The popular AI framework Virtuals Protocol will host an in-person meet-up in Hong Kong on Friday, January 17.

OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar told employees at an August 19 all-hands meeting that the company plans to go public in 2027, though it could list earlier if its business continues to accelerate. She stressed that an IPO is merely a milestone, not an end goal, adding that OpenAI raised $122 billion in March, giving it ample financial flexibility. Earlier this year, OpenAI confidentially submitted an S-1 registration statement to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in June. Separately, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that the company’s second-quarter 2026 revenue reached $6.7 billion, up 18% quarter-over-quarter, while its operating loss widened to $12.3 billion, meaning it has yet to turn a profit.

Goldman Sachs is testing investor demand for a roughly $1.15 billion junk bond issue, with proceeds earmarked for building a data center leased to AI cloud computing firm CoreWeave. Sources familiar with the matter said the project, located near Richmond, Virginia, is developed by PowerHouse Data Centers (a subsidiary of American Real Estate Partners) and Chirisa Technology Parks, and is slated to hit the market as early as September. The financing comes as investors grow cautious about AI infrastructure debt. With AI data center-related bond issuances surging this year, the market has started demanding higher yields. CoreWeave has previously backed numerous high-yield bond offerings from data center developers via long-term lease deals, though its speculative-grade credit rating has also lifted financing costs.

Smart trader pension-usdt.eth, who once made $49M and had a 23-win streak, has been liquidated! His entire 50,000 $ETH ($106M) short was fully liquidated, resulting in a $23.9M loss.

According to monitoring by Onchain Lens, decentralized exchange platform Hyperliquid generated approximately $4.4 million in revenue over the past 24 hours, while burning HYPE tokens worth around $4.24 million in the same period.

According to Bitget market data, the Nikkei 225 index opened 461.11 points higher on Thursday, August 20, with a 0.71% gain to 65,787.53 points. South Korea’s KOSPI index opened 3.2% higher, with SK Hynix surging over 7% and Samsung Electronics climbing more than 3%.

New public blockchain Linera, founded by former Libra employees, announced today that it aims to become the "next Hyperliquid" and teased an upcoming LNRA token sale. Linera said it is following Hyperliquid’s playbook: building its own dedicated chain, focusing on consumer products, operating with a small team, generating real revenue first, and prioritizing user rewards. Its core product is a real-time prediction market at app.linera.xyz, which can launch, operate, and settle within one minute. The project uses a parallel microchains architecture, supporting thousands of small markets to run simultaneously, with final confirmation times typically under one second—solving congestion and high fees that plague general-purpose blockchains in real-time use cases. All markets operate on a pure player-versus-player (PvP) model, with no house and no external market makers required. The core team numbers just five members. Users who earn badges by engaging with the product will get priority access to an exclusive subscription pool for the LNRA sale. Detailed sale information will be announced at a later date.