Recently, the cell phone was turned on, and most of the group was talking about it:

YOUNG WEEDA IS UP AGAIN, AND AMERICA'S STOCK IS UP, AND THE MEMORY PLATE HAS SOARED, AND MOODY HAS SO FAR INCREASED BY MORE THAN FOUR TIMES, WITH THE GREATEST SINGLE-WEEK INCREASE SINCE 08, AND EVEN THE A STOCK MEMORY HAS TAKEN OFF。

"What's the next sign to get in?" and "Is this the top point of the Internet bubble?"

Sounds contradictory, but it's the same emotion, afraid to miss, afraid to crash。

BUT ACTUALLY, THE BUBBLE WE'RE TALKING ABOUT IS PROBABLY NOT THE REAL BUBBLE OF THE WAVE AI. OR, MORE PRECISELY, THE MOST DANGEROUS PART OF THIS ROUND OF FOAM IS NOT WHERE YOU OPEN YOUR TRADING ACCOUNT。

The other day, OpenAI was exposed to a stock-sale deal with employees last October. 75 Individuals cashed with a ceiling of $30 million, leaving more than 500 employees with an average of about $6 million. The company was going to pay $6 billion, but because of too many external investors, it temporarily added 10.3 billion. This round to OpenAI is valued at $500 billion, more than three times the value six months ago。

This was last October, but most people only learned this year in May. If it wasn't for the Wall Street Journal, a lot of people wouldn't know. And in over seven months, OpenAI's valuation went up from 500 billion to 85.2 billion, and it went up 70 percent。

THERE'S A HUGE INCREASE IN MEMORY AND A NEW HIGH IN BRITAIN, AND THESE ARE TRUE, BUT THEY'RE NOT THE MOST DANGEROUS PART OF THIS ROUND OF AI BUBBLES. THE REAL BUBBLES ARE INCREASINGLY HAPPENING WHERE YOU CAN'T SEE OR BUY。

This time, ordinary people didn't see the foam. The most important deal is over。

When the valuation went up, you wouldn't even see it

Yesterday, OpenAI issued a statement on the official web site stating that OpenAI's shares could not be traded in private and that unauthorised transfers and mortgages were null and void. The bulletin also bans several products by name: selling the stock to investors, selling the stock into a chain of encrypted tokens, and pledging OpenAI to distribute the proceeds to buyers after listing。

if you compare the 2000 internet bubbles, the biggest difference is that google, amazon, yahoo, and all kinds of companies are already on the market, and the bulk can buy 100 times more and 200 times more of these corporate shares directly in their voucher accounts. foams formed in open markets and collapsed in open markets。

OpenAI now values $85.2 billion, 15.7 billion a year and a half ago. The Anthropic valuation was close to $90 billion, 61.5 billion a year ago, 10 times more. XAI has only 3 annual valuations of 250 billion and Databricks has increased from 62 billion to 134 billion over a year. But none of these numbers, which are faster than the rockets, jumped out of the open market。

THIS ROUND OF AI BLOWING BUBBLES TAKES PLACE WHERE THE PUBLIC CANNOT PARTICIPATE。

When anxiety does not reach the entrance, alternatives are sought. A few days ago, a series of media reports reported that the Anthropic valuation broke 1.2 trillion dollars, counter-openAI. This figure comes from a chain-based pre-IPO platform, which bundles Anthropic's shares into encrypted synthetic assets (which is prohibited by OpenAI's name), but this platform has a 24-hour real trade of less than $1.4 million, with more than 300 people involved。

Users buy not a real Anthropic common share, but an "anxiety exposure." This 1.2 trillion is not a true valuation of Anthropic, more like AI's anxiety outbreak at the liquidity break. The Silicon Valley guys know too much about this anxiety, and they even want it to be bigger, so they can sell more anxiety products。

Last month, Navarre, the best-known investor in Silicon Valley, set up a "civilian fund" called USVC, the idea being that ordinary people can also participate in AI’s investments. The Fund's portfolio contains OpenAI, Anthropic, XAI, the most popular AI shares that non-compliant investors can buy, with $500 going forward。

However, this is a closed-registered fund with a share not on the exchange, with a quarterly buy-back ceiling of 5 per cent and a Board decision not to repurchase. If you look through the book, you'll find that it wants investors to "consider their shares as non-liquid assets" and that a lot of people in social media spray it directly as an "offload fund"。

This is the logic of the massive rise in memory plates. Mag 7 is too expensive, especially in the case of Britain, OpenAI, Anthropic, but the labels on the AI industry chain can be bought with chips, memory, electricity, even helium, copper, silver。

The bubbles you see in the open market, talking about, are more like financial anxiety coming out of the private market。

IT'S LIKE BREATHING. IT DOESN'T HAVE TO WAIT FOR IPO

OLD SILICON VALLEY'S HARD-TECH COMPANIES, WHOSE EMPLOYEES HAVE TO WAIT 7 TO 10 YEARS TO GET THE CASH, EITHER TO REACH THE IPO OR TO BE BOUGHT BY THE INDUSTRIAL GIANT. AFTER THE INTERNET ERA, THE CYCLE WAS PUSHED TO ABOUT FIVE YEARS, OPTIONS UNLOCKED, SECONDARY MARKET TRANSFERS, POST-IPO WINDOWS, WEALTH DISTRIBUTION BEGAN TO HAVE MULTIPLE NODES, BUT IPO REMAINED THE LARGEST。

BY THE TIME OF THE AI ERA, THE PACKAGE WAS COMPLETELY AHEAD OF THE UNLISTED STAGE。

OpenAI's sales to employees this time only two years. ChatGPT was released in November 2022, and the influx of employees just happened to start breaking the stock lock in late 2024, and the wave just caught up with the $6.6 billion package last October。

Not just OpenAI inside. The founders of AI and the core team are leaving early in a new way and do not need to be acquired or IPO。

In 2024, Google acquired Character.AI, which was actually located in the old Silicon Valley, which was not actually acquired. Google did not buy the whole company, but spent $3 billion on the use of Character.AI's technology, of which $2.5 billion was allocated to Character.AI's existing shareholders, leaving $500 million for technology authorization。

In short, the technology authorization plus team moved and the company itself was still in place, but the most valuable people and the most critical technology had been withdrawn in a closed deal. Character.AI, two Associates owns over 30 percent of the company, and this one alone gets nearly $1 billion。

Similar is the acquisition of Microsoft Info, which spends $650 million on technical authorization and then directly hires founders and core teams. This is how Amazon took Adept AI。

THE UNITED STATES FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION (FTC) INITIATED AN INVESTIGATION INTO SUCH TRANSACTIONS BY EARLY 2025, FOCUSING ON WHETHER LARGE COMPANIES WERE CIRCUMVENTING MERGER REVIEWS THROUGH SUCH STRUCTURES. BUT ALL THE "ACQUISITIONS" THAT WERE SAID JUST NOW TOOK PLACE IN 2024, WITHOUT A REGULATORY REVIEW AND WITHOUT THE NEED TO PUT NAMES ON THE BOOK。

IF FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF A FIRST-LEVEL MARKET, THERE IS NO NEED FOR THE CURRENT AI TO COMPARE WITH THE THEN INTERNET BUBBLE, BECAUSE THE HEAT IS ALREADY ABOVE SEVERAL MEASURES。

AI STARTS OFF WITH BILLIONS OF DOLLARS ON ANY ONE OF THE START-UP ROUNDS. THE KEY IS THAT TEAMS AND FOUNDERS DON'T HAVE TO WAIT FOR IPO TO QUIT, THAT ENOUGH MONEY IS ALREADY AVAILABLE IN THE PRIVATE MARKET ALONE, AND THAT THE WAY THEY ENTER THE WORKFORCE AND THE FOUNDING POPULATION IS BECOMING MORE AND MORE HIDDEN。

OpenAI made two similar internal transactions before the employee sales unit last October, as did Anthropic, Databricks, these big unicorns. AI doesn't have to wait for IPO to have "outbound windows" every other time。

the founders have their own channels. silicon valley is now a popular "founder-led secondary" transaction, and entrepreneurs do not leave the company but sell some of their shares. the dividends of the continued rise in corporate valuations are enjoyed while cash is received in advance。

Or they could do equity mortgages, and there's a company called Pluto that does this, and helps AI's founders and early investors to take cash with their private equity collateral, 20% to 35%. You don't need to sell shares, just take the money。

Early investors don't have to wait for an IPO to deliver to the LP. They can set up a new fund with the original VC, sell the star mark from the old fund to the new fund, and the old LP can choose to go and keep it with the new fund. This method is called the GP-led successor fund, which in the first half of 2025 was close to $50 billion, twice as large as in 2024。

Another indirect exit is re-employment. From the company that OpenAI had set up, at least seven had become unicorns, and Anthropic, Shining Machines Lab, and SSI represented the Poli. A departure would trigger a new distribution of wealth。

EACH OF THE WITHDRAWALS DESCRIBED ABOVE DOES NOT REQUIRE REGULATORY REVIEW OR EQUITY BOOKING. AI IS THE LARGEST BENEFICIARY BECAUSE A LARGE NUMBER OF HIGH-QUALITY AI ASSETS ARE TEMPORARILY UNABLE TO REACH IPO。

AI CAPITAL, MORE LIKE REAL ESTATE BUBBLES

A LOT OF PEOPLE COMPARED TODAY TO THE YEAR 2000 INTERNET, BUT IT'S ACTUALLY WRONG. NOW THE AI BUBBLE, IT'S MORE LIKE THE '08 REAL ESTATE BUBBLE。

During the annual credit crisis, houses were real houses and rents were real, but house prices, loans, ratings and securitization were all based on the same overly optimistic expectations. As a result, Lehman fell and the mortgaged bonds were worthless。

NOW, SIMILAR FINANCIALIZATION IS TAKING PLACE IN AI DATA CENTRES, GPU AND COMPUTING CONTRACTS, AND ON A LARGER SCALE。

AI TRAINING AND REASONING REQUIRE DATA CENTRES, WHICH REQUIRE LAND, ELECTRICITY, WATER, COOLING, NETWORKS AND LONG-TERM CLIENTS. SO THE DATA CENTRE IS NO LONGER JUST A BACK-OFFICE OF A TECHNOLOGY COMPANY, BUT RATHER AN ASSET THAT THE REAL ESTATE FUND, PRIVATE LOANS, INSURANCE FUNDS ARE COMPETING FOR。

Meta announced last year a partnership with Blue Owl to develop the Hyperion Data Centre in Louisiana at a total cost of $27 billion, almost enough to build 30 Shanghai Central Buildings. Blue Owl runs 80% of the funds, a large part of which is raised through private fundraising. Meta owns 20 per cent of the land and works in progress and then signs a four-year operating lease with the joint venture, plus a 16-year residual value guarantee. If the lease is not renewed, Meta will pay the value of the data centre at that time。

Meta did not simply say, "I'm going to spend 27 billion dollars building a data centre," which turned the data centre into a joint venture, turned capital expenditure into a lease, turned the residual value into a guarantee, and sold some of the projects to private bond investors. This is in line with the logic that mortgages were wrapped into financial derivatives in 2008。

CoreWeave is another model. Debt financing of $2.3 billion was completed in 2023, with the British Wida chip as collateral. A further $7.5 billion in debt financing was signed in 2024, with black stone. In 2026, $8.5 billion worth of GPU mortgage finance was completed, and Moody ' s A3 investment rating was the first GPU mortgage finance in history to receive an investment rating。

And more than just CoreWeave. Lambda completed a $1 billion senior guarantee credit this year; Crusoe got a $750 million credit from Brookefield, plus $11.6 billion to build OpenAI’s Stargate computing plant, and Broadcom is also reportedly talking to Apollo and Blackstone about $35 billion in AI chip financing。

EVERY ONE OF THEM IS MAKING AI COMPUTING ASSETS AS A FINANCEABLE, MORTGAGEABLE CREDIT PRODUCT。

The regulation has named the matter, and in its 2026 report BIS called this structure Shadow borrowing. The technology giants hold data centre assets through joint ventures and SPV, and incur obligations in the form of long-term leases and guarantees, but these obligations are not included in the company ' s balance sheet. I'm borrowing money to build GPU data centres while waiting for GPU depreciation. And the loan is long, GPU depreciations fast。

THE BUBBLE RISK ON THIS ROAD DOESN'T REALLY NEED TO WAIT FOR THE AI WAVE TO VERIFY THAT THE STORM OF THE PRIVATE FUND JUST A WHILE AGO WAS A REHEARSAL。

In 2020, Vista Equity, a private equity fund, bought the next online technology training, Plurasight, with $3.5 billion, and gave credit to Saas, a group of top private credit players, Blue Owl, Ares, Goldman Sachs, Beled. By 2024, Plurasight could not survive, and Vista had to "transfer" the entire company to creditors, losing $4 billion to himself and co-investors。

The reason for this failure is not "how much does the company make now" but "how steady will the company's future subscription revenue be?" When AI changes the continuation logic of the software market, all "seemingly stable cash flows" need to be re-explained. The moat of SaaS private credit was suddenly turned from water to sand。

Blue Owl, a loan to Plularsight, is one of the leading players in the private credit field. At the beginning of this year, its OOCIC's private credit fund was redeemed by 40% of the occupant because of the impact on Saas. But even so, Blue Owl also lends to the AI data centre. In addition to the data centre in Meta that we just talked about, there's a major blood supply behind OpenAI's Stargate Calculator Project。

The most dangerous aspect of private lending is its non-transparent nature, which makes valuations highly distorted. At the bottom of the Fund, outside investors have no means of verifying it。

IN AUGUST LAST YEAR, HPS, A PRIVATE CREDIT AGENCY UNDER THE NAME OF BELET, WAS DECEIVED BY AN INDIAN TELECOMMUNICATIONS ENTREPRENEUR BY OVER $400 MILLION IN FORGED INVOICES. HPS LENDS LOANS TO SEVERAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMPANIES UNDER THE ENTREPRENEUR ' S BANNER, AND THE COLLATERAL IS THE RECEIVABLES OF THEIR CLIENTS. AS A RESULT, ONE HPS EMPLOYEE NOTICED A PROBLEM WITH THE CLIENT ' S E-MAIL ADDRESS AND THE ENTIRE COLLATERAL WAS FOUND TO BE NON-EXISTENT。

Even a top player of the size of Belaid, can't see the real collateral for the money he borrows himself, and how much can investors who buy its share of the fund know

ALL OF THESE AI DATA CENTRE FINANCING, GPU MORTGAGES AND THE NEW SPV STRUCTURE ARE BASED ON THE ASSUMPTION THAT THE BOTTOM ASSETS ARE VALUABLE。

BUT HOW FAST IS GPU DEPRECIATION? WILL THE DATA CENTRE CUSTOMER CONTRACT BE RENEWED? AI, WILL THE NEED FOR REASONING BE ENOUGH TO SUSTAIN THESE CALCULATIONS? THESE PROBLEMS CAN ONLY BE JUDGED “ON THE BASIS OF AVAILABLE INFORMATION” BY THE AGENCIES THAT RATE THE ASSETS AND BY THE BANKS THAT UNDERWRITE THE FUND. ALL THAT ORDINARY INVESTORS SEE IS A STOCK CALL, A RATING REPORT, A NAME。

The real bubble doesn't have to offer you an offer

And back to the question, "What's the next mark to get in?"

Most people are now able to get in the car, which is actually a shadow of a spill of core assets. 2000 Internet bubble, with peaks in the open market and crashes in the open market. You can see, you can feel, you can read in the news。

this time, the most bubble, the most dangerous part happens where you can't see. when you see this, the most important deals are over.