On July 6, 2026, Tencent's mixed Yuan model Hy3 made its debut, offering two weeks of free API calls on OpenRouter. In one week, it processed about 6.13 trillion tokens, directly pushing it to the top of the weekly usage leaderboard, ahead of Xiaomi's MiMo-V2.5 (5.95 trillion tokens) and DeepSeek V4 F. This signifies that global developers temporarily gained a window for an experiment where computing power costs were “driven to nearly zero.” At the same time, Japan's "Comprehensive Support Program for Startups," launched in 2025, entered the implementation stage, with Seiko Noda reaffirming support at WebX 2026, attempting to incorporate Web3 into the national innovation narrative, while the compliant exchange system provided a real funding pipeline for these narratives. The scene then shifted to the Middle East, where on July 12, the U.S. launched a new round of military strikes against Iran. The U.S. Central Command emphasized the need to maintain freedom of navigation in relevant waters, with the market's attention once again focusing on the Strait of Hormuz, which handles about 20% of global oil transport. Oil price expectations and risk premiums rose accordingly - on one side, AI computing power was subsidized, on another, Japan improved the startup financing environment, while on the other side, geopolitical risk costs increased. These three lines simultaneously rewrote the macro variables of "computing power price - startup capital - risk aversion sentiment," and the truly critical question is: in this new combination, how will the narrative of BTC as "digital gold," the risk premium of ETH and high beta tokens, and the demand curve for crypto assets priced in dollars be redefined and reconstructed.

Hy3 Free Climbing to the Top: Computing Power Subsidies Ignite Developer Risk Appetite

Hy3 landed on OpenRouter on July 6, directly providing a two-week free API window, processing about 6.13 trillion tokens in one week, surpassing the long-standing frontrunners MiMo-V2.5 (5.95 trillion tokens) and DeepSeek V4 F. For developers, this was a collective experiment of “zero computing cost.” OpenRouter packaged the traffic and routing, while Hy3 slashed the marginal testing costs to a minimum with subsidies. Venture capital is eyeing the same territory: the free period is like a time-limited call option, and venture capitalists and startup teams tend to intensively raise prototypes and assess commercial viability during such windows. Even if many projects ultimately do not land, they still need to at least “test the waters” in the AI sector. Historically, high-risk appetite funds have repeatedly switched between AI concept stocks and crypto assets, and this round of free battle once again provided a reason to pull some short-term elastic positions away from BTC, ETH, and even long-tail tokens, in pursuit of new stories and potential equity returns during the “Hy3 cycle,” forming a structural rebalancing between crypto and AI.

But free models are not just a cash grab; they are rewriting the entry barriers for the medium-to-long-term narrative. High usage free models like Hy3 have compressed innovation costs to a sufficiently low level, providing more teams the opportunity to conduct product experiments around synthetic data, computing power coordination, and open model interfaces. Some of these projects are likely to choose a tokenization path in the future, linking to the “AI + on-chain” narrative, either integrating with existing AI-related public chains or issuing new tokens. Under such expectations, the market will try to reprice computing power, data assets, AI public chains, and other related chips ahead of time, incorporating “who truly connects to high-quality model traffic” into the valuation factors. However, there is currently no specific on-chain funding flow or public data on the rise and fall of any token after Hy3’s launch available for verification; this repricing is more based on structural imagination rather than empirical data. Thus, observing future on-chain transaction volumes related to AI narratives and project financing implementations will be key variables in judging whether this round of free battle truly reshapes the risk premium in the crypto sector.

Japan's Startup Support Intensified: Web3-Friendly Narrative Opens the Door for Compliant Funds

In May 2025, the Japanese government announced the “Comprehensive Support Program for Startups,” increasing fund capital, encouraging financial institutions to invest, and partially easing regulations, thereby writing “support for startups” into the national roadmap. By the first half of 2026, Seiko Noda reiterated this supportive framework at WebX 2026, specifically expressing hope that the Web3 conference will create a synergistic effect with government policies, essentially pinning an international Web3 grand event to Japan’s innovation narrative: attending the conference in Tokyo is not just about visiting exhibits but about being invited to register companies here and to ensure products comply and operate here. Specific budget figures have not been disclosed, but the political signal is already sufficiently clear - Web3 is no longer just an edge technology but has been incorporated into the external narrative for Japan to attract global startup teams anew.

The biggest change brought by this narrative to crypto funds is not merely a “welcome innovation” but rather the opening of institutional exports. There is already a compliant crypto exchange system in Japan regulated by the Financial Services Agency, and some institutions can participate in crypto-related businesses through these platforms. When upper-level policies clearly bind startup support with Web3, compliant funds, international trading platforms, and project parties receive a story they can explain to investment committees: yen funds and foreign investments can enter this market within a predictable regulatory framework, rather than lurking in gray areas. Structurally, this means that the marginal increments entering BTC and ETH in the future may come more from yen and international capital linked to Japan, with sources of funds shifting from a “pure dollar circle” to “multi-currency compliant channels,” while trading active times will overlap more with Asian hours, rewriting the peaks and troughs of intraday liquidity. The next step is to see if the compliance openness of Japanese local exchanges can truly translate into new buying in yen, turning this round of policy narratives into substantive increments in BTC and ETH liquidity.

U.S.-Iran Conflict and Tensions in Hormuz: Oil Price Expectations Push Up Safe-Haven Buying

As Asian funds attempt to increase BTC and ETH through yen channels, on July 12, 2026, the U.S. launched a new round of military strikes against Iran, pulling global attention back to the Strait of Hormuz. While U.S. Central Command announced the actions, it simultaneously stressed its readiness to ensure freedom of commercial shipping in the relevant waters. However, the market is more concerned with: this channel, which handles about 20% of global oil transport, once any side chooses to use “disrupted shipping” as leverage, oil price risk premiums will be quickly repriced, pushing inflation expectations and global risk asset volatility higher.

In such a geopolitically tense scenario, demand for traditional safe-haven assets like gold historically tends to rise, and the narrative of BTC as “digital gold” is also likely to be reignited - some funds will see it as a hedging tool decoupled from sovereign risks. However, its path does not always replicate that of gold; it often prices “macro panic + liquidity expectations” together: if the market interprets it as “oil prices rising but monetary policy forced to tighten,” high beta ETH and long-tail tokens are more likely to be deleveraged, while BTC could resist declines or even generate a hedge premium; conversely, if interpreted as “short-term geopolitical shocks but policies remain loose,” when risk appetites recover, high beta on-chain assets like ETH will be sought after again. Meanwhile, the oscillation between oil prices and risk appetite will create a tug-of-war between the dollar system and crypto dollars: one side may see offline dollar assets heat up due to safe-haven demand, while on the other side, on-site funds continually switch positions between dollar-denominated assets like USDT and USDC and BTC, ETH, resulting in the demand and trading activity of on-chain dollars also turning into a macro variable that needs to be closely monitored.

What Crypto Trades Should Look For Between AI Subsidies and Geopolitical Firelines

With Hy3 launching on July 6 and offering a two-week free window through OpenRouter, combined with Japan's policy intensification on innovation and Web3 since the launch of the “Comprehensive Support Program for Startups” in 2025, and on July 12, the U.S. military's renewed strikes on Iran focusing on Hormuz, the channel transporting about 20% of global crude oil, these three clues together form the background of “risk appetite driven by tech subsidies” and “safe-haven sentiment driven by energy shocks” mutually influencing each other. Structurally, the pricing of BTC is more likely to be driven by oil price expectations, geopolitical risk premiums, and the narrative of “digital gold,” gaining risk aversion and macro premiums ahead of time when risk premiums rise. ETH and the long-tail assets related to the AI narrative rely more on the reduction of computing costs, competition for model subsidies, and the technology booms and capital stories brought by policies like Japan's, with their beta being higher and more susceptible to concentrated selling when risk appetites contract. Going forward, traders need to watch three key things: first, the pricing and quota strategy after the end of Hy3’s free period, which will determine whether this round of “computing power subsidies” is a fleeting moment or evolves into a long-term adjustment in AI capital expenditures, affecting the valuation anchor of AI narrative tokens; second, the specific measures and deregulation that the Japanese startup support and Web3-friendly narrative ultimately translate into, and whether it will bring in incremental compliant funds and new projects; and third, whether the U.S.-Iran situation after July 12 proceeds toward escalation or de-escalation, as this will directly change the trajectory of oil prices and global risk premiums. Historically, crypto assets - especially BTC, ETH, and high beta long-tail tokens - have always reacted strongly to changes in macro liquidity, policy expectations, and geopolitical risks.

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