Demand for AI data centers fuels IPO boom: Switch files confidentially for U.S. IPO, valuation possibly approaching $50 billion

The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced sanctions against two Iranian cryptocurrency exchanges, Shelbit and Aban Tether, expanding the Trump administration’s "Economic Fury" campaign targeting Iran’s financial networks. The Treasury accuses the two platforms of being used for large-scale crypto asset transfers, evading U.S. sanctions, and supporting Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and other entities designated by the U.S. as terrorist organizations. OFAC also sanctioned Shelbit operator Siavash Kayvanpour and multiple companies he controls in Georgia, Poland, and the United Arab Emirates. The Treasury noted that IRGC-linked wallets sent over $1 million in crypto assets to Shelbit and received more than $2 million from the exchange. Additionally, wallets linked to Kayvanpour are alleged to have transferred more than $2 million to Nobitex, Iran’s largest crypto exchange. The Treasury said Shelbit also serviced a network of over 2,000 gambling websites suspected of laundering tens of millions of dollars via crypto assets. Ahead of the sanctions, Reuters reported an investigation finding Shelbit processed at least $4 billion in transactions over the past two years, involving Iran’s gambling network, the Central Bank of Iran, and IRGC-linked entities. Data shows Shelbit-linked wallets transferred at least $676 million to Binance, with roughly $540 million of that amount coming after the Dubai Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) penalized Shelbit for operating without a license. In addition, OFAC also sanctioned Iranian exchange Aban Tether, alleging it processed millions of dollars in transactions involving Nobitex and previously sanctioned platforms including Wallex, Bitpin, and Ramzinex.

Bitcoin payment processing project BTCPay Server recently warned users of a critical, actively exploited vulnerability on its servers that could let attackers gain unauthorized access and lead to fund losses. The project posted an announcement on X, urging admins to immediately upgrade to version 2.4.2 and confirm the server footer displays the update is complete. If an upgrade cannot be done in time, officials advised users to temporarily shut down BTCPay Server to block further attacks. Additionally, BTCPay Server recommended users replace any exposed macaroon credentials, recreate the macaroons.db file, and refresh authentication strings for other Lightning Network backends. The team specifically reminded users who created hot on-chain wallets in BTCPay Server to immediately transfer funds out and re-create their wallets. To date, BTCPay Server has not disclosed the vulnerability’s specific mechanism, the attack’s start time, number of affected servers, or whether any funds have been stolen. The vulnerability was reported by a member of the Bitcoin Red Team. The incident comes as AI-assisted vulnerability mining gains attention in the crypto industry. In recent security incidents involving multiple crypto projects, researchers and firms have pointed out that AI tools are speeding up code vulnerability discovery, while also potentially being used by attackers to automate searches for security flaws.

Justin Mateen, a director at American Bitcoin (ABTC) — a Bitcoin mining firm backed by the Trump family and co-founder of Tinder — purchased the company’s stock over two consecutive days after it released its quarterly earnings, investing a total of roughly $1.93 million. Regulatory filings show Mateen bought approximately 145,000 Class A common shares of ABTC on August 5 for about $925,000 at an average price of $6.40 per share; he added another ~162,000 shares on August 6, worth ~$1 million at an average of $6.19 per share. The two transactions totaled 306,981 shares, lifting Mateen’s total ABTC holdings to 492,297 shares. American Bitcoin, a Nasdaq-listed Bitcoin mining and BTC reserve company backed by U.S. President Donald Trump’s family members including Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., adopts a strategy of "large-scale mining + corporate treasury Bitcoin holdings" to provide investors with exposure to Bitcoin. Its Q2 earnings report showed a net loss of around $57 million, though its mining scale and Bitcoin reserves continued to grow in the same period. The firm’s quarterly BTC production hit a record high of roughly 932 coins, while its treasury holdings rose to over 8,000 BTC. Market observers view the director’s large share purchases as a sign of confidence in the company’s Bitcoin accumulation strategy, though its profitability and mining operational efficiency remain key focuses for investors.

Whale 0x7C5a is finally giving up after holding $ETH for over 3 years, selling at a loss with total losses now exceeding $19M. The whale bought $ETH at an average price of $2,723 in February 2022 and March 2023, then staked it. 10 hours ago, the whale sold 7,323 $ETH ($13.96M).

After SanDisk’s latest earnings report, Bank of America maintained a bullish outlook and reaffirmed its "Buy" rating on the company, arguing the market has underestimated SanDisk’s long-term profitability driven by AI storage demand. It kept a $2,500 price target, implying roughly 85% upside from the reference share price of $1,350.5. The target is based on 2027 projected earnings per share (EPS) of $255 and a valuation of around 10 times earnings. SanDisk was previously viewed by investors as a typical cyclical stock, but Bank of America believes that as AI development boosts data storage demand and enterprise-grade SSD penetration rises, the company’s current profit levels could be more durable than the market expects. Earnings data showed SanDisk’s fourth fiscal quarter revenue hit $8.97 billion, up 51% sequentially, exceeding its prior guidance of $7.75 billion to $8.25 billion. About two-thirds of the growth came from product price hikes, with the remainder from increased storage bit shipments. Its gross margin rose to 84.6% in the period, up from 78.4% in the prior quarter and beating the expected range of 79% to 81%. Bank of America forecasts SanDisk’s fiscal 2027 EPS will surge 229% to $233.85, while revenue will grow 160% to $52.6 billion. The company projected next fiscal quarter revenue of $10.3 billion to $10.8 billion, EPS of $44 to $46, and gross margin is expected to hold steady at a high 83% to 85%. Bank of America noted no clear signs have emerged that SanDisk’s storage prices and profitability have peaked, and AI infrastructure expansion is likely to continue supporting a favorable cycle for the storage sector.

Bitcoin developer Kevin Loaec warned that if a Bitcoin fork tied to the controversial BIP-110 proposal occurs this weekend, holders selling tokens from the forked chain may face the risk of their actual BTC being drained. Reports note that if Bitcoin splits into two chains, users’ BTC balances will exist on both chains. Some traders may attempt to sell seemingly "free" forked coins, but due to the lack of replay protection in the early stages of both chains, transactions signed when selling forked coins could be replicated on the original Bitcoin network, resulting in buyers receiving an equivalent amount of actual BTC. Loaec stated that without understanding how to safely split assets across the two chains, the safest option for holders is to refrain from any actions for now. Unmoved BTC will not be vulnerable to replay attacks, as there are no signed transactions to replicate. This risk stems from the BIP-110 proposal, which aims to restrict non-payment data such as images and text from being included in Bitcoin transactions. Lacking sufficient miner support, software backing BIP-110 may start rejecting non-compliant blocks from the expected block height of 961,632 this weekend, leading to a fork competing with the main chain. Currently, miner signaling support for BIP-110 stands at around 2.6%, far below the threshold needed for activation, so it remains uncertain whether a fork will actually materialize. However, if a small number of miners continue to maintain the BIP-110 chain, two separate transaction histories could emerge in the market. Analysts note that in the early stages of a fork, users need to proactively isolate their assets; otherwise, transactions involving forked coins could accidentally transfer actual BTC due to the lack of replay protection. The BIP-110-related transaction restrictions are expected to take effect around early September.