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In the chaotic and somewhat absurd theater of technological progress, IonQ has garnered some attention. Yesterday, with the assistance of the Air Force Research Lab (no less), the company announced a breakthrough that would make even the most stoic of scientists pause. A conversion of photons from visible wavelengths, used for the entrapment of barium ions, into telecom wavelengths has been demonstrated in a prototype system. What this means, if we are to extract a morsel of sense from this technobabble, is that IonQ has found a way to transmit quantum information over long distances-through optical fibers that most of us would deem “ordinary.” But then again, “ordinary” is not the term one would apply to a company that seeks to deliver quantum computing across a vast and incomprehensible network of secure quantum channels.

For those keeping track, XRP (yes, the digital asset that feels a bit like the underdog cousin of Bitcoin) was hovering about 4% lower as of 12:06 p.m. ET. A notable dip for anyone keeping an eye on this market, which, if nothing else, always seems to keep investors guessing.

Let’s consider, shall we, a whimsical little exercise in what might have been: imagine a modest $500 investment, stashed away five years ago in what was then known as Cree. The result today, if you can bear the suspense, is a paltry $16.42. Yes, that’s right, from riches to a small cup of coffee and change. How, you might ask, did this tragedy unfold?

This morning’s jobless claims, a mere 218,000, fell like a dropped coin into the void of expectations. A number so precise it might have been plucked from the Library of Babel itself. The Commerce Department, that keeper of national accounts, then revealed the second-quarter GDP at 3.8%, a figure that glimmers with the sheen of a phoenix rising from two years of ash.

Yet here we find ourselves in 2024, watching this cyclical pauper transform into a prince of the AI ball. Investors, ever the tardy dancers, are only now beginning to waltz to the artificial intelligence symphony. Micron and its brethren craft high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips-the digital champagne fueling AI’s bacchanal-and the stock has doubled this year, leaving luminaries like Nvidia and AMD gasping in its exhaust fumes.

Micron Technology (MU) traffics in the lifeblood of machines-memory chips, those fragile vessels that hold the world’s ephemeral thoughts. The semiconductor realm has always been a carousel of feast and famine, its seasons dictated by the whims of demand. But now, a new alchemy stirs: high-bandwidth memory, vertical 3D stacking like the roots of some subterranean forest, nourishing AI’s insatiable hunger.

The greater fool theory, that ancient waltz of buyers and sellers pirouetting on the edge of reason, had transformed into a carnival where the music never ceased. Meme stocks became totems, and valuation metrics as obsolete as sundials in an age of atomic clocks. Yet even the most enchanted forests have their seasons, and the first frost comes not as a whisper but a shiver through the bones of the unwary. Tariffs loomed like distant thunder, and the jobs reports arrived pale as specters, whispering of storms gathering beyond the horizon.