Jiang Zhuoer: BTC May Currently Be in a 'Breather Phase' of Bottoming, Not a 'Calm Bottom'

During the weekend closure of traditional financial markets, "On-Chain Nasdaq" Trade.xyz uses perpetual contracts to enable continuous trading and real-time price discovery that traditional finance cannot achieve, pricing in the trends of Monday’s U.S. and South Korean stock markets in advance. Most of Trade.xyz’s popular U.S. stock assets trade above their Friday after-hours levels: SpaceX is priced at $135.90, up 1.34% from Friday’s after-hours price of $134.096; Marvell Technology at $220.97, up 1.03% from $218.7; Google at $357.57, up 0.8% from $354.7; Nvidia at $224.59, up 0.35% from $223.8; Intel at $101.93, up 0.24% from $101.68; Micron at $880.58, up 0.07% from $880.00; SanDisk at $1,219.05, down 0.08% from $1,219.98. Current price levels suggest U.S. stocks may see overall strong pre-market volatility on Monday. Popular South Korean stock perpetual contracts also rose: Samsung Electronics is at $167.62, up 2.3% from Friday’s closing reference price of $163.91; SK Hynix is at $1,019.25, up 0.8% from $1,009.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Apple is testing storage chips from Changxin Memory Technologies (CXMT) across multiple product lines including iPhones and MacBooks, and has entered preliminary supply negotiations with the Chinese chipmaker, aiming to use the chips in some devices sold in China. Sources familiar with the matter said Apple seeks the White House’s approval for the collaboration. Against the backdrop of the AI boom driving tight storage chip supplies and rising costs, Apple has been raising product prices globally; securing a supply source in China could help ease shortages. Current U.S. regulations prohibit companies from transferring technology to CXMT, including sharing technical details and product specifications, so Apple cannot actually order custom chips from the firm, though it can purchase standardized products and negotiate prices. Even if complying with the rules, Apple may still seek support from the Trump administration due to political considerations. Using standardized chips could also force Apple to redesign some products. CXMT’s production capacity is nearly at full load this year, leaving limited room for new international clients. HP and Acer have already used small quantities of CXMT chips in devices sold outside the U.S., and are looking to lock in more supplies next year. Some of CXMT’s product prices are on par with Micron, SK Hynix, and Samsung, while certain items are even higher. The company’s second-quarter revenue surged over 8-fold year-over-year, holding a 7% share of the global DRAM market by revenue, and plans to expand its production capacity to more than double current levels by 2028.

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.”