Bitcoin 401K, Fed Shuffle, and GPT-5 Drop!

Retirement accounts are about to have a flurry of investing activity — it’s going to be a wild next few months in the market, so it’s time to strap in!

This Week in Crypto

We started the week with the crypto market sliding Friday after President Trump unveiled his new tariffs on dozens of countries.

• Bitcoin fell 3% to just over $113K, while Ether and Solana fell 6% and 5% respectively.

But then by Thursday, Bitcoin was back up because your 401K just got a lot more interesting:

• The crypto market jumped Thursday on excitement that Bitcoin and other digital assets could soon be coming to 401K retirement plans. 

  • Trump is about to sign an executive order allowing cryptocurrencies in 401Ks - for reference, the retirement market is currently worth $43T, almost $9T of which is held in 401Ks. 

• The price of bitcoin climbed around 1% to reclaim $116,000 for the first time since July 31.

• Ether rose almost 4%, also retaking a one-week high.

MicroStrategy, a major corporate Bitcoin holder, acquired an additional 21,021 BTC for $2.46 billion between July 28 and August 3, bringing its total holdings to 628,791 BTC.

• The company reported $10 billion in Q2 net income from its Bitcoin investments.

• Michael Saylor is basically Bitcoin’s most devoted fan at this point!

ETH ETFs hit the brakes:

• Spot Ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the U.S. recorded their largest-ever daily net outflow of $465 million on Monday, marking a significant shift in investor sentiment.

• After a 20-day inflow streak, it looks like some folks decided to take profits. Can't say we blame them after ETH's recent run-up.

Solana Mobile is shipping its Web3 phone:

• Solana Mobile began shipping its Seeker smartphone on Monday, a Web3-focused device with over 150,000 pre-orders.

• The launch aims to integrate blockchain technology into mobile use. 

This Week in TradFi

All eyes are on the Fed this week:

• U.S. stock futures rose today after President Trump’s temporary pick for Federal Reserve governor fueled expectations for more dovish policy going forward.

  • Yesterday, the President said he will nominate Council of Economic Advisors chair Stephen Miran for a short-term Fed seat while the White House hunts for a permanent governor and new chair.

  • Miran replaces Governor Adriana Kugler after her resignation last week.

  • However, the S&P and Dow cooled a bit after Bloomberg reported that Fed Governor Christopher Waller was emerging as the leading contender for the chair.

• The Nasdaq and S&P 500 were on track for their best week in over a month, fueled by tech companies potentially sidestepping chip tariffs by building more in the U.S.

• Equities have also seen a sharp reset in rate expectations and upbeat earnings. 

On the international front:

• The Bank of Mexico cut its benchmark interest rate by 25bps on Thursday, slowing its pace of monetary easing and bringing the country’s rate to its lowest level in 3 years.

• British stocks dropped a bit today, following the previous session’s decline, after the Bank of England split rate decision - four of nine policymakers voted to hold rates steady amidst inflation concerns.

• Taiwan’s exports in July grew at their fastest pace in 15 years for a third consecutive monthly record, with demand for AI and other tech products remaining strong before new U.S. tariffs are implemented in August.

  • Exports rose 42% YoY to $56.68B.

• The Bank of Thailand will lower its key interest rate next Wednesday to support a slowing economy, with negative inflation persisting and U.S. tariffs remaining in effect. 

  • Thailand’s central bank left rates unchanged last month, but said they were open to cutting when needed depending on economic outlook.

• Indian automaker Tata Motors posted a 63% drop in quarterly profit on Friday, marking its fourth straight quarter of decline, as U.S. tariffs continue to hurt Indian businesses. 

• And the Indian rupee ended lower for a fifth straight week, its biggest consecutive weekly drop in six months, as trade tensions between the U.S. and India continue to escalate. 

This Week in Tech

It’s allll AI news this week.

OpenAI has launched GPT-5, a new AI model that will power the company’s next generation of ChatGPT.

• GPT-5 was released yesterday and is OpenAI’s first “unified” AI model, combining the reasoning abilities of its o-series models with the fast responses of the GPT series.

• GPT-5 allows ChatGPT to complete a wide variety of tasks on behalf of users, like generating software applications, navigating a user’s calendar, or creating research briefs.

• Altman said to reporters that GPT-5 is “the best model in the world,” and said it represented a “significant step” on the company’s path to developing AI that can outperform humans at most economically valuable work.

• Starting yesterday, GPT-5 was available to all free users of ChatGPT as their default model.

Musk says X plans to introduce ads in Grok’s responses. 

• Musk told advertisers in a live discussion on Wednesday that the platform plans to add ads to Grok’s responses, reported by the Financial Times.

• The move would help X’s struggling ads business, especially after the departure of former CEO Linda Yaccarino.

• Musk stated, “Our focus thus far has just been on making Grok the smartest, most accurate AI in the world and I think we’ve largely succeeded in that…So we’ll turn our attention to how do we pay for those expensive GPUs.”

Google’s AI coding agent Jules is now out of beta.

• Google launched Jules on Wednesday, two months after its public preview in May.

• Powered by Gemini 2.5 Pro, Jules is an asynchronous, agent-based coding tool that integrates with Github, clones codebases into Google Cloud virtual machines, and uses AI to fix or update code.

• Access includes a free plan capped at 15 individual daily tasks and three concurrent ones, a $19.99/month tier with 5x higher limits, and a $124.99/month tier with 20x higher limits.

Cognition, the AI coding startup that acquired Windsurf three weeks ago is laying off 30 employees and offering buyouts to the remaining 200 employees on the team.

• You have to feel for Windsurf employees. What is this - the third rug that’s been pulled out from underneath them?

• Windsurf was initially almost acquired by OpenAI, then lost its CEO, cofounder, and research leads to Google in a $2.4B deal, before finally getting acquired by Cognition.

• According to The Information, employees are given until August 10 to decide whether they want to take the buyout, about nine months of salary. Those who decide to stay are apparently required to spend six days at the office and clock more than 80-hour weeks.

  • “We don’t believe in work-life balance—building the future of software engineering is a mission we all care so deeply about that we couldn’t possibly separate the two,” wrote Cognition CEO Scott Wu in the email.

As usual, below are some fundraising announcements, M&A, and tech personnel changes that caught our eye:

• Tavily, a startup that connects AI agents to the web, raised a $25M Series A, led by Insight Partners.

• Sales automation startup Clay has raised a $100M Series C at a $3.1B valuation.

• Uzbekistan’s first unicorn, Uzum, has raised a $65.5M round at a valuation of about $1.5B.

• AI-powered fintech Alaan has raised a $48M Series A.

Arch is building a next-gen wealth management platform for individuals holding Alternative Assets. Our flagship product is the crypto-backed loan, which allows you to securely and affordably borrow against your crypto.

Disclaimer: None of the above is financial advice, seriously.