Tokens As The New Currency?

Stripe made the OpenRouter deal official at $7.5B. Unitree's Shanghai debut popped 460% past a $50B market cap, YouTube dangled millions to keep creators off Netflix, Slack launched Slack Code, and Binance turned AI agents loose on trading.

Links

• Stripe agrees to acquire NYC-based OpenRouter; a source says Stripe is paying $7.5B, with $1.5B going to the startup's founders and $6B to its investors (nytimes.com/2026/08/19/business/stripe-openrou…) (The New York Times)

• Collison frames tokens as the central currency for companies building with AI, capping two years of Stripe buying the plumbing under AI spending, from Metronome to Bridge (siliconangle.com/2026/08/19/stripe-buys-ai-mod…) (SiliconANGLE)

• Hangzhou-based humanoid robot maker Unitree's stock surges 460% in its Shanghai trading debut, giving it a $50B+ market cap, after it raised ~$904M in its IPO (bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-18/unitree…) (Bloomberg)

• Unitree says its new "Superman" humanoid can hit 12.66 meters per second, faster than Usain Bolt's top speed, and leap two meters, ahead of the World Humanoid Robot Games (futurism.com/robots-and-machines/unitrees-new-…) (Futurism)

• The 30-second video of Unitree's "Superman" robot jumping and sprinting down a track (x.com/UnitreeRobotics/status/2089240553682809175) (Unitree Robotics on X)

• Sources: YouTube is offering top creators millions to post videos exclusively on YouTube for a period and will penalize those that post to Netflix concurrently (bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-19/youtube…) (Bloomberg)

• Slack launches Slack Code, adding dedicated, project-specific channels that let teams collaborate with AI coding agents "like teammates" across all Slack plans (theverge.com/tech/982628/slack-code-vibe-codin…) (The Verge)

• Binance launches Agent OS, a platform that lets AI agents analyze markets and execute trades on users' behalf; users set limits on AI agents' access and trades (techcrunch.com/2026/08/20/binance-now-lets-ai-…) (TechCrunch)

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