Hola, Lads and Lasses!

The first week of September has sailed by already, and well, we’re still wrestling with the bears. BTC is stuck at $55k but is it indeed as bad as it seems?

Market commentary 

Liquidity is being injected consistently. Just over the past month, more than $3.65 billion has been added to the market via USDT. There is appetite, there is demand, we just need to wait for the allocation to start happening. The firepower is poised to reach the market anytime. 

So just breathe in, breathe out. We’re gonna make it. 

AI… Artificially Inflated?  

This week was filled with drama that no one liked. First and foremost, a report emerged claiming that the DOJ subpoenaed Nvidia in connection with the antitrust probe.

However, the very next day, Nvidia released a statement saying that it didn’t receive any subpoena from the DOJ. Representatives of the company said,

“We have inquired with the US Department of Justice and have not been subpoenaed. Nonetheless, we are happy to answer any questions regulators may have about our business.”

Anon sources, however, continue to claim that regulators are concerned that Nvidia is “making it harder” for customers to switch to other suppliers and “penalizes buyers” that don’t exclusively use its AI chips. Exclusive relations, on the other hand, are being rewarded with preferential supply and pricing. 

There are ponzi scheme allegations also doing the rounds. People are calling the AI price run Artificially Inflated. Reports claim that Nvidia’s top customers have “ramped up” spending during the past quarter “seemingly out of the blue.” 

CEO Huang says that sales are “relatively diversified,” but filings dispute that claim. One of its top customers’ purchases represents 11% of Nvidia’s $30 billion in revenue.

Fun fact: That means this company single-handedly contributed more to business than Nvidia's second-largest division—gaming [$2.9 billion]. 

Nvidia’s growth has been Gucci. Its sales have been more than doubling each quarter, making it an inevitable part of the supply chain. Giants like Microsoft and Meta shell out more than 40% of their budget for hardware on the chip maker's gear. 

When you begin to thrive and prosper, regulatory eyeballs automatically zoom in, scrutinizing every move. When the subpoena news first broke, a knee-jerk reaction was observed across all markets, but that didn’t prolong. We’re holding fairly well at the moment… but I fear, we’re yet to witness the actual climax in the Nvidia tale.  

Trump’s crypto project is, umm… [de]centralized

Trump’s World Liberty Financial is the new shiny project that everyone is talking about. Even though it advocates "putting the power of finance back in the hands of the people," the draft white paper gives insiders the upper hand. 

70% of WLFI, the project's governance crypto token, will be "held by the founders, team, and service providers." The remaining 30%, according to the white paper, will be distributed "via public sale," with some of the money raised from that also going to project insiders.

70% allocation to insiders is batshit crazy.

All that being said, do note that World Liberty Financial has not finalized its tokenomics yet and the draft version could be subject to alteration.  

In other Trump-related news:

Scams on the climb, watch your dime!  

Scammers have found a way to burn tokens inside your Solana wallet, so beware. Slorg, a member of Solana-based Jupiter’s Core Working Group summed it all up in a thread. Check it out and stay safe homies. 

Next, owing to a security compromise, Pendle-based Penpie was hacked earlier this week for $27 million. Its native PNP token crashed by roughly 40%. Now, the Euler Finance exploiter has sent an on-chain message appreciating the Penpie exploiter. Cute. 

Then of course comes the Near hack… which wasn’t a hack but a smart-assed marketing stunt deployed. It did manage to anger people, some called it a cringefest, but bottom line —  its hackathon got the publicity that it wanted, and that’s what matters. Periodt.

Who let the dogs out?

Onto the good news part. Nom, the core contributor of Bonk and the co-founder of Moonwalk Fitness and MonkeDAO broke the Guinness World Record for most dogs walked at once. He made 38 of ‘em stroll together to raise awareness and get them adopted. Chad!

Gaming for a cause 

Remember Sam’s story that we recently covered? He had raised over $66,980 via a 24-hour game-streaming donation drive to treat kids at Intermountain Children’s Health, a local children’s hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Had a chat with him on X and here are a few key takeaways: 

• The single biggest donation bagged was $5,555 and the smallest was $4. Sam said, “I loved all of them”

• Soby From XAI, Gabby from Yield Guild, Kohji from Parallel, and Planet Atmos were among the big contributors

• Donations were only accepted via payment gateways like Paypal, Amazon Pay, and Venmo. No crypto. Sam said, “I wasn’t able to find an organization that could properly manage crypto payments in time for the stream which was disappointing.”

• Games that were played: Wildcard, Celeros, Planet Atmos, Sparkball, The Lost Glitches, Maelstrom, Heroes of Hold’sm, Calamity, Wanderers, Riftstrom

• With respect to future plans, Sam hopes to do similar drives again. Expect things to notch up this fall/winter 

• Also, Sam underlined that there is a need for “more philanthropy” in Web3 and hopes to eventually change the “extractive/scummy” stigma associated 

Man’s been doing everything in his capacity to make a difference. He won the Content Creator of the Year last year and is looking to make a bid this year too. When that happens, do bless him with your votes. And also, if someone can help him manage crypto donations, get in touch with him for next time.

And finally…

This is a good time to re-evaluate your portfolio. Give up on old hunchbacked coins that are on ventilators and reallocate funds into assets with strong fundamental legs that have the right PMF and a cult-like following. You’ll thank yourself later. 

The weekend’s here already, and off I go to take a walk by the sea. 

Until next time, 

Ciao!