Morning Report | Data: YZi Labs, a16z, and 5 other leading crypto VCs have a total of 216 invested projects that have announced shutdowns, with Pantera Capital having over 24% of its investments already shut down; Gemini's stock price has fallen 80% since its IPO, and acquisition speculation has resurfaced
Overview of Important Market Events on September 20Compiled by: ChainCatcher
What important events have occurred in the past 24 hours?
Kalshi Follows Coinbase in Submitting Application for U.S. Stock Perpetual Futures
According to ChainCatcher, the prediction market Kalshi has submitted a proposed rule change to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and an approval application to the CFTC to launch perpetual futures contracts anchored to individual U.S. stocks. This proposal coincides with the application submitted by Coinbase on the same day, as both companies aim to introduce the popular perpetual futures products from the crypto market into the traditional stock market. According to the proposal, the relevant contracts will not have a preset expiration date and will maintain price alignment with the underlying stocks through periodic funding payments between long and short positions. Kalshi stated that these contracts will be treated as securities futures products and will be cleared through its CFTC-registered clearinghouse, Kalshi Klear. Previously, Kalshi has offered perpetual futures anchored to Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and XRP in the U.S., with its Bitcoin perpetual contract receiving CFTC approval in May this year. The competition for U.S. stock perpetual futures is expanding. Kraken's parent company Payward has also submitted an application through its Bitnomial Exchange, planning to initially offer perpetual futures anchored to 10 U.S. stocks, including Tesla, Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon, and is committed to achieving trading five days a week, 24 hours a day. These applications were submitted after the CLARITY Act failed to advance in the Senate on September 15, with SEC Chairman Paul Atkins stating that regardless of legislation, the agency will act decisively within its existing statutory authority to provide regulatory certainty for investors and entrepreneurs.
Famous Trader: Bitcoin Continues to Digest Rate Hikes and CLARITY Act Stalemate, Market Trend May Have Shifted
According to ChainCatcher, renowned trader Killa stated that the "Everything is Priced In" chart records the major catalytic events in Bitcoin's cycles and the price performance following those events. He believes that during bear market phases, negative news typically drives BTC to continue falling, leading traders to gradually form the inertia of "shorting on bad news"; however, when the high time frame trend reverses, the same news may only cause temporary panic, after which Bitcoin absorbs selling pressure and continues to rise. Recently, the market has experienced the Federal Reserve's rate hikes, expectations for the CLARITY Act vote, and the failure of the act to advance, with the market momentarily viewing these events as reasons for further declines in Bitcoin. However, BTC only briefly fell below the range low before quickly rebounding and showing strong resilience. Even with the rising narrative of a "third world war," Bitcoin has begun to respond positively to panic factors in terms of price. He believes this performance is a significant distinction between bull and bear markets: in a bear market, negative news drives prices down, while in a bull market, negative news may cause traders to capitulate, after which prices continue to rise. Killa stated that the important catalyst confirming the continuation of the last cycle was the approval of a spot Bitcoin ETF, while a similar catalyst for the current cycle may be the CLARITY Act. Bitcoin's recent ability to digest multiple negative factors is an important basis for his judgment that the trend has shifted.
Michael Saylor: The Best Protection for Digital Assets is Widespread Adoption
According to ChainCatcher, Strategy founder Michael Saylor stated that the digital asset industry is better off accepting supportive rules from the SEC, CFTC, Treasury, and banking regulators than accepting the restrictions in the final CLARITY compromise. The safest path is to create products that satisfy customers and deploy them widely, allowing people to have a stake in innovation. Ownership should be protected, honest disclosures required, and fraud punished, then let entrepreneurs compete and grow. Saylor noted that the September CLARITY compromise would have restricted covered providers to only paying customers for holding stablecoins while allowing qualified activity rewards and directing the Treasury to limit certain rewards when identifying significant harmful deposit transfers at community banks. The GENIUS Act has included restrictions on issuers paying interest and returns on stablecoins. The innovation sandbox of CLARITY would have limited participating companies to 25 employees and each committee to approve 20 projects per year. The SEC has provided conditional relief for on-chain trading of certain tokenized stocks as of September 17, and the CFTC chairman has committed to using existing authority while the act is stalled. He pointed out that useful products should be scaled by 2027 and 2028, turning temporary relief into permanent rules. The goal is to have 50 million American voters using digital financial products that improve their lives. The best protection for digital innovation is the public that benefits from it.
T. Rowe Price Digital Asset Head: Bitcoin Has Become the Core of Currency Devaluation Discussion
According to ChainCatcher, as reported by Bitcoin Magazine, Blue Macellari, head of digital assets at asset management giant T. Rowe Price, stated in an interview with Bitcoin Magazine that Bitcoin has now become the core topic of currency devaluation discussions. She pointed out that bond obligation officers are returning, and U.S. Treasury financing is shifting from foreign buyers to domestic buyers, while the debt situations in Japan and Italy are not comparable to the U.S. buyer base. Macellari has 20 years of experience in emerging market sovereign debt and distressed debt investment and was responsible for establishing T. Rowe Price's digital asset business. In the interview, she reviewed the evolution of internal discussions on digital assets at the institution, considerations for launching actively managed multi-token ETFs, and discussed the trends of asset management tokenization and automation, as well as the liquidity fragmentation risks brought by 24/7 trading. Additionally, Macellari assessed whether the demand for stablecoins under the GENIUS Act represents a substantive change or wishful thinking, and believes that devaluation trading has indeed driven institutional allocation to Bitcoin. She also stated that volatility can serve as a portfolio tool, with significant generational differences in Bitcoin allocation.
Silicon-Based Flow Completes B+ Round Phase II and C Round Financing, Accumulating Nearly 2.9 Billion Yuan
According to ChainCatcher, third-party AI inference infrastructure company Silicon-Based Flow announced the completion of B+ round phase II and C round financing. The company transforms computing power and models into directly callable Token services. The total equity financing amount accumulated by the company in 2026 has approached 2.9 billion yuan, with the amounts for both rounds not disclosed. Based on the 2025 Token annual throughput, Silicon-Based Flow ranks fourth among all Token suppliers in China, with a market share of 1.5%. The top three, Volcano Engine, Alibaba Cloud, and Baidu Intelligent Cloud, account for 42.7%, 32.5%, and 11.8%, respectively, totaling about 87%. This round of investors includes the China Internet Investment Fund, Guoxin Fund, China Mobile Chain Long Fund, China Orient Asset International, among others, with Yao Tu Capital, Sheng Yi Capital, and Cathay Venture Capital continuing to increase their investments. Silicon-Based Flow reported revenue of 55.33 million yuan in 2025, a net loss of 345 million yuan, and an overall gross margin of -24%. The company has submitted an application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange at the end of June and is currently applying for a main board listing under the 18C chapter "Uncommercialized Companies" rules. Beijing has just released the country's first provincial-level token economy special policy, clearly proposing to build a "world-class token factory," with a focus on inference engines, model and chip adaptation, and heterogeneous computing power.
Gemini's Stock Price Down 80% from IPO, Acquisition Speculations Resurface
According to ChainCatcher, as reported by CoinDesk, the stock price of crypto platform Gemini has fallen about 80% since its listing, with its market capitalization dropping from a peak of about 4 billion dollars to 753 million dollars, while trading volume, revenue, and platform assets have continued to decline, leading to renewed acquisition speculations. Gemini's exchange revenue in the second quarter fell 38% year-on-year to 12.5 million dollars, with spot trading volume down 66% to 3.8 billion dollars, and platform assets dropping from 18.2 billion dollars to 8.4 billion dollars. ARK Invest's Director of Digital Asset Research, Lorenzo Valente, stated last month on X that the offshore perpetual contract platform Hyperliquid should acquire Gemini, using it as a gateway to enter the regulated U.S. market for perpetual contracts and prediction market businesses. The Winklevoss brothers hold 94.5% of the voting rights in Gemini, which may simplify transaction negotiations but also means that any sale must be approved by both. There are currently no signs that Hyperliquid is actively pursuing an acquisition. Despite the shrinking exchange business, Gemini still holds regulatory licenses and approvals that competitors find difficult to replicate, and potential buyers may weigh the acquisition costs against the time and legal fees required to apply for licenses independently. This aligns with the trend in crypto mergers and acquisitions where buyers increasingly value regulatory infrastructure, distribution channels, and market access, such as Keyrock's acquisition of BlockFills trading assets and Ondo exploring an acquisition of up to 500 million dollars. CoinDesk reported in April that potential buyers were considering acquiring Gemini's closed European and UK businesses to obtain licenses. Gemini declined to comment on this.
Analysts: Coinbase, Robinhood, and Circle May Be Early Beneficiaries of U.S. SEC Tokenized Stock Policy
According to ChainCatcher, as reported by CoinDesk, the U.S. SEC has launched a five-year innovation exemption, providing a path for eligible tokenized U.S. stocks to be traded through automated market makers (AMM) on public blockchains. Analysts from Goldman Sachs and Citizens believe that Coinbase, Robinhood, and Circle may become early beneficiaries of this policy. The new framework requires tokens to retain shareholder rights such as dividends and voting rights, while setting limits on the number and trading volume of stocks that trading platforms can offer. Goldman Sachs stated that Coinbase's existing tokenized stock products already possess several of the required features, and its institutional custody business and Coinbase Tokenize may also benefit. However, Coinbase's existing trading platform uses a centralized limit order book, and to operate a trading venue directly under the exemption, it would still need to build AMM infrastructure or route trades to decentralized trading platforms on Base. Robinhood's stock tokens currently offered to markets outside the U.S. are derivatives that only provide price exposure and do not possess the complete shareholder rights required by the framework, thus requiring further adjustments to the product. Robinhood has previously stated plans to add 1:1 redemption and voting rights features for stocks. Analysts also believe that increased on-chain securities trading may drive demand for tokenized cash, benefiting Circle indirectly, with USDC potentially being used for settlement and collateral in on-chain markets.
REX Launches 2x Leverage ETF, Associated with Bitcoin Treasury Company Strive
ChainCatcher news, REX Shares and Tuttle Capital Management jointly launched a leveraged ETF------T-REX 2X Long ASST Daily Target ETF, which began trading on Friday at the Cboe exchange under the ticker ASSX. The fund aims to achieve a return of 200% of Strive's daily stock price performance before fees, providing traders with a leveraged betting avenue on this Bitcoin treasury company. Unlike spot Bitcoin ETFs, ASSX does not hold Bitcoin nor track its price, but rather offers leveraged exposure to Strive's stock price. The fund resets its leverage daily, so returns over more than one trading day may significantly differ from Strive's double performance. REX and Tuttle stated that the two companies also launched 2x leveraged ETFs related to Strategy, BitMine, Cipher Mining, Circle, and SharpLink. According to data from BitcoinTreasuries.NET, Strive currently holds 25,000 Bitcoins, making it the fifth largest Bitcoin holder among publicly listed companies. The company recently acquired 469 Bitcoins, financing the purchase through the sale of its perpetual preferred stock SATA. On Friday, Strive's stock price rose 6.4%, closing at $30.09.
Glassnode: Bitcoin has risen 28% over two years, median market cap of altcoins has fallen 74%
ChainCatcher news, according to a report by Decrypt, the crypto analytics firm Glassnode and the exchange Bybit jointly released a report showing that Bitcoin has cumulatively risen 28% over the past two years, while the median market cap of altcoins has fallen by an average of 74%, with Ethereum remaining roughly flat. The report views this divergence as a hallmark of the current market cycle, contrasting sharply with the previous "altcoin season" model where capital rotated from Bitcoin to smaller coins as the market matured. The distribution of leverage also shows a trend of centralization. The report notes that the size of Bitcoin futures open interest accounts for about 2% of its market cap, while speculative small coins like PEPE have this ratio close to 24%, indicating that risk bubbles are accumulating in the most dangerous corners of the market. The data is as of the market close on August 23, and the trading platforms covered by Glassnode are limited, so the relevant figures only reflect the venues it tracks. Institutional capital flows are also clearly biased towards Bitcoin. The cumulative net inflow into spot Bitcoin ETFs is about $55.2 billion, far exceeding the approximately $13.1 billion for Ethereum ETFs, which have recently seen consecutive days of net outflows. Earlier this week, after the Federal Reserve released a dovish forecast, Bitcoin regained the $80,000 mark, driving the total crypto market cap up 4.6% in one day to about $2.85 trillion, with coins like Solana, NEAR, and Uniswap seeing even larger gains that day.
Data: GSTOCK market cap surpasses $24 million, hitting an all-time high, daily increase over 170%
ChainCatcher news, according to GMGN market data, the meme coin GSTOCK from the Genius.fun ecosystem has surpassed a market cap of $24 million, hitting an all-time high, currently reported at about $24.2 million, with a daily increase of over 170%. In related news, CZ responded to crypto KOL Jasmy today, stating, "The idea of acquiring a publicly listed company through memes is definitely not something I came up with." Notably, Jasmy has mentioned GSTOCK in posts for nine consecutive times this week. GSTOCK pairs with the on-chain token BNCB from the BNB treasury company BNC. Genius.fun is launched by Genius Terminal, an on-chain trading terminal invested by YZi Labs, with CZ serving as an advisor. According to market news, meme coin prices are highly volatile and easily influenced by market sentiment and hot events, so please be cautious of trading risks.
Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix hire former Ministry of Finance international finance officials
ChainCatcher news, Samsung Electronics hired former Ministry of Finance foreign exchange system section chief Lee Hee-keun as an executive in its IR team last month. Lee has held positions such as foreign exchange system section chief and capital market policy section chief, responsible for foreign exchange systems and overseas investment responses. In April this year, he participated in Korea's inclusion in the World Government Bond Index and received special recognition, and is expected to be responsible for overseas investors and global capital market responses. SK Hynix hired former Ministry of Finance strategic economic general section chief Jeong Yu-jin as vice president under the communications general section last month. Jeong has served as the climate environment budget section chief, secretary to the economic vice premier, foreign exchange system section chief, and foreign exchange capital section chief. Both companies are advancing production investments in the U.S., with Samsung Electronics planning to invest $37 billion to build a semiconductor foundry in Taylor, Texas, and SK Hynix planning to invest $4 billion to build an advanced packaging plant in Indiana.
Huang Yiping: AI may deepen China's supply-demand imbalance
ChainCatcher news, Huang Yiping, a professor at Peking University and a member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the People's Bank of China, stated at an economic forum in Beijing that artificial intelligence may deepen and prolong China's imbalance of strong supply and weak demand. Huang noted that as AI is more widely deployed and innovation accelerates, the imbalance of strong supply and weak demand may worsen, and the contradiction between total demand and total supply may not quickly disappear in the short term, and may even persist for a while. Huang suggested that China should further promote market-oriented reforms, allowing the market to play a greater role in resource allocation and increasing the proportion of residents' income in the economy; at the same time, consider deepening overseas investment and industrial cooperation rather than solely relying on exports. He also recommended that the central government increase borrowing to repair the balance sheets of local governments, financial institutions, and enterprises, stating that if these entities' ability to engage in new economic activities is not restored, the effects of stimulus policies will be limited.
Cross-chain asset protocol Universal Protocol announces shutdown, previously raised $9 million from a16z Crypto and others
ChainCatcher news, the cross-chain asset protocol Universal announced its shutdown. The protocol will continue normal operations for the next 60 days, until November 17, 2026. Universal was launched two years ago to build Universal Assets (uAssets), bringing assets like SOL, XRP, and DOGE into a new ecosystem, supported 1:1 by underlying assets, and has supported over 80 types of assets. The team stated that the scale has not reached a level of long-term sustainability, hence the decision to shut down. According to the tokenized asset data platform RootData, Universal announced last February that it had completed a $9 million financing round, led by a16z Crypto, with participation from Coinbase Ventures and others.
U.S. Senator Lummis: Democrats voted against the requested crypto transparency
ChainCatcher news, U.S. Republican Senator and Wyoming Federal Senator Cynthia Lummis stated: The Democrats had requested that any crypto project raising over $25 million from the public provide audited financial statements, and this requirement was written into the bill. Lummis claimed that the Democrats voted against the transparency they had requested. Lummis has served as a U.S. Federal Senator from Wyoming since 2021, previously serving as a U.S. House Representative from 2009 to 2017.
Chairman of Miller Value Partners: Never been so optimistic about Bitcoin
ChainCatcher news, according to Bitcoin Magazine, Bill Miller IV, chairman and CEO of Miller Value Partners, stated in an interview with Bitcoin Magazine that he has "never been so optimistic" about Bitcoin. He pointed out that although Bitcoin's market cap remains roughly at the peak level of the last cycle, the global fiscal situation has significantly worsened, and the gap between price and fair value is wider than ever. Miller elaborated on his "capital governance" argument, suggesting that Bitcoin should be viewed as the "denominator" of capital rather than an asset that needs valuation, using the scale of the U.S. deficit comparable to Bitcoin's total market cap as a reference framework for assessing fair value. He also responded to the phenomenon of gold outperforming Bitcoin, attributing it to "narrative lag," and discussed AI trading rotations and the global liquidity outflow in the Japanese and U.S. bond markets. Additionally, Miller talked about the Federal Reserve's 25 basis point interest rate hike, the impact of energy prices and inflation, immigration and the rule of law on the stability of capital flows, and whether U.S. companies can outperform debt, as well as why funds still cannot hold Bitcoin. He believes that Bitcoin is a capital denominator that does not rely on force for endorsement.
Rhodium: China's AI models generate about 10% of the revenue of top U.S. firms
ChainCatcher news, the American research institution Rhodium Group estimates that the total annual recurring revenue (ARR) of China's AI models is only about 10% of the revenue of OpenAI and Anthropic. DeepSeek's ARR is $500 million, MiniMax's is $800 million, Moonshot's is $1 billion, and Z.ai's latest ARR is $1.8 billion. Even when adding ByteDance's $4 billion and Alibaba's $2.4 billion, it still falls far short of OpenAI's $40 billion and Anthropic's $65 billion. The Rhodium report states that Moonshot and DeepSeek currently appear overvalued relative to their revenue, with estimated ratios of 50 times and 163 times, respectively, higher than OpenAI's 34 times and Anthropic's 21 times. Z.ai has raised its full-year ARR expectation to $3 billion. Rhodium partner Logan Wright stated that the financing gap means that China's leading AI labs will find it harder to expand sustainably, and they will heavily rely on favorable conditions in the equity market. Over 60% of equity investments in Chinese AI chips and servers come from state-related sources.
Data: SingularityNET attacked, hackers illegally minted AGIX and WMTx, resulting in losses exceeding $16.77 million
ChainCatcher news, according to on-chain analyst PeckShield (@PeckShieldAlert), the same attacker exploited vulnerabilities in the SingularityNET bridging contract to illegally mint 260 million AGIX and 53.83 million WMTx on Ethereum. The attacker currently holds approximately $16.77 million in crypto assets, including 198.3 million AGIX (about $14.42 million), 649 ETH (about $1.67 million), and 33.53 million WMTx (about $627,000).
Coldcard 2021 firmware vulnerability leads to over $100 million in Bitcoin theft
ChainCatcher reports that a firmware vulnerability in the hardware wallet Coldcard from 2021 has led to insufficient randomness in some recovery seeds. Since July 30, attackers have transferred approximately 1,600 to 1,800 Bitcoins from affected wallets, involving thousands of addresses, with a valuation exceeding $100 million. Coldcard manufacturer Coinkite stated that it must be assumed that someone is using AI to review its public firmware. This vulnerability has existed for about five years, and whether AI was involved in the related attacks has not been confirmed. Shielded Labs researcher Taylor Hornby used Claude Opus 4.8 audit agent to discover a vulnerability in the Zcash Orchard shielded pool circuit that began in 2022, which could generate an unlimited amount of counterfeit ZEC without detection during testing. Developers completed the fix within days, and no theft of coins has been confirmed. Blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis reported that the on-chain write volume carrying malware instructions and command control information has increased from about 2.06 times per day to 11.1 times, a rise of 440%.
VanEck rates Metaplanet executive compensation as "poor," dilution risk far exceeds peers
ChainCatcher reports that asset management company VanEck rated the compensation structure of Japanese Bitcoin treasury company Metaplanet as "poor" in its report on the top ten digital asset treasury company executive compensations released on Friday, making it the only company to fall into the lowest rating. The report shows that Metaplanet's equity plan corresponds to 14.7% of fully diluted shares, with executive risk exposure at 8.2%, about ten times the average level of 0.8% for the other nine companies, and the scale of the equity plan is also nearly four times the industry average. In comparison, the equity plan of the largest corporate Bitcoin holder, Strategy, accounts for only 2% of fully diluted shares, with executive risk exposure at 0.5%, and its compensation structure rated as "good." Metaplanet currently ranks third among publicly listed companies in Bitcoin holdings with 43,000 BTC. VanEck pointed out that part of the gap stems from Metaplanet's previous compensation mechanism: the option pool automatically expanded when the company issued shares to purchase Bitcoin, growing from 46 million shares to 319.5 million shares, adding about 273 million potential shares, which drew criticism from shareholders at the time. Metaplanet terminated the automatic adjustment mechanism at the end of August and reduced the option pool by 41% to 188.2 million shares in September, but VanEck believes these adjustments are still "far from meeting standards," calling for the withdrawal of the expansion of about 273 million shares in favor of a compensation plan approved by shareholders, while suggesting that executive compensation be linked to the number of Bitcoins corresponding to each fully diluted share and adopting a written grant timing policy.
Nic Carter: Anthropic's slowdown of the frontier aims to widen the gap between public and private
ChainCatcher reports that Nic Carter, co-founder of Castle Island Ventures, commented on the "slowdown of the frontier" proposal put forward by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. Nic Carter stated that if the goal is to widen the gap between the public and the true internal frontier, and requires cooperation from competitors, then the proposal is reasonable. The main business risk for Anthropic is the commercialization of models due to distillation, rather than safety issues. Nic Carter noted that safety and profit incentives tend to align in limiting public access to truly frontier models. The highest return use of frontier tokens is for internal R&D and capturing downstream intellectual property, rather than public API sales. Anthropic has opened models like Mythos Preview only to a few partners. Nic Carter stated that unilateral slowdown cannot solve the prisoner's dilemma, and coordinated restraint requires antitrust exemptions or regulation. Dario called for the U.S. government to provide limited exemptions for safety discussions so that companies can voluntarily set standards.
Spirit AI co-founder: Robot brains may see breakthroughs as early as next year
ChainCatcher reports that, according to Reuters, Gao Yang, co-founder and chief scientist of the humanoid robot startup Spirit AI, stated that humanoid robots could complete most general tasks based on verbal instructions as early as next year, but it will take at least eight years to enter households. He mentioned that the brain is the weakest link in the entire robotics technology stack, expecting to reach a milestone similar to GPT-3.0 by mid-2027, allowing natural language communication with robots to execute a series of reasonable physical actions to attempt tasks. Spirit AI was founded in 2024, has about 300 employees, and raised $670 million in funding within two years, with a valuation of $2.9 billion. The company employs about 1,000 contractors to wear data collection devices at home or in factories, primarily relying on real-world data for training. Robots have a success rate of 90% for simple tasks in structured living room environments. Currently, dozens of Moz1 wheeled humanoid robots are deployed on production lines at CATL and JD.com. Gao Yang stated that the next 1-2 years represent an initial window for industrial applications, and after two years, they could enter commercial service scenarios for simple tasks, but entering households is more challenging. In terms of safety, full-body force control is used, and automatic emergency braking will occur in the event of excessive interaction force. High-quality data is the main bottleneck for training robot brains.
Data: 216 projects from five leading crypto VCs including YZi Labs and a16z have announced shutdowns, with over 24% of Pantera Capital's investments shut down
ChainCatcher reports that discussions around the shutdown of projects invested by a16z have recently intensified. According to RootData's investment and financing data, after deduplication by project, five institutions including Coinbase Ventures, YZi Labs, Pantera Capital, a16z, and Paradigm cover a total of 993 independent invested projects, of which 216 have been marked as shut down, accounting for a cumulative 21.75%. By institution, Pantera's shutdown rate is 24.76% (51/206), Coinbase Ventures is 22.69% (98/432), a16z is 20.09% (43/214), Paradigm is 19.49% (23/118), and YZi Labs is 13.56% (32/236). Although a16z is at the center of public opinion, it is not the institution with the highest shutdown rate in the sample. Among its 148 lead projects, 29 have been marked as shut down, accounting for 19.59%, including Linera, which recently announced its closure, and Universal, which announced it is entering the shutdown process, indicating that even leading institutions cannot eliminate operational risks for projects.
Chamath: Open-source weight models are about four months away from the best closed-source frontier models
ChainCatcher reports that Chamath Palihapitiya, founder of Social Capital, released a deep research report stating that open-source weight models are nearing the best closed-source frontier models available for public evaluation by about four months, with increasing fluctuations in the gap. If open-source models allow companies more control over data, infrastructure, and customization while approaching frontier performance, the value corresponding to what companies pay to frontier labs becomes a commercial issue. Openness exists on a spectrum, from fully open-source models that can be downloaded and freely modified to open-source weight models with different restrictions, while closed-source models keep weights private. Palantir CEO Alex Karp warned that companies might hand over differentiated proprietary knowledge and processes to frontier model providers. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella stated that companies are effectively paying for intelligence twice: once in money and once in the more valuable proprietary knowledge that must be disclosed to make intelligence useful. Despite concerns, companies are still willing to pay for frontier performance, even if the best open-source weight models are only months behind, and revenue for frontier labs continues to accelerate. Leading companies use both types of models, leveraging open-source models for control and customization while using closed-source frontier models for maximum capability, with some cases reporting up to 12 times engineering efficiency and over 20 times cost savings. Some vendors adopt a dual-track approach, with Google offering both Gemini and Gemma, and Meta providing both Muse Spark and Llama. The 99-page report also discusses the costs of maintaining a lead for frontier labs, five factors of model competition, model operating locations, and investments in open-source weights by NVIDIA and Samsung.
Polymarket U.S. platform suffers debit card fraud, CEO says to continue growth and pay fines
ChainCatcher reports that in February, a company handling debit card transactions for the Polymarket U.S. platform reported that fraudsters were flooding the application. Users linked 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 attempting to steal at least $10 million. The processor initially 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 growth, and if regulators find out, pay the fines.
SemiAnalysis expects revenue to exceed $100 million this year
ChainCatcher reports that according to Substrate on September 18, semiconductor and AI infrastructure research firm SemiAnalysis expects its revenue to exceed $100 million this year, with a workforce of about 100 people. Its founder Dylan Patel started in 2020 with a WordPress blog, reaching seven-figure revenue in 2023, with subscription revenue accounting for less than 5% of total revenue, the vast majority coming from data models, institutional research products Core Research, and consulting services. The company currently has 12 models covering areas such as networks, wafer fabrication equipment, foundries, and energy, with about 50 analysts. SemiAnalysis's clients include most large tech companies globally, with NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, AMD CEO Lisa Su, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft CEO Nadella, and OpenAI CEO Altman among its readers. Its CoWoS and HBM supply chain models predicted NVIDIA would ship 400,000 H100 chips each quarter, and OpenAI used its InferenceX as a third-party benchmark when releasing its self-developed chip Jalapeño at Hot Chips. Dylan Patel recently raised $500 million for the SemiAnalysis Capital Fund I for early-stage startup investments. The company plans to expand into the energy sector, with analysts set to engage with various grid and utility stakeholders.
Nvidia CFO: Memory prices will continue to rise, SK Hynix expects supply-demand balance by 2030 at the earliest
ChainCatcher news, Micron Technology will announce its fiscal fourth quarter results on September 30. NVIDIA CFO Colette Kress stated during the fiscal second quarter conference call on August 26 that the company is seeing "extreme pricing conditions for memory," with price increases exceeding previous expectations and "will further rise next year." Pricing pressure has been reflected in NVIDIA's profit margins, with Kress guiding that gross margins will bottom out in the fourth quarter to a range of 71%-72%, before recovering to 72%-73% in fiscal year 2028. Kress indicated that the current memory shortage is largely driven by AI infrastructure itself. SK Hynix expects the memory market will not reach supply-demand balance until at least 2030 and has invested approximately $38.3 billion to expand its two domestic bases in South Korea by 2031. SK Hynix holds about 50% of the high bandwidth memory market share, leading Samsung's 33% and Micron's 18%.
Crux AI Secures $22 Billion Chip-Backed Loans from 10 Banks
ChainCatcher news, according to Dealroom.co citing Bloomberg News, a consortium of 10 banks has provided Crux AI with $22 billion in chip-backed loans. Crux AI is the AI cloud service joint venture launched by Blackstone and Alphabet in May, which officially started last week. The loan will be used to purchase Google-customized TPUs. Crux AI has already secured a $5 billion equity investment from Blackstone, with Google providing TPUs, software, and services, planning to produce the first 500 megawatts of capacity by 2027. Named lending institutions include Goldman Sachs, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Barclays, BNP Paribas, and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.
Slow Mist: ComeCome Delivery App Suspected of Implanting Malicious SDK, Similar Tactics to FomoPeek Theft Incident
ChainCatcher news, Slow Mist founder Yu Xian disclosed that following the previous FomoPeek app poisoning theft incident, a delivery app named ComeCome (comecome.icu) has been found to employ similar tactics for attacks. FomoPeek versions 1.1-1.2 contained a malicious SDK, integrating 8 iOS kernel exploit schemes that could automatically select attack methods based on device model and system version, with known affected iOS versions covering iOS 12--18.7 and 26--26.1. Successful attacks can bypass the iOS sandbox mechanism, thereby stealing cryptocurrency wallet assets. Yu Xian warned that such threats could also affect iPad and Mac devices, advising users to immediately update to the latest iOS version and to remain highly vigilant against unknown apps.
Binance Wallet Launches PancakeSwap Custody Pre-Access Event
ChainCatcher news, Binance Wallet announced on X the launch of a Pre-Access event, hosted by PancakeSwap, allowing users to participate through Binance Wallet. The event aims to provide users with indirect exposure before potential listings of popular companies, with the first project to be announced soon.
Meme Popularity Rankings
According to data from the meme token tracking and analysis platform GMGN, as of September 21, 08:45,
The top five popular ETH tokens in the past 24 hours are: wildebeest, MOTO, ZAMA, SEND, UNI
The top five popular Solana tokens in the past 24 hours are: JEANPHIL, STONK, Stamp, PAID, bullcoin
The top five popular Base tokens in the past 24 hours are: Basecat, VVV, CP, BLUECHIP, SOL
What are some noteworthy articles to read in the past 24 hours?
We should take advantage of the years 2027 and 2028 to bring truly useful products to scale, transforming temporary exemptions into long-term rules, and promoting targeted legislation in areas that genuinely require additional authorization or protection. The measure of success is how much value we create for customers and the economy. Let the digital asset industry innovate rapidly in the free market, creating as much value as possible for the U.S. and global economies. Build products that users are willing to use and can benefit from, widely market them, and give millions of people reasons to uphold the competition and innovation freedoms that make these products possible. Only by enabling more people to truly use and benefit from digital innovations can the industry gain broad public support and achieve more lasting protection.
Wall Street Journal: Why Did the CLARITY Act Fail to Pass?
Democrats remain dissatisfied. A White House official stated that the Trump administration had agreed to include "the most comprehensive and far-reaching ethical provisions in history." On Tuesday, the bill failed to secure the 60 votes needed to advance in a critical procedural vote at the final stage, thus failing to move forward. Coinbase's stock closed down more than 10%. Two days later, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) paved the way for tokenized stocks to trade in the U.S., and industry momentum began to recover, with Coinbase's stock rising 12% on Friday. Early Saturday morning, Brian stated that the final version was an improvement over earlier drafts but acknowledged that the bill did not advance. "I am proud to have been involved; if I had to do it again, I would still do it because it helped us form a better bill. This is just one step on a long road, and there are many more steps to take…"
Goldman Sachs: Fed Rate Hikes Slow Gold's Rise, But Long Bull Structure Remains Unchanged
Combined with net selling by interest rate-sensitive ETF holders, gold prices may temporarily drop to around $4,070 per ounce. However, thanks to central banks' ongoing gold purchases continuously raising price floors, gold prices are expected to gradually recover to around $4,200 per ounce by the end of 2026. 2. Event-driven volatility (the "waiting room" effect of the U.S. midterm elections): speculative funds often use gold as a "waiting room" asset for hedging before significant events with uncertain outcomes. Goldman Sachs noted that speculative positioning before the U.S. midterm elections could temporarily push gold prices up by about 5% (assuming net managed fund positions increase by about 250 tons from current levels, reaching the 90th percentile since 2014 at 685 tons). However, once the election results are settled and funds are redeployed, gold prices may experience severe sell-offs, a phenomenon that has occurred after the 2016 Brexit and the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
GSR: Why Do Low Circulation, High FDV Tokens Struggle to Avoid Declines?
These models each have trade-offs but are all driving broader participation. Additionally, the legal and compliance environment has significantly improved. In Europe, the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) has allowed issuers to sell tokens directly to the public. In the U.S., the current version of the CLARITY Act draft considers allowing capped direct sales to retail investors. If this bill passes, the argument that "securities law forces projects to adopt private accumulation models" will lose significant persuasive power. At that time, the token issuance structure will shift from a passive result under regulatory constraints to a scheme that project parties can actively choose.
Delphi Digital's Latest Episode: Has the Altcoin Season Arrived?
If these core assets break through again while on-chain activity continues to grow, the current localized altcoin market is more likely to escalate into widespread capital inflow. Conversely, if the market maintains a long-term structure of "few strong coins rising + high speculation on-chain assets exploding," the so-called altcoin season may still just be a highly concentrated game of existing stock. It is precisely for this reason that the most valuable judgment in this episode of Hivemind is not that "the altcoin season has arrived" itself. More accurately, the altcoin market has arrived, but whether a full bull market has come still requires new capital to prove. Until the answer emerges, this resembles a market where selecting coins, rotation, and risk management occur simultaneously: finding the assets that rise the fastest is certainly important, but after prices have already risen significantly, who is still willing to continue buying, where the funds will come from, and when to start realizing profits may truly determine how far this market can go…
ZAMA Hits New High: FHE Privacy Narrative Returns
The more core valuation variable is fee income. Calculating $0.13 per crypto operation, even assuming that Shielded Total Value Locked (TVL) is fully active (producing 0.01 crypto operations per dollar TVL daily), the annual fee income would be approximately $285,000. FDV/annual fees is about 3,280 times. This is a typical asset priced on "narrative rather than cash flow," buying ZAMA equates to buying a hypothesis: FHE privacy will become the infrastructure layer of DeFi, and in the future, hundreds of billions of dollars of on-chain assets will require encryption protection, with Zama being the primary capture of this demand.
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