Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

Broadcom stock NASDAQ:AVGO has fallen sharply from its record high, but the selloff may say more about investor expectations than about weakness in AI demand.

Shares have retreated from around $495 to much lower levels, leaving the stock more than 24% below its peak.

That looks brutal, but Broadcom’s latest quarter was not a demand collapse. The company reported record revenue, strong earnings and a huge jump in AI semiconductor sales.

Broadcom’s fiscal second-quarter numbers were strong on the surface.

Revenue rose 48% from a year earlier to a record $22.2 billion, while adjusted earnings came in at $2.44 a share. AI semiconductor revenue jumped 143% year on year to $10.8 billion.

The real trigger was guidance. Broadcom said it expects AI chip revenue of about $16 billion in the fiscal third quarter.

That would still be more than triple the year-earlier level, but it came in below the roughly $17 billion-plus investors had hoped for.

The bigger disappointment was that CEO Hock Tan did not raise Broadcom’s longer-term AI target. He reiterated that the company is still aiming for more than $100 billion in AI chip sales in fiscal 2027.

In this market, “on track” was not enough.

Trading volume surged as the stock fell, showing this was a panic-style reset rather than a slow reassessment.

Broadcom’s management still sounds confident about demand.

Tan said demand for XPUs and networking is “simply insatiable,” adding that AI semiconductor bookings in the quarter were over $30 billion against the $10.8 billion the company shipped.

That means customers are still ordering far more than Broadcom can currently deliver.

The company has also pointed to gigawatt-scale commitments from major AI customers, including Anthropic, OpenAI and Meta.

Broadcom now expects to ship more than 10 gigawatts of AI chips in 2027, slightly above its earlier view.

Wall Street has not abandoned the stock either. JPMorgan reiterated its Overweight rating and $580 price target, telling clients it would be “aggressive buyers” at current levels.

The broader analyst picture remains heavily bullish. Recent consensus screens show dozens of Buy ratings, only a handful of Holds and no Sells, with average price targets still above $500.

There are real risks as CFO Kirsten Spears has previously flagged margin pressure as AI becomes a bigger part of Broadcom’s mix, because some AI system sales may carry lower margins than its software business.

Tan has also acknowledged that Google may diversify TPU suppliers over time, even though Broadcom remains central to Google’s custom chip roadmap.

Broadcom’s drop did not happen in isolation.

The selloff spilled into the broader semiconductor space, with Nvidia, AMD, Marvell, Intel, Micron and other chip names also coming under pressure in the days after the report.

Texas Instruments and Analog Devices were hit in a wider chip-sector pullback as investors questioned whether AI-related valuations had run too far.

The market was looking for any sign that the AI trade had become too crowded.

Broadcom’s decision not to raise its long-term target gave investors an excuse to take profits across the group.

June 29, 2026 02:00 ET  | Source: Verizon Communications, Inc.

BT Group and Verizon agree to combine their respective international operations in a 50:50 joint venture, creating a new company focused on multinational connectivity.The joint venture will serve more than 3,000 customers across more than 180 countries, representing approx. $4 billion in combined annual revenue.The combination of international networking businesses creates a future-ready, scaled organization underpinned by a new platform designed for the age of cloud and AI.Martijn Blanken is appointed Chief Executive Officer-designate of the new joint venture, conditional on completion of the transaction.The transaction is expected to complete in 2027, subject to regulatory clearances and other customary closing conditions. LONDON and NEW YORK, June 29, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- BT Group (BT) and Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE, Nasdaq: VZ) today announced the signing of an agreement to combine their respective international enterprise operations into a 50:50 joint venture – in a move that is set to transform international connectivity.

The new joint venture will focus on serving multinational organizations. It is expected to serve more than 3,000 customers across more than 180 countries, representing approximately $4 billion in combined annual revenue. This breadth of operations will unlock significant scale efficiencies across the combined global network and service operations following completion.

Designed specifically for a cloud-first world in the age of AI, the joint venture brings together BT International, which serves multinational customers with secure and resilient communication and network services around the world, with Verizon’s international enterprise wireline arm, which provides secure connectivity to enterprises worldwide. Both BT and Verizon will hold equal voting rights and Verizon has agreed to pay BT an equalization payment of $625 million.

By combining global scale with infrastructure designed and built to support local compliance and sovereignty needs, the joint venture will create a stronger platform for growth and accelerate the rollout of next-generation connectivity platforms. Customers will benefit from secure and resilient connectivity designed to meet data, operational and regulatory requirements.

At the same time, the parent companies will be better able to focus on their domestic markets, while providing support to the new joint venture as equal shareholders.

BT and Verizon have also today confirmed that Martijn Blanken has been appointed Chief Executive Officer-designate of the new joint venture, conditional on the completion of the transaction. Martijn has almost three decades in senior leadership positions across telecommunications, technology and digital infrastructure at Telstra, Openwave Systems, EXA Infrastructure and KPN, and a career spanning four continents. From September 1, 2026, he will join BT and will work with both parent companies, while observing relevant regulatory requirements, as they prepare for the launch of the proposed joint venture.

Clive Selley will continue to lead BT International as CEO, ensuring continuity of BT International’s ongoing transformation in readiness for the creation of the joint venture. Verizon’s leadership remains unchanged.

Allison Kirkby, Chief Executive of BT Group, said: “The world’s leading brands and international organizations trust BT International to connect them across the world. Bringing together this expertise and heritage with Verizon’s deep relationships with multinationals will create a stronger, scaled connectivity partner – one that has the reach, innovation and investment to succeed. Customers will benefit from new, secure and resilient connectivity platforms which are designed for the age of AI and sovereign where it matters. It will create new opportunities for our people and long-term value for our owners. Today’s announcement marks a major milestone for BT International, and an important step forward for BT as a whole, as we deliver on our U.K.-focused strategy.”

Dan Schulman, CEO of Verizon, said: "Our international customers require secure, flexible connectivity that works seamlessly across borders and cloud environments. When we thought about how to best support them, this joint venture was the clear answer: a cutting-edge, AI-ready and secure platform run by a single global organization dedicated to their needs. At the same time, our relationship with those customers will stay equally strong as we continue to directly provide them with the connectivity they need in the U.S."

The transaction is subject to regulatory clearances and consultation with employee representations in countries where required. BT and Verizon’s international businesses will continue to operate independently until the transaction officially closes with a full commitment to their respective customers.

Additional information

The new joint venture will be incorporated in the Bailiwick of Jersey and headquartered and tax resident in the United Kingdom.On completion of the transaction, the new joint venture will establish commercial relationships with both BT and Verizon – providing a seamless, end-to-end service across borders including for our customers in the U.K. (BT) and the U.S. (Verizon).Goldman Sachs acted as lead financial advisor to BT, with Deloitte transaction services advisor and Freshfields LLP as legal counsel. Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC acted as financial advisors to Verizon and Kirkland & Ellis LLP acted as legal counsel. Verizon Forward-Looking Statements

This communication contains forward-looking statements. These statements are based on our estimates and assumptions and are subject to risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements include those regarding our possible or assumed future results of operations and those regarding our ability to consummate the proposed transaction with BT Group plc and obtain cost savings, synergies and other anticipated benefits within the expected time period or at all. Forward-looking statements also include those preceded or followed by the words "anticipates," "assumes," "believes," "estimates," "expects," "forecasts," "hopes," "intends," "plans," "targets," “will” or similar expressions. For those statements, we claim the protection of the safe harbor for forward-looking statements contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. We undertake no obligation to revise or publicly release the results of any revision to these forward-looking statements, except as required by law. Given these risks and uncertainties, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements.

This announcement was originally published by Verizon. Read the original press release.

About BT Group

BT Group is the U.K.’s leading provider of fixed and mobile telecommunications and related secure digital products, solutions and services.

BT Group consists of four customer-facing units:  Consumer serves individuals and families in the U.K.; Business covers companies and public services in the U.K.; International serves multinational organisations headquartered outside the U.K. and overseas public sector customers; Openreach is an independently governed, wholly owned subsidiary wholesaling fixed access infrastructure services to its customers – over 700 communications providers across the U.K.

British Telecommunications Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of BT Group plc and encompasses virtually all businesses and assets of the BT Group. BT Group plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange.

For more information, visit www.bt.com/about

About Verizon

Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE, Nasdaq: VZ) powers and empowers how its millions of customers live, work and play, delivering on their demand for mobility, reliable network connectivity and security. Headquartered in New York City, serving countries worldwide and nearly all of the Fortune 500, Verizon generated revenues of $138.2 billion in 2025. Verizon’s world-class team never stops innovating to meet customers where they are today and equip them for the needs of tomorrow. For more, visit verizon.com or find a retail location at verizon.com/stores

VERIZON’S ONLINE MEDIA CENTER: News releases, stories, media contacts and other resources are available at verizon.com/news. News releases are also available through an RSS feed. To subscribe, visit www.verizon.com/about/rss-feeds/.

Media contacts:
Sarah Heinz (Verizon)
[email protected]
347-931-6300

If approved, upadacitinib is expected to be the first systemic medication for patients with non-segmental vitiligo, addressing important treatment needs for those living with the chronic, unpredictable autoimmune disease Positive CHMP opinion is supported by data from the Phase 3 Viti-Up clinical studies, in which upadacitinib achieved both co-primary endpoints demonstrating at least a 50% improvement in total body repigmentation (T-VASI 50) and at least a 75% improvement in facial repigmentation (F-VASI 75) from baseline at week 481 , /PRNewswire/ -- AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV) today announced that the European Medicines Agency's Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) has adopted a positive opinion recommending the approval of upadacitinib (RINVOQ®; 15 mg, once daily) for the treatment of adult and adolescent patients with non-segmental vitiligo (NSV). The final European Commission decision is expected in the coming months. If approved, upadacitinib is expected to be the first systemic medication for patients with non-segmental vitiligo.

"Vitiligo is an autoimmune skin disease with high stigma and significant burden to patients with limited treatment options available," said Roopal Thakkar, M.D., executive vice president, research and development, chief scientific officer, AbbVie. "A positive opinion for upadacitinib in non-segmental vitiligo is an important step forward in providing patients with a systemic treatment option."

The CHMP positive opinion is supported by data from the ongoing Phase 3 Viti-Up clinical program, including two replicate, randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind studies evaluating the efficacy and safety of upadacitinib in adult and adolescent patients with NSV. Upadacitinib 15 mg met both co-primary endpoints and key secondary endpoints, with significant improvements in total body and facial repigmentation.1 The safety profile of upadacitinib 15 mg was consistent with that observed in approved indications, with no new safety signals.1

Upadacitinib is approved in the European Union (EU) for the treatment of adults and adolescents with atopic dermatitis, and adults with radiographic axial spondylarthritis, non-radiographic axial spondylarthritis, psoriatic arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, and giant cell arteritis. Use of upadacitinib in NSV is not currently approved in the EU.

About Vitiligo
Vitiligo is a chronic, autoimmune disease characterized by the loss of pigment-producing cells (melanocytes), resulting in white patches of skin that can appear anywhere on the body and at any time.2 It imposes a significant psychosocial burden, profoundly affecting an individual's confidence, identity and daily life.3 Non-segmental vitiligo (NSV), the most common form of vitiligo afflicting approximately 84% of patients, is marked by symmetrical and bilateral depigmented white patches and is prone to unpredictable progression even after long periods of stability.2,4-6 While location varies, many patients report patches on critical areas such as the face, feet, hands and groin. Despite its immune-mediated nature, vitiligo is often considered primarily a cosmetic problem, which can lead to stigma and psychological impact on patients' lives.7-9 Vitiligo management is anchored in three primary treatment goals: disease stabilization, repigmentation, and maintaining repigmentation.10,11 There are currently no approved systemic medicines specifically indicated for these treatment goals in vitiligo.

About Viti-Up Clinical Trials
Upadacitinib M19-044 was conducted under a single protocol encompassing two replicate Phase 3 studies (Study 1 and Study 2) with independent randomization, investigative sites, data collection, analysis and reporting for each study. The trials were designed to evaluate the efficacy, safety and tolerability of upadacitinib in adult and adolescent patients (ages 12 and older) living with non-segmental vitiligo (NSV) who were eligible for systemic therapy. In Period A of both studies, participants were randomized in a 2:1 ratio to receive either upadacitinib 15 mg once daily or placebo for 48 weeks. Participants who completed Period A were eligible to enter Period B, a 112-week open-label extension in which all patients received upadacitinib 15 mg once daily. In total, Study 1 and Study 2 Periods A and B span 160 weeks. The two trials randomized 614 participants with NSV across 90 sites worldwide. More information on these trials can be found at www.clinicaltrials.gov (NCT06118411).

The co-primary endpoints were based on the achievement of Total Vitiligo Area Scoring Index (T-VASI) 50, defined as at least 50% reduction in T-VASI from baseline, at week 48, and the achievement of Facial Vitiligo Area Scoring Index (F-VASI) 75, defined as at least 75% reduction in F-VASI from baseline, at week 48 with the treatment of upadacitinib 15 mg compared with placebo in adults and adolescents with NSV.

The secondary endpoints include the achievement of F-VASI 50, defined as at least a 50% reduction in F-VASI from baseline, at week 48, and the achievement of F-VASI 75, defined as at least a 75% reduction in facial vitiligo area from baseline, at week 24. These endpoints were designed to assess the degree and timing of re-pigmentation on the face, an area among the most visible and psychosocially impactful for people living with NSV.

About RINVOQ® (upadacitinib)
Discovered and developed by AbbVie scientists, RINVOQ is a JAK inhibitor that is being studied in several immune-mediated inflammatory diseases. Based on enzymatic and cellular assays, RINVOQ demonstrated greater inhibitory potency for JAK-1 vs JAK-2, JAK-3, and TYK-2. The relevance of inhibition of specific JAK enzymes to therapeutic effectiveness and safety is not currently known.

Upadacitinib (RINVOQ) is being studied in Phase 3 clinical trials for alopecia areata, hidradenitis suppurativa, Takayasu arteritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, and vitiligo. The use of upadacitinib in non-segmental vitiligo is not approved; its safety and efficacy are under regulatory review by the U.S. FDA and the European Medicines Agency.

EU Indications and Important Safety Information about RINVOQ® (upadacitinib)12

Indications

Rheumatoid arthritis

RINVOQ is indicated for the treatment of moderate to severe active rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in adult patients who have responded inadequately to, or who are intolerant to one or more disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs). RINVOQ may be used as monotherapy or in combination with methotrexate.

Psoriatic arthritis

RINVOQ is indicated for the treatment of active psoriatic arthritis (PsA) in adult patients who have responded inadequately to, or who are intolerant to one or more DMARDs. RINVOQ may be used as monotherapy or in combination with methotrexate.

Axial spondyloarthritis

Non-radiographic axial spondyloarthritis (nr-axSpA)

RINVOQ is indicated for the treatment of active non-radiographic axial spondyloarthritis in adult patients with objective signs of inflammation as indicated by elevated C-reactive protein (CRP) and/or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), who have responded inadequately to nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs).

Ankylosing spondylitis (AS, radiographic axial spondyloarthritis)

RINVOQ is indicated for the treatment of active ankylosing spondylitis in adult patients who have responded inadequately to conventional therapy.

Giant cell arteritis

RINVOQ is indicated for the treatment of giant cell arteritis (GCA) in adult patients.

Atopic dermatitis

RINVOQ is indicated for the treatment of moderate to severe atopic dermatitis (AD) in adults and adolescents 12 years and older who are candidates for systemic therapy.

Ulcerative colitis

RINVOQ is indicated for the treatment of adult patients with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis (UC) who have had an inadequate response, lost response or were intolerant to either conventional therapy or a biologic agent.

Crohn's disease

RINVOQ is indicated for the treatment of adult patients with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease who have had an inadequate response, lost response or were intolerant to either conventional therapy or a biologic agent.

Important Safety Information

Contraindications
RINVOQ is contraindicated in patients hypersensitive to the active substance or to any of the excipients, in patients with active tuberculosis (TB) or active serious infections, in patients with severe hepatic impairment, and during pregnancy.

Special warnings and precautions for use
RINVOQ should only be used if no suitable treatment alternatives are available in patients:
- 65 years of age and older;
 - patients with history of atherosclerotic cardiovascular (CV) disease or other CV risk factors (such as current or past long-time smokers);
 - patients with malignancy risk factors (e.g. current malignancy or history of malignancy)

Use in patients 65 years of age and older
Considering the increased risk of MACE, malignancies, serious infections, and all-cause mortality in patients ≥65 years of age, as observed in a large randomised study of tofacitinib (another Janus Kinase (JAK) inhibitor), RINVOQ should only be used in these patients if no suitable treatment alternatives are available. In patients ≥65 years of age, there is an increased risk of adverse reactions with RINVOQ 30 mg once daily. Consequently, the recommended dose for long-term use in this patient population is 15 mg once daily.

Immunosuppressive medicinal products
Use in combination with other potent immunosuppressants is not recommended.

Serious infections
Serious and sometimes fatal infections have been reported in patients receiving RINVOQ. The most frequent serious infections reported included pneumonia and cellulitis. Cases of bacterial meningitis and sepsis have been reported with RINVOQ. Among opportunistic infections, TB, multidermatomal herpes zoster, oral/esophageal candidiasis, and cryptococcosis have been reported. RINVOQ should not be initiated in patients with an active, serious infection, including localized infections. RINVOQ should be interrupted if a patient develops a serious or opportunistic infection until the infection is controlled. A higher rate of serious infections was observed with RINVOQ 30 mg compared to 15 mg. As there is a higher incidence of infections in the elderly and patients with diabetes in general, caution should be used when treating these populations. In patients ≥65 years of age, RINVOQ should only be used if no suitable treatment alternatives are available.

Tuberculosis
Patients should be screened for TB before starting RINVOQ. RINVOQ should not be given to patients with active TB. Anti-TB therapy may be appropriate for select patients in consultation with a physician with expertise in the treatment of TB. Patients should be monitored for the development of signs and symptoms of TB.

Viral reactivation
Viral reactivation, including cases of herpes zoster, was reported in clinical studies. The risk of herpes zoster appears to be higher in Japanese patients treated with RINVOQ. Consider interruption of RINVOQ if the patient develops herpes zoster until the episode resolves. Screening for viral hepatitis and monitoring for reactivation should occur before and during therapy. If hepatitis B virus DNA is detected, a liver specialist should be consulted.

Vaccination
The use of live, attenuated vaccines during or immediately prior to therapy is not recommended. It is recommended that patients be brought up to date with all immunizations, including prophylactic zoster vaccinations, prior to initiating RINVOQ, in agreement with current immunization guidelines.

Malignancy
Lymphoma and other malignancies have been reported in patients receiving JAK inhibitors, including RINVOQ. In a large randomised active-controlled study of tofacitinib (another JAK inhibitor) in RA patients ≥50 years of age with ≥1 additional CV risk factor, a higher rate of malignancies, particularly lung cancer, lymphoma, and non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC), was observed with tofacitinib compared to tumour necrosis factor (TNF) inhibitors. A higher rate of malignancies, including NMSC, was observed with RINVOQ 30 mg compared to 15 mg. Periodic skin examination is recommended for all patients, particularly those with risk factors for skin cancer. In patients ≥65 years of age, patients who are current or past long-time smokers, or patients with other malignancy risk factors (e.g., current malignancy or history of malignancy), RINVOQ should only be used if no suitable treatment alternatives are available.

Hematological abnormalities
Treatment should not be initiated, or should be temporarily interrupted, in patients with hematological abnormalities observed during routine patient management.

Gastrointestinal perforations
Events of diverticulitis and gastrointestinal perforations have been reported in clinical trials and from post-marketing sources. RINVOQ should be used with caution in patients who may be at risk for gastrointestinal perforation (e.g., patients with diverticular disease, a history of diverticulitis, or who are taking non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), corticosteroids, or opioids. Patients with active Crohn's disease are at increased risk for developing intestinal perforation. Patients presenting with new onset abdominal signs and symptoms should be evaluated promptly for early identification of diverticulitis or gastrointestinal perforation.

Major adverse cardiovascular events
MACE were observed in clinical studies of RINVOQ. In a large randomised active-controlled study of tofacitinib (another JAK inhibitor) in RA patients ≥50 years of age with ≥1 additional CV risk factor, a higher rate of MACE, defined as CV death, non-fatal myocardial infarction and non-fatal stroke, was observed with tofacitinib compared to TNF inhibitors. Therefore, in patients ≥65 years of age, patients who are current or past long-time smokers, and patients with history of atherosclerotic CV disease or other CV risk factors, RINVOQ should only be used if no suitable treatment alternatives are available.

Lipids
RINVOQ treatment was associated with dose-dependent increases in lipid parameters, including total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol.

Hepatic transaminase elevations
Treatment with RINVOQ was associated with an increased incidence of liver enzyme elevation. Hepatic transaminases must be evaluated at baseline and thereafter according to routine patient management. If alanine transaminase (ALT) or aspartate transaminase (AST) increases are observed and drug-induced liver injury is suspected, RINVOQ should be interrupted until this diagnosis is excluded.

Venous thromboembolism
Events of deep venous thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE) were observed in clinical trials for RINVOQ. In a large randomised active-controlled study of tofacitinib (another JAK inhibitor) in RA patients ≥50 years of age with ≥1 additional CV risk factor, a dose‑dependent higher rate of VTE including DVT and PE was observed with tofacitinib compared to TNF inhibitors. In patients with CV or malignancy risk factors, RINVOQ should only be used if no suitable treatment alternatives are available. In patients with known VTE risk factors other than CV or malignancy risk factors (e.g. previous VTE, patients undergoing major surgery, immobilisation, use of combined hormonal contraceptives or hormone replacement therapy, and inherited coagulation disorder), RINVOQ should be used with caution. Patients should be re-evaluated periodically to assess for changes in VTE risk. Promptly evaluate patients with signs and symptoms of VTE and discontinue RINVOQ in patients with suspected VTE.

Retinal vein occlusion
Retinal vein occlusion has been reported in patients treated with JAK inhibitors, including upadacitinib. Patients should be advised to promptly seek medical care in case they experience symptoms suggestive of retinal vein occlusion.

Hypersensitivity reactions
Serious hypersensitivity reactions such as anaphylaxis and angioedema have been reported in patients receiving RINVOQ. If a clinically significant hypersensitivity reaction occurs, discontinue RINVOQ and institute appropriate therapy.

Hypoglycemia in patients treated for diabetes
There have been reports of hypoglycemia following initiation of JAK inhibitors, including RINVOQ, in patients receiving medication for diabetes. Dose adjustment of anti-diabetic medication may be necessary in the event that hypoglycemia occurs.

Medication Residue in Stool
Reports of medication residue in stool or ostomy output have occurred in patients taking RINVOQ. Most reports described anatomic (e.g., ileostomy, colostomy, intestinal resection) or functional gastrointestinal conditions with shortened gastrointestinal transit times. Patients should be instructed to contact their healthcare professional if medication residue is observed repeatedly. Patients should be clinically monitored, and alternative treatment should be considered if there is an inadequate therapeutic response.

Giant Cell Arteritis
RINVOQ monotherapy should not be used for the treatment of acute relapses as efficacy in this setting has not been established. Corticosteroids should be given according to medical judgement and practice guidelines.

Adverse reactions
The most commonly reported adverse reactions in RA, PsA, and axSpA clinical trials (≥2% of patients in at least one of the indications) with RINVOQ 15 mg were upper respiratory tract infections, blood creatine phosphokinase (CPK) increased, ALT increased, bronchitis, nausea, neutropenia, cough, AST increased, and hypercholesterolemia. Overall, the safety profile observed in patients with psoriatic arthritis or active axial spondyloarthritis treated with RINVOQ 15 mg was consistent with the safety profile observed in patients with RA.

The most commonly reported adverse reactions in AD trials (≥2% of patients) with RINVOQ 15 mg or 30 mg were upper respiratory tract infection, acne, herpes simplex, headache, blood CPK increased, cough, folliculitis, abdominal pain, nausea, neutropenia, pyrexia, and influenza. Dose dependent increased risks of infection and herpes zoster were observed with RINVOQ. The safety profile for RINVOQ 15 mg and 30 mg in adolescents was similar to that in adults. With long-term exposure, skin papilloma was reported in adolescents in the RINVOQ 15 mg and 30 mg groups.

The most commonly reported adverse reactions in the UC and CD trials (≥3% of patients) with RINVOQ 45 mg, 30 mg or 15 mg were upper respiratory tract infection, pyrexia, blood CPK increased, anemia, headache, acne, herpes zoster, neutropenia, rash, pneumonia, hypercholesterolemia, bronchitis, AST increased, fatigue, folliculitis, ALT increased, herpes simplex, and influenza. The overall safety profile observed in patients with UC was generally consistent with that observed in patients with RA. Overall, the safety profile observed in patients with CD treated with RINVOQ was consistent with the known safety profile for RINVOQ.

Overall, the safety profile observed in patients with GCA treated with RINVOQ 15 mg was generally consistent with the known safety profile for RINVOQ.

The most common serious adverse reactions were serious infections.

The safety profile of RINVOQ with long-term treatment was generally similar to the safety profile during the placebo-controlled period across indications.

This is not a complete summary of all safety information.

See RINVOQ full Summary of Product Characteristics (SmPC) at www.ema.europa.eu

Globally, prescribing information varies; refer to the individual country product label for complete information.

About AbbVie in Immunology
AbbVie is relentless in our pursuit to redefine the standard of care for patients living with immune-mediated conditions, with the goal of helping them live a life free from the limitations of their disease. For more than 20 years, AbbVie has led and helped shape the field of immunology through groundbreaking science and trusted medicines. Building on deep expertise across gastroenterology, rheumatology and dermatology, and other areas of high unmet need, we continue to invest in a broad and differentiated pipeline – spanning innovative modalities, novel mechanisms of actions and next-generation approaches designed to conquer the complex biology underlying immune-mediated disease.

Today, more than 1 million patients worldwide are treated with AbbVie's immunology medicines, approved in more than 175 countries across 19 immune-mediated diseases that impact adult and pediatric populations. As we work to strengthen our legacy and drive the next wave of innovation, we remain focused on delivering meaningful progress for patients and expanding access to our medicines. For more information, please visit www.abbvie.com/immunology.

About AbbVie
AbbVie's mission is to discover and deliver innovative medicines and solutions that solve serious health issues today and address the medical challenges of tomorrow. We strive to have a remarkable impact on people's lives across several key therapeutic areas including immunology, neuroscience and oncology – and products and services in our Allergan Aesthetics portfolio. For more information about AbbVie, please visit us at www.abbvie.com. Follow @abbvie on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X and YouTube.

Forward-Looking Statements

Some statements in this news release are, or may be considered, forward-looking statements for purposes of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The words "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "project" and similar expressions and uses of future or conditional verbs, generally identify forward-looking statements. AbbVie cautions that these forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, challenges to intellectual property, competition from other products, difficulties inherent in the research and development process, adverse litigation or government action, changes to laws and regulations applicable to our industry, the impact of global macroeconomic factors, such as economic downturns or uncertainty, international conflict, trade disputes and tariffs, and other uncertainties and risks associated with global business operations. Additional information about the economic, competitive, governmental, technological and other factors that may affect AbbVie's operations is set forth in Item 1A, "Risk Factors," of AbbVie's 2025 Annual Report on Form 10-K, which has been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, as updated by its Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and in other documents that AbbVie subsequently files with the Securities and Exchange Commission that update, supplement or supersede such information. AbbVie undertakes no obligation, and specifically declines, to release publicly any revisions to forward-looking statements as a result of subsequent events or developments, except as required by law.

References

AbbVie. Data on file ABVRRTI82545 Ezzedine K, Eleftheriadou V, Whitton M, van Geel N. Vitiligo. Lancet. 2015;386(9988):74-84. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(14)60763-7 Krüger C, Schallreuter KU. A review of the worldwide prevalence of vitiligo in children/adolescents and adults. Int J Dermatol. 2012;51(10):1206-1212. doi:10.1111/j.1365-4632.2011.05377.x Mazzei Weiss ME. Vitiligo: to biopsy or not to biopsy?. Cutis. 2020;105(4):189-190. Ezzedine K, Lim HW, Suzuki T, et al. Revised classification/nomenclature of vitiligo and related issues: the Vitiligo Global Issues Consensus Conference. Pigment Cell Melanoma Res. 2012;25(3):E1-13 Taneja N, Sreenivas V, Sahni K, Gupta V, Ramam M. Disease Stability in Segmental and Non-Segmental Vitiligo. Indian Dermatol Online J. 2021 Aug 2;13(1):60-63. doi: 10.4103/idoj.IDOJ_154_21. PMID: 35198469; PMCID: PMC8809159 Hlača N, Žagar T, Kaštelan M, Brajac l, Prpić-Massari L. Current concepts of vitiligo immunopathogenesis. Biomedicines. 2022;10(7):1639. doi:10.3390/biomedicines10071639 Abdel-Malek ZA, Jordan C, Ho T, Upadhyay PR, Fleischer A, Hamzavi l. The enigma and challenges of vitiligo pathophysiology and treatment. Pigment Cell Melanoma Res. 2020;33(6):778-787. doi:10.1111/pcmr.12878 Birlea SA, Goldstein NB, Norris DA. Repigmentation through melanocyte regeneration in vitiligo. Dermatol Clin. 2017;35(2):205-218. doi:10.1016/j.det.2016.11.015 van Geel N, Speeckaert R, Taïeb A, et al. Worldwide expert recommendations for the diagnosis and management of vitiligo: position statement from the International Vitiligo Task Force part 1: towards a new management algorithm. J Eur Acad Dermatol Venereol. 2023;37(11):2173-2184. doi:10.1111/jdv.19451 Seneschal J, Boniface K. Vitiligo: Current therapies and future treatments. Dermatol Pract Concept. 2023;13(4S2):e2023313S. doi:10.5826/dpc.1304S2a313 RINVOQ [Package Insert]. North Chicago, IL: AbbVie Inc.; 2026 SOURCE AbbVie

Sentiment around cryptocurrency memecoin launch platform Pump.fun [PUMP] has turned positive again following renewed interest in memecoins over the past day.

The platform’s native token moved alongside that momentum, with PUMP surging 12% over the past day.

Even so, the rally remained tied to the platform’s underlying health, leaving investors exposed if protocol activity failed to recover.

Why are investors buying PUMP? PUMP’s recent rally has coincided with growing investor participation. The token’s holder count reached a record 122,440, while retail investors accounted for roughly 38% of holders.

That increase also appeared in on-chain data, suggesting fresh capital supported the recent move.

Source: DeFiLlama Between the 26th of June and now, investors added roughly $15.7 million to Total Value Locked (TVL), lifting it to $217.7 million. Those inflows suggested investors committed more capital despite recent volatility.

Total Value Locked measures assets deposited into DeFi protocols. Rising TVL often reflects stronger long-term conviction while investors earn yield.

Is the protocol keeping up? However, rising TVL did not match the protocol’s underlying performance.

Pump.fun continued underperforming across key metrics, including revenue, fees, and launchpad volume.

Data from Artemis showed launchpad volume and fees generated by memecoins on the platform fell 86.7% and 35.6% to $5.8 million and $587,200, respectively.

Source: Artemis Those declines suggested user activity remained weak despite improving investor sentiment.

Lower activity reduced fee generation and limited protocol utility, making it harder for the recent price recovery to gain stronger fundamental support.

Revenue reflected the same trend.

Protocol revenue fell 23% to $147.8 million, reinforcing signs of slowing activity.

Historically, sustained token rallies have been easier to support when protocol usage improves alongside price. Until those metrics recover, PUMP’s recent optimism could remain vulnerable.

Final Summary PUMP gained 12%, holder count hit a record, and TVL increased sharply, signaling renewed market interest. If protocol metrics fail to recover, investor optimism may prove difficult to sustain.

Ethereum’s first zero-knowledge rollup, Loopring, announced Sunday the closure of its decentralized exchange and automated market maker, ending all trading services and halting the relayer effective immediately.

In a post on X on Sunday, the team cited three main reasons for the closure: its failure to gain meaningful adoption, a lack of business development skills and being technologically surpassed by modern zkEVM solutions.

“To be honest, Loopring never gained meaningful adoption,” the team said. “As the first zk-rollup, we lacked a virtual machine – no composability, no real‑world payment use cases. That limitation kept our ecosystem from growing.”

Loopring was a technical pioneer of its time, raising $45 million in a 2017 initial coin offering and helping to prove that scaling Ethereum via zk-rollups was viable. But technology evolves fast in the crypto industry, and it was ultimately surpassed by the more capable successors it helped inspire, such as zkSync, Scroll and StarkNet.

The team said they are “engineers at heart,” not business operators, excelling at writing code but never developing the “passion or skills for business development.”

“External pressures – including major exchange delistings of LRC in 2026 – only accelerated the inevitable,” they said. 

The team added that pressure from more advanced competitors, which are fully compatible with Ethereum smart contracts, “while our specialised architecture now feels obsolete,” compounded the decision to gracefully end it, “rather than running a hollow service.”

Loopring had already shut down its wallet services in July 2025, citing scaling challenges. 

With the DEX closure, the team said it will be calculating and publishing all final user balances, then distributing funds directly to users' Ethereum wallets in batches and covering gas fees. 

Loopring's total value locked is about $8 million, down almost 99% from the $760 million peak in November 2021, according to L2Beat. Its native token, LRC, has collapsed by a similar amount to $0.01 from its all-time high in the same month of $3.75. 

Loopring's total value locked has collapsed over the past five years. Source: L2Beat

One of Loopring’s biggest milestones was a 2021 partnership with GameStop to power its NFT platform, launched the following year. 

Crypto winter bites deep this yearThe demise of Loopring adds to the growing list of crypto closures this year, as the bear market deepens and previous-cycle narratives no longer apply. 

More than 60 crypto projects and protocols have already shuttered services in 2026, according to RootData. Some of the more notable ones include a16z-backed decentralized self-custody solution Entropy, app-chain infrastructure protocol Syndicate and AI blockchain platform Yupp.

Magazine: Bitcoin slides to $58K, XRP hits $1 but onchain data promising: Market Moves

Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.

By PYMNTS  |  June 28, 2026

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China’s Tencent is reportedly testing an app designed for overseas travelers to its country.

TenPayGo was created to function as a one-stop digital services platform that includes mobile payments, Bloomberg News reported Sunday (June 28), citing Jiemian News. The app, now being tested, lets users spend directly at millions of merchants in China that accept Weixin Pay, letting visitors send and explore China with no need for cash, the report added.

Bloomberg noted that China is seeing a steep increase in foreign visitors, with almost 7 billion cross-border trips logged last year, according to the National Immigration Administration. Overseas nationals made up more than 82 million entries and exits, a 26.4% increase compared to the prior year.

The report added that this increase is indicative of expanded visa-free arrangements and wider travel facilitation measures, which authorities say have made it easier for foreign visitors to come to China for both business and pleasure.

Tencent’s efforts come at a time when digital wallets are evolving from “a more convenient way to pay” to “something more consequential: a platform for managing permissions,” as PYMNTS wrote last week.

This evolution can be seen in two recent developments. Samsung’s launch of Samsung ID with CLEAR lets American passport holders store TSA-approved digital credentials inside Samsung Wallet. Meanwhile Visa and OpenAI announced plans to support payments initiated by artificial intelligence agents operating under consumer-defined rules and controls.

“Viewed separately, one initiative concerns identity and the other payments,” PYMNTS wrote. “Together, they point toward a broader development in digital commerce: identity verification and spending authorization are beginning to reside in the same place.”

The report cited data from PYMNTS Intelligence which suggests consumers, younger ones in particular, are already making digital wallets part of their regular shopping behavior, setting the stage for them to get comfortable using them for other things.

The traditional role of digital wallets, the report continued, was to offer users a place to store payment credentials and make checkout simpler. Today’s wallets, however, house boarding passes, loyalty cards, tickets, digital keys and government credentials.

“A wallet that can prove who a consumer is occupies a different position in the commerce ecosystem than one that simply stores a card number,” PYMNTS wrote. “Identity credentials are difficult to establish, heavily regulated and tied directly to fraud prevention and security requirements. Once consumers rely on a wallet for identity verification, the relationship becomes more durable.”

When investors are searching for high-flying stocks, they likely wouldn't start in the automotive industry. That said, General Motors (GM 0.55%) has been firing on all cylinders over the past three years. The stock is up 116% over that time. Over the past 12 months, it has gained more than 62% compared to the broader S&P 500's 21% rise.

The good news for investors who missed the rise is that GM is poised to keep driving higher for these three reasons.

1. GM is returning value to shareholders Ford Motor Company (F +0.18%) and its Detroit rival, GM, have much in common, but the two return value in distinctly different ways. Ford is well-known for its lucrative dividend, currently yielding roughly 4.2%, and it often dishes out annual supplemental dividends when cash flow is strong.

A GMC Hummer. Image source: General Motors.

Ford gets more attention for the value it returns through its dividend than GM does for its buybacks, but GM's buybacks are quietly impressive. More specifically, over the past five years, GM has slashed its shares outstanding by a huge chunk, as you can see in the graph below.

Data by YCharts.

Thanks to high-margin, lucrative full-size truck sales and valuable SUV sales, the company generates significant cash. It's used this cash to fund development of a long list of new vehicle launches, and has also retired roughly 500 million shares valued at $30 billion over the past five years -- a staggering number.

While rival Ford's dividend yield sits at roughly 4.2%, much higher and more recognizable than GM's 0.9% dividend yield, the latter's total shareholder yield (which adds buybacks into the equation) sits at a much more impressive 7.6%. Expect GM to continue its buyback strategy, and more investors should be aware of just how valuable it is.

2. GM's OnStar is on point Another factor that many investors overlook with General Motors is its ongoing bet with OnStar and Super Cruise. The automaker is making a long-term bet that it can generate meaningful recurring revenue through its software business.

Last year, GM logged roughly $2.7 billion in realized revenue. It has an even larger $5.4 billion in deferred revenue from OnStar and Super Cruise subscriptions. For context, that's real growth from the $1.7 billion realized and $200 million deferred as recently as 2020. There's more growth ahead, with the company expecting to generate $3.1 billion in realized revenue and $7.5 billion in deferred revenue this year.

Here's the kicker: Starting with 2025 model years, GM is including an eight-year subscription to OnStar services, as well as a three-year subscription to Super Cruise. The simple strategy behind this is gambling that when people go to purchase their next vehicle, they will have become so used to these services that they'll purchase them again. There is some evidence already that this strategy is working: At least 30% of the 35,000 GM owners who had expiring three-year subscriptions to Super Cruise resubscribed last year. These are high-margin sales, comparable to those seen in the software industry.

3. GM's vehicle model balancing act has been successful Most investors are aware that almost everyone in the automotive industry misjudged electric vehicles (EVs) and how quickly they anticipated the shift in demand trends. This caused the broader industry to take billions and billions in charges to rebalance between production and capacity between EVs and traditional gasoline-powered vehicles. GM was no exception, taking a special items hit of $7 billion in the fourth quarter of 2025.

While EVs are largely unprofitable and continue to hinder most automakers' earnings, GM has invested much time, effort, and capital into LMR battery chemistry that is expected to reduce cell and battery pack costs by several thousand dollars per unit. That puts GM on the path to EV profitability, which management expects to achieve within three to five years, reversing billions in annual losses. Reversing EV losses is arguably the easiest way for GM to boost its bottom line and reward investors with an appreciating stock price -- and, likely, a better valuation.

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What it all means GM has quietly been thriving for the better part of the past decade, and has managed to talk Wall Street into rewarding it with a price-to-earnings ratio in the lower 30x. That's rare for automakers, which are typically valued around 10x price-to-earnings. That's simply because the automaker is well-positioned to continue thriving in the years ahead, for the three reasons stated above, among others. GM is far from the Detroit automaker of old, and don't be surprised if it keeps beating the broader market over the next three to five years.

News Highlights: 

HP Inc. will deploy powerful AI-driven solutions with OpenAI Frontier to help drive HP transformation and growth initiatives The Frontier platform will be used across HP’s business, to enhance customer-facing experiences and internal operations  The Frontier strategic partnership supports HP’s efforts to deliver an advanced telemetry platform with WXP, a recognized Gartner magic quadrant leader, enabling a connected device layer for the AI era  PALO ALTO, Calif., June 28, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, HP Inc. (NYSE: HPQ) announced the launch of a strategic partnership with OpenAI, integrating its Frontier platform into HP’s global efforts to shape the Future of Work through enhanced customer-facing experiences and accelerated transformation across its operations.  

“With OpenAI there is an opportunity to fundamentally rethink how AI can deliver better outcomes. With the use of Frontier platform, HP is planning to build a more consistent experience across store, partner, chat, and voice experiences, giving customers and partners faster ways to get answers, complete routine workflows, and move toward resolution. It reflects the ambition of our AI strategy to deliver real-world outcomes at scale,” said Prakash Arunkundrum, chief strategy and transformation officer, HP Inc.  

HP has become one of the first global enterprises to adopt the Frontier platform to fuel its transformation. While specific use cases will be refined and added as the strategic partnership rolls out, HP’s aim is to deploy AI-driven solutions across areas that include:  

Customer- and partner-facing solutions and experiencesCustomer telemetry insights, enabled through HP’s market leading WXP solution, and reportingEmployee productivity Software development  “HP is showing what enterprise transformation looks like when AI becomes an operating layer - connected to the systems and workflows where work already happens,” said Denise Dresser, chief revenue officer at OpenAI. “HP has been an exceptional early partner, turning early value from OpenAI APIs and tools like ChatGPT and Codex into repeatable systems. We're thrilled to go deeper with them as they move beyond Frontier pilots to deliver measurable business impact at scale.” 

The launch of the Frontier strategic partnership follows an exploratory period started in February 2026, in which HP worked with OpenAI to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of Frontier and its capabilities. HP assessed technical capabilities, use cases, and strategic alignment with company priorities through pilots of agentic capabilities, platform components, security, and enterprise integration. 

Based on this evaluation, HP has determined OpenAI offers best-in-class models with a compelling vision for agent-based capabilities. With the Frontier strategic partnership underway, the two companies now plan to co-develop future use cases and ensure they meet HP’s rigorous enterprise standards, particularly around data integration, governance, and security. For HP, AI is becoming a new layer for how work gets done across the company. With OpenAI Frontier, that layer is being built with the context, governance, and execution capacity needed to move from early wins to enterprise-wide transformation. 

Shaping the Future of Work for the AI Era 

AI will change how people work. As AI tools get more powerful, HP believes that humans and AI agents will work together to unlock a new era of innovation and productivity. To prepare for this future, HP is innovating a suite of agentic AI Devices that seamlessly integrate into existing workflows, increasing employee efficiency. For AI Workloads that require always-on inference, HP is building devices with dedicated hardware optimized to run agentic AI workloads 24x7, creating the technology layer customers need to achieve their AI vision.  

HP’s customers are building their workspaces to include PCs, workstations, printers, and collaboration solutions that work together to deliver powerful AI experiences, all secured and managed by the Workforce Experience Platform (WXP). WXP, a Leader in the 2026 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Digital Employee Experience Management Tools, offers a ‘single pane of glass’ that can manage entire fleets of devices and provide the peace of mind CIOs and IT managers need as they define this AI future for their organizations.  

HP is the surface where work gets done. As we move into an AI-driven era of technological advancement, HP brings AI to the edge, where work happens — not just where data is processed. That is the future of work.  

About HP 

HP Inc. (NYSE: HPQ) is a global technology leader redefining the Future of Work. Operating in more than 180 countries, HP delivers innovative and AI-powered devices, software, services, and subscriptions that drive business growth and professional fulfillment. For more information, please visit: HP.com. 

Forward-Looking Statements  

This press release contains forward-looking statements based on current expectations and assumptions that involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. If the risks or uncertainties ever materialize or the assumptions prove incorrect, the results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements and assumptions. All statements other than statements of historical fact are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, statements regarding the partnership between HP and OpenAI, the expected benefits of the partnership, the impact of the partnership on HP’s business, future opportunities, and any other statements regarding HP’s future expectations, beliefs, plans, objectives, or future events or performance. Forward-looking statements can also generally be identified by words such as “future,” “anticipates,” “believes,” “estimates,” “expects,” “intends,” “plans,” “predicts,” “projects,” “will,” “would,” “could,” “can,” “may,” and similar terms. Our forward-looking statements involve significant risks and uncertainties (may of which are beyond HP’s control) including the factors described in the Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2025, and HP’s other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The forward-looking statements in this press release are made as of the date of this document and HP assumes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements.  

HP Inc. Media Relations

[email protected]

www.hp.com/go/newsroom

By PYMNTS  |  June 28, 2026

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Reviews website Trustpilot has reportedly launched a partnership with eCommerce platform Shopify.

The arrangement will let merchants showcase and manage Trustpilot reviews on their online stores, Bloomberg News reported Saturday (June 27), citing an interview with Adrian Blair, Trustpilot’s chief executive. 

Blair said that third-party consumer feedback is growing in importance as artificial intelligence plays a larger role in online retail.

“The key problem that all these Shopify merchants are facing is, how do you actually build trust with customers now in the age of AI?” he said. “There is so much that is now being created by AI, this kind of synthetic content, and Trustpilot is a canonical source of what people say about their experiences with businesses.”

AI-driven search engines and AI shopping assistants also depend on data such as Trustpilot’s, the report added, meaning that a greater volume of reviews can create more visibility online. Trustpilot content is already a vital resource for large language models, with the click-through rate from AI search climbing 1,490% in its most recent financial year, Bloomberg said.

Integrated Trustpilot reviews on the Shopify platform are set to go live Monday (June 29), the report continued. Blair had said in March that his company was exploring partnerships with the internet’s shopping giants.

The Shopify collaboration is “the first kind of major proof point, so we are executing against the strategy that we set out earlier this year,” Blair told Bloomberg, adding that the agreement isn’t exclusive and Trustpilot hopes to pursue partnerships across a variety of industries.

“We see huge adoption of Trustpilot with banks, insurance companies, utilities, accounting firms, cybersecurity companies, law firms, et cetera,” Blair added. “For us retail is very important, but it is one of many verticals.”

Meanwhile, recent research from PYMNTS Intelligence shows that consumers want AI to be involved in their online shopping journey, though more as a navigator than a driver.

“Tasks involving discovery, comparison shopping and information gathering emerged as natural fits for AI,” PYMNTS wrote earlier this month. “Areas involving payments, financial commitments and irreversible decisions, however, continued to trigger greater demand for human oversight.”

The findings, from the May 2026 Consumer AI Benchmark, indicate that the next phase of AI adoption will hinge less on the sophistication of the technology and depend more on whether merchants can find the balance between automation and human control.

AST SpaceMobile (ASTS +9.08%) has already proved that ordinary phones can connect directly to satellites. The bigger test now is whether it can build, launch, and operate enough of its BlueBird satellites to turn that technology into a commercial network.

Here's why its upcoming satellite launch could strengthen the bullish case for the stock and why buying before the planned August launches makes sense.

Image source: Getty Images.

AST SpaceMobile's satellite launch strategy In June 2026, AST SpaceMobile launched BlueBirds 8, 9, and 10, which the company says are already operating in orbit. It is now targeting the launch of BlueBirds 11, 12, and 13 in the first half of August 2026.

This timeline will test whether AST can keep launching satellites at the pace needed to build a commercial network. The satellites due to be launched in August are expected to use large 2,400-square-foot antennas.

The company recently reached a peak download speed of 98.9 megabits per second from its satellite network directly to ordinary smartphones. The August satellites are expected to nearly double that peak speed.

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In the 2026 first-quarter earnings call, management said that BlueBird satellites 11 through 33 were already in an advanced state of assembly, with key antenna parts completed through BlueBird 28. The company is targeting six fully assembled satellites per month, showing that it is trying to move from building satellites one by one to a steadier launch program.

AST SpaceMobile says it has already contracted launch capacity to support its 2026 target of roughly 45 satellites in orbit. The company is not relying on only one rocket provider. Its launch plan includes Space Exploration Technologies' Falcon 9, which can carry three BlueBird satellites; Blue Origin's New Glenn, which can carry up to eight; and United Launch Alliance's Vulcan, which can carry up to five. The alliance is a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

Management said new satellites could be ready to support 4G or 5G service with mobile network partners about 45 days after launch. Over time, it aims to cut that setup period to about two weeks.

Financials may improve over time AST SpaceMobile's revenue was only $14.7 million in the first quarter. However, management expects revenue to grow in the remaining three quarters of 2026. The company is guiding for 2026 revenue in the range of $150 million to $200 million.

The revenue story goes beyond satellite launches. AST SpaceMobile expects 2026 revenue from ground equipment and services for mobile-network partners, government contract work, consulting with mobile operators, and possible early service revenue as more satellites are launched and activated.

Management sees 2027 revenue potentially approaching $1 billion, helped by cellular broadband service in major markets and larger U.S. government contracts. To support that growth, the company is working on ground networks across markets covering about 2.9 billion people. This groundwork should help mobile-network partners activate service as more satellites come online.

Lastly, AST had about $3.5 billion in cash on its balance sheet at the end of the first quarter, against about $3.02 billion of total debt. Since nearly $2.9 billion of that is long-term debt, AST SpaceMobile has some flexibility to fund its commercial strategy.

I think it makes sense to buy the stock before the August launches. 

20h05 ▪ 5 min read ▪ by Evans S.

Summarize this article with:

Bitwise brutally strengthens its crypto bet on Hyperliquid. The asset manager transferred 1.775 million HYPE tokens to the protocol before staking them. The operation, estimated at around 114 million dollars, accompanies the rise of its Hyperliquid spot ETF launched in May.

In brief Bitwise placed 1.775 million HYPE in staking. The crypto operation amounts to about 114 million dollars. The BHYP ETF strengthens institutional demand around Hyperliquid. Bitwise deposited 1.775 million HYPE on Hyperliquid, then committed all the tokens to staking. This position confirms the interest already shown by the manager for an asset he recently judged undervalued on the market.

At the price taken during the transaction, the tokens represented roughly 114 million dollars. This is therefore no longer a simple institutional test. Bitwise is establishing massive exposure on one of the main decentralized crypto derivatives platforms.

Staking also reduces the amount of HYPE immediately available on the market. When large holders lock their tokens, the liquid supply can contract. This mechanism however does not guarantee an automatic price increase. The economic model of Hyperliquid plays a central role in this operation. Staking rewards are not only based on the issuance of new tokens. They are notably supported by the activity and revenue generated by the protocol.

Bitwise is thus exposed to two crypto variables. The first remains the price of HYPE. The second depends on Hyperliquid’s level of use, notably the volume handled on its decentralized markets. This structure makes the bet more strategic than a classic purchase. If the activity grows, the protocol’s revenues can reinforce staking interest. Conversely, a drop in volumes would reduce the position’s economic attractiveness.

Hyperliquid quickly established itself in derivatives trading. The platform now competes with several major centralized venues on certain indicators, while retaining a largely on-chain architecture.

The BHYP ETF fuels crypto accumulation The operation follows the launch of the Bitwise Hyperliquid ETF, listed under the symbol BHYP. This product gives investors exposure to HYPE without forcing them to directly manage a crypto portfolio or technical staking constraints.

The fund also seeks to capture rewards thanks to the tokens held. This design distinguishes BHYP from an ETF that would merely passively track the price of an asset. Bitwise wants to combine market exposure and on-chain yield.

The manager also dedicates part of its revenue to buying and staking HYPE. Fund growth can therefore feed new demand for the token. The more assets managed increase, the larger this mechanism can grow.

This dynamic explains why the Hyperliquid ETF now occupies an important place in Bitwise’s crypto strategy. The manager no longer only bets on Bitcoin or Ethereum. It also seeks to capture growth from younger infrastructures.

Hyperliquid attracts institutional finance Bitwise is not alone in this field. Other managers have also sought to launch products linked to HYPE. This competition shows Hyperliquid has exceeded its status as a platform reserved for specialized traders.

The arrival of regulated funds can create a new source of demand. A few tens of millions of dollars represent little at the scale of traditional finance, but a lot for a token whose liquid supply remains limited. This concentration carries risks though. If ETFs accumulate a large share of available HYPE, their purchases can support the price. But their sales could also amplify a correction during massive exits.

Staking adds another level of dependency. Bitwise must monitor the protocol’s operation, validators, technical risks, and the network’s rule evolution. Institutional exposure does not remove crypto’s inherent vulnerabilities.

The 114 million dollar investment thus remains a strong signal, but not a guarantee. It confirms that Hyperliquid is entering a new phase, driven by ETFs, staking, and institutional capital. The battle for exposure to HYPE is probably just beginning, while the token aims higher in the crypto hierarchy.

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Evans S.

Fascinated by Bitcoin since 2017, Evariste has continuously researched the subject. While his initial interest was in trading, he now actively seeks to understand all advances centered on cryptocurrencies. As an editor, he strives to consistently deliver high-quality work that reflects the state of the sector as a whole.

DISCLAIMER

The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this article belong solely to the author, and should not be taken as investment advice. Do your own research before taking any investment decisions.

TLDR: Table of Contents

TLDR:Bitcoin Weekly Death Cross Raises Fresh BTC Price ConcernsMichael Saylor Hints at More Bitcoin Buying Despite Strategy Valuation Pressure Bitcoin approaches a rare weekly death cross as traders monitor long-term market direction closely. Strategy’s mNAV has dropped below 1.0 for the first time during this market cycle. Michael Saylor hinted at more Bitcoin discussions despite growing valuation concerns. Technical signals and institutional buying remain key factors shaping Bitcoin sentiment. Bitcoin could soon print a rare weekly death cross as bearish technical signals return to the market. At the same time, Michael Saylor has hinted that Strategy may continue accumulating Bitcoin despite growing pressure on its valuation. 

The two developments have reignited discussion around Bitcoin’s price outlook and institutional demand. Investors are now watching technical charts alongside corporate buying activity for the next major market signal.

Bitcoin Weekly Death Cross Raises Fresh BTC Price Concerns Crypto Rover shared that Bitcoin is approaching a weekly death cross, a technical pattern that appears when the long-term moving average falls below the shorter trend. The account noted that the previous weekly death cross preceded another 28% decline in Bitcoin’s price.

🚨 BITCOIN WEEKLY DEATH CROSS IS NOW INCOMING.

Last time this happened, BTC crashed another -28%.

If history repeats again, the real bottom may not come until late Q3 or early Q4 2026.

That would also perfectly match Bitcoin’s 4-year cycle. https://t.co/NgE8PlCamN pic.twitter.com/sbPGjGTIv4

— Crypto Rover (@cryptorover) June 28, 2026

The same post highlighted Bitcoin’s historical four-year market cycle. According to Crypto Rover, another extended correction could align with the later stages of the current cycle if previous patterns repeat.

The signal has attracted attention because weekly chart formations appear far less often than daily indicators. Traders typically monitor them for broader market direction rather than short-term volatility.

Despite the technical setup, the pattern alone does not determine future price action. Market participants continue weighing macroeconomic conditions, liquidity, and institutional demand alongside historical chart behavior.

Michael Saylor Hints at More Bitcoin Buying Despite Strategy Valuation Pressure While bearish technical signals circulated, Michael Saylor posted that more charts would be needed, a familiar response that often precedes fresh Bitcoin discussions. His comment followed renewed debate surrounding Strategy’s ability to continue funding Bitcoin purchases.

🚨 JUST IN: Michael Saylor hints at buying more $BTC.

What's interesting is the timing.

Strategy's mNAV has now fallen below 1.0 for the first time this cycle, meaning the company is trading below the market value of the Bitcoin it holds.

Management has previously indicated… https://t.co/WkFYTYOyBi

— Wise Advice (@wiseadvicesumit) June 28, 2026

Wise Advice pointed to Strategy’s market value relative to its Bitcoin holdings. The account noted that the company’s modified net asset value, or mNAV, has fallen below 1.0 for the first time during the current market cycle.

According to the same discussion, Strategy previously suggested that issuing new equity below roughly 1.22 times mNAV could reduce shareholder value. That threshold has prompted questions about whether additional equity-funded Bitcoin purchases remain practical under current market conditions.

Even so, Saylor’s brief response has kept attention on Strategy’s long-standing Bitcoin accumulation strategy. 

Investors now await any official filings or announcements that could clarify whether another Bitcoin purchase is approaching while the company navigates changing market dynamics.

MicroStrategy’s $64 billion Bitcoin (BTC) bet has become a stress test for everyone who funded it. BTC now trades below $60,000, and the renamed company, Strategy, sits at a discount to its own holdings.

The question dividing investors is no longer whether Strategy gets liquidated tomorrow. It is who absorbs the losses while the company keeps its coins and keeps paying to hold them.

How the Bitcoin Flywheel was BuiltBy June 22, Strategy held 847,363 BTC bought for $64.1 billion, an average of $75,651 each. That is the largest corporate Bitcoin position anywhere.

MicroStrategy Bitcoin Purchases in 2026. Source: StrategyThe model runs like a flywheel. The company sells stock and debt, buys more Bitcoin, and its shares climb when BTC rises. However, falling prices spin the machine in reverse.

BTC has fallen below $60,000 this week, its lowest level since 2024. The stock has slid with it, dropping under the value of the Bitcoin on its books.

A new accounting standard made the pain visible. Since 2025, FASB rule ASU 2023-08 forces firms to mark Bitcoin to fair value each quarter. As a result, Strategy booked a $14.46 billion unrealized loss in early 2026. That produced a $12.54 billion net loss, or $38.25 for every diluted share.

Michael Saylor's Strategy currently has a $14 billion unrealized loss on bitcoin.

Tom Lee's Bitmine currently has a $10.5 billion unrealized loss on ETH.

This is why it's foolish to follow the smart money and not take profit.

They can survive a crypto winter, most of will not!

— Layah Heilpern (@LayahHeilpern) June 25, 2026 Follow us on X to get the latest news as it happens

Who Actually Pays for MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin BetThe bill does not fall on Strategy alone. As the flywheel slows, the cost spreads to five groups, in rough order of exposure.

Common shareholders They stand first in line. When the stock trades below the value of its Bitcoin, the company still raises cash by selling new shares. Each sale buys less Bitcoin than it hands away.

“If we decide to sell $1 billion of MSTR stock and buy $1 billion of Bitcoin… when you do it at 1.0x MNAV… it is dilutive. It is a minus 48 basis point yield. It costs the shareholders $310 million,” Michael Saylor, Executive Chairman, Strategy, said during Q1 2026 earnings call.

Existing owners are left holding a smaller claim on the same coins, and that dilution is how the strategy gets funded.

Investors in other treasury companies The copycats have fared worse than the original. Their shares once traded far above the Bitcoin they held, lifted by hype.

As that premium faded, many Bitcoin treasury company stocks fell much harder than Bitcoin itself, leaving late buyers deep underwater.

“If that’s not already a bubble burst, how would that bubble burst?” Tom Lee, Chairman of BitMine, said while many treasury stocks traded below net asset value.

Passive and index fund investors This group never chose the bet. MSCI has proposed removing companies whose digital assets exceed half their total assets from its global indexes.

“Feedback from the consultation confirmed institutional investor concern that some DATCOs exhibit characteristics similar to investment funds, which are not eligible for inclusion in the MSCI Indexes,” MSCI said in its official announcement earlier this year.

Strategy clears that bar with ease. An exclusion would force index funds and pension trusts to sell automatically, whatever the price, just to keep tracking the benchmark.

Convertible bondholders and preferred shareholders These investors lent on the assumption that MicroStrategy could always refinance. If Bitcoin stays depressed into 2027, that assumption breaks.

“Proceeds from the bitcoin sales are expected to be used to fund distributions on preferred stock,” Strategy indicated in the June 1 Form 8-K.

Bondholders can demand cash, and preferred holders still expect dividends, both drawing on a reserve of just $1.4 billion.

MicroStrategy itself The company is the backstop of last resort. On its first quarter 2026 earnings call, Michael Saylor again framed Strategy as a net buyer that never sells.

“We will probably sell some Bitcoin to fund a dividend just to inoculate the market, just to send the message that we did it.”

Yet if financing freezes while debt and dividends come due, keeping that vow could become impossible.

“We will sell Bitcoin when it is advantageous to the company. We are not going to sit back and just say we will never sell the Bitcoin,” Strategy co-CEO Phong Le added.

The Real Test Arrives in 2027MicroStrategy faces no margin call today. Its main debt is unsecured, so a falling price alone cannot trigger a forced sale. The threat is a date, not a level.

Holders of a $1.01 billion convertible note can demand repayment on September 15, 2027. If the shares sit below the conversion price, that claim becomes a cash bill the company must cover.

Strategy has neared this edge before. A 2022 Silvergate loan backed by Bitcoin carried a margin call near $21,000 before the firm repaid it. Moving to unsecured notes and preferred stock removed the automatic trigger, but not the obligation.

Microstrategy took a loan to buy more #bitcoin a few months ago using 19,000 $BTC as collateral.

Margin call price is $21,000…

Time to post some more collateral I think!

— Lark Davis (@LarkDavis) June 13, 2022 Some peers have already blinked. This month one Nasdaq company sold Bitcoin to repay debt, and its shares jumped. Analysts have also questioned Strategy’s exit liquidity if it is ever forced to sell at scale.

For now, no forced sale looms. The pressure has simply moved from a price trigger to a calendar. The number that matters is no longer $60,000, but the September 2027 repayment date.

California’s DFAL Clock Is Ticking: XRP Price Hanging in the Balance

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California’s Digital Financial Assets Law will take effect on July 1. It requires any firm conducting digital asset business activity with state residents to hold a DFAL license, and have a completed application on file with the DFPI, or cease covered operations. Right now, as of public records, no Ripple entity appears among applicants. XRP price has fallen below the $1.10 level at this moment of uncertainty.

DFAL covers the exchange of digital assets for fiat or other digital assets, their transfer between persons, custody, and the issuance of reserve-backed instruments. It maps directly onto Ripple’s California-facing operations: payments infrastructure, custody services, and the issuance and redemption of RLUSD, Ripple’s dollar-pegged stablecoin.

Ripple’s existing portfolio of 40-plus U.S. money transmitter licenses does not automatically satisfy DFAL; the law is a separate regime administered by the DFPI through the Nationwide Multistate Licensing System.

However, there are three paths to legal compliance by July 1: hold a DFAL license, have a completed application pending with the DFPI, or qualify under a narrow statutory exemption, primarily available to banks, certain trust companies, and SEC- or CFTC-registered entities operating within already-regulated activity.

🗓️Key date for @Ripple – July 1.
Ripple previously engaged CA's DFPI for a DFAL license noting firms can keep operating if submit by 7/1/26. Public docs through March '26 don't list any Ripple entities, though likely filed. Necessary for all CA offerings, issue/redeem/custody. pic.twitter.com/xfQK4Z3IBc

— WrathofKahneman (@WKahneman) June 19, 2026 Ripple has engaged with the process as the company submitted a formal comment letter to the DFPI, pushing to eliminate redundant money transmitter license requirements for DFAL-licensed firms. However, engagement is not the same as a filed application.

Law firms, including Chambers-ranked practices, have described DFAL as one of the most expansive state-level digital asset licensing regimes in the country.

Discover: The Best Crypto to Diversify Your Portfolio

Can XRP Price Hold $1 If Ripple Misses the DFAL Deadline?XRP is trading near $1.10, far below the expected $2.50 many predicted. Recent price action reflects weak momentum, with sellers repeatedly capping rallies around the $1.15 to $1.20 area. Despite ongoing attention on Ripple’s regulatory developments, the market has yet to price in a decisive positive outcome.

Meanwhile, investors remain focused on several legal and regulatory milestones involving Ripple. The court’s earlier finding that XRP itself is not inherently a security removed a major uncertainty. However, the remaining penalty and injunction issues still matter because they could influence Ripple’s future business operations and market sentiment.

From a technical perspective, XRP must first reclaim the $1.15 to $1.20 zone before traders can discuss a stronger trend reversal. If buyers regain control and regulatory developments remain favorable, the next resistance area could emerge around $1.30 to $1.50. A sustained move above those levels would likely require a meaningful catalyst.

On the downside, support remains clustered around $1.05 and $1.00. If regulatory expectations weaken or broader crypto markets turn lower, those levels could come under pressure. The $1.00 mark remains an important psychological threshold, as a decisive break could invite additional selling.

For now, the market appears to be waiting for confirmation rather than trading on assumptions. Regulatory progress could improve sentiment, yet XRP’s longer-term trajectory will likely depend on both legal clarity and stronger demand returning to the market.

Don’t Miss Out on Our $1,000 USDT Airdrop on ByBit

Brad Garlinghouse said one word, “maybe,” and the XRP community heard a promise. Asked whether holders could get a piece of Ripple if it goes public, he nodded toward a “special arrangement.” This is what was actually said, what holders could realistically receive, and the downside almost nobody is talking about.

Summary

Ripple chief executive Brad Garlinghouse said that “if and when” Ripple goes public, the company might do “something special” for XRP holders, then immediately added it was “not in the immediate term.” That hedged “maybe” was offered in response to a direct question, not volunteered as a plan, and he declined to commit to any mechanism such as a token buyback. Ripple and XRP are legally and financially separate assets: holding XRP grants no shares, no dividends, and no claim on Ripple’s corporate profits, and no bridge between the two currently exists. The mechanisms holders imagine, preferential IPO share access, long-term holding rewards, or tokenized Ripple equity, are all unannounced and face serious securities-law hurdles given XRP’s legal history. The overlooked risk is that a Ripple IPO could actually pressure XRP, by drawing institutional capital toward Ripple stock and pushing the company to monetize its escrow holdings to satisfy public-market investors. One word from Ripple’s chief executive set the XRP community alight, and that word was “maybe.” Speaking on the “Crypto In America” podcast with journalist Eleanor Terrett, Brad Garlinghouse was asked the question XRP holders have wanted answered for years: if Ripple ever goes public, could the people who hold XRP get a piece of it. He did not say no. He gestured first at the indirect benefits Ripple already provides, then, pressed on whether the company would do something specific for holders in an initial public offering, he said, “Maybe, but that is not in the immediate term.”

JUST IN: Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse says the company processed $13T in payments last year with no immediate IPO plans pic.twitter.com/f9bd80FPsX

— crypto.news (@cryptodotnews) May 5, 2026 That was the entire substance of it, a hedged possibility wrapped in a qualification, offered in answer to a direct question rather than announced as a plan. And yet within hours it had been clipped, shared, and reshaped across XRP social media into something close to a corporate commitment, with community members urging one another to “hold accordingly.” The gap between what Garlinghouse actually said and what the community heard is the real story here, because the difference between a hinted-at maybe and a planned reward is the difference between a reasonable hope and a misplaced expectation.

The reason the remark landed so hard is the situation it landed into. XRP holders have spent 2026 watching Ripple collect exactly the kind of institutional wins the community long predicted, settlements with JPMorgan, stablecoin launches with major partners, a steady drumbeat of bank deals, while the token itself has stayed pinned near a dollar and change, beneath every major moving average. That combination, corporate triumph paired with token stagnation, breeds a particular hunger: the sense that the wins are real but are somehow not reaching holders, and that some missing mechanism could finally connect the two. Into that hunger dropped Garlinghouse’s nod, and it did what a catalyst does in a starved market.

This piece separates the hope from the reality. It covers exactly what was said and the precise wording that matters, the crucial distinction between Ripple the company and XRP the token, the mechanisms a holder benefit could theoretically take and why each is harder than it sounds, why Ripple may not even go public soon, the indirect benefit Ripple genuinely does provide, and the downside almost nobody is discussing: that an IPO could actually work against XRP. The goal is the real picture, neither dismissing the possibility nor inflating it into the certainty the hype implied.

What Garlinghouse actually said Precision matters here, because the entire community reaction rests on a few carefully chosen words, and those words were more conditional than the excitement suggested. Garlinghouse did not volunteer the remark; he was asked directly whether XRP holders could share in Ripple’s success if the company eventually launched an initial public offering. His first instinct was to point to the indirect benefit Ripple already provides, saying he hopes XRP holders feel they benefit from Ripple’s existence through the work the company does to grow the XRP ecosystem. Only when pressed on whether Ripple would do something specific for holders in an IPO scenario did he offer the line that ignited everything: “Maybe, but that is not in the immediate term.”

When pushed further on concrete mechanisms, including a possible token buyback, he declined to commit to any of them, pointing back instead to what Ripple already does for the ecosystem. So the full extent of the supposed promise is a “maybe,” qualified as not near-term, given in response to a direct question rather than offered as a plan, with no program described, no mechanism named, and no action committed to. The community heard “Ripple will do something special for holders.” What Garlinghouse actually said was closer to “maybe someday, if we go public, which is not happening soon.”

Those are not the same statement, and stacking the two conditionals reveals how far the exciting headline sits from anything concrete: a possible benefit, attached to a possible IPO, that he himself describes as not a priority. It is worth adding that days earlier, at an industry conference, Garlinghouse had been cooler still on the idea of going public at all, emphasizing that staying private gives Ripple flexibility. Read in that context, the podcast remark was a hint, not a plan and certainly not a promise. Any honest assessment of what holders would actually get has to begin from that fact rather than from the amplified version that spread online.

Ripple is not XRP: the distinction that decides everything To understand why this question is so charged, and so easily misunderstood, you have to grasp a distinction that still confuses many people: Ripple and XRP are legally and financially separate assets, and owning one does not mean owning the other. Ripple is a private technology company that builds payment and liquidity products, some of which use the XRP Ledger. XRP is a cryptocurrency, the native asset of the XRP Ledger, which is a decentralized, open-source blockchain that Ripple does not control. Holding XRP gives you ownership of that token and nothing else.

It confers no shares in Ripple, no dividends, no voting rights, and no claim whatsoever on Ripple’s corporate profits or assets. The two are different things with different value drivers, and the price of one does not automatically move the other. That distinction is why the company-versus-token gap keeps resurfacing across Ripple’s 2026 story. Ripple can win institutional business, launch products, and deepen its corporate value without automatically delivering a direct benefit to XRP holders.

This separation is the foundation of the entire holder-payout question, because it means there is no existing structure, no dividend, no buyback mechanism, no holder-equity bridge, that currently connects Ripple’s corporate fortunes to the people who hold XRP. Any such benefit would require a deliberate corporate decision: Ripple choosing to extend something to holders of a token that is legally distinct from its stock. That is precisely what makes Garlinghouse’s “maybe” notable, because it gestures at the possibility of Ripple voluntarily building a connection that does not exist and is not required to exist. The community’s hope is that Ripple might someday decide to construct that bridge.

The reality is that no bridge exists today, none is planned, and the entire question is whether Ripple might ever choose to build one. Everything that follows, every imagined mechanism and every obstacle, flows from this single fact: a Ripple IPO would, by default, do nothing for XRP holders, because the token and the company are separate. Only an affirmative, deliberate choice by Ripple could change that. Until such a choice is announced, a holder payout remains speculation, not entitlement.

The mechanisms holders imagine Once the “maybe” spread, the community began filling in the blank with specific mechanisms, and it is worth laying them out, because they define the range of what “something special” could plausibly mean. The most discussed idea is preferential access to IPO shares, an arrangement in which verified long-term XRP holders, or users staking on the XRP Ledger, would be granted priority subscription rights to buy into a Ripple offering at favorable terms before the general public. This is the version that most directly answers the community’s wish, because it would let XRP holders transition, at least partly, into Ripple shareholders. It would turn token loyalty into an equity stake.

A second imagined mechanism is a long-term holding reward, a community-based structure that would give some benefit to holders who have kept XRP for a defined period, rewarding loyalty without necessarily handing over equity. A third, more technically ambitious idea is tokenized Ripple equity: a blockchain-based representation of Ripple stock made available to eligible token holders, which would use the very tokenization technology the industry is racing to build in order to bridge the gap between Ripple shares and XRP. Some in the community have also floated the notion of an “equity-token-bound” proof of entitlement, a digital claim linking XRP holding to some future right in Ripple. Each of these would, in its own way, construct the bridge between Ripple equity and XRP holders that currently does not exist.

The crucial thing to hold in mind is that all of them remain imagined, not announced. Garlinghouse named none of them; he declined, in fact, to endorse any specific structure when asked. They represent the community’s wish list of what “something special” might be, not a menu Ripple has offered. The distance between a fan’s plausible idea and a company’s actual program is considerable, especially when the imagined benefit touches securities law, global compliance, investor eligibility, and the legal separation between Ripple equity and XRP.

Why each mechanism is harder than it sounds The reason Garlinghouse spoke in hints instead of specifics is almost certainly that nearly every concrete version of a holder benefit collides with serious obstacles, and understanding those obstacles is essential to a realistic view. The largest is securities law, and it is a particularly sharp problem for XRP of all tokens. Linking a cryptocurrency’s holding to equity benefits raises exactly the kind of securities-law questions that defined Ripple’s long and costly legal battle, the years-long fight over whether XRP sales amounted to unregistered securities transactions. Building a formal bridge that rewards XRP holders with equity or equity-like rights risks recreating the very entanglement between the token and the company that Ripple spent years and enormous legal resources trying to separate.

The company would have to navigate that terrain with extreme care, because a poorly designed holder-benefit program could reintroduce the argument that XRP is a security tied to Ripple’s enterprise, which is the last thing Ripple wants. That is why the catalyst that matters more than the IPO is still statutory clarity from the CLARITY Act, not an undefined corporate reward. Federal clarity can strengthen XRP’s status without blurring the line between the token and Ripple equity. A holder-equity program, by contrast, could blur that line if designed carelessly.

Beyond securities law, the practical obstacles multiply. A preferential-share program would require verifying who is a genuine long-term holder, drawing cutoff lines that would inevitably be seen as arbitrary or unfair, and managing the identity and compliance machinery to do it at scale across a global, pseudonymous holder base. A holding-reward structure raises questions of how to fund it and how to avoid favoring large holders over small ones. Tokenized equity would face the full weight of securities regulation governing who can own and trade company stock, plus the technical and legal work of making a regulated equity instrument function on a blockchain.

Each mechanism, in other words, is not just a matter of Ripple deciding to be generous; it is a tangle of legal exposure, fairness problems, and operational complexity, any one of which could sink it. This is why the most dramatic interpretations of “special arrangement” are also the least likely. A sober reading has to weight the modest possibilities, a governance gesture, a symbolic recognition, or simply Ripple structuring its business so more value flows through XRP over time, far more heavily than the windfall the community imagined.

Why Ripple may not even go public soon The entire holder-benefit scenario is downstream of a prior question that often gets lost in the excitement: will Ripple even go public at all, and if so, when. On this, Garlinghouse has been consistent and notably unenthusiastic. He has repeatedly described an IPO as not a priority, and his reasoning is grounded in the current state of the public markets for crypto companies. He has pointed to the underwhelming performance of crypto-related public listings, citing peers whose post-listing stock has struggled, and noted reports that at least one major exchange had delayed its own listing plans.

His view, in short, is that the public markets have not treated Ripple’s peers well, and that there is little reason to rush into that environment. He has also made a positive case for staying private, arguing that it preserves flexibility, including, he joked, the freedom to speak openly without lawyers drafting every word. This is not the posture of a company on the verge of ringing the opening bell. It means the holder-benefit question is built on a foundation that is itself uncertain: a possible reward contingent on an IPO that the chief executive describes as neither planned nor imminent.

That is the sense in which the whole thing is a maybe attached to a maybe. For an XRP holder weighing what they might receive, this is the most important practical point, because even the most generous imaginable holder benefit is irrelevant unless and until Ripple actually decides to go public. By Garlinghouse’s own account, that decision is not on the calendar. The community’s hope therefore rests on two sequential uncertainties: first that Ripple goes public, and second that, having done so, it chooses to extend something to holders it is under no obligation to help.

Either link breaking is enough to make the whole scenario evaporate. That is why the IPO hint should not be treated like a near-term catalyst, even if it tells holders something about how Ripple thinks about its community. The comment matters as a signal of openness, but it does not change the current legal structure, the current IPO timeline, or the current token economics. XRP holders should separate those categories carefully.

The indirect benefit Ripple already provides Set against the speculation is Garlinghouse’s actual, stated position, which deserves a fair hearing because it is not a trivial argument: that XRP holders already benefit from Ripple’s existence, indirectly but intentionally. The foundation of this argument is a simple fact: Ripple is the largest single holder of XRP. That gives the company a stronger economic incentive than anyone else to increase the token’s value and adoption, because Ripple profits when XRP rises, just as holders do. Its incentives are genuinely aligned with holders, even without any formal program linking the two.

Every commercial partnership Ripple pursues, every payment corridor it opens, every institutional deal it closes, and every regulatory battle it fights is evaluated, at least in part, through the lens of how it drives XRP utility and liquidity. Garlinghouse’s framing is that this alignment is the real benefit, that Ripple’s entire strategy is built around making XRP the most useful, liquid, and trusted digital asset in payments and settlement, and that by growing the ecosystem it makes what holders own more valuable, even without a dividend or an equity link. That is where XRP’s actual utility remains central to the long-term case. The token’s real thesis has to rest on usage, liquidity, and settlement demand, not on implied ownership of Ripple.

NEW: JPMorgan, Mastercard, Ondo Finance and Ripple complete tokenized Treasury redemption test on XRP Ledger. Settlement took roughly 5 seconds compared to 3 to 5 business days on traditional rails pic.twitter.com/9Rkd3MkWF4

— crypto.news (@cryptodotnews) June 12, 2026 Garlinghouse has pointed to concrete examples of this posture, including Ripple’s backing of XRP treasury companies such as Evernorth, which is working to build a large XRP treasury business with Ripple’s support, an effort Garlinghouse frames as helping XRP holders, the XRP community, and Ripple shareholders at the same time. This argument has genuine merit and should not be dismissed as spin. The company’s commercial work plausibly does increase XRP’s utility and demand over time, which is a real, if diffuse, benefit to anyone holding the token. The counterpoint, and the reason the “maybe” resonated, is that many in the community find this indirect alignment insufficient.

They want a concrete share of Ripple’s corporate success, not an incentive structure that may or may not translate into token-price appreciation. That dissatisfaction is precisely the nerve Garlinghouse’s remark touched. His indirect-benefit argument is, in effect, his answer to it: you already benefit, just not in the direct way you want. Whether that answer satisfies holders depends on whether Ripple’s wins eventually become visible in XRP demand rather than simply in Ripple’s corporate valuation.

The downside nobody mentions: an IPO could hurt XRP Here is the part of the story that the bullish excitement almost entirely skips: a Ripple IPO is not unambiguously good for XRP, and there is a credible case that it could actively work against the token, at least in the near term. The first channel is competition for capital. Today, an institution that wants exposure to Ripple’s success has essentially one liquid way to get it: buy XRP, the token associated with the company’s ecosystem. If Ripple goes public, that changes.

Suddenly there is a direct way to own a piece of Ripple itself, a regulated equity that offers what a token cannot: potential dividends, audited financial transparency, ownership of the company’s actual assets and cash flows, and the compliance comfort of a listed stock. Faced with that choice, institutional capital that might have flowed into XRP as a proxy for Ripple could instead flow into Ripple stock, siphoning off the very institutional demand the XRP bull case depends on. The IPO, in this reading, would give the market a cleaner instrument for the Ripple thesis, and XRP could lose its role as the default vehicle for it. That is the uncomfortable side of where XRP trades while holders wait: the market wants direct token demand, not merely a story about Ripple’s corporate success.

The second channel is selling pressure from Ripple itself. As a private company, Ripple has long been criticized for selling XRP from its large escrow holdings, a persistent source of new supply. After an IPO, that pressure could intensify instead of ease, because a public company answers to Wall Street’s quarterly demands for cash flow and profitability. To satisfy those demands and bolster its financial reports, Ripple’s board could face strong incentives to monetize tens of billions of XRP from its escrow accounts in a more systematic and aggressive way, creating an invisible, long-term overhang on the token’s price.

None of this is certain, and a well-managed IPO could be handled in ways that limit these effects, but the point is that the community’s framing of an IPO as pure upside for holders is incomplete. The honest version acknowledges that going public is a double-edged sword for XRP. It could, in the bullish case, come bundled with a “special arrangement” that rewards holders, or it could, in the bearish case, drain attention and capital away from the token while increasing the supply pressure on it. Holders hoping for the first should at least weigh the second.

What it means for holders today So what should an XRP holder actually take from all of this, standing in the present with the token trading near a dollar and the “special arrangement” still nothing more than a hedged remark? The disciplined answer is to give the IPO hint the weight it actually carries, which is to say very little, and to keep attention on the catalysts that truly move XRP. A possible IPO reward is a weak basis for any decision, because it is a maybe attached to a maybe: an unplanned, undefined benefit contingent on an IPO that Ripple does not prioritize. It is better regarded as a distant possible upside not to be counted on than as a catalyst to position around.

The things that will actually determine XRP’s path are observable and concrete: whether the CLARITY Act passes and writes XRP’s commodity status into federal law, whether spot ETF flows compound or trickle, whether the network’s settlement usage grows enough to translate into real token demand against the escrow supply, and where Bitcoin drags the broader market. Those are the signals worth watching, and the IPO hint is not among them. This does not mean the remark is meaningless. It reveals something real about Ripple’s posture toward its community, a willingness to at least entertain the idea of connecting corporate success to holders, which is more than many companies would offer.

But revealing a posture is not the same as making a commitment, and the most useful thing a holder can do is to enjoy the signal for what it shows about Ripple’s attitude while declining to build any expectation on top of it. The community heard a promise. What Garlinghouse offered was a maybe, and in investing the difference is everything. An XRP holder is better served by evaluating the token on its actual merits, its use in payments, its regulatory position, its adoption, and its supply dynamics, than by speculating about an IPO reward that exists only as a hedged possibility.

That possibility is attached to an IPO that may never come, and that could, in some scenarios, hurt the token as much as help it. The hope is understandable. The discipline is to keep it in proportion. If Ripple ever announces a real program, holders can judge the terms then; until then, the “special arrangement” is a signal, not a strategy.

Frequently asked questions Did Ripple promise XRP holders a payout from its IPO? No. Ripple chief executive Brad Garlinghouse said that “if and when” Ripple goes public, the company might do “something special” for XRP holders, then immediately added that it was “not in the immediate term.” That was a hedged “maybe” offered in response to a direct question, not a plan, a program, or a commitment, and he declined to endorse any specific mechanism such as a token buyback. The community amplified the remark into something close to a promise, but no payout has been announced, no mechanism has been described, and the comment was explicitly conditional on an IPO that Garlinghouse describes as not a priority.

Does holding XRP give me any ownership of Ripple? No. Ripple and XRP are legally and financially separate assets. Ripple is a private technology company that builds payment and liquidity products, some of which use the XRP Ledger. XRP is the native cryptocurrency of the XRP Ledger, a decentralized blockchain that Ripple does not control. Holding XRP grants no shares in Ripple, no dividends, no voting rights, and no claim on the company’s profits or assets.

What could a “special arrangement” actually look like? The mechanisms the community imagines include preferential access to Ripple IPO shares for verified long-term XRP holders, long-term holding rewards for those who keep XRP for a defined period, and tokenized Ripple equity made available to eligible holders. All of these are unannounced and remain speculation instead of anything Ripple has offered. Each also faces serious obstacles, especially securities law, because linking token holding to equity benefits raises exactly the questions Ripple fought during its long legal battle over XRP. More modest possibilities, such as a governance gesture or simply structuring the business so more value flows through XRP, are more realistic than a direct equity windfall.

Is Ripple actually going to have an IPO? It is uncertain, and Garlinghouse has repeatedly described going public as not a priority. He has cited the weak post-listing performance of crypto-company peers and reports of a major exchange delaying its own plans, and he has argued that staying private preserves flexibility. This matters because the entire holder-benefit question is downstream of an IPO happening at all. Even the most generous imaginable reward is irrelevant unless Ripple first decides to go public and then chooses to extend something to holders.

Could a Ripple IPO actually be bad for XRP? It could, and this is the part the bullish framing tends to skip. An IPO would give institutions a direct way to own Ripple through regulated stock that offers dividends, financial transparency, and ownership of company assets, potentially drawing capital that might otherwise have flowed into XRP as a proxy for Ripple. Separately, as a public company answerable to quarterly earnings expectations, Ripple could face stronger incentives to monetize its large XRP escrow holdings more aggressively, adding long-term selling pressure on the token. Going public is therefore a double-edged sword for XRP, with credible downside as well as the hoped-for upside, and holders should weigh both.

What should XRP holders actually focus on? On the observable catalysts that truly move the token instead of the IPO hint. Those include whether the CLARITY Act passes and codifies XRP’s commodity status, whether spot XRP ETF flows compound or stall, whether the network’s settlement usage grows into real token demand against the escrow supply, and the direction of Bitcoin and the broader market. The “special arrangement” remark is best treated as a small signal about Ripple’s posture toward its community, given minimal weight in any actual view of XRP’s prospects. Evaluating XRP on its real merits, utility, regulatory position, adoption, and supply, is far sounder than positioning around a hedged maybe.

This article is information, not investment advice. Prices, corporate plans, and statements reflect reporting available as of June 28, 2026, and can change quickly. Brad Garlinghouse’s comments were conditional and did not constitute a commitment or a program. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell XRP or any security. Verify current details from primary sources and consider your own circumstances before making any decision.

CompaniesJune 28 (Reuters) - U.S. pipeline operator Williams (WMB.N), opens new tab is in advanced talks to acquire rival natural ​gas pipeline operator Momentum Midstream for about $5.5 ‌billion, Bloomberg News reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The Tulsa, Oklahoma-based company is putting the finishing ​touches on an agreement to buy Momentum ​from private equity firm EnCap Flatrock Midstream, the ⁠report said, adding that a deal could ​be announced in about a week.

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Reuters could not immediately ​verify the report. Williams Companies, Momentum Midstream and EnCap Flatrock Midstream did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The ​deal would give Williams additional capacity to ​move gas from the Haynesville shale to U.S. Gulf Coast export ‌terminals, ⁠the Bloomberg report said.

No final decision has been made and EnCap could still opt to retain the company, according to the report.

Williams is exploring acquiring ​U.S. natural gas ​production assets ⁠as it looks to secure supplies for its offerings to hyperscalers and ​data center clients, Reuters reported in February.

Momentum ​Midstream ⁠operates around 4,000 miles (6,437 km) of pipelines, serving more than 140 customers across its network, according to ⁠the company ​website, opens new tab. It also serves 10 ​liquefied natural gas facilities and 26 power plants.

Reporting by Bipasha Dey ​in Bengaluru; Editing by Edmund Klamann and Bill Berkrot

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

TLDR: Table of Contents

TLDR:Hyper Foundation Unveils $10M USDH Migration Grant ProgramUSDH Holders Receive Migration Options as Ecosystem Shifts to USDC Hyper Foundation committed about $10 million to support USDH migration across affected ecosystem projects. Eligible builders must complete migration or orderly shutdown activities before the end of July deadline. USDH holders can swap tokens for USDC through supported HyperCore and HyperEVM migration pathways. Grant allocations depend on deployment costs or affected USDH total value locked across supported protocols. Hyper Foundation has introduced a grant program worth approximately $10 million to support projects affected by the USDH sunset. The initiative targets builders migrating away from the stablecoin or winding down USDH-dependent services before the end of July. 

Eligible teams have already been contacted as the network moves through an organized transition process. The funding aims to reduce migration costs while helping maintain continuity across the Hyper ecosystem.

Hyper Foundation said the grants will support builders whose products relied on USDH before its retirement. According to the foundation, eligible recipients include HIP-1 spot deployers, HIP-3 perpetual deployers, HyperEVM protocols, dedicated USDH: USDC bridge operators, and Native Markets.

The grants fall into two categories. Migration grants support teams replacing USDH with USDC, while wind-down grants assist projects ending USDH-related operations. The foundation noted that wind-down grants remain smaller than equivalent migration awards.

According to Hyper Foundation, every recipient has committed to completing migration or orderly shutdown activities before the end of July. The program seeks to minimize disruption while encouraging structured transitions across supported applications.

Grant calculations also differ between ecosystem participants. HIP-1 and HIP-3 recipients receive allocations based on auction deployment costs, while HyperEVM protocol grants depend on the amount of USDH total value locked affected by the sunset.

USDH Holders Receive Migration Options as Ecosystem Shifts to USDC Hyper Foundation also outlined the migration process for users holding USDH. The organization encouraged users to follow instructions directly from the protocols where their assets remain deployed.

Users can exchange USDH for USDC through the HyperCore spot order book. The foundation also confirmed that HyperEVM users can swap USDH for USDC at a one-to-one ratio through Across without paying transaction fees.

Hyper Foundation Allocates $10M in Grants to Support USDH Migration

Hyper Foundation announced approximately $10 million in grants to help builders affected by the USDH sunset, covering migration and wind-down costs. Grants will be distributed to eligible HIP-1 and HIP-3… pic.twitter.com/Hwy7ZNwswz

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) June 28, 2026

Wu Blockchain highlighted the announcement shortly after the grant program became public. The report noted that the funding package covers both migration expenses and wind-down costs for affected ecosystem participants.

Hyper Foundation also acknowledged the contribution of builders, users, and Native Markets throughout the USDH rollout. The organization credited community participation and direct coordination with helping the migration process progress smoothly during the transition period.

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Schall Law Firm, a national shareholder rights litigation firm, announces that it is investigating claims on behalf of investors of DXC Technology Company (“DXC” or “the Company”) (NYSE: DXC) for violations of the securities laws.

The investigation focuses on whether the Company issued false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose information pertinent to investors. DXC reported its Q4 and full year 2026 financial results on May 7, 2026. The Company reported a decline in revenue for Q4 and bookings down 13.5% year-over-year. The Company blamed this shortfall in part on execution issues. Based on this news, shares of DXC fell by almost 21.5% on the next day.

If you are a shareholder who suffered a loss, click here to participate.

We also encourage you to contact Brian Schall of the Schall Law Firm, 2049 Century Park East, Suite 2460, Los Angeles, CA 90067, at 310-301-3335, to discuss your rights free of charge. You can also reach us through the firm's website at www.schallfirm.com, or by email at [email protected].

The Schall Law Firm represents investors around the world and specializes in securities class action lawsuits and shareholder rights litigation.

This press release may be considered Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions under the applicable law and rules of ethics.

SoFi Technologies' (SOFI +3.58%) stock is on a bit of a losing streak at the moment. Its share price has tanked 31.7% in 2026 (as of June 26).

However, the fintech stock's recent performance shouldn't distract from what's actually happening with the business. Product development remains management's top priority. This is a strategy that investors should appreciate, as it indicates a focus on improving the customer experience.

Here's how SoFi's latest innovation could transform its growth trajectory.

Image source: Getty Images.

AI becomes a personal financial planner On June 2, the business launched SoFi Coach, an "artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chat that delivers personalized financial insights," according to the press release. Users can link all of their financial accounts to SoFi. Then they can ask SoFi Coach questions about their spending behavior, savings goals, investment allocations, and debt repayment.

"How much did I spend on restaurants last month? "At my current savings rate, will I be able to afford a $500,000 home in five years? These are two examples of what members can ask SoFi Coach.

For SoFi customers, this is like having instant access to a dedicated team of financial experts in your pocket. And since it's all done via the app, users might be more comfortable communicating their concerns about their financial situation through the app than discussing them with a real person.

Early testing reveals notable adoption. Almost 70% of test members took necessary actions to improve their finances.

SoFi Coach is a clear demonstration of CEO Anthony Noto's overarching belief. On SoFi's fourth-quarter 2025 earnings call, he called AI a super-cycle, viewing it as an area with "huge opportunities for growth."

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Growth hasn't been an issue Investors who pay attention to the underlying business, as opposed to the stock price, will be encouraged by what they see. SoFi continues to grow rapidly. As of March 31, it had 14.7 million customers, up 35% year over year. This helped drive adjusted net revenue higher by 41%. Executives believe the top line will rise by 30% in 2026.

The company has found a strong footing in the financial services industry. Its tech-forward platform caters to younger, affluent consumers, providing SoFi with greater lifetime value as these customers' financial lives evolve.

While still in its very early stages, SoFi Coach could provide a boost to the company's growth trajectory in an obvious way. The business wants the AI assistant to be able to take action at customers' request, including opening new accounts. This can promote cross-selling opportunities, as members use more of SoFi's products over time, increasing the digital bank's stickiness.

Investors should monitor any updates on SoFi Coach's adoption going forward.

One of the biggest bottlenecks for artificial intelligence (AI) data centers right now is power supply. Power grids cannot keep up with the capacity of data centers coming online, and hyperscalers are having to get creative with their power solutions.

Ford Motor Company (F +0.14%) is entering this market by repurposing its electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing footprint to produce battery energy storage systems. The move helps Ford put its battery-making capacity to work as EV support wanes while data center power demand surges. Here's why this trend could supercharge Ford stock in the coming years.

Image source: Getty Images.

Ford's pivot from EV batteries to AI power solutions After over $200 million in manufacturing investments and federal incentives, recent policy rollbacks and shifting consumer preferences have turned the tide for EV manufacturers. With federal tax credits expiring and regulators relaxing emissions standards, automakers that made massive investments in EV infrastructure are now having to pivot.

The build-out of AI data centers presents an opportunity for companies like Ford. That's because these data centers are straining the electricity grid, forcing hyperscalers to seek a variety of energy solutions to meet this growing demand. And because AI workloads require continuous, high-density power, hyperscalers need power solutions that can smooth out sudden load ramp-ups and provide reliable, baseload power 24/7.

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In May, Ford announced the launch of Ford Energy, a wholly owned subsidiary focused on manufacturing utility-scale battery energy storage systems (BESS). This comes amid slowing consumer adoption of EVs and the company's $19.5 billion write-down of its EV programs last year.

As part of this, Ford will spend $2 billion to repurpose its Glendale, Kentucky, facility, originally a multibillion-dollar EV battery joint venture with SK On, a South Korean EV battery and energy storage systems (ESS) manufacturer. Along with making batteries for EVs, the company will manufacture the Ford Energy DC Block, a 5.45-megawatt-hour containerized grid storage system using stable lithium iron phosphate (LFP) chemistry.

Ford Energy aims to position itself as a domestically based, multi-gigawatt manufacturer of these energy solutions. The company entered a deal with EDF Power Solutions, a five-year framework that could be worth up to $4 billion if all options are exercised. Ford will supply its DC Block system, which EDF will use to power data centers and mitigate renewable intermittency on the U.S. power grid.

Is Ford stock a buy? Looking ahead, the company will retool its manufacturing infrastructure over the next couple of years and expects to begin shipping its BESS systems starting as soon as 2027. The company aims to manufacture and deploy 20 GWh (gigawatt-hours) of energy storage capacity annually. If it succeeds, Ford would add a high-growth energy and infrastructure business that could provide a steady revenue stream for assembling, managing, and servicing its BESS systems.

Automakers have historically commanded low to mid-single-digit price-to-earnings multiples due to cyclical consumer demand, low margins, and heavy capital expenditure. If Ford Energy succeeds in securing deals and scaling its energy business, the stock could warrant a valuation rerating. Given the robust demand for power solutions and the recent 20% decline from its recent high, I think Ford is a compelling stock to consider.

About two weeks ago, Advanced Micro Devices announced the acquisition of MEXT, a start-up that has built artificial intelligence (AI)-driven software designed to make NAND flash behave like dynamic random-access memory (DRAM).

The technology uses predictive algorithms to identify frequently accessed data and move it between flash storage and high-speed memory in real time, reducing the amount of expensive DRAM a data center needs to run AI workloads at scale. According to MEXT's own press release, the software can cut memory costs by nearly half while expanding usable memory capacity by two to four times.

For investors in Micron Technology (MU 6.59%) and Sandisk (SNDK 10.45%), the knee-jerk read is obvious: If AMD can teach flash to behave like DRAM, demand for high-bandwidth memory contracts declines. The knee-jerk read is terribly wrong.

What MEXT actually does (and doesn't do) MEXT's technology operates in the software tier between existing storage and compute. It doesn't replace DRAM or HBM. Instead, it reduces the amount of high-speed memory certain workloads require by optimizing what lives in it at any given moment. That's a meaningful efficiency gain for enterprise customers running general-purpose AI workloads, where memory is a cost constraint.

What it cannot touch is the physics of training large AI models and running inference at the performance levels that hyperscalers require. An Nvidia Blackwell graphics processing unit (GPU) demands HBM4 not because no one has tried to work around it, but because the bandwidth requirements of training trillion-parameter models are architectural constraints, not software problems. No predictive tiering algorithm changes what the silicon needs.

MEXT is a tool for enterprises trying to stretch existing infrastructure. It is not a substitute for the memory products that Micron and Sandisk sell to massive tech companies.

Image source: Getty Images.

Micron's position is structurally insulated Micron Technology's entire 2026 HBM4 production is sold out under binding multi-year contracts. At COMPUTEX 2026 in May, the company laid out an end-to-end AI memory portfolio spanning data center to intelligent edge, all in high-volume production. Fiscal first-quarter 2026 revenue hit $13.64 billion, up 57% year over year, with gross margins around 56%, driven by HBM pricing power that comes from contracted scarcity.

The reason Micron's HBM business is immune to MEXT is the same reason it's immune to most software-layer interventions: The customers buying it aren't as price-sensitive as enterprise IT buyers. Hyperscalers building AI training clusters are optimizing for bandwidth and compute density, not TCO reduction. That's a different buyer with different priorities.

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Sandisk is benefiting from the same trend AMD is targeting Here's the counterintuitive part: MEXT's technology, which moves data between flash and DRAM, depends on high-performance NAND flash to function. The better and faster the flash tier, the more effective the tiering software becomes. Sandisk is the company building the flash tier.

In third-quarter fiscal 2026, Sandisk's data center segment revenue surged 233% sequentially to $1.47 billion, driven by enterprise SSDs built specifically for AI workloads. Full-year revenue jumped 61% to $3.03 billion, beating Wall Street consensus by 12%.

Sandisk's stock is up roughly 750% year to date at the time of this writing, the best-performing large-cap technology stock in the S&P 500 so far in 2026. AMD's bet on memory optimization software is, at its core, a bet that NAND flash will absorb more of the workloads traditionally handled by DRAM. That's a thesis that requires better, faster NAND -- which is exactly what Sandisk makes.

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So no, neither Micron nor Sandisk is under meaningful threat from the MEXT acquisition. The market made that clear today, with both stocks flirting with 20% gains this week on June 25. The real risk for both has always been the same one that defines memory investing: If AI infrastructure spending slows faster than new capacity comes online, pricing power compresses, and margins follow.

Both companies are going to be just fine. AMD's MEXT acquisition is a smart move for its data center business, but it doesn't change the fundamental thesis for Micron or Sandisk. If anything, it might be a tailwind.

Big banks are always among the first companies to report earnings every quarter. As banks are seen as bellwethers for the economy, investors can get a sense of what to expect from other sectors of the economy based on bank earnings. But there is one stock that might be considered a bellwether for the bellwethers -- Jefferies Financial (JEF 6.72%).

Jefferies is a leading investment bank, and it reports earnings weeks before other big investment banks like Goldman Sachs (GS 4.27%), Morgan Stanley (MS 4.08%), and JPMorgan Chase (JPM 1.81%). That's because its quarter ends one month earlier than those other banks -- in this case, May 31.

Image source: Getty Images.

So while it might not be a total apples-to-apples comparison to the other banks, Jefferies results can certainly give investors a sense of how the quarter went for the other major banks, perhaps providing intel on whether they should buy leading up to earnings season.

So how did Jefferies do? Here are some takeaways.

Earnings miss and a mixed bag Jefferies' fiscal second-quarter earnings, released June 24, were a mixed bag. Net earnings grew a solid 5% year over year to $226 million, or $1.02 per share, but it was short of estimates of $1.16 per share. Revenue also missed estimates, despite rising 37% year over year to $2.21 billion. Analysts anticipated $2.22 billion.

The miss was the primary reason that Jefferies stock dropped about 8% the next day, June 25.

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The earnings and revenue, while strong, missed estimates due to weak asset management numbers. Asset management revenue tumbled 46% to $188 million in the quarter due to a difficult stock market environment from March through May. Also, it took a hit from losses by its subsidiary, Point Bonita, which had significant exposure to First Brands Group, a company that went bankrupt last fall.

But on the plus side, Jefferies had blowout investment banking results.

Blowout investment banking revenue Investment banking, Jefferies' bread and butter, had a record quarter. This should get the attention of investors looking at earnings for Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley next month.

Investment banking revenue surged to $1.2 billion, a 58% increase year over year. It was a record quarter for Jefferies, led by advisory and equity underwriting. It also had a strong quarter in capital markets as revenue rose 13% to $799 million. Combined, capital markets and investment banking revenue increased 37% year over year to a record $2 billion.

While the quarter may have been a mixed bag for Jefferies, it was good news for other investment bank stocks and their investors. Obviously, the record investment banking and capital markets hauls indicate that this will be a strong quarter for the large investment banks.

Additionally, the downside of this report for Jefferies, asset management, won't translate to the other competitors. That's because Jefferies' asset management results include March, a terrible month for stocks. Goldman Sachs', Morgan Stanley's, and JPM's quarters won't include March and will start with the recovery rally in April.

Also, a big part of Jefferies' asset management hit was from its Point Bonita exposure to First Brands. The other companies won't have that drag. So Q2 should be a good one for the investment banks.

Mainnet halts are rarely caused by one isolated bug. They usually expose a boundary where several subsystems made different assumptions. The May 2026 Sui halts are a good example.

Shortly after Sui rolled out Address Balance and gasless stablecoin transfers, the mainnet halted three times within roughly two days. The first two halts were tied to the boundary between Address Balance, gas charging, gas smashing, and settlement. The third surfaced during validator restarts and epoch transition, exposing a separate randomness / DKG persistence issue.

At first glance, gasless stablecoin transfer sounds like a wallet feature: let users send USDC without first buying SUI. That is a real UX improvement. It removes one of the most awkward parts of stablecoin payments on a gas-token chain.

But on Sui, that UX improvement reaches deep into the execution layer. Gas payment is not just a fee field. It involves coin objects, object versions, replay protection, failed-transaction handling, and checkpoint settlement. Address Balance changes how fungible funds move through that pipeline.

This article starts from the incidents and works backward: why Address Balance exists, how it enables gasless stablecoin transfers, where compatibility with the old coin-object world becomes risky, and what developers should take away from the rollout.

1. Why Address Balance Exists Sui's asset model is object-oriented by default. A Coin<T> is a versioned object. Legacy payment flows are built around selecting, consuming, splitting, merging, and updating coin objects.

That model is powerful. It gives Sui strong ownership semantics and helps parallel execution: unrelated owned objects can move independently. But the same model can make simple payments feel stateful.

A wallet or payment app may need to:

choose which coin objects fund a transfer; split or merge coins to match the desired amount; keep fresh object references; avoid reusing the same coin or gas object in concurrent transactions; make sure the user has SUI before sending a stablecoin. For a user who just wants to send USDC, that is unnecessary friction. The user thinks in balances: "I have 100 USDC, send 10." The chain historically exposed something closer to a set of coin objects.

Address Balance adds a fungible-balance layer on top of Sui's object model. Instead of requiring every unit of a fungible asset to appear as a separate Coin<T> object, it provides a canonical balance for each (address, coin type) pair. Funds sent through sui::coin::send_funds or sui::balance::send_funds merge into the recipient's balance for that asset.

This does not replace every Coin<T> path. Coin objects, address balances, and compatibility mechanisms coexist. That is part of the design: existing wallets, contracts, SDKs, and indexers cannot all migrate at once.

The important shift is that fungible assets no longer always need to be represented as concrete coin objects in the transaction path. That is what makes a cleaner stablecoin payment UX possible.

2. How the New Payment Path Works Address Balance looks like an account balance, but Sui does not become a traditional account-based chain. The core mechanism is the accumulator.

Simplified:

user transaction: deposit -> emit Merge accumulator event withdraw -> emit Split accumulator event checkpoint / commit settlement: collect accumulator events aggregate by (owner, Balance<T>) create system settlement transaction settlement transaction: update AccumulatorRoot dynamic fields User transactions do not directly write the shared AccumulatorRoot. If every address-balance operation wrote that shared object directly, parallelism would suffer. Instead, user transactions emit accumulator events. Settlement transactions aggregate and persist those changes later.

The main Move framework surface is small:

balance::send_funds<T>(Balance<T>, recipient) deposits a Balance<T> into the recipient's address balance. balance::redeem_funds<T>(Withdrawal<Balance<T>>) converts a withdrawal into a Balance<T>. coin::send_funds<T>(Coin<T>, recipient) converts a coin into a balance and deposits it into address balance. coin::redeem_funds<T>(Withdrawal<Balance<T>>) converts an address-balance withdrawal into a Coin<T>. The transaction format adds CallArg::FundsWithdrawal: reserve up to N from the sender's or sponsor's Balance<T>. During execution, this input becomes a Move-side sui::funds_accumulator::Withdrawal<Balance<T>>. It is not an ordinary owned object. It is a withdrawal handle. Only after it is redeemed through redeem_funds does it produce a Split accumulator event.

This gives the scheduler something it can reason about before execution: the maximum possible outflow. It can reserve funds conservatively without locking an entire account.

Gasless stablecoin transfer is built on top of this machinery. For allowed stablecoin types, a qualifying peer-to-peer transfer can execute with:

gasPayment = [] gasPrice = 0 gasBudget = 0 That does not mean arbitrary free computation. Gasless transfers are intentionally narrow. The token must be allowed by protocol configuration. The PTB shape must match a small set of balance and coin operations. The transaction cannot write ordinary objects. Input coins must be consumed or converted into address balances. There is also a minimum transfer amount, and gas-paying transactions are prioritized during congestion.

Those boundaries are security assumptions. Without them, gasPrice = 0 would become a generic free-computation and spam surface.

Address-balance gas payment also introduces a replay-protection requirement. A transaction that pays gas from address balance may have no gas coin object in gas_data.payment. If a stateless transaction has no owned object input anchoring it, it needs TransactionExpiration::ValidDuring, a chain identifier, and a nonce so it cannot be replayed across time or networks.

This is the tradeoff: the user no longer needs to manage SUI gas coins for simple stablecoin transfers, but the execution layer must now reason about balance withdrawals, stateless transaction validity, and deferred settlement.

3. Where Compatibility Gets Risky Sui cannot switch the whole ecosystem from coin objects to address balances overnight. Existing SDKs, wallets, indexers, and Move contracts still speak in Coin<T> and object references. The transition therefore needs compatibility.

Some compatibility is straightforward. Balance APIs now need to distinguish total balance, coin object balance, and address balance. A wallet that only scans owned Coin<T> objects can undercount a user after funds arrive through address balance. Indexers also need to process accumulator events, not only object diffs: Split is address-balance outflow, and Merge is address-balance inflow.

Some compatibility is more subtle. Existing contracts that accept Coin<T> can still be called by redeeming a coin from address balance first:

const [coin] = tx.moveCall({ target: '0x2::coin::redeem_funds', typeArguments: ['0x2::sui::SUI'], arguments: [tx.withdrawal({ amount: 1_000_000_000n })], }); tx.transferObjects([coin], recipient); Conversely, an old flow that produces a Coin<T> can fold it back into address balance through coin::send_funds.

The highest-risk compatibility layer is coin reservation.

Traditional gas payment uses concrete SUI coin objects:

gas_data.payment = [Coin<SUI> object refs] When there are multiple gas coins, the execution layer performs gas smashing: it combines multiple gas coins into one target coin, deletes the other gas coins, and charges gas from the target coin.

Address Balance adds another shape:

gas_data.payment = [real coin object, synthetic reservation object, ...] The synthetic reservation object is not a real on-chain coin. It is an ObjectRef-shaped compatibility value whose digest encodes an address-balance withdrawal reservation. After parsing it, the execution layer treats it as reserved SUI from the sender's address balance.

That is where assumptions start to overlap. Gas smashing was built around coin objects. Coin reservation looks like an object reference, but it is not an ordinary owned object. It can enter paths originally designed for gas coins, while its economic effect comes from address balance.

This is also why explorers and RPCs can be easy to misread. suix_getCoins or an explorer UI may show a coinObjectId, but that value can come from compatibility rather than from a user transaction creating or transferring a normal owned Coin<T>.

A mainnet example illustrates the issue. In transaction ECjUCiAP9YMYFyQrEKUb2JVyWovPyqN6rPGXRz42pUQn, the user transaction had:

objectChanges = [] balanceChanges: sender -100000 USDC, recipient +100000 USDC gasData.payment = [], gasPrice = 0, gasBudget = 0 accumulator events for Balance<USDC> The recipient later appeared in suix_getCoins with a coinObjectId whose previousTransaction was EvgW7KsrN8jaBUkuCdeo4NfiB9baZDyGTXidwxFbt4BV, a system settlement transaction. That settlement transaction called accumulator_settlement::settlement_prologue and accumulator_settlement::settle_u128, creating or modifying accumulator dynamic fields under 0x...0acc. Meanwhile, suix_getOwnedObjects filtered by 0x2::coin::Coin<USDC> returned empty for the recipient.

That combination is closer to an Address Balance RPC compatibility representation than to a normal coin object created by the user transaction.

The compatibility layer is useful. It keeps older coin-object flows working while address balances roll out. But it also brings address-balance side effects into execution logic that previously handled coin object mutation. That boundary is exactly where the first two halts occurred.

4. What Actually Broke The public timeline is short:

2026-05-28, about 07:00-13:30 PT: mainnet halt. A boundary bug between v1.72 Address Balance and gas charging / gas smashing triggered settlement underflow. 2026-05-29, about 05:00-08:30 PT: second halt. The interim fix covered only part of the InsufficientFundsForWithdraw shape. Another cancellation reason could mask InsufficientFundsForWithdraw, and the same class of underflow appeared again. 2026-05-29, about 13:30-19:20 PT: third halt. Validators restarted to deploy the fix, exposing a randomness / DKG state persistence bug. Epoch change could not complete. The first incident can be summarized as:

TX1: drain sender address balance to 0 TX2: gas payment = [real coin A, real coin B, address-balance reservation R] scheduler/execution sees address balance no longer enough TX2 is marked InsufficientFundsForWithdraw bug: TX2 still runs gas smashing path reservation R emits a Split accumulator event transaction fails, but Split event reaches checkpoint settlement settlement: current balance = 0 merge = 0 split = R checked arithmetic underflows system settlement transaction aborts every validator hits the same deterministic abort The important point is not that Sui allowed an invalid balance update. It did not. Checked arithmetic prevented the underflow from passing silently. The problem was where the failure happened: inside a system settlement transaction. Once that transaction aborted deterministically, honest validators stopped at the same checkpoint.

This is a liveness failure, not a theft-of-funds failure. Funds remained protected, but the chain stopped making progress.

The bug was also publicly triggerable. It did not require validator keys or admin privileges. It required transactions competing for the same address balance, one transaction entering InsufficientFundsForWithdraw, and a hybrid gas payment containing both real coins and a reservation. This is not the same as a simple "balance < amount" case, which would fail before consensus. The relevant shape involved concurrent transactions competing for the same address-balance reservation space.

The first hotfix pruned address-balance entries from gas payment once a transaction entered an IFFW early abort, while keeping real coins. The second halt showed that this was too narrow. A transaction can have multiple early cancellation reasons; if the fix only checks the surfaced error, IFFW can be masked. The more robust fix treats IFFW as a reason to bypass the executor / gas-smashing path and produce deterministic zero-gas failure effects.

The third halt was different. It came from randomness / DKG state during epoch change. Validators restarted to deploy the second fix. DKG participation for the next epoch did not meet the threshold, so randomness was disabled as designed. A latent persistence bug meant the "DKG failed/disabled" verdict was not remembered correctly after later restarts. Randomness-dependent transactions could neither execute nor be cancelled, the queue could not drain, and end-of-epoch logic waited for a DKG that would never complete.

The emergency fix added a force-epoch-close operator lever. That detail matters because production reliability is not only about the new feature. It is also about emergency upgrades, validator restarts, low-frequency epoch transitions, and operational recovery.

5. What Developers Should Take Away The point of this analysis is not that gasless stablecoin transfers were a bad idea. The demand is real. Payment UX matters. Stablecoin users should not need to understand gas coins before sending dollars.

The lesson is that payment UX can become consensus-critical when it changes gas payment and settlement. The implementation bar has to match that risk.

For wallets and payment apps:

Treat Address Balance and coin objects as coexisting asset representations. Show total balance, coin balance, and address balance clearly so users do not think funds have disappeared. Precheck gasless eligibility. Do not set gasPrice = 0 just because the token is USDC. Validate PTB shape, allowlisted functions, absence of ordinary object writes, minimum transfer amount, and gas budget. For address-balance gas payment, handle ValidDuring and nonce explicitly. Do not reuse the same nonce for distinct stateless transactions. In sponsored transactions, do not assume tx.gas is always the right abstraction. Address-balance gas payment uses empty gas payment (setGasPayment([])), while tx.gas represents the gas coin argument. Prefer higher-level APIs such as tx.coin() and tx.balance() where applicable, and review any GasCoin usage explicitly. For indexers and deposit monitors:

Process accumulator events. Balance-change algorithms that only inspect object diffs are incomplete. Do not require objectChanges to be non-empty. For gasless stablecoin transfers, the main signal should be balanceChanges: owner == watched address, coinType == target coin type, amount > 0 means incoming funds, and amount < 0 means outgoing funds. Treat objectChanges, compatibility coinObjectIds, and settlement transactions as enrichment or reconciliation signals, not as the only evidence of payment. For payment businesses:

Do not monitor only whether a transaction digest was submitted successfully. Monitor checkpoint progression, finality latency, epoch transitions, randomness/DKG state, and gasless rejection rate. Keep a paid fallback. During congestion, gas-paying transactions are prioritized over gasless stablecoin transfers. High-value or SLA-sensitive payments may need a paid path. For security teams:

Model failed transaction side effects explicitly. In this incident, the dangerous path was not a successful withdrawal. It was a failed path that still left a settlement-impacting accumulator event. Treat gas payment as a consensus boundary. It handles DoS protection, fee conservation, object lifecycle, balance deduction, and failed-transaction behavior. Preserve replay determinism during hotfixes. Nodes replaying historical checkpoints under different binaries must still produce the same effects. 6. Conclusion Address Balance is a meaningful protocol improvement for payment-oriented use cases. It addresses real friction: coin object UX, concurrent gas coin management, and the need for users to hold SUI before transferring stablecoins. Gasless stablecoin transfer is not just product language. It depends on concrete execution-layer mechanisms: allowlist, PTB shape validation, address-balance withdrawal, replay protection, zero gas budget, and accumulator settlement.

The May 2026 halts show the cost of making that improvement safely. The first two incidents came from address-balance reservations entering gas smashing in a way that let failed transactions leave settlement-impacting accumulator events. The third showed that emergency fixes themselves depend on validator restart and epoch-close paths, which are rare but critical.

Gasless transfers are worth building. Better payment UX is worth building. But the return is not free. What Sui had to give in return was a much higher burden on execution-layer invariants, gas accounting, settlement design, protocol gating, and operational recovery.

That is the real lesson of Address Balance: the closer a UX improvement gets to gas payment and settlement, the more it must be treated as core protocol engineering, not as an ordinary product feature.

FAQs What is Address Balance on Sui?

Address Balance is a fungible-balance layer added on top of Sui's object model. Rather than requiring every unit of a fungible asset to exist as a discrete Coin object, it provides a canonical balance for each address-and-coin-type pair. Deposits merge into that balance via accumulator events, which are settled later by system transactions rather than written directly by user transactions.

How do gasless stablecoin transfers work on Sui?

Qualifying peer-to-peer stablecoin transfers can set gas price, gas budget, and gas payment all to zero. The token type must be protocol-allowlisted, the transaction must match a narrow set of allowed PTB shapes, and no ordinary objects can be written. Gas is effectively covered by the protocol for these transfers, removing the requirement for users to hold SUI before sending stablecoins.

How should indexers and deposit monitors handle Address Balance transactions?

They should process accumulator events rather than relying solely on object diffs. For gasless stablecoin transfers, objectChanges may be empty, so balanceChanges is the primary signal for detecting incoming or outgoing funds. Compatibility coinObjectId values from settlement transactions should be treated as reconciliation signals rather than authoritative evidence of payment.

What is the key security lesson from the Sui halts?

Failed transactions can still produce side effects. In this case, a transaction that entered an insufficient-funds early abort still emitted a Split accumulator event, which reached checkpoint settlement and caused underflow. Any system where gas payment intersects with deferred settlement needs to explicitly model what failed transaction paths leave behind, not just what successful ones produce.

References Sui Foundation, "Sui Launches Gasless Stablecoin Transfers," 2026-05-20: https://blog.sui.io/sui-launches-gasless-stablecoin-transfers/ Sui Docs, "Gasless Stablecoin Transfers": https://docs.sui.io/develop/transaction-payment/gasless-stablecoin-transfers Sui Docs, "Using Address Balances": https://docs.sui.io/onchain-finance/asset-custody/address-balances/using-address-balances Sui Docs, "Migrating to Address Balances": https://docs.sui.io/onchain-finance/asset-custody/address-balances/migrate-address-balances SIP-58, "Sui Address Balances": https://github.com/sui-foundation/sips/blob/main/sips/sip-58.md Sui Foundation, "Sui Mainnet Halts Resolved After Major Upgrade," 2026-05-31: https://blog.sui.io/sui-mainnet-halts-resolved-after-major-upgrade/

Prime Day generates billions of dollars in sales and dominates headlines every summer. It just generated a record $26.4 billion in sales across the four-day event last week. Yet focusing only on Amazon‘s (NASDAQ:AMZN | AMZN Price Prediction) annual shopping event misses the much bigger story. 

The company has quietly transformed itself into one of the world’s most integrated technology platforms, combining cloud computing, artificial intelligence, logistics, advertising, satellite communications, and digital commerce under one roof. Few companies possess that breadth. Even fewer have managed to make each business strengthen the others.

 For long-term investors, those connections — not discounted electronics — may ultimately prove to be Amazon’s greatest competitive advantage.

Amazon’s Competitive Moat Keeps Getting Wider Amazon’s biggest strength isn’t any single business. It’s how all of its businesses reinforce one another.

The company’s retail operations introduced more than 260 million Prime members worldwide, creating one of the largest recurring subscription ecosystems anywhere. Those members spend more, shop more frequently, stream Prime Video, use Amazon Music, and increasingly interact with Amazon’s growing advertising platform.

Meanwhile, Amazon Web Services (AWS) continues serving as one of the foundations of the global cloud industry. AWS generated approximately $37.6 billion in quarterly revenue as enterprises accelerate AI deployments. Every new AI model requires computing power, storage, networking, and security — services AWS already provides at enormous scale.

Company Primary Strength Strategic Advantage Amazon Cloud, AI, commerce, logistics, advertising Vertically integrated ecosystem Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Enterprise software and Azure Deep enterprise relationships Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) Search, cloud, AI Data and advertising leadership Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) AI chips Dominant AI accelerator hardware Amazon stands apart because it controls nearly every layer — from fulfillment centers and warehouses to cloud infrastructure and AI chips.

AI Infrastructure Could Be the Next Growth Engine The AI boom is expanding Amazon’s opportunity well beyond online shopping.

One area attracting growing attention is Project Kuiper, Amazon’s low-Earth-orbit satellite network. Much like Starlink transformed SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX) into a communications infrastructure company, Kuiper gives Amazon the ability to design its own satellites, customer terminals, and networking systems while extending AWS closer to customers through edge computing. Over time, that vertical integration could create powerful synergies between cloud services and global connectivity.

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Amazon is also reducing its dependence on outside chip suppliers. Its Trainium2 processors are ramping faster than any previous AWS custom silicon platform while delivering roughly 30% to 40% better price-performance than many traditional GPU alternatives for AI workloads. Management also disclosed approximately $225 billion in customer commitments supporting future infrastructure demand, with much of today’s Trainium capacity already reserved. It may soon start selling the chips to third-party customers.

Advertising is quietly becoming another major earnings driver. Amazon says Prime Video advertisements now reach approximately 315 million viewers worldwide, creating another recurring revenue stream layered on top of its commerce ecosystem.

Cash Burn Looks Scary — Until You Look Deeper Granted, Amazon isn’t a textbook value stock. The company continues spending enormous sums building AI data centers, expanding logistics infrastructure, and launching Kuiper satellites. Free cash flow has turned negative as capital expenditures surged, Amazon pays no dividend, repurchases virtually no shares, and stock-based compensation continues creating shareholder dilution.

Those concerns deserve attention, but context matters. The company generated approximately $148.5 billion in trailing operating cash flow while holding more than $153 billion in cash and short-term investments — more than double its 2022 balance. Those figures give Amazon flexibility that many competitors simply don’t possess.

Investors are right to question whether today’s AI spending can continue indefinitely. However, companies like Amazon, Alphabet, and Nvidia currently have the balance sheets necessary to fund that investment without placing meaningful financial stress on their businesses.

Key Takeaway In short, Amazon has become much more than the world’s largest online retailer. It now operates one of the most interconnected technology ecosystems ever assembled, spanning cloud computing, AI infrastructure, satellite communications, logistics, advertising, and digital commerce.

The stock may not be deeply undervalued, and heavy capital spending will likely pressure free cash flow for some time. Regardless, Amazon has followed this playbook for decades — reinvesting aggressively today to widen its competitive moat tomorrow. With $148 billion in operating cash flow, more than $153 billion in liquidity, and multiple AI-driven growth engines still in their early stages, the company appears well positioned to turn today’s spending into tomorrow’s earnings power. For patient investors, that’s a trade-off worth understanding.

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The stock of Aehr Test Systems (AEHR 7.07%) got a lot of attention after rallying almost 681% over the past year. A little over half of that gain came in 2026 alone. Sounds like a stock worth a closer look, right?

Let's take a look at what it does before making any commitment to buy shares. Here's an overview of Aehr Test Systems' involvement with the artificial intelligence (AI) boom and whether it presents a good buying opportunity.

Image source: Getty Images.

What does Aehr Test Systems do? AI chipmakers like Nvidia and Broadcom sell millions of chips per year, but not all of them actually work; a small percentage fail shortly after use. Tech companies accept it as a cost of doing business, but if the failure rate were very high, it might make hyperscalers more wary.

Companies like Aehr Test Systems address this issue by stress-testing microchip batch samples under extreme conditions to catch defects early. This reduces the number of defective chips that leave factories.

The company has been testing its technology through deals with hyperscalers for multiple years and has finally started landing lucrative deals. It reported over $37 million in quarterly bookings in its fiscal 2026 third quarter (ended Feb. 27, 2026) and said that it anticipated a "near-term follow-on production order" from its top hyperscale customer.

Less than two weeks later, that big booking arrived. A record $41 million production order from that hyperscale customer resulted in second-half bookings exceeding $92 million. Aehr Test Systems also announced "a strong pipeline of forecasted customer orders in place."

Earlier this month, management announced another big win: a follow-on production order from what it described as "a global leader in networking products and solutions," a major supplier to the data center optical transceiver market.

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Can Aehr Test Systems rally continue? Aehr Test Systems is gaining more attention for its stress-testing technology, and revenue growth could accelerate significantly. The $92 million in second-half bookings is sizable when compared to the $10.3 million in third-quarter revenue.

The $41 million production order from the lead hyperscaler shows how quickly the backlog and overall revenue can grow. Each order of that caliber will have a seismic impact on revenue, and management is positioning itself to woo multiple hyperscalers.

Investors should try to ignore current revenue growth when assessing the stock. The company's 44% year-over-year revenue decline in the third quarter is related to the prolonged slump in the electric vehicle (EV) market. Chips for EVs won't play as much of a role in Aehr's future results. In its third-quarter press release, the company touts itself as a leading provider of test and burn-in solutions for several industries. That press release lists AI and data centers before mentioning automotive chips.

Aehr Test Systems has an easy path to meaningful revenue increases, but it is a risky stock. A 61 price-to-sales ratio is quite excessive, which has resulted in significant volatility. 10% and 20% dips are quite common for Aehr Test Systems.

However, the steady stream of orders can set the stage for meaningful revenue acceleration, which would result in a more reasonable valuation. Its ability to retain a top hyperscaler and get that customer to raise its order size is a good sign for the future. Investors who are strictly focused on valuation may want to ignore this one, but long-term investors who are excited about the recent surge in AI-related orders may want to give it a closer look.