america

According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, the construction of artificial intelligence is becoming the largest economic bet in American history, surpassing investments in railroads, highway systems, and internet infrastructure. The report states that spending on data centers has exceeded the combined expenditures on canals, railroads, and power grid construction, and this related construction is driving inflation while creating jobs and wealth.Economist Stijn van Nieuwerburgh, in estimates published by the Brookings Institution, shows that total investment in data centers and related artificial intelligence infrastructure is expected to reach $10.3 trillion from 2025 to 2032, averaging about 3.6% of GDP annually. The report states that the U.S. economy has never been so dependent on the construction of a single industry. Goldman Sachs estimates that by 2026, U.S. investment in artificial intelligence will reach 1.9% of GDP; the last time a single new industry accounted for a larger share of the economy was during the railroad boom in the late 19th century.The estimates list the average annual infrastructure spending as a percentage of GDP as follows: canals from 1836 to 1841 at 0.66%, railroads from 1870 to 1890 at 2.24%, electrification from 1905 to 1925 at 0.5%, highways from 1956 to 1973 at 1.13%, telecommunications and fiber optics from 1996 to 2003 at 1.1%, and artificial intelligence from 2025 to 2032 at 3.63%. The report also states that this investment is transforming various sectors of the economy, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs and producing new billionaires, while also carrying significant risks, as a large portion of it is supported by debt.

According to Ledger Insights, the latest statistics on bank cryptocurrency activities for the second half of 2025 released by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) show that the overall prudent exposure of banks remains flat, but the composition of assets has changed significantly.In the Americas, the proportion of BTC in bank cryptocurrency exposure dropped sharply from 75.8% to 44.2%, while ETH rose to 38.5%, and SOL and XRP accounted for 7.8% and 5.6%, respectively. Other regions have shifted more towards stablecoins. Customer-related activities grew significantly, with a 93% increase in the Americas to 6.4 billion euros, while Europe saw a 25% decrease to 1.9 billion euros.

According to The Information, although American venture capital investment in Chinese startups has significantly decreased in recent years, some American VCs are still continuing to travel to China to meet with technology founders.Last month, three partners from Founders Fund, which is led by Peter Thiel, visited technology companies in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen: Sean Liu, John Luttig, and Joey Krug.

According to Business Insider, Oracle launched its second round of layoffs this year last week. A leaked document shows that 546 employees from its U.S. cloud infrastructure organization were laid off, accounting for about 7.6% of the listed 7,185 employees. The most affected positions include managers, engineers, software developers, and employees in the data center maintenance and service departments. The document states that the information was provided to comply with federal age discrimination laws. Oracle did not disclose the total number of layoffs last week and did not respond to requests for comment.Oracle previously revealed that it expects to reduce its workforce by 21,000 employees, a decrease of 13%, by May 31, 2026, with the total number of employees before the recent layoffs being 141,000. The cloud infrastructure department's revenue grew by 121% year-over-year in the most recent quarter. The document indicates that 57 software developer III positions were cut, with software development-related positions accounting for about 17% of the layoffs; the data center support services department laid off 41 people, including the department's vice president and two senior directors.A total of 128 positions containing the word "manager" were eliminated, accounting for about 23% of the layoffs, with project managers totaling 61 people. Most affected employees are over 40 years old, with about 16% being 60 years or older. Oracle is increasing its investment in AI data centers, expecting related expenditures to be between $90 billion and $95 billion this year.

The social platform X, owned by Elon Musk, announced that it has opened the feature for U.S. users to initiate trades directly through market tags. Users can click on tags like $BTC and $TSLA to view real-time market charts and related posts, and click the "Trade" button to be redirected to partner platforms to complete their orders.Actual buying and selling are still completed by partner platforms; X itself does not act as a broker. Partner platforms include Interactive Brokers, Moomoo, Gemini, Kraken, and Coinbase. Market tags have been available on X for many years, and earlier this year, X added real-time prices and chart features to them.Mridul Singhai, the head of product engineering at X, stated, "Market tags have brought the distance between stock codes and the market itself closer on the timeline." X has approximately 132 million daily active users globally (mobile) and over 245 million (across all devices). This feature is seen as part of Musk's plan to transform X into a broader financial hub.

Crypto KOL Kuai Dong (@_FORAB) posted that Fox has released the list of American entrepreneurs for the China-U.S. banquet, which is scheduled to be held this Thursday at the White House.The list includes Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Dell Technologies founder Michael Dell, Apple Executive Chairman Tim Cook, Citigroup Chair Jane Fraser, and Qualcomm President Cristiano Amon.

In February, a company that handles debit card transactions for Polymarket's U.S. betting platform reported that fraudsters are flooding the app. Users are linking stolen debit cards to their Polymarket U.S. accounts, attempting to place bets and withdraw funds to clean cards or accounts under their control, with thieves trying to make off with at least $10 million.The processor once rejected over 80% of deposits as fraudulent, far exceeding the industry standard of about 1%. Polymarket employees raised concerns to CEO Shayne Coplan. Insiders said the compliance team's response to Coplan was shocking: continue to grow, and if regulators find out, just pay the fines.

American billionaire Kevin O'Leary stated that the adoption of blockchain by large stock exchanges will be a "watershed moment" for the industry.O'Leary mentioned that he is buying new cryptocurrency positions while observing which chains companies across various industries choose, as Ethereum has failed to achieve significant adoption in the past year.

The Chairman of the U.S. SEC, Paul Atkins, stated: For a long time, regulatory uncertainty has hindered responsible yet crucial innovation from taking root in the United States. Reversing this trend has been a priority during his tenure as chairman.Although temporary, the innovation exemption is a principled, structured relief grant aimed at addressing genuine legal uncertainties while providing investor protection and maintaining market integrity standards. Through this order and a series of ongoing initiatives, we will ensure that the United States remains the global preferred destination for building the next generation of financial infrastructure.

According to CoinDesk, Latin American telecom operator VIVA has become the first operator to launch the Iris network. Iris is a telecom settlement network based on Avalanche, founded by former IBM blockchain partner Jules Miller, which helps operators integrate identity, billing, and distribution systems into financial services without replacing existing telecom systems. VIVA has been operating in Bolivia for over 25 years and has recently expanded into the Mexican market.VIVA conducts transaction settlements using the US dollar stablecoin USDi issued by stablecoin infrastructure company Agora, and can hold eligible operational reserves in US dollars instead of local currency. Iris operates on a dedicated Avalanche Layer 1 to control settlement, operations, and compliance requirements. At the launch of Iris, it secured a commitment of $43 million from Balesia Group, a family office that has telecom operations in the Americas.Ava Labs Chief Business Officer John Nahas stated that the initial expansion of Iris will focus on Latin America and parts of Africa and Asia. He mentioned that the super app product used by VIVA has helped reduce the churn rate of prepaid mobile users by 33% and increase customer lifetime value by 35%. Iris is currently in discussions with more telecom operators worldwide to onboard additional operators and services.

Kraken's parent company Payward plans to offer on-chain perpetual futures to U.S. customers through the decentralized perpetual contract platform Hyperliquid. Bitnomial will deploy and clear the HIP-3 market, while NinjaTrader Clearing will host customer accounts.Payward stated that this will be the first registered U.S. exchange and clearinghouse to deploy a market on Hyperliquid.

Payments industry publication PaymentsJournal has published a deep-dive article, Navigating Latin America’s Complex Payment Ecosystem, examining the region’s evolving payments landscape, including domestic payment rails, cross-border settlement, stablecoins and payment orchestration. The article draws on PhotonPay’s research report, The Next Payment Infrastructure in LATAM, as a reference for its analysis. The article highlights the highly fragmented nature of Latin America’s payments market, where countries such as Brazil, Argentina and Mexico have developed distinct payment systems, currencies, providers and regulatory frameworks. At the same time, stablecoins are gaining traction in cross-border payments, offering an additional layer for liquidity and settlement, while local payment rails remain essential for reaching businesses and consumers in individual markets. PaymentsJournal argues that the next phase of payment infrastructure in Latin America may not be about creating a single regional rail, but about connecting diverse local payment systems, currencies and global liquidity through a more unified infrastructure layer. In this model, stablecoins can facilitate cross-border movement and settlement of value, while payment orchestration connects and manages the local rails, providers and fund flows businesses need to navigate. PhotonPay’s research explores these infrastructure trends and the changing dynamics of payments across the region.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius will meet with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in Washington to discuss deepening defense industrial cooperation. The two sides are expected to sign an agreement that will allow European companies to produce some U.S. weapon systems in Europe through licensing. Pistorius stated that this will enhance the readiness capabilities of Germany, the United States, and NATO allies.

Bank of America raised its year-end target for the S&P 500 index from 7,100 to 7,400 and predicts a target of 7,800 for the S&P 500 index over the next 12 months.

According to NBC, North Korea is utilizing remote IT workers from third countries such as Iran and Lebanon to assist in infiltrating American companies and obtaining funds to finance its weapons programs. Alerts issued by the U.S. and several foreign agencies in July indicated that North Korean IT workers "seek to sign contracts with the intention of remitting salaries back to relevant North Korean agencies," while also posing internal threats to companies, involving data leaks, cryptocurrency theft, and sensitive information theft.As governments like the United States increase countermeasures, North Korea is increasingly leveraging third-country IT workers to secure job interviews, and after obtaining work contracts, the relevant positions are typically taken over by North Korean agents. Reports indicate that these foreign IT workers are scouted on LinkedIn, with some earning about $500 per month in cryptocurrency to work part-time as "interview assistants."Cointelegraph reported in May, citing data from cybersecurity company CrowdStrike, that state-affiliated North Korean hackers and threat actors caused cryptocurrency losses exceeding $2 billion in 2025, a 51% increase year-on-year. The Bank of Korea estimates that despite facing global sanctions, North Korea's GDP will still grow by 3.5% in 2025.

According to Catcher Predict monitoring, in the market prediction event on Polymarket "LoL: Cupid Esports vs. Maryville University - North American Challenger League Playoffs," the "Yes" option for the sub-market "Both sides kill Baron Nashor" has experienced a dramatic fluctuation in winning probability, soaring from 50% an hour ago to the current 90.5% (a fluctuation of 40.5%). Please note the impact of related breaking news.

According to Catcher Predict monitoring, in the market prediction event on Polymarket "Counter-Strike: paiN vs ShindeN - PGL Masters Bucharest: South America Closed Qualifier Playoffs," the "paiN" option in the sub-market "Map 2 Winner" has experienced a drastic fluctuation in win rate, soaring from 59% an hour ago to the current 85.5% (a fluctuation of 26.5%). Please note the impact of relevant breaking news.

According to Catcher Predict monitoring, in the market prediction event on Polymarket "LoL North America Challenger League Playoffs Winthrop University vs. Maryville University," the sub-market "Match Winner" option for "Winthrop University" has experienced a drastic fluctuation in winning probability, plummeting from 66.5% an hour ago to the current 17.5% (a fluctuation of 49%). Please note the impact of related breaking news.