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It seems the supply of these little silicon slivers – these ‘chips,’ as they’re commonly called – ain’t keepin’ pace with the demand. A right pickle, that. Folks want their computin’ gadgets, their doohickeys and whatsits, and Intel, bless their hearts, is findin’ it a bit of a struggle to provide ’em. Their revenue dipped a wee four percent in the last quarter, to $13.7 billion. The PC chip business, it seems, is a bit sluggish, though their data center and AI division is holdin’ steady. A bit like a one-legged man in a kickin’ contest, I reckon – doin’ alright, but not exactly sweepin’ the field.

Launched in 2012, Ripple‘s XRP Ledger – a blockchain network possessing a certain architectural elegance – and its accompanying cryptocurrency were conceived as a solution to the sluggish, Byzantine complexities of cross-border payments. Transactions, we are told, settle in a mere three to five seconds, and fees are, comparatively, negligible – fractions of a penny. A stark contrast, naturally, to the ponderous, almost geological, pace of Bitcoin. The network, Ripple Payments, boasts over three hundred banking partners across six continents – a network of connections that, while impressive, feels less like a revolutionary disruption and more like a particularly elaborate game of global telephone.

The sum, $7.78 million, is a curious thing. Enough to briefly animate the share price, yet a mere rounding error in the grand scheme. At quarter’s end, the stake remained at the same value, a small comfort in a world where even numbers seem to shift without reason. One suspects the analysts involved have families to support, just like everyone else.

A rise of nearly 1,030% in eleven months is, admittedly, a rather startling figure. Most investors, alas, are driven by herd instinct and will likely mistake such exuberance for a bubble. They are, of course, perfectly entitled to their errors. It was the S&P 500’s best performer in 2025, a fact I mention not to encourage further frenzy, but merely to observe the irony. The masses reward success by overpaying for it.

It’s a peculiar position, really. Holding the keys to the kingdom. A kingdom built on sand, of course, because everything is temporary. But a kingdom nonetheless. They don’t shout about it, these Dutch engineers. They just keep building the machines. The machines that make the machines. It’s a sort of recursive nightmare, if you think about it too hard. Which, naturally, I do.

Bristol Myers Squibb and Intuitive Surgical, two entities not generally associated with the vanguard of technological innovation, are cautiously dipping their toes into these waters. The results, while hardly transformative at this stage, merit a closer inspection, if only to determine whether the accompanying share price adjustments are justified.

The pursuit of artificial intelligence, once the domain of philosophers and science fiction writers, has become a tangible river of capital, carving new channels of prosperity. It is a force that promises to reshape not merely industries, but the very fabric of our lives, offering the illusion of control over chaos. And within this burgeoning landscape, certain companies have emerged, not as mere participants, but as the keepers of the new faith, the architects of this digital renaissance. To invest in them now is not simply to seek financial gain, but to partake in a myth in the making, a prophecy unfolding in lines of code.

By the cessation of trading, the stock’s numerical representation had increased by a margin exceeding twenty-four percent. One wonders, of course, what precisely this signifies, beyond the temporary alignment of digits on a screen.

A hundred times your money. That’s the magic number, isn’t it? A truly enormous ask. It’s like asking a snail to win the Grand Prix. Possible, perhaps, with a very strong tailwind and a distracted field, but terribly unlikely. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.