🤖 Blade Runner vs Musk: did AI overstep again?
Plus: Ripple co-founder’s $10M XRP bet on Kamala Harris
GM. Your daily dose of vitamin C(rypto) is ready – bottoms up!
🦅 Execs of crypto companies are publicly endorsing political candidates ahead of the elections.
🎬 The production company behind Blade Runner 2049 is suing Elon Musk, Tesla, and Warner Bros. Discovery over copyright infringement.
🍊 News drops: the leader of Japan’s Democratic Party says he’ll lower crypto taxes if elected, Sky might re-rebrand to Maker + more
🍍 Market flavor today
| Crypto Market Cap $2.36 Trillion -2.31% (24H) | |||
| Name | Price | 24H % | 7D % |
|---|---|---|---|
 Bitcoin BTC |
$67,011.53 | -1.81% | 2.23% |
 Ethereum ETH |
$2,626.17 | -2.88% | 0.55% |
 BNB BNB |
$590.65 | -2.67% | 0.31% |
 Solana SOL |
$165.65 | -0.60% | 7.16% |
Looks like the crypto market decided to hit the snooze button 😴 The Fear and Greed Index slipped to 70, but we’re still chilling in the “Greed” zone. Bitcoin briefly dipped below $64K before bouncing back over $66K. Maybe it’s just stretching before the next big sprint?
Some investors are biting their nails over spillover vibes from the stock market and a stronger US dollar – making us second-guess those Fed rate cuts. But Bitfinex analysts remain optimistic, saying that the bigger picture is still looking bullish. Increased liquidity and the potential for friendlier crypto regulations in the US could fuel Bitcoin’s next leap. And if BTC can smash through that $70K resistance, we might see a repeat of October 2023’s run when Bitcoin zoomed past $30K and never looked back.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin ETFs are on a winning streak, scoring seven days of massive inflows and adding another $294.3M yesterday. Ethereum ETFs, however, took a coffee break, with $20.8M in outflows.
As always, stay ready – the crypto marathon is far from the finish line! 🏃♂️
🍽️ Political food fight
Oh, don’t we love a good ol’ political disagreement… My uncle Billy would look at this sentence and smile, reminiscent of all the times he dropped the most controversial takes and said the most cancellable things at family dinners.
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Well, crypto’s got its own political divide. Except less shouting (am I trauma dumping?) and more proud public declarations of whose team you’re on.
1/ Red plate coming in hot
On one side of the table, we’ve got Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase, who’s been rallying behind a few Republican candidates for the Senate.
Among them is the pro-XRP lawyer John Deaton challenging Senator Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts. No surprises here since Warren’s been a vocal crypto critic for years.
He also threw in a word of support for David McCormick, a Republican Senate candidate in Pennsylvania, calling him a better choice for the future of crypto.
That said, while his stance is clear when it comes to these Senate races, Armstrong’s in Switzerland mode when it comes to the presidential pick. He said the next administration will likely encourage crypto regardless of who wins.
2/ Blue plate ready to serve
On the other side, we’ve got Chris Larsen, Ripple’s co-founder, who donated $10M in XRP to a PAC called Future Forward USA, which backs Kamala Harris.
Ripple’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse also chimed in to say that Ripple’s gonna keep engaging with both parties as long as they promote pro-crypto policies.
What’s interesting here is that analysts like Bloomberg’s Eric Balchunas are predicting that under a Harris administration, we probably won’t see any crypto ETFs beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum, meaning no XRP ETF.
At the end of the day, it’s a good reminder that even the biggest names in the industry have different political opinions, so always trust your gut when you cast your vote. And a reminder for Billy: see? You don’t need all the “y’all are all idiots” to make a point.
😴 Does AI dream of infringing copyright?
Elon Musk’s in legal trouble… again.
This time, it’s Alcon Entertainment, the production company behind Blade Runner 2049, suing Musk, Tesla, and Warner Bros. Discovery over copyright infringement.
What happened: Musk wanted to use a scene from the movie to promote Tesla’s Cybercab – their new self-driving taxi – at an event hosted at Warner Bros. Discovery’s studio lot. Alcon said, “Respectfully, no,” so Musk decided to make his own ✨ brand-new ✨ image using AI.
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Why’s the production company angry? Well, it’s quite obvious, but they’ve laid it out in detail:
– During the event, Musk went on to explain why he used the Blade Runner image (wait, I thought the one he made was totally unrelated??);
– Alcon says this is economic theft, claiming that such brand affiliation could be worth six figures, if not more;
– The use of the image could mess up their car brand deals for the upcoming Blade Runner TV series;
– They don’t wanna be associated with Musk in general – especially after he became so political recently, which they think could damage their reputation and clash with their values.
We’ve seen similar things happen before, like when OpenAI used a voice “eerily similar” to Scarlett Johannson’s for ChatGPT even after she refused to be involved.
As AI tech is still so new, there are a lot of ethical questions raised about its use. Will this lawsuit help draw some lines? I guess we’ll see.
📰 News drops
💸 Yuichiro Tamaki, leader of Japan’s Democratic Party, is planning to lower crypto taxes to 20% if he wins the election. Right now, crypto gains in Japan get hit with taxes ranging from 15% to 55%.
☁️ The DeFi lending platform Sky might be heading back to its OG name, Maker. Turns out the community’s been a bit confused about the role of the Sky token and Maker brand.
🦹 Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari called crypto the currency of drug deals and crime. Nic Carter from Castle Island Ventures clapped back, saying, “Being this wrong should be illegal.”
🇯🇵 Japanese authorities have arrested a gang of scammers by tracking Monero transactions, a crypto known for its high privacy. It’s the first time in crypto history that anyone’s been caught through an analysis of Monero.
💳 Avalanche has dropped a new Visa card for crypto payments. When you sign up, you get a self-custody wallet and a unique address for each asset.
🚀 Chainlink has launched new tech to help financial institutions keep their data private while using blockchain. The new tools include a Blockchain Privacy Manager for integrating private chains with the public Chainlink platform.
