Blockchain infrastructure company Startale has launched the Startale Card, a new payment card that lets users spend on-chain assets at merchants that accept Visa. The product is backed by Soneium and is designed to let users keep earning yield while using their assets for payments. Startale also said each purchase made with the card will receive USDSC cashback. The company has opened a waitlist for users interested in the card. The announcement focuses on combining everyday card payments with on-chain asset utility, while keeping rewards tied to spending activity.

Nvidia told investors in a closed-door non-deal roadshow organized by Morgan Stanley in California that its growth remains strong, its product roadmap is on schedule, and competitive pressure from custom ASICs is manageable. Jensen Huang, CFO Colette Kress, and IR head Toshiya Har attended the meetings, which focused on market concerns around product timing, long-term growth, and rival chip strategies. According to the summary published by PANews, Nvidia said quarterly revenue has already reached the $100 billion level and is still accelerating. The company also said the Vera Rubin cycle should drive meaningful order and revenue growth over the next 12 months. Morgan Stanley and other institutions were cited as projecting about $393 billion in revenue for fiscal 2027 and about $598.8 billion for fiscal 2028, while Nvidia’s CPU business is targeting $20 billion this fiscal year. The company also rejected rumors that Rubin Ultra had slipped to 2028, saying shipments are still set for 2027. Nvidia described the Kyber rack as a transitional design that will later be optimized for larger-scale expansion. It added that 800V power delivery and inter-rack optical links remain on track. On supply, Nvidia said HBM and other memory shortages may last for years. It also said more than 50% of future free cash flow could go to shareholder returns such as buybacks.

BIT has officially launched a securities lending and short selling function for U.S. stocks, following the recent rollout of margin financing trading. The company said the upgrade makes BIT one of the few platforms in the industry operating under a real U.S. equities framework that can support margin financing, securities lending for short selling, and options preparation at the same time. Elio Cui, head of BIT Brokerage, said the product roadmap was built from the outset to mirror a full traditional brokerage investing experience. He said users can manage long and short positioning and hedging within a single account, aiming for higher capital efficiency across different market cycles. Under the new feature, BIT margin account users who meet the initial margin requirement can short designated U.S. stocks through securities lending. The platform said it will update key risk control indicators in real time, including margin ratios, borrowing interest rates, and available securities lending pool quotas. Alongside the launch, BIT Brokerage has also introduced a limited-time zero-fee campaign, with terms and conditions applying. Further details are available through BIT’s U.S. stocks channel on X.

BSTR Holdings, the Bitcoin treasury company led by Blockstream co-founder Adam Back, and special purpose acquisition company Cantor Equity Partners I said on July 8 that they will not complete their merger under the original agreement signed in July 2025. A related private investment in public equity, or PIPE, is also no longer required to close, and a shareholder meeting scheduled for July 10 has been postponed indefinitely. The original deal was supposed to bring 30,021 BTC onto the balance sheet of the public company, alongside as much as $1.5 billion in fiat PIPE financing, 5,021 BTC in in-kind PIPE commitments, 25,000 BTC from founding shareholders, and up to about $200 million in cash from CEPO depending on redemptions. The case has drawn attention because it goes beyond Bitcoin’s price and cuts into the financing structure behind listed Bitcoin treasury firms. The next SEC filing now matters most: it is expected to show how much of the Bitcoin scale remains, how many investor commitments survive, and what valuation new backers are willing to accept in current market conditions.

Gate said it will launch subscriptions for the second round of its Pre-IPOs product on July 15, offering OpenAI-linked asset certificates under the ticker OPENAI. The subscription window will run from 15:00 on July 15 to 15:00 on July 17, 2026 (UTC+8), with participation available in both USDT and GUSD. According to the platform, the offering carries a total value of about $20 million and will issue 27,700 OPENAI asset certificates at $722 each. The minimum subscription is 100 USDT or 100 GUSD per order, and the sale will not charge implied fees or custody fees. Gate said allocations will be based on each user’s “hourly average locked amount,” meaning earlier participation and longer lock-up time receive greater weight. The platform described the product as a contingent payout note issued before OpenAI’s IPO to mirror the company’s market value before and after listing. Gate said it manages exposure by obtaining OpenAI shares in the market as a hedge. The certificates are scheduled to unlock in three tranches on July 17, Aug. 17, and Sept. 17, 2026, at 25%, 35%, and 40%, respectively. Gate also said pre-market trading for the certificates will begin on July 20 at 16:00 (UTC+8), with later options including transfer, exit, or conversion tied to the company’s eventual listing terms.

OpenAI, Meta and SpaceXAI are racing to build more efficient AI models as leading labs push to reduce training and inference costs, according to Techub, citing Cointelegraph. The move is putting pressure on rivals including Anthropic. The report says the AI sector is entering an efficiency race, with top labs working on architecture optimization and engineering improvements to lower compute spending while keeping model performance intact. That shift points to a new competitive focus inside the industry: efficient inference. Rather than centering only on larger models or higher raw capability, the latest push is aimed at improving how much performance companies can extract from the same or lower computing budget. In the report’s framing, cost control across training and inference is becoming a key battleground among major AI developers.

Digital asset trading platform Gate said it will open subscriptions for the second-phase OpenAI (OPENAI) Pre-IPOs project from 15:00 on July 15, 2026, to 15:00 on July 17, 2026 (UTC+8). The offering supports both USDT and GUSD. Gate said the total subscription value is about $20 million, covering 27,700 OPENAI asset certificates priced at $722 each. The minimum participation amount is 100 USDT or 100 GUSD, with no implied fees or custody charges. According to the announcement, the OPENAI asset certificate is a pre-IPO mirror note designed to track the company’s value before and after a public listing. Gate said it will hedge exposure by acquiring related shares and plans to offer pre-market trading, long-term holding, and future conversion routes into stock assets, stock tokens, or USDT. Allocation will be based on the hourly average locked amount, meaning earlier participation and longer lock-up periods carry more weight. The certificates will unlock in three stages on July 17, August 17, and September 17, while pre-market trading is scheduled to begin on July 20. Gate also said OpenAI, backed by investors including Microsoft, has an implied market valuation of about $895 billion.

Multicoin Capital managing partner Tushar Jain said the crypto market has already bottomed and is now at an inflection point, according to ChainCatcher. He said market sentiment has truly bottomed as well. Jain pointed to the lack of broad selling after recent major hacking incidents, continued growth in application adoption, and what he described as a disconnect between prices and fundamentals. On positioning, Jain said he remains bullish on Solana over the long term, arguing that SOL offers the right architecture for spot trading and tokenized securities. He also said Hyperliquid holds a leading position in derivatives and that he currently has large positions in both assets. On ZEC, Jain said Multicoin has accumulated a significant share of the token’s supply and views it as a return to the industry’s “cypherpunk” values, with potential to enter the top five by market capitalization. He also outlined a three-part portfolio approach: buy one-third immediately, deploy the second third through dollar-cost averaging, and keep the final third in reserve for sharp market drops. Jain added that his team significantly increased its Zcash position after monitoring a code vulnerability event and confirming that no hacker had exploited it.