Gate Insights and Crypto Market Analysis

Standard Chartered analyst Geoff Kendrick predicted Bitcoin could rise to $100,000 by the end of 2026, identifying $65,500 as the critical technical level in the short term. Kendrick stated that Bitcoin rising above $65,500 signals the bottom of the current market cycle has been passed. The analyst

Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) is in discussions to back artificial intelligence data-labeling startup Mercor in a funding round that would value the firm at $20 billion, according to a report published Wednesday by The Information. Existing investor General Catalyst has been in talks to lead the investment ro

Gold futures surged nearly 3% to break above $4,500 per troy ounce on August 19 (US Eastern Time) following the US Treasury's unexpected expansion of its bond buyback program. The December delivery gold futures (GCZ6) on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group's COMEX rose $126.30 (2.86%) to $4,546.90

The three major US stock indices closed slightly higher on local time trading as the US Treasury announced it would expand its long-term bond buyback program to at least double the current scale. The Treasury Department stated the buyback would cover bonds ranging from 10-year to 30-year

Bitcoin.com announced Wednesday the integration of USDU, a US dollar-backed stablecoin registered with the Central Bank of the UAE, into its self-custodial web and mobile wallet. USDU is issued by Abu Dhabi-based Universal Digital and holds the distinction of being the first and currently only

South Korean Industry Minister Kim Jung-kwan held consecutive meetings with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on 17-18 to negotiate key issues in a $200 billion strategic investment project, while Deputy Prime Minister Koo Yoon-chul dismissed US concerns about implementation speed on 19th,

South Korea's National Assembly postponed digital asset taxation three times in 2021, 2022, and 2024, despite public opinion surveys consistently showing majority support for implementation. Academic research published in June in the 'Korean Political Studies' journal found that arguments about

Twenty-six companies including Visa, Mastercard, and Circle launched the Agentic Payments Alliance on the 18th (local time), according to an announcement by stablecoin payment firm Rain on X. The alliance aims to build a collaborative ecosystem for AI agent-based payment infrastructure. Rain

The White House will hold a closed-door meeting with digital asset industry executives on August 20 at 3:30 AM KST (2:30 PM ET August 19), coinciding with the Federal Reserve's release of FOMC minutes at 3:00 AM KST (2 PM ET August 19). The meeting takes place while the US CLARITY Act, a

Four students from the National University of Singapore studying Information Security qualified for the SCAN 2026 finals as team youtiaos, scheduled for September 28 at 9 AM at Monaco Space in Seoul's Seocho-gu district. The team secured 6th place among 416 teams (754 participants) in the

Amazon Web Services (AWS) officially launched Amazon Bedrock AgentCore payments on the 18th (local time), a feature enabling AI agents to make autonomous payments using stablecoins. The launch follows a preview version released in May

The 0xfun team advanced to the finals of SCAN 2026, the world's first cryptocurrency tracking competition, scheduled for September 28 at 9 AM at Monaco Space in Seocho-gu, Seoul. The team secured their position by ranking among the top 20 out of 416 teams (754 participants) in the preliminary

A petitioner surnamed Jo filed a National Assembly petition on the 17th requesting a 2-year delay in South Korea's virtual asset taxation, proposing implementation in 2029 instead of the government's planned January 2027 start date. The petition introduces a new economic argument: individual

Kakao added stablecoin-related information services to its corporate business purposes at a March shareholder meeting, according to a corrected semi-annual report filed on the 19th. The South Korean tech company cited plans to

Maple Finance has emerged as the second-largest institutional crypto lender globally, ranking behind only Tether, following a strategic transformation that began after the 2022 crypto credit collapse. The platform currently holds approximately $1.9 billion in active loans and has maintained a

Singapore's Police Force Online Criminal Harms Act Office issued a Code of Practice on August 17 requiring Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok to block financial-services advertisements from reaching Singapore users unless advertisers hold required local authorization, with a compliance deadline of

President Donald Trump stated that Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chair Michael Selig is working to bring perpetuals-focused trading platform Hyperliquid into the United States in a fully compliant and legal fashion during a Wednesday press conference with technology leaders and federal

Chainlink and MemeToro advanced AI cryptocurrency infrastructure through separate technical developments. Chainlink's AI-agent infrastructure work contributed to a 6% rise in LINK price, while MemeToro released over 1,100 lines of MIT-licensed code for its trend-to-proposal pipeline. The development

Moderna and Merck announced Wednesday that their experimental mRNA cancer therapy demonstrated clinically meaningful improvement in treating high-risk melanoma patients, triggering a 177% surge in Moderna shares and a 12.6% rise in Merck stock. The combination therapy, called intismeran paired