Peter Brandt hints at potential short-term downside risks for gold.

US Vice President Vance stated that some progress has been made in Iran negotiations over the past few days. Key focuses include maximizing oil and gas production in the Strait of Hormuz, and securing Iran’s commitment to refrain from firing on ships.

Nansen founder and CEO Alex Svanevik stated that Bitcoin’s current price of roughly $60,000 may have marked the low point of this cycle. “I personally don’t think Bitcoin will drop below $60,000 again— that’s a thing of the past, and I believe it’s forever,” he said. Svanevik’s assessment is rooted in Bitcoin’s role as a hedge against global central bank monetary expansion, with no signs of an imminent end to the global monetary easing cycle. He added that the crypto industry is undergoing a fundamental shift: crypto assets were previously in the “toy world” phase of blockchain, and are now entering the “real world” era. On the public chain ecosystem, Svanevik holds a long-term bullish stance on Solana, dismissing the view that it is merely a “meme coin chain” as completely absurd. He praised Solana for having “possibly the most effective business development (BD) team” and an “incredible team.” However, Svanevik refused to translate this positive outlook into a specific price prediction for SOL: “Intuitively, I would expect it to rise, but I can’t be certain.” Svanevik is also optimistic about Robinhood Chain, which launched just this July. He argues that it is emerging as a strong competitor to Base thanks to its outstanding user distribution capabilities, but judges that Robinhood is unlikely to issue a token. The reasons: first, it has no need to do so; second, as a Nasdaq-listed company, issuing a token would logically conflict with competing against its own stock. “All value should be channeled into HOOD stock,” he noted.

T. Rowe Price launched the industry’s first actively managed multi-token spot crypto ETF (ticker: TKNZ) in July. What caught the market’s attention wasn’t just its core allocation of roughly 60% to Bitcoin and Ethereum, but the fund’s inclusion of meme coins—currently Dogecoin (DOGE) at a ~1.26% weighting. Blue Macellari, the firm’s head of digital assets, led this strategy, whose core philosophy holds that true active management should not exclude mature meme coins with established history and market cap out of “intellectual arrogance”; if a coin has momentum or can boost portfolio performance, it should be added to give investors full market exposure, rather than only selecting “respectable” assets. Macellari further noted that meme coin trading is the most authentic “stress test” for blockchain networks: when a chain sees a meme coin boom, it best validates its scalability, near-instant settlement, low transaction costs, and reliability during congestion—all critical for the future large-scale adoption of stablecoins, as networks need to efficiently process large transfers worth hundreds of millions of dollars while also handling small payments of just a few dollars at low cost. T. Rowe Price evaluates tokens via a three-layer framework: blockchain technology and token economic models, ecosystem growth and adoption, and market momentum (including community sentiment on platforms like Crypto Twitter). The firm argues that sound judgment and active decision-making are more valuable in crypto assets than in any other asset class, and forecasts further segmentation of the crypto ETF market. The ETF currently holds 5 to 15 cryptocurrencies, with its investable scope set to expand as more tokens meet the SEC’s general listing standards.

Cryptocurrency exchange BitMart founder Sheldon released a statement addressing user complaints about withdrawal difficulties and unpaid employee salaries, stating: "We have not run away and will not run away. There are numerous rumors, as well as so-called exposes and screenshots from alleged former and current employees. Please do not believe these rumors. The core team is still conducting asset inventory, asset collection and system maintenance work. Our goal is an orderly wind-down, so please wait for official announcements and notifications. We have not misappropriated assets, engaged in early exits or evacuations, and we have considered involving courts and third-party audit institutions to deliver transparent reports. Thank you for everyone's trust." Additionally, community feedback indicates BitMart is still facing widespread user withdrawal problems, including withdrawal requests stuck in processing for long periods, transactions marked as "completed" without corresponding on-chain hashes, automatic refunds to spot accounts, "on-chain freezing" alerts, and extremely low daily limits that effectively block large withdrawals. These issues contradict the platform's official claim that "withdrawals remain available." Earlier, BitMart announced on July 26 that it would cease operations, with all trading services set to be shut down starting August 26.

According to a report by The Korea Economic Daily, SK Hynix is preparing a shareholder return package totaling approximately 100 trillion won (around $71 billion), including share repurchases and cash dividends. The share repurchase portion is estimated at 40 trillion won (about $28.4 billion), accounting for just over 2% of total outstanding shares—close to the 2.5% stake the company issued for its U.S. ADR listing. This figure marks a roughly seven-fold surge from last year’s combined shareholder returns of around 14.3 trillion won, which included 2.1 trillion won in cash dividends and 12.2 trillion won in share cancellations. SK Hynix’s dominant position in the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) market, a core component of AI infrastructure, underpins its confidence in launching such a large-scale return program. The company forecasts this year’s revenue will reach around 345.6 trillion won, with operating profit of approximately 266.4 trillion won, representing year-on-year growth of about 256% and 464% respectively. During its July earnings call, SK Hynix stated that HBM4 shipments will officially ramp up in the second half of the year, while shipments of advanced-process general-purpose DRAM will also increase, pushing total second-half shipments higher than the first half. Earlier, HSBC noted that the implied earnings cycle for SK Hynix’s stock had plummeted from roughly six years to 2.7 years, describing its valuation as “excessively pessimistic.” The early, accelerated implementation of this shareholder return package could serve as a direct catalyst for a valuation recovery.

Citrini analyst Jukan wrote in a recent report that the market will shift to a short-term "bearish on storage, bullish on optical interconnects" trend, with some hedge funds already executing this strategy. The three key reasons are: First, South Korean leveraged ETFs have largely become ineffective, bringing additional selling pressure from concentrated redemptions by limited partners; Second, NVIDIA is reducing HBM configurations for Rubin Ultra, opting instead for optical interconnects to connect multiple racks. Even without improving single-rack performance, clusters can still maintain advantages, a logic that holds whether the HBM reduction stems from supply or demand issues; Third, the market has formed a consensus that storage prices will peak in the next two quarters. Jukan clarified that he remains bullish on storage in the medium to long term but slightly bearish in the short term, and currently holds no storage positions.