Stocks down, dollar down… and crypto

Plus: Politeness to AI is actually expensive

GM. The market’s like a kiwi in a microwave – soft, weird, and possibly about to explode.

💼 Paul Atkins is officially the new SEC Chair.

🍋 News drops: Ethereum Foundation’s new focus, the cost of being polite to ChatGPT + more

🍍 Market flavor today

The trade war is still very much a thing.

The copper-to-gold ratio dropped to its lowest level in at least 40 years. This might sound like a random stat, but when this ratio falls quickly, it usually means that the global economy is slowing down and a recession might be coming.

Donald Trump went off on Fed Chair Jerome Powell again:

Overall, a LOT of uncertainty is still in the air. That’s why stocks keep slipping and the US dollar continues to fall.

But here’s a fun twist: Bitcoin is doing the opposite.

It jumped back up to $90K – a level we haven’t seen in over a month.

Plus, Bitcoin ETFs had been seeing heavy outflows recently, but they suddenly hit the reverse: $381.3M in inflows just yesterday.

Nansen CEO Alex Svanevik pointed out something pretty telling: for the past two weeks, Bitcoin has been acting less like a tech stock and more like gold.

Now, gold is what investors usually run to when things get unstable – whether it’s inflation, market volatility, or global tensions.

So, if we put two and two together, Bitcoin might be starting to act more like a safe haven asset.

Kinda like getting a seat at the grown-up table – and that’s a big deal 🚀

🥝 Memecoin harvest

They started as a joke… and now they’re paying rent 🏠

Data as of 10:10 AM EST.

Check out these memecoins and plenty more here.

It’s official – Paul Atkins is the 34th chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Sworn in and ready to regulate.

If you need a refresher ’bout him:

• He used to run the SEC back in the Bush days;

• He founded Patomak Global Partners, a risk management consulting firm that works with several crypto exchanges and DeFi platforms;

• He was the co-chair of the Digital Chamber’s Token Alliance, an advocacy group that promotes digital assets and blockchain.

Basically, no stranger to crypto. Maybe even a friend.

Atkins said he’s honored by the trust placed in him by Trump and the Senate, and promised to make US markets efficient, fair, and investor-friendly.

So, fingers crossed, he might be the start of a less hostile era for blockchain innovation in the US.

Which is a huge relief after our “everything’s a security when you think about it” and “I’ll sue anyone who mentions crypto” guy Gary Gensler…

🍋 News drops

📢 Tomasz Stańczak, one of the new co-executive directors at the Ethereum Foundation, says the team’s now focused on user experience and Layer-1 scaling. +Rep to the new leadership for actually talking to people – something the EF struggled with before.

👎 Christopher Perkins from CoinFund criticized a report from the Bank for International Settlements that says crypto should be kept separate from TradFi. Perkins called most of what was said in the report uninformed and dangerous.

🤖 Ever been polite to AI just in case it takes over someday? Well, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says all the “please” and “thank you” messages to ChatGPT are costing the company tens of millions.

🇵🇷 Rep. Nydia Velázquez wants to close a loophole that lets crypto investors use Puerto Rico to avoid US federal taxes. Her bill would change the island’s tax rules so crypto income isn’t mostly tax-free anymore.

🔥 Mantra CEO John Patrick Mullin is removing 150M OM tokens from circulation. They might burn another 150M with help from others in the network – bringing the total to 300M.

🍌 Juicy memes