Evening digest: SoftBank’s AI pivot, Zepto tests IPO waters, Bitcoin stalls below $90K

Markets are closing the year with a sharp shift in conviction, as capital moves away from momentum trades and toward structural bets.

SoftBank is abandoning flashy AI exposure for hard infrastructure, Zepto is testing investor appetite for cash-burning scale, and commodity markets are violently unwinding geopolitical risk.

In crypto, Bitcoin’s repeated failure at $90,000 underscores fading leverage and thinning institutional support.

Together, these stories capture a broader theme: speculation is giving way to scrutiny as 2026 approaches.

SoftBank’s $4B infrastructure pivot

SoftBank’s buying DigitalBridge for $4 billion, $16 per share, a 15% bump, and the move screams strategy shift.

Masayoshi Son sold his entire $5.8 billion Nvidia stake earlier this year to fuel this: he’s pivoting from owning the chips to owning the infrastructure that runs them.

DigitalBridge manages $108 billion in digital assets, data centers, fiber, edge networks, the unglamorous backbone AI actually needs.

The company’s already knee-deep in Stargate, OpenAI and Oracle’s $500 billion compute initiative.

This acquisition lets SoftBank consolidate control: it now owns the dirt, not just rentals on it.

Deal closes H2 2026, Marc Ganzi stays CEO. The real story: as AI energy demands explode, compute infrastructure becomes the new monopoly.

SoftBank’s abandoning the AI lottery (Nvidia, startups) for the pick-and-shovel play. It’s unsexy but defensible, whoever owns the pipes wins the AI war.

Zepto files for 2026 IPO

Zepto confidentially filed its IPO papers with SEBI on December 26, targeting a ₹11,000 crore raise in 2026, making it one of India’s youngest startups to list, just six years after founding.

At $7 billion valuation, backed by CalPERS and Lightspeed, Zepto’s burning cash aggressively: ₹1,000-1,100 crore burned, $3 billion in gross sales, 1.7 million daily orders.

The timing’s crucial, Blinkit (Zomato’s arm) and Instamart (Swiggy’s) are already public, capturing 45% and 20% market share respectively, while Zepto commands 29-30%.

CEO Aadit Palicha claims the company’s “more profitable stores than last year’s entire network” exist now, yet quick commerce’s unit economics remain under pressure.

Morgan Stanley projects the sector hits $42 billion by 2030.

Zepto’s bet: scale beats margins, at least for now. The 2026 IPO will test whether investors believe Indian quick commerce can sustain hypergrowth without hemorrhaging cash.

Silver flashcrash wipes risk premium

Silver just ate a 10% flashcrash in a single session, tumbling from $83.62 to $74.84 after Trump peace-deal whispers killed the geopolitical risk premium that fueled 2025’s bonanza.

The metal rocketed 181% year-to-date, best performer on the board, but CME margin hikes and leverage liquidations turned champagne into chaos.

Gold shed $100 from its $4,549 peak, settling near $4,470 as the dollar stabilized on stronger-than-expected Q3 GDP.

The collapse isn’t fundamental; it’s mechanical.

When a 10-month vertical rally runs on geopolitical tension and rate-cut FOMO, peace talks don’t just cool demand, they trigger algorithmic selling that overwhelms retail buyers.

For miners like Pan American Silver (down 7%), First Majestic (down 4%), the volatility’s brutal.

What matters now: does gold hold $4,200 support? If yes, 2025’s rally is structural.

If no, it’s 2011 redux, a blow-off top followed by years of ranging. Institutions booked generational gains; retail got caught in the exit rush.

Bitcoin fails $90K again

Bitcoin’s been rejected at $90,000 five times in December, a brutal pattern that screams exhaustion, not capitulation.

The bulls claimed they’d breach and hit $100,000 by year-end; instead, BTC’s trading near $88,000 on December 29, down 30% from October’s $126,198 peak.

Here’s what broke: leverage. A $23.8 billion options expiry on December 26 crushed longs into forced selling, and spot ETF outflows hit $825 million in November.

On-chain metrics flashed red, MVRV ratio deteriorated, long-term holders dumped, and funding rates oscillated wildly, signalling retail chasing recoveries only to get liquidated.

The failed breakout converted $90,000 from support to resistance, a bearish flip that typically precedes deeper drops.

Macro headwinds didn’t help: Fed rate-cut expectations evaporated, and the dollar stabilized.

For Bitcoin to end 2025 positive, it needs just a 6% rally, yet it can’t hold a breakout.

That’s the tell. Without institutional conviction, leverage-driven bounces don’t stick.

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