Building the foundation of AI capex market.
San Fransisco, CA
Joined June 2026
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Stoa (YC S26) retweeted
Stoa's CFTC comment on compute derivatives is public.
We wrote about the hardware behind the GPU-hour: how rental futures relate to equipment value, and the case for contracts on hardware prices.
We welcome the CFTC's open process.
Letter below.
Stoa (YC S26) retweeted
A 3-year GPU commit costs more than owning the servers.
Most teams we talk to can't get GPUs on demand anymore, so they sign an offtake to reserve capacity. Decent rates only come with commitments of three years or more. Ask for six months or a year and the hourly price jumps.
When we run the numbers, owning beats a three-year commit, including colo (rented rack space) and power. At the end, you still have a server you can sell.
At $500K to $650K for a new 8x B300 server, owning comes to $3 to $3.70 per GPU-hour over three years before resale. A three-year commit costs $4.40 to $5.30 per GPU-hour, with 30% prepaid. Owning pulls ahead between months 10 and 26.
The hardest part is figuring out what you can sell the hardware for. Used GPU transaction prices aren't public. At Stoa Intelligence, we price five @nvidia platforms every week using executed trades and firm dealer quotes.
The A100 80GB came out in November 2020. One bought at launch hit $0 on the books in November 2025 on a five-year depreciation schedule. Our weekly price for a used 8x A100 system stayed between $51,763 and $58,314 from July 10 to October 2, 2026.
Owning is more doable than it sounds. A complete used 8x A100 server costs under $100K and gives you 640GB of GPU memory in one machine. Used 8x H100 systems got 12% cheaper over the same period. Suppliers on Stoa quote new B300 and B200 systems with firm prices and delivery dates, and used H100 and H200 systems available now.
Renting makes more sense if your usage is spiky or you need a few weeks of extra capacity. Buying takes cash up front, and we help with financing options.
The math and price charts are in the note below.
If you're about to sign an offtake, DM me your quote. We'll price out owning the same hardware.
Already own GPUs? Stoa Intelligence can value your fleet every week. DM me to set it up.
Stoa (YC S26) retweeted
Today we are launching Stoa Intelligence, a product I am particularly excited about.
For months the same question kept coming up in customer conversations: where would a given GPU configuration clear today?
There is plenty of pricing in this market. The problem is it lives in private quotes and bilateral trades, so any one desk only ever sees its own flow. Rental and residual value models fill some of the gap. What they cannot tell you is where a specific configuration is being bid, offered, or traded right now.
That matters when you are deciding whether to hold inventory or rotate a fleet. It matters a lot more when you are valuing a portfolio or lending against the hardware.
Stoa Intelligence takes pricing activity captured on Stoa and turns it into hardware marks, current market levels by configuration, fleet and collateral monitoring, and analysis for valuation and GPU backed financing. A wider view of the market than any single desk can build from its own quotes and trades.
Sign up at stoaexchange.com/intelligenc….
Stoa Markets is live today at stoaexchange.com.
An RFQ marketplace for new and secondary GPUs, from bare cards to full clusters.
You send a spec. Vetted dealers bid without seeing each other's numbers, and firm quotes come back within 48 hours. We run counterparty checks and stay on the deal through shipping and settlement.
More than $300M in RFQs came through in our first month.
Every trade that clears leaves a real price behind. That history is what the market can eventually mark, finance, and hedge against.
Stoa (YC S26) retweeted
A $100M GPU deal doesn't close on an exchange. It closes in a group chat, off a voice note.
Today we're launching Stoa: an RFQ marketplace for GPUs. $300M+ in RFQs in our first month.
Post what you need. Vetted dealers bid blind. Firm quotes within 48 hours. We handle KYB, contracts, shipping, and settlement.
Every RFQ, firm quote, award, and settlement runs through Stoa, so we see what hardware trades for. That history becomes prices buyers, sellers, and lenders can mark, finance, and hedge against.
@stoaexchange