SK Hynix's U.S.-listed shares surged on their first day of trading, making any hint of a recent memory-chip maker slump feel like a distant memory.

Catch up quick: South Korea's SK Hynix raised $26.5 billion last night through its IPO of American depositary receipts, each one worth a tenth of a common share in Korea.

• SK Hynix is a giant in the memory space and, like its U.S. peers, has seen its shares explode in its home market over the last year amid a surge in AI-related demand.
• A Nasdaq listing makes its shares available to a whole new set of investors, however. And those investors couldn't wait to jump in.

📈 Zoom in: The ADRs jumped right out of the gate late in the morning and closed at $168.01, up nearly 13% from the offer price of $149.

What they're saying: "Demand for ​the US share sale has been stronger than some people might have expected," Dan Coatsworth, ​head of markets at AJ Bell, told Reuters.

• "That implies the memory chip rally might have just taken a breath rather than peaked," he said.

What we're watching: SK Hynix's coming U.S. IPO had been cited as a possible contributor to a recent slump in memory-chip makers.

• American competitors Micron Technology and Sandisk have both fallen around 15% since June 30. Micron closed down 1.2% today, while Sandisk gained 3.1%.

Between the lines: SK Hynix holds over 50% of the market in high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, chips — a critical piece of the AI stack and one of the highest-margin, most supply-constrained parts of the memory industry.

💭 Our thought bubble, from Axios deputy managing business editor Jeff Cane: The market's appetite for new tech shares is eye-watering. The massive stock offering comes just a month after the record-breaking stock offering of SpaceX, with Anthropic and OpenAI still to come.

Circle shares popped today after the stablecoin giant said it had received final federal approval to operate a national trust bank, Axios' Pete Gannon writes.

Between the lines: Approval would allow Circle to manage reserves for its $73 billion stablecoin, USDC, as opposed to relying on third-party banks and custodians.

• It said it may eventually offer digital asset custody services directly to institutional customers, focusing on banks and other financial firms.

What they're saying: "OCC approval to establish Circle National Trust marks a defining step in bringing blockchain technology and digital assets into the core of the U.S. financial system," Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said in a statement.

The impact: Circle shares jumped more than 15% today on the news, before settling to close up 5%. They're still down over 16% on the year.

Reality check: Circle is not becoming a bank in the traditional sense.

• A national trust charter does not provide approval to take customer deposits or make loans.

Yes, but: It's a significant milestone in crypto's migration from the industry's fringes to the regulated plumbing of the U.S. financial system.

🤖 Apple is suing OpenAI for trade secret theft, alleging the AI giant deliberately and systematically solicited and stole confidential information from the iPhone maker's current and former employees. (Axios)

🚙 Volkswagen is looking to cut its model lineup by up to 50% and continue to shrink its manufacturing capacity as it deals with mounting competition in and from China. (WSJ)

The music industry is striking a different chord on AI, Axios' Courtenay Brown writes.

• Its AI fight is expanding from protecting artists' rights to increasing transparency for music fans.

🏷️ What's new: A global coalition representing artists and record labels proposed an AI labeling system for songs on streaming services.

• The pitch: A standardized set of track labels that streaming services could use to consistently identify songs as either "AI generated" or "AI assisted."

🤖🎶 The big picture: French streaming service Deezer says 44% of new tracks uploaded to its platform are AI generated.

• The coalition's press release cites Apple Music as saying more than one-third of tracks uploaded to its platform are "100% AI."
• Spotify has begun adding AI disclosures, while Apple has rolled out AI metadata.

🙋 The intrigue: Under the proposal, record labels and distributors would voluntarily disclose whether AI was used to make a song, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The bottom line: An AI label may soon join the explicit content warning on your favorite playlist.