The crypto market, already nursing hangovers from its recent binges, now trembles like a marionette with a loose string. A crash? Why, of course! What else would one expect when Japan’s fiscal whims clash with Bitcoin’s fragile ego? 💸
So, this guy-Kunal Mehta, 45, California’s very own crypto Casanova-finally said, “Yeah, I did that,” in court. His crime? A multi-state, multi-million-dollar conspiracy that makes Ocean’s Eleven look like a kindergarten heist. According to the feds, this wasn’t just a one-man show-it was a full-blown criminal symphony, complete with hackers, burglars, and probably a guy who brought snacks. 🥨
Oh, what a delightful mess! The crypto crowd is scratching their heads (and possibly their wallets) over Brad Garlinghouse being dragged into a discussion about a new stablecoin contraption that’s backed by-wait for it-another stablecoin. How positively ridiculous! It’s like building a house on top of a house on top of a wobbly Jenga tower. Meanwhile, Ripple’s XRPL waltzes in with its elegant, protocol-level solutions-efficient paths, a built-in DEX, and asset routing smoother than a greased otter. But no, let’s complicate things with layers of centralised nonsense. Bravo, stablecoin architects. Bravo. 👏
This all happened before they even officially launched the platform, which is…a choice. Like building a magnificent castle, then discovering the foundations were made of slightly damp sand. They noticed a ‘small number’ of wallets were feeling a bit light-fingered (or rather, light-cryptofingered) and, in a move that can only be described as digital exasperation, froze them. Threw a metaphorical lock on the door, you might say. 🔒
Dogecoin, that charmingly absurd confection of the internet, is displaying the first tentative signs of recovery. A remarkable event, given its fundamental lack of… well, fundamentality.🧐
Joining forces with Polygon Labs and some random payments firm called Mercuryo, Mastercard is swapping those dreadful hexadecimal codes (aka “the shopping list of blockchain”) for chill, email-style aliases. Finally, crypto can stop making us feel like we’re in a 2001 space odyssey! 🚀
The numbers are tidy: $13.4 million, 3.4% of their U.S. equity assets, a new position that’s now just outside their top five holdings. But here’s the thing about contrarians-they don’t just follow trends; they wait for the moment when the trend is no longer a trend. Baidu, once a mere search engine, is now a cloud-based AI juggernaut, its ERNIE models humming like a well-tuned symphony. I can almost hear the fund managers whispering, “This isn’t the same Baidu we knew. This is the one that’s finally figured out how to be relevant.”
Beta: The soul-screaming volatility of tech. The 1-yr return: A fleeting glance at the rollercoaster of your portfolio.
Both funds claim to own the entire U.S. equity market-large, mid, and small-cap stocks, stitched together with the same thread of low cost. Yet the gulf between them is not in what they hold, but in how they hold it. VTI, with its 3,598 stocks and 24.5-year track record, is a machine honed by time. ITOT, with 2,497 stocks, is a capable workhorse, but its wheels lack the grease of VTI’s scale. The question is not which is better, but which is more likely to outlast the next crisis.
Two slices of the same delicious pie-one for the insiders, led by Wall Street’s finest: Jane Street, DRW Venture Capital, HSG, Oppenheimer, and Tribe. Oh, and Kraken’s own family office, sweetening the deal with its own hefty slice. Because nothing says confidence like family money in a high-stakes game. 🍰