News linked to both this project and an event.
Odaily News: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) plans to unveil two crypto-related initiatives in the coming days, while Congress's CLARITY Act remains stalled at least until September. The SEC is expected to propose "Regulation Crypto" at a public meeting on Friday, allowing projects to raise funds through token sales without completing full securities registration. The SEC also plans to introduce an "innovation exemption" for tokenized stocks, with details potentially released on Friday. The exemption would allow tokenized versions of stocks such as Apple, Tesla, and Nvidia to trade on the blockchain 24/7, with support for fractional trading and near-instant settlement. Such tokens typically track the economic exposure of the underlying stock but do not carry voting rights or dividend entitlements. The initiative falls under SEC Chairman Paul Atkins's "Project Crypto" agenda, with Robinhood Chain, Solana, and Base all having advanced related on-chain markets. (Decrypt)
: AI infrastructure startup Trajectory announced the completion of a $40 million funding round, with a post-investment valuation of $300 million, featuring participation from Sequoia Capital. The specific funding round and other investors have not yet been disclosed. Trajectory was founded by researchers from former tech companies such as Google and Apple, and primarily helps enterprises customize open-source AI models for specific business needs, while optimizing the software toolchain that supports AI Agent operations (i.e., the "Agent Harness").As the cost of using closed-source large language models continues to rise, more enterprises are seeking alternatives: on one hand, they reduce costs by fine-tuning and customizing open-source models; on the other hand, they improve Agent execution frameworks to enable AI models to call tools and execute tasks more effectively. This trend is driving a new wave of entrepreneurship centered around model adaptation and Agent infrastructure.Trajectory aims to address key challenges enterprises face when deploying AI Agents, including model performance optimization, task execution reliability, and adaptation to enterprise scenarios. The company hopes to help enterprises build more efficient and cost-effective AI applications by providing model customization and Agent operation infrastructure.Investors believe that as AI evolves from simple chatbots to Agents capable of autonomously executing complex tasks, a new infrastructure layer centered around model optimization and Agent engineering will become a significant market. Sequoia has also been continuously increasing its investment in the AI infrastructure field in recent years, including investments in AI Agents and enterprise AI applications. (The Information)
Odaily News: SK Hynix's stock price has recently seen a pullback. On August 3, the stock fell 8.79%. Although it rebounded slightly by 0.64% and 5.77% on August 4 and 5 respectively, it plunged another 10.37% on August 6, closing at 1.495 million KRW; on August 7, it dropped a further 4.88%, closing at 1.422 million KRW.Against the backdrop of heightened market volatility, SK Group released an advertisement quoting founder Choi Jong-gun’s famous saying: "Despair and hope are two sides of the same coin; you can turn despair into hope as easily as flipping your palm," and adapted it to: "Unease and anticipation in the AI era are also two sides of the same coin; you can turn unease into anticipation," thereby conveying confidence in the long-term development of the AI industry.Securities institutions believe that short-term stock price fluctuations have not changed SK Hynix's fundamentals, and the market should focus on its HBM4 technology leadership and the earnings stability brought by long-term supply agreements (LTAs). Specifically:1. Hyundai Motor Securities expects SK Hynix's DRAM and NAND bit growth to reach 9.7% and 1.5% respectively in the third quarter. As HBM4 sales contributions expand, even with a higher proportion of LTAs, DRAM average selling prices (ASP) are still expected to rise 19.9% quarter-over-quarter. Companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic are advancing plans to build their own hyperscale AI data centers and intend to raise funds for related construction through IPOs. Even if some large tech companies adjust capital expenditures (Capex) in the future, this could be offset by demand from other AI infrastructure. Additionally, regarding competitive concerns over China's CXMT, given the U.S. continued tightening of semiconductor equipment export restrictions, as well as Micron's expansion of domestic U.S. investment, the likelihood of major companies like Apple adopting Chinese memory chips is relatively low.2. SK Securities is also bullish on SK Hynix's competitive advantages, believing that with its leading position in HBM, partnerships with major North American GPU companies, and AI-driven LTA demand, SK Hynix's market position remains solid. Currently, the HBM supply-demand fulfillment rate is below 70%, and the core value of LTAs lies in ensuring profit sustainability and earnings stability through a "mutual binding structure" between customers and suppliers. With value-reassessment initiatives such as an ADR listing progressing, along with dividend income from the sale of SPC assets related to Kioxia, the company's goal of achieving net cash of 100 trillion KRW may be reached earlier than expected. As shareholder return policies gradually become clearer, this will help the market re-evaluate the value of the LTA model and drive a further re-rating of SK Hynix. (Daum)
Odaily News: Arthur Hayes posted on the X platform, stating that his article "Situationship" discusses how the AI bubble will burst and why monetary easing will push BTC back into a bull market. He believes that the key variable in determining whether AI is a bubble lies in the internal framework question, namely that investors should distinguish whether AI capital expenditure represents technology or real estate. The current market treats trillion-dollar-scale construction as technology and assigns high-growth valuation multiples. However, he argues that AI capital expenditure is essentially another form of real estate investment, except that the computing power within data centers will create silicon-based life forms, helping human civilization develop in the most profound way since the railroads. Arthur Hayes stated that the distinction between real estate and computing power is important because hedge funds, banks, private credit funds, and ultimately governments are financing data center and power plant construction as if they were lending to Apple, rather than lending to Lehman Brothers. He believes that the bursting of the AI bubble will occur when financial intermediaries, with the tacit support of the Chinese and US governments, overbuild data centers and related infrastructure. Therefore, the AI bubble is a credit story similar to 2008, not a profit story similar to 2000.
Apple will release its earnings report after the US stock market closes on Thursday. The market will focus on whether it can sustain its strong performance as a beneficiary of the "Anti-capex AI Trade." So far this year, Apple's stock price has risen by 24%, making it the best performer among the "Magnificent Seven" tech stocks, and it has repeatedly broken the $5 trillion market capitalization mark.Analysts suggest that investors are shifting towards Apple due to concerns about the returns on massive AI capital expenditures, as the company maintains relatively lower capital spending. However, Apple's current forward price-to-earnings ratio for the next 12 months has risen to about 35 times, the highest since 2008. Meanwhile, rising memory chip costs and pressure on profit margins may become key points of focus in this earnings report. (Bloomberg)
OpenAI Chairman Bret Taylor said in an interview with CNBC that the company currently has no update on its Initial Public Offering (IPO) plans. Taylor's interview centered on OpenAI's newly launched AI agent tools, and discussed topics including the outlook for enterprise AI spending, a lawsuit related to Apple, and development trends in the artificial intelligence industry.As OpenAI's valuation continues to climb and competition in the AI industry intensifies, the market has maintained a high level of attention on its listing timeline. However, Taylor's statement indicates that OpenAI has no new IPO arrangements to announce in the near term.
Odaily Bitget has launched a Unified Trading Account (UTA), incorporating over 370 assets, including 100 US stock tokens (rTokens), into a unified margin pool. Under this mechanism, users' held US stock tokens (rTokens) not only entitle them to stock dividends but can also serve as margin and collateral for borrowing, further enhancing capital efficiency.The first batch of US stock tokens included in the margin system covers 100 mainstream underlying assets such as Apple (rAAPL), Nvidia (rNVDA), and Tesla (rTSLA), with discount rates set according to asset tiers, reaching up to 95%. As the product evolves, Bitget will continue to expand the list of assets eligible for margin and leveraged trading, further bridging the liquidity gap between traditional financial assets and the crypto trading ecosystem.
the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) and PitchBook recently released the "Venture Monitor" report, noting that after SpaceX's listing and the potential IPOs of Anthropic and OpenAI, the combined value generated by these three companies will reach an unprecedented level. The report states: "With SpaceX going public, combined with the future exits of these companies, the value created will surpass the total exit value of all US VC-backed companies since 2000." The core factor lies in the extremely high valuation expectations of these three companies.SpaceX is currently valued at approximately $1.77 trillion, while Anthropic and OpenAI are also moving towards multi-trillion-dollar enterprise valuations. The market estimates that the combined valuation of the three companies could exceed $4 trillion. This scale far surpasses past large-scale tech IPOs. Data from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) shows that total US IPO fundraising last year was about $70 billion, whereas SpaceX's single-company valuation has already reached a level that traditional large-scale IPOs find hard to match. As a once-highly-watched tech IPO case, Uber was valued at around $84 billion when it went public in 2019, which is less than 5% of SpaceX's current valuation.However, the comparison by NVCA and PitchBook is based on "enterprise value created," not the actual cash-out amounts for investors. Additionally, the analysis does not include non-US companies like Alibaba. Furthermore, the value created by already-public companies such as Apple, Google Android, YouTube, and Instagram is not counted in the VC exit statistics.The report points out that over the past 25 years, the US tech market has seen several historic IPOs, including Google in 2004, Tesla in 2010, and Meta in 2012. These companies have since become some of the world's most valuable enterprises. Additionally, companies like LinkedIn, Slack, and WhatsApp were acquired for over $20 billion.The NVCA believes that the current IPO cycle driven by artificial intelligence (AI) could further break these records. The analysis suggests two main reasons driving this trend:First, tech companies are staying private for longer periods than in the past, accumulating higher valuations through prolonged financing and business expansion. If today's Google were in its early stages, it might also choose to go public later to achieve a higher market valuation.Second, the AI industry is highly capital-intensive. Training large AI models requires massive investment, pushing AI companies to continuously raise substantial funds and driving rapid valuation growth.Industry insiders believe that the potential scale of IPOs by SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI will test the capacity of the US capital market. As AI companies transition from the private financing stage to the public market, how trillions of dollars in tech assets flow into the stock market will become a focus for investors. (DigitalToday)
According to CNBC, after listing on the Nasdaq at an approximate valuation of $2.6 trillion, SpaceX quickly became the world’s fifth-largest publicly traded company and entered a market-cap ranking race with Amazon. However, pricing in the options market suggests it may take considerable time for SpaceX to climb into the global top three—or even claim the No. 1 spot. Currently, SpaceX’s market capitalization remains significantly below that of third-place Alphabet and second-place Apple—both valued above $4.4 trillion. To overtake them and become the world’s second-largest company by market cap (just behind NVIDIA), SpaceX’s stock price would need to rise roughly 70% to $340 per share. Based on implied probability models derived from options-market pricing, the likelihood that SpaceX reaches this target price before July 2028 stands at approximately 50%. If the goal is to become the world’s largest company by market cap—surpassing NVIDIA—the options market assigns a roughly 38% probability of achieving this by June 2028, rising to about 41% by year-end 2028. Analysts note that options prices reflect the collective market expectation regarding future trajectories. Higher-strike options carry an elevated uncertainty premium, indicating that—even though SpaceX possesses a compelling long-term growth narrative—reaching the pinnacle of market capitalization is still viewed as a high-difficulty, long-duration endeavor.
According to Fortune, AI startup Ciridae has announced a $20 million seed funding round led by Accel, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz and General Catalyst. The company was co-founded by Jack Soslow, former partner at a16z, and Jack Weissenberger, former head of machine learning at Apple, and focuses on delivering AI transformation services to mid-sized enterprises in the real economy—such as home services, construction, and industrial distribution.
Anthropic's implied valuation in the on-chain Pre-IPO market has instantly surged to $1.2 trillion (approximately RMB 8.7 trillion), officially surpassing OpenAI. Its current pre-IPO valuation is now about 20% higher than OpenAI's. If listed at this valuation, it would directly become the world's 11th largest publicly traded company by market cap, trailing only Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, TSMC, Broadcom, Tesla, and Saudi Aramco. (Sina Finance)