The time to observe, and perhaps cautiously participate, is now, before the herd descends. Two currents, seemingly disparate, yet converging with unsettling precision, suggest a potential breakout for Ethereum in the second quarter of 2026. One concerns the frantic activity within the blockchain itself, the other, the equally frantic machinations of those who govern our earthly realm.
But which, pray tell, will truly soar? A question that vexes the soul, like a persistent fly buzzing around a samovar. The usual prognosticators offer their pronouncements, their charts and graphs, their assurances of infallible algorithms. Poppycock, I say! The market is not a machine; it is a capricious beast, governed by whim and rumor, and occasionally, a well-timed bribe to the right official.
Okay, so they want to double fee-earning capital in five years, taking it from $580 billion to $1.2 trillion. Ambitious? Yes. Completely unhinged? Possibly. But here’s the thing: they actually did double it between 2020 and 2025, going from $277 billion to the current $580 billion. That’s roughly 15% a year. Which, let’s be honest, is the kind of growth that makes most fund managers weep with envy. So, they’ve proven they can do it. Doesn’t mean they will, of course. Wall Street is a fickle beast. A bear market could throw a wrench in things. But, you know, bear markets always seem to happen eventually. It’s just a matter of when. And frankly, I’m more concerned about the champagne socialists complaining about their losses.
This cloud, it seems, hath yielded a bounty of some $15.15 billion in the last reported quarter—a sum sufficient to maintain a small kingdom, or at least, to indulge the ambitions of a most enterprising company. And lo, a net income of $3.59 billion! One might almost suspect a touch of alchemy, were it not for the cold, hard logic of the balance sheet.
The comparison to Amazon, specifically to Amazon Web Services, is… curious. It is not the e-commerce facade that is invoked, but the cloud infrastructure—the unseen engine of modern commerce. To equate the two is to suggest a parallel ambition, a desire to become the bedrock upon which others build. Yet, the crucial distinction lies in the nature of the endeavor. AWS offered a genuine solution to a nascent problem – the cost and complexity of maintaining physical server infrastructure. Ripple, however, seeks to solve a problem largely of its own making – the inefficiencies of cross-border payments within a system already dominated by established networks. It is a solution searching for a widespread, unacknowledged affliction.
It’s a curious company, Robinhood. It arrived, rather abruptly, promising to democratize finance, to open the markets to all. A noble ambition, though one often finds that the simplest promises are the most difficult to keep. They’ve certainly captured a segment of the investing public, a restless cohort drawn to the allure of quick gains. But is this a foundation upon which a lasting enterprise can be built?
Do I divest? Occasionally. When the initial premise, the very rationale for investment, dissolves like mist, a reckoning becomes necessary. But these five… these five represent something different. They are not merely assets; they are observations, hypotheses cast in the form of equity. And I do not anticipate their falsification.
You see these corrections, these little dips? They call them “the price of admission.” Admission to what exactly? A system designed to make you feel clever for a few years before inevitably reminding you that you’re just throwing money into the void? I had a similar experience with a gym membership. A complete waste.
The source of this madness? Weight loss. Not some niche market for vanity projects, but a full-blown, societal OBSESSION. Tirzepatide – Mounjaro for the diabetics, Zepbound for the rest of us – is the fuel, and Lilly is sitting on a goddamn rocket. Ten BILLION in revenue last quarter? That’s not incremental, that’s a GODDAMN LANDSLIDE. They’re not just selling medicine; they’re selling… hope. Or maybe just the illusion of control in a world spinning out of control. Whatever it is, people are lining up, wallets open, and Lilly is LAUGHING all the way to the bank.
And not content with mere modesty, it plumbed depths unseen since the ball dropped on New Year’s, nosediving to a paltry $1.84-yes, eighty-four cents in paper money, which, back in my day, wouldn’t even buy you a decent pair of boots. It clawed its way back to $1.97, like a half-drowned cat clinging to a raft, but let’s not pretend-this feller lost over 23% of its pride since January 6, when it stood tall at a cocky $2.41. Pride goeth before a fall, don’t ya know.