U.S. CPI: +2.9% YEAR-OVER-YEAR (EST. +2.9%); U.S. CORE CPI: +3.2% YEAR-OVER-YEAR (EST. +3.3%)

Crypto journalist Eleanor Terrett reported that the U.S. Senate passed a resolution by unanimous consent yesterday, stating that FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) should not receive a presidential pardon. The resolution, introduced by Senators Ruben Gallego and Cynthia Lummis, is an official political statement from the Senate recording its opposition to pardoning SBF. However, the resolution is not legally binding, so it will not prevent the U.S. president from pardoning SBF in the future, nor will it have a direct impact on his current legal situation.

According to monitoring by Lookonchain, a newly created wallet deposited 5 million USDC into Hyperliquid and went long on 194,175 CXMT tokens with 2x leverage, a position valued at $1.38 million with a liquidation price of $4.

US chip stocks were broadly lower. Arm fell 6.40%, Marvell Technology dropped 6.20%, Micron Technology slipped 5.12%, Qualcomm declined 4.40%, Intel fell 4.21%, AMD dropped 3.91%, Broadcom fell 3.79%, and NVIDIA slipped 2.24%. The storage sector saw widespread losses: SanDisk plunged 8.77%, Seagate Technology dropped 7.70%, Western Digital slipped 7.51%, SK Hynix declined 7.46%, and Micron Technology fell 5.12%. Optical communication concept stocks led the declines: Corning fell 8.17%, Astera Labs dropped 6.57%, Applied Optoelectronics slipped 6.44%, Nokia fell 6.00%, Credo declined 5.63%, and Coherent fell 5.57%.

Polygon Labs CEO Marc Boiron announced in a post that the firm’s acquisition of Coinme is in its final stages. Once the deal closes, the Coinme team will be integrated into Polygon Labs. This integration is part of a broader merger plan targeting profitability for Polygon Labs by 2027. As part of the ongoing integration, Polygon Labs cut multiple employees today. Boiron stated the company is transitioning from a blockchain foundation to a blockchain payments company, explaining that the two organizational models require distinct structures and talent setups, and the adjustment is driven by the company’s strategic direction shift—not related to the work quality of departing staff. He added that Polygon Labs currently boasts strong revenue performance, with stablecoin trading volumes hitting new highs consistently, client reserves exceeding expectations, and on-chain payment solutions having launched rapidly. The company will provide severance compensation and related support to affected employees.

According to market data from BIT (bit.com), US stocks opened with the Dow Jones Industrial Average rising 0.2%, the S&P 500 falling 0.19%, and the Nasdaq Composite dropping 0.45%. SK Hynix ADR (SKHY.O) fell more than 5%, SanDisk (SNDK.O) dropped 4.5%, Micron Technology (MU.O) declined 3.1%, Western Digital (WDC.O) fell 3.6%, and Intel (INTC.O) was down 1.4%.

NVIDIA-backed AI cloud service startup Fireworks has closed a $1.5 billion funding round, pushing its valuation to $17.5 billion. The round was led by Atreides Management, Index Ventures, and TCV, with participation from NVIDIA, Evantic, and Lightspeed Venture Partners, among others. Fireworks specializes in hosting and running open-source AI models for developers, with its annual recurring revenue (ARR) now exceeding $1 billion—five times the figure from the same period last year. CEO Lin Qiao noted that growing numbers of enterprises are turning to open-source models amid cost pressures, and Fireworks delivers models of equivalent quality at 5 to 10 times lower cost than closed-source counterparts. Fireworks supports models from firms including DeepSeek, MiniMax, and Zhipu AI, and has partnered with Microsoft, leveraging over 20 computing power suppliers (including Microsoft) to operate its services. The company currently processes roughly 40 trillion AI tokens daily, and has also started offering GPUs for AI model training. Around half of Fireworks’ revenue last year came from AI coding firm Cursor; its client base is now more diversified, with other customers including Elastic, GitLab, and MongoDB. The new funding will be used to purchase additional GPUs, expand the sales team, and recruit technical staff. The company plans to grow its headcount from approximately 200 to 600 by the end of 2026.