prices

Blockworks Research analyst Shaunda Devens stated that cryptocurrency will remain the best speculative market, as prices and demand will mutually reinforce each other. In stocks, price increases do not directly affect the underlying business; for example, once Apple's stock price reaches a certain level, the price-to-earnings ratio relative to the same income base appears unreasonable.It points out that this is not the case with cryptocurrency; the token business is largely tied to financial asset speculation, where higher prices directly lead to more trading and leverage demand, resulting in increased protocol revenue. Last week, despite tokens rising by as much as 60%, 10 out of 16 sectors saw revenue growth exceeding price increases; perpetual contract revenue rose by 243%, while the corresponding price only increased by 43%. Therefore, tokens do not have a true value ceiling in the short term, and mechanisms such as buybacks and DAT further reinforce this reflexive cycle.

According to the Financial Associated Press, Nvidia will announce its Q2 2027 financial report after the US stock market closes on August 26. Goldman Sachs expects strong performance with potential upward revisions in guidance, but notes that the stock price has already surged since August, with an increase of over 12% in the past two weeks, suggesting that the good news may have already been priced in, making it difficult for excellent performance to boost the stock price. Goldman Sachs' EPS forecasts for Nvidia in Q2 and Q3 are 6% and 12% higher than Wall Street's consensus expectations, respectively, with a target price of $285, which is still slightly below the market average.Goldman Sachs believes there is room for revaluation in the valuation, provided that the profitability of large-scale cloud vendors improves to support capital expenditures, Nvidia maintains caution on its customer financing platform to alleviate concerns about supplier circular financing, and continues to advance large-scale buybacks and dividends. Investors will focus on details of the customer financing platform in the earnings call, progress on the Vera Rubin platform, gross margins and raw material costs, CPU demand driven by AI agents, and the competitive landscape in the industry.Goldman Sachs points out that while GPU demand is strong, there is still a risk of a pullback, and the difficulty of "exceeding expectations and raising guidance" increases each quarter, raising doubts about whether cloud vendors can continue to ramp up capital expenditures. Earlier this month, Nvidia, in collaboration with Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, KKR, and others, established a financing platform for AI computing infrastructure, aiming to leverage over $500 billion in third-party capital; concerns about circular financing are rising in the market, and the company needs to release more substantial new information, or else the stock price is more likely to decline rather than surge after the earnings report.

As the market awaits U.S. Treasury Secretary Yellen to announce a new round of sanctions against Iran, international oil prices fell on Monday. WTI crude futures dropped about 1.3%, settling at $85.93 per barrel; Brent crude fell 1.24%, to $93.22 per barrel.Yellen previously stated that the U.S. would launch "the largest financial offensive in history" against Iran, urging allies and other countries to sever economic ties with Iran. Iran, on the other hand, has claimed it is capable of coping with the sanctions and maintaining its foreign economic relations. Commonwealth Bank of Australia predicts that if U.S. actions to isolate Iran are effective, the risk of Iran taking more aggressive actions may rise, further exacerbating volatility in the energy market.

According to informed sources, some major customers of Nvidia have been notified that the prices of servers equipped with its artificial intelligence chips will increase by more than 15% in most cases. This price increase will take effect early next year, affecting systems that include models equipped with the Vera Rubin and Grace Blackwell flagship chips.

According to The Block, STS Digital CEO Maxime Seiler stated that there is a divergence between cryptocurrency asset prices and institutional adoption. He said, "From a price perspective, we are still in a crypto winter, but from the institutional side, we have entered a summer."Seiler noted that institutions are more focused on adopting underlying technologies, and funds do not necessarily flow into tokens, so technological adoption has not yet been fully reflected in coin prices. He also pointed out that the Bitcoin futures basis has converged from an annualized 20%-30% during the 2021 cycle to close to the risk-free rate, and it is more stable than in the previous cycle, partly because the channels for dollars entering and exiting the crypto market are deeper.

According to Reuters, citing informed sources, Samsung Electronics has raised prices for some new advanced foundry service orders by up to 15%, due to a surge in demand for AI chips leading to tight capacity. The company has long lagged behind TSMC in the foundry sector. Demand from Chinese customers is particularly strong, but Samsung must prioritize serving U.S. customers and reserve some capacity to support its own chip production, making it unable to take on all orders. Affected by U.S. export restrictions on advanced chip equipment to China, Chinese companies are increasingly reliant on overseas foundries, with some Chinese customers accepting the maximum price increase.Informed sources stated that Samsung raised the prices for the 4nm (SF4) process in July, with price increases of 10% to 15% for Chinese and U.S. customers, and 5% to 10% for Taiwanese customers; the price for 5nm (SF5) wafers increased by 10% to 15%, nearly 10% higher than the older 8nm process. The SF4 production line at the Pyeongtaek factory has been operating at full capacity since the end of last year, producing logic chips for customers like Qualcomm and providing basic bare chips for Samsung's own HBM. Analysts point out that after TSMC's advanced capacity was fully booked, customers turned to Samsung and Intel, giving Samsung room to raise prices.Samsung's foundry business has been continuously losing money since 2022, but the company expects to quickly turn a profit driven by improved utilization rates, yield improvements, and rising prices. Foundry revenue in the second half of the year is expected to grow by double digits year-on-year, with advanced processes accounting for more than half, and AI and high-performance computing applications accounting for over 30%. Companies like Tesla, Apple, Broadcom, and NVIDIA have already reached relevant cooperation agreements with Samsung, and Google is also in talks to use the SF4 process.

CryptoQuant analyst Darkfost posted that retail demand for Bitcoin is increasing and is close to the highest level in the past two years. Historical data shows a clear correlation between the growth of retail demand and local peaks in Bitcoin prices.Currently, the rebound of Bitcoin is weak, but retail demand has surged sharply. The analyst believes this may reflect the "impatience" of this group— they have become more sensitive to small fluctuations in BTC.

Due to rising oil prices and increasing U.S. Treasury yields, gold prices fell on Tuesday, as the former two raised the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding gold. However, gold prices have still risen over 10% so far this month.Analysts at Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group stated that the rebound in investor demand and the increase in gold holdings by central banks continue to support gold prices. The minutes from the Federal Reserve's July meeting and Chairman Waller's speech at the Jackson Hole meeting will be key to assessing the interest rate outlook.

According to Gate market data, Saudi media Hadass reported that sources said the extension agreement of the 60-day deadline between Iran and the United States has been approved. U.S. oil and Brent oil fell short-term by more than $1, and the three major U.S. stock index futures rose short-term.

The market no longer fully prices in the Federal Reserve's interest rate hikes this year.

DeepSeek announced the new pricing for the V4 API, effective August 17. The V4-Pro peak period price for cache misses on input has increased from 3 yuan to 9 yuan per million tokens, and the output has risen from 6 yuan to 27 yuan, representing increases of 3 times and 4.5 times, respectively.During off-peak hours, although the price is only half of the peak rate, it is still more expensive than the current rates. The V4-Pro input is 4.5 yuan, and the output is 13.5 yuan; the V4-Flash input is 1.5 yuan, and the output is 4.5 yuan.Peak hours are from 9:00 to 12:00 and 14:00 to 18:00 Beijing time. The remaining hours are charged at off-peak prices.

According to BeInCrypto, Nasdaq-listed company Forward Industries reported a net loss of $69 million for the third quarter of fiscal year 2026, primarily due to impairment losses resulting from fair value adjustments of its Solana assets in accordance with U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. The company held approximately 7.55 million SOL at the end of the quarter, with the per-share SOL holding increasing by 9% quarter-over-quarter to 0.073; during the quarter, it increased its holdings by over 500,000 SOL through purchases and staking, and repurchased 2.5 million shares of stock.Revenue for the quarter increased more than fourfold year-over-year to $10.8 million, mainly from SOL staking and other financial services income. As of August 3, the company held approximately 7.8 million SOL, with the per-share SOL holding rising to 0.0754. After the earnings report was released, FWDI's stock price fell slightly by 1.36% in after-hours trading.

Grayscale's research director Zach Pandl released a report stating that despite the recent pressure on Bitcoin's price, Grayscale believes its adoption rate will continue to rise in the medium to long term for three reasons:First, the unsustainable growth of U.S. government debt is raising inflation and currency devaluation risks, which may drive various investors towards scarce assets and value storage tools; second, stablecoins and tokenization will make blockchain ubiquitous in financial services. As technology spreads, more intermediaries will have the infrastructure and regulatory conditions necessary to hold and trade Bitcoin, and Bitcoin will no longer be structurally isolated from the mainstream financial system; third, younger investors show a significantly higher preference for digital assets, and alternative investments have become a standard component of investment portfolios. Institutions, wealth management platforms, and individuals will continue to incorporate Bitcoin into diversified portfolios through tools such as exchange-traded products, a process that is already underway.Grayscale emphasizes that this bear market has not changed its expectations for the continued rise in Bitcoin's adoption rate.

According to Gate market data, oil prices fell slightly after rising for five consecutive trading days, with WTI crude oil dropping below $82 per barrel and Brent crude oil briefly falling below $87. Traders are awaiting progress on the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. The International Energy Agency stated that the global oil market faces a supply gap of 1.8 million barrels per day this quarter, more than double the previous forecast. Gasoline and diesel prices in the United States have reached new highs for this time of year.