News linked to both this project and an event.
Odaily News: AI research startup Mirendil has entered into a multi-year partnership agreement with Google Cloud to secure large-scale computing resources in support of its "Self-Improving AI" research and development. Under the agreement, Mirendil will gain access to TPU and NVIDIA GPU computing resources provided by Google Cloud, as well as managed AI training clusters, to develop AI systems capable of continuously optimizing their own capabilities. It is reported that Mirendil is focused on advancing "Recursive Self-Improvement" AI, in which AI systems enhance their own performance through iterative refinement, self-learning, and optimization. This direction is also a research area of interest among some of the top AI laboratories today.Benham Neyshabur, co-founder and CEO of Mirendil, revealed that the total value of the agreement exceeds $100 million, roughly equivalent to half of the $1 billion valuation seed funding round the company completed at the end of June. (TechCrunch)
According to Jin10 Data, SpaceX will announce its first earnings report since listing after the US stock market close on Tuesday. Since listing on June 12, the company's stock price has fallen nearly 50% from its high, with market capitalization shrinking by over $500 billion. As of Monday's close, it was reported at $114.53, approximately 15% lower than the IPO issuance price. Market focus centers on three key areas: • Starlink: S&P Global expects Q2 revenue to reach $6.9 billion, primarily driven by Starlink, which is currently SpaceX's only profitable business segment; • AI: SpaceX's AI business revenue was $818 million in the first three months of this year. It has reached compute supply cooperation agreements with Google, Anthropic, etc., and acquired coding startup Cursor (approximately $60 billion); • Starship: The 13th test flight was completed, but the booster experienced a hard landing. Analyst firm Bernstein believes Starship is one of the most critical factors supporting the high valuation. Additionally, after the lock-up period ends on Thursday, over 911 million shares (market value approximately $100 billion) will be unlocked for circulation. Coupled with short selling funds' paper profits reaching $8.3 billion, market selling pressure cannot be ignored.
Odaily News: SoftBank will release its Q1 results for fiscal 2026 on Thursday, with the market focusing on how it will continue to fund OpenAI and AI infrastructure projects. In the fiscal year ending March 2026, SoftBank posted its highest net profit in history, but since early June this year, the company's share price has fallen by nearly half, and the cost of credit default swaps (CDS) has also climbed significantly. Additionally, SoftBank has pledged over $60 billion in investments to OpenAI and related projects, with approximately $30 billion in funding commitments due in the second half of 2026.Some analysts believe that if AI company valuations pull back, SoftBank will still face considerable pressure. Until enterprise customers truly demonstrate that AI can deliver productivity gains, SoftBank, Arm, and the memory chip sector may continue to face headwinds.
According to TechCrunch, AI startup June has officially announced its emergence from stealth mode, completing a $20 million pre-seed financing round led by Marc Benioff's Time Ventures, with participation from tech industry notables including Michael Dell, Aaron Levie, and George Kurtz. June was co-founded by former Salesforce executive Efrat Rapoport and three co-founders; the team previously founded speech-to-text company Bonobo AI, which was acquired by Salesforce in 2019. June's core product automatically scans existing enterprise systems, identifies business process bottlenecks, and generates a complete roadmap for the step-by-step deployment of AI Agents, helping enterprises achieve AI implementation in complex legacy system environments such as Salesforce, ServiceNow, and Workday, without relying on high-cost Frontline Deployment Engineers (FDE).
Strategy Executive Chairman Michael Saylor confirmed that the company's Variable Rate Series A Perpetual Preferred Stock STRC will maintain a Stretch Dividend Rate of 12.00% in August 2026. STRC was launched in July 2025 with an initial rate of 9%, and has since seen seven consecutive monthly increases. STRC's dividend adjustment mechanism stipulates that when its trading price falls below $95, the dividend rate increases by 0.5%, and once triggered, the increase is irreversible even if the price recovers. Strategy resets this rate monthly to drive STRC's price closer to its $100 par value, and issues new shares through its ATM program to raise funds for Bitcoin purchases. STRC closed at $89.46 on July 31, down from the previous closing price of $89.50, approximately 10% to 11% below its $100 par value. The stock touched a low of $71.25 in June and has not returned to par value since mid-May. Strategy has paused new STRC issuance through its ATM program, limiting its ability to use this funding channel to increase its Bitcoin holdings. The company maintains a liquidity buffer covering approximately 26 months of dividend and interest obligations, and in late June, authorized a $2 billion preferred stock and common stock buyback and Bitcoin monetization program through the Digital Credit Capital Framework.
According to Korean media Daum, volatility in the South Korean stock market has recently intensified, investor risk appetite has clearly cooled, and funds are flowing back from the stock market to safe-haven assets such as banks. Due to adjustments in the semiconductor sector and stricter regulation on leveraged investment, idle funds in the South Korean stock market are withdrawing rapidly, and the market is exhibiting a phenomenon of "reverse capital migration". Data shows that as of the end of July, the time deposit balance at South Korea's five major banks (KB Kookmin, Shinhan, Hana, Woori, NH Nonghyup) reached 973.49 trillion won, an increase of 24.09 trillion won from the end of the previous month, marking the largest single-month increase this year. Funds related to the stock market also showed significant contraction. According to data from the Korea Financial Investment Association, investor securities account deposits (idle funds for stock trading) reached a historical high of 139.69 trillion won on June 4, but as of July 28, had fallen to 107.20 trillion won, a decrease of over 32 trillion won in less than two months. The balance of credit transaction financing, representing the scale of market margin trading, fell to 33.19 trillion won during the same period, a decrease of about 4.5 trillion won from the peak of 37.72 trillion won set on July 2, a decline of approximately 12%.
According to TechFlow Research, UBS pointed out in its research report on July 29 that SK Hynix's stock price has fallen 52% from its high on June 22, with a current price-to-book ratio of only 1.66x, implying a long-term ROE of 18.9%. However, UBS predicts the average ROE from 2027 to 2031 will reach 40.2%, a difference of 21 percentage points between the two. DRAM bit demand growth is expected to increase from 22% in 2026 to 36% in 2027, HBM capacity will increase from 230,000 wafers/month at the end of 2026 to 270,000 wafers/month at the end of 2027, and SK Hynix will maintain a 48% shipment share in the HBM industry in 2026. UBS believes the market valuation downward revision lacks basis, AI agents are driving accelerated memory demand, 10 long-term agreements have been signed, and although LTAs suppress ASP in the short term, they benefit profit margins in the long term. UBS maintains a Buy rating, lowering the target price from 3.2 million Korean won to 3 million Korean won, expects to launch a share buyback of about 12 trillion Korean won in the second half of 2026, and will use 50% of free cash flow for shareholder returns in the long term.
MEXC, in collaboration with CoinGecko, has released the latest report "How Crypto Exchanges Are Reshaping Traditional Asset Trading," which provides an in-depth analysis of the rapid expansion of traditional financial assets on centralized crypto exchanges and the shift in global investor behavior.Key findings of the report:1. The TradFi (Traditional Finance) trading volume of six major centralized exchanges surged from $3.46 billion in January 2025 to $393.15 billion in June 2026, representing a growth of over 100 times. Among this, perpetual contracts accounted for 98.5% of the total trading volume in June 2026.2. In June 2026, US equities surpassed precious metals to become the largest TradFi asset class, with monthly trading volume increasing by 337.4% to $189.84 billion, capturing a 48.3% market share. Meanwhile, precious metals trading volume decreased by 48.2% from its March peak, falling to $122.59 billion.3. MEXC's TradFi monthly trading volume grew approximately 59 times, rising from $1.54 billion in November 2025 to $91.12 billion in May 2026. Between January and May 2026, MEXC maintained the second-largest market share among the six exchanges for five consecutive months.4. In precious metals trading, MEXC ranked first among the six exchanges for two consecutive months, with trading volumes reaching $72.12 billion and $85.15 billion in April and May 2026, respectively.5. Among native crypto users, 61.9% have begun trading traditional assets through crypto exchanges.6. Among users with traditional finance experience, 74.2% have transferred some or all of their traditional asset trading to crypto exchanges.7. Across all respondents, 83.3% indicated plans to further increase their scale of trading traditional assets on crypto exchanges.
The Situational Awareness fund, managed by "AI Stock God" Leopold Aschenbrenner, accumulated a gain of 439% before June 2026. However, it suffered severe setbacks during the AI sector sell-off in July. The fund is currently communicating with existing investors and lenders to seek new capital and is offering some LPs the opportunity to purchase assets from its portfolio.Sources say this capital discussion appears more like an ad-hoc response than an organized new fundraising round. The fund had previously used leverage through prime brokers at several major investment banks to amplify its AI trading exposure, turning market drawdowns further into funding pressure.In a letter to investors on July 24, Aschenbrenner acknowledged that the fund failed to avoid this market shock, noting that Asian markets were particularly affected. However, he believes this sell-off could present the best buying opportunity since early 2025. He plans to open a window for new capital on August 1st and views Anthropic's potential IPO as a catalyst for the second half of the year.According to disclosures, some holdings saw significant declines in July. Oracle and AMD fell approximately 20% for the month, while Nebius, Saronic AI, Bloom Energy, Sandisk, and others saw even larger drops. The Nasdaq 100 index fell about 10% in July, and South Korea's Kospi index dropped by roughly one-third.Currently, lacking specific data on the fund's exact drawdown magnitude, it is difficult to determine whether this fundraising is a passive capital injection driven by leverage pressure or an active move to increase positions for an opportunity. However, market trends suggest it is closer to the former. If forced selling occurs, the deleveraging process could also create discount opportunities in assets whose fundamentals haven't materially changed.
According to TechFlow Research, JPMorgan's research report on July 29 noted that the South Korea KOSPI Index has fallen nearly 40% from its high on June 22, leveraged ETF size shrank from $50 billion to $17 billion, the hedge fund long/short ratio dropped from 5.7x to 3.2x, and deleveraging progress has exceeded 90%. The KOSPI forward P/E ratio fell to 5x, at a crisis level. Foreign investors have cumulatively net sold over $110 billion, but 90% was concentrated in two memory chip giants. As their weights in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index decreased from 9.5% and 8.3% to 6.5% and 4.5%, passive selling pressure has significantly eased. JPMorgan believes that position clearing combined with cheap valuations means the South Korean stock market has entered a valuation repair window, and it is bullish on wealth effect-related sectors, biopharmaceuticals, preferred stocks, and bank stocks.
According to the UK's Financial Times, AI concept stocks have recently continued to correct, and Wall Street banks have required some hedge funds with concentrated positions and high leverage to post additional collateral to maintain existing financing levels. The Nasdaq 100 Index fell by as much as 10% from its early June highs, while the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index has cumulatively dropped about 25% since the end of June. Against the backdrop of sharp declines in related individual stocks, long-short and multi-strategy hedge funds recorded significant single-day drawdowns, reflecting that risks from crowded AI trades and leverage are being exposed at an accelerated pace.
crypto KOL Phyrex posted on platform X, stating that U.S. investors are pursuing stock market highs with increasingly high leverage. As of June, the net credit balance of U.S. brokerage accounts fell by approximately $70 billion in a single month to a negative $1.061 trillion, hitting a record low. During the same period, margin debt increased by about $86 billion to $1.53 trillion, rising for the third consecutive month and setting a new record.Phyrex pointed out that the continuous deterioration of the net credit balance indicates that investors' cash buffers are shrinking, and their dependence on borrowing to maintain stock positions is increasing. Currently, leverage in the U.S. market is widespread across the entire brokerage system. During an uptrend, rising stock prices increase account net worth, which can further release margin capacity, creating mechanical buying pressure. However, once the market weakens, margin pressure may force investors to add cash or sell stocks, turning the leveraging capital that previously fueled the rally into mechanical selling pressure. Phyrex believes that the U.S. stock market is currently facing both high valuation and high leverage conditions. If the influx of new funds slows down, leveraged positions could further amplify market volatility.
According to Odaily, a 26-year-old male trader at Hong Kong's Chee Fu Management Services Limited allegedly misappropriated HK$50 million of company funds as margin to purchase the CSOP Direxion 2x Long SK Hynix ETF using leveraged financing.Due to the double leverage of margin financing combined with the 2x leveraged ETF, the position incurred paper losses of approximately HK$150 million. The ETF had risen to an all-time high of HK$193.65 in late June, but subsequently corrected along with the semiconductor sector, falling over 72% to HK$52.58 as of July 20.The trader has been arrested by police on suspicion of theft. As the position has not yet been closed, the final loss will continue to fluctuate with price movements. (Tencent News)
According to Tencent News "YiXian", a 26-year-old male trader at Hong Kong Zhi Fu Management Services Limited misappropriated 50 million HKD of company funds as margin without authorization between January 9 and July 20 this year, using financing leverage to heavily buy the HKEX-listed CSOP 2x Long SK Hynix ETF (07709.HK), ultimately resulting in paper losses of up to 150 million HKD. Driven by the memory chip theme, the ETF surged to a historical high of HKD 193.65 at the end of June this year, but subsequently the semiconductor sector corrected sharply. As of July 20, it had plummeted to HKD 52.58, a decline of over 72%. Hong Kong financial professionals analyzed that the combination of double leverage from margin financing and the 2x Long ETF was the main reason why the 50 million principal turned into a 150 million huge loss. The incident was uncovered during the company's recent audit. The man involved was arrested by the police on July 20 on suspicion of "theft". Currently, the relevant stock positions have not yet been forcibly liquidated, and the final loss remains uncertain. After the incident, some clients of Zhi Fu Securities made risk-avoidance withdrawals.
Morgan Stanley analysts stated that if SpaceX's stock price falls to $100 per share, it implies the market's valuation of its AI business has dropped to zero. SpaceX launched an IPO valued at $86 billion in mid-June, and this week it fell to a low of $110.85, down 18% from the offering price. Analysts assigned a target price of $300 per share to the stock, with more than half derived from the AI business valuation. Previously, SpaceX entered the AI infrastructure sector leveraging its Starlink satellite network, providing low-latency data transmission services for large model training.
according to sources familiar with the matter, AI robotics startup Genesis AI is in talks with investors for a new funding round, planning to raise approximately $500 million, corresponding to a pre-money valuation of around $3 billion. Existing investor Premji Invest is in discussions to lead the round, while HSG (formerly Sequoia China) and Northzone Ventures are also discussing additional investments.In June this year, Genesis AI launched an AI industrial robot named Eno. The company stated that Eno is capable of reasoning "beyond predefined tasks" and adapting based on different outcomes. (Bloomberg)
According to TechFlow Research, JPMorgan's US stock strategy report on July 20 estimates that global AI-related capital expenditure will approach $870 billion in 2026, up 77% year-on-year, with hyperscalers contributing about $750 billion. In 2027, growth rates remain high: Google +54% (approx. $300 billion), Amazon +42% (approx. $300 billion), Meta +42% (approx. $200 billion). Bond financing by the five major tech giants rose from $40 to 50 billion in 2022 to about $190 billion in 2026, and Google completed $85 billion in equity financing in June.
South Korea's KOSPI index rose as much as 6.2% during trading on Wednesday, bringing its cumulative gain over the past two trading days to nearly 10%. SK Hynix rose over 9% at one point, while Samsung Electronics gained more than 6%, with chip stocks leading the market rally.A recent report from JPMorgan indicated that approximately 75% of the de-leveraging process for leveraged ETF positions in South Korea has been completed. According to data from the Korea Financial Investment Association, as of July 16, the balance of margin loans in South Korea fell to 33.4 trillion won (approximately $22.6 billion), down 13% from its peak at the end of June.Additionally, as of Wednesday morning, foreign investors had net purchased over $1 billion worth of South Korean stocks, marking the first significant capital inflow in about a month. (Bloomberg)
: U.S. prediction market platform Kalshi experienced explosive growth during the 2026 World Cup, with platform trading volume soaring from $6.67 billion on June 22 to $24.2 billion on July 14. The single "World Cup Champion" prediction market saw trading volume exceed $1.2 billion. Kalshi stated that its growth reflects a new trend in the AI era: as the volume of AI-generated content increases substantially, authentic, real-time, and non-replicable human interaction scenarios are becoming scarcer, positioning prediction markets as a novel tool for observing public sentiment and collective judgment.Meanwhile, Kalshi is seeking to transform from a sports prediction platform into the next-generation financial trading infrastructure. The company currently holds Designated Contract Market (DCM) status recognized by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and plans to expand into more prediction areas including sports, geopolitics, culture, and economics. (Fortune)
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced it has filed a lawsuit against Florida resident Zan Shaikh and his company, Bright Vision Distribution LLC (operating as Mining Automatic), accusing them of defrauding investors through a fraudulent crypto asset mining investment scheme involving approximately $22 million in raised funds.The SEC stated that between June 2023 and May 2025, Shaikh and Mining Automatic promised investors fixed monthly returns from participating in a crypto asset mining business, but the mining operations were actually incapable of generating the promised returns.According to the SEC's complaint, Shaikh and Mining Automatic allegedly made false statements regarding their own crypto mining experience, operational capabilities, the use of investor funds, and the status of the mining business. They also cited an inability to pay investor returns as an excuse for delayed payments.