated to helping enterprises run and customize open-source models using their own data. This financing comes amid strong recent revenue growth at the company. People familiar with the matter said Applied Compute's current annualized revenue is approximately $50 million, nearly four times the revenue level disclosed by CEO Yash Patil last November. According to one source, investor Elad Gil is in talks to lead this round, with the expected funding amount reaching hundreds of millions of dollars. It is currently unclear whether this valuation includes the newly injected capital. This round of financing has not yet been finalized, and specific terms may still change.
Odaily News Nvidia-backed AI cloud computing provider Lambda is raising $917 million through the leveraged loan market to procure AI chips. As artificial intelligence infrastructure construction accelerates, chip financing is emerging as a new avenue for capital investment in the AI industry.Lambda belongs to the rapidly growing camp of "neoclouds" in recent years, primarily offering GPU computing power and AI infrastructure services to enterprises and developers. This financing plan will be carried out through a GPU-backed loan based on GPU asset-related rights, designed to support the company in expanding its AI computing resources.According to reports, AI infrastructure companies are actively exploring new financing methods to meet the massive capital investments required to build large-scale computing clusters. Previously, AI cloud service provider CoreWeave completed the first chip financing transaction in the institutional leveraged loan market, providing a new financing model for the industry.As demand for generative AI continues to grow, Nvidia GPU supply has become a core resource for AI companies' expansion. By using GPU assets as a financing basis, AI cloud providers can rapidly scale up computing capacity without relying entirely on equity financing, while also bringing traditional credit markets into the wave of AI infrastructure investment. (Bloomberg)
Hong Kong Television Broadcasts Limited (also known as "TVB") announced at its board meeting on August 10 that it plans to form a joint venture with Gaw Capital to provide computing power services. The joint venture's ordinary voting shares are proposed to be held 51% by TVB and 49% by Gaw Capital, respectively. The project will be implemented in phases over the coming years, with funding sources including equity investment of up to HKD 2 billion from Gaw Capital into the joint venture, project bank financing, and the Group's internal resources.
: Discovered Materials announced the completion of a $9 million seed funding round, with participation from Lightspeed India Partners, Peak XV Partners, and several angel investors. The company combines AI agents with physical models to screen new heat-dissipating materials for chips at scale, targeting the high heat generation and high energy consumption challenges of AI chips in data centers. Reports indicate that AI can improve the efficiency of candidate material generation, but commercialization in this field remains constrained by factors such as material screening, synthesis validation, and manufacturing feasibility. (TechCrunch)
Odaily News: The Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan (OTPP) announced that its investment return reached 9.5% in the first half of this year, driven primarily by gains from Elon Musk's SpaceX initial public offering (IPO).In a statement, OTPP CEO Jo Taylor attributed the H1 performance growth to venture growth equity, public market equities, and inflation-resistant asset investments. By the end of the first half of the year, the fund's net assets had risen to CAD 303.2 billion (approximately USD 217.5 billion).According to reports, the SpaceX IPO was a key factor driving OTPP's investment returns. As one of the world's largest aerospace companies, SpaceX has rapidly expanded through commercial launches and satellite internet services like Starlink in recent years, attracting long-term capital from pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, and major institutional investors.OTPP is one of the world's largest institutional investors, with long-term investments in private equity, technology companies, and infrastructure assets. The valuation uplift from SpaceX's listing underscores the significant impact that unlisted tech unicorns and high-growth assets have on the returns of major pension funds. (Bloomberg)
Odaily News The inside story behind stablecoin infrastructure company BVNK's acquisition by Mastercard for $1.8 billion has recently come to light. According to Concentric, an early investor in BVNK, during the bidding process, US crypto exchange Coinbase once held an advantageous position and reportedly submitted a bid as high as $2.5 billion, but ultimately withdrew from the competition due to insufficient strategic and cultural alignment between the two parties.Kjartan Rist, founding partner of Concentric, stated that BVNK's founding team did not focus solely on the offer price when selecting an acquirer, but placed greater emphasis on long-term partnership and corporate culture fit. "Coinbase may have offered a higher price, but the chemistry between the two sides was not ideal." In contrast, Mastercard, as a traditional financial services company, is more likely to create synergies with BVNK in payment infrastructure and stablecoin applications.It is understood that Mastercard participated in acquisition discussions with BVNK at an early stage, and after Coinbase failed to advance the deal, Mastercard re-emerged as the primary buyer, ultimately completing the acquisition for $1.8 billion.Visa also participated in the competition. Having previously invested in BVNK and holding a board observer seat, Visa once had an advantage. However, Visa ultimately chose not to pursue a direct acquisition, instead adopting an open strategy of partnering with multiple stablecoin companies.Founded in 2018, BVNK provides enterprises with stablecoin payment, cross-border settlement, and treasury management infrastructure. Its early investor Concentric invested in the company at a valuation of $4 million in 2019, and this transaction has generated substantial returns.The acquisition also reflects a new round of competition between traditional payment giants and crypto companies over stablecoin infrastructure. Previously, Stripe acquired stablecoin infrastructure company Bridge for $1.1 billion, prompting payment giants such as Visa and Mastercard to accelerate their expansion into the stablecoin sector.Currently, the global stablecoin market size has approached $300 billion. As enterprise payments, cross-border settlements, and treasury management use cases grow rapidly, stablecoin infrastructure is becoming a critical gateway for traditional financial institutions to capture. (CoinDesk)
Odaily News: Standard Chartered Bank's Head of Global Digital Assets Research, Geoff Kendrick, stated that as the tokenization of Real World Assets (RWA) accelerates, the price of Chainlink (LINK) tokens could rise to $200 by the end of 2030, representing an increase of over 25 times from its current level of approximately $8.In his latest report, Kendrick predicts that the scale of tokenized RWA will reach $4 trillion by the end of 2028. As more traditional assets are brought on-chain, the demand for secure and reliable off-chain data is expected to increase significantly, which could further boost Chainlink's fee revenue and drive up LINK's valuation.The report also projects that by the end of 2030, the scale of tokenized assets and crypto-native assets deployed in decentralized finance (DeFi) will grow approximately 37-fold to reach $2.7 trillion. Kendrick believes these assets require trusted data, cross-network interoperability, privacy-preserving compliance mechanisms, and integration with the existing financial system—infrastructure that Chainlink currently has the capability to provide.Demand for RWA tokenization has continued to grow recently. Data shows that trading volume of tokenized RWAs on decentralized exchanges (DEXs) hit an all-time high of $14.1 billion in July, up 19.5% month-over-month, driven primarily by public market assets such as tokenized stocks.Currently, Chainlink remains one of the largest decentralized oracle service providers in the crypto industry, with a Total Value Secured (TVS) of approximately $34.4 billion—significantly higher than second-ranked Chronicle's $7.36 billion.However, Kendrick also noted that the prediction of LINK reaching $200 still faces risks, including institutional tokenization projects progressing slower than expected, intensified competition from specialized oracle service providers, and potential technical issues. (Cointelegraph)
Odaily News: Fintech and crypto-friendly bank Revolut has announced that it has obtained a full banking license in France, marking its second full EU banking license after Lithuania. The license was granted following a joint review by the French Prudential Supervision and Resolution Authority (ACPR) and the European Central Bank, and was approved by the ECB's Governing Council. With this license, Revolut Bank S.A. can now offer a wider range of banking services in France, including loans, mortgages, and regulated savings products.France is Revolut's core market in Western Europe. Previously, the company conducted payment and financial services there under its Lithuanian license. Moving forward, it will gradually migrate its French operations to a local French entity and further expand into Germany, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. Revolut stated that it has invested over EUR 1 billion in Western Europe in recent years, creating more than 600 new jobs, and plans to establish its Western European headquarters in Paris by 2027.The license comes with regulatory conditions. The European Central Bank may impose product restrictions on Revolut's new French operations. Drawing on the regulatory requirements previously applied to its Lithuanian entity, the rollout of loan and savings products could be subject to pacing constraints. This year, Revolut has continued to achieve regulatory breakthroughs globally, securing a UK banking license in March and an Australian banking license in July. The company's business now spans 40 markets, and its valuation stood at USD 115 billion following secondary stock trading in 2026. (Techfundingnews)
Odaily News: UMX (The Unified Market Exchange), incubated by Avenir Group under Li Lin, has announced the launch of an invitation-only public beta.According to the introduction, UMX is positioned as a crypto-friendly securities platform for global professional investors, integrating crypto assets and real securities trading on the same platform to improve capital efficiency in cross-asset trading. During the public beta phase, the platform offers crypto spot, leverage, futures, and options trading, as well as real US stocks, ETFs, and US stock options trading.This public beta focuses on opening the capital flow channel between crypto assets and securities accounts. UMX has designed cross-market fund transfers, financing, and crypto-to-stock conversion mechanisms. Users can use "Convert & Transfer" to automatically convert stablecoins such as USDT into USD and transfer them to securities accounts with one click, or use "Borrow & Transfer" to collateralize non-stablecoin crypto assets to gain purchasing power for trading US stocks, ETFs, and US stock options. After completing fiat account verification, users can also open a personal fiat account under their own name for fiat deposits and withdrawals. Securities holdings can also be converted into corresponding stock tokens via the "Stock-to-Token" function, which can be counted toward crypto trading account margin at a corresponding discount rate, and these stock tokens can also be converted back into the corresponding securities assets.Around cross-asset capital efficiency, the platform has introduced a cross-asset margin mechanism, where eligible wealth management assets can also be used as margin. During the public beta, the platform has also launched BTC and USDT wealth management products, with maximum annualized returns of up to 2.5% and 5.5%, respectively. UMX stated that this model aims to reduce the operational costs incurred by professional investors from frequent fund transfers and fragmented account management, while providing a unified capital and risk management framework for cross-asset allocation.This public beta is invitation-based. Users who have obtained a beta code can complete registration via the UMX official website (umx.com) to experience the currently available products and services; users who have not yet received a beta code can reserve the official version, receive launch notifications, and participate in the early-bird benefits program.