silicon

According to CryptoSlate, the Ethereum Layer 2 network Silicon announced that it has stopped accepting new bridging deposits as of September 2 and has initiated the shutdown process. Users must withdraw all assets by December 31, at which point the network and block explorer will go offline, and remaining assets will be unrecoverable.There are still approximately $9.75 million in assets on-chain, including USDC ($2.66 million), WBTC ($2.54 million), ETH ($2.08 million), and USDT ($1.85 million). Assets bridged from the Ethereum mainnet can be directly withdrawn during the window period, but tokens issued directly on Silicon cannot be bridged directly and can only rely on the remaining on-chain liquidity for exchange, which may become increasingly difficult as the shutdown progresses. Silicon's Web3 wallet will also be disabled.

According to Bloomberg, the physical AI company Lyte announced the completion of a $165 million Series C financing round, led by Maverick Silicon, with participation from Fidelity Management & Research, Atreides Management, Key1 Capital, and Ora Global, bringing the post-money valuation to $1.6 billion.Founded in 2021 by former Apple and PrimeSense engineers, Lyte focuses on providing a complete perception technology stack for robots, including custom chips, multimodal sensors, and spatial software. To date, the company has raised a total of $272 million.The funds from this round will be used to expand the production scale of perception chips and its LyteVision platform, as well as to advance AI perception capabilities and the commercialization of robotics.

According to the Economic Daily, semiconductor silicon wafers have seen a significant price increase for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic, covering the full range of specifications including 6-inch, 8-inch, and 12-inch, with an increase starting at 10%. Industry insiders believe this is the first price adjustment in over three years, and major Taiwanese silicon wafer suppliers such as GlobalWafers, TSMC, and Hejian are expected to see improvements in revenue and profitability.GlobalWafers stated that recent demand in some end markets has gradually improved, inventory adjustments in the supply chain are healthier than in the past, and market signals are more positive than last year, but prices still depend on the product, specifications, and customer situations. TSMC mentioned that under cost pressures and demand support, they have begun communicating price adjustments with customers, and operations in the second half of the year are expected to outperform the first half. Hejian indicated that they are actively negotiating price adjustments with customers and continuing to promote advanced packaging and related products.Industry analysis suggests that this round of price increases mainly reflects the rebound in chip demand driven by AI, with increased usage in advanced and mature processes, allowing the upstream silicon wafer industry to gradually feel the recovery. Currently, the negotiation progress varies among factories and customers, with some 12-inch polished wafers already subject to new quotes with double-digit percentage increases, and discussions for 8-inch and 6-inch products are also moving in a similar upward direction.

Silicon Data, a GPU market data infrastructure company, announced the completion of a $30.5 million Series A financing first closing, led by Valor Atreides AI Fund, with participation from CME Ventures, DRW, Samsung Next, VanEck, Jump Trading, Wintermute, and others. The funds will be used for GPU benchmark pricing, performance measurement, institutional and alternative data, as well as derivatives, insurance, and credit market risk infrastructure.Silicon Data currently collects data from approximately 100 GPU leasing platforms in over 40 countries worldwide, processing more than 150,000 verified price records daily. CME Group is planning to adopt Silicon Data's benchmark as the reference price for the proposed cash-settled GPU futures, pending regulatory approval.

According to market news, the CME Group and Silicon Data will launch computing power futures on October 5.

U.S. President Trump officially signed the executive order on polysilicon tariffs.

According to the South Korean media The Elec, GlobalWafers stated during the Q2 earnings call that the production lines for 12-inch, 8-inch, and 6-inch wafers are nearing full capacity, with some advanced 12-inch products experiencing supply constraints due to a surge in demand for AI chips, HBM, and advanced packaging. Shin-Etsu Chemical achieved double-digit growth in 12-inch shipments both year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter in Q2, and Sungrow also believes that customer inventory adjustments are nearing completion. Although SK Siltron is gradually releasing capacity from new production lines, it is still difficult to meet the growth rate of orders.Tight supply is driving changes in long-term contract models, and GlobalWafers signed a 10-year LTA (including advance payment) with Micron last month. Prices in the non-LTA market have begun to rise and are expected to continue to increase in the second half of the year. GlobalWafers stated that it is negotiating with customers to incorporate price adjustment mechanisms into new contracts, and Nexchip also emphasized the need for "broad and meaningful price increases" to support reinvestment. Industry insiders expect that as new factories from Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron come online, wafer demand will double in the second half of 2027, and supply shortages may further intensify.

According to Crypto Briefing, Silicon Valley AI startup Higgsfield AI is in talks for a new round of financing, planning to raise between $300 million and $500 million, with a pre-money valuation target of $5 billion.If the financing is completed at the target valuation, it would increase the company's valuation from approximately $1.3 billion in January 2026 by more than four times. Higgsfield has raised a total of $138 million to date, with investors including firms like Accel and Menlo Ventures.It is reported that the scale of this latest financing round will exceed approximately three times the total amount raised previously.

According to CoinDesk, Silicon Valley Bank has released a report stating that Bitcoin lending has entered a new institutional era after experiencing the 2022 crypto credit crisis, with stronger risk control, increased institutional participation, and declining borrowing costs. Bitcoin is being viewed as a collateral asset with immediate global liquidity, fast settlement, and interchangeability. Currently, several major banks in the United States have offered Bitcoin-backed credit services, with the total amount of crypto mortgages increasing by 49% year-on-year to $67 billion. Bitcoin lending platform Ledn estimates that the current consumer BTC mortgage market is about $3 billion, which could expand to $1 trillion over the next decade.The report points out that the collapses of Celsius, BlockFi, and Genesis from 2022 to 2023 exposed issues such as maturity mismatches and excessive leverage, making conservative underwriting and transparent risk management the foundation of the industry. Currently, Bitcoin mortgage interest rates range from 7.5% to 16%, and Silicon Valley Bank expects that participation from banks and private credit funds will gradually narrow the spread.

According to Axios, Silicon Valley venture capital firm Playground Global has completed fundraising of $475 million for a new fund, which will focus on investing in startups in the fields of artificial intelligence, automation, advanced computing, and deep tech.Playground Global was founded by Android co-founder Andy Rubin and others, and has long focused on AI infrastructure, robotics, and hardware innovation. This new fund indicates that, driven by the surge in generative AI and automation, capital continues to pour into the frontier technology sector.Playground Global is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, and previously completed fundraising of $410 million for its third fund in 2022. Its investment portfolio includes companies such as Agility Robotics, PsiQuantum, Skydio, Ultima Genomics, Virta Health, and Unconventional AI.

According to market news, Silicon Valley's Chuan sold 233,296 $HYPE at an average price of $41.46, totaling $9.67 million $USDC, with a profit of over $1.18 million. He currently still holds 8,529 $HYPE (worth about $349,000).

A leading polysilicon company in Xinjiang was fined and had illegal gains confiscated by regulatory authorities for supplying power to virtual currency mining activities, with a total amount exceeding 100 million yuan.The background of the relevant rectification shows that local authorities are intensifying regulation of virtual currency mining, requiring comprehensive inspections and strictly prohibiting companies from illegally transferring power in any form. Currently, Xinjiang has clearly classified virtual currency mining as an industry to be eliminated, and related law enforcement actions are ongoing.

According to market news, the U.S. Department of Justice has issued a statement indicating that three Silicon Valley engineers, including Samaneh Ghandali, have been charged with stealing sensitive mobile processor and encryption file secrets from Google and two other companies.According to the indictment, while employed at Google, Samaneh Ghandali allegedly transferred hundreds of files to a third-party communication platform. These stolen materials involved processor security and encryption technology, which were subsequently copied to personal devices and office equipment of other companies where the defendants were employed. Prosecutors allege that the defendants attempted to cover up their actions by deleting files, destroying electronic records, and submitting false affidavits to the victim companies. Currently, all three defendants are charged with conspiracy, theft of trade secrets, and obstruction of justice, with the obstruction of justice charge carrying a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

AIUSD announced the launch of "Agentic AI Money Infrastructure," a system that unifies asset management across multiple chains, exchanges, and types of stablecoins, allowing users to perform cross-chain scheduling, trading, and yield management with AI agents through natural language.According to reports, AIUSD's core trading and yield algorithm has achieved an annualized trading volume of $1 trillion over the past two and a half years, with zero monthly drawdown. Currently, the company behind this product, Generative Alpha, has completed nearly eight-figure pre-seed funding, with investors including several well-known Silicon Valley VCs, as well as members from a16z, Sequoia's Scout Fund, and Tesla's FSD AI team. The team stated that this infrastructure aims to provide a natively callable "smart capital layer" for AI agents, enabling cross-chain interoperability, unified balances, automated strategy execution, and idle yield management, while supporting derivatives trading, asset routing, and high-speed cross-platform scheduling.The founding team of AIUSD consists of former DeepMind researchers, hedge fund quantitative researchers, and other professionals, with engineering team members coming from top quantitative institutions, Binance, Bloomberg, and autonomous driving AI teams. The company stated that the AI-native monetary infrastructure will become the foundational capability for future autonomous AI financial systems.

1confirmation founder Nick Tomaino posted on the X platform, stating that Silicon Valley venture capital firms have been trying to dominate the entire cryptocurrency industry, and to some extent, they have succeeded. However, most venture capital firms failed between 2021 and 2023 because they invested a lot of money into zero-sum game projects that, while attracting retail investors' attention, provided no benefit to the world.Today, Silicon Valley venture capitalists are running out of steam, as evidenced by their overwhelming promotion and shoddy products. Bitcoin and Ethereum have never received investments from Silicon Valley venture capital, yet they have a total value of over $2.5 trillion and dominate the cryptocurrency market.

ChainCatcher news, according to The Block, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has granted "preliminary conditional approval" to Erebor Bank, which is backed by venture capitalist Peter Thiel, with plans to serve the cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence sectors.The OCC approved the application on Wednesday. Comptroller Jonathan Gould stated that Erebor Bank is the "first newly chartered bank to receive preliminary conditional approval" since he took office in July of this year.Erebor Bank aims to fill the market gap left by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in 2023. According to the Financial Times, the bank was founded in 2025 by Silicon Valley figures Palmer Luckey and Joe Lonsdale, and is supported by Peter Thiel's Founders Fund and Haun Ventures.According to the application documents, Erebor Bank will operate as a national bank, providing both traditional banking services and cryptocurrency-related products and services. The Financial Times cited anonymous sources stating that despite the close ties between Luckey, Lonsdale, and Peter Thiel with President Trump, the bank's application did not receive "special treatment."