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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. Most entrepreneurs are getting YouTube completely wrong. They’re copying entertainment creators, chasing viral moments and treating their channel like a content graveyard instead of the powerful authority-building platform it actually is. Here’s what they’re missing: YouTube now captures over 12% of total television viewing time, which is more than Netflix, Disney or any major network. When you upload a video, you’re not competing against other YouTubers. You’re competing against prime-time television. This changes everything about how you should approach the platform. Related: Turn YouTube Into a Business Growth Engine With These Easy Tactics Why traditional YouTube advice doesn’t work for entrepreneurs Most creators obsess over “beating the algorithm,” but here’s the truth: The algorithm isn’t your audience — it’s a mirror of your audience. YouTube’s AI simply predicts human behavior based on how real people interact with your content. When viewers click your videos, watch them completely and immediately watch another one, the algorithm notices. It’s pattern recognition, not magic. Stop trying to hack the system. Start understanding your audience so deeply that the algorithm has no choice but to promote your content. When growth stagnates, most entrepreneurs default to posting more frequently. This is backwards thinking. I’ve seen channels grow faster by reducing from daily uploads to once per week because they stopped treating YouTube like a hamster wheel and started treating it like a strategic media platform. The real issue isn’t posting frequency; it’s resource allocation. When you’re rushing to meet arbitrary deadlines, you can’t invest the time needed for strategic thinking and quality execution. How YouTube actually works in 2025 YouTube operates on a simple two-step psychology: someone sees your content, decides to click, then chooses whether to keep watching. But there’s now a third element to consider, where autoplay previews let viewers “sample” your content before committing to the full click. This mirrors how our brains make decisions. We constantly evaluate whether something is worth our attention, and YouTube has evolved to support this natural decision-making process. The platform also tracks “valued watch time,” not just how long someone watches, but how satisfied they felt with the experience. YouTube runs daily surveys asking millions of users whether videos were worth their time, and this data directly influences which content gets broader distribution. Related: Ready to Get Off the Social Media Hamster Wheel? Discover the Platform That Actually Boosts Your Discoverability The 3 strategies that actually build authority 1. Master the ideation process Most creators spend 90% of their time editing and 10% on ideas. Successful entrepreneurs flip this ratio entirely. The idea sets the bar for every video’s potential. Even a perfect execution of a weak concept will always underperform a strong idea with average execution. Use what I call the Creative Faucet Method: When you first turn on a faucet, dirty water comes out. But if you let it run, clear water eventually flows. Your brain works the same way. Set aside time each week to generate 30-50 raw video ideas using this breakdown: 40% market research (analyze what’s working in your space) 40% audience mining (scan comments and customer feedback for pain points) 20% innovation (experiment with unexpected angles) From those concepts, 3-5 genuinely compelling ideas will emerge. 2. Perfect your packaging Your title and thumbnail aren’t just about getting clicks; they’re your first credibility test. Every element should signal authority and expertise while creating enough curiosity to stop the scroll. Effective title frameworks for entrepreneurs: The Contradiction: “Why I Don’t Use Email Marketing (Despite $10M in Revenue)” The Insider Secret: “The Sales Tactic 99% of Entrepreneurs Get Wrong” The Time Constraint: “Building a $1M Business in 18 Months: What I Learned” Limit yourself to three elements maximum: your face showing confidence or expertise, clear text that reinforces the title and one visual element that represents the outcome or result. With autoplay previews now showing 1-2 seconds of your video without sound, your opening moments have become part of your packaging strategy. Start with movement, compelling facial expressions or visual elements that immediately validate why someone clicked. 3. Focus on metrics that predict success Ignore vanity metrics like subscriber count. Focus on three numbers that actually matter: First 24-hour click-through rate: This predicts long-term performance better than any other metric. YouTube gives new videos an algorithmic boost during their first day, primarily showing them to your core audience. Strong early performance signals broader distribution potential. Retention stability: Look for where your audience retention graph stabilizes after the initial drop-off. This shows you’re delivering on your promise and maintaining interest. Catalog performance: 40-60% of your views should come from videos older than six months. This indicates you’re creating evergreen content with lasting value, not just riding temporary trends. Your starting point Don’t try to implement everything at once. Pick one area and master it: Week 1-2: Fix your ideas. Spend one hour every Sunday generating video concepts. Use customer emails, competitor analysis, and industry forums to find recurring questions and pain points. Week 3-4: Improve your packaging. Apply the “mobile glance test.” Shrink your thumbnail to 150 pixels wide (roughly mobile size) and see if you can understand it in one second. If not, simplify it. Week 5-6: Track what matters. Check your first 24-hour click-through rate in YouTube Studio. Anything above 8% is strong; above 12% is exceptional. Use this data to understand what resonates with your audience. Related: How Brands and Individuals Can Leverage YouTube to Scale Their Business Platform algorithms change constantly, but human psychology remains stable. When you build your YouTube strategy around how people actually discover, evaluate and consume content, you’re designing for constants rather than variables. The entrepreneurs who build lasting authority on YouTube don’t chase viral moments; they create systematic value that compounds over time. They understand that every video is both a standalone piece of content and a building block in their larger authority platform. Master these fundamentals, and you’ll have a YouTube presence that grows your business

Lucy Guo, 30, saw her net worth reach $1.3 billion in April. But the entrepreneur, who is now the world’s youngest female billionaire, is committed to finding the best deals — even if she can afford to pay full price. Guo told CNBC on Wednesday that she remains “frugal,” admitting that she has done things like reserve flights at the airport and cancel them later so she could have a meal for free in the Amex lounge. She also rides UberX, the budget-friendly, low-cost version of Uber, and compares prices for food before buying something to eat. Her closet consists mainly of $10 pieces from stores like Shein. “I’m frugal at some things, and I spend more on other things,” Guo told CNBC. Lucy Guo. Photo by Gonzalo Marroquin/Getty Images for Passes Guo’s fortune was built via Scale AI, the AI data labeling startup she co-founded with Alexandr Wang in 2016. Meta made a $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI in June, acquiring 49% of the startup and allowing the company to achieve a $29 billion valuation. Related: These Are the AI Skills You Should Learn Right Now, According to the World’s Youngest Self-Made Billionaire Though Guo left Scale AI in 2018, she has held onto a nearly 5% stake in the company, which has grown to be worth $1.25 billion. Despite her billionaire status, Guo says that her life has remained the same. “My life pre-money and post-money, it hasn’t really changed that much,” Guo told CNBC Make It earlier this month. While Guo may be frugal when it comes to her closet, her food, and her rides to work, she still has the means to spend lavishly in key areas without thinking about the cost. For example, when it comes to homes, Guo bought a newly constructed mansion in L.A.’s Hollywood Hills for $29.5 million earlier this year. She got it at a discount: The 5-bedroom, 13,500-square-foot mansion was first listed for $43 million in January 2024. Related: Sam Altman’s Mansion Was Once the Most Expensive Home Listing in San Francisco. A New Lawsuit Says It’s a ‘Lemon.’ Guo is also the owner of a $6.7 million condo in Florida, which she purchased in 2021, as well as another L.A. home, which she bought for $4.2 million last year. Guo additionally owns a Ferrari in a vintage rose color, which she admits was a “splurge.” A Ferrari can cost upwards of $230,950. When it comes to transportation, she also sometimes flies via private jet to skip the lines at the airport. Guo is a college dropout who studied computer science and human-computer interactions for two years at Carnegie Mellon University, per her LinkedIn. She left to pursue a Thiel Fellowship, which rewards young entrepreneurs for following non-traditional paths and choosing to build a business over going to college. Thiel Fellows receive a $200,000 grant and access to a network of founders to grow their companies. Related: ‘We Don’t Believe in Work-Life Balance’: A Newly Acquired Startup Just Offered Its 200-Person Team a Choice — Work Weekends or Take a Buyout Guo still puts in long hours at her startup, the creator commerce and monetization platform Passes, which she founded in 2022. Passes has raised a total of $66 million across three funding rounds. She says that the normal working day for her stretches twelve hours, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. “9 a.m. to 9 p.m., to me, that’s still work-life balance,” Guo told CNBC. Read More

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. I’m not going to lie, the latest generation of AI, especially large language models and agentic AI, is nothing short of impressive. At Human Cloud, we used tools like Claude and Windsurf to accomplish in 5 minutes what had previously taken us 5 years. On the surface, it’s a story of overnight magic. But dig deeper and you’ll find that the real magic wasn’t the AI itself; it was the five years of groundwork that came before. We spent that time using spreadsheets, Canva graphics, CRM automations and hacky off-the-shelf tools to create the right sales and delivery motion, and validate our customers’ needs. Only then did the AI become a true accelerator, as we used Claude, Windsurf and AWS to create the Human Cloud Platform in less than 5 minutes. This brings up a crucial point. AI can easily be a distraction, prioritizing hype and buzz over real revenue and profitability. Why? Because the fundamental principle of business remains unchanged: every breakthrough starts with a deep understanding of what your customers need. Before you invest another dollar in AI, ask yourself one question: Is this technology making us closer to our customers, or pulling us further away? Here are five steps to ensure AI helps you get closer. 1. Manually implement before automating “Do things that don’t scale” is a famous startup moniker brought up by Paul Graham, co-founder of Y Combinator, in his essay in 2013. As a 4x founder myself, this ethos has always run true. In the case of AI, in every scenario, ask yourself if there is a manual alternative. If there is, try that first, then automate based on customer demand. Related: LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman: To Scale, Do Things That Don’t Scale 2: Capture enough manual feedback Step 1 is only half the story. The other half is ensuring you have enough of the right type of feedback to automate what really works. My strongest recommendation is to capture feedback that’s closest to customers actually paying, engaging and sharing. I learned this the hard way in a former startup. We spent 3 months listening and iterating on prototypes based on feedback. We were maniacal in the level of detail we captured, from the user experience to the design. Then we launched, and less than 5% of these users actually paid. Instead, we shouldn’t have listened to what they said, but instead prioritized what they did. If you want a book to help you capture the right type of feedback, check out The Mom Test. Related: How the ‘Mom Test’ Can Help You Cut Through B.S. and Find Important Answers 3: Make AI accessible for everyone, not just AI experts Rather than investing in an AI team or hiring AI experts, give everyone an opportunity to apply AI across their team and their work. Preston Mossman, Senior Director of AI Consulting for Galaxy Square, told me, “learning to use AI is a muscle you have to build. A lot of people self-select out because they can’t use AI today to help them, but the first step is to accelerate their comfort and understanding in a way that feels valuable to them.” When asking Preston about ways companies have helped their leaders get comfortable with it, he brought up investing in AI-related tools for interested individuals. In his words, “if your mechanic told you about a $50 wrench that could get your job done just as well for half the cost, you would buy it for them or find a new mechanic (with the $50 wrench).” Leaders not using AI in 5 years will be like leaders not using a computer today. Related: Why Your AI Strategy Will Fail Without the Right Talent in Place 4: Hire independent experts first Telling someone to use AI with no support is like telling someone to jump out of a plane without a parachute. Obviously, hiring AI experts as full-time employees would be expensive and out of reach for most of us. Likewise, AI trainings take time, might be expensive, and rarely has direct applicability from training to application. But a shortcut is hiring individuals who already use AI, as 65% of independent experts were already using AI as far back as 2024, and 95% of independent experts stated that AI makes them more competitive. This brings up step 4: to hire flexible talent first, with flexible talent defined as independent, freelance, and fractional experts. The data is clear that flexible talent upskills faster than full-time employees and is ahead of the curve in AI adoption and effectiveness. It’s not just AI, Deloitte research shows that the independent workforce upskills faster than their full-time peers. There are also four massive benefits of flexible talent compared to full-time. You can control cost. You have a quicker time to effectiveness. You learn by seeing their expertise. And the most important benefit is that this is the future workforce. To get started, look for a flexible talent platform that is specialized in your region, industry, and the application you need AI for. There are over 800 of these specialized solutions. Related: Solopreneurship and Freelancing Is Here to Stay — Are You Ready? 5: Scale like the cloud We take for granted how transformational cloud computing has been for us entrepreneurs. Without getting too geeky, what it really did was enable us to scale in line with customer demand rather than taking big bets because of large fixed costs. Apply this same mindset to AI. Do you think your AI idea is the next big breakthrough that will transform your company, your industry, and the world? That’s great. Now go through steps 1-4 before you bet the farm. Read More

The age of conspicuous consumption has given way to the age of conspicuous thrift. The brag isn’t what you bought, it’s what you didn’t pay. Shopping in 2025 is less about strutting out of a mall with the season’s latest must-have and more about holding up the receipt and pointing to the markdown.  The consumer who once flaunted a Gucci bag now flexes that they scored a Fendi baguette cheaper — and secondhand — on The RealReal. The shopper who once paid full freight at Abercrombie now brags about stacking promo codes or boasts about nabbing the same label half-off at Burlington. The splurge has morphed into a scavenger hunt, and retailers are being forced to adjust. This week’s earnings parade made the shift hard to ignore.  Abercrombie, Kohl’s, and Foot Locker reported on Wednesday; Best Buy, Burlington, Dollar General, Dick’s, and Gap followed on Thursday. Each told the same story in different accents. Off-price chains are thriving. Dollar stores are luring even six-figure households. Mid-tier stalwarts are surviving only by dangling coupons or carving out “affordable luxuries” in their aisles. And the supposed big-ticket splurges — electronics, sneakers, apparel — are moving, for the most part, when they’re wrapped in discounts. Consumers aren’t broke — they’re bargain-hunting. U.S. retail spending is still expanding; the National Retail Federation pegs 2025 growth at about 3%, nearly in line with pre-pandemic averages. Morgan Stanley expects consumer outlays to cool from almost 6% last year to closer to 4% this year, thanks to tariffs, debt loads, and a softer labor market. Translation: People are still shopping, but they’re shopping defensively. And defense looks a lot like offense for discounters. McKinsey finds that nearly half of U.S. consumers now wait for sales before buying clothes or shoes, and nearly two-thirds say tariff uncertainty has already changed how they shop. What once looked like penny-pinching has turned into the new consumer sport: the promo-code Olympics. The receipts back it up. Burlington’s revenue rose 10% and adjusted EPS jumped 42%, giving management the confidence to raise guidance for the second quarter in a row. Dollar General’s net sales rose more than 5%, EPS climbed 8%, and executives bumped their full-year outlook higher, noting that more affluent shoppers are now showing up for cheaper detergent and pantry staples. According to Placer.ai, Gap’s Old Navy quietly grew traffic about 5% on the back of jeans and basics pitched as affordable essentials. The punchline is that those beats weren’t about carefree splurging; they were engineered with value — sharper mixes, private label, and promo timing that made shoppers feel like they’d won the price war. Earnings strength is coming from companies that are making the deal the draw. When retailers can show exactly how they’ll package value — and protect margins while they do it — investors listen. Together, the numbers and the playbooks paint a consumer portrait that’s less about retreat than recalibration. Spending is steady, but shoppers want to feel clever about it. They’re not cutting back; they’re cutting deals. The rise of bargain culture The surge in off-price traffic isn’t an accident; it’s a macro barometer. Data from Placer.ai said that Burlington visits were up 8%, Five Below up 18%, and Ollie’s up 14% in the second quarter. Same-store visits — a cleaner measure that strips out store openings — rose almost 10% for some chains. In parking lots, that means cars spilling out of discount centers while department-store asphalt sits half empty.  That foot traffic translated into earnings beats. Burlington raised its guidance after reporting double-digit revenue growth and a 42% profit spike. Dollar General told investors that not only are core households shopping more, but higher-income families are migrating down market — a trade-down that no longer carries stigma. Old Navy quietly notched positive traffic and sales as its racks of jeans and T-shirts offered value at a time when consumers are scrutinizing every dollar. The flip side is equally sharp. Kohl’s sales fell 5% in the quarter, its comps slipped 4.2%, and Placer.ai data confirmed that store visits were down nearly as much. Executives lifted EPS guidance anyway — from as low as 10 cents per share to as high as 80 cents — after convincing Wall Street they could lean on two crutches: beauty and bargains. Sephora shop-ins brought traffic through the doors, while coupons at the register and impulse aisles at checkout kept carts from looking empty. It’s less a turnaround plan than a tacit admission that full-price apparel is becoming more of a dead weight. The stock surged nearly 20% midweek, a sign that investors are willing to reward tactical execution even in a softening middle market. Best Buy offered another variation on the deal-as-door-opener theme. For the first time in three years, comps inched positive, helped by demand for AI-ready laptops and smartphones. But traffic was still down 1%, and the company warned that tariffs could offset any momentum. Consumers still want the gadget, but mostly if it’s on sale. Foot Locker, meanwhile, remains in a funk. Global revenue declined 2.4%, and the company booked a net loss. Even in North America, where comps eked out a gain, the broader message was that sneakers are no longer bulletproof. Dick’s Sporting Goods was supposed to be a bright spot, posting 5% comp growth and raising guidance. But the detail that traffic was down more than 5% cut through the cheer, and the muted stock reaction underscored investor caution. The retailer made more money, but it did so by squeezing more from fewer shoppers — bigger baskets, pricier gear. Several analysts framed the caution around sustainability — strong tickets won’t outrun soft trips — and around execution risk more broadly. Even good prints are getting graded on the “How durable is your value story?” curve.  Taken together, the week’s results show how bargain culture is reshaping behavior across income brackets. Consumers aren’t absent; they’re disciplined. They’ll fill carts at Burlington or Ollie’s and they’ll still buy the laptop or the

It didn’t take long for President Donald Trump to make fresh demands of the European Union and imperil a nascent trade agreement. Suggested Reading On Tuesday, the president cast the trade agreement with the European Union as a “done deal” during a three-hour long Cabinet meeting open to reporters. Within the same day, however, he lambasted foreign governments that levy digital service taxes or otherwise regulate U.S. tech companies. He threatened to enact “substantial additional tariffs” in response, coupled with export restrictions. Related Content Trump didn’t single out the 27-member bloc for punishment in the social media post. But it serves as a fresh reminder the EU’s agreement with the U.S. isn’t fully baked yet, and Trump is willing to gamble his trade agreement on their regulation of U.S. tech companies. “Trump clearly appreciates the support he got as re-election from the U.S. tech sector,” Peter Harrell, an ex-White House aide for international economics during the Biden administration, told Quartz. Tech industry executives poured at least $273 million into Trump’s campaign, The Guardian reported. Harrell described the choices facing foreign governments as “strike a deal and hope it sticks. Or don’t strike a deal and it turns into a big, great fight. But we might as well at least try.” Over the past month, progress on the U.S and EU trade deal crept along from a handshake to a formal outline. “The United States and the European Union commit to address unjustified digital trade barriers,” the formal fact sheet said, ensuring it remains an open point of discussion between Washington and Brussels. Scores of countries, including many in Europe, have adopted or are pursuing new rules to regulate tech giants like Meta, Google, and Amazon. Digital taxes in particular were a source of friction in the first Trump administration. These are taxes on certain revenue streams from U.S. tech companies operating abroad. In 2019, Trump threatened to impose tariffs on France for imposing a 3% digital tax, provoking a standoff that ended with no change from Paris. More recently, Canada yanked a similar proposed digital tax in June after Trump warned of ratcheting up existing tariffs. Eleven countries in the European Union have adopted up to a 3% digital tax, including Italy and Spain, per VATCalc, an organization tracking global digital taxes. The United Kingdom also has a 2% digital tax in place. The German government is weighing a 10% digital tax, which would be among the steepest ones globally. Digital service taxes aren’t the only area of contention. In addition, the EU’s Digital Services Act has attracted scrutiny from the Trump administration. Vice President J.D. Vance has criticized the DSA over social media, arguing the measure saddles U.S. tech companies with burdensome rules that stifle free speech on their platforms. The EU has held firm on the full suite of digital rules up to now. Member countries are wary of the U.S. encroaching on EU decision-making but are also leaving the door open to iron out their differences with the U.S. “It is the sovereign rights of the EU and its member states to regulate economic activities on our territory, which are consistent with our democratic values,” said EU Commission spokesperson Paulo Pinho at a recent news briefing. 📬 Sign up for the Daily Brief Read More

Intel is now a partially state-owned company.  Suggested Reading The technology company which designs and manufactures computer chips, among other components, has received $5.7 billion in cash as part of its investment deal with U.S. President Donald Trump, Reuters reported.  Related Content Last week, Intel announced an agreement with the U.S. government that allows Washington to take a 10% stake in the ailing company’s once-formidable business. The $8.9 billion sum from the Trump administration renders the U.S. the largest stakeholder in Intel. However, the federal government is a passive stakeholder, meaning it has no governance rights, such as a seat on the company’s board of directors.  The Trump administration negotiated an additional 5% warrant, should Intel cease to own more than 51% of its contract manufacturing business, according to Reuters.  The government’s investment in Intel comes at a time when the former tech giant is falling behind rivals like Nvidia in the global AI chipmaking race. In June, Intel announced layoffs as part of a cost cutting drive.  The deal converts some or all of the grants allocated to the company under the U.S. bipartisan Chips and Science Act into equity, Bloomberg reported. Intel was granted a combined $10.9 billion in grants under the act for commercial and military manufacturing, which former President Joe Biden signed into law in 2022. The funding under the CHIPS Act was meant to be dispersed over time and directed to fortify Intel’s domestic computer chip manufacturing with new projects including a new Ohio plant. The new agreement is unusual given the U.S.’s traditional emphasis on free market capitalism. Washington has mostly avoided taking direct stakes in privately-run companies, but Trump has been at ease widening government authority into the private sector throughout his second term. He had initially demanded that Intel fire its CEO, Lip Bu-Tan, over his past ties to the Chinese military. Historically, the U.S. government eschewed outright intervention in the economy, except in special cases of enormous peril — such as when it took temporary stakes in automakers and large banks during the 2008 financial crisis.  Now, the U.S., under President Donald Trump, joins China in its promotion of “national champions,” multinational companies in strategic sectors that advance their government’s national interests. The Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) is viewed as China’s advanced chip-making champion.  The government’s stake in Intel is President Donald Trump’s latest attempt to intervene in the chipmaking industry. Earlier in August, the U.S. government announced a deal that would have two of Intel’s rivals, Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices, pay 15% of their revenues from sales in China.  — Joseph Zeballos-Roig and Alex Daniel contributed to this article. 📬 Sign up for the Daily Brief Read More

New sales data from the European Union paint a grim picture of Tesla in further decline as its biggest competitor, Chinese electric vehicle company BYD, continues to capture market gains.  Suggested Reading Tesla’s sales have dipped 42.4% compared to July 2024, while BYD’s have skyrocketed 206.4%, according to new sales data from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association published Thursday.  Related Content Tesla made up just 0.7% of new registration market share in the European Union in July. BYD, on the other hand, captured 1.1% of the market, the report found.  More specifically, Tesla sold 6,600 vehicles compared to BYD’s 9,698. In both the U.K. and Germany, Tesla sales dropped in July while BYD’s surged.  A closer look at E.U. car sales from both electric vehicle companies from January to July show BYD’s rising success and Tesla’s obvious decline. During this time frame, Tesla sold 77,446 cars and BYD sold 58,434. Although year-to-date Tesla has sold more vehicles than its competitor, BYD’s sales have increased 251.3% compared to the same time period last year, while Tesla’s sales have dropped 43.5%.  Battery-electric cars made up 15.6% of the E.U. market share for July year-to-date. The association said this is “still far from where it needs to be at this point in the transition,” although it’s up from 12.5% in July 2024. Sales of these vehicles climbed about 39% year-over-year in July.  “Hybrid-electric models continue to grow, retaining their place as the most popular power type amongst buyers,” the ACEA said.  Hybrid-electric cars made up 34.7% of the market year-to-date through July.   📬 Sign up for the Daily Brief Read More

Every frenzy has its moment — a point where record-breaking stops feeling record-breaking and jaw-dropping starts to sound like last quarter’s news. On Wednesday, the AI frenzy had one of those moments.  Nvidia posted a huge quarter — $46.7 billion in revenue, $26.4 billion in profit, gross margins back above 72%, and guidance for an even fatter $54 billion in the current quarter — and Wall Street basically said: OK, and? Shares slipped about 1.5% through Thursday morning, as if the market had already grown a little bit bored with history. The dissonance says everything. The AI economy is still expanding at a breakneck pace, but it’s colliding with the law of diminishing returns: Each additional dollar of capex buys growth but less thrill and wonder. The spectacle is giving way to the grind — a phase where power grids, licensing regimes, and productivity metrics matter as much as GPUs. Nvidia’s print wasn’t just a corporate milestone. It was a mirror for an industry learning that revolutions can also plateau. Nvidia’s earnings report is just about the cleanest mirror you could hold up to the industry right now. It shows breathtaking demand, yes, and it also shows that speed limits are creeping in. Data-center revenue — the heart of the company’s AI story — hit $41.1 billion, up 56% from a year ago, massive by any measure, yet was treated like routine. The company lifted its outlook to $54 billion and pointedly left China out. The market’s response wasn’t disappointment in the business; it was fatigue with the physics, the politics, and the tab. Morgan Stanley analyst Joe Moore called the quarter “a clean beat and raise” in a Thursday note, noting that guidance of $54 billion excluding China topped his $52.5 billion estimate. But his conclusion cut to the bone: “Sentiment has largely caught up to the growth potential.” Nvidia cleared the bar, but the bar is now moving faster than the numbers. And at its altitude — trading at roughly high-20s to high-30s times forward earnings, depending on the estimate — even record-shattering results can look more like table stakes than a windfall. The law of less and more (and Moore) Chief financial officer Colette Kress framed the company’s scale in industrial terms: Production is now running at about 1,000 Blackwell racks a week, or nearly 864,000 GPUs a quarter once they’re fully flowing. She dubbed them “AI factories,” each designed to crank out tokens per watt the way a steel mill cranks out tons per hour. The efficiency pitch is seductive. Kress told investors that a $3 million outlay on Nvidia hardware can yield $30 million in token revenue — a 10x return. The ROI optics are dazzling. But at scale, those same economics look like a treadmill — falling inference prices invite more usage, which drives more spend, which lowers costs again. “A steady diet of beat and raise quarters should be enough for the stock to work at ~27x EPS,” Morgan Stanley’s Moore said. But he also admitted investors “don’t have a wall of worry to climb” anymore. In other words, the marginal thrill is harder to deliver, and the economics are looping in on themselves. Inference costs are collapsing, prompting more usage, which drives more spend, which lowers costs again. It’s Jevons paradox in silicon: Every gain in efficiency drives more demand, which drives more spending. Add the slowdown of Moore’s Law — chips no longer double their performance on schedule — and the treadmill comes into focus. Customers are sprinting harder just to stay in place. CEO Jensen Huang, when asked about Nvidia’s product cadence, said the company is on an annual product cycle to speed cost and performance gains so customers can better absorb soaring infrastructure and power costs. Each cycle delivers more compute but not necessarily more returns per dollar. And diminishing returns creep in even amid industrial scale. Hyperscalers are throwing money at GPUs like never before. Microsoft is preparing to spend nearly $30 billion this quarter on data-center capex, Alphabet lifted its 2025 budget to $85 billion, Meta nudged its plan to as much as $72 billion. That ballooning spend is both Nvidia’s lifeblood and its risk factor. The company’s growth is chained directly to hyperscalers’ willingness to keep writing massive checks even as investors grow impatient for a payoff. For even if there’s investor fatigue, Nvidia isn’t slowing. The company has turned scale into strategy, matching ballooning hyperscaler budgets with the only supply chain that can keep up. That kind of dominance doesn’t vanish in a quarter. “We’re in every cloud for a good reason,” Huang told analysts on the earnings call. “You’ve heard me say before that in a lot of ways, the more you buy, the more you grow. And because our performance per dollar is so incredible, you also have extremely great margins. So the growth opportunity with Nvidia’s architecture and the gross margins opportunity with Nvidia’s architecture is absolutely the best. And so there are a lot of reasons why Nvidia has been chosen by every cloud and every startup and every computer company.” The great wall of restrictions For all of Nvidia’s triumph, the most glaring hole in its print was China. The company recorded zero H20 chip sales to Chinese customers in the second quarter. Kress acknowledged China’s share of data-center revenue had shrunk to “low single digits.” Guidance for the third quarter excludes China entirely. U.S. officials, meanwhile, have, according to Kress, “expressed an expectation that the [government] will receive 15% of the revenue generated from licensed H20 sales,” but that hasn’t been “codified” in regulation. Huang told investors he’s “working with the administration” to secure licenses, but analysts are treating China as a ghost market or a phantom limb. Morgan Stanley calls it “impossible to forecast.” Jefferies pegs the upside at $2–5 billion in a single quarter if approvals come through. Wedbush went further, telling clients that a reopened China could propel Nvidia to a $5 trillion market cap

Bitcoin Remains Under Pressure as Gold Quietly Targets New Record High Gold climbed nearly another 1% on Thursday to just below $3,500 per ounce. Updated Aug 28, 2025, 8:27 p.m. Published Aug 28, 2025, 8:26 p.m. An attempted rally in crypto earlier on Thursday was met by steady selling throughout the U.S. afternoon hours. After rising above $113,000 level at one point, bitcoin BTC$111,196.10 retreated to $111,800 late in the session, down about 0.7% over the past 24 hours. The selling in ether (ETH) and XRP XRP$2.9162 was a bit more sizable, with those tokens lower by 2.1% and 1.4%, respectively. Outperforming among the majors was Solana’s SOL (SOL), which rose 3.1% over the past day. Quietly on the rise even as bitcoin struggled mightily over the past two weeks is gold. The yellow metal was higher by another 0.8% on Thursday to $3,477 per ounce. For the month of August, gold’s outperformance is even more stark — a rise of nearly 4% as bitcoin slid 5.2%. At $3,477, gold now sits only a few dollars below its record high of $3,534 hit earlier this month on fears (now allayed) that Swiss gold bars would fall under punitive White House tariffs against Switzerland. For whatever reason, the macro developments — lower interest rates and weaker U.S. dollar — giving a boost to gold over the past weeks are failing to ignite a bid for digital gold, aka bitcoin. On tap for September appears to be the resumption of Federal Reserve rate cuts and one or possibly two new (likely dovish) Fed members appointed by President Trump. The year’s final four months could get interesting. Stephen Alpher Stephen is CoinDesk’s managing editor for Markets. He previously served as managing editor at Seeking Alpha. A native of suburban Washington, D.C., Stephen went to the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, majoring in finance. He holds BTC above CoinDesk’s disclosure threshold of $1,000. X icon More For You Bitcoin Headed to $190K on Institutional Wave, Research Firm Says Tiger’s model pegs a “base price” of $135,000, then layers on multipliers for fundamentals (+3.5%) and macro conditions (+35%) to reach the $190,000 forecast. What to know: Tiger Research predicts bitcoin could reach $190,000 by Q3, driven by global liquidity, ETF demand, and new 401(k) access. The report highlights a potential $90 billion demand from 401(k) allocations and significant institutional accumulation. Despite bullish forecasts, on-chain indicators suggest caution, with metrics showing a market that is active but not overheated. Read full story Read More

Polkadot’s DOT Returns to $3.90 Support After Earlier Gain Support has formed in the $3.90-$3.91 zone, with resistance at $4.02. Aug 28, 2025, 7:49 p.m. Polkadot’s DOT earlier Thurwday rose more than 2%, with institutional volume patterns suggesting professional participation, according to CoinDesk Research’s technical analysis model. The model showed the digital asset demonstrating textbook institutional accumulation behavior, initially testing support at $3.81 before executing a measured advance to $4.02 accompanied by substantial volume of 4.6 million units. Trading volumes exceeding 320,000 units during the initial decline phase indicate institutional repositioning rather than retail panic, with subsequent buying interest establishing clear support levels around $3.90-$3.91, according to the model. The move higher in Polkadot reversed though, with the price slipping back to that $3.90 support. On the news front, the Republic of Paraguay has committed $6 million to a Polkadot-based tokenization initiative, according to a post on X , a landmark government endorsement of blockchain technology for sovereign infrastructure development. Technical Analysis: DOT established a trading range of $0.21 representing 5.2% volatility between $3.81 floor and $4.02 ceiling during 24-hour session Professional support formation confirmed at $3.90-$3.91 levels with institutional buying interest Resistance threshold identified at $4.02 with volume-driven price discovery mechanisms Institutional volume patterns exceeding 320,000 units indicate sophisticated market participation Recovery trajectory from $3.81 to $4.02 supported by 4.6 million trading units demonstrating market depth Consolidation range between $3.91-$3.95 suggests institutional accumulation during market weakness . Disclaimer: Parts of this article were generated with the assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk’s full AI Policy. CD Analytics CoinDesk Analytics is CoinDesk’s AI-powered tool that, with the help of human reporters, generates market data analysis, price movement reports, and financial content focused on cryptocurrency and blockchain markets. All content produced by CoinDesk Analytics is undergoes human editing by CoinDesk’s editorial team before publication. The tool synthesizes market data and information from CoinDesk Data and other sources to create timely market reports, with all external sources clearly attributed within each article. CoinDesk Analytics operates under CoinDesk’s AI content guidelines, which prioritize accuracy, transparency, and editorial oversight. Learn more about CoinDesk’s approach to AI-generated content in our AI policy. Will Canny Will Canny is an experienced market reporter with a demonstrated history of working in the financial services industry. He’s now covering the crypto beat as a finance reporter at CoinDesk. He owns more than $1,000 of SOL. X icon More For You Bitcoin Headed to $190K on Institutional Wave, Research Firm Says Tiger’s model pegs a “base price” of $135,000, then layers on multipliers for fundamentals (+3.5%) and macro conditions (+35%) to reach the $190,000 forecast. What to know: Tiger Research predicts bitcoin could reach $190,000 by Q3, driven by global liquidity, ETF demand, and new 401(k) access. The report highlights a potential $90 billion demand from 401(k) allocations and significant institutional accumulation. Despite bullish forecasts, on-chain indicators suggest caution, with metrics showing a market that is active but not overheated. Read full story Read More