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first_img Data: In Q2 2026, the quotes for stablecoin cross-border payments continued to be lower than interbank exchange rates, with "routing fees" becoming the largest cost factor

According to The Block, the Benchmark Report released by Borderless.xyz for Q2 2026 shows that the delivery quotes for stablecoin cross-border payments in each month of the second quarter were all below the interbank foreign exchange rate midpoint. Data covering 108 countries and 260 payment corridors indicates that the median "parity spread" for the quarter was -3.2 basis points, further widening to -5.9 basis points in June, marking the deepest negative value of the year.The report also shows that the typical delivery cost for a $10,000 cross-border payment in the second quarter was approximately $27, and it has remained around this level for five consecutive months. If companies only connect to a single service provider in the long term, they will pay an average of about $2,330 more compared to the optimal quote for every $1 million payment scale, known as the "routing tax."Regionally, the African market showed the most significant fluctuations, with the price point spread widening by 166 basis points to 512.8 basis points; Latin America compressed to 89.0 basis points, while Asia remained relatively stable at 6.1 basis points. In specific corridors, Malawi experienced a one-day repricing of 5.8% on April 9, with the typical spread jumping from about 296 basis points to 1975 basis points.

KPMG's research shows that nearly 30% of corporate executives find it difficult to understand the cost of AI on a pay-per-use basis, and nearly half have delayed deployment

According to KPMG's latest survey report involving 2,145 executives from 20 countries, as technology companies like Anthropic, OpenAI, and GitHub recently shifted some of their AI services from fixed subscription models to usage-based billing, businesses are facing challenges in cost forecasting and management during the scaling of AI deployment.The report indicates that 29% of corporate executives find it difficult to understand and control operational costs when scaling AI deployment, and one-third of executives believe that insufficient understanding of AI economics hinders the deployment of AI entities. Due to costs exceeding expected value, nearly half (about 49%) of corporate organizations have chosen to delay or readjust their AI deployment plans; meanwhile, low-cost, high-fidelity large models are accelerating their impact on corporate AI strategies.In addition, tech giants are increasing capital expenditures to build AI capacity. Amazon plans to spend about $200 billion on capital expenditures this year and is investing $1 billion in its AWS frontline engineering organization to assist customers in adopting AI entities; Microsoft's total capital expenditure is expected to reach $190 billion this year, with $2.5 billion allocated to the new entity Microsoft Frontier Company. KPMG emphasizes that, in addition to cost pressures, accountability in AI governance, employee engagement rules, and the prevention of system "hallucinations" remain core challenges faced by businesses today.

first_img Key components surge in price, PC brands accelerate the introduction of domestic storage from Changchun and Changxin to reduce costs

According to the Industrial and Commercial Times, due to the soaring prices of key components such as memory and SSDs, the cost pressure for configuring high-capacity storage in mainstream laptops has greatly increased. Cost-effective mainland Chinese memory and storage components are gradually penetrating the PC supply chain, with brands such as Lenovo, ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte, Acer, and even the American brand Apple accelerating the certification, introduction, or platform tuning of related products.The report pointed out that Lenovo has expanded its use of mainland components this year, and recently flagship laptop models equipped with Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC) SSDs have appeared on North American cross-border e-commerce platforms. The American brand Apple is also reported to be negotiating with the U.S. government to procure Changxin Memory Technologies (CXMT) memory to cope with the rising prices. In terms of Taiwanese board manufacturers, MSI recently announced that it is the first to complete the verification and tuning of Changxin Memory DDR5 chips on the AMD platform at DDR5-8000+, while Gigabyte has also adopted Changxin Memory chips in some motherboard models. ASUS and Acer have introduced memory modules from mainland manufacturers such as BIWIN through their own brand memory certification or OEM models.Industry analysts believe that although the short-term imbalance in supply and demand for storage has prompted non-mainland brands to accelerate related certifications, due to the limited production capacity of mainland manufacturers, brand Taiwanese manufacturers still emphasize that Korean original manufacturers with long-term contracts remain the main supply partners at present.

Analysis: MSTR has dropped 78% from its peak, and its BTC holding cost is now higher than the spot price

CryptoQuant analyst Axel Adler Jr. stated that Strategy's preferred stock MSTR has fallen 78% from its peak, while Bitcoin has dropped 51% from its peak. The average cost basis for Strategy's 847,363 BTC holdings is $75,651, with a total cost of $64.1 billion. The current BTC price has fallen below this cost line for the first time since the bear market of 2022. The additional decline of MSTR relative to BTC has reached about 28 percentage points, approaching the upper end of the historical range, but has not yet touched the extreme of an 89% retracement from the 2022 low.Meanwhile, Strategy's purchasing strategy has clearly shifted to a defensive stance: the weekly BTC purchase volume has been cut by about two-thirds, with less than 11% of the $335.5 million raised through stock issuance used to buy BTC, and the remainder transferred to dollar reserves. At the end of May, Strategy also conducted its first net sell since 2022, selling 32 BTC to pay STRC dividends. Adler pointed out that the main risk currently lies in BTC remaining below the treasury cost line of $75,000, which would block the financing channel for ATM issuance by compressing the MSTR premium. However, nearly all of Strategy's debt is in convertible bonds, with no additional margin risk; the baseline scenario is the loss of marginal buyers rather than cascading liquidations. The real pressure point lies in the company's transition from selling stock to systematically selling BTC itself to pay preferred stock dividends and debt interest.

Data: Bitcoin miners' profit margins continue to be under pressure, with revenue falling below production costs

Bitcoin miner revenue has continued to decline over the past year, with the current 7-day moving average daily income at approximately $30 million, significantly lower than last summer's level of over $50 million. Among this, transaction fees have dropped to less than $250,000 per day, almost negligible compared to block subsidies.Meanwhile, the price of Bitcoin is around $62,500, below JPMorgan's estimated production cost of about $78,000. This state of being below production costs has persisted for five months, the longest duration in this cycle. Historically, production costs are often seen as a soft bottom area for Bitcoin prices. Currently, it is estimated that about 20% of miners are in a loss position at the current price, and the pressure is beginning to reflect at the network level.Over the past six months, the sensitivity of mining difficulty to Bitcoin prices has risen to 0.62, indicating that high-cost miners are increasingly inclined to turn off their mining machines based on price fluctuations rather than continue mining at a loss. In the second week of June, Bitcoin mining difficulty decreased by 10%, marking the second occurrence of a similar magnitude adjustment this year. A comparable adjustment also occurred in the previous quarter, with both instances happening during periods when prices remained below production costs, indicating that pressure on the miner side is deepening.
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