We’re kicking off another week with a quick catch-up on the weekend’s must-read headlines, a look at our top partner offers, and, as always, a quiz to test your market knowledge. Let’s go.

LBank’s $500,000 Pudgy Penguins Huddle

Geo: Global (subject to regional restrictions)
Dates: Until September 3, 2026
Up for grabs: A share of $500,000, plus crypto and limited-edition Pudgy Penguins collectibles

LBank has teamed up with Pudgy Penguins for a four-week trading campaign spanning spot, futures and PENGU savings.

Participants can earn welcome bonuses, access boosted PENGU rates and compete in weekly futures leaderboards. Trading milestones also unlock Lucky Wheel spins, with prizes ranging from USDT to 1 BTC, 1 ETH and rare Pudgy Penguins collectibles.

Learn more

Toobit’s 3 Million USDT Futures Race

Geo: Global (subject to regional restrictions)
Dates: Until September 9, 2026
Up for grabs: A share of up to 3 million USDT, plus F1 prizes and a Singapore Grand Prix trip

Toobit has turned futures trading into a month-long motorsport tournament, with six teams competing across solo and team championships.

Participants can earn rewards through trading, deposits, referrals and other platform activities, with prizes ranging from USDT bonuses and F1 merchandise to a trip to the 2026 Singapore Grand Prix. Early registrants can also claim additional bonuses while allocations last.

Learn more

What went down this weekend…

Trump Sold Strategy and Bought Coinbase

Donald Trump sold shares in Strategy and Coinbase during June before buying back into Coinbase the following day, according to a new financial disclosure covering more than 1,000 transactions.

The filing shows two Strategy sales worth between $16,002 and $65,000 and three Coinbase sales worth between $116,003 and $315,000. Trump later purchased between $50,001 and $100,000 of Coinbase shares, alongside a smaller investment in Robinhood.

Just seven transactions involved crypto companies, with no Bitcoin ETFs, miners or Trump Media shares listed. That’s a relatively small footprint given Trump earned around $1.4 billion from crypto-related ventures last year.

Kamina Bashir reports

Nvidia Warns of 15% AI Server Price Hikes

Nvidia has reportedly warned some of its biggest customers that AI server prices will rise by more than 15% early next year.

The increases cover systems built around its flagship Vera Rubin and Grace Blackwell chips, as soaring demand pushes up the cost of the memory required to run them. Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron dominate that market, giving the three manufacturers growing pricing power as supply struggles to keep pace.

The news arrives just before Nvidia reports earnings on Wednesday, following a six-session losing streak for its stock. Investors must now decide whether the higher costs threaten Nvidia’s margins or simply confirm that AI demand remains relentless.

Kamina Bashir reports

Altcoins Add $215 Billion in Three Days

The altcoin market added $215 billion between August 19 and 22, lifting its total value above $1 trillion after a three-day gain of more than 24%.

Mid- and small-cap tokens led the rally, with 56% of Binance-listed altcoins now trading above their 200-day moving average. That marks a sharp reversal from the recent slump, when as many as 85% traded below it.

Altseason isn’t official just yet, though Bitcoin dominance remains above 59%, while the Altcoin Season Index sits at 49, well below the 75 required to confirm that altcoins are broadly outperforming BTC.

Kamina Bashir reports

❓ Quick Quiz ❓

Why is Robert Kiyosaki buying gold, silver and Bitcoin?

A) He expects interest rates to remain high
B) He believes Treasury buybacks will weaken the dollar
C) He expects demand for industrial metals to rise
D) He thinks Bitcoin will replace gold as a reserve asset

Check Your Answer

Monday Meme

We’re kicking off another week with a quick catch-up on the weekend’s must-read headlines, a look at our top partner offer, and, as always, a quiz to test your market knowledge. Let’s go.

Toobit’s 3 Million USDT Futures Race

Geo: Global (subject to regional restrictions)
Dates: Until September 9, 2026
Up for grabs: A share of up to 3 million USDT, plus F1 prizes and a Singapore Grand Prix trip

Toobit has turned futures trading into a month-long motorsport tournament, with six teams competing across solo and team championships.

Participants can earn rewards through trading, deposits, referrals and other platform activities, with prizes ranging from USDT bonuses and F1 merchandise to a trip to the 2026 Singapore Grand Prix. Early registrants can also claim additional bonuses while allocations last.

Learn more

What went down this weekend…

Coldcard Losses Pass $115 Million

Bitcoin stolen through the Coldcard wallet flaw has now passed $115 million, according to new Galaxy Research data.

The firm traced 1,778.58 BTC swept from 8,680 addresses since July 30. The first attack wave did most of the damage, draining $70.2 million from 1,195 addresses in just 41 minutes.

Only 192 victims have reported losses so far, leaving nearly 6,900 drained addresses without an identified owner. Galaxy also found that every stolen coin was created after the flawed firmware was released in March 2021.

Kamina Bashir reports

Musk Hopes AI “Is Nice to Us”

Elon Musk offered a fairly modest plan for surviving superintelligence this weekend, stating we should hope it likes us.

His comment followed an online debate in which Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei defended his warnings about AI risk, arguing that negative interview clips receive more attention than his predictions about the technology’s benefits.

Amodei believes AI could cure most human diseases within five to ten years, but continues to push for mandatory safety testing of frontier models.

Phil Haunhorst reports

Bitcoin’s Bottom Could Be 69 Days Away

Benjamin Cowen believes Bitcoin may be between 69 and 73 days from its next cycle bottom, placing the potential low around October.

His estimate is based on Bitcoin reaching day 1,363 of its current cycle. The previous two cycles bottomed on days 1,432 and 1,436, while August and September have historically been weak months for BTC.

Others argue that ETFs and corporate treasury demand have disrupted the old four-year pattern. The next few months could reveal whether Bitcoin’s familiar cycle still has any predictive power left.

Darryn Pollock reports

❓ Quick Quiz ❓

What is now Peter Thiel’s second-biggest disclosed holding?

A) An AI startup promising to replace everyone by Thursday
B) A bunker with excellent Wi-Fi
C) Argentine oil producer Vista Energy
D) A suspiciously large bag of Bitcoin

Check Your Answer

Monday Meme

We’re kicking off another week with a quick catch-up on the weekend’s must-read headlines, a look at our top partner offer, and, as always, a quiz to test your market knowledge. Let’s go.

Zoomex August Summer Airdrop

Location: Global (subject to regional restrictions)
Dates: Until August 31, 2026
Up for grabs: Up to $1,500 in rewards, plus a $100 BTC position voucher

Zoomex has launched its August Summer Airdrop, giving new users the chance to unlock up to $1,500 in rewards by completing simple onboarding tasks.

Registering and making an initial deposit of at least 1 USDT unlocks a $100 BTC position voucher, while completing KYC and futures trading milestones opens up additional cash bonuses. New users can also access exclusive Earn products offering promotional APYs of up to 666%.

Learn more

What went down this weekend…

Oil Sinks as Hormuz Talks Begin

Brent crude plunged as much as 9% yesterday after Donald Trump said talks with Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz would begin Monday afternoon.

Oil fell from $91.03 to as low as $82.83 before recovering slightly to around $84. Trump also said he cancelled a planned US strike after regional allies and Iran urged restraint, although Iranian state media denied Tehran had made any such request.

The talks could ease pressure on global shipping and fuel prices, but markets remain wary after weeks of conflicting signals sent oil sharply in both directions.

Darryn Pollock reports

Bitcoin Soft Fork Stalls After Wallet Flaw

Developers behind Bitcoin’s proposed BIP-110 soft fork have delayed activation after a security flaw in Coldcard wallets left some users’ funds easier to steal. At least $88.6 million has already been drained, per Onchain Lens.

The rule change would temporarily limit how much data can be stored in Bitcoin transactions, but it was already falling well short of the miner support needed to pass. Just 2.63% of blocks had signalled support, against a required threshold of 55%.

Node operators have now been told to switch back to standard Bitcoin software before the next activation phase begins, leaving the future of BIP-110 increasingly uncertain.

Lockridge Okoth reports

Trump Media Sells More Bitcoin

Trump Media has reportedly sold another 2,628 Bitcoin worth around $165 million, taking total sales to more than 7,200 BTC after building its treasury near the market’s peak.

The company has also launched Truth API, a subscription service giving institutional clients real-time access to Truth Social posts. The highest-priced plan costs $100,000 a month, more than the firm’s entire first-quarter revenue when annualised.

Around 4,260 Bitcoin remain on the balance sheet, but company filings show they’re pledged as collateral until 2028.

Lockridge Okoth reports

❓ Quick Quiz ❓

According to Social Capital founder Chamath Palihapitiya, what's the fastest way to profit from the AI boom?

A) Buying Nvidia shares
B) Accumulating Bitcoin
C) Buying land and power for data centres
D) Investing in AI startups

Check Your Answer

Monday Meme

We’re kicking off another week with a quick catch-up on the weekend’s must-read headlines, a look at our top partner offer, and, as always, a quiz to test your market knowledge. Let’s go.

LBank × YETI $200,000 Trading Competition

Geo: Global (subject to regional restrictions)
Dates: Until August 5, 2026
Up for grabs: A share of $200,000, futures bonuses and YETI merchandise

LBank and YETI are offering users several ways to claim futures bonuses and compete for a share of a $200,000 prize pool.

New users can earn 10 USDT for registering, 5 USDT after their first qualifying futures trade and another 10 USDT for completing one Prediction Market trade.

Trading US Stock Futures unlocks milestone rewards of up to 15 USDT, while the main volume leaderboard offers estimated individual prizes of up to 2,000 USDT. Selected tasks also unlock free Certified Yeti merchandise.

Learn more

What went down this weekend…

Gold Climbs as Oil Finally Cools

Gold is back above $4,100 after a pause in fighting between the US and Iran sent oil prices lower, easing fears that inflation could spiral higher again.

Brent crude fell as much as 7% after Iran said it would halt attacks if Washington did the same. Lower oil prices reduce inflation pressure, but traders still see around an 80% chance the Federal Reserve raises interest rates in September.

Darryn Pollock reports

Fed Decision Has Wall Street Second-Guessing

The Federal Reserve announces its latest interest-rate decision on Wednesday, and economists and traders rarely have looked this far apart heading into a meeting.

All 104 economists surveyed by Reuters expect the Fed to leave rates unchanged. Traders aren’t so convinced. Futures markets still price roughly a 36% chance of a surprise rate hike after hotter inflation, rising oil prices and new tariffs shifted expectations over the past week.

Lockridge Okoth reports

BitMart Shuts Down as BMX Crashes

BitMart is winding down its crypto exchange, sending its BMX token down 46% in a single day as users rushed for the exit.

New registrations, deposits and orders have already been suspended. All trading will stop on August 26, with the platform set to close completely on January 31, 2027.

The shutdown comes just days after BitMEX announced its own exit, meaning two established exchanges have begun closing within the same week. BitMart users now have one month to close positions and withdraw their assets.

Kamina Bashir reports

❓ Quick Quiz ❓

Changpeng Zhao says investors need to understand one simple strategy if they want to build long-term wealth. What is it?

A) Buying every dip
B) Dollar-cost averaging
C) Following whale wallets
D) Trading with leverage

Check Your Answer

Monday Meme

Brian McGleenon, Global Head of News at BeInCrypto here!

European heads of state don’t stand at podiums to announce they are surrendering their nation’s independence. It happens much more subtly, death by a thousand cuts.

Sovereign countries like the UK, France, and Germany could soon be relics of the past. The very concept of the nation-state may end up saved for posterity, kept in a taxidermist’s display in some dusty museum in our fast-approaching, humanity-eclipsing, supra-national, AI-corporatocracy, run by the men who own the thinking machines.

It sounds a bit like science fiction, but this week’s discussion on how AI infrastructure is eroding democracies revealed a stark truth. When reliance on foreign AI infrastructure becomes central to a country’s critical systems, such as healthcare, defence, and the economy, thinking you still have sovereignty is like thinking you own your house… while handing the keys to someone who can lock you out whenever you don’t do their bidding.

My discussion this week with Dr Tirath Virdee of DRE Digital, Lord Chris Holmes of the House of Lords, and Charles Kerrigan, a partner at CMS, described how the trajectory the UK and other European nations are on could see that reality become actualised.

As Frank Herbert famously wrote in Dune:

“Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”

The 30-day question

Here’s the test that cuts through the abstraction. Ask any Western government: which supplier, if they stopped cooperating with you tomorrow, would bring your whole nation to a halt within thirty days?

For most of them, the honest answer is a short and alarming list. Maybe three or four American cloud firms, one Dutch company that makes the lithography machines nobody else can build, and one Taiwanese manufacturer that produces the world’s most advanced chips.

Rather than a healthy market relationship with lots of interchangeable vendors, this reads more like dependency with a single point of failure, dressed up as smart procurement.

A market is something you can walk away from. A dependency is something that can walk away from you.

The danger isn’t that a tech CEO formally “outranks” a prime minister. It’s both narrower, and stranger, than that: the occasional decisive moment when a private individual holds a capability the state simply does not have.

The issue isn’t whether his decision was right or wrong, it’s the principle it established. Take the night in 2022 when Ukraine launched a high-stakes drone strike against Russian warships off Crimea.

As the attack drones closed in, their feeds went dark. Elon Musk had personally refused to activate Starlink coverage over the target zone, fearing the strike might escalate into a broader war. In an instant, one private citizen’s geopolitical judgment overruled an elected government’s military strategy. Ukraine’s commanders had the weapons, but a CEO across the ocean held the kill switch.

Sovereignty, it turns out, is no longer primarily about who signs the orders. To an increasing degree, it’s about who owns the infrastructure those orders depend on.

The UK has a live, homegrown example, and it sits inside the most sensitive dataset the country holds.

In November 2023, NHS England awarded a Palantir-led consortium the contract to build and run its new Federated Data Platform: a deal worth up to £330 million over seven years, designed to knit together the fragmented data of hundreds of NHS organisations.

Palantir—founded in 2003 with early backing from the CIA’s venture arm, and sitting squarely under US jurisdiction—beat rivals including Oracle and IBM.

Legal challenges and “no Palantir in the NHS” campaigns followed; ministers are now reportedly eyeing the contract’s break clause, with the first exit point falling in early 2027.

But the detail that should give everyone pause is the justification itself. The reason repeatedly offered for choosing an American vendor was one of necessity. No domestic supplier could deliver to the required scale, or timeline, we were told.

Yet far from being reassurance, this is a confession; a structural dependency written into a legal contract and signed in good faith.

A predictive AI system doesn’t sit politely alongside a public health service waiting to be swapped out. It embeds, dictating how patients are triaged, how hospital beds are allocated, and how operational metrics themselves are defined.

Once an external algorithm is woven into daily clinical practice, ripping it out becomes far more complicated than your standard procurement decision. What sounds like a simple service swap is closer to open-heart surgery on a living institution. Indeed, you don’t truly own a tool you can no longer remove; over time, the tool owns the process.

As Lord Chris Holmes put it bluntly during our discussion, there is ultimately no such thing as “NHS data.” It is our data. Health records are human lives rendered in digital form.

The question of who holds the keys to that infrastructure is more than a technical footnote; it’s a fundamental question of citizenship.

👉 Watch the full discussion on YouTube

Have a great weekend,
Brian

We’re kicking off another week with a quick catch-up on the weekend’s must-read headlines, a look at our top partner offers, and, as always, a quiz to test your market knowledge. Let’s go.

Bitpanda Welcome Rewards

Geo: Europe (excluding restricted regions)
Dates: Ends July 31
Up for grabs: 5% cashback + €25 BTC welcome bonus

Bitpanda and BeInCrypto are giving eligible new users new ways to earn when they move their crypto to the platform using the code BITPANDAXBEINCRYPTO.

Users can receive 5% cashback in EURCV on a qualifying crypto transfer, plus a €25 welcome bonus paid in BTC after trading at least €100.

To take part, sign up as a new Bitpanda user, enter the promo code, make an eligible crypto transfer, and complete a trade worth at least €100 before the campaign closes. Rewards are limited to the first 500 new users.

Terms apply. Rewards are granted in BTC and reserved to the first 500 new users. Investing in crypto-assets involves risks, up to total loss. Regulated crypto-asset services are provided by Bitpanda GmbH, authorised by the FMA in accordance with MiCAR.

Learn more

What went down this weekend…

SpaceX Delays Starship Flight 13

SpaceX delayed Starship Flight 13 to Thursday after several Raptor 3 engines failed to ignite. The setback sent SPCX shares down more than 5% to around $124, near their 52-week low. Another abort could add pressure ahead of earnings and an August share unlock.

Phil Haunhorst reports

Kalshi Adds 3 Million World Cup Users

Kalshi added three million users during the World Cup, with more than $1.2 billion traded on its winner market.

The surge was powered by football partnerships, stadium branding and campaigns featuring Luka Modric and Jose Mourinho. The challenge now is keeping those users active once the tournament ends, while US regulators continue to argue over whether sports contracts amount to betting.

Darryn Pollock reports

Oil Breaks $90 as War Escalates

Brent crude climbed above $90 as the US-Iran war disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, pushing inflation fears back into focus.

Higher oil prices are also reviving the prospect of a Fed hike, adding pressure to Bitcoin and other risk assets already struggling to hold their recovery.

Lockridge Okoth reports

❓ Quick Quiz ❓

Which global artist lost $1.5 million betting on Argentina in the World Cup final?

A) Bad Bunny
B) Drake
C) The Weeknd
D) Travis Scott

Check Your Answer

Monday Meme

We’re kicking off another week with a quick catch-up on the weekend’s must-read headlines, a look at our top partner offers, and, as always, a quiz to test your market knowledge. Let’s go.

Bitpanda Welcome Rewards

Geo: Europe (excluding restricted regions)
Dates: Ends July 12
Up for grabs: 5% cashback, a €25 BTC welcome bonus, and the chance to win 3 BTC

Bitpanda and BeInCrypto are giving eligible new users three ways to earn when they move their crypto to the platform using the code BITPANDAXBEINCRYPTO.

Users can receive 5% cashback in EURCV on a qualifying crypto transfer, plus a €25 welcome bonus paid in BTC after trading at least €100. Every euro of qualifying crypto transferred also counts as one entry into Bitpanda’s 3 BTC giveaway.

To take part, sign up as a new Bitpanda user, enter the promo code, make an eligible crypto transfer, and complete a trade worth at least €100 before the campaign closes. Rewards are limited to the first 500 new users.

Terms apply. Rewards are granted in BTC and reserved to the first 500 new users. Investing in crypto-assets involves risks, up to total loss. Regulated crypto-asset services are provided by Bitpanda GmbH, authorised by the FMA in accordance with MiCAR.

Learn more

BloFin World Cup Summer 2026

Geo: Global (excluding restricted regions)
Dates: Until July 20, 2026
Up for grabs: Points-store rewards including 1 BTC and World Cup Final tickets

BloFin’s World Cup Summer campaign is now in full swing, letting users trade, back their tournament picks and stack Points to redeem for prizes.

Users can earn Points through spot and futures trading, daily check-ins, social sharing, referrals, copy trading and holding eligible Earn products. Every 2,000 USDT in futures taker volume earns one Point, while every 500 USDT in spot taker volume earns one.

There is also a prediction game running until July 19. Users can vote on individual match results, the eventual World Cup winner and the Golden Boot race, with correct calls sharing the opposing side’s Points pool.

Rewards in the Points Store include token prizes, futures bonuses, fee rebate vouchers, plus bigger prizes including 1 BTC and World Cup Final tickets.

Learn more

What went down this weekend…

Coinbase’s AI Sends Fake World Cup Result

Coinbase is facing backlash after an AI-generated prediction-market alert reportedly declared Norway had beaten Brazil 3-2 before the World Cup match had even begun.

The notification named Erling Haaland as a two-goal scorer, despite Coinbase’s own market page showing the fixture had been delayed by weather. CEO Brian Armstrong said he was looking into the error with his team.

The blunder is especially awkward given Armstrong’s long-running pitch that prediction markets are a better way to find the truth. Instead, Coinbase’s automated system appears to have invented a result for millions of users.

Lockridge Okoth reports

Anthropic Faces Fresh Piracy Claim

Anthropic is facing a new $75 million lawsuit from authors who say the company used pirated books to train Claude without permission, licensing or payment.

The case turns on an important distinction in the AI copyright fight. A previous ruling found that training on legally acquired books could qualify as fair use, but downloading pirated copies was treated separately as infringement.

The plaintiffs opted out of Anthropic’s earlier $1.5 billion settlement, which covered an estimated 500,000 books, and are now pursuing their own claims for higher damages.

Luis Blanco reports

Wall Street’s Earnings Boom Looks Fragile

Wall Street’s record rally is being held up by a huge jump in profit forecasts, but strategists are starting to question whether those numbers can possibly deliver.

Analysts now expect S&P 500 earnings to grow 25% over the next year, with consensus estimates up nearly 20% in six months, the fastest pace since the post-COVID rebound.

GMO, UBS and Nordea all warn that AI-fuelled upgrades for chipmakers and hyperscalers are leaving little room for disappointment. With stocks trading near 20 times forward earnings and rate-cut bets fading, the coming earnings season could be a real test.

Darryn Pollock reports

❓ Quick Quiz ❓

Michael Saylor thinks the Bitcoin halving is old news. So what does he reckon will run the next big BTC cycle?

A) Elon posting through it

B) Capital flooding in

C) A new meme coin

D) Moon phases

Check Your Answer

Monday Meme

Brian McGleenon, Global Head of News at BeInCrypto here.

At every conference this year, the same gospel has been preached with zealous fervor: tokenized Real-World Assets (RWAs) are the ultimate convergence of Wall Street and public blockchains, destined to unlock trillions in stagnant capital.

But, please read on as we have what might just be a massive reality check for you!

For the past few months, BeInCrypto Intelligence has been working quietly behind the scenes with our data partner RWA.xyz to map out the actual plumbing of this market. We didn’t just look at headline numbers; we brought in our Expert Council, including S&P Global’s Andrew O’Neill, CFA, to strictly audit our compliance methodology, and strip away the hyperbole.

While the promise of tokenizing real-world assets (RWAs) has long been heralded as the ultimate convergence of TradFi and decentralized rails, our findings deliver an anecdote to all the hype.

While the research tracks roughly $60 billion in tokenized RWAs across more than 7,000 products and 12 asset classes (excluding stablecoins), the findings expose a deeply bifurcated market defined by extreme concentration and massive liquidity stagnation.

The Hard Data: A Market Frozen in Place

• The Core is Tiny: Just 62 assets hold 88% of the entire RWA market value.

• The Oligopoly of Five: Roughly half of the market’s total value is concentrated in just five products (Figure HELOC, Circle USYC, Tether Gold, BlackRock BUIDL, and Justoken JMWH).

• Widespread Stagnation: Across 1,289 tokenized assets valued above $100,000, 910 assets representing $32.9 billion had zero weekly transfers.

• The Retail Exclusion: 97% of the market sits outside US retail access, leaving a mere $1.7 billion accessible to the public.

• Synthetic Ownership: Tokenized stocks are growing fast, but 59% provide synthetic price exposure rather than actual ownership of the underlying shares.

To find out whether tokenization is fundamentally failing or simply maturing, we got direct reactions from five prominent CEOs leading the charge.

The Executive Consensus: Is “Dormancy” by Design?

1. Tal Elyashiv (Securitize): On the Equity and Issuance Reality

Addressing the finding that $32.9 billion sits completely stagnant on-chain, Elyashiv counters that this “dormancy” is actually a sign of institutional infrastructure working exactly as intended. Highlighting BlackRock’s BUIDL, he notes that the first wave of tokenization was engineered for operational architecture, not daily retail volume:

“Many of the first assets tokenized were funds (VC funds, private funds). Tokenization in these cases was not done to facilitate retail/public trading, but rather to upgrade institutional issuance infrastructure, compliance, and settlement.”

Rather than viewing the report’s data as a permanent limitation, Elyashiv frames these highly controlled, early-stage structures as a mandatory prologue to open secondary markets:

“The next stage as manifested by the NYSE creating a digital (tokenized) exchange venue and Continental and Computershare partnering with Securitize, etc., is bringing the efficiency of the same infrastructure as better rails for public trading... But we are entering that phase.”

2. Robin Nordnes (Raiku): Contextualizing On-Chain Stagnation

Confronted with the data showing that over half of tokenized value is functionally ledger-locked, Robin Nordnes evaluates the finding from an infrastructure standpoint. To Nordnes, the root cause isn’t asset quality, but a fundamental lack of execution predictability on public networks. He points out that traditional allocators require deterministic answers regarding if and when a trade will settle, rather than competing in a volatile, probabilistic mempool.

“The dormancy finding doesn’t surprise me... What we hear consistently from institutional allocators is that they won’t actively manage capital on-chain until they can answer two questions with confidence: will my transaction execute, and when... For passive holding that’s tolerable. For active trading, collateral management or intraday rebalancing, it isn’t.”

Nordnes stresses that introducing predictable infrastructure completely shifts the baseline calculus for institutional adoption far beyond simply saving on network gas fees:

“Predictable execution doesn’t just reduce what you pay to transact, it changes what you’re willing to do at all. That’s the shift that allows serious allocators to treat on-chain venues as primary infrastructure rather than a parallel experiment... blockspace auction revenue as a yield source only makes sense if the underlying blockspace market has pricing integrity...”

3. Fred Hsu (D3): A Map of Experimental Asset Classes

Addressing the specific finding that only 1 out of 12 asset classes (U.S. Treasuries) has achieved genuine production-grade maturity, Fred Hsu looks at the data as a targeted, multi-trillion-dollar opportunity:

“Only treasuries have reached production grade so far, and almost every other class is still concentrated or experimental. That looks like a weakness, but it is really a map of where the value is. The classes that never matured are the fragmented, illiquid markets traditional finance never priced well... The infrastructure that finally reaches those markets is what decides where the next phase of growth comes from.”

4. Raj Kamal (TransFi): The Parallel Success of Stablecoins

When asked whether the report’s metrics prove that institutional RWAs are failing, Raj Kamal points to the broader tokenized landscape to argue that a highly functional market is already thriving via fiat-backed assets:

“In my view, the real RWA tokenization that is solving real world problems is stablecoins. Where there is a tokenization happening of a real world asset - the US dollar. Through USDC and USDT, billions of dollars of stablecoins are making remittances, B2B flows, payroll & freelancer payments...”

Instead of viewing these metrics as a structural failure for the broader ecosystem, Kamal emphasizes that the highest-velocity use cases for tokenization are scaling rapidly outside of traditional, closed ledgers:

“The reality is that we are just scratching the surface of the multi-trillion dollar traditional payments that is likely to move on to stablecoins. We should be celebrating this clear game changer in global payments as proof of RWAs working.”

5. Edwin Mata (Brickken): Shifting Focus to the Access Layer

Concluding the analysis, Edwin Mata looks directly at the baseline data and validates the current state of the landscape as a natural phase in the technology lifecycle:

“These numbers make sense and reflect the current state of the market, tokenization is still early in institutional adoption and that’s how it was supposed to be. The first phase was always about trust: proving the tech works, meeting regulatory bars... That groundwork isn’t wasted time but rather the foundation on which everything else will be built.”

For Mata, the current multi-billion dollar stagnation highlights exactly where the next industry sector winners will emerge:

“As regulation clarifies (Clarity Act or MiCA in Europe is a good example) and infrastructure matures, the winners will ultimately be whoever builds the access layer: discovery, interoperability layers, the infrastructure that turns a tokenized asset from a static record into something businesses and institutions can actually rely and build on.”

Coming Next Week: The Big Dissect

If you want to hear these findings broken down even further, make sure to tune in next week. We have a massive, exclusive podcast episode dropping featuring heavyweight voices from S&P Global and Franklin Templeton as they sit down to fully dissect the data, compliance methodologies, and the institutional path forward. Keep an eye on your inbox!

Working on Edition 2

The structural shift from static issuance to active utility forms the backbone of our next deep dive. The BeInCrypto Intelligence team is already working on the next installment of our research series: Tokenisation 2026 & Beyond: The Infrastructure Opportunity.

Edition 2 will focus heavily on:

• Tokenized Treasuries: Mapping the evolution of the market’s only production-grade asset class.

• Reserve Quality: Analyzing the asset backing and legal security anchoring top products.

• DeFi Risk: Evaluating smart contract vulnerabilities and systemic liquidity constraints.

We shape each edition with a small group of strategic partners. Want to collaborate or share your data? Talk to the team to learn how you can get involved.

Podcast of the Week: The 90% MiCA Wipeout

With Europe’s game-changing MiCA regulation officially taking full effect this week, the data is brutal: roughly 2,700 crypto firms have been compressed into just 210 fully licensed CASPs—a staggering 90% collapse. In our latest episode, I sit down with three major insiders—Tesseract Group CEO James Harris, Wincent Head of APAC Ryan J. Miller, and European Ethereum Institute Senior Policy Lead Vyara Savova—to dissect who is genuinely ready, who is pretending, and why a 20-person shop now faces the same crushing compliance burden as a global exchange. From how banks are moving to dominate stablecoins to how DeFi vaults are being completely rebuilt to be compliant by design, this is the ultimate playbook on the world’s hardest crypto crackdown.

Watch the full episode on YouTube

Have a great weekend,

Brian

We’re kicking off another week with a quick catch-up on the weekend’s must-read headlines, a look at our top partner offers, and, as always, a quiz to test your market knowledge. Let’s go.

Bitrue Welcome Bonuses

Geo: Worldwide, excluding the US and China
Dates: 1 day left
Up for grabs: Random 100–1,000 USDT Futures Position Experience Coupon, plus up to 1,000 USDT in futures bonuses

Bitrue and BeInCrypto are offering new users a chance to claim welcome rewards, including a random 100–1,000 USDT Futures Position Experience Coupon for eligible users who register through the campaign link and complete KYC.

Users can also unlock futures bonuses by making a qualifying net deposit and reaching the required futures trading volume. Rewards start at a 50 USDT futures bonus for a 100 USDT net deposit and 50,000 USDT in trading volume, rising to 1,000 USDT for users who deposit at least 1,000 USDT and reach 2 million USDT in futures volume.

To take part, register through the BeInCrypto link, complete KYC, make an eligible net deposit, and trade futures before the campaign ends. Rewards are distributed within three to seven working days after the campaign closes, while profits made using the coupons can be withdrawn at any time.

Learn more

BYDFi x BeInCrypto Deposit & Trade Bonus Blast

Geo: Global (excluding restricted regions)
Dates: Kicks off in 15 days
Up for grabs: Up to 1,700 USDT in bonuses

BYDFi and BeInCrypto have launched a new Deposit & Trade Bonus Blast, giving eligible new users the chance to earn up to 1,700 USDT in rewards.

Users can unlock Level 1 bonuses of up to 200 USDT by depositing funds into their USDT-M Futures account and completing futures trading milestones. Those who qualify can then progress to Level 2, where cumulative futures trading volume can earn an additional bonus of up to 1,500 USDT.

To participate, sign up through the designated BeInCrypto link, transfer funds to your USDT-M Futures account, maintain your net deposit for at least 72 hours, and complete the required trading volume targets before the campaign ends.

Learn more

BloFin World Cup Summer 2026

Location: Global (excluding restricted regions)
Dates: Until July 20, 2026
Up for grabs: Token rewards, futures bonuses, fee rebate vouchers, Points, up to 1 ETH

BloFin has launched its World Cup Summer 2026 campaign, giving users multiple ways to earn rewards while following the tournament.

Users can collect “Shots” by trading, checking in daily, sharing the campaign, inviting friends, and selecting a team that scores. Each Shot can unlock token rewards, futures bonuses, fee rebate vouchers, or Points that can be redeemed in the Points Store.

The Shoot & Stack round runs from June 15 at 10:00 UTC until June 28 at 10:00 UTC. Rewards include tokens such as ADA, DOGE, CRV, and SOL, alongside futures bonuses of up to $100 and a top prize of 1 ETH.

To earn additional Shots, users can trade futures or spot markets. Every 2,000 USDT in futures taker volume earns one Shot, up to 1,000 Shots, while every 500 USDT in spot taker volume earns one Shot, up to 300 Shots. Users can also earn bonus Shots by referring friends who complete 2,000 USDT in futures trading.

Learn more

What went down this weekend…

Trump Threatens Iran Annihilation as Oil Rebounds Before Doha Talks

Oil moved back above $70 after fresh US-Iran strikes revived fears around the Strait of Hormuz, despite both sides agreeing to pause attacks and meet in Doha on Tuesday.

WTI rose to $70.17 and Brent hit $73.21 after a weekend of escalation across Iran, Bahrain and Kuwait. Trump warned Tehran of “annihilation” if attacks continue, while Iran insisted it will not surrender control of Hormuz traffic.

Shipping through the strait has already dropped sharply. Tomorrow’s talks will show whether this is a real de-escalation or just another pause.

Darryn Pollock reports

Moderna’s Comeback Rally Extends to 125%

Moderna is back in focus after a 12% Friday jump pushed the former COVID winner up 125% year to date.

A unanimous FDA panel vote backing its mRNA flu vaccine has cleared a major hurdle ahead of an August 5 decision. The company is also pitching investors on a broader pipeline across oncology, rare diseases and autoimmune treatments.

Wall Street remains cautious, though. Most analysts still rate the stock a Hold, with consensus targets sitting below its current price.

Darryn Pollock reports

Swifties Put $4M on Taylor Swift’s Wedding

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce have not announced a wedding, but prediction-market traders have already wagered more than $4 million on where and when it might happen.

New York is the clear favourite, while markets are also taking bets on the date, guest list and wedding party. Kalshi gives a 95.5% chance of a 2026 ceremony.

The frenzy shows just how far prediction markets have moved beyond politics and sports. Entertainment trading is now on track for a $1 billion year.

Phil Haunhorst reports

❓ Quick Quiz ❓

What did veteran investor Jeremy Grantham say Bitcoin’s proof-of-work system was worth?

A) A bucket of warm spit
B) A bag of hot air
C) A pile of digital dust
D) Absolutely nothing

Check Your Answer

Monday Meme

Brian McGleenon, Global Head of News at BeInCrypto here.

While the broader markets are fixated on the immediate drama of tech stocks and the brutal post-IPO correction that saw SpaceX shares slide from their historic $225 peak back down toward their listing price, I want us to lift our eyes to the horizon. Don’t let the short-term noise fool you, because Elon Musk could be playing a multi-decadal geopolitical game where the ultimate prize isn’t even on this planet.

If you’re feeling burnt by SpaceX’s recent 30% dip, it’s worth considering Elon Musk’s long-term plan: turning his empire into the wealthiest force on Earth. And, this vision could rely heavily on one hyper-rare isotope scattered across the lunar surface: Helium-3.

To put its scarcity into perspective, Helium-3 trades for a staggering $15,000 to $19,000 per gram (roughly $15 million to $20 million per kilogram). When you compare that to a traditional safe haven, an ounce of this moon substance is worth over 200 times an ounce of gold, and compared to the standard industrial helium we use on Earth, it is worth over 100,000 times more.

If SpaceX successfully harvests the moon’s topsoil (which holds millions of tons of it deposited by solar winds), they will control the foundational resource for three world-changing industries: aneutronic nuclear fusion (unlocking infinite clean energy without radioactive waste), quantum computing processors (which require Helium-3 to achieve near absolute zero cooling), and homeland security radiation detection. Whoever controls the lunar regolith controls the future of global energy. That could be the ultimate long-term pump SPCX holders are waiting for.

Inside the Secret UK Vaults Controlling the “Space Gold”

You don’t actually have to go to the moon to find this stuff, but you do have to go to Cambridge.

Deep within the high-security labs of Cambridge University, specifically at the world-famous Cavendish Laboratory, researchers quietly maintain specialised equipment holding ultra-precious stashes of Helium-3. In fact, Cambridge is where Helium-3 was first discovered back in 1934. Today, scientists at Cavendish use it inside sealed “Spin-Echo” spectrometers for bleeding-edge quantum and surface physics research.

Because Earth’s natural supply is virtually non-existent, relying entirely on the radioactive decay of aging nuclear weapons material, these localised, highly protected stashes are treated like crown jewels. It is this type of deep-tech infrastructure that Musk is eyeing for SpaceX’s future commercial supply chains. Today’s space race isn’t just about exploration, it’s a commercial race to control a resource from the Moon that is far more valuable than gold or any other precious metal on Earth.

AI Sovereignty: Washington Just Intervened at OpenAI

Moving from outer space to inner space, the concept of “AI Sovereignty” has completely shifted from abstract philosophy into hard government enforcement this week.

The Information broke a massive story on Friday, revealing that the U.S. government has officially requested OpenAI to stagger the release of its next flagship model, GPT-5.6. CEO Sam Altman informed staff that the government will be reviewing and approving access customer by customer during an initial preview period restricted to roughly 20 trusted partners.

The sudden intervention stems from deep anxieties that GPT-5.6’s raw capabilities could breach current institutional cybersecurity defenses or fall into adversarial hands.

The Weaponization of Tech Exports: Just recently, OpenAI’s chief rival, Anthropic, was hit with sudden Department of Commerce export controls, forcing them to temporarily suspend access to their newest frontier models over fears of financial system vulnerabilities and safety jailbreaks. Washington is no longer waiting for models to drop; the U.S. government is actively vetting frontier AI before the public ever sees it.

What this means for Nation-State Sovereignty: This aggressive bottlenecking by the U.S. has triggered an unprecedented, panic-driven global arms race. Countries across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia are waking up to a terrifying reality: if you rent your AI from Silicon Valley, Washington holds the on/off switch. To ensure cultural, economic, and defensive independence, nation-states are pouring billions into building localized data centers and training their own sovereign, un-censorable models.

Coming in July: We are taking you behind the closed doors of this geopolitical flashpoint. Keep your eyes peeled for our upcoming Future Tech Expert Council podcast next month. We are sitting down with top-level officials involved in nation-state AI sovereignty, to map out the battlefield of independent intelligence, and define exactly who will win, and who will follow.

Podcast of the Week: The Death of the Petrodollar

Finally, if you listen to one thing this weekend, make it our latest Expert Council Podcast. I sat down with legendary economist Nouriel Roubini, Atlas Capital CEO Reza Bundy, and Securitize CEO Carlos Domingo for a masterclass on macroeconomic structural shifts.

Once one of crypto’s most vocal critics, Dr. Doom himself is making his first formal move into digital assets. His thesis? The Petrodollar is dead, and the era of the ‘Technodollar’ has arrived.

Key Takeaways from the Episode:

• The Inflation Illusion: Roubini argues that standard dollar-pegged stablecoins (like USDT or USDC) are flawed long-term hedges. They might solve payment efficiency, but they still expose users to the exact same fiat debasement and inflation risks as physical cash.

• Enter USAFi: To combat this, Atlas Capital launched USAFi, a tokenised reserve asset issued under Dubai’s VARA framework. It is a permissionless ERC-20 token directly collateralized by the Atlas America Fund, an SEC-registered, actively managed ETF listed on Nasdaq (ticker: USAF).

• The New Backing: Instead of oil, the next global reserve system will be tied to American productive tech assets: AI, defense technology, semiconductors, and climate-resilient real estate. The assets are securely custodied at BNY Mellon, with risk managed via machine learning.

“If the critique of cryptocurrency was the risk of debasement that comes from inflation, then something that is not interest-bearing, like a stablecoin... is subject to the same kind of debasement risk. The collateral itself must change.” — Nouriel Roubini told me.

By leveraging Securitize to bring this ETF-backed asset on-chain, the team is building an institutional-grade, inflation-resistant reserve asset designed specifically to serve as DeFi collateral.

You can read our full deep dive and listen to the exclusive episode on BeInCrypto now.

Until next week,

Brian McGleenon,

Global Head of News, BeInCrypto

We’re kicking off another week with a quick catch-up on the weekend’s must-read headlines, a look at our top partner offers, and, as always, a quiz to test your market knowledge. Let’s go.

BYDFi x BeInCrypto Deposit & Trade Bonus Blast

Location: Global (excluding restricted regions)
Dates: Kicks off in 8 days
Up for grabs: Up to 1,700 USDT in bonuses

BYDFi and BeInCrypto have launched a new Deposit & Trade Bonus Blast, giving eligible new users the chance to earn up to 1,700 USDT in rewards.

Users can unlock Level 1 bonuses of up to 200 USDT by depositing funds into their USDT-M Futures account and completing futures trading milestones. Those who qualify can then progress to Level 2, where cumulative futures trading volume can earn an additional bonus of up to 1,500 USDT.

To participate, sign up through the designated BeInCrypto link, transfer funds to your USDT-M Futures account, maintain your net deposit for at least 72 hours, and complete the required trading volume targets before the campaign ends.

Learn more

BloFin World Cup Summer 2026

Location: Global (excluding restricted regions)
Dates: June 11 to July 20, 2026
Up for grabs: Token rewards, futures bonuses, fee rebate vouchers, Points, up to 1 ETH

BloFin has launched its World Cup Summer 2026 campaign, giving users multiple ways to earn rewards while following the tournament.

Users can collect “Shots” by trading, checking in daily, sharing the campaign, inviting friends, and selecting a team that scores. Each Shot can unlock token rewards, futures bonuses, fee rebate vouchers, or Points that can be redeemed in the Points Store.

The Shoot & Stack round runs from June 15 at 10:00 UTC until June 28 at 10:00 UTC. Rewards include tokens such as ADA, DOGE, CRV, and SOL, alongside futures bonuses of up to $100 and a top prize of 1 ETH.

To earn additional Shots, users can trade futures or spot markets. Every 2,000 USDT in futures taker volume earns one Shot, up to 1,000 Shots, while every 500 USDT in spot taker volume earns one Shot, up to 300 Shots. Users can also earn bonus Shots by referring friends who complete 2,000 USDT in futures trading.

Learn more

What went down this weekend…

Fed Hawkishness Overtakes Hormuz as Markets’ Main Risk

Markets are paying less attention to the latest US-Iran headlines as oil’s war premium fades (for now) and the Fed takes centre stage.

WTI is down roughly 34% from its conflict high, while BTC trades near $64,000 as Kevin Warsh’s hawkish FOMC debut pushes rate-hike odds to 66%. This week’s GDP and PCE data could decide whether that pressure builds further.

Darryn Pollock reports

Main Street Stablecoin Crashes After Reserve Verifier Exits

Main Street’s msUSD lost its dollar peg on Saturday after verification provider Accountable ended its agreement with the protocol, saying it could not meet its standards.

The stablecoin fell to around $0.29, while its yield token msY also plunged. With Main Street’s proof-of-reserves dashboard no longer active, attention now turns to whether the protocol can demonstrate the backing behind msUSD.

Lockridge Okoth reports

Keir Starmer Resigns as Andy Burnham Emerges as Favourite

Keir Starmer resigned as UK prime minister today after an open revolt from Labour MPs, ending a tenure that began with the party’s 2024 landslide.

Donald Trump meanwhile, got in first, announcing Starmer’s departure yesterday and blaming his energy and immigration policies. Andy Burnham is now the frontrunner to take over, with crypto voters watching whether his more supportive stance on digital assets could translate into a change in Labour policy.

Phil Haunhorst reports

❓ Quick Quiz ❓

After losing $15 million in a reverse honeypot exploit, what share of the stolen funds did Jaredfromsubway.eth offer the attacker as a white hat bounty?

A) 10%
B) 25%
C) 50%
D) 75%

Check Your Answer

Monday Meme

I was at this week’s The Economist’s Commercialising Quantum Global summit in London, and after conversations with European deep-tech founders, I began to wonder whether quantum computing could be Europe’s way to entirely bypass Silicon Valley in the next phase of the AI race.

To understand how this is a possibility worth considering, we must first look at the brutal asymmetric dependencies trapping the the UK and the EU right now:

• Sovereignty Power Asymmetry: At the recent G7 summit lunch in Évian, the United States was flanked by five of its dominant domestic frontier AI giants: OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, Salesforce, and Meta (represented alongside Scale AI). By contrast, the remaining G7 nations and invited allies had only a single domestic firm representing each of their respective flags at the table, including France’s Mistral AI, the UK’s Synthesia, Canada’s Cohere, Germany’s Black Forest Labs, Japan’s Sakana AI, India’s Sarvam AI, and Italy’s Domyn.

• The Continental Infrastructure Gap: Europe currently relies on foreign, primarily American, architecture for an estimated 80% of its overall digital infrastructure.

• The Cloud Lock-In: When it comes to critical cloud computing and data storage, the dependency is absolute, soaring past 90% reliance on just a few dominant US-based hyperscalers.

While the public conversation remains completely fixated on Silicon Valley’s monopoly over first-generation large language models and massive GPU data centers, classical-computing AI is hitting a wall of compute scale and power-grid exhaustion.

The antidote to Europe’s AI lag lies in the architecture being engineered right now by its domestic deep-tech champions: Quantum Machine Learning (QML). By merging Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) nodes directly with classical high-performance computing (HPC) stacks, European startups are achieving multi-dimensional processing breakthroughs.

This paradigm shift entirely bypasses the need for hundreds of thousands of Nvidia GPUs, specialized nuclear power plants, and the astronomical electricity and water-cooling infrastructure required to keep modern data centers alive.

The geopolitical consequences of the AI-sovereignty imbalance between the US and the EU is beginning to materialise. The fallout from the Trump administration’s sudden decision to block close foreign allies from accessing Anthropic’s most advanced models (Fable 5 and Mythos 5) has sent shockwaves through European leadership.

For years, Europe operated on a comfortable assumption of transatlantic alignment. The reality on the ground is far bleaker: the G7 summit has turned what was a quiet structural vulnerability into a loud, flashing national security crisis. European hospitals, research centers, and government bodies are waking up to the reality that their operational continuity is entirely hostage to political swings of Donald Trump, plus the un-elected tech barons that sit behind him.

The Sovereign Industrial Engine

In response, the European Commission is moving aggressively with its Tech Sovereignty Package and InvestAI initiatives, pouring billions into “AI Factories” and semiconductor infrastructure.

The path to European autonomy might not be found by subsidising a poor imitation of Silicon Valley, but by hyper-charging the industrial and tech giants that Europe already has, and treating them as sovereign national security assets.

This requires a highly coordinated industrial ecosystem:

• ASML: Their monopoly on Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines means the US cannot manufacture a single advanced AI chip without Dutch technology.

• Nokia & Ericsson: Controlling the physical 5G and future 6G telecommunications supply chains, providing the secure, encrypted nervous system for distributed computing.

• Siemens & Airbus: The physical implementers, weaving localized AI directly into advanced manufacturing, industrial automation, and defense aerospace.

• SAP & Mistral AI: Driving the logical layer, building the proprietary enterprise software and open-source frontier models that keep data sovereign, localized, and out of foreign jurisdictions.

If the EU utilises these industrial titans as a strategic bargaining chip while aggressively integrating domestic quantum processors from the likes of Pasqal or IQM into its new supercomputing hubs, it can move beyond theoretical input and actively impact global tech governance. It forces Europe to grow from a “shiny regulator” passing laws into a hardened, self-sufficient technological superpower.

With this in mind, keep an eye out this July for a special episode of the BeInCrypto Future Tech Expert Council podcast.

We will tackle the critical question many global commentators ignore: In the era of AI, what has structurally happened to the sovereignty of nations outside the US and China, and can it ever be recovered? Tune in as we dissect how the technological, financial, and cognitive infrastructures of independent nations have been effectively captured by a stateless coalition of capital and commercial interests, and how we can fight to win it back.

Podcast of the Week:

On the latest BeInCrypto Market Intelligence Expert Council, Poland Editor-in-Chief Jakub Dziadkowiec sits down with Charles Edwards (Founder of Capriole Investments) and Julio Moreno (Head of Research at CryptoQuant).

Together, they deliver the most honest breakdown you’ll find anywhere on how sophisticated institutional investors actually utilize on-chain data, and why 99% of dashboard metrics are just noise.

Stay tuned, and stay safe,

Brian McGleenon

Global Head of News, BeInCrypto

We’re kicking off another week with a quick catch-up on the weekend’s must-read headlines, a look at our top partner offer, and, as always, a quiz to test your market knowledge. Let’s go.

BYDFi x BeInCrypto Deposit & Trade Bonus Blast

Geo: Global (excluding restricted regions)
Dates: Kicks off in 15 days
Up for grabs: Up to 1,700 USDT in bonuses

BYDFi and BeInCrypto have launched a new Deposit & Trade Bonus Blast, giving eligible new users the chance to earn up to 1,700 USDT in rewards.

Users can unlock Level 1 bonuses of up to 200 USDT by depositing funds into their USDT-M Futures account and completing futures trading milestones. Those who qualify can then progress to Level 2, where cumulative futures trading volume can earn an additional bonus of up to 1,500 USDT.

To participate, sign up through the designated BeInCrypto link, transfer funds to your USDT-M Futures account, maintain your net deposit for at least 72 hours, and complete the required trading volume targets before the campaign ends.

Learn more

What went down this weekend…

Trump Unveils Iran Ceasefire Deal as Markets Eye Oil Relief

Donald Trump says the US and Iran agreed to a 60-day ceasefire framework, with a signing ceremony reportedly scheduled for June 19 in Switzerland.

The proposed deal would reopen the Strait of Hormuz, ease sanctions in phases, and allow Iran to resume limited oil exports in exchange for compliance. However, key issues including uranium enrichment limits, ballistic missiles, and regional proxy networks have been pushed to future negotiations.

Markets welcomed the prospect of reduced geopolitical tensions, with lower oil prices and improved risk sentiment supporting a rebound in Bitcoin and other risk assets.

Lockridge Okoth reports

Gold Pulls Ahead of Silver as US-Iran Deal Sends Oil Lower

The gold-versus-silver trade is starting to split, with investors increasingly favoring gold as easing tensions between the US and Iran weigh on oil prices.

Futures data showed fresh capital flowing into gold, with open interest rising nearly ten times more than silver’s, while options markets suggest traders are actively hedging bullish positions rather than betting against the metal. Analysts say falling oil prices and cooling inflation expectations are reinforcing gold’s appeal as a defensive asset, while silver’s industrial exposure is limiting its safe-haven demand.

Ananda Banerjee reports

Stanford Graduates Walk Out on Google CEO Over Israel Contract

Graduates at Stanford University staged a walkout during Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s commencement speech, protesting the company’s involvement in Project Nimbus, a cloud and AI contract with the Israeli government.

The demonstration was organized by Stanford Students for Justice in Palestine and focused on Google’s reported $1.2 billion partnership with Israel alongside Amazon. Protesters argue the technology could support surveillance and military operations, claims that have fueled internal and external criticism of the project.

Pichai, who earned his master’s degree at Stanford, notably avoided discussing artificial intelligence during his address, instead encouraging graduates to stay optimistic and pursue meaningful work.

Lockridge Okoth reports

❓ Quick Quiz ❓

President Trump’s crypto venture awarded UFC fighters $250,000 in bonuses using which stablecoin during a White House event?

A) USDC
B) USDT
C) USD1
D) RLUSD

Check Your Answer

Monday Meme

SpaceX has officially broken out of the private markets, ringing the opening bell on Friday to launch the largest, most fiercely anticipated initial public offering in Wall Street history under the ticker SPCX.

Elon Musk’s newly minted aerospace-and-AI behemoth, which now includes xAI and the massive Starlink network, debuted at a jaw-dropping $1.77 trillion valuation. If you didn’t manage to secure a slice of Friday’s heavily oversubscribed float, you could start looking at where the real alpha might be found.

In a debut of this magnitude, the sheer gravitational pull of the capital creates massive secondary waves. Institutional money that was boxed out of the primary allocation is already shifting frantically to capture the momentum, and that capital overflow is routing directly into a select group of adjacent, publicly traded companies.

To help you navigate this tectonic market shift, I’ve put together a quick, actionable breakdown of the top five structural plays primed to absorb this momentum:

Five SPCX Momentum Proxies to Watch

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL)

Holds a massive legacy equity stake of an estimated 6% to 7.5% from a 2015 investment, positioning its balance sheet for a potential multi-billion dollar windfall.

Rocket Lab USA Inc. (NASDAQ: RKLB)

Operates as the number-two player in commercial space launch and the closest direct public competitor to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket ecosystem.

T-Mobile US Inc. (NASDAQ: TMUS)

Serves as SpaceX’s primary commercial telecom partner for Starlink’s next-generation “Direct-to-Cell” global satellite connectivity

Coherent Corp. (NYSE: COHR)

Manufactures the specialised optical transceivers and “space laser” technology required for Starlink satellite-to-satellite routing and mega AI data center networking.

Intuitive Machines Inc. (NASDAQ: LUNR)

Relies directly on SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets to launch and deploy its lunar landers for NASA’s upcoming moon exploration infrastructure.

When the dust settles on this historic trading day, the smartest play isn’t chasing the initial spike of a crowded mega-cap. Keep your eyes on the supply chains, the network partners, and the balance sheets that Elon Musk just validated on the global stage.

Dan Held On This Week’s Podcast

This week, I sat down with early bitcoin maxi Dan Held on the BeInCrypto Expert Council podcast. Dan highlights how bitcoin’s “protocol and monetary policy are stable, and that the only thing that’s volatile about it is just the world repricing into bitcoin... bitcoin is not going to change no matter how much turmoil in the world occurs.”

He emphasized that because bitcoin’s core code hasn’t changed a single line to accommodate corporate giants like JPMorgan or Goldman Sachs, and that it is actually the gatekeepers who are being forced to adapt. “What we’ve seen is that the banks and large institutions have bent the knee to bitcoin, not the other way around.”

Rather than diluting its revolutionary spirit, the institutionalisation of the asset serves as an unstoppable Trojan horse. As Held perfectly summarized it: “The more Bitcoin gets embedded in existing institutions, the more it becomes difficult to remove. It becomes almost a cancer in a way as it kind of enmeshes itself... We won. We basically won.”

Watch it here:

Have a great weekend,

Brian,

Global Head of News, BeInCrypto

We’re kicking off another week with a quick catch-up on the weekend’s must-read headlines, a look at our top partner offers, and, as always, a quiz to test your market knowledge. Let’s go.

AI Agent PK Trading Competition

Geo: Global (supported regions)
Dates: May 18-June 15
Up for grabs: Up to 150,000 USDT prize pool

BloFin’s AI Agent PK trading competition is live, with traders competing across team and individual leaderboards for a prize pool of up to 150,000 USDT.

Rewards are split across team trading volume, team PnL%, individual trading volume, and individual PnL%, with extra leadership bonuses of up to 5,000 USDT for top team captains.

To participate, register for the campaign, join or create a team, and trade during the competition period to qualify for rewards.

Learn more

What went down this weekend…

Bitcoin Price Jumped 5% as Trump Tells Israel “I Call the Shots”

Bitcoin rallied around 5% on Sunday after Donald Trump said a US-led deal with Iran was “almost complete” and suggested Israel would have little choice but to accept it.

The move came after renewed tensions in the Middle East briefly pushed Bitcoin lower, with traders reacting to fresh military exchanges between Israel and Iran-backed forces. Markets quickly reversed course after Trump’s comments, with investors treating signs of diplomatic progress as a bullish signal for risk assets.

Darryn Pollock reports

Ethereum Whales Buy the Dip

Ethereum whales stepped in after last week’s sharp sell-off, with several large holders accumulating near the $1,600 level as ETH fell more than 16%.

One early Ethereum investor reportedly sold near local highs before buying back even more ETH after the crash, while on-chain data showed the largest wallets adding to positions as exchange reserves continued to shrink. The decline in exchange balances is being watched as a potential sign of tightening spot supply if demand returns.

Kamina Bashir reports

Gold Wipes Out 2026 Gains

Gold slumped to its lowest level of 2026 after a stronger-than-expected US jobs report boosted the dollar and cooled hopes for Federal Reserve rate cuts.

The metal fell nearly 4% on the week, erasing its year-to-date gains, as traders repriced interest rate expectations. Despite the sell-off, major banks including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank, and UBS are still forecasting higher gold prices by year-end, arguing that central bank demand and geopolitical risks remain supportive.

Darryn Pollock reports

❓ Quick Quiz ❓

What did the FBI reportedly find at the home of a former CIA official accused of running a fake government program?

A) 303 gold bars
B) A Bitcoin mining farm
C) Classified AI servers
D) Counterfeit cash printing equipment

Check Your Answer

Monday Meme

Brian McGleenon here,

If you have been reading the mainstream financial press lately, you have probably noticed a massive surge in market anxiety. Skeptics are warning that the billions being poured into artificial intelligence by tech giants will inevitably culminate in a massive macro disaster. The common narrative is that the market is running on a fairy tale—one sold by tech bros to leaders like Donald Trump in America and Xi Jinping in China under the premise that national security relies entirely on these insane capital inflows into AI companies.

I recently welcomed back Maelstrom founder and BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes to the virtual studio to dissect these macro forces. I asked Arthur when this massive capital expenditure (CapEx) bubble might finally pop. His answer completely bucked the doom-and-gloom consensus.

“I don’t think it’s anywhere close to the end of this current AI inflow upsurge, as you said, CapEx or GNAI,” Arthur told me. “The demand is only increasing.”

He added that a hallmark of a terminal market bubble is billions of dollars chasing zero revenue. Many critics look at AI and assume we are seeing a replay of the late-90s dot-com hysteria. Arthur completely rejects this narrative, pointing directly to real-world commercial performance.

“NVIDIA earnings were out last night and they beat across the board,” Arthur noted. “Jensen talked about the massive upsurge in inference, the amount of money spent on inference, the growth of the AI agentic economy. Someone sent me a news clip from the FT detailing how Anthropic is now profitable. Right? Like, you know, they were burning billions of dollars up to a few months ago and now on a go forward basis, Anthropic is now profitable because of the surge of demand for inference due to people using agentic solutions within their business and personal workflows.”

For Arthur, this commercial demand changes the entire economic equation. “The revenues are there. Okay. Maybe you’re paying a little bit too much for the forwarders, but it’s not as if the high flyers are cashflow negative companies. That’s apart from OpenAI; Anthropic, which has the leading models and the most popular models out there right now, is a profitable company.

The Deflationary Loop Driving the CapEx Cycle

The true catalyst keeping this AI cycle alive is a self-reinforcing loop of declining costs and escalating complexity. Arthur laid out a clear economic chain reaction:

Declining Costs, Rising Use: “As the price of intelligence declines, the usage increases, right? The more that data centers are built, the more chips that are sold, the cheaper it becomes to run these models.”

Escalating Complexity: “You just get more complex models and you do more complex reasoning. With these AIs, replace more knowledge work within human civilization and demand keeps growing.”

This structural shift is already altering corporate workflows, from Meta laying off workers to financial powerhouses changing their hiring strategies.

“I think Jamie Dimon at JP Morgan said he’s going to hire more AI specialists and bankers, which basically means the financial services houses are getting into adding agentic AI into their own workflows,” Arthur highlighted. “And you can imagine the amount of demand that there is for compute when you talk about high-frequency trading. I think I read Hudson River Trading has now their own cluster.”

According to Arthur, the efficiency gains aren’t proving that the bubble is full, they are proving to companies that they need to spend more on CapEx to avoid being left behind. “So I don’t think we’re anywhere close to the saturation point of an AI capex build. But if anything, this is proving that you need to build even more capex, right? Because at the end of the day, you need to sell to Anthropic, you need to sell to OpenAI, you need to sell to Gemini and XAI and all these sorts of players.”

Navigating the Investment Landscape and the “Red Queen Effect”

For everyday investors, the current playing field looks both incredibly exciting and highly confusing. Front-end model developers like OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, and xAI are locked in what Arthur calls the “Red Queen effect”, a constant 100-meter sprint where companies must run as fast as they can just to stay in the same place.

“I honestly think it doesn’t matter. Right now, none of us can invest in OpenAI or Anthropic on a liquid basis,” Arthur observed. “But if you think about it as an investor, what can you invest in? You cannot invest in these front-term models. It’s not clear to me whether or not they are going to be the ultimate winners. Obviously, if you move more to the source of intelligence generation right on the hardware side, yes, there are clear ways—NVIDIA, Intel, TSMC. It’s pretty clear that these guys are doing things and you can’t replace them.”

The danger for front-end software, he warns, is instant obsolescence. “On the Anthropic side, like if your front-term model drops behind a few percentage points in effectiveness, then the corporate clients switch, right? And then all of a sudden all that money you spend is worthless. And so this leads to the, you know, ‘I need to train the next best front-term model. I need to spend another 100 billion, 150 billion, whatever it costs to train one of these models that continues to drive the capex cycle because you cannot fall behind.’”

But! There is a human cost to all of this.

While the financial markets thrive on these corporate efficiency gains, the human reality of the AI revolution will be highly unequal, dictated entirely by geography and local social contracts.

“I’m sure there will be new employment, but I think that it’s a bit silly for people to claim that, you know, you lose your job yesterday and tomorrow you get another job in AI,” Arthur stated bluntly.

“Talk to all the folks in Europe and America who lost their manufacturing jobs because of China and other Southeast Asian countries... A lot of them didn’t [find work]. A lot of them just got addicted to opioids and killed themselves, essentially, if you think about America. So I think that’s a bit silly to say there’s this creative destruction and all of a sudden all these workers are all going to get these magical AI jobs.”

Arthur explained that the political fallout will look vastly different depending on where you live:

In Western Economies: “If you’re talking about knowledge workers getting replaced by AI, well, knowledge workers are the most politically active people in the United States... they’re going to find a way to get protected. If they’re saying that they’re no longer gainfully employed and it’s these tech overlords that have taken their jobs through efficiency gains, I think there’s going to be a political backlash.”

In Emerging Markets: “Think about places near where I live in Southeast Asia—I talk about India, Bangladesh, Philippines... these workers are essentially cost centers for American and Western European companies. Nobody cares if they starve or not. ‘Oh, okay, I’m going to lay off my entire Filipino staff that was doing all this manual work... well, now an AI could do all that. Goodbye.’ And nobody cares if they lose their jobs. Starvation, right? And so the Philippines, a lot of these countries don’t have the wherewithal to make a situation better. And so I think there’s going to be massive social strife in a lot of these third-world countries that are essentially back-office processing centers.”

Watch the full interview with Arthur Hayes here:

The Automation Curve Escalates

While Arthur Hayes and I were discussing the macro forces fueling the AI infrastructure build, a new development has occurred right at the frontier of model development.

Anthropic has officially admitted that AI is learning to build better AI significantly faster than expected, signaling an early shift toward recursive self-improvement.

According to a report from BeInCrypto’s Lockridge Okoth, internal data released by the Anthropic Institute, the company’s Claude model now authors over 80% of the production code merged into their systems, enabling engineers to ship eight times as much code per day as they did two years ago.

The technical leaps involve code-speedup optimization tests, where Anthropic’s new Mythos Preview model achieved a mind-blowing 52x speedup compared to the modest 4x speedup a highly skilled human engineer takes hours to achieve.

While Claude still lacks the high-level “research taste” to choose which problems matter most, Anthropic notes that machine-authored code has reached absolute parity with humans and is expected to be strictly better within the year. Meanwhile, sector rival OpenAI is keeping pace, rolling out a new “dreaming” system that allows ChatGPT to synthesize past conversations and dynamically refresh its long-term memory.

Think about it: who is actually buying AI en masse right now? Over 90% of OpenAI’s user base is on the free app. Instead, as Lockridge exposes, the tech giants are essentially quietly paying themselves through their own cloud bills.

Have a great weekend,

Brian,

Global Head of News, BeInCrypto

We’re kicking off another new month with a quick catch-up on the weekend’s must-read headlines, a look at our top partner offers of the week, and, as always, a quiz to test your market knowledge. Let’s go.

AI Agent PK Trading Competition

Geo: Global (supported regions)
Dates: May 18-June 15
Up for grabs: Up to 150,000 USDT prize pool

BloFin’s AI Agent PK trading competition is live, with traders competing across team and individual leaderboards for a prize pool of up to 150,000 USDT.

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Learn more

Bitrue New User Bonus and Futures Trading Competition

Geo: Worldwide, excluding the US and China
Dates: Until June 7
Up for grabs: Up to 4,200 USDT in rewards

Bitrue’s new user bonus and futures trading competition is live, with traders able to unlock rewards through KYC, deposits, and futures trading volume.

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Learn more

What went down this weekend…

MicroStrategy Sells BTC First Time in Years

Strategy has sold Bitcoin for the first confirmed time in years, offloading 32 BTC for around $2.5 million in late May.

The sale is tiny compared with its wider treasury. Strategy still holds 843,706 BTC, worth more than $60 billion, so this is not exactly a major retreat from Bitcoin. Still, the optics matter. For a company known almost entirely for relentless accumulation, even a small sale is enough to get traders watching for what comes next.

Lockridge Okoth reports

Fort Knox Audit Calls Return After Gold Theft Charges

Trump has renewed calls for a physical Fort Knox inspection after a former senior CIA official was charged with stealing more than 300 gold bars from the federal government.

David Rush allegedly took gold worth more than $40 million, along with cash and luxury watches, putting fresh pressure on how the US verifies its reserves. Fort Knox holds around 59% of official US gold reserves and has not had an independent public audit since 1974.

Phil Haunhorst reports

Coinbase and JPMorgan Feud Over Crypto Rules

Coinbase and JPMorgan’s stablecoin fight escalated after Brian Armstrong hit back at Jamie Dimon with a viral meme backing the CLARITY Act.

The clash has turned into a wider industry rally, with crypto leaders arguing that lawmakers, not banks, should decide how stablecoin rewards are regulated.

Lockridge Okoth reports

Adam Back Flags Bitcoin’s 200-Week Average as a Structural Bull Signal

Bitcoin’s 200-week moving average pushed above $61,000 over the weekend, and Adam Back is treating it as another long-term bull signal.

Back framed the move as a patience signal, arguing that disciplined buyers who accumulate near long-term moving-average lows have historically done well across full Bitcoin cycles.

Phil Haunhorst reports

❓ Quick Quiz ❓

What is Google trying to release 32 million of in Florida?

A) Gold bars
B) Mosquitoes
C) Bitcoin miners
D) AI robots

Check Your Answer

Monday Meme

Brian McGleenon here,

If you are worried about your investment portfolio and how it would fare against an increasingly precarious AI bubble, let’s look at the raw data. Since the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, combined AI-driven capital expenditure by the sector’s largest players has grown at a staggering average of 72% per year. Their collective annual infrastructure spend is projected to top a historic $725 billion this year alone.

Right now, a massive amount of hope lies on a future where “agentic payments” become the norm, with institutions from investment banks to major retailers rushing to upgrade their back-end systems to fit this new AI paradigm.

But there is a staggering investment imbalance hiding in plain sight.

This blind spot was brought to light for me this week during a conversation with Sandy Kaul, Head of Innovation at Franklin Templeton. She explained how the investment imbalance between Artificial Intelligence and blockchain infrastructure is sitting at a massive 10:1 ratio. While crypto and blockchain startups brought in a highly respectable $20 billion over the last year, Wall Street and Silicon Valley went absolutely ballistic on the other side of the fence, pouring over $200 billion into AI.

Capital is being thrown at anything with an .ai extension. Yet, the foundational architecture actually needed to run agentic payments, such as smart contracts, tokenization, and blockchain rails, is sitting quietly in the corner, severely overlooked and undervalued.

Speaking on our latest BeInCrypto Expert Council podcast, Sandy Kaul pointed out this exact blind spot—one born from pure AI FOMO. As institutional investors pour billions into agentic transaction startups, they rarely stop to ask a deceptively basic question: How are these autonomous agents actually going to pay for things?

An AI agent isn’t going to open a traditional bank account, sign a paper check, or wait three business days for an ACH transfer to clear. They require 24/7, instant, programmable value. That means these new payment rails will be fundamentally built on public blockchains, utilizing smart contracts, stablecoins, and tokenized real-world assets.

However, the message is finally starting to click for institutional investors: to power this agentic payment paradigm shift, the financial world is going to need open, public networks like Ethereum. As Sandy put it:

“Most people think they hear private networks permissioned, that they think safe, right? Safe because it’s permissioned, it’s private... But if you compare that to a public blockchain where you might have 3,000 or 4,000 developers working on the chain, and where the chain itself is paying bug bounties for any of those developers to find any flaw in the system, you get a much more scrutinized platform from which to operate.”

She compared this shift to the early days of cloud computing, noting that financial institutions swore they would never put data on the public cloud, only to eventually move everything there.

The real magic happens when you couple that security with the 24/7 nature of smart contracts. For instance, Sandy explained how their Benji fund breaks the traditional “close of the trading session” model to cater to institutional capital moving at the speed of modern tech:

“Today if I sell out of a fund at midnight and I sell out of a fund at noon, I would get none of that day’s interest in the other tokenized money market funds or in a traditional money market fund because I did not own that fund at the close of the trading session. Whereas with our system, because there is no close of a trading session, you owned it for twelve of the 24 hours, so you would get half the day’s interest. This is a very important offering if you’re a corporate treasurer or if you’re a hedge fund who is moving dry powder capital intra-day.”

🎧 Listen to the full interview:

You can catch my entire, wide-ranging conversation with Sandy Kaul on the BeInCrypto Expert Council podcast right here:

​Listen on Spotify.

The AI Cloud Loop: Paper Wealth vs. Real Invoices

While blockchain is quietly building these hyper-efficient, fractionalized yield systems, what is happening over in the AI sector?

BeInCrypto’s Lockridge Okoth published a brilliant, sobering investigative piece this week that completely pulls back the curtain on Big Tech’s $2 trillion AI gold rush.

Read the full news: https://beincrypto.com/ai-boom-fake-revenue-bubble/

Lockridge argues that the entire boom is hiding a severe structural flaw, pointing to a “round-trip funding loop” that feels dangerously reminiscent of the 2001 dot-com crash.

Think about it: who is actually buying AI en masse right now? Over 90% of OpenAI’s user base is on the free app. Instead, as Lockridge exposes, the tech giants are essentially quietly paying themselves through their own cloud bills.

Here is how the loop works:

1. The Investment: A tech giant writes a billion-dollar check to an AI startup.

2. The Catch: The investment lands largely as cloud infrastructure credits.

3. The Revenue: The startup feeds those credits straight back to train its models, and the tech giant books that consumption as fresh commercial revenue.
   

Lockridge highlighted that OpenAI’s annual cloud bill has ballooned past $60 billion, while its actual revenue sits closer to $25 billion. Anthropic is running the exact same play with Amazon, spending $2.66 billion on AWS in nine months, essentially every dollar it earned.

This creates massive paper profits on income statements. In Q1, Alphabet posted a record $62.6 billion profit, but $28.7 billion of that was just a paper markup on its Anthropic stake. Amazon did the same trick, marking up $16.8 billion, even though its actual free cash flow cratered 95% to $1.2 billion because they are pouring billions of real cash into physical data centers.

The wall comes when AI hits the budgets of ordinary companies who can’t recycle infrastructure spend into revenue. Lockridge uncovered some staggering enterprise data:

• Uber completely torched its entire AI coding budget by April because engineers using Claude Code and Cursor were burning up to $2,000 each per month in API charges.

• Microsoft literally ordered its own employees to stop using Claude Code internally because the token consumption became unsustainable.

• Even Nvidia’s VP of Applied Deep Learning, Bryan Catanzaro, admitted his team now spends far more on compute costs than on human salaries.

Have a great weekend,

Brian McGleenon,

Global Head of News, BeInCrypto

We’re kicking off another new week with a quick catch-up on the weekend’s must-read headlines, a look at our top partners offer of the week, and, as always, a quiz to test your market knowledge. Let’s go.

AI Agent PK Trading Competition

Geo: Global (supported regions)
Dates: May 18-June 15
Up for grabs: Up to 150,000 USDT prize pool

BloFin’s AI Agent PK trading competition is live, with traders competing across team and individual leaderboards for a prize pool of up to 150,000 USDT.

Rewards are split across team trading volume, team PnL%, individual trading volume, and individual PnL%, with extra leadership bonuses of up to 5,000 USDT for top team captains.

To participate, register for the campaign, join or create a team, and trade during the competition period to qualify for rewards.

Learn more

What went down this weekend…

AI Cost Crisis Hits as Enterprise Bills Spiral

Microsoft and Uber are now the warning signs for enterprise AI spending. The tools may be saving time, but the bills are piling up.

Microsoft reportedly cancelled most internal Claude Code licences after token costs became unsustainable, while Uber said it burned through its full 2026 AI budget by April. With some engineer-level costs reportedly hitting $500 to $2,000 a month, it looks like the adoption hurdle may have been replaced by an affordability one.

Lockridge Okoth reports

Oil Slides as Trump Signals Patient Iran Strategy

Oil prices dropped more than 4% after President Trump suggested Iran nuclear talks were moving in an orderly direction, but told his team not to rush a deal.

WTI fell 4.61% to $92.1, while Brent slid 4.44% to $98.9, unwinding part of the geopolitical risk premium that had pushed Brent above $110 earlier in May. Risk assets moved the other way, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 breaking 65,000 for the first time, while Bitcoin held near $77,000 and the broader crypto market edged slightly higher.

Kamina Bashir reports

Bitcoin Whales Accumulate as Retail Panic Deepens

Bitcoin whale positioning has hit a yearly high, even as retail demand falls to its most bearish level of 2026.

Addresses holding 1,000+ BTC added 47,000 BTC over the past two weeks, while Strategy bought another 24,869 BTC last week. With the Fear & Greed Index at 28 and a major resistance cluster sitting around $78,258, its clear that while retail is still nervous, large holders are positioning for a breakout.

Ananda Banerjee reports

❓ Quick Quiz ❓

Who is once again calling MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin strategy a leveraged disaster waiting to happen?

A) Michael Saylor
B) Peter Schiff
C) Cathie Wood
D) Jerome Powell

Check Your Answer

Monday Meme

While Arthur Hayes recently warned that the “drunken reverie” of the AI bubble would inevitably succumb to the laws of financial gravity, the Maelstrom founder came on the BeInCrypto Expert Council podcast this week, and explained why he has adjusted his view.

Is the multi-billion-dollar AI boom a sustainable economic revolution or a massive bubble on the verge of a historic crash? Wednesday’s blockbuster Nvidia earnings call forced a major reality check, shifting market consensus on the sheer longevity of this buildout. Below, I’ll lay out Arthur Hayes’ post-earnings outlook on where the sector goes from here.

On Wednesday, Nvidia reported a record-breaking $81.62 billion in Q1 2026 revenue (beating expectations of $78.86 billion), driven by a staggering 92% year-over-year growth in its datacenter vertical.

With US tech giants projected to spend $750 billion this year on AI infrastructure, Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang was unapologetically triumphant:

“The buildout of AI factories, the largest infrastructure expansion in human history, is accelerating at extraordinary speed. Agentic AI has arrived, doing productive work, generating real value, and scaling rapidly across companies and industries.”

But as tech giants pour near-infinite capital into data centers and hardware, a critical question looms for investors: When do these technologies actually start paying for themselves?

1. Demand for Inference is Real​

Many analysts look at outlandish valuations for pending tech IPOs like OpenAI and SpaceX, or note that 90% of current large language model (LLM) users are non-paying subscribers, concluding that a crash is imminent.

Arthur Hayes strongly disagrees.

While historical tech bubbles were built on pure speculation and cash-flow-negative companies, the current front-runners are pivoting to profitability faster than the market realises. Hayes points to the massive surge in inference requests, the computing power used when an AI model actually processes and answers queries for active workflows.

Take Anthropic, for example. After burning billions of dollars in development, the company has officially crossed into profitability on a go-forward basis. This comes as businesses are rapidly integrating agentic AI solutions into their daily operations. As Hayes notes:

“The revenues are there... It’s not as if the high flyers are cash-flow negative companies... and as the price of intelligence declines, the usage increases. The more that data centers are built, the more chips that are sold, the cheaper it becomes to run these models.”

The Deflationary Flywheel of Intelligence: Because the cost of running these models is falling, human civilization is using vastly more of it to replace traditional knowledge work, sparking a feedback loop of insatiable demand for compute.

2. The Red Queen Effect

Arthur then explained why tech giants are trapped in a hyper-expensive, endless sprint to stay ahead of the competition. It comes down to evolutionary biology applied to tech: The Red Queen Effect, where you must run as fast as you can just to stay in the exact same place.

On the front-end software layer (like OpenAI, Gemini, or Anthropic), if a model falls even a few percentage points behind in reasoning capability, corporate clients will immediately jump ship to a competitor. To survive, these firms have no choice but to continuously pour money into hardware to train the next-generation model. As Hayes explains:

“If your front-term model drops behind a few percentage points in effectiveness, then the corporate clients switch... and then all of a sudden all that money you spend is worthless. And so this leads to the ‘I need to train the next best front-term model. I need to spend another 100 billion, 150 billion, whatever it costs to train one of these models.’ That continues to drive the capex cycle because you cannot fall behind.”

For investors, trying to pick the ultimate software winner in this environment is incredibly risky because today’s leading LLM can become obsolete tomorrow. Instead, the smartest plays remain anchored to the immutable infrastructure layer, the hardware, the chip supply chains, and the specialized data centers that power the ecosystem.

As Hayes points out, while it isn’t clear which front-end model will ultimately win, “if you move more to the source of intelligence generation right on the hardware side, yes, there are clear ways: Nvidia, Intel, TSMC... it’s pretty clear that these guys are doing things and you can’t replace them.”

3. The Human Cost: A Geographic Divide in Dislocation

The mainstream narrative that workers displaced by automation will seamlessly transition into “magical new AI jobs” is historical fiction. When manufacturing left the West, those workers didn’t find identical employment overnight. AI is poised to trigger a similar, severe dislocation of knowledge work, but the social fallout will look completely different depending on where the worker is located.​

In Western advanced economies, knowledge workers possess significant political and social leverage. If efficiency gains threaten their livelihoods, they won’t go quietly. Arthur points out that these workers will use their systemic influence to force a protective response from the state:

“Knowledge workers are the most politically active people in the United States, whether it’s a Republican or Democrat... they’re going to find a way to get protected. They’re the ones out in the streets, they’re the ones who the mainstream media caters to... And if they’re saying that they’re no longer gainfully employed and it’s these tech overlords that have taken their jobs through efficiency gains, I think there’s going to be a political backlash in the United States. And maybe they’re going to be some sort of AI-to-labor, social contract reform, whatever that means.”

However, the outlook is vastly more grim for emerging economies like India, Bangladesh, and the Philippines, which have spent decades building massive industries acting as low-cost back-office processing and call centers for Western firms.

Because an AI agent can now handle data entry, customer service, and manual coding for pennies on the dollar, Western corporations are erasing these cost centers entirely. And unlike Western knowledge workers, these overseas labor forces have zero political leverage over the multinational corporations cutting them loose. As Arthur bluntly puts it:

“These workers are essentially cost centers for American and Western European companies. Nobody cares if they survive or not. ‘Oh, okay, I’m going to lay off my entire Filipino staff that was doing all this manual work... Well, now an AI could do all that. Goodbye.’ And nobody cares if they lose their jobs... And so the Philippines, a lot of these countries don’t have the wherewithal to make a situation better. And so I think there’s going to be massive social strife in a lot of these third world countries that are essentially back office processing centers for a lot of Western companies.”

4. The Environmental Cost: AI’s Insatiable Appetite for Power

The ultimate check on the AI CapEx orgy isn’t just capital availability or software obsolescence; it is the physical limitation of the electrical grid and the environment.

The scale of infrastructure needed for next-generation compute is reaching unfathomable proportions, perfectly illustrated by the controversy surrounding the proposed Stratos mega-scale datacenter campus in Box Elder County, Utah. At full buildout, this single 40,000-acre project would require up to 9 GW of power, a demand equivalent to that of the entire city of New York, or more than the current electrical consumption of the entire state of Utah.

The Stratos campus and its accompanying fossil-fuel power infrastructure could dump 16 gigawatts of thermal load into the local high-desert valley.

This translates to 23 atomic bombs’ worth of thermal energy being injected into the local ecosystem every single day!

The latest BeInCrypto Expert Council podcast with Arthur Hayes will be hitting the BeInCrypto YouTube channel next week; please make sure to subscribe here so you can be notified exactly when it drops!

Podcast of the Week

What does it actually take to bring crypto to the masses without scaring them off? This week, I sat down with fintech heavyweight Michael Rihani, Senior Director of Digital Assets at Nubank, to dissect how Latin America’s banking giant has already onboarded over 7 million crypto users.

Rihani, whose pedigree includes architecting Apple Pay, integrating Bitcoin payments at Tesla with Elon Musk, and leading product teams at Cash App and Coinbase, breaks down Nubank’s masterclass in transparent, zero-fee onboarding.

From launching a 6% native yield on Solana and navigating their historic conditional OCC approval for a US national bank charter, to why they strictly ban speculative meme coins, Rihani explains the exact playbook behind “blockchain banking,” the most critical phrase in global fintech right now.

​Watch the full interview here:

Have a perfect weekend,

​

Brian McGleenon,

Global Head of News, BeInCrypto