history

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.

CryptoQuant analyst Darkfost stated that the cost basis of short-term holders (STH) of Bitcoin has confirmed a crossover above the cost basis of active long-term holders (LTH), indicating a shift in market momentum. Based on this, he judges that the Bitcoin bull market has been confirmed. This is the 5th occurrence of this signal in history, but he emphasized that there is still a possibility of misjudgment regarding the relevant indicators."Active LTH" is defined as long-term held supply that has moved at least once in the past 7 years, to exclude long-term dormant or illiquid BTC. Currently, over 3.5 million BTC that have been held for more than 10 years remain dormant, with this portion of supply increasing by an average of about 8,000 to 30,000 BTC per month. Since 2019, this indicator has only shown negative growth once, due to an early miner reactivating and transferring about 100,000 BTC, which is considered a relatively isolated event. Darkfost believes that this signal currently reflects positive changes in the Bitcoin market, with ETF liquidity inflows being one of the driving factors.

SoftBank Group has launched a transaction that could become the largest corporate junk bond issuance in history, aimed at funding large-scale investments in the field of artificial intelligence. This issuance plans to raise over $11 billion, including $10 billion in dollar-denominated bonds and €1 billion (approximately $1.1 billion) in euro-denominated bonds, to support a commitment of nearly $65 billion to OpenAI and additional merger and acquisition financing.

According to SoSoValue data, the U.S.-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) saw a net inflow of $998.95 million on Monday, marking the largest single-day inflow since October 6, 2025 (the day Bitcoin reached its historical high of approximately $126,200), and the ninth-largest single-day inflow since the ETF began trading on January 11, 2024.Among them, BlackRock's IBIT led with $381.37 million, while Ark's ARKB and Fidelity's FBTC saw inflows of $289.12 million and $238.84 million, respectively. This inflow is the first consecutive three-day net inflow in two weeks, occurring against the backdrop of the Senate's failed vote to end the debate on the "Clarity Act" and the Federal Reserve's interest rate hike, seen as a reflection of institutional confidence.As of Monday, the total net inflow for this month has reached $1.31 billion, compared to a net inflow of $3.52 billion in August. Bitcoin has risen 44% this quarter to $85,000, outperforming all major assets, including gold. However, despite the strong recent inflows, the spot ETF has still seen a net outflow of $450 million year-to-date.

According to Decrypt, court documents unsealed in the lawsuit between The New York Times and OpenAI and Microsoft show that Microsoft employees discussed whether OpenAI's use of news articles to train its models constituted "the largest labor theft in human history," and could potentially trigger a "doom loop" that leads to a decline in model quality. A 2023 internal Microsoft memo warned that millions of people worldwide would soon view the large model's "consumption" of their works as "an unprecedented and astonishing theft," and stated that large AI models are "products that destroy their own supply chains."Microsoft stated in the documents that these memos were written by Director of Applied Science Brent Hecht and do not represent the company's views, as his role is to provide "different and asymmetric perspectives." Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella testified that "any content behind a paywall should be authorized by those who wish to use it," and stated that if he had known in advance that OpenAI was using paid content for training, he would have exercised Microsoft's rights to demand that the model be retrained.Additionally, an OpenAI employee had mentioned to President Greg Brockman the construction of "hacker methods" to bypass The New York Times paywall, to which Brockman replied, "Nice." Both OpenAI and Microsoft argue that the relevant training falls under fair use. The case was initiated by The New York Times at the end of 2023, and 11 publishers have since joined the lawsuit.

Famous analyst Willy Woo uses the Fisher Transform indicator to analyze BTC monthly charts, pointing out that the current golden cross appearing under this indicator is the fourth bottom signal in history, with the previous three not showing false breakouts. However, Willy Woo emphasizes that this is not an immediate reversal buy signal; the price may first consolidate before continuing in the original direction. In bull markets, there have also been instances where the Fisher indicator showed a death cross indicating bearishness, followed by a golden cross indicating bullishness, yet the market did not end.Willy Woo views tops and bottoms separately: at the top, long-term investors retreat from buying, while speculative trading continues to push prices higher. The market relies on momentum to continue rising but lacks substantial long-term support, leading to frequent false turning points. Therefore, his approach is to reduce positions in batches rather than predict an exact major top. At the bottom, the decline creates a vacuum in buying, and speculative trading exits. When prices drop to levels that investors consider valuable, buying re-enters, and at this point, speculative trading is scarce, making reversals cleaner. Thus, many indicators are clearer at the bottom than at the top.

WeChat has started to further relax the circulation of chat records. Practical tests show that after upgrading the mobile WeChat to version 8.0.78, users can select multiple chat records and choose "Forward to other applications." In addition to Yuanbao and WorkBuddy, users can directly send them to third-party apps like ChatGPT by selecting "Choose applications on the phone," with a maximum of 100 records selected at once.WeChat will package the chats into a ZIP file, containing a TXT file of the chat records organized by time and related attachments. The desktop version of WeChat has also opened a similar entry, and community developers have created intermediary tools based on this, allowing chat records to be sent to AI like ChatGPT and Claude.

Micron announced today that it will distribute 2026 fiscal year bonuses to over 60,000 employees worldwide to acknowledge the company's achievements this year, marking the highest bonuses in Micron's history. Taiwan is a key hub for Micron's global technology leadership, with approximately 15,000 employees and a cumulative investment of over NT$1.6 trillion.In Taiwan, the 2026 fiscal year bonuses include a NT$1 million cash bonus for each employee who joins before August 29, 2025, with subsequent hires receiving bonuses proportionate to their duration of employment; an annual performance bonus that can reach up to 500% of the basic target; and additional stock awards. Production line employees in Taiwan will receive total compensation equivalent to 35 to 68 months of salary. The cash compensation for Micron's employees in Taiwan for the 2026 fiscal year will start at NT$1.7 million; entry-level engineers will have an average cash compensation of NT$2.9 million, with an average total compensation of NT$3.4 million after including stock awards calculated at grant value. The annual performance adjustment stock awards will cover 100%.Regarding Micron's announcement without reaching a consensus with the union, the union stated after collecting member opinions: grassroots members demand institutional reform and equal negotiation, calling for a change in the IPP profit-sharing system to a 15% profit-sharing system, stating that one-time bonuses cannot resolve the issue, and expressing the hope to establish a calculation basis directly linked to the company's actual profits. If there is no response, the union will continue to move towards a strike. The Ministry of Labor stated that it has fully grasped the relevant information and is maintaining close contact with the Taoyuan City Government, the Central Taiwan Science Park Administration, and the Taichung City Government.

ETH has increased by 60.62% so far in the third quarter of this year, marking the second-best third-quarter performance on record, only behind the 66.55% in the third quarter of 2025.

According to CoinDesk, Bitcoin formed a golden cross earlier this week (the 50-day moving average crossing above the 200-day moving average), but subsequently did not experience a sustained increase, instead retreating from around $80,000 to about $77,000. It is noteworthy that most of the recent rise occurred before the golden cross—Bitcoin had previously risen from $62,000 to $82,000.The article points out that similar situations have historically repeated multiple times: after the golden cross in 2021, BTC fell from $52,000 to $40,000; after the golden cross in February 2023, it retreated from $23,000 to $20,000; after the golden cross in October 2024, it slid from $70,000 to $67,000; and after the golden cross in May 2025, it corrected from $110,000 to $100,000. Analysts believe that while the golden cross is seen as a long-term bullish signal, it may essentially be a lagging indicator, as a significant portion of the gains often have already been realized by the time the signal appears.

Galaxy Research posted on X that yesterday the daily transaction count for Bitcoin reached 893,391, marking the fourth highest single-day transaction count in Bitcoin's history, and this figure is above the 99th percentile of its historical range.

According to Cointelegraph citing Coinglass data, Ethereum rose by 56.51% in the third quarter of this year, marking the third-best performance in history. There have only been two instances in the past where the increase in the third quarter exceeded this year's.

According to Reuters, Micron Technology's unions in Taoyuan and Taichung, Taiwan are preparing for a strike. The union claims to represent nearly 10,000 of Micron's approximately 15,000 employees in the two locations, and an internal survey shows that over 80% of members support the strike. The core of the labor dispute revolves around bonus distribution— the union believes that the current incentive plan does not adequately reflect the company's profitability and is demanding a one-time additional bonus for this fiscal year, as well as a shift to quarterly profit sharing of 15% of operating profits starting from the 2027 fiscal year. Micron previously responded that it would issue the highest performance bonuses in history, but the union believes the company has not adequately explained the performance calculation method, and it seems to be more closely tied to revenue rather than profit.As the world's third-largest memory chip manufacturer, Micron reported revenue of $41.46 billion and a net profit of $28.24 billion in the third fiscal quarter, with a market capitalization of approximately $1.1 trillion. Taiwan is Micron's largest manufacturing base, with a cumulative investment of NT$1.4 trillion, producing DRAM and HBM. If the strike proceeds, it may impact the global memory chip supply. The Taichung Science Park Administration stated that it is closely monitoring the situation and has prepared a labor mediation mechanism. Previously, the Samsung union also raised similar profit-sharing demands and obtained a special bonus pool of 10.5% of the chip division's operating profits after negotiations.

Bitcoin recorded an increase of about 25% in August, marking its third-best August performance in history. André Dragosch, Head of Research at Bitwise Europe, noted in a post on the X platform on September 1 that Bitcoin's return in August was 25%, second only to approximately 65.6% in August 2017 and about 30.7% in August 2013, stating that "there was no 'summer slump.'"Multiple analyses show that the period from June to September is usually when Bitcoin underperforms for the year. In June and July this year, Bitcoin's volatility remained low, with prices dipping below $65,000 at one point. A turning point occurred in mid-August when the U.S. Treasury announced it would more than double the scale of government debt buybacks due to pressure in the fixed income market and yields reaching their highest levels in nearly 20 years. The decline in long-term yields reduced the holding costs of non-yielding assets like Bitcoin and gold, supporting risk appetite, leading investors to flock to Bitcoin. Subsequently, U.S. President Trump urged lawmakers to expedite the passage of the Crypto Clarity Act, calling the draft "very strong."In terms of funding, investors poured over $2.8 billion into Bitcoin ETFs in August, the largest single-month inflow since October last year. Bitcoin reached $81,281 last Monday before retreating, recently reporting $76,883, with a nearly 3% drop in 24 hours; over the past month, Bitcoin has cumulatively risen more than 20%.

20VC partner P_Bonnet published an article comparing the history of the aluminum industry to AI, exploring a scenario of "if everything goes well." Most supply shortages will turn into surpluses within 3-5 years and destroy value, but the aluminum industry has seen a price drop of over 99.9% and a market expansion of over 1000 times over more than a century, as each price reduction unlocks new uses rather than collapsing within the same market.AI Tokens are moving up the same cost ladder at nearly 10 times the speed, with the key point being that humans are no longer a constraint. Conversational AI is limited by human reading speed and user scale, while reasoning and agents can make consumers no longer human. Agentic AI may completely remove human limits, leaving only the rapidly improving costs and utilities. The aluminum industry also relied on technological breakthroughs to transform a cheap metal into a structural material.At the infrastructure level, Alcoa monopolized for decades through processes, its own ore, and electricity; Nvidia has accumulated processes like CUDA, with production capacity resembling leasing, and lacks its own power, as major clients have directly locked in nuclear power and are developing their own chips. Ultimately, value will shift to those who discover new uses that could not exist at old prices; price collapse, technological effectiveness, and capital migration are not opposites but the same outcome.