Odaily News: According to reports, Nvidia is reaching a $6 billion deal with Poolside to develop open-weight AI models. Nvidia is preparing to challenge DeepSeek, Kimi K3, OpenAI, and Anthropic.
Open-weight models could bring lower-cost AI, greater customization capabilities, and stronger enterprise control. The expanding scope of AI applications will drive demand for Nvidia's chips, networking equipment, and software. Regardless of which AI company takes the lead, Nvidia is seeking to profit from it. (Coin Bureau)
Odaily News The latest financial disclosure from the U.S. Office of Government Ethics shows that President Trump conducted over 1,000 securities trades in June this year, with a total amount estimated between $78.1 million and $263.1 million based on the disclosed transaction amount ranges, involving companies such as Berkshire Hathaway, Visa, Mastercard, Cintas, Palantir, Meta, and Coinbase.
Among them, the largest single trade was the sale of Vanguard ETF worth $5 million to $25 million on June 22. In addition, Trump also purchased Berkshire Hathaway stock worth $1 million to $5 million on June 18, and subsequently sold a smaller position on June 24; on the same day, he also sold Meta stock worth $1 million to $5 million, and made a small repurchase later that month.
The disclosure also shows that Trump traded Palantir multiple times in June, initially buying on June 3, then selling on June 16 and 18, and buying again on June 23 and 24.
The White House stated that Trump's investments are managed by an independent institution and there are no conflicts of interest. (Bloomberg)
Odaily Planet Daily News: Eric Trump, the second son of Donald Trump, stated that claims about Donald Trump launching a new token are untrue, calling the reports "false and fraudulent." (Cointelegraph)
Odaily News - Standard Chartered's global head of digital asset research, Geoffrey Kendrick, stated that the bank's year-end Bitcoin price target of $100,000 may be too conservative. Bitcoin rose to $79,500 on August 21, its highest level since May; he predicts the price could climb from this level to $126,000, a gain of 58%.
Kendrick noted that during the rally from August 19 to 21, Bitcoin short liquidations totaled nearly $1.44 billion, the largest on record in Coinglass data since June 2021. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs saw net inflows of approximately $1.92 billion over five consecutive trading days.
The U.S. Treasury announced on August 19 that it would expand its long-term Treasury buyback program, raising the maximum size of a single operation from $2 billion to at least $4 billion. Standard Chartered lowered its Bitcoin year-end target from $150,000 to $100,000 in February this year, while outlining a long-term trajectory of $500,000 for Bitcoin and $40,000 for Ethereum by 2030. (Bitcoin.com News)
Odaily Planet Daily News According to on-chain analyst Ai Yi's monitoring, a whale that built a position of $9.35 million in ETH at the end of February has apparently cleared its holdings, with an estimated profit of $1.68 million. The whale withdrew 4,819.11 ETH from OKX at a price of $1,941.28 five months ago, sold 1,200 ETH at a loss a month ago, and deposited the remaining 3,619 ETH into the exchange half an hour ago. The final average selling price was $2,290, yielding a return rate of 18%.
Odaily News: On-chain analyst Ai Yi posted on X platform that the Binance futures live trading account "Jiujiu Jin" ranks first on the 24-hour, 7-day, and 30-day loss leaderboards. The account previously held 250 BTC short positions with an average entry price of $63,592, and closed them at an average price of $77,758.91 this morning at 08:15, incurring a loss of $3.46 million. In the Square, the account mentioned two mistakes: buying spot at $58,000, clearing positions at $64,000 and missing the subsequent rally; and placing orders when it was not suitable to chase shorts, without setting a reasonable stop-loss price.
Odaily Planet Daily News: StarBridge Capital (SBCFX) has experienced an abnormal liquidation event in London gold trading. Following the incident, the platform's Hong Kong office has been vacated, leaving some investors facing massive losses. According to multiple investors, their automated trading of London gold (XAUUSD) derivatives through the StarBridge Capital platform encountered extreme abnormal trading on the evening of August 19: the system automatically generated large short positions within just 1 to 3 seconds, followed by a rapid surge in international gold prices, resulting in widespread account liquidations. Some accounts were wiped out to zero, and others even fell into negative balances.
The so-called London gold liquidation refers to the trading risk where the direction of a trade runs counter to gold price movements, and due to factors such as leverage, losses become so large that the available margin in an investor's account is exhausted, falling below the maintenance margin requirement, leading to forced position closure by the platform and total loss of principal. Affected investors estimate that approximately 2,000 to 3,000 people are involved in this incident, including a large number of mainland Chinese investors. At present, some investors have filed reports with Hong Kong police and are demanding that the platform refund 70% of their principal in accordance with its previously promised "maximum loss of 30%" rule. Some investors stated that StarBridge Capital offers leverage of up to 500x, and that part of the funds were deposited via the USDT stablecoin, making it more difficult to trace the funds.
Public information shows that StarBridge Capital's business scope covers forex, commodities, indices, cryptocurrencies, and more, and it publicly claims to be a licensed and compliant international trading platform. (Caixin)
Odaily News: Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has published his latest article "Obfuscation (Part 3): Local Mixing," providing an in-depth introduction to an emerging cryptographic obfuscation approach — "Local Mixing" — and describing it as a potential new fundamental cryptographic tool following elliptic curves, RSA, and lattice-based cryptography.
Vitalik noted that current mainstream obfuscation techniques primarily rely on complex mathematical assumptions but often incur extremely high computational costs. Local mixing, by contrast, takes a completely different approach. Rather than depending on elliptic curves, large integer factorization, or lattice cryptography, it draws on design principles from symmetric cryptography and hash functions, continuously shuffling, restructuring, and hiding circuit architecture to eliminate information leakage while preserving functionality.
He explained that the local mixing technique mainly involves steps such as reversibility, hardening, mixing, splitting, crossing walk, and "gadgetization." By introducing random structures into circuits, rearranging logic gates, and employing nonlinear hiding mechanisms, it makes it difficult for attackers to recover the original computational logic.
Vitalik pointed out that the technique remains in its early stages, with security not yet subject to long-term validation, and it still faces challenges such as random attacks and linear analysis. Nevertheless, he believes local mixing represents an entirely new path of cryptographic exploration aimed at building more efficient indistinguishability obfuscation (iO) schemes.
He stated that if local mixing achieves a breakthrough, it could lead to new quantum-resistant public-key encryption schemes and advance the development of general-purpose obfuscation techniques. While the field still requires years of cryptanalysis and optimization validation, AI-assisted research could significantly accelerate this maturation process.
Vitalik described obfuscation as the "final frontier" of cryptography, as theoretically all other cryptographic primitives can be constructed from obfuscation and one-way functions. Local mixing not only has the potential to reduce the cost of traditional obfuscation schemes but could also become an important direction for future cryptographic infrastructure.
Odaily News: Geoff Kendrick, Global Head of Digital Asset Research at Standard Chartered Bank, stated that the forecast of Bitcoin reaching $100,000 by the end of the year may be too conservative, and there is a possibility of challenging the previous all-time high of $126,000 before the year ends.
On Friday, Kendrick noted that the recent Bitcoin rally has been primarily driven by short liquidations, while inflows into spot Bitcoin ETFs have also begun to recover. Given the currently low open interest levels in the market, more investors could re-enter as prices rise, providing further momentum for the rally.
"This is the first time this year that I've seen a risk that my year-end target of $100,000 may be too low," Kendrick said.
Kendrick believes that Bitcoin's rebound momentum could accelerate further after October 6. Meanwhile, several market observers also believe the bear market may be nearing its end. Cory Klippsten, CEO of Swan Bitcoin, previously stated that Bitcoin could bottom out in October; Markus Thielen, founder of 10x Research, suggested that if the August monthly close stays above $63,000, it could confirm the formation of a bear market bottom. (Cointelegraph)
According to Odaily, Bitcoin recently broke through a key price level, sparking discussions about whether a new bull market has begun. Some analysts believe that rapid gains, concentrated short covering, and technical breakouts are typical signals of a market bottom reversal, but others warn that the macroeconomic environment and capital inflows remain key factors in determining the sustainability of the trend.
Mati Greenspan, founder of Quantum Economics, stated that Bitcoin's recent rally is very similar to historical bottoming phases, which are typically accompanied by short squeezes, sharp single-day gains, and breakouts above key technical resistance levels, followed by investors who missed the move re-entering the market. He believes that the probability of a significant Bitcoin pullback is currently decreasing, and market FOMO sentiment may further intensify.
However, Jason Fernandes, co-founder of AdLunam, remains cautious. He noted that without sustained spot ETF inflows and clear signals of interest rate cuts, it is still too early to confirm the bear market is over, and Bitcoin may lose upward momentum near resistance levels.
Analysts point out that the current rally is driven by multiple factors, including the U.S. Treasury's expansion of its bond buyback program, declining long-term yields, and improved sentiment toward risk assets. Previously, Bitcoin had been consolidating in the $64,000 to $66,000 range, accumulating significant short positions in the market. The breakout triggered cascading liquidations in the derivatives market, accelerating the price surge.
Tobias Bauer, co-founder of TBV, noted that Bitcoin futures trading volume on Binance reached $1.26 billion within a minute—361 times the normal level—while funding rates rose to exchange limits, indicating crowded leveraged longs in the market and rising costs for chasing the rally. (CoinDesk)
Odaily News比特币 rose to its highest level since May before the US market opened on Friday, briefly touching $79,400 during trading before hovering around $78,000, just one step away from the key resistance level of $80,000. US spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded net inflows of $606 million on Thursday, the highest level since May 1, boosting market risk appetite.
James Butterfill, Head of Research at CoinShares, stated that this rally is primarily driven by macroeconomic factors rather than factors within the crypto market itself, noting that Bitcoin remains highly sensitive to changes in liquidity expectations and real yields. Previously, US inflation data came in below expectations, employment data weakened, and the US Treasury announced measures to push down long-term Treasury yields, all of which drove risk assets higher.
Butterfill pointed out that $80,000 is an important demarcation line for Bitcoin at present. To form an effective breakout, the market needs further confirmation that the Federal Reserve's monetary policy is shifting toward easing, with related signals potentially released at next week's Jackson Hole symposium.
However, he also cautioned that if inflation remains persistently high or the dollar weakens, the Fed may be forced to adopt a more cautious policy. Additionally, the scale of accumulation by large holders remains relatively limited, and the market still lacks strong confidence to support a sustained breakout. Going forward, US spot Bitcoin ETF fund flows and macroeconomic data performance will serve as key indicators for judging the sustainability of the trend. (CoinDesk)
