☕️ US faces priciest 30-year debt since 2001

Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ Finpresso.

In today's newsletter:

💵 US faces priciest 30-year debt since 2001

🕵️ Trump deploys AI to catch tariff dodgers

💰 Databricks hits $190B valuation

📌 Tether passes first full audit by KPMG

💼 OpenAI's revenue chief exits ahead of IPO

🇨🇳 DeepSeek launches V4 Pro and hikes prices

Plus: 🌍 8 macro news, 🏢 11 corporate news, 💰 8 deal flow, and 📑 6 research & reports.

📊 Before The Bell

• The US Treasury is set to sell $25 billion of 30-year bonds at a projected yield near 5.23%, its steepest 30-year borrowing cost since 2001, after a historic selloff in long-dated government debt.
• Long-term yields pushed past 5% this year on fears that rising energy prices will keep the Fed's rates elevated, compounded by heavy government deficits, a surge in corporate borrowing to fund AI, and fading demand from traditional bond buyers.
• The strain is feeding the budget deficit, with interest on public debt hitting $1.17 trillion so far this fiscal year, up 15%, prompting speculation the Treasury may trim long-bond supply and shift toward shorter maturities, a move that raises refinancing risk.

• The Trump administration is building an AI-powered "detective border" to catch trading partners it accuses of helping China reroute goods through third countries to dodge US tariffs.
• Supply-chain firm Exiger estimates $75 billion in illegally rerouted goods flowed to the US between February 2025 and February 2026, costing the government $19 billion to $34 billion in lost tariff revenue.
• More than 40 countries are flagged for elevated risk, including Mexico, Canada, the EU, India, Japan and South Korea, with the system scanning shipment data, ownership links and even X-ray images to spot mismatches between declared and actual cargo.

• Databricks closed a $5 billion funding round at a $190 billion valuation on Thursday, ranking it among the most valuable private tech firms and roughly tripling its worth since late 2024.
• The raise, led again by Coatue with Blackstone, MGX, T. Rowe Price and first-time backer Sixth Street Growth, comes as revenue runs above $7 billion annually, growing as much as 80% year-over-year.
• Analysts say the price isn't settled: Clear Street's Owen Lau argues 50%+ recurring-revenue growth and 70%+ margins would justify it, but warns firms may cut AI spending if the tools don't deliver returns.

• Tether said KPMG issued a clean audit opinion on its 2025 financial statements, the best possible result, in what the company behind the largest stablecoin USDT called the "largest inaugural financial audit in history."
• The unqualified opinion means auditors found no major problems in how the statements were presented, but it does not endorse Tether's business or guarantee it can meet its obligations to holders redeeming USDT for dollars.
• The audit follows past penalties, an $18.5 million New York settlement in 2021 over a gap in its reserves and a $41 million CFTC fine over claims USDT was fully backed by dollars, with KPMG physically counting every gold bar Tether holds.

• Brad Lightcap, OpenAI's former finance and operations chief and one of its longest-serving executives, is leaving after eight years to start an undisclosed venture, adding to a run of senior departures as the company weighs a public listing.
• The exit lands as OpenAI, which filed confidentially for a potential IPO in June 2026, prepares for an offering that could value it at more than $1 trillion, though the company has not said when or whether it will proceed.
• Lightcap, who scaled OpenAI's sales team from about 50 people to more than 700, is one of a dozen senior figures to depart since April 2026, prompting ParaFi's Jeff Park to note it is unusual to see so many executives leave before a long-awaited IPO.

• DeepSeek quietly released the final version of its V4 Pro model, keeping the price it charged in preview at roughly $0.435 per million input tokens and $0.87 per million output, while swapping in updated underlying weights.
• The pricing gap is the story: V4 Pro's blended rate of about $0.65 per million tokens runs roughly 46 times cheaper than rival Fable 5's $30, even as DeepSeek's own benchmarks show it trailing by just 2.8% on average once one outlier test is stripped out.
• The scores are self-reported on infrastructure DeepSeek hasn't released and remain independently unverified, but the MIT-licensed weights are downloadable, part of a pattern of Chinese labs cutting frontier AI costs by up to 99% while U.S. labs raise prices.

🌍 Macro News

• Oil prices fell Thursday as demand concerns outweighed Middle East supply fears. LINK
• SEC abruptly postponed its planned meeting on new crypto rulebook Regulation Crypto. LINK
• Gold held near $4,360 an ounce as traders weighed Fed rate odds. LINK
• US jobless claims rose to 209,000 last week, likely seasonal, not weakness. LINK
• Iran war risks slowing UK growth to just 0.3% next year. LINK
• SEC weighs innovation exemption allowing tokenized stock trading around the clock. LINK
• Blockchain Association asks Supreme Court to hear Custodia Bank's Fed account case. LINK
• Trump imposes tariffs up to 100% on imported drones starting September 3. LINK

🏢 Corporate News

• Silver Lake in talks to buy Workday in $43 billion buyout deal. LINK
• Vantage Data Centers weighs IPO valuing it near $100 billion. LINK
• Lenovo shares jumped 20% after record quarterly revenue beat forecasts sharply. LINK
• Chinese technology is now deeply embedded in many global companies' supply chains. LINK
• Uber and Pony.ai plan 2,000 robotaxis across Europe and Middle East. LINK
• Altman's $1 trillion OpenAI IPO goal clashes with SoftBank's 2027 loan deadline. LINK
• Applied Materials shares fell despite strong earnings amid high investor expectations. LINK
• BitGo shares rose slightly after strong quarterly revenue and buyback announcement. LINK
• Figure Technology's consumer loan volume surged 132% as profit nearly tripled. LINK
• Tata Sons chairman's exit raises doubts over major growth investments. LINK
• IBM partners with OpenAI to sell its AI models to corporate clients. LINK

📈 Stocks

📑 Research & Reports

• Energy volatility could push global EV adoption 50% above base forecasts. LINK
• OpenAI report finds no clear link between ChatGPT use and company revenue. LINK
• Euro area businesses rarely accept crypto payments, ECB survey finds. LINK
• Robinhood's new blockchain nears $1 billion in value locked, fastest ever. LINK
• Share of CFOs expecting strong AI returns soon jumped sharply this year. LINK
• ECB stress test finds eurozone banks poorly model liquidity-solvency interactions. LINK

💰 Deal Flow

• AMD plans record $4-5 billion bond sale to fund AI expansion. LINK
• Intel raised its planned stock sale to $20 billion within a day. LINK
• Thrive Holdings raised $2 billion to buy and modernize traditional firms with AI. LINK
• Dynatrace to acquire AI-monitoring firm Arize for $915 million. LINK
• Kalshi nears $750 million funding round valuing it at $40 billion. LINK
• Opendoor shares fell after it announced a $650 million convertible note sale. LINK
• Rocket Lab outlines $3.6 billion financing plan for Iridium acquisition. LINK
• Robinhood's venture fund raised $225.5 million in its NYSE debut. LINK

📅 Market Calendar

📚 Finance Resources

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