supply

TSMC's 2-nanometer N2 mass production marks the transition of advanced semiconductor processes from FinFET to GAA generation. Industry analysts point out that with the simultaneous increase in process complexity, CMP track counts, wafer monitoring frequency, and material specifications, the demand for equipment, CMP consumables, reclaimed wafers, and advanced materials is rising, providing growth opportunities for suppliers like Zhongsha, Shengyang Semiconductor, Xinying Materials, and Songsheng. TSMC's N2 adopts nanosheet GAA technology, which can improve performance by 10% to 15% at the same power consumption compared to N3E, or reduce power consumption by 25% to 30% at the same speed, with chip density increasing by over 15%.In Zhongsha's largest customer Diamond Disk business, advanced processes account for 63%, with N3 and N2 each accounting for 22%, and 1.4 nanometers already shipped in small quantities; after N3 enters N2, the value of CMP content increases by 10% to 15%. Shengyang Semiconductor's monthly production capacity for reclaimed wafers is adjusted to 1.1 to 1.2 million pieces by the end of 2026, with a capital expenditure budget of 4.82 billion yuan for 2026, and it is estimated that the compound annual growth rate for reclaimed wafer expansion from 2025 to 2029 will reach 25% to 30%. Xinying Materials' core products Rinse, BARC, and EBR are expected to see shipments rise seasonally as N2 capacity ramps up, while Songsheng's semiconductor revenue accounted for 66% in the first half of the year, with a year-on-year increase of about 25%, and TSMC-related revenue increased by about 170% year-on-year.

Acer Chairman Chen Junsheng stated on the 19th that there is no shortage of memory, as suppliers in mainland China are continuously releasing quantities, acting as price destroyers. The contract prices are currently experiencing high fluctuations, with chaotic ups and downs. Some components like LPDDR5 or DDR5 9600 paired with N1 or N1X are still in short supply, but more common components like DDR4 are in oversupply. Currently, there is also no shortage of CPUs, except for certain low-priced licensed models from Microsoft, such as those with Small Core specifications, which are in tight supply.Chen Junsheng pointed out that the price increases for key components this year are unprecedented, with customers going from complaining to scrambling for goods. Acer is increasing its inventory of low-priced components in response, facing pressure to raise PC prices each quarter, with different products still seeing price increases of 5% to 20% in the fourth quarter. The three major memory suppliers have expressed optimism about price increases until 2027, but the unlimited production capacity released by mainland China means that sustained price increases are unlikely.He expects that by 2027, Acer's costs for SSDs and memory will decline compared to this year, with a chance for prices to stabilize in the second half of next year. There may still be opportunities for price increases in the first quarter of 2027, but the increases should become narrower. The expansion of semiconductor production is expected to begin in mid-2027, after which prices may peak and enter a stable phase.

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 in memory," with price increases exceeding previous expectations, and that "will further rise next year." Pricing pressure has been reflected in NVIDIA's margins, with Kress guiding that gross margins will bottom out in the fourth quarter in the 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 to reach supply-demand balance no earlier than 2030 and has invested approximately $38.3 billion to expand its two domestic bases in South Korea through 2031. SK Hynix holds about 50% of the high-bandwidth memory market share, leading Samsung's 33% and Micron's 18%.

Professor Huang Yiping from 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 the imbalance of strong supply and weak demand in China. Huang Yiping said: 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 Yiping suggested that China should further promote market-oriented reforms, allowing the market to play a greater role in resource allocation, and increase 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 the ability of these entities to engage in new economic activities is not restored, the effects of stimulus policies will be limited.

Japan's first licensed yen stablecoin JPYC was launched on September 17 on the South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Upbit. The opening reference price for JPYC/KRW was 8.81 KRW, which later rose to 35.7 KRW, reaching a peak of about 37 KRW, equivalent to over 3 yen.On the same day, 1.687 billion yen of JPYC was minted, and the circulating supply increased from about 1.9 billion yen to over 4.2 billion yen within approximately 48 hours. After the new supply entered the market, the price of JPYC gradually returned to the 1:1 yen peg level.

According to Onchain Lens monitoring, Hyperliquid has burned HYPE tokens worth 2.42 million dollars within 24 hours, with a weighted average purchase price of 91.86 dollars, totaling 26,310 HYPE tokens burned.The cumulative amount of HYPE tokens burned is currently 48.76 million tokens (approximately 4.5 billion dollars), accounting for 4.88% of the maximum supply. Hyperliquid has generated 6.434 million dollars in revenue over the past 30 days, with a total revenue of 1.26 billion dollars.

Market news reports that Saudi Arabia has informed European refiners that they will not be able to obtain crude oil supplies next month.

The Tesla team arrived in Ningbo on September 16 and launched a new round of mass production audit for the robotics business on September 17. This audit aims to review the exclusivity and consistency of the mass production of the Optimus robot, with plans to roll out approximately 50,000 Optimus robots by 2026.

Citigroup analysts pointed out that leading memory chip manufacturers are expected to benefit from the structural changes in the development of artificial intelligence. The agency anticipates that continuous learning will drive a significant increase in memory demand, leading to a supply shortage in the market that will continue until 2031. Continuous learning strengthens models by training on new tasks and knowledge, which will create a sustained demand for model updates and access to historical data, driving the storage usage of products such as HBM, server DDR5, and eSSD.Citigroup expects HBM bit demand to grow by 62% year-on-year to 75.2 billion gigabits in 2027, and by 69% year-on-year to 127 billion gigabits in 2028. Global DRAM demand is expected to grow by 30% and 35% year-on-year in 2027 and 2028, respectively, while supply is expected to grow by only 19% and 22% during the same period, resulting in supply-demand ratios of -8.7% and -9.7%. In terms of NAND, demand is expected to grow by 29% and 33% year-on-year in 2027 and 2028, respectively, exceeding supply growth of 21% and 25%, with supply-demand ratios of -6.1% and -5.5%.Citigroup's preferred storage targets include Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, Micron, Sandisk, and Kioxia, corresponding to the logic of storage shortages brought about by continuous learning, demand for HBM and server DDR5, DRAM supply shortages, and tightening supply of high-density eSSD and NAND.

The blockchain data platform Allium released the report "Stablecoins and Payment Status: September 2026." The report shows that in August 2026, the supply of stablecoins reached $303 billion, a year-on-year increase of 6%, with Tether and Circle accounting for 85% combined. Exchanges held $89 billion, and DeFi protocols held $26 billion.In the first eight months of 2026, stablecoin payments reached between $401 billion and $527 billion, a year-on-year increase of 42% to 63%. Enterprises received 58% to 64% of the payments, with B2B being the largest channel. The growth rate of cross-border stablecoin payments is seven times that of traditional fiat channels. From January to August, the total transfer volume reached $85 trillion, and after excluding internal exchange transfers, DeFi, and infrastructure transfers, the real economic activity was $4.0 trillion, of which transactions accounted for 69%, value storage accounted for 13%, and payments accounted for up to 13%.B2B settlements reached between $137 billion and $153 billion. In corporate operations, service fees were $56 billion, salaries $43 billion, vendor payments $28 billion, and retail purchases $19 billion. In geographically attributed payments, 61% were domestic. Thailand received $10.8 billion, Turkey $7.8 billion, Indonesia $6.3 billion, and Mexico $6.1 billion. The proxy payments on the x402 protocol reached 29 million monthly transfers in August, averaging $0.06 per transfer. Ether.fi Cash's monthly expenditure increased to $108 million.

According to Bloomberg, due to the impact of the El Niño phenomenon, the inflow to Ethiopia's hydropower dams has significantly decreased, and Ethiopian Electric Power Corp has reduced electricity supply to the Bitcoin mining industry by three-quarters.Data shows that Bitcoin mining companies contributed 35% of the company's revenue in the past fiscal year, with their electricity consumption accounting for nearly one-third of the country's total power generation (9,730 megawatts). This large-scale power restriction may severely impact the operations of local mining companies.

According to the Industrial and Commercial Times, with the expansion of HBM and advanced logic below 2 nanometers, it is estimated that the global silicon wafer supply-demand gap will widen from about 8% by the end of 2026 to 15% in 2027 and 24% in 2028. GlobalWafers, Siltronic, and TSMC are expected to benefit from this. It is noted that mid-2027 will be a critical turning point; if the pace of supply expansion does not keep up, a new wave of shortages and rush buying may occur from the second half of 2027 to the first half of 2028.SEMI statistics show that the global silicon wafer shipment area reached 3.573 billion square inches in the second quarter of 2026, an increase of 9.1% quarter-on-quarter and 7.4% year-on-year. It is estimated that the global monthly production capacity of 12-inch silicon wafers will be about 10.69 million pieces in 2026, an increase of 7% year-on-year, with only about a 3% increase to 11 million pieces in 2027, and an increase of about 6% to 11.7 million to 11.76 million pieces in 2028. The new supply includes about 300,000 pieces from the second phase of GlobalWafers and about 100,000 pieces from Siltronic.It is estimated that the consumption of HBM silicon wafers will increase by 23% and 28% in 2027 and 2028, respectively; new general DRAM production capacity will gradually come online starting in 2027, with an additional monthly capacity of about 350,000 to 450,000 pieces by 2028. In terms of advanced logic, the consumption of logic process silicon wafers is expected to increase by 12% and 11% in 2027 and 2028, respectively. Currently, customer silicon wafer inventory remains at about 100 to 120 days, and it will take time to digest to the normal level of 50 to 70 days.

Filecoin's official statement says that once the allocations of Protocol Labs and the Filecoin Foundation end in October this year, the new supply of FIL is expected to decrease by 75%. After that, block rewards will become the only new supply source, and burn and staking locks will determine the subsequent situation.

The U.S. government oversight agency released a report acknowledging a shortage in the inventory of advanced weapons for the U.S. military, and disclosed the damage to military aircraft, military bases, and diplomatic facilities in the Middle East.The report pointed out that the war has led to a "strategic inventory shortage," exposing bottlenecks in the military-industrial capacity for ammunition replenishment. Experts estimate that it may take the U.S. military about three years to restore inventory to pre-war levels.

Lisk's official post on X stated that it has begun to burn 100 million LSK tokens, aiming to reduce the total supply of LSK from 400 million to 300 million. This action stems from the successful passage of a DAO proposal. The DAO treasury was originally intended to gradually decentralize and incentivize the Lisk Chain ecosystem.As Lisk announced the launch of a modern funding operation product driven by its own stablecoin and the impending closure of Lisk Chain, the project proposed full funding for the Lisk project and growth activities by the Onchain Foundation, which has been approved. This allows for the burning of most tokens in the Lisk DAO treasury, significantly reducing the total supply of LSK, limiting future increases in circulating supply, and decreasing ongoing selling pressure.Specifically, Lisk has begun to burn all tokens belonging to the Lisk DAO treasury from 2027 to 2033, which amounts to 15 million tokens each year from 2027 to 2032, and 10 million tokens in 2033, totaling 100 million LSK. Users holding funds on the Lisk Chain must bridge to Ethereum before the closure on October 31, with withdrawals taking about 8 days, and an additional 3-day waiting period for unlocking and unbonding. Lisk stakers can unlock their staked LSK without penalty.

According to Bitcoin.com News, the supply of Ripple's stablecoin RLUSD reached a historical high of $2.442 billion this week, an increase of about 41% compared to $1.72 billion a month ago.It is worth noting that the new supply mainly flowed into Ethereum rather than XRP Ledger—Ethereum currently holds $1.37 billion, while XRP Ledger holds $1.05 billion, completely reversing the pattern from July when XRP Ledger accounted for 58.9%. Since July, Ethereum has absorbed the vast majority of the approximately $840 million in new supply.

The CEO of JERA, Japan's largest power company, stated that starting from January 1 next year, the supply of liquefied natural gas and natural gas from Russia to Europe will be halted, and gas prices may rise further.

Traders and sources say that unless deliveries are restored within a few days, the disruption in Saudi pipelines could lead to a 4% loss in global oil supply. Saudi Arabia's storage in Yanbu can only sustain exports for 5 to 7 days, and there is also a small amount of storage in Egypt.

According to monitoring by Lookonchain, Binance's Bitcoin reserves have risen to 693,000 coins, reaching a two-year high, an increase of about 77,000 coins since the end of April, accounting for approximately 30% of the total Bitcoin reserves on major trading platforms.As the reserve continues to climb, Bitcoin faces strong supply pressure in the range of $83,000 to $85,000.

CryptoQuant analyst Axel Adler Jr. stated that on-chain data shows the proportion of Bitcoin supply in profit has rebounded from 47% at the end of June to 69%, moving away from historically common market pressure zones.Meanwhile, the 90-day change of this metric rapidly reversed from -19% in early August to +41%, marking one of the faster recoveries in Bitcoin's history.