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SpaceX has picked Nvidia to design the compute payload inside its Starmind AI1 satellites. Both stocks rose Tuesday. The news landed hours before SpaceX reported its first quarterly results as a public company.
Starmind is SpaceX’s plan to put data centers in orbit. Each satellite will carry Nvidia Rubin GPUs and Vera CPUs, the chipmaker’s newest generation. Nvidia calls the market space computing.
SpaceX is partnering with @Nvidia to design the Starmind AI1 satellite compute payload. Each of the Starmind satellites will include NVIDIA Rubin GPUs and Vera CPUs for datacenter class space compute → https://t.co/4MOQv0DvTQ pic.twitter.com/rC7UBAznAO
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 4, 2026
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SpaceX Taps Nvidia for Starmind AI
Nvidia launched its space computing line on March 16. It named six early partners that day. Aetherflux, Axiom Space, Kepler Communications, Planet Labs, Sophia Space and Starcloud all made the list.
SpaceX did not. That gap closed on Tuesday, and it closed with the biggest customer on the board.
In January, SpaceX asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for up to one million orbital data center satellites. The application covers altitudes from 500 to 2,000 kilometers. SpaceX describes the design as a petabit laser mesh.
For scale, roughly 15,000 satellites orbit Earth today. SpaceX wants to multiply that by 66.
How NVDA and SPCX Stocks Reacted
Nvidia (NVDA) traded at $212.91 on Tuesday afternoon, up 3.03%. SpaceX (SPCX) climbed 8.67% to $124.46.
Nvidia (NVDA) Stock Performance. Source: Yahoo Finance
SpaceX needed the lift. The stock sat 35% below its peak in early July, even after joining the Nasdaq-100.
SpaceX (SPCX) Stock Performance. Source: Yahoo Finance
The chips lend the plan weight. Nvidia says its Space-1 Vera Rubin Module delivers up to 25 times the AI compute of an H100 GPU. Volume shipments start this fall.
What the SpaceX Nvidia Starmind Deal Needs Next
Money is the open question. SpaceX’s AI unit lost $6.4 billion on $3.2 billion of revenue last year.
Tuesday’s 4:30 p.m. ET webcast offers the first real read. Analysts have mapped three earnings call scenarios, and Starlink cash flow sits at the center of each.
Opinion is split. Cathie Wood named SpaceX her favorite holding in July. NYU finance professor Aswath Damodaran has warned of a coming AI shakeout.
Regulators still hold a veto. The FCC accepted the filing in February and has yet to rule. Until it does, Starmind is a chip order without a licence.

A $20 million options trade pays off only if SpaceX stock nearly triples by Friday. More than 450,000 contracts sit at a $330 strike before Tuesday’s earnings.
That price sits almost three times (3x) above where the stock trades now. Options analysts doubt small investors built the position, and point to a bank instead.
Who Is Behind the $20 Million SpaceX Options Trade
Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX) changed hands near $124 on Tuesday afternoon, up by over 8% on the day. The company priced its June 12 offering at $135, according to its prospectus filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
SpaceX (SPCX) Stock Performance. Source: Yahoo Finance
SpaceX has never traded anywhere near $330. Its record high is $225.64, and the median analyst target sits at $225. The strike clears both by about 46%.
The $330 line expiring August 7 holds at least seven times the open interest of the next busiest contract, CNBC reported. Those contracts control 45 million shares, worth roughly $14.8 billion if the stock ever reached the strike.
That is about 7% of a public float of only 639 million shares. Brent Kochuba founded options-flow platform SpotGamma. He said the buying pattern matches neither hedge funds nor market makers nor small investors.
“My guess is that banks own these calls as a hedge, maybe against some kind of structured product or some other short exposure they have.”
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SpotGamma figures cited by CNBC put Monday’s buying at about 90,000 contracts for $2.2 million. Because the calls grew cheaper as the stock fell below its IPO price, the accumulated premium reaches near $20 million.
Open interest by strike for the SpaceX options chain expiring Aug. 7, showing a 450,000-contract spike at $330, Source: OptionCharts What Traders Expect From SpaceX Stock After Earnings
SpaceX reports after Tuesday’s close, its first results since the June listing. Traders have already mapped the top earnings scenarios investors are weighing.
Contracts on the August 7 expiry price a swing of about $20.30, or 16.57%. That implies a band of $102.17 to $142.77. The strike sits 131% above the top of it.
CNBC put the earnings-specific move at 14%. Against a market value near $1.5 trillion, one print could move roughly $207 billion of shareholder value.
Implied volatility near 133 keeps even distant strikes liquid, according to ThinkOrSwim data cited by CNBC. Volatility usually cools once results clear.
Here it may not. The insider lockup opens Thursday, freeing roughly 911.5 million shares, more than the entire float. Meta’s 2012 lockup crash remains the closest precedent.
Jay Pestrichelli is chief trading officer at Tidal Financial Group, which manages more than $60 billion across 420-plus exchange-traded funds. He argued the calls can turn profitable well before the strike, putting that zone near $215 by Wednesday morning.
“It’s not a speculative moon shot … you don’t buy the highest strike in the chain unless you’re trying to reduce the cost of a hedge.”
SpaceX options expected move chart for the Aug. 7 expiry, showing a $102.17 to $142.77 range against a $123.69 spot price, Source: OptionCharts
Even $215 would leave SpaceX short of its own record. Whether the $330 line was cheap insurance or a real directional trade should resolve by Friday. That lands one day after the float more than doubles.

The SBF appeal mandate issued on August 4 closes Sam Bankman-Fried’s (SBF) case at the Second Circuit appeals court. The one-page order affirms the judgment and adds no new reasoning.
A mandate returns a case to the trial court and makes an appellate ruling fully effective. This one leaves the former FTX chief’s 25-year prison term in place.
What the SBF Appeal Mandate Actually Says
The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit logged it as entry 77 in case No. 24-961. It names the three judges who heard the appeal, Barrington D. Parker, Eunice C. Lee and Maria Araújo Kahn.
Then comes the operative line. The court “ORDERED, ADJUDGED and DECREED that the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.”
Nothing else is decided. Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, clerk of court, signed it for the panel. A stamp at the foot records the mandate issuing on 08/04/2026.
Why the June Ruling Still Governs
The substance landed almost two months earlier. On June 12, the panel rejected the FTX founder’s appeal and left the seven-count conviction intact. It also kept the sentence Judge Lewis Kaplan imposed in March 2024.
Parker wrote for the panel, describing what the jury had heard.
“While he was publicly reassuring customers, investors and regulators that FTX customer funds were safe, he was simultaneously using FTX as his own personal piggy bank, spending customer funds on real estate, political contributions and investments,” Barrington D. Parker, Circuit Judge, Second Circuit opinion.
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The panel also upheld the roughly $11 billion forfeiture, finding Congress may tie forfeiture to a defendant’s gains. Kaplan had already denied a retrial motion in April.
The One Strand Left
Only one judicial route survives. Bankman-Fried may petition the US Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari, generally within 90 days of judgment. The court hears a small fraction of such petitions.
He has separately filed a pardon application with the Justice Department. Senators Cynthia Lummis and Ruben Gallego have since introduced a resolution opposing any SBF pardon.
Meanwhile, the money moves on a separate track. FTX creditors received a fifth round of repayments at the end of July. The mandate settles the appellate question, and what the Supreme Court makes of it is the only one still open.

Jeff Bezos wants to sell 15 million Amazon shares. The price tag is about $4.07 billion. Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) fell more than 2% on Tuesday.
The timing stands out. Amazon had just closed at a record and passed $3 trillion in value for the first time.
Bezos Amazon Stock Sale Was Priced Before the Record
Bezos filed a Form 144. That is the notice an insider files before selling restricted shares.
The notice puts the total value at $4,073,700,000. Divide that by 15 million shares and you get $271.58 each. That was Friday’s closing price, not Monday’s.
Amazon then rose 4.58% on Monday and closed at $284.02, an all-time high. It touched $287.20 during the day.
At Monday’s close, the same shares were worth roughly $4.26 billion. Bezos priced his sale before the record, not after it.
Morgan Stanley Smith Barney will handle the trades on Nasdaq. Bezos received the shares as founder stock in July 1994.
The sales follow a Rule 10b5-1 plan he set up on November 14, 2025. These plans lock in trades months ahead. That shields insiders from claims they traded on private information.
AMZN changed hands near $277.41 late Tuesday morning, down 2.33%. A year ago it closed at $211.65.
Amazon (AMZN) Stock Performance. Source: Yahoo Finance
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He Is Selling Less Stock Than He Did Last Year
None of this is new for Bezos. He has filed the same kind of notice repeatedly since 2024.
Here is how his last three compare.
August 2026, 15 million shares for $4.07 billion, or $271.58 each
June 2025, 25 million shares for $5.43 billion, or $217.12 each
November 2024, 16.35 million shares for $3.05 billion, or $186.40 each
So this is his smallest sale by share count. It is his second biggest by dollars.
The stock did that work, not Bezos. Each plan used the same broker and was set months in advance.
AWS Is Why the Price Got This High
Amazon’s second quarter earnings beat started the rally. Sales rose 20% to $200.6 billion. Operating income jumped to $27.5 billion from $19.2 billion.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the company’s cloud arm. It grew 37% to $42.2 billion. Its operating income climbed to $16.6 billion from $10.2 billion.
Banks moved fast. More than a dozen raised Amazon price targets. Benchmark went to $400, roughly 44% above Tuesday’s price.
That growth costs money. Amazon spent $54.2 billion on property and equipment last quarter. Over 12 months the bill reached $169 billion.
Free cash flow turned negative, an outflow of $7.6 billion. Other big tech names face the same AI capex draining cash.
Bezos still owned 880,948,653 shares in early May. That is close to 8% of Amazon. This sale trims about 1.7% of his stake.
It reads as diversification, not a warning. The next Form 4 filing will show what the shares actually sold for.

Bitcoin (BTC) daily active addresses jumped from 645,000 on July 30 to nearly 1 million on July 31. The reading was the highest since December 10, 2024, and the Coldcard panic, not new demand, drove it.
BTC traded at $60,347 at press time, up 1.24% in 24 hours, BeInCrypto data shows. Three on-chain charts reveal what holders actually did during a weekend of severe stress for self-custody.
Nearly 1 Million Addresses Moved, the Most Since December 2024
Glassnode data shows about 980,000 active addresses on July 31, up more than 50% in a single day. The jump came days after attackers began draining Coldcard hardware wallets through a flawed random number generator.
Three confirmed attack waves have been linked to 1,367 BTC, worth $88.6 million, stolen from 4,585 addresses. A suspected fourth wave has since swept over 380 BTC more.
The last time this many addresses moved, on December 10, 2024, bitcoin traded near $100,000 during a euphoric rally. This time, the same activity arrived with BTC around $60,000. Same metric, opposite emotion.
Bitcoin Number of Active Addresses / Source: Glassnode
CryptoQuant Head of Research Julio Moreno noted on X that sending addresses drove nearly all of the growth. Receiving addresses barely moved in proportion, which suggests consolidation. Thousands of wallets emptied toward a much smaller set of destinations.
Historically, active addresses had churned between 550,000 and 750,000 for most of 2026. Therefore, the spike reads as a one-off event rather than a new trend.
Small Holders Moved the Most BTC Since the FTX Collapse
CryptoQuant’s Spent Output Value Bands point to who panicked. Transfers below 1 BTC totaled 39,600 BTC on July 31. The only comparable daily reading came on November 16, 2022, at 39,900 BTC, days after FTX failed.
These bands capture retail-sized wallets, exactly the profile of Coldcard’s user base. One holder lost 18.25 BTC, worth $1.6 million, in under seven minutes. Stories like his pushed thousands of users to act.
Moreno framed the migration as a healthy reflex rather than capitulation.
“The Bitcoin plebs had not move[d] this amount of BTC in a day since the FTX collapse… I like to see that people seem to be taking action.”
He shared the observation on X on August 1.
Bitcoin Spent Output Value Bands / Source: X
However, the direction of travel has reversed since 2022. Back then, users pulled coins off exchanges and into cold storage. This time, a cold storage failure sent coins the other way. The reversal feeds the self-custody debate that Binance founder Changpeng Zhao reignited this week.
Many Wallets, Few Transactions. The Anatomy of the Coldcard Panic
The third chart completes the picture. Glassnode counted 761,796 transfers on July 31, a local spike but far from a record. Prior peaks on December 13, 2024, April 19, 2025, and May 9, 2026, all cleared 1 million transfers.
The divergence matters. Active addresses hit a 20-month high while transfer counts stayed inside their ordinary range. In other words, an enormous number of wallets moved, but each made only one or a few transactions.
Bitcoin Number of Transfers / Source: Glassnode
That is the anatomy of a mass emergency sweep, not an activity boom. In contrast, earlier transfer records came from concentrated, high-frequency churn by far fewer entities.
Galaxy Research head Alex Thorn observed sweep transactions running at 13.8 per block, roughly 45 times the pre-incident baseline. The shock even reached protocol politics, as developers postponed the BIP-110 soft fork activation, citing the incident.
The Chain Recorded Fear, Not a Trend
Raw on-chain metrics will look distorted for days. Analysts may prefer entity-adjusted data until sweep activity fades, and active addresses could normalize just as sharply as they spiked.
Notably, the price barely reacted. Bitcoin held near $60,000 through its most active day in 20 months. That calm suggests the moved coins fled risk rather than sought exits.
The next signal to watch sits on the exchange books. If migrated coins stay put, the episode remains a security story. If they start selling, the Coldcard panic could yet become a market story.

The Bank of Korea will buy physical gold again after 13 years. Central banks bought 289 tonnes in the second quarter, their strongest second quarter on record.
Gold traded near $4,086 an ounce on Tuesday, up 0.8%. It sits 27% below its January record. It is still up about 20% on the year.
Gold (XAU) Price Performance. Source: TradingView Korea Gold Purchases Resume After 13 Years
Seoul stopped buying gold in 2013. It was mocked for the timing. The bank bought 90 tonnes between 2011 and 2013, at an average $1,629 an ounce. That came to about $4.7 billion, figures from Korea Economic Daily show.
Then gold fell apart. The price had peaked at $1,920.30 in September 2011. By June 2013 it hit $1,180.71, a drop of 38.5%. That year was gold’s worst since 1981.
South Korea's central bank plans gold purchases – first addition since 2013.2011-2013: Bought near peak, faced criticism when prices fell 2024-2025: Sat out entire rally to record highs2025 now: Re-entering after "correction". Director noting they're "monitoring markets for…
— BullionStar (@BullionStar) October 28, 2025
At that low, Korea’s gold was worth 27.5% less than it paid. Lawmakers dragged in then-governor Kim Choong-soo. By 2015 the paper loss reached about 1.8 trillion won. Buying stopped.
Here is the twist. Those same 90 tonnes are now worth roughly $11.8 billion. That is $7 billion more than Korea paid.
So the bank is careful about how it explains itself. Jung Hee-sub, who runs its Reserve Management Group, denies any link to the recent price drop.
“We did not decide the timing of purchases by looking at a specific price… we decide whether to proceed at that time based on domestic and international gold prices and market conditions,” local media reported.
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The plan itself is tiny. Korea digs up 40 to 45 tonnes a year, mostly as a leftover from smelting copper and zinc. Only 4 to 5 tonnes get sold abroad. The bank will bid for that slice alone.
So its reserves stay near 104.4 tonnes, ranking Korea 39th. It also bought its first gold exchange-traded funds (ETFs) last quarter, as South Korea’s equity turmoil grips policymakers.
Central Bank Gold Buying Hit a Record 289 Tonnes
Korea is late to a crowded party. Central banks bought 288.9 tonnes in the second quarter, World Gold Council data show. That is 62% more than a year earlier.
Poland bought the most, at 51 tonnes. Its stockpile hit a record 632 tonnes. It wants 700.
Governor Adam Glapiński is blunt about how he does it.
“We’ve been consistently buying gold, taking advantage of the recent price drops.”
China added 33 tonnes, keeping up a long buying streak. Russia sold 22.
The rebound hides a slow start, though. Just 56.5 tonnes came in the first quarter. At 345 tonnes, the first half was the weakest since 2022.
They are not losing interest. A record 45% plan to buy more within a year, and demand held firm through the price slump.
Gold Is Quieter Than at Any Time Since August 2025
Bollinger Bands track how widely a price swings around its average. When they squeeze together, the market has gone quiet. Quiet markets rarely stay quiet.
Barchart figures show the tightest squeeze on the biggest gold ETF since August 2025. That date matters. Gold closed August 2025 near $3,443, then ran 62% to its January peak.
Gold is coiling and getting ready for a big move 🚨 🚨 Bollinger Bands are now the tightest since August 2025, right before Gold soared 60% over the next 5 months 🚀 🥳 pic.twitter.com/ChRZ04t8U9
— Barchart (@Barchart) August 4, 2026
One example is not a pattern, however. A squeeze tells you a move is coming. It does not tell you which way.
So Will Gold Break Out?
The evidence leans up, but not back to January’s record. Deutsche Bank analysts Michael Hsueh and Bryant Xu say gold is worth about $4,700 by year end. JPMorgan’s lowered target still puts the fourth quarter at $4,500.
The World Gold Council will not pick a number. Its mid-year outlook sees gold within 5% of $4,100 for the rest of 2026, if nothing much changes.
Here is the catch. Central banks are better at putting a floor under gold than pushing it up. Record buying did not stop a 29% fall from January to June. They buy to a plan, and they buy dips, as Glapiński said.
A real rally needs ordinary investors and funds to come back.
Gold (XAU) Price Outlook. Source: TradingView
So watch $3,959, the June low. Gold sits less than 3% above it. Break that, and the idea that central banks hold up the price falls apart.

SpaceX veröffentlicht seine ersten Quartalsergebnisse als börsennotiertes Unternehmen nach dem Handelsschluss am Dienstag; anschließend folgt eine Webcast-Übertragung gegen 16:30 Uhr ET.
Der Börseneinstand wird zeigen, ob die Starlink-Gewinne die aggressiven KI- und Starship-Ambitionen des Unternehmens finanzieren können.
Der allgemeine Konsens geht von 6,8 bis 6,9 Milliarden US-Dollar Umsatz aus – ein deutlicher Sprung gegenüber 4,69 Milliarden US-Dollar im ersten Quartal. Die Wall Street rechnet zudem mit einem Non-GAAP-Verlust von rund 0,23 bis 0,26 US-Dollar pro Aktie.
Die Erwartungen an die Ergebnisse variieren erheblich. Starlink bleibt die Cash-Cow und wird auf etwa 3,8 Milliarden US-Dollar geschätzt, mit operativen Margen von rund 36%.

The US Dollar Index (DXY) trades near 100.02 on Tuesday after last week’s sharp rejection from 101.50. The greenback is battling to reclaim the psychological 100 mark, according to Trading Economics data.
Markets price roughly 55% odds of a September Federal Reserve rate hike. At the same time, coordinated currency intervention and falling oil prices pull the index in the opposite direction.
Fed Hike Bets Collide With Yen Intervention
Fundamentals have turned dollar-friendly on the monetary policy side. July’s ISM Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) jumped to 55.6, its strongest reading since May 2022.
Three Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) members also dissented in favor of a hike in July, when rates held at 3.50% to 3.75%. Prediction market Kalshi prices a 25-basis-point September hike at 53%, with CME FedWatch showing similar odds.
FED rate hike decision probabilities / Source: Kalshi
However, official pressure works against the dollar. The US and Japan confirmed coordinated yen intervention after USD/JPY weakened to 40-year lows near 164.
Falling energy prices add to the bearish side. Oil dropped around 5% on Monday after Washington and Tehran agreed to restart talks, easing inflation pressure.
Dollar direction also matters beyond forex. A firmer greenback has repeatedly pressured gold and Bitcoin (BTC) in 2026.
US Dollar Index Weekly Chart Shows the Rally Stalling Below 102
The weekly chart frames the move within a wide macro range. DXY topped at 110.176 in January 2025 and bottomed at 95.551 on January 27, 2026.
The recovery from that low stalled in July near 101.50. That area holds the 0.382 Fibonacci retracement at 101.14, just below the May 2025 swing high at 101.977.
DXY weekly chart / Source: Tradingview
Last week, sellers pushed the index back below the 100.30 to 100.60 resistance zone. The drop ended at an ascending trendline that connects to the January low.
Meanwhile, the weekly Relative Strength Index (RSI) sits near 50. The reading offers neither bulls nor bears a clear momentum edge.
LevelSignificance101.98May 2025 swing high, main upside target101.140.382 Fibonacci retracement100.30 to 100.60Resistance zone that needs to flip into support99.49Trendline and June swing low confluence99.000.236 Fibonacci retracement
DXY Price Prediction Rests on the 99.49 Support Confluence
The daily chart strengthens the bullish structure argument. An ascending trendline from the February low has now held twice, on May 6 and again on August 3.
The latest bounce also coincided with the June 17 swing low at 99.491. That confluence makes 99.49 the most important support on the chart.
Momentum tells a different story. Daily RSI reads 38, below the neutral zone but not yet oversold. The reading suggests sellers still control short-term momentum despite the intact trend.
DXY daily chart / Source: Tradingview
A daily close above 100.60 could open the path to 101.14 and then 101.977, roughly 2% above the current price. In contrast, losing 99.49 would expose the 0.236 Fibonacci level at 99.008, about 1% lower.
The calendar could decide the fight. ISM Services PMI lands on Wednesday, and the July jobs report follows on Friday, August 7. The Fed’s data-dependent stance adds weight to each release after last week’s GDP and PCE inflation data.
Until either side wins the battle for 100, DXY remains trapped between hawkish Fed pricing and official selling pressure.

A photographer at Camp David caught Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s notepad. It read “Buy Japanese Yen (JPY) $5-10 bil.”
On Tuesday he explained the plan. Bessent told CNBC the US bought yen because the currency had fallen too far. The market is already pushing back.
Why the US Bought Yen for the First Time Since 1998
The yen had sunk to its weakest level since 1986. So Japan and the US stepped in and bought it, which pushes the price up.
Japan’s Finance Ministry confirmed the move on Monday. Minister Satsuki Katayama said Tokyo bought yen “in coordination with the U.S. Department of the Treasury” on Friday. She added that Japan “will not hesitate to conduct further joint intervention.”
BREAKING: 🇯🇵 Japan’s Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama said: “We will not hesitate to conduct further coordinated intervention.”Yen surged more than +1% to ¥155.20 per dollar after the announcement, its strongest level since early May.
— Bull Theory (@BullTheoryio) August 3, 2026
The plan was not new. Both governments signed a statement last September agreeing to act together if the yen moved in a disorderly way. The notepad leaked the timing, not the policy.
What is new is the size. The last time Washington bought yen was June 17, 1998. Back then it spent just $833 million, according to the New York Fed. Bessent’s note points to six to 12 times more.
Nobody knows yet what Japan spent. Estimates near $59 billion are guesses based on central bank cash flows. Tokyo publishes the real number on August 31.
Bessent was relaxed about the leak itself.
“I just wanted to make sure that all the reporters looking over my shoulder also knew the symbol. JP for the Japanese yen,” he said in the interview.
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He was firmer on the reason. This was not a one-day rescue, he said, but part of a longer plan with Tokyo.
“This is more than just a market intervention… through our conversations with them, we believe that they are going to continue to put the right policies in place that will lead the yen to get back to more of a normal equilibrium price,” Bessent told CNBC.
Bessent also has a history lesson. He blames part of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis on a yen that fell too far.
Back then, weakness in Japan dragged neighboring currencies down. South Korea’s won, he said, is already jumpy today.
“…part of it was triggered by an overly weak yen. So I think a stable yen is not only important for the U.S. but it’s very important for the entire region, because if the yen were to weaken substantially, then the other currencies would follow it.”
Bessent Says Policy Matters More Than the Yen Intervention
Here is his key point. Buying a currency sends a message. Fixing a currency takes interest rates and budgets.
“I think here we can give market signals. But at the end of the day, it’s going to be policy and fundamentals. And the US decided to join because we are very optimistic on their policy path.”
The 1998 record backs him up, and then goes further. That day the dollar dropped from 142.21 yen to 136.51. Two weeks later it was back at 138.88. Roughly 40% of the gain was gone.
The yen finally turned four months later. No government bought a single yen. The dollar fell from 133.90 to 120.55 on October 7, 1998, then to 111.58 the next morning. Hedge funds were dumping dollars to cut their losses.
The dollar lost 17.4% against the yen that quarter. The New York Fed confirmed nobody intervened at all.
So the fix Bessent wants depends on Japan raising rates. The Bank of Japan (BOJ) held at 1% on July 31. One of nine members voted for a hike.
The US is moving the other way. The Federal Reserve held rates at 3.50% to 3.75% on July 29, and three officials wanted them higher. That leaves a gap of about 2.6 points.
That gap is the whole problem. Traders borrow cheap yen and park the cash in dollars that pay more. While the gap stays wide, betting against the yen still pays.
Why Bitcoin Cares About the Yen
The market has already started answering the question. The dollar fell to just under 155.5 yen during the operation. By Tuesday afternoon in Asia it was back at 157.54.
USD/JPY Performance. Source: TradingView
That is more than two yen recovered in two sessions. It is close to a quarter of everything the intervention won.
Look at the chart and one level jumps out. Japan defended the yen in late April and stalled just under 155.5. It happened again on Friday. Bank of America now calls 155 the line where traders expect Tokyo to fight.
TD Securities is blunter. It sees a possible dip to 153, but still expects 159 by year end. A lasting move needs the BOJ to hike and the US Treasury to stay committed.
Katayama hinted at deeper plumbing. Japan plans to use a Fed facility that lets it borrow dollars against the US government bonds it already owns. That way it can raise cash without selling those bonds.
Now the crypto link. Bitcoin (BTC) trades near $63,808, up about 2% on the day. Its total value sits close to $1.28 trillion.
Bitcoin Price Performance. Source: BeInCrypto
Cheap yen has funded bets on risky assets for years, crypto included. A stronger yen makes those bets expensive to hold. Analysts are split on whether this yen carry trade pattern drags Bitcoin toward $50,000.
That is the awkward part of Bessent’s history lesson. In 1998 the intervention faded in two weeks. The yen only really turned when traders were forced to unwind those cheap yen bets. For crypto, that second outcome is the scary one.

Intesa Sanpaolo, Italy’s largest banking group, slashed its Bitcoin ETF holding, BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), by 93.7% last quarter. The bank also tripled its stake in the iShares Staked Ethereum Trust ETF, its new Form 13F shows.
The quarterly disclosure adds to evidence that some institutions now favor yield-bearing Ethereum funds over Bitcoin products.
Inside Intesa Sanpaolo’s Bitcoin ETF Retreat
The bank reported 40,723 IBIT shares worth $1.36 million as of June 30, down from 646,809 three months earlier. Its reported call position shrank 99.3%, from an underlying 2.5 million shares to just 18,000.
A new put position covering 500,000 IBIT shares also appeared in the filing. Puts typically gain value when the underlying asset falls, which suggests a defensive stance on Bitcoin (BTC).
Intesa Sanpaolo ETF Filing. Image Source: Wu Blockchain/SEC
Meanwhile, the bank’s iShares Staked Ethereum Trust holding jumped from 116,200 shares to 349,600, worth $7.1 million. Its Bitwise Solana Staking ETF position collapsed from 2,817 shares to just seven.
Still, the Italian lender has not abandoned Bitcoin. It kept 3.47 million shares of the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB), worth $67.6 million. That remains its largest crypto ETF position, a comparison with its first-quarter report shows.
The bank also left its $14.4 million Grayscale XRP Trust position untouched. In addition, it opened a small $293,190 stake in the Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust.
Form 13F filings only capture long positions in US-listed securities. They omit short exposure and full options structures, so the bank’s net positioning stays unclear.
Is Wall Street Rotating Toward Ethereum?
Intesa Sanpaolo is not alone. Trading giant Jane Street cut its IBIT common stock position by 71% in the first quarter, its own disclosure shows.
Over the same period, the firm nearly doubled its iShares Ethereum Trust (ETHA) stake to 11.1 million shares. It also lifted its Fidelity Ethereum Fund position from $3.1 million to $43.6 million. As a market maker, however, Jane Street partly holds inventory for clients rather than directional bets.
Ethereum (ETH) staking yield appears central to the shift. BlackRock’s staked Ethereum product is designed to earn network rewards on its holdings, something Bitcoin funds cannot offer.
Flow data from the same quarter matches the selling side of the trade. SoSoValue figures show US Bitcoin spot ETFs posted heavy net outflows for most of the second quarter.
Q2 Spot Bitcoin ETF Inflows. Image Source: SoSoValue
A record $4.5 billion left in June alone, the worst month on record for the products.
Meanwhile, it is worth keeping an eye out for more Q2 disclosures. Most Q2 disclosures will only arrive before the August 14 deadline. They should show whether the Intesa Sanpaolo pivot marks an early trend, and which other firms sold Bitcoin ETFs last quarter.

US Bitcoin demand has now been negative for 78 consecutive days, a record. Citadel Securities, meanwhile, says July’s violent selloff reset the equity bull market rather than ended it.
Both claims can be true at once. American speculative money did leave the market in July, but almost none of it has landed in Bitcoin.
Citadel Says July Flushed Out the Speculators
Scott Rubner, Head of Equity and Equity Derivatives Strategy at Citadel Securities, reads July as a rotation problem rather than a deterioration problem. Crowded trades unwound while the underlying bid held.
CITADEL: JULY RESET THE BULL MARKET, NOT ENDED ITCitadel's Scott Rubner says July's sharp selloff and sector rotation cleared out excessive positioning without breaking the broader bull market.Retail investors turned net sellers, AI and semiconductor stocks were heavily sold,… pic.twitter.com/Z5f06pF2Fq
— *Walter Bloomberg (@DeItaone) August 4, 2026
Retail investors flipped from buyers to sellers. The last week of July produced the heaviest retail equity selling since 2022, per Citadel Securities data.
Technology took the hit. Retail sold more tech notional in one week than at any point since January 2019. That beat the prior record by over 80%. A comparable Big Tech selloff dragged crypto lower in June.
Leverage drained alongside it. Leveraged exchange-traded fund (ETF) assets fell more than $60 billion from their June peak. Semiconductor products alone shrank nearly 55% in a month.
“July did not change the structural bull market. It reset it,” Rubner wrote that in the firm’s August note, arguing positioning has normalized.
He expects roughly 85% of the S&P 500 by weight to be clear to buy back stock by mid-August.
US Bitcoin Demand Has Been Absent for 78 Straight Days
Meanwhile, Bitcoin has not participated in that reset. CoinGlass data puts the Coinbase Premium Index, a gauge of American buying appetite, negative for 78 consecutive sessions at roughly -0.1145%.
Coinbase Bitcoin Premium Index. Source: Coinglass
The index tracks how far Bitcoin’s price on Coinbase sits below other large venues. A persistent discount means US bids are thin. The previous record ran 40 days, set between January and February.
The timing explains a lot. US retail spent the second quarter chasing artificial intelligence trades, not Bitcoin.
Tech equities gained 43.5% in the second quarter and the Nasdaq 100 rose 27.7%, while Bitcoin fell 13.4%, according to NYDIG research. Spot Bitcoin ETFs bled $4.9 billion over the same stretch. That is where the US Bitcoin demand drought began.
July’s chip liquidation should have freed that capital. It has not reached Coinbase order books.
NYDIG Warns the Bounce Rests on Leverage
Fund flows look healthier than the spot picture. Farside Investors confirmed a $265.4 million outflow on July 31, and SoSoValue estimates roughly $170 million returned on August 3.
Bitcoin ETF Flows. Source: SoSoValue
NYDIG argues that recovery is hollow. The firm sees positive funding and rising open interest near cycle lows. Neither ETF flows nor stablecoin supply confirm it.
“a troubling setup for a liquidation-driven leg lower, not a durable bottom”
That is the bear case against Rubner. Leveraged traders are rebuilding risk while the cash buyers who confirm a bottom stay out. It echoes the weak conviction in July that on-chain analysts flagged.
BTC price near $63,859 leaves Bitcoin up 2.2% over 24 hours and 1.6% across 30 days. Its market capitalization sits near $1.28 trillion.
Citadel expects buybacks and earnings to lift equities into mid-August. Whether any of that capital finds its way back to American Bitcoin bids is the more useful question now.

Unibase (UB), Cardano (ADA), and Algorand (ALGO) posted the best seven-day results among top altcoins in early August 2026. UB gained 61%, while ADA and ALGO added 24% and 13%.
Daily charts suggest each rally now faces a decisive resistance test in the first week of August. The table below summarizes the most important chart data for each coin.
Altcoin 7-day gain Price RSI Volume trend Unibase (UB) +61% $0.1943 ~70, rising Declining Cardano (ADA) +24% $0.1945 ~70, higher high Rising Algorand (ALGO) +13% $0.0904 62, rising Declining
Unibase Leads the Top Altcoins After a 61% Weekly Rally
Unibase, a decentralized memory layer for artificial intelligence (AI) agents, gained 61% over the past seven days. UB trades at $0.1943, up 11% in 24 hours, with a market cap of $486 million.
The daily chart turned bullish on July 17 (blue circle), when the price broke above a long-term descending resistance line. Since then, UB has gained roughly 140%, printing a clean sequence of higher highs and higher lows.
UB daily chart / Source: Tradingview
The rally has now reached the 0.236 Fibonacci retracement (Fib) level at $0.1928. If buyers flip this area into support, the April peak at $0.2466 becomes the next target. In case of a correction, the 0.382 Fib at $0.1595 provides the first support. A stronger zone waits near the 0.618 Fib at $0.1056.
However, declining volume does not confirm the strength of the uptrend. Moreover, the Relative Strength Index (RSI) sits near 70 and approaches overbought territory. The indicator shows no bearish divergence yet.
Cardano Tests the $0.20 Confluence After a 24% Weekly Gain
Cardano gained 24% over the past week and trades at $0.1945. The recovery follows a sharp breakdown from a descending parallel channel at the beginning of June.
That breakdown quickly reached its target near $0.15. Since then, the area has acted as support and was confirmed four times. The latest bounce on July 28 started the current uptrend.
ADA daily chart / Source: Tradingview
ADA now faces its most important test. Resistance at $0.20 coincides with the 0.382 Fib at $0.2052 and the lower band of the broken channel. Therefore, acceptance back inside the channel remains the key bullish trigger. Such a move would open the breakdown area near $0.23, aligned with the 0.5 Fib at $0.2258.
RSI trades near 70 and prints a higher high compared with early July. Momentum leads price, and rising volume gives ADA the healthiest confirmation among the three. Meanwhile, Cardano’s recent upgrade and the rally tied to the upcoming Dijkstra era add a fundamental tailwind.
Algorand Bounces 13% but the Downtrend Still Rules
Algorand added 13% over the past seven days and trades at $0.0904. The bounce started at the $0.08 support zone, which aligns with the 1.0 Fib at $0.0794.
The price quickly returned to the 0.786 Fib resistance at $0.0923. This zone rejected ALGO repeatedly in June, so bulls have not cleared it yet. Above it, the next resistance sits at the 0.618 Fib near $0.1024.
ALGO daily chart / Source: Tradingview
In contrast to Cardano, declining volume suggests limited strength behind the move. RSI stands at 62, above the neutral 50 line, and leaves room before overbought conditions appear. Furthermore, Algorand’s quantum security roadmap recently gained attention after France announced new certification rules.
Consequently, this week’s move offers some hope, but the broader ALGO structure remains a downtrend. Until the price reclaims the 0.618 Fib at $0.1024 as support, the rally counts as a bounce. Only such a reclaim would signal the start of a medium to long-term bullish reversal.

Yamaha Motor shares surged 13.40% on Tuesday to close at 1,511 yen (roughly 9.62 dollars), after record first-half results forced the company to raise its annual guidance.
The rally stood out in a Japanese market still rattled by last week’s coordinated currency intervention.
Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. Price Performance. Source: TradingView The Record Numbers Behind the Rally
Operating profit measures earnings from core business activities before interest and taxes, a cleaner gauge of operational health than net income alone.
Yamaha’s revenue reached 1.498 trillion yen (~$9.54 billion) during the January to June period, up 17.2% year-over-year. Operating profit climbed to 158.5 billion yen (~$1.01 billion), an 88.6% increase. Attributable net profit performed even better. The figure hit 113.9 billion yen (~$725 million), representing a growth of 114.7%.
Motorcycles drove the expansion. European and American markets led demand, supported by a weaker yen through most of the period and improved cost management. Structural changes accompanied the results. The company announced reforms to its off-road leisure vehicle business and raised its full-year forecast.
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Business Segments and Major Products & Services (as of fiscal year 2026). Source: Yamaha
Investor response was immediate. Trading volume exceeded 30 million shares, reflecting unusually strong interest in the stock.
The broader index offered only modest relief. The Nikkei 225 advanced 0.32% to 63,957.53 points, partially recovering from sharp declines in previous sessions.
Japanese markets have endured severe volatility since late July. The yen weakened to levels unseen in 40 years before Tokyo and the US Treasury executed a joint yen-buying intervention.
Nikkei 225 Index Performance. Source: MarketWatch Why the Risks Have Not Disappeared
The subsequent currency rebound created its own problem. Exporters faced profitability concerns, triggering heavy selling across the index.
Washington is now pushing for additional tools. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent publicly asked the Federal Reserve to expand its FIMA repo facility. The mechanism matters considerably. It allows foreign governments to obtain dollars by using Treasury bonds as collateral, thereby supporting interventions without straining American debt markets.
Bessent Is Not Reacting. He Is Forcing Bretton Woods 2.0, and getting out in front.Bessent is emerging as the most consequential Treasury Secretary since Alexander Hamilton and much of the policy establishment still does not see it. This is not a random turn in markets. It is… https://t.co/9XfyOoEbTx
— James E. Thorne (@DrJStrategy) August 4, 2026
Risks remain firmly in place, however. Analysts warn the real pain may still be ahead for Japanese equities. Two threats stand out. A possible Bank of Japan rate hike in September, combined with a yen still prone to strengthening, would squeeze export-dependent companies.
Kioxia Holdings illustrates that vulnerability. The memory chip maker already missed its first-half guidance and suffers directly from yen appreciation, given its reliance on foreign sales.
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Margin Trading in Japan is at its highest level since 1990 🚨 🚨 Beginning in 1990, the Nikkei plunged more than 80% over the next 18 years 📉 🤯 👀 pic.twitter.com/7lZMSgFNjn
— Barchart (@Barchart) August 4, 2026
The contrast defined Tuesday’s session. While the Nikkei managed only a timid rebound, Yamaha demonstrated that exceptional results still command investor attention.
Sustainability remains an open question. Further yen strengthening or a more aggressive decision by the Bank of Japan in September could pressure exporters again. For now, the market rewarded execution over macro anxiety. Whether that holds depends on decisions in Tokyo rather than corporate boardrooms.

Heading into its August 26 earnings, the Nvidia stock looks strong. Nearly every analyst covering the stock rates it a buy. The shares have been higher over the past week, month, and year, and the company is expected to almost double its profit.
Nothing on the surface says caution. Yet the real risk is not on the price chart at all. It sits inside the demand everyone is celebrating, and Michael Burry, the investor who called the 2008 housing crash, has put a number on it.
The Nvidia Setup Looks Bulletproof
The tape gives the bulls everything they want. Nvidia (NVDA) has gained nearly 11% this year, bouncing from a spring low around $164 to roughly $208, even if it sits below the $236 record it set in May. The direction matters most.
The stock is now climbing into the report (starting July 29) rather than sliding into it, which usually signals the market expects good news.
NVIDIA Year-to-Date Price Performance: Yahoo Finance
The analysts are just as committed. Of the 37 firms covering Nvidia, 36 rate it a buy, one sits at hold, and not one says sell, which lands the stock at a rare Strong Buy consensus.
Nvidia 12-Month Rating Breakdown: TipRanks
Their price targets point the same way. The average sits near $309, roughly 49% above where the stock trades now. The forecasts run from a low of $250 to a high of $500. Two heavyweight firms went further, as Bernstein and Wells Fargo both reiterated $315 targets days before the report.
Nvidia Analyst Price Targets: TipRanks
Wall Street also expects the company to nearly double its earnings from a year ago. Moreover, the options are pricing an expected move of nearly 6% around the print.
NVDA Expected Move: Barchart
Our look at Nvidia stock in July found the same optimism. With almost everyone already positioned for good news, even a solid quarter can fall flat. All of it rests on one assumption, that the demand is real. That is the assumption Burry attacks.
The Risk Is Inside the Results
Burry looked at where Nvidia’s demand actually comes from. The company has reportedly moved to backstop around $250 billion of debt tied to OpenAI’s data centers, helping fund the very customers who buy its chips. Put simply, it is like a shop lending you the money to buy its own goods, so the sale still counts as revenue even though the cash came from the seller.
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Burry warned that this is circular spending reaching biblical proportions, a loop in which Nvidia’s sales and its own guarantees quietly feed each other.
🚨 The man who predicted the 2008 crash is now betting everything against the AI bubble.Michael Burry warns the AI and semiconductor rally has further to fall, disclosing a fresh round of short positions on his latest Substack.Burry believes much of the current and future AI… pic.twitter.com/vyeYRHAJVf
— Bull Theory (@BullTheoryio) July 25, 2026
The uncomfortable part is who agrees.
Bernstein’s Stacy Rasgon, whose firm still rates the stock a buy at $315, has flagged the same circular-financing concern.
When the loudest bull and the loudest bear describe the same machine, the revenue line on August 26 gets harder to take at face value. The strain echoes OpenAI’s chip financing troubles from earlier this year.
Two smaller cracks sit underneath. China still holds up to $5 billion in sales that one policy shift could erase, and insiders sold roughly $410 million in stock over the past three months while the price ran high. Financing is only half the worry. The other half is whether Nvidia’s technology lead is as safe as it looks.
The Threat to Nvidia’s Lead?
DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng argued in remarks that spread online that new tools could lower the barriers to CUDA, the software ecosystem that keeps developers locked to Nvidia hardware. He pointed to Huawei’s Atlas 950 system as a way to take over some Nvidia workloads, though even that case admits Huawei trails by roughly two years.
DeepSeek’s Liang Wenfeng laid out a strong Nvidia bear case in a leaked investor call.DeepSeek is partnering closely with Huawei. It aims to secure around 16,000 Huawei AI chips and is using its own compiler plus TileLang to reduce reliance on Nvidia’s CUDA ecosystem.Even… https://t.co/FHnCyFP1Wa
— Semiconductor Insider (@SemiconductorsX) July 23, 2026
Add the custom chips Google, Amazon and Meta are building in-house, and Nvidia’s dominance faces a slow squeeze rather than a sudden break.
It is the same doubt that recently weighed on beaten-down semiconductor stocks. And yet the money has not run, which turns this into a standoff rather than a verdict.
What the Big Money Is Still Doing with Nvidia Stock
Even as the warnings pile up, the flow data tells a calmer story. The Chaikin Money Flow reading, a gauge of whether institutional cash is moving into or out of a stock, shows Nvidia in accumulation rather than retreat.
This means buyers are still stepping in. Also, at press time, it is one of the two chip stocks getting institutional money.
Nvidia Chaikin Money Flow: Charlie Quant Lab
The stock is also trading on its own terms. It has been lagging the broader SOXX semiconductor index on relative strength. In plain terms, big investors keep buying Nvidia on its own merits even as skeptics question the chips. And that split is the whole story heading into the print.
Nvidia Versus SOXX Strength: Charlie Quant Lab
Nvidia has beaten estimates for years and its demand is still enormous. Yet, the stock trades above 30 times earnings with no room for error, and it is climbing into the report rather than hiding from it.
That is exactly when a small crack does the most damage. On August 26, the real question is not whether Nvidia beats. It is whether the demand behind that beat is as solid as 36 buy ratings make it look.

PreStocks on Solana has captured 78% of all trading volume in pre-IPO OpenAI and Anthropic tokens, according to a new Allium Labs report. The platform has processed $414.7 million in volume since its September 2025 launch.
Three venues track exposure to the two artificial intelligence (AI) labs ahead of expected initial public offerings (IPOs). Rival platform Ventuals wound down its Hyperliquid markets on June 15. Solana now dominates the space that remains.
PreStocks on Solana Widens Its Lead
Combined volume across all three venues reached $532.1 million since inception, Allium Labs found. PreStocks alone accounts for $414.7 million of that total. Ventuals’ Hyperliquid shutdown left it with $114.1 million, or 21% of the combined figure. Positions closed on June 15.
INSIGHT: Solana has the largest volume of PreIPO artificial intelligence stocks (Anthropic & Open AI) according to the latest report by @AlliumLabs@PreStocks tokens track the price of pre-IPO companies. They are fully backed by SPV exposure and freely tradable 24/7 on Solana. pic.twitter.com/R1p2XD7wLR
— Solana (@solana) August 4, 2026
PreStocks generated $2.4 million in fresh trading over the last 30 days. Ventuals’ $11 million figure, in contrast, reflects the one-time unwind of its closing positions rather than new activity. Total volume across all three venues reached $15.2 million over the last 30 days. Active trading alone amounted to just $4.2 million once the Ventuals unwind is excluded.
Meanwhile, the pattern echoes SpaceX tokens on Solana, where onchain venues absorbed trading interest ahead of a Nasdaq listing.
Investor Appetite Builds Around Pre-IPO Exposure
PreStocks tokens track pre-IPO share value through special purpose vehicle (SPV) structures. Holders can trade that exposure around the clock. Solana’s role reflects a broader shift, as tokenized real-world assets increasingly settle there before reaching public markets.
The structure held up better after May 13, when OpenAI and Anthropic both rejected unauthorized transfers of employee shares. As a result, that decision weakened the legal basis for tokens depending on share recognition.
Perpetual futures and prediction markets, however, do not claim underlying shares. The May ruling largely spared them. Traders have shown a similar appetite for pricing SpaceX before its IPO, weighing the same questions SpaceX pre-IPO investors faced before that listing.
Anthropic’s tokenized shares have previously implied valuations far above private funding rounds. That gap underscores how thin these markets remain.
That appetite extends beyond pre-IPO tokens. BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager with $15 trillion in assets under management (AUM), filed with the SEC to issue tokenized fund shares on Solana. The filing accompanies the launch of the BlackRock Daily Reinvestment Stablecoin Reserve Vehicle, a cash management product built to hold stablecoin reserves onchain.
BREAKING: BlackRock files with the SEC to issue tokenized fund shares on Solana. BlackRock expanded its cash management strategy with the launch of BlackRock Daily Reinvestment Stablecoin Reserve Vehicle ("BRSRV") on Solana. The world's largest asset manager, with $15… pic.twitter.com/jqEss1oPG9
— Solana (@solana) August 3, 2026
Institutional demand for Solana-based products now sits alongside the retail appetite driving PreStocks and its rivals.
Allium Labs cautioned that daily volume on quieter days has stayed near $100,000. That is thin enough for prices to diverge sharply from actual funding round terms. Therefore, whether PreStocks on Solana can sustain its lead once an IPO filing arrives remains an open question.
A near-term OpenAI or Anthropic listing would test that thesis directly.

Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) said exchanges are statistically safer than self-custody, citing new Bitcoin (BTC) loss data from analyst Willy Woo.
Woo shared figures from River’s 2025 industry report on Monday, showing 1.57 million BTC lost through self-custody compared with 1.51 million BTC lost on exchanges. The gap sits below 60,000 BTC.
Why CZ Says Exchange Hacks Look Worse Than They Are
Zhao argued the comparison misses how each side reports losses. Exchange hacks generate major headlines. Hence, reporters and researchers track them closely. Self-custody losses, however, rarely reach the same visibility.
Lost private keys, forgotten passwords, and destroyed hardware wallets often go unreported. As a result, Zhao suggested the self-custody figure likely understates the true scale of losses.
He also noted that some exchange-side losses come from platforms that no longer operate. BitMEX, for instance, announced its shutdown in July, closing an 11-year run. Meanwhile, industry hack tracking shows incidents climbed roughly 50% in the first half of 2026, even as total stolen sums fell.
Bitcoin Losses from Exchanges. Source: River Binance’s SAFU Fund and the Self-Custody Comparison
Zhao pointed to Binance’s compensation practice as a key part of his argument. The exchange, he said, has consistently covered user losses tied to CEX-side breaches. Binance recently expanded its Secure Asset Fund into a $1 billion Bitcoin reserve.
It is statistically safer to store coins on exchanges than to self custody. 👇A few thoughts:Assuming the data is correct, my impression is Willy has always been a strong supporter for self custody.Hack data is easier to collect on the CEX side, usually major news. It is… https://t.co/tqi1rUk5Q7
— CZ 🔶 BNB (@cz_binance) August 4, 2026
Self-custody risk has drawn fresh attention this month. A Coldcard hardware wallet vulnerability drained BTC from users in early August. One victim lost $1.6 million in minutes despite following standard security steps. Zhao weighed in on that incident too, warning that no wallet setup guarantees full protection.
Zhao stopped short of recommending exchanges over private wallets. Instead, he framed the choice as one of risk tolerance and product fit rather than a simple safety ranking.
Whether Woo’s data holds up against further scrutiny remains an open question. Self-custody losses are inherently harder to verify than exchange breaches. Bitcoin traded near $60,347 at the time of writing, up roughly 1.2% over 24 hours.

Microsoft raised Xbox Series X prices by $150 to $749 this week, blaming soaring memory chip costs. The hike follows Sony’s earlier PlayStation 5 price increase and lands months before Grand Theft Auto VI’s November 19 launch.
Xbox’s Series S rose 25% to $499, a steeper increase than Sony’s $100 PlayStation 5 hike in March. Analysts say demand for artificial intelligence (AI) memory chips is squeezing console margins industrywide.
Rising Memory Costs Squeeze Hardware Margins
Microsoft’s increase pushes the premium Xbox Series X to $749, up from $599. The base Series S now costs $499, up from $399.
Sony raised PlayStation 5 prices by $100 in March, citing global economic pressures. The console now retails at $649.99 in the US.
Piers Harding-Rolls of Ampere Analysis linked that increase to surging demand for random-access memory (RAM). Both consoles rely on RAM for short-term memory.
“With no sign of prices easing largely due to demand for AI infrastructure, Sony will have made the move to protect its slim hardware margins.”
Binance Research labels this the chipflation inflation trend. DRAM prices have nearly sextupled in a year as AI data centers soak up chip supply meant for consumer devices. Apple felt the same squeeze, raising Mac and iPad prices over memory costs earlier this year.
GTA VI Looms Over Console Pricing
Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto VI (GTA VI) launches November 19, exclusively on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, per its confirmed release date. Standard editions cost $79.99, and an Ultimate edition costs $99.99.
The Grand Theft Auto VI: Ultimate Edition amplifies the deepest and most immersive GTA experience yet with an exclusive collection of premium vehicles, weapons, apparel, and action threaded across all aspects of Jason and Lucia’s story.Pre-order now: https://t.co/7gUj6s6uhi pic.twitter.com/JIPzW31FDr
— Rockstar Games (@RockstarGames) June 25, 2026
Windows Central editor Jez Corden warned the increases may not be final.
“This ain’t even the ceiling.”
Take-Two stock already dropped once on pre-order pricing details, showing investors are watching closely. Meanwhile, AI memory stocks like Micron have surged as chipmakers profit from the same shortage squeezing console makers.
Microsoft’s increase outpaces Sony’s by a wide margin heading into the holiday season. Sony may still follow with another PlayStation 5 hike before GTA VI arrives. That leaves buyers weighing which console costs less before launch day.

A supervisory FBI special agent turned himself in this week. Prosecutors accuse him of stealing nearly $1 million in cryptocurrency from foreign nationals under federal investigation.
Court documents filed in the Eastern District of Virginia name him as Patrick Steven Yaroch. He served as a veteran counterintelligence officer with top-secret clearance.
How the FBI Agent Crypto Theft Unfolded
Prosecutors allege Yaroch used his clearance to access classified case files. He then located passphrases tied to crypto wallets belonging to nationals of a country the FBI treats as an adversary. He allegedly moved the funds into a wallet under his own control.
Investigators say the crypto transfers happened across 10 to 12 transactions beginning in late 2024. The scheme quietly drained accounts linked to people the bureau was already investigating. In fact, agents recovered $925,426.07 of the stolen crypto during his arrest, according to the affidavit.
Yaroch is not the first insider accused of exploiting government access for personal gain. Similarly, a government contractor’s son faced comparable charges in March after allegedly stealing $46 million from the US Marshals Service. A former CIA officer drew related scrutiny in June over a hidden $40 million gold scheme.
Quarterly Crypto Hack Losses and Incident Count, 2022- H1 2026. Source: TRM ChatGPT Searches Point to a Planned Escape
Digital crypto forensics investigators recovered chatbot logs showing Yaroch researched relocation strategies before his arrest. He reportedly asked an AI chatbot how he would invest a hypothetical windfall. He later asked about European residency requirements.
Meanwhile, records show Yaroch booked a trip to Portugal. He also secured power of attorney paperwork from a Portuguese law firm. Investigators did not detect the scheme through blockchain analytics. Yaroch confided in a Justice Department colleague over Signal on July 28, which led directly to his arrest one week later.
During an FBI interview, he then confessed to what he had done.
“eating him up inside,” Patrick Yaroch, cited in an affidavit
The bureau fired Yaroch immediately once the affidavit became public. Consequently, he now sits in federal custody awaiting trial. Prosecutors charged him with interstate transportation of stolen property and receipt of stolen goods. As a result, the charges carry decades of potential prison time.
His arrest adds to a busy year for crypto-related prosecutions. In April, the Justice Department recovered a $700 million seizure from Southeast Asian scam networks. A separate indictment in July tied a crypto laundering operation to fentanyl sales. In addition, FBI Director Kash Patel filed a delayed financial disclosure earlier this year. He now oversees the fallout from one of his own agents’ alleged theft.
The timing stands out. Crypto thefts have already cost the industry $972 million across 207 incidents in the first half of 2026, according to TRM Labs. Insiders with legitimate access add a threat that external hacking tallies alone do not capture.
Whether Yaroch’s case prompts the FBI to tighten oversight of agents with crypto wallet-level access remains unclear. However, the bureau has not addressed the question publicly. That $972 million tally does not yet count cases like his, where the threat came from inside the bureau itself.

Tom Lee’s BitMine Immersion Technologies staked another 150,120 Ethereum (ETH) tokens, worth roughly $278 million. The move deepens one of the largest corporate bets on Ethereum’s proof-of-stake network.
Blockchain analytics account Lookonchain flagged the transaction hours after it happened on August 4. It lifts BitMine’s total staked ETH to 5,067,309 tokens, worth about $9.38 billion. That figure equals 87.4% of the company’s entire ether stack.
Why Staking This Much Signals Conviction
Staking locks tokens into Ethereum’s validator network instead of leaving them idle in a wallet. Validators earn rewards for helping secure the chain. In exchange, they accept withdrawal queues and full price exposure for as long as the tokens stay locked.
A company that stakes nearly nine-tenths of its holdings is not hedging. It is committing to hold the position for years rather than trade around short-term price swings.
Tom Lee(@fundstrat)'s #Bitmine staked another 150,120 $ETH($278M) 3 hours ago.In total, #Bitmine has staked 5,067,309 $ETH($9.38B), 87.4% of its total holdings.https://t.co/f70iddoJZ2 pic.twitter.com/8uSZCIJAtT
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) August 4, 2026
BitMine runs its staking through the Made in America Validator Network (MAVAN), an institutional platform the company built to generate yield on its own Ethereum treasury. It eventually plans to open MAVAN to outside clients too.
An Ethereum ‘Supercycle’
Chairman Tom Lee, who also co-founded research firm Fundstrat, has repeatedly framed the buildup as a wager on a multiyear “supercycle” for Ethereum.
The timing fits a broader institutional tilt toward ether. Ethereum ETFs recently posted their best month since October 2025, even as Bitcoin funds kept bleeding assets. BitMine’s own stock has rallied on the strategy, as investors reward the treasury bet.
Staking nearly 90% of a multibillion-dollar position leaves little room to reverse course quickly if sentiment turns. Ethereum needs to keep attracting institutional demand for that bet to pay off. BitMine has staked its balance sheet on exactly that outcome.

Japans Nikkei 225 bewegte sich am Dienstag kaum, obwohl es zu einem historischen gemeinsamen US-Japan-Eingriff kam, um den Yen zu stützen. Ein verfehltes Ergebnis von Kioxia Holdings deutet jedoch darauf hin, dass der eigentliche Schmerz noch nicht angekommen ist.
Tokio und Washington griffen ein, um einen Schwächeanfall des Yen nach Monaten zu stoppen, und Kioxia veröffentlichte einige Tage später enttäuschende Prognosen. Die Märkte haben beide Ereignisse bislang gelassen aufgenommen, doch die zugrunde liegenden Risiken – ein möglicher Zinsanstieg der BOJ und eine Währung, die weiterhin bereit ist, sich zu festigen – sind noch nicht geklärt.
Bisher gedämpfte Reaktion
Der Nikkei 225 ist am Dienstag leicht um 0,6% auf rund 63.300 gefallen. Damit setzte sich der Rückgang vom Montag fort (-1,4%).