Bitcoin miners that redirected their power infrastructure toward artificial intelligence and high-performance computing are winning higher valuations as the cryptocurrency bear market squeezes traditional operators. The shift draws on the same core assets: access to cheap electricity, large data centers and teams able to maintain specialized equipment.

The contrast is visible in the market. TerraWulf, IREN and Cipher Digital, early adopters of the AI strategy, have more than doubled over the past year, while MARA Holdings, which moved later, has fallen 40%. CoinShares data puts AI and HPC-focused miners at an average 12.3 times enterprise value, versus 5.9 times for pure-play Bitcoin miners. The sector had accumulated $70 billion in AI and HPC contracts by the end of the first quarter.

Bitcoin mining could regain momentum if prices recover. Hashprice, the daily revenue for a petahash per second of mining power, has dropped from $63 last July to about $31.80, while network hashrate declined roughly 21% to 900 exahashes per second. CoinShares estimates that a return to Bitcoin’s $126,000 record could lift hashprice to about $59, restoring the economics of mining.

https://www.coindesk.com/business/2026/08/18/bitcoin-miners-ai-pivot-pays-off-but-mining-could-revive-with-one-twist

OpenAI has launched ChatGPT for Teens, a version of its chatbot with age-appropriate protections, parental controls and learning tools. The release follows lawsuits and wider concerns about chatbots’ effects on young people’s mental health, as well as schools’ struggle with AI-assisted cheating. OpenAI says the teen experience will enable safety measures by default and draw on developmental science and expert guidance.

The product includes Study Mode, which uses guiding questions and step-by-step help to encourage students to work through problems rather than request instant answers. Homework reminders may appear when the system detects an apparent attempt to cheat, directing users toward Study Mode instead. OpenAI also plans quizzes and learning visualizations, while parents can manage settings, receive safety notifications and set Quiet Hours. The company has partnered with CodeAI to teach teens how artificial intelligence works and how to question and direct it. The effectiveness of the protections will depend partly on how difficult they are to bypass.

https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/18/openai-launches-a-safer-chatgpt-for-teens-years-after-teens-started-using-it/

SpaceX is preparing to launch the Starlink 17-50 mission Tuesday night from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. A Falcon 9 is scheduled to lift off at 8:45 p.m. PDT on a south-southwesterly trajectory, carrying 24 broadband satellites to low Earth orbit. The mission would expand the company’s large satellite network, which has about 11,000 spacecraft currently in orbit.

The launch is assigned to Falcon 9 booster B1097, making its 12th flight. Its previous missions included national-security and rideshare flights, as well as seven earlier Starlink deployments. Roughly eight minutes after liftoff, the booster is expected to attempt a landing on the Pacific drone ship Of Course I Still Love You. A successful recovery would mark the vessel’s 219th booster landing and SpaceX’s 651st Falcon booster landing overall.

https://spaceflightnow.com/2026/08/18/live-coverage-spacex-to-send-starlink-satellites-to-orbit-with-tuesday-night-launch-from-california/

Cybersecurity company Ontinue has documented TWINLOOT, a Python malware framework that uses Microsoft 365 services to hide command-and-control traffic and move through compromised networks. Found in July, the implant uses SharePoint Online and the Microsoft Graph API to receive commands and exfiltrate data. It also routes interactive access through Microsoft Teams TURN relays, while driving the victim’s Edge browser in headless mode so traffic resembles legitimate activity.

The campaign reportedly starts with a Teams social-engineering call in which an attacker posing as IT support persuades a target to run a PowerShell command. TWINLOOT can capture credentials with a fake lock screen, execute commands, take screenshots and create a reverse SOCKS5 tunnel for lateral movement over RDP and WinRM. Ontinue said it supports multiple persistence techniques and may share operational links with the STAC4749 cluster. The case shows how trusted infrastructure can evade monitoring.

https://thehackernews.com/2026/08/twinloot-abuses-sharepoint-and-teams-to.html

Eoptic, Inc. has been selected to supply DeepScan imaging payloads for strategic space missions, with multiple units scheduled for delivery in early 2027 and launch in the months that follow. The Rochester, New York-based company says the agreement expands its Space Systems Division and supports missions focused on space sensing, national security and space domain awareness.

DeepScan is a compact, modular family of multispectral and multimodal imaging payloads designed for spacecraft ranging from CubeSats to ESPA-class platforms. Configurations can support space domain awareness, high-resolution Earth observation, and missile tracking and warning. Eoptic says the systems are designed to meet the size, weight, power and cost demands of proliferated constellations, while shortening the path from mission need to orbit. Production is expected to ramp in 2028 as the company develops the payload line for current and future partners.

https://spacenews.com/eoptic-inc-selected-to-supply-deepscan-imaging-payloads-scheduled-for-launch-in-2027/

Une campagne de collecte de données vise depuis plus d’un an des portails clients Salesforce et ServiceNow dans plusieurs secteurs, selon une analyse de Reco. Les cibles comprennent des entreprises de télécommunications, des banques, des éditeurs de logiciels et des organismes publics. L’activité est reliée à un serveur privé virtuel hébergé en Allemagne, dont l’adresse IP est restée inchangée depuis mars 2025.

L’attaquant automatise ses requêtes avec un programme compilé en Go et exploite Aura et Lightning Web Runtime chez Salesforce, ainsi que l’API de recherche des Service Portals ServiceNow. Un client a enregistré plus de 560 000 événements provenant de cette adresse. Reco attribue le risque à des comptes invités trop permissifs : toute donnée lisible sans authentification peut être publique. L’entreprise recommande de réduire leurs droits, de revoir les règles de partage et de surveiller les journaux pour repérer l’adresse IP, l’agent Go et les pics de requêtes.

https://thehackernews.com/2026/08/one-attacker-has-scraped-both.html

Bitcoin was trading near $64,000 on Tuesday after retreating from Monday’s rally from $62,600 to $64,600. BTC was down 0.6% since midnight UTC, while Nasdaq 100 futures fell 1.1% as Treasury yields and oil prices rose, pressuring risk assets.

Brent crude returned to about $94 a barrel after a 60-day U.S.-Iran ceasefire expired without a deal, adding to inflation uncertainty. Traders await minutes from the Federal Reserve’s July 28–29 meeting on Wednesday, after two softer inflation readings. President Donald Trump is expected to meet crypto executives at the White House, keeping U.S. policy in focus.

Derivatives data points to selective bullish positioning: longs made up more than 51% of taker flow, annualized perpetual funding reached a 20-month high, and Bitcoin futures open interest remained near 750,000 BTC. Calls above spot dominated options activity, with the $70,000 September 25 call the most-traded Bitcoin option in the previous 24 hours.

https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/08/18/bitcoin-pauses-at-usd64-000-as-rising-yields-oil-drag-equities-lower

US cyber authorities have put a vulnerability in Ray, an open-source framework used to distribute AI workloads across CPU and GPU clusters, on the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalogue. CISA said on August 17 that CVE-2025-62593 is being exploited in real-world attacks and ordered federal agencies to patch by August 20 or stop using affected deployments.

The flaw permits unauthenticated remote code execution, allowing an attacker to make a vulnerable system run commands without logging in. Its browser accessibility can lower the barrier to attack, while exposed Ray clusters may hold proprietary models, training data and cloud credentials. Anyscale fixed the issue in Ray 2.52.0. Private operators face no federal deadline, but CISA's three-day window signals the urgency: identify exposed installations, restrict access and upgrade promptly.

https://thenextweb.com/news/cisa-kev-ray-ai-framework

Orbiting spacecraft turned the Aug. 12 total solar eclipse into a planetary-scale spectacle, recording the Moon's shadow as it swept across Earth. From space, the event appeared not only as a darkened region on the surface but as a moving mark that traced the geometry of the Moon, Earth and Sun in real time. The views offer a perspective unavailable to observers on the ground, where totality was visible only along a narrow path.

Space-based observations are especially valuable because they show the eclipse as a global event rather than a local change in the sky. By tracking the shadow from orbit, spacecraft can help illustrate how quickly it moves, how its shape changes over different landscapes and how sunlight is removed from Earth's surface. The Aug. 12 imagery adds a striking visual record to the scientific and cultural importance of total solar eclipses.

https://www.space.com/stargazing/solar-eclipses/see-gorgeous-views-of-the-aug-12-total-solar-eclipse-captured-from-space

Bitcoin rose 2.6% to above $64,000 on Monday, posting its strongest daily gain in more than a month and moving sharply against the broader U.S. stock market. The S&P 500 fell 0.52% that day, giving the largest cryptocurrency a rare one-session advantage over Wall Street’s benchmark.

The move contrasts with Bitcoin’s recent trading pattern. Glassnode said BTC outperformed the S&P 500 on only about one-third of trading days during the previous three months, meaning it lagged equities roughly two-thirds of the time. Analysts have linked that weakness to capital flowing toward the artificial-intelligence stock boom and to the bearish phase of Bitcoin’s recurring four-year market cycle. Bitcoin reached above $126,000 in October before entering that downturn, which is expected to bottom by October this year.

https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/08/18/bitcoin-scored-a-rare-win-over-s-and-p-500-on-monday

Detroit startup Grounded has raised $5 million in a seed round as it expands from electric van conversions into modular vehicle customization for commercial fleets. The round includes repeat backing from Also Capital and The 81 Collection, plus Animal Capital, the Michigan Outdoor Innovation Fund and several SpaceX alumni.

The company has opened a 50,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Detroit, with production starting this month and capacity expected to grow next year. Its vehicle-agnostic platform can outfit electric, hybrid or combustion-powered vans for uses including mobile healthcare, public safety, food service and command centers. Grounded says customers already include Colgate, Nokia and Wayne State University Medical. The shift follows the cancellation of GM's BrightDrop program and Ford's next-generation electric Transit plans, which made an all-EV strategy harder to sustain in the U.S. market.

https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/18/detroit-startup-grounded-raises-5m-to-customize-electric-and-gas-powered-vans/

ESA’s Hera asteroid mission has helped researchers build a new explanation for Deimos, Mars’s small outer moon. A study led by the University of Bern used high-resolution impact simulations and images captured during Hera’s March 2025 Mars flyby to recreate the moon’s broad southern depression and unusually smooth, dusty surface.

The best-fitting scenario involves a roughly 320-metre asteroid striking Deimos at a steep angle and high speed. The collision would have excavated the depression without destroying the 12-kilometre-wide moon, while ejecta later settled into a global regolith blanket more than 200 metres deep in places. Buried older craters suggest Deimos is porous and fractured, consistent with a rubble-pile interior. Future observations, including Japan’s MMX mission, could test the model.

https://www.esa.int/Space_Safety/Hera/Hera_s_Mars_flyby_guided_impact_study_of_Deimos_moon