SK Hynix said it plans a share buyback worth up to $28.6 billion, according to a Techub News item citing Tech in Asia. The company said the move comes in response to strong demand for its memory chip products tied to the artificial intelligence boom. The proposed repurchase could cover as many as 24 million shares. Based on the figures disclosed in the report, that would account for about 3.4% of the company’s total shares outstanding. The update was published as a short market and technology brief, with no additional operational or timing details disclosed in the source text. The report focused on two points: the size of the planned buyback and the role of AI-related demand in supporting SK Hynix’s memory chip business.

South Korea’s tighter rules for single-stock leveraged and inverse exchange-traded funds sharply reduced trading activity, but a report released Aug. 19 by the National Assembly Research Service questioned whether that decline should be treated as a clear policy success. After the minimum margin requirement was raised from 10 million won to 30 million won under emergency measures approved on July 29 and effective July 31, average daily turnover in 16 single-stock leveraged and inverse ETFs fell from about 11.7 trillion won to 1.3 trillion won between July 31 and Aug. 10, an 89% drop. The report argued that lower trading volume does not prove investors now understand the products’ risks, nor does it mean losses will necessarily shrink. Instead, it said overly strict entry barriers could push speculative demand into overseas leveraged products with looser regulation. The report also pointed to Hong Kong’s variable leverage mechanism introduced last month as a possible reference point, while noting South Korea is pursuing parallel steps including a capital markets law amendment submitted on Aug. 11 and a simulation-trading requirement for new investors that takes effect Aug. 19.

Bitcoin held near $64,200 on Wednesday, posting a small intraday gain and staying up about 1% on the week, while Solana led major tokens with a near 2% rise and Ether traded back above $1,900. The resilience in crypto came even as Korean chip heavyweights Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix each fell more than 7% in Seoul, pulling down the Kospi and weighing on broader Asian equity benchmarks. According to CoinDesk market data cited in the source report, major tokens showed mixed but mostly positive moves, with XRP, Tron and Dogecoin also edging higher, while BNB and Hyperliquid’s HYPE slipped on the day. In macro markets, pressure on equities was linked to elevated long-dated U.S. Treasury yields, although the 10-year yield eased about 1 basis point to 4.69% on Wednesday and gold rebounded as much as 0.6% to above $4,360 an ounce. Investors are now waiting for the Federal Reserve’s July meeting minutes, due at 2 p.m. Eastern Time, while Reuters polling showed 94 of 104 economists expect rates to stay at 3.50% to 3.75% in September. The source report framed the latest session as a possible divergence between crypto and equity risk assets, though it also noted higher yields remain a headwind for capital-intensive AI and crypto mining businesses.

SK Hynix plans to buy back 40 trillion won, or about $28.6 billion, of its shares and cancel them after repurchase to improve shareholder returns, according to a report cited by PANews from Caixin. The company also said it will allocate at least 50% of free cash flow to shareholder returns from 2025 through 2027 and is considering a larger payout through fixed and special dividends. Shares moved sharply in after-hours U.S. trading, rising more than 1% after earlier falling more than 3%.

AI-linked stocks sold off sharply overnight in the US, with the Nasdaq Composite closing down 1.33% and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index falling nearly 5%, before the weakness spread into Asia-Pacific markets and China A-shares. In the article, author Gelong attributes the move to three overlapping pressures rather than a single trigger. First, rising tension between the US and Iran lifted oil prices and inflation expectations, pushing long-dated US Treasury yields higher and weighing on richly valued growth sectors. Second, newly disclosed second-quarter figures for OpenAI showed quarterly revenue growth of only 18% from the prior quarter, alongside widening operating losses and continued executive departures, raising fresh questions about the pace of large-model commercialization. Third, continued friction between South Korea and the US over semiconductor investment plans added uncertainty to the global memory supply chain, especially the HBM segment that sits at the center of AI computing infrastructure. The article argues that while the long-term need for AI compute remains intact, investors are becoming less willing to pay extreme premiums for distant growth stories and are shifting their focus toward actual earnings, financing costs and the direction of global supply-chain negotiations.

U.S. stocks fell for a third straight session Tuesday as higher long-term bond yields put fresh pressure on richly valued technology names. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.33%, underperforming the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500, while the 30-year U.S. Treasury yield briefly touched 5.338%, its highest level since 2007. The move was part of a wider global bond sell-off that also pushed long-dated yields higher in France, Germany, Japan and the U.K. Markets are increasingly focused on the growing debt burden tied to artificial intelligence expansion. According to figures cited in the report, AI-related bond issuance has reached $489 billion so far this year, well above an earlier full-year 2025 estimate of roughly $322 billion, while The Wall Street Journal reported that nine major technology companies have about $3 trillion in off-balance-sheet AI commitments. That backdrop hit semiconductors, memory, optical communications and AI cloud-service providers especially hard. Investors are also weighing fiscal deficits, oil-driven inflation risks tied to the Iran situation, and a heavy event calendar that includes U.S. tariffs on some Canadian products, a 20-year Treasury auction, Federal Reserve minutes and China’s one-year LPR decision.

PANews’ August 18-19 digest was packed with policy, markets, and AI updates. The U.S. debt burden may cross $40 trillion sooner than expected after tariff-related revenue losses accelerated Treasury borrowing. The SEC also proposed “Regulation Crypto Assets,” a new framework that includes startup and fundraising exemptions plus a safe harbor for digital assets that stop all managerial activity. OpenAI said it is tightening safeguards on its unreleased models, adding sandboxing and faster alerts after recent security concerns, while also pausing parts of its latest reinforcement learning training for two weeks. Elsewhere, Bhutan’s government-linked address moved 300 BTC, USDC Treasury minted 250 million USDC on Solana, and Metaplanet said it will use 2,100 BTC and $2.5 million in cash to acquire Super League and build a U.S. Bitcoin treasury platform called Superplanet. Cash App expanded beyond Bitcoin and USDC by integrating MoonPay, Ripple Prime sold $275 million of senior unsecured notes, and FASB proposed treating qualifying stablecoins as cash equivalents. The digest also covered NoOnes’ shutdown plan, a Maya Protocol exploit, Solana’s slot-time reduction, and major AI and IPO updates from OpenAI, Anthropic, Temporal, and Zhiyu/Unitree-related market listings.

South Korean equities fell sharply again on Aug. 19, according to market data cited by BlockBeats from Bitget. The move followed a decline in U.S. markets the previous day and hit major Korean heavyweight names. SK Hynix fell more than 8%, while Samsung dropped more than 7%. Leveraged products tied to the two stocks posted steeper losses. The CSOP 2x Long Hynix ETF fell 14.63%, and the CSOP 2x Long Samsung ETF lost 13.43%. The figures point to a broad risk-off move in Korean equities and amplified downside pressure in double-long exchange-traded products tracking the two companies.