Samsung Electronics plans to restart its aggressive shareholder return program for the first time in a decade, likely modeled after its 2017 plan, with share repurchases and cancellations leading the way.

Unitree Robotics (688836.SH) announced that it will carry out its initial public offering (IPO) and listing on the Shanghai Science and Technology Innovation Board (STAR Market). The offering adopts a combined approach of strategic placement, institutional (offline) subscription, and retail (online) subscription. The company plans to issue 40,446,434 new shares, representing 10% of its total share capital post-IPO, bringing the post-offering total share count to 404,464,340 shares. The preliminary inquiry date is August 5, 2026, and the institutional subscription date is August 10, 2026. The company has a special voting right mechanism; under the voting right differential arrangement, its actual controller Wang Xingxing holds 68.78% of the company’s total voting rights.

According to BIT (bit.com) market data, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSM.N) saw its U.S. pre-market shares rise more than 4%. On the news front, TSMC announced today that it will develop AI chip packaging technology.

Prediction platform Polymarket announced it will implement major adjustments to the settlement mechanism of its crypto price movement markets starting August 7 to safeguard market integrity. Effective at 00:00 UTC that day, affected markets will no longer settle based on a single point-in-time price snapshot, instead adopting the Time-Weighted Average Price (TWAP) model. Different market durations have corresponding TWAP windows: all crypto 5-minute markets use a 30-second TWAP, 15-minute markets use a 60-second TWAP, and 4-hour markets also use a 60-second TWAP. The prior single-snapshot settlement method was vulnerable to price manipulation during low-liquidity periods; the change marks Polymarket’s proactive reinforcement of its market integrity framework following a series of regulatory concerns. To support the transition, Polymarket will allocate $1 million in liquidity rewards to all affected markets throughout August. Technically, Chainlink’s TWAP testnet data stream is already live, while mainnet data streams and Polymarket’s real-time data stream service will launch on August 4. Developers will then be able to access TWAP prices directly via Chainlink Data Streams or Polymarket’s public WebSocket.

The increase in U.S. initial jobless claims last week came in lower than market expectations, signaling the labor market remains stable. The U.S. Department of Labor announced Thursday that for the week ending July 25, initial jobless claims across states rose by 9,000 to a seasonally adjusted total of 197,000, against economists' forecast of 200,000. This uptick partially offset the prior week's decline, when the figure had hit its lowest level since 1969. Initial jobless claims data for July is often volatile, as automakers typically halt production for annual maintenance and equipment upgrades during this period. However, this year, General Motors kept most of its assembly plants operational, while Ford Motor canceled its traditional summer shutdown for truck factories. This may have disrupted the statistical models the government uses to filter out seasonal fluctuations. Economists noted that the U.S. labor market remains in a state of "slowing hiring and slowing layoffs".

According to BIT (bit.com) market data, Oracle’s US stock rose nearly 5% in pre-market trading, and is now up over 3.5%. On the news front, Oracle has expanded its partnership with Google, and will launch enterprise applications powered by Google’s Gemini model.

Early Ethereum core developer Lefteris Karapetsas (@lefteris.eth) took to Farcaster to mark the 11th anniversary of Ethereum’s launch. “Unbelievable, it’s already been 11 years,” he wrote. “On July 30, 2015, we launched Ethereum from a humble small office in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district. Since then, everything has changed dramatically. Ethereum has undergone countless transformations, but one thing has remained constant: Ethereum is the world computer.” In the throwback photo Karapetsas shared—taken on Ethereum’s mainnet launch day (July 30, 2015)—early core developers posed for a classic group shot in the modest office. The background screen displayed “Frontier block #1,028,201,” information tied to the network’s genesis block launch. Early core devs and contributors gathered to celebrate, including Gavin Wood, Christian Reitwiessner, Christoph Jentzsch, and others. Ethereum’s primary founder and core designer Vitalik Buterin appeared relatively low-key on the group’s periphery; at just 21 years old, he joined the team to witness this historic moment that would reshape the blockchain world.