SoftBank to Expand OpenAI Investment, Will AI Cryptos Respond?

TheNewsCryptoPublished on 2026-01-28Last updated on 2026-01-28

Abstract

SoftBank plans to expand its investment in OpenAI, potentially increasing the AI firm's valuation to around $830 billion. This move aims to strengthen SoftBank's position in the AI sector and support OpenAI amid rising competition. Following the news, some AI cryptocurrencies, like Bittensor (TAO) and Story (IP), saw slight gains, though others declined. The overall AI crypto market cap rose slightly to $18.09 billion. However, the market remains volatile due to factors like global trade uncertainty and gold's rally to record highs, which is attracting safe-haven investors. Official details of SoftBank's additional investment have not yet been publicly confirmed.

SoftBank will reportedly expand its investment in Sam Altman-led OpenAI to strengthen its position in the AI race. AI cryptocurrencies have, so far, responded positively to this development; however, there are multiple factors, like Gold prices, that could eventually cause a surge or decline in their values.

SoftBank and OpenAI

SoftBank earlier announced concluding investments worth $41 billion. That was in December 2025, and according to a report by Reuters, the Japanese conglomerate will expand its holdings in the AI firm with more investments. SoftBank’s stake, based on December’s investment, is at 11%.

The investment is estimated to take OpenAI’s valuation to approximately $830 billion. It could be a part of a funding round that could raise almost $100 billion.

This comes under the objective of SoftBank looking to strengthen its ranks in the AI segment. Another reason is the rising cost for OpenAI amid stiff competition against Alphabet’s Google.

Reaction of AI Cryptos

Several AI cryptos have noted a surge in their respective values. Bittensor (TAO) has jumped slightly by 0.05% in the last 24 hours to trade at $234.53. Story (IP) has soared by 2.80% during the same timeline and is now exchanging hands at $2.18.

The collective market cap of the AI crypto segment is $18.09 billion, up by 0.31% when the article is being drafted. The collective trading volume is also up by 4.61%. Notably, multiple top AI cryptos have also lost their values, like NEAR, ICP, and RENDER.

What’s Next for the AI Segment?

The information about SoftBank’s further investment in OpenAI is yet to be made public, according to the same report by Reuters. AI cryptos could continue to experience fluctuations, considering the global crypto market is volatile amid the rising international trade uncertainty and Gold’s rally.

For a quick reference, Gold has just set a new record high of $5,224.95 per ounce despite the dollar’s decline to a near 4-year low. US President Donald Trump, when asked about the USD’s plunge, said that the currency’s value was great.

Gold, seeing record-highs in recent days, is giving investors an opportunity to seek a safe haven in the precious metal. Trump was last seen threatening South Korea with additional tariffs and picking JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon for a lawsuit. These two scenarios, out of many more, are fueling uncertainty across the globe.

Highlighted Crypto News Today:

Orbs Enables Institutional-Grade Onchain Perpetual Futures on Sei via Gryps Integration

The Largest IPO in History Is Approaching, Surpassing SpaceX, 28 Years of AI Self-Iteration, Countdown to Intelligence Explosion

"Anthropic Nears Trillion-Dollar IPO, Fueled by Explosive Growth and 2028 'Intelligence Explosion' Warning Anthropic is considering a deal valuing the AI company near $1 trillion, potentially leading to one of the largest IPOs ever and surpassing SpaceX. Its revenue has skyrocketed, with Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) reaching $45 billion in May 2026—a 500% increase in just five months. This vertical growth curve is attributed to its key products, Claude Code and Cowork, dominating AI coding and enterprise collaboration. Beyond commercial success, co-founder Jack Clark issued a pivotal warning in an interview: there is a greater than 50% chance that by the end of 2028, AI systems will achieve recursive self-improvement—the ability to autonomously build a 'better version' of themselves, initiating an 'intelligence explosion.' This prophecy underpins the company's astronomical valuation, as the market prices in the potential for transformative and disruptive AI. Further signaling its ambition, Anthropic formed a $1.5 billion joint venture with Goldman Sachs and Blackstone, aiming to disrupt traditional consulting firms like McKinsey by deploying Claude AI for complex strategic work. This move tests AI's capacity to replace high-level cognitive labor, a precursor to its predicted autonomous evolution. The narrative presents a dual future: unprecedented economic opportunity alongside significant risks like economic restructuring and security threats. Anthropic's meteoric rise and Clark's 2028 prediction frame the coming years as a countdown to a potential technological singularity."

marsbit10m ago

The Largest IPO in History Is Approaching, Surpassing SpaceX, 28 Years of AI Self-Iteration, Countdown to Intelligence Explosion

marsbit10m ago

The Exquisite Self-Interest of Former OpenAI CTO Murati: Personally Handing Over the Knife and Then Being the First to Seek Reconciliation

Court documents from Elon Musk's lawsuit reveal OpenAI's former CTO, Mira Murati, played a central and seemingly self-interested role in Sam Altman's November 2023 ouster and reinstatement. As early as 2022, she complained to Altman about his shifting priorities and pressure to prioritize revenue. By 2023, she privately supplied co-founder Ilya Sutskever with extensive internal evidence against Altman, which became a key 52-page memo for the board. She was appointed interim CEO after Altman's firing and informed Microsoft. However, text messages show Murati simultaneously relayed the board's stance to Altman while secretly urging Microsoft's CEO to help reverse the decision. Once employee backlash mounted, she refused to publicly defend the board's move she helped engineer. She then became the first signatory on the employee petition demanding the board resign and reinstate Altman. A former board member testified Murati was "waiting to see which way the wind blew," not realizing "she herself was the wind." The evidence depicts her actions as consistently aligning with her own interests throughout the crisis.

marsbit16m ago

The Exquisite Self-Interest of Former OpenAI CTO Murati: Personally Handing Over the Knife and Then Being the First to Seek Reconciliation

marsbit16m ago

AI Inference Bills Soar, Shopify and Roblox Warn: Savings from Layoffs Not Enough to Cover Chip Costs

The 2026 Q1 earnings season reveals a paradox: while AI helps companies freeze hiring and boost productivity, the soaring costs of AI inference—token consumption and GPU depreciation—are eroding savings from workforce reductions. Shopify reported that AI now writes over 50% of its code, enabling significant output with stable headcount. However, LLM costs, driven by heavy usage of its AI assistant Sidekick, are pressuring its subscription毛利率. Similarly, Roblox attributed a quarter of its full-year利润率下调 to increased AI investment. The article highlights a broader industry imbalance: combined AI capital expenditure for Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and Google is projected to reach $725 billion in 2026, vastly outpacing potential savings from layoffs. For instance, Meta's planned裁员 would save about $2.4 billion annually, offsetting only ~12% of its incremental AI depreciation. While底层 model and chip suppliers like NVIDIA maintain high profitability, application-layer companies face a pricing squeeze. Their strategies now involve要么 tightly linking AI costs to user engagement (like Shopify) or introducing fees for advanced AI features (like Roblox), as covering AI bills with裁员 savings alone is financially unsustainable.

marsbit26m ago

AI Inference Bills Soar, Shopify and Roblox Warn: Savings from Layoffs Not Enough to Cover Chip Costs

marsbit26m ago

Has Hook Summer Really Arrived? sato, Lo0p, FLOOD Ignite the New Narrative of Uniswap v4

"Hook Summer" Arrives? Sato, Lo0p, FLOOD Ignite Uniswap v4 Narrative Amidst a slight market recovery, attention within the Ethereum ecosystem has shifted to Meme coins built on Uniswap v4's Hook protocol. Following ASTEROID, tokens like sato, sat1, Lo0p, and FLOOD have become market focal points, with market caps ranging from millions to tens of millions, bringing concentrated liquidity to a narrative-dry market. Uniswap v4 Hooks are "plugin smart contracts" that allow developers to inject custom logic at key points in a liquidity pool's lifecycle (initialization, adding/removing liquidity, swaps, etc.), making the AMM programmable. Recent representative projects include: * **sato**: Market cap peaked over $38M; uses a v4 curve mechanism for minting/burning, locking ETH as reserve. * **sat1**: Market cap briefly exceeded $10M, positioning as an "optimized sato," but later declined significantly. * **Lo0p**: Market cap neared $6.6M; a "lending AMM protocol" allowing users to borrow ETH against deposited LO0P tokens without immediate selling pressure. * **FLOOD**: Market cap approached $6M; channels trading reserves into Aave v3 to generate yield, which is retained in the pool. The emergence of these Hook-based tokens could drive long-term growth for the Uniswap ecosystem by attracting users and liquidity to v4 pools. Combined with Uniswap's activated fee switch (partially used to burn UNI), the long-term outlook for UNI appears positive. However, short-term UNI price appreciation is not directly guaranteed. Factors include the sustainability and lifecycle of these new tokens, their price volatility, overall market conditions, and regulatory pressures. Currently, Uniswap v4's TVL ($595M) lags behind v3 and v2, indicating Hook adoption still requires time to mature. In summary, the Hook ecosystem serves as "long-term nourishment" for UNI, but acts more as a "catalyst" than a direct "booster" in the short term. Note: These are early-stage experimental tokens and may carry unknown risks.

marsbit35m ago

Has Hook Summer Really Arrived? sato, Lo0p, FLOOD Ignite the New Narrative of Uniswap v4

marsbit35m ago

Has Hook Summer Truly Arrived? sato, Lo0p, FLOOD Ignite the New Uniswap v4 Narrative

With the broader market showing signs of recovery, a new wave of interest has emerged around Ethereum-based meme coins. Following ASTEROID, tokens like sato, sat1, Lo0p, and FLOOD, built upon the Uniswap v4 Hook protocol, are capturing market attention. Their market capitalizations range from millions to tens of millions of dollars, injecting much-needed focused liquidity into a market lacking narratives. This article explores whether this trend signifies an incoming "Hook Summer" and its potential impact on UNI's price. Hooks are essentially plug-in smart contracts for Uniswap v4 liquidity pools, allowing developers to inject custom logic at key points in a pool's lifecycle (like initialization, adding/removing liquidity, swaps). This transforms the AMM into programmable building blocks. Key highlighted projects include: * **sato**: Peaked over $38M market cap. It utilizes a v4 curve for minting/burning; buying locks ETH as reserve to mint new tokens, while selling redeems ETH from the reserve and burns tokens. * **sat1**: Market cap briefly exceeded $10M, promoted as an "optimized sato," but later declined significantly. * **Lo0p**: Reached nearly $6.6M. It's a lending AMM protocol where buying LO0P tokens locks them as collateral, allowing users to borrow ETH from the pool reserve at 40% LTV, aiming to improve capital efficiency for idle ETH in LPs. * **FLOOD**: Peaked near $6M. Its mechanism directs asset reserves from buys into Aave v3 to generate yield, with fees and interest retained in the pool to potentially influence the token's price long-term. In the long term, the development of the Hook ecosystem can attract users and liquidity to Uniswap v4, benefiting UNI's fundamentals—especially combined with the recent activation of the protocol fee switch, where a portion of fees is used to burn UNI. However, in the short term, these Hook-based tokens are unlikely to directly drive significant UNI price appreciation. Their impact is moderated by factors like token sustainability, price volatility, and broader market and regulatory conditions. Currently, Uniswap v4's TVL ($595M) still trails behind v2 and v3, indicating adoption and growth will take time. The article concludes that while the Hook ecosystem provides long-term "nourishment" for UNI, its short-term role is more of a "catalyst" than a "booster." Readers are cautioned that these are early-stage experimental tokens and may carry unknown risks.

Odaily星球日报48m ago

Has Hook Summer Truly Arrived? sato, Lo0p, FLOOD Ignite the New Uniswap v4 Narrative