Crypto industry backs candidate Adrian Boafo to win Maryland House of Delegates primary election.

Fintech firm AI Financial Corp (formerly ALT5 Sigma, ticker: AIFC.O) has sold its Canadian subsidiary ALT5 Sigma Canada to New York-based PrimeDelta Corp. The transaction consideration includes a $12 million secured promissory note (with $1 million due next week and the remainder to be paid in installments) and approximately 11.6 million PrimeDelta shares, per a filing the company submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday. The filing did not disclose the reason for the deal, and both parties were unavailable for immediate comment outside regular business hours.

Strategy founder Michael Saylor posted that Bitcoin operates exactly as designed. BIP-110 can be freely forked, and the Bitcoin network is free to opt out of following it. As a result, roughly 99.85% of Bitcoin’s hashpower remains on the original network; the BIP-110 fork has mined only 2 blocks and is now over 80 blocks behind. He noted that BIP-110 has secured just ~0.15% of Bitcoin’s hashpower, and needs to mine 2015 blocks before its first difficulty adjustment. At the current block production rate, this process would take approximately 25 years. Saylor said: “Anyone can fork Bitcoin, but a fork is meaningless without security, utility, capital, and users. Consensus must be earned, not merely declared.”

According to South Korea’s Seoul Economic Daily, Samsung Electronics became the world’s first to start mass production and shipment of sixth-generation High Bandwidth Memory (HBM4) in February this year, and its yield has recently approached 80%. The yield stood at less than 60% in the early mass production phase but stabilized within half a year—about four months ahead of the original target of hitting 80% by the end of the year. The semiconductor industry typically labels an 80% yield as the "golden yield", meaning firms can cut defect rates while securing stable output and boosting profitability. Samsung Electronics said that with HBM4 yield entering a stable range, it plans to lift HBM4 revenue in the third quarter to more than triple the previous quarter’s figure, and raise HBM4’s share of total HBM revenue in the second half of the year to over 60%. The company also set a goal to raise its HBM market share to around 38% by year-end, matching its DRAM market share. The expanded supply of HBM4 will also support production of NVIDIA’s Vera Rubin AI accelerators. Lee Jong-hwan, a professor in the Department of System Semiconductor Engineering at Sangmyung University in South Korea, pointed out that for key clients like NVIDIA, sourcing from multiple suppliers is more beneficial than relying on a single vendor; Samsung can scale up HBM4 supply and rapidly grow its market share.

JPMorgan Chase believes market concerns over SK Hynix's stock price decline are excessive. With the early announcement of its shareholder return plan and the company maintaining its competitiveness in High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), its mid-term market sentiment is expected to improve. Key upcoming catalysts include: the shareholder return plan will be officially announced by the end of Q3 2026 (i.e., the end of September), and HBM contract price updates are also expected to be confirmed around the same period. SK Hynix has brought forward the announcement timeline of its shareholder return plan from "within the year" to the end of Q3. JPMorgan projects the company's cumulative free cash flow over the next three years will exceed 800 trillion won, giving it sufficient capacity for shareholder returns; taking into account proceeds from the sale of stakes in Kioxia and other gains, its shareholder return scale may be higher than that of other global memory chip firms. The company also plans to invest around 54 trillion won in infrastructure construction, including 35.2 trillion won for the Yongin Y2 DRAM plant and 19.1 trillion won for the Cheongju M17 NAND plant. In response to reports that SK Hynix's HBM4 is priced 50% lower than competitors, JPMorgan deems these claims inaccurate, noting market concerns are overblown. It forecasts SK Hynix's HBM price growth in 2026 will be less than 40% year-over-year, with reasons including the company's need to prioritize higher-margin long-term supply contracts for DDR5, LPDDR5, and NAND, and its approach to relations with top client NVIDIA based on multi-year partnerships and long-term procurement perspectives. Since HBM is typically re-priced annually, the importance of short-term pricing diminishes after securing 3-5 year long-term contract orders.

Unitree will kick off its IPO subscription tomorrow. The latest pre-IPO perpetual contract for Unitree on Trade.xyz is quoted at $87.525, equivalent to around 590 yuan. Based on the post-IPO total share count of approximately 404 million shares, the corresponding market capitalization is about $35.4 billion, or roughly 238.7 billion yuan. Unitree’s IPO offering price is set at 150.8 yuan per share, with the pre-market contract price standing at roughly 3.91 times the offering price. The Sci-Tech Innovation Board IPO plans to issue 40.4464 million shares, representing 10% of the post-IPO total share count. One lot consists of 500 shares, with a single lot subscription payment totaling approximately 75,400 yuan. Calculated at Trade.xyz’s latest price, 500 shares are valued at around 295,000 yuan. After deducting the 75,400 yuan subscription payment, the potential profit per lot is approximately 219,600 yuan (or about 220,000 yuan), translating to a potential return rate of roughly 291% relative to the subscription amount.

Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi stated that Iran is in the final stage of consultations with Oman on adjusting shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz. He also stressed that even if the two sides reach an agreement on the lane adjustment, this does not mean the Strait of Hormuz is reopened, as a series of conditions still need to be fulfilled for the strait to be reopened. Araghchi added that the two sides are currently discussing replacing the original shipping lanes with new ones, and relevant experts are conducting technical work. (CCTV News)