July 28 brought a dense mix of crypto market moves, semiconductor headlines, AI developments, and regulatory updates. In equities tied to China’s chip sector, CXMT posted a 465.82% gain on its first trading day, with turnover topping RMB 140 billion and market capitalization reaching RMB 3.28 trillion. Separate reporting cited by The Information said a Shanghai state-backed company has started mass production of self-developed DUV lithography manufacturing equipment, with output planned at around five units in 2026 and about 20 in 2027; SMIC, Hua Hong Semiconductor, and CXMT were named as intended customers. In crypto, most of the highest-volume CEX tokens were down over the past 24 hours, while AEON led the OKX gainers list with an 84.28% rise. Hyperliquid data around the CXMT IPO drew attention after Allium said pre-listing volume reached $17.8 million and that 96% of smart-money accounts had established profitable shorts before the open. Elsewhere, Strategy disclosed its first buyback of Stretch STRC shares under its digital credit securities repurchase plan, and Triple-A’s reported exploit losses expanded to $11.8 million. On policy, BlackRock backed the CLARITY Act, but the U.S. Senate temporarily set the bill aside, while lawmakers in Japan called for easing the country’s 2x crypto leverage cap.

News that a Shanghai-based Chinese state-owned company has moved into small-scale production of immersion DUV lithography systems triggered a sell-off in semiconductor equipment and chip-related names, including pressure on ASML. Morgan Stanley argued the move was driven by technical deleveraging after crowded positioning in AI infrastructure trades, not by any structural weakening in long-term demand for AI compute. The bank said its preferred AI infrastructure holdings have lagged global indexes by about 7 percentage points over the past month, but it kept its bullish stance and framed the pullback as a buying opportunity. According to The Information, the Chinese company is targeting roughly five systems this year and 20 by 2027, with SMIC, Hua Hong and CXMT expected as early customers. The report added that the tools still rely in part on Japanese components, trail ASML in performance and yield, and require months of testing before entering formal production lines. Morgan Stanley also pushed back on the view that more efficient Chinese large language models would reduce global compute demand, saying cheaper and more efficient models could widen adoption and lift inference workloads instead. The bank’s positioning still spans AI infrastructure bottlenecks, semiconductor manufacturing, Chinese AI solution providers, energy security assets and hyperscalers such as Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft and Amazon.

Chinese memory chipmaker ChangXin Memory Technologies, or CXMT, drew intense market attention after its first trading day on Shanghai’s STAR Market, where its stock surged 472% from the IPO price and its implied market value briefly topped $500 billion, exceeding Intel at one point. Against that backdrop, Goldman Sachs warned that the global memory business is facing what was described as a “new problem,” tied to China’s fast-moving DRAM expansion. According to a July 24 closed-door expert meeting cited in the report, Goldman expects China’s leading DRAM producers to double annual capacity by 2030. A central shift in that buildout is the rising use of domestic semiconductor equipment, with imported lithography tools still required in some fabs while other process steps are increasingly shifting to Chinese-made systems. The report also said CXMT is targeting mass production of HBM3 and HBM3E in 2026, a move aimed at the high-end memory segment used in AI servers. In parallel, Chinese firms are said to be pushing DUV-based process routes under EUV export restrictions, while 3D DRAM is expected to see a new round of R&D breakthroughs in 2027. Goldman added that DRAM price gains may narrow in the second half as smartphone brands resist price increases, though AI infrastructure spending is still expected to support demand through 2027.

U.S. stocks split on Monday as weakness in semiconductors, memory names and optical networking shares weighed on the Nasdaq, while the Dow edged higher. Oil fell after Donald Trump said the U.S. had paused strikes on Iran to leave room for talks, easing immediate fears around a wider Middle East disruption. That also helped pull the 10-year Treasury yield down to 4.63%, even as markets kept their attention on this week’s Federal Reserve meeting and the possibility, however contested, of a surprise 25-basis-point rate hike. Trading within the AI complex showed a sharper divide. Investors favored software and lighter-capex companies such as Shopify, Palantir, SAP, ServiceNow, Salesforce and Adobe, while AI hardware names came under broad pressure. UBS said credit markets are re-pricing the long-term monetization risk tied to AI capital spending, with projected combined fiscal 2026 capex by Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Oracle and CoreWeave reaching about $849 billion and potentially topping $1 trillion in 2027. China-related developments added to the pressure. ChangXin Technology surged more than 465% in its market debut, pushing investors to reassess the long-term DRAM supply picture, while a report from The Information said a Chinese company has started small-batch production of immersion DUV lithography machines. Apple rose 1.17% and overtook Nvidia as the world’s most valuable listed company for the first time since April 2025, while Nvidia, SanDisk, SK Hynix and ASML all posted notable declines.

Asian equity markets opened sharply lower on July 28, with semiconductor and technology names taking the brunt of the selling. South Korea’s KOSPI fell more than 7%, triggering a circuit breaker again, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped over 4%. KIOXIA, the Japanese memory maker, fell 17%. In Taiwan, the Taiex sank more than 1,800 points within 16 minutes of the open and touched 41,815.78, briefly slipping below the 42,000 mark. TSMC shares fell NT$80 to NT$2,270. According to ABMedia, the pullback is being watched through several lenses: crowded positioning in semiconductor trades, questions around the sustainability of AI hardware demand after Nvidia’s deal valued at more than $750 billion, and shifting supply-chain expectations tied to China’s semiconductor expansion. The report also pointed to CXMT’s recent IPO in Shanghai and said Chinese state-backed firms have started mass production of immersion DUV lithography equipment. Markets are also waiting for earnings from major technology companies including Meta and Amazon. Their capital expenditure plans are being treated as a key signal for the next phase of AI-related spending.

A cluster of crypto and tech developments landed on July 27, led by Changxin’s blockbuster market debut and Circle’s latest infrastructure push. According to crypto KOL AB Kuai.Dong, Country Garden invested RMB 2 billion in Changxin in September 2021 at RMB 2.22 per share, securing 901 million shares, but later exited at cost by the end of 2024 as it grappled with a property-sector liquidity crisis. Had it held the position until now, the return would have reached 23x. Changxin then closed its first trading day up 465.8% at RMB 49, with a total market value of RMB 3.28 trillion. In crypto, Circle said it acquired IBM’s blockchain patent portfolio, covering more than 680 patent families and nearly 1,000 granted patents tied to core blockchain technology, banking, financial services, insurance, enterprise infrastructure, supply-chain verification and secure cloud operations. In the U.S., the Senate’s latest merged text of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act entered a critical two-week window before the August recess, with ethics provisions emerging as the main sticking point. Onchain data also drew attention: 6.93 million HYPE are set to be unstaked over the next seven days on Hyperliquid, while the platform’s nine largest whale addresses were collectively sitting on about $48.635 million in unrealized losses.

Citrini analyst Jukan said news about China making progress in deep ultraviolet lithography was not especially surprising, arguing that the market had already priced in some level of expectation. In a social media post, he said The Information’s report relied mainly on remarks made by a professor at a Chinese university of transportation during an internal meeting in June and did not offer much additional substance. Jukan added that the sell-off in semiconductor equipment names such as ASML following the report was an overreaction. Earlier reporting from The Information, citing people familiar with the matter, said a company backed by Chinese state capital had begun mass production of self-developed DUV lithography manufacturing equipment. The report said the company plans to produce about five domestic DUV lithography machines in 2026 and expand that figure to around 20 in 2027. That remains below ASML’s 131 immersion DUV lithography systems delivered last year, but the move into mass production has been seen by the market as an important step in building a more self-reliant chip supply chain in China.

A report from The Information said a Shanghai company backed by official Chinese funding has started producing immersion deep ultraviolet, or DUV, lithography machines, a development that quickly rattled semiconductor-equipment shares worldwide. The report said the company aims to build about five DUV systems this year and raise output to 20 next year, though the manufacturing effort is still at an early stage. The market reaction was immediate. ASML fell more than 8% at one point and slid to its lowest level since June. The selloff spread across the sector, with ASM International down 7.3%, BE Semiconductor Industries down 9.9%, Applied Materials off 6.7%, and Lam Research down 7.9%. The report also said China’s largest contract chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp., or SMIC, began testing DUV equipment made by the Shanghai startup last year, according to an earlier Financial Times report. The development drew fresh attention because ASML is barred from shipping its most advanced extreme ultraviolet, or EUV, tools to China under U.S.-led export restrictions, while some advanced DUV sales are also limited. Even so, China remained ASML’s third-largest market in the second quarter of 2026.