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

The first revenue from Hyperliquid’s AQAv2 mechanism is expected to flow into the Hyperliquid Aid Fund on October 3, with market projections putting the initial funding at around $20 million, which will be used to repurchase HYPE tokens. AQAv2 (Aligned Quote Asset v2) is a stablecoin mechanism announced by Hyperliquid in May this year, allowing stablecoins not exclusively issued by Hyperliquid—including USDC—to obtain the "Aligned" qualification. Per public details, AQAv2 returns the majority of stablecoin revenues to the Hyperliquid ecosystem: 90% of these revenues are allocated to relevant mechanisms, and 100% of that sum is subsequently used to repurchase and burn HYPE tokens. Coinbase has been named the fund deployment partner, while Circle handles technical deployment; both firms will also stake HYPE to participate in the mechanism. Analysts forecast the mechanism will generate an additional $135 million to $160 million in annual HYPE repurchase pressure.

SpaceX plans to build a $100 billion Starship launch base on the southern coast of Louisiana, adding its third Starship launch site. Located on Pecan Island, the facility covers roughly 125,000 acres, with planned construction of 5 launch complexes, 10 launch pads, plus facilities for propellant production, power generation, spacecraft processing, and employee housing. The base will help SpaceX boost Starship launch frequency and support its future plan to deploy up to 1 million data center satellites. Starship will also be used to launch upgraded Starlink satellites: its first orbital data center mission is targeted for as early as 2027, and it is scheduled to carry NASA astronauts on a lunar mission as early as 2028.

WTF Academy founder 0xAA shared that during Yzi Labs’ Bhutan event today, he held a conversation with Grayscale founder Barry Silbert. Silbert stated that U.S. stock trading may soon transition to 24/7 operation, with the U.S. expected to support all-day stock trading within five years. If competitive pressure from crypto trading platforms like Hyperliquid continues to intensify, this timeline could accelerate. On tokenized stocks, Silbert argued that once U.S. stocks themselves go 24/7, the appeal of tokenized stocks in the U.S. market may decline, though they still hold growth potential in other regions. Regarding ZEC, Silbert noted that memecoins are essentially “gambling,” and joked that if one must engage in such risky trading, “the best choice is to buy ZEC.” He added that ZEC is built on Bitcoin and boasts stronger privacy attributes, with its market cap projected to reach one-tenth of Bitcoin’s (i.e., $8,000) in the long term. The above views are personal opinions only and do not constitute investment advice.

Despite a sharp pullback in global chip stocks since late June, funds have flowed into semiconductor leveraged ETFs against the trend. Data shows Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bull 3X Shares (SOXL) attracted a combined net inflow of nearly $70 billion in July and the first two weeks of August, exhibiting a clear "buy the dip" pattern. As of August 24, SOXL traded at $111.16, down over 60% from its prior high of $302. The ETF tracks the NYSE Semiconductor Index, with holdings including Nvidia, Micron Technology, AMD, and Broadcom. Semiconductors remain one of the most crowded trades globally. Bank of America’s August global fund manager survey revealed that 53% of respondents opted to "go long on global semiconductors," a notable cooling from the 82% historical peak seen last month. Institutions are divided on the sector’s outlook. Fidelity warned that the semiconductor sector’s roughly 40-month earnings cycle may be nearing its peak, cautioning that daily reset leveraged products like SOXL could amplify losses if the sector cycle reverses. Goldman Sachs, by contrast, sharply raised its forecasts for global fab equipment spending from 2026 to 2028 to $150 billion, $218 billion, and $281 billion respectively, arguing that the AI-driven semiconductor supercycle is set to continue through 2028. JPMorgan Chase also maintains a bullish stance, noting that the semiconductor sector, following its recent pullback, is attractive.

Beating AI (Dong察) News Flash: Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke has publicly stated that if Claude Code continues to refuse to read AGENTS.md and the.agents/skills directory, he is considering disabling Claude Code internally at Shopify. Tobi noted that as AI coding tools like Codex, Cursor, and Claude Code are simultaneously adopted by enterprise teams, an increasing number of coding agents now support configuring project specifications, testing workflows, and agent instructions via the unified AGENTS.md file. However, Claude Code currently relies primarily on CLAUDE.md and the.claude/skills directory, which may cause the same code repository to be read with different rules by different agents, resulting in the so-called "split brain" problem. He argued that maintaining multiple sets of configuration files has limited impact on individual developers, but for enterprises like Shopify with a large engineering team, multiple agent contexts require continuous synchronization; any discrepancies could cause agents to deviate from team norms in their execution. This controversy is ostensibly a dispute over configuration file formats, but at its core revolves around a key question: after AI coding agents enter enterprise environments, should project specifications, skills, and contexts adopt vendor-specific standards, or establish cross-agent universal standards?

According to Arkham’s monitoring, Bitwise clients have been net buying Solana (SOL) for five consecutive days, with the latest purchase totaling around $25 million. Data shows that since the launch of Bitwise’s BSOL ETF, its clients’ cumulative net purchases of SOL have reached approximately $948 million. If the current buying momentum continues, Bitwise clients’ weekly cumulative net purchases are on track to exceed $1 billion.