Crypto World
Circle Buys Nearly 1,000 IBM Patents: Will It Protect USDC?
Circle Internet Group bought the core of IBM’s blockchain patent estate on Monday, taking more than 680 patent families and nearly 1,000 issued patents worldwide. Neither company disclosed the price.
CRCL stock traded near $63.60 in premarket dealing, roughly 2% above its $62.36 close on Friday. The purchase lands nine days before Circle reports second-quarter results.
What Circle Bought From IBM’s Blockchain Patent Portfolio
The assets cover foundational blockchain technology, banking, financial services, insurance, supply chain verification, and secure cloud operations. Circle said the deal makes it the largest holder of blockchain patents in the United States.
That claim has a traceable foundation. Patent Sight data published by Statista already ranked IBM first among owners of active US blockchain patent families in 2022, ahead of Ant Group.
In other words, Circle did not simply add patents. It bought the estate that held the top American position, and the top spot moved with it.
The portfolio now sits underneath USDC, the Circle Payments Network, and Arc, its enterprise blockchain. Circle and IBM said they would explore further commercial work.
“Intellectual property is critical to advancing our mission and expanding adoption of on-chain infrastructure. IBM has been a pioneer in technological innovation, and this acquisition expands Circle’s ability to advance the infrastructure that powers global, internet-native finance,” Sarah Wilson, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary at Circle, in the company statement.
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Why CRCL Stock Rose Only 2% on the IBM Patent Deal
A 2% premarket bid is a muted response, and the comparison set explains why. Circle spiked as much as 15% intraday on July 10 when the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency cleared its national trust bank, then closed up 5%.
Regulatory wins move this stock. Undisclosed patent purchases do not.
Investors also have no number to model. Circle carried $2.86 billion in trailing revenue and a $14.3 million net loss into the quarter, so a material cash outlay would be visible on August 5.
IBM shares rose roughly 1.8% premarket to $218. A patent sale of undisclosed size would not move a company of that scale, so the two moves should not be read as one trade.
Sentiment now sits far below the sell-side. Twenty-seven analysts still average a $120.76 price target, nearly double Friday’s close, despite Circle’s post-IPO stock collapse from a $263.45 record close.
Event
Date
CRCL reaction
IPO priced at $31
June 5, 2025
Closed first session at $83.23
OCC trust bank approval
July 10, 2026
Closed up 5% at $66.14
Visa stablecoin platform launch
July 16, 2026
Fell 7.7% to $60.64
IBM patent acquisition
July 27, 2026
Up about 2% premarket
The Open USD Problem These Patents Do Not Fix
Here is the detail that sharpens the story. IBM appears on the Open Standard partner list, alongside Visa, Mastercard, BlackRock, Google, Stripe, and Coinbase.
Open Standard launched Open USD on June 30 with more than 140 backers. The token returns almost all reserve income to distributors after a management fee, and charges nothing to mint or redeem.
That design targets the exact revenue line Circle depends on. Mizuho analyst Dan Dolev cut Circle to underperform on July 14 and slashed his target to $50 from $85, citing the pass-through model.
His 2027 adjusted EBITDA estimate fell to $699 million from $1.09 billion. JPMorgan trimmed its own Circle numbers the same day, pointing to weak second-quarter crypto activity.
Visa then made the threat operational. Its Stablecoin Platform, announced July 16, gives institutions minting and redemption access starting with Open USD, according to the company release.
So Circle has bought foundational blockchain IP from a company that is simultaneously helping build the consortium competing for payment distribution. Patents raise the cost of copying Circle’s stack. They do not restore reserve yield or win back distribution.
What To Watch Over the Next 30 Days
Four things will show whether this deal is substance or signal.
First, the August 5 results. Look for the consideration paid, any new intangible asset line, and management commentary on how the patents will be used.
Second, the Coinbase distribution agreement, which Mizuho flagged as due for renewal in August. That contract governs how much USDC reserve income Circle keeps.
Third, any move from defense to offense. Circle has not said whether it intends to license or assert these claims against anyone building competing rails.
Fourth, the IBM relationship. The two companies flagged further commercial work without naming a product, a timeline, or a customer.
Until then, technical work still points to a drop toward $40 if support fails. Does owning the patents behind on-chain finance matter if a 140-member consortium simply builds around them?
The post Circle Buys Nearly 1,000 IBM Patents: Will It Protect USDC? appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Crypto World
Core Scientific Revenue Surges to Double in Q2 on AI Colocation Expansion
Core Scientific has reported a sharp rebound in its second-quarter financial performance as its data-center colocation business—built to support artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC)—continues to drive results after the miner’s shift away from a Bitcoin-only model.
In earnings released Tuesday, the company said Q2 revenue rose to $164.2 million, compared with $78.6 million in the same quarter a year earlier. Colocation revenue made up the overwhelming majority of that figure, climbing to $136.7 million from $10.6 million, while gross profit increased to $70 million from $5 million.
Key takeaways
- Core Scientific’s revenue more than doubled in Q2, with colocation now the dominant earnings engine.
- AI- and HPC-oriented infrastructure appears increasingly central to the company’s profit trajectory, as gross profit jumped alongside colocation revenue.
- Despite strong topline growth, Core Scientific posted a large net loss driven largely by a non-cash accounting impact tied to warrant valuation.
- The company’s newly announced AMD partnership could support up to 2.5 GW of leasable capacity, with initial multi-site agreements beginning in 2027.
Revenue surge driven by colocation, not mining
The company’s results highlight how quickly Core Scientific’s operating profile has changed. According to the earnings figures, colocation revenue—rather than mining-related activity—accounted for $136.7 million of the quarter’s total $164.2 million. In the year-ago period, colocation contributed only $10.6 million, underscoring the scale of the pivot and the speed at which the business ramped.
Gross profit also rose substantially, reaching $70 million from just $5 million. While revenue growth alone can sometimes reflect mix effects or transitional capacity, the gross profit jump suggests Core Scientific’s shift is beginning to translate into a more favorable economics profile for its core infrastructure operations.
Core Scientific is no longer positioning itself as a pure-play Bitcoin miner. Earlier coverage from Cointelegraph noted that it generates the bulk of its revenue from colocation services while holding a comparatively small Bitcoin treasury of fewer than 1,000 BTC, based on industry data compiled by bitcointreasuries.net.
The net loss: accounting effects, not necessarily cash stress
Even as revenue and gross profit climbed, Core Scientific still recorded a $1.15 billion net loss. The company attributed the result primarily to a non-cash accounting charge connected to the rising value of outstanding warrants as its share price increased.
This matters for readers because the market often interprets net losses as immediate operational distress. Here, the earnings disclosure frames the loss as largely accounting-driven rather than a direct signal that the business is consuming cash faster than it generates it. In the context of a company transitioning to longer-term infrastructure contracts, that distinction can influence how investors evaluate near-term headlines versus underlying demand and contracted capacity.
Following the earnings release, Core Scientific’s shares reportedly fell by more than 4%, trimming its year-to-date gains—an indication that some investors may have focused on the net loss headline before digging into what drove it.
An AMD deal aims to lock in large-scale AI compute capacity
Alongside its quarterly results, Core Scientific announced a partnership with Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). AMD designs CPUs and AI-oriented graphics processors that compete with other major chip vendors.
The agreement is structured to support up to 2.5 gigawatts of leasable data-center capacity. The initial phase is anchored by 15-year agreements covering 530 megawatts across multiple US sites starting in 2027, with the ability to expand over time.
Core Scientific said the broader AMD partnership could generate more than $14 billion in contracted base revenue. The company also stated that its total leased customer power capacity is now roughly 1.1 GW, representing more than $24 billion in potential contracted revenue.
From an investor perspective, this type of power-and-capacity contracting is often viewed as a way to stabilize revenue in infrastructure businesses, especially when the demand side is tied to large compute requirements from AI training and inference workloads. For traders and equity holders, the key question becomes how quickly these longer-dated commitments translate into actual utilization and incremental margins—especially as the market moves from “plans” to “running load.”
Broader AI data-center competition signals shifting priorities across crypto infrastructure
Core Scientific’s quarter and its AMD partnership arrive as other infrastructure providers tied to the crypto era also expand into AI compute. Earlier this month, IREN disclosed $2.8 billion in cloud contracts with AI developers. Separately, Hut 8 unveiled a $9.8 billion lease agreement with an unnamed customer for capacity at its AI data campus.
Set against those moves, Core Scientific’s results look less like a standalone turnaround story and more like part of a sector-wide reallocation of resources. Bitcoin mining companies that secured data-center assets and power access during the mining buildout are increasingly competing on hosting, leasing, and compute-adjacent services rather than relying solely on block rewards.
Still, uncertainty remains. While contracted capacity figures and partnership announcements can support a longer-term growth narrative, the market continues to watch for execution details: how fast customers ramp usage, whether contracted power translates into sustained gross margins, and how balance-sheet dynamics—such as the accounting treatment of warrants—can affect headline profitability.
Investors should watch Core Scientific’s next reporting period for two things: whether the revenue mix continues to lean further into colocation and how management’s guidance and utilization metrics evolve as AMD-linked capacity approaches the initial 2027 ramp-up window.
Crypto World
Zcash says Ironwood proof rules out undetectable counterfeiting bugs

Zcash researchers published more than 2,700 machine-checked theorems designed to rule out undetectable counterfeiting bugs in Ironwood.
Crypto World
European Banks Roll Out RL1 Cooperative Blockchain Network
Ten European financial institutions have formed a new jointly owned blockchain cooperative called Regulated Layer One (RL1), positioning it as a permissioned network for tokenized assets and regulated market infrastructure.
RL1 announced that it has been established as a European Cooperative Society in Luxembourg and has started operations with founding members including ABN AMRO, Cecabank, Chartered Investment, Crédit Mutuel Alliance Fédérale, DekaBank, DZ BANK, LBBW, Natixis CIB, SC Ventures and Seturion. The group says governance will be shared, with each member holding equal decision-making rights over the network’s development.
Key takeaways
- RL1 is launching as a Luxembourg-based European Cooperative Society with 10 founding financial institutions.
- The network is permissioned and aimed at institutional use cases such as tokenized bonds, collateral, and settlement.
- RL1 is built on infrastructure originally developed by German fintech Secure Worldwide Interbank Asset Transfer (SWIAT), now transferred to the cooperative.
- SWIAT reports more than 50 transactions worth over €700 million during three years of production use.
- Additional institutions are being discussed for membership, including NatWest, as RL1 begins operations.
A cooperative model for regulated blockchain infrastructure
RL1’s launch reflects a broader push among banks and other regulated players to build shared blockchain rails that can integrate with existing compliance and oversight frameworks. By organizing the network as a cooperative, RL1 is attempting to shift control away from single-operator models and toward governance shared across member institutions.
The founding structure matters for investors and market participants because governance can directly affect roadmap priorities—such as which tokenized asset standards are supported, how settlement workflows are designed, and how risk controls are maintained. RL1 says each member will have equal decision-making rights, signaling that the network is meant to evolve through collective agreement rather than unilateral changes.
From SWIAT-built infrastructure to RL1 ownership
RL1’s technical foundation traces back to infrastructure developed by German fintech Secure Worldwide Interbank Asset Transfer (SWIAT). According to the cooperative, SWIAT has transferred ownership of the network to RL1, marking a clear step from an originating build phase into an operator-and-governance phase under the cooperative structure.
SWIAT also provided performance context from its production use period, stating that the platform processed more than 50 transactions totaling over €700 million (about $808 million) across three years. While that figure is not presented as a measure of network scale in terms of daily volume or active users, it does frame the initiative as having moved beyond prototypes into live transaction processing before the cooperative launch.
Use cases designed for tokenization and settlement
RL1 says the blockchain is intended to support institutional workflows tied to digital money and tokenized financial instruments. The cooperative highlighted use cases including tokenized bonds, collateral management, and blockchain-based settlement.
One theme RL1 emphasizes is reducing fragmentation in distributed ledger efforts. Financial institutions have historically pursued separate DLT systems, often leading to interoperability challenges and duplication of integration work. RL1 argues that a shared network among regulated participants can mitigate those issues by giving members a common infrastructure layer for tokenized settlement-related activities.
For market participants, that framing matters because interoperability and shared settlement are frequently cited barriers to wider adoption of tokenized assets. A network that centralizes governance and standards among a defined group of regulated institutions can shorten the path to operational alignment—though it cannot eliminate the need for external integrations where assets or counterparties sit outside the network.
Leadership and expansion plans
RL1 named Henning Vollbehr, formerly Managing Director at SWIAT, as its leader. The cooperative also said that KfW and L-Bank will continue supporting the initiative, indicating the project retains institutional backing as it transitions into ongoing operations.
RL1 is also looking outward: the group said it is in discussions with additional institutions about joining the network, including NatWest. That expansion effort will likely be a key indicator of whether RL1 can grow beyond the initial consortium and increase its usefulness as a settlement and tokenization venue for more participants.
Going forward, readers should watch how RL1’s cooperative governance translates into concrete product decisions—especially around asset types, settlement rules, and interoperability with external systems—alongside whether the membership talks broaden participation beyond the founding banks.
Crypto World
Core Scientific signs 2.5 GW AMD AI deal as CORZ falls
Core Scientific shares fell after the Bitcoin miner agreed to provide AMD with up to 2.5 gigawatts of data center capacity for artificial intelligence deployments starting in 2027.
Summary
- AMD secured access to up to 2.5 GW of data center capacity beginning next year.
- Core Scientific and AMD will deploy Instinct GPUs, EPYC CPUs, and ROCm software.
- CORZ fell more than 4% after reversing a gain of over 5% in premarket trading.
- AMD will receive market-priced warrants to purchase Core Scientific shares under certain conditions.
AMD secures up to 2.5 GW from Core Scientific
Core Scientific and AMD have signed an agreement covering up to 2.5 GW of data center capacity for customers deploying the chipmaker’s AI systems.
Capacity will become available from 2027, according to a joint announcement from the companies. Core Scientific and AMD will also work together on the physical design of the infrastructure needed to support high-density computing workloads.
Planned deployments will use AMD Instinct graphics processing units, EPYC processors, and the company’s ROCm software platform. The announcement did not disclose the financial value of the agreement or identify the end customers expected to use the capacity.
Unlike a standard hardware order, the arrangement pairs AMD’s computing products with Core Scientific’s power and data center infrastructure. The scale of the agreement could make AMD an important customer and commercial partner as Core Scientific converts more of its sites from crypto mining to AI computing.
AMD will also receive market-priced warrants allowing it to purchase Core Scientific common stock. The warrants remain subject to commercial conditions, and the companies did not disclose the potential size of AMD’s resulting stake.
Core Scientific accelerates its shift from Bitcoin mining
Core Scientific built its business around Bitcoin mining but has increasingly redirected capital and power capacity toward high-density data center services.
As previously reported by crypto.news, the company sold 2,385 Bitcoin earlier in 2026 to provide liquidity during the transition. BitcoinTreasuries data shows that Core Scientific still holds 848 BTC.
The company continues to generate revenue by mining crypto for its own account and providing hosting services to other miners. However, it is repurposing its remaining facilities for colocation services capable of supporting power-intensive AI systems.
The AMD agreement places Core Scientific among several publicly traded Bitcoin miners pursuing AI infrastructure contracts. Limited access to large sites with substantial power connections has made miners’ existing facilities attractive to cloud providers and AI developers.
MARA recently expanded its AI infrastructure footprint through the acquisition of a site in Texas. TeraWulf also signed a 20-year data center agreement with Anthropic earlier in July.
Hut 8 and IREN announced separate multibillion-dollar AI infrastructure deals last week. Hut 8 signed a second 15-year lease worth $9.8 billion at its Beacon Point campus in Texas, while IREN disclosed $2.8 billion in new multiyear AI cloud contracts.
CORZ reverses its premarket gain
CORZ initially rose more than 5% in premarket trading after the AMD agreement was announced. The stock reversed direction after the opening bell and fell more than 4% as a broader equity market sell-off weighed on trading.

Core Scientific shares have now declined more than 12% over the past week. Despite the latest pullback, the stock remains up over 40% since the start of 2026 as investors assess its transition from Bitcoin mining to AI infrastructure.
The reversal indicates that investors are weighing the agreement’s long-term capacity against near-term execution costs and market conditions. The companies did not disclose expected revenue, construction spending, deployment stages, or a timetable for bringing the full 2.5 GW online.
For U.S. investors, AMD’s warrants introduce a potential dilution consideration if the chipmaker exercises its right to buy CORZ shares. The commercial conditions and number of shares covered will determine the eventual effect on existing holders.
Execution becomes the next test for Core Scientific
Core Scientific must now prepare its facilities for deployments scheduled to begin in 2027. Its progress will depend on power availability, construction timelines, customer demand, and the capital required to convert former mining sites.
Investors will also watch for disclosures covering the agreement’s financial value, deployment schedule, and warrant terms. These details will help determine how quickly the AMD partnership could replace declining reliance on Bitcoin mining revenue.
The wider shift among miners is increasing competition for AI tenants and financing. Core Scientific’s 2.5 GW agreement gives it substantial contracted demand, but future results will depend on how much capacity is delivered and how profitably the company operates it.
Crypto World
Google Gemini AI Predicts Why XRP Could Outperform Every Crypto by End of 2026
Google Gemini AI language on this predicts is unusually direct. Trading near $1.08, XRP sits at the precipice of a major institutional re-rating heading into the 2026 year-end price prediction.
The case rests on several tailwinds converging at once rather than any single event. Definitive US regulatory clearance following an SEC and CFTC digital commodity classification would remove the legal ambiguity that has followed XRP for years.
Accelerating institutional inflows into spot XRP ETFs sit alongside the full commercial rollout of Ripple’s enterprise RLUSD stablecoin. Cross-border tokenized asset pilots are expanding too, now involving institutions like JPMorgan and Mastercard.

Legislative momentum behind the US CLARITY Act adds another layer of support. Growing sovereign interest in XRPL-powered CBDC infrastructure rounds out the picture, hinting at government-level adoption rather than just corporate partnerships.
Gemini frames the real trigger as transaction velocity. If institutional usage on the XRP Ledger scales as these partnerships suggest, that combination of liquidity and adoption creates a clear path to a high-conviction target of $2.80 to $3.75 by Q4 2026.
The bear case is comparatively slight but specific. Broader macroeconomic headwinds, slow conversion of on chain utility into real volume, or stablecoins cannibalizing native token settlement could all cap momentum.
In that scenario, Gemini sees price bounded toward a multi-year support floor between $0.85 and $1.00 rather than breaking out at all.
XRP Is Sitting Almost Exactly On The Floor Gemini’s Own Bear Case Describes
Price closed at $1.09051, down 1.92%, in a session ranging between $1.08375 and $1.11404. That places XRP right at the upper edge of the exact support zone that the bear case flags, making this chart worth reading closely.
Zoom out and the trend since mid 2025 has been one long staircase down. XRP peaked near $3.66 in July 2025, and every month since has carved a lower high, with the sharpest break coming in February when the price gapped from above $2.20 down through $1.60 in a matter of weeks.
Since that February crash, price has spent five months compressing into an increasingly narrow range between roughly $1.00 and $1.60. Support sits at $1.00, the psychological floor that lines up with Gemini’s own bear target, then $0.85 below that.
Resistance stacks at $1.20, then $1.40, then the heavier ceiling near $1.60 that has capped every bounce since February. Momentum here is flat and compressed, sitting in the lower half of a range that has been narrowing for months without resolving in either direction.
For Gemini’s bull case to gain any traction, XRP first needs to reclaim $1.60, a level this chart has not closed above since before the February breakdown. Until that happens, price is doing exactly what the bear case describes, sitting near the floor rather than building toward the ceiling.
Here is what Gemini AI Predicts For LiquidChain’s Near Future
Every cycle has a moment where waiting becomes the most expensive decision you can make. That moment is now.
Bitcoin, Ethereum, and XRP are all pinned under the same resistance they have been testing for weeks. The macro unlock is perpetually one data point away. The institutional money keeps arriving next quarter. Large-cap traders waiting for a breakout are queuing for a decision that belongs to someone else entirely.
Grok AI has identified what experienced cycle traders already act on. Capital that registers as statistical background noise at Bitcoin’s market cap can completely reprice a small, undiscovered project.
The asymmetry is not complicated. It lives in the distance between what something is genuinely worth and what the market has currently assigned it. The moment that distance gets noticed, it collapses. Before that moment, it is fully open.
Cross-chain fragmentation has been quietly taxing every DeFi participant since the first bridge went live. Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana were engineered independently with zero shared infrastructure and no design intent to communicate.
Every transaction crossing those ecosystem boundaries absorbs the cost of that decision in fees, failed execution, and slippage that hits before settlement even begins. The bridge industry did not fix this problem. It built a business model on top of it.
LiquidChain removes the business model entirely. Three networks unified inside a single execution layer. One deployment reaches all of them simultaneously. No cross-chain tax is extracted from any interaction anywhere.
Gemini AI predicts it as a coin worth watching. The presale sits at $0.01454 with just over $860,000 raised.
Execution is unproven. Adoption is an open question. Established assets offer a smoother path toward a ceiling that the entire market can already see. LiquidChain is the entry point that stops existing once the market finds it.
The post Google Gemini AI Predicts Why XRP Could Outperform Every Crypto by End of 2026 appeared first on Cryptonews.
Crypto World
Seagate’s 48% Revenue Surge Silences Growing AI Infrastructure Skeptics
Seagate Technology just handed the AI infrastructure trade a much-needed win, and it came from hard drives, an unlikely corner of the market.
Seagate’s shares had slid roughly 8% into Tuesday’s print as investors had soured on stretched AI valuations across chip and storage names. However, Seagate’s fiscal fourth-quarter results flipped that mood almost overnight.
A Beat That Silences the Doubters
Revenue climbed 48% year over year to $3.63 billion, beating Wall Street’s estimate near $3.5 billion. Non-GAAP earnings per share came in at $5.71, well above the $5.10 analysts expected.
That gap matters because it shows Seagate isn’t just selling more drives. It’s making far more profit on each one. Non-GAAP gross margin backs that up, jumping to 52.7% from 37.9% a year earlier.
Seagate also banked a record $3.1 billion in free cash flow for the full fiscal year, cash it can use to pay down debt, reward shareholders, or reinvest in its AI storage push.
CEO Dave Mosley credited the results to durable cloud demand.
“Our performance is being driven by robust cloud data center demand and disciplined execution, and we see the momentum continuing in 2027,” Mosley said.
Management’s guidance beat expectations too. Seagate expects $4.1 billion in revenue next quarter, well above analyst estimates near $3.8 billion.
Why It Matters Beyond Storage
The beat lands right as memory chip stocks wobble on fears the AI buildout is overheating. Even SK Hynix and Samsung’s chip deals haven’t stopped that slide. Seagate’s results argue the underlying demand for AI-driven data storage still holds, even as sentiment around the stocks turns shaky.
Seagate’s next quarter, and whether it hits that $4.1 billion target, will show if this confidence sticks.
The post Seagate’s 48% Revenue Surge Silences Growing AI Infrastructure Skeptics appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Crypto World
4 US Stocks Earnings to Watch This Week: Will AI Spending Finally Pay Off?
Microsoft, Meta, Apple, and Amazon are the four US stocks with earnings to watch this week. Investors care less about profit beats than about whether record AI spending is producing revenue.
Alphabet already set the bar on July 22. Its shares fell despite beating on nearly every line, punished for lifting full-year capital spending guidance toward $205 billion.
Why Alphabet’s Selloff Reset Big Tech Earnings Expectations
Alphabet posted second-quarter revenue of $119.8 billion, a 24% annual increase. Diluted earnings reached $9.11 a share. Google Cloud revenue climbed 82% to $24.8 billion.
The stock still dropped roughly 4% after hours. Management had raised 2026 capital expenditure guidance to a range of $195 billion to $205 billion. The prior range topped out at $190 billion.
Quarterly capital spending hit $44.9 billion, roughly double the year-earlier figure. Free cash flow turned negative at $5.9 billion.
That combination is the new market test. Beating on revenue no longer protects a stock if spending guidance rises faster.
What the Latest Filings Already Reveal About AI Capex
Most coverage treats AI spending as a forecast. The filings show it has already landed.
BeInCrypto reviewed the most recent quarterly cash flow statements for all five companies. The pattern is consistent. Capital spending is growing far faster than the cash generated to fund it.
Microsoft offers the clearest example. Additions to property and equipment reached $30.9 billion in the March quarter, according to its filing. That is up 84% from $16.7 billion a year earlier.
Operating cash flow grew far more slowly. Subtract capital spending and the remainder fell 22% to $15.8 billion, even though net income rose 23%.
Depreciation tells the same story. Microsoft’s depreciation and amortization charge rose 31% to $10.2 billion. Meta’s climbed 54% to $6.0 billion.
This is a pattern rather than a single quarter. Microsoft spent $80.1 billion on property and equipment across the first nine months of its fiscal year, up 69% from $47.5 billion.
Amazon shows the sharpest deterioration. Trailing free cash flow fell to $1.2 billion from $25.9 billion a year earlier. The company attributed the drop to a $59.3 billion rise in equipment purchases.
Combined Big Tech AI capex guidance for 2026 now runs into the hundreds of billions. The reported figures show that spending arriving on the balance sheet ahead of the revenue meant to justify it.
The revenue side is not standing still, however. Azure grew 40% last quarter, Google Cloud 82%, and Amazon Web Services 28%. The open question concerns timing rather than demand.
Why Headline Profits Are Flattering Meta and Amazon
Here is a detail that rarely surfaces in earnings previews. Both Meta and Amazon posted enormous headline profits last quarter for reasons unrelated to operations.
Meta reported diluted earnings of $10.44 a share. That figure included an $8.03 billion income tax benefit. The company disclosed that earnings would have been $3.13 lower without it.
Strip the benefit and Meta earned closer to $7.31 a share. Wednesday’s consensus of $7.13 therefore looks less like stagnation and more like a normal comparison.
Amazon reported $2.78 a share. That number included $16.8 billion in pre-tax gains from its Anthropic investment.
The lesson holds for both. Operating performance at these companies is currently harder to read from headline earnings. Investors are watching capital spending instead, because that line is unambiguous.
What Wall Street Wants From Each of the 4 US Stocks
Here is what what economists wants from Microsoft, Meta, Apple, and Amazon.
- Microsoft (MSFT) and the Azure Test
Microsoft closes its fiscal year on Wednesday. Zacks Investment Research puts consensus at $4.21 a share across 15 analysts, against $3.65 a year earlier.
Azure decides the reaction. The unit grew 40% last quarter. Management guided to constant-currency growth of 39% to 40% for the June period.
One number supports the bull case. Commercial remaining performance obligation, essentially contracted future revenue, nearly doubled to $627 billion. Chief Executive Satya Nadella also said Microsoft’s AI business passed a $37 billion annual revenue run rate.
- Meta (META) Faces Expense Scrutiny
Meta faces tighter expense discipline. It guided to full-year costs of $162 billion to $169 billion and capital expenditure of $125 billion to $145 billion. Reality Labs lost $4.03 billion last quarter alone.
The core business is still compounding quickly. Revenue rose 33% to $56.31 billion last quarter, of which advertising contributed $55.02 billion. An average of 3.56 billion people used its apps each day in March.
- Apple (AAPL) Is the Capital-Light Outlier
Apple is the control case. Analysts expect $1.88 a share, up from $1.57, on consensus revenue of roughly $109 billion.
Its March quarter showed what capital-light growth looks like. Revenue rose 17% to $111.2 billion and earnings per share climbed 22%, according to Apple’s release. Services reached an all-time high.
Apple generated more than $28 billion in operating cash flow that quarter. Rather than building data centers, it authorized a further $100 billion of share buybacks. Watch iPhone and Services for signs the iPhone 17 cycle is holding.
Thursday also marks Tim Cook’s final earnings call as chief executive. John Ternus takes over on September 1.
- Amazon (AMZN) Rests on AWS Margin
Amazon rounds out the week at $1.81 a share, against $1.68. Analysts model roughly $40.5 billion in Amazon Web Services revenue. Company guidance puts operating income between $20 billion and $24 billion.
AWS delivered $37.6 billion of revenue and $14.2 billion in segment operating income last quarter, its fastest growth in 15 quarters. Amazon’s custom chips business, spanning Graviton, Trainium, and Nitro, passed a $20 billion annual revenue run rate.
Why It Matters for the Nasdaq This Week
The Federal Reserve announces its rate decision on Wednesday afternoon, hours before Microsoft and Meta report. Rates currently sit between 3.50% and 3.75%.
Economists broadly expect no change. Traders disagree, and futures pricing splits sharply on the odds of a hike.
Precedent suggests the reaction could split the group. On April 30, Alphabet added more than $300 billion in market value, as BeInCrypto reported. Meta shed $175 billion in the same session. Both had beaten on revenue. Only their spending outlooks differed.
Options markets imply a move of roughly 6.3% for Amazon on results day, above its recent average. Similar volatility is priced across the other three.
Meanwhile the spending keeps expanding. Meta disclosed a new data center venture with BlackRock in El Paso on Tuesday, hours before its own report.
What to Watch Over the Next 30 Days
Three specific disclosures matter more than this week’s earnings per share.
- Fiscal 2027 capital expenditure guidance
Microsoft has signaled roughly $190 billion for calendar 2026. Any step up invites the treatment Alphabet received.
- AWS margin
Analysts model 33.8%. A decline would show depreciation reaching the segment that funds Amazon’s build.
- Meta’s expense range
Management has held $162 billion to $169 billion for two quarters. Widening it would echo April.
Track records diverge going in. Microsoft, Meta, and Apple have each beaten consensus in their last four quarters. Amazon has fallen short in its last two.
Therefore a headline miss would surprise on three of the four. On the question that decides the week, the filed numbers already lean one way.
Capital spending is outgrowing the revenue it funds at every company that has reported. Microsoft’s capex rose 84% while Azure grew 40%, roughly twice the pace. Alphabet’s roughly doubled against 82% cloud growth. Meta’s rose 47% against 33% revenue growth.
That gap indicates the payoff has not arrived yet. Demand signals suggest it may still be coming, and Microsoft’s $627 billion backlog is the strongest argument for patience.
Whether investors extend that patience depends on what these four guide for 2027, not on what they earned last quarter. The market is already questioning AI revenue quality.
The post 4 US Stocks Earnings to Watch This Week: Will AI Spending Finally Pay Off? appeared first on BeInCrypto.
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Cloud mining platforms gain popularity in 2026 as investors seek simpler ways to access Bitcoin, DOGE, and LTC mining without expensive hardware.
Summary
- SHRMiner ranks among top cloud mining platforms in 2026, offering beginners easier access to BTC, LTC, and DOGE mining.
- Cloud mining gains popularity in 2026 as platforms like SHRMiner provide automated crypto mining without expensive hardware.
- SHRMiner highlights renewable energy mining farms and automated cloud mining services as demand for BTC mining grows.
Want to participate in Bitcoin mining in 2026 but don’t want to buy expensive mining rigs? Then cloud mining platforms remain one of the simplest and most worry-free options.
Nowadays, more and more investors are entering the market through free cloud mining platforms, easily participating in mining mainstream cryptocurrencies such as BTC, DOGE, and LTC without needing to build their own equipment or bear high electricity and maintenance costs.
However, while there are many platforms on the market, only a few are truly worth considering. A good cloud mining platform should not only have a clear and transparent profit mechanism, but also a stable data center, an automatic payment system, and a sufficiently secure operational background.
Based on the market trends and platform characteristics in 2026, SHRMiner, BitFuFu, IQMining, Binance Cloud Mining, and CCG Mining are the five platforms that deserve close attention.

1. SHR Miner: The most noteworthy cloud mining platform in 2026
For those who are looking for a service that balances security, flexibility, and beginner-friendliness, SHRMiner is a very popular choice. Launched in 2018 and headquartered in the UK, SHRMiner operates over 100 large-scale renewable energy mining farms in the US, UK, Russia, Switzerland, Iceland, Virginia, Georgia, Vancouver, Canada, and other locations, utilizing renewable energy sources such as hydropower and wind power to enhance mining efficiency.
The platform supports mining mainstream cryptocurrencies such as BTC, LTC, and DOGE. Users do not need to purchase any hardware; they only need to select a suitable contract to start. Its contract coverage is extensive, with a comprehensive range of entry-level and premium packages to suit users with different budgets.
SHRMiner Core Advantages:
Register to receive a $15 bonus and free mining experience.
- Zero learning curve: No technical skills, hardware, or complicated operations required — just click to start mining.
- Supports daily automatic settlement, with no transaction fees or maintenance costs.
- Uses advanced ASIC mining equipment, connected to green energy, improving operational efficiency.
- Provides SSL encryption and DDoS protection.
- Provides a real-time earnings dashboard, allowing users to track their earnings anytime, anywhere.
- Supports multiple contract types including BTC, LTC, and DOGE.
SHRMiner gained popularity in 2026 primarily because it was suitable for beginners to quickly get started while also supporting more advanced users for flexible configuration. Its overall performance was well-balanced, from the initial user experience to contract scalability.
2. BitFuFu: A professional platform backed by Bitmain
BitFuFu has garnered significant market attention due to its association with Bitmain. This type of platform is particularly attractive to users who value mining rig resources and hardware expertise. BitFuFu is suitable for investors seeking a more mature mining service system.
3. IQMining: A key focus for long-term contract users
IQMining has been operating for several years and is characterized by offering longer-term mining contracts. For users who prioritize long-term planning over short-term volatility, IQMining is a common choice.
4. Binance Cloud Mining: Integrated trading and mining
The biggest advantage of Binance Cloud Mining lies in its ecosystem integration. Users can manage mining and asset transfers directly within their Binance accounts, eliminating the need for frequent platform switching. This is especially convenient for existing Binance investors.
5. CCG Mining: A key platform in the European market
CCG Mining offers a comprehensive range of services, including cloud mining, mining rig sales, and hosting. It enjoys considerable brand recognition in the European market and is suitable for users looking to explore diverse mining services.
Why are more and more people choosing cloud mining in 2026?
Compared to traditional mining rigs, the biggest advantages of cloud mining are:
- No need to purchase expensive equipment
- No need to bear high electricity bills
- No need for technical maintenance knowledge
- Quick start after registration
Some platforms also offer free trials and reward mechanisms. For ordinary users, this model is obviously more convenient and more suitable for low-barrier entry into the crypto market.
Conclusion: Which cloud mining platform is worth paying attention to in 2026?
From an overall user experience perspective, SHRMiner remains one of the most competitive platforms in 2026. It excels in platform transparency, mining process, settlement efficiency, and beginner-friendly features, while supporting multiple cryptocurrencies including BTC, LTC, and DOGE, making it highly versatile.
Of course, for those who prioritize exchange integration, Binance Cloud Mining will be more convenient; for those who value long-term stable contracts, IQMining and CCG Mining are also good options.
In general, when choosing the best cloud mining platform, it is recommended to focus on the platform’s background, security mechanisms, contract flexibility, and actual user experience. For users looking to start their free cloud mining journey in 2026, prioritizing a transparent, secure platform with clear settlement is a safer bet.
In short, for those who are looking for a cloud mining platform that balances transparency, flexibility, and ease of use in 2026, SHRMiner is a wise choice.
For more platform information, service details, and cloud computing solutions, please visit the official platform or download the mobile application.
Disclosure: This content is provided by a third party. Neither crypto.news nor the author of this article endorses any product mentioned on this page. Users should conduct their own research before taking any action related to the company.
Crypto World
Ethereum and Solana Account for Most Crypto Hack Losses in H1 2026
Crypto theft and fraud losses exceeded $1 billion in the first half of 2026, according to Blockaid’s H1 2026 security report released Tuesday. The period also featured the highest number of hacks in any six-month stretch recorded by the onchain security firm.
Ethereum and Solana accounted for the largest portions of stolen funds, with approximately $332 million and $326 million respectively. Blockaid tracked 212 security incidents during the six-month period, including a standout single exploit tied to KelpDAO, which Blockaid reported at $292 million.
Key takeaways
- Blockaid estimates total crypto losses above $1 billion in H1 2026, alongside the highest six-month hack count in its historical data.
- Ethereum led by stolen-fund impact (about $332 million), largely driven by code and application-layer exploits.
- Solana’s losses were similarly high (about $326 million) but were overwhelmingly linked to compromised keys and signing infrastructure.
- The largest single incident in the report involved KelpDAO, with losses of $292 million.
- Blockaid reports high-threshold exploit verification increased sharply in H1 2026 compared with all of 2025.
Ethereum’s losses underline application-layer risk
Blockaid said Ethereum incurred the highest losses from incidents in H1 2026, with attackers primarily focusing on vulnerabilities in applications built on the network. By count, code exploits were the dominant driver of Ethereum incidents, and Blockaid also highlighted that several major loss events involved compromised keys.
Among the notable incidents cited in the report were the Humanity Protocol and StablR attacks. CoWSwap was singled out as the only major Ethereum incident categorized as a user mistake, rather than a protocol or code vulnerability.
Blockaid described recurring techniques behind Ethereum-related breaches, including flaws in bridges and smart contracts, unauthorized access to privileged accounts, and market manipulation methods. While these categories differ in mechanics, they share a common theme: high-value Ethereum apps present a dense target surface for attackers seeking direct exploitation paths and privileged access.
The report also emphasized Ethereum’s role as a hub for major crypto primitives—restaking platforms, stablecoins, and decentralized exchanges—where substantial capital and complex integrations can concentrate both the value at risk and the probability of exploitable edge cases.
Solana’s stolen funds spiked with a shift toward key compromises
Solana’s losses in the first half of 2026 nearly matched Ethereum’s. Blockaid estimated stolen funds around $326 million for the period, a clear jump from roughly $127 million recorded in 2025.
In an observation carried in the report, Blockaid CEO Ido Ben-Natan told Cointelegraph that 2025 totaled $2.58 billion lost across 63 incidents, with activity concentrated in Q1 and with Ethereum and Arbitrum topping stolen-fund flow at the time.
However, Blockaid said Solana’s deterioration in H1 2026 did not come from a surge in smart contract exploits. Instead, compromised keys accounted for more than 98% of Solana’s losses, which Blockaid linked largely to incidents involving Drift Protocol and Step Finance. Blockaid also attributed those events to North Korea-linked cyber groups.
This matters because it reframes the operational priorities for Solana-related infrastructure. While Ethereum incidents in the report were more closely tied to vulnerabilities in protocol code, Blockaid said Solana-related losses were primarily associated with signer infrastructure and organizational security failures. In other words, the dominant threat vector in this period was not “bugs in execution,” but failures in control systems and signing operations.
Blockaid noted that only a small fraction of Solana losses were tied to code exploits—citing Raydium and Volo as examples—underscoring how heavily the report’s Solana narrative depends on key and signing security rather than on-chain contract defects alone.
What’s changed in the threat landscape
Two shifts stand out across Blockaid’s findings for H1 2026. First, Ethereum’s risk profile remained oriented around smart contract and application-layer weaknesses, where bridges, contract logic, and privileged account access can be exploited. Second, Solana’s losses, despite being comparable in size to Ethereum’s, were driven overwhelmingly by compromised keys and signing infrastructure—an operational and security governance problem rather than a pure software vulnerability issue.
Blockaid also reported that it verified 3.4 times as many high-threshold exploits in H1 2026 as it did across all of 2025. That suggests either that attackers pursued more severe, high-confidence exploitation paths during the period, or that the environment—across targets and integrations—supported higher-impact outcomes. In practice, for teams defending networks and protocols, it raises the likelihood of facing fewer “small” issues and more attacks with direct paths to material loss.
Finally, the report’s largest single exploit—KelpDAO at $292 million—fits the broader pattern of high-value targets attracting concentrated attacks. Even when overall incident counts vary, a small number of high-impact events can dominate the stolen-fund totals, which is precisely what appears in Blockaid’s H1 2026 breakdown.
Closing perspective
As H1 2026’s losses show, the most consequential threats are not uniform across chains: Ethereum-focused defenses should emphasize application and privileged access security, while Solana stakeholders should treat key management and signing infrastructure resilience as top priority. Readers should watch whether the disparity between code-driven incidents and key-driven incidents persists in the second half of 2026, and whether incident counts remain elevated alongside high-threshold exploit activity.
Crypto World
AmericanFortress proposes quantum-safe crypto wallet scheme
AmericanFortress has proposed a post-quantum security scheme designed to protect existing Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana wallet addresses without requiring holders to move funds or rotate their keys.
Summary
- ZK-PoSP keeps existing wallet addresses while replacing conventional transaction authorization with zero-knowledge proofs.
- AmericanFortress says the scheme requires no fund migration, key rotation, or new address format.
- The approach remains a proposal and would require node-level upgrades before any blockchain could enforce it.
- Its post-quantum security remains conjectural, according to the technical paper, rather than proven against a working attack.
ZK-PoSP uses wallet seeds to authorize transactions
AmericanFortress released the technical paper for Zero-Knowledge Proof of Seed Provenance, or ZK-PoSP, through the International Association for Cryptologic Research’s ePrint archive.
The scheme allows a wallet to prove that it knows the seed used to derive an address without revealing that seed. It would operate alongside existing signature systems before replacing the classical signing step if quantum computers become capable of attacking elliptic curve cryptography.
Bitcoin and Ethereum use the secp256k1 curve, while Solana commonly uses Ed25519. ZK-PoSP is designed to cover both curves and hierarchical deterministic wallet standards, including BIP32 and SLIP-10.
In a statement shared with crypto.news, AmericanFortress described the proposal as the first post-quantum approach that can preserve existing wallet addresses without forcing users to transfer assets.
Quantum protection depends on network upgrades
ZK-PoSP relies on hash functions and the soundness of its zero-knowledge proof system. Its paper says post-quantum security is “conjectured” because the underlying assumptions have not been tested against a cryptographically relevant quantum computer.
No such machine currently exists. However, sufficiently powerful quantum computers could theoretically use Shor’s algorithm to derive private keys from exposed public keys.
Google’s Quantum AI team recently estimated that breaking 256-bit elliptic curve cryptography could require fewer than 1,500 logical qubits and tens of millions of quantum gates. Those are error-corrected logical qubits, not the noisier physical qubits available in present systems. Google’s analysis therefore does not indicate that Bitcoin or other networks face an immediate attack.
AmericanFortress said blockchains could implement ZK-PoSP by adding proof verification through a node-level software upgrade. Wallet providers would also need to generate the required proofs.
Until a network adopts and enforces that verification, addresses with public keys already visible onchain would remain exposed to a future quantum attack.
AmericanFortress reports low verification costs
According to the company, generating a one-time proof to secure an address costs about $0.002 on a 16-core server, while each transaction proof costs roughly $0.00125. Its current implementation reportedly takes about 12 seconds to sign a transaction, with verification requiring between nine and 10 milliseconds.
Those figures reflect computational tests cited by AmericanFortress, not the cost or performance of a live blockchain integration. A network upgrade could introduce additional storage, bandwidth, software, and coordination requirements.
“Today’s implementation is already practical for institutional settlement, and hardware acceleration and proving-system improvements will bring signing times down further,” AmericanFortress CEO Michal “Mehow” Pospieszalski said.
The proofs use RISC Zero and do not require a trusted setup. AmericanFortress plans to license its software development kit to blockchains and other projects, meaning adoption would depend partly on commercial terms as well as independent technical review.
Bitcoin and Ethereum expand quantum research
The proposal arrives as institutional interest in post-quantum security grows. As crypto.news reported, Strategy, BlackRock, Coinbase, and six other companies recently formed the Bitcoin Security Consortium and pledged a combined $15 million over three years.
Post-quantum cryptography is the consortium’s first research focus. Its members will decide independently which developers and organizations receive funding, and the group does not control Bitcoin development or endorse individual protocol changes.
For US-based Bitcoin exchange-traded funds, custodians, and corporate treasuries, avoiding mass wallet migration could reduce operational and legal complications. However, ZK-PoSP would provide no protection unless Bitcoin developers, miners, node operators, wallet companies, and users accepted the necessary changes.
Ethereum has pursued a separate path. The Ethereum Foundation formed a dedicated post-quantum team in January and is testing hash-based signatures, a minimal zero-knowledge virtual machine, and migration tools, according to its quantum-security roadmap.
AmericanFortress’s proposal now faces the same central test as other security designs: independent cryptographic review, implementation audits, and sufficient network agreement to deploy it.
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