Hudson River Trading signed a multiyear agreement worth billions of dollars with CoreWeave to expand the computing infrastructure used for its trading research and models.
The agreement builds on an existing partnership between the companies and represents a material expansion of their relationship, CoreWeave Chief Revenue Officer Jon Jones told Bloomberg. He declined to disclose specific financial terms.
As part of the deal, HRT will become one of the first CoreWeave customers to receive wide scale access to Nvidia’s newest Vera Rubin AI chips.
HRT, one of the largest nonbank trading firms in the US, has been increasing its use of specialized cloud providers such as CoreWeave as its research requires greater computing capacity. Additional processing power allows researchers to test more models and evaluate trading strategies across a wider range of markets and time horizons.
Kevin Lee, head of research and development at HRT, said greater access to computing resources lets the firm’s researchers run more experiments and potentially identify new trading opportunities. He also said CoreWeave had performed well in delivering infrastructure on schedule and operating Nvidia hardware efficiently.
The deal further expands CoreWeave’s customer base as the company works to reduce its historical dependence on Microsoft and increase its exposure to financial services customers. HRT became a CoreWeave customer in March.
CoreWeave highlighted its growing relationship with HRT in its second quarter earnings report last week as it pushes further into financial services alongside its existing technology and AI customers.
Jane Street, one of HRT’s largest competitors, has also expanded its relationship with CoreWeave. The trading firm previously agreed to spend $6 billion on CoreWeave data center capacity and invested $1 billion in the cloud infrastructure provider.
CoreWeave has also raised billions of dollars in debt to finance additional computing capacity tied to demand from customers including HRT and Jane Street.
Jones said financial firms are increasingly adopting the same advanced computing infrastructure used by developers of frontier AI models as trading companies expand their use of artificial intelligence and large scale computing.
Steven Yeun is set for the lead role in the upcoming Netflix supernatural drama “Pagans,” Variety has confirmed.
The show was originally announced with a straight-to-series order last year in a competitive situation. The logline states that it “follows a man (Yeun) who becomes the sole caretaker of his two children after the tragic loss of his wife. While his son is typical, his daughter, Alice, is anything but. What starts as a strained father-daughter relationship soon evolves into something far more sinister.”
The show hails from “Say Nothing” creator Joshua Zetumer, who also serves as showrunner and executive producer. Drew Goddard and Sarah Esberg executive produce via Goddard Textiles, with Jonathan van Tulleken and Erica Kay also executive producing. Yeun and Christina Oh executive produce for Celadon Pictures.
The role brings Yeun back to Netflix, where he previously starred in the hit first season of “Beef” alongside Ali Wong.
Bitcoin surged a second time today, surpassing $72,000 and reaching its highest level since June, following yesterday’s sharp rise. According to Binance data, $BTC climbed as high as $72,830 during the day, and is currently trading around $72,500 at the time of writing.
A chart showing the increase in $BTC price.
The rise in the cryptocurrency market is believed to be driven by two significant developments from the US. The first catalyst was the US Treasury Department’s announcement that it will at least double the size of its repurchase operations for long-term government bonds.
Under the new plan, the maximum size of buyback operations for 10-20 year and 20-30 year bonds is planned to be increased from $2 billion per transaction to at least $4 billion.
Following the decision, the US 30-year Treasury yield, which had previously climbed to 5.337%, its highest level since 2007, fell sharply. The decline in long-term bond yields increased the relative attractiveness of alternative assets like Bitcoin, which does not provide yield, and $BTC was one of the first assets to react strongly to the news.
Crypto Meeting at the White House Boosts Bitcoin Once Again
The second wave of Bitcoin’s rise occurred following new news from Washington.
US President Donald Trump reportedly met with representatives of the cryptocurrency industry, including executives from Coinbase, Payward, and Blockchain.com, at the White House.
During the meeting, Trump reportedly mentioned the possibility of the US purchasing a “significant amount” of Bitcoin and urged Congress to pass the CLARITY Act before the critical September 15 deadline.
These statements quickly triggered a new wave of buying in Bitcoin. $BTC rapidly rose from around $69,000 to over $71,000, continuing its upward trend and reaching $72,830.
$1.54 Billion Worth of Short Positions Liquidated While Bitcoin Rises
The sudden surge in Bitcoin and Ethereum also led to large-scale liquidations in leveraged markets.
In the last 24 hours, a total of $1.76 billion in leveraged positions were liquidated in the cryptocurrency market, with $1.54 billion of this amount consisting of short positions. The amount of long positions liquidated was recorded as $219.52 million.
In the last 12 hours, $512.81 million worth of short positions were liquidated, bringing the total liquidation to $612.17 million. In the last four hours alone, $96.75 million worth of short positions were eliminated from the market.
In the most recent one-hour period, a total of $55.24 million in liquidations occurred, with $50.72 million of that coming from investors who took short positions.
With the rise in $BTC and ETH prices, the dollar-denominated value of open positions in the futures markets has also increased significantly.
However, data indicates that approximately 90 percent of the increase in open positions is due not to the entry of entirely new leveraged positions into the market, but rather to the appreciation of existing positions in dollar terms as a result of rising Bitcoin and Ethereum prices.
This suggests that growth in derivatives markets may not represent as large an influx of new speculative capital as it initially appears.
That matters for bitcoin because high Treasury yields can pull capital toward government bonds and away from risk assets. Buybacks can support bond prices and help contain yields, potentially removing some of that pressure.
Connors said the initial purchases remain small but he expects Treasury support could eventually reach between $10 billion and $30 billion a month, far beyond the $4 billion announced by Bessent.
The move has also changed his outlook for bitcoin. Connors had expected $BTC to remain subdued until November as it followed its traditional four-year cycle. He is now less certain that investors will have to wait that long.
He believes another potential step could involve changes to the supplementary leverage ratio, or SLR, which affects how much Treasury debt banks can hold relative to their capital. Easing those constraints could give banks more room to absorb government bonds.
“When that happens, that’s when bitcoin starts to seek that first $180,000 price threshold,” Connors said. His target range for the cycle through 2030 is $180,000 to $360,000.
In the immediate term, $72,000 could carry added significance because of how crypto traders are positioned.
Charles Schwab director of crypto research Jim Ferraioli said earlier modeling showed a large concentration of leveraged bitcoin shorts around $72,000.
[This story contains major spoilers for Lucky’s series finale, “All Good Things.”]
With the dust now settled on Lucky, Anya Taylor-Joy believes her eponymous character is finally living up to her nickname.
The British-Argentine actor’s point has less to do with her conflicted con artist cheating death numerous times and besting her mobster in-laws, as well as the FBI. Instead, it’s more about the bittersweet fact that, despite losing her husband Cary (Drew Starkey) in a fatal car chase — and ultimately severing ties with her father, John (Timothy Olyphant), a con man whose devotion to the hustle proved utterly incurable — she’s at long last able to chart her own course.
In the final moments of Apple TV’s latest well-received limited series, John comes to terms that his familial protege outmaneuvered his final play for the $10 million he originally skimmed from Cary’s parents, Annette Bening’s Priscilla and William Fichtner’s Wayne. Cary re-stole the money temporarily from Lucky and John, only to leave it for his wife to handle as she sees fit, something Priscilla co-signed after killing Wayne, the sadistic driving force behind the season-long attempt to recover it.
Lucky could’ve easily started a whole new life with the ill-gotten gains, but she opted to take her first steps toward a life free of crime by returning the repeatedly stolen taxpayer dollars to the Feds. The final images of the show find Lucky quietly fulfilling the promise her dad spent a lifetime breaking — that one day they would abandon their thieving ways, dig their toes into the sand and stare out at the Pacific.
“Either personally or through somebody close to us, we all know what it is to love somebody that’s not good for us. It’s a lesson that has to be learned individually, and the heartbreak of it all is so relatable to me,” Taylor-Joy tells The Hollywood Reporter. “You still feel that heartbreak because Timothy is so charming, and you so want him to do the right thing. But where we leave Lucky, she, for the first time, isn’t being told who she is; she’s telling other people who she is.”
Now that Lucky has been fully released, Taylor-Joy still has Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Threecoming out in December. Lead actor Timothée Chalamet recently showered her performance as Paul Atreides’s sister, Alia, with adjectives including “breathtaking, unbelievable, terrifying and amazing.” Taylor-Joy laid the groundwork for her trilogy-capping role by filming an Alia cameo in Dune: Part Two (2024) shortly after wrapping George Miller’s Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.
Her Furiosa experience proved to be a frustrating one, and while she shared some of her struggles during her recent THR cover story, she has made clear she will keep the full, gory details private for decades. By contrast, her expectations for Dune: Part Three were wildly exceeded.
“Dune was everything that I hoped it would be. I cannot say more wonderful things about Denis [Villeneuve]. It was so deeply inspiring to be in these really harsh elements and know that every person is doing their absolute best work because they believe, trust and adore the person that’s leading the ship,” Taylor-Joy says. “In the future, I hope that I never get jaded and that I still have that childlike exuberance. When I look at Denis, I’m like, Oh, it’s possible.”
Below, during a conversation with THR, Taylor-Joy also discusses key changes made to Jonathan Tropper’s adaptation of Marissa Stapley’s novel Lucky, before revealing what made her first day on set acutely emotional.
***
As a graduate of Shyamalan Film School, you’ve always had an interest in the behind the scenes of it all, but what made Lucky the right time to actually venture into producing?
First and foremost, it was my first real opportunity. I’m so grateful to Reese [Witherspoon] and the whole Hello Sunshine team for that. It was her who read the book, reached out to me and said, “Hey, I would love to co-produce this with you if you’d be interested.” Then, upon reading the book, I really felt like I had something to offer and to contribute. So it just felt like the perfect storm.
Anya Taylor-Joy as Lucky in Lucky.
Courtesy of Apple TV
Marissa Stapley wrote the book with you in mind. Did she get the ball rolling on your casting? Or were Reese and co. simultaneously thinking about you?
Apparently, it was simultaneous. Marissa told me about her manifestation during one of my last days on set, and I was just like, “Well done! Good witchery.”
You went from producers Reese Witherspoon and Lauren Neustadter on Lucky to Mary Parent and Tanya Lapointe on Dune: Part Three. Did you pocket as much as you could from them, especially now that you have a production company (LadyKiller)?
I always have curiosity and genuine interest. They are the most important things for me, and luckily, I don’t have to try to force it. If you’re genuinely interested in what’s going on, you learn so much by osmosis just because you’re present. People talk a lot about waiting around on set, but I love the waiting around because that’s just an opportunity for a side quest to learn something.
Lucky pockets anything and everything in a different way. When she walks in a room, she instantly clocks all the angles and identifies anything she can grab, be it keys, cash, clothes, whatever. She’s like Margot from The Menu in that respect.
Yeah.
Has your job made you pretty adept at reading a room since you always have to account for camera angles, blocking and your scene partners?
[M.] Night [Shyamalan] once described me as a raw nerve that has no skin. I’m very sensitive to energies, so I can read if somebody is having a bad day or if somebody needs reassurance in some way. I’m happy about that because I’d always rather see it than not see it.
Lucky’s con-man father, John (Timothy Olyphant), raised her to be his partner-in-crime, and she eventually surpassed his mastery. For curiosity’s sake, if you had to pull a confidence game in real life, do you think your acting chops would translate successfully?
The act of being a confidence artist requires a level of cynicism that I just do not have. I have interest in fun pranks where nobody really gets hurt, but I detest the idea of ever winning because of somebody else’s misfortune.
Lucky spends the first few episodes tracking down her husband Cary (Drew Starkey) after he made off with the $10 million that her dad originally stole from Cary’s gangster mother (Annette Bening) and estranged gangster father (William Fichtner). Eventually, she learns from Cary that he ditched her in order to protect her from his vengeful mother. Years earlier, Lucky worked with the Feds to put her in prison. Cary then dies from a gunshot wound during a car case, and that swerve was not a part of the source material. Do you remember the conversation around that choice?
Absolutely. We really wanted to center in on this relationship and why she goes to the ends of the earth to find him. The reality is both Cary and Lucky have inadvertently ended up with people that are slightly like their parents, and they feel like nobody else will understand. Cary commits such a treacherous act that we knew we needed an actor that was going to be intensely likable to be able to even hear him out. Then we thought, What’s the best possible lesson for Lucky to learn from this? Cary’s got to go. So it was quite ruthless, to be honest with you.
Drew Starkey’s Cary and Anya Taylor-Joy’s Lucky in Lucky.
Courtesy of Apple TV
You and Drew Starkey probably didn’t work together that long, but you had a full relationship arc in that accelerated amount of time: the honeymoon phase, the breakup, the reconciliation and death.
Absolutely. Anytime Drew was on set, I joked that I was having the best time because I was clean and usually doing a flashback. Those flashbacks were happy, light-filled and joyful. And then the second he would leave, I would be bloody, running for my life and getting shot at. (Laughs.) So it was very dramatic whether Drew was there or not there. But he’s very easy, and we get along really well. He’s somebody that I wanted for the role immediately. Overall, I’m really proud to say that we got our first choice for each one of the roles.
Regarding the sleazy real estate agent character in episode three, I didn’t realize that your husband, Malcolm McRae, has been acting off and on since he was a kid. But given the icky place where the sequence ends up, did you partially want to cast someone who could make that uncomfortable dynamic more comfortable?
We cast all of our guest stars on the fly. We had all of our main cast, and then, as the episodes were going on, we opened casting for the other wonderful characters that we have in our show. Malcolm was doing a lot of self-tapes at the time. And if you’re receiving a Malcolm McRae self-tape, the voice at the other end of it is me, obviously. So I was just watching him one day, and I said, “Damn, you could be really good for this. Would you mind taping for it?” And he did. Afterwards I was like, “Wait a second, this really works out for me. Instead of having a stranger slobber all over me, I’d much rather it be the man that I’m in love with.”
Timothy Olyphant’s John and Anya Taylor-Joy’s Lucky in Lucky.
Courtesy of Apple TV
In the end, Lucky, alongside her dad, manages to circumvent the FBI and the mob to walk away with the $10 million in crypto.
She’s a busy girl.
Granted, Priscilla did her a solid by honoring her deceased son’s wishes. And while Lucky fully anticipates her dad’s attempt to re-steal the money, it still hurts to see him choose the hustle over her yet again. But it’s a blessing in disguise, isn’t it? It needed to happen.
Either personally or through somebody close to us, we all know what it is to love somebody that’s not good for us. It’s a lesson that has to be learned individually. Somebody can’t tell you about it. You have to figure it out on your own, and the heartbreak of it all is so relatable to me. And you’re right, you still feel that heartbreak because Timothy is so charming and you so want him to do the right thing. But where we leave Lucky, she, for the first time, isn’t being told who she is; she’s telling other people who she is.
In episode four, she and a random guy at a bar toast over their bad luck. Ultimately, do you consider her lucky even though she’s completely alone and without the two people who loved her?
Anytime you have the opportunity to make your own fate, you’re pretty lucky. And she made it out alive. That’s pretty unbelievable [after all her brushes with death].
She says at one point in episode six that Lucky isn’t her real name. In the book, her real name is Julia Mann, because John is not her biological father in the book. But I think he is her biological father on the show, as he references the death of her mother and being left with this tiny human. So what does she mean when she says Lucky isn’t her real name? Is she just saying that Luciana is technically her real name? Or is there something more there like in the book?
No, I think it’s just that Luciana is her given birth name. Her father then gave her the nickname “Lucky,” both as a promise, but also selfishly. I really enjoyed playing that, because parent-children relationships are so deep and so treacherous and so beautiful all at the same time. There’s a huge element of Lucky that really wants to make her father proud, but the thing that makes him proud of her is the thing that she most dislikes about herself.
She returns the $10 million to the Feds. It was stolen from taxpayers in the first place. It’s admirable that she truly wants a clean break from her life of crime. But was there ever talk of having her repay some of her victims, such as the family out in the desert or the woman whose car accident she helped cause?
We had conversations very, very early on in the writers room. There’s this wonderful character in the book, Lucky’s childhood friend [Steph]. We loved her, and we really tried to bring her with us. But it ended up not really servicing the story in the way that we needed. [Writer’s Note: John and 10-year-old Lucky defraud Steph and her mother by claiming that Lucky is terminally ill, so I assume Taylor-Joyis alluding to a potential storyline in which Steph and/or her mother would’ve been made whole.]
So we thought about restitution, and then we just decided that the biggest score that she has to settle is with Aunjanue [Ellis-Taylor’s] FBI agent character, Rand.
Your THR cover story detailed some of the challenges you faced on Furiosa, so I’m not going to belabor that subject any further.
Thank you.
All I want to know is whether Dune: Part Three was everything you hoped it would be. Will you not have to wait 20 years to fully talk about it à la Furiosa?
(Laughs.) Dune: Part Three was everything that I hoped it would be. I cannot say more wonderful things about Denis [Villeneuve]. I learnt so much. I just wanted to be a sponge on that set and pick up everything in terms of the atmosphere and what it is to lead from a place of love. It was so deeply inspiring to be in these really harsh elements and know that every person is doing their absolute best work because they believe, trust and adore the person that’s leading the ship. He deeply loves it.
All of Denis’ actors strive to get him to say his catchphrase of, “I deeply love it,” after a take. Did you catch on to that game pretty quickly?
(Laughs.) Immediately, yeah. I have so much love and passion for this art form and this beautiful thing that I get to do. And when I think about myself in the future, I hope that I never get jaded and that I still have that childlike exuberance. So when I look at Denis, I’m like, Oh, it’s possible. You can get to this ultimate place and still just be a kid who wants to create these beautiful worlds and do it at such an amazing level of quality.
Are you about to head off to shoot The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum?
I am leaving relatively soon for that side of the world [New Zealand], and I’m very excited about it. [This chat took place July 15.]
Lastly, you quoted Night earlier, and I still think about his famous note to you: “Don’t cry your tears, cry the character’s tears.” Did you ever catch yourself on Lucky crying your tears instead of Lucky’s tears?
Ooh, interesting. [Such crying] didn’t happen in front of the camera, but my dog passed away on our first day of filming, so that was hard. We were shooting all night long from 11:00 PM to 11:00 AM. And I think a big part of grief is being able to sleep through it. So it was such an interesting lesson of, Okay, you’re going to be awake. Your body is going to be pumping adrenaline the whole time. You have to find a way of making this okay and being a leader here because you can’t fall apart. And I’m actually really grateful for that experience.
*** Lucky is now streaming in its entirety on Apple TV.Read more of THR’s finale coverage.
Chris Pratt is back battling unknown global terrorist conspiracies seeking to upend the world order in the first trailer for The Terminal List season 2, which Prime Video dropped on Thursday.
But Pratt, as a traumatized and now fugitive former Navy SEAL James Reece, finds newfound purpose after being offered immunity if he helps the U.S. government pursue a former Iraqi commando to unravel a geopolitical plot involving a traitorous CIA officer and an assassination scheme.
Newcomer Gabriel Luna as former SEAL team member Freddy Strain offers Reece a path to violent redemption. “The president’s willing to grant you a full pardon for your crimes. We’re ready to give you your life back,” he tells Reece at one point in the trailer.
The Terminal List season 2 adapts True Believer, the second in Jack Carr’s five novels built around the character of Reece. A high-octane roller-coaster race against time follows amid much gunfire and explosions as Reece looks to turn the shadowy Iraqi terrorist against his masters.
The starry second season of eight new episodes to debut Oct. 21 on Prime Video — and returning four years after the rookie season rolled out — includes returning cast members like Tom Hopper, Constance Wu, Dar Salim, Luke Hemsworth, Gabriel Luna, Costa Ronin, Olga Kurylenko, Yul Vazquez, Martin Sensmeier, Arnold Vosloo and Shiraz Tzarfati.
The Terminal List season 2 is executive produced by Pratt, Antoine Fuqua (who directed the original pilot for the series), showrunner David DiGilio, Carr, Kat Samick, Max Adams and Jared Shaw. The series is produced by Amazon MGM Studios, MRC and Civic Center Media.
There was one big name absent from FX‘s order of a new Sons of Anarchy project yesterday: The original series creator Kurt Sutter.
As first reported by The Hollywood Reporter and Deadline, FX has ordered Legends, which will reunite the core cast from the hit motorcycle gang drama in a “meta thriller.” In the limited series, the cast attends a fan convention where they get caught up in a dangerous life-imitating-art situation — a premise drawing comparisons to the beloved sci-fi comedy Galaxy Quest. The project was developed by series star Charlie Hunnam along with Jonathan Groff.
Sutter took to Instagram to give his reaction to the project while shirtless and wearing a yellow beanie in a sauna, which he described as “hell-like ambiance.”
“I know the news about Charlie’s show hit today, and I’m beginning to get some queries about it,” he said. “I just want to say my piece. I’m not involved with Legends at all — nor should I be. It has nothing to do with the characters I created, or the mythology. It’s really about the show and the legacy of the show, and, quite frankly, there are thousands of people who are responsible for that legacy.”
Then Sutter gave his full-throated endorsement of the project: “I just want folks to know that Charlie came to me when he was in the process of pitching this to the network to ask for my blessing, knowing that the IP would probably not be able to be invoked for various reasons of legalese stuff,” he said. “I gave Charlie my full blessing. I wish nothing but the best for him in this project. My wife [star Katey Sagal] is in the project. I have nothing but love for [FX Networks chairman] John Landgraf and the folks at FX who have been so good to me, so generous. So it has my full-blown support.”
Added Sutter: “Watch this motherfucker, because I’ve taken a peek at the script that was perhaps just lying on my wife’s knitting table, and it’s really so well done. I think you’ll dig it. I love Charlie to death, and I think you will have mad love for this project as well.”
In addition, co-star Kim Coates released a statement reacting to Legends.
“I’m so proud of Charlie,” Coates wrote. “I’ve known this guy a long time, and to see him step into this as a creator and writer and bring all of us back together in such a completely unexpected way is pretty special. He could have tried to recreate Sons, but that’s not what this is. It’s smart, it’s wild, it’s funny, it’s dangerous — and it has Charlie’s fingerprints all over it … Legends gets to have some fun with that relationship between us and the fans while taking everybody somewhere they absolutely won’t expect. I think they’re going to lose their minds.”
In addition to having Hunnam and Coates, the limited series will bring back Ron Perlman, Katey Sagal, Maggie Siff, Mark Boone Junior, Tommy Flanagan and Theo Rossi. Additional cast will be announced in the coming weeks.
“When Charlie brought us this inspired idea, we instantly sparked to his bold and entertaining vision,” said Nick Grad, FX Entertainment president. “Charlie’s talents are on full display as a writer, performer and executive producer, leading the real-life brotherhood on an adventure that is both a love letter to the series and a fun meta twist on what fans think they know.”
FX Productions and 20th Television will produce the series and it will air on FX and stream on Hulu.
Patents are often the bedrock of new innovation, and a suite of patents defining how AI-generated music can be created, licensed and monetized has hit the market — with multiple AI companies lined up to license them.
Music IP Holdings, a company formed last year out of a strategic partnership with Universal Music Group and the intellectual property management firm Liquidax, has licensed a portfolio of more than 24 patents to the AI music platforms Udio and GRAI. The collection of patents covers a wide swath of elements associated with the rise of AI music, including moderation, watermarking, licensed distribution and monetization.
For Daniel Drolet, the CEO of MIH, the patents are designed to create “new opportunities for responsible innovation while giving artists, songwriters and rightsholders stronger protections and the ability to share in the value their work creates.”
“The portfolio was developed to enable a standard that provides creators of all types the ability to generate, track and ensure new AI revenue streams while simultaneously providing strong options to manage unauthorized AI outputs,” Drolet said in a statement.
“ With MIH, we’re partnering to implement the infrastructure that protects artists and establish the guardrails that ensure AI amplifies human creativity,” Udio CEO Andrew Sanchez said in a statement. “That work — the technology, the licensing, the partnerships — is what makes the next chapter one artists can actually build on.”
“GRAI is building a social streaming service where music moves between people,” Ilya Liasun, GRAI’s CEO and co-founder, added. “And when someone puts something of their own into a song they love, the artist is asked, credited and paid, every time. These patents are what make that possible.”
The patents aren’t limited to just music, MIH’s chief operating officer Paul Ketchel told Variety. “It’s anything that’s an AI derivative,” he said. “What the portfolio covers is basically how AI learns, consumes, and produces derivative content, and that’s video content, voice content, music content.”
The patents reflect UMG’s engagement across different swaths of the changing music industry, such as its licensing partnership with Udio and the remixing app Hook to, with the patent framework, building the architecture that can help determine what an ethical approach to AI music generation could look like.
“These patents are an important way to reinforce the strategy we believe will play a critical role in the next era of music: embracing ethical innovation that puts artists and songwriters at the center, with greater agency, influence and value-chain participation for the creative community,“ said Chris Horton, UMG’s executive vice president, strategic technology, in a statement. “We are thrilled to join MIH, music companies, and responsible technology enterprises in building an AI music ecosystem that works for everyone, especially the creative forces that makes it all possible.”
Udio and GRAI represented the first companies to license the patents because of some of their preexisting relationships with UMG, such as Udio’s licensing deal, Ketchel said.
“They are looking to try to be ethical companies of the world of AI,” he said. “It’s really creating an ecosystem for creators you know the labels, the publishers, the movie studios, all those folks on the creative side, coupled with responsible AI companies, technology companies, streaming companies, publishing companies, all those together, to be able to operate inside this framework of AI and allow creators to be compensated properly, and these companies to be able to operate with freedom to operate ethically. Hopefully, our vision is this will help make a lot of these lawsuits and things that have had to be one-offs go away.”
The first trailer for dark festival hit “Never After Dark” has been released, and it has some big-time fans.
Horror icon Stephen King has called the film, about a psychic trying to unravel the mystery behind an evil house, “amazing and haunting.” Director Scott Derrickson, whose films include “The Black Phone” and “Sinister,” called it “intelligent, unpredictable and bone-chilling. A deftly directed, richly cinematic supernatural horror film. One of the best of the year.”
“Never After Dark” is written and directed by Dave Boyle (“Big Dreams Little Tokyo,” “Man from Reno”) and stars Moeka Hoshi (“Shōgun”), Kurumi Inagaki, Kento Kaku, Mutsuo Yoshioka, Bokuzō Masana and Tae Kimura.
Per the logline, “Never After Dark” is about “a wandering medium, Airi (Hoshi), who spends her life guiding restless spirits out of the world of the living accompanied by her constant companion: her dead sister Miku (Inagaki). Summoned to exorcize a spirit from an isolated country house by the new owner, Teiko (Kimura), she comes face to face with a grotesque apparition with powers that defy Airi’s experience. Faced with skepticism from Teiko’s son, Gunji (Kako), she digs deeper into the house’s past until a secret comes to light — and Airi finds herself hunted by a far more unpredictable force. For the first time, her greatest adversary is not the supernatural, but the living.”
Before its wide release, “Never After Dark” was lauded at festivals like the Overlook Film Festival, where it was awarded the grand jury prize for feature film.
The film is set to be released in theaters on Sept. 25 via Magnolia Pictures.
Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt
GM!
Today’s top news:
Crypto majors are up 10-20% after Trump’s crypto meeting; BTC at $72k, ETH at $2,300
Trump says CFTC is working to bring Hyperliquid to US; HYPE and LIT jump 20%+
Over $3 billion in shorts liquidated in past 24 hours, most since tracking began
BTC ETFs see $517M in net inflows (most since May), now over $1 billion for week; ETH had $187M
Coinbase added Hyperliquid perps to the Base app, launched new $1 million accelerator
🏛️ Trump Says the CFTC Is Working to Bring Hyperliquid Onshore
Trump dropped an absolute bullish bombshell yesterday for crypto and perps.
“I understand that Mike is also working to bring Hyperliquid into the United States in a fully compliant and legal fashion,” Trump said, referring to CFTC Chair Michael Selig. “Working very hard on that. We would really like to see it.”
And the market exploded. HYPE jumped 23% to $72 at peak. Another perps leader in LIT popped 20% as well to a new local high. The broader crypto market legged up as well (albeit perhaps for other reasons as well, like Bessent’s yield curve control actions). BTC hit $72k, ETH put up a 20% candle to $2,300+ and SOL hit $87. Coinbase (+17%), Circle (+17%) and Robinhood stock (+10%) all soared as well.
For those unfamiliar, Hyperliquid is the offshore venue where traders take leveraged bets through perpetual futures, contracts with no expiration date, by connecting a wallet instead of opening a brokerage account. Americans can’t legally use it. That design routes around the intermediary that U.S. derivatives rules assume exists, which is exactly why registration, customer protection, and market oversight requirements have kept it and most crypto platforms offshore. The CFTC has been building toward this for a year, clearing Coinbase Derivatives for perp-style Bitcoin and Ethereum futures in April 2025 and later approving Kalshi for a similar product.
The rest of the meeting was a pitch to the Senate. Trump asked Congress to pass what he called a fair version of the Clarity Act, the market structure bill that would split SEC and CFTC authority over digital assets, calling it a way to stay ahead of China. That bill returns to the Senate floor in September after lawmakers left for recess without a procedural vote, and Republicans still need roughly six Democratic votes to clear 60.
So where does this leave us? Two days ago the SEC proposed its first formal crypto rules, and Wednesday the president publicly told his CFTC chair to find a path for the biggest offshore perps venue in crypto. The agencies are clearly moving ahead while the Clarity Act sits stuck. And they’re putting serious pressure on Congress to act, or let the SEC and CFTC make their own rules without legislative input.
Now we wait for the CFTC’s Innovation Advisory Committee, which meets Thursday for the first time.
🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets
Crypto majors are very green up 10-20% after Trump’s crypto meeting yesterday and ahead of today’s CFTC meeting; BTC +12% at $72.1k; ETH +20% at $2,300; SOL +13% at $87; HYPE +23% at $72.30
Top alt movers include PEPE (+21%), ENA (+20%), SPX (+20%) and LIT (+20%)
Oil +3% at $88.40; Gold +3% at $4,540
Stock futures are slightly red as bonds rebound and oil rises; DOW -0.2%, Nasdaq -0.1%
VanEckflagged 8 of 12 capitulation signals firing on Bitcoin, while noting similar setups have produced below-average 90-day and 180-day returns
FalconX and Ethenaset up a $1 billion secured facility deploying assets backing USDe into overcollateralized institutional loans, reducing reliance on perp funding rates
Fidelity Digital Assetswarned that AI agent activity may route to banks and fintechs instead of public blockchains, with stablecoin issuers capturing more upside than base-layer tokens
Fairshakespent more than $2 million trying to beat Oliver Gilbert in a Florida Democratic primary and lost, drawing criticism for ads built on faked Miami Herald headlines
Corporate Treasuries & ETFs
Meme Coin Tracker
Meme leaders were very green up 10-20%; DOGE +10%, SHIB +9%, PEPE +21%, PENGU +10%, TRUMP +18%, BONK +13%
Robinhood chain saw more major rebounds with Cashcat +22%, PONS +34%, Pipedog +17% and Tendies +31%; GOOD ran 10x to $4M
Solana leaders included Bome (+69%), Cate (+26%) and Troll (+17%); Ansem +5% to $250M
On BSC, Niu Lai ran 60% to $65M and CETS +33% to $13M
💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker
Kalshifiled with the CFTC to launch a cash-settled copper perps contract priced off Pyth Network data
Coinbaseadded perps to Base App through Hyperliquid, giving eligible users 290-plus markets at up to 50x leverage, though not in the U.S., U.K., or Canada
Baseopened applications for Batches 004, a $1 million accelerator investing $100,000 each in 10 pre-seed teams building AI agents, payments, trading, and financing products
🚚 What is happening in NFTs?
NFT leaders were mixed; Punks +1% at 32.4 ETH, BAYC -4% at 7.6 ETH, Pudgy even at 3.78 ETH; Stonkbrokers -17% to 5.7 ETH
