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Global adoption of cryptocurrency has taken off in the last year, up 881%, with Vietnam, India and Pakistan firmly in the lead, according to new data from Chainalysis.

It is the second year the blockchain data firm has released its Global Crypto Adoption Index, which ranks 154 countries according to metrics such as peer-to-peer exchange trading volume, rather than gross transaction volume, which typically favors developed nations with high levels of professional and institutional crypto buy-in.

Chainalysis said the purpose of the index is to capture crypto adoption by “ordinary people” and to “focus on use cases related to transactions and individual saving, rather than trading and speculation.” The metrics are weighted to incorporate the wealth of the average person and the value of money generally within particular countries.

Most of the top 20 countries are emerging economies, including Togo, Colombia and Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, the United States slipped from sixth to eighth place, and China, which cracked down on crypto this spring, dropped from fourth to 13th.

Chainalysis ascribes the rising adoption levels in emerging markets to a few key factors.

For one, countries such as Kenya, Nigeria, Vietnam and Venezuela have huge transaction volumes on peer-to-peer, or P2P, platforms when adjusted for purchasing power parity per capita and the internet-using population.

Chainalysis reports that many residents use P2P cryptocurrency exchanges as their primary on-ramp into cryptocurrency, often because they don’t have access to centralized exchanges.

The report also says many residents of these countries turn to cryptocurrency to preserve their savings in the face of currency devaluation, as well as to send and receive remittances and carry out business transactions.

Matt Ahlborg, a peer-to-peer data analyst, told CNBC that Vietnam is one of the top markets for Bitrefill, a company that helps customers live on cryptocurrency by buying gift cards using bitcoin.

“Vietnam stood out to me because it dominated the index,” said Chainalysis’ director of research, Kim Grauer, who compiled the report.

“We heard from experts that people in Vietnam have a history of gambling, and the young, tech-savvy people don’t have much to do with their funds in terms of investing in a traditional ETF, both of which drive crypto adoption,” Grauer said.

Nigeria is a different story, Grauer said. “It has a huge commercial market for crypto. More and more commerce is done on the rails of cryptocurrency, including international trade with counter parties in China.”

These top-ranking nations have another thing in common, according to Boaz Sobrado, a London-based fintech data analyst. “Many have capital controls or a strong emigrant and immigrant population,” he said.

Take Afghanistan, a country currently in turmoil due to the Taliban’s recent overthrow of the government.

“Afghanistan on top makes sense from a capital controls point of view, given it’s hard to move money in and out,” Sobrado said.

The correction for purchasing power parity and gross domestic product may also have boosted its placement, given that Afghanistan is one of the world’s poorest countries.

Analysts note that measuring cryptocurrency adoption at the grassroots level isn’t easy.

“The methodology has a huge blindspot,” Sobrado said. “Unlike many other countries, sanctioned nations don’t have good and clear data on P2P markets.”

Because of that, he said, he believes sanctioned nations such as Cuba will be underestimated, simply because it is harder to track those transactions.

Ahlborg said there is no perfect way to measure per capita global crypto adoption but that this index is “one of the best we have.”

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Google’s $85 billion capital spend spurred by cloud, AI demand

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Google's  billion capital spend spurred by cloud, AI demand

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet Inc., during Stanford’s 2024 Business, Government, and Society forum in Stanford, California, April 3, 2024.

Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

Google is going to spend $10 billion more this year than it previously expected due to the growing demand for cloud services, which has created a backlog, executives said Wednesday.

As part of its second quarter earnings, the company increased its forecast for capital expenditures in 2025 to $85 billion due to “strong and growing demand for our Cloud products and services” as it continues to expand infrastructure to power more AI services that use its cloud technology. That’s up from the $75 billion projection that Google provided in February, which was already above the $58.84 billion that Wall Street expected at the time.

The increased forecast comes as demand for cloud services surges across the tech industry as AI services increase in popularity. As a result, companies are doubling down on infrastructure to keep pace with demand and are planning multi‑year buildouts of data centers.

In its second quarter earnings, Google reported that cloud revenues increased by 32% to $13.6 billion in the period. The demand is so high for Google’s cloud services that it now amounts to a $106 billion backlog, Alphabet finance chief Anat Ashkenazi said during the company’s post-earnings conference call.

“It’s a tight supply environment,” she said.

The vast majority of Alphabet’s capital spend was invested in technical infrastructure during the second quarter, with approximately two-thirds of investments going to servers and one-third in data center and networking equipment, Ashkenazi said.

She added that the updated outlook reflects additional investment in servers, the timing of delivery of servers and “an acceleration in the pace of data center construction, primarily to meet Cloud customer demand.”

Ashkenazi said that despite the company’s “improved” pace of getting servers up and running, investors should expect further increase in capital spend in 2026 “due to the demand as well as growth opportunities across the company.” She didn’t specify what those opportunities are but said the company will provide more details on a future earnings call.

“We’re increasing capacity with every quarter that goes by,” Ashkenazi said. 

Due to the increased spend, Google will have to record more expenses over time, which will make profits look smaller, she said.

“Obviously, we’re working hard to bring more capacity online,” Ashkenazi said.

WATCH: Alphabet shares Q2 shares sink despite revenue and earnings beat

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Nvidia supplier SK Hynix second-quarter profit and revenue hit record highs, topping estimates

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Nvidia supplier SK Hynix second-quarter profit and revenue hit record highs, topping estimates

The SK Hynix Inc. logo is displayed on a glass door at the company’s office in Seoul, South Korea, on Monday, Jan. 27, 2014. SK Hynix aims to select a U.S. site for its advanced chip packaging plant and break ground there around the first quarter of next year.

SeongJoon Cho | Bloomberg | Getty Images

South Korea’s SK Hynix on Thursday posted record operating profit and revenue in the second quarter on sustained demand for its high bandwidth memory technology used in generative AI chipsets. 

Here are SK Hynix’s second-quarter results compared with LSEG SmartEstimates, which are weighted toward forecasts from analysts who are more consistently accurate: 

  • Revenue: 22.23 trillion won ($16.17 billion) vs. 20.56 trillion won
  • Operating profit: 9.21 trillion won vs. 9 trillion won

Revenue rose about 35% in the June quarter compared with the same period a year earlier, while operating profit rose nearly 69%, year on year.

On a quarter-on-quarter basis, revenue rose 26%, while operating profit jumped 24%.

The company said in a statement that it enjoyed strong demand and favorable pricing conditions in the first half of the year. SK Hynix added that there was a low likelihood of sharp demand corrections for the rest of 2025, due to stable customer inventory levels and expected demand from new product launches.

SK Hynix is a leading supplier of dynamic random access memory — a type of semiconductor memory commonly found in PCs, workstations and servers that is used to store data and program code.

Much of the company’s recent success can be credited to its business in high bandwidth memory, or HBM — a type of DRAM used in artificial intelligence servers. 

SK Hynix has established itself as the global leader in HBM, supplying clients such as U.S. AI darling Nvidia. In the first quarter, this had seen the company overtake rival Samsung Electronics in the global DRAM market for the first time, according to Counterpoint Research.

A report from Counterpoint Research earlier this month estimated that SK Hynix had tied Samsung’s combined DRAM and NAND revenues in the second quarter, with both vying for the top position in the global memory market. NAND is a type of flash memory that is commonly used in storage devices. 

Samsung and US.-based memory maker Micron Technology are both seeking to catch up to SK Hynix in the HBM space. However, analysts expect SK Hynix’s dominance to persist in the short-term.

“As of now, I believe SK Hynix still holds its leadership in the HBM race … despite Samsung’s and Micron’s catch‑up efforts,” said Ray Wang, research director of semiconductors, supply chain and emerging technology at The Futurum Group. 

“I expect this edge to persist through the rest of 2025 and extend into 2026,” he added.

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IBM shares drop despite earnings beat

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IBM shares drop despite earnings beat

IBM CEO Arvind Krishna appears at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 16, 2024.

Stefan Wermuth | Bloomberg | Getty Images

IBM shares fell as much as 5% in extended trading on Wednesday after the tech conglomerate issued second-quarter results that topped Wall Street projections.

Here’s how the company did in comparison with LSEG consensus:

  • Earnings per share: $2.80 adjusted vs. $2.64 expected
  • Revenue: $16.98 billion vs. $16.59 billion

IBM’s revenue increased nearly 8% year over year in the quarter, according to a statement. Growth in the first quarter was below 1%. Net income, which includes costs related to acquisitions, rose to $2.19 billion, or $2.31 per share, from $1.83 billion, or $1.96 per share, a year ago.

Software revenue climbed about 10% to $7.39 billion, exceeding the $7.43 billion consensus among analysts surveyed by StreetAccount. Hybrid cloud revenue, including Red Hat, showed 16% growth. The software unit’s gross margin of 83.9% was barely narrower than StreetAccount’s 84.0% consensus.

Revenue from consulting rose almost 3% to $5.31 billion, higher than StreetAccount’s $5.16 billion consensus. Infrastructure revenue went up 14% to $4.14 billion, above the $3.75 billion StreetAccount average estimate.

During the quarter, IBM announced the next-generation z17 mainframe computer and the acquisition of data and artificial intelligence consulting firm Hakkoda.

IBM called for over $13.5 billion in 2025 free cash flow, similar to a projection from April. The company still sees at least 5% revenue growth at constant currency for the year.

As of Wednesday’s close, IBM shares were up 28% so far in 2025, while the S&P 500 index has gained around 8% in the same period.

Executives will discuss the results with analysts on a conference call starting at 5 p.m. ET.

This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.

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