ChainCatcher reports that CryptoQuant analyst Moreno said USDT liquidity is in one of its sharpest contraction periods on record. USDT market capitalization has fallen by about $4 billion over the past 60 days, close to the most negative reading historically. The drawdown is also picking up speed. Over the last 11 days, USDT supply dropped by roughly $870 million, a move Moreno said suggests more than a delayed aftereffect of earlier redemptions. Stablecoins are among the most immediate sources of deployable liquidity in crypto markets. Extended periods of USDT growth have typically aligned with stronger BTC price performance, while sustained contractions have often appeared alongside softer demand, market pullbacks, and lower risk appetite. Moreno cautioned that the relationship between USDT flows and BTC does not prove direct causation. Both can be driven by the same risk-off sentiment, with redemptions and spot selling occurring at the same time. In that context, the latest BTC weakness is unfolding as a key liquidity channel continues to shrink, helping explain why recent rebounds have struggled to build follow-through. Moreno added that conditions would improve if the 60-day USDT change stabilizes, daily supply declines slow, and issuance returns to expansion.

BBX Message: Public companies and large asset managers are taking a more structured approach to building crypto treasuries, moving beyond one-off, directional buying. Capital is increasingly deployed through multiple avenues—real estate-backed balance sheets, dedicated treasury strategy expansion, and monetizing computing power—to build durable exposure to digital assets. On the asset-management side, Cardone Capital spent $22.3 million to purchase 350 BTC, positioning Bitcoin within the firm's real estate-focused, heavy-asset framework. In treasury strategy expansion, ETH Strategy added 2,520 ETH, lifting its dedicated holdings to 6,920 ETH. On the mining and computing-power front, Ruihe Digital Intelligence (03680.HK) generated 32.73 BTC in cloud-mining rewards. OranjeBTC (B3: $OBTC3) also increased its position by 30 BTC. The market is coalescing around two tracks: traditional heavy-asset managers using Bitcoin as a liquidity-management tool, and listed entities accumulating native crypto assets directly through their core computing-power operations. Source: bbx.com

BitGo (NYSE: BTGO) has migrated more than $7.7 billion in Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) to Chainlink's Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP), ChainThink reported on Aug. 5, citing Chainlink. BitGo said it has completed a review of its cross-chain setup, ended use of its prior traditional solution, and selected CCIP as its exclusive cross-chain infrastructure provider. The company added it will standardize WBTC and any future assets it issues on the institutional-grade interoperability framework.

Spot ETFs tied to Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and Solana (SOL) recorded net inflows on Aug. 4. Bitcoin spot ETFs took in $211.49 million, Ether spot ETFs added $53.75 million, and Solana spot ETFs saw $1 million in net inflows.

German semiconductor maker Infineon Technologies AG said on Aug. 5 it expects fourth-quarter fiscal revenue of about €4.7 billion ($5.4 billion) for the period ending in September, according to Bloomberg. The outlook tops the analyst consensus of €4.6 billion by roughly 2%. Infineon cited continued strength in demand for AI chips used in data centers and firmer pricing as key drivers.

U.S. spot crypto ETFs delivered mixed signals on Aug. 3, with Bitcoin products drawing fresh money while Ether-linked funds moved back into withdrawals, according to SoSoValue. Bitcoin ETFs recorded net inflows of $170.09 million after posting a $265.37 million outflow in the prior session on July 31. The data suggests investors are picking specific assets rather than rotating into the crypto ETF complex as a whole. SoSoValue's tracker showed 2,657 Bitcoin added across listed U.S. funds, valued at about $170.09 million. Over the same period, 5,805 Ether left U.S. Ether products, a net outflow estimated at roughly $11.42 million, reversing July 31's positive reading. Flows in other tokens were smaller. XRP products attracted 1.06 million tokens, worth around $1.15 million, while HYPE funds shed 17,770 tokens, valued at approximately $964,320. Funds tied to Solana, Chainlink, BNB, Avalanche, Polkadot, Dogecoin, and Litecoin also reported positive daily flows, though the dataset did not include complete dollar totals for those products. Nearly all disclosed dollar inflows were attributed to Bitcoin, with XRP remaining positive but marginal by comparison. July 31 figures highlight the volatility of daily ETF flow data. SoSoValue reported the Bitcoin ETF group lost 4,217 Bitcoin that day, equal to about $265.37 million. The Aug. 3 inflow represents a one-session reversal, though single-day moves often fluctuate and do not establish a durable trend. BlackRock markets its iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF as a way to gain Bitcoin exposure via exchange-traded shares without direct wallet or custody management. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved spot Bitcoin exchange-traded products in January 2024, with former Chair Gary Gensler emphasizing the approval applied to listed products rather than Bitcoin itself. In July 2025, the SEC expanded the operating framework by allowing in-kind creations and redemptions through authorized participants. SEC Commissioner Mark Uyeda said cash-only redemptions had introduced transaction costs and potential price slippage, while in-kind processing lets qualified institutions exchange underlying assets directly for fund shares. Those mechanics matter because reported flows reflect fund creations and redemptions, not necessarily straightforward retail buying during a single session. The SEC's Division of Corporation Finance has also said crypto exchange-traded products typically hold spot assets or related derivatives, and it requires issuers to disclose custody, valuation, creation and redemption processes, and material risks. As a result, a positive day can reflect rebalancing, arbitrage, or authorized participant activity rather than sustained institutional accumulation. On the Ether side, the shift was pronounced. The Ethereum ETF group recorded 4,834 Ether in net inflows on July 31, valued by SoSoValue at about $9.03 million, before turning to outflows on Aug. 3. The divergence from Bitcoin undermined the case for broad risk-on demand across crypto investment products. BlackRock says its iShares Ethereum Trust ETF aims to track Ether's price performance through an exchange-traded structure. The firm also offers a separate staked Ether product that combines Ether price exposure with staking rewards generated from trust holdings. Differences in fees, liquidity, staking exposure, and portfolio constraints can shape allocation decisions across the Ethereum ETF lineup. CoinShares has previously highlighted similar asset-by-asset divergence in digital-asset products during 2026, including a May 5 report that showed Bitcoin inflows alongside Ethereum withdrawals. While that pattern does not directly explain the Aug. 3 session, it reinforces that flows can split sharply by asset in uneven markets. Attention now turns to upcoming updates from SoSoValue. Investors will be watching whether Bitcoin inflows persist over multiple sessions and whether Ether funds continue to see redemptions, which would add evidence of softer near-term demand for that product group. Fund-level creation data should also clarify whether Bitcoin demand is broad-based across issuers or concentrated in a subset of products.

At least 15 separate attacker clusters have exploited a vulnerability affecting Coldcard hardware wallets, according to Alex Thorn, Galaxy Digital's head of research, after new victim reports surfaced and revealed additional, previously untracked thefts. Thorn said those disclosures enabled Galaxy researchers to tie more Bitcoin addresses to the incident. In one example, a victim who lost less than 1 BTC helped investigators identify an attacker that ultimately drained 12 BTC from 126 addresses. Galaxy noted that the pattern differs from a typical centralized exchange breach: funds were taken from many independently controlled wallets and dispersed to multiple attacker-controlled addresses. As a result, researchers may be unable to attribute or even detect some thefts without victims sharing wallet addresses and transaction histories. Galaxy Research estimates roughly $100 million in Bitcoin was stolen across three confirmed waves. A suspected fourth wave could push total losses to about $130 million. The firm emphasized that 15 attacker clusters do not necessarily equate to 15 identifiable individuals; some clusters may be controlled by the same actor, and additional attackers may remain undiscovered. Coldcard seed generation flaw reduced key randomness The issue centers on how some Coldcard devices generated recovery phrases. A firmware integration error reportedly caused affected units to rely on a deterministic pseudorandom number generator rather than the intended hardware-based random number generator. That reduced the effective randomness protecting certain private keys and made it more feasible for attackers to search for valid seed phrases. Castle Labs cofounder Francesco said impacted Coldcard wallets may have produced private keys with about 40 bits of entropy. By comparison, a standard 12-word recovery phrase is typically associated with 128 bits. The flaw did not allow attackers to extract keys directly from an air-gapped device. Instead, attackers could generate candidate recovery phrases and watch the corresponding Bitcoin addresses for incoming funds. Users who may be affected have been advised to update firmware, generate a completely new seed phrase, and move Bitcoin to addresses controlled by the new wallet. Simply importing an affected recovery phrase into another device does not fix the underlying weakness. AI testing debate reignited The incident has also fueled debate over whether AI-assisted security testing could have flagged the flaw earlier. Dragonfly managing partner Haseeb Qureshi argued that about "$2 of AI hardening" might have prevented the losses, citing experiments in which AI models reportedly rediscovered the vulnerability within minutes. One test claimed the open-source GLM 5.2 model found it in roughly 20 minutes without web access. Skeptics questioned whether those results demonstrate that AI could have identified the issue before it was public. Tokenomist data lead Tatsapat Saerejittima said some tests were conducted after disclosure and lacked blind testing, documented methodologies, and false-positive analysis. AI may lower the cost of finding vulnerabilities, researchers said, but it does not replace independent audits and end-to-end testing of how hardware wallets generate and safeguard private keys.

U.S. equities ripped higher across the board overnight, fueled by upbeat earnings and improving geopolitical sentiment. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 1.71% to close above 54,000 for the first time, notching a new record. The S&P 500 gained 1.79% to a fresh high, while the Nasdaq Composite surged 2.59% as technology led. The rebound has been swift: after hovering near one-month lows just days ago, major indexes pushed to new peaks as risk appetite returned. Oil slides as a Strait of Hormuz interim deal nears Markets are increasingly focused on signs of de-escalation around the Strait of Hormuz. Axios reported the U.S., Iran and Oman are close to a 60-day interim arrangement expected to be announced locally on Wednesday, aimed at reopening the strait, restoring the U.S.-Iran ceasefire and setting the stage for follow-on nuclear talks. With fears of supply disruption easing, crude sold off sharply. WTI fell 5.58% on the day, is down 13.27% in August and is trading around $73.50. Brent broke below $80, touched $77.70 and is down about 12% this month. Under the proposed routing, inbound traffic would take the northern route near Iran’s coast and outbound vessels the southern route near Oman’s coast, coordinated by Oman and Iran. A key clause targets clearing mines in the central shipping lane within 30 days. Bloomberg reported Iran has softened its position and is, for the first time, considering allowing European participation in demining to boost confidence among shippers and insurers. No tolls or related fees would be charged during the 60-day period. Over the longer term, Oman has proposed a "voluntary fund" modeled after the Malacca Strait, financed by Gulf states and relevant European member states of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), to support maintenance, search and rescue, and security. Qatar, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are also involved in mediation. Risks remain. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is split over foreign involvement in demining and control of shipping lanes, and past agreements have unraveled, escalating into military confrontation. Lower oil eases inflation pressure; rate-hike odds retreat The drop in crude has helped cool inflation worries. The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield fell about 6 basis points to around 4.6%, adding support for risk assets. Wells Fargo noted that while lower oil helps reduce energy price pressure, broader price stickiness suggests inflation is unlikely to normalize quickly. The dollar edged lower while the yen’s rally stalled. CME FedWatch now shows a 57.1% probability of a 25-basis-point hike in September, down from 67.2% the previous day; odds of no change rose to 42.9%. Attention now turns to Friday’s Non-Farm Payrolls report. Strong data could revive hike expectations; weaker data would bolster the case for a hold. JPMorgan said that with oil driving Treasury moves, jobs data is likely to be the key near-term pricing catalyst. AI trade returns, spreading beyond chips AI remained the strongest theme in U.S. equities, with gains broadening beyond the familiar chip-led playbook. Palantir's results reinforced the view that AI applications can translate into revenue growth. Strength across semiconductors, memory and optical communications pointed to sustained compute demand, while Caterpillar signaled that data-center buildouts are beginning to lift traditional industrial equipment demand. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index vaulted 6.55% for a fourth straight session, with most of its 30 constituents higher. Memory, optical communications, AI software, data-center infrastructure and industrial equipment were all strong. The Nasdaq 100 rose about 3.3%, its biggest one-day gain since May 2025. Mega-cap tech broadly advanced: NVIDIA rose more than 2%; Apple, Microsoft and Tesla gained over 1%; Google climbed 1.11%. Amazon fell more than 2%. Over the past four sessions, the seven largest tech stocks have risen nearly 10%, signaling renewed inflows into large-cap growth. Goldman Sachs Chief Technology Trader Peter Callahan attributed the rally to four factors: risk-off positioning has largely been washed out; technicals have improved; the Nasdaq 100 still trades about 10% below its five-year average valuation; and earnings season has improved confidence in profitability. Goldman's desk also flagged that volume remains 7% below the five-day moving average, suggesting participation is not yet broad and that follow-through will depend on incoming earnings and macro data. Company moves and key developments Palantir surged 29.45%, decisively reclaiming its 200-day moving average. Q2 revenue jumped 93% year over year to $1.935 billion, with U.S. commercial revenue up 149%. CEO Alex Karp called it an "extraordinary" quarter and said demand for AI sovereignty is being unleashed. Other AI software names rose as well: Datadog and Shopify gained more than 5%; ServiceNow and AppLovin climbed over 3%; Adobe and Salesforce added more than 2%. Caterpillar jumped over 5% to a new all-time high. The company posted its first-ever quarter with sales above $20 billion in Q2 (up 24% year over year) and raised full-year guidance across the board. Wells Fargo strategist Ohsung Kwon said Caterpillar is among the most "AI-exposed" traditional stocks, with spillover from data-center construction still in the early stages. The industrial sector is up about 20% this year. SpaceX rose 9.43% but slid nearly 9% after hours on concerns over heavy capital spending. Musk confirmed its AI services will run exclusively on NVIDIA architecture and said the company aims to enter the U.S. telecom market. The broader space complex advanced: Rocket Lab gained nearly 6% after winning a $397 million U.S. Space Force contract, and AST SpaceMobile climbed nearly 11%. A separate post-earnings update showed Q2 revenue of $7.8 billion (up 92% year over year) and a sharp rise in EBITDA, while AI-related capex hit $15.8 billion and is expected to remain elevated in coming quarters. AMD rose 7% in regular trading and fell nearly 8% after hours. CEO Lisa Su said data-center sales are expected to double by 2027 and announced partnerships including with Anthropic. Semiconductors broadly surged: ARM jumped 17.36%, Marvell gained nearly 13%, Intel climbed nearly 11%, Qualcomm rose 7.23%, Broadcom added nearly 7%, and TSMC gained over 2%. TSMC's Q2 revenue came in at $11.54 billion, up 50% year over year and above expectations, though Q3 revenue guidance failed to fully impress. NVIDIA added 2.56%. CEO Jensen Huang announced the open-sourcing and commercial release of Alpamayo 2 Super, an open-source inference model for autonomous driving intended to accelerate applications such as robotaxis, robotics and logistics vehicles. SpaceX also said future AI services will run exclusively on NVIDIA systems, with plans to deploy NVIDIA's Vera Rubin NVL72 rack-scale systems both on Earth and in space. Micron Technology rose 7.62%, returning to the $1 trillion market-cap club. Bank of America reiterated a Buy rating and a $1,550 price target, calling the recent pullback an "excellent buying opportunity" and projecting memory pricing normalization in 2027–2028. Storage names rallied: SanDisk jumped 10.84% after SK Hynix announced the first standard specification for High Bandwidth Flash memory; Rambus rose over 9%, SK Hynix gained over 8%, and Western Digital added over 4%. Intel climbed 10.84%. Media reports said Intel's EMIB-T advanced packaging has made progress, with yields approaching 90% and costs about 50% below TSMC's CoWoS solution. Intel expects to offer the service at scale by 2027 and continues building its large Ohio fab campus, targeting full operation by 2031. Oracle rose 2.74%, but its shares have halved since June and its five-year CDS spread has spiked to a record above the peak seen during the 2008 financial crisis. After aggressively financing AI data-center expansion, debt has reached $129.5 billion. S&P Global cut Oracle's rating to BBB, one notch above junk. Moody's warned leverage could approach 5x. Investors are focused on risk from the mismatch between 15-year leases and shorter-duration AI contracts. Bitdeer was up as much as 23% intraday before ending up 0.09%. The company signed a 16-year data-center hosting and services deal with Norwegian cloud startup Volta Infra to deploy NVIDIA GPUs for leading AI labs. Anthropic is also reported to have reached a $10 billion, six-year compute agreement with Volta. Arista Networks (ANET) rose 3.04% in regular trading and jumped 12.5% after hours on strong AI networking demand. Q2 revenue came in just above $3 billion, up 37.7% year over year. The company raised 2026 guidance for a third time, projecting full-year revenue of $12.6 billion, roughly 40% annual growth. Apple gained nearly 2%. The company is preparing for its September product event, with U.S. retail employees able to apply for on-site roles; the event is expected in the first half of September. Separately, Apple reportedly asked a judge to immediately bar OpenAI from using its trade secrets and to return all confidential information. What to watch next Aug. 5 earnings: Circle, Uber, Eli Lilly, BeiGene and others. Aug. 6 (Thursday) SpaceX lockup expiry: Up to 911.5 million restricted shares are set to unlock. Based on the latest share price, potential value is close to $100 billion, marking the week's largest liquidity stress test. Limited post-unlock selling could support confidence in absorbing high-valued tech assets; concentrated selling could pressure Nasdaq sentiment and Musk-linked trades. 5:00 PM: SanDisk and Western Digital earnings. Reports will shape storage-sector sentiment after recent pullbacks in Micron, SanDisk and SK Hynix. Investors will focus on enterprise SSDs, NAND pricing, AI data-center storage demand, inventory cycles and second-half guidance.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has filed a Form 144 indicating plans to sell roughly 15 million shares, valued at about $4.1 billion. After the disclosure, Amazon shares slid more than 2% Tuesday to close at $277.42. Even with the drop, the stock is up around 20% year to date, outpacing the S&P 500's 12% gain.