U.S. stocks finished higher Wednesday, with AI infrastructure names leading the advance, while bitcoin remained stuck in its recent trading range after July inflation data came in line with expectations. The S&P 500 rose 0.3% to close near record levels, and the Nasdaq Composite climbed 0.7% as technology and AI-related shares extended their post-earnings rally.

Bitcoin, by contrast, largely sat out the stock market enthusiasm. The leading cryptocurrency churned around $63,400 into the close, little changed over the past 24 hours but down from session highs reached before the U.S. consumer price index report. BTC has been trading in a narrow band between roughly $62,000 and $66,000 over the past five weeks, and Wednesday's inflation data did not provide enough fuel for a breakout in either direction.

AI Infrastructure Stocks Rally on Strong Q2 Results

AI infrastructure names were the clear standouts. Dell Technologies, which sells servers and computing infrastructure used to run AI workloads, surged 9.7% to a record closing high of $484. AI cloud provider Nebius extended its rally to 35%, while fellow neocloud CoreWeave held onto a roughly 20% daily gain.

The moves followed a wave of strong second-quarter earnings from companies tied to the AI buildout. WhiteFiber and Nebius both jumped around 15% after reporting results. WhiteFiber's revenue rose 54% to $28.8 million, supported by initial billing at NC-1, its flagship North Carolina data center with 40 megawatts contracted and potential expansion to 300 megawatts. Nebius revenue surged 454% to $582.3 million, while adjusted EBITDA swung to $236.2 million. Investors welcomed accelerating AI demand, new contracts and expanding capacity, despite continued net losses and heavy capital spending.

CoreWeave also benefited from booming AI-compute demand, adding 16% in after-hours trading. Super Micro rallied 7.6% after issuing a revenue forecast that topped the highest analyst estimates. The strength in AI names helped push Nasdaq 100 futures up 0.3% before the market open, and the momentum carried through the regular session.

Inflation Data Matches Expectations

The day's biggest macro event was the July CPI report, released at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time. Headline inflation rose 0.1% month over month and 3.4% year over year, matching forecasts. Core CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, increased 0.2% monthly and 2.5% annually, also in line with expectations.

The in-line reading avoided the upside surprise that could have rattled risk assets, but analysts said inflation remains too hot to give the Federal Reserve an all-clear. Headline inflation at 3.4% remains well above the Fed's target, while energy prices are nearly 15% higher than a year ago, noted Daniela Hathorn, senior market analyst at Capital.com. That should keep inflation front and center after Fed Chair Kevin Warsh stressed the need to prevent elevated prices from damaging the economy.

Markets reacted by pricing a slightly lower probability of a September rate hike. According to CME FedWatch, traders assigned a 44% chance of a September hike, down from pre-report expectations. Hathorn said markets now price roughly 60% odds of no change in September versus 40% for a 25 basis-point hike. A month ago, market participants saw only a 30% chance of a pause versus 70% odds for hiking rates.

For crypto, the report takes an immediate inflation shock off the table without offering much fuel for a breakout. Ryan Lee, chief analyst at Bitget Research, said the print "neither forces a hawkish re-pricing nor delivers a clear dovish catalyst," leaving bitcoin traders to focus on ETF flows, liquidity and derivatives positioning while awaiting Jackson Hole and more inflation data. Iggy Ioppe, CIO at Theo, struck a similar note, arguing that keeping rates unchanged still amounts to effective easing given current inflation and labor-market conditions and should support risk assets over the medium term.

Both Lee and Ioppe pointed to Thursday's producer price index report as the next test for inflation.

Bitcoin Slides Below $64,000; Altcoins Mixed

Bitcoin gave up early-day gains during U.S. trading hours and fell toward the lower end of its tight range. At midday, it traded at $63,350, largely flat over the past 24 hours but down 1.6% from the session highs recorded before the CPI release. The cryptocurrency briefly held above $64,000 earlier in the day, but selling pressure emerged as the dollar firmed and equities pared some gains.

XRP was another focus, teetering on the brink of falling below the $1 level that has held since November 2024. Among larger cryptocurrencies, Hyperliquid's native token and Near Protocol's NEAR stood out with gains of more than 4%, while Uniswap's UNI fell 5%.

In traditional markets, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 pared early-session gains but were still 0.2% and 0.7% higher from Tuesday's close. Gold was holding above $4,400 an ounce, near its two-month highs.

Tokenization Stocks Gain Ahead of SEC Meeting

Stocks tied to the tokenization theme were among Wednesday's standouts. Figure Technology Solutions jumped nearly 9%, and Securitize gained 7.4% through the session ahead of quarterly results from both companies.

The moves also came ahead of a potentially important regulatory development. The SEC will hold an open meeting Friday as it prepares to propose its first formal rules for crypto businesses. Bloomberg reported Tuesday that the SEC may soon propose an "innovation exemption" for trading tokenized securities, putting companies including Figure and Securitize in focus heading into Friday.

Those rules could have direct implications for the tokenization business, which has grown rapidly as traditional financial firms experiment with putting assets like money-market funds and private credit on blockchain rails.

BitGo Posts Q2 Loss, CFO to Step Down

BitGo swung to a loss in the second quarter even as revenue and institutional client activity grew, while the crypto custodian announced that chief financial officer Ed Reginelli will leave his role during the coming quarter. Reginelli will stay on to help with the transition, the firm added.

Revenue rose 80% from a year ago to $4.3 billion, driven mainly by digital asset sales, while the company posted a $19 million net loss, compared with $38.3 million of net income a year earlier. Adjusted EBITDA swung to a $4.2 million loss from positive $3 million.

BitGo's client count grew 26% to 5,833, while normalized assets on the platform increased 31% to $65.2 billion. The company also authorized up to $50 million in share buybacks and said cost cuts should generate about $15 million in annualized cash savings. BitGo shares were 5% lower after the report.

Securitize Tokenized Assets Grow, Revenue Slips

Securitize, the tokenization firm best-known for issuing BlackRock's tokenized money market fund BUIDL, reported lower revenue and a wider loss for the second quarter even as activity across its platform picked up.

Average tokenized assets under management hit a record $4.3 billion, up 16% from a year ago, while transaction volume jumped 147% to $5.3 billion. Revenue slipped 5% to $14.4 million, while the company posted a $21.7 million net loss, or $2.37 per share. Adjusted EBITDA swung to a $5.5 million loss from positive adjusted EBITDA of $1.8 million a year earlier.

Securitize's fund-services business oversaw 663 active funds and $24.3 billion in assets under administration, with the latter down about 20%. Shares were 1.3% lower following the results, paring some of the gains earlier in the session.

Metals and Dollar at Key Levels

Precious metals climbed ahead of the CPI report. Gold traded at $4,420, up more than 1% over the past 24 hours and 7% this month. Silver rose above $66, gaining more than 2.5% over the past 24 hours and 12% this month. Bitcoin also climbed above $64,000 earlier in the session, up less than 1% over the past 24 hours.

The dollar index, which tracks the greenback's value against a basket of major currencies, traded right at the support of a bullish trendline that has guided its rise from the January low of 95.55. A bounce from this level would signal a continuation of the rally, while a decisive break below it would point to a potential reversal. Wednesday's CPI data was seen as the key catalyst for which scenario plays out.

Metaplanet Moves Bitcoin Internally

On the corporate bitcoin front, Metaplanet shifted 3,881 BTC, worth about $247 million, across several transactions over three hours on Wednesday, according to Arkham data. The move went from the company's cold wallets to new addresses it also controls, not to an exchange.

Transfers to fresh self-custody wallets do not add to tradable supply the way deposits to an exchange do, so on their own they aren't selling. Metaplanet has done this before. It moved nearly 5,000 BTC in March in the same pattern, test transactions followed by larger amounts into new wallets, and analysts then read it as internal custody reshuffling rather than distribution. Nothing in Wednesday's on-chain data points anywhere different.

Metaplanet bought its roughly 43,000 BTC at an average of about $96,000, so with bitcoin near $63,600 the company is sitting on an unrealized loss of about $1.4 billion, down 34%. Metaplanet has been one of the most aggressive corporate buyers since April, with a stated target of 210,000 BTC.

Source: Coindesk News