Arthur Hayes returns to lead Flop Labs; the FLOP token is expected to hold an airdrop in Q4, with its genesis block set to launch in Q1 2027.

Unitree Technology will officially list and begin trading tomorrow (August 19). Currently, Unitree’s pre-IPO perpetual contract on Trade.xyz is priced at $100.71, equivalent to approximately 678.85 RMB, a roughly 3.5x increase from its IPO price of 150.8 RMB. At current over-the-counter (OTC) prices, a single winning lot subscribed at the IPO price would generate a theoretical unrealized profit of around 263,900 RMB. This STAR Market IPO plans to issue 40.4464 million shares, accounting for 10% of the company’s total share capital post-issuance. One lot consists of 500 shares, with a single lot subscription payment totaling approximately 75,400 RMB. In the latest new share subscription round, Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) accounts with an average daily market value of 60,000 RMB or more were eligible for 12 allocation numbers, enabling a maximum subscription of 6,000 shares. Qualified large investors and retail investors had identical IPO winning probabilities.

According to Lookonchain monitoring, as Bitcoin briefly broke through $65,000, part of the 1,800 BTC short positions (valued at approximately $117 million) held by the highly leveraged "gambler" address 0x8c96 was liquidated, with 360 BTC (worth around $23.36 million) already liquidated. The address currently still holds 1,440 BTC short positions (valued at roughly $93.3 million), and its new liquidation price stands at $65,041.72.

According to an official announcement, the Hyperliquid Policy Center (HPC) and trade[XYZ] have submitted a joint comment letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), proposing the introduction of "Pre-IPO Perpetual Contracts" (IPOP) to provide a public, continuous price discovery mechanism for companies preparing to go public. Per the introduction, IPOP allows traders to go long or short on a company’s stock price several weeks before its expected IPO, but grants holders no shares, allotments, voting rights, or other equity interests in the issuer. The product will cease operations after the company goes public. The two parties stated that trade[XYZ] had previously launched 5 full-lifecycle IPOP markets on Hyperliquid, with U.S. IPO offering prices ranging from 10.8% to 38.4% lower than the IPOP price on the day before the IPO, and these markets have accurately reflected the opening prices of the stocks after listing. They recommended that the SEC focus on studying issues including IPOP’s regulatory classification, disclosure requirements, listing eligibility, market integrity, and accessibility to U.S. investors.

Prediction market platform Kalshi has filed regulatory documents with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to launch stock index-linked perpetual futures, further expanding its operations from prediction markets to traditional financial derivatives. The documents show that Kalshi’s planned "US500" perpetual futures will track the MerQube U.S. Large Cap Index, which covers 500 large companies listed in the U.S. Perpetual futures have no expiration date, do not require traders to hold the underlying asset, and the contracts continuously track the underlying price via a funding rate mechanism. At the end of May this year, Kalshi received approval to launch crypto perpetual futures, which it officially rolled out in June. The company subsequently applied to launch precious metal perpetual futures including gold and silver, and is now submitting additional applications for copper and stock index perpetual futures. Kalshi noted that global perpetual futures trading volume exceeded $90 trillion in 2025, and its own products surpassed $1 billion in notional volume within a week of launch. Kalshi’s foray into perpetual futures sparked concerns among traditional exchanges. Shares of CME Group and Cboe Global Markets came under pressure earlier due to the U.S. approval of domestic perpetual futures, with CME even filing a lawsuit with a federal court over the relevant regulatory approval. As of press time, CME was up approximately 1.26%, while Cboe rose roughly 0.12%.

As Bitcoin prices fall and mining yields remain under pressure, Bitcoin mining firms that have pivoted to artificial intelligence and high-performance computing (AI/HPC) are securing higher valuations and more stable revenue outlooks. Over the past year, shares of TerraWulf (WULF), IREN, and Cipher Digital (CIFR) have all more than doubled, while MARA Holdings (MARA), which pivoted to AI later, saw its stock drop around 40% over the same period. Bitcoin’s mining hash price has now fallen from roughly $63 per PH/s in July last year to about $31.8, prompting an increasing number of mining firms to shut down equipment. The Bitcoin network’s hashrate has also declined from 1.14 ZH/s to approximately 900 EH/s, a drop of around 21%. Data from CoinShares shows that as of the first quarter of 2026, the average enterprise value multiple for mining firms with AI/HPC contracts stood at roughly 12.3x, while pure Bitcoin mining firms had a multiple of just 5.9x. Over the same period, the total value of AI/HPC contracts signed across the industry has reached about $70 billion. Recently, mining firms’ AI transitions have accelerated further. Last week, Riot Platforms signed a 20-year lease agreement with Anthropic, valued at around $9.1 billion. The market believes that the truly scarce assets of mining firms are not Bitcoin itself, but low-cost power, data center infrastructure, and large-scale computing operation capabilities—resources that can be repurposed for high-growth computing businesses like AI. However, pure Bitcoin mining still has room for recovery. CoinShares estimates that if Bitcoin prices return to their all-time high of roughly $126,000 hit last October, the hash price could rebound to around $59 per PH/s, and mining firms’ profitability is expected to improve significantly.

BTC just broke above $65,000. Gambler 0x8c96's 1,800 $BT ($117M) short was partially liquidated, with 360 $BTC ($23.36M) liquidated. Current position: 1,440 $BTC($93.3M) New liquidation price: $65,041.72