Compute is being turned into an asset class this week: Nvidia is making the case, and the first futures on the price of computing power list in October. Meanwhile two of the biggest bitcoin treasuries are under pressure to explain what holding is for.

💎 Huang lays out the case: in AI, compute is revenue
💎 The first compute futures list on 5 October
💎 Forbes asks what a lender would actually accept as collateral
💎 Twenty One's new chief executive wants to be more than a treasury
💎 The SEC votes Friday on its first real crypto rule

— Morten

In a post published Tuesday, Jensen Huang set out why Nvidia believes its data centres qualify as investable infrastructure rather than a technology expense. His argument rests on two things: one site can serve many customers on an architecture used across every major cloud, and Nvidia's software keeps improving hardware already installed. His example is a chip introduced in 2020 and still in commercial use six years on.

Why it matters: Infrastructure earns its label by outliving its financing. Huang is arguing that software can extend a chip's working life far enough to make that true, which is a claim about the future rather than a description of the present.

Source: NVIDIA AI Factory Compute Is Becoming an Investable Asset Class — Jensen Huang, NVIDIA

CME Group and the index provider Silicon Data will launch two futures contracts on 5 October tracking the hourly rental price of Nvidia's H100 and Blackwell B200 chips, listed on NYMEX and pending regulatory review. Each contract represents a month's rent for a single chip. ProShares and Rex Shares have already filed for exchange-traded funds tied to them.

Why it matters: Two firms buying identical capacity have had no way to know which paid more. A public reference price is the thing that turns a negotiated cost into something a market can plan around.

Source: AI computing power is becoming a tradable asset class as CME launches futures contracts — CNBC

Forbes argues the contracts decide the question, not the label, and points at what lenders actually underwrite: whether contracted revenue clears the debt before a newer chip generation lands. Amazon shortened the estimated useful life of some of its servers from six years to five in January 2025, citing the pace of development in artificial intelligence.

Why it matters: Airlines borrow against aircraft because the contracted revenue clears the loan before resale value matters. Whether GPUs fit that shape is the entire question, and it will be answered in loan documents rather than in press releases.

Source: Nvidia's $500 Billion Bet To Make AI Compute Wall Street's Next Asset Class — Forbes

The financing push widens the gap between frontier data centres and the decentralised compute networks built on crypto rails, whose capacity sits far below the facilities Wall Street is now preparing to underwrite. Those networks were built on the premise that idle hardware could be pooled into a market.

Why it matters: Crypto arrived at compute markets first and is being outbuilt by institutional capital. The lesson holds beyond compute: reaching an idea early counts for less than being able to finance it.

Source: Nvidia wants to turn its AI chips into an investable asset class — CoinDesk

Twenty One Capital reported a second-quarter net loss of $413.5 million, almost all of it the falling value of its own bitcoin. The company now trades at roughly 0.7 times the value of that bitcoin. New chief executive Raphael Zagury told shareholders the discount could be read as a misallocation of capital, and that management reads it the same way.

Why it matters: A discount to net asset value closes the financing route the model depended on, because shares can no longer be issued above the value of what they buy. Earnings have to come from somewhere else.

Source: Twenty One Capital takes $414 million Q2 loss as new CEO plots path to become 'more than a Bitcoin treasury' — The Block

Chief executive Phong Le told Fox Business the company will return to accumulating bitcoin before year-end, calling recent disposals capital structure management rather than a change of conviction. Strategy has bought around 175,000 bitcoin this year against roughly 7,000 sold, using the proceeds for dividends, buybacks and dollar reserves.

Why it matters: The company that made never selling into a principle now has to explain each sale. Whether the explanation holds is less interesting than the fact that one is required.

Source: Strategy CEO says company will resume Bitcoin accumulation this year — Cointelegraph

Stockholm-listed Hilbert Group has opened deposits for its BTC Basis+ strategy through Syntetika, the tokenization platform it backs, making it the first Hilbert-managed strategy reachable from a wallet. The strategy remains inside a regulated fund with independent custody, and the vault token is issued and redeemed only at a net asset value attested by a third party.

Why it matters: The interesting part is what did not change. Regulation, custody and valuation stayed where they were, and only the route in was rebuilt.

Source: Hilbert opens bitcoin fund for deposits onchain — Kaupr

The SEC has called an open meeting for Friday with one item on the agenda: whether to propose Regulation Crypto, a tailored offering regime for certain crypto investment contracts. The notice arrived Monday night with four days' lead time, permissible only when the agency judges business to be pressing. Friday's vote decides whether to publish the proposal for comment, not whether to adopt it.

Why it matters: Everything the agency has issued on crypto so far is staff guidance a future chairman could withdraw. A rule entered in the Federal Register cannot be undone without another full rulemaking, which is the difference legislation was meant to provide.

Source: U.S. SEC sets meeting to propose Reg Crypto to support certain digital assets offerings — CoinDesk

MoneyGram has extended its Ramps service to Solana, letting wallets and applications on the network connect to cash deposits in more than 25 countries and withdrawals in more than 170 through a single interface. The company serves around 60 million customers through close to 500,000 retail locations. Solana is its second supported chain after Stellar.

Why it matters: Stablecoins reach people who have no bank account and no interest in holding tokens, and the constraint has always been getting value back out as local cash. That is a physical problem, solved by whoever already has the counters.

Source: MoneyGram expands on Solana with global crypto-to-cash service — CoinDesk

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Wishing you a good Wednesday — and welcome back tomorrow morning for the next edition of Kaupr Daily.

Best regards Morten Myrstad Founder & Editor