Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
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Chainlink (LINK) is under pressure after the cryptocurrency slipped below a critical support level, with traders closely monitoring whether the token can regain lost ground. Meanwhile, a fresh round of institutional integrations is strengthening Chainlink’s position in the area of cross-chain solutions, supporting wider blockchain adoption in global finance.
LINK price dips after critical support lossLINK is trading at $8.36, with a 24-hour trading volume of $146.59 million and a market capitalization of $6.25 billion. After breaking below the crucial $8.38 support, the token has struggled to maintain its earlier bullish momentum.
Crypto analyst Crypoto Patel reported that selling pressure increased after the loss of the $8.38 support and a break in LINK’s rising trendline. Market participants are now focused on whether buyers can push LINK back above this level or if the downward trend will persist.
Patel explained that potential downside targets for LINK include $7.87, $7.67, and $7.40, as the price is currently trading below the broken support area.
Recent analysis suggests that opportunities for short positions may arise if LINK moves back above the $8.38–$8.48 range, with a recommended stop-loss at $8.58. However, traders are also watching for any sign of a bullish reversal.
LevelPrice ($)Current Price8.36Key Support (Lost)8.38Downside Targets7.87 / 7.67 / 7.40Short Entry Zone8.38 – 8.48Stop-Loss Level8.58Institutional integration and cross-chain expansionChainlink has recently achieved a new integration with Lombard Finance, a platform known for digital credit strategies, in partnership with market maker Flow Traders. With this collaboration, Chainlink’s technology underpins the “Bitcoin On-Chain Credit Strategy,” enabling institutional-grade BTC.b and LBTC deposits across multiple blockchains.
This development is designed to boost institutional investors’ access to Bitcoin-backed credit opportunities across various networks. The integration underscores the growing interest from financial firms in solutions that bridge traditional markets with decentralized finance.
Lombard Finance aims to use Chainlink’s cross-chain capabilities to attract more institutional clients interested in products centered around Bitcoin.
Mini dictionary: Flow Traders – Flow Traders is a global liquidity provider known for its market-making activities in digital assets and exchange-traded products. Lombard Finance is a decentralized credit platform focused on structured products for institutional clients.
Outlook for LINK and the crypto marketDespite the current bearish outlook, LINK has shown some upward movement in line with recent gains in the broader crypto market. The recent rise in Bitcoin’s price has supported a modest recovery among altcoins, including LINK.
Market observers remain focused on whether buyers can reclaim the $8.38 support level. A sustained move above this threshold could trigger renewed bullish momentum, while failure would likely push LINK toward lower support levels at $7.87, $7.67, and $7.40.
The market is watching for confirmation of a trend reversal or deeper declines, as traders react to both technical and institutional drivers influencing $LINK price action.
Disclaimer: The information contained in this article does not constitute investment advice. Investors should be aware that cryptocurrencies carry high volatility and therefore risk, and should conduct their own research.
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
South Korea's pension fund has turned to net buying of KOSPI for the first time this year, taking a heavy position in SK Hynix.
South Korean exchange data shows that pension funds, including the National Pension Service (NPS) — one of the largest institutional investors in South Korea's stock market — have turned net buyers in the Korean stock market for the first time this month. As of July 24, the NPS and other pension funds have net purchased 68.4 billion won (approximately $46.8 million) of KOSPI index constituent stocks in July this year. This marks the first monthly net purchase by pension funds this year after six consecutive months of net selling. In terms of individual stocks, SK Hynix is the most bought stock by pension funds since July, with a net purchase amount of 425.8 billion won. (Jinshi)
28 minutes ago
Iran and Oman hold multiple rounds of consultations on the Strait of Hormuz issue.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahaei stated that from the 24th to 25th, Iran and Oman held multiple rounds of deputy foreign minister-level talks in Tehran. On the basis of respecting the sovereign rights of the two coastal states, Iran and Oman, the two sides held in-depth exchanges of views on the common principles and specific operational mechanisms for ensuring safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz. Bahaei noted that the talks were productive and yielded certain progress. The Omani delegation left Tehran on the afternoon of the 25th, but the two sides will continue to maintain consultations at the technical and political levels. In addition, Bahaei said that the current navigation status of ships in the Strait of Hormuz has not changed. (CCTV International News)
28 minutes ago
Changxin Technology will go public tomorrow, with its over-the-counter market valuation reaching 2.76 trillion yuan.
Changxin Technology will list on the STAR Market of the Shanghai Stock Exchange on July 27, with an initial market capitalization of around 580 billion yuan. The IPO is priced at 8.66 yuan per share, and the final online subscription winning rate hit 0.4714%, a new record for STAR Market IPOs. After full exercise of the over-allotment option, total fundraising can reach up to 66.6 billion yuan. According to Hyperinsight monitoring, the price of CXMT (Changxin Memory, with Changxin Technology as its listed entity) Pre-IPO contract on Hyperliquid is currently quoted at $6.087, equivalent to a share price of 41.2 yuan. Calculated based on the total share capital of 66.881 billion shares post-IPO, the on-chain implied market value stands at approximately $407.1 billion, or around 2.76 trillion yuan. Based on this valuation, the subscription cost for a single retail lot of 500 shares is 4,330 yuan, with an estimated market value of 20,600 yuan for 500 shares on the first trading day, translating to a single lot profit of roughly 16,000 yuan. Founded in 2016, Changxin Technology is China’s largest and most technologically advanced integrated DRAM R&D, design and manufacturing enterprise. In Q4 2025, it held a 7.67% global DRAM market share, ranking fourth worldwide and first in China, with ambitions to become the world’s third-largest DRAM supplier. In Q1 2026, the company’s revenue reached 50.8 billion yuan, surging 719% year-on-year; net profit attributable to shareholders hit 24.762 billion yuan, a 1688% year-on-year jump. For the first half of 2026, it forecasts net profit attributable to shareholders of between 50 billion and 57 billion yuan.
28 minutes ago
Elon Musk: China is highly likely to become an AI leader in the future.
Elon Musk stated in an interview with The Economist that China will most likely emerge as an AI leader at some point in the future, and even if the U.S. bans Chinese AI models, it cannot prevent this outcome. (The Paper)
28 minutes ago
Samsung's Lee Jae-yong is reportedly holding discussions with OpenAI on cooperation plans in the AI and semiconductor sectors.
According to South Korean media reports, Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong met with OpenAI founder Sam Altman at OpenAI’s San Francisco headquarters to discuss cooperation in the fields of artificial intelligence and semiconductors. OpenAI announced on the 26th that Lee and Altman held talks at the company’s San Francisco headquarters on the morning of the 25th local time. While OpenAI did not disclose specific discussion contents or topics, industry observers believe the two sides likely communicated about deepening cooperation on AI infrastructure such as high-bandwidth memory (HBM), dynamic random-access memory (DRAM), and advanced wafer foundry. They may also have explored Samsung’s digital transformation plan for rolling out generative AI across its entire business lines. (Jinshi)
28 minutes ago
The Big Short Michael Burry ramps up short positions on stocks including Micron and NVIDIA.
"The 'Big Short' protagonist Michael Burry has disclosed his latest portfolio adjustments, continuing to increase short exposure to semiconductor stocks. Specifically, he added to short positions in Micron Technology (MU), NVIDIA (NVDA), and semiconductor ETF SOXX at prices of $933.86, $210.28, and $535.83 respectively. Additionally, Burry also added to his short position in Caterpillar (CAT) at $893.49. On the long side, he increased holdings in Flutter (FLUT), DraftKings (DKNG), and Molina Healthcare (MOH) at prices of $100.72, $23.07, and $197.02 respectively. Burry’s short positions in Tesla, Palantir, and Nasdaq 100 Index ETF QQQ remained unchanged."
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
Micron Technology (MU -7.24%) has had a great year, with its shares rising about 217% so far. However, following a sell-off in early July, they are still down 25% from an all-time high set in late June.
A midyear sell-off like this shouldn't come as a surprise to investors since many of them wanted to lock in some profits. That's shortsighted thinking, though; the tailwinds that pushed Micron higher in the first part of the year are still there, and I wouldn't be surprised if the stock sets a new all-time high within the next few months. But how high can it rise? Let's take a look.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
The AI build-out continues Micron makes memory chips, and the artificial intelligence (AI) data center boom is consuming nearly all of its capacity. Memory chips have become the primary bottleneck in data center construction, and with high demand and low supply, prices are soaring.
The chipmaker is a beneficiary of soaring prices, boosting its revenue and profits. This situation can be resolved in one of only two ways.
First, the memory chip suppliers could dramatically increase supply to meet demand. This takes time, and Micron is building more production capacity to do just that. However, each year, AI hyperscalers continue to increase their data center spending, so this supply expansion may not be enough.
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Second, the hyperscalers could just quit building data centers, and demand would evaporate. This is a pretty unlikely scenario since the big tech companies are convinced there is major value in increasing AI computing capacity. A more realistic thought along the same lines is that AI hyperscalers could decrease their building plans, which still seems unlikely.
So, the only two ways for the memory chip market to correct the supply/demand imbalance are a time-consuming option or a highly unlikely action. As a result, I think that an investment in Micron is fairly safe, at least in the short term. Management backs this up, projecting that tightness in the memory chip market will last beyond 2027.
With AI demand expanding and more supply being a ways off, memory chip prices will continue to rise, and Micron will be a huge beneficiary. Wall Street analysts agree: They anticipate its revenue rising 84% during fiscal 2027 (ending August 2027), with earnings per share rising from $73.44 to $153.74. That prices the stock at a cheap 6.4 times next year's earnings.
MU PE Ratio (Forward 1y) data by YCharts; PE = price to earnings.
So Micron is a cheap stock operating in an industry where the product is in short supply and high demand. That bodes well, and I think shares could be heading to new all-time highs very soon. Micron Technology's valuation may double at the very least, potentially causing the stock to surpass $2,000 per share.
SAN FRANCISCO, July 24, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: REGN) faces a securities class action lawsuit after its surprising revelations concerning a Phase 3 clinical trial of a therapy intended to treat patients with melanoma.
The news that the trial failed drove the price of Regeneron shares sharply lower and, along with the severe market reaction ($11 billion market cap wipeout), triggered the lawsuit which seeks to represent investors who purchased or otherwise acquired shares of Regeneron common stock between August 1, 2025 and May 15, 2026.
National shareholder rights firm Hagens Berman is investigating the legal claims and urges Regeneron investors with substantial losses to submit your losses now. The firm also invites persons who may be able to assist in the investigation to contact its attorneys.
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (REGN) Securities Class Action:
The litigation is focused on the propriety of Regeneron’s repeated optimism about the state of- (and changes to-) its Phase 3 trial of Fianlimab in combination with Libtayo as a first-line treatment for metastatic or locally advanced melanoma (the “Study”).
The Study’s primary endpoint was progression-free survival (“PFS”) and Regeneron has characterized the combination as a “potential blockbuster.” “Events” – disease progression or death – determined the timing and statistical power of the primary PFS analysis.
The complaint alleges that Regeneron made false and misleading statements while failing to disclose critical information to investors. In particular, the lawsuit accuses the company and its management of not informing investors that the Study’s preliminary statistical assumptions were flawed, the active treatment arm was not achieving meaningful differentiation over standard therapies, and achievement of its primary endpoint was unlikely.
Throughout the Class Period, Regeneron and the other defendants assured investors of their confidence in the Trial’s achieving its primary endpoint even when events were slowing down. At one point, management said the slowing event rates are “because the test arms are performing well.”
The truth began to emerge on April 29, 2026, when Regeneron first revealed that it decided to alter the Trial protocol such that “t]he primary analysis of progression-free survival will now consider all patients enrolled in the study with a minimum follow-up of 6 months.”
One prominent analyst reportedly questioned whether the decision was made because, in contrast to management’s expressed confidence, the “underlying PFS benefit may be insufficient to show statistical significance.”
Then, on May 12, 2026, Regeneron admitted that the decision to alter the Trial protocol was made in response to “slow event rates,” occurred nearly six months ago, and was “submitted it to all the global regulatory authorities in November, December timeframe.”
Three days later, the final blow came. On May 15, 2026, Regeneron abruptly reported the “trial did not reach statistical significance of the primary endpoint of improvement in progression-free survival (PFS).”
“We’re focused on whether Regeneron altered the Trial protocol without timely telling investors to intentionally mislead them because the defendants knew so-called blockbuster potential for the combination wasn’t really there,” said Reed Kathrein, the Hagens Berman partner leading the firm’s investigation of the pending claims in the suit.
If you invested in Regeneron and have substantial losses, or have knowledge that will assist the firm’s investigation, submit your losses now »
If you’d like more information and answers to other frequently asked questions about the Regeneron case and the firm’s investigation, read more »
Whistleblowers: Persons with non-public information regarding Regeneron should consider their options to help in the investigation or take advantage of the SEC Whistleblower program. Under the new program, whistleblowers who provide original information may receive rewards totaling up to 30 percent of any successful recovery made by the SEC. For more information, call Reed Kathrein at 844-916-0895 or email [email protected].
About Hagens Berman
Hagens Berman is a global plaintiffs’ rights complex litigation firm focusing on corporate accountability. The firm is home to a robust practice and represents investors as well as whistleblowers, workers, consumers and others in cases achieving real results for those harmed by corporate negligence and other wrongdoings. Hagens Berman’s team has secured more than $2.9 billion in this area of law. More about the firm and its successes can be found at hbsslaw.com. Follow the firm for updates and news at @ClassActionLaw.
Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome in any future case.
NOW's Agentic AI-driven growth is evidenced by the accelerating net new ACV, the higher cross-selling trends, and the expanding customer base. The Claude Mythos fears have triggered their robust Security and Risk monetization trends, with the underpenetrated segment implying further cross-selling opportunities. The prior meltdown/ongoing consolidation has contributed to NOW's cheap P/E of 22.62x while offering more than doubling upside potential to my LTPT of $215.30.
Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond přináší rozhovor s ekonomkou Christiane Baumeister, která se zaměřuje na ropné trhy. Hovořilo se o řadě souvisejících témat, včetně toho, že momentální ropný šok je zřejmě „nejjasnějším příkladem šoku nabídkového“, a o citlivosti současného amerického hospodářství na ropné šoky.
Podle ekonomky nyní převažuje pohled, podle něhož je americká ekonomika méně zranitelná vůči šokům v dodávkách ropy než v 70. letech 20. století. Klesla totiž její závislost na dovozech ropy. Po prudkém nárůstu cen ropy v 70. letech se totiž některá průmyslová odvětví postupně odklonila od ropy k alternativním zdrojům energie. Přišly také energeticky efektivnější technologie, zvýšily se úspory energie. Změnilo se i odvětvové složení americké ekonomické aktivity: Došlo ke strukturálnímu posunu od výroby ke službám, které bývají méně energeticky náročné.
Spotřeba ropy se proto nyní koncentruje v odvětvích, jako je doprava. U automobilů zůstávají možností elektromobily. „Stále jsou poměrně drahé a nemusí být schůdnou volbou pro průměrnou domácnost. V závislosti na délce trvání ropného šoku by ale více domácností mohlo dosáhnout bodu, kdy by počáteční investice do elektromobilu už byla atraktivní. Ale myslím si, že by trvalo poměrně dlouho, než by se takový posun projevil ve velkém měřítku. Takže zatímco celkový podíl energie na spotřebě v průběhu času klesá, závislost na benzinu je stále vysoká, zejména mezi domácnostmi s nízkými příjmy.“
Na straně nabídky se USA staly největším světovým producentem ropy. „Vyšší příjmy z produkce ropy tak zůstávají v důsledku vyšších cen doma v USA, místo aby odtékaly do zahraničí. Myslím si však, že americká ekonomika by nebyla plně izolována, pokud by přišlo ekonomické zpomalení v celé světové ekonomice. Není tedy podle mého názoru tak jasné, zda je americká ekonomika před dopady nabídkového ropného šoku tak chráněna, jak mnozí lidé naznačují. Myslím si, že makroekonomické důsledky šoku současného rozsahu budou stále značné.“
Jakou roli hrála měnová politika během ropných šoků v 70. letech a změnily se od té doby názory ekonomů na to, jak by měla měnová politika na ropné šoky reagovat? Na tuto otázku ekonomka odpověděla, že stále probíhá „stará debata o tom, zda recesi spouštějí samotné ropné šoky, nebo reakce měnové politiky Fedu.“ Na začátku 70. let se věřilo, že inflaci způsobují převážně strukturální faktory na straně nabídky, které nelze ovlivnit politickými opatřeními. To vedlo k malé reakci měnové politiky na inflační tlaky, včetně těch vyvolaných ropnými šoky v 70. letech.
Tento pohled se změnil „s Volckerovou dezinflací, ale i dnes se obecně předpokládá, že centrální banky nemohou a možná by ani neměly nic dělat s dočasnými šoky na straně nabídky.“ Baumeister si ale myslí, že tento názor je zastaralý. „Nemyslím si, že by se centrální banky měly takto chovat tváří v tvář velkému šoku na nabídkové straně ropného trhu… Podle mého názoru by měly centrální banky jednat razantně, pokud existují rizika, že se inflace vymkne kontrole. Vždy totiž existuje hrozba uvolnění inflačních očekávání.“
Ekonomka také připomněla, že „ceny ropy se do spotřebitelských cen promítají přímo a nepřímo. Domácnosti ropu přímo nespotřebovávají, v první fázi rozhoduje chování cen ropných produktů. Tento efekt se obvykle projevuje velmi rychle, většinou ve stejném měsíci, v jakém dojde k samotnému ropnému šoku. Nepřímé inflační tlaky jsou výsledkem vyšších cen energií, které zvyšují náklady firem. V důsledku toho může mít ropný šok vliv i na produkci neenergetického zboží a služeb. Tento proces probíhá pomaleji, protože ne všechny firmy zvyšují ceny současně. Historicky může dosažení vrcholu tohoto typu inflace trvat přibližně tři až šest měsíců po ropném šoku.“
Baumeister k tomu vysvětluje, že ropné šoky a výsledný pohyb cen je obvykle výsledkem různých faktorů a v době krize je důležitý jejich relativní význam. „Někdy dominuje nabídka, někdy poptávka, každá historická událost je jiná. Myslím si však, že to, co právě zažíváme, je pravděpodobně nejčistším příkladem nabídkového šoku, jaký jsme tu za poslední desetiletí měli. Vše se řídí tradičním schématem: V zemi nebo regionu produkujícím ropu je válka, jsou zničena těžební a výrobní zařízení a energetická infrastruktura. V tomto případě je zablokována hlavní dopravní cesta. To následně vyvolává prudký nárůst cen ropy.“
Podle ekonomky ale současnou krizi od těch předchozích odlišuje rozsah narušení dodávek ropy a skutečnost, že zasáhla všechny země v regionu. K tomu dodává: „Z dlouhodobého hlediska očekávám, že ceny zůstanou zvýšené po delší dobu, a to i po znovuotevření Hormuzského průlivu. Bude trvat značně dlouho, než se znovu nastartuje produkce a export. Je tu hodně zničená infrastruktura a bude nutné doplnit i zásoby ropy… Myslím, že tyto faktory budou přetrvávat po značnou dobu, alespoň do konce roku 2027.“
Ekonomka také zmínila důležitost elasticit. Tedy citlivosti poptávky a nabídky na vývoj cen ropy s tím, že právě tato citlivost rozhoduje o tom, jaký bude další vývoj. „Elasticity jsou skutečně klíčové. V jejich odhadování bylo dosaženo velkého pokroku, ale existuje prostor pro další zlepšení. Je důležité přesunout naši pozornost z agregátní úrovně na nižší. K tomu, jak se ropným šokům přizpůsobují producenti i spotřebitelé. Velmi důležité je i pochopení rozdílů v elasticitě nabídky a poptávky specifické pro jednotlivé země. V agregátním pohledu, který obvykle převažuje, se skrývá velká heterogenita.“
Zcash (ZEC), a privacy-focused cryptocurrency known for its advanced cryptographic technology, extended its downward movement over the past day, dropping below the $500 threshold as renewed selling pressure weighed on price action. The recent drop comes after Zcash failed to sustain its short-term recovery, raising questions about the next directional move.
Price action and current market dataAt the latest check, Zcash traded at $477.01, showing a decline of 4.44% in the past 24 hours. During this period, daily trading volume stood at $685.16 million, while Zcash maintained a market capitalization of $8.01 billion. The digital asset accounted for 0.37% of the broader cryptocurrency market.
Market participants have turned their attention to key support and resistance levels as the volatility continues. A closer look at technical levels suggests the $500 mark recently served as a critical resistance, while further support appears near the $460 area.
Team LAMBO, a crypto market analyst, indicated that the downward move hit its first downside target of $480 after the break below $500 resistance. They further noted that, “If $460 support does not hold, Zcash may target the $360 region—previously an area of strong buyer interest.”
LevelTypeStatus$528.75ResistancePrevious breakout, closely watched$500ResistanceRecently lost$460SupportImmediate, under test$360SupportPotential, if breakdown continuesTechnical outlook and potential scenariosEven as some traders brace for further declines, other technical perspectives maintain a cautiously optimistic view on Zcash’s medium-term prospects. Before the current pullback, ZEC managed to break above $528.75, a level that represented both the previous wave’s top and the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement from the May downturn. Technical analysts often interpret such breakouts as confirmation of a renewed upward impulse, suggesting that, structurally, the broader uptrend may remain intact if critical supports hold.
According to this analysis, the next significant upward target for ZEC remains at $674, a resistance area established last May. However, the intensity of selling pressure has clouded short-term direction.
The current technical mix reflects uncertainty among traders. Some anticipate additional downside if the $460 support fails, while others regard the previous breakout above $528.75 as a sign of underlying strength, indicating another rally could follow if sellers retreat.
In the near term, upcoming trading sessions are likely to prove pivotal. A resilient defense of $460 by buyers could stabilize the local trend and enable attempts to retake the $528.75 resistance. Alternatively, a sharp move below support would likely focus attention on the $360 area as the next significant base.
Focus remains on short-term price levelsWith conflicting technical signals, market participants are closely watching whether buyers can reestablish momentum or if selling extends toward lower support levels. Zcash’s price movement in the coming days is expected to determine the cryptocurrency’s next major trend direction.
Mini dictionary: Zcash, a specialized blockchain protocol, uses zero-knowledge proofs to enable private transactions that hide sender, recipient, and amount details on a public blockchain.
Disclaimer: The information contained in this article does not constitute investment advice. Investors should be aware that cryptocurrencies carry high volatility and therefore risk, and should conduct their own research.
Zcash [ZEC] deployed the Ironwood [NU6.3] upgrade to testnet on 2nd July. The privacy token rallied by 37% over the following two weeks, breaching the $500-supply zone.
This upward momentum has since evaporated though. Over the past week, ZEC has lost 13.6% of its value, with the altcoin down by 3.1% in the past 24 hours alone. Thanks to the same, ZEC is now back below the $500-mark.
Since Sunday, 19th July, ZEC has posted red candles on the daily timeframe. Will this streak continue over this weekend too?
The long-term ZEC trend is bullish, but momentum faces hiccups Source: ZEC/USDT on TradingView The swing structure, based on the rally from $20.7 to $750, was bullish. Within this structure, ZEC has faced much tumult so far. The latest development, the downturn below $500, was not a catastrophic outcome across the higher timeframes though.
Yes, the RSI slipped below neutral 50. The Directional Movement Index’s -DI (red) was climbing above 20, an early signal of a bearish trend in progress. The A/D indicator has shown weak demand in July too.
The $500-area has been contested since May. It has been flipped to a supply zone once more, weakening the bullish case in the short-term. However, in the long-term, this setback might not be too grievous for the buyers.
Traders’ call to action – Sell In the short-term, ZEC’s inability to flip $560 to support and break $644 may be a sign of weakness.
Source: ZEC/USDT on TradingView At press time, the H4 structure was bearish and Zcash has faced rejection from the 78.6% Fibonacci retracement level at $560. Further downside could be likely.
The RSI was hovering around the oversold territory, a sign that the price might bounce towards the 20-period moving average at $501 before sliding lower.
Source: CoinGlass Finally, the liquidation heatmap showed how the short liquidations built up below $600 were targeted and taken out during the mid-July rally. The reversal since then is likely to target the $360-area, the next magnetic zone.
The 4-hour timeframe presented a price target of $250 swing low made after the Orchard bug was discovered.
Final Summary Zcash’s rally beyond $500 lasted less than a week before reversing. Liquidation heatmap and price action charts presented the $360 and $250-levels as the next bearish targets for ZEC.
South Korea's pension fund has turned to net buying of KOSPI for the first time this year, taking a heavy position in SK Hynix.
South Korean exchange data shows that pension funds, including the National Pension Service (NPS) — one of the largest institutional investors in South Korea's stock market — have turned net buyers in the Korean stock market for the first time this month. As of July 24, the NPS and other pension funds have net purchased 68.4 billion won (approximately $46.8 million) of KOSPI index constituent stocks in July this year. This marks the first monthly net purchase by pension funds this year after six consecutive months of net selling. In terms of individual stocks, SK Hynix is the most bought stock by pension funds since July, with a net purchase amount of 425.8 billion won. (Jinshi)
8 minutes ago
Iran and Oman hold multiple rounds of consultations on the Strait of Hormuz issue.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahaei stated that from the 24th to 25th, Iran and Oman held multiple rounds of deputy foreign minister-level talks in Tehran. On the basis of respecting the sovereign rights of the two coastal states, Iran and Oman, the two sides held in-depth exchanges of views on the common principles and specific operational mechanisms for ensuring safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz. Bahaei noted that the talks were productive and yielded certain progress. The Omani delegation left Tehran on the afternoon of the 25th, but the two sides will continue to maintain consultations at the technical and political levels. In addition, Bahaei said that the current navigation status of ships in the Strait of Hormuz has not changed. (CCTV International News)
8 minutes ago
Changxin Technology will go public tomorrow, with its over-the-counter market valuation reaching 2.76 trillion yuan.
Changxin Technology will list on the STAR Market of the Shanghai Stock Exchange on July 27, with an initial market capitalization of around 580 billion yuan. The IPO is priced at 8.66 yuan per share, and the final online subscription winning rate hit 0.4714%, a new record for STAR Market IPOs. After full exercise of the over-allotment option, total fundraising can reach up to 66.6 billion yuan. According to Hyperinsight monitoring, the price of CXMT (Changxin Memory, with Changxin Technology as its listed entity) Pre-IPO contract on Hyperliquid is currently quoted at $6.087, equivalent to a share price of 41.2 yuan. Calculated based on the total share capital of 66.881 billion shares post-IPO, the on-chain implied market value stands at approximately $407.1 billion, or around 2.76 trillion yuan. Based on this valuation, the subscription cost for a single retail lot of 500 shares is 4,330 yuan, with an estimated market value of 20,600 yuan for 500 shares on the first trading day, translating to a single lot profit of roughly 16,000 yuan. Founded in 2016, Changxin Technology is China’s largest and most technologically advanced integrated DRAM R&D, design and manufacturing enterprise. In Q4 2025, it held a 7.67% global DRAM market share, ranking fourth worldwide and first in China, with ambitions to become the world’s third-largest DRAM supplier. In Q1 2026, the company’s revenue reached 50.8 billion yuan, surging 719% year-on-year; net profit attributable to shareholders hit 24.762 billion yuan, a 1688% year-on-year jump. For the first half of 2026, it forecasts net profit attributable to shareholders of between 50 billion and 57 billion yuan.
8 minutes ago
Elon Musk: China is highly likely to become an AI leader in the future.
Elon Musk stated in an interview with The Economist that China will most likely emerge as an AI leader at some point in the future, and even if the U.S. bans Chinese AI models, it cannot prevent this outcome. (The Paper)
8 minutes ago
Samsung's Lee Jae-yong is reportedly holding discussions with OpenAI on cooperation plans in the AI and semiconductor sectors.
According to South Korean media reports, Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong met with OpenAI founder Sam Altman at OpenAI’s San Francisco headquarters to discuss cooperation in the fields of artificial intelligence and semiconductors. OpenAI announced on the 26th that Lee and Altman held talks at the company’s San Francisco headquarters on the morning of the 25th local time. While OpenAI did not disclose specific discussion contents or topics, industry observers believe the two sides likely communicated about deepening cooperation on AI infrastructure such as high-bandwidth memory (HBM), dynamic random-access memory (DRAM), and advanced wafer foundry. They may also have explored Samsung’s digital transformation plan for rolling out generative AI across its entire business lines. (Jinshi)
8 minutes ago
The Big Short Michael Burry ramps up short positions on stocks including Micron and NVIDIA.
"The 'Big Short' protagonist Michael Burry has disclosed his latest portfolio adjustments, continuing to increase short exposure to semiconductor stocks. Specifically, he added to short positions in Micron Technology (MU), NVIDIA (NVDA), and semiconductor ETF SOXX at prices of $933.86, $210.28, and $535.83 respectively. Additionally, Burry also added to his short position in Caterpillar (CAT) at $893.49. On the long side, he increased holdings in Flutter (FLUT), DraftKings (DKNG), and Molina Healthcare (MOH) at prices of $100.72, $23.07, and $197.02 respectively. Burry’s short positions in Tesla, Palantir, and Nasdaq 100 Index ETF QQQ remained unchanged."
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
The Shiba Inu community has taken notice as Shytoshi Kusama, the prominent lead ambassador for the $SHIB project, has remained silent on X for 74 days, marking one of his longest periods of social media inactivity to date.
Kusama’s prolonged absence and project focusKusama has historically engaged with Shiba Inu supporters through regular updates, hints in his bio, and even live broadcasts on X, which has served as his main platform to communicate developments related to the popular memecoin.
His current silence began on May 13, when he stopped posting or interacting on X. Previous stretches of minimal online presence were seen in late 2025 and into 2026, indicating a pattern of stepping back from the public spotlight periodically.
In January, Kusama attributed his lower profile to developing an independent artificial intelligence initiative, revealing some progress on that project as his primary focus at the time.
Despite Kusama’s absence, there is heightened speculation within the Shiba Inu community that an update or announcement may soon follow, citing his past tendency to return with fresh information after a hiatus. As of now, however, there is no official indication that a major update is imminent.
Mini dictionary: Shytoshi Kusama is the pseudonymous lead ambassador and spokesperson for the Shiba Inu ecosystem. He often represents community interests and is seen as the unofficial public face for development updates and communications.
While Kusama remains inactive, community-powered SHIB burn campaigns have continued. On-chain tracker Shibburn reports that 7.15 million SHIB tokens were burned in the last 24 hours, marking a 66% increase in the daily burn rate.
Over the past seven days, 60.58 million SHIB were burned, bringing the 30-day total to 288.61 million. Robinhood, a major U.S.-based trading platform, led monthly burn efforts by sending 152,792,823 SHIB to so-called dead wallets across 106 separate transactions.
PeriodSHIB BurnedMain BurnerTransactions24 hours7.15 millionCommunity–7 days60.58 millionCommunity–30 days288.61 millionRobinhood106Total SHIB burned to date has reached 410,840,455,020,349 tokens, completed in 21,280 individual transactions. A notable contribution came from Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin, who destroyed 410 trillion SHIB in May 2021, significantly reducing circulating supply.
Even in the absence of leadership updates, the Shiba Inu community has maintained active burn efforts, with millions of SHIB removed from circulation weekly and major platforms like Robinhood participating in sizeable burn transactions.
Disclaimer: The information contained in this article does not constitute investment advice. Investors should be aware that cryptocurrencies carry high volatility and therefore risk, and should conduct their own research.
TLDR: Uniswap v4 uses smart contract hooks to restrict swaps and liquidity access to approved wallets only. Permissioned Pools support tokenized funds, securities, and equities with issuer-controlled compliance rules. Superstate, Securitize, and Dowgo are helping connect regulated assets with programmable AMM liquidity. Tokenized assets reached $36.87 billion, increasing demand for compliant secondary-market infrastructure. Uniswap Labs has introduced Permissioned Pools, an open-source framework designed to bring regulated tokenized assets into automated market makers without opening access to every wallet. Announced on July 23, the system allows issuers to place tokenized funds, securities, and equities inside Uniswap v4 while controlling who may participate.
Uniswap Launches Permissioned Pools for Compliant Onchain Trading
Uniswap has introduced Permissioned Pools on v4, enabling tokenized securities, funds, equities, and other regulated assets to trade through AMMs with onchain allowlist checks. Launch partners include Superstate,… pic.twitter.com/o4xxstWYww
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) July 26, 2026
The launch addresses a growing infrastructure problem across tokenized finance. Blockchain-based assets can be issued efficiently, yet regulatory restrictions often prevent them from entering permissionless secondary markets. Permissioned Pools combine programmable liquidity with wallet-level controls, giving approved participants access while preserving issuer-defined compliance rules.
How On-Chain Allowlisting Controls Pool Access The framework relies on Uniswap v4 hooks, which are external smart contracts designed to customize how each pool operates. Before every swap or liquidity deposit, the hook checks an issuer-controlled allowlist.
Approved wallets may receive permission to trade, provide liquidity, or perform both activities. As a result, eligibility checks occur directly within pool-level contracts rather than through websites or offchain verification systems.
The system also uses a permissions adapter to hold the restricted underlying token. Meanwhile, Uniswap’s PoolManager handles a wrapped version of the asset inside the pool.
Assets are wrapped when deposited and unwrapped when withdrawn. Consequently, approved users receive the underlying permissioned asset after completing a transaction.
This structure also prevents restricted tokens from moving freely through standard pool routes. In addition, several controls are designed to close potential compliance gaps.
Liquidity-position NFTs cannot be transferred, while disallowed wallets cannot gain exposure through multi-hop transactions. Users may still withdraw liquidity after losing permission.
Issuers can also pause swaps, update compliance systems, or force-close positions when regulatory or administrative action becomes necessary. However, these safeguards give issuers considerable operational authority.
Administrators control wallet eligibility, approved routing contracts, and emergency measures. Therefore, the framework introduces a centralized layer within the broader decentralized exchange structure.
To reduce administrative risk, Uniswap recommends securing these powers through protections such as multisignature wallets. This measure reflects the significant authority attached to allowlist management and emergency intervention.
Institutional Partners Expand Tokenized Market Liquidity Permissioned Pools contracts are already live on the Ethereum mainnet and the Sepolia test network. As a result, issuers can deploy restricted pools through the open protocol without changing ordinary permissionless markets.
However, deployment does not automatically guarantee visibility across Uniswap Labs’ products. Inclusion within its interface and API routing requires issuers to complete a separate onboarding process. Meanwhile, existing Uniswap v4 pools continue operating without these additional restrictions.
Superstate, Securitize, and Dowgo are the first announced partners supporting the framework. Superstate helped develop the standard for tokenized funds and equities, while Securitize contributed support for assets issued through its DS Protocol.
Dowgo also added compatibility with the ERC-3643 token standard. The European digital-securities platform plans to use the framework after securing authorization under the European Union’s DLT Pilot Regime.
The development builds on an earlier collaboration between Uniswap Labs and Securitize. In February, the companies enabled eligible BlackRock BUIDL holders to exchange BUIDL and USDC through UniswapX.
That earlier integration used a request-for-quote model involving approved market participants. By comparison, permissioned pools place restricted assets directly inside an automated market maker.
Consequently, approved users can access programmable on-chain liquidity while remaining subject to issuer-controlled compliance requirements. The structure links automated execution with wallet-level eligibility checks.
The launch also arrives as tokenized asset markets continue expanding. RWA.xyz reported $36.87 billion in distributed tokenized asset value on July 26, including $16.20 billion in tokenized United States Treasuries.
Although those figures show rising issuance, they do not automatically indicate active secondary-market liquidity. Permissioned Pools address that separate challenge by creating controlled trading environments for institutions and approved participants.
Their practical operation will therefore depend on three measurable factors: the assets deployed, the liquidity supplied, and the effectiveness of issuer-managed access controls.
NEAR Protocol [NEAR] became one of the first blockchains with a NIST-approved post-quantum signature scheme in production. The Layer 1 AI-native settlement layer announced this in a post on X on Monday, 20th July.
The upgrade has also launched dynamic resharding. This will allow the network to scale itself automatically. The chain also believes in agentic commerce and is now actively preparing for it.
NEAR is building an open, integrated stack for the agent economy. Within this system, NEAR Protocol intends to bring identity, liquidity, private inference, confidential execution, settlement, governance, and economics.
In fact, this announcement dates back to February 2026, marking a structural shift for the protocol amid an ongoing bear market. With pessimistic wider market sentiment, a bullish turnaround has been hard to enforce so far.
A potential rebound for NEAR ahead? In the last 24 hours, the altcoin has posted losses of almost 3%, with its Open Interest sliding by 4.1% too. The daily trading volume saw a marginal uptick of 5.5%, but the short-term NEAR trend has been bearish.
Since forming a local high at $2.06 on Tuesday, 21st July, the token’s price has declined by 13.5%.
Source: Ali Charts on X Analyst Ali Martinez noted that the TD Sequential indicator gave a buy signal for NEAR on the 4-hour chart. A sell signal on 21st July has been vindicated. Hence, the question – Will this buy signal be correct too?
Traders’ call to action – Wait to sell Source: NEAR/USDT on TradingView The Fibonacci retracement levels (yellow) highlighted the NEAR rejection from $2.80-$3.00 as coming from the 78.6% retracement zone. This was in line with the higher timeframe bearish trend. The rally in May was only a retracement that has since begun to reverse itself.
For nearly two months, the bulls have defiantly held on to the $1.80-support zone. However, the CMF flashed signs of significant selling pressure, with the MACD underlining downward momentum too.
It could be a make-or-break moment for the buyers. A drop below $1.80 would signal a bearish trend continuation and could offer swing traders a chance to go short.
A price bounce beyond $2.10 is needed to instill temporary bullish confidence in NEAR.
Final Summary NEAR Protocol’s quantum-safe signing has gone live, with the TD Sequential offering up a buy signal. Bulls have been clinging to the $1.80-support zone, but the higher timeframe trend has been bearish.
SAN FRANCISCO, July 24, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- National shareholder rights firm Hagens Berman is investigating claims in a securities class action alleging violations of U.S. securities laws by Hub Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: HUBG). The suit contends the company and its senior executives provided false and misleading information to investors regarding the integrity of its financial reporting, revenue recognition practices, and the effectiveness of its internal controls.
REPORT YOUR HUBG LOSSES TO HBSS NOW
View our latest video summary of the allegations: youtu.be/_y-u8nktjMw
Hub Group, Inc. (HUBG) Securities Class Action:
The suit alleges that Hub Group’s repeated disclosures throughout 2026 have revealed a pattern of severe accounting irregularities. The complaint claims the company intentionally or recklessly misled investors during the Class Period (April 28, 2023 – May 11, 2026) by:
Understating Costs: Failing to accurately report purchased transportation costs and accounts payable, leading to a $77 million accounting error in 2025 alone.Improper Revenue Recognition: Prematurely or incorrectly recognizing transactions, which rendered the company’s 2023 and 2024 annual reports materially misstated.Internal Control Deficiencies: Maintaining inadequate disclosure controls and internal control over financial reporting, despite repeated public assurances of their effectiveness. The Truth Emerges
The complaint alleges that the market’s perception of Hub Group’s stability was dismantled by two major corrective disclosures:
February 2026: The company revealed that financial statements for the first three quarters of 2025 were unreliable, causing an immediate 18% decline in share price.May 2026: Hub Group announced that its 2023 and 2024 annual reports were also materially misstated, compounding the decline with an additional 13% drop in share price. These revelations wiped out over $890 million in market capitalization, prompting the departure of the company’s Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer in May 2026.
“Now that Hub Group has almost cleaned out its C-suite following accounting improprieties reaching all the way back to 2023, the core focus of our investigation is whether they were intentional or reckless with the goal of making financial metrics appear better than they actually were. We’re also looking to see whether additional problems will surface when the company’s review is completed,” said Reed Kathrein, the Hagens Berman partner leading the firm’s investigation.
Investor Rights and Lead Plaintiff Deadline
Investors who purchased or acquired Hub Group common stock between April 28, 2023, and May 11, 2026, may be eligible to serve as lead plaintiff. The court-imposed deadline to move for appointment as lead plaintiff is August 28, 2026.
Submit your losses nowContact Our Attorneys: [email protected] Investor Hotline: 844-916-0895 If you’d like more information and answers to other frequently asked questions about the Hub Group case and the firm’s investigation, read more »
Whistleblowers: Persons with non-public information regarding Hub Group should consider their options to help in the investigation or take advantage of the SEC Whistleblower program. Under the new program, whistleblowers who provide original information may receive rewards totaling up to 30 percent of any successful recovery made by the SEC. For more information, call Reed Kathrein at 844-916-0895 or email [email protected].
About Hagens Berman
Hagens Berman is a global plaintiffs’ rights complex litigation firm focusing on corporate accountability. The firm is home to a robust practice and represents investors as well as whistleblowers, workers, consumers and others in cases achieving real results for those harmed by corporate negligence and other wrongdoings. Hagens Berman’s team has secured more than $2.9 billion in this area of law. More about the firm and its successes can be found at hbsslaw.com. Follow the firm for updates and news at @ClassActionLaw.
Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome in any future case.
Solana has recorded the highest number of weekly active addresses among major blockchains, according to an announcement by Solana Hub. This development coincides with the network’s native token, SOL, maintaining stability near a critical support level following weeks of sideways trading.
Network activity drives industry attentionSolana Hub reported that Solana registered 18 million active addresses over the past week, surpassing networks such as BNB Chain, TRON, Bitcoin, and Ethereum during this period. These metrics were featured in a ranking titled “Top chain rankings by Active Addresses last 7D,” highlighting Solana’s prominent position in on-chain activity.
Active addresses indicate the number of unique wallets participating in transactions on a blockchain. A growing user base is generally seen as a sign of increasing demand for applications, higher transaction throughput, and stronger participation across the network’s ecosystem.
Active addresses remain one of the most dependable indicators of blockchain network health, underlining adoption trends and user engagement.
Significant growth in this metric suggests a vibrant ecosystem, potentially reinforcing confidence in Solana among developers and the broader community.
Mini dictionary: Solana Hub, an analytics and information platform focused on the Solana blockchain, provides real-time data and ecosystem research for developers, traders, and users interested in Solana network activity.
SOL price action remains subdued despite strong on-chain metricsAt publication time, SOL trades at $74.33, up 0.50% over the last 24 hours. The price is attempting to stabilize near the $73 support level, following a recovery from June lows. Technical analysis places immediate resistance at $78, a level associated with the midpoint of the Bollinger Bands. Stronger support is identified near $68.
Trading volume has decreased in recent sessions, suggesting that neither bulls nor bears are currently dominating price action. As a result, Solana may continue experiencing range-bound trading until a clear breakout or breakdown emerges.
Support LevelResistance LevelCurrent Price$73$78$74.33$68 (stronger)——Despite strong network data, traders remain cautious, awaiting confirmation of renewed buying pressure before becoming more bullish on SOL’s outlook.
Market outlook and key levels to watchThe robust growth in Solana’s network activity has not yet translated into a significant price movement. Analysts suggest this pattern is consistent across the broader cryptocurrency sector, where high on-chain participation has not always triggered immediate price rallies.
Data from DefiLlama shows that Solana’s total value locked (TVL) has remained stable near $5 billion, supporting the view that, while price consolidation continues, general ecosystem engagement is strong.
While increased network activity bodes well for Solana’s long-term fundamentals, traders are looking for a breach of the $78 resistance to shift short-term sentiment in a more positive direction.
Should SOL fall below the $73 support, the $68 zone is likely to serve as the next downside target. As market volatility persists, investors are closely monitoring external catalysts and market sentiment for signals about Solana’s next major move.
Disclaimer: The information contained in this article does not constitute investment advice. Investors should be aware that cryptocurrencies carry high volatility and therefore risk, and should conduct their own research.
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., & OMAHA, Neb.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and Taylor Morrison today announced the completion of Berkshire Hathaway's acquisition of Taylor Morrison for $72.50 per common share in cash, representing a total equity value for Taylor Morrison of approximately $6.8 billion and total enterprise value of approximately $8.5 billion.Under Berkshire, Taylor Morrison will continue to be led by CEO Sheryl Palmer, who will oversee the integration of Taylor Morrison's portfoli.
Quantum computing may not be at the top of every investor's mind right now due to the prominence of artificial intelligence (AI) investing. However, I think it's something investors should keep in mind. By 2030, there could be commercially viable quantum computing available, and that could shake up tech even more than AI has. If quantum computing is all that it has been hyped up to be, then maintaining some exposure to stocks in this field is just as important as AI investing.
Fortunately, several stocks cross over into both categories, making investing in both trends at the same time easy. Three stocks that I'm bullish on in the quantum field are Alphabet (GOOG +0.24%) (GOOGL +0.58%), Nvidia (NVDA -1.01%), and IonQ (IONQ -3.61%). Two of these are also major AI players as well. By maintaining solid exposure to this trio, you'll be able to capture the upside of AI while also hedging your bets on a quantum computing future.
Image source: Getty Images.
1. Alphabet Alphabet is a major player in computing, and as new computing technologies emerge, it wants to control its own destiny with in-house quantum computing. That will keep it from having to pay exorbitant prices for computing units, as it does now for Nvidia's graphics processing units (GPUs). As a result, Alphabet is plowing a ton of resources into its quantum computing division, and its Willow quantum computing chip has had some incredible breakthroughs.
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Alphabet ran one of its quantum algorithms on its Willow chip and demonstrated a verifiable advantage over traditional computing. This algorithm is similar to the one used to process MRIs and could have significant applications in drug discovery and materials design. Alphabet has also unearthed several other quantum algorithms, such as one that could break cryptocurrency encryptions.
Alphabet is a major player in the quantum space and has major resources that few can compete against. As a result, it's an odds-on favorite to reach viable quantum computing before anyone else.
2. Nvidia Nvidia may seem like an odd pick here because it's explicitly not developing a quantum processing unit. Instead, it's focusing on its traditional accelerating methods, as it sees incredible demand right now from AI hyperscalers. However, it's not ignoring quantum computing either. What it's doing is launching a range of tools to help the quantum industry succeed on Nvidia hardware. Nvidia sees a future where quantum and traditional accelerated computing work side by side. Ensuring that its peers' quantum computing units plug into existing infrastructure is key.
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So, Nvidia has launched several key products, like its NVQLink, a generative AI model for improving error correction, and updated its CUDA software to include quantum operations. That's a solid strategy and will allow Nvidia to profit from the rise of quantum computing.
3. IonQ Last is IonQ (IONQ -3.61%), a pure play in the quantum computing space. It has no other business units funding the company. It's only funding sources are the money it can raise from potential clients and any systems it can sell at an early stage. This makes it an incredibly risky investment option, but it also means huge upside if this stock pans out.
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IonQ is currently the world record holder for two-qubit gate fidelity, a common accuracy measure used by quantum computers to assess their products. With IonQ leading the way in the one area where quantum computing is lacking, it's a no-brainer horse to back in the race.
Still, there's no guarantee that IonQ's solution will pan out, so investors should keep their exposure limited on IonQ's stock, while Nvidia and Alphabet will be just fine if quantum computing doesn't pan out. However, I think a decade from now, investors will look back and see this trio absolutely crushing the market from both quantum computing success and AI proliferation.
On the 25th of July, Stacks [STX] experienced strong bearish pressure. After a long period of consolidation, bears finally took over the market, with STX losing the $0.16 support level.
As a result, the altcoin crashed to $0.13. STX has not dropped to such levels since mid-2020, marking a 6-year low. As of this writing, Stacks was trading around $0.138, after dropping by 6.2% on the daily charts.
Why is Stacks declining, though? STX dropped to a six-year low driven by market concerns over the token’s tag on Binance. The Stacks Endowment acknowledged the concern and said it was in contact with Binance to resolve the issue.
Importantly, the team posited that the change in tag on Binance was likely due to the upcoming PoX-5 hardfork. For that reason, the Stacks team informed other major CEX partners in time, who have since moved forward in support.
According to Reubs, the tag will be removed once consensus-level changes on Binance are completed. Although the team assured the community, the market did not receive the assurance positively, and sentiment flipped.
What about the PoX-5 hardfork? The Stacks PoX-5 hardfork is scheduled for the 29th of July. This follows a successful vote and overwhelming community support of SP 044 and SP 045.
The highly anticipated upgrade brings about trustless, self-custodial Bitcoin staking. Thus, the upgrade will allow users to earn BTC-dominated yield while still keeping their holdings under their own key.
Three days ago, the public PoX-5 testnet went live for builders to test their protocols ahead of the mainnet.
On-chain usage remains extremely weak Despite the rollout of the public testnet and market anticipation, Stacks’ on-chain activity has failed to keep up. In fact, the network’s on-chain activity has continued to decline.
According to Token Terminal data, daily active users plunged to 1.1k. The network recorded such a low user count in January 2026.
Source: Token Terminal The declining usage shows that the upcoming upgrade has not incentivized users to stay or attracted new users. Reduced network activity usually translates to lower demand for the native token and could lead to extended weakness for STX.
Can STX hold the pressure? The recent market concerns prompted traders to reduce exposure. As a result, the market structure weakened, thus further strengthening the downward momentum.
In fact, STX’s Relative Strength Index (RSI) formed a bearish crossover and plummeted into oversold territory.
Source: TradingView At 23, RSI indicated sellers had fully retaken control. Furthermore, the Spot Buy Sell Volume metric confirms this bearish flip.
The sell volume rose to 4.98 million while the buy volume dropped to 4.24 million. Previously, buyers had shown relative strength, pushing buy volume to 20.4 million.
Source: Coinalyze With sellers dominating the market, it warns of potentially extended weakness. Therefore, if sellers continue to dominate while network demand is weak, Stacks could drop below $0.13, with $0.1 as a critical support level.
However, if the concerns over the Binance tag are addressed, easing pressure, the altcoin could seek to reclaim $0.16.
Final Summary STX plunged to a 6-year low of $0.13 amid market concerns over the Binance tag. Stacks’ market structure remains bearish, with weak on-chain activity and seller dominance.
New York, New York--(Newsfile Corp. - July 25, 2026) - WHY: Rosen Law Firm, a global investor rights law firm, reminds purchasers of securities of Futu Holdings Limited (NASDAQ: FUTU) between May 24, 2023 and May 27, 2026, inclusive (the "Class Period"), of the important August 25, 2026 lead plaintiff deadline.
SO WHAT: If you purchased Futu securities during the Class Period you may be entitled to compensation without payment of any out of pocket fees or costs through a contingency fee arrangement.
WHAT TO DO NEXT: To join the Futu class action, go to https://rosenlegal.com/cases/futu-holdings-limited/join or call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email [email protected] for information on the class action. A class action lawsuit has already been filed. If you wish to serve as lead plaintiff, you must move the Court no later than August 25, 2026. A lead plaintiff is a representative party acting on behalf of other class members in directing the litigation.
WHY ROSEN LAW: We encourage investors to select qualified counsel with a track record of success in leadership roles. Often, firms issuing notices do not have comparable experience, resources, or any meaningful peer recognition. Many of these firms do not actually handle securities class actions, but are merely middlemen that refer clients or partner with law firms that actually litigate the cases. Be wise in selecting counsel. The Rosen Law Firm represents investors throughout the globe, concentrating its practice in securities class actions and shareholder derivative litigation. Rosen Law Firm has achieved the largest ever securities class action settlement against a Chinese Company. Rosen Law Firm was Ranked No. 1 by ISS Securities Class Action Services for number of securities class action settlements in 2017. The firm has been ranked in the top 4 each year since 2013 and has recovered billions of dollars for investors. In 2019 alone the firm secured over $438 million for investors. In 2020, founding partner Laurence Rosen was named by law360 as a Titan of Plaintiffs' Bar. Many of the firm's attorneys have been recognized by Lawdragon and Super Lawyers.
DETAILS OF THE CASE: According to the lawsuit, throughout the Class Period, defendants made materially false and misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (1) Futu was not in compliance with the requirements of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (the "CSRC"), including because Futu continued to conduct securities business, public fund sales business and futures business in mainland China without obtaining the requisite licenses or approval; (2) as a result, Futu was reasonably likely to face regulatory penalties, including the disgorgement of ill-gotten gains and other penalties; (3) as a result of the foregoing, Futu's financial results were overstated; and (4) as a result of the foregoing, defendants' positive statements about Futu's business, operations, and prospects were materially misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis. When the true details entered the market, the lawsuit claims that investors suffered damages.
To join the Futu class action, go to https://rosenlegal.com/cases/futu-holdings-limited/join or call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email [email protected] for information on the class action.
No Class Has Been Certified. Until a class is certified, you are not represented by counsel unless you retain one. You may select counsel of your choice. You may also remain an absent class member and do nothing at this point. An investor's ability to share in any potential future recovery is not dependent upon serving as lead plaintiff.
Follow us for updates on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rosen-law-firm, on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rosen_firm or on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rosenlawfirm/.
Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
-------------------------------
To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/306480
Source: The Rosen Law Firm PA
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Recently, investors appeared to initiate a sell-off of Alphabet (GOOGL +0.58%) (GOOG +0.21%) after reports surfaced that the company's release of its Gemini 3.5 Pro model -- which was announced back in May -- is delayed.
Alphabet stock is barely beating the S&P 500 year to date, and the knee-jerk reaction by some shareholders reveals that some investors don't quite understand how much ground the company has gained in such a short time.
Specifically, the 900 million monthly Gemini users the company now has.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
Gemini users more than doubled to 900 million in less than one year Understandably, investors are disappointed that the latest Gemini models haven't been released yet, especially considering that Google Gemini isn't as capable at important AI tasks like coding as its rivals, Claude and ChatGPT.
The company is reportedly still testing Gemini 3.5 Pro and doesn't believe it's ready for prime time just yet. Both consumers and investors have grown accustomed to the steady release of new, more capable AI models and don't like to see models delayed.
But it's worth pointing out that Alphabet has more than doubled its Gemini users in just one year, reaching 900 million monthly users in May, and the company is making huge strides to set itself apart from rivals.
For one, it has achieved those impressive user gains because Alphabet's software and services are everywhere. Billions of people use its Search function, AI Mode searches, YouTube, Android mobile operating system, and Google Workspace, all of which implement Gemini in some form.
OpenAI and Anthropic don't have the same reach across so many services, and they helped Alphabet turn users of these services into Gemini users. I think this could be a long-term advantage for Alphabet as the company packages Gemini as part of its broader software subscriptions.
And there's already evidence that Alphabet is successful at turning artificial intelligence (AI) users into paying customers. The company generated $1.2 billion in sales from Gemini last year.
What's more, Apple is using Gemini as the underlying AI model for the new Siri AI, making a chief competitor one of its biggest Gemini customers. Apple will reportedly pay Alphabet $1 billion annually to use Gemini.
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Alphabet's got a new AI chip up its sleeve In addition to the massive progress Alphabet has made with its Gemini user growth and AI sales, news of a brand-new Alphabet processor recently broke, and it could make its AI several times more efficient than before.
Reporting from The Information says Alphabet is designing a chip called Frozen v2 that incorporates some of its Gemini architecture directly onto the processor, providing six to 10 times more AI tokens used per unit of power than the company's current Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) processors. In short, the Frozen processor could make Gemini processing far more efficient.
The chip isn't expected to launch until 2028, but it's another indication of how much effort Alphabet is putting into staying competitive in AI processors.
Knee-jerk reactions aren't the way to play the AI boom Alphabet has made massive gains in Gemini users, rapidly expanded AI sales, and continues to invest in new AI hardware to gain an advantage over its competitors.
Given the progress it's made so far, I think investors shouldn't give up on Alphabet so easily. AI software and services will evolve over time, and even big tech companies like Alphabet need time to adapt to a shifting market.
Adding to the appeal of Alphabet stock is the fact that its shares are relatively cheap right now. Alphabet stock has a trailing price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of just 26 compared to the tech sector average of 40, suggesting now could be a good time to buy some Alphabet shares as the company expands its AI position.
Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have no stock, option or similar derivative position in any of the companies mentioned, and no plans to initiate any such positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
Seeking Alpha's Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.
The choice between Vanguard S&P 500 Growth ETF (VOOG -0.58%) and State Street SPDR S&P 600 Small Cap Growth ETF (SLYG -0.19%) hinges on whether an investor prefers large-cap stability and tech dominance or the potential higher volatility of small-cap growth.
These two funds target opposite ends of the market capitalization spectrum. While both prioritize growth factors, they operate in different universes: one captures the titan companies of the U.S. economy, and the other focuses on smaller firms with high expansion potential. This analysis compares their costs, risk profiles, and portfolios.
Snapshot (cost & size)MetricSLYGVOOGIssuerSPDRVanguardShare price$114.58 (as of 2026-07-23)$80.29 (as of 2026-07-23)Expense ratio0.15%0.07%1-yr return (as of 2026-07-23)26.2%18.8%Dividend yield0.7%0.4%Beta1.041.17AUM$5.1B$26.4BBeta measures price volatility relative to the S&P 500; beta is calculated from monthly returns over the available fund history (up to five years). The 1-yr return represents total return over the trailing 12 months. Dividend yield is the trailing-12-month distribution yield.
The Vanguard S&P 500 Growth ETF is the more affordable option with an expense ratio of 0.07%, which is less than half of the 0.15% charged by the State Street fund. While both offer modest income, the yield gap reflects their primary focus on capital appreciation.
Performance & risk comparisonMetricSLYGVOOGMax drawdown (5 yr)(29.2%)(32.7%)Growth of $1,000 over 5 years (total return)$1,396$1,816What's insideThe Vanguard S&P 500 Growth ETF holds 212 stocks and is heavily tilted toward technology at 52%, communication services at 16%, and consumer cyclical at 9%. Its largest positions include NVIDIA Corp (NVDA -1.01%) at 13.64%, Microsoft Corp (MSFT +0.02%) at 7.80%, and Apple Inc (AAPL +3.52%) at 5.98%. The fund was launched in 2010. It has paid $0.37 per share over the trailing 12 months, which, at its recent ~$80.29 share price, yields 0.4%.
In contrast, the State Street SPDR S&P 600 Small Cap Growth ETF targets smaller firms with top holdings including Viasat Inc (VSAT -3.46%) at 1.15%, Corcept Therapeutics Inc (CORT -1.46%) at 1.06%, and Alkermes Plc (ALKS -0.15%) at 1.01%. This fund holds 350 positions, with a more balanced sector mix: industrials at 19%, technology at 18%, and healthcare at 17%. It was launched in 2000. It has paid $0.76 per share over the trailing 12 months, which, at its recent ~$114.58 share price, yields 0.7%.
For more guidance on ETF investing, check out the full guide at this link.
Which is the better buyThe Vanguard S&P 500 Growth ETF (VOOG) and the State Street SPDR S&P 600 Small Cap Growth ETF (SLYG) are both growth-oriented exchange-traded funds (ETFs), they employ very different strategies to deliver returns for investors. Let’s look at each fund individually.
First, there’s VOOG. This fund is loaded with tech megacap stocks. Indeed, just three stocks — Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia — account for about 27% of the fund’s holdings. As for sectors, technology (67% of total holdings) is the largest, followed by financials (9%) and consumer durables (2%). Overall, the fund is almost entirely focused on the U.S. stock market, with more than 98% of all holdings in U.S. stocks. As for performance, VOOG has generated a total return of 385% over the last 10 years, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.1%. Both figures are outstanding and surpass the benchmark S&P 500, which has delivered a total return of 300%, equating to a CAGR of 14.9% over the same period. As for fees, VOOG has a low expense ratio of 0.07%.
Then, there’s SLYG. Unlike its counterpart, SLYG focuses on the small and mid cap growth sector. Rather than targeting tech giants, SLY invests in much smaller companies with market caps under $10 billion. For context, Microsoft has a market cap of $2.8 trillion, meaning SLYG’s holdings are very different from those in the VOOG portfolio. For example, SLYG's top sector holdings are technology (22%), followed by financials (21%) and manufacturing (9%). Turning to performance, the fund has delivered a total return of 182% over the last 10 years, with a CAGR of 10.9%. While this isn’t terrible by any means, the fund has underperformed the benchmark, the S&P 500, and fallen well short of VOOG’s returns. SLYG also has a slightly higher expense ratio at 0.15%.
In summary, these two funds are both acceptable choices for investors seeking exposure to the growth sector of the stock market. However, VOOG beats SLYG on both performance and fees. Yet, for investors seeking diversification away from the tech megacaps, SLYG offers a viable alternative.
Developer activity keeps serving as a key factor to indicate the health of the blockchain network. This data still reflects innovation, long-term sustainability, and community engagement. Based on the data from Santiment, Ethereum, BNB Chain, and Polygon are the leading blockchains in terms of developer activity. The other prominent players include Arbitrum, Optimism, Solana, Cosmos, Avalanche, Harmony, and Cardano.
Ethereum Continues to Dominate 30-Day Developer Activity Ethereum is the top name on the list of key blockchains in line with developer activity. Over the past thirty days, the blockchain has recorded 263.3K developer activity events with a 40.29% decline. Additionally, these events witnessed 1.1K contributors, expressing a 13.23% drop. In addition to this, BNB Chain has become the 2nd top player, witnessing 121.8K developer activity events with a 40.72% decrease. At the same time, the respective events had 603 contributors, highlighting a 17.62% dip.
Following that, Polygon has become the 3rd top blockchain ecosystem when it comes to developer activity over the past 30 days. In this respect, it saw 100.4K developer activity events, displaying a 40.85% plunge. Additionally, the 452 contributors of these events show a 16.14% decrease. Additionally, as the 4th top name on the list, Arbitrum accounted for 79K events with a 45.22% decline, while its 373 contributors expressed an 18.02% dip.
Solana, Avalanche, Harmony, and Cardano Bottom List As per sanbase data, Optimism’s 78.4K monthly developer activity events indicated a 45.3% dip. Simultaneously, its 355 contributors signified an 18.01% drop. Then comes Solana with 77.4K developer activity events, showing a 32.14% decline. However, its 377 developer activity contributors show a 1.62% rise over the same period.
According to Santiment, Avalanche is the 8th top blockchain when it comes to 30-day developer activity. It thus recorded 73.4K events with a 43.93% dip alongside 320 contributors, reflecting a 15.34% decrease. Additionally, Harmony’s 62.9K monthly developer activity events show a 39.45% dip, while its 287 contributors present a 10.87% drop. Concluding the list, Cardano’s 62.6K events and 295 contributors account for 34.58% and 11.41% dips.
AUTHOR
Crypto journalist with years of experience providing in-depth analysis and news on blockchain and decentralized finance. With a keen eye for detail, Shahzaib delivers insightful articles that explore the latest trends, market movements, and innovations within the crypto and blockchain ecosystem. His work focuses on educating readers while offering expert commentary on the evolving landscape of digital assets, DeFi protocols, and the broader impact of blockchain technology.
Stable exempts USDT transfers from gas. Plasma ships zero-fee sends. Sui made stablecoin transfers free at the protocol level. Every coverage of every launch asks the same question in passing, someone still pays for blockspace, and then moves on. This guide stops and answers it: five funding models, their failure modes, and how to tell which one your free lunch runs on.
Summary
A wave of chains and wallets now offer gasless stablecoin transfers: Stable’s protocol-level exemption for USDT sends, Plasma’s zero-fee transfers, Sui’s free stablecoin operations, fee delegation on BNB Chain, and wallet-level subsidies on Tron. Free is a price, not a cost: validators still expend hardware, bandwidth, and stake to process every transaction, so gasless designs are answers to one question, who pays instead of the user, and there are exactly five answers. The five models: token-holder dilution through emissions, foundation treasuries burning finite war chests, cross-subsidy from paid transaction tiers, patron sponsorship funded by an adjacent business, and application-level paymasters passing costs to merchants and apps. Each model has a signature failure mode, from inflation death spirals to subsidy cliffs, and each embeds a priority structure: on Sui, paid transactions outrank free ones under congestion, which is what a free tier actually is. The stablechain era’s real answer is the patron model: Tether’s float income makes Stable’s free tier a marketing expense against a $100-billion-scale reserve business, which is why the free lunch is real, and why it has an owner. Crypto has finally built the thing it spent a decade promising: sending digital dollars with no fee, no gas token, no friction, just an amount and an address, like a message. Stable exempts simple USDT transfers from gas at the protocol level. Plasma launched zero-fee USDT sends as its headline feature. Sui made stablecoin transfers free network-wide this spring. BNB Chain and its wallet partners rolled out fee delegation; Tron wallets hand out daily transfer subsidies by the thousand. And every article covering every launch contains the same sentence, worded almost identically each time: the important question is how this is funded, because someone still pays for blockspace.
The sentence is correct, and it is always the last sentence on the subject. This guide is what happens when it is the first. Free transfers are not a technological discovery; they are an accounting decision. Blockspace has real costs, validators run real hardware behind real stake, and a gasless design simply moves the bill from the person clicking send to someone else, chosen by the chain’s designers. There are exactly five candidates for that someone. Learning to identify which one is holding your chain’s bill, and what happens to each under stress, is the actual literacy the gasless era requires.
The cost that does not go away Before the five models, fix the invariant, because every gasless pitch is engineered to blur it.
Processing a transaction costs resources regardless of what the user pays. Validators execute the computation, store the state change, propagate the data, and bear the capital cost of the stake or hardware that earned them the right to do so. On a fee-market chain like Ethereum, the user’s gas payment compensates exactly this work, and the fee’s second job is just as load-bearing: it rations blockspace, pricing out spam by making every transaction cost something.
A chain that sets the user’s price to zero has not abolished either function. It has committed to compensating validators from another source, and to rationing blockspace by another mechanism, and the entire integrity of a gasless design lives in how honestly those two replacements are engineered.
The rationing replacement is worth understanding first because it is universal. At a price of zero, demand for anything is infinite, so every gasless system imposes non-price limits: allowlists restricting the free tier to specific operations, simple stablecoin transfers but not contract calls, per-account rate limits, wallet-level daily quotas like Tron’s subsidy counts, or, most elegantly and most revealingly, priority markets.
Sui’s design states it plainly: free stablecoin transfers process normally in calm conditions, but under congestion, paid transactions take precedence, free riders queue behind them. That ordering is not a bug; it is the honest shape of every free tier ever built, in cloud computing, in banking, in telecoms: free means lowest quality of service, and the moment the network is worth congesting, the free lane discovers what it actually bought.
A payments product whose settlement time degrades exactly when activity spikes has a property merchants notice, which is why the rationing design deserves as much scrutiny as the funding design in any gasless chain’s documentation.
The five models Now the funding side: who compensates the validators. Every gasless system in production runs on one of five sources, or a blend.
Model one: holder dilution. The chain pays validators in newly issued native tokens, emissions, and the free tier is funded by inflating the token supply, which means the cost lands on everyone holding the token, silently, pro rata. This is the workhorse of the category; it is how Stable’s validator set is compensated in STABLE while users transact in USDT, and how most new chains bootstrap. Its virtue is that it requires no ongoing treasury decisions; its failure mode is the oldest in crypto: if the token’s price cannot bear the emission schedule, security spend collapses with the price, and the free tier is revealed to have been funded by selling the chain’s future to subsidize its present. The diagnostic question: what is annual issuance worth in dollars, versus the free tier’s resource consumption, and what happens to both if the token halves.
Model two: the foundation war chest. A treasury, raised from investors or a token sale, pays the bills directly, covering validator costs or reimbursing gas. This is the cleanest to verify and the most obviously finite: war chests burn, and the model’s signature failure is the subsidy cliff, the scheduled or unscheduled morning when the program ends and the chain discovers what organic demand at true cost looks like.
Every subsidy this publication has covered, from Robinhood Chain’s 90-day gas holiday to exchange fee promotions, belongs to this family, and the diagnostic question is always the same: what is the burn rate, what is the runway, and what is the announced end state.
Model three: cross-subsidy. The free tier is funded by paid activity on the same chain, priority fees under congestion, contract-call gas from DeFi, sequencer margins on complex transactions, the way free checking is funded by overdraft fees.
This is the only self-sustaining model that requires no external money, and its honest precondition is scale: the paid economy must be large relative to the free one, which inverts the usual pitch. A chain marketing free transfers as its main product while hoping paid activity funds them has the subsidy pointing the wrong way; a chain where free transfers are the loss-leading on-ramp to a large fee-paying economy has a business. The diagnostic: what fraction of validator revenue comes from users versus emissions, today, on the explorer.
Model four: the patron. An adjacent business with its own profit pool sponsors the chain as strategy: the free rail exists to grow the patron’s real product. This is the stablechain era’s defining model, and its clearest example is arithmetic.
Tether earns yield on the reserves backing USDT, a float measured against $100-billion-scale holdings of Treasury bills, which at prevailing rates generates income in the billions annually. Every new USDT holder, every merchant integration, every remittance corridor that a free-transfer chain onboards grows that float, which means Stable’s gas-exempt tier is not charity and not unsustainable: it is customer acquisition, priced as a marketing expense against one of the most profitable businesses per employee on earth.
The same logic runs through every patron chain, payment giants incubating their own rails included, and it cuts both ways: the free tier is as durable as the patron’s strategic interest, and its terms can change when the strategy does. The diagnostic question is not can they afford it, patrons can, but what does the patron get, and what happens when it has it.
Model five: the paymaster. Costs are moved up the application stack: the merchant, the app, the wallet, or the employer sponsors the user’s gas through account-abstraction machinery, the way merchants pay card interchange so shoppers do not. BNB Chain’s fee delegation and app-sponsored transactions across EVM chains are this family. It is the model most like mature payments economics: the party with the business interest in the transaction pays for it, and its limit is adoption friction: someone must integrate, budget, and monitor the sponsorship, which is why paymaster gasless arrives app by app rather than chain-wide.
Before the card detour, one more distinction sharpens the taxonomy: protocol-level gasless versus application-level gasless, because the two feel identical in a wallet and fail completely differently. Protocol-level exemption, Stable’s and Sui’s approach, writes the free tier into consensus rules: every user of the chain gets it, no integration required, and it can only be changed by the chain’s own governance process, which makes it durable, transparent, and slow to modify in either direction.
Application-level sponsorship, the paymaster and wallet-subsidy family, is a private arrangement: this wallet, this app, this merchant covers gas for its own users, funded from its own budget, changeable by a product decision on a Tuesday. The practical difference surfaces at the edges: protocol-level free tiers survive the failure of any single company in the ecosystem, while an app-level subsidy dies with its sponsor’s budget line, and users who learned free on one surface discover, moving to another wallet on the same chain, that the free was never the chain’s at all.
The diagnostic is one question: does the exemption appear in the protocol’s documentation or the app’s marketing? The answer assigns the free tier its durability class before any economics are examined.
The card-network precedent, taken seriously The five models have a common ancestor outside crypto, and studying it repays the detour, because the payments industry already ran a fifty-year experiment on making transactions feel free, and its results predict where gasless rails are heading with uncomfortable precision.
Card payments feel free to the shopper: no per-swipe fee, rewards paid for using the card, frictionless authorization in two seconds. The economics underneath are the paymaster model at civilizational scale: merchants pay interchange, roughly two to three percent of every transaction in the US, to fund the shopper’s free experience, the rewards, the fraud protection, and the networks’ margins, and the cost re-enters prices invisibly, spread across all shoppers including the ones paying cash.
The structure’s genius, and its lesson for crypto, is that free to the user was never a subsidy phase; it was the permanent product architecture, sustained by moving the bill to the party with the least ability to refuse, the merchant who cannot decline the cards their customers carry, and the least visibility to the person nominally benefiting.
Two further properties followed. The rails became phenomenally profitable precisely because the payer and the chooser were different parties, a separation that blunts price competition. And the fee’s invisibility became politically load-bearing: interchange wars are fought between merchants, networks, and regulators, decade after decade, while shoppers, the beneficiaries of record, remain spectators to the pricing of their own payments.
Now overlay the crypto trajectory. Gasless stablecoin transfers are converging on the same separation: users choose the rail, but patrons, apps, merchants, and tokenholders pay for it, through float, sponsorship budgets, and dilution. If the pattern completes, the endgame is not free payments in any economic sense; it is payments whose price is set in negotiations the user never sees, between chains, patrons, and integrators, exactly as interchange is set today. That is not a condemnation; the card model delivered the most reliable consumer payments in history, but it is the honest destination, and it clarifies what the current gasless land-grab is actually competing for: the position of the network that gets to set the invisible price later.
Every free tier is a bid for that seat, funded accordingly, and users evaluating today’s genuinely free transfers should enjoy them with the card precedent in mind: in payments, free has always been the most carefully engineered price there is.
Reading a chain’s answer The five models compress into a practical method, because real systems blend them and the blend is the disclosure that matters.
Take the reader’s own test case, Stable, and run it. Users pay nothing for simple USDT transfers: the free tier. Validators stake and earn STABLE: model one, dilution, funds security. Complex transactions and future priority markets pay fees in USDT: model three, cross-subsidy, in its infancy. And behind the whole structure stands the patron whose dollar the chain exists to distribute: model four, the deep pocket that makes the first two sustainable as long as the strategy holds.
The composite answer to who pays on Stable is therefore: STABLE holders via emissions, sophisticated users via paid tiers, and Tether’s float via the strategic umbrella, in proportions that will shift as the chain matures, and that ordering, patron-backed dilution transitioning toward cross-subsidy, is the healthiest available shape for a young payments chain.
The unhealthy shapes are equally recognizable now: a war-chest chain with no patron and no paid economy is a countdown; a dilution chain whose token has no demand story is a slow leak; and any chain that cannot answer the question at all has answered it.
One last reframe earns its place at the end. The question who pays has a companion the gasless era keeps forgetting: what did the payer buy? Card networks made payments feel free to shoppers and built the most profitable toll infrastructure in financial history on the merchant side.
Free checking built the overdraft industry. When crypto’s free transfers are funded by a patron, the purchase is distribution for the patron’s dollar; when funded by dilution, it is growth bought from holders; when funded by paymasters, it is customer experience bought by apps.
None of these is sinister, and all of them are terms, and the entire adult literacy of using gasless rails is knowing that a free transfer is not a gift. It is a price of zero, attached to a bill with someone else’s name on it, and the name is always findable, usually in the tokenomics.
One closing test makes the whole framework portable: the next time any chain, wallet, or app announces free transfers, run the four-question audit this guide has assembled. Who funds it: emissions, treasury, paid tiers, patron, or sponsors, and is the answer documented or inferred? What rations it: allowlists, quotas, or priority queues, and what happens to the free lane under congestion? How long is it promised: a scheduled program with an end date, an open-ended strategy, or silence? And who can change it: a governance vote, a foundation decision, or a patron’s strategy review? Ten minutes with a chain’s documentation and explorer answers all four, and the answers sort every gasless offer into one of three honest categories: a durable product feature backed by a patron or a paying economy, a bootstrap subsidy with a visible cliff, or an unfunded promise.
All three can be worth using; only the first is worth building on, and the difference between using and building is the entire practical stake of the question. A remittance sender exploiting a bootstrap subsidy is arbitraging someone else’s marketing budget, rationally. A merchant integrating settlement on the same subsidy is building a business on a countdown, less rationally.
The gasless era’s genuine achievement, and it is genuine, is that the first category now exists at all: rails where free transfers are the permanent architecture, funded by float economics that outlast any promotion. Its genuine hazard is that the three categories are marketed identically, in the same words, with the same zero, and the only party with an incentive to tell them apart is the reader.
Frequently Asked Questions Are gasless crypto transfers really free? Free to the user, never free in cost. Validators still expend computation, storage, bandwidth, and staked capital on every transaction, so gasless designs relocate the bill rather than eliminating it. The funding comes from token emissions diluting holders, foundation treasuries, paid transaction tiers, a strategic patron’s adjacent business, or application-level sponsors, and identifying which is the key question about any gasless chain.
Which chains offer gasless stablecoin transfers today? A growing set. Stable exempts simple USDT transfers from gas at the protocol level, with USDT0 as its native fee asset for everything else. Plasma launched with zero-fee USDT sends. Sui enabled free transfers for allowlisted stablecoin operations network-wide. BNB Chain supports fee delegation through wallet partners, and Tron wallets like TokenPocket distribute daily transfer subsidies covering network fees.
What stops spam if transactions cost nothing? Non-price rationing. Gasless systems restrict the free tier to specific operations, impose per-account rate limits or daily quotas, and use priority ordering; on Sui, paid transactions explicitly take precedence over free ones during congestion. Free tiers are lowest-priority service by construction, which is the practical meaning of free: full speed in calm conditions, back of the queue when blockspace is contested.
What is the most sustainable funding model? Cross-subsidy, where paid activity on the chain funds the free tier, is the only self-contained one, but it requires a large fee-paying economy first. The patron model, a profitable adjacent business sponsoring the rail strategically, is the most durable in practice: Tether’s reserve float income makes Stable’s free tier a customer-acquisition expense, sustainable indefinitely, though on the patron’s terms. Pure war-chest subsidies are finite by definition, and emission funding depends on the token’s price bearing the schedule.
How does Tether’s float pay for free transfers? Indirectly but decisively. Tether earns interest on the reserves backing USDT, predominantly short-term US government debt, generating billions annually at scale. Growth in USDT usage grows that float, so a chain that removes friction from USDT transfers grows Tether’s revenue without charging users anything. The free tier functions as marketing spend for the reserve business, which is why the model is neither charity nor a countdown.
What are the warning signs of an unsustainable free tier? A finite treasury with no announced end state or successor model; emissions funding whose dollar value depends on a token with no independent demand; free-transfer marketing with no paid economy developing behind it; and no disclosed answer to the funding question at all. The Robinhood Chain pattern is instructive: activity metrics inflated by a scheduled subsidy face a measurable cliff when it ends, and honest chains pre-frame that cliff.
Do free tiers degrade under congestion? By design, usually. Where priority markets exist, paid transactions outrank free ones, so free-tier settlement times lengthen exactly when networks are busiest. For casual transfers this rarely matters; for merchant settlement and time-sensitive payments it can, which is why serious payment integrations often pay for priority even on chains with free tiers, and why the congestion behavior belongs in any evaluation of a gasless rail.
What should users check before relying on a gasless chain? Four items: the funding source, emissions, treasury, cross-subsidy, patron, or paymaster, and its visible runway; the rationing rules, what operations qualify and what limits apply; the congestion policy, whether free transactions queue behind paid ones; and the terms’ changeability, who can end or alter the free tier and with what notice. A price of zero is a term of service, not a property of the network. This is educational information, not financial advice.
Disclaimer: This article is for information and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. Fee policies, subsidy programs, and network designs change frequently and vary by chain. Always verify current terms in official documentation. Always do your own research. Information is accurate as of July 24, 2026.
Key Points:Gold settled at $4,052.85 Friday, barely higher after Thursday’s 1.94% drop, signaling stabilization, not recovery.Brent fell nearly 4% to $96.78 and yields eased, yet gold buyers showed no appetite to leave the $4,000 area.Rate-hike odds rose to 35.8% for next week and near 80% for September, keeping the dollar firm and gold capped.
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Gold Steadies but Buyers Are Not Convinced Gold held near $4,050 Friday after Thursday’s sharp selloff but the session felt more like a pause than a turn. Crude pulled back from triple digits, Treasury yields eased from their highest levels since January 2025 and the dollar stalled. That combination stopped the selling. It did not start a recovery. Volume was lighter, the range was tight and neither side showed real commitment heading into next week’s FOMC meeting.
Spot Gold settled at $4,052.85, up $3.07 or +0.08%. The small gain followed Thursday’s 1.94% decline.
Gold has fallen about 23% since the U.S.-backed war with Iran began in late February. Friday showed the metal can stabilize when crude and yields pull back. It did not show that buyers are ready to chase prices higher with the Fed meeting next week and the war still escalating.
Crude and Yields Gave Gold Room but Not a Reason Daily September Brent Crude Oil Futures Brent settled at $96.78, down nearly 4%, and WTI finished at $89.31, down 3% after reports that Pakistan is exploring renewed U.S.-Iran talks with China’s support. The 10-year Treasury yield slipped to 4.681% after clearing 4.70% Thursday. The 2-year eased to 4.333% and the 30-year settled near 5.16%.
Daily US Government Bonds 10-Year Yield Gold responded but only modestly and that tells you something. The metal held together as yields eased but did not show any appetite to break away from the $4,000 area. The S&P Global flash PMI came in at 53.8, below the 54.4 estimate, which helped bring buyers back into bonds. Still expansion but not the strong print that would have kept the yield surge going.
The crude pullback did not come with a real improvement in the supply picture. U.S. forces completed a thirteenth consecutive night of strikes on Iranian targets. Iran is still disrupting Hormuz traffic. The Houthis said they struck Saudi tankers near Bab el-Mandeb this week. The diplomats are discussing talks while the military is still conducting strikes and those two things do not give gold a clean signal heading into the weekend.
Dollar Held Its Weekly Gain Daily US Dollar Index (DXY) The dollar index slipped 0.04% Friday to 101.48 but was still up 0.7% for the week, on track for its strongest weekly gain in five weeks. Dollar-yen traded near 163.84 after touching its strongest level since 1986 on Thursday as Japan’s verbal intervention efforts have done nothing to change the move.
Gold does not need the dollar to collapse but it needs it to stop climbing before a larger recovery gains traction. Friday’s pause was not enough to change the weekly direction and the greenback is still drawing support from the same forces working against gold.
FOMC Decides Whether the Pause Holds Traders are pricing a 35.8% chance of a rate hike at next week’s meeting, up from 12.8% a week ago. September odds are near 80%. A hold remains the likely outcome but the statement and Warsh’s tone matter more than the decision itself. The Fed is sitting on crude near $100, yields at their highest since January 2025 and jobless claims at their lowest since 1969. That is not the backdrop for a dovish shift.
Warsh dropped easing language from the June statement and has been skeptical of forward guidance since he took the chair. A hawkish statement focused on energy costs and sticky inflation keeps yields elevated and the dollar firm. Even a hold with no change in tone leaves the rate trade intact because the bond market is already doing the tightening.
Spot Gold (XAUUSD) Technical Analysis Daily Spot Silver (XAG/USD) When I look at the gold chart several things stand out to me. I clearly see the series of lower tops and the 50-day moving average at $4231.43, which tells me we’re still in a downtrend. However, I also see a secondary higher bottom at $3959.80 and a main bottom at $3942.10 that suggest an elongated support base may be forming.
I also see the market straddling a short-term retracement zone at $4072.40 to $4041.65. Some traders are treating this area as a pivot zone. In other words, bullish over $4072.40 and bearish under $4041.65. Additionally, bullish traders want to see the formation of another higher bottom.
Bearish traders want to see selling pressure build under $4041.65 after the market formed a new lower top at $4166.13 earlier in the week. The retracement zone that stopped the rally was $4162.36 to $4214.34. This zone also stopped the rally at $4202.71 on July 6.
To simplify the current situation, in order to shift momentum to the upside, XAUUSD has to break the long-term pattern of lower tops.
What to Watch Gold enters next week balanced between the relief from lower crude and the risk that the inflation trade comes back on the next war headline.
The downtrend is intact with lower tops and the 50-day average well overhead. The market is straddling the pivot zone that has been defining the short-term direction. Bullish traders need another higher bottom to confirm the base is building. Bears need selling pressure under the lower end of the pivot to reaffirm the pattern of lower tops that has been controlling this market since January. The pattern of lower tops has to break before this market can shift direction.
If you’d like to know more about how to trade gold, please visit our educational area.
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Oil News: WTI and Brent Slide on Report of Pakistan-Backed Iran TalksGold (XAU/USD) Price Forecast: Can Gold Break Above $4,203 Resistance?Natural Gas Price Forecast: Bearish Pressure Builds Below Key ResistanceAbout the Author
James Hyerczyk is a U.S. based seasoned technical analyst and educator with over 40 years of experience in market analysis and trading, specializing in chart patterns and price movement. He is the author of two books on technical analysis and has a background in both futures and stock markets.
Shares of RingCentral (RNG +25.09%) surged this past week after the cloud communications software provider announced strong gains in free cash flow and boosted its dividend.
Image source: Getty Images.
AI-fueled growth RingCentral's revenue rose 5.9% year over year to $657 million in the second quarter.
The business messaging specialist has positioned itself to be a leader in artificial intelligence (AI)–powered customer engagement solutions. It offers phone, text, and video messaging tools, as well as contact center support. RingCentral's AI agents can automate calls, provide real-time assistance, and deliver a more personalized customer experience.
Sales of these AI tools doubled over the past year and now account for 13% of RingCentral's annual recurring revenue.
"Powered by our global voice network, rich customer interaction data, and ability to orchestrate AI and human agents, RingCentral is uniquely positioned to lead the future of customer engagement," CEO Vlad Shmunis said.
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Better still, RingCentral is growing more profitable as it integrates AI throughout its organization. Its adjusted operating margin improved to 23.4% from 22.5% in the year-ago quarter. That contributed to a 15% jump in adjusted earnings per share to $1.22.
RingCentral, in turn, is becoming a cash-generating machine. The company's operating and free cash flow climbed 23.3% and 24.8%, respectively, to $206 million and $180 million. That amounted to an impressive free cash flow margin of 27.4%.
This robust cash generation enabled RingCentral to boost its recently initiated quarterly dividend by 67% to $0.125 per share.
Raised guidance These encouraging results also prompted RingCentral to lift its full-year financial forecast. Management now expects adjusted earnings per share of $4.96 to $5.10 and free cash flow of $615 million to $625 million in 2026.
"RingCentral is in a unique position, with a strong recurring core business, a widening moat, increasing momentum from AI-led products, and a financial profile that continues to strengthen," chief financial officer Vaibhav Agarwal said.
World Foundation has secured $52.5 million in a private token sale for its native WLD token, with Pantera Capital taking the lead in the investment round. The fundraising saw participation from several major investors, including Bain Capital Crypto, Selini Capital, Susquehanna Crypto, and Eightco Holdings.
Major Backers and Fundraising TermsAlongside Pantera Capital, strategic backers such as Eightco Holdings, which is listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange under the ticker ORBS and already holds significant WLD assets, joined the private sale. World Foundation emphasized that all investors have agreed to a 12-month lock-up of their tokens, aligning interests for the platform’s development over the medium term.
The foundation described this successful closing as the first in its current fundraising series. It has not yet disclosed plans regarding additional upcoming closings or targets for subsequent investment rounds.
As enterprises intensify their focus on secure digital identification and zero-knowledge proof systems, aggregated information and market intelligence tools have become increasingly crucial. Investors and traders seeking seamless portfolio management with real-time updates are gravitating toward integrated platforms. CryptoAppsy, which requires no account creation hassle, combines your crypto investments with real-time prices, detailed charts, and multi-currency portfolio management on a single screen. With this all-in-one financial assistant, you can instantly seize opportunities by setting up smart price alerts, filter news specific to your coins, discover newly listed altcoins without missing them, and always stay one step ahead of the market with critical macroeconomic data such as Fed interest rates.
World ID and Enterprise AdoptionThe newly raised funds will be directed toward expanding the World ID platform, a digital identity solution designed to verify users’ identities while ensuring that personal details remain confidential. The platform’s latest version, World ID 4.0, enables developers to issue secure digital credentials using enterprise-grade zero-knowledge proof technology.
According to the company, a number of established firms—including Zoom, DocuSign, Okta, Vercel, and Tinder—have already integrated World ID into their systems, suggesting growing enterprise demand for advanced verification tools.
Cosmo Jiang, general partner at Pantera Capital, stated that rapid advances in AI technologies have heightened the importance of proof-of-human solutions and cited increasing enterprise interest in platforms such as World ID. He expects the technology to help address challenges related to deepfakes, synthetic identities, and automated user accounts.
Token Structure and Past FundingWorld Foundation clarified that WLD tokens do not constitute equity stakes in Tools for Humanity, the entity responsible for developing both the hardware and software for the World ecosystem. Previous to this round, the foundation has raised approximately $200 million from earlier WLD token sales, while Tools for Humanity has attracted around $240 million in venture capital funding.
The company aims to use its most recent funding to accelerate the adoption and development of its privacy-focused digital identification technology, serving both consumers and enterprises confronting evolving security threats.
Disclaimer: The information contained in this article does not constitute investment advice. Investors should be aware that cryptocurrencies carry high volatility and therefore risk, and should conduct their own research.
The supply of SpaceX (SPCX -2.68%) stock is set to soar after the company's quarterly financial update.
*Stock prices used were the afternoon prices of July 22, 2026. The video was published on July 24, 2026.
Parkev Tatevosian, CFA has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Parkev Tatevosian is an affiliate of The Motley Fool and may be compensated for promoting its services. If you choose to subscribe through his link, he will earn some extra money that supports his channel. His opinions remain his own and are unaffected by The Motley Fool.
Tesla (TSLA -2.14%) has continued its habit of providing overly optimistic forecasts, and investors are realizing that the company's prospects may not be as good as they say.
*Stock prices used were the afternoon prices of July 22, 2026. The video was published on July 24, 2026.
Parkev Tatevosian, CFA has the following options: long December 2026 $320 puts on Tesla. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Tesla. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Parkev Tatevosian is an affiliate of The Motley Fool and may be compensated for promoting its services. If you choose to subscribe through his link, he will earn some extra money that supports his channel. His opinions remain his own and are unaffected by The Motley Fool.
Alphabet's (GOOGL +0.58%) (GOOG +0.21%) share price fell after providing an investor update.
*Stock prices used were the afternoon prices of July 23, 2026. The video was published on July 25, 2026.
Parkev Tatevosian, CFA has positions in Alphabet. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Parkev Tatevosian is an affiliate of The Motley Fool and may be compensated for promoting its services. If you choose to subscribe through his link, he will earn some extra money that supports his channel. His opinions remain his own and are unaffected by The Motley Fool.
Amazon: Sustaining Broad Revenue ScaleAmazon (AMZN -0.70%) primarily generates revenue by selling diverse consumer goods online, operating physical retail stores, and providing cloud computing solutions to global enterprise clients.
It introduced Amazon Supply Chain Services to open its internal logistics network to third-party businesses in May 2026, and it reported a 17% net income margin for the quarter ended March 31, 2026.
Booking: Navigating Cyclical Travel RevenueBooking (BKNG +2.68%) mainly earns revenue by facilitating online travel accommodations, flight bookings, car rentals, and restaurant reservations across its multiple digital platforms for individual consumers.
It integrated new artificial intelligence booking tools into its platforms in mid-2026 while simultaneously managing workforce reductions, and it generated a 23% EBIT margin for the quarter ended March 31, 2026.
Why Revenue Matters for Retail InvestorsRevenue represents the total amount of money a company brings in from selling its goods or services before any expenses are deducted, and it matters because it serves as the foundational indicator of customer demand and overall business growth.
Quarterly Revenue for Amazon and BookingQuarter (Period End)Amazon RevenueBooking RevenueQ2 2024 (June 2024)$148.0 billion$5.9 billionQ3 2024 (Sept. 2024)$158.9 billion$8.0 billionQ4 2024 (Dec. 2024)$187.8 billion$5.5 billionQ1 2025 (March 2025)$155.7 billion$4.8 billionQ2 2025 (June 2025)$167.7 billion$6.8 billionQ3 2025 (Sept. 2025)$180.2 billion$9.0 billionQ4 2025 (Dec. 2025)$213.4 billion$6.3 billionQ1 2026 (March 2026)$181.5 billion$5.5 billionData source: Company filings. Data as of July 24, 2026.
Foolish TakeExamining the revenue trends for Amazon and Booking Holdings reveal the quirks in their businesses. The fourth quarter is the largest in terms of sales for the former, thanks to the winter holiday shopping season, while the latter sees its biggest revenue quarter during the summer travel time.
Both are seeing a trend of strong sales expansion. Amazon’s $181.5 billion in its most recent quarter was a 17% year-over-year increase. Booking’s $5.5 billion represented 16% year-over-year growth.
While revenue trends indicate healthy businesses, Booking warned the U.S. conflict with Iran is expected to hurt sales just as the 2026 travel season is ramping up. This caused the company’s stock to drop to a 52-week low of $150.14 in May. The dip creates a buy opportunity.
Amazon’s share price fell from its 52-week high of $278.56 reached in May due to its massive capital expenditures to provide the tech infrastructure needed to grow its artificial intelligence business. Its spending caused Q1 free cash flow to plunge 95% year over year, but the expense is helping to fuel its AWS cloud computing division’s revenue growth, which rose 28% year over year in Q1. Its share price drop also presents investors with an opportunity to pick up shares.
Nvidia (NVDA -1.01%) investors will appreciate these developments.
*Stock prices used were the afternoon prices of July 22, 2026. The video was published on July 24, 2026.
Parkev Tatevosian, CFA has positions in Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Parkev Tatevosian is an affiliate of The Motley Fool and may be compensated for promoting its services. If you choose to subscribe through his link, he will earn some extra money that supports his channel. His opinions remain his own and are unaffected by The Motley Fool.
I think the primary reason people are talking about Netflix (NFLX +1.73%) is because of the price crash.
*Stock prices used were the afternoon prices of July 22, 2026. The video was published on July 24, 2026.
Parkev Tatevosian, CFA has positions in Netflix. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Netflix. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Parkev Tatevosian is an affiliate of The Motley Fool and may be compensated for promoting its services. If you choose to subscribe through his link, he will earn some extra money that supports his channel. His opinions remain his own and are unaffected by The Motley Fool.
Intel's (INTC -8.02%) stock initially soared after it reported quarterly financial results.
*Stock prices used were the afternoon prices of July 23, 2026. The video was published on July 25, 2026.
Parkev Tatevosian, CFA has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Intel. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Parkev Tatevosian is an affiliate of The Motley Fool and may be compensated for promoting its services. If you choose to subscribe through his link, he will earn some extra money that supports his channel. His opinions remain his own and are unaffected by The Motley Fool.
A stunning one‑day plunge has put IBM (IBM +3.60%) under the microscope, spotlighting mainframe softness, software timing, and its AI ambitions. Watch the video below to see what this stumble could mean for long‑term investors.
*This video was published on Jul. 23, 2026.
Andy Cross has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Asit Sharma, CPA has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Jason Hall has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends International Business Machines. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Hot headlines around AI models disrupting chip design just hit Synopsys (SNPS -0.01%) and Cadence Design Systems (CDNS -1.31%), but the real story runs deeper than orchestration hype. Watch the video below to see what this could mean for long-term investors.
*This video was published on Jul. 23, 2026.
Andy Cross has positions in Cadence Design Systems and Datadog. Asit Sharma, CPA has positions in Synopsys. Jason Hall has positions in Datadog. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Cadence Design Systems, Datadog, and Synopsys. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
On Thursday, the Department of Defense awarded Oracle (ORCL -4.27%) a consolidated software agreement covering the entire U.S. military, the Coast Guard, and the intelligence community. The initial award is worth $3.31 billion over five years, and a second five-year option, if exercised, would carry the total to $6.99 billion.
On Friday, the stock fell 4.2%. Shares closed at $114.99 -- 24 cents above the 52-week low of $114.75 they had touched earlier in the same session.
A contract that size usually buys a company at least a good day. This one didn't buy an hour.
And the reason isn't that investors missed the announcement. It's that they have stopped pricing Oracle on the contracts it wins and started pricing it on what winning them costs. I think that shift is the most important thing to understand about this stock right now.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
What the Pentagon actually agreed to The agreement is unusual in scope. Negotiated by the Department of the Navy under the Department of Defense's Enterprise Software Initiative, it is the first direct award covering the department's on-premises Oracle usage. It folds what had been a scatter of separate purchases across the services into a single contract, spanning perpetual and subscription licenses, maintenance, consulting, and software-as-a-service.
The department expects the consolidation to save taxpayers at least $441 million.
Which points at the part that matters for shareholders. Consolidating purchases is not the same as adding them. The Pentagon was already buying this software, and what changed is how it buys it -- fewer contracts, better visibility into the spending, and a smaller bill.
Considering the award against the context of the company, Friday's shrug makes more sense. A $6.99 billion ceiling spread across ten years works out to about $700 million a year. Oracle's fiscal 2026 revenue was $67.4 billion.
So even at the ceiling, the award is worth about 1% of a single year's sales. Of course, a ceiling is the best case and not the plan, so the actual figure is likely smaller.
Further, Oracle spent $55.7 billion on capital expenditures in fiscal 2026. The entire 10-year contract ceiling comes to about an eighth of what the company spent on data centers in twelve months.
What the market is pricing instead It's not surprising that Oracle investors are skittish. Its capital spending figure is up 162% year over year, from about $21 billion in fiscal 2025.
Sure, Oracle's operating cash flow rose to a record $32 billion in fiscal 2026 (the year ended May 31, 2026). But the build-out consumed all of it and then some, leaving free cash flow for the year at negative $23.7 billion.
And the financing bill has followed. S&P Global Ratings cut Oracle's credit rating to BBB- this month, one notch above junk status.
Even more, the company has said it expects to raise about $40 billion through debt and equity this fiscal year, including a share sale of about $20 billion that would dilute existing holders.
But demand has never been the problem here. Fiscal 2026 revenue rose 17% year over year to $67.4 billion, and revenue in the fiscal fourth quarter climbed 21% year over year -- so growth accelerated through the year instead of fading.
Remaining performance obligations, or Oracle's signed contract value that hasn't yet become revenue, finished fiscal 2026 at $638 billion after climbing $85 billion in the fiscal fourth quarter alone. Management has guided for about $90 billion of revenue this fiscal year, growth of about 34%, and for $8.05 in non-GAAP (adjusted) earnings per share.
At $114.99, that puts the stock at about 14 times the earnings management says it will produce this year. Against the 52-week high of $345.72, that same guidance implied more than 40 times. The market has cut what it will pay for Oracle's earnings by roughly two-thirds in a year, while the earnings themselves kept climbing.
Today's Change
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Which is why I'd argue the Pentagon award changed very little. Against $638 billion of backlog, $7 billion of ceiling over a decade barely registers.
What would get me to consider buying Oracle stock isn't a bigger contract. It's the financing.
A company that plans to sell about $20 billion of stock, at $115 a share after those shares traded at $345, is not negotiating from strength. So I'd rather own it once that sale is behind it than in front of it. And if Oracle gets the raise done without another leg down, and capital spending flattens while cloud revenue keeps compounding, then 14 times guided earnings could look like an obvious mistake in hindsight.
Still, there are too many red flags for me to consider buying the stock here.
The tech bull market over the past few years has largely been driven by artificial intelligence (AI) growth stocks, particularly in the infrastructure space. Despite the strong gains in this sector, there are several AI growth stocks trading at bargain valuations.
Let's look at three cheap AI stocks to buy today.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
1. Nvidia As the poster child of the AI infrastructure boom and one of the stock market's biggest drivers over the past five years, it's hard to imagine that Nvidia (NVDA -1.01%) would be in the bargain bin, but that certainly appears to be the case. The stock carries a forward P/E ratio of just 16 times the analyst earnings consensus for fiscal 2028 (ending January 2028), while continuing to grow rapidly.
Today's Change
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While the AI infrastructure market is admittedly shifting, Nvidia's place in it and its prospects look bright. The company is the dominant semiconductor stock when it comes to AI model training, and with most foundational AI code written on its CUDA software platform for its graphics processing units (GPUs), that position looks secure. Meanwhile, it is also well positioned as inference and agentic AI become more important.
Nvidia made a smart move "acquiring" Groq for $20 billion earlier this year. Groq's language processing units (LPUs) are ideal for the decode phase of inference to speed up response times when answering queries. Nvidia incorporated them into its CUDA ecosystem, so it can now offer complete systems that combine its GPUs, LPUs, central processing units (CPUs), and networking gear into servers designed specifically for inference. At the same time, it also offers systems for training, agentic AI, and AI storage. This should position the company for continued strong growth in the years ahead.
2. Micron Micron Technology (MU -7.24%) has been one of the best growth stories over the past year, but its stock trades at a forward P/E of just above 6 times analyst estimates for fiscal 2027 (which ends August 2027). This is for a company that saw its revenue more than quadruple and its gross margin explode higher from 37.7% to 84.6%.
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The reason for Micron's low P/E is that the memory market has historically been very cyclical. However, there are good reasons to believe the current DRAM supercycle has legs.
The volume growth in the DRAM (dynamic random access memory) market is largely being powered by a special form called high-bandwidth memory (HBM), which gets packaged with GPUs and other AI chips. With demand soaring, the big three DRAM makers are scrambling to increase capacity, but there are limitations. The biggest reason is that HBM, GPUs, and other advanced chips are all manufactured using EUV (extreme ultraviolet lithography) machines, and there is only one company in the world, ASML, that has this technology, so supply is limited. On top of that, HBM requires upward of 3 times the wafer capacity of regular DRAM. As HBM demand continues to surge and supply remains constrained, this should keep DRAM prices high.
With Micron also locking in long-term agreements, adding more predictability to its business, the stock should have plenty of room to continue to run given its low valuation and growth potential.
3. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM -2.98%) is at the heart of the AI infrastructure boom, as it has proven to be the only foundry capable of manufacturing advanced logic chips, like GPUs, with few defects at scale.
As competitors have struggled with yields, TSMC has been an integral part of the semiconductor ecosystem and established a virtual monopoly on advanced chip manufacturing. This also made it a close partner with its customers and given it strong pricing power.
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TSMC is benefiting from the surge in demand for all kinds of logic chips, including GPUs, AI ASICs (application-specific integrated circuits), and CPUs. Meanwhile, the company is also aggressively increasing its own capex to boost capacity to meet the future demand coming from both its own customers and its customers' customers.
Despite its strong position within the semiconductor industry and growth prospects, TSMC trades at a forward P/E of below 20 times 2027 analyst estimates. That makes it another great bargain buy in the space.
ServiceNow (NOW +7.38%) reported mixed results in its latest investor update.
*Stock prices used were the afternoon prices of July 22, 2026. The video was published on July 24, 2026.
Parkev Tatevosian, CFA has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends ServiceNow. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Parkev Tatevosian is an affiliate of The Motley Fool and may be compensated for promoting its services. If you choose to subscribe through his link, he will earn some extra money that supports his channel. His opinions remain his own and are unaffected by The Motley Fool.
Hyperliquid has cumulatively burned 47.27 million HYPE tokens, accounting for 4.73% of its maximum supply.
According to monitoring by Onchain Lens, Hyperliquid generated approximately $1.4 million in fees over the past 24 hours, burning 20,640 HYPE tokens valued at around $1.2 million. To date, Hyperliquid has cumulatively burned 47.27 million HYPE tokens, worth roughly $2.76 billion, accounting for 4.73% of its maximum total supply of 1 billion HYPE.
19 minutes ago
Chairman of SK Group: South Korea Needs to Transform into an "AI-Native" Country
SK Group Chairman Choi Tae-won stated that South Korea must become an "AI-native country," adding, "The goal is to ensure every person has at least one AI agent." He noted that if this goal is achieved, South Korea will become a global AI testbed where various AI technologies can be tested and deployed. Choi added that SK Group will provide more opportunities for AI development through continuous R&D investment. He also emphasized that reducing AI costs is critical, saying, "Currently, AI costs are too high. We must cut costs through various means so that more people around the world can benefit from AI." Choi further stated that South Korea can lower AI costs by expanding its memory chip production capacity and building more AI data centers, while establishing a global AI data center hub connecting the U.S., Europe, and Asia. (Source: Jinshi)
19 minutes ago
Prominent Trader: Bitcoin’s supply held by long-term holders in loss has exceeded levels recorded during the FTX collapse
Renowned trader Killa posted that roughly 80% of cycle top indicators never triggered during the last Bitcoin bull run, and a similar situation could occur with bottom indicators in the future, meaning market bottoms cannot be judged by mechanically relying on historical signals. He noted that the supply of long-term holders currently in a loss state has exceeded levels seen during the FTX collapse and is approaching those of the 2018 bear market. Bitcoin’s realized price is currently around $50,000; in every past cycle, the price has tested the realized price of long-term holders, so a return to this region remains possible. However, Killa said it should not be assumed that Bitcoin will definitely drop back to this level. Many top indicators failed to trigger in the last cycle, and some bottom indicators may also become invalid in the future. Regardless, the current level of market loss is already comparable to that during the FTX incident and the 2018 bear market.
19 minutes ago
Poll: Democrats have a chance to flip the House, Republicans face pressure.
The latest Emerson College poll shows that Democrats hold an 11-point lead over Republicans in midterm election preferences, with 53% to 42%—marking the Democrats’ largest lead in the poll series. Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump’s approval rating stands at 39%, while his disapproval rating is 57%. The poll indicates that the Democrats’ advantage stems largely from female voters, among whom they lead Republicans by 27 points. Newsweek, analyzing via its Uniform Swing Model, stated that if this national advantage translates evenly to House districts, roughly 36 Republican-held seats could flip to Democrats, resulting in a hypothetical 251-184 seat split favoring the Democrats. However, the article emphasizes that this is only a model stress test based on national polls, not an election prediction, and the actual outcome will still be influenced by factors such as candidate performance, local issues, voter turnout, and district mapping. (Jinshi)
19 minutes ago
CZ: Long-term investors can adopt the dollar-cost averaging strategy to buy in batches.
In a post addressing the question of when the best entry point is for long-term holders during bull or bear markets, CZ stated that investors should adopt the dollar-cost averaging (DCA) strategy. DCA is a strategy of continuously buying the same asset at fixed intervals with a fixed amount each time, which smooths costs by diversifying entry timings and reduces the risk of buying at a high point in a single transaction, though it does not guarantee profits.
19 minutes ago
Lee Jae-myung strongly invites U.S. capital to invest in South Korea's tech sector.
According to Yonhap News Agency, South Korean President Lee Jae-myung stated that South Korea and the U.S. should expand their cooperation beyond their long-standing security alliance, covering also sectors of technology, innovation, and startups. He emphasized that combining the U.S.’s world-class venture capital capabilities and global networks with South Korea’s advanced technological strength and manufacturing competitiveness will foster a new batch of global innovative enterprises. Lee also called on U.S. venture capital firms to step up cooperation and expand investments in South Korea, while pledging to build one of the world’s most attractive investment and startup ecosystems. He noted that South Korea will reform its visa system to better attract overseas entrepreneurial talent, and lay the groundwork for establishing a cooperation framework between domestic and foreign enterprises, research institutions, and investors. He also committed to helping South Korean startups grow into globally competitive firms by connecting privately and publicly managed funds.
SAN FRANCISCO, July 25, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- National shareholder rights firm Hagens Berman alerts investors in Roblox Corporation (NYSE: RBLX) that the alleged class period in the ongoing securities class action litigation has been expanded. A new lawsuit now covers investors who purchased or otherwise acquired Roblox common stock between October 31, 2024 through April 30, 2026, inclusive.
National shareholder rights firm Hagens Berman is investigating the legal claims that Roblox and its co-defendants violated the federal securities laws. The firm encourages Roblox investors who suffered substantial losses to submit your losses now.
Class Period: Oct. 31, 2024 – Apr. 30, 2026
Lead Plaintiff Deadline: Aug. 7, 2026
Visit: www.hbsslaw.com/investor-fraud/rblx
Contact the Firm Now: [email protected]
844-916-0895
Roblox Corporation (RBLX) Securities Class Action:
The primary focus of the litigation is on the propriety of Roblox’s disclosures about its commitment toward protecting the safety of young users of its platform and the recent the impact on its business and prospects of the age-check verification rollout aimed at increasing safety within certain social features on its platform. The rollout began in November 2025.
During the Class Period, Roblox and its senior management have assured investors that “safety would be paramount[,]” “building safety into our products has been a huge effort[,]” and “[o]ur approach to safety includes multiple proactive measures as well as parental controls[.]” They have also emphasized that “b]ecause our Platform includes children aged 5 and over, our safety and civility policies are purpose-built to be strict.”
Investors slowly learned the truth through a series of disclosures beginning on October 30, 2025. That day, the Company revealed that it would be instituting enhanced age verification technology globally beginning in January 2026. On this news, the price of the Company’s common stock declined 16% from $133.74 per share to $113.00 per share, wiping out $13 billion in market value.
Then, on April 30, 2026, Roblox revealed a steep deceleration in year-over-year and sequential DAU growth, slashed its 2026 revenue guidance (reflecting ongoing shrinkage in DAU growth), and severely cut its 2026 bookings growth midpoint from 24% to just 10%, investors glimpsed what was really going on.
Roblox said just 51% of its global DAUs age checked and also said that “as a result of age check […] we have seen a reduction in app store ratings, and we believe this may be contributing to a reduction in organic sign-ups that typically flow from app stores.” Roblox also said its lowered prospects are the result of “continued friction” resulting from the age-check rollout.
“We’re focused on when Roblox and its management knew of the adverse consequences of the age-check rollout and whether they intentionally misled investors it,” said Reed Kathrein, the Hagens Berman partner leading the firm’s investigation.
If you invested in Roblox and have substantial losses, or have knowledge that will assist the firm’s investigation, submit your losses now.
If you’d like more information and answers to other frequently asked questions about the Roblox case and the firm’s investigation, read more.
Whistleblowers: Persons with non-public information regarding Roblox should consider their options to help in the investigation or take advantage of the SEC Whistleblower program. Under the new program, whistleblowers who provide original information may receive rewards totaling up to 30 percent of any successful recovery made by the SEC. For more information, call Reed Kathrein at 844-916-0895 or email [email protected] .
About Hagens Berman
Hagens Berman is a global plaintiffs’ rights complex litigation firm focusing on corporate accountability. The firm is home to a robust practice and represents investors as well as whistleblowers, workers, consumers and others in cases achieving real results for those harmed by corporate negligence and other wrongdoings. Hagens Berman’s team has secured more than $2.9 billion in this area of law. More about the firm and its successes can be found at hbsslaw.com. Follow the firm for updates and news at @ClassActionLaw.
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