DeepSeek, Tencent and others receive strategic placement from Unitree Robotics.

Well-known crypto analyst Killa wrote that Bitcoin (BTC) rose at the start of the month as he had previously predicted, and is now approaching its "5th pivot point" — a timeline worth close attention. He noted that over the past year and a half, trading against the market’s dominant narrative during this period has repeatedly captured 3% to 4% counter-trend swings. If historical patterns hold, BTC may see partial de-risking after passing this pivot point. However, Killa warned that while prices fell as expected last time, BTC was in a complex consolidation range, so it did not form a smooth one-way downtrend, instead consolidating until the next pivot point. He added that historical biases still favor counter-trend trading, but the current market environment is complex, with both price structure and timeline being equally important.

Bitcoin mining firm Cipher Digital sold 1,619 bitcoins (BTC) for $123.4 million, confirming a $47.7 million loss. The company’s filed documents show interest expenses hit $66.7 million, while mining revenue stood at $24.8 million. As of the end of June, Cipher held 646 BTC worth $37.8 million. Quarterly mining revenue fell from $43.6 million in the same period last year, with a $23.5 million loss recorded in the second quarter.

US initial jobless claims for the week ending August 1 totaled 199,000, against the market consensus estimate of 202,000, while the prior week's figure was revised from 197,000 to 198,000.

Unitree’s pre-IPO perpetual contract on Trade.xyz has surged past $74, hitting a new all-time high. The contract is now priced at $74.66, marking a more than 6% gain in the past 24 hours. Earlier reports confirmed that Unitree set its IPO offering price at RMB 150.80 per share, approximately RMB 104 higher than the prior estimated IPO price.

According to Bloomberg, Alphabet (GOOG), the parent company of Google, is seeking to raise up to $25 billion through a bond issuance.

Goldman Sachs’ TMT team said both SanDisk and Western Digital fell in after-hours trading, despite posting strong quarterly results. The market focus was not on the quarterly figures themselves, but on the fact that buyer expectations were already elevated ahead of the earnings release. SanDisk beat consensus estimates on revenue, gross margin and earnings per share (EPS), but its third-quarter revenue guidance was slightly below market expectations, while its EPS guidance was roughly in line. Against the backdrop of a notable prior run-up in share prices, the earnings results triggered some profit-taking. More positive factors: SanDisk has secured multi-year customer supply agreements covering over 50% of its planned bit production for fiscal 2027 and 65% for fiscal 2028, with price floors to support NAND pricing visibility and share repurchases. Western Digital also exceeded expectations on revenue, margin and EPS, and its third-quarter revenue and margin guidance was above market estimates, yet its share price still declined. Goldman Sachs noted that given already high expectations for HDD prices and margins, the company’s guidance failed to meaningfully lift market expectations further. The market also expressed concerns that storage capacity shipment growth could slow as the company advances expansion of its 40TB ePMR products and HAMR certification. Goldman Sachs summed up the after-hours performance as "beating earnings estimates, but still falling short of elevated expectations". The fundamentals of NAND and HDD remain supportive, but market expectations are already at a high level.