Stripe, Visa, and Mastercard may launch stablecoin platforms

AI infrastructure company Nscale has completed a total financing of nearly $4 billion, with the latest round of Series C funding amounting to $2 billion and a valuation of $14.6 billion. Nscale, formerly known as Arkon Energy, a cryptocurrency mining company, spun off its business and currently focuses on building and operating AI data centers, as well as leasing computing resources to enterprises. Investors include Nvidia, Dell, and Nokia. Since 2026, Nscale has also secured $1.4 billion in GPU mortgage loans and $790 million in financing to support its AI infrastructure expansion plans. Nscale has participated in the OpenAI "Stargate" project, deploying AI computing facilities in the UK and Norway, but some projects have been taken over by Microsoft and Google.

The US stock market opened lower, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling 302 points, the Nasdaq falling 1 point, and the S&P 500 index falling 0.15%.

The dwindling congressional calendar may spur a legislative competition for the crypto market structure bill to win Senate floor time against other priorities. What to know : As the crypto Clarity Act took a procedural step toward the U.S. Senate floor this week, the bill still faces serious roadblocks, including some contentious unfinished provisions and an extremely tight Senate window. About eight weeks remain on the Senate calendar before the chamber disperses for its summer break and an increasing focus on the politics of the midterm elections, and the bill may end up requiring as much as a week of that floor time. But a ton of big-ticket legislative competitors also need time on that schedule.

According to Fortune, crypto venture capital firm Variant has completed the fundraising of Variant 4, a fund with a scale of $222 million. The fund will focus on the early stages of investment projects, with a particular emphasis on autonomous applications that integrate AI and crypto. Jesse Walden, a partner, said that encryption would become the underlying infrastructure similar to the Internet, providing users and enterprises with higher autonomy and security through decentralized and contractual security architecture, and supporting the development of applications such as DeFi platform Uniswap and Morpho.

According to a social media post by the US European Command on the 3rd, US Department of Defense officials have informed allies that they will adjust the US contribution to the NATO force model based on the 2026 National Defense Strategy and the "NATO 3.0" vision.