Bloomberg reported that internal Slack messages show Phoebe Gates, daughter of Bill Gates, and Phia co-founder Sophia Kianni knew as early as December last year that their shopping comparison startup had been using cookie stuffing to claim affiliate marketing commissions. The practice involves placing tracking cookies in a user’s browser without a legitimate referral click, allowing a company to take credit for sales it did not drive. Corporate lawyer Ariel Givner wrote on X that this conduct is typically treated as federal wire fraud in U.S. courts and could carry a maximum penalty of up to 20 years, along with fines and restitution. Bloomberg had previously reported on July 9 that Phia’s browser extension opened background tabs during checkout, inserted its own cookies, and in some cases overwrote valid referral records. After the feature was shut down, charts reviewed by Bloomberg showed Phia’s average daily revenue fell from about $80,000 to between $10,000 and $28,000. The report also said cookie stuffing accounted for 51% of all sales attributed to Phia in June. No prosecutors have formally charged Gates or Kianni at this stage.

According to CoinDesk, the Pokemon trading card market is now valued at roughly $10 billion to $15 billion, with demand strong enough to trigger lines at retailers including Costco. The report pointed to a $16.5 million sale of Logan Paul’s Pikachu Illustrator card as one of the clearest signs of how far the category has moved beyond hobby collecting. Sales at major chains such as Target and Walmart, along with eBay’s $26.2 billion in card sales in 2025, were cited as evidence that trading cards have developed into a major alternative asset class. CoinDesk also said the category has recently outperformed both the S&P 500 and Bitcoin. Against that backdrop, ATH Labs has launched Deadstock, a blockchain startup that aims to tokenize high-grade cards and store them in vaults. The project is trying to address a fragmented market structure and slow transaction speeds, though it still faces liquidity constraints and the network-effect advantage held by incumbent platforms such as eBay.

Silicon Valley is reviving an old term for a new group: the "mafia" effect once associated with PayPal is now being applied to former employees of OpenAI and Anthropic. TechFlowPost argues that, through the first half of 2026, enough people have left the two leading AI labs to build a long roster of founders launching new companies. Unlike the PayPal era, most are not trying to build frontier models from scratch. Instead, they are clustering around the areas large labs have left open: automated AI research, systems that help models improve themselves, verifiable math, agent workflows for enterprises, personal AI, AI-native hardware, and safety evaluation. The report names several examples. Former OpenAI research VP Jerry Tworek launched Core Automation to build an automated research lab. Former Anthropic researcher Behnam Neyshabur and others started Mirendil, which reportedly raised $200 million for self-accelerating systems that let models help improve models. Former OpenAI researcher Jesse Han founded Math Inc, focusing on machine-verifiable mathematical proofs. Other startups highlighted include Rational, Zavify, River AI, Blackstar, Syntony, Resolution, and Guidelight. TechFlowPost says the timing is not accidental. OpenAI arranged a secondary share sale last autumn that let employees cash out $6.6 billion at a $500 billion valuation, while both OpenAI and Anthropic are said to be preparing for IPOs. Venture capital is already following the talent. Still, the article warns that dozens of startups are crowding into the same narrow opportunities, and most may not survive.

On August 6, JPMorgan raised its price target for eBay (EBAY.O) to $107 from $100.

Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan argues that if the CLARITY Act fails to clear a key hurdle this week in Congress, the outcome would not mark the end of U.S. crypto legislation. In his view, the bill would likely slip into a slower, unresolved phase rather than disappear outright, leaving institutional investors waiting for clearer rules before committing more capital. Hougan points to the U.S. Senate’s August recess schedule and the procedural deadline for filing cloture as the reason this week is being treated as a critical moment. He also says the crypto industry would keep moving even without the bill. Hougan cites SEC Chair Paul Atkins, who said in a CNBC interview that the agency is ready to issue rules addressing the same issues covered by CLARITY. Hougan sees that route as potentially more favorable to innovation in the short run, though less durable than legislation because future leadership could reverse it. Even so, he argues that tokenization, stablecoin infrastructure, Bitcoin ETFs, and the integration of crypto firms into the U.S. banking system show that the sector’s momentum is already strong enough to outlast legislative delays.

Morgan Stanley said in a report released Monday that artificial intelligence applications are becoming an important driver of margin expansion as the market places growing emphasis on corporate efficiency and productivity gains. On that basis, the bank identified 24 stocks where AI adoption forms a core part of the investment case and assigned them an Overweight rating. The list spans technology, internet, financial, and asset management names. Companies cited in the report include Alphabet (GOOGL), Roblox (RBLX), Meta (META), Grindr (GRND), Amazon (AMZN), Navan (NAVN), Palantir (PLTR), eBay (EBAY), SEI Investments (SEIC), JPMorgan (JPM), Rocket Companies (RKT), Blackstone (BX), Bank of New York Mellon (BNY), and Bank of America (BAC), among others. According to the report, the market is paying closer attention to tools and business models that can lift efficiency and improve productivity. Morgan Stanley framed AI use as a central reason for its stock selection. The item was cited by Odaily, with Business Insider named as the source of the report details.

MGBX said it will list three perpetual contract pairs — GSUSDT, SMHUSDT and PYPLUSDT — at 18:00 SGT on Aug. 4, 2026, with trading opening at the same time and leverage of up to 25x. The exchange’s notice also included brief background on the underlying names tied to the products. It described Goldman Sachs as a long-established financial institution founded in 1869 and known as a leading global investment bank. For SMHUSDT, the notice said the contract tracks the price of the VanEck Semiconductor ETF, which it described as one of the world’s largest and most liquid semiconductor exchange-traded funds. The announcement also noted that PayPal was spun off from eBay in 2015 and focuses on online transactions, offering electronic payment solutions for merchants and consumers.

Binance Alpha has listed MarsCoin, a U.S. stock meme token, marking its first new meme listing in more than four months and pushing BSC to the front of a narrative some market watchers had expected Robinhood’s chain to lead. In MarsBit’s analysis, Binance’s role matters because the exchange has both the liquidity and the incentive to shape on-chain asset pricing, something rivals in the CEX, public-chain and DEX camps struggle to match. The article argues that the listing is constructive for the sector, but not enough on its own to justify outsized expectations. MarsBit says traders are still focused on short-lived attention events, including platform traffic splits and whether CZ may buy meme tokens, instead of treating the theme as a mature market structure. That, in its view, limits how far the trade can run. The bigger question is whether U.S. stock meme tokens can break out of crypto-native circles. MarsBit argues that the path to a larger market would require token activity to connect back to the underlying equities and, just as importantly, to be legible to stock traders. It points to GameStop as the clearest example of a stock with a built-in retail community, recurring meme moments and an audience that could be drawn on-chain if the narrative becomes compelling enough.