Samsung’s HBM4 yield has risen to 80% four months ahead of schedule, and the company plans to boost its HBM market share to around 38% by the end of the year.

Jiang Zhuoer, founder of Leibit Mining Pool (BTC.TOP), wrote in an article that Bitcoin’s previous three major bottoms were all marked by “high losses and large volatility,” while the current market is characterized by “insufficient losses and low volatility.” He argues that instead of betting this is an unprecedented “calm bottom,” it should be viewed as a “respite phase” during the bottom-testing process. Taking the 2018 market cycle as an example, BTC’s $6,000 threshold was tested multiple times back then and was widely seen by investors as a floor that would not be breached. BTC sideways traded in the $6,000–$7,000 range for roughly two and a half months before dropping below that level, a pattern similar to the current two-month sideways consolidation in the $60,000–$70,000 range, after which the price plummeted to $3,000.

Michael Burry, the real-life "Big Short" protagonist, disclosed his latest holdings: he added to long positions in Lululemon (LULU) at $127.45, Freddie Mac (FMCC) at $5.43, Mercado Libre (MELI) at $1812.39, Fiserv (FISV) at $51.93, and Zoetis (ZTS) at $72.72. Additionally, Burry increased his short position in semiconductor ETF SOXX at $541, while his short positions in Tesla and Palantir remained unchanged.

Institutional analysis notes that markets widely expect US CPI to rise 0.1% month-on-month in July, following a 0.4% month-on-month decline in June. Core CPI, excluding food and energy, is projected to hit a 0.2% month-on-month rate and 2.5% year-on-year rate, the smallest annual increase since February. Following Friday’s weak July non-farm payrolls report, slowing inflation growth could help ease internal inflation concerns at the Federal Reserve. At the July 29 policy meeting, three officials voted in favor of a rate hike. The CPI report is likely to show energy-related price pressures have cooled, after surging sharply in the months following the US strike against Iran at the end of February. Retail gasoline prices fell to a nearly four-month low in early July before rebounding to above $4 per gallon by month’s end. The report may also show ticket prices have declined as jet fuel costs stabilize. (Jin10)

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.”

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.