Morning Report | SpaceX acquires Cursor for $60 billion; Kalshi and Polymarket launch perpetual contract trading; NeoCognition completes $40 million financing
Overview of Important Market Events on April 22整理：ChainCatcher
Important News:
- SBF's early $200,000 investment in Cursor financing was liquidated at original price, now valued at approximately $3 billion
- Kalshi and Polymarket announce the launch of perpetual contract trading, accelerating the prediction market platform's entry into the derivatives space
- SpaceX announces acquisition of AI programming startup Cursor for $60 billion
- AI research lab NeoCognition completes $40 million seed round financing, led by Cambium Capital and others
- Tencent and Alibaba in talks to invest in DeepSeek, valuation may exceed $20 billion
- Digital bank Revolut's IPO valuation may reach up to $200 billion
- Mastercard joins the Blockchain Security Standards Committee to develop security frameworks with members like Coinbase
What important events have occurred in the past 24 hours?
According to ChainCatcher, AAVE founder Stani posted on the X platform that the team is working with multiple partners on several proposals to return to normal market conditions and ensure the best outcomes for users.
The Arbitrum Security Council has recovered $70 million worth of ETH, which significantly reduces potential risk exposure. Various discussions and solutions are currently being considered. Stani stated that his focus is on Aave users and the protocol, and he expressed gratitude for the support from industry developers. Updates will be continuously released via @aave.
Tencent and Alibaba in talks to invest in DeepSeek, valuation may exceed $20 billion
According to ChainCatcher, Tencent and Alibaba are negotiating to invest in DeepSeek, which has a valuation exceeding $20 billion, as reported by The Information.
Robinhood Ventures invests $75 million in OpenAI
According to ChainCatcher, Robinhood Ventures has invested $75 million in OpenAI, as reported by The New York Times.
Yi Lihua: Current rebound is weak, showing characteristics of a bear market rebound
According to ChainCatcher, Liquid Capital founder Yi Lihua stated that the current rebound in the crypto market continues, but overall performance appears weak compared to the S&P index hitting new highs and MicroStrategy's continued buying, showing characteristics of a rebound in a bear market.
He pointed out that MicroStrategy's aggressive financing approach to continuously purchase Bitcoin may be effective in the short term, but could face uncertainty in the medium term as macro financial risks increase. He also believes the market does not need to be pessimistic, as opportunities often arise during bear market phases.
SBF's early $200,000 investment in Cursor financing was liquidated at original price, now valued at approximately $3 billion
According to ChainCatcher, SpaceX announced today that it has reached a cooperation intention with AI programming startup Cursor, which grants SpaceX the right to acquire it later this year for $60 billion or pay $10 billion to advance cooperation between the two parties.
It is reported that Cursor's developer Anysphere completed a $400,000 Pre-Seed round financing in April 2022, co-invested by Alameda Research and Heroic Ventures. Alameda invested $200,000 in Anysphere, acquiring about 5% equity.
This equity was sold at the original price during the FTX bankruptcy liquidation, and based on a $60 billion valuation, if the equity had not been sold, it would currently be worth approximately $3 billion.
According to ChainCatcher, Kalshi, a prediction market platform, is preparing to launch cryptocurrency trading in the U.S., expanding beyond its core prediction market business. According to insiders, the platform plans to first launch perpetual contracts linked to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
This move will create more direct competition between Kalshi and crypto platforms like Coinbase. Currently, Coinbase does not offer true perpetual contracts in the U.S., but has launched "perpetual" futures contracts with long durations and has expressed intentions to introduce more advanced derivative products in the U.S.
Kalshi holds multiple licenses from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and has recently been approved to offer margin trading, qualifying it to enter the derivatives market. Insiders say the company plans to start with crypto-linked perpetual contracts and may expand this model to other asset classes in the future.
Kalshi's competitor Polymarket also announced on X that it plans to launch perpetual futures on its platform but did not disclose further details. A video in the tweet showed users could engage in leveraged long and short trading on assets like gold, NVIDIA, BTC, AAPL, and indicated that registration would provide early access.
Bloomberg: Li Lin transfers 20-person trading team to Hong Kong-listed company Bitfire
According to ChainCatcher, Li Lin is transferring his family office Avenir Group's approximately 20-person trading team entirely to the Hong Kong-listed wealth management company Bitfire Group. It is reported that Li Lin holds a 30% stake in Bitfire to help the company attract more private banking clients.
Bitfire CEO Livio Weng stated that Bitfire will acquire the team and its trading system from Avenir Group. Avenir confirmed the transaction. With the new team joining, Bitfire has received approximately $500 million in initial investment intentions from family offices and listed companies.
Digital bank Revolut's IPO valuation may reach up to $200 billion
According to ChainCatcher, British digital bank Revolut plans to seek a valuation of $150 billion to $200 billion in its upcoming IPO, significantly up from its previous valuation of $75 billion. CEO Nik Storonsky also revealed that Revolut is preparing for a new round of secondary share sales in the second half of 2026, with a valuation potentially exceeding $100 billion.
Previously, Nik Storonsky stated that the company would need at least two more years before going public, possibly delaying until 2028, with no IPO plans in the short term. He noted that Revolut is currently focusing on expanding into the U.S. market, including applying for a banking license to access the Federal Reserve payment channel and expand its loan and credit card business. The company has also obtained a full banking license in the UK.
SpaceX announces acquisition of AI programming startup Cursor for $60 billion
According to ChainCatcher, SpaceX posted on the X platform that it has reached a cooperation intention with AI programming startup Cursor, which grants SpaceX the right to acquire it later this year for $60 billion or pay $10 billion to advance cooperation. Cursor is a rapidly growing AI startup focused on developing code-writing software.
U.S. bipartisan lawmakers introduce the PACE Act to establish a unified payment license for fintech and crypto companies
According to ChainCatcher, bipartisan U.S. lawmakers have jointly announced the PACE Act, which aims to create a unified national payment license for fintech and cryptocurrency companies, to be regulated by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).
Michael Saylor: Strategy achieves 47,079 BTC gains, yield 6.2%
According to ChainCatcher, Michael Saylor posted on the X platform that the Strategy achieved gains of 47,079 BTC in the first three weeks of April, with a yield of 6.2%, amounting to approximately $3.6 billion at current prices.
Michael Saylor stated that Bitcoin Gain is the closest measure to net income under the "Bitcoin standard" system.
According to ChainCatcher, Bloomberg cited a report from Jefferies LLC stating that a hacking incident over the weekend that siphoned nearly $300 million from small crypto projects, along with the resulting $10 billion run on the largest decentralized lending platform, may slow Wall Street's interest in blockchain technology.
Jefferies' digital asset research team analyst Andrew Moss pointed out that banks, asset management companies, and payment institutions have been developing blockchain products similar to the technology systems exploited by North Korean hackers over the past year.
Although the report believes this incident is unlikely to impact traditional financial markets, it warns that traditional financial institutions may pause and reassess related risks before further advancing blockchain business.
According to ChainCatcher, Mastercard has joined the Blockchain Security Standards Committee (BSSC) as a charter-level member, working with members like Coinbase, Fireblocks, Anchorage Digital, and BitGo to develop security frameworks for blockchain networks and tokenized assets.
Mastercard will also join a working group focused on security and privacy guidelines, with Claire Le Gal from the security solutions department responsible for fraud prevention, cyber resilience, disputes, and threat intelligence representing Mastercard on the BSSC board. The BSSC executive director stated that Mastercard's payment experience is of significant value in establishing robust blockchain security rules. Mastercard has launched multi-token networks and crypto credential products aimed at embedding trust into blockchain and tokenized infrastructure.
According to ChainCatcher, AI research lab NeoCognition announced the completion of a $40 million seed round financing, co-led by Cambium Capital and Walden Catalyst Ventures, with participation from Vista Equity Partners and angel investors including Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan and Databricks co-founder Ion Stoica.
The company is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, co-founded by Ohio State University associate professor Yu Su, Xiang Deng, and Yu Gu, focusing on enhancing the reliability of AI agents. Its approach is to enable agents to build domain "world models" in real-world use to adapt to specific business environments, rather than relying on general pre-trained models. The company is currently targeting enterprise clients and plans to embed sustainably optimized AI agents into SaaS products, with no public products released yet.
Meme Popularity Rankings
According to the meme token tracking and analysis platform GMGN, as of April 23, 09:00,
The top five popular ETH tokens in the past 24 hours are: LINK, Mog, SPX, USDe, Neiro
The top five popular Solana tokens in the past 24 hours are: swarms, neet, LOL, Buttcoin, WOJAK
The top five popular Base tokens in the past 24 hours are: SKITTEN, PEPE, BASED, B3, SKYA
What are some interesting articles worth reading in the past 24 hours?
Finally, Polymarket teams up with Kalshi to tackle this cake
The derivatives market welcomes a new disruptor.
Yesterday, prediction market giant Polymarket announced it will soon launch perpetual futures trading, allowing users to trade the prices of various assets with at least 10x leverage, including real-world assets like gold and silver, stocks of companies like NVIDIA and Coinbase, and digital assets like Bitcoin.
A few days ago, The Information reported that another leading prediction market project, Kalshi, plans to support perpetual futures on its platform, enabling U.S. customers to trade derivative contracts without expiration dates and use so-called financing rates for round-the-clock trading.
The two prediction market giants announcing the expansion of perpetual contract products in quick succession is not only about expanding their product and revenue boundaries and supporting the ongoing rise in financing and valuations but also responding to potential threats from some cross-industry competitors.
The person who brings Web3 closest to AI
Time has proven that SBF may be one of the most successful AI investors in the crypto space. In 2021, before the AI boom arrived, with ChatGPT still a year away from launch and Anthropic just spun off from OpenAI, very few were willing to bet $500 million on this startup. Cursor was virtually unknown at that time.
Beyond AI, his vision was also ahead of the market: when Solana was still a niche project, he built a position at an average price of $8, peaking with an unrealized gain of about $2.1 billion; his approximately 7.5% stake in Robinhood is currently valued at about $10 billion; the $100 million invested in Mysten Labs has also appreciated to over $800 million.
Risk warning
