Wednesday 16 September 2026
Top stories today:
Clarity Act fails Senate vote in major blow to crypto industry
OpenAI eyes $1.5T valuation in potential funding round
Fed expected to hike interest rates at 2 PM, first increase since 2023
Googleās Gemini 3.8 Live debuts with advanced voice capabilities
Factory, AI coding startup, raises $200M at $5B valuation
0. Data & Calendar
All values as of 6 AM ET / 3 AM PT, other than S&P500 and NASDAQ close (4 PM ET / 1 PM PT).
All times are ET.
Listen to our AI-generated podcast summarizing todayās newsletter (beware of hallucinations):
1. Clarity Act fails Senate vote in major blow to crypto industry
Circle closed -11% Tue. after the news:
The crypto industry will likely have to wait until next year for clearer rules.
Democrats blamed the failed vote on Republicans not meeting ethics demands over Trump family crypto profits.
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3. OpenAI said to eye $1.5T valuation in potential funding round
Increased customer traction should support a valuation of at least $1.5T, OpenAI believes.
$40B+ in annualized revenue generated in Aug., 2x the 2025-end level.
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5. Fed expected to hike interest rates at 2 PM ET, first increase since 2023
A 25 bps increase is expected at the Fedās meeting Wed.:
2:30 PM ET: Warsh addresses the FOMC press conference.
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7. Googleās Gemini 3.8 Live debuts with advanced voice agent capabilities
Gemini 3.8 Live Extended Thinking topped Artificial Analysisā Speech to Speech Index:
Gemini 3.8 Live ranked second in preference on Speech Agent Arena, behind only Gemini 3.1 Flash Live and ahead of GPT-Live-1.
Gemini 3.8 Live costs $0.84/hr. of input audio, less than half the $1.75/hr. cost of Gemini 3.1 Flash Live High
Extended Thinking (High) costs $3.50/hr., below GPT-Live-1 (Sol) and Grok Voice Think Fast 2.0 High.
