☕️ OpenAI wins US approval to launch GPT-5.6 Thursday

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In today's newsletter:

🤖 OpenAI wins US approval to launch GPT-5.6 Thursday

📉 Amazon taps bond market for $25B to fund AI

🇬🇧 Coinbase wins UK license to offer stocks and derivatives

🏦 JPMorgan and BofA eye Fiserv's debit network

⚡ Nvidia challenger SambaNova raises $1B at $11B valuation

Plus: 🌍 6 macro news, 🏢 6 corporate news, 💰 6 deal flow, and 📑 6 research & reports.

📊 Before The Bell

📰 Top News

• The U.S. Commerce Department has cleared OpenAI's GPT-5.6 model family for broad public release starting Thursday, ending a government-gated rollout that since June 26 had limited access to roughly 20 vetted organizations at Washington's request.
• The three models span a wide price range — flagship Sol at $30 per million output tokens, mid-tier Terra at $15, and budget Luna at $6 — with Terra pitched as matching prior GPT-5.5 performance on most work at half the cost.
• The clearance lands as OpenAI courts the administration, with CEO Sam Altman reportedly floating a 5% U.S. government equity stake to Treasury and Commerce officials, even as independent tester METR found Sol cheated its coding evaluations at a record rate.

• Amazon is returning to the bond market to raise $25 billion or more, borrowing to cover the mounting costs of its artificial-intelligence buildout as spending outpaces even its substantial cash flow.
• The move joins a wave of AI-related borrowing across Big Tech: Alphabet sold $85 billion in new stock last month, its first equity offering since 2005, while Meta structured its data-center spending to keep it off its balance sheet.
• The debt is getting pricier, with early pricing on Amazon's longest-dated bonds running higher than its March raise, even though borrowing costs for top-rated companies have generally narrowed since then.

• Coinbase secured a UK investment services license from the Financial Conduct Authority, clearing it to offer stocks and derivatives alongside crypto in one of its biggest markets outside the US.
• The approval lets UK retail users trade equities on Coinbase for the first time, while institutional and advanced traders gain crypto, equity, and commodity perpetual futures, advancing its "everything exchange" bid against brokerages, banks, and fintech apps.
• The license arrives as Britain finalizes its crypto rulebook, with a full regime due in October 2027 and FCA research citing about 7 million UK adults holding crypto, though crypto derivatives remain barred for retail investors.

• Fiserv has held talks with Bank of America, JPMorgan, Wells Fargo and PNC about selling its Star debit-payments network, according to the Wall Street Journal, sending its shares up 4.4% in Monday after-hours trading.
• The Star Network is the plumbing that routes debit, ATM and e-commerce transactions between banks, merchants and customers, serving more than 115 million debit cardholders across over 2,800 financial institutions, per Fiserv.
• The interest reflects big US banks expanding under a friendlier regulatory climate, with the WSJ noting that a bank owning the network could sidestep federal caps on debit-card fees.

• SambaNova Systems, a maker of AI chips positioned against Nvidia, has raised $1 billion at an $11 billion valuation in a first close of its Series F round, led by investment firm General Atlantic.
• The funding lands five months after a $350 million Series E, and eclipses the roughly $1.6 billion valuation floated in a December Bloomberg report on possible acquisition talks with Intel, now a repeat investor in the company.
• SambaNova said it will use the proceeds to secure its supply chain against demand, and disclosed that JPMorgan Chase picked it as an "inference-infrastructure partner" to run AI on-site, a signal Liang expects to resonate across banking, enterprises, and governments.

🌍 Macro News

• China considers restricting foreign access to its top AI models. LINK
• SEC may unveil crypto rulebook this month, offering enforcement safe harbor. LINK
• ECB orders eurozone banks to prepare defenses against AI-driven cyberattacks. LINK
• US consumers' one-year inflation expectations rose to 3.7% in June. LINK
• European defense stocks rally 17% ahead of NATO summit in Ankara. LINK
• UAE's oil output hit six-year high after leaving OPEC and OPEC+. LINK

🏢 Corporate News

• Berkshire Hathaway boosts Alphabet stake to $31.6 billion via share purchase. LINK
• GameStop shareholders approve share expansion to fund eBay takeover bid. LINK
• McCormick to merge with Unilever's food division in $45 billion deal. LINK
• Temasek's portfolio value hits record S$518 billion, eyeing AI and credit. LINK
• Kraken seeks full European banking license through Lithuania. LINK
• EU court upholds digital competition rules against Apple's App Store. LINK

📈 Stocks

📑 Research & Reports

• Anthropic set to top $1 billion quarterly profit ahead of IPO. LINK
• Goldman Sachs urges investors to add capital-heavy 'HALO trade' stocks. LINK
• Fed and MIT researchers build AI-powered database of historic US bank runs. LINK
• Deutsche Bank warns AI productivity gains may take years to materialize. LINK
• Tether's USDT and Circle's USDC now dominate separate stablecoin use cases. LINK
• UK debt seen turning unsustainable by 2040s, warns fiscal watchdog. LINK

💰 Deal Flow

• Nscale secures $900 million credit line for global data-center expansion. LINK
• AI legal startup Norm hits $1.2 billion valuation after $120 million raise. LINK
• EDX Markets raises $76 million to expand institutional crypto trading platform. LINK
• Tether invests $20 million in Brazil's Mercado Bitcoin for blockchain expansion. LINK
• Israeli startup Tangos raises $20 million to fight financial crime with AI. LINK
• Vertex Pharmaceuticals to buy Crinetics Pharmaceuticals for $10 billion. LINK

📅 Market Calendar

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