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Howard Lutnick, U.S. Secretary of Commerce speaks during the Pennsylvania Energy And Innovation Summit 2025 at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh on July 15, 2025.

David A. Grogan | CNBC

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Tuesday said the Trump administration reversed course on allowing Nvidia to sell its AI chips to China because the U.S. company will not be giving over its best technology.

Lutnick made the remark speaking with CNBC’s Brian Sullivan, saying that Nvidia wants to sell China its “4th best” chip, which is slower than the fastest chips that U.S. companies use.

“We don’t sell them our best stuff, not our second best stuff, not even our third best,” Lutnick said.

Nvidia said Monday night that it would soon resume sales of the H20 chip to China after the Trump administration signaled that it would grant the chipmaker necessary export licenses.

Lutnick said that the administration said that the renewed sale of H20 chips to China was linked to a rare-earths magnet deal. Lutnick said it was in U.S. interests to have Chinese companies using American technology so they continue to use an American “tech stack.”

“The fourth one down, we want to keep China using it,” Lutnick said. “We want to keep having the Chinese use the American technology stack, because they still rely upon it.”

Similarly, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has said in recent weeks that the U.S. should continue selling his chips to China so Chinese companies don’t invest in homegrown infrastructure. Huang on Sunday also said that the Chinese military wouldn’t use Nvidia chips anyway, and previously signaled that China’s Huawei is a legitimate competitor.

“The idea is the Chinese are more than capable of building their own,” Lutnick said. “You want to keep one step ahead of what they can build, so they keep buying our chips.”

The reversal is a major win for Nvidia. Huang had previously said that the Trump administration’s decision to require a license for the H20 chip in April “effectively closed” the China market. Nvidia said that it could have sold $8 billion in H20 chips in the current quarter before sales were stopped.

Commerce Sec. Howard Lutnick on Indonesia trade deal: No tariffs there, they pay tariffs here

The administration reversed its decision after President Donald Trump met with Huang in Washington last week.

“You want to sell the Chinese enough that their developers get addicted to the American technology stack,” Lutnick said. “That’s the thinking.”

The H20 chip was introduced in 2022 in response to Biden administration export controls. It’s based on the same underlying technology as Nvidia’s Hopper-generation chips, which are sold in the U.S. as finished systems using H100 or H200 chips.

The U.S. chipmaker took some features out of the H20 in order to sell it to China, including fewer graphics processing unit cores and lower bandwidth connecting separate parts of the chip. But the success of the DeepSeek R1 model suggested that there were many Chinese companies that were just fine with the slowed-down chips. The China-specific H20 is behind Nvidia’s Blackwell chips, the H100 and the H200, Lutnick said.

Nvidia says that it releases new artificial intelligence chips every year and that serious AI developers should always try to get the latest and greatest versions because the technology is improving so quickly.

The best AI chips broadly available from clouds and system makers today are called Blackwell, and come as a GB200 chip with a paired central processing unit as well as B100 and B200 versions. Nvidia also makes a range of Blackwell-based chips for gaming and graphics that can be used for AI, but they’re generally weaker than the biggest chips designed for data centers.

A successor, called Blackwell Ultra, is only now starting to be installed in data centers, and it’s expected to ramp in volume over the next year. In 2027, Nvidia will release “Vera Rubin” chips.

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Crypto bounces on renewed optimism House could pass key stablecoin legislation this week

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Crypto bounces on renewed optimism House could pass key stablecoin legislation this week

Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Cryptocurrencies and several stocks tied to the ecosystem rose Wednesday as investors dismissed a snag in what was expected to be a winning week for crypto regulation.

Bitcoin was last higher by 2% at $119,114.79, according to Coin Metrics, while ether rose 3% to $3,156.  

Shares of stablecoin issuer Circle added more than 1% premarket and crypto services firm Coinbase gained about 0.5%, after both closed lower in the previous session. Ether treasury stocks continued their rally: BitMine surged 24%, while SharpLink jumped 14% and Bit Digital gained 5%.

On Tuesday, prices dipped briefly after the House failed to advance two key pieces of legislation for the crypto industry: the stablecoin bill known as the GENUIS Act, which has already passed the Senate, and the broader and far more complex market structure bill known as the CLARITY Act. Industry players including Coinbase hoped to see these bills move forward together, despite the latter one still awaiting a vote in the House.

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Coinbase (COIN) and bitcoin (BTC) this month

Oppenheimer analyst Owen Lau told CNBC the stock reaction was overblown and framed the passage of the bills as a matter of “when” rather than an “if.”

“It’s not such bad news which is why the stocks [Coinbase and Circle] recovered in late trading,” he said. “Both stocks may be under pressure until we get the vote but these bills will eventually get passed after these negotiations.”

It doesn’t ultimately matter how they get passed – separately or bundled – “in terms of the terminal value … but the stock could react more positively if all three bills get combined,” and the market “would lose three or four months of uncertainty,” Lau added.

President Donald Trump said in a social media post Tuesday night that several of the House Republicans who kept the bills from advancing had changed their minds following a White House meeting and will now vote to move the legislation forward.

In its current form, the GENIUS Act would restrict stablecoin issuers from paying users interest, which would reinforcing the importance of Ethereum – a network favored by institutions that supports a significant amount of activity and applications, including stablecoins – in the ecosystem.

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Ether (ETH) has doubled in price in the last three months

However, ether’s recent rally, driven by momentum and speculative positioning among the boom in stablecoin interest and ether treasuries, has not been supported by fundamentals.

“Active addresses remain flat, network revenue is unchanged, and gas [transaction] fees have only ticked up slightly,” according to 10x Research’s Markus Thielen. Ether has doubled in price in the last three months.

Bitcoin, whose price slipped this week due to more than $360 million in long liquidations Monday, also dropped after the crypto bills were halted, but recovered soon after. On Monday, the flagship cryptocurrency reached an all-time high above $120,000.

Bitcoin ETFs saw $402.99 million in inflows from institutions on Tuesday, while ether funds raked in $192.3 million, according to SoSoValue.

—With reporting from CNBC’s Emily Wilkins, Erin Doherty and Greta Reich

Don’t miss these cryptocurrency insights from CNBC Pro:

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Chip giant ASML says it can’t confirm that it will grow in 2026

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Chip giant ASML says it can't confirm that it will grow in 2026

An icon of ASML is displayed on a smartphone, with an ASML chip visible in the background.

Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images

ASML reported second-quarter earnings that beat estimates with the its key net bookings figure ahead of consensus.

However, the chip equipment giant missed analyst expectations for revenue guidance in the current quarter and warned of the possibility of no growth ahead.

Here’s how ASML did versus LSEG consensus estimates for the second quarter:

  • Net sales: 7.7 billion euros ($8.95 billion) versus 7.52 billion euros expected
  • Net profit: 2.29 billion euros vs 2.04 billion euros expected

In its own previous forecast issued in April, ASML had said it expected second-quarter net sales of between 7.2 billion euros and 7.7 billion euros. In a pre-recorded interview posted on ASML’s website, the company’s Chief Financial Officer Roger Dassen said the beat was due to revenue from upgrading currently deployed machines as well as tariffs having a “less negative” impact than anticipated.

Analysts anticipated net bookings — a key indicator of order demand — would come in at 4.19 billion euros over the April-June stretch. ASML reported net bookings of 5.5 billion euros.

ASML is one of the most important semiconductor supply chain companies in the world. It makes extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) machines, which are required to manufacture the most advanced chips in the world, such as those designed by Apple and Nvidia.

Companies like Intel and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. are customers of ASML.

2026 warning

Like many companies in the semiconductor industry, ASML has been grappling with uncertainty created by U.S. tariff policy.

The company forecast third-quarter revenue of between 7.4 billion euros and 7.9 billion euros, which was shy of market expectations of 8.3 billion euros.

ASML said it expects full-year 2025 net sales to grow 15%, narrowing its guidance from a previously announced forecasts of between 30 billion euros to 35 billion euros.

However, the Dutch tech giant was less certain about the outlook for 2026.

“Looking at 2026, we see that our AI customers’ fundamentals remain strong,” ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet said in a statement.

“At the same time, we continue to see increasing uncertainty driven by macro-economic and geopolitical developments. Therefore, while we still prepare for growth in 2026, we cannot confirm it at this stage.”

The Veldhoven, Netherlands-headquartered company has released its next generation EUV tools known as High NA, which stands for high numerical aperture. These machines, which are larger than a double-decker bus and can cost more than $400 million each, are key to ASML’s future growth plans.

This is a breaking news story. Please check back for more.

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Whoop says FDA is ‘overstepping its authority’ with warning about blood pressure feature

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Whoop says FDA is 'overstepping its authority' with warning about blood pressure feature

The logo for the Food and Drug Administration is seen ahead of a news conference on removing synthetic dyes from America’s food supply, at the Health and Human Services Headquarters in Washington, DC on April 22, 2025.

Nathan Posner | Anadolu | Getty Images

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday published a warning letter addressed to the wrist wearable company Whoop, alleging it is marketing a new blood pressure feature without proper approvals.

The letter centers around Whoop’s Blood Pressure Insights (BPI) feature, which the company introduced alongside its latest hardware launch in May.

Whoop said its BPI feature uses blood pressure information to offer performance and wellness insights that inform consumers and improve athletic performance.

But the FDA said Tuesday that Whoop’s BPI feature is intended to diagnose, cure, treat or prevent disease — a key distinction that would reclassify the wellness tracker as a “medical device” that has to undergo a rigorous testing and approval processes.

“Providing blood pressure estimation is not a low-risk function,” the FDA said in the letter. “An erroneously low or high blood pressure reading can have significant consequences for the user.”

A Whoop spokesperson said the company’s system offers only a single daily estimated range and midpoint, which distinguishes it from medical blood pressure devices used for diagnosis or management of high blood pressure.

Whoop users who purchase the $359 “Whoop Life” subscription tier can use the BPI feature to get daily insights about their blood pressure, including estimated systolic and diastolic ranges, according to the company.

Whoop also requires users to log three traditional cuff-readings to act as a baseline in order to unlock the BPI feature.

Additionally, the spokesperson said the BPI data is not unlike other wellness metrics that the company deals with. Just as heart rate variability and respiratory rate can have medical uses, the spokesperson said, they are permitted in a wellness context too.

“We believe the agency is overstepping its authority in this case by attempting to regulate a non-medical wellness feature as a medical device,” the Whoop spokesperson said.

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High blood pressure, also called hypertension, is the number one risk factor for heart attacks, strokes and other types of cardiovascular disease, according to Dr. Ian Kronish, an internist and co-director of Columbia University’s Hypertension Center.

Kronish told CNBC that wearables like Whoop are a big emerging topic of conversation among hypertension experts, in part because there’s “concern that these devices are not yet proven to be accurate.”

If patients don’t get accurate blood pressure readings, they can’t make informed decisions about the care they need.

At the same time, Kronish said wearables like Whoop present a “big opportunity” for patients to take more control over their health, and that many professionals are excited to work with these tools.

Understandably, it can be confusing for consumers to navigate. Kronish encouraged patients to talk with their doctor about how they should use wearables like Whoop.

“It’s really great to hear that the FDA is getting more involved around informing consumers,” Kronish said.

FILE PHOTO: The headquarters of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is seen in Silver Spring, Maryland November 4, 2009. 

Jason Reed | Reuters

Whoop is not the only wearable manufacturer that’s exploring blood pressure monitoring.

Omron and Garmin both offer medical blood pressure monitoring with on-demand readings that fall under FDA regulation. Samsung also offers blood-pressure-reading technology, but it is not available in the U.S. market.

Apple has also been teasing a blood pressure sensor for its watches, but has not been able to deliver. In 2024, the tech giant received FDA approval for its sleep apnea detection feature.

Whoop has previously received FDA clearance for its ECG feature, which is used to record and analyze a heart’s electrical activity to detect potential irregularities in rhythm. But when it comes to blood pressure, Whoop believes the FDA’s perspective is antiquated.

“We do not believe blood pressure should be considered any more or less sensitive than other physiological metrics like heart rate and respiratory rate,” a spokesperson said. “It appears that the FDA’s concerns may stem from outdated assumptions about blood pressure being strictly a clinical domain and inherently associated with a medical diagnosis.”

The FDA said Whoop could be subject to regulatory actions like seizure, injunction, and civil money penalties if it fails to address the violations that the agency identified in its letter.

Whoop has 15 business days to respond with steps the company has taken to address the violations, as well as how it will prevent similar issues from happening again.

“Even accounting for BPI’s disclaimers, they do not change this conclusion, because they are insufficient to outweigh the fact that the product is, by design, intended to provide a blood pressure estimation that is inherently associated with the diagnosis of a disease or condition,” the FDA said.

WATCH: Watch CNBC’s full interview with FDA commissioner Dr. Marty Makary

Watch CNBC's full interview with FDA commissioner Dr. Marty Makary

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