Sharing thoughtful insights on the crypto market from a Japanese perspective, focusing on long-term trends, risk management, and disciplined investing.
Sequoia: "The Next $1T Company Sells Work, Not Software"
Sequoia Capital — the firm that backed Apple, Google, Nvidia, YouTube, Airbnb, Stripe — dropped a thesis worth reading closely. The old model: For 20+ years, tech sold software. Microsoft sells Office, Adobe sells Photoshop, Salesforce sells CRM. Tools that help humans work faster. Copilot for everything. The problem: Customers don't want software. They want work done. You don't want accounting software — you want books closed on time, taxes filed, reports delivered. The insight: For every $1 businesses spend on software, they spend $6 on services. SaaS has been fighting over that $1. AI can now digitize the $6 — the knowledge workforce itself. The map: Sequoia's Opportunity Map plots work by Intelligence vs. Judgement, Outsourced vs. Insourced. The sweet spot: highly standardized, already outsourced workflows — Insurance Brokerage ($140-200B), Accounting ($50-80B), Healthcare Revenue Cycle ($50-80B). 2025 = Copilot. 2026 = Autopilot. The winners won't build AI tools for accountants — they'll build AI accounting firms. Sequoia warns most Copilot startups face the Innovator's Dilemma: today you sell software to accountants, tomorrow you'd compete with them. The bottom line: The next $1T AI company won't have the smartest chatbot. It'll be the first to turn work into a service you buy like electricity. Crypto Cashtags That Align Tier 1 — Direct "Sell Work" AI Agent Plays: FET — Fetch.ai (ASI Alliance). Autonomous agents automating enterprise workflows. Built for agents doing work, not providing tools. (Ethereum)$VIRTUAL — Virtuals Protocol on Base. The agent creation infrastructure — a factory for building AI agents that sell outcomes, not subscriptions. (Base)$GRIFFAIN — Griffain on Solana. AI agent that executes on-chain actions. "Sell work" in its purest crypto form — you describe what you want, the agent does the job. SolanaOLAS — Autonolas on Ethereum. A framework for coordinating autonomous agent fleets — think of it as the operating system for a decentralized AI workforce. (Ethereum)Tier 2 — AI Infrastructure (the picks & shovels): $TAO — Bittensor. A decentralized AI network where agents train, compete, and earn. The network layer for autonomous work — the protocol that lets AI sell its output peer-to-peer.RENDER — Render Network on Solana. Decentralized GPU compute. Every agent running in production needs compute power — Render is the hardware layer. (Solana)Tier 3 — AI Agent Ecosystem: $AI16Z — ai16z/ElizaOS on Solana. Named after the VC model itself — a DAO-run AI agent fund that makes autonomous investment decisions. Pure meta-commentary on Sequoia's thesis. Solana$ZEREBRO — Zerebro on Solana. An autonomous AI agent creating and distributing content without human intervention. "Sell work" in its most literal form — the agent is the output. Solana The Sequoia filter: The next $1T company sells work, not software. In crypto, that means looking past the tool tokens and toward the agent workforce tokens — the protocols where AI doesn't just assist, but replaces the $6 of services for every $1 of software. Not financial advice. #NewsAboutCrypto #StrategicInvesting #BTC #SequoiaCapital
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Translation: everyone is borrowing to buy the same trades. And when everyone is on the same side with leverage, the exits get narrow.
His words: there's a greater chance the market gets "quickly disrupted" — and "people would panic."
The proof came last week. Situational Awareness — a hedge fund that leveraged up on AI stocks — was forced to transfer assets to Citadel as the tech selloff hit. Leverage giveth, leverage taketh away.
Dimon's verdict? "The market digested it very well." Well digested... or a warning shot for what's cooked next? 👀
TL;DR: US stocks ended mixed on Wednesday — the Dow closed at another record (5th straight day), powered by Nvidia , while the S&P snapped its 4-day win streak and the Nasdaq sold off. The split tape tells a bigger story: AI capex euphoria vs. rate-hike fear vs. Middle East geopolitics — all in one session.
The Close (Aug 5)
💥Dow Jones: 54,349.12 (+0.49%) — record close, 5th straight daily gain, carried by NVDA 💥S&P 500: 7,723.55 (-0.17%) — briefly hit an intraday record before fading 💥Nasdaq: 26,363.44 (-0.83%) — the AI trade, selectively 💥The session erased its morning gains after Minneapolis Fed's Kashkari said it's "time to start slowly raising rates"
The Movers That Matter
💥Nvidia ($NVDA ) +3.4% — 5th straight day up, top point contributor to the S&P. The fuel: Elon Musk said SpaceX will use ONLY Nvidia processors for its future AI infrastructure — "We only select Nvidia."
💥SpaceX ($SPCX ) -13.6% — first quarterly report since its June listing: capex surged 6x to $18.4B , mostly AI-directed. The market punished the spend, not the story.
💥Alphabet -4% — restructuring its AI division; Jeff Dean, chief scientist for 27 years, is leaving . Magnificent Seven, meet the shakeup.
Dow making records on Nvidia while Nasdaq bleeds and SpaceX gets dumped for investing in AI too aggressively — the market is rewarding AI revenue , not AI spending. Position accordingly. 📌
⚠️ Note: $XAU here is the gold derivatives contract (XAUUSD perp) , not the "XAU9999" meme token on Ethereum — don't mix them up.
💥💥1H Setup
Structure is a strong uptrend from $4,040 → $4,289; the last two candles probed $4,287–4,290 but closed back at $4,267 — mild exhaustion at the top, so favor the pullback buy over chasing.
🟢Buy pullback (preferred): entry $4,236–4,258, 💥Stop $4,222 (below Aug 5 low) 💥Targets $4,290 → $4,320 → $4,350. 💥Invalidated on a daily close below $4,220.
🟢Buy breakout: only on a close above $4,290 💥Stop $4,265 💥Targets $4,320 → $4,350.
🔴Sell (small, counter-trend): $4,320–4,350 💥Stop $4,360 💥Targets $4,260 → $4,230 — flip off if we close above $4,360.
💥Levels: support at $4,258 → $4,236 → $4,194 → $4,150 ; resistance at $4,290 → $4,320 → $4,350–4,378 .
Eli Lilly ($LLY ) Raises 2026 Outlook: The Hidden Angles
1. This is now a three-pillar story, not just GLP-1. Lilly's growth is no longer "Ozempic vs Zepbound" — it's the GLP-1 franchise + oncology + immunology now carrying the top line. A raised outlook this early in the year signals confidence that the pipeline is converting, not just that demand is strong.
2. Watch the whisper number, not the guidance. When a mega-cap like LLY raises guidance in August, the market has usually already priced it. The real tells are: (a) whether the raise came with capex/manufacturing expansion (capacity = demand confidence), and (b) what management said about pricing and insurance coverage — the two risks that have been capping the stock's multiple despite stellar sales.
3. The competitive moat is widening while rivals stumble. With Novo Nordisk facing supply and pipeline questions, and the small-molecule oral GLP-1 race still early, Lilly's manufacturing scale is the real moat. A raised outlook is effectively management saying: "we can make more than you can copy."
4. The macro angle nobody's connecting: This ties directly into the healthcare-heavy ADP/ISM prints we discussed earlier this week — healthcare is the one engine of US hiring, and Lilly is the largest single proof point. A raised outlook is more evidence the "one-engine economy" narrative is intact.
Key levels to watch: The reaction to the guidance print will matter more than the guidance itself — a close above the pre-announcement range with volume = institutional approval; a fade = "buy the rumor" already done.
ISM Services 54.1: Growth Is Fine. The Rest Is Not.
Here's what the news won't tell you:
1. This is a jobsless boom — and AI is the reason. Business activity hit 59.1 (5-month high) and new orders jumped to 57.2 , yet employment collapsed to 47.4 — back in contraction, lowest since March. The ISM chair itself flagged it: AI is increasingly driving staffing decisions. Companies are meeting demand with capital, not labor — which means strong GDP with weak hiring for the rest of the cycle.
2. Services have pricing power again — and it's structural. Prices Paid surged to 70.3 , the 4th reading above 70 in 5 months, with the 12-month average the highest since April 2023. The kicker: ISM says tariff and Middle East concerns eased — yet prices still went up. That's not supply shock, that's embedded inflation. The "disinflation is back" narrative has a services-sized hole in it.
3. The Fed is now trapped between its own members. The data reads both ways: growth + prices scream hike, employment screams cut. Same day, Cook said she's prepared to support hikes and Kashkari called for gradual hikes "starting as early as September" — while the market repriced toward September cuts. This is the worst setup for bonds: a "hawkish cut" scenario where no one is right.
4. Watch what markets traded, not the PMI. Gold punched to $4,263+ and the dollar fell to 99.7 — markets bought real assets on the soft labor side and ignored the hot prices. That's a reflation bid hiding inside a "dovish data" headline.
Bottom line: This print is stagflation-lite — resilient demand, sticky services prices, contracting hiring. Friday's NFP is the decider: a weak payrolls print won't be cleanly "good news" this time, because inflation is re-accelerating in the same report that shows a cooling labor market.
July private payrolls came in at +44K vs +70K expected (June revised to +95K), and gold punched past $4,200 . But the headline hides the real story:
1. Strip out healthcare and the US basically added nothing. Education & health = +36K of the +44K (82%). This isn't a broad labor market — it's a one-engine economy on aging demographics.
2. Weak hiring + hot wages = supply problem, not demand. Job-switcher pay hit +7.0% y/y , fastest since Aug 2025. Companies can't find workers at their price — meaning rate cuts won't fix hiring; they could reheat wages .
3. Small business is bleeding. The only cohort cutting payrolls: firms with 20–49 employees. Big firms hoard labor, Main Street feels the credit squeeze.
4. Leisure & hospitality -11K — the discretionary tell. Consumers are pulling back on services spend.
The real trade is Friday's NFP (prior +57K, exp. +83K). ADP routinely misses by 50–100K. Watch for a frame flip: if NFP collapses, the story shifts from "bad news is good news" (priced for a cut) to "bad news is bad news" (hard-landing panic).
For crypto: Gold ($XAU ) above $4,200 says the market wants the cut — structurally supportive for $BTC while the story stays "managed slowdown." If Friday turns panic, risk assets bleed anyway. Trade Friday, not Wednesday.
The Setup: $SOXL ripped +43% off the lows last week , but today's -5.6% rejection shows the bounce is already fading. The latest long liquidation flushed leveraged buyers out of their positions — that adds near-term selling pressure and leaves the path of least resistance lower.
Execution: Short stays valid only below the 20-day EMA at $144 — that's the line in the sandDon't chase the drop — wait for the pullback into the 127.70–128.10 zone insteadIf price holds below the zone with strong volume, the downside leg can continueScale out at each TP; move stop to breakeven after TP1 hits
Risk Tip: Long liquidations can trigger fast, violent moves — but always wait for confirmation. Never risk more than 1–2% of your account on a single trade.
🚀Invalidation: 1H close below $0.0085 → cancel; re-evaluate at $0.0075–0.0080Early momentum entry: 1H close above $0.0092 with volume recovery
Context: $HOME just got listed on Upbit (KRW + USDT markets, Aug 4), pumping from $0.0073 to a peak of $0.01176 (+61%) before pulling back to ~$0.0090 (-12% on the day). Volume faded from 250M to ~85M as price cooled — a healthy post-catalyst pullback, not distribution. Price now sits at $0.00904 (MCap ~$38.7M). Defi App is a cross-chain DeFi platform (EVM + Solana) covering token trading, lending, and yield management, with $HOME as its governance/utility token
Same news that crashed oil is now launching gold. While Brent was getting obliterated on Hormuz de-escalation, gold delivered its biggest daily jump since February — +4.16% to $4,245.40 , its strongest level since mid-June
The technicals: Gold had been trapped in a falling-wedge / descending trendline since June 22 , making lower highs while sellers defended ~$4,120 as a "triple top." That level broke on Aug 4–5, stop-hunts fueled the rally, and price reclaimed the 50 EMA with RSI at 62 and MACD expanding. Last month also printed the first bullish monthly candle in months — buyers are back
$XAU Setup (reference, don't chase the +$150 candle): 🚀✨Pullback long: $4,150–$4,200 (retest of the old triple-top breakout zone) ✨Stop $4,100 ✨Targets $4,300 → $4,400Momentum add: only on a daily close above $4,300
✨Invalidation: a daily close back below $4,120 = failed breakout, back into the downtrend
SpaceX ($SPCX ) posted its first earnings since the record $86B IPO — and the market's verdict is harsh: revenue beat, stock still fell ~11% on lockup fears and an AI capex shock.
The good: Q2 revenue $7.8B vs $6.9B expected ; net loss narrowed to $541M (from $1.0B YoY); adjusted EBITDA nearly tripled to $3.5B on launch, Starlink and AI growth.
💥💥💥Short zone: $108–$115 💥Stop $120 (above the post-earnings breakdown) 💥Targets $100 → $95 💥Invalidation: daily close above $120
🚀💥💥💥Contrarian long: only after the Aug 6 flush — reclaim $110 with volume, or a strong hold at $95–100
Circle ($CRCL ) just reported Q2/2026 and raised full-year guidance — Other Revenue FY26 jumped from $150–170M to $310–330M , with RLDC Margin lifted to 41.7–43.7%. The stock is up ~6–9% premarket. Headline numbers: USDC in circulation at $73.3B (+19% YoY) , on-chain volume $14.8T (+151% YoY) , and the Arc mainnet launching 9/16 with BlackRock, DTCC, Mastercard and Visa as validators.
The caveat: much of the beat comes from one-time ARC token presale revenue — not recurring — while USDC circulation actually fell sequentially from $77B to $73.3B. So this is really an RWA / tokenization story , not pure stablecoin growth.
The Binance-listed play (outside BTC): ONDO
ONDO is the leading RWA token and a direct beneficiary of the exact trend Circle is driving. Signals line up: tokenized US Treasuries hit a record $16.2B (+77% YTD), Ondo Perps passed $6B cumulative volume, and the tokenized user base grew 15.7% in 30 days to 192k holders.
Bias is neutral-leaning-long — RWA is the hot theme, but ONDO is still -4.6% on the week with some team-wallet selling pressure. A daily close below $0.345 invalidates the long.
Bottom line: Circle's guidance raise confirms the RWA / tokenization narrative is accelerating — and ONDO is the way to play it indirectly on Binance, instead of chasing the $CRCL stock.
The gist: The S&P 500 and Nasdaq priced in Bitcoin have broken above their 200-week moving average for the first time since 2012. Translation: the 14-year parabolic run of BTC outperforming US stocks is over — equities are now the stronger asset. BTC sits 49% below its Oct 2025 peak ($126k) at ~$63.8k, while the S&P 500 just closed at a record 7,736
Why it matters 📉 BTC is at the knife's edge: price ($63,822) is exactly on the 200-week MA ($63,657). Glassnode flags $63k as the biggest battleground — 515k BTC cost basis there, another 362k at $61k .
⚠️ History is bearish if it breaks: BTC has closed below the 200-week MA only 11% of the time (48/422 weeks) — and when it loses it, it historically drops another ~29% (2015, 2020, 2022). Rekt Capital notes the weekly already closed marginally below it, so it may flip to resistance.
The gist: US telecom stocks are sliding premarket after SpaceX formally outlined plans to build a terrestrial + satellite mobile network to take on AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile. The market is pricing a "Musk disruption" scenario for America's stodgiest oligopoly.
What's driving it 🛰️ SpaceX is complementing Starlink's satellite service with land-based infrastructure — it wants to be a real carrier, not a rural add-on, and has been quietly buying terrestrial spectrum.
📉 $VZ, $T, $TMUS all fell premarket as traders repriced the threat.
⚔️ Amazon ($AMZN ) is also ramping satellite internet (5,105 LEO sats by 2028), so the battle heats up on two fronts.
The counter-case 💥MoffettNathanson sees "no scenario" where SpaceX beats the big three in dense urban areas — the carriers spent hundreds of billions on terrestrial infra. Satellite wins in rural/remote, where it's often the only option.
💥FCC/state regulatory hurdles remain a "painful slog."
💥Realistic read: a long-term threat to rural/edge revenue, not an overnight killer of the urban oligopoly. The drop is more sentiment than structural.
The $SPCX angle 💥Bullish narrative for SpaceX itself — Musk is expanding TAM beyond rockets/Starlink, recently called the pullback a "crazy opportunity", and JPMorgan raised its target to $240.
💥Direct satellite beneficiary: $ASTS (partners with AT&T/Verizon rather than fighting them).
Bottom line: A narrative repricing day , not a fundamentals break. Urban moats are intact, but the long-term satellite threat is now on the radar. Watch: (1) does the premarket drop hold into the close, (2) any FCC filings from SpaceX, (3) $ASTS as the pick-and-shovel play.
📉 Short (main) 1H rejection at broken $80 zone 💥Entry: $79.50–$80.20 💥Stop Loss: $81.30 💥TP1: $78.00 💥TP2 :$76.50 💥TP3: $74.50
Bias: stay short while 1H closes < $80.50 — the declining 20MA sits at $81–82, acting as the ceiling
Invalidation: 1H close > $80.50 = momentum shift, shorts out; daily close < $76 opens the run to $74.50 → $72
The Wednesday wildcard: deal confirmed → likely gap-and-sell into the news — don't chase, wait for the retest; talks collapse → violent short-covering back to $82–84. Watch the vessel-count data, not the headlines.
The gist: The US military confirming the Strait of Hormuz is reopening = oil falls → Fed hike fears fade → crypto gets a chance to stop bleeding. De-escalation is the clearest risk-on catalyst in months.
BTC — ~$64.3K, spot ETFs +$211.5M (second straight day of inflows). The line in the sand: an August close above $63K would confirm the bear-market bottom (per 10x Research) — and BTC is sitting right on it.
ETH — ~$1,871, ETFs flipped positive with +$53.1M; whales pulled and staked $208M+ off exchanges in 3 weeks → tighter circulating supply. EIP-8361 adds a deflationary narrative on top.
XRP — ~$1.069, holding the $1.06 shelf; open interest at a 6-month low → leverage flushed out, no wall of longs left to fight. CLARITY Act moving through the Senate = a regulatory catalyst independent of price.
Bottom line: The 48 hours after the deal is confirmed is the real test — if risk-on actually rotates back into crypto, the de-risking regime of the last two quarters is over. Watch: (1) the official announcement, (2) BTC's weekly close vs $63K, (3) ETH ETF flows staying positive.