Stripe is in exclusive negotiations to acquire OpenRouter, with the deal valued at approximately $10 billion.

According to a Reuters report, four industry sources stated that a proposed agreement between Iran and Oman would grant Tehran control over vessels entering the Gulf via the Strait of Hormuz, but the deal faces implementation hurdles due to U.S. sanctions and restrictive insurance provisions governing any payments. Any toll measures would trigger significant compliance risks, as the U.S. has sanctioned Iran’s Persian Gulf Strait Administration, the entity operating the waterway. The U.S. Treasury also bans U.S. individuals and entities from accepting services related to "safe passage" offered by the Iranian government. Industry sources added that any such payment could result in asset freezes. Another complicating factor is a clause introduced by the Lloyd’s Market Association at the end of July for war risk underwriters: under this clause, insurance coverage would be terminated if a vessel pays transit fees, passage charges, or other fees to traverse the Strait of Hormuz. An insurance industry source noted that shipping companies are caught in a dilemma: the Lloyd’s Market Association clause prohibits insurers from providing coverage to shipowners making such payments, while Iran seeks to collect passage fees. (Jinshi)

According to TradingBeats (formerly Hyperinsight) monitoring, the whale address 0x9bb — which profited from all 5 prior storage trades and twice transferred approximately $7.537 million back to its spot account — deposited 2.393 million USDC into Hyperliquid last night. Less than a minute after the funds arrived, the address began going long on SNDK, purchasing a total of 3,800.84 contracts within 4 minutes for a transaction value of around $4.783 million, with an average entry price of $1,258.5. As of press time, the whale holds a $4.853 million long position in SNDK with 2x isolated margin, the only position in its account. SNDK is currently trading at $1,276.8, with the position showing an unrealized profit of roughly $69,600, a return of ~2.9%, a liquidation price of $662.1, and no open orders set. Last night, SNDK hit a low of $1,168.3 before rebounding to $1,276.8, a ~9.3% rise from the low, but still down ~10.5% from the previous day’s benchmark price. The whale did not enter at the lowest point, but re-opened its position after the rebound had already started. Since starting trading in late July, this address has only traded storage assets, with all 5 completed directional trades turning profitable: - SNDK long: ~$1.374 million profit; - SKHX long: ~$785,000 profit; - SNDK short: ~$662,000 profit; - MU short: ~$309,000 profit; - SKHY short: ~$184,000 profit. SNDK’s 24-hour trading volume is approximately $936 million, open interest stands at ~$161 million, and its hourly funding rate is about +0.000625%.

MetaMask has officially launched Agent Wallet, a self-custody AI agent wallet for traders and developers. Users can connect to agent frameworks including Claude Code, Codex, and OpenClaw, allowing agents to execute on-chain operations within preset rules. Agent Wallet supports Hyperliquid, as well as EVM-compatible chains such as Robinhood Chain and Monad. Agents can also perform ERC-7821 batch swaps and one-off transactions, eliminating the need to hold native on-chain tokens for gas fees, with MetaMask settling network costs from transferred assets. Before executing supported EVM transactions, MetaMask provides transaction simulation, threat scanning, and MEV protection. Eligible transactions that incur losses despite passing security checks are covered by up to $10,000 in monthly transaction protection. MetaMask stated that Agent Wallet’s core is to enable AI agents to execute transactions within permission boundaries set by users, rather than granting them unrestricted wallet access.

According to a report from The Information, fintech firm Stripe is in exclusive acquisition talks with AI model aggregation platform OpenRouter, with a valuation of approximately $10 billion. Sources familiar with the matter revealed that OpenRouter had previously received acquisition interest from multiple large tech companies, but Stripe has now entered the exclusive negotiation phase. The deal has not yet been finalized, and its specific terms may still change. Founded in 2023, OpenRouter positions itself as an AI infrastructure platform connecting users with multiple large language models, allowing developers to call AI models from providers including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google via a unified interface, and select different models based on performance, price, and availability. If completed, the transaction will become one of Stripe’s key strategic moves in the AI field in recent years. Stripe has historically focused on payment infrastructure, financial services, and enterprise software, and acquiring OpenRouter may further drive its expansion into the AI developer infrastructure sector.

According to a report from The Information, Nvidia is weighing a major adjustment: it is considering using less high-bandwidth memory (HBM) for its Rubin Ultra GPU to tackle the shortage of advanced HBM chips. The company is testing at least three variants of the Rubin Ultra GPU.

Crypto journalist Eleanor Terrett reported that while the White House has begun engaging on the counter-proposal to the bipartisan ethics agreement introduced by Tillis and Gallego, crypto policy stakeholders are currently in what an industry source describes as a "strange state of limbo." Terrett cited sources saying some of the president’s closest allies have been pushing behind the scenes this week to broker a deal on the ethics agreement. Meanwhile, negotiations on other unresolved issues remain ongoing. The White House is leading discussions related to the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act (BRCA), aiming to sway law enforcement agencies that still hold reservations to shift their stance.