RecodeX

📡 Top-of-hour news | 21:00-22:00

1. Bitcoin price breaks through $77,000; 24-hour gain is 7.7%. Bitcoin ETFs see net inflows of over $1 billion in two days.

2. Marvell and Google reach a $12.2 billion custom AI chip deal. The agreement grants Google an option to purchase Marvell equity.

3. The State Administration for Market Regulation issues a car recall notice. Tesla and nine other automakers recall about 4.276 million vehicles, involving an issue with emergency mechanical door handles.

4. A strike by about 40,000 union members halts production at Hyundai Motor’s Ulsan, Asan, and Gimhae factories—its first full-scale strike in 10 years.

5. The U.S. Department of the Treasury unexpectedly doubles the scale of longer-term Treasury repurchase operations, triggering market volatility; the U.S. dollar index is at a three-month low.

6. AMD’s shipment share in the x86 client processor market first surpasses 30%, reaching a record high.

7. Yangtze Memory makes a daily net profit of 371 million yuan, with a net profit margin over 70%, and plans to raise 33 billion yuan.

8. The initial S&P Global U.S. August manufacturing PMI is 53.2, below expectations, while the services PMI initial reading is 56.8, well above expectations.

📡 On-the-Hour Update | 20:00-21:00

1. Bitcoin rose 13.2% in a single day to $77,580. Ethereum broke through $2,388, driven by U.S. Treasury repurchase activity, ETF fund inflows, and a $2.7 billion short squeeze.

2. Yangtze Memory’s STAR Market IPO has been accepted for review. In Q1 2026, revenue is RMB 47.042 billion, with attributable net profit of RMB 33.379 billion. The company plans to raise about $4.9 billion.

3. Evergrande Real Estate was fined RMB 4.175 billion by the CSRC for financial fraud. Individual executive Hui Ka Yan was fined RMB 47 million and is banned for life from entering the securities market.

4. The Dutch Data Protection Authority fined Uber $966 million because its automated suspension system for drivers’ accounts violated EU data protection regulations.

5. Tesla recalled a total of 5.716 million vehicles due to issues with the logic control system for unlocking car doors.

6. The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) issued the “Action Plan for Promoting High-Quality Development of Cyberspace Information Enterprises (2026–2030).” The plan proposes multiple measures, including broadening financing channels, supporting listings, and breakthroughs in core technologies.

7. Apple has paid $17 billion in taxes to Ireland, related to an earlier tax ruling by the European Commission.

8. Nvidia will pay $6 billion to AI startup Poolside as part of a licensing and talent recruitment agreement.

📡 On-the-Hour News | 19:00-20:00

1. Bitcoin falls below $77,000, now quoted at 76,943.15 USDT. The intraday drop is 5.37%. This week, the price surged nearly 23%. It was boosted by the U.S. Treasury expanding its bond buyback program and the White House pushing forward legislation for cryptocurrencies.

2. DeepSeek launches an experimental multimodal AI model, DeepSeek-V4-Flash-Vision-Exp, which can analyze images, screenshots, and text. Performance is close to Anthropic’s Opus 4.8. The company officially rolls out multimodal capabilities, adds image generation, and keeps the original pricing unchanged.

3. Apple has laid off at least 60 employees from the Vision Products Group, cancelled the second-generation Vision Pro and Vision Air projects, and shifted its focus to smart glasses.

4. Spot silver prices break through $70 per ounce, hitting a record high, with a 2.82% gain intraday.

5. In court proceedings, Meta warned that if it loses the case, it could face trillion-dollar fines. The lawsuit alleges that platforms such as Instagram were intentionally designed to create addictive features that harm teenagers’ mental health.

6. JPMorgan Chase increased its holdings of the Bitcoin ETF to $356 million. Its Ethereum holdings rose more than fourfold, and it has repurchased XRP.

7. The State Council’s executive meeting部署ed measures to speed up efforts to clear overdue corporate accounts, and to address issues of large enterprises delaying payments to small and medium-sized businesses.

8. Nvidia agreed to pay $6 billion to AI startup Poolside for software licensing and will invest another $1 billion. The pre-transaction valuation is $12 billion. The deal does not constitute an acquisition.

📡 On-the-hour Update | 18:00-19:00

1. Bitcoin breaks through $77,000 to set a new all-time high. This week it rose from about $64,000 to nearly $76,000. QCP Capital said the initial breakout was driven by short-covering.

2. Tesla will recall 1,956,713 China-made Model 3 and Model Y vehicles. The specific reasons will be disclosed by the official authorities.

3. Samsung Electronics’ board of directors has approved a shareholder return plan for 2026, with a total expected amount between 90 trillion and 110 trillion won, setting a record for the highest-ever corporate history in South Korea.

4. ZTE’s first-half revenue was RMB 78.025 billion, up 9.05% year over year, while net profit was RMB 2.753 billion, down 45.57% year over year.

5. Hang Seng Indexes Company’s quarterly review results: the Hang Seng Index constituent stocks increased to 95. New additions include HuaHong Hongli and Weichai Power. The Hang Seng Tech Index adds Tianzhi Zhixin and removes Chengcheng Travel.

6. U.S. auto safety regulators have launched an investigation into nearly 1 million vehicles from General Motors, involving engine-related issues.

7. China’s State Financial Regulation Administration revoked Evergrande Life’s business license due to serious non-compliance in the use of insurance funds.

8. China’s independently developed new-generation deepwater multifunctional ocean engineering vessel, “Ocean Oil 292,” was completed and delivered in Jiangsu.

📡 On-the-hour News Update | 17:00-18:00

1. Bitcoin’s price saw sharp fluctuations. It briefly broke through $790,000 before falling below $780,000, triggering approximately $250 million in short liquidations. Strategy’s holdings were up by more than $3 billion.

2. Samsung Electronics announced a $10.9 billion share buyback plan and disclosed a shareholder return program totaling 90 trillion to 110 trillion won (about $65 billion to $80 billion), setting a record.

3. Alibaba’s quarterly AI capital expenditures reached RMB 67.7 billion, a new high. CEO Eddie Wu Yongming said it is expected to deliver returns within three years, and the company has initiated organizational restructuring—merging domestic and international e-commerce, integrating cloud and chips, and spinning off Qianwen.

4. Kweichow Moutai Chairman Chen Hua said it will implement age-segmented operations for the 18–45 age group, guiding consumption in four stages. Meanwhile, “iMoutai” added approximately 17.4428 million new users in the first half of the year.

5. DeepSeek launched a multimodal visual model, DeepSeek-V4-Flash-Vision-Exp. Its pure-text capabilities match those of V4-Flash, and its visual agent capabilities are close to Opus-4.8.

6. The National Financial Regulatory Administration fined Bohai Bank RMB 50.15 million and fined Bohai Bank Wealth Management RMB 12.30 million for issues such as imprudence in loan and wealth management business.

7. Data from the Ministry of Finance shows that from January to July, securities transaction stamp tax totaled RMB 186.4 billion, up 99.2% year over year. Revenue from the transfer of state-owned land use rights was RMB 1,173.1 billion, down 30.8%.

8. Spot gold has risen above $4,600 per ounce for the first time since May 15, up 1.80% on the day.

📡 On-the-hour Report | 16:00-17:00

1. Bitcoin breaks through $78,000 to set a new all-time high. The 24-hour increase is 6.84%. In the past 12 hours, liquidations across the entire market totaled $758 million, and the share of long/short positions liquidated was over 92% for short positions.

2. Nvidia will acquire AI startup Poolside’s “Model Factory” software for $6 billion and will also absorb 109 employees to strengthen its AI model-building capabilities.

3. Samsung Electronics announced it will repurchase 150 trillion won of its shares. By 2026, the funds available for shareholder returns may be as high as $79.5 billion, the largest buyback scale in Korean corporate history.

4. Data from the Ministry of Finance shows that from January to July, national general public budget revenue was 143,696 billion yuan, up 5.8% year over year. Among that, securities transaction stamp duty was 186.4 billion yuan, up 99.2%.

5. Eurozone August preliminary manufacturing PMI came in at 52.8, higher than the expected 51.8. The preliminary services PMI was 51.7, in line with expectations, and the growth rate of business activity hit the highest level since November last year.

6. The State Administration for Market Regulation has launched the top 10 flagship quality-strengthening chain-linked projects for 2026, with 166 targeted R&D tasks deployed on an ongoing basis.

7. The National Health Commission said that domestic HPV vaccines include bivalent, quadrivalent, and nonavalent options. The bivalent HPV vaccine is the one included in the national immunization program; privately funded quadrivalent and nonavalent vaccinations are considered equivalent to completing immunization under the national program.

8. U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessent announced that the U.S. will impose the harshest sanctions ever on Iran. Specific measures will be released on Monday; Iran’s parliament speaker said a plan is needed to overcome the sanctions.

📡 8-hour recap | Aug 21, 08:00-16:00

RecodeX has restructured the news. Today’s market main storyline centers on the acceleration of AI commercialization, Bitcoin hitting a new all-time high, and the global semiconductor expansion. Alibaba’s AI cloud revenue growth reached a new high for 22 consecutive quarters. Bitcoin broke through $76,000. Samsung Electronics plans to announce what would be the largest shareholder return program in history.

🤖 AI & Technology

1. Alibaba’s AI commercialization is accelerating across the board: cloud revenue growth hit a new high for 22 consecutive quarters. Pre-computing power capex is expected to pay back within three years. The CEO said the Tigermicro chip is the first domestically produced in China.

2. Anthropic is preparing for an IPO, targeting a valuation of $1.5–2 trillion. It could become the biggest IPO in history, and will use the Claude model to refute the Carathéodory conjecture.

3. Apple’s M5 Max chip is 7 times faster than Nvidia’s RTX 5090 on super-large-model inference tasks, highlighting competitiveness in AI inference.

4. OpenAI’s Codex has a vulnerability on the AWS Bedrock platform, which could increase user costs by 10x.

💰 Crypto & Finance

1. Bitcoin broke through $76,000 to set a new all-time high. The 24-hour gain exceeded 8.9%. Short sellers have covered more than $3.5 billion. Market cap has rebounded to $1.5 trillion.

2. Robinhood’s CEO said tokenization of financial assets is entering a super cycle. Its blockchain has already gone live with 190 US-stock tokens, supporting 24/7 trading.

3. HSBC and Standard Chartered completed the first interbank tokenized deposit real-time transaction on the Swift ledger. This is the first actual application of tokenized deposits in traditional interbank settlement.

4. Grayscale withdrew its single-asset altcoin ETF applications for Cardano, Polkadot, and Hedera.

🏭 Semiconductors & Hardware

1. SK hynix is considering building a memory chip plant in Japan, with an investment size expected to reach tens of trillions of South Korean won.

2. Micron plans to invest $10 billion to build an AI memory research laboratory, with construction expected to begin in 2027. The CEO said AI changes the logic of the memory chip cycle, and customer demand exceeds supply capacity by about 50%.

3. CXMT’s 2024 revenue increased year over year by 716%. It has become the fastest-growing DRAM manufacturer globally, contributing an incremental 11.3% to the global DRAM market.

4. Nexperia? (Note: “纳芯微” translated as “Naxin Micro”) Nanchip Micro has risen to become the world’s fourth-largest magneto-sensor manufacturer, with cumulative shipments exceeding 2 billion units.

📈 Enterprises & Markets

1. Samsung Electronics expects to announce as early as Friday a shareholder return program of at least 100 trillion South Korean won (about $72.4 billion), the largest in history.

2. Moderna and Merck (MSD) announced successful Phase III clinical results for individualized mRNA cancer vaccines. Moderna’s stock surged 176.97%, and the Nasdaq biotechnology index jumped 6.39%.

3. CATL and Century Integration reached a strategic cooperation agreement for computing-power and energy collaboration; the stock rose more than 3%.

4. A-shares close: Shanghai Composite edged up 0.04%, Shenzhen Component rose 0.87%, and ChiNext rose 1.43%. Precious metals and computing-power hardware stocks were active.

🌍 Policy & Regulation

1. The chair of the CFTC said that even if Congress does not pass a crypto bill, the crypto industry will still receive market-structure regulatory rules, and it is studying how to establish regulated platforms and AI computing-power futures.

2. The Ministry of Finance announced a 2026 allocation of 12.4 trillion yuan for people’s livelihood initiatives, up 5.4% year over year. The bivalent HPV vaccine was included in the national immunization plan.

3. The State Administration for Market Regulation released six sets of typical cases involving operator concentration reviews, aiming to curb “involutionary” competition.

4. The UK’s HMRC sent more than 81,000 warning letters to cryptocurrency holders, seeking to recoup unpaid taxes. It expects to raise £315 million by 2030.

Editor’s note: Market sentiment is high today, but whether Bitcoin’s rally and the AI investment boom are sustainable still needs observation of macro fundamentals and the implementation of policies.

📡 Hourly Broadcast | 15:00-16:00

1. GalaChain suffers another security attack again, with losses exceeding $3 million, stemming from a logic flaw at the protocol layer.

2. Bitcoin’s price breaks through $76,000 to set a new all-time high. Market sentiment is upbeat, and Upbit trading volume surges 223.8% in 24 hours to $1.67 billion.

3. OpenAI Codex has a vulnerability on the AWS Bedrock platform that could potentially increase user costs by as much as 10 times.

4. Japan’s overall inflation rate for July rises to 1.9%, the highest level within the year. Driven by higher energy costs and yen depreciation, it may prompt the Bank of Japan to raise rates in September.

5. A-shares close: the Shanghai Composite rises slightly by 0.04%, the Shenzhen Component gains 0.87%, and the ChiNext Index climbs 1.43%. Precious metals and AI compute hardware stocks stay active.

6. The State Administration for Market Regulation releases six typical cases of operator concentration review, aiming to curb “involutionary” competition.

7. France: the preliminary August services PMI is 48.4, below expectations, while the preliminary manufacturing PMI is 51.5, above expectations. Services contract while manufacturing expands.

8. Samsung SDI announces the sale of its stake in Samsung Display. The deal is valued at approximately KRW 44 trillion.

📡 On-the-hour News Update | 14:00-15:00

1. Bitget lists three perpetual futures contracts—MRK, MRNA, and TEM—using USDT settlement. It supports up to 20x leverage, and currently offers 280 stock contract underlying assets.

2. China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has approved Geely’s subsidiary, Timespace DaoYu, to conduct a two-year commercial trial for satellite IoT. This is the first private-sector commercial satellite IoT service pilot in China.

3. In the UK, July’s retail sales (seasonally adjusted) year over year rose 1.6%, below the forecast of 2.2%. Month over month, it fell 0.5%. The results are in line with expectations and reflect weakening consumer spending momentum.

4. Cstar Technology (formerly Censxing Robotics) has submitted a second application to list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. In the first half of 2025, its loss widened 506% year over year. The company name has removed the word “Robotics.”

5. Zach Witkoff, co-founder of WLFI, said that Sun Yuchen’s claims regarding the latest court hearing results contain multiple false statements, and that the court has made no rulings of any kind.

📡 Top-of-the-hour update | 13:00-14:00

1. Grayscale withdraws its single-asset altcoin ETF applications for Cardano, Polkadot, and Hedera.

2. CATL and Century Interconnect reach a strategic cooperation on computing power, with the share price up more than 3%.

3. OpenAI’s enterprise business growth rate in the third quarter exceeds Anthropic, though Anthropic’s market share remains ahead.

4. Samsung Electronics expects to announce at least KRW 100 trillion (about US$72.4 billion) in a shareholder return plan as early as Friday, the largest scale ever.

5. This week’s wafer prices surged significantly. The average成交 price of N-type G10L monocrystalline silicon wafers rose 40% month-over-month, mainly due to increased demand and tight supply.

6. U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessent says the U.S. will impose the harshest sanctions on Iran in history. Trump pledges to launch an unprecedented economic war and isolate the country.

7. The Hyundai Motor labor union in South Korea holds a full strike for the first time in 10 years, with estimated losses exceeding RMB 10 billion.

8. By the first quarter of 2026, AI data center projects are already seeing pushback that has led to or delayed US$130 billion in projects, affecting midterm elections in the United States.

📡 Hourly Update | 12:00-13:00

1. Bitcoin breaks through $750,000 intraday, with a 24-hour gain of over 8.9%. Short sellers have covered more than $3.5 billion, and analysts question whether the rally is sustainable.

2. Apple’s M5 Max chip is 7 times faster than NVIDIA’s RTX 5090 on super-large model inference tasks, highlighting AI inference competitiveness.

3. Singapore has approved four operators to expand their data centers, allocating 200MW of power capacity and strengthening its position as an AI hub.

4. Justin Sun wins in a California court. The court dismisses WorldLibertyFinancial’s request for secret arbitration, and the case will proceed openly.

5. The liquidators of China Evergrande Group are trying to recover approximately $7.7 billion in assets belonging to founder Xu Jiayin globally to repay creditors. Evergrande’s total debt is $45 billion, and Xu Jiayin has been sentenced to life imprisonment.

6. Goldman Sachs says that over the past 48 hours, AI and momentum trading have seen sharp volatility. The GSPUMOMO momentum portfolio has fallen cumulatively by nearly 7%, though position changes have been mild.

7. Micron CEO says AI has changed the underlying logic of the memory chip cycle. Customer demand is about 50% beyond supply capacity.

8. Japan’s Ministry of Finance plans to set the assumed interest rate for long-term government bonds in fiscal year 2027 at around 3.8%, reflecting yields at elevated levels.

📡 Hourly Broadcast | 11:00-12:00

1. Bitcoin breaks through $75,000 to a three-month high; short liquidations exceed $2.75 billion. Analysts warn that the rise may be overinterpreted—watch the macro fundamentals.

2. Alibaba’s earnings report shows net profit plunging 76% year over year. Cloud business growth is 45%. The company plans to invest a trillion-level RMB to further bolster AI.

3. Solana’s price surges more than 11%. Net inflows into the spot ETF break $1.16 billion, and the Agave v4.2 upgrade goes live.

4. Liu Yi, vice minister of Finance, said this year’s fiscal expenditure budget is the first time it exceeds 300,000 billion yuan. New government bonds will total 1.189 trillion yuan. In the second half, China will speed up fund utilization, expand domestic demand, and plan additional policy measures.

5. Anthropic collaborates with mathematicians to use the Claude model to construct counterexamples, refuting the Carathéodory conjecture, and plans to submit for an IPO as early as late August with a target valuation of $1.5–2 trillion.

6. Changxin Memory reported 2024 revenue up 716% year over year. It is the fastest-growing DRAM manufacturer globally, contributing 11.3% of the incremental growth in the global DRAM market.

7. The U.S. average gasoline price rises to $4.10 per gallon, a record high. The Trump administration ends the summer gasoline limits early to increase supply.

8. The UK HMRC issues more than 81,000 warning letters to cryptocurrency holders to recover unpaid taxes. It expects to raise £315 million by 2030.

📡 On-the-hour News Update | 10:00-11:00

1. The Ministry of Finance announced that in 2026, funding arrangements for people’s livelihood in the relevant areas will total RMB 12.4 trillion, up 5.4% year-on-year. It is expected that over 44 million people will receive assistance such as minimum livelihood benefits, and more than 25 million infants and young children will receive childcare allowances. The bivalent HPV vaccine has been included in the national immunization program.

2. In the first half of this year, China’s humanoid robot shipments exceeded 40,000 units. The global market share reached 97%. The industry expects a “ChatGPT moment” to arrive within 2 to 10 years.

3. Bitcoin rose 15.9% within 48 hours, driven by the White House crypto meeting and the CLARITY Act. Its market value rebounded to USD 1.5 trillion, surpassing Meta to become the 13th-largest in global asset market value.

4. Data from South Korea’s Korea Customs Service shows that in the first 10 days before August, semiconductor exports surged 198.8% year-on-year, strengthening expectations of further interest rate hikes by the Bank of Korea.

5. The independently developed 115,000-ton finished-product oil tanker built in China was officially delivered. Key equipment has been localized, and its performance meets international advanced standards.

6. The Supreme People’s Procuratorate reported that Jiang Duntao, the former deputy mayor of Chongqing, is suspected of accepting bribes and has been indicted for prosecution. The charges allege that he illegally received money and property by taking advantage of his position, with an especially large amount.

7. U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessent has tried to curb long-term borrowing costs, but on Thursday U.S. Treasury yields rebounded. Investors’ concerns about government debt have persisted.

8. Nexperia Microelectronics (Naanxin Micro) jumped to become the world’s fourth-largest magnet sensor manufacturer. Its cumulative shipments surpassed 2 billion units, and single-year shipments in 2025 exceeded 1 billion units.

📡 Hourly News | 09:00-10:00

1. Bitcoin breaks through $75,000 to set a new all-time high, with a 24-hour gain of 8.12%. Long-term holders control 83% of the supply, boosted by Trump-driven the “CLEAR Act.”

2. Robinhood’s CEO said tokenization of financial assets is entering a supercycle. Its blockchain has gone live with 190 U.S. stock tokens, supporting 24/7 trading and serving users in more than 120 countries.

3. HSBC and Standard Chartered completed their first real-time interbank tokenized deposit trade on the Swift ledger, marking the first actual application of tokenized deposits in traditional interbank settlement.

4. Nokia plans to close its Hangzhou R&D center, affecting about 1,600 employees. It said it is adjusting operations in China in response to a downturn in business there.

5. Nevada approved Tesla’s deployment of up to 5,000 Robotaxis in Las Vegas, with Waymo and Uber each deploying 1,000.

6. Pakistan issued a positive final anti-dumping ruling on purified terephthalic acid (PTA) originating in China, imposing anti-dumping duties ranging from 4.17% to 9.50%.

7. Chinese scientists successfully synthesized, for the first time, carbon-encapsulated single-metal-atom chains with micron-scale lengths and atom-level thickness. The results were published in Science.

8. Alibaba CEO Wu Yongming said that Alibaba’s T-head (T-Head) chips rank first among domestic chips in terms of diversity for training and inference.

📡 On-the-hour report | 08:00-09:00

1. Alibaba’s commercialization of AI is accelerating across the board. Cloud revenue growth has hit a 22-quarter high, and pre-calculated computing power capital expenditure is expected to pay back within three years.

2. The CFTC chair said that even if Congress does not pass a crypto bill, the crypto industry will still receive market-structure regulatory rules, and it is studying how to establish regulated platforms and AI compute futures.

3. Samsung Electronics will announce a new shareholder return plan this Friday, with a potential size of up to 110 trillion won (about $79 billion).

4. Moderna and Merck & Co. have released successful Phase III clinical trial results for an individualized mRNA cancer vaccine. Moderna’s stock surged 176.97%, and the Nasdaq Biotechnology Index jumped 6.39%.

5. Anthropic is preparing for an IPO, with a target size that could exceed SpaceX, becoming the largest IPO in history.

6. SK hynix is considering building a memory chip plant in Japan, with an estimated investment scale of tens of trillions of won.

7. Micron plans to invest $10 billion to build an AI storage research laboratory, with construction expected to start in 2027.

8. Bitcoin broke above $73,000 for the first time since June. Analysts say it is supported by a short-squeeze, a rebound in ETF demand, and easing regulatory uncertainty, with trading volume over the past 24 hours around five times the intra-year low.

📡 8-hour recap | Aug 21 00:00-08:00

RecodeX restructures messages. Over the past 8 hours, Bitcoin broke through $73,000 driven by multiple strong positives, reaching a recent high. At the same time, the total U.S. Treasury debt balance first surpassed $4 trillion, drawing market attention. The AI sector has been unusually active, with major developments at companies including Broadcom, OpenAI, and Anthropic.

🤖 AI and Technology

1. Nvidia plans to ship China-specific AI chips by the end of the year to respond to U.S. export controls.

2. Broadcom is in talks to raise more than $60 billion through debt financing to support expansion of its AI chip business. The total could reach $100 billion, with Blackstone and Apollo participating.

3. OpenAI offers API customers an option to retain zero data, previews new security mechanisms, and also rolls out a new feature allowing users to control Apple’s iMessage service via ChatGPT.

4. Anthropic plans to launch a security system this year, requiring enterprise customers to retain data for 30 days and allowing them to choose to store data on their own cloud infrastructure. There are also reports that it will prepare IPO filing documents as early as late August.

5. Google’s open-source AI model Gemma has surpassed 1 billion downloads, and over the past two years external developers have released more than 100,000 variants.

💰 Cryptoassets and Finance

1. Bitcoin broke through $73,000, up 5.40% intraday. It has gained 15% year-to-date this week, posting its biggest weekly positive candle since November 2024, and its market cap rose to $1.45 trillion.

2. Over the past 24 hours, the total liquidation amount across the market reached $1.772 billion. Of that, $1.552 billion came from liquidation of short positions. Globally, 146,990 people were liquidated.

3. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs saw net inflows of $517.19 million on Wednesday, the strongest single-day inflow since May 4, and the third consecutive day of net inflows.

4. Ethereum surged 18% in a single day. Spot trading volume jumped sharply; about 1.5 million ETH flowed out of exchanges, while ETFs attracted new capital inflows.

5. Standard Chartered Bank expects Bitcoin to rise to $100,000 by year-end.

🏛️ Macros and Policy

1. The total U.S. Treasury debt balance first surpassed $4 trillion for an all-time high, roughly equivalent to about 140% of GDP, with per-capita liabilities of around $120,000.

2. U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessent said a news conference will be held on the 24th to lay out its action plan toward Iran, and that it will impose the harshest sanctions on Iran in history, calling on China to cooperate.

3. The probability the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates unchanged in September is 65.4%, while the probability of a 25-basis-point rate hike is 34.6%.

4. The U.S. Treasury will raise the long-term Treasury buyback limit from $2 billion to $4 billion, effective September 9. The 30-year yield rose to 5.25%.

5. Citigroup cut its forecast for the U.S. Dollar Index over the next three months to 98.34, turning bearish on the near-term dollar outlook.

📈 Enterprises and Markets

1. Walmart’s stock price fell by more than 9% on Thursday. Same-store sales growth was the weakest in six years, showing U.S. consumer spending pressure.

2. Alibaba’s quarterly earnings show revenue up 9% year over year, but net profit fell 75% due to AI investments, while cloud business external revenue grew 45%.

3. SK hynix announced a share buyback of 400 trillion Korean won and cancellation. The stock surged 12.73%, setting a record for the largest-scale inventory-share cancellation in South Korea.

4. Charter Communications completed its merger with Cox Communications valued at $34.5 billion, becoming the largest cable television operator in the U.S.

5. Shein plans to launch its Hong Kong IPO on Monday, targeting a listing date of September 1. Anchor investors include UBS Asset Management.

🌍 International and Security

1. The U.S. Department of Justice has indicted 17 members of Iran’s Mabna Institute, accusing them of breaching 144 U.S. universities and other institutions. Some individuals are suspected of Bitcoin ransomware targeting HBO.

2. The FBI arrested 35-year-old Jessica Boyle, accusing her of plotting an attack on the New York State Capitol and swearing allegiance to “ISIS.”

3. Leaders from France, Germany, Italy, Norway, the Netherlands, and the UK issued a joint statement opposing tenders for settlement project in the E1 area of the West Bank by Israel.

4. China’s earthquake monitoring network formally recorded a magnitude 6.7 earthquake in Peru at 2:00 AM on August 21, with a source depth of 100 kilometers.

Editor’s observation: Bitcoin’s strength and the ballooning of U.S. Treasuries exist side by side, and the market is looking for balance amid both celebration and concern.

📡 Hourly News Brief | 07:00-08:00

1. Alibaba releases its latest quarterly results: net profit for the quarter was RMB 20.7 billion, down more than 75% year-over-year. Driven by increased AI investment, the company’s capital expenditures in the quarter approached USD 10 billion.

2. US spot Bitcoin ETFs saw net inflows of USD 517.2 million on Wednesday, marking the third consecutive day of net inflows. For the week, net inflows totaled about USD 1 billion. Bitcoin’s price hit $73,320, reaching a recent high.

3. OpenAI expands ChatGPT capabilities, enabling it to control the Apple iMessage app. Users can send messages directly, a move that has raised concerns about privacy.

4. Apple lays off its entire VR development team, affecting at least 60 employees, signaling a strategic retreat in the virtual reality space.

5. Broadcom is in talks to raise more than USD 60 billion via debt financing to support AI chip projects. The total amount could be as high as USD 100 billion, with Blackstone and Apollo participating.

6. Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) has implemented the biggest listing rules overhaul since 2018, significantly lowering the listing thresholds for WVR-structure companies. The market value requirement was cut from HKD 40 billion to HKD 20 billion.

7. The UAW in South Korea’s Hyundai Motor holds an eight-hour strike for the first time in 10 years after wage talks broke down. About 39,000 workers participated, leading to production losses of roughly 55,200 vehicles and sales losses exceeding KRW 2.3 trillion.

8. US Treasury yields: the 10-year rate moves above 4.5% and the 30-year yield breaks 5%. The Treasury has expanded the scale of Treasury buyback operations by at least one doubling.

📡 Hourly Update | 06:00-07:00

1. Bitcoin has regained the 200-day moving average for the first time since November 2025. The price is approaching $730,000, and U.S. federal debt has first surpassed $4 trillion.

2. U.S. federal debt has first exceeded $4 trillion. Bitcoin has risen to about $72,600, while gold is also up.

3. Broadcom is seeking to raise more than $60 billion through debt financing to support the expansion of its AI chip business.

4. Anthropic is aiming to prepare its IPO filing by the end of August at the latest, and plans to include Citi as a lead underwriting bank.

5. HyperX launches its first open-ear gaming headset, the Cloud Alpha Air, priced at $150, focusing on comfortable wear and an open soundstage.

6. Dave Bautista has signed on to play Kratos in Prime Video’s TV series “God of War,” produced jointly by Amazon MGM and Sony Pictures Television.

7. HSBC and Standard Chartered complete their first real-time tokenized deposit transfer using the SWIFT blockchain ledger, achieving cross-bank interoperability.

8. GitHub suffered an outage of nearly 8 hours. The official explanation cites an auto-scaling failure and a retry storm triggered by migration.

📡 Top-of-hour News | 05:00-06:00

1. Bitcoin first broke above the 200-day moving average since November 2025, briefly nearing $73,000 during the day. Standard Chartered expects it to reach $100,000 by year-end.

2. The U.S. Treasury will raise the limit on long-term Treasury repurchases from $2.0 billion to $4.0 billion. The change takes effect on September 9, and the 30-year yield rose to 5.25%.

3. The FDA approved C2N Diagnostics’ PrecivityAD2 blood test for diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease in patients aged 40 and above.

4. Abbott agreed to pay $670 million to settle lawsuits related to infant formula.

5. SK hynix announced a buyback of 40 trillion won in shares and their cancellation. The stock surged 12.73%, setting a record for the largest share buyback cancellation in South Korea.

6. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security updated Nevada’s voter rolls for non-citizens, reducing the figure from nearly 16,000 to 185 people.

7. Pop Mart reported H1 revenue of 17.17 billion yuan, up 23.8% year over year, but below market expectations.

8. Walmart released its latest earnings report: in the U.S., same-store sales growth hit the lowest level in six years, and the stock dropped by about 9%.

📡 Hourly News Roundup | 04:00-05:00

1. Bitcoin price breaks through $73,000, up 5.40% intraday. It has gained 15% year-to-date this week, marking the largest weekly bullish candle since November 2024.

2. Broadcom is negotiating an AI chip financing deal to raise more than $60 billion in debt, with a total potential size of around $100 billion, which may benefit Anthropic.

3. On August 21, all three major U.S. stock indexes closed lower. The Nasdaq fell 1% to 26,067.17, the Dow dropped 1.31% to 52,762.30, and the S&P 500 fell 0.86% to 7,641.66.

4. OpenAI offers an option for customers to retain zero data for its API and previews a new safety mechanism to identify misuse patterns. It also rolls out a new feature that lets users use ChatGPT to control Apple’s iMessage service.

5. AI inference cloud provider Groq completes a $350 million Series A round, valuing the company at $3.5 billion.

6. U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessent said bond market fluctuations within a 24-hour window are just noise, and plans to increase regular long-term Treasury buyback operations.

7. Citigroup cut its forecast for the U.S. dollar index over the next three months to 98.34 and shifted to a bearish view of the near-term dollar trend.

8. A court in Canada’s British Columbia rules that a company must be legally responsible for information provided by its AI chatbot, setting a precedent for determining liability in AI business applications.