PANews

Authors: Victor, Mr. Z, 168X
> From a first-tier VC to a cross-asset trader, after putting down blockchain—the “hammer”
In August 2026, Crypto was at an industry low: the market was deep in a bear market; exchanges such as BitMEX and BitMart announced the suspension of their trading operations; star products from the previous cycle, including Zapper and Fantasy Top, shut down one after another; and successive reports emerged of DEXs and DeFi being hacked. More importantly, talent and capital were flowing massively into AI, while VCs in the primary market began liquidating their positions. At this moment, 168X invited Lao Bai (@Wuhuoqiu) to discuss why Crypto clearly won, yet made everyone feel like they were losing; what stage we have reached now; and what opportunities remain in the next cycle.
Lao Bai has ten years of experience in network engineering.

PANews reported on August 12 that Bybit market data showed Hong Kong-listed Southern 2x Long Samsung Electronics (07747.HK) rising more than 17%, while Southern Dongying SK Hynix (07709.HK) rose more than 15%.

PANews reported on August 12 that, according to Business Insider, former OpenAI Chief Product Officer Kevin Weil is seeking a valuation of at least $750 million for his newly established AI science startup and plans to raise $150 million, although the relevant details have not yet been finalized. The company focuses on the application of AI in science.

According to Caixin, people close to Manus revealed that Tencent, ZhenFund, Sequoia China and other former major shareholders bought back Manus shares from Meta for $2 billion, an amount close to Meta’s acquisition price announced in December 2025. Benchmark, formerly the largest shareholder, did not participate in the buyback, and its stake will be taken over by Tencent, which will become Manus’s largest shareholder. Manus is currently operating normally and has announced that it will resume independent operations. Some users need to back up their data before August 23.

Former Alibaba Tongyi Qianwen head Lin Junyang announced the establishment of AI lab Pragmatik Labs (Pragmatik Technology) in Shanghai, focusing on the research and development of general-purpose AI agent technology integrating the digital and physical worlds. Its slogan is “Agents for digital and physical worlds.” The first funding round was led by Gaorong Ventures and Sequoia China, with participation from Tencent and the Shanghai Future Industry Fund.

Accel announced the raising of four new funds totaling $3.5 billion, covering global expansion, the United States, Europe and Israel, and India, with a focus on early-stage AI startups worldwide. It emphasized that earlier and faster fundraising brings both opportunities and risks, and has invested in Anthropic, Cursor, Perplexity, and others, while participating in projects such as Thinking Machines Lab and Safe Superintelligence, as well as Periodic Labs’ $300 million seed round, aiming to secure meaningful equity stakes through early-stage investments.

According to CoinDesk, Bitcoin has traded narrowly in the $62,000–$66,000 range in recent weeks. ETF funds continue to flow in, but over-the-counter selling pressure from miners and other large holders has offset them, leaving the market directionless. Trading volume has fallen to a three-year low, making a breakout difficult. Analysts said ETF and corporate treasury activity are offsetting each other, while Wednesday’s CPI report could be a catalyst for breaking the deadlock; with investor confidence lacking and implied volatility declining, investors are awaiting clearer signals on monetary policy and the Clarity Act. September has historically been the worst-performing month, with an average decline of about 4%.

CoreWeave reported second-quarter revenue of $2.58 billion, up 112% year over year, but posted a net loss of $626 million. It has a $104 billion order backlog and 1.5 gigawatts of capacity under construction, accelerating data center expansion and competing in the cloud computing market while remaining unprofitable. Debt stood at as much as $35 billion at the end of the quarter, used to purchase equipment such as NVIDIA GPUs. Meta invested another $2.1 billion and signed a multiyear partnership with Anthropic, while Jane Street committed $6 billion in funding.

PANews reported on August 12 that on-chain analyst Ai Yi observed Hyperliquid trader DoshiAtoll open a 40x short position on 1,576.23 BTC at 8 a.m. this morning, worth $100 million, with an entry price of $64,039 and unrealized profit of $456k. At this point, the two largest BTC positions on Hyperliquid are both short positions.

PANews, August 12 — According to an official announcement, South Korean crypto exchange Bithumb will list the TRB token on its Korean won market, with trading expected to open at 14:00 local time.

PANews, August 12 — Bybit market data shows that the South Korean KOSPI index has extended its gains to 4%, currently at 6,599.61 points. Samsung Electronics is up more than 7%, while SK Hynix is up 5.68%.

According to CoinDesk Research, the total spot and derivatives volume on centralized exchanges in July was $3.76 trillion, down 23.9% month-on-month and the lowest since November 2023. CEX spot volume was $7.27 trillion and derivatives volume was $3.03 trillion, with derivatives accounting for 80.6%, a new high in recent years. DEX spot and futures market shares rose to all-time highs of 19.5% and 14.9%, respectively. Binance led both the spot and derivatives markets, with shares of 26.9% and 45.8%, respectively. Monthly RWA perpetual contract volume surged 47.8% to $460 billion, with Binance leading at a 75.6% share, followed by OKX and Gate.

Data from SoSoValue shows that the crypto market is trading within a narrow range. BTC fell 0.30% to around $63k, while ETH rose 0.44% to around $1,800. CeFi led gains, with BNB up 3.12% and ASTER up 1.00%. Layer1 +1.22%, CC +3.40%; Meme +0.76%, DOGE +3.04%; PayFi +0.15%, TWT +5.72%. DeFi −0.41%, LINK +3.99%; Layer2 −1.70%, IMX +1.79%.

PANews, August 12 — According to Bybit data, spot gold has broken above the $4,400-per-ounce mark and is currently trading at $4,402.70, up 0.79% on the day.

PANews, August 12 — According to on-chain analyst Ai Auntie, the whale that previously opened a $102 million BTC short position added 1,010 BTC to its position three times this morning, bringing its holdings to 1,792.56 BTC ($114 million). The average entry price is $63,999, with an unrealized profit of $335k, and it remains the largest BTC position on Hyperliquid.

PANews August 12 news: According to Onchain Lens monitoring, shortly after 11 p.m. last night, Bitwise purchased 28,085.8 HYPE (approximately $1.52 million) from Nonco for its ETF clients and transferred the tokens to its BHYP wallet.

PANews, August 12 — Onchain Lens monitoring shows that a whale transferred 5,100 ETH (approximately $9.59 million) to FalconX, Galaxy Digital, and Coinbase this morning, possibly for over-the-counter sales. Of this, 2,440 ETH ($4.59 million) was transferred to FalconX, 1,180 ETH ($2.22 million) to Galaxy Digital, and 1,480 ETH ($2.78 million) to Coinbase.

PANews, August 12 — Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced on X that the Gemini app has reached 1 billion monthly active users, making it Google’s fastest-growing product ever and the company’s 14th product to surpass the 1 billion-user milestone.

The Block reports that the Coldcard vulnerability has triggered wallet migrations, with the number of new Bitcoin addresses last week rising from approximately 260k to over 330k, reversing the downward trend. Since July 30, Coinkite hardware wallet users have lost at least 1,816 BTC (approximately $116 million) in four attacks, stemming from a 2021 firmware flaw: the mnemonic generation process used a software random number generator rather than hardware entropy, allowing attackers to crack the wallets offline. Coinkite recommends migrating wallets generated between March 2021 and the release of the patch to new wallets. The incident highlights the risks of self-custody, as users reassess self-custody against custody solutions offered by centralized exchanges or ETFs.