The oil prices have gone up again—if you need to refuel, remember to fill up in advance. At the highest, I once paid 9.02 per liter. Now I’m going to refuel 🥹
Micron (MU): the most profitable company in the entire industry, with a gross margin of 84.6%, an operating margin of 80.4%, and profits that are far ahead of all others.
SK Hynix (SKHY): the leading player in high-end HBM memory, with an operating margin of 72%, and profitability that closely follows Micron.
NVIDIA (NVDA): the absolute leader in AI GPUs, with an operating margin of 64%; it also holds a massive $119 billion in cash, with exceptionally strong financial reserves.
TSMC (TSM): exclusive foundry services for high-end chips—like a toll checkpoint for the entire industry, with an operating margin of 53.2%, delivering steady, reliable returns.
Broadcom, Ansys, KLA, Universal Scientific Industrial (USI): quality companies in their respective niche tracks, with operating margins uniformly in the 40%-49% range; their profitability is upper-mid and very stable.
AMD: a direct competitor to NVIDIA, without exclusive core advantages; the profitability gap is enormous, and its operating margin is only 11.7%, meaning its ability to generate profits is far weaker than that of the top companies.
SUI just hit its third anniversary! The major unlocks for early contributors, VCs, and the team are all done.
The circulating supply jumped from 395 million to 400.5 million on May 1st (+52 million, which is 0.52% of the total supply), yet the price skyrocketed from $0.86 at the beginning of April to between $1.07 and $1.42 by May 10th (24h +18.4%), with a market cap holding steady at $4.97 billion.
AI Relay Stations: A Business So Profitable It's Scary
Right now, the hottest topic in the crypto space is AI relay stations. People say this business is insanely profitable, and it's no exaggeration. Just look at who's in this game—famous figures like Brother Sun from the crypto world are involved, the former boss of Cheetah Mobile, Fu Sheng, is in on it, and the most unbelievable part is that even the Trump family has recently jumped in, showing just how lucrative this venture is.
But how should we view AI relay stations?
The business model of AI relay stations essentially revolves around the “middleman model” that exploits mismatches in supply and demand. It survives on information asymmetry and resource disparities, offering short-term profits but with significant long-term risks. It has elements of both legitimacy and gray areas, which can be objectively viewed from three points:
Existence of Legitimacy: Domestic users currently face many barriers when trying to access high-quality foreign AI (like Claude and GPT)—network restrictions, payment barriers, IP bans, and high subscription costs with complicated operations. Relay stations purchase computing power in bulk, integrate multiple models, and create user-friendly tools, allowing ordinary folks to access global AI at low costs and with ease. This “filling the gaps” positioning is the core reason for its rapid rise and has generated real market demand.
Layered Profit Models and Chaos: The more legitimate ones earn reasonable price differentials, buying computing power in bulk to get discounts, splitting official accounts for sharing, making “hard-earned arbitrage money.” However, many relay stations take a gray route, even resorting to switching out models and using low-quality factory models to impersonate the latest Claude and GPT versions, relying on users' limited AI understanding to get by.
Risks and Limitations Not to Be Ignored: Upstream model manufacturers (like Anthropic) have strengthened risk control, cracking down on behaviors like interface wrapping and account sharing. In early 2026, there was a situation where 80% of relay service providers got their accounts banned, crippling their operations. Relay stations relying on gray paths are extremely prone to collapse. On the other hand, issues like model switching and data leaks not only violate user rights but also potentially breach unfair competition laws and related regulations. The technical barriers are quite low, as multiple open-source frameworks can be set up, leading to intense homogenous competition. With tightening compliance policies, long-term survival space is limited, making it more like a “short-term business” born from a temporal windfall rather than a sustainable model.
DeFi top-tier players are pooling funds for an emergency rescue of Aave
1. Background of the incident Recently, the rsETH protocol fell victim to a hacker attack, leaving Aave with a massive gap of approximately $160 million in funds. If this gap isn’t filled, the platform risks a bad debt explosion, user assets could be in jeopardy, and the entire DeFi space would face panic selling.
2. Industry solidarity for rescue To stabilize the situation, key players in the space launched a 'DeFi United' joint rescue initiative, where major institutions and big names came together to raise funds. So far, they have raised a total of 132,000 ETH, equivalent to over $300 million, which comfortably covers the $160 million loss, completely filling the hole.
3. Two heavyweight figures step up to support Joseph Lubin, founder of Consensys, a core player in the Ethereum ecosystem, made a significant contribution by directly putting in 30,000 ETH, making him one of the top contributors in this rescue; stablecoin giant Circle also entered the fray, buying AAVE tokens to support the coin’s price and stabilize market sentiment, preventing panic selling.
What initially threatened to shake the entire DeFi landscape turned into a collective lifeline from industry leaders, with top-tier capital providing a safety net. With enough funds, strong backing, and risks mitigated, Aave has managed to pull through this precarious situation.