Month: August 2026

The crypto space climbed 1.1 per cent to US$2.21 trillion in the last 24 hours. What caught my eye first was where the demand concentrated. Layer 1 tokens led the charge, with the category gaining 1.45 per cent and outperforming the broader landscape. Ethereum and Solana dominated social media conversations, and the timing was no accident. Ethereum celebrated its 11th anniversary on the same day, and posts commemorating the mainnet launch generated a wave of bullish energy across trading communities.

This was not some manufactured hype cycle. People were genuinely reflecting on what Ethereum has built over more than a decade, and that reflective mood translated into real purchasing activity. Capital rotated into these core protocol assets in a way that signals a risk-on shift within crypto itself, not just a mindless beta play riding external momentum. I find that encouraging because it suggests participants are making deliberate allocation choices rather than simply chasing whatever ticks up first.

The supporting conditions around this advance also tell a compelling story. Bitcoin liquidations plunged 62 per cent over 24 hours to just US$22.55 million. Read that number again. When forced selling dries up to that degree, it removes a persistent ceiling that had previously capped attempts at prolonged upward movement.

Traders who might have been squeezed out of positions simply were not there to create that downward weight. The market had room to breathe, and it used that room effectively. A cleaner base with less leverage hanging over it gives any climb more legitimacy, and I believe we are watching exactly that unfold.

Also Read: The Fed held rates, but the real story is what that means for crypto and risk assets

No honest assessment of this session can ignore the macro backdrop, because crypto did not advance in isolation. The correlation between digital assets and the S&P 500 hit 76 per cent over the past 24 hours, while the correlation with Gold reached 79 per cent. Those are high numbers, and they confirm this was a broad, macro-driven rotation rather than something unique to the blockchain world. Wall Street rebounded with force after a bruising stretch.

The Nasdaq jumped 2.8 per cent to snap a six-day losing streak. The S&P 500 climbed 1.7 per cent to 7,437.63. The Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 613.92 points, or 1.2 per cent, to close at 52,208.06. Microsoft alone skyrocketed 16 per cent after robust cloud and Azure results eased investor anxiety over artificial intelligence spending, adding a record US$450 billion in market value in one session.

Chip stocks followed suit, with Micron Technology soaring 18 per cent and Advanced Micro Devices climbing over 13 per cent. Across the Pacific, South Korea’s Kospi Index rocketed by up to 15 per cent in a historic intraday rebound powered by SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 jumped over 5 per cent.

When traditional markets rally with that kind of determination, crypto benefits from the improved liquidity environment, and pretending otherwise would be intellectually dishonest. I view this correlation as a positive for now because it means digital assets are participating in a genuine global risk-on rotation rather than floating untethered from reality.

Also Read: The market is pricing in regulatory clarity that does not exist yet. Why crypto is fragile?

Looking ahead, the technical picture presents a clear test. The total market cap sits right at the US$2.21 trillion pivot point, and the immediate hurdle is the 23.6 per cent Fibonacci level at US$2.23 trillion, with a stronger barrier at the recent swing high of US$2.26 trillion.

If buyers can push through that zone, the advance gains real credibility. If they cannot, we likely return to the range-bound trading that has defined recent weeks. For Ethereum specifically, analysts point to US$1,975 as the key breakout level that could open a path toward US$2,300. I will be watching that threshold closely because a decisive reclaim there would confirm the anniversary-driven enthusiasm has legs beyond a single news cycle.

One event looms large over the next 24 hours and could inject significant volatility into the picture. Over US$10.5 billion in Bitcoin and Ethereum options expire on July 31. That is an enormous notional amount, and an expiry of this magnitude has historically created sharp price swings as market makers adjust their hedges and positions roll over.

The climb we witnessed could either accelerate through expiry as bullish positioning reinforces itself, or it could stall and reverse as profit-taking meets the mechanical selling that large expiries often generate. I lean toward the former given the reduced liquidation environment, but I would not bet the house on it.

My overall read is cautiously bullish, and I use the word cautiously deliberately. The ingredients for a lasting push higher are present. Narrative-driven demand in Layer 1 tokens gives the run a story and a reason to exist beyond pure speculation. The macro backdrop broadly supports risk assets.

Leverage has flushed out, leaving a healthier structure underneath. But translating one good day into a trend requires follow-through, and the US$2.23 trillion to US$2.26 trillion barrier will demand exactly that. Social mood can ignite a move, but only continued capital inflow can carry it through meaningful overhead supply.

All things considered, this session felt like the market exhaling after holding its breath for too long. The combination of Ethereum’s milestone, Solana’s continued relevance, a dramatic drop in forced selling, and a powerful global equity rebound created conditions where buyers finally had permission to step in. Whether they maintain that confidence through a massive options expiry and into next week remains the open question. But for now, the tape looks constructive, the narrative feels organic, and the macro winds are at our backs.

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The post The market finally exhaled, Ethereum turned 11: The question is whether it can hold its breath again appeared first on e27.

For much of the past two years, Southeast Asian boardrooms have been flooded with AI experiments. Banks have tested copilots, retailers have trialled demand forecasting tools, government agencies have explored automation, and conglomerates have run internal hackathons to show what generative AI can do.

Also Read: Southeast Asia doesn’t have an AI adoption problem, it has a scaling problem

The harder question is no longer whether AI works in a demo. It is whether it can survive real enterprise conditions: messy data, fragmented systems, regulatory constraints, security requirements, and teams that need to change how they work.

That is the gap Temus is trying to address with its strategic investment in Thinking Machines Data Science, a Philippines-headquartered AI and data company and OpenAI’s first official Services Partner in Asia Pacific.

The companies did not disclose the size of the investment. Thinking Machines will continue to operate under its own brand and leadership as “Thinking Machines Data Science, a Temus entity”. Its founder, Stephanie Sy, will join the Temus leadership team and co-lead the combined Applied AI and Data team as Managing Director, alongside Sutowo Wong.

Founded in Manila in 2015, Thinking Machines has spent the past decade building data platforms and AI systems for organisations across financial services, retail, conglomerates, and the civic sector. It says it has served more than 110 clients and trained over 10,000 professionals in applying AI. The company operates offices in Manila, Singapore, and Bangkok.

Temus, established by Temasek in 2021, is a Singapore-based AI and digital transformation company with around 500 employees. It works with public sector agencies and private enterprises across healthcare, defence, financial services, education, and government, aligning itself with Singapore’s Smart Nation and National AI Strategy ambitions.

The deal brings together two capabilities that are increasingly difficult to separate: AI engineering and organisational transformation.

From proof-of-concept to operating reality

Southeast Asia has no shortage of AI interest. The region’s large banks, telcos, retailers, logistics groups, and government agencies have all started testing AI systems, particularly after the rise of large language models such as OpenAI’s GPT family. But the region’s enterprise landscape is uneven. Many organisations still operate on legacy technology stacks. Data is often trapped across business units. Compliance rules differ across markets. Talent is scarce, especially for teams that can translate AI models into production systems.

That makes implementation more complex than buying software or plugging into an API.

“Many enterprises are navigating the challenge of running AI systems that hold up under real operating conditions: constrained data, regulatory requirements, complex workflows,” said Sng Ren Yeong, CEO of Temus. “That requires a different level of engineering, governance, and integration.”

This is where Thinking Machines’s track record matters. The company is not positioned as a research lab or model developer. Its work sits closer to the ground: helping organisations prepare their data, build usable AI applications, and integrate them into workflows. Its recognition as OpenAI’s first official Services Partner in Asia Pacific, followed by advanced partner status, gives it added visibility at a time when enterprises are looking for help to deploy generative AI safely and effectively.

Also Read: How to use AI to become a better investor

Temus, meanwhile, brings delivery infrastructure, public sector relationships, and Singapore-based scale. In May 2026, it launched its AI Foundry at Asia Tech x Summit with support from Digital Industry Singapore, aiming to help organisations move faster from experimentation to deployment.

The Thinking Machines investment gives that platform deeper regional execution capability, particularly in the Philippines, Thailand, and other Southeast Asian markets where demand for AI adoption is growing but implementation support remains limited.

A regional company built for regional constraints

Sy framed the deal as a way to expand without losing the company’s identity.

“We built Thinking Machines because we believed that the region deserved world-class AI capability — built here, for here,” she said. “Joining the Temus group means we can pursue that ambition at a scale we could not have reached alone. Our team, our brand, and our commitment to our clients remain unchanged.”

That “built here, for here” point is more than a slogan. Southeast Asia’s AI needs differ from those of the US, Europe, or China. Enterprises often operate across multiple languages, regulations, customer behaviours, and infrastructure maturity levels. A model or workflow that performs well in Singapore may require substantial reworking in the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, or Thailand.

For AI service providers, this creates both a challenge and an opening. Global technology vendors offer powerful tools, but companies still need local partners that understand procurement realities, data limitations, industry practices, and cultural context. That is especially true in regulated sectors such as banking, healthcare, and government, where AI adoption depends as much on governance and trust as on model performance.

The deal also reflects a broader shift in Southeast Asia’s AI market. Early excitement around generative AI was often centred on productivity tools and chatbots. Enterprises are now asking tougher questions: which use cases produce measurable savings or revenue, how AI decisions can be audited, and how systems can be maintained over time.

In this environment, the winners may not be the loudest AI evangelists, but the companies that can do the unglamorous work of integration, training, monitoring, and change management.

Competing in a crowded transformation market

Temus and Thinking Machines will face a competitive field. Global consulting and technology services firms such as Accenture, Deloitte, IBM Consulting, and Capgemini are investing heavily in AI transformation offerings across Asia. Regional players, including NCS in Singapore and FPT Software in Vietnam, also have strong enterprise relationships and large engineering teams. Cloud providers such as Microsoft, Google Cloud, and AWS are not direct consulting rivals in every deal, but their partner ecosystems shape how enterprise AI projects are designed and delivered.

Where the Temus-Thinking Machines combination may seek an edge is in pairing Singapore institutional backing with a Southeast Asian delivery culture. Temus offers scale and access to complex enterprise and government transformation projects, while Thinking Machines brings a decade of AI-specific implementation experience from markets outside Singapore’s relatively mature digital economy.

That combination could prove useful as companies move beyond narrow pilots into more ambitious deployments that cut across business units, customer channels, and compliance functions.

Why the deal matters

For Singapore, the investment supports its push to be a regional hub for applied AI, not just AI policy and research. The city-state has spent years building its digital economy infrastructure, and its National AI Strategy has placed emphasis on adoption in sectors such as finance, health, logistics, and government services.

For the Philippines, the deal is a notable signal that homegrown AI capability can scale regionally. Thinking Machines is among the more visible examples of a Manila-built technology services firm expanding into higher-value AI work, rather than competing mainly on outsourced labour or back-office services.

For Southeast Asian enterprises, the practical impact will depend on execution. The promise is a broader bench of specialists that can support AI projects from data readiness and engineering to deployment, governance, and adoption. The risk, as with any integration, is maintaining the speed and culture of a specialist firm inside a larger organisation.

Also Read: Artificial Intelligence as a question of national security and independence

Temus and Thinking Machines say existing client engagements and teams will continue without disruption.

The timing is clear. Across the region, companies have spent the first phase of the AI boom learning what is possible. The next phase will be about what can be trusted, scaled, and embedded into daily operations. Temus is betting that Thinking Machines can help it win that harder phase.

The post Thinking Machines joins Temus group in regional push for production-grade AI appeared first on e27.