OpenAI is nearing completion of a new funding round, seeking to raise up to $30 billion at a pre-money valuation of $1.25 trillion.

U.S. tech stocks plunged as investors grew increasingly concerned that surging spending in the artificial intelligence (AI) sector is unsustainable. The Nasdaq fell 2.6% on Thursday, marking its largest single-day decline since June. Meanwhile, the blue-chip-heavy Dow Jones Industrial Average edged up 0.02%. Multiple major AI-related stocks declined amid market jitters over tech firms' massive AI investments. Meta (META.O) dropped 7% after the company disclosed it will take on large additional spending commitments going forward. Despite Meta's robust revenue growth, its profit missed Wall Street expectations. Investor and analyst Navellier noted: "It all traces back to Meta. The issue now is that the market is selling off indiscriminately, throwing the baby out with the bathwater." Adding to AI spending concerns, NVIDIA’s CEO said the sector lacks sufficient capital to support the growth of so-called "Neoclouds"—new cloud service providers that primarily deliver digital infrastructure to large AI cloud computing firms like Meta and Amazon. Stocks of SpaceX, NVIDIA, and CoreWeave all fell, while the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index plummeted 6.7%. Against the backdrop of persistent volatility in the AI sector this week, U.S. investors are flocking to the bond market for safety to avoid high-risk assets such as tech stocks. As capital pours into bonds, U.S. Treasury yields have declined sharply.

According to Coinglass data, if Bitcoin falls below $80,000, the total long liquidation intensity on major centralized exchanges (CEXs) will reach $692 million. Conversely, if Bitcoin breaks through $83,000, the total short liquidation intensity on major CEXs will hit $1.025 billion. BlockBeats Note: Liquidation charts do not display the exact number of pending liquidations or the exact value of liquidated contracts. The bars on these charts actually represent the relative importance (intensity) of each liquidation cluster compared to adjacent clusters. Therefore, the liquidation chart shows the degree of impact when the underlying asset’s price reaches a specific level. A higher "liquidation bar" indicates that once the price hits that level, it will trigger a stronger reaction due to liquidity waves.

According to HTX market data, Bitcoin fell below $81,000, with a 4.3% decline in the past 24 hours.

Meme coin launch platform Pump.fun announced the launch of its EVM limit order functionality, claiming it is the first social trading application to offer take-profit and stop-loss features. The feature currently covers Robinhood, BNB Chain, Base, HyperEVM, Arc, and Ink, with more chains set to be integrated gradually.

a16z General Partner Chris Dixon has officially published an announcement renaming a16z crypto to a16z Frontier, expanding its investment scope from crypto startups to a broader set of frontier technology startups—those building new technologies, opening up new markets, and taking years to mature. Dixon emphasized this is a scope expansion, not a pivot; the team will continue investing in crypto and related businesses while advocating for reasonable crypto regulation. Dixon noted that as blockchain gains wider adoption, Wall Street and fintech firms have regularly launched on-chain products, making the "crypto company" label less significant. Companies should be defined by their core business activities, not the technology they employ. His remarks also touch on the ongoing AI wave: beyond using AI to speed up and enhance existing work, focus is on native new use cases emerging from AI, full-stack startups integrating hardware, software and services, and new networks connecting humans and intelligent agents. Dixon believes blockchain will still play a critical role in this space, serving as a fast, low-cost, global, programmable financial infrastructure for the internet. Stablecoins are becoming a standard tool for fintech firms and institutions, and can also support machine-to-machine transactions and the cold start of new networks. He will lead the fund alongside firm founders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, as well as general partners Eddy Lazzarin and Guy Wuollet. The operating team will continue supporting current and future portfolio companies in areas including regulation, market entry, talent, marketing and technology R&D.

New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) has issued alerts regarding two critical PHP vulnerabilities, urging regulated entities to promptly identify and remediate the vulnerabilities that are already being exploited.