applications

Investor Joanna Lichter published a post outlining the working hypothesis of value accumulation in the robotics field, which she believes has a barbell structure: one end consists of horizontal robotic foundation models (RFM) and infrastructure platforms that achieve compound growth through data, computing power, and ecosystems; the other end consists of category-leading application companies that capture value by transforming intelligence into useful work. The middle layer lacks attractiveness, including interchangeable models, easily replicable tools, and deployments lacking software leverage.She pointed out that, unlike large language models, robotics faces distribution costs, scarce physical data, real-time computing power limitations, and security constraints, presenting a gated diffusion rather than immediate large-scale adoption. If deployment can form a learning feedback loop, reducing the manpower required per robot and accumulating reusable data and operational knowledge, it can become a moat. Vertical entry points can accelerate this path, allowing value to ultimately accumulate at both ends of the technology stack.

On August 25, CITIC Construction Investment Research reported that on August 21, OpenAI reduced the price of GPT-5.6 SolAPI by over 20%, further lowering the cost of high-performance model calls, which is expected to drive growth in high Token scenarios such as Agent and code generation, continuously boosting demand for inference-side computing power.Alibaba's latest quarterly AI Cloud and Compute Services revenue was approximately 48.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 45%. Revenue from AI-related products has seen triple-digit growth for 12 consecutive quarters, confirming that AI demand is accelerating towards commercialization. We remain optimistic about the opportunities in the industrial chain driven by the commercialization of large models and the increase in computing power demand, including optical modules, servers, liquid cooling, and cloud computing.

Morgan Stanley's equity research team conducted an annual survey of over 500 North American summer interns, most of whom are under the age of 21. More than a quarter of the interns reported using prediction market applications in the past year, with Kalshi and Polymarket being the most common choices; among them, 55% of users utilized multiple betting applications.Prediction markets are facing increased scrutiny in the United States, with several states taking legal or regulatory actions against related platforms. Morgan Stanley's employee code of conduct covers trading and investment matters, including prediction markets, but insiders did not disclose further details. Another national survey indicated that 21% of American adult respondents have used prediction market platforms, with the percentage rising to 37% among the 18 to 34 age group.Regarding AI, 68% of interns use AI tools daily, up from 35% last year and 14% in 2024; about 70% are personally subscribing to paid AI tools, an increase from 52% last summer. Meanwhile, 61% of respondents are concerned that AI will replace jobs in finance, and 74% worry about job displacement in other industries. Over 60% are interested in using humanoid robots at home, and 10% indicated they might become early adopters.

According to The Block, TRM Labs' latest report shows that the application of artificial intelligence in crypto crime has increased by 40% year-on-year over the past year, primarily driven by fraud activities. The report states that crypto hackers are increasingly using artificial intelligence for vulnerability analysis, social engineering attacks, and penetration.In the first half of 2026, there were 201 digital asset hacking incidents, a record high, with approximately 75% of the losses stemming from 4% of the incidents. North Korea-related activities caused about $600 million in losses, accounting for 61% of the losses in the first half of the year. TRM Labs stated that artificial intelligence has not created new types of crime but has significantly lowered the barriers to crime and expanded the scale of attacks.

Binance launches the Agent OS developer platform, aimed at connecting artificial intelligence applications to its trading, market data, wallet, payment, and on-chain functionalities.The platform integrates the Binance API, Binance Wallet Proxy Center, programmable payment tool Binance x402, Skill Hub, and supports model context protocols. Users can authorize proxies to access market data, view account information, and execute restricted trades through compatible tools.

Base officially announced that its accelerator program Base Batches 004 is now open for applications, targeting the Fall 2026 batch, with a deadline of September 9. The program is jointly operated by Base and the Base Ecosystem Fund, aiming to help early teams building on Base to launch, fundraise, and achieve growth. Selected teams will receive a $100,000 investment offer from the Base Ecosystem Fund (subject to due diligence) and participate in an 8-week hands-on support program to refine their product and narrative, culminating in a Demo Day in November in New York to present to selected investors.Applicant teams must meet the following criteria: be in the early stage (from having a founder-market fit product to post-MVP), be in the pre-seed stage without completing a formal seed round, prefer Base as their primary network, and focus on driving on-chain economic development, covering areas such as transactions, payments, smart contracts, or financing. Selected teams will also receive exclusive advisor guidance, weekly support, cross-domain expert resources, content exposure, and opportunities to showcase to investors. Base stated that applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis and encourages early submission, with the application address being base.org/batches.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is reviewing the rule change application submitted by Cboe BZX Exchange, involving six leveraged commodity ETFs that track the benchmark's daily performance by three times. The initial review period set by the SEC is 45 days after publication in the Federal Register.Volatility Shares LLC is the sponsor of the relevant funds, which include 3x Gold, Silver, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Crude Oil, and Natural Gas ETFs, all intended to operate under a commodity pool and not classified as investment companies. Among them, the Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs will primarily invest in near-month and next-month futures contracts on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), rather than directly holding Bitcoin or Ethereum, and will allocate cash and cash equivalents as collateral or margin.Before the relevant products are listed, the SEC must approve the exchange rule changes, and the trust's Form S-1 registration statement must also become effective. Each fund must have at least 100,000 shares at the time of listing, and authorized participants can subscribe or redeem cash at a rate of 1,000 shares per 10,000 shares.

Bitcoin News posted on platform X that the OCC stated that companies engaged in legally permitted activities such as digital assets and emerging technologies should have a pathway to apply to become a national bank. OCC Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould stated that the regulatory agency had effectively hindered new bank applications for over a decade, but that period has now ended.The OCC has received 40 new bank applications in the past 18 months and stated that many complete applications have decisions made within 120 days.

According to the SEC page, Grayscale has submitted 3 Form RWs, withdrawing the S-1 registration statements for Grayscale Cardano Trust ETF, Grayscale Hedera Trust ETF, and Grayscale Polkadot Trust ETF.

Founder of 1confirmation, Nick Tomaino, disclosed data indicating that in the past month, the Polymarket website received 43.1 million visits (according to Similarweb data), surpassing the combined total of FanDuel, DraftKings, and Kalshi, and has become one of the most visited fintech applications globally.Nick Tomaino believes that the core reason for Polymarket's growth is not marketing investment, but rather its value as a "source of information," as users seek to better understand the real world through prediction markets.Polymarket currently dominates the on-chain prediction market space, with the transparency and global accessibility provided by its on-chain architecture being key to achieving the long-term goal of "better information and more truth." However, the Polymarket application in the U.S. is still in its early stages, but the product and business model are gradually maturing and beginning to enter an accelerated execution phase.

According to Jinshi reports, the head of application research at OpenAI stated that GPT-5.6 Luna should have more applications, considering the rapid progress of the model, its cost is ridiculously low, and its speed is also very fast.

Gate gStocks' tokenized securities service has undergone a comprehensive upgrade, officially launching five major financial functions: collateralized borrowing, idle asset management, unified accounts, leveraged trading, and stock dividends, further expanding the integrated application scenarios of stock assets from trading, yield management to liquidity management.Currently, gStocks supports over 58 global tokenized securities, covering various assets such as U.S. stocks, Korean stocks, unlisted equity, and ETFs, and employs a 1:1 native stock reserve mechanism to provide users with a transparent and trustworthy asset holding experience. At the same time, gStocks supports 24/7 trading with a minimum investment of 1 USDT, lowering the participation threshold. After this functional upgrade, users can release liquidity through collateralized borrowing without having to sell their held gStocks assets; idle stock assets can also participate in yield management through idle asset management. In addition, gStocks has deeply integrated into the Gate unified account system, supporting tokenized stock assets as trading collateral and providing features such as leveraged trading, long and short strategies, and stock dividends, further enhancing asset utilization efficiency.

Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas stated that the alternative asset management firm Subversive Capital has submitted applications for two actively managed prediction market ETFs, including the Subversive Prediction ETF and the Subversive All Season Sports ETF.The related funds are expected to place bets on approximately 30 to 50 events across different prediction markets, covering areas such as macroeconomics, politics, weather, and sports events. Balchunas described it as the "degen Peter Lynch."

According to reports, the U.S. "Digital Asset Market Clarity Act" (CLARITY Act) is expected to enter the next stage of the legislative process on July 4, 2026. As the regulatory framework for digital assets continues to improve, the market's expectations for the development of stablecoin payments have become clearer, providing businesses with more explicit policy references for adopting stablecoins for global payments.In this regard, WasabiCard CEO Ray Yang stated, "For businesses, regulatory transparency is more important than regulatory leniency. Companies can adapt to strict compliance requirements, but it is challenging to formulate long-term development plans in an environment where regulations are unclear. The advancement of the CLARITY Act will create a clearer and more predictable development environment for stablecoin payments."As an enterprise-level stablecoin global payment infrastructure platform, WasabiCard continuously enhances its compliance capabilities and global payment network, establishing a risk management system covering KYB, KYC, KYT, and AML, and holds U.S. MSB and MTL licenses, providing businesses with one-stop payment solutions for global card issuance, stablecoin payments, global remittances, and fund distribution.Regarding the development prospects of stablecoin payments, Ray Yang believes, "As the global regulatory environment continues to improve, stablecoin payments will accelerate their integration into the global payment systems of enterprises. WasabiCard will continue to help businesses conduct global operations more robustly through compliant and reliable payment infrastructure."

The Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission recently announced the progress of the first phase of the "Clear and Bright: Rectifying AI Application Chaos" special action. Since its launch in April 2026, this action has focused on issues such as large models not being registered as required, insufficient review and filtering capabilities, AI data poisoning, and inadequate implementation of content labeling. As of now, the first phase has dealt with over 14,000 AI products, including non-compliant websites, applications, and intelligent agents, cleaned up more than 6 million illegal and non-compliant pieces of information, handled over 26,000 non-compliant accounts, and removed over 1,300 non-compliant AI products and 9 non-compliant open-source datasets.During the special action, many local cyberspace departments have taken targeted measures such as establishing coordinated regulatory mechanisms and setting up reporting areas. Key platform companies such as Huawei, Alibaba, Zhiyu, and DeepSeek have also successively improved their registration review, content interception, and data anomaly detection mechanisms. The Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission stated that the next phase of governance will focus on cracking down on prominent issues such as the use of AI technology to create and disseminate false information, spread vulgar content, impersonate others, infringe on the rights of minors, and engage in internet water army activities, further increasing enforcement efforts and urging platforms to enhance their prevention and governance capabilities.

Hyperliquid founder Jeff posted on platform X that VALR, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in Africa, will directly utilize Hyperliquid's on-chain liquidity to support its core perpetual contract products. This is a significant milestone that will redefine the way the next generation of financial applications are built.The breakthrough in cloud computing lies in the ability for any startup to quickly test its ideas and rest assured that the infrastructure will scale as the business grows. As the most liquid global venue for assets like BTC, Hyperliquid will play the same role in the global economy. By leveraging the deepest on-chain liquidity, builders can shift their focus back to their products and users. Heartfelt congratulations to the VALR team. We are honored that they chose to build on Hyperliquid. Looking forward to expanding together.

According to SolanaFloor data, Solana set multiple new highs in key metrics in the second quarter of 2026, including tokenized stock spot trading, dApp revenue, on-chain transaction activity, and perpetual futures nominal trading volume.Among them, the trading volume of Solana tokenized stocks reached $4.84 billion, with a market share exceeding 96%; the quarterly revenue of ecological applications was $257 million, ranking among the top of all public chains for the 9th consecutive quarter.

Paymentscan data shows that the total recharge amount of cryptocurrency payment cards has surpassed $10 billion for the first time, reaching approximately $10.33 billion, an increase of 82% since the beginning of the year and about 250% year-on-year. This data reflects the cumulative recharge scale of cryptocurrency payment cards and related payment projects, rather than the trading volume of cryptocurrency exchanges.Reports indicate that stablecoins are becoming the main driving force behind the popularity of cryptocurrency payment cards. Compared to volatile assets like Bitcoin, stablecoins can complete payment settlements through traditional card networks, lowering the access threshold for merchants and making them more suitable for cross-border payments, remittances, and daily consumption scenarios in high-inflation areas.As payment companies, cryptocurrency exchanges, and asset management institutions continue to improve stablecoin infrastructure, cryptocurrency payment cards are gradually becoming an important gateway connecting digital assets to real-world consumption. However, as the scale of application expands, regulatory agencies will also pay more attention to issues such as consumer protection, sanctions screening, tax reporting, reserve asset transparency, and transaction monitoring.

The latest report from payment infrastructure company Cybrid shows that the adoption of stablecoins by enterprises is accelerating towards becoming mainstream. Among the 468 corporate executives and business leaders surveyed, as many as 42% of companies are already using stablecoins for cross-border payments, and 88% of respondents indicated they are very likely to adopt them within the next 12 months, while only 2% of respondents said they would rely entirely on traditional payment networks.Data shows that companies using stablecoins save an average of 35% on cross-border payment costs; for large enterprises processing over $100 million monthly, cost savings can reach up to 47%. The most common use cases for companies using stablecoins are: payroll disbursement, vendor payments, and customer payments. In addition, 71% of respondents emphasized that clear regulatory policies (such as the recently passed stablecoin regulatory bill GENIUS Act in the U.S.) are the most critical factor driving their expansion of stablecoin usage, with its importance even surpassing the level of infrastructure improvement.With the growth in demand, the supporting infrastructure in the industry is also continuously expanding. Data from payment platform Paybis shows that in the first four months of 2026, B2B transactions accounted for nearly 98% of the total stablecoin payments on its platform. This Monday, Bank of New York Mellon (BNY) also announced the expansion of its digital asset custody platform, allowing institutional clients to store and circulate Circle's USDC directly through the bank.