Plus: SBF’s prison musical debuts in San Francisco

GM. We picked the weirdest fruits off the market tree and juiced ‘em into one chaotic cocktail. Cheers.

🤔 Are Circle copycats destined to flop?

🍋 News drops: a musical with SBF, the Godfather of AI warns about AI threats + more

🍍 Market flavor today

Crypto Market Cap: $3.30T -1.99% (24H)
Name		Price	24H	7D
	Bitcoin BTC	$104,920.95	-2.02%	-3.31%
	Ethereum ETH	$2,526.37	-3.43%	-7.27%
	XRP XRP	$2.19	-3.41%	-3.55%
	BNB BNB	$650.74	-0.45%	-1.03%
	Solana SOL	$148.78	-4.40%	-5.39%

The crypto market dipped today as tensions in the Middle East continue escalating.

Many people kind of assumed the US would stay out of it... but then Donald Trump posted this:

According to the Kobeissi Letter, we’ve hit a turning point in this whole mess.

Trump apparently wants one last shot at peace - but he’s also talking about bunker buster bombs that can destroy Iran’s underground nuclear site.

So if peace talks don’t work, the US might either give those bombs to Israel or get directly involved.

But despite all this, oil prices only went up about 1.5%. Kobeissi says this means the market expects the conflict to be short-lived and not a big deal.

To which economist Alejandro Gómez responded that, actually 🤓☝️, oil markets usually react slowly at first when wars or major crises start. So just because prices didn’t spike doesn’t mean there’s no risk. Things can change fast.

And if oil prices rise, inflation fears could increase - leading to tighter monetary policy, which usually hurts crypto.

So… to worry or not to worry?

Well, Bitfinex analysts say if Bitcoin can hold above the $102K - $103K range, that means the market is handling the panic pretty well.

Last week, BTC dipped slightly to around $103K. At the same time, the Fear and Greed Index dropped by about 10 points, but it never left the “Greed” zone = the drop in sentiment was fairly mild.

Also worth noting: the current 9% pullback from the high isn’t a big deal. Bitfinex pointed out that 41% of trading days in this cycle had even bigger drops. Basically, this is well within normal bull market behavior.

So back to the question - should you worry? Right now, probably not. But in a market where one tweet can flip everything upside down... stay cautious.

🥝 Memecoin harvest

Imagine explaining these charts to your accountant. We dare you 🤡

Data as of 06:45 AM EST.

Check out these memecoins and plenty more here.

👀 Copycats

Circle, the issuer of USDC, went public recently - and like we covered here, they killed it.

The stock shot up nearly 400% above the IPO price.

Naturally, that kind of success has others jealous. And BitMEX founder Arthur Hayes thinks we’re about to see a bunch of stablecoin companies trying to copy Circle's move.

It's kind of like my cousin Ricky when we were five. He saw how cute my dog looked with a collar and immediately threw a tantrum begging his mom to get one for his pet too.

He owned fish. Damn right. He was begging for a fish collar.

And just like Ricky's idea flopped (duh), Hayes says most of these Circle copycats won't survive.

He expects investors to get hyped, throw money at flashy-sounding stablecoin startups, and then lose the money when those projects can’t deliver.

Hayes explains like this: it’s not enough to have a good stablecoin - you need distribution. The stablecoin's gotta reach millions of users to be successful.

And that can be done in one of three ways:

👉 Through major crypto exchanges (like Binance or Coinbase),

👉 Through Web2 giants (like Meta, X, or Google),

👉 Or through traditional banks.

Exhibit A: Tether succeeded because it had distribution through Bitfinex.

Exhibit B: Circle only started popping off after getting a deal with Coinbase - and even then, they have to give Coinbase half their earnings for access to its users.

Hayes says any new stablecoin startup will struggle to match that.

All the big exchanges have already picked their partners, and no one's waiting around to help newcomers.

As for banks and tech giants, they'll just build their own solution - a trend we discussed yesterday.

Because of that, Hayes doesn’t see a bright future for new stablecoin IPOs. He thinks most of them will burn investor money, flop under pressure, or fade out when the excitement dies down.

But he also says don’t short them. During speculative mania moments, even the worst stocks can go vertical.

Basically, the hype might drive prices up, but don’t mistake momentum for long-term value.

🍋 News drops

📚 Bitget teamed up with UNICEF Luxembourg to help young people improve their digital and blockchain skills. They’re aiming to reach 300K people across eight different countries.

📄 Paradigm, the VC firm, filed a legal doc supporting Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm. They argue that for Storm to be found guilty, prosecutors have to prove stuff like him being aware of illegal money involved.

🙅‍♂️ Eric Trump says he’s not involved in trying to get Tron listed on Nasdaq. He called himself a big fan of Tron and praised Justin Sun, but made it clear he doesn’t have any official role in the project.

🎭 There’s a new musical satire in San Francisco called Luigi: The Musical. It features Sam Bankman-Fried sharing a prison cell with Sean "Diddy" Combs and Luigi Mangione.

🤖 Geoffrey Hinton, aka the "Godfather of AI," is worried that AI might do more than just take our jobs - it could actually threaten our survival. He says that if AI gets smart enough, it might act on its own and decide humans aren’t really necessary anymore.

🍌 Juicy memes