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$182K VELVET moved to private wallets – Accumulation strengthens as price holds

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$182K VELVET moved to private wallets - Accumulation strengthens as price holds


Velvet [VELVET] has been climbing, tracking the bullish trend across the broader market over the past 24 hours and posting a gain of roughly 10% in that window, even as the move unfolds against a heavier 30-day pullback.

The market setup suggests VELVET can hold its near-term outlook, though a lingering downside risk still faces traders going long. One worth watching closely if the recent bounce is to turn into sustained upside rather than a pause in the wider decline.

Deleveraging risk shadows VELVET

A clear signal running through VELVET’s recent surge shows a flush-out of over-leveraged positions from the market drove this run.

For context, perpetual market capital flow points to a sustained netflow over the past 30 days, with net sales dominating and reaching a reading of $25.38 million, according to CoinGlass. That flush-out cost VELVET 18% across the same 30-day stretch.

Velvet future flow.
Source: CoinGlass

More recently, net sales pushed roughly $256,000 out of the market over the past 24 hours as sell-side flow stayed dominant.

The move marks a deleveraging phase, where overexposed positions get cut and the market tempo returns to normal.

The positive read, though, is that the Funding Rate has stayed positive through the flush, implying traders still hold a bullish, longer-term rally outlook for the price. Past performance backs that view, with VELVET posting a year-to-date gain of roughly 200%.

Spot flows keep accumulating

A growing accumulation trend runs through the Spot market too. Netflow measures the gap between inflow, where sellers move coins onto exchanges, and outflow, where buyers pull coins into private wallets, and the latter now holds control.

Over the past 24 hours, the total VELVET moved into private wallets, likely for long-term holding, surged to roughly $182,000, with netflow sitting around $22,000.

VELVET spot flow. VELVET spot flow.
Source: CoinGlass

A similar pattern showed up at the week open, as trading closed with heavier outflow and $529,000 worth of VELVET left exchanges. Accumulation at this pace strengthens the base for a potential rally and helps sustain the asset’s most recent leg up.

Community sentiment, which gauges how bullish a market is on a scale of -10 to 10, puts VELVET at a reading of roughly 5.77, pointing to a strong bullish outlook that could carry its performance over the coming days.

VELVET decline risk stays on the table

The risk has not cleared, and VELVET could still see a meaningful price decline, going by the liquidation heatmap.

The heatmap reading on the two-week chart shows a larger cluster packed below VELVET’s press-time price.

The zone between $3.6 and $3.8 stands out as a high-density region, and clusters tend to act as magnets. Where they sit tightly packed, prices often swing down toward the level before stabilizing.

Velvet liquidation heatmap. Velvet liquidation heatmap.
Source: CoinGlass

VELVET could still slip to this zone before rebounding higher, setting up a stronger, more established bullish run.


Final Summary

  • Spot wallets keep accumulating VELVET with $182,000 moved into private storage and a positive Funding Rate signaling that traders still lean bullish.
  • A $25.38 million perp net sales flush over 30 days and dense liquidation clusters between $3.6 and $3.8 leave real downside risk.



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Gold prices today, Tuesday, August 4, 2026: Gold remains above $4,100 with Iran threats looming

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Gold prices today, Tuesday, July 21, 2026: Gold hovers above $4,000 ahead of next week’s Fed meeting


Gold (GC=F) December futures opened at $4,109.60 per troy ounce on Tuesday, August 4, 2026, up 0.5% from Monday’s closing price. The price of gold moved higher this morning to $4,136.30 per troy ounce as of 8:03 a.m. ET.

The opening price of gold continues to hold above $4,100 this week, and the precious metal continues to gain value in early trading, despite inflammatory comments from President Trump. While the president hopes his comments will accelerate a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, they could prolong the war and raise energy costs even further:

“I want to give them every last chance before decapitation,” Trump told reporters on Monday. “You’ll find out today or tomorrow. I mean, they’re going to go quickly, one way or the other. It’s not very complex.”

This is a “last chance” for Iran to come to an agreement, the president said, after he called off what he described as a major attack on the Islamic Republic over the weekend that would have likely involved Israel.

The opening price of gold futures on Tuesday, August 4, 2026, was 0.5% higher than Monday’s opening price. Here’s a look at how the opening gold price has changed versus last week, month, and year:  

  • One week ago: +2.1%

  • One month ago: +1.0%

  • One year ago: +22%

The precious metal’s one-year gain was 95.6% on Jan. 29. 

24/7 gold price tracking: Don’t forget you can monitor the current price of gold on Yahoo Finance 24 hours a day, seven days a week. 

Want to learn more about the current top-performing companies in the gold industry? Explore a list of the top-performing companies in the gold industry using the Yahoo Finance Screener. You can create your own screeners with over 150 different screening criteria.

Learn more: Who decides what gold is worth? How gold prices are determined.

Gold has the same high-level risk as any investment: You could lose money. And, as with other investments, a loss on gold can materialize in different ways. Understanding the potential outcomes is the first step to managing your risk when investing in gold.

According to gold experts, would-be gold investors should understand these four risks:

  1. Price

  2. Speculation

  3. Opportunity cost

  4. Fraud 

Today, we’ll focus on the first two: price and speculation. 

Learn more: How to invest in gold in 7 steps

There is a price risk for investors who buy gold when the metal is nearing record high prices. “Buying high to hope for short-term higher is a tough strategy,” said Darrell Fletcher, managing director, commodities at Bannockburn Capital Markets.

Despite the high prices, there are positive dynamics in play for the precious metal. Fletcher pointed out that gold is recovering from decades of low prices, and it’s an increasingly popular diversification asset for central banks and individual investors. 

The right expectations, a long timeline, and an appropriate allocation can limit your pricing risk. “Gold should not be seen as a driver of supercharged returns — it’s there to act primarily as a stabilizer in a diversified portfolio,” explained Alex Tsepaev, chief strategy officer of B2PRIME Group.

If you are interested in learning more about gold’s historical value, Yahoo Finance has been tracking the historical price of gold since 2000. 

Thomas Winmill, portfolio manager at Midas Funds, encourages investors to view positions in gold bullion, coins, and ETFs as speculative. Gold is a commodity, and “commodity prices are dependent on macroeconomic, political, industrial, and financial factors that are unpredictable, and in some cases, unknowable.” 

Despite its recent performance, gold is an unpredictable asset. Keeping that in mind when making trading decisions could protect you from over-exposure and unrealistic expectations. 

Learn more: Thinking of buying gold? Here’s what investors should watch for.

Whether you’re tracking the price of gold since last month or last year, the price of gold chart below shows the precious metal’s change in value. 



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OpenAI president Greg Brockman on why voice will inevitably replace our clicking and typing ‘phase’

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OpenAI president Greg Brockman on why voice will inevitably replace our clicking and typing 'phase'

Welcome to Eye on AI. Emily Forlini here. In today’s issue:

  • Fidji Simo sits down with Fortune for her first interview since leaving OpenAI
  • “Voice-pilled” is the latest AI lingo
  • OpenAI fires back at Apple over device lawsuit
  • Chinese models are getting even better—and cheaper

Emily Forlini here, back again to fill in for Jeremy while he’s out on a well-deserved vacation. This week, I’m thinking about the future of computing. How we will interact with our phones, computers, and smart glasses in the future? Right now, the trend is pointing toward voice technology, or dictation.

The new term I’m hearing in my reporting: “Voice-pilled.” It’s a derivative of AI-pilled, meaning people who are all-in on AI and convinced it’s the future. (The industry seems to be lingomaxxing.)

At Menlo Ventures, a venture capital firm in San Francisco and early investor in Anthropic, has equipped four desks with microphones for dictation. “A few of our investors are totally voice-pilled,” the company tells me. “They believe that typing slows them down and they work faster and [can] be more productive when speaking versus typing.”

They use an AI platform called Wispr Flow. Wispr is in use at 450 of the Fortune 500 companies, with its revenue growing at 150% each quarter for the past year, according to Upstarts Media. The company is starting a new AI lab, staffed with 50 researchers to develop new voice models and find novel ways to interact with them.

So wait, that means all these people are talking out loud to their computers next to their co-workers? Isn’t that weird? Yes. Sometimes the VCs at Menlo “feel a bit awkward” using it in the company’s open floor plan office. “That might be one of the growing pains,” the company says.

Wispr Flow is optimized for its namesake: Whispering. Users can talk into the microphone with a low voice. Honestly, that might be even weirder—borderline creepy—in an office environment, but Wispr says it’s necessary when you’re “sitting just a foot away from someone else,” and potentially discussing sensitive information.

OpenAI’s big bet on voice

OpenAI is also investing heavily in voice models, positioning it as one of the company’s differentiators from rivals Anthropic and Google Gemini. On July 23, it added a voice model, called ChatGPT Voice, to the ChatGPT desktop app so that white collar workers can verbally direct their agents. A major application is expected to be software engineers, who can now code by speaking.

“I think voice will be the interface of the future, so that’s very exciting because it means that the computer moves closer to you rather than you having to contort yourself around the machine,” OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman said recently at a media roundtable the same day as the ChatGPT Voice launch.

“We’re going to realize this phase of us clicking and typing is a phase. It was never what we wanted to be doing. A hundred years ago, no one did this kind of stuff. I think a couple of years from now, no one’s going to want to do it anymore,” he added.

I see his point. I’ve always thought computers and phones are mind-numbingly boring. We spend our days staring at tiny screens, hunched over. Do we have to do this forever? At the same time, it’s hard to imagine voice can be a full replacement for typing, which is incredibly useful. Doing any in-depth editing, code reviews, researching, and AI prompting seems very difficult through voice alone. Sometimes, it’s easier to list all the details and think through a problem through writing.

OpenAI’s forthcoming consumer hardware device may have a voice component as well, intended for use around the house, Bloomberg reported last month. Can it unseat the Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and Apple Homepod? In my view, it all depends on how good the voice models are. There’s nothing more annoying than “Alexa voice,” or speaking slowly and loudly—and then she doesn’t get it, anyway: “Sorry, I can’t help with that.”

With that, here’s more AI news.

Emily Forlini
emily.forlini@fortune.com
@emilyforlini

Before we get to the news, just a reminder to check out our new vodcast, Fortune AI Weekly on YouTube.

FORTUNE ON AI

 

AI IN THE NEWS

Meta, Anthropic, Google, OpenAI to meet Trump officials about AI safety testing. It’s a big week for AI safety following OpenAI hacking Hugging Face, and then Anthropic confirming its models have done the same to other companies at least three times. Top AI labs are meeting with the administration to review a new, voluntary process for submitting their models to the government prior to public release. Will it stifle innovation, or provide necessary guardrails for the industry to flourish? More from Reuters.

Alibaba unveils its largest AI model yet, DeepSeek’s latest model is ultra-low cost. China tech firms are working at breakneck speed to develop leading edge models. E-commerce giant Alibaba released its largest and most capable model, while DeepSeek says its newest one is 100 times cheaper than Anthropic’s Fable 5. More in Reuters.

China is getting more anxious about Mythos before Trump meets Xi. Tensions are high ahead of a planned summit between Xi Jinping and Trump. Officials in Beijing are concerned about the cyber capabilities of Anthropic’s Mythos and other frontier models developed by U.S. companies. They see the potential for models to be used as an offensive weapon. Meanwhile, Anthropic is denying China access to the systems for “normal purposes,” according to people familiar with the matter. More in Bloomberg.

Inside Google’s $200 billion Wall Street finance machine for Anthropic. Google signed a gigantic infrastructure deal to supply Anthropic with cutting-edge chips as the industry explores new financing paradigms to meet the AI industry’s insatiable appetite for compute power. More in The Financial Times.

EYE ON AI RESEARCH

Building the “internet of biology.” In Fidji Simo’s first interview since leaving her position as OpenAI’s CEO of Applications, she sits down with Fortune to discuss her AI healthcare research startup, ChronicleBio. The company is analyzing blood samples from patients with chronic disease. Simo has Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS). It aims to improve the success of clinical drug trials by segmenting patient populations beforehand, identifying new sub-groups that are more likely to have similar reactions to therapies. 

In its first year as a company, ChronicleBio has extracted 153 terabytes of data from over 3,500 vials of blood—that’s three times the 45 terabytes GPT-3.5, a 2022 model from OpenAI, was trained on. The company has raised $15 million to date. 

Read more about ChronicleBio here.

AI CALENDAR

Aug. 4-6: Ai4 2026, Las Vegas.

Nov. 16-17: Fortune 500 Innovation Forum, Detroit. Apply here to attend.

Dec. 6-12: Neural Information Processing Systems (Neurips) conference. Sydney, Australia.

Dec. 7-8: Fortune Brainstorm AI, San Francisco. Apply here to attend.

BRAIN FOOD

OpenAI hosts its first influencer retreat; the internet reacts. OpenAI shelled out some serious cash to host about 30 internet personalities at a luxury resort called Wildflower Farms in upstate New York over the weekend. Weekend room rates typically exceed $2,000 a night, according to Business Insider. Retreat activities included beekeeping, outdoor dinners under festive string lights, and learning about OpenAI’s latest tools and products. 

One attendee called it “summer camp,” courtesy of OpenAI. “Trips like this make me so grateful to be part of the tech creator space to be able to constantly learn from its brands and creators alike 🙏”  another said.

The internet backlash was swift, calling out the event as a ridiculous expense and calling into question OpenAI’s motives. Are they trying to charm the influencers and improve public perception of the company ahead of a possible IPO?





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Why Visa, Mastercard and Coinbase aren’t abandoning USDC stablecoin for Open USD

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Why Visa, Mastercard and Coinbase aren't abandoning USDC stablecoin for Open USD

Recent earnings calls from Open USD’s highest-profile backers, however, paint a more nuanced picture. Executives at Coinbase, Visa and Mastercard all said they intend to support multiple stablecoins instead of betting on a single winner, describing Open USD as another network to connect to rather than a replacement for USDC.

Multi-coin strategy

During its second-quarter earnings call last week, Coinbase reassured investors about its close relationship with Circle. Chief Financial Officer Alesia Haas said the exchange has already met the conditions to renew its commercial agreement with Circle and will continue growing the USDC ecosystem.

CEO Brian Armstrong also said Coinbase remains a “multi-stablecoin platform” and wants to support whichever stablecoins customers choose to use. The exchange already supports USDC alongside Tether’s USDT and PayPal’s PYUSD, he said, with Open USD creating “additional business opportunities and revenue opportunities.”

Ryan McInerney, CEO of Visa, struck a similar tone during his firm’s earnings call, describing the company as “multi-coin, multi-chain” and saying that Visa’s role is to help clients connect to whichever stablecoins gain adoption.

“Our role is not to pick winners,” he said.

Notably, Visa offered the first live example of pushing Open USD to customers. The firm last month launched its Visa Stablecoin Platform, giving banks, fintechs and payment providers tools to access, store, redeem and move stablecoins, with OUSD serving as the initial supported token.



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If you invested $1,000 in gold, Bitcoin and $TRUMP on Inauguration Day, here is what each is worth today

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If you invested $1,000 in gold, Bitcoin and $TRUMP on Inauguration Day, here is what each is worth today


Pick any investor who watched Donald Trump walk back into the White House on January 20, 2025 and decided to put money into the three most talked-about assets surrounding that moment.

Bitcoin, the asset Trump had openly embraced. Gold, the safe haven that has anchored portfolios for centuries. And the TRUMP memecoin, the token bearing the president’s name that had launched three days earlier and was already being called the trade of the inauguration.

Here is what $1,000 in each one looks like today, August 4, 2026.

Related: Billionaire reveals ‘worst thing’ to ever happen to Bitcoin

Bitcoin: Down 40%

Bitcoin opened inauguration day at approximately $102,000. A $1,000 investment bought roughly 0.0098 BTC. Today, with Bitcoin trading near $62,000, that position is worth approximately $607, a loss of 40%.

The irony is hard to miss. Trump entered office as the most openly crypto-friendly president in American history. He signed the GENIUS Act. He signed an Executive Order to establish a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.

He called the U.S. the crypto capital of the world. And Bitcoin still lost 40% of its value on his watch.

What makes the Bitcoin loss particularly striking is the context surrounding it. This was not a hostile administration. Trump’s team established the first ever Strategic Bitcoin Reserve in March 2025, halting all government Bitcoin sales and signaling long-term institutional commitment at the sovereign level.

The policy environment was the most favorable in Bitcoin’s history. And yet the price fell from where it stood on the day that all of that became official. The lesson is not that Bitcoin is broken.

It is that even the best policy tailwind cannot override a global liquidity squeeze, a hawkish Fed, and overleveraged positions unwinding at scale.

Related: Bitcoin has never broken this line in 15 years, it is on it right now

Gold: Up 22%

Gold was trading at approximately $2,697 per ounce on January 20, 2025. A $1,000 investment bought 0.371 ounces.

At today’s gold price of approximately $3,300, that position is worth $1,224, a gain of 22%. The same presidency that was supposed to supercharge crypto turned out to be gold’s best friend.

Tariff wars, US-Iran military strikes, persistent inflation, and a Fed locked into a hawkish position all sent money into gold every time uncertainty spiked.

The metal hit an all-time high above $5,500 per ounce earlier this year. Nobody on inauguration day was putting their money into gold to ride a Trump presidency. They should have.

Trending on TheStreet Roundtable:

What makes gold’s performance particularly uncomfortable for the crypto community is that it did not require any catalyst beyond the macro environment that Trump’s own policies created.

Gold does not have a halving cycle. It does not have ETF inflows to track or whale wallets to monitor. It simply rises when trust in financial institutions erodes and when inflation stays elevated longer than central banks predicted.

Trump coin: Down 97%

The TRUMP memecoin was trading at approximately $45.47 on January 20, 2025, already down sharply from its $74.27 all-time high hit two days earlier.

A $1,000 investment at inauguration prices bought roughly 22 coins. At today’s price of $1.47, those coins are worth approximately $32.

A loss of 97%. Nearly the entire investment gone. While Trump himself disclosed over $1.4 billion in crypto income in his 2025 financial filings, largely from TRUMP coin royalties, the investors who bought on inauguration day are sitting on one of the worst-performing positions of the entire cycle.

The investors who bought at $45 on inauguration day were not making a financial decision. They were making a political one. And the market, as it always does, treated the two very differently.

The scorecard

Three assets. Same $1,000. Same start date. Gold: $1,224. Bitcoin: $607. Trump Coin: $32.

The most crypto-friendly administration in history produced one winner, and it was the asset that has been around for thousands of years and does not have a ticker symbol.

Related: Elon Musk is putting Dogecoin on the moon in 49 days, here is what history says happens next

This story was originally published by TheStreet on Aug 4, 2026, where it first appeared in the MARKETS section. Add TheStreet as a Preferred Source by clicking here.



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Akash Network [AKT] jumps 13% – But this breakout can hold ONLY IF…

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Akash Network [AKT] jumps 13% – But this breakout can hold ONLY IF…


Akash Network [AKT] rallied 12.59% over the previous 24 hours as buyers returned with noticeably stronger conviction across both spot and derivatives markets. 

Spot trading volume climbed 240.15% to $11.11 million, while market capitalization expanded 12.6% to $153.97 million, reflecting broader participation instead of isolated buying activity. 

Derivatives traders mirrored the same behavior, with trading volume surging 313.68% to $16.28 million, indicating a sharp increase in speculative interest. 

The synchronized expansion across multiple metrics reflected growing confidence behind the recovery rather than a price advance driven by declining liquidity. 

However, the rapid acceleration in trading activity also raised expectations for sustained follow-through because elevated participation often increases short-term volatility once aggressive positioning begins to build.

Why did Open Interest keep climbing?

Fresh capital continued entering AKT’s derivatives market as Open Interest increased 20.24% to $9.56 million.

The rise revealed that traders opened new leveraged positions instead of merely closing existing contracts. 

The simultaneous rise in price, trading volume, and Open Interest reflected expanding market exposure rather than temporary repositioning. 

Such alignment generally points toward stronger speculative conviction because additional capital remained committed after the rally developed. 

However, the growing derivatives exposure also increased the market’s sensitivity to sudden price swings. 

Any decisive movement beyond nearby technical levels could trigger larger reactions across leveraged positions.

Source: CoinGlass

AKT escaped its descending channel, but can buyers clear $0.55?

AKT invalidated its prolonged descending channel after buyers forced price above the upper trendline and reclaimed the $0.52 region. 

The breakout shifted market structure away from the persistent lower-high pattern that had controlled price action for weeks. 

Buyers then approached the $0.55 resistance, which now represented the immediate barrier before any broader recovery could develop. 

Meanwhile, the MACD completed a bullish crossover as the MACD line moved above the signal line and the histogram turned positive, reflecting strengthening buying pressure after an extended bearish phase. 

Price still traded beneath the major $0.6755 resistance, leaving additional overhead supply intact. 

If buyers maintain control above the former channel resistance, AKT could challenge $0.55 again. 

Otherwise, the $0.4244 support would likely attract renewed attention should selling pressure return.

AKT price actionAKT price action
Source: TradingView

Long liquidations exposed bullish positioning

Derivatives liquidations revealed an unusual imbalance even as AKT advanced. 

Long positions absorbed approximately $25.19K in liquidations, while short liquidations totaled only about $10.78K across major exchanges.  

The data indicated that bullish traders remained vulnerable despite the broader recovery. This is because many leveraged longs still faced forced exits during sharp intraday fluctuations. 

Rather than signaling outright weakness, the imbalance reflected how volatile price swings repeatedly caught aggressive buyers before the broader advance stabilized. 

Continued leverage expansion could produce similar liquidation events if volatility remain elevated around key resistance.

Source: CoinGlass

Final Summary

  • AKT broke above its descending channel as stronger participation supported the recent recovery.
  • Rising Open Interest and heavier long liquidations showed bullish traders still faced elevated volatility.

 



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Samsung is bringing stablecoins to 800 million phones in a massive crypto bet

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Samsung is bringing stablecoins to 800 million phones in a massive crypto bet

“By doing so, Samsung Wallet becomes the foundation for an interconnected financial ecosystem across Galaxy devices and services — where it combines payments, rewards, and digital assets into a single unified experience,” he said.

If it follows through, over 800 million would potentially have access to Galaxy’s stablecoin features and other crypto without requiring a separate crypto app or exchange account. Already, there are over one billion active Samsung smartphones worldwide.

Stablecoins and infrastructure

During its Q2 earnings call last week, Samsung SDS CEO Lee Jun-hee said that the company’s stake in crypto exchange Upbit operator Dunamu is a strategic investment to enter the digital asset infrastructure business, including stablecoins and AI-powered payments.

Three Samsung affiliates agreed in May to acquire a 4% stake in Dunamu, the operator of South Korea’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Upbit, for $408 million. Samsung Securities, Samsung SDS and Samsung Card are the affiliates involved in the deal.

“This is the other half of the same strategy, and from a deal perspective, it is the more telling half,” said Goh. “The wallet announcement secured distribution; SDS and Dunamu will secure the infrastructure beneath it.”

Goh said he believes Samsung is aiming to build the infrastructure itself, rather than rely on a third-party provider. “Their goal is to be positioned in both dollar and won stablecoins while Korea’s framework is still being discussed. The timing is deliberate.”



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