Hunter Horsley: The crypto industry has differentiated, with a focus on 'on chain finance' for the next 12 months

[Stripe in Talks to Acquire OpenRouter, a16z and Menlo Ventures to Reap Significant Returns] According to Business Insider, Stripe is in negotiations to acquire the AI model marketplace OpenRouter for over $8 billion. If the deal goes through, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), which holds more than 17% equity, will see its stake valued at nearly $1.5 billion, with an initial investment of approximately $20 million. Menlo Ventures, holding over 6% equity with an investment of less than $50 million, now sees its stake valued at over $500 million. Combined, the two firms are set to achieve returns nearing $2 billion.

OKX has announced the addition of CHIPUSD UM(X-Perp), ACAmericaD UM(X-Perp), and ETHFIUSD UM(X-Perp) to multiple services, including futures contracts, officially launching on 2026-08-18 at 16:00 (UTC+8). Notes: - CHIPUSD UM will launch on 2026-08-18 at 16:00 (UTC+8) - ACAmericaD UM will launch on 2026-08-18 at 16:15 (UTC+8) - ETHFIUSD UM will launch on 2026-08-18 at 16:30 (UTC+8)

Ripple has partnered with Jeonbuk Bank in South Korea to deploy Ripple Payments for real-time cross-border settlement. （Cointelegraph）

The Blockchain Association has submitted a comment letter to the SEC, requesting the repeal of outdated Rules 611 and 610 (e) to support tokenization. （Cointelegraph）

Ben Snider, Chief US Equity Strategist at Goldman Sachs, pointed out that after excluding other income, the earnings per share of S&P 500 constituent stocks increased by about 31% year-on-year in the second quarter, with AI infrastructure related stocks contributing nearly half of the EPS growth. Currently, only about 11% of S&P 500 companies have quantified the productivity improvement brought by AI, and only about 2% of companies have linked AI to profit improvement. The market mainly focuses on pricing AI sellers such as chips, memory, servers, cloud capital expenditures, and power equipment.