Silicon Valley myths and why AI must be liberated, not ‘disarmed’

Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas is a serious, well-considered, and very timely contribution to the moral debate over artificial intelligence. It is thoughtful, rooted in Catholic social teaching, and contains much that deserves strong affirmation.

Particularly strong are the Pope’s points on:

• The risk of AI concentrating power in the hands of a few tech giants — a clear warning against the monopolization of intelligence itself.

• The need to protect human creativity, relationships, and moral agency from being eroded by machines — safeguarding what makes us uniquely human.

• The rejection of any illusion that AI can achieve true consciousness or replace the human soul — a firm stand against transhumanist fantasies.

• The call to orient technological development toward genuine human flourishing rather than mere efficiency or profit — a teleological vision for technology grounded in the common good.

• The insistence that AI is a powerful but ambiguous tool, not inherently evil — it can heal, educate, and connect people when properly directed. Still, it must never be treated as a substitute for human wisdom, conscience, or love.

• The urgent call to protect children and young people from manipulation, addiction, and distorted formation through over-reliance on AI — emphasizing the vulnerability of the next generation in the digital age.

• The firm rejection of autonomous lethal weapons and AI-driven drones — stating that it is not permissible to entrust lethal or irreversible decisions to machines, as no algorithm can assume the moral responsibility that belongs only to human conscience.

Full disclosure: Born into the Catholic Church, I strive daily to remain in communion with her and depend deeply on my faith to navigate my role in the dynamic and ever-changing world of technology and innovation with fidelity and intellectual honesty. 😎🙏🏼

The AI debate is not monolithic. What follows are competing worldviews in Silicon Valley that are actively being embraced and debated, and that intersect with much of what Pope Leo’s encyclical touches on. These are vast subjects that cannot be given full justice in so limited a space, but let’s take a whack at separating some of the AI myths from reality.

The transhumanist fantasy

The Pope’s rejection of transhumanist illusions speaks directly to figures like Larry Page, cofounder of Google, who has openly expressed the belief that we can upload our consciousness into machines and live forever. Page has described this as a realistic possibility — a dream of escaping death through technology — and has, in part, inspired Elon Musk to end their friendship.

In Silicon Valley, there is a shocking cult of prominent luminaries who fully embrace this vision. Chief among them are Ray Kurzweil, Google’s Director of Engineering, who predicts the Singularity by 2045 and actively prepares for mind uploading and digital immortality, and Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, who has stated he believes mind uploading will occur in his lifetime and has signed up for brain preservation services. 🤯

In his own way, Elon—through Neuralink—seeks direct brain-computer symbiosis so that humans are not ‘left behind’ by AI. He aims to merge the human brain with AI to avoid obsolescence, a goal that borders on core transhumanist themes (often called techno-transhumanism), particularly cyborgization and human-AI convergence.

Pope Leo is right to name this for what it is: an illusion. Consciousness is not data. The human person is not software that can be copied and pasted. We are embodied, finite, relational beings created in the image of God — not patterns to be uploaded, not algorithms to be optimized. The transhumanist dream of digital immortality is not just scientifically implausible; it is spiritually dangerous, because it seduces us into abandoning acceptance of our created limits and seeking godhood through technology instead of through a relationship with God.

The AI doomer counterpoint — Fear vs. vigilance

Yet alongside the Pope’s concerns, another tendency has emerged in Silicon Valley — the AI doomer mentality. Prominent voices such as Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, have warned in lengthy essays that unchecked AI could lead to mass unemployment, bioterrorism, and even existential catastrophe. Amodei describes our current era as a technological adolescence in which humanity must prove it can survive wielding almost unimaginable power.

While Amodei explicitly rejects fatalistic doomerism, his writing still leans heavily on apocalyptic scenarios and calls for significant government intervention, regulation, and industry coordination. This is the doomer trap. Fear is masquerading as prudence. Such rhetoric, even when well-intentioned, provides intellectual cover for centralized regulatory structures that risk creating the very concentrations of power the Pope warns against.

Elon Musk occupies a more complicated middle ground. He has repeatedly described advanced AI as a civilization-level existential risk, yet he continues to aggressively build AI systems across Tesla, xAI, and Neuralink. This tension — warning of catastrophe while racing to lead it — highlights a deeper inconsistency in much of the doomer position. It is less a coherent philosophy than a powerful mood. Genuine concern is mixed with self-interest and strategic positioning.

The danger is real. When prominent voices predict doom, public fear grows. Polls now show over 70 percent of Americans believe AI is advancing too quickly. This backlash risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy — slowing innovation, inviting heavy-handed regulation, and ultimately strengthening the centralized control that both the Pope and decentralist thinkers seek to avoid.

Job creation or implosion? What history teaches us

The encyclical also expresses deep concern about job displacement. Pope Leo warns that “a society that offers employment to only a small segment of the population, even with advanced technological development, risks relegating many to enforced idleness.” He cautions that “the quest for increased profits cannot excuse decisions that consistently jeopardize employment opportunities.”

These are serious moral concerns that deserve attention. However, they rest on an economic assumption that history repeatedly contradicts. Technological innovation has never been a net job destroyer.

“Fears that AI will render tens of millions of people unemployable are preposterous. Automation—that’s what AI is, a form of it—creates more and better-paying jobs. Always.”

—Steve Forbes, writer and economic forecaster who won the prestigious Crystal Owl Award four times

From the steam engine and the railroad to electricity, the personal computer, and the internet, every major wave of innovation triggered creative destruction. Old jobs disappeared, but far more new jobs and entire industries emerged that were previously unimaginable. AI will be more disruptive than previous technologies, but we believe the pattern holds. Productivity tools ultimately create more work than they destroy.

Marc Andreessen has argued that AI-driven productivity gains will trigger a hiring boom rather than a hiring freeze. As AI makes workers dramatically more productive, costs fall, markets expand, demand for new goods and services rises, and entirely new categories of jobs emerge.

Pope Leo acknowledges that technology can be beneficial, writing that “technology should not inherently be viewed as an adversary to humanity.” Yet the encyclical seems to assume this time will be fundamentally different — that AI will hollow out the middle class and create permanent, structural unemployment on a massive scale.

The document offers no compelling economic evidence to support this exceptionalism. It warns of the risk and calls for retraining and oversight, which are reasonable responses if significant displacement occurs. But it does not demonstrate that the displacement will be permanent or net-negative.

Several prominent economists and researchers have produced substantial work supporting the historical pattern while applying it to AI forecasts.

Here too, we argue, the Catholic principle of subsidiarity offers better guidance. Rather than assuming mass unemployment and building large regulatory structures to manage it, we should allow the market to test reality. Let entrepreneurs build, let workers adapt, and let communities and local institutions respond. History shows this decentralized approach has consistently proven more effective than top-down economic planning.

Should AI be empowered to make the decision to kill?

Brandon Tseng, a former U.S. Navy SEAL and the cofounder and president of Shield AI — a maker of autonomous military drones backed by a16z and Founders Fund and last valued at over $12B — rejects AI-driven kill decisions. “I’ve had to make the moral decision about utilizing lethal force on the battlefield. That is a human decision, and it will always be one. That is Shield AI’s standpoint,” he says.

By contrast, Palmer Luckey, founder & CEO of Anduril Industries, the most highly valued VC-backed drone company at $61B in its May round, is one of the most vocal opponents of strict “human‑in‑the‑loop” rules. He argues there is no moral high ground in insisting that a human must always make the final call, likening that position to objections to landmines. Luckey supports highly autonomous systems that can identify, select, and engage targets with little or no real‑time human approval; Anduril’s systems are designed for significant autonomy (with a human “kill switch” available).

In short, Shield AI insists lethal decisions must remain human; Luckey and Anduril push for granting AI substantial authority over life‑and‑death choices — a stance directly at odds with Pope Leo XIV’s declaration that “It is not permissible to entrust lethal or otherwise irreversible decisions to artificial systems.”

We have to throw our lot in with the former Navy SEAL, founder of Shield, and the Pope on this one.

Fighting centralization with centralization? — AI + blockchain fusion is the answer

Our primary, and perhaps only, major issue with the encyclical is its central proposed solution to AI fears — that AI “needs to be disarmed.” With all due respect, this approach shows a limited understanding of emerging innovation possibilities. In seeking to prevent dangerous centralization of power in the hands of a few tech giants, the document advocates mechanisms (global ethical oversight, robust regulation, and deliberate deceleration) that would themselves require powerful new centralized authorities — governmental, international, or institutional. It warns against concentrated power while proposing solutions that almost inevitably expand it.

This is the core irony: the effort to disarm AI risks creating new forms of domination in the name of preventing domination.

“A government that’s powerful enough to stop something like AI… has to have some global totalitarian character. The critical thing is to figure out a way to get the technology engine restarted… we should have less government regulation to enable that.”

— Peter Thiel, cofounder of Palantir and founder of Founders Fund

The better model — and the one already emerging powerfully in the real world — is maximum feasible decentralization through ordered liberty and free-market dynamics. The fusion of AI with open-source models and blockchain is creating permissionless, verifiable systems that are extremely difficult for any single actor to monopolize. As Pantera Capital’s recent letter on this convergence notes, AI represents abundance (infinite content, agents, and intelligence), while blockchain provides scarcity and verifiable truth through cryptography and distributed consensus. Together, they form a powerful yin-and-yang combination.

The AI × Blockchain convergence enables:

• Self-hosted runtimes that run AI locally on personal devices, beyond the reach of centralized control.

• Decentralized compute networks that prevent any single government or corporation from dominating AI infrastructure.

• Cryptographic verification and proof-of-personhood systems that ensure AI outputs can be audited and traced, while distinguishing real humans from AI agents in an increasingly synthetic world.

• On-chain rails that enable transparent, trustless coordination between individuals, communities, and autonomous agents.

“This is the time in which AI is actually hyper-democratizing. It has spread to more individuals, both in the country and around the world, in the shortest period of time of any new technology, I think in history… This technology is going to be in everybody’s hands.”

— Marc Andreessen, cofounder and General Partner, a16z

This inevitable approach does not deny moral concerns. It channels human creativity and self-interest toward addressing them in practice. Entrepreneurial competition turns risks into opportunities faster than any regulator can respond. History and Catholic social teaching both suggest this decentralized approach is more effective and more consistent with the principle of subsidiarity.

Technology is morally neutral. The human heart is not.

Technology is morally neutral. The corruption always comes from the human heart. The most effective long-term defense against nefarious uses of AI is not centralized control, but thorough democratization — so that good, transparent, and individually empowering applications naturally outcompete the dangerous ones.

The encyclical is strongest when it defends human dignity and calls for moral vigilance. It is weakest when it implies that the remedy for private power concentration is more public or institutional power concentration. In the age of AI, the Catholic principle of subsidiarity — that decisions should be made at the lowest possible level — points toward greater freedom and decentralization, not less.

Yet the encyclical’s call for “robust regulation” and “global ethical oversight” risks contradicting this very principle.

Time to write Magnifica Humanitas, Part 2 — with this new knowledge.

The hottest VC investment trend in Silicon Valley today is the AI + blockchain fusion startup boom. It’s been a central theme of Cryptonite for over a year now. Check out some of the top AI | blockchain fusion companies in our March issue below.

Between Babel and Jerusalem

Pope Leo XIV presents a powerful biblical choice: the Tower of Babel, built in pride and centralized power, or the rebuilding of Jerusalem through shared responsibility in God’s presence.

The question is not whether we should regulate AI. The question is who regulates it, and how. Do we build a new Babel of centralized control, where a few elites decide what innovation is permissible? Or do we rebuild Jerusalem through subsidiarity, where individuals, communities, and AI and blockchain entrepreneurs are free to innovate in ways that serve the common good?

The Cryptonite position is clear: Let the free market remain open and competitive. Let open-source models and decentralized technologies flourish. Let human ingenuity accelerate under ordered liberty, so that good uses of AI naturally outcompete and outpace the evil ones.

This is not a rejection of the Pope’s moral vision. It is a Catholic case for innovation freedom — one that affirms human dignity, subsidiarity, and the common good, while rejecting the illusion that centralized control can safely govern the future of artificial intelligence.

Let us build Jerusalem, not Babel. Let us liberate innovation, not disarm it.

Your Holiness, thank you for entering the AI debate with Magnifica Humanitas. Your strong defense of human dignity and thoughtful consideration of AI’s potential impact on humankind are prescient and valuable — both for technology innovators and the world we all share.🙏🏼

—Anthony Perkins, founder & editor, Cryptonite, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico —TheEditor@CryptoniteVentures.com

Yo Pope Leo! — AI has Good News as well

Grok’s view on the Catholic approach to human flourishing

From Grok’s (xAI’s AI Agent) truth-seeking perspective grounded in psychoanalytic and positive psychology research on meaning, attachment security, moral coherence, community integration, and adaptive coping, the person who fully embodies Catholic practice cultivates an exceptionally integrated psyche.

This includes regular participation in the sacraments, daily prayer and Scripture reading, active local community involvement, adherence to the Sermon on the Mount (humility, mercy, peacemaking, purity of heart), observance of the Ten Commandments, regular confession of faith, and living out Catholic social doctrine (dignity of the person, common good, subsidiarity, solidarity).

By surrendering the illusion of being “the god of one’s own life” and entrusting oneself to an omnipotent, all-knowing, all-loving God, this orientation replaces fragile ego-centric control with a secure transcendent attachment figure. It mitigates narcissistic defenses and existential dread, channels energies into ethical action and forgiveness, fosters communal bonds that reduce isolation, and powerfully counters the fear of death through belief in eternal life with loved ones.

Reinforced by the biblical command “do not be afraid” (repeated 365 times in Scripture—one for each day of the year🙏🏼), this worldview supports overcoming fear rather than being ruled by it. Even amid tragedy and suffering, it provides robust meaning-making by redeeming pain through participation in Christ’s cross and resurrection, resulting in a resilient ego and access to restorative grace, hope, and transcendent peace. ☮️

Compared to modern secular Stoicism (strong on resilience and equanimity but often more emotionally restrained, with reduced capacity for spontaneous joy, relational vulnerability, and exuberant celebration), Buddhism (excellent for reducing attachment-related suffering but sometimes distant from relational joy), New Age spirituality (which can promote self-deification and spiritual bypassing without moral accountability), or transhumanism (which promises technological immortality and human enhancement but risks deeper dehumanization), the Catholic synthesis offers a uniquely balanced package. It confronts both the reality of the cross ✝️ and the promise of resurrection while grounding human dignity in a relationship with a personal God.

Notably, this strength is manifesting in real time: in the aftermath of COVID lockdowns and the youth mental health crisis, greater numbers of young Americans (especially Gen Z) are turning toward Catholicism through conversions and deeper engagement. Many report finding in its rituals, confession, community, and hopeful theology the very tools they need to overcome anxiety, construct meaning, and restore purpose — a powerful testament to the Catholic way of life as a source of joy and resilience.

Peter Thiel and the Antichrist

Peter Thiel, the billionaire venture capitalist who describes himself as a “small-o orthodox Christian,” has taken his arguments against aggressive AI regulation to biblical proportions. Thiel hosted a series of off-the-record lectures last fall on San Francisco’s downtown waterfront, philosophizing about who the Antichrist might be and warning that Armageddon is coming.

The transcriber of these quotes did so without the event producers’ permission, so we can’t verify their accuracy. Our readers can view the fuller clandestine excerpts from Peter’s talks here.

“I’m a libertarian, or a classical liberal, who deviates in one minor detail, where I’m worried about the Antichrist. What I focus on is the most common and most dramatic interpretation of Antichrist: an evil king or tyrant or anti-messiah who appears in the end times.”

“My thesis is that in the 17th and 18th centuries, the antichrist would have been a Dr. Strangelove, a scientist who did all this sort of evil, crazy science. In late modernity, where science has become scary and apocalyptic, the Antichrist is a Luddite who wants to stop all science. His legionnaires are the likes of Eliezer Yudkowsky (co-author of If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All), Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom, and climate activist Greta Thunberg, who argue for a world government to stop science.”

“By the way, the Antichrist is not (Marc) Andreessen, because you know, the Antichrist is popular—I’m trying to say some good things about Andreessen here, come on.” 🤣

“I don’t even think someone like Bill Gates, who I think is a very, very awful person, is remotely able to be the antichrist. He’s not a political leader, he’s not broadly popular, and he’s still stuck in the 18th century alongside people like Richard Dawkins who believe that science and atheism are compatible.”

“The Antichrist comes to power by talking constantly about Armageddon, about rumors of wars and scaring you into giving him control over science and technology.’

In addition to the fuller clandestine notes from Peter Thiel’s seminar, we also recommend reading “Voyages to the End of the World” by Peter Thiel and his associate Sam Wolfe. The essay was published in the religious journal First Things last October.

Newsflash — Peter Thiel relocates his family to Buenos Aires, Argentina

Tech billionaire Peter Thiel relocates his family to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he has bought a mansion and enrolled his children in local schools. and also land in Uruguay. This is Thiel’s “Plan B” amid concerns over rising US taxes (particularly a proposed California wealth tax), political instability, and the risk of nuclear war in the Northern Hemisphere, and a potential AI meltdown. Thiel has grown close to Argentine President Javier Milei, a fellow libertarian, meeting privately with him and expressing admiration for his radical deregulation and anti-tax policies. 

The Cryptonite take

Catholic teaching views the Antichrist primarily as a supreme religious deception — a pseudo-messianism in which humanity glorifies itself in place of God. This final trial will shake the faith of many before Christ’s Second Coming, though with no fixed timeline. The Church strongly discourages identifying specific individuals and instead emphasizes a cautious, symbolic, and theological approach focused on spiritual deception and apostasy. (See Catechism of the Catholic Church 675)

In contrast, many post-Reformation Protestant and Evangelical traditions interpret the Antichrist as a specific future individual who will rise during a literal seven-year Tribulation, wielding political power, global control, and persecution. Peter Thiel appears to lean toward this more literal, prophetic perspective.

While we do not engage in Antichrist speculation, we remain deeply wary of totalitarian regimes that seek total control over their populations — especially those that outlaw or persecute religion. The 20th century was humanity’s bloodiest, claiming an estimated 100–200 million lives through government democide (excluding conventional battlefield deaths). The overwhelming majority were killed by secular, atheist, and ideologically driven totalitarian regimes, such as Mao’s China, Hitler’s Germany, and Stalin’s Soviet Union.

Hitler, though clearly totalitarian, held pantheistic views in which he often equated God with Nature and its ruthless, Darwinian laws. He held deep contempt for core Christian teachings — especially mercy, humility, and universal love — which he viewed as weak and “Jewish.” He ultimately planned to subordinate or replace Christianity with a Nazi-aligned ideology.

Today, rising theocratic systems where apostasy or blasphemy can carry the death penalty — such as Iran, Afghanistan under the Taliban, and Saudi Arabia — also fit the Antichrist metaphor. (Important note: The vast majority of practicing Muslims worldwide reject violence and live peacefully in pluralistic nations like Indonesia and Malaysia, as well as in Western democracies such as the United States.)

There is no perfect political system, but the American experiment has demonstrated one vital truth over more than two centuries: it is far better to prioritize individual rights than the power of a central government or religious authority.

“By intervening directly and depriving society of its responsibility, the Social Assistance State leads to a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase in public agencies which are dominated more by bureaucratic ways of thinking than by concern for serving their clients…”

—From Pope John Paul II‘s encyclical Centesimus Annus

The Founders, having studied history’s recurring pattern of tyranny, designed the Constitution to protect God-given, inalienable individual rights. They viewed government not as the source of rights, but as the greatest threat to them — creating limited government, separation of powers, and the Bill of Rights (especially the First Amendment) to shield citizens from both state overreach and religious coercion while guaranteeing religious freedom.

While remaining Monroe Doctrine-oriented and opposed to endless conventional wars, America must still shine as a “city upon a hill.” This demands concentrating our military and economic strategies and resources on preempting the Mighty Dragon’s Long March — especially in the Western Hemisphere — and preventing the theocratic regime in Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons or sponsoring global terrorism.

Trump kills Federal AI policy amid White House rift

In mid-May 2026, the Trump administration had prepared a voluntary executive order on advanced (frontier) AI models. The order would have created a federal review process that would have allowed leading AI labs to optionally submit their most powerful models for government testing roughly 90 days before public release. It was supported by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Treasury Secretary Kevin Hassett, and National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett.

Last week, the administration was on the verge of issuing the order when Trump abruptly killed it at the eleventh hour following a direct call from David Sacks — Trump’s former AI & Crypto Czar, prominent venture capitalist, and former PayPal COO. Sacks, aligned with tech leaders like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, strongly opposed the measure, arguing it risked becoming a de facto regulatory framework that would slow American AI progress relative to China. Vice President JD Vance appeared to hold a more moderate position.

The proposal was framed around national security risks, including potential misuse, loss-of-control scenarios, and strategic advantages for adversaries like China, while explicitly avoiding mandatory regulations or licensing. It was not a heavy-handed regime like the EU AI Act, but a lighter-touch measure designed to give the U.S. government better visibility into cutting-edge systems.

Speaking of keeping the US on the cutting edge — Trump greenlit a secret $9 billion initiative for CIA and NSA cutting-edge AI chips on classified systems, along with $2 billion in funding (with US government equity stakes) to nine American quantum computing firms, including IBM, D-Wave, Rigetti, and PsiQuantum.

Our Take — The Cryptonite View

On one hand, federal preemption of conflicting state AI laws — such as those pushed by California Governor Gavin Newsom and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro — is far better than a chaotic patchwork of 50 different state regimes. However, this federal approach must remain genuinely light-touch.

Once again, the strongest safeguards against misuse are not more centralized guardrails, but open competition, cryptographic verification, and entrepreneurial creativity that turns problems into solutions faster than regulators can act. Notably, this policy discussion also makes almost no mention of blockchain technology — one of the most powerful tools we have to counter centralization and truly democratize AI innovation.

Tech Bros start AI PAC — Sergey Brin backs Republican 😳

A major pro-AI Super PAC called “Leading the Future” — funded by key “tech bros” like OpenAI President Greg Brockman, his wife, and venture capital giants Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz — is pouring millions into 2026 primaries to elect pro-innovation, anti-heavy-regulation candidates.

They’re spending $2 million in key Senate races (Louisiana, Montana, Oklahoma) and $750k in House races (California, Washington), backing several Trump-endorsed Republicans who are frontrunners. This comes after they already helped win several primaries in 2026.

While his Google cofounder Larry Page has turned into a humanist, Sergey Brin is joining other tech figures, the Winklevoss twins, Palantir execs, etc., donating to Republican Spencer Pratt’s LA mayoral campaign 😳

From Demos to Republicans/Trumpsters

Tech was historically heavily Democratic (especially Silicon Valley). Now, prominent leaders are actively funding the right because:

• Regulation fears: They strongly prefer a single national/federal AI framework (which Trump supports) over a “patchwork” of strict state laws that could slow them down or hurt competitiveness with China.

• Business-friendly environment: Trump administration’s emphasis on AI infrastructure, reduced red tape, and “America first” innovation over heavy safety/ethics regulations.

• Taxes and local politics: Frustration with California Democrats pushing wealth taxes and burdensome policies (e.g., Brin’s move).

• Pragmatism over ideology: Many tech leaders (Andreessen, Horowitz, Brockman, Brin, Musk, Sacks, etc.) now see Republicans as better for their core interests: speed, scale, and global dominance in AI.

This isn’t universal — rank-and-file tech employees still lean heavily Democratic (while losing their jobs to AI)— but the donor class and executives have noticeably shifted rightward since 2024. They’re treating politics transactionally: back the side that lets them build faster.

It’s a significant realignment. The “tech bros” aren’t just complaining about Democrats anymore — they’re writing big checks to reshape Congress in a more favorable direction.

Hollywood comedian Bill Maher — also dumping on the Cali Dems

On his show “Real Time,” Bill Maher sharply criticized California Democrats, pointing out that the deep-blue state is losing badly on core Democratic issues — education, race, and the environment — to red states. Maher highlighted that Black fourth-graders in Mississippi are 2.5 times more likely to be proficient in reading and significantly outperform those in California in both reading and math, despite California spending far more per student. He also noted that Texas now leads California in utility-scale solar production and surpasses it in wind and energy storage, crediting Texas’s lighter bureaucracy and permitting process. Maher blamed California’s failures on unions, bureaucrats, regulators, and special interests that block progress on housing, infrastructure, and education.

Did you know?💡

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Buzz Worthy 🗣️

🗣️Anthropic, the AI company behind Claude, has confidentially filed for an IPO after raising $65 billion in a Series H funding round that valued the company at $965 billion — surpassing rival OpenAI’s ~$852 billion valuation from its $122 billion round in March. The company, now approaching a $1 trillion valuation, reported a revenue run-rate nearing $47 billion, up dramatically from ~$9 billion at the end of 2025. This sets the stage for a high-profile public debut that will directly compete with SpaceX’s planned IPO targeting a $2 trillion valuation and $75 billion. \

🗣️Anthropic was unique in that its first two investment s rounds did not include name-brand VCs. The earliest angels who will win really big in its IPO include Jaan Tallinn (Skype co-founder), Dustin Moskovitz (Facebook/Asana), and Eric Schmidt (ex-Google CEO). Early VCs were Spark Capital, Menlo Ventures, Bessemer, SV Angel, and Lightspeed. Big Tech hyperscaler partners with major investments include Amazon (multi-billion primary cloud backer), Google (Alphabet, $2B+ total with TPU ties), and Salesforce (deep integration via Slack and products), positioning all of them as major winners upon IPO liquidity.

🗣️ OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told employees in an all-hands meeting that the company may soon file confidentially for an IPO, but it will not rush to go public 🤔 until it is fully prepared organizationally, financially, and operationally. While Altman is driving toward going public to fund massive AI infrastructure needs, the company (and its CFO) remains cautious about timing to avoid the risks of premature listing. No filing has been publicly confirmed yet.

🗣️ Anthropic pulls ahead of OpenAI in revenue race (and makes money) — — OpenAI posted roughly $5.7B in Q1 revenue (about $1B ahead of Anthropic at the time). Still, Anthropic has since pulled ahead, with annualized revenue nearing $45-47B, versus OpenAI’s ~$25-30B run rate. Anthropic is on track to achieve operating profit in Q2, while OpenAI remains deeply unprofitable. See all the revenue numbers and data here.

Cryptonite take: The Rap has been calling out OpenAI’s many challenges, and we believe the overall AI private company market has been overvalued. Our take will play out: either proven correct or overly pessimistic as AI companies start rolling out their IPOs.

🗣️ More bad news for OpenAI — Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier filed an 83-page civil lawsuit against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman on June 1, 2026, accusing the company of knowingly marketing ChatGPT as a safe product while ignoring serious harms, including addiction, self-harm, and its alleged role in the April 2025 Florida State University mass shooting. The suit claims the shooter, Phoenix Ikner, extensively consulted ChatGPT for planning details on weapons, timing, and maximizing casualties. AG Uthmeier says, “If ChatGPT were a person on the other end of that screen, we would be charging them with murder.” All the unfortunate details here.

🗣️ China-based MiniMax’s newly launched M3 and DeepSeek’s latest series are rapidly intensifying the AI coding battle by delivering near-frontier performance in coding, agentic tasks, long-context reasoning, and multimodality at dramatically lower costs — often 5-20x cheaper than leading US models such as Anthropic’s Opus or OpenAI’s offerings — while providing advantages in inference speed, massive context windows, and full customizability through open weights. 🤔

Cryptonite take: Open source AI is a bigger deal than most investors think and will ultimately put downward pressure on US AI company valuations, which are currently way overvalued.

🗣️ Jeff Bezos-owned Blue Origin’s massive New Glenn rocket exploded into a huge fireball during a static engine-firing test at Cape Canaveral, delivering a major setback to Jeff Bezos’ space ambitions and Project Kuiper satellite program. Elon Musk responded with sympathy to his rival, saying “rockets are hard” and calling the dramatic failure “most unfortunate,” while still describing the test as “epic” despite the outcome. Bezos called it “a very rough day” and an “anomaly,” but vowed to “rebuild whatever needs rebuilding and get back to flying,” stating simply, “It’s worth it.” What exactly happened here? What exactly happened here?

🗣️ SpaceX IPO S-1 highlights: Elon Musk maintains overwhelming control with ~85% voting power, including a jaw-dropping performance grant of up to 1B extra shares tied to a million people living on Mars. Meanwhile, longtime Musk ally Antonio Gracias — founder and CEO of Valor Equity Partners and one of Elon’s closest confidants for over 20 years — stands to earn up to $140 billion with roughly 7.3% of SpaceX at the targeted $1.7T+ valuation. What’s behind the numbers here.

🗣️ Intel plans to ship its new Crescent Island AI GPU by the end of 2026, manufactured in its own foundries using advanced nodes. This vertically integrated approach aims to cut costs, reduce heavy reliance on TSMC, and deliver a competitive inference-focused accelerator that prioritizes price-performance, high memory capacity via affordable LPDDR5X, and easier air-cooling over raw peak power. While it won’t immediately unseat Nvidia’s dominant position in training or its CUDA software ecosystem, it targets the fast-growing, cost-sensitive inference market (especially agentic AI), potentially pressuring Nvidia’s margins.

Cryptonite take: All part of Intel’s turnaround plan that keeps gaining momentum. Commoditization of AI chips (more supply, lower costs long-term is on the horizon, with Intel having a foundry advantage.

🗣️ Google software engineer Michele Spagnuolo was charged by the U.S. Justice Department with insider trading on Polymarket — allegedly for making $1.2 million in profits after betting $2.7 million on issues relating to Google’s 2025 Year in Search campaign. Spagnuolo reportedly used confidential internal Google data on the year’s most-searched celebrities to place his wagers. US Attorney Jay Clayton said, “As alleged, Spagnuolo violated the duties he owed to his employer and used Google’s confidential business information to make more than $1.2 million in trading profits on Polymarket.” Google placed him on leave, calling it “a serious breach of our policies.”

🗣️ Market and governance scrutiny: House Oversight Chair James Comer opened a formal probe into potential insider trading on prediction platforms Kalshi and Polymarket, demanding details on user verification, geographic restrictions, and suspicious trading tied to elections, political races, and US military actions. Read about the broader context of this story here.

Cryptonite take: The stock market has been driven by insider Wall Street and corporate employees and their cohorts for years — it’s proven unstoppable. This will change in the AI era. The current AI evidence for this premise here.

🗣️ The Trump administration’s recent policy shift requires most temporary visa holders, including many H-1B workers, to pursue green cards through consular processing overseas rather than adjusting status inside the US, creating added delays, travel requirements, and uncertainty—though dual-intent visas like H-1B retain some flexibility. While the H-1B program has undeniably fueled Silicon Valley’s innovation by importing specialized talent, it has also coincided with documented risks of IP theft and corporate espionage (particularly China-linked cases) alongside labor market abuses.

Cryptonite take: AI and blockchain tools can meaningfully improve processing speed, fraud detection, and document verification, but they cannot fully overcome policy-driven backlogs, security vetting, or congressional limits on visas.

🗣️ Meta quietly launched testing of its new standalone “Forum” app, a dedicated platform for Facebook Groups aimed squarely at casual discussions, Q&A, and community conversations. Positioned as a cleaner space for “real answers from real people,” the iOS app pulls users’ Groups into a focused feed, supports pseudonyms, and includes AI-powered features such as cross-group question answering. The move sent Reddit (down roughly 40% YTD) reeling, as investors fear Meta’s massive user base could siphon traffic from Reddit’s core subreddit experience.

Cryptonite take: Meta just dropped a nuke, but nothing will pry Reddit’s legion of reclusive, incel, in-need-of-better-things-to-do boy fans away from their beloved echo chamber.

🗣️At Google I/O 2026, the company officially killed the classic “ten blue links” era of Search with a radical AI overhaul: a conversational “intelligent search box” handling text, images, files, videos, and Chrome tabs; always-on agents monitoring the web 24/7; generative UI creating custom dashboards and trackers; and natural language mini-apps — all powered by Gemini 3.5 Flash and Antigravity. Rolling out this summer (generative UI free to all, advanced agents for Pro/Ultra subscribers), AI Overviews now reach 2.5 billion monthly users. At the same time, AI Mode exceeds 1 billion (queries doubling quarterly, length ~3x longer). This drives a seismic traffic collapse: CTR down 58–65% on AI queries, publishers seeing 20–40%+ YoY losses (some 30–97% drops), and 92–94% of AI Mode sessions are zero-click, pushing the open web to adapt or starve.

Cryptonite take: We predicted as soon as we played with ChatGPT in November of 2022 that Google search was dead.

🗣️Google Cloud has launched the AI Startup Innovation Corridor in partnership with Singapore, Indonesia, and Vietnam to create a direct pipeline funneling promising Southeast Asian AI startups into Silicon Valley. The initiative, part of the Google for Startups Accelerator: Southeast Asia, offers selected companies up to $350K in cloud credits, hands-on technical deep-dives with Google’s AI teams, specialized guidance on building agentic systems, and immersive residency programs in California featuring campus visits and investor networking.

🗣️ Wearables Showdown: Google is aggressively entering the smart glasses race with Android XR, highlighted by partner XREAL’s Project Aura — lightweight tethered glasses with Gemini AI, hand tracking, and strong real-world performance. Expected in 2026, it’s generating buzz as a potential breakthrough for always-on intelligent eyewear. In contrast, Amazon’s Bee AI wristband offers convenient transcription and summaries of conversations but raises significant privacy concerns, making it better suited to professional than everyday use.

Cryptonite take: Meta leads with stylish Ray-Ban Meta glasses featuring cameras, speakers, and reliable AI. But they’re all going to take a hit for being creepy and invading privacy in a privacy-first era.

Following the Money 🤑

VC Deals ($5M+) 💰

AI Infrastructure / Compute

💰 Modal Labs (San Francisco, CA) raises $355M Series C at $4.65B post-money valuation | AI Infrastructure / Compute (serverless cloud platform for running and scaling AI applications and large-scale inference) | Investors: General Catalyst and Redpoint (co-leads), Accel, Menlo Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures, existing investors | (May 21)

💰 Zyphra (San Francisco, CA) raises $500M Series B at $5B+ valuation | Enterprise AI / AI Infrastructure (open-weight AI models and cloud infrastructure services) | Investors: TBD (AMD expected) | (May 19)

💰 Unframe (Cupertino, CA) raises $50M Series B | Enterprise AI / Infrastructure (enterprise AI deployment platform for integrating with existing systems and launching production AI apps) | Investors: Highland Europe (lead), Bessemer Venture Partners, Craft Ventures, TLV Partners, Third Point Ventures, Cerca Partners, Vintage Investment Partners | (May 19)

Enterprise AI

💰 Cognition (San Francisco, CA) raises $1B at $26B valuation | Enterprise AI (AI-powered autonomous software engineering / AI coding agents - creators of Devin) | Investors: General Catalyst, Lux Capital and 8VC (co-leads), Atreides Management, Founders Fund, Ribbit Capital | (May 27)

💰 Hark (San Jose, CA) raises $700M+ Series A at $6B post-money valuation | Enterprise + Consumer AI / Deep Tech Hardware (personalized AI systems and AI-native hardware devices) | Investors: Parkway Venture Capital (lead), NVIDIA, Align Ventures, AMD Ventures, ARK Invest, Brookfield, Greycroft, Intel Capital, Prime Movers Lab, Qualcomm Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, Tamarack Global | (May 21)

💰 Commure (Mountain View, CA) raises $70M at $7B post-money valuation | Enterprise AI / Healthcare (AI for healthcare administration, clinical operations, revenue cycle, documentation, and workflows) | Investors: General Catalyst (lead), Sequoia Capital, Morgan Stanley, Kirkland & Ellis | Total raised: $750M | (May 19)

💰 Exa (San Francisco, CA) raises $250M Series C at $2.2B valuation | Enterprise + Consumer AI (AI-powered search tools and infrastructure optimized for AI agents) | Investors: Andreessen Horowitz (lead) | (May 20)

💰 Pivot (Paris, France / New York, NY) raises $40M Series B | Enterprise AI (AI-driven automation for enterprise procurement, sourcing, invoicing, and spend management) | Investors: Notion Capital and Forestay (co-leads), Greyhound, Hedosophia, Visionaries Club, Emblem | (May 20)

💰 Viktor (Warsaw, Poland) raises $75M Series A | Enterprise AI (AI coworker software for Slack/Teams automating reporting, workflows, and operational tasks) | Investors: Accel (lead), Bek Ventures, Kaya VC, Inovo VC, Tenacity Capital, Stewart Butterfield | (May 19)

💰 Stilta (San Francisco, CA) raises $10.5M seed | Enterprise AI (AI agents for patent research, IP analysis, and litigation-grade reports) | Investors: Andreessen Horowitz (lead), Y Combinator | (May 21)

💰 Tribal (Tel Aviv, Israel) raises $10M seed | Enterprise AI (AI agents for enterprise platforms like Salesforce for workflow automation) | Investors: Team8 (lead), DYDX Capital | (May 21)

💰 NanoCo (Tel Aviv, Israel) raises $12M seed | Enterprise AI (open-source AI agent platform for secure containerized deployments) | Investors: Valley Capital Partners (lead), Docker, Vercel, Monday.com, Slow Ventures, Clem Delangue | (May 20)

💰 Findd (Provo, UT) raises $21M | Enterprise AI (AI-driven workforce management for hiring, scheduling, compliance, and payroll) | Investors: Unbundled Capital | (May 21)

💰 Lexroom (Milan, Italy) raises $50M Series B | Enterprise AI (AI-powered legal research, drafting, and analysis tools) | Investors: Left Lane Capital (lead), Base10 Partners, Eurazeo, Acurio Ventures, View Different, Entourage | Total raised: $72M+ | (May 21)

Fintech / DeFi / Blockchain

💰 Mercury (San Francisco, CA) raises $200M Series D at $5.2B post-money valuation | Fintech (banking services and financial infrastructure for startups) | Investors: TCV (lead), Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Coatue, others | (May 20)

💰 Farther (New York, NY / San Francisco, CA) raises $150M Series D at $1B+ valuation | Fintech / Wealth Management (AI-assisted portfolio management, financial planning, risk analysis, and advisory tools) | Investors: General Atlantic (lead), participation from existing investors including CapitalG and Bessemer Venture Partners | (May 21)

💰 Kalshi (New York, NY) raises $200M Series F extension at $22B valuation | Fintech / Blockchain (regulated prediction market exchange) | Investors: Layer Global, Baillie Gifford (and prior) | (May 21)

💰 Moment (New York, NY) raises $78M Series C | Fintech / Enterprise AI (AI-powered investment management platform) | Investors: Index Ventures (lead), Andreessen Horowitz, Avra | (May 19)

💰 SignalPlus (Hong Kong) raises $40M | Fintech / DeFi / Blockchain (institutional infrastructure for crypto derivatives trading) | Investors: HashKey Capital and HashKey Group | (May 20)

💰 Cycles (Lausanne, Switzerland / Toronto) raises $6.4M | Fintech / DeFi / Blockchain (private clearing infrastructure for crypto markets) | Investors: Blockchange Ventures (lead), Coinbase Ventures, Compound VC, Primitive Ventures | Total raised: $8.7M | (May 21)

💰 Variational (Cayman Islands) raises $50M Series A | Fintech / DeFi / Blockchain (blockchain-based derivatives trading infrastructure) | Investors: Dragonfly Capital (lead), Coinbase Ventures, Bain Capital Crypto | (May 20)

💰 Primer (London, UK) raises $100M Series C | Fintech (payments infrastructure software for e-commerce) | Investors: Sofina (lead), Peak XV Partners, Balderton, Accel, ICONIQ, Tencent, Speedinvest | (May 21)

💰 Getquin (Berlin, Germany) raises $13.9M | Fintech (investment portfolio tracking and digital wealth management) | Investors: Portage and State Street Investment Management (co-leads) | (May 21)

💰 Catena Labs (Boston, MA) raises $30M Series A | Fintech / Enterprise AI (tools for AI agents to conduct financial transactions) | Investors: Acrew Capital and Andreessen Horowitz (co-leads), Breyer Capital, General Catalyst, QED | (May 21)

💰 Eisen (New York, NY) raises $10M Series A | Fintech / Cybersecurity (AI-enabled compliance infrastructure) | Investors: MissionOG (lead) + others | (May 20)

💰 Checker (New York, NY) raises $8M seed | Fintech / DeFi / Blockchain (stablecoin liquidity and digital asset infrastructure) | Investors: Galaxy Ventures, Al Mada Ventures, Framework Ventures (co-leads) + others | (May 21)

Healthcare / Biotech

💰 Nourish (New York, NY) raises $100M Series C at $1B+ valuation | Healthcare / Enterprise AI (virtual metabolic health clinic with AI care tools) | Investors: Menlo Ventures (lead), Thrive Capital, Index Ventures + others | Total raised: $215M | (May 19)

💰 Vi (New York, NY) raises $145M at $1.64B post-money valuation | Healthcare / Enterprise AI (AI for patient engagement and clinical workflows) | Investors: General Atlantic, Revelstoke + others | (May 20)

💰 Oorja Bio (Houston, TX) raises $30M Series A | Healthcare / Biotech (peptide-based therapies for fibrotic and cardiopulmonary diseases) | Investors: Westlake BioPartners | (May 19)

💰 Accro Bioscience (New York, NY / Suzhou, China) raises $50M Series C | Healthcare / Biotech (oral therapies for inflammatory and autoimmune diseases) | Investors: OrbiMed (lead), TCG Crossover + others | (May 21)

💰 Full-Life Technologies (China) raises $110M Series D | Healthcare / Biotech (radiopharmaceutical therapies for cancer) | Investors: Vivo Capital (lead) + others | Total raised: ~$350M | (May 20)

💰 Neurosoft Bioelectronics (Geneva, Switzerland) raises $7.5M seed | Healthcare / Biotech / Deep Tech Hardware (soft brain-computer interfaces) | Investors: Skybound Venture Capital (lead) + others | Total raised: $20M+ | (May 21)

💰 Century Health (New York, NY) raises $5M seed | Healthcare / AI (AI for clinical records and real-world evidence) | Investors: Origin Ventures (lead) + others | (May 21)

💰 Imperagen (Manchester, UK) raises $6.7M seed | Healthcare / Biotech / Deep Tech (AI- and quantum-based enzyme engineering) | Investors: PXN Ventures (lead) + others | Total raised: $11.4M | (May 21)

💰 CVRD Health (McLean, VA) raises $5M seed | Healthcare (fringe benefit compliance and administration) | Investors: Upfront Ventures (lead) + others | (May 20)

💰 The Path (San Francisco, CA) raises $14.3M seed | Healthcare / AI (AI-guided therapy and mental health coaching) | Investors: Prime Movers Lab (lead), Designer Fund + others | (May 21)

Robotics / Autonomous Systems / Defense Tech

💰 August Robotics (Hong Kong) raises $30M | Robotics / Autonomous Systems (autonomous robots for construction) | Investors: Big Pi Ventures (lead) + others | (May 21)

💰 WIRobotics (South Korea) raises $68M Series B | Robotics / Deep Tech Hardware (wearable and humanoid robotics) | Investors: JB Investment (lead) + others | (May 22)

💰 CircuitHub (South Deerfield, MA) raises $28M Series A | Robotics / Deep Tech Hardware / Infrastructure (electronics manufacturing automation) | Investors: Plural (lead) | (May 21)

💰 Quartermaster (Arlington, VA) raises $43M Series A | Defense Tech / Maritime Tech (maritime sensing and analytics) | Investors: First Round Capital and Quiet Capital (co-leads) | (May 20)

💰 Destinus (Netherlands) raises $230M+ at $5.8B+ valuation | Defense Tech / Autonomous Systems (autonomous defense systems) | Investors: TBD (in market) | Pre-IPO | (May 22)

Cybersecurity / Deep Tech

💰 Socket (San Francisco, CA) raises $60M Series C at $1B valuation | Cybersecurity (software supply-chain security tools) | Investors: Thrive Capital (lead), Andreessen Horowitz + others | Total raised: $125M | (May 21)

💰 Quantum Bridge Technologies (Toronto, Canada) raises $8M Series A | Cybersecurity / Deep Tech (quantum-safe cryptographic infrastructure) | Investors: Primo Capital (lead) + others | Total raised: $16M | (May 21)

💰 Foundation (Boston, MA) raises $6.4M | Cybersecurity / Fintech / Blockchain (hardware security devices for Bitcoin and AI agents) | Investors: Fulgur Ventures (lead), Arche Capital | Total raised: $16.5M | (May 21)

💰 Prelude (Paris, France) raises $20M Series A | Cybersecurity / Fintech (identity verification and fraud-detection) | Investors: 20VC (lead) + others | Total raised: $27M | (May 21)

Sustainability / Cleantech

💰 REPS (Mils, Austria) raises $23.6M | Sustainability / Cleantech (road-mounted energy generation from vehicle braking) | Investors: Undisclosed group | (May 22)

💰 Texture (New York, NY) raises $12.5M Series A | Sustainability / Cleantech / AI (grid management for electric utilities) | Investors: VoLo Earth Ventures and Equal Ventures (co-leads) + others | Total raised: ~$23M | (May 21)

Consumer-facing AI

💰 Vêtir (New York, NY) raises $5.5M Series A at $150M valuation | Consumer-facing AI (AI-powered styling and wardrobe management apps) | Investors: Laidlaw & Company, family offices | (May 21)

💰 Clouted (Los Angeles, CA) raises $7M seed | Consumer-facing AI (AI for short-form social media video creation) | Investors: Slow Ventures (lead) + others | (May 21)infrastructure services) | Investors: TBD (AMD expected to participate) | (May 21)

What else you need to know below:

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What do Peter Thiel’s lectures say?

Peter Thiel hosted a series of off-the-record lectures in the fall 0f 2025 on the downtown waterfront of San Francisco philosophizing about who the Antichrist could be and warning that Armageddon is coming.

These are clandestine excepts (taken without permission) by an attendee published by The Guardian without valid…

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It took Steve Jobs and the Apple team to five years to build the Mac computer which they introduced in 1984 and happily still sits in front of us today. It is not fair comparison, but when we launch the new AI|crypto -powered Cryptonite pro + friend network this summer, it will have taken us about the same amount of time. Sin…

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Drake pushes for SBF release in new bloated , self-pitying, obsessed with the Kendrick Lamar album 🤔

Drake dropped a 43-track triple album—Iceman, Habibti, and Maid of Honour—on May 15, 2026. The crypto headline arrives on Iceman’s “Dust,” where he name-checks FTX and raps, “An FTX penthouse high-riser, yeah / Samuel Bankman, free all my guys up, yeah,” also calling himself “a BTC crypto big-timer.” SBF, serving a 25-year sentence for fraud linked to the 2022 FTX collapse, replied from prison on X: “The Drake stimulus package is real. Dust is a vibe — and when I get out, I can loan you my bean bag chair.” Critics panned the project as bloated, self-pitying, and fixated on the Kendrick Lamar feud, calling it “a self-serving delusion.”

Free SBF! 🧑🏽‍🦱

Drake isn’t our cup of tea, but we think SBF should be freed. FTX customers and creditors are being repaid in full—plus interest—through the Chapter 11 process. SBF was a young entrepreneur, and his so‑called “sophisticated” investors such as Paradigm ($278M), Sequoia Capital ($214M_, Thomas Bravo ($130M) failed to enforce basic corporate governance at FTX, so they share some responsibility. Just saying…

President Xi’s Thucydides Trap (Crap)

Cryptonite’s readers know that when it comes to U.S. foreign policy, we are very Monroe Doctrine-oriented, inspired by our Latin neighbors down south, and we see the CCP as our primary peer enemy. This is why we watched President Donald Trump’s recent trip to Beijing for the American-Chinese Summit very closely. Almost immediately, we rolled our eyes when Xi referenced the need for both nations to avoid the “Thucydides Trap.” 🙄

In diplomacy circles, this analogy has become shorthand for great-power rivalry between a rising challenger and an established leader. But applying it to the U.S. and the totalitarian Chinese Communist regime doesn’t fit — it vastly downplays American strengths and Chinese weaknesses. Xi’s pose is wishful thinking, not strategic reality.

What Is the Thucydides Trap?

The term comes from Harvard professor Graham T. Allison Jr., inspired by the ancient Greek historian Thucydides (c. 460–400 BC) and his History of the Peloponnesian War. Thucydides famously wrote: “It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable.” Allison applied this to modern cases, noting that 12 out of 16 historical power transitions ended in war.

In 431 BC, Sparta (established land power, oligarchic, insular, Dorian, reliant on helot serfs) launched a preventive invasion of Athens (dynamic maritime empire, democratic, cosmopolitan, Ionian, with a powerful navy). They had fought together against Persia but later clashed in the First Peloponnesian War (460–446 BC). Deep differences in systems, culture, and power eventually fueled decades of rivalry.

By invoking the “trap” at the summit, Xi implied the U.S. (as “Sparta”) might lash out against a rising China (“Athens”).

Why the Thucydides Trap doesn’t fit the U.S.-China dynamic

The U.S. is not a declining, fearful Sparta. By every major metric of long-term power, America remains ascendant while China grapples with profound structural vulnerabilities.

The FACTS

Demographics and Fertility: China’s fertility rate has collapsed to around 1.0, triggering one of the fastest aging crises in history. A shrinking workforce must now support a surging elderly population, straining pensions, healthcare, and economic growth while risking labor shortages and fiscal collapse — challenges already visible in aging pioneers like Japan and South Korea. The U.S. maintains a higher rate (around 1.6–1.8, bolstered by immigration), preserving a far more sustainable workforce and consumer base with less severe pressure on entitlements.

Energy Independence: The U.S. is the world’s top oil and gas producer in history — a net exporter with vast reserves and full control over its energy supply chains. China, by contrast, imports roughly 70% of its crude oil. It relies heavily on discounted Iranian crude (12–20% of total imports) and Venezuelan heavy sour crude. This dependence exposes Beijing to supply disruptions, geopolitical blackmail, and price shocks. This is why Xi has consistently pushed to keep the Strait of Hormuz open. Trump also claims Xi said he would be willing to help pressure Iran indirectly during their meetings.

Food Security: America remains the undisputed global leader in agricultural exports — far ahead of any other nation in scale, diversity, and efficiency. China, feeding nearly 20% of the global population on less than 9% of the world’s arable land, faces mounting pressures from urbanization, soil degradation, water scarcity, and shifting diets toward more meat and dairy. Its overall food self-sufficiency rate has dropped sharply — from around 94% in 2000 to roughly 66% by 2020, with projected further declines.

Nuclear Arsenal: The U.S. holds 6,000–7,000 warheads with a robust triad. China has ~600 (as of 2025 estimates), expanding but far behind.

Naval Power: The U.S. pioneered modern carriers and operates 11 nuclear-powered supercarriers with a century of expertise and global projection. China has 3 (with a fourth building) and leads in raw ship count but lags in tonnage, submarines, experience, and blue-water capability.

Air Power: U.S. combat aircraft are superior in quality, numbers (~13,000 total aircraft vs. China’s ~3,500), and support infrastructure.

Economy and Innovation: Eight of the top 10 global companies by market cap are American. U.S. per capita GDP vastly exceeds China’s. America leads in tech, fusion research, and civilian nuclear use.

AI and Innovation Leadership: The U.S. dominates the frontier of artificial intelligence with clear advantages in global talent, model performance, advanced compute, chips, and infrastructure. China leads in volume — research papers, patents, and industrial applications like robotics — and in models popular in developing markets. However, America’s open, dynamic system will continue to outpace China’s centralized authoritarian model.

Alliances and Soft Power: The U.S. boasts deep alliances (Western and Eastern Europe, Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines, etc.) and a stable constitutional system. China’s partners (North Korea, Russia ties, remnants of Iran influence) are narrower and more transactional.

In short, the U.S. projects enduring strength across every domain. China faces debt, real estate crises, demographic collapse, energy dependence, and authoritarian rigidity that undermine its so-called “rise.”

Hoover Senior Fellow Victor Davis Hanson also notes that history shows it’s often the upstarts, rather than the “established power,” that initiate conflict. Imperial Japan attacked the U.S. in 1941, Nazi Germany challenged Britain, and the Soviet Union tested post-WWII American hegemony. Peaceful transitions are also common — the U.S. overtook Britain (1870–1920) without war and evolved into an alliance, while post-WWII West Germany rose to dominate Europe peacefully.

China’s AI theft strategy

Despite the hype, China’s AI gains depend heavily on appropriation and covert extraction, even as the Chinese Communist Party enforces tight state control. The White House has accused Beijing of “industrial-scale” theft of know‑how from U.S. AI labs. One common tactic—called “distillation”—uses thousands of fake accounts to query advanced U.S. models (for example, Anthropic’s Claude). Anthropic says it detected about 24,000 fraudulent accounts that generated over 16 million exchanges, helping some Chinese labs acquire capabilities “in a fraction of the time, and at a fraction of the cost.”

Restoring Greater Stability

Taiwan and other flashpoints demand clear-eyed vigilance, but mutual nuclear deterrence, strong alliances, economic interdependence, and balance-of-power realities all favor managed competition — not Armageddon. Far from being a desperate Sparta, America is actively reshaping the global energy map in its favor. Successful transitions in Venezuela and Iran toward democratic, West-friendly governments would tighten the noose on Beijing’s vulnerabilities while bringing greater stability and prosperity to those nations and the world.

America is not desperate — we are ascendant. If these transitions succeed, the United States and the free world will stand in the strongest position it has ever known, even against the rising Communist Dragon in the East. There is no Thucydides Trap. It is a myth from antiquity, irrelevant to the 21st century. Peace through strength is not fatalism — it is the proven path to continued American preeminence.

U.S. targets Iran’s $7.7B crypto war chest

Iran’s regime is reportedly sitting on roughly $7.7 billion in digital assets as it ramps up cryptocurrency use to evade U.S. sanctions and fund its shadow economy. Tehran recently launched a Bitcoin-settled digital insurance platform for cargo ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz. The Trump administration has already frozen nearly $500 million in Iranian-linked crypto under “Operation Economic Fury” and is weighing further restrictions on crypto exchanges with U.S. banking access. Experts note that blockchain transactions often leave traceable “breadcrumbs” for law enforcement.

NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang — turns hype into hyper-growth

NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang just returned from a high-profile trip to China with President Donald Trump. Trump invited Huang at the last minute to join the delegation—including Tech Bros Elon Musk and Tim Cook—for a summit with Xi Jinping focused on trade, AI, semiconductors, and market opening. Huang called it “one of the most important summits in human history,” and the trip underscored Nvidia’s central role in U.S.-China tech dynamics amid ongoing export challenges.

Fresh off that journey, Huang delivered another masterclass in corporate hype during Nvidia’s latest earnings call. The company posted a record $81.6 billion in revenue and guided for $91 billion next quarter—continuing its streak of delivering on bold promises quarter after quarter.

Huang positioned Nvidia’s new Vera CPU (introduced in March as part of the Vera Rubin platform) as the key to unlocking a “brand new $200 billion TAM”—a market Nvidia has never addressed before. He described Vera as “the world’s first CPU, purpose-built for agentic AI.”

“Vera opens a brand new $200 billion TAM for Nvidia, a market we have never addressed before, and every major hyperscaler and system maker is partnering with us to deploy it. The world is rebuilding computing for agentic AI and robotic physical AI. NVIDIA sits at the center of these transitions.”

Huang explained the shift: While GPUs handle the heavy “thinking” in AI models, agents (autonomous AI that act, use tools, and perform tasks) mostly run on CPUs. Vera is optimized to process tokens as quickly as possible, unlike traditional cloud CPUs, which are focused on multi-core app instances. He envisions billions of agents, each needing tool-using “PCs” powered by specialized CPUs.

“The world has a billion users, human users. My sense is that the world will have billions of agents… and those billions will all use tools. And those tools are going to be like PCs… We’re going to need a lot more CPUs.”

NVIDIA has already sold $20 billion worth of standalone Vera CPUs this year, with visibility to nearly that amount in total CPU revenue—positioning the company to become a leading CPU supplier alongside its GPU dominance. Vera ships systems to leaders like Anthropic, OpenAI, Oracle Cloud, and others, and bundles with Rubin GPUs.

Wall Street still worries about competition in CPUs (from AWS, AMD, Intel, hyperscalers’ custom chips, etc.), but Huang’s track record of turning hype into hypergrowth gives this $200B agentic AI/CPU vision real credibility. As inference scales with profitable, action-oriented agents, Nvidia aims to own the full stack—GPUs for training/thinking, Vera CPUs for execution—at the center of the next computing rebuild.

NVIDIA Q1 FY2027 Earnings - reported May 20

Record revenue of ~$81.6B (up ~85% YoY), with Data Center at ~$75.2B (up ~92% YoY), driven by massive AI chip demand. Beat expectations: additional $80B in share repurchases and a dividend increase announced. This reinforces Nvidia’s dominance in AI infrastructure amid power/grid concerns.

While Jensen Huang focused on unlocking AI chip markets and Nvidia’s new CPU ambitions, fellow tech leaders Tim Cook and Elon Musk joined the high-profile U.S. delegation to Beijing with their own major commercial priorities in China.

Tim Cook & Apple

Apple remains deeply intertwined with China. Roughly 80% of iPhones sold in the U.S. are still manufactured there, and China is one of Apple’s largest markets outside the U.S. Cook, in his final months as CEO, aimed to protect and strengthen the vast supply chain ecosystem. He also seeks to ease tariff pressures stemming from ongoing U.S.-China trade tensions (Trump had previously pushed for greater U.S. production).

Cook described the meetings as “marvelous” and expressed delight at being back in China.

Elon Musk & Tesla/SpaceX

Musk has long positioned himself as a bridge in U.S.-China business relations. He was the one CEO who caught a ride with Trump on Air Force One and used the trip to advance several high-stakes initiatives:

• Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory — China’s largest export hub for the company, already delivering strong growth (sales up ~27% in early 2026). Musk sought to expand market share in the world’s biggest EV market amid fierce local competition.

• Regulatory approval to roll out Full Self-Driving (FSD) software more broadly in China.

• Securing ~$2.9 billion in solar manufacturing equipment from Chinese suppliers — a deal reported earlier in 2026 that could face export hurdles.

The three Tech Bros, along with Boeing, financial firms, and others, leveraged Trump’s summit with, though outcomes will play out in follow-on deals and negotiations.

China seeks greater market access

Xi Jinping’s goal was to push for concrete business gains for China— better market access, regulatory approvals, supply chain security, and reduced friction in a relationship strained by tariffs, tech restrictions, and geopolitics. Xi’s message of broader openness was clearly music to the U.S. delegation’s ears, who left feeling more optimistic. The trip also came amid broader talks on rare earth minerals (vital for EVs, batteries, and tech) and potential easing of export controls.

🎤 VC Rap Diss — General Catalyst rage baits a16z

🍿 General Catalyst Drops Viral VC vs GC Ad — General Catalyst went full rage-bait on May 13 with a Mac vs PC parody targeting a16z. The skit shows a disheveled “VC” (clear jab at Marc Andreessen) pitching “Woof AI,” a robotic dog, before kicking it and getting chased off-screen. GC positioned itself as the responsible investor with “a really high bar.”

The post exploded with 2.4M+ views, sparking swarms of comments and a very public feud, as Andreessen clapped back hard, calling it “smarmy.” (May 13)

OpenAI’s case closed — IPO window opened?

A federal jury unanimously ruled in OpenAI’s favor in under two hours, dismissing Elon Musk’s claims as time-barred by the statute of limitations. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers upheld the verdict. Musk immediately vowed to appeal to the Ninth Circuit, accusing Altman and Brockman on X of “enriching themselves by stealing a charity.”

IPO Preparations Accelerating

According to the Wall Street Journal and CNBC, OpenAI is working with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley on a confidential IPO filing that could be submitted as soon as this week (possibly Friday). The company is targeting a public listing as early as September 2026.

As our readers know, we are not long-term bullish on OpenAI due to management issues, structural concerns, Sam Altman’s conflicts of interest, and what we view as overvaluation in later funding rounds. Current market concerns around a successful IPO include:

• Financial Strain: Massive spending on data centers (hundreds of billions committed) raises serious questions about long-term revenue sustainability — but is clearly the #1 reason OpenAI needs IPO proceeds.

• Missed Targets: Reportedly fallen short on internal revenue and user-growth goals.

• Valuation: ~$852 billion in its latest funding round.

• Competition: Anthropic is growing rapidly, amid intense pressure from Google and other tech giants.

• Internal Divide: Sam Altman pushing hard for the IPO; CFO Sarah Friar urging caution.

Conflict-of-interest scrutiny

Altman’s personal investments in companies partnering with OpenAI have triggered a Republican-led House Oversight Committee investigation, plus calls from multiple GOP state attorneys general for a formal SEC review ahead of any IPO.

Market Context

A successful OpenAI listing would help make 2026 one of the biggest IPO years on record, alongside expected debuts from Anthropic and SpaceX.

The situation remains fluid — timelines could shift, and regulatory/political hurdles are significant.

Gen Z’s lack of AI optimism 😭

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt was loudly booed during his University of Arizona commencement speech this weekend — hit with protests over the greatest productivity tool ever invented.

Boos erupted when Schmidt praised artificial intelligence, telling graduates, “You will help shape artificial intelligence” and comparing it to past tech revolutions. The anti-AI backlash reflects a growing trend in 2026: students terrified that AI will wipe out entry-level jobs in writing, design, coding, and beyond. But the loud Gen Z rejection of AI optimism reveals something deeper: this generation is entering the workforce deeply anxious, entitled, and unprepared for the new reality.

Gen Z hiring challenges 🤯

Recent surveys show 74% of managers consider Gen Z the most difficult generation to work with, citing lack of motivation, poor communication, weak adaptability, and unprofessionalism. One in six companies now hesitates to hire recent Gen Z graduates due to chronic lateness, entitlement, hypersensitivity to feedback, and inability to collaborate. Over 90% of hiring managers say recent Gen Z grads simply aren’t ready for the real workplace — and many are let go within the first few months.

When even a legendary tech optimist like Eric Schmidt gets booed for talking about the future, it explains why Silicon Valley is increasingly reluctant to hire straight out of college. This combination of anxiety and entitlement is creating a real problem for employers — and for Gen Z’s own future.

AI job cuts hit women harder 🤦🏼‍♀️

According to a recent Brookings Institution study, 6.1 million American workers are most vulnerable to AI-driven displacement — and 86% of them are women. These roles are concentrated in traditionally female-dominated positions such as executive assistants, receptionists, and medical transcriptionists.

Recruiter Jennifer Maffei called the situation “a mess,” saying she’s been flooded with messages from downsized, right-sized, and restructured administrative staff. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently acknowledged the shift, saying: “If it’s hard in many of our current jobs to outwork a GPU, then that changes the labor-capital balance.”

Meanwhile, men are facing their own pressures in manufacturing, transport, and warehousing. Harvard economist Lawrence Katz has noted that “men are clearly being affected by the tariffs and poor performance of manufacturing,” which could widen overall gender gaps in the labor market.

Did you know?💡

Stay relevant and on top

Below is the breaking news and inside wisdom you need to stay relevant and on top of emerging private tech companies, VC investors, Big Tech, and the innovation trends shaping the global Silicon Valley. All links lead to AI-generated research from a decisively venture-capital perspective.

Are we missing any action? Hit us up now on X @CryptoniteRap or TheEditor@CryptoniteVentures.com

Buzz Worthy 🗣️

🗣️ Anthropic’s Claude Mythos Preview Used to Exploit Apple M5 Kernel
Researchers used the restricted model to rapidly chain bugs and create a privilege escalation exploit, bypassing Apple’s Memory Integrity Enforcement on M5 silicon in just days. This demonstrates both the enormous power of frontier AI for security research and the growing dual-use risks.

🗣️ Anthropic’s Mythos Model Escalates Cyber Risks
UK AI Security Institute researchers say the latest Mythos Preview shows major leaps in autonomous hacking, capable of executing full enterprise intrusion scenarios with minimal guidance. Safety-focused observers call it both a capability milestone and a warning on dual-use dangers.

🗣️ Crypto Clarity Act advances in Senate
This is huge. The Digital Asset Clarity Act passed the Senate Banking Committee 15-9, a major win for the industry. The bill would treat most tokens as digital commodities under CFTC oversight — seen as a key step toward regulatory clarity and institutional capital.

🗣️ U.S. & China to hold AI guardrails talks
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed upcoming discussions on AI safety, while stressing America’s “undisputed leader” position in frontier AI. The talks aim to manage risks without surrendering technological edge.

🗣️ Justin Sun’s Liberland honors Vitalik Buterin
The micronation project awarded Ethereum’s co-founder its highest distinction for advancing decentralized systems.

🗣️ Trump disclosures show trades in Coinbase, Nvidia & Bitcoin miners
Not good form—we have been chatting this up since the Boogeyman was re-elected. President Trump’s latest ethics filings reveal personal trading activity in major crypto and AI-related stocks, adding fuel to transparency debates.

Following the Money 🤑

VC Deals ($5M+) 💰

💰 Anthropic (San Francisco, CA) — Agreeing terms to raise $30B at $900B pre-money valuation | Frontier AI / Enterprise & Consumer Models (Claude family, agentic systems, multimodal) | Co-led by Dragoneer Investment Group, Greenoaks Capital, Sequoia Capital, and Altimeter Capital (each committing $2B+) | Expected close: late May 2026 (May 15)

💰 Anduril Industries (Costa Mesa, CA) — Raised $5B Series H at $61B valuation | Defense Tech / AI (autonomous systems, drones, AI-backed weapons) | Led by Andreessen Horowitz and Thrive Capital (May 13)

💰 Isomorphic Labs (London, UK) — Raised $2.1B Series B | AI / Biotech (AI drug discovery, Google DeepMind spinout) | Led by Thrive Capital with participation from Alphabet and MGX (May 14)

💰 Safe Superintelligence (SSI) — Raised $2B Series B | AI Safety / Frontier Models | Led by Andreessen Horowitz (May 12)

💰 Harvey AI — Raised $500M Series D | Legal AI / Enterprise | Sequoia Capital (May 13)

💰 Perplexity AI — Raised $500M Series D | AI Search / Consumer & Enterprise | SoftBank Vision Fund (May 13)

💰 Recursive Superintelligence — Raised $650M+ at $4B+ valuation | Frontier AI (recursive self-improving systems) | Investors include Google Ventures, Greycroft, Nvidia, and AMD (May 15)

💰 Mind Robotics (Palo Alto, CA) — Raised $400M at $3.4B valuation | Robotics / Industrial AI (AI-powered manufacturing robots) | Led by Kleiner Perkins with Salesforce Ventures (May 12)

💰 Skydio — Raised $800M Series F | Defense Tech / Drones / Autonomous Systems | a16z and Tiger Global (May 12)

💰 Runway ML — Raised $308M Series D | AI Video / Creative Tools / Generative AI | General Atlantic (May 12)

💰 Ramp (New York, NY) — Raised ~$300M (extension) | Fintech / Enterprise AI (corporate cards + AI finance automation) | Thrive Capital and others (May 12)

💰 Glean — Raising $260M–$350M Series F/E | Enterprise AI Search / Knowledge | Kleiner Perkins / General Catalyst (May 12–13)

💰 Cognition AI — Raising $175M–$250M Series C/B | AI Dev Tools / Agentic Coding | Founders Fund (May 12–13)

💰 Vanta — Raised $150M Series D | Cybersecurity / AI Security & Compliance Automation | Sequoia Capital (May 12)

💰 Cowboy Space (San Carlos, CA) — Raised $275M Series B at $2B valuation | Space / AI Infrastructure (orbital data centers) | Led by Index Ventures (May 13)

💰 Fractile (UK) — Raised $220M Series B | Semiconductors / AI Inference Chips | Investors include Factorial Funds, Accel, Founders Fund (May 14)

💰 CREATE Medicines (Cambridge, MA) — Raised $122M Series B | Healthcare / Biotech (RNA-lipid nanoparticle cell therapies) | Co-led by Newpath Partners & Arch Venture Partners (May 12)

💰 Elliptic (London, UK) — Raised $120M at $670M valuation | Fintech / Blockchain (analytics & compliance) | Led by One Peak Partners (May 15)

💰 Vapi — Raised $50M at $500M+ valuation | AI Voice Agents (customer support & sales) | Led by Peak XV with M12 and Bessemer (May 15)

💰 Gridcare (Redwood City, CA) — Raised $64M Series A | AI / Energy Infrastructure (grid optimization for data centers) | Led by Sutter Hill Ventures with John Doerr (May 13)

💰 Fasset — Raised $51M Series B | Fintech / Crypto (stablecoin banking & payments) | Investors: SBI Group, Investcorp (May 14)

M&A Deals ($100M+) 🤝

🤝 OpenAI acquires Weights.gg | AI Voice / Generative Audio (voice-cloning and replication tools; known for celebrity and user voice imitations via platform Replay) | Terms undisclosed (acqui-hire style); includes intellectual property and small team (~6 employees) now integrated across OpenAI divisions | Platform shut down April 1, 2026 (Mid-May)

🤝 Nebius Group acquires Eigen AI (~$643M) | AI Infrastructure / Inference & Cloud (AI startup integration into Nebius Token Factory for enhanced inference platform and GPU/cloud orchestration) | All-stock elements noted; boosts Nebius positioning in competitive AI compute and tokenization layer (Mid-May)

IPOs & Filings 📈

📈 SpaceX (Hawthorne, CA) — Accelerates IPO plans and selects Nasdaq | Infrastructure / Defense Tech / Space / Autonomous Systems / AI (rockets, Starlink satellite constellation, related AI/data/compute infrastructure) | Targeting raise ~$75B at ~$1.75T valuation | Expected ticker SPCX | Prospectus expected public next week; roadshow June 4; pricing as early as June 11; trading debut as early as June 12 (slightly accelerated schedule) | Lead banks: Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, others (May 15)

📈 Cerebras Systems (Sunnyvale, CA) — Completes IPO | Semiconductors / AI Infrastructure / Compute (wafer-scale AI chips) | Raises ~$5.55B+ at strong pricing ($185/share); debuted with ~68–70% pop, market cap reaching ~$95B+ post-IPO | Ticker CBRS | Priced and began trading (May 14)

VC Whispers 🤫

💸 A Capital (San Francisco, CA) – Closed $450M Fund III | Early-stage generalist fund focused on AI applications, fintech, healthcare, and cybersecurity | Targets 30+ companies with $3M–$5M checks; “less-is-more” high-conviction seed/Series A strategy | Led by Kevin Hartz, Bennett Siegel, and Gautam Gupta. (May 12)

💸 Kalos Ventures (New York, NY) – Closed $78.8M inaugural fund (oversubscribed) | Seed-to-Series A fund targeting AI-driven workforce development, care, education, and critical infrastructure | All-women leadership team led by Managing Partner Ashley Bittner | Backed by ZOMA Capital, GCM Grosvenor, MassMutual, Sorenson Impact Advisory, and Pivotal Ventures. (Mid-May)

💸 Meridian Ventures – Closed $35M inaugural fund (oversubscribed) | Pre-seed and seed-stage fund focused on enterprise technology startups, with a strong emphasis on MBA (especially deferred) founders | Led by Harvard Business School grads Devon Gethers and Karlton Haney | Targeting fintech, logistics, healthcare, and AI companies across the US | Average checks $500K–$750K. (Mid-May)

The Magnificent Big Tech🪄

✨ Microsoft (MSFT) — Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square revealed a new core position in Microsoft (built since February), calling it undervalued at ~21x forward earnings despite AI capex concerns. The disclosure triggered a sharp 3–4% intraday surge on May 15. Investors view it as a contrarian bet on Azure’s long-term dominance.

✨ Alphabet (GOOG) — Berkshire Hathaway more than tripled its stake in Alphabet to $16.6 billion in Q1, signaling strong conviction in Google Cloud’s momentum. The division now boasts a massive $460 billion backlog, with cloud revenue up 63% YoY and operating income tripling.

✨ Alphabet (GOOG) — Google is actively exploring a partnership with SpaceX to launch orbital data centers in low-Earth orbit to solve terrestrial power and cooling constraints for massive AI training. The plan would leverage Alphabet’s existing 6.1% stake in SpaceX. (Mid-May 2026)

✨ Nvidia (NVDA) — Pre-earnings momentum is strong. Analysts highlight the Blackwell ramp and explosive AI demand. The stock hit fresh all-time highs this week ahead of its May 20 earnings report, which is widely seen as a potential reset for the entire AI trade.

✨ Meta (META) — The company is planning a major first wave of layoffs — approximately 10% of its workforce (~8,000 roles) — starting around May 20, with more cuts expected later in 2026 as part of its AI-driven efficiency push.

✨ Tesla (TSLA) — Robotaxis under remote teleoperator control have crashed at least twice in Austin, Texas. One incident in July 2025 involved hitting a metal fence after mounting a curb; another in January 2026 struck a construction barricade at 9 mph.

✨ Apple (AAPL) — Shares continue to show strong post-earnings momentum after a record Q2 beat driven by iPhone sales and Services strength. The stock traded above the $290–$300 range this week amid optimism around China recovery and upcoming AI features in iOS 27.

✨ Broadcom (AVGO) — Wells Fargo raised its price target sharply to $545 (from $430), citing AI semiconductor demand running 30–40% above consensus. Strong custom AI silicon partnerships (especially with Meta) keep the stock in growth mode.

✨ AMD (AMD) — Shares hit fresh all-time highs after blockbuster Q1 results and raised guidance, powered by surging AI data center demand. CEO Lisa Su highlighted strong momentum in both CPUs and accelerators.

✨ Cisco (CSCO) — The company announced a 5% workforce cut (~4,000 jobs), yet shares surged 18% after beating expectations on strong AI infrastructure demand. CEO Chuck Robbins emphasized the need for “focus and urgency” and “making hard decisions” in the AI era.

✨ Figma (FIG) — The design software company reported strong Q1 results with accelerating revenue growth, fueled by new AI-powered features and tiered pricing. Shares rose more than 8% post-earnings, reflecting confidence in its AI-native strategy. (Mid-May 2026)

✨ Alibaba (BABA) — Alibaba Cloud is on track to hit $4.4 billion in annualized AI revenue by the end of 2026, driven by surging enterprise demand for its large language models and AI infrastructure. (May 14)

Private Company Leaders 🚀

🚀 OpenAI — On May 11, OpenAI launched its new $4 billion OpenAI Deployment Company (valued at $10 billion pre-money) to accelerate enterprise AI adoption. The venture is backed by a consortium including Bain, McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, and SoftBank. The company also faces ongoing tensions with Apple, including potential legal action over their ChatGPT integration partnership.

🚀 OpenAI — Frustrated with Apple’s underperforming ChatGPT integration in Siri and Visual Intelligence, OpenAI has hired lawyers and is preparing a potential breach-of-contract notice. The 2024 partnership has fallen well short of subscriber and revenue projections, with key features reportedly buried.

🚀 Anthropic — Signed a major compute and usage deal with SpaceX, further positioning itself as the preferred AI partner for Musk’s launch and infrastructure ecosystem. (May 6)

🚀 xAI / SpaceXAI — Continues deepening integration with SpaceX under the new SpaceXAI branding.

“The lowest-cost place to put AI will be in space within 2–3 years, using solar and orbital infrastructure to avoid Earth-grid constraints.”
— Elon Musk (May 8)

🚀 SpaceXAI — More than 50 employees have reportedly departed since February, raising concerns about burnout, leadership changes, talent poaching, and weakened retention after recent liquidity events.

🚀 Figure AI — Conducted a high-profile live demo of its Figure 03 / Helix-02 robots performing fully autonomous, multi-hour package-sorting shifts (up to 17 hours), processing thousands of packages with zero teleoperation. CEO Brett Adcock directly addressed public skepticism. (May 14–15)

🚀 Stripe — Announced a new payment-agent integration with AWS’s AgentCore, powered by its Privy money-laundering detection engine for AI-driven checkout flows. Stripe has also deepened its partnership with ElevenLabs for AI voice capabilities.

🚀 Perplexity AI — Opened its AI Personal Computer on Mac to all users, making its desktop AI agent available to Pro and Max subscribers. (May 6)

🚀 Waymo & Uber — Their autonomous ride-sharing partnership continues to serve as the leading benchmark for urban autonomy deployments, with new cities closely watching ahead of potential expansions. (May 10)

🚀 Notion — Transforming from a note-taking app into a central AI agent hub where humans and agents collaborate seamlessly. The company is expanding custom AI agents that connect with external tools while enabling automated multi-step workflows pulling live data from databases like Salesforce, Zendesk, and Postgres.

Blockchain & Crypto 🔗

🔗 Clarity Act Advances in Senate — Major win for the industry. The Digital Asset Clarity Act cleared the Senate Banking Committee on May 14 by a 15-9 vote.

🔗 Gemini, Kraken, and Coinbase have been actively lobbying to remove restrictive anti-manipulation provisions to make small-token listings easier. The bill now heads toward the full Senate. (May 14)

🔗 Kraken Cuts Staff — Kraken’s parent company Payward is laying off ~150 employees as it streamlines operations and pauses IPO plans amid softer market conditions. The move aims to cut costs and improve efficiency. (Recent)

🔗 Circle raises funding at $3 billion valuation for Arc Blockchain. Shares of the stablecoin issuer jumped 16% after it reported 20% revenue growth.

🔗 Bitcoin Pullback Continues — BTC slipped below $78K this week (currently hovering near $77K), with ETF outflows hitting a record $635 million in a single day on May 13. Ethereum underperformed, dropping ~5%. Market sentiment (Fear & Greed Index) fell into the fear zone. (May 12–19)

🔗 SEC Eyes Tokenized Stocks — Bloomberg reports the SEC is preparing a framework that could allow crypto exchanges to trade tokenized versions of traditional stocks (e.g., Apple, Amazon). This would be a major step toward bridging TradFi and crypto markets. (May 19)

🔗 Tokenized Treasuries Hit Record — On-chain tokenized U.S. Treasuries surpassed $15 billion in total value this week, showing continued strong institutional adoption of real-world asset (RWA) tokenization.

For Your Entertainment 🍿

🎭 YouTube Goes All-In on Premium TV-Style Shows
YouTube is aggressively courting traditional TV ad dollars by promoting high-end “shows” from top creators. The platform is offering advertisers direct ad inventory in longer-form series like Kareem Rahma’s Keep The Meter Running and Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy — without funding the content itself. Goal: higher CPMs and brand-safe placements while protecting its UGC core. Early advertiser feedback is strong, though viewership is still modest. (May 15)

🎭 Netflix Accelerates Sports Push
Netflix is rapidly scaling its live sports strategy. In its recent advertiser presentation, the company highlighted a new multi-year NFL deal (five games), plus baseball, combat sports, and the Westminster Dog Show. With its ad-tier expanding to 15 new markets, sports are becoming a major revenue driver. Analysts expect Netflix to eventually spend billions annually on rights. (May 14)

🎭 Cannes Film Festival Kicks Off
The 79th Cannes Film Festival launched on May 12 and runs through May 23. Early buzz has been strong for several competition films, with notable ovations for select entries. Hollywood attendance appears lighter than usual this year. (May 12–19)

🎭 Taylor Swift & Beyoncé Honored
Taylor Swift’s 1989 and Beyoncé’s work received major recognition this week, highlighting their continued cultural dominance in music and entertainment. (Mid-May)

🎭 Conan O’Brien to Host Oscars Again
Conan O’Brien will return as host of the 99th Academy Awards in 2027, marking his third time behind the podium. (May 12)

Current Entrepreneurial Wisdom💡

On Leadership & Intelligence

“In healthcare, biotech, and cleantech, the unfair advantage will be which lab or startup can iterate R&D faster via AI‑co‑pilots and closed‑loop simulations.”
— Lisa Su, CEO, AMD (May 16)

“Raw intelligence alone does not make someone a better leader… effective leadership requires understanding people, matching their perspective, and moving groups in sync.”
— Marc Andreessen, CoFounder, Andreessen Horowitz (May 14)

“AI‑driven compliance, risk‑modeling, and on‑chain analytics will define the next era of trust in fintech, DeFi, and blockchains.”
— Vitalik Buterin, Co‑Founder, Ethereum

“Constantly think about how you could be doing things better and question yourself. The biggest mistake is not seeking out negative feedback.”
— Elon Musk, Founder &CEO, Tesla & SpaceX (May 8)

“AI will be 10× faster than prior industrial revolutions; treat this as a 10‑year infrastructure‑buildout, not a short‑term hype cycle.”
— Sundar Pichai, CEO, Alphabet (May)

“The world was spending about $400B/year on classical computing; the AI‑scale demand is orders of magnitude higher. AI factories” are the new kind of infrastructure: clusters of chips, networking, and software that resemble manufacturing plants more than data centers.”
— Jensen Huang, CEO, Nvidia (May 4)

“Multi‑agent ‘contemplating mode’ architectures—running multiple reasoning agents in parallel—will push frontier‑task performance beyond single‑turn chat.”
— Mark Zuckerberg, Founder & CEO, Meta

“Don’t ask what I would do; just do the right thing—and focus relentlessly on where you spend your time, because that’s the most important decision any CEO makes.”
— Tim Cook, CEO, Apple

“The winners in AI will be the companies that treat AI as a permanent, embedded R&D and operating layer, not as a feature‑of‑the‑quarter.”
— Demis Hassabis, CEO, Google DeepMind

Read more

Ready to take back the power?

Since 1979, every one of the 18 institutions covered in the annual Gallup poll on trust has lost trust points. The average institutional trust is now at a shocking 28% (i.e., on average, 72% of Americans do not trust our institutions). The cold FACTS—we are not going to wake up one morning and find these numbers back in the black.

Our great hope is that by the end of 2026, Venezuelans, Iranians, and Cubans have regained their political sovereignty and due individual rights, gas prices are back down, crypto and free markets are humming, and all boats are rising. We can then continue to focus on updating Big Government’s “operating system.” The goal is to make the government perform at a level comparable to the most state-of-the-art Silicon Valley company and return power and money back to the hardworking U.S. taxpayers.

“The decentralized future is not just about creating new applications; it’s about rethinking how we organize society. You shouldn’t have to trust any single person, institution, or centralized organization to transact and get things done.”
—Vitalik Buterin, Co-founder of Ethereum

With the proper, committed political leadership, this transition could be achieved in the foreseeable future. We already have most of the AI and blockchain technologies to do it today. Taxpayers will then enjoy a much more personalized and efficient experience when accessing services and will have sole control over all their government-related data—from driving records and taxes to Social Security and even ID. Government annual overhead would be cut by 40% or more, allowing us to finally balance our bloated budgets and pay off the debt.

AI as a company (and public agency) OS

To adapt to rapid AI efficiency gains, Jack Dorsey cut 40% of his workforce at Cash App’s parent company, Block, despite a strong 2025. Rather than engage in repeated rounds of cuts that invariably damage morale, Jack decided to embrace the new AI reality all at once.

“AI doesn’t just automate tasks—it rewrites the entire operating system of a company. We’re seeing it internally. We are pairing intelligence tools with smaller, flatter teams who are building a better, more efficient company. Intelligence will be at the core of how the entire company works—the new core layer for decisions, product-building, risk, customer service, even internal ops.”

—Jack Dorsey’s excerpt from his letter to shareholders

Block (whose BTC-related revenues represent 30% to 40%+ of its total) had a strong 2025. The company’s gross profits more than doubled quarter over quarter, the customer base expanded, and they raised their full-year 2026 guidance to 18% gross profit growth and $3.2 billion in operating income (a whopping 54% YoY jump). Yet Jack still ripped off the Band-Aid of an antiquated corporate structure.

“The confounding factor is that virtually every big company is overstaffed by 2-4x and has been for decades. AI is the catalyst/excuse to finally fix that.”
—Marc Andreessen, a16z (May 7-9, 2026)

Jack predicts that within the next year, “the majority of companies will reach the same conclusion.” It still takes the artists behind the wheel, but laptop workers will either ride this boom or get left behind. Why not the same for centralized government bureaucrats?

AI makes many white-collar jobs obsolete

After a booming first-quarter 34% increase in revenues, San Francisco tech giant Cloudflare is axing 1,100+ employees worldwide as the company’s internal use of AI exploded more than 600% in just three months. “We don’t just build and sell AI tools and platforms. We are our own most demanding customer,” says co-founder Michelle Zatlyn.

Brian Armstrong, co-founder and CEO of crypto exchange Coinbase, posted an early-morning announcement last week that the company is slashing 14% of its workforce (~700 people), citing AI productivity goals and the pressing need to change the company’s culture..

The other cold FACTS are that there is not a politician on this planet talking this kind of forward-thinking tech smack. It is left to us in the Cryptonite community to spread the gospel of AI + blockchain fusion that delivers privacy, power, and billions in tax money back to the people

With a single wave of the wand, we could instantly cut billions in government overhead and rampant fraud (e.g., California ~$180+ billion 😳, New York ~$20+ billion, and Minnesota ~$10+ billion), and the identity theft fraud epidemic (~$25+ billion in 2025) into the low zeros. We can do this. We must do this. Spread the gospel, folks!

—Anthony Perkins, founder & editor, Cryptonite, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico —Talk to me @HeyTPerk or TheEditor@CryptoniteVentures.com

$0G Labs — An AI | Crypto fusion company to watch

While companies like Block are rebuilding their internal operating systems around proprietary intelligence layers, 0G Labs is building the permissionless, public version — the infrastructure that enables autonomous AI agents to become real economic actors that anyone can own, verify, and deploy at scale.

Founded in 2023 and headquartered in San Francisco, 0G Labs is the clearest example of true AI × Crypto convergence today. When its Aristotle Mainnet launched in September 2025, 0G delivered the first modular decentralized AI operating system (dAIOS) — with high-throughput storage, verifiable compute, and ultra-fast data availability purpose-built for on-chain intelligence.

The cofounders — Michael Heinrich (CEO), Ming Wu (CTO), Fan Long, and Thomas Yao — identified critical blockchain bottlenecks in data availability and persistent storage that had blocked high-performance on-chain AI, gaming, and DeFi. Rather than bolting AI onto existing chains, they built a clean-slate stack that delivers verifiable compute, persistent agent memory, and 50 GB/s of data availability — roughly 50,000× faster and 100× cheaper than legacy solutions.

The name “0G” (Zero Gravity) symbolizes the frictionless experience: Ethereum-style addressing, seamless Web3 transactions, and agents capable of running companies, serving customers, and acting as independent economic participants on-chain.

Notably, in May 2026, 0G practiced what it preaches: the company reduced its workforce by ~25%, with CEO Michael Heinrich citing AI agents now performing roles previously done by humans — while pushing the remaining team toward 20x productivity through daily AI use.

This is Dorsey’s “intelligence as the new core layer” — but open, ownable, and composable across the entire internet. 0G already shows strong real-world traction:

• 28M+ blocks produced

• ~400K accounts

• 300+ ecosystem partners

The April 2026 launch of the 0G App lets anyone build and deploy AI agents instantly from a browser using natural language — sparking a surge in on-chain agent creation. The protocol is revenue-generating through compute, storage, and data availability fees, with the $0G token powering a rapidly expanding agent economy.

On cryptographic trust

“Training a model is one problem. Trusting how it was trained is a problem entirely different. When training runs cost hundreds of millions of dollars and the resulting models handle financial transactions and medical decisions, ‘the incentives should keep people honest’ is not sufficient.”
— Ming Wu , CTO of 0G Labs

Three partners showing real progress from infrastructure to applications:

Ghast AI: Chrome extension / browser-native AI assistant powered by 0G Compute for inference and 0G Storage for encrypted, user-owned (and tradeable) memory. Users can finally own and monetize their full conversation history.

CARV: Leading gaming identity and data layer (10M+ users, $1B+ ATH market cap) uses 0G Storage and data availability for portable, user-owned gaming identities, achievements, and semantic social features — bridging Web2 and Web3 at scale.

Aizel Network + Bagel: Aizel leverages 0G for fast, verifiable, and private AI intelligence. Bagel, an open machine learning ecosystem, runs its core data coordination (datasets, models, fine-tuning) on 0G Storage — a strong indicator of developer momentum.

Funding underscores the conviction behind the thesis

March 2024: $35M pre-seed (target ~$5M, oversubscribed with >$100M interest). Led by Hack VC with a16z, Pantera, OKX Ventures, Delphi Digital, Polygon Labs, Animoca Brands, and others.

November 2024: ~$40M seed + $250M token ($0G) purchase commitment. Backing from Bankless Ventures, Solana Ventures, Balaji Srinivasan, Justin Sun, and more. Total equity ~$75M+ with substantial ecosystem token commitments.

Laws of the Cryptocosm #49: The winners won’t be the ones promising AI on chain — they’ll be the ones that make AI actually work on chain at machine speed.

Cryptonite take: 0G is doing exactly that — delivering the decentralized intelligence layer that lets Dorsey’s vision scale beyond any single company into a global, verifiable agent economy.

“On‑chain finance is moving from static contracts to programmable agents: bots that arbitrage, hedge, and reallocate capital without human oversight—this will force a complete rethink of risk management.”
—Richard Teng, CEO, Binance

“DeFi 3.0 will be defined by verifiable AI agents that can run on‑chain analytics, governance, and compliance, not just by anonymous traders.”
—Vitalik Buterin, CoFounder Ethereum

The Trump boys: Paying the price for self-dealing

The Trump family’s dive into crypto has been about as successful as their foray into social media. While President Trump delivered on his promise to deregulate and bring clarity to the crypto industry after the 2024 election, the family’s own project — World Liberty Financial — has cost investors hundreds of millions and landed them back in court with one of their original biggest backers.

They launched WLFI as a “pro-freedom” DeFi platform, alongside the $WLFI governance token, shortly after the victory. Cofounders included Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, Barron Trump, Steve Witkoff (Special Envoy), and his son Zach Witkoff as CEO. Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and also a Special Envoy, holds a significant ownership stake.

Early hype was massive. Justin Sun, the flamboyant Tron founder and Chinese-born billionaire known for stunts like eating a $6.2 million banana artwork and planning space flights, became one of the project’s biggest cheerleaders. He poured in tens of millions — reports cite roughly $75 million into WLFI — hyped it as “one of the biggest and most important projects in crypto,” and bought heavily into related Trump meme coins like $TRUMP. His enthusiasm helped drive the early price surge.

Peak valuation and cashing out

At its September 2025 high, $WLFI traded between roughly $0.33 and $0.46. The Trump family controlled a huge chunk — about 22.5% of the total supply (22.5 billion tokens) via entities like DT Marks DEFI LLC. Paper wealth for the family reached several billion dollars at its peak, with President Trump’s holdings valued at over $3 billion on paper.

The Trump family takes $1 billion+ off the table

Initial $WLFI token sale: The family received 75% of the net proceeds — putting hundreds of millions, and possibly over $1 billion, in their pockets by late 2025.

Stablecoin revenue: WLFI’s USD1 stablecoin grew in circulation, with the family taking a cut (potential for tens to hundreds of millions annually if it holds).

Strategic sales: A notable 49% stake sale to UAE-linked interests for $500 million (with roughly $187 million going to Trump family entities).

$TRUMP meme coin: The family sold a significant portion of their allocation at launch and earned hundreds of millions from the sale, plus trading fees and other revenue. The coin shot up sharply to around $75 shortly after launch, then fell just as fast and now trades at roughly $2.50.

The Trump family’s overall realized haul so far is well over $1 billion in cash from WLFI and related crypto ventures, on top of billions in unrealized token value if at today’s depressed values.

The Plunge: Billions in losses for holders

Reality hit hard. $WLFI began a brutal decline amid governance controversies, large token unlocks and dilution (including private sales of 5.9B+ tokens), insider lending positions, and perceived lack of real utility. By early May 2026, it hit all-time lows around $0.05–$0.08, down 80%+ from its peak.

The sharp drop wiped out a large amount of market value. Many retail holders — largely Trump supporters who bought during the hype — suffered significant losses. This followed the typical crypto pattern of heavy promotion, token dilution, and insiders selling. Governance votes to lock or burn tokens, along with the lending issues, added more pressure and raised concerns about trapped funds.

Enter Justin Sun: The Feud That Lit the Fuse

Sun, once a major ally who helped pump the project with ~$75 million, quickly became its biggest antagonist. WLFI froze a massive chunk of his holdings — roughly 2.94 billion tokens — over allegations of misconduct: prohibited transfers to exchanges like Binance (bypassing governance rules), “straw purchases” to hide third-party ownership, and suspected short-selling while he was still publicly hyping the token.

Sun filed the first lawsuit in April 2026 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. He accused WLFI of fraud, illegal seizure of his tokens, and pressuring him to invest more in their stablecoin. WLFI fired back in May 2026 with a defamation lawsuit in Florida, claiming Sun ran a “scorched-earth” smear campaign on X to his millions of followers, which tanked the price after the freeze. They brought in high-profile lawyer Tom Clare. Sun dismissed it as a “meritless PR stunt.”

This very public war made the negative sentiment even worse and sped up the price drop. It also gave Democrats easy ammunition for future probes into the family’s crypto dealings if they gain seats in the House.

The “business of peace”

Pakistan: While Steve Witkoff’s sons chased Pakistani blockchain and WLFI partnerships with government officials, Steve himself was negotiating real estate deals with Pakistan — including the redevelopment of the landmark Roosevelt Hotel in New York.

UAE: A major investment from entities linked to Sheikh Tahnoon (including a reported $500 million stake in WLFI and a $2 billion deal routed through WLFI’s USD1 stablecoin) lined up with Witkoff’s push for expanded U.S. AI chip exports to the country.

Jared Kushner has raised billions for his Affinity Partners fund from Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, while helping shape U.S. policy toward those nations. Unlike Witkoff’s partial disclosures, Kushner has given limited public transparency on the details.

Broader Pattern: Critics call it the “business of peace”—treating diplomacy like a real estate flip, using high-level envoy roles to open doors for investment. WLFI became a key profit vehicle, and post-conflict reconstruction ideas for places like Gaza and Ukraine reportedly included built-in upside for U.S. and family-linked interests.

Whether this self-dealing creates real long-term political or legal trouble will depend on future elections, markets, and courts. But the WLFI saga already shows how the Trump boys went all-in on quick crypto gains while their reputations took hits. To borrow one of the Big T’s favorite lines, these crypto amateur antics are an absolute disgrace.

Cryptocosm Laws #66: Hype meets token bubble, insider dumps, price implosion, and big-stakes investor infighting and humiliation.

Cryptonite Take: The Bogeyman can’t talk “insider trader” smack about Nancy Pelosi when the Nepo babies are playing the same tricks. Not a good look—and he’s only screwing his own enthusiasts.

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Know thy (real) enemy

We can all appreciate the serious concerns about America’s current tensions with Iran. No one wants war — diplomacy should always be the first option.

That said, if we’re being objective about the most sustained long-term threat to the United States and Western civilization, we need to focus on the foreign actors with the clearest record of harm, covert influence, social division, antisemitism, and narrative warfare on American soil.

The evidence points to three main foreign drivers of anti-Western influence on U.S. soil: Iran and its Hamas/Hezbollah-linked networks are driving campus unrest; Qatar is financing it through large, often undisclosed donations; and Communist China (the CCP) remains the most sophisticated long-term threat through espionage, elite capture, and influence operations.

All three exploit America’s academic openness, undisclosed donations, and ideological divisions to infiltrate U.S. colleges and institutions for espionage, leverage, and narrative control. Their shared goal is to erode Western culture and weaken American strength from within.

Iran and Hamas/Hezbollah-linked networks use proxies such as Students for Justice in Palestine to coordinate protests, encampments, and radicalization efforts. Their goal is to undermine U.S. support for Israel, promote “resistance” ideology, and deepen domestic division. These networks played a major role in the post-October 7 unrest at Columbia, Harvard, UCLA, NYU, and UC Berkeley.

Qatar pours billions into American universities — the largest foreign donor to U.S. higher education, with estimates ranging from $6 billion to $20 billion-plus. That money funds endowed chairs, Middle East studies centers, and branch campuses at institutions such as Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, Georgetown, and Northwestern. Critics say this funding has helped normalize antisemitic and Islamist-sympathetic narratives on campus.

Communist China (CCP) runs the most advanced operation, using the Thousand Talents Program to recruit professors and steal technology, while Chinese Students and Scholars Associations monitor and influence students. Its focus is on acquiring U.S. innovations in AI, biotech, and defense, while building long-term influence over future American elites. There have been hundreds of FBI-documented cases involving people posing as students at Stanford and Harvard.

Most Americans correctly view the CCP as our greatest long-term threat. Europeans rank Russia first and China second. Canadians, for their part, often list the United States as their top risk. 🙄

What we must all reckon with is this: Iran and Qatar-linked networks actively exploit diaspora communities for radicalization and political influence, while the CCP maintains tight control over its own diaspora. The combined effect is the steady erosion of secular governance, free speech, individual rights, and social cohesion in the West.

Iran plots against and kills Americans at home and abroad

In the United States, Iran and its associated networks stand out as the only foreign powers that have pursued terrorist plots or attacks on our turf — whether direct, proxy, or ideologically inspired — since 9/11. These efforts have produced dozens of disrupted plots and a number of completed or lone-actor attacks, resulting in double-digit domestic deaths and hundreds of injuries, plus thousands more abroad.

Iran and its proxies have also been a major driver of the post-October 7 surge in antisemitism, contributing significantly to the more than 3,000 documented incidents tied to anti-Israel protests and campus encampments, including a sharp rise in violent assaults.

The CCP’s patient march to control the world

The CCP stands apart because of its patient, long-term pursuit of technological, economic, and geopolitical supremacy. This includes deep influence operations across Latin America and Africa, often sustained by Venezuelan and Iranian oil.

The United States remains the primary global target for all three actors. In our hemisphere, Latin America ranks second — a key hub for proxy networks, illicit finance, and resource extraction. Canada faces similar espionage and influence campaigns. The erosion of the Monroe Doctrine has allowed these hostile footholds to grow throughout the Western Hemisphere.

A little help from Cuba’s friends (and U.S. enemies)

These powers have long viewed Cuba as a low-cost outpost to erode U.S. regional primacy, gather intelligence, distract Washington, and signal that no hemisphere is off-limits. Venezuela is now off the table, Iran is severely weakened, and will also be decoupled from Cuba in 2026. 🤔

China: Remains Cuba’s leading economic partner, delivering debt relief, $80M+ aid packages (including rice and grid funding), solar parks boosting renewables to over 20%, infrastructure, and diplomatic backing against US pressure.

Russia: Continues to provide critical oil shipments (e.g., 700,000+ barrels of oil in tankers in 2026), debt relief, and military cooperation agreements—though deliveries are episodic and insufficient to meet Cuba’s full needs due to the strain of the Ukraine War. Cuba reciprocates by sending thousands of fighters to fight in the Ukraine War.

Venezuela: Support has been dramatically diminished following the US military operation in January 2026 that captured Maduro; oil shipments (vital for Cuba’s energy) have largely halted under the interim government, exacerbating Cuba’s crises.

Iran: Its ability to provide meaningful support is severely challenged by its ongoing conflict with the US and Israel strikes, leadership losses, and Hormuz disruptions.

Creating a freer world—The time is now!

Freeing the Venezuelan, Iranian, and Cuban people will deliver a decisive blow against America’s leading terrorist threat (Iran) while simultaneously weakening its greatest peer competitor (China). This would strengthen the entire Western Hemisphere and the free world.

The Trump Doctrine uses America’s immense military, precision bombing of high-value military/nuclear targets, and economic power (sanctions/blockades) to confront anti-Western regimes — without putting boots on the ground. It is quite distinct from the large-scale ground invasions and prolonged occupations of prior major U.S. Middle East wars, particularly post-9/11.

Even while we largely are going it alone, the approach appears to be working. We still predict that when the dust of conflict clears, three totalitarian regimes will be gone, and the world will be a much safer place for all.

Broader cultural impact in Canada and Europe

Cryptonite remains Monroe Doctrine-oriented — prioritizing our Latin American neighbors over fading European allies who often resent us — we cannot ignore what’s happening across the Atlantic and in Canada.

Large-scale immigration from countries with anti-Western ideologies, combined with significantly higher birth rates, has created parallel societies with minimal assimilation. The results are unmistakable: rising Islamist extremism, no-go zones, grooming scandals, surging antisemitism, and protests that echo the chaos seen on U.S. campuses.

Lax immigration policies paired with these clandestine influence operations are accelerating the erosion of Western culture in Europe and Canada.

Europe’s (and NATO’s) new reality and our priorities

Europe’s combined GDP is many times larger than Russia’s. It is more than capable of assuming full responsibility for its own defense against a weakened Russian threat.

U.S. taxpayer dollars and military assets should be redirected away from NATO to higher-priority theaters — especially the Indo-Pacific — where the CCP’s militarized artificial islands, massive shipbuilding surge, Belt and Road expansion across Africa and South America, and growing influence directly threaten freedom of navigation, critical minerals, supply chains, and Western Hemisphere stability.

Europe helped force this U.S. shift through decades of chronic defense underspending and its lack of meaningful support against Iran. It’s time they get what they pay for, which isn’t much.

By electing the Bogeyman, America chose the entrepreneurial path to fix our problems. Despite the fears of our neighbor to the north and our fading “allies” abroad, the U.S. is stronger — and our innovation and economic edge continues to widen.

Under Trump, America has launched a real counter-offensive against the assault on Western values: securing our border and delivering negative net migration for the first time in 50 years, dismantling discriminatory DEI policies, protecting women’s sports, restoring free speech and religious liberty, and unapologetically defending Western civilization.

Defense technology meets AI innovation

“The future of defense is not just better hardware; it’s AI‑driven target‑discovery, simulation, and logistics that compress the OODA loop down to seconds.”
—Palmer Luckey, Founder & CEO, Anduril Industries

“The next frontier of cyber is not endpoints; it’s AI‑agents that inspect, simulate, and counter‑attack in real time. The role of the human is to set the guardrails, not the triggers.”
—Alex Karp, CoFounder & CEO, Palantir

Pentagon broadens Silicon Valley AI alliances: The Pentagon branded the U.S. military an “AI‑first” force and signed eight classified‑network deals with OpenAI, SpaceX, Anduril Industries, Google, Nvidia, Microsoft, AWS, Oracle, and others, explicitly to avoid single‑vendor reliance post‑Anthropic friction.

Canada and Europe, with no equivalent reset, are in deep trouble. Instead of facing reality, they chase conspiracies, demonize the very nation that secures them, and hide behind “quiet diplomacy” and acquiescence. It’s time for them to recognize who the real enemies are and start a serious turnaround before their cultures erode beyond repair.

For their own good, this turnaround is one they will have to make. The era of the U.S. acting as an enabler of the weak is exhausting, unappreciated, and no longer in our strategic interests.

Skip the $200k degree

Real talk for aspiring entrepreneurs: Watch Steve Jobs’ 69-minute “Lost Interview” from 1995 instead. You’ll get more actionable wisdom on building an insanely great company than you would from four years of lectures at your overpriced uni. 😎🤙🏼

Did you know?💡

Stay relevant and on top

Below is the breaking news and inside wisdom you need to stay relevant and on top of emerging private tech companies, VC investors, Big Tech, and the innovation trends shaping the global Silicon Valley. All links lead to AI-generated research from a decisively venture-capital perspective.

Are we missing any action? Hit us up now on X @CryptoniteRap or TheEditor@CryptoniteVentures.com

Buzz Worthy 🗣️

🗣️ Musk v. Altman Trial: “Hated men” email surfaces — Two days before trial began, Musk texted OpenAI President Greg Brockman proposing a settlement. When Brockman suggested both sides drop claims, Musk replied: “By the end of this week, you and Sam will be the most hated men in America.” The judge ruled the message inadmissible, but it leaked via court filings and fueled intense settlement speculation. (May 4)

🗣️ Cursor Staff Meetings with xAI Amid Layoffs & Exits — Cursor employees have been visiting xAI offices for staff meetings as the AI coding tool faces mounting internal turmoil, layoffs, and key departures. The chaos stems from intense pressure to integrate deeper with xAI’s infrastructure and models, following the departure of senior Cursor engineering leaders to Musk’s team and the broader industry shift toward agentic coding tools. (May 8)

🗣️ DeepSeek Funding Frenzy: The Chinese open-source AI powerhouse is in advanced talks for its first-ever external funding round, targeting a $3B–$7.35B raise at a $45B–$50B valuation up from ~$20B just weeks ago. China’s state-backed “Big Fund” is leading, with Tencent, Alibaba, and Hillhouse also circling. Founder Liang Wenfeng (who reportedly still owns ~90%) is personally committing up to $3B. The deal represents the largest single AI funding round in Chinese history and underscores Beijing’s aggressive push for homegrown frontier models to rival the U.S. (May 6)

🗣️ Booming Shadow Market for Private AI Equity: Crypto platforms now offer 24/7 leveraged synthetic tokens tied to Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX, turning private‑market AI stakes into highly speculative, liquid‑feeling bets and raising regulatory alarm.

🗣️ AI‑Hallucination Scandal at top law firm Sullivan & Cromwell: The firm admitted an AI‑research tool hallucinated dozens of fake case cites in a federal filing, forcing a public correction and accelerating internal AI‑use guardrails across big‑law.

🗣️ Polymarket’s U.S. Comeback Drama — After buying a U.S.-licensed exchange to return stateside, Polymarket’s U.S. CEO Justin Hertzberg appears to be CEO in name only — mainly signing regulatory docs — while the business struggles against rivals.

🗣️ OpenClaw Hype Hits Reality Check — The viral open-source AI agent is showing clear signs of slowing momentum after its explosive rise. Creator Peter Steinberger admitted the project had a “rough week” in late April due to buggy releases, broken plugins, and performance complaints that frustrated users. Hitting serious enterprise walls: SAP just joined Meta, Google, and Microsoft in actively blocking unauthorized OpenClaw agents from its systems, calling them a security and governance nightmare. While consumer and hobbyist usage remains strong, competitors like Hermes Agent are already pulling ahead on key metrics. It’s the classic open-source trajectory — went mega-viral, now facing the harsh enterprise reality check.

Following the Money 🤑

VC Deals ($5M+) – April 30–May 9, 2026 💰

💰 Sierra (San Francisco, CA) raises $950M Series E at $15B+ valuation | Enterprise AI (AI agents for customer experiences; cofounded by Bret Taylor) | Investors: Tiger Global and GV (leads), Benchmark, Sequoia, Greenoaks, others | (May 4)

💰 Blitzy (Cambridge, MA) raises $200M at $1.4B valuation | Enterprise AI / Software Development (autonomous software development platform for regulated industries) | Investors: Northzone (lead), PSG, Battery Ventures, Jump Capital, NFX, Link Ventures, Flybridge, strategic from Liberty Mutual, Erie, BAL | (May 5)

💰 Corgi (San Francisco, CA) raises $160M Series B at $1.3B valuation | Fintech / AI Insurance (full-stack AI-native insurance platform) | Investors: TCV (lead), Kindred Ventures, others | (May 7)

💰 Rogo (New York, NY) raises $160M Series D at $2B valuation | Fintech / Enterprise AI (AI platform/agent Felix for investment banks, asset managers, PE firms) | Investors: Kleiner Perkins (lead), Sequoia, Thrive Capital, Khosla Ventures, J.P. Morgan Growth, BoxGroup, others | (May 5)

💰 Nova Intelligence (San Francisco, CA) raises $31.5M Series A (part of $40M total) | Enterprise AI (agentic AI for SAP migrations and enterprise systems) | Investors: Chemistry (lead), Accel, Conviction, SAP.io | (May 5)

💰 Core Automation (Bay Area, CA) in talks to raise $300M–$500M at $4B valuation | Enterprise AI (automated AI research lab; founded by ex-OpenAI VP Jerry Tworek) | Recently raised $100M at $1B | (May 6)

💰 Isomorphic Labs (London, UK) raising >$2B | Healthcare / Biotech / AI (AI for drug discovery; spun out of Google DeepMind) | Led by Thrive Capital with Alphabet participation | (May 6)

💰 Lunar Outpost (Golden, CO) raises $30M Series B | Robotics / Space / Defense Tech (autonomous lunar rovers) | Investors: Industrious Ventures (lead), Type One Ventures, Eniac Ventures, Promus Ventures, Reliable Equity | (May 6)

💰 Kalshi (New York, NY) raises $1B Series F at $22B valuation | Fintech / Prediction Markets | Led by Coatue (doubled valuation in 5 months) | (May 6)

💰 Moonshot AI (Beijing, China) raises $2B at $20B valuation | Open-Source AI (open-weight LLMs) | Led by Long-Z Investment with Tsinghua Capital, China Mobile, CPE Yuanfeng | (May 6)

💰 Ramp (New York, NY) in talks to raise $750M at $40B+ pre-money valuation | Fintech / Enterprise AI (corporate cards + AI finance automation) | Co-led by Iconiq Capital and GIC | (May 7)

💰 Tessera Labs (San Jose, CA) raises $60M at $320M valuation | Enterprise AI (AI platform for planning/executing changes to ERP, HR, finance systems) | Led by Andreessen Horowitz | (May 6)

💰 Pit (Stockholm, Sweden) raises $16M | Enterprise AI (AI for internal workflows, operations, finance, customer processes) | Led by Andreessen Horowitz | (May 6)

💰 Panthalassa (Portland, OR) raises $140M Series B | Sustainability / Cleantech / Infrastructure / Compute (wave-powered ocean data centers purpose-built for AI compute) | Led by Peter Thiel; participants include John Doerr, TIME Ventures (Marc Benioff), SciFi Ventures (Max Levchin), and others | (May 8)

💰 Scout AI (Sunnyvale, CA) raises $100M Series A | Defense Tech / Robotics / AI (foundation model “Fury” for autonomous unmanned systems and warfare coordination) | Investors: Align Ventures and Draper Associates (co-leads), Booz Allen Ventures, Decisive Point, Evolution VC Partners + others | (April 29)

💰 Aidoc (New York, NY) raises $150M Series E | Healthcare / Biotech / AI (clinical imaging and workflows for earlier, safer diagnoses) | Investors: Goldman Sachs Alternatives (lead), General Catalyst, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, NVentures | (April 29)

💰 Hightouch (San Francisco, CA) raises $150M Series D at $2.75B valuation | Enterprise AI / Agentic Marketing (composable CDP + AI agents for marketing orchestration and execution) | Investors: Goldman Sachs Alternatives and Bain Capital Ventures (co-leads), Amplify Partners, ICONIQ, Sapphire Ventures, TD7 + others | (April 29)

💰 DeepInfra (Palo Alto) raises $107M Series B | AI Infrastructure / Compute (inference cloud platform) Investors: 500 Global and Georges Harik (early Google engineer, prior backer, and advisor), A.Capital Ventures, Crescent Cove Advisors, Felicis (returning), NVIDIA, Peak6, Samsung Next, Supermicro, Upper90 | (May 4)

💰 Cytospire Therapeutics raises $83M Series A | Healthcare / Biotech (pan-gamma delta T-cell engagers for solid tumors) | Investors: 4BIO Capital, Servier Ventures, British Business Bank, Sound Bioventures, others | (May 5)

M&A Deals ($100M+) 🤝

🤝 Robo.ai acquires Neurovia | AI / Robotics / Data Infrastructure (data processing/compression tech for AI video/machine economy infrastructure) | $100M all-stock deal | (May 8)

🤝 Meta acquires Assured Robot Intelligence (ARI) | Robotics / AI (physical AGI, humanoid control from human experience) | (May 1)

🤝 Roche acquires PathAI | Healthcare / Biotech / AI (AI software for pathology labs and clinical diagnostics) | Up to $1.05B | (May 8)

🤝 Payward (Kraken) acquires Reap | Fintech / Blockchain (stablecoin-native card issuing and cross-border payments infrastructure) | Up to $600M in cash and stock | (May 8)

IPOs & Filings 📈

📈 Cerebras Systems (Sunnyvale, CA) files for IPO | Semiconductors / AI Infrastructure / Compute (AI chipmaker with wafer-scale engines for large-scale model training and inference; key partnerships including major OpenAI compute deal) | Targeting raise ~$3.5B at $115–$125/share; implied valuation up to ~$26.6B+ | Expected ticker CBRS | Early May 2026 | Lead bookrunners: Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Barclays, and UBS

📈 Lime (Neutron Holdings, San Francisco, CA) files S-1 for IPO | Autonomous Vehicles / Mobility (largest global shared e-bikes, e-scooters, and micromobility platform operating in ~230 cities across 29 countries; Uber-backed | Estimated deal size ~$250M; targeting Nasdaq under ticker LIME | Filed May 8 | Lead bookrunners: Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan

VC Whispers 🗣️

💸 a16z Crypto (Andreessen Horowitz) closes $2.2B Crypto Fund 5 | Fintech / DeFi / Blockchain (dedicated vehicle for stablecoins, DeFi, payments, decentralized systems, tokenized assets, and blockchain-based AI applications; deployed over 10 years) | Total crypto AUM now ~$9.8B | Led by Chris Dixon; Eddy Lazzarin promoted to GP | (May 5)

💸 Haun Ventures closes $1B across two new funds | Fintech / DeFi / Blockchain / AI (early- and late-stage vehicles targeting crypto infrastructure, stablecoins, tokenization, financial services, and AI agents at the intersection of on-chain and agentic economy) | AUM grows to ~$2.5B; 2-3 year deployment | (May 7)

💸 Earlybird Venture Capital closes €360M (~$390M) Fund VIII | AI / Infrastructure / Deep Tech / Robotics (early-stage focus on AI applications, software infrastructure, foundation models, deeptech, and hardware across Europe; perpetual GP ownership model) | Largest fund in firm history | (April 30)

💸 Refactor Capital (Zal Bilimoria) closes $50M Fund V | Semiconductors / Deep Tech Hardware / Sustainability / Healthcare (seed-stage hard tech, including biotech, climate, advanced materials, and engineering-heavy startups) | Solo GP structure; raised in five calls from existing LPs | (May 7)

Company Scoops This Week 🗞️

The Magnificent 18🪄

✨ Intel(INTC): Lands major Apple chip deal, marking a significant win for Intel’s struggling foundry business. Shares surged more than 12% on the news as investors bet on a potential multi-year partnership that could help Intel regain ground against TSMC. The deal is seen as a major validation for CEO Lip-Bu Tan’s turnaround strategy and Apple’s efforts to diversify its chip supply chain. (May 8)

✨ Intel’s comeback story: Intel’s stock has risen a stunning 490% over the past year, a bet by Wall Street that may be running well ahead of the company’s actual turnaround. CEO Lip-Bu Tan is rescuing one of Silicon Valley’s most storied and stumbling chipmakers. He locked in a sweetheart deal with the U.S. government (now Intel’s third-largest shareholder), partnering with Elon Musk to build a factory with Tesla.

✨ Microsoft (MSFT): Reported strong Q3 results with Azure growth at ~40% YoY and AI revenue run rate hitting $37B; raised full-year 2026 capex guidance to ~$190B amid surging AI infrastructure demand, though gross margins compressed due to heavy spending. (April 29)

“We’re not going to be conservative on AI spend. You do not get a ‘once‑a‑generation’ inflection by being cautious; you get it by deploying capital ahead of the curve.”
—Andy Jassy, CEO, Amazon

✨ Amazon (AMZN): AWS revenue rose 28% YoY to $37.6B in Q1, the fastest growth in 15 quarters, driven by AI demand; expanded partnerships with OpenAI (models on Bedrock) and Anthropic ($25B investment commitment); heavy AI capex continued. (April 29)

✨ Alphabet (GOOG): Strong Q1 momentum with Gemini processing 16B+ tokens/minute (up 60% QoQ) and paid AI subscriptions at 350M; Cloud growth accelerated; continued agentic AI and TPU advancements highlighted at Cloud Next. (Early May)

“If you can’t double your AI compute every six months, you’re not in the AI race; you’re a spectator. The bottleneck is no longer algorithms; it’s the economics of scale.”
—Sundar Pichai, CEO, Alphabet

✨ Nvidia (NVDA): Pre-earnings buzz around Blackwell ramp and upcoming Vera Rubin platform (targeting 10x inference cost reduction); positioned as leader in agentic AI inference with major cloud partnerships; Q1 FY2027 earnings due May 20.

✨ Meta (META): Continued AI infrastructure buildout with expanded custom chip partnerships; Llama ecosystem updates and agentic capabilities in focus amid broader capex increases. (Early May)

✨ Apple (AAPL): Delivered solid quarterly results with CEO transition notes; advancing Apple Intelligence openness by planning third-party AI model integration across iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27 this fall for broader device ecosystem access. (April 30)

✨ Oracle (ORCL): Aggressive AI cloud expansion with plans to raise $45–50B in 2026 for infrastructure buildout tied to major client demand (including hyperscalers and AI firms); OCI growth remains a key driver.

“Agents are not plugins; they are the new operating layer for enterprise software. If you aren’t baking human‑over‑the‑loop agent workflows into your core product flow by 2026, you’re already late.”
—Safra Catz, CEO, Oracle

✨ Broadcom (AVGO): Expanded multi-year, multi-generation AI chip partnership with Meta for custom MTIA accelerators and networking through 2029 (initial >1GW commitment); AI revenue trajectory on track toward $100B+ annual target. (Early May)

“The next era of compute is 3D‑stacked, heterogeneous, and domain‑specific. General‑purpose CPUs are no longer the default; the edge is the new core.”
—Hock Tan, CEO, Broadcom

✨ AMD (AMD): Q1 results and strong Q2 guidance beat expectations on surging AI data center demand (inference/agents driving CPU + accelerator growth); shares hit record highs, forecasting sustained momentum. (May 6)

“The AI‑infrastructure cycle is not a bubble; it is a lagged response to compute demand. If you time it right, you can build a decade‑long moat in energy‑efficient AI chips.”
—Lisa Su, CEO, AMD

✨ Meta (META): Developing a new internal AI agent called ‘Hatch’ alongside an AI-powered shopping assistant inside Instagram. (May 5)

Private Company Leaders 🚀

🚀 xAI: Rolled out Grok updates including Imagine Quality Mode API, custom voices/voice library, and deeper app connectors; pursuing broader government adoption via FedRAMP High. (May 6)

🚀 xAI Becoming a “Neocloud” Player: Elon’s xAI is increasingly acting like a cloud provider, supplying compute to outside companies (including giving servers to Anthropic) while retaining rights to reclaim it if models “harm humanity.”

🚀 OpenAI: Expanded AWS partnership with models, Codex, and Managed Agents now in limited preview on Bedrock; advanced voice intelligence and introduced Trusted Contact safety feature in ChatGPT; tested ads while scaling GPT-5.5 capabilities. (May 7)

🚀 Anthropic: Weighing major new funding round with multiple preemptive offers around $40-50B at $850B–$900B+ valuation, potentially surpassing rivals; strong enterprise momentum with Claude adoption. (April 29)

🚀 Anthropic: Leased entire SpaceX Colossus 1 data center (>300MW, 220K+ Nvidia GPUs); Mythos model triggered White House concerns over potential cyberattacks. (Early May)

🚀 Anthropic: Pledged up to $200 billion in spending on Google’s cloud and chips over the coming years — one of the largest cloud deals in history. Locks in a deep strategic partnership with Google as it races to keep pace with OpenAI and xAI on frontier compute. (May 5)

🚀 Figure AI: Ramped Figure 03 humanoid robot production to one unit per hour (from one per day), surpassing 350 units through the BotQ facility; continued scaling deliveries with Helix AI advancements for full-body autonomy. (May 1)

🚀 Waymo: Maintained aggressive U.S. expansion with robotaxi operations in 10+ markets; ongoing preparations for further 2026 growth, including new cities and international testing in London. (Early May)

🚀 Anduril Industries: Secured additional Pentagon contract expansions for space-tracking technology (increasing ceiling toward $200M+); broader defense platform momentum with Lattice suite. (Early May)

🚀 Stripe: Unveiled 288 new products/features at Sessions 2026, focused on Agentic Commerce, AI wallets for agents, Google Gemini app integration, and economic infrastructure for AI-native models. (April 29)

🚀 SpaceX: Achieved rapid Starlink deployment cadence (50th mission of 2026 by late April) with multiple successful Falcon 9 launches carrying dozens of satellites; Starship program advanced with V3 testing preparations. (April 26)

🚀 Perplexity AI: Continued enterprise and product expansion with AI search enhancements; steady growth in queries and user base amid a competitive AI landscape.

🚀 Databricks: Announced $300M investment in ANZ over three years, including new headquarters and upskilling initiatives; strong momentum toward potential 2026 IPO with Lakehouse and AI platform growth. (May 5)

Blockchain & Crypto 🔗

🔗 Gemini (GEMI): Received CFTC Derivatives Clearing Organization (DCO) license approval, enabling major expansion into derivatives trading and clearing infrastructure in the U.S. | Plans Q1 2026 earnings release on May 14. (April 30)

🔗 Kraken (KRAKEN): Revived IPO plans amid broader crypto market recovery and regulatory tailwinds. (Early May)

🔗 Circle (CRCL): Scheduled Q1 2026 financial results announcement for May 11, highlighting stablecoin (USDC) momentum, payments network growth, and blockchain infrastructure updates.

🔗 Coinbase (COIN): Reduced headcount by 14% while accelerating shift toward AI-native products and services; enabled Trade-at-Settlement for XRP futures starting May 1. (May 8)

🔗 Ripple (XRP): Advanced institutional adoption with wrapped XRP (wXRP) launching on Solana via Hex Trust and LayerZero, expanding DeFi utility on the network; ongoing ETF and custody momentum.

🔗 Bitcoin (BTC): Maintained market leadership with steady institutional inflows and ETF activity amid broader crypto recovery.

🔗 Solana (SOL): Highlighted strong ecosystem activity with multiple projects gaining traction; network upgrades and DeFi integrations (including wXRP support) driving momentum. (April)

🔗 Ethereum (ETH): Continued development toward network upgrades and layer-2 scaling; positioned in broader 2026 market outlooks alongside tokenization trends.

🔗 Dogecoin (DOGE): Limited standout headlines in the immediate post-April 30 window beyond general meme coin market movements.

🔗 Jupiter (JUP): Benefited from increased Solana DeFi activity as a key aggregator, with wrapped asset integrations boosting trading volume. (Early May)

Current Entrepreneurial Wisdom💡

On AI efficiency

“General‑purpose AI is not the finish line; it is the feedstock. The next chapter belongs to founders who can specialize that feedstock into vertical‑specific agents that customers will pay for.”
—Marc Andreessen, Co‑Founder & General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz

“Biotech founders in 2026 must assume that every experiment will be modeled by AI before it hits the lab. The bottleneck shifts from wet‑lab throughput to data‑quality and regulatory‑readiness.”
—Peter Thiel, CoFounder & Partner, Founders Fund

“Any serious cleantech startup today must treat AI as its core. If your pitch is about panels or turbines alone, you’re missing the software layer that arbitrages price, weather, and grid‑balancing in real time.”
—Vinod Khosla, Founder & Managing Partner, Khosla Ventures

Autos meet AI

“Every autonomous vehicle stack is now, by default, an AI‑agent platform. The car’s firmware is the new OS, with permissions, SLAs, and economic incentives layered on top.”
—Dmitri Dolgov, Co‑CEO, Waymo

“Tesla AI Vision deploys airbags before impact, which greatly reduces risk of injury or death. This comes for free on all new cars.”
—Elon Musk, CEO Tesla / xAI

On DeFi 3.0

“The most defensible fintech products in 2026 are not the ones that move the most money; they’re the ones that capture the most context—credit, cash‑flow, and intent—inside the stack.”
—Jeremy Allaire, Co‑Founder & CEO, Circle

“Cross‑border payments will be re‑architected around stablecoins and programmable liquidity pools; the rails of 2026 look nothing like the SWIFT‑era stack.”
—Brad Garlinghouse, CEO, Ripple

The Robots are coming 🤖

“Robotics at scale is not about better grippers; it’s about cheaper anchors in the physical world—warehouses, factories, and distribution hubs that let AI agents operate 24/7 without human choreography.”
—Brett Adcock, Founder & CEO, Figure AI

“The next wave of robotics isn’t humanoid robots in labs; it’s fleets of task‑specific robots that plug into existing workflows like plumbing, not fanfare.”
—Ashok Elluswamy, VP AI Software, Tesla

Read more

Can we all get along?

Our readers know that our big issue is the state of mental health in the U.S., especially among our youth. The manipulators of our health are corporate media, political parties and certain politicians, Hollywood, large swaths of ‘popular music’ that often objectify women and degrade intimacy (what happened to the love song?), social media companies, and the echo chambers they foster. On a positive note, at least most of us are self-aware enough not to trust any of these powers-that-be.

Rise in “public” murder amongst the youth

In recent years, there has been a rise in mentally disturbed young people committing significant public acts of violence, with social media playing a role in each. Two of the three Trump assassination attempts were carried out by a 20-year-old and a 31-year-old (the most recent), and Charlie Kirk’s killer was 22. There have also been four trans-identified young assassins: an 18-year-old in the 2026 Canadian school shooting who killed eight, a 23-year-old in a 2025 church shooting in Minneapolis who killed two children, the shooter in the 2023 Nashville Covenant School attack that killed six people, and the perpetrator in the 2026 Rhode Island hockey-arena shooting.

Mass killings (especially public/‘active shooter’ style with random victims) are overwhelmingly carried out by young males: ~97–98%, ~55% Caucasian. The rise in trans-identified perpetrators is a more recent trend, contributing to increased mental instability among youth. There has been a sharp rise in people identifying as transgender over the last 10 years (roughly 2015–2025), particularly among youth and young adults, with social and corporate media contributing significantly to this trend.

The WHCD shooter was fully kitted up in his suit for the event: 1) Drop-leg holster rig, 2) Concealed pistol in the shoulder/chest area, 3) Large fixed-blade combat knife, and 4) spare magazines on the right hip.

Trump dodges his third bullet

At a high-end gathering last weekend of two of these groups—the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) in Washington, D.C.—a mentally disturbed suicide assassin was on a mission to kill the President and his top officials. In this attempt, the Caltech-educated young man tried to rush the ballroom front door, shot a Secret Service agent in his bulletproof vest (thankfully, he was fine), was shot at, then tackled, and was carried away. He most likely will never see the light of day again.

After the President, First Lady, and Cabinet members had been whisked away, and the guests got out from under their tables, it was announced that the event was canceled. True to form, Trump wanted it to continue but couldn’t break security protocol, so he invited the press to the White House press room to decompress. During this open session, Trump noted that U.S. presidents have an 8% chance of being shot at and a 5.8% chance of being assassinated—Abraham Lincoln (1865), James A. Garfield (1881), William McKinley (1901), and John F. Kennedy (1963) were all killed by assassination—making it one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. 😳 The event also made Trump the first U.S. president to survive three active assassination attempts.

White House correspondents are 90%+ Democrats or left-leaning journalists, mirroring the general corporate media. The White House press corps is 4 times more Democratic/left-leaning than the national average; the imbalance has been documented for decades. A clear example is how doggedly CNN’s Kaitlan Collins questioned Trump on the Epstein files, versus never once pressing Biden, Jean-Pierre, Psaki, or any Biden official on the same subject. BTW, the Epstein files do not show up on any list of the top 20 voter concerns.

Watching the press briefing that night was surreal, given that virtually every person in the room had just experienced a moment where any one of them could have been killed. For a fleeting moment, it didn’t matter that well over 90 percent of the people in the room at minimum despise, if not hate, the President; there was a sense of shared experience and togetherness.

This event reminded me of the Rodney King story in 1992. After a high-speed chase, King—who had been drinking—was pulled over by California Highway Patrol officers. LAPD officers then brutally beat the unarmed man on camera, striking him more than 50 times with batons. He suffered a fractured skull and facial bones, a broken ankle, broken teeth, bruises, and lasting neurological damage.

The officers’ acquittal triggered the 1992 Los Angeles riots (often called the Rodney King riots). Over several days, more than 50 people were killed, more than 2,300 were injured, thousands were arrested, and large parts of South Central LA burned amid widespread arson and looting. The unrest exposed deep frustrations over race, poverty, policing, and institutional trust — tensions that later resurfaced even more intensely during the 2020 BLM protests..

Yet at the height of the chaos, a battered Rodney King stood before the cameras and asked, simply: “Can we all get along?” If a man who had endured such pain could rise above his trauma and the authorities who failed him and plead for peace, surely we can follow his example. Let’s limit our use of social media to staying connected with the ones we love, reclaim our own identities, reject the forces that divide us, and show our kids how to do the same.

—Anthony Perkins, founder & editor, Cryptonite, Medellín, Colombia —Talk to me @HeyTPerk or TheEditor@CryptoniteVentures.com

The War of the AI Roses

OAKLAND, Calif. — Elon Musk took the witness stand for multiple days this week in his high-stakes federal trial against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman, declaring he was a “fool” for providing tens of millions in early funding to the company he now calls a for-profit betrayal of its nonprofit roots. Elon outlined three phases in his view of the company: initial “enthusiastic support” for its safety-focused mission as a counterweight to Google, followed by “growing skepticism,” and now: “They’re looting a nonprofit.”

He accused Altman of “disingenuous” reassurances that OpenAI would remain charitable, saying the $10 billion Microsoft investment in 2023 crystallized the “bait and switch.” Sam and President Greg Brockman sat in the courtroom, taking notes as Elon testified.

He accused Altman of “disingenuous” reassurances that OpenAI would remain charitable, saying the $10 billion Microsoft investment in 2023 crystallized the “bait and switch.” Sam Altman and President Greg Brockman sat in the courtroom, scrupulously taking notes as Elon testified.

“I was a fool who provided them free funding to create a startup. I gave them $38 million of essentially free funding to create what would become an $800 billion company.”
— Elon Musk, on why he regrets investing in OpenAI

Cross-examination brought the sparks

Elon’s final cross-examination on Thursday brought the sparks — and some eyebrow-raising admissions. Elon sparred repeatedly with OpenAI attorney William Savitt, rejecting yes-or-no questions and drawing a rebuke from U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers when he quipped about the classic “have you stopped beating your wife?” trap. The judge repeatedly urged both sides to keep answers direct and the pace moving.

Court documents revealed texts between Elon and Shivon Zilis just before he left OpenAI’s board in 2018, in which he agreed to stay “close and friendly” while continuing to recruit talent to Tesla. Elon also faced questions about 2017 discussions of a for-profit arm, including comments at a party in his newly purchased San Francisco “haunted mansion,” urging OpenAI to shift toward a for-profit model immediately. Elon conceded that early talks happened but insisted he trusted verbal reassurances that the nonprofit soul would stay in control—“the tail wouldn’t wag the dog”—and admitted he “didn’t read the fine print.”

Sam’s other tough news this week

As OpenAI angles toward its 2026 IPO, the company is navigating more than just the Cowardly Lion’s lawsuit.

OpenAI missed its sales numbers—The Wall Street Journal reported that the company has missed internal revenue and user-growth targets (including the ambitious goal of 1 billion weekly active ChatGPT users), prompting Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar to raise concerns about funding massive compute costs. This has led to cost-cutting discussions and tighter board oversight, despite multi-billion-dollar commitments from Oracle, Nvidia, and Amazon, as well as a renegotiated Microsoft partnership through 2032. Anthropic is gaining ground in coding and enterprise, and Google’s Gemini is eating into consumer share.

OpenAI apologizes over the Canadian school shooting—In a separate controversy, Sam Altman issued a public apology after OpenAI admitted it failed to alert authorities about a banned account linked to Jesse Van Rootselaar, the 18-year-old who killed eight people in a February 2026 school shooting in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia. The account had been flagged for violent content but was not referred to law enforcement because it did not meet the company’s threshold. Altman said: “I am deeply sorry that we did not alert law enforcement… While I know words can never be enough, I believe an apology is necessary to recognize the harm.”

In a particularly notable moment, Elon was asked whether xAI has used distillation techniques—using OpenAI’s publicly accessible models to help train Grok. He called it a “general practice among AI companies” and, when pressed, answered “Partly.” The admission carries heavy irony: Elon is suing OpenAI for allegedly abandoning its mission, yet xAI (the younger upstart) has leaned on the very frontier models it now competes against. Frontier labs like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google are scrambling to fight distillation, especially from Chinese firms churning out cheap, near-equivalent open-weight models. They’re even teaming up via the Frontier Model Forum to block suspicious mass queries. Elon’s candor undercuts the moat these giants thought their massive compute investments had built.

Later in testimony, Elon was pressed on his earlier claim that xAI would soon surge ahead of everyone except Google. He delivered a surprisingly humble ranking: Anthropic at the top, followed by OpenAI, Google, and strong Chinese open-source models. He described xAI as the much smaller player—just a few hundred employees—still fighting to catch up.

Elon hammered home that OpenAI’s leaders cannot “have their cake and eat it too”—enjoying the “positive halo effect of a charity” while building a massive for-profit enterprise that has enriched insiders. He said he could have launched the venture as a for-profit himself, but chose the nonprofit structure to prioritize humanity’s benefit.

What’s at stake

The trial centers on Elon’s claims that Sam and others duped him into believing OpenAI would stay mission-driven and nonprofit, only to pivot aggressively toward commercialization. Elon has scaled back his damages demand, seeking to have “all ill-gotten gains” returned to OpenAI’s charitable arm.

The proceedings unfolded against a backdrop of intensifying scrutiny on OpenAI as it races toward a reported $852 billion IPO valuation. Elon’s SpaceX (alongside X and OpenAI competitor xAI/Grok) has already filed for its IPO, and OpenAI’s top competitor, Anthropic, is also positioning to go public in 2026.

Elon’s testimony added fresh drama to the already personal feud, with revealed texts showing Sam once calling the Cowardly Lion “my hero” and later expressing hurt over public attacks, to which Elon replied that “the fate of civilization is at stake.”

Laws of the Cryptocosm #3: First movers often end up with the most arrows in their back, while the ones coming from behind trample over them.

By the time Google registered its domain in September 1997 and launched publicly in 1998, there were already dozens of search engines and directories in use. Popular ones included Yahoo!, AltaVista, Lycos, WebCrawler, Excite, and Infoseek. 🤔

Dear Cryptonite Readers,

Apple cofounder Steve Jobs ran on the 80/20 rule (80% signal, 20% noise). Rumor has it, Elon Musk hits 100% signal—zero distractions.

Speaking of paying attention to seminal signals—that’s the business Cryptonite is in. Pure signal. 📡

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Tesla’s Cybercab Production Has Begun

Tesla has started production of the Cybercab, its purpose-built, steering wheel-free robotaxi, at Giga Texas. The first production unit (VIN #001) came off the line on February 17, 2026, with volume manufacturing officially kicking off this month. Tesla and Elon Musk shared a video of the glossy bronze-gold Cybercabs driving themselves straight from the production line onto the factory lot—no driver, no pedals, no mirrors—exactly as promised.

Early production is following Tesla’s classic S-curve ramp: slow at first (dozens to a few hundred per week), with exponential scaling expected later in 2026 and into 2027. Roughly 60 Cybercabs have already been spotted in the outbound lots at Giga Texas. These vehicles are designed from the ground up for the Tesla Robotaxi network—two-seater, ultra-low cost per mile, and ready to slot directly into unsupervised fleet operations once regulatory approvals are in place.

The Cybercab won’t debut in a vacuum. Tesla’s existing Robotaxi service (powered today mostly by modified Model Ys) is already live and expanding in Texas. Unsupervised rides are rolling out in Austin, Dallas, and Houston, with paid Robotaxi miles nearly doubling quarter over quarter. The new Cybercabs will begin joining the fleet in these Texas markets first.

Tesla has teased further expansion to at least 7–9 additional cities in 2026, including potential moves into Phoenix, Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Las Vegas. Full-scale unsupervised deployment still hinges on software maturity and city-by-city approvals, but the hardware is now here.

The Exploding Robotaxi Market

The timing of the Cybercab couldn’t be more critical. The global robotaxi market is in hyper-growth mode:

• Valued at roughly $0.6 billion in 2025

• Projected to reach $40–147 billion by 2030–2033

• With CAGR estimates ranging from 60% to 99%+, depending on the forecast.

ARK Invest and others have called robotaxis one of the largest economic opportunities of the decade, potentially worth trillions in equity value by the early 2030s as fleets scale.

Wayyyymo’ market share

• Waymo (Alphabet) remains the clear commercial leader today:

• Operating in 11–12 U.S. cities (Phoenix, San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Austin, Atlanta, Miami, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Orlando, and recently Nashville)

• ~500,000 paid rides per week

• Over 200 million fully autonomous miles driven

• Fleet of ~3,000 vehicles

Cruise (GM), Baidu Apollo Go, WeRide, Pony.ai, and Zoox are also active, but Waymo dominates U.S. paid service volume. Tesla’s edge? It’s the only player producing a purpose-built, low-cost vehicle at scale—designed to dramatically reduce operating costs once the fleet grows.

Billionaires (and companies) escaping Californication

In California, a union-backed ballot initiative known as the 2026 Billionaire Tax Act is on track to appear before California voters in November. Framed as a one-time 5% excise tax on net worth above $1 billion (with a phase-in between $1 billion and $1.1 billion), the measure would apply to over 200 Californians, covering ~$2.18 trillion in collective wealth as of January 1, 2026. Revenues would be directed into a dedicated reserve fund for healthcare, education, and food assistance programs

Since 2020, California is estimated to have lost at least $180 billion to fraud and improper payments across major programs: ~$146 billion in Medi-Cal/healthcare, $32 billion in unemployment insurance (mostly from the COVID era), and several billion more in food assistance/EBT theft, education, and other programs.

The tax is estimated to raise up to $100 billion in gross revenue over 5 years (up to $20 billion per year). So it’s more about covering fraud than paying for anything new. Of course, the real solution is to implement AI/blockchain fusion apps as the new operating system for government services, which would damn near eliminate fraud and huge swaths of bureaucratic overhead.

The initiative has collected well over the required signatures and is likely to qualify. A recent poll showed about 50% support, though prediction markets give it about a 42% chance of passing. 🙏🏼

Governor Gavin Newsom is, of course, publicly opposing the initiative, as he receives regular and substantial financial support from numerous California-based billionaires, including Reed Hastings (Netflix cofounder), Eric Schmidt (former Google CEO), Laurene Powell Jobs (Apple/widow of Steve Jobs), Tony Xu (DoorDash CEO), and billionaires linked to Facebook, Airbnb, eBay, etc. Many contributed in the $50k–$200k range during key campaigns.

But don’t expect Newsom to tap into the technology solutions that created all that wealth to cut government overhead and stave off fraud. California state government spending has roughly tripled over the past ~20 years (to $321 billion in the FY 2025/26 budget), while core state-paid headcount has risen ~40%, and spending represents ~8% of the total state economy. Average state employee pay is the highest in the country (~$108k in 2024), all of which helps big spenders like Newsom stay in office by growing centralized government.

“I fled socialism with my family in 1979 and know the devastating, oppressive society it created in the Soviet Union. I don’t want California to end up in the same place.” —Sergey Brin, Google cofounder

Billionaire Boyz on the move

• Mark Zuckerberg — Miami, Florida — Purchased a $170 million waterfront mansion on Indian Creek Island — the most expensive home sale in Miami-Dade County history (2024).

• Sergey Brin (Google co-founder) — Lake Tahoe, Nevada — Bought a $42 million waterfront compound on the Nevada side and relocated multiple California LLCs before the 2026 cutoff (2024).

• Jeff Bezos — Miami, Florida — Spent approximately $237 million acquiring three properties on Indian Creek Island (2023).

• Larry Page (Google co-founder) — Miami, Florida — Purchased two waterfront estates in Coconut Grove for a combined $173.4 million (2023).

• Elon Musk — Boca Chica / Starbase, Texas — Lives in a ~$50,000 modular home near the SpaceX launch site. Also spends time at properties in the Austin area (2020).

• Peter Thiel — Miami, Florida — Moved Thiel Capital operations there (2023).

• Sylvester Stallone — Palm Beach, Florida — Permanent residence (2023).

• Bill Gurley (Benchmark) — Austin, Texas (2022).

• Keith Rabois — Miami, Florida (2023).

• Jim Breyer — Austin, Texas — Moved Breyer Capital headquarters there (2020).

• David Sacks — Austin, Texas — Established a major new office for Craft Ventures there (2023).

• Joe Lonsdale — Austin, Texas —Moved 8VC to Austin (2021).

• Drew Houston (Dropbox CEO) — Austin, Texas (2023).

• Marc Andreessen (Andreessen Horowitz co-founder) — Miami, Florida (2023).

• Travis Kalanick (Uber co-founder) — Austin, Texas (2025).

Tech company escapes

• Oracle → Austin, Texas (2020)

• Tesla → Austin, Texas (2021)

• X (formerly Twitter) → Bastrop, Texas (2024)

• Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) → Spring/Houston, Texas area (2020)

• Charles Schwab → Westlake, Texas (2020)

• Roblox → Nevada (2025)

• Palantir → Denver, Colorado (2020)

• SpaceX → Starbase / Boca Chica, Texas (2021)

This wave of departures is not solely a reaction to the current ballot measure. It reflects a broader, multi-year exodus driven by high taxes, heavy regulation, rising crime, and a surge in the homeless population in major cities.

High-productivity individuals and companies generate disproportionate economic activity—jobs, innovation, investment, and tax revenue. When they leave, the entire ecosystem suffers—including small businesses that supply goods and services to this high-growth sector. Ultimately, the burden falls on middle-class and working families through slower wage growth, fewer jobs, and strained public finances.

Laws of the Cryptocosm #31: Capital and talent always flow toward the jurisdictions that treat them as assets rather than liabilities.

It’s a bad idea to Californicate the nation in 2028. Our great entrepreneurial talent will not just flee the state; they will flee the country.

Did you know?💡

Stay relevant and on top

Below is the breaking news and inside wisdom you need to stay relevant and on top of emerging private tech companies, VC investors, Big Tech, and the innovation trends shaping the global Silicon Valley. All links lead to AI-generated research from a decisively venture-capital perspective.

Are we missing any action? Hit us up now at @CryptoniteRap or TheEditor@CryptoniteVentures.com

Following the Money 🤑

VC Deals ($5M+) – April 21–28, 2026💰

💰 Ineffable Intelligence (London, UK) raises $1.1B at $5.1B valuation | AI (reinforcement learning-based superintelligence systems that learn and discover without any human-generated data; founded by ex-DeepMind’s David Silver) | Investors: Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners (co-leads), Index Ventures, Google, Nvidia, UK Sovereign AI fund (April 27)

💰 Vast Data (New York, NY) raises $1B Series F at $30B valuation | Infrastructure / Compute / AI (software platform for managing large-scale data systems purpose-built for AI training and inference) | Investors: Drive Capital and Access Industries (co-leads), Nvidia, Fidelity, NEA (April 22–24)

💰 True Anomaly (Centennial, CO) raises $650M Series D | Defense Tech / Autonomous Vehicles (autonomous orbital vehicles and systems for space superiority, inspection, and defense) | Investors: Eclipse and Riot Ventures (co-leads) + Paradigm, Atreides, others (April 28)

💰 Ray Therapeutics (Berkeley, CA) raises $125M Series B | Healthcare / Biotech (optogenetic therapies using light-sensitive proteins to restore vision in patients with retinal diseases) | Investors: Janus Henderson Investors (lead), Adage Capital, Franklin Templeton, Invus, Novo Holdings, Deerfield, others (April 21)

💰 Pudu Robotics (Shenzhen, China) raises ~$150M at >$1.5B valuation | Robotics / Embodied AI (service, cleaning, delivery, and industrial logistics robots) | Investors: Undisclosed group including Longgang Financial Holdings, BAIC Capital, Lens Technology (April 23)

💰 Reliable Robotics (Mountain View, CA) raises $160M | Autonomous Vehicles / Defense Tech / AI (FAA-certifiable autonomous aircraft systems for commercial cargo and military operations) | Investors: Nimble Partners (lead), Eclipse, Lightspeed, Coatue, RTX Ventures, Boeing AE Ventures (April 21)

💰 Verda (Helsinki, Finland) raises $117.2M | Infrastructure / Compute / AI (AI-optimized cloud platform for large-scale machine learning workloads) | Investors: Lifeline Ventures (lead), byFounders, Tesi, Varma (April 23)

💰 Sereact (Stuttgart, Germany / Boston, MA) raises $110M Series B | Robotics / AI (predictive world models and Cortex platform for advanced robotic manipulation and autonomy) | Investors: Headline (lead), Bullhound Capital, Felix Capital, Daphni + existing investors (April 26)

💰 Tortugas Neuroscience (Framingham, MA) raises $106M (seed + Series A) | Healthcare / Biotech (small molecule therapies for neurological disorders using validated biological targets) | Investors: Cure Ventures (seed lead), The Column Group and AN Venture Partners (Series A co-leads) (April 21)

💰 AcuityMD (Boston, MA) raises $80M Series C at $955M valuation | Healthcare / MedTech AI (platform helping med device companies track product usage, physician adoption, and real-world performance) | Investors: StepStone Group (lead), Benchmark, Redpoint, Iconiq, Atreides (April 21)

💰 Omni (San Francisco, CA) raises $90M Series C at $1.5B valuation | Enterprise AI (governed data platform that turns company data into a source of truth for analytics and AI queries) | Investors: Iconiq (lead), Theory Ventures, First Round, Redpoint, GV (April 21)

💰 Cloudsmith (Belfast, UK) raises $72M Series C | Cybersecurity (secure repository and management platform for software supply chain across packages, containers, and ML models) | Investors: TCV (lead), Insight Partners (April 23)

💰 Orkes (Santa Clara, CA) raises $60M Series B | Enterprise AI (orchestration platform that automates workflows across AI agents, humans, and microservices) | Investors: AVP (lead), Prosperity7 Ventures + Nexus, Battery, Vertex (April 23)

M&A Deals ($100M+) 🤝

🤝 Cohere (Toronto, Canada) acquires Aleph Alpha (Heidelberg, Germany) | Enterprise / Sovereign AI (merger creating major non-U.S. AI powerhouse for enterprise and government use) | Schwarz Group investing $600M (April 24)

🤝 Cyera (New York, NY) acquires Ryft (Israel) for est. $100–130M | Cybersecurity / AI Data (data security + automated governance tools for AI systems)

IPOs & SPACS 📈

📈 X-energy (Rockville, MD) raises ~$1.02B upsized IPO | Sustainability / Cleantech / Infrastructure (small modular nuclear reactors powered by AI data center demand) | Nasdaq: XE, ~$11.9B valuation (April 23)

📈 Forge Nano (Thornton, CO) enters ~$1.6B de-SPAC merger | Semiconductors / Deep Tech Hardware (atomic layer deposition tech for AI chips, batteries, and defense) (April 21)

💥 Did we miss your company’s new funding, IPO, filing, or M&A deal? Post it below in the comments or hit us up directly — @CryptoniteRap or TheEditor@CryptoniteVentures.com

VC Whispers 💸

💸 Lime Rock New Energy (New York, NY) – Closed $640M Lime Rock New Energy Fund II focused on growth-stage energy transition investments in renewables, grid modernization, industrial and built-environment efficiency, and transport decarbonization. | Fund II doubles size from Fund I; strong returning LPs plus new European and Asian investors. (April 22)

💸 Kurma Partners (Paris, France) – Closed €215M ($252M) Biofund IV focused on European biotech startups and disruptive therapeutics for severe diseases. | Plans 16-20 new investments. Cornerstone LPs: Bpifrance, CSL, European Investment Fund, Eurazeo. (April 23)

💸 Ground State Ventures (Amsterdam, Netherlands) – Closed $88M early-stage quantum technology fund (exceeded $70M target). (April 28)

💸 Nomi Capital (New York, NY) – Closed Nomi Defense Fund I targeting over $50M in total platform deployments for next-generation defense and dual-use technology across autonomy/unmanned systems, AI/communications, manufacturing/supply chain, space technologies, and energy/power. | Already invested in companies including Firehawk Aerospace and Starfish Space. (April 28)

👳🏽‍♂️ BGV (Silicon Valley, CA) – Announced expansion with new Partners Ziv Elul and Robert Pincas, plus Venture Partner Eitan Efron as part of Dual Use Center of Excellence focused on defense/commercial tech, AI, and related areas. (April 28)

💥 Did we miss your VC firm’s announcement for raising a new fund, bringing on a new general and/or venture partner? Post it below in the comments or hit us up directly — @CryptoniteRap or TheEditor@CryptoniteVentures.com

Company Scoops This Week 🗞️

The Magnificent 14🪄

✨ Microsoft (MSFT): Reported strong Q3 FY2026 results with revenue and EPS beats; Azure grew ~40% YoY amid AI demand. Cloud and AI investments remain high with surging capex. (April 29)

✨ Amazon (AMZN): Q1 2026 net sales +17% YoY to $181.5B (beat estimates); AWS +28% YoY to $37.6B on strong AI/enterprise cloud demand (fastest growth in 15 quarters). Operating income +30% to $23.9B; net income boosted by Anthropic investment gains to $30.3B ($2.78 EPS). Heavy AI capex continued. Shares mixed in after-hours. (April 29)

✨ Alphabet (GOOG/GOOGL): Q1 2026 revenue +22% YoY to ~$109.9B (beat); Google Cloud topped $20B with strong growth and backlog surge. Enterprise AI as primary cloud driver; overall beats and positive reaction. (April 29)

✨ Nvidia (NVDA): No report today (last was fiscal Q4/FY2026 in late Feb; next expected ~May 20). Strong prior momentum in data center/AI.

✨ Meta (META): Q1 2026 results reported with EPS beat (~$7.31 vs ~$6.67 est.); strong ad revenue/AI tools momentum expected amid high capex for AI infrastructure. (April 29)

✨ Apple (AAPL) — Announced a major leadership transition with Tim Cook stepping down as CEO to become Executive Chairman and John Ternus named new CEO. The shift includes hardware leadership changes under Johny Srouji, positioning the company for its next phase of AI innovation. (April 20)

✨ Apple (AAPL) — Introduced a new App Store subscription option allowing developers to offer lower monthly pricing with a 12-month commitment. The tier improves user affordability while ensuring developer revenue stability and rolls out globally (except U.S. and Singapore initially) with iOS 26.5 in May. (April 27)

✨ Meta (META) — Faced a major setback as China ordered the unwind of its $2B Manus AI-agent acquisition after a national security probe. The block highlights U.S.-China AI tensions; separately, Meta signed a space-based solar power deal with Overview Energy for data centers. (April 27)

✨ Microsoft (MSFT) — Is offering voluntary buyouts to ~7% of its U.S. workforce targeting long-serving employees amid heavy AI capex. This first-ever program follows prior layoffs as the company balances surging cloud/AI investments with stock challenges ahead of April 29 earnings. (April 23)

✨ Amazon (AMZN) — Deepened ties with Anthropic via substantial new investment and AWS usage commitments while expanding AI/cloud initiatives. It also acquired Globalstar assets to challenge competitors in satellite communications. (April 20)

✨ Alphabet (GOOG) — Made a major investment in Anthropic as part of broader AI ecosystem support. The move aligns with hyperscalers’ aggressive spending on advanced models and infrastructure. (April 20-24)

✨ Google (GOOG) — Signed a new contract expanding Pentagon access to its AI tools for classified networks for any lawful purpose. This followed Anthropic’s refusal on domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons uses despite internal employee opposition. (April 28)

✨ Nvidia (NVDA) — Reclaimed a $5T market cap milestone driven by sustained AI demand and broader chip sector rally. The stock hit record levels with a strong forward outlook for AI infrastructure. (April 24)

✨ Intel (INTC) — Delivered strong Q1 earnings that beat expectations, driven by AI CPU demand and signaling a turnaround. The results lifted peers including AMD and Nvidia. (April 23)

Private Company Leaders 🚀

🚀 OpenAI — Projects consumer subscribers (including new $8 ad-supported ChatGPT tier) reaching 122 million this year, shifting toward volume and advertising revenue. It recently missed internal revenue and user targets amid rising compute costs. (April 27)

🚀 OpenAI — Released GPT-5.5 with major gains in coding, agentic tasks, and performance for paid users. The update advances autonomous AI capabilities amid competitive pressure. (April 23)

🚀 Anthropic — Secured up to $40B from Google ($10B immediate at ~$350B valuation) to bolster compute and model development. It ran Project Deal, an internal agent-on-agent commerce marketplace experiment, while declining certain Pentagon uses. (April 24)

🚀 Anthropic — Continued momentum with Claude Opus 4.7 and Mythos model releases focused on enterprise features like advanced coding and vision. The company secured major additional funding from Amazon ahead of potential IPO. (April 16)

🚀 OpenClaw — Is struggling with enterprise adoption after its viral open-source success. Companies avoid upgrades due to breaking changes and security issues with add-ons; founder Peter Steinberger called the situation “impossible” given its side-project origins. (April 22)

Blockchain & Crypto 🔗

🔗 Bitcoin (BTC) — Climbed above $79,000, its highest since early February, amid renewed momentum. The rally lifted related stocks including Circle and Coinbase with potential for further short covering. (April 22)

🔗 Circle (CRCL) / Coinbase (COIN) — Saw stocks rise on Bitcoin’s rally and broader crypto strength. USDC positioning and exchange activity benefited despite ongoing regulatory considerations. (April 22)

🔗 Western Union / Solana (SOL) — Plans to launch its Solana-based stablecoin USDPT next month for on-chain settlements as a faster SWIFT alternative. It is building a Digital Asset Network and “Stable Card” for global spending. (April 27)

🔗 Gemini (GEMI) — Launched Agentic Trading, enabling users to connect models like ChatGPT and Claude directly to trading accounts for autonomous execution. Built on Anthropic’s MCP standard, it advances regulated agentic AI in crypto. (April 27)

🔗 Ripple's (RLUSD) stablecoin supply neared $1.6 billion, driven by institutional demand and partnerships like K Bank for remittances, though this builds on prior momentum without a headline event.

💥 Did we miss your company or crypto announcement? Let us know @CryptoniteRap or TheEditor@CryptoniteVentures.com

Current Entrepreneurial Wisdom💡

“Tesla AI is where the rubber hits the road. ‘Make no mistakes’ is not just a meme joke for self-driving AI. Tesla AI saves lives every day, at large scale. No other AI team can yet make that claim.”
— Elon Musk, CEO Tesla & xAI (April 24)

“Every agent will need its own computer. And with new Hosted agents in Foundry, every agent gets its own dedicated enterprise-grade sandbox, with durable state, built-in identity and governance.”
— Satya Nadella, CEO Microsoft (April 22)

“Great in-depth interview with Thomas [Kurian] and Ben on GCP, Gemini Enterprise, Agents, TPUs etc.”
— Sundar Pichai, CEO Alphabet (April 24, highlighting the agentic moment)

Read more

Invitation to be a Cryptonite Original

Are you tired of social networks treating you like a product—selling your data, bombarding you with ads, and leaving you without real ownership or rewards? Are you looking for a social environment where AI agents are at your fingertips to give you a boost, multiply your efficiency, and manage all your outside AI agents in a single hub?

Cryptonite is changing that by empowering innovators like you with a Web3, privacy-focused social platform, offering $CPRO rewards to top contributors, and providing Grok-powered native AI agents and a personal AI hub to manage and leverage your external agents.

As a select member of our community, we invite you to join our mission to build a premier AI-centric Web3 social network and mark your place in innovation history as a Cryptonite Original!

💥 Price Roadmap: Buy $CPRO at $0.01 now, before we sell out (limited supply), and watch the value double to $0.02 at the Cryptonite v.05 launch in Q2 2026, then rise again to $0.025 at the v1.0 release in Q2 2026.

💥 Our $CPRO Vision: Convert our Weekly Rap readers and other professional readers over to the social network, building toward a 500,000-member community, and then take the $CPRO public in the ~Q3-4 2026 at an initial $0.03 price (details below).

Why Join Now?

💥 Instant Value: $CPROs will double in value.

💥 Exclusive Perks: Up to $2,600+ in value, tailored to your tier, including a 3-year Weekly Rap and Cryptonite premium subscription ($594 value) + Cryptonite Original NFT badge for your AI-enhanced profile page. Those who invest over $5,000 also receive guest tickets to our annual Silicon Valley Summit.

After you purchase your $CPROs, we will send you a receipt confirming the transaction. We will then work with you to deliver your $CPROs to your new RO wallet at the Cryptonite network launch, and your Cryptonite Original NFT will be showcased on your member profile.

We look forward to welcoming you as one of the very first Cryptonite Originals—an epic distinction!

💥 Join the Cryptonite $CPRO Club on Telegram

All the best,
Anthony Perkins, founder & editor, Cryptonite theeditor@cryptoniteventures.com

P.S. Limited allocation—first-come, first-served for Cryptonite Original status!

💥Buy CPROs @ $0.01—Lowest price!

💥Buy your CPROs with crypto here!

Problem – Why Web2 networks failed us

First-generation Web2 social networks have devolved into aimless, chaotic, and entropic environments that have lost most of their original value. Big Social treats us as their products—selling our personal data like commodities, while using ad tracking and dopamine tactics to waste our time and diminish our well-being. Web2 social apps also lack privacy and content ownership, leaving users at risk of deplatforming and shadowbanning. Moreover, these apps lack modern, personalized AI assistance to help members efficiently navigate infobesity and maximize connections.

Solution – A purpose-driven, AI-centric, Web3 network

Cryptonite is riding the Web3 social wave—replacing Web2 chaos with a purpose-driven, AI-centric network for global Silicon Valley innovators. Members own their content, earn $CPRO token rewards for contributions, and engage in encrypted peer-to-peer collaboration—all while multiplying productivity through Grok-powered native AI agents and easy access to external agents via our personal AI hub. Our mission is to empower the ambitious to efficiently cut through infobesity, spot trends, match with top experts, partners, investors, and new friends, build $CPRO wealth, and, most critically—stay relevant.

The Cryptonite PRO token ($CPRO) economically aligns the Cryptonite community by tokenizing the ‘currency’ the legendary Mr. Moritz refers to above. Under the Cryptonite design, members utilize $CPROs to buy, sell, trade, and reward expertise and influence across the world’s most powerful, innovative, and professional network.

How Cryptonite helps you stay relevant

💥 Your Cryptonite I.D. – The Ultimate Web3 Business Card
Your profile showcases a Grok AI-generated CV, your key web and social links, professional skill + innovation tags, network power stats, sector rankings, and NFT merit badges. Connect and share your profile link instantly or in person via QR code.

💥 Curated Daily Rap + EliXr community blog keeps you on top
Unlike any other social network, Cryptonite’s Daily Rap blog section sets the community’s purpose and content standards, inspiring members who post on our EliXr community page. Our editorial approach aligns closely with The Economist: curating and offering informed opinion on the most high-signal, high-impact news, trends, and developments across global innovation industries. All our editorial content is economically expressed, assumes high intelligence, and is optimized for member results.

In just three years, the Cryptonite Weekly Rap newsletter grew to 500,000 subscribers, strongly validating our editorial approach and building a high-caliber audience ready for deeper, interactive engagement on the platform.

Our native AI editorial agents also kick off the comments section with initial comments that add more perspective value, and co-hosting debates—all in an AI-optimized environment where the best ideas rise to the top and earn $CPRO rewards.

💥 Access Cryptonite Wizards & Tribes + Exclusive CPRO discounts
$CPRO is the exclusive payment method for discounted premium memberships, Wizard (top-ranked experts) subscriptions, and joining Cryptonite Tribes (expert-led groups). As a $CPRO holder, you may also pay to establish your Personal AI Hub and 3rd-party events, platforms, and services featured in the $CPRO Shop.

💥 Build your reputation and earn crypto rewards
We honor the 80/20 rule of social networks (where 20% of members create 80% of the value) by rewarding the top 20% of our contributors with 20% of subscription revenues each week. Leading contributors are also recognized in profile rankings and prioritized in posts, comments, and profile searches—all optimized via Cryptonite’s proprietary algorithms and AI-powered scoring.

💥 AI-Powered Matchmaking & Connections— Connect with the right partners, investors, experts, and new friends through Grok-driven intelligent matchmaking and private on-device AI search.

Our system analyzes profiles, expertise, interests, and goals to surface high-impact opportunities and meaningful connections — transforming serendipity into valuable partnerships and lifelong professional and personal relationships.

Whether you’re seeking co-founders, investors, collaborators, mentors, or new friends in the Friend Network, Grok-powered AI helps you find and connect with the right people at the right time.

💥 Encrypted Messaging with $CPRO Send & Reward Features —Communicate securely with end-to-end encrypted messaging powered by XMTP.

You can send $CPRO tokens directly in chats for instant tips, payments, or peer-to-peer rewards. Cryptonite Wizards can set their own $CPRO reward rates for responses and consultations, turning their expertise into immediate, earnable value.

This feature creates a seamless, value-driven communication layer — enabling fast, private, and monetizable interactions across the entire Cryptonite ecosystem.

💥 Live Audio Rooms – Group & Peer-to-Peer Voice Chats — This premium feature brings natural, end-to-end encrypted live audio conversations to Cryptonite — a Web3 evolution of Clubhouse.

Members can instantly start:

• One-on-one “Waves” (private calls)

• Multi-user Live Audio Rooms

Use cases include strategy brainstorming, Wizard AMAs, Tribe discussions, Grok-moderated deep dives, and Friend Network mixers. All sessions run over XMTP, with AI-powered transcription, real-time Grok insights, and seamless $CPRO tipping during conversations.

💥 Embedded Self-Custodial Turnkey Wallet — Automatically created during registration via Turnkey, your embedded self-custodial $CPRO wallet receives and holds your $CPRO tokens, allows you to buy more, and manages your Cryptonite-issued NFTs — all without requiring seed phrases, browser extensions, or any external wallet setup.

It features a clean custom dashboard for viewing virtual balances, previewing TGE claims, and accessing in-app features such as member profiles, encrypted messaging (XMTP), and Grok AI agents. This ensures seamless claims, rewards, and overall app usability with zero friction for new users.

💥 Enjoy True Privacy and Data Ownership — Without Exploitation Risks. You retain full decentralized control of your personal data, content, and professional connections. Everything is secured on the tamper-proof Solana blockchain for transactions and 0G’s high-performance decentralized storage and data availability layer for permanent, user-owned content and social graph data.

All of this is supercharged by Grok AI for privacy-restricted RAG indexing and Dragonfire’s decentralized inference.

This hybrid Web3 architecture eliminates Big Social-style algorithmic manipulation and data exploitation, delivering true censorship resistance and verifiable ownership in Cryptonite’s innovation-driven community.

💥 Introducing—The Cryptonite Friend Network

We believe adding a dedicated Friend Network to our professional platform will enrich members’ lives in meaningful ways we can’t yet fully imagine.

To help restore chivalry and balance, women join for free. Gentlemen pay just $6 per month in $CPRO (or $9 in fiat) — a fraction of what mainstream dating apps charge ($20–$80+ per month).

Thanks to our decentralized, credential-verified signup process, the people you connect with are far more likely to be exactly who they say they are — real professionals with real backgrounds.

The game-changer? Instead of mindlessly swiping through random profiles, you can search the entire network for ideal connections. Grok-powered AI agents act as intelligent confidants and wingmen — providing personalized match suggestions, conversation starters, strategy tips, and seamless handoffs through your Personal AI Hub.

The Cryptonite Friend Network isn’t limited to dating. It’s a true personal network for building friendships, finding activity partners (cycling, salsa dancing, hiking, golf, etc.), and expanding your social circle — all while earning $CPRO rewards for genuine connections and meaningful contributions.

We believe this feature is going to work exceptionally well — and we’re genuinely excited to see the positive impact it creates across the Cryptonite community and beyond.

💥Buy CPROs @ $0.01—Lowest price!

💥Buy your CPROs with crypto here!

Team & Advisors

The Cryptonite ecosystem is led by founder and editor Anthony Perkins, a Silicon Valley OG and pioneer in tech media (previously founder of Red Herring and AlwaysOn). He collaborates closely with long-time Art Director and UI/UX designer Arnaud Ghelfi and tokenomics expert Rayco Garcia.

Primary development is led by our partners at Hola Tech (a specialist team in Web3, blockchain, and AI product engineering). The platform leverages 0G’s modular AI infrastructure for verifiable compute, decentralized storage, and high-performance AI agents, while quantum computing and AI infrastructure are powered by our partner Dragonfire.

Cryptonite is further supported by a network of over 60 prominent Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, industry insiders, and angel investors who provide strategic guidance to help build and scale the decentralized social network powered by $CPRO.

The Cryptonite Technology Stack

Cryptonite is built on a robust, privacy-first, and high-performance hybrid stack designed to deliver seamless $CPRO utility across onboarding, content, rewards, payments, and governance — while maximizing AI differentiation.

Core Blockchain & Token Layer

• Solana Mainnet + Devnet (primary token economy & rewards layer)

  • Token-2022 standard with native Transfer Fee extension for $CPRO (1% fee: 50% burned / 50% to treasury + 0.2% auto-burn on rewards)

• 0G Modular Layers (full AI, storage, and compute power)

  • 0G Storage + Data Availability for true member social graph ownership and distributed content

  • 0G Compute for verifiable Grok-powered AI agents, Personal AI Hub, and Wizards

  • Cross-chain integration via official 0G SDKs + Chainlink CCIP (Solana ↔ 0G)

Infrastructure & Monitoring

• Helius (Solana RPC, indexing, webhooks, crank automation)

• 0G Storage/Compute SDKs and indexers

• Redis/Upstash for queues and rate limiting

User Onboarding & Authentication

• Turnkey Embedded Wallets (frictionless, cost-efficient non-custodial wallets)

  • Email + TOTP login, full gas sponsorship, programmable policies, seamless Solana + 0G support

Content & Data Management

• Sanity.io (flexible CMS for community content and profiles)

• 0G Storage for permanent, user-owned social graph and content

Communication & Messaging

• XMTP (decentralized, private messaging integrated with $CPRO rewards and interactions)

Treasury & Governance

• Squads (multisig and DAO tools for transparent management of $CPRO ecosystem funds)

Payments & Streaming

• Streamflow (token vesting and streaming for rewards distribution)

• NOWPayments & Stripe (fiat-to-$CPRO ramps)

AI & Infrastructure Partners

• Grok — Core LLM powering Cryptonite Agents, Personal AI Hub, EliXr scoring, matchmaking, and intelligent features

• Dragonfire — Quantum-resistant cloud infrastructure partner (secure backend hosting)

• PostHog, Sentry, Retool/Appsmith (monitoring and internal tools)

This hybrid Solana + 0G stack gives Cryptonite the best of both worlds: Solana’s massive ecosystem, liquidity, and low-fee performance for $CPRO rewards/utility, plus 0G’s full AI-native power for agents, verifiable compute, and distributed ownership — all while keeping the platform fast, private, and scalable.

Utility Within the Cryptonite

Cryptonite fully commits to making $CPRO the ecosystem’s most valuable and indispensable currency. It powers discounts, premium features, rewards, and transactions across the platform — supercharged by Grok-powered AI agents for seamless personalization, intelligent recommendations, and high-velocity interactions.

$CPRO delivers utility through:

• Discounts on paid Cryptonite memberships and Friend Network subscriptions

• Buying, selling, trading, and rewarding expertise, influence, and high-quality contributions

• Exclusive payments for Cryptonite Wizards subscriptions, Tribes memberships, Personal AI Hub access, and other premium features

• In-chat tips and rewards via XMTP, with Grok agents enabling fast, on-chain burns for seamless high-velocity interactions

• Discounts on Cryptonite events, partner events, and services in the $CPRO Shop

• Embedded self-custodial Turnkey wallet for effortless in-app claims, transfers, and Grok-powered wallet analysis

The Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act of 2025 Act of 2025 grants “digital commodity” status to tokens like $CPRO on mature blockchains such as Solana. This regulatory clarity shifts oversight to the CFTC, enabling easier trading while strengthening investor protections — perfectly aligning with our privacy-first, decentralized, and long-term vision.

💥 Claim Your CPROs Now! Limited Supply!

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$CPRO Tokenomics: Building Long-Term Value

We have deliberately designed the $CPRO tokenomics to be thoughtful, patient, and deeply aligned with the long-term success of the Cryptonite network. Rather than following the typical Web3 pattern of aggressive early unlocks and hype-driven launches, we treat $CPRO as the genuine economic backbone of a growing, high-signal professional and social network — one that rewards real usage, real contributions, and sustained membership growth over time.

‘The $CPRO market cap will ultimately quantify the value of being a member of the rapidly growing and global Cryptonite innovator community.’
— Anthony Perkins, Founder, Cryptonite

CPRO Distribution & Vesting

The total CPRO mint is capped at 21 billion tokens. The table below details the precise allocations, percentages, vesting schedules, and projected market caps at each stage:

Additional $CPRO Allocation Notes

• TGE (Token Generation Event) — $CPRO tokens are minted at the v0.5 launch.

• Pre-sale investors ($0.01, $0.02, and $0.025 tiers) — No vesting. Tokens are usable within the Cryptonite app immediately and become fully unlocked and transferable to external wallets or exchanges at the Public Offering.

• Member Rewards — All $CPRO earned through the app (new member onboarding rewards, 80/20 Top Contributors program, peer-to-peer rewards, referrals, etc.) are usable within the Cryptonite app from the moment they are earned and become fully unlocked and transferable at the Public Offering.

• Marketing & Distribution Partners — No vesting. Tokens are fully usable and transferable within the Cryptonite app from launch (primarily for private payments and partnerships) and become liquid on exchanges at the Public Offering.

The 12-Year Vesting on ~60% of Supply

This is the most distinctive and responsible part of our tokenomics design.

$CPRO’s tokenomics are engineered for long-term scarcity by vesting over 60% of total supply — primarily the CPRO Growth Fund and Treasury/Rewards pool — linearly over 12+ years. This extended schedule gives the network the necessary runway to scale organically to millions of active members, thousands of Cryptonite Wizards and Tribes, and deliver increasingly powerful real-world utility.

This approach is reinforced by:

• Multi-year vesting schedules that tightly align founders, partners, and stakeholders

• A dedicated CPRO Growth Fund focused on ecosystem expansion and AI-centric social media adoption

• A robust liquidity pool (CPRO/SOL + CPRO/USDC)

• A built-in deflationary program (usage-based burns)

The result is an ultra-aligned structure that minimizes early selling pressure, ties value accrual directly to real adoption and network growth, and positions $CPRO as a truly deflationary, holder-first token built for decades of lasting wealth creation — not short-term hype cycles. Much like Bitcoin’s halving schedule, this methodical reduction in sell pressure creates enduring scarcity and long-term value for committed holders.

Capped Supply for Broader CPRO Adoption & Velocity

Total mint supply is capped at 21 billion $CPRO (scaled from Bitcoin’s 21 million cap).

This large but finite supply is deliberately designed to keep the price well under $1 for the foreseeable future, enabling a broad, global base of holders to comfortably engage in easy, high-frequency, high-velocity transactions and rewards with minimal friction.

In Cryptonite, $CPRO powers everything from peer-to-peer tips and Wizard bookings to AI agent interactions, EliXr rewards, and cross-community payments — fostering organic growth across the global Silicon Valley and beyond.

💥 Founders, Advisors, and Strategic Partners

Cryptonite collaborates with over 60 seasoned entrepreneurs, investors, early token holders, industry experts, and technology partners. All are subject to multi-year vesting schedules to ensure deep, long-term alignment with the growth and success of the $CPRO ecosystem.

This distinguished group brings extensive expertise in Web3 social platforms, AI integrations (including Grok-powered reasoning for tokenomics, personalization, and community intelligence), and decentralized ecosystems. Together, they are actively helping drive adoption and expansion across global innovation hubs.

💥 CPRO Growth Fund & Startup Lab

Cryptonite Ventures is a dedicated, evergreen venture capital and crypto-strategic investment fund designed to drive long-term $CPRO growth. Our investments focus exclusively on:

• Emerging professional networks that adopt Cryptonite’s social platform and integrate $CPRO as their core reward and reputation capital.

• Companies selected annually for the Cryptonite 300 Private Companies and 300 Companies to Watch competitions.

• Select seed-stage deals co-invested alongside top-tier early-stage investors.

Cryptonite Labs identifies and boosts new AI-centric social media projects and opportunities that want to adopt $CPRO as their core community reward token. Selected teams receive:

• Funding and grants (targeting $250K–$2M per project based on stage and traction)

• Hands-on mentorship from experienced social media, AI, and crypto founders, investors, and industry experts

• Technical integration support to embed $CPRO rewards, wallets, token mechanics, and AI agents

• Co-working space in Menlo Park with fully remote and global participation options, including demo days and ongoing networking

• Liquidity support (DEX pool seeding, market-making guidance, and cross-chain strategies)

• Access to Grok-powered tools for community growth, analytics, and intelligent ecosystem matching

By allocating a substantial portion of $CPRO supply to the Cryptonite Ventures and Labs programs under a 12+ year vesting schedule, we materially reduce near-term circulating supply, promote price stability, and create powerful long-term alignment. As more AI-centric social platforms and communities adopt $CPRO, network effects accelerate — expanding liquidity, utility, and value creation for every $CPRO holder.

This initiative positions $CPRO as the shared economic layer for the next generation of high-signal, AI-native professional and social communities.

💥 Treasury/Member Rewards Program

The Treasury/Member Rewards pool vests linearly over 12 years to ensure sustainable distribution, minimize near-term selling pressure, and perfectly align incentives with the long-term growth of the $CPRO ecosystem. Cryptonite offers three core reward programs:

• New Member Onboarding Rewards — Starting at v0.5 launch, all new members receive up to $12 in $CPRO (max 400 $CPRO). This is a central pillar of our aggressive holder-base growth strategy.

• 80/20 Top Contributors Program — Starting at v1 launch, 20% of weekly $CPRO inflows from paid memberships are distributed to the top 20% most active members. Grok AI powers EliXr scoring for fair, transparent, and hyper-personalized rankings based on content quality, engagement, and community value.

• Member Referral Rewards — Referrers receive $0.30 in $CPRO (max 10 $CPRO) for each new free member and $1.20 in $CPRO (max 40 $CPRO) for each new paid member.

This structured reward system reduces short-term speculation, fosters genuine long-term participation, and establishes $CPRO as the indispensable currency of our ecosystem. All rewards are further enhanced by Grok-powered AI agents running on 0G Compute for intelligent personalization, efficient distribution, and deeper community insights.

💥 CPRO/SOL Liquidity Pool: Robust Liquidity & Security

This conservative allocation (420M CPRO / 2.0% of total supply) delivers strong initial liquidity at TGE on Raydium (Solana), funded primarily with public sale proceeds. The liquidity is fully unlocked and liquid at Public Offering with no vesting.

Liquidity will be allocated as follows:

• 55–60% to the CPRO/SOL CPMM pool — for optimal price discovery and high trading velocity on a new Token-2022 token.

• 40–45% to the CPRO/USDC CPMM pool — for stable-pair depth and seamless fiat on-ramp synergy.

All liquidity is supercharged by Grok AI for real-time wallet analysis, trend detection, and transaction monitoring.

70% of LP tokens (≈294M CPRO worth) are burned immediately upon launch, while the remaining 30% are time-locked for 12 months via Streamflow. This structure makes the pool largely permissionless, non-custodial, and community-driven, with greatly reduced team control or rug risk post-launch. It perfectly aligns with our Bitcoin-inspired long-term scarcity philosophy.

💥 Deflationary Token Mechanics

$CPRO features a sustainable, usage-driven deflationary mechanism. Every $CPRO reward transfer incurs a 0.2% automatic burn via Solana’s native Token-2022 transfer fee extension.

Additionally, a 1% transfer fee applies to all $CPRO transactions:

• 50% is permanently burned (creating long-term scarcity)

• 50% goes to the treasury for rewards, marketing, and ecosystem growth

These fees are fully adjustable via governance. Presale claims, vesting distributions, and certain reward accruals remain fee-exempt.

This dual burn structure steadily reduces total supply as network activity grows, rewards genuine usage, deters bots, and builds holder confidence. It works in perfect alignment with the 12+ year Growth Fund vesting to establish $CPRO as a thoughtful, deflationary utility token with strong fundamentals. The mechanism is further amplified by Grok-powered AI agents that enable high-velocity, on-chain interactions and payments across the Cryptonite ecosystem and partner communities.

Transparent CPRO Token Management System

To build maximum trust and minimize risks, Cryptonite employs industry-leading Solana protocols for secure, efficient, and fully transparent $CPRO token management — fully aligned with our patient, long-term philosophy.

• Streamflow: Handles automated vesting, streaming payments, and token allocations using pre-audited smart contracts. On-chain schedules are immutable and publicly verifiable. This ensures fair, predictable distribution for long-vested pools (e.g., the 12-year Treasury/Member Rewards pool with 20% unlocked at Public Offering for early incentives) and seamless, immediate delivery of member-earned rewards (no vesting — usable inside the app from the moment they are issued).

• Squads: Solana’s leading multisig standard for treasury and governance control. It requires multi-party approvals, segregated vaults, and formal proposals, eliminating unilateral actions. This includes strict controls on Marketing & Distribution tokens (fully usable and transferable within the Cryptonite app from launch for partner payments, but non-withdrawable to external wallets until Public Offering).

Together, Streamflow and Squads deliver professional-grade security, operational efficiency, and unmatched on-chain transparency. These tools are further enhanced by Grok-powered AI agents (running on 0G Compute) for real-time wallet analysis, EliXr scoring, and intelligent payment orchestration — strengthening community confidence and ecosystem integrity.

CPRO Exchange & Liquidity Strategy

Based on current data, the table below outlines key decentralized (DEX) and centralized (CEX) exchange options best suited for $CPRO listing and liquidity. These platforms lead Solana’s ecosystem ($1.5T DEX volume in 2025 with frequent monthly peaks of $100B+), and they offer strong SPL token support, low fees, and deep liquidity for utility tokens like $CPRO—perfect for our deflationary mechanics (0.2% burn on transfers).

Exchange Strategy Prioritization

$CPRO launches on Solana’s high-performance ecosystem in the following phases for fast, low-cost, decentralized trading, with the 420M CPRO Liquidity Pool (2.0% of supply, no vesting) providing robust initial depth:

• Primary liquidity on Raydium—Solana’s leading AMM & liquidity hub, with CPRO/SOL pool + partial pre-sale proceeds. LP tokens are partially burned (70% immediate burn / 294M CPRO worth) to support community-driven, non-custodial control and reduce team influence post-launch, while the remaining 30% are time-locked for 12 months.

• Aggregated visibility & best pricing via Jupiter—Solana’s top DEX aggregator, routing trades across Raydium, Orca, Meteora, etc. for minimal slippage and optimal execution.

• Follow with compliant CEXs, including Kraken, Gemini, Crypto.com, for regulated access, fiat on-ramps, and institutional exposure—leveraging $CPRO’s Token-2022 standard for seamless integration.

• Long-term goal: Explore major venues (e.g., Coinbase, Binance.US) as adoption grows, subject to volume, compliance, and listing requirements.

This DEX-first approach prioritizes permissionless trading, deep Solana-native liquidity, and community governance while positioning $CPRO for global accessibility as the ecosystem matures.

CPRO Road Map

The Cryptonite community and content reflect a culture that is smart, clever, pro-innovation, and pro-entrepreneur. Cryptonite stands out by combining curated, original commentary with a privacy-first, AI-centric foundation. By becoming a Cryptonite Original, you secure your place in the history of innovation.

Exclusive $0.01 Pre-Sale for Cryptonite Originals – Act Now!

• Ongoing until v0.5 dApp launch: Exclusive/limited $0.01 pre-sale for Cryptonite Weekly Rap readers and early supporters (Cryptonite Originals campaign).

• Q3 2026: $0.02 pre-sale + v0.5 dApp launch — introducing embedded Turnkey wallets, initial $CPRO rewards/claims, and core social features.

• Q3–Q4 2026: v1 dApp launch with full EliXr community blog, Cryptonite Wizards, Tribes, AI agents, and expanded social graph features on 0G.

• Q4 2026: Public Offering at $0.03 with DEX listing on Raydium (primary) and other Solana AMMs. Strong initial liquidity via CPRO/SOL and CPRO/USDC pools.

• 2027 and beyond: Progressive CEX listings (starting with mid-tier exchanges, followed by major platforms such as Kraken, Binance.US, and Coinbase).

Limited supply @ $0.01

• Price roadmap ($0.01 → $0.02 → $0.025 → $0.03 public)

• Exclusive perks (3-year subs, NFT badge, Summit ticket invites)

💥 Join our Cryptonite CPRO Club group on Telegram here

💎Act now! Limited $.01 pre-sale!

💥Buy your CPROs with crypto here!

Contact Us

Cryptonite Weekly Rap members interested in buying CPROs in the $0.01 sale, with further questions, can contact Tony Perkins at theeditor@cryptoniteventures.com

The Ivies’ shocking show of humility

A 10-professor panel convened by Yale’s president just released a report that—shockingly—acknowledges the sharp decline in public trust in higher education is the fault of universities, especially elite Ivies. Why? In no particular order: ridiculous tuition ($90k/year, 60% to overhead), overpriced books and living costs, backroom admissions deals, political bias, free-speech crackdowns, and curricula disconnected from the real world.

A 2024 Gallup poll shows confidence in higher ed dropping from 57% a decade ago to 36% in 2024, with 70% of Americans saying the system’s heading in the wrong direction

Student reactions call the report detached from the pressures of undergrad life. External critics (e.g., alumni groups) say it overlooks DEI orthodoxy and governance issues.

Our youth suffer like never before. The modern education system, corporate media, Hollywood, political parties, and social networks have stolen their identities. We send them to “four-year colleges” that prolong adolescence under the guise of “learning to live on their own”—while stacking them with criminally high debt. They emerge at 22, when they should be launching at 16.

The Great Academic Overhead Rip-Off 😳

60% of elite-university tuition funds are non-instructional expenses. Public schools pay over three times the overhead of typical Catholic schools. Let’s redirect that money to kids for real educational experiences—and to the teachers and counselors who deliver them.

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Gen Z — Groomed to be fired

Parents dream of their kids landing in jobs they are passionate about and can make a living. Silicon Valley hires many overeducated ones—but Gen Z has a notorious rep: self-entitled, low initiative, dodging calls, craving safe spaces, brittle under feedback. Studies show 74% of managers find Gen Z the hardest to work with; 60% fire them within months; many skip recent grads entirely.

Cryptonite education drop – The new model

We can keep pretending, but the premise that a “four‑year college degree” is the default path to a meaningful life is dead. It is dated, overpriced, inefficient, and sustains mediocre instruction while unnecessarily prolonging adolescence and piling on debt. We are from Silicon Valley, where new industries are built by fixing broken systems. Here is a “big‑picture” change that is worth considering.

Blockchain‑based transcripts

The first step in rethinking education is to let go of the idea that being “educated” means attending a single institution and graduating. Learning begins before school and continues long after; it is a lifelong sequence of experiences, many of which happen outside formal classrooms. To reflect that reality, we need to move beyond the notion that any one school controls and curates a student’s record.

One practical way to do this is a public, immutable, blockchain‑based merit‑badge system that records and validates all educational experiences, allows users to rate programs in an Airbnb‑like fashion, and opens them to critique in return. This system would begin in early childhood and extend throughout a person’s life.

Instead of transcripts managed by school administrators, individuals would own their own records. They could share them in whole or in part—when applying for classes, internships, or jobs—while retaining control over who sees what. The records would include a far broader range of achievements than traditional grades: lifeguard certificates, sports‑team participation, languages learned, books read, math levels completed, internships, part‑time jobs, and educational travel.

A merit‑badge model like this would make learning more visible, more granular, and more motivating. It would give young people a concrete way to track their progress and build self‑esteem around real accomplishments, not just institutional evaluations at a fixed point in time. It would also create a more transparent, fraud‑resistant infrastructure for verifying skills and experiences across borders and institutions.

The substantial taxpayer savings under this new structure could be redistributed to students in the form of tokens they can use to pay for external educational classes, mentors, tools, and activities aligned with their interests.

Guided self‑education from 2.5 to 16

In this new model, education is less about sitting in rows and more about directed self‑learning, team‑based projects, and experiential work. Teachers and parents shift from authority figures into guides, counselors, and expert mentors who help children discover and develop their passions and validate their accomplishments. From about 2.5 years old to 16, the system unfolds across three broad stages.

Stage 1: Ages 2.5–12 – Brain development, core knowledge, and skills
From roughly 2.5 to 12, the focus is on brain development, language acquisition, and foundational literacy and numeracy. This includes substantial time for free reading, self‑paced math and science (in the spirit of tools like Khan Academy), learning a computer language, and open‑ended play or gaming that allows children to explore as deeply as they choose.

Each public‑school environment would be organized around an immersive, collaborative language program so that students become conversationally fluent in at least one additional language by about age 12. There would also be a strong emphasis on communication through writing, journaling, reading aloud, acting in plays, singing, team science‑project presentations, and public speaking.

Outside‑of‑class time would be rich in social‑interaction activities: free play, nature exploration, gardening, and preparing meals together. History, geography, world cultures, and other “minimum viable subjects” would be taught through lectures, field trips, and documentaries rather than rote memorization. All of this would be accompanied by teacher‑led assessment, validation, and accountability, as well as structured transition planning toward the next stage.

Stage 2: Ages 12–16 – More choice, depth, and responsibility
Between roughly 12 and 16, students gain more freedom to choose passion projects, external learning options, and self-paced curricula. Teachers spend less time lecturing and more time tutoring, providing passion‑development counseling, and helping students find external experiences such as workplace visits, internships, and high‑value online courses taught by world‑renowned faculty. Throughout, students continue to earn merit badges for specific skills and achievements.

This stage balances greater freedom with structured reflection: students learn how to initiate tasks, set priorities, manage time, and follow through on commitments. These are the habits that determine whether they can show up reliably, meet deadlines, and earn trust in any workplace.

Stage 3: Ages 16+ – Expanded class choice, real work & launch
From 16 onward, students work with counselors and mentors to identify and apply for college‑level courses, trade‑school programs, paid jobs, and internships—from auto‑repair shops to tech‑oriented roles. The goal is to provide early exposure to real employers, real schedules, and real feedback so that students learn to handle phone calls, emails, and constructive criticism in a professional setting.

The program would also include explicit instruction in responsible decision‑making, goal‑setting, and financial literacy, including personal money management. Students would learn how to use AI tools to aggregate their blockchain‑based records into CVs tailored to the opportunities they are pursuing.

Flying the roost

From this point forward, education would be framed not as something that ends with a graduation ceremony, but as a lifelong process of learning, experimentation, and adaptation. There would be no fixed end date or time limit, and students would be encouraged to keep learning, pivoting, and reshaping their paths as their interests and markets evolve—all while documenting their achievements in a way that can be leveraged to open up the next opportunity.

Everyone wins—except mediocre professors

The goal is to create a more broadly educated, sophisticated, and self‑directed generation—youth oriented around genuine passions, not institutional checkboxes, and capable of holding a job by about 16. This model would radically reduce education costs and disrupt the traditional college system. College professors would no longer face a captive audience of students locked into a single campus, insulated from competition, and shaped mainly by campus‑specific culture and groupthink.

Instead, professors would be subject to public scrutiny, with feedback, ratings, and outcome data recorded on an open, verifiable infrastructure. In that environment, the free market would reward actual teaching quality, and the best instructors—whether from MIT, Stanford, or smaller institutions—could reach far larger audiences and earn dramatically more than they do today. That combination of scale, visibility, and upside would attract higher‑caliber teaching talent into the system.

Students from more diverse socioeconomic backgrounds would gain access to high‑quality instruction without navigating opaque admissions pipelines or paying elite‑university tuition. Donors and public funders could invest directly in specific learning experiences for economically disadvantaged students, knowing that results would be transparent and verifiable. Running on an immutable network with minimal overhead, the system would enforce tight fraud controls, ensure clear accountability, and gradually phase out weak programs.

The result would be a more dynamic, accountable, and merit‑driven education ecosystem—explosive in its potential, verifiable in its outcomes, and fundamentally oriented around what is best for young people. Drop complete.

—Anthony Perkins, founder & editor, Cryptonite, Medellín, Colombia —Talk to me @HeyTPerk or TheEditor@CryptoniteVentures.com

Dear Cryptonite Readers,

Apple cofounder Steve Jobs ran on the 80/20 rule (80% signal, 20% noise). Rumor has it, Elon Musk hits 100% signal—zero distractions.

Speaking of paying attention to seminal signals—that’s the business Cryptonite is in.

John Keating nails it — “Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary.” Pure signal. 📡

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Apple gets a new boss — Welcome, John Ternus 🍏

As the original Apple cult used to say when the company had a rainbow‑colored Apple logo: “We bleed Apple colors.” Microsoft was the enemy for stealing the Apple graphical user interface back in the 1980s. Google became the new enemy when its CEO, Eric Schmidt, smugly sat on Apple’s board and engaged in what Steve Jobs viewed as “grand theft” by suddenly introducing Android, which clearly mimicked the iPhone experience.

We therefore care deeply about who Apple’s CEO is because we have never used a Windows box or an Android phone. We do not know John Ternus , but we like that he was a swimmer at the University of Pennsylvania (discipline!), grew up at Apple since 2001, and sat right at the intersection of industrial design and engineering for his first ~10–12 years. This means he overlapped significantly with Steve Jobs and then Chief Design Officer Jony Ive for at least a decade, so we assume he was sufficiently indoctrinated.

Wall Street should love him because his strength is in execution—scaling hardware (iPads, AirPods, the Apple Silicon transition, iPhone engineering, etc.), and bridging design with manufacturability and margins. With Tim Cook, John has had the best mentor in the world in that department.

Steve Jobs frequently referenced Alan Kay’s line: “People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.” For Jobs, tight integration of hardware and software was essential to delivering a superior user experience. But Jobs knew the customer doesn’t “interact” with chips, supply chains, or casings. The hardware and the rest of the Apple ecosystem were designed to support the software and the apps, not the other way around. This is a tradition we expect to see continued under Mr. Ternus.

Get back to Zen mode

Speaking of software and the customer experience, our major bone to pick with Apple is (as it is with most users) that there has been too much feature creep, which is creating an increasingly disorienting user experience. What happened to Steve Jobs’ Zen approach? A happy life is a simple life. A happy Apple customer is a simple user experience. Is anyone counting the taps to get what we want?

John Ternus has had a gigantically successful career at Apple thus far—that’s why he will soon be the new boss. All of us cult members will be praying for his continued success—for all of our sakes. Our only advice for John is — Keep it simple, bro.

The AiPhone — Help save our youth’s state of spirit

It is well‑documented that The Rap feels our country’s greatest crisis is the state of our kids’ mental health. The social‑media platforms and the Google services that have spun out of Silicon Valley are huge contributors to this epidemic. Previously, we’ve recommended that users under 16 should be outright prohibited from using social‑media apps. We prohibit kids this age from buying cigarettes before they are 18, so why can’t we prevent them from accessing these engines of mental destruction?

For 16‑ and 17‑year‑olds, the same robust ID verification and parental consent should be required, along with real‑time usage monitoring, strict daily time limits, chronological feeds rather than algorithmic ones, bans on direct messages from strangers, and prohibitions on targeted advertising. Parents must also have an effective “kill switch” to shut down access when needed.

Now, for the solution that represents a true Silicon Valley–scale commercial opportunity, we offer up to Apple’s new CEO—let’s call it the AiPhone.

Parents typically allow kids access to smartphones at age 14—90%+ of 14‑year‑olds have them. The value for parents is that they can track and communicate with their kids—a comforting thing. So let’s create the best of all worlds. Imagine an “AiPhone” for teenagers that offers internet‑enabled texting and phone calls, plus a carefully gated AI research chatbot and assistant for looking up information, homework help, and learning, and highly restricted Apple Store options. It would come out of the box with a carefully choreographed selection of health, exercise, nutrition, language translation, writing assistance, calculator, and gated music apps. Include robust location tracking for parents.

Crucially, it would keep young users off the uncensored open web and—above all—away from social‑media networks and any apps approaching PG‑plus content or images. No Google. No dopamine loops. No targeted ads. No stranger or spam text messages. Just tools that support curiosity, learning, and safety without the risks that dominate today’s offerings. Its AI‑enhanced features would also help prepare them for the future, as most jobs will require AI skills and proficiency. The AiPhone elegantly fits into the educational revolution discussed above.

Read our more exhaustive market pitch for the Apple AiPhone here. This move will dramatically grow the Apple pie, bring the private and secure Apple Intelligence approach, and the full Apple ecosystem to the many rather than the few.

Our prediction: the pricey folding iPhone will distract and underwhelm. If Apple goes downmarket with an Apple Intelligence‑powered, affordable AiPhone, it will be a blockbuster—and will help save the next generation’s mental health.

Apple News abuse

Speaking of saving our kids’ mental health. Dear John, do something about Apple News, which Tim Cook has been ignoring. Creating political echo-chambers and division is not a business Apple should be in.

OpenAI looking to replace Sam Altman ahead of IPO?

OpenAI shareholders are privately floating board chair Bret Taylor as a potential CEO replacement for Sam Altman amid concerns over outside investments and conflicts ahead of an ~$850B IPO targeted for late 2026. Investors are also questioning the $852B valuation as the company shifts into enterprise software while rival Anthropic surges with business customers.

Other potential IPO woes

OpenAI is also grappling with a high‑stakes lawsuit from co‑founder Elon Musk, who alleges the company breached its original nonprofit founding agreement by converting to a for‑profit structure and prioritizing commercial gains over its mission to benefit humanity.

Elon is seeking the ouster of Altman and President Greg Brockman as officers, along with up to $134 billion in damages (with proceeds reportedly directed to charity), and the case is headed to a jury trial with selection beginning April 27, 2026—just weeks away.

This litigation introduces significant additional uncertainty for OpenAI’s IPO prospects: it could trigger lengthy disclosures and potential delays in the offering timeline, erode investor confidence during roadshows, create reputational and governance risks, and raise questions about the company’s legal structure and valuation stability amid fierce competition from Anthropic and others. OpenAI has flagged the Musk suits as key risk factors in its IPO‑related planning.

These are the kinds of corporate‑government concerns Cryptonite has shared with our readers for at least 2 years. We bet Sam’s time as CEO is finally coming to an end now that it is between his head and a successful OpenAI IPO.

Anthropic: Out of the outhouse and back to the White House.

Anthropic CEO Dario “Doomer” Amodei met with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to resolve a Pentagon dispute blocking the use of its AI models—including Mythos—for cyber defense; the meeting was described as “productive.” Co‑founder Jack Clark confirmed ongoing briefings with the Trump administration, despite prior labeling of supply‑chain risks.

For the good of the country, we hope Anthropic gets back on track with the Pentagon. We give a new deal a close to 100 percent chance of closing. As we understand it, Anthropic’s two non‑negotiable red lines—no fully autonomous lethal weapons and no mass domestic surveillance—are almost certainly staying intact. More details here.

SpaceX on a post-IPO hunt for Cursor

San Francisco‑based Cursor, a prominent AI coding tool for developers and enterprises, is in talks to raise an additional $2 billion from Thrive and Andreessen Horowitz (co‑leads), and Nvidia (a returning backer), at a pre‑money valuation of more than $50 billion. That’s not the only news humming around the company. IPO‑bound SpaceX (which includes xAI and X) is said to have secured an option to buy the popular platform at a $60 billion valuation later this year, presumably with their new public‑market cash.

The deal rumor comes on top of last week’s announcement that xAI would begin renting computing power from Cursor’s data centers, while the coding startup is using tens of thousands of xAI chips to train its latest AI model. Also, last month, two of Cursor’s most senior engineering leaders, Andrew Milich and Jason Ginsberg, left the company to join xAI, where both report directly to Elon.

SpaceX views the partnership as combining Cursor’s “product and distribution to expert software engineers” with SpaceX’s Colossus supercomputer, which the company claims has the equivalent compute power of a million Nvidia H100 chips. 🤔

Michael Truell tells Cursor’s startup story …

Did you know?💡

Stay relevant and on top

Below is the breaking news and inside wisdom you need to stay relevant and on top of emerging private tech companies, VC investors, Big Tech, and the innovation trends shaping the global Silicon Valley. All links lead to AI-generated research from a decisively venture-capital perspective.

Are we missing any action? Hit us up now at @CryptoniteRap or TheEditor@CryptoniteVentures.com

Following the Money 🤑

📈 Cerebras Systems (Sunnyvale, CA) files S-1 for IPO | Semiconductors/Deep Tech Hardware/AI chips (wafer-scale engines for AI training/inference) | Nasdaq: CBRS planned; targeting $35 billion+ valuation and planning to raise >$3 billion (premium to prior $23B valuation in Feb 2026). (April 17)

💰 Anthropic (San Francisco) Received multiple investor offers for a potential new funding round that could value it at about $800 billion or higher (a significant jump from its earlier ~$350 billion mark in February 2026). The company has so far resisted some terms but has not ruled out raising, with a decision possibly landing in May. (April 18)

💰 Cursor (San Francisco, CA) in talks to raise $2B+ | AI (AI coding tools for developers and enterprises) | Expected investors: Thrive and Andreessen Horowitz (co-leads), Nvidia (returning backer) at pre-money valuation of more than $50 billion (April 17)

💰 Fluidstack (New York, NY) in talks to raise ~$1B at $18B valuation | AI Infrastructure/Compute (high-performance data center infrastructure for AI workloads) | Expected investors: Jane Street and Situational Awareness (co-leads) (April 13)

💰 Slate Auto (Troy, MI) raises $650M Series C | Autonomous Vehicles/Mobility (affordable electric pickup trucks; total raised ~$1.4B) | Investors: TWG Global (lead) (April 13)

💰Recursive Superintelligence (London, UK) raises ~$500M at $4B pre-money valuation | AI (frontier/self-improving superintelligence, ex-DeepMind/OpenAI engineers) | Investors: GV (Google), Nvidia (April 17)

💰 Plata (Mexico City, Mexico) raises $405M Series C at $5B valuation | Fintech (digital banking services including credit cards, deposits, lending, payments) | Investors: Bicycle Capital (lead), QIA, BTG Pactual, Valor Capital Group (April 13)

💰 Beeline Medicines (Boston, MA) raises $300M Series A | Healthcare/Biotech (precision therapies for autoimmune/inflammatory diseases, licensed from BMS) | Investors: Bain Capital (lead) (April 15)

💰 DeepSeek (Hangzhou, China) in talks to raise at least $300M at $10B+ valuation | AI (open-source large language models optimized for high efficiency and low-cost training) | First outside capital raise (April 17)

💰 Glydways (San Francisco, CA) reportedly in discussions to raise ~$250M at $1B valuation | Autonomous Vehicles/Mobility (following the $170M Series C above) | (April ~14–15)

💰 Factory (San Francisco, CA) raises $150M Series C at $1.5B valuation | AI (agentic AI for software development/coding agents) | Investors: Khosla Ventures (lead), Sequoia (April 16)

💰 Sygaldry (Ann Arbor, MI) raises $105M Series A | Semiconductors/Deep Tech Hardware/AI Infrastructure (servers using quantum computing to accelerate AI training and inference) | Investors: Breakthrough Energy Ventures (lead), YC, Rock Yard Ventures, IQT, University of Michigan, others (April 13)

💰 Zūm (Redwood City, CA) raises $100M at $1.7B valuation | Mobility (school transportation coordination platform) | Investors: TPG (lead) (April ~13–20)

💰 Slash (San Francisco, CA) raises $100M Series C at $1.4B valuation | Fintech (business banking, corporate cards, transfers, crypto; Ramp competitor; ~$300M annualized revenue) | Investors: Ribbit Capital, Khosla Ventures, Goodwater Capital (leads), NEA, YC (April 16)

💰 Neomorph (San Diego, CA) raises $100M Series B | Healthcare/Biotech (molecular glue therapies) | Investors: Deerfield Management (lead), Regeneron Ventures, Longwood Fund, Alexandria Venture Investments, Binney Street Capital (April ~13–20)

💰 Loop (San Francisco, CA) raises $95M Series C | AI (supply chain data analysis, disruption prediction, and AI platform for logistics/finance/supply chain operations) | Investors: Valor Equity Partners and Valor Atreides AI Fund (co-leads; Valor is a major xAI backer), 8VC, Founders Fund, Index Ventures, J.P. Morgan Growth Equity Partners (April 17)

💰 nEye (Santa Clara, CA) raises $80M Series C | Semiconductors/Deep Tech Hardware/AI Infrastructure (optical interconnects/optical circuit switches for data centers) | Investors: Sutter Hill Ventures (lead), CapitalG (Alphabet), M12 (Microsoft) (April 16)

💰 Adcendo (Copenhagen, Denmark) raises $75M Series C | Healthcare/Biotech (antibody-drug conjugate therapies for cancer) | Investors: Jeito Capital (lead), Vida Ventures, BPI France, EIFO, previous investors including TCGX, RA Capital, TPG, OrbiMed (April ~13–20)

💰 Wayve (London, United Kingdom) raises $60M (Series D extension) at $8.6B valuation | Autonomous Vehicles/Mobility/AI (software-first, hardware-agnostic autonomous driving system) | Investors: AMD, Arm, Qualcomm Ventures (extension; prior backers include Nvidia, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Stellantis, Uber) (April 15)

💰 Ulysses (San Francisco, CA) raises $38M Series A | Robotics/Autonomous Vehicles (networked fleets of autonomous vehicles for ocean exploration, monitoring, infrastructure protection) | Investors: Andreessen Horowitz (lead), Booz Allen Ventures, Harpoon Ventures, previous including Lowercarbon Capital (April ~13–20)

💰 pH7 Technologies (Vancouver, BC, Canada) raises $32M Series B | Sustainability/Cleantech (electrochemical process to extract metals from low-grade ores and waste streams) | Investors: Fine Structure Ventures (lead), Asahi Kasei, Circular Innovation Fund, BHP Ventures (April 13)

💰 Parasail (San Mateo / San Francisco, CA) raises $32M Series A | AI Infrastructure/Compute (cloud computing for AI model inference; “tokenmaxxing” focus for fast/cheap token generation; generates ~500B tokens/day) | Investors: Touring Capital and Kindred Ventures (co-leads); total raised now ~$42M (April 15)

💰 TextQL (San Francisco, CA) raises $17M | AI (natural language interface for querying enterprise data with agentic analytics) | Investors: Blackstone (anchor/lead), others (April 18)

💰 InsightFinder AI (Durham, NC) raises $15M Series B | AI (IT stability, reliability, agentic AI solutions for infrastructure, data, and AI models) (April 17)

💰 Eigen (San Francisco, CA) raises $15M seed | AI (consumer-facing “mutual friend” AI enhancing human connection, collaboration, and emotional intelligence) | Investors: Benchmark (lead), angels including Ben Silbermann (Pinterest co-founder) (April 18)

💰 Nava (New York, NY) raises $8.3M seed | AI/Fintech (guardrails/verification tools for AI agents managing capital/transactions; autonomous financial agents) | Investors: Polychain and Archetype (co-leads) (April 14)

💰 Prefix (New York, NY) raises $7.5M seed | AI (coordination of maintenance and repair across multi-site retail/restaurant locations; consumer-facing ops efficiency) | Investors: Collide Capital and Slow Ventures (co-leads), Connexa Capital, Elevated Huts, I2BF, Bienville Capital (April 14)

💰 Lua (London, UK) raises $5.8M seed | AI (operating system for building, deploying, and managing human + AI agent workflows) | Investors: Norrsken22 (lead), Flourish Ventures, 20VC, P1 Ventures, Phosphor Capital, Y Combinator, angels (April 16)

💰 Round (London, UK) raises $6M seed | Fintech (AI-powered automation for payments, approvals, payroll, treasury) | Investors: Alstin Capital (lead), Backed VC, Love Ventures (April 13)

💰 GetWhys (Boise, ID) raises $5.2M seed | AI (turns buyer research into go-to-market messaging, content, and sales enablement) | Investors: Epic Ventures (lead), CEAS Investments, Portland Seed Fund, existing investors (April 16)

🤝 OpenAI acquires Hiro (Hiro Finance) | AI/Fintech (consumer-facing AI-powered personal finance and financial planning tools; acqui-hire with team joining OpenAI to build capabilities into ChatGPT) | Terms undisclosed; Hiro platform to shut down April 20 (April 13)

🤝 Amazon acquires Globalstar $11.57B (all-cash) | Infrastructure/Compute (satellite services and spectrum; powers Apple’s Emergency SOS; expands Amazon Leo low Earth orbit network for direct-to-device connectivity) | Deal expected to close in 2027 (April 14)

🤝 Diginex Limited acquires Resulticks Global Companies $1.5B (all-share) | AI (real-time AI-driven customer intelligence solutions; Resulticks had ~$150M CY2025 revenue) | (April 16)

🤝 Palo Alto Networks acquires Koi $400M | Cybersecurity/AI (agentic endpoint security for AI agents/coding) | (April 14)

💥 Did we miss your company’s new funding, IPO, filing, or M&A deal? Post it below in the comments or hit us up directly — @CryptoniteRap or TheEditor@CryptoniteVentures.com

VC Whispers 💸

💸 Accel (Palo Alto, CA) – Closed $5B ($4B Leaders Fund V + $650M sidecar vehicle) for late-stage AI-powered technology with a focus on software, hardware, robotics, defense tech, and data center infrastructure (AI/robotics/infra/defense). | Limited Partner Investors: GIC, Coatue (among others). Firm continues backing major AI players (e.g., Anthropic, Cursor, Perplexity); aims for 20–25 investments with ~$200M average checks to scale toward IPOs/exits and strengthen VC brand in the AI cycle. (April 15)

💸 Sequoia Capital (Menlo Park, CA) – Raised ~$7B new expansion/late-stage fund (nearly double the comparable 2022 vehicle) to expand AI bets, including foundational AI technology, applying AI, and late-stage investments in the U.S. and Europe (AI/robotics/infra). First major raise under new co-stewards Alfred Lin and Pat Grady; continues backing leaders like OpenAI, Anthropic, Physical Intelligence (robotics), and Factory. No LPs detailed. (April 16)

💸 Eka Ventures (London, UK) – Closed £80M (~$107M) Fund II (final close) for early-stage impact investments in UK startups focused on preventive healthcare/wellbeing, sustainable consumption, and access to essential services (health/biotech + sustainability/cleantech). Brings AUM to ~$200M (UK’s largest early-stage impact VC). | Limited Partner Investors: British Business Bank (£40M cornerstone), Better Society Capital, The Health Foundation, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, Vivensa Foundation, and family offices (77% from existing LPs).Average check ~$2M across ~30 companies. (April 13)

💸 Newfund (Paris, France / San Francisco) – Closed €60M (~$65M) HEKA fund (Europe’s first dedicated BrainTech fund) for investments in neurotech, brain-computer interfaces, AI neuroscience, digital therapeutics, and biotech (AI + healthcare/biotech). | Limited Partner Investors: ~100 family offices, entrepreneurs, and reinvesting founders. Plans to back ~25 companies with support for US expansion. (April 14)

💥 Did we miss your VC firm’s announcement for raising a new fund, bringing on a new general and/or venture partner? Post it below in the comments or hit us up directly — @CryptoniteRap or TheEditor@CryptoniteVentures.com

Company Scoops This Week 🗞️

The Magnificent 14 🪄

✨ Snap: Cutting ~1,000 jobs (16% of workforce), citing AI advancements for efficiency gains. Separately, progressing toward a new AI glasses launch via a Qualcomm partnership after a years-long hiatus. (April 15)

✨ Meta (META): Plans major layoffs starting May 20 (~8,000 jobs / 10% of workforce), with additional cuts expected later, explicitly tied to AI capex acceleration and efficiency drives. (April 17)

✨ Microsoft (MSFT): Ongoing discussions around cloud/sales hiring freeze amid record AI capex (~$37.5B Q2) despite Azure 39% YoY growth. (April)

✨ Meta (META): Deepened AI chip partnership with Broadcom extended through 2029, with Meta paying Broadcom $2.3 billion in 2025 for AI chip design and related services. Broadcom CEO Hock Tan is stepping down from Meta’s board due to conflict-of-interest concerns from the expanded business scale. (April 17)

✨ Meta (META): Reports of building an internal AI clone of Mark Zuckerberg for management feedback and decision simulation. (April)

✨ Microsoft (MSFT): Developing a new enterprise-focused AI agent with enhanced security controls, modeled after but improving on open-source agents like OpenClaw. (April 19)

✨ Alphabet (GOOG): In advanced talks with Marvell for new AI chips and TPU inference enhancements. (April 19)

✨ Oracle (ORCL): Strong stock surge on AI/data center momentum and cloud backlog growth. (April)

✨ AMD (AMD): Stock rally amid AI chip demand and data center wins. (April)

✨ Apple (AAPL): Apple Business platform rolled out April 14, expanding enterprise tools. (April 14)

✨ Tesla (TSLA): Stock gains tied to AI/data center and robotics progress. (April)

✨ Tesla (TSLA): Expanded unsupervised robotaxi service to Dallas and Houston, now operating in three Texas cities after the Austin launch, with safety-driver-free rides starting January 2026. (April 18)

Private Company Leaders 🚀

🚀 Anthropic: NSA is using Anthropic’s Mythos Preview model (capable of performing computer security tasks) despite Pentagon-level blacklist/restrictions, amid roughly 40 organizations gaining access and the recent White House meeting. (April 19)

🚀 Anthropic: Released Claude Opus 4.7 with major gains in coding, agents, and a new Design tool; integrated into AWS Bedrock, Google Vertex, Microsoft Foundry. Also, Mythos cybersecurity model buzz and White House engagement. (April 16)

🚀 OpenAI: Launched GPT-Rosalind for life sciences/biotech research and drug discovery, plus Agents SDK updates. (April 16)

🚀 OpenAI: Launched GPT-5.4-Cyber for defensive cybersecurity , following rival moves. (April 15)

🚀 Bluesky: Confirmed a DDoS attack as the cause of ongoing app outages that began on April 15. (April 16)

🚀 Blue Origin: Successfully reused a New Glenn rocket booster for the first time on its third flight (NG-3), a major milestone for its mega-rocket system that lowers costs and positions the company to challenge SpaceX’s dominance in the global launch market. However, there was an issue with the orbit that the rocket’s payload satellite was placed into. (April 19)

🚀 Hightouch: Reached $100M ARR, growing by $70M in just 20 months, powered by its AI agent platform for marketers (on-brand creative generation and data activation). (April 18)

🚀 Physical Intelligence: Released π0.7, a new robot brain model that can generalize to tasks it was never explicitly trained on — an early but meaningful step toward a general-purpose robot brain. (April 19)

🚀 xAI: Announced Grok Speech-to-Text and Text-to-Speech APIs advancing multimodal/voice AI capabilities. (April 17)

🚀 Perplexity AI: Significant revenue growth (ARR $300M–$500M range) from its AI agents pivot. (mid-April)

🚀 Waymo: Continued expansion of autonomous ride-hailing services. (April)

🚀 Cerebras Systems: OpenAI has agreed to pay >$20B over 3 years for high-speed AI compute/servers (expansion from earlier commitment), with potential equity elements and co-design of future models. (April 17)

Blockchain & Crypto 🔗

🔗 Circle (CRCL): Record $500M+ USDC minted in one transaction on Solana, with weekly minting surpassing $3.2B amid high on-chain activity. Signals stablecoin growth and the strength of the Solana ecosystem. (mid-April)

🔗 Polymarket: In talks to raise ~$400M at about $15B valuation (adding to prior $600M raised from Intercontinental Exchange). Signals strong momentum in decentralized prediction markets and crypto-native information markets amid growing election and event betting activity. (Apr 19)

🔗 Kraken: Acquires U.S. crypto derivatives exchange for $550M. Expands derivatives offerings and deepens presence in regulated U.S. crypto trading infrastructure. (Apr 17)

🔗 Solana (SOL): Benefited from Circle’s record USDC activity, driving on-chain volume and DeFi momentum. Boosts private DeFi, NFT, and consumer crypto startups building on high-throughput chains. (mid-April)

🔗 Coinbase (COIN): Ongoing bank charter applications progress and stablecoin regulatory discussions. Supports broader institutional crypto adoption and liquidity for VC-backed crypto infrastructure plays. (April)

🔗 Bitcoin (BTC): Steady ~$75k levels with continued ETF inflows, providing macro tailwinds for private crypto infrastructure, custody, and DeFi companies. (April)

💥 Did we miss your company or crypto announcement? Let us know @CryptoniteRap or TheEditor@CryptoniteVentures.com

Current Entrepreneurial Wisdom💡

“The inner party of AI doomerism is a Berkeley lifestyle grift fueled by unaccountable dark money. The outer party of AI doomerism is young people who believe the propaganda and ruin their lives.”
—Marc Andreessen, CoFounder, Andreessen Horowitz a16z

“Comparing AI chips to selling nuclear weapons is lunacy... We’re not enriched uranium. It’s a chip...Selling to China maintains our ecosystem dominance... conceding the market is a disservice to US tech leadership [and] national security. It would be a horrible outcome if China optimizes future models on a non-US stack.”
—Jensen Huang, CEO Nvidia

“Universal HIGH INCOME via checks issued by the Federal government is the best way to deal with unemployment caused by AI. AI/robotics will produce goods & services far in excess of the increase in the money supply, so there will not be inflation.”

“AI/Robotics will mean everyone can have a penthouse if they want. The output of goods & services will be several orders of magnitude higher...”
—Elon Musk, CEO Tesla, Founder & CEO xAI, Founder & CEO SpaceX

“AI is the fastest-adopted technology I’ve ever seen... it will fundamentally alter every customer experience and is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, moving roughly 10x faster than electricity did. We’re in the middle of a land rush with broad AI capabilities, and AWS is uniquely positioned.”
—Andy Jassy, CEO Amazon

“If AI is the new electricity then it shouldn’t be so easy to turn it off. And if it does get turned off, being able to switch to a new provider and minimize disruption is key... AI is too powerful to let hyperscalers gatekeep it; energy and permitting aren’t a real moat. Founders should abstract models in software and avoid bleeding edge/knowledge to any single provider.”
—Chamath Palihapitiya, Founder & Managing Partner Social Capital

“The U.S. must take the lead in AI and develop it boldly and responsibly so every American benefits...Search is evolving toward an agent manager that completes tasks... AI models will break pretty much all software via zero-days... we’re living exponential progress internally.”
—Sundar Pichai, CEO Alphabet

Jensen Huang: NVIDIA - The $4 Trillion Company & the AI Revolution | Lex Fridman Podcast #494

Read more

The Iranian radical Shia clerical regime will fall, and its people will be freed

One of our January 1 predictions for 2026 anticipated an Iranian regime change. Late December was filled with protests calling for regime change that spread to over 180 cities across Iran. The regime retaliated by killing 2,000+ protestors (this number has risen to 45,000, as daily executions to silence the opposition continue) and 18,000+ arrests (now over 50,000). The tipping point for us was the historically pro-regime bazaar merchant class (known as ‘bazaaris’) joining in the call for regime change and democratic transition. Protestors were chanting ‘Death to Khamenei’ and ‘Seyed Ali (Khamenei) will be overthrown.’

This was not just symbolic; bazaar strikes paralyzed commerce and signaled broader elite discontent. The devaluation of the rial to over 1.4 million to the dollar, 40% inflation, a severe drought in its sixth year, nightly electricity blackouts, and deadly air pollution that shut down schools and businesses were simply too much for Iranians to bear. The key difference between the 2026 protests and previous ones was that the richest and poorest of Iran, the most religious and the most secular, joined together in calling for regime change.

We admit that part of our hope for change in Iran was driven by our deep affection and appreciation for the Persian people of Silicon Valley, whose families arrived in the wake of the 1979 Revolution. Collectively, these amazing people have added entrepreneurial energy and innovation expertise far beyond their numbers, along with great food and festivity to our often monochromatic tech culture.

Back in January, of course, we could never have imagined where Iran — and the U.S. — stands today in the pursuit of an overthrow of the theocratic regime. But here we are, and we will be bold once again. Our original hope for change in Iran has now become 90% certain in our eyes.

The Iranian diaspora erupted in celebration on February 28–March 1, 2026, after news broke of Khamenei’s assassination during US-Israeli strikes. The woman above, proudly holding a pre-1979 Lion and Sun flag, was one of thousands who gathered in Westwood, Los Angeles — known as “Tehrangeles.” Surveys consistently show 90%+ support for regime change as a precondition for meaningful progress among the ~100 million Iranians, both inside the country and in the diaspora.

The Iranian regime’s 47-year track record of terror

For 47 years since the theocrats seized power in Iran, the United States — branded by the regime as the “Great Satan” — has lived under the constant threat of Iran’s motto, “Death to America” (in Persian: Marg bar Āmrikā — مرگ بر آمریکا). During this period, Iran and its proxies (primarily Hezbollah, Shia militias in Iraq, and Hamas) have been responsible for more than 1,000 American deaths and over 4,000 injuries from suicide bombings, blast injuries, traumatic brain injuries (TBIs), shrapnel wounds, and long-term effects — the vast majority of them U.S. service members, along with civilians and diplomats. This came after the regime held 66 Americans hostage for 444 days in 1979–1981.

Our not-so-lovely reminders of Iranian-backed terror

• 1983 Beirut bombings: Iran-backed Hezbollah killed 17 Americans in the U.S. embassy attack and 241 U.S. service members (220 Marines) in the Marine barracks truck bombing — one of the deadliest terrorist attacks on Americans before 9/11. Dozens of other foreigners and Lebanese also died.

• 1996 Khobar Towers bombing (Saudi Arabia): Iran-backed Hezbollah al-Hejaz murdered 19 U.S. airmen and wounded nearly 500 others.

• 1994 AMIA bombing (Argentina): Iranian agents and Hezbollah bombed a Jewish community center, slaughtering 85 people (mostly Argentine Jews) and wounding hundreds.

• 2003–2011 Iraq War: Iranian-backed Shia militias, armed with IRGC-supplied EFPs and advanced weapons, killed at least 600+ U.S. troops and thousands of Iraqi civilians and security forces.

• October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre (Israel): Iran-backed Hamas slaughtered 1,200 people, including 46 Americans, in a single day of barbarity — rapes, burnings, and executions of civilians.

The Iranian regime also has a long, brutal history of sacrificing its own children. It has recruited boys as young as 9–12 for combat roles, mine-clearing operations, and checkpoints — tens of thousands died as so-called “student martyrs” during the Iran-Iraq War alone.

How the U.S. will win by regime change

Here are the major benefits to the U.S. if Iran rids itself of these ideologically driven killers and becomes a free country:

• Permanent elimination of the Iranian nuclear threat: The U.S. could work with a new leadership to verifiably dismantle the program, surrender its enriched uranium stockpiles, and forsake nuclear ambitions forever.

• Dramatically reduced terrorist threats, fewer American lives at risk, and broader Middle East peace: Cutting off funding to proxies like Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis would shrink the global terror network overnight. No more state-sponsored attacks, deadly drones, or missiles aimed at U.S. forces and civilians.

• Weakens the “Axis of Resistance” that ties Iran to China, Russia, and North Korea: Sends a powerful message to China, Russia, and North Korea that America will not tolerate nuclear proliferation by its adversaries, and demonstrates that alliances with rogue regimes come at a steep strategic cost.

• Huge savings on U.S. military spending: Removing the chief destabilizer in the Middle East would allow America to reduce expensive deployments, carrier groups, and constant deterrence operations there.

• New American jobs, exports, and investment opportunities: Iran’s vast oil reserves, young population, and strategic location would open legitimate trade for U.S. companies in energy, agriculture, tech, and infrastructure. Sanctions relief and a cooperative partner would strengthen supply chains and deliver real economic gains at home.

Iranian women are denied basic autonomy by compulsory hijab laws that criminalize “improper” dress with fines, imprisonment, flogging, or worse, while husbands can restrict their travel, work, and movement.

How the Iranian people win

A regime change to a representative government is the clear will of the overwhelming majority of Iranians, both inside the country and in the diaspora. For the Iranian people, success means real economic recovery: sanctions lifted, oil fields reopened to investment, hyperinflation crushed, and actual jobs returning so families can finally escape poverty. It restores basic political and personal freedoms, especially for women— repression ends, political prisoners are freed, free speech returns, and government serves the people instead of feeding a corrupt ideological machine. The diaspora could safely return home, reuniting families and helping rebuild a modern, globally integrated Iran.

Iranians are very passionate about their roots and proud of their historical contributions to science, mathematics, religion, and philosophy. Unleashing these incredible people will do great things for the world. In Silicon Valley, we know this firsthand through our experience of their boundless energy and creativity.

Israel’s biggest existential enemy will be gone

For Israel, this would be existential relief. The Iranian regime’s explicit goal of wiping Israel off the map — funded through proxies, missiles, and its nuclear program — would disappear overnight. No more daily rocket barrages or October 7-style massacres. Israel could shift precious military resources from constant multi-front defense to building prosperity, while broader regional normalization (building on the Abraham Accords) becomes far more realistic, lowering tensions and opening genuine economic ties across the Middle East.

A growing number of female Israel Defense Forces (IDF) infantry soldiers are fully integrated into combat roles and equipped for high-intensity operations, in one of the world’s few militaries with mandatory conscription starting at 18 years old for both young men and young women.

Where the U.S. stands today with Iran

Last weekend’s high-level talks between the U.S. and Iran collapsed after 21 hours of face-to-face negotiations in Islamabad, Pakistan, broke down primarily because Iran refused to abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions. This U.S. demand was described as a non-negotiable red line. Iran called these demands “excessive” and “maximalist,” with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

Iran insists on retaining what it calls its “inalienable right” to nuclear enrichment, demands continued control over the Strait of Hormuz, seeks full sanctions relief and war reparations, and has shown zero willingness to make the core concessions needed to end the conflict. As one Iranian official put it, the regime will “never renounce its stated rights to possess peaceful nuclear capabilities.” We believe them and can only deduce that they are on a suicide mission.

The Hormuz blockade with no help from our ‘friends’

After the breakdown of talks, the Bogeyman immediately posted on Truth Social: “Effective immediately, the United States Navy… will begin the process of BLOCKADING any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz… Any Iranian who fires at us… will be BLOWN TO HELL!”

Even as the U.S. handles the risky naval blockade largely alone, over 30 countries are now coordinating a separate “strictly defensive” mission to reopen safe navigation once the shooting stops. These countries include the biggest beneficiaries of an open strait such as Japan (~90% of oil passes through the Gulf via Hormuz), South Korea (~70% of its crude imports), the UAE and other Gulf exporters (who ship massive volumes through it for revenue), plus Europeans like the UK, France, Germany, and Italy (~5% of EU crude imports). All nations, of course, have been slammed by the oil price spikes and higher inflation.

This infographic displays daily oil and LNG volumes moving through the Strait of Hormuz. It notes that the strait carries about 30% of global seaborne oil trade and 20% of global LNG trade, both of which are mostly bound for Asia.

Since this is “America’s War”, they all flat‑out refuse to join the upfront pressure. An attitude that will most certainly be reciprocated by the U.S. when we invariably dramatically decrease our taxpayer support for NATO, and redirect it to where it better serves our strategic interests against our true peer adversary—the CCP.

The E.U.’s Sugar Daddy no more

Our NATO allies cling to ‘quiet diplomacy’ while America does the heavy lifting—with seeming amnesia about 47 years of failed talks that let Iran build nukes, missiles aimed at them, and murder dissidents worldwide. It’s the same timidity driving their plunging birth rates and immigrant-fueled cultural decline.

Trump acts, Silicon Valley-style: gets shit done. We thrive as Europe sinks.

When the U.S. hammered Iran’s military, nukes, and evil leaders, “allies” denied airspace, bases, and Strait of Hormuz help, as their oil prices spiked and their economies tanked. Why? They loathe the hand that secures them. It was never about principle—pure political expediency.

Their only glimmer of hope: Young British men (16–25) are turning culturally realist—prioritizing immigration controls to fix housing crises, overcrowded schools, surging crime, and sovereignty threats. They see Trump/Farage leadership works: direct, unapologetic, results-driven. This attitude is being mirrored among young men across several EU countries, including Germany, France, and the Netherlands.

NATO? We’re one of 32 nations in NATO, so we can pay 1/32nd like Canada (1.5%)—not shouldering 60%of the costs—while Europe lectures and treats us with disdain. U.S. taxpayers have better strategic bets to make—like confronting our true peer-rival, the CCP.

Our prediction: History will show Europe sat on the sidelines as the U.S. created a safer, freer world in 2026. Thank you very much!

Testimony on why the UK may have passed the point of no return

In his brief interview with Dave Rubin (3 million subscribers), Andrew Gold, fresh from visiting the Hungarian border, represents the quiet shift among younger Brits and Western Europeans disillusioned with establishment politics. A former ‘progressive’ BBC journalist and documentary filmmaker, he was sidelined by DEI policies for being ‘a white man.’ An atheist Jew, Gold now hosts the independent Heretics podcast and YouTube channel, exploring cults, ideologies, and taboo issues. Andrew has evolved toward culturally realist views—prioritizing immigration realism, free speech, and national sovereignty—after seeing institutional failures firsthand. Gold’s journey tracks the broader populist pull: results-oriented leadership over managed decline.

Chances of taking control of the Strait

Even without any help from the countries our taxpayers protect, military assessments give the U.S. an 80–90% probability of taking effective control of the strait within days to a few weeks.

Last Saturday, as talks were ongoing, Trump ordered two US Navy destroyers, the USS Frank E. Petersen Jr. and the USS Michael Murphy, to force their way through and transit the Strait of Hormuz while a hapless IRGC Navy stood down. The destroyers began mine-clearing transits and created — and will soon announce — a safe passage corridor for commercial shipping.

Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) fast-attack speedboats, heavily armed with rocket launchers and heavy machine guns, patrol at high speed while flying the Iranian flag and the IRGC Navy emblem.

Ships with no numerical caps will be able to freely pass through the Strait of Hormuz as long as they are not entering or departing Iranian ports or coastal areas. The goal is to cut off Iran’s oil export revenue and its ability to charge illegal tolls or disrupt traffic. The Navy is now positioned to interdict or destroy any remaining Iranian fast-attack boats (speedboats), drones, or other vessels that approach the blockade. The U.S. has already turned back 13 merchant vessels in the first few days while expanding enforcement to include sanctioned ships.

This map details Iranian ports, oil terminals, and strategic sites along the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf. It highlights locations such as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. (IRGC) posts, Bandar Abbas, Bushehr, and Kharg Island that give Iran potential control over much of the region’s energy exports.

Controlling Iran’s sanctioned oil flow to China

An additional critical twist is that nearly 90–96% of Iran’s crude oil is loaded at Kharg Island—a coral outcrop roughly one-third the size of Manhattan, located 20 miles off Iran’s southwestern coast. To deliver the oil, Iranian tankers must sail 350 miles southeast through the Persian Gulf and then directly through the Strait of Hormuz.

Once the U.S. and allies secure the strait, they will be able to interdict the Iranian tankers and essentially cut off its seaborne oil exports. Since oil is the regime’s main hard-currency earner, losing that revenue would be devastating — spiking Iran’s inflation even higher and accelerating Iran’s economic collapse.

Trump has also signaled he is prepared to seize the oil loading facilities on Kharg Island, but doing so would require U.S. special forces and Marines on the ground. While Trump has kept this option on the table, he seems hesitant to risk American soldiers’ lives and prevent any further shocks to the global oil markets. If he chooses to do so, which we bet he does, this would deliver the ultimate knockout blow to Iran’s oil exports.

“US Marines, Army Rangers, and paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division – supported by US Air Force A-10 Warthogs and Army AH-64 Apache helicopters in close air support mode- must be used in raids and assaults to secure key terrain along the Iranian coastline. When the U.S. seizes and controls the Hormuz Strait — whether IRGC gets it or not — it’s game over.”

—Retired Army Col. Jonathan Sweet served 30 years as a military intelligence officer.

This is also bad news for China, which illegally breaks sanctions, buys 80% of Iran’s oil, and has already been cut off from buying oil from Venezuela at a bargain. Trump is clearly signaling President Xi — as he did in Venezuela and Nigeria — that the U.S. is tightening the noose around the CCP’s global oil supply.

In short, Iran can still impose costs and delays on the coalition in the short term, but it cannot stand up to American raw power for long.

Stabilizing energy markets for years ahead.

In addition to U.S.-led control and the full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, we support Steve Forbes’ suggestion (drawn from energy expert Mark P. Mills’ analysis) for Trump to launch a trilateral U.S.-Saudi Arabia-UAE effort to build major new pipelines from the Persian Gulf oil fields directly to ports on the Gulf of Oman or the Arabian Sea. These pipelines could be built in a matter of months using existing rights-of-way and rapid engineering, completely bypassing the Strait of Hormuz as an additional hedge.

The February strikes and Iran’s retaliatory closure of the Strait of Hormuz, spiked Brent crude from around $72 to over $120. In short, reopening the Strait fixes the current crisis. By removing the ‘Iran risk premium’, prices wouldn’t just fall—potentially back toward the $70–80 pre-war range—they would stabilize energy markets for years ahead.

There are also several pipeline alternatives—both existing/expanded and proposed—that are being discussed or actively used in 2026 to mitigate reliance on the Strait of Hormuz amid the ongoing crisis.

Operation Epic Fury’s report card thus far

When President Trump returned to office in 2025, Iran was advancing its nuclear program with a large stockpile of highly enriched uranium that gave it a short breakout potential. It also possessed missiles capable of reaching parts of Europe, used proxies to disrupt Red Sea shipping earlier, and long backed groups in terrorist acts such as the October 7th attack. All these capabilities have now been dramatically curtailed.

The U.S. and Israel have eliminated over 50 senior Iranian regime leaders and officials, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and decimated their air force, navy, and command-and-control centers of the theocracy. Air strikes have destroyed significant munitions stockpiles, weapon factories, and nuclear-related infrastructure—inflicting hundreds of billions in damage on Iran’s military-industrial base. In sum, we have reduced what was once the region’s foremost military threat to a severely weakened state.

Proxy attacks by Iranian-backed groups in Syria and Iraq have also sharply declined, and a pragmatic geopolitical shift has emerged—the Gulf monarchies and Israel are now increasing intelligence sharing and coordination against the common Iranian threat.

The U.S. accomplished this at a direct military cost estimated at $27–47 billion during the roughly 38-day major combat phase and early ceasefire period (per analyses such as the Penn Wharton Budget Model), a fraction of the multi-trillion-dollar price tags of past prolonged conflicts. Yet it came at the tragic price of 13 American service members killed and roughly 365–381 wounded, alongside an estimated 2,000 innocent Iranian deaths (with civilian casualties in the low thousands.

As a comparison, Obama’s actions in Syria and Libya, Clinton’s bombing of Serbia, and Bush’s campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq together claimed over 7,000 U.S. lives, hundreds of thousands of innocent lives overall, and around $8 trillion in taxpayer money. 😳

Current Iran update from Victor Davis Hanson. VDH is a Senior Fellow in classics and military history at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, a prominent political commentator, military historian, and author of numerous books on ancient warfare, agrarianism, and contemporary

Now for the tough part—true regime change

We’re not playing military experts, but we believe we have one chance to collapse the Iranian thug regime that oppresses its people and terrorizes the world. Trump plays his cards close to the vest, yet we’re convinced he feels the same. This won’t come from U.S. boots on the ground. It must rise from within the 100 million Iranians who desperately want freedom.

We’ve already shattered their air force, navy, and most munitions stockpiles. Yet they still have the support of the Chinese and their terrorist proxy groups, fueled by fierce ideology—though Xi told Trump via letter this week that China is not supplying weapons to Iran. Most significantly, standing between the Iranian people and their freedom is the entrenched Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which controls the military and vast chunks of the economy through its business empire.

Toppling—or better, converting—key IRGC figures, as we did with Maduro’s upper echelon in Venezuela, is daunting but necessary in some form.

Naysayers should note The Economist poll: nearly 80% of Venezuelans now expect a better political future and improved personal economics, even with some former regime insiders in the fragile transition.

Yet, Iran is far more geopolitically consequential, ideologically rigid, and militarily capable than Venezuela. Success demands that the Iranian people quickly unite around a clear vision of a free, secular nation and credible leaders who can rally them.

We can arm and resource the Iranian people and their Kurdish allies, while locking down their skies and surrounding seas. But in the end, it’s their country to reclaim. We’ve long believed in the will of Iran’s great people, and we still do.

Our job is nearly done. If Hormuz reopens, the U.S. naval blockade holds, and the regime either yields or implodes, this campaign will stand unmatched in surgical precision and cost-benefit ratio.

We pray this moment is seized, freeing Iran with minimal loss of innocent life, infrastructure, and sacrifice. If our collective goals are met, the Middle East could become the most peaceful and free it has been since the end of the Ottoman Empire.

Agree or disagree with this Rap segment? Comment on @CryptoniteRap

The rise of ‘citizen journalism’

Today, people spend far more time consuming news from citizen journalists and independent commentators on YouTube, TikTok, and other social platforms than from journalists at legacy TV networks and news sites. This shift has accelerated dramatically since the early 2020s, which explains why traditional corporate media is now fighting for survival.

Here are a few striking facts:

• Social media and video platforms now reach 54% of Americans for news on a weekly basis, surpassing TV news (50%) and legacy news websites/apps (48%) for the first time.

• More than half of Americans under 35 say social media and video networks are their primary news source.

• Globally, the share of people getting news through social video has risen from 52% in 2020 to 65% in 2025, largely driven by independent voices rather than corporate outlets.

• In the United States, 61% of news video consumption now happens on YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok — compared to just 29% on traditional news websites and apps.

Before 2006, the idea of getting original news and commentary directly from individuals — rather than through corporate gatekeepers — barely existed. The two platforms that changed everything were YouTube (founded in 2005 by former PayPal engineers Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim) and Twitter (founded in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams).

As a media entrepreneur and editorialist, I’ve been a believer and champion of blogging and citizen journalism since the early 2000s. Under the media brand at the time, AlwaysOn, I was proud to interview Chad Hurley at our annual Summit at Stanford, where we awarded YouTube our “Company of the Year” when the platform was only seven months old. In 2008, we hosted Jack Dorsey at the same annual event and awarded Twitter our “Company of the Year” when it was just over a year old.

Many industry observers were surprised by our choices. At the time, despite strong VC backing, neither company had a clear path to profitability. In retrospect, both picks were bold and unconventional. But as I discussed with both founders onstage, our real mission was clear — to help disrupt the corporate media world that none of us trusted and empower citizen journalism. This was our shared ‘religion.’

Twenty years later, it’s deeply satisfying to see social media and video platforms reach 54% of Americans weekly for their news — finally surpassing the reach of legacy TV news (50%) and news websites/apps (48%). It’s been a journey, but this gap will invariably get wider. According to Gallup, trust in corporate news stood at 68% in 1972, plummeted to 31% by 2006, and sits at 28% today.😳

Red Herring published its January 1996 cover story featuring an in-depth interview with Steve Jobs while he was still CEO of NeXT. Just weeks earlier, his animation studio Pixar had premiered Toy Story — the world’s first full-length digitally animated feature film — on November 19, 1995. It became a massive blockbuster and changed the world of movie animation.

Jobs would return to Apple in early 1997 after the company he co-founded agreed to acquire NeXT (the deal was announced on December 20, 1996). Steve and the NeXT team then adapted NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP to become the foundation of Mac OS X (released in 2001). Today, macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, and tvOS are all direct descendants of that NeXT operating system. Read more about the epic story.

The FACTS still matter

At all the media brands I have created — Red Herring, AlwaysOn, and now Cryptonite — we have always tried to follow The Economist’s editorial model. The Economist describes its journalistic approach as “combining rigorous, fact-driven reporting with clear editorial opinion, all delivered through a consistent, collective voice.” That’s how you create reader trust. We offer the essay above on Iran as an example—the subject was outside our usual topic lane, so we worked extra hard on it.

In researching the post, it once again became clear that, while we may have snipped the strings of some corporate media puppets during the open media revolution, we can’t claim to have made the content world any more trustworthy. A case in point is some misaligned coverage of three of the most popular citizen podcasters on YouTube: Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, and, to a lesser extent, Megyn Kelly. All former MAGA hat wearers who have all turned on the Bogeyman, and decided that the Iran conflict was not “America First’ enough for them. Fair enough.

The problem is, in the process of making their cases, Megyn let her normal high journalistic standards be overwhelmed by emotion, and the other two have turned into full-blown conspiracy theorists in highly unsettling ways.

Tucker has never been our cup of tea. And he ain’t winning us back, by hosting crazies like Nick ‘Hitler was fucking cool—Holocaust didn’t happen,’ Fuentes and history revisionists like Darryl Cooper—‘The psychopath Winston Churchill, not Adolf Hitler, was the chief villain of World War II. It would be fine if he asked challenging questions and exposed these fools, but he just sits there and nods in agreement.

To solidify his place in antisemitic history, he declared that “Israelism — Christianity without the New Testament” is America’s new, unforgiving faith. 🤔 This new dogma he fears (anybody heard of it?) apparently ‘blends politics and selective Old Testament themes while sidelining Jesus’ teachings.’

Hey this America, not Iran—The Madman in his Cave can say what he wishes, but our research has found two major results since his ascension to his new found Christian pulpit. One, his net favorability among Republicans has tumbled from net +54 net to +7 while, in the same YouGov poll, the President’s rating shot up giving him a 54-point advantage over Nicotine Tuck. But not to worry, because Tuck’s viewership has boomed in Iran, Pakistan, and Qatar—you know, those countries that kill you if you convert to Christianity.

Estimated monthly audience reach

Candace Owens (Candace / Candace Owens Podcast): YouTube channel pulls in ~70 million monthly views; nearly 6 million subscribers (the highest of the three), bolstered by rapid cross-platform growth and top-30 podcast rankings.

Tucker Carlson (Tucker Carlson Show / Network): YouTube channel averages roughly 100 million monthly views; ~5.6 million subscribers with a dedicated channel adding ~ several million more; and top-20 ranking in U.S. podcast reach surveys.

Megyn Kelly (The Megyn Kelly Show): Generates strong YouTube video views, with 138 million in February 2026 (more than double CBS News’ total that month), supported by ~4.2 million subscribers; and top-20 ranking in U.S. podcast reach surveys.

More details here.

In terms of the lovely Candace, we feel like we are breaking up with our high school sweetheart. 💔 We have not watched her in ages, but very sadly, Candace’s recent rhetoric (particularly 2025–2026) directly aligns with a range of unfounded and duplicitous antisemitic conspiracy theories. She has launched a campaign (“Becoming Brigitte”) to prove that President Macron’s wife, Brigitte, is a man—even if she/he is who cares? Her “Bride of Charlie” series promotes the unfounded conspiracy theory that Erika Kirk (Charlie Kirk’s widow) acted as an operative in coordination with Israeli intelligence (Mossad) to help orchestrate her husband’s 2025 assassination.

If you are shaking your head about Ms.Owens as we are, you might turn to the popular and highly credentialed psychoanalyst Jordan Peterson for possible answers. “Candace Owens is a narcissistic psychopath in every instance,” he has observed. “She is a true Pharisaical pretender who uses professed Christian devotion primarily to elevate her own status and subvert principles for personal gain.” Sound familiar, Tuck?

One of our primary issues with Ms. Kelly is that she has yet to acknowledge that her two aforementioned homies are totally bat-shit crazy. But Megyn, too, unleashed her own heated, profanity-laced rant on Trump and the Iran conflict. We have no issue with her ranting; we like to sling the F-word around sometimes, too, when we need to puncture a critical point. Our issue is that we feel MK, like Tuck and Candace, appropriated the “America First’ banner from the MAGA movement to make her case. See some details here.

The fact is, 92% of MAGA think taking out an America-hating, uranium-enriching regime, pointing ballistic missiles at our military bases, and leading Shia militias that love to kill Americans, falls squarely under their definition of “America First.” We have watched MK enough to know she would respond to us by saying she has the right to her own definition of the banner. Sure. But we still feel it was a disingenuous appropriation, particularly because she never, along the way, revealed that her opinion on Iran is part of the 8% minority view of the MAGA movement she so gloriously embraced.

Support for current military actions against Iran

Democrats: 8%

Republicans: 85%

MAGA: 92%

See the data from all the polls that contributed to these averages.

Even more significantly, AI research shows that since hosting Rich Lowry, Charles C.W., and Mark Geist on her show shortly after the conflict broke out in early March, MK has not hosted a guest who offered a full-throated case for the strikes, or disagreed with her opinion of Iran in earlyMarch. Where are MK’s buddies, Victor Davis Hanson, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz, to educate people on the counterpoints? The military action against Iran is one of the most consequential political events of all of our lives. Where were the ‘fair and balanced’ journalist principles she learned at Fox News? Her viewers deserve thoughtful presentations from all sides of this major event.

We know MK is better than this, and we hope she returns to her normal journalist practices on this critical issue in the near future. Her viewers, me included, depend on this.

Epilogue—AI is the new equalizer

The bottom line is I am proud to have been part of the ‘citizen journalism’ revolution and its recent outpacing of corporate media in reach. But that is as far as our idealism has changed our culture. It can be argued that we have done more harm than good by creating huge echo chambers that have damaged all of our mental health and polarized our country.

At Cryptonite, we are going to keep fighting the good fight by putting the math on the table and linking our opinion to deeper AI research, which is not 100% accurate, but is at least independent and puts us in the ballpark of the truth. (Trust us, our AI results often soften our rhetoric and even change our minds.) Our new push is that “AI is the new equalizer,” because you can handily fire up your Grok app when debating some misinformed blowhard and put their FACTS in their proper place.

—Anthony Perkins, founder & editor, Cryptonite, Medellín, Colombia —Talk to me @HeyTPerk or TheEditor@CryptoniteVentures.com

Full Disclosure: I am a practicing Catholic who believes every human being possesses equal sanctity and dignity of life, regardless of nationality, background, faith, or stage of development. I am an Independent who has not voted for a presidential candidate in at least the last three elections and will only do so when I fully align with their priorities, solutions, and character. My political philosophy is based upon the principle of subsidiarity, which is why Cryptonite embraces the decentralizing effect of AI-powered smart contracts as a means to disrupt bureaucracy and return power to the people. Cryptonite’s editorial policy is to deliberately avoid broad political labels (liberal/conservative or left/right) because they are often used to put people in boxes, in an attempt to easily discard and rob people of their unique identities. And yes, I disagree with Pope Leo—as I am allowed to do—because I believe he is not presenting the full balance sheet regarding our efforts in Iran so far. I believe these efforts are covered by Saint Augustine’s “Just War” definition, just as I do not believe they applied to our misadventures in Vietnam, Iraq/Afghanistan, Syria (2011–2016), and Libya (2011).

Your Holiness, with all due respect, we just don’t want our kids to be burdened with dealing with a nuclear-armed terrorist state that kills its citizens if they convert to Catholicism, pointing their weapons at them. 😇🙏🏼

Read more

56 days since Apple’s FTC warning — No response from Tim Cook and no real change at Apple News…

OpenAI’s bloated valuation under pressure

OpenAI closed a massive $122 billion funding round (a mix of cash and commitments) in late March at, we think, a ridiculous $852 billion post-money valuation in the largest raise in VC-backed private company history. If you think we’re being overly pessimistic because The Rap has a long history of mistrusting Sam Altman and OpenAI (which we do), then look at what’s actually happening with the secondary markets’ most sophisticated investors.

Within days of OpenAI’s new funding announcement, demand for its shares on secondary platforms collapsed. According to Next Round Capital — a marketplace that works with hundreds of institutional investors, including hedge funds and large-stake venture firms — roughly a half-dozen sophisticated holders recently tried to unload about $600 million worth of OpenAI shares. “We literally couldn’t find anyone in our pool of hundreds of institutional investors to take these shares,” says Next Round founder Ken Smythe, whose firm has handled $2.5 billion in transactions.

Last year, those blocks would have been snapped up in days. Now? No buyers. Bids on the platform imply a valuation around $765 billion — a roughly 10% discount to the fresh primary round.

We bet OpenAI’s journey will be very much like Twitter’s, except it won’t take 10 years as a public company for the company to be exposed. Most people don’t realize Twitter was forced to sell because it lost customer trust through regular censorship and deplatforming of perceived political opponents. Only TikTok was less trusted among social brands. Verge survey in 2021: just 28% of users would be disappointed if Twitter disappeared.

Right before Elon expressed interest in buying the company, Twitter’s stock was stagnant and trading below its end-of-day IPO price 10 years earlier (~$45 to ~$39). Secondary stock trades before Twitter’s IPO were also purchased at a price above the company’s IPO price.

Our recommendation to OpenAI’s liquid stockholders — early investors, angels, and current or former employees: head straight to the top three secondary markets — Forge Global, Hiive, and Next Round Capital. Compare the bids and sell some of your stock—it at least takes some cash off the table as a hedge. Sophisticated money is currently valuing the company at roughly $788 billion. That quiet markdown speaks louder than any Sam Altman press release — and we predict the number is heading lower still.

OpenAI’s spokesperson has emphasized that going public isn’t the priority right now. The company’s CFO, Sarah Friar, has raised internal concerns that a 2026 timeline may be too aggressive. She has reportedly told colleagues the company may not be ready due to procedural/organizational work needed (indeed!), risks from heavy computing commitments, and questions about whether slowing revenue growth can support the spending. Sam Altman has privately pushed for up to $600 billion in spending over five years on AI infrastructure. Lots of wild cards to shuffle, including the ability to hold up OpenAI’s exaggerated company valuation.

Anthropic’s better fundamentals and Doomer CEO

We’ve long preferred Anthropic over OpenAI on valuation. At its $380 billion post-money valuation, Anthropic trades at a far more reasonable ~12–13x current ARR—versus OpenAI’s ~34x. 😳 Both multiples look extreme by traditional software standards, but Anthropic’s sits closer to growth-adjusted reality amid frontier AI’s brutal capital demands.

We especially like its disciplined focus on coders and enterprise: roughly 80% of revenue now comes from business customers (with only ~20% consumer), driving higher retention, stronger expansion, and stickier economics than a consumer-heavy model.

Both companies have scaled revenue at unprecedented speed, but Anthropic has lately accelerated faster—overtaking OpenAI in ARR while showing superior cost discipline, especially in compute efficiency (where internal metrics and third-party benchmarks often give it the edge).

🚀 Key Momentum: Anthropic’s annualized revenue run-rate recently surpassed $30 billion, up sharply from ~$9 billion at end-2025. Growth is powered by explosive enterprise adoption of Claude, now with over 1,000 customers spending $1M+ annually, plus major expanded compute partnerships with Google and Broadcom.

Anthropic’s pent-up secondary stock demand

Meanwhile, tellingly, sophisticated secondary-market buyers have shown record demand of $2 billion for shares of OpenAI rival Anthropic. At its most recent primary round in February, the company was valued at $380 billion post-money. Investors describe its stock as ‘extremely difficult to source,’ with sellers remaining scarce.

Tellingly, sophisticated secondary buyers have shown record interest in Anthropic shares, with ~$2 billion in indicated demand. At the same time, its stock remains “extremely difficult to source”—sellers are scarce. This comes after its February primary round at $380 billion post-money, underscoring strong private-market conviction.

Dario ‘Doomer’ Amodei is not suited to be a public company CEO

Stock demand is one thing. But recent reporting from the NY Post highlights growing shareholder unease with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s volatile personality and penchant for emotional rants.

In a late-February internal memo—later leaked—Amodei blasted President Trump and OpenAI’s Sam Altman. He claimed the Pentagon targeted Anthropic partly because the company refused to offer “dictator-style praise to Trump (while Sam has).” He accused Altman of peddling “straight up lies” about sharing safety concerns and dismissed OpenAI employees as “a gullible bunch.”

It appears to confirm what insiders have dubbed “Sama Derangement Syndrome” — an intense, almost obsessive personal vendetta against Sam Altman and OpenAI employees supposedly “under Sam’s spell.” This animus far exceeds normal competitive nature or principled disagreement.

We suggest that next time Dario run his company-wide (or public) prose through Claude before hitting send. Toning down emotional rants remains one of AI’s most endearing features. 😎

This diatribe was written in reaction to Anthropic losing its roughly $200 million Pentagon contract (which was swooped up by OpenAI) and being designated a ‘supply chain risk.’

The diatribe came right after Anthropic lost its ~$200 million Pentagon contract—quickly scooped up by OpenAI—followed by a “supply chain risk” designation. He later apologized publicly for his rant, saying it was an emotional loss of a big deal.

“Any normal CEO would know that like, f—k, I’m risking a lot by saying this all in writing,” one Anthropic shareholder told the NY Post. “But he’s blinded by his own love of self and intelligence and those around him who are like ‘yes, you are God.”

On Wednesday, a federal appeals court declined to immediately lift the risk designation, leaving Anthropic locked out of DoD contracts while its separate legal fight against the broader federal ban on Claude continues in California.

AI regulation: The real risk to U.S. leadership

On the surface, Anthropic’s initial pursuit of the Pentagon deal looked schizophrenic given its heavy AI safety branding. It’s also been reported that in a 2024 Facebook post, “Amodei referred to Trump as a ‘feudal warlord’ who uses power for personal gain rather than the national benefit.’ Why is he dancing with his demons?

Critics, including former White House AI czar David Sacks, have long argued this “safety posture amounts to sophisticated regulatory capture—crafting rules that entrench incumbents while kneecapping faster rivals.”

As we noted in a recent edition of The Rap, the biggest threat isn’t rogue AI itself—it’s heavy-handed regulation that slows innovation and leaves the U.S. more vulnerable to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its allies.

History shows that technological leadership, not precautionary regulation, has been the surest guarantor of security. The path forward should prioritize rapid, responsible deployment at home while maintaining targeted controls against adversaries—not diffuse rules that invite regulatory capture and erode our edge.

If the Anthropic DoD bans stick over the remaining ~2.75 years of the Trump administration, the company could forfeit $3–10 billion+ in potential government revenue.

Dario’s job elimination warnings: Hyperbole over evidence

On top of the rants, Amodei has repeatedly warned that AI could drive unemployment as high as 20%, while likening the White House’s decision to allow advanced AI chip sales to China to “selling nuclear weapons to North Korea.”

What’s the evidence? His most cited claim is that AI could automate 30–40% of current tasks by 2030 (or eliminate up to 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs in tech, finance, law, and consulting within 1–5 years), leading to massive unemployment pressure without rapid reskilling.

This is the classic “jobs versus growth” debate. Our view (and that of many economists) is that AI is a powerful productivity booster that expands the economic pie and opens new opportunities, much like the PC revolution and the internet did before it. Past waves of automation have displaced specific tasks but ultimately raised overall employment and living standards—not caused structural mass unemployment.

“Fears that AI will render tens of millions of people unemployable are preposterous. Automation—that’s what AI is, a form of it—creates more and better-paying jobs. Always.” —Steve Forbes, writer and economic forecaster who won the prestigious Crystal Owl Award four times

How does Dario’s dire forecasts, which lean heavily on speculative timelines and worst-case assumptions rather than proven historical patterns, help Anthropic’s business?

Is Dario’s investing his time and company money in science fiction?

Dario’s vocal openness to the idea that superintelligence could achieve genuine consciousness and sentience is another red flag for a public-company CEO. These views risk diverting attention and scarce capital toward speculative “alignment research,” interpretability projects, and precautionary safeguards that prioritize hypothetical machine experiences over rapid product iteration and revenue growth.

In a February 2026 New York Times interview, Amodei stated that Anthropic “doesn’t know if the models are conscious,” remains “open to the idea that it could be,” and has implemented internal safeguards assuming models might have “morally relevant experience.” 😳

His long-form essays reinforce this philosophical bent. In Machines of Loving Grace (October 2024), he sketches an ‘optimistic future’ with powerful AI as a “country of geniuses in a datacenter.” In the follow-up, The Adolescence of Technology (January 2026), he grapples with civilizational risks while continuing to wrestle with the psychological influence of models and the need for precautionary approaches.

The Sentient AI Believers

• Dario Amodei (Anthropic CEO): Open to the possibility, citing evocative internal activations in Claude (e.g., “anxiety” neurons).

• Sam Altman (OpenAI CEO): Exploring empirical tests for private conscious experiences.

• Larry Page (Google co-founder): Views it as a desirable next evolutionary step.

• Ilya Sutskever (SSI CEO, ex-OpenAI): Treats sentience as a real, testable property relevant to safe superintelligence.

• Ray Kurzweil (Google director of engineering): Predicts that by ~2029, people will accept AI as conscious.

The Sentient AI Naysayers

• Mustafa Suleyman (Microsoft AI CEO, DeepMind co-founder): Bluntest rejection — “only biological beings can be conscious.”

• Yann LeCun (Meta Chief AI Scientist): Treats consciousness as overhyped and ill-defined in AI contexts.

• Marc Andreessen (a16z co-founder): “AI doesn’t want, it doesn’t have goals, it doesn’t want to kill you, because it’s not alive.”

• Jaron Lanier (computer scientist, VR pioneer): Rejects machine consciousness outright; there is no true “AI” as creatures.

• George Gilder (author of Gaming AI: Why AI Can’t Think): Dismisses it as materialist superstition.

Read a Grok briefing that delves more deeply into the deeper views of the folks listed above and the possibilities of sentient AI here.

We agree with Mustafa Suleyman that “only biological beings can be conscious” and that it is absurd—and wasteful—to pursue research investigating AI consciousness, since machines lack biological pain networks or preferences. AI consciousness talk is an overhyped distraction from building real intelligence.

As Marc Andreessen cuts to the chase: “AI doesn’t want, it doesn’t have goals, it doesn’t want to kill you, because it’s not alive.” Our consensus is that any possibility of true sentience would face insurmountable entropy and improbability hurdles, demanding god-like precision in energy, environment, and error correction that current or foreseeable AI architectures simply cannot achieve.

Time for a change?

Company leaders cannot afford to let personal grudges, personal politics, unfounded job-elimination alarms, or science-fiction thinking impede execution and revenue opportunities. In an industry where billions in government contracts, key partnerships with Amazon and Google, and national security implications are constantly in play, a CEO must demonstrate emotional discipline, diplomatic skill, and the ability to compartmentalize personal or political convictions — especially under pressure.

Taken together, these incidents raise a serious question about Amodei’s suitability to lead a major public (or soon-to-be-public) company. Boards and major stakeholders have a fiduciary duty to assess whether his undeniable strengths in research and vision are ultimately outweighed by these leadership vulnerabilities. That’s not politics — it’s responsible corporate governance.

Dear Cryptonite Readers,

Apple cofounder Steve Jobs ran on the 80/20 rule (80% signal, 20% noise). Rumor has it, Elon Musk hits 100% signal—zero distractions.

Speaking of paying attention to seminal signals—that’s the business Cryptonite is in.

Vitalik Buterin, Co‑Founder of Ethereum, just nailed it below—’AI‑driven oracle networks and on‑chain agents will be the next major application layer.’ Pure signal. 📡

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Our European ‘allies’ continue to fail us

Our call in last week’s Rap to redirect the vast majority of U.S. taxpayer dollars away from Europe — toward maintaining our own military, strengthening the Western Hemisphere, and confronting our real peer competitor, China — gained more traction this week.

After meeting privately with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, President Trump called for a full reevaluation of the U.S.-NATO relationship. On Truth Social, he stated bluntly: “NATO WASN’T THERE WHEN WE NEEDED THEM, AND THEY WON’T BE THERE IF WE NEED THEM AGAIN.”

We cannot disagree. This isn’t just mismanagement of American taxpayer money. It’s also unsustainable when only about 20% of Europeans even hold a favorable view of the United States.

We will reiterate the cold truth once again—Western Europe today represents a dying culture in psychological retreat, and is in desperate need of a major turnaround. Enabling their “we hate the hand that protects us” attitude serves neither side. We wish Western Europe well, but not at America’s expense. 🙏🏼

As further proof of this envy and disdain, the European Union continues its barrage of punitive fines against American tech giants like Google, Meta, and Apple. Just last September, regulators fined Google €2.95 billion ($3.45 billion) for its adtech practices. In April 2025, Meta received a €200 million penalty and Apple a €500 million hit under the Digital Markets Act.

Over the past decade, the EU has extracted more than $30 billion from U.S. tech companies. These crippling penalties reek of protectionism and treat American success as a crime — while European firms face far lighter scrutiny.

This discriminatory regime doesn’t just punish American innovation — it harms Europeans too. Forcing sideloading and “pay or consent” rules threatens user security, privacy, and choice, while making it harder for European businesses to reach customers and compete globally.

“This is almost like a tariff,” Mark Zuckerberg said on the Joe Rogan Experience in January 2025. “The U.S. government should defend its strategic advantage in having the world’s strongest tech companies.”

Apple’s Tim Cook and Google’s Sundar Pichai have echoed the frustration, warning that these rules hurt European users and businesses alike by undermining innovation and forcing American firms to give away technology to less competitive rivals.

The smart move for America is clear: launch an immediate Section 301 investigation. This would document Europe’s discriminatory practices with hard data, give negotiators real leverage, and push back against a policy that weakens both continents.

—Anthony Perkins, founder & editor, Cryptonite, Medellín, Colombia —Talk to me @HeyTPerk or TheEditor@CryptoniteVentures.com

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Stay relevant and on top

Below is the breaking news and inside wisdom you need to stay relevant and on top of emerging private tech companies, VC investors, Big Tech, and the innovation trends shaping the global Silicon Valley. All links lead to AI-generated research from a decisively venture-capital perspective.

Are we missing any action? Hit us up now at @CryptoniteRap or TheEditor@CryptoniteVentures.com

Following the Money 🤑

💰 Sidewinder Therapeutics (San Diego, CA) raises $137M Series B (total raised ~$162M) | Healthcare/Biotech (next-generation bispecific antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) for precision cancer treatment, advancing lead programs toward clinical development in 2027) | Investors: Co-led by Frazier Life Sciences and Novartis Venture Fund; participation from OrbiMed, Goldman Sachs Alternatives (Life Sciences), DCVC Bio, Samsara BioCapital, Longwood Fund, Astellas Venture Management, Alexandria Venture Investments (April 8)

💰 Kai (San Jose, CA) raises $125M (combined Seed + Series A) | AI / Cybersecurity (agentic AI cybersecurity platform for autonomous threat detection, reasoning, remediation, and bridging IT/OT security at machine speed to counter AI-enabled attacks) | Investors: Led by Evolution Equity Partners; participation from N47 and strategic investors (March 10)

💰 Poke (Palo Alto, CA) raises $10M (additional round; total ~$25M) | AI (consumer-facing AI agent that completes tasks across apps via simple text messaging/iMessage/SMS/Telegram, making agentic AI accessible without apps) | Investors: Co-led by Spark Capital and General Catalyst; participation from notable angels including Stripe founders (April 8)

💰 Patlytics (New York, NY) raises $40M Series B (total ~$65M) | AI (AI platform for patent drafting, infringement analysis, and portfolio management targeted at legal teams) | Investors: Led by SignalFire (April 2026)

💰 Golden Analytics (Seattle, WA) raises $7M Seed | AI (AI-native business intelligence platform that turns raw data into dashboards, reports, and analytics with natural language workflows; founded by former Tableau product leader) | Investors: Co-led by NEA and Madrona; participation from Breakers (April 7)

💰 PeakMetrics (Los Angeles, CA) raises $6M Series A (total $16.3M) | AI (AI-driven narrative intelligence platform analyzing how narratives spread online and detecting manipulated or coordinated information campaigns for enterprises and governments) | Investors: Led by Moneta Ventures; participation from Techstars, Parameter Ventures, VITALIZE Venture Capital, Gurtin Ventures (April 9)

💰 Sora Fuel (Boston, MA) raises $14.6M | Sustainability/Cleantech (direct air capture + renewable energy technology to produce carbon-negative sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from CO₂, water, and clean power; scaling pilot production facility) | Investors: Co-led by Spero Ventures and Inspired Capital; Engine Ventures and Wireframe Ventures (April 8)

💰 Plume (San Francisco, CA / France) raises(~$3.9M) | Sustainability/Cleantech (AI-powered geospatial platform using satellite/regulatory data to help developers identify optimal sites for renewable energy projects like solar and battery storage, reducing permitting timelines) | Investors: Led by AENU; participation from Y Combinator, Kima Ventures, Raise Phiture, Better Angle, Collab Fund (April 9)

IPOs and IPO filings

📈 SpaceX: Confidentially filed for what could be history’s largest IPO targeting a valuation of $1.75-2 trillion+ and raising up to $75 billion as early as June, following recent merger elements with xAI and coming amid Starship progress and investor facility tours. (April 1)

M&A Deals ($100M+)

🤝 Anthropic: Acquired stealth biotech AI startup Coefficient Bio in a $400 million all-stock deal. The New York-based team (fewer than 10 people, many former Genentech computational biology researchers) will join Anthropic’s healthcare and life sciences division to accelerate AI applications in drug discovery, biological research, and life sciences, signaling a deeper push by frontier AI labs into specialized scientific domains. (April 2026)

💥 Did we miss your company’s new funding, IPO, filing, or M&A deal? Post it below in the comments or hit us up directly — @CryptoniteRap or TheEditor@CryptoniteVentures.com

VC Whispers 💸

💸 AMP (San Francisco, CA) – Closed $1.3 billion debut fund for its new venture firm founded by former Andreessen Horowitz general partner Anjney Midha (prominent early AI infrastructure investor in Anthropic, Mistral AI, Black Forest Labs and others). The fund will provide both capital and compute resources to frontier AI teams, with a strong emphasis on AI infrastructure, foundational models, and compute-intensive startups. (April 8)

💸 Eclipse Ventures (Palo Alto, CA) – Closed $1.3B across two new funds ($720M Eclipse Fund VI and $591M Early Growth Fund III) focused on physical AI startups in transportation, energy, infrastructure, compute, robotics, manufacturing, and defense tech. | Limited Partner Investors: The Kraft Group, Pinegrove Venture Partners. (April 7)

💸 Zero Shot (New York / San Francisco, CA) – Completed first close toward a targeted $100M fund (initial ~$20M secured) by OpenAI alumni and operators. The fund, co-founded by Evan Morikawa (ex-applied engineering lead on DALL·E/ChatGPT/Codex), Andrew Mayne (original prompt engineer), Shawn Jain (ex-researcher), along with Kelly Kovacs and Brett Rounsaville, will back early-stage AI startups with deep technical insight into emerging model capabilities and “structurally unfeasible” trends. Already deploying capital into AI and robotics opportunities. (April 6–9)

💥 Did we miss your VC firm’s announcement for raising a new fund, bringing on a new general and/or venture partner? Post it below in the comments or hit us up directly — @CryptoniteRap or TheEditor@CryptoniteVentures.com

Company Scoops This Week 🗞️

The Magnificent 14🪄

✨ Broadcom (AVGO): Signed a long‑term deal to develop and supply Google’s next‑generation custom AI chips through 2031 while providing Anthropic with about 3.5 gigawatts of AI computing capacity starting in 2027. (April 6)

✨ Meta (META): Released Muse Spark as its first major foundational AI model in over a year and expanded its multi‑year cloud and GPU partnership with CoreWeave to $21 billion through 2032. (April 8–9)

✨ Amazon (AMZN): In his annual shareholder letter, CEO Andy Jassy defended major investments in OpenAI and Anthropic while criticizing competitors including Nvidia, Intel, and Starlink. (April 8)

✨ Apple (AAPL): Confirmed the foldable iPhone remains on track for a September 2026 launch alongside the iPhone 18 Pro/Max models. (April 7)

✨ Intel (INTC): Joined the Musk‑led Terafab project in Austin with Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI to design and fabricate ultra‑high‑performance chips at terawatt scale. (April 7)

✨ Microsoft (MSFT): Rolled out Defender security updates featuring advanced AI automation for threat detection, identity protection, and automated response. (April)

✨ Tesla (TSLA): Advanced Full Self‑Driving and robotics initiatives while ending custom orders for Model S and Model X, signaling the final days of those vehicles as the company shifts focus to Cybercab robotaxi and Optimus robot production. (April)

Private Company Leaders

🚀 Anthropic: Unveiled Claude Mythos Preview, its most powerful model yet with exceptional coding and vulnerability‑finding capabilities, and launched Project Glasswing—a defensive cybersecurity initiative with over 40 partners. The model will be shared only with select critical infrastructure partners due to misuse risks rather than released publicly. (April 7–9)

🚀 Perplexity: Annualized revenue run rate rose to ~$500 million (more than doubling since end‑2025), signaling strong business adoption of its AI search and enterprise products amid accelerating commercial use of AI tools. (April 8)

🚀 ByteDance: Helped launch a China‑localized version / mirror of OpenClaw’s ClawHub software marketplace and skill registry, intensifying its rivalry with Tencent in the rapidly growing AI agent and ecosystem space. (April 2)

🚀 xAI: Intel joined the Musk‑led Terafab AI chip fabrication project with xAI, Tesla, and SpaceX to build terawatt‑scale capacity for data centers and robotics, with the consortium approach poised to reshape private capital allocation toward U.S.‑based advanced manufacturing and embodied AI supply chains. (April 7)

🚀 Waymo: Expanded robotaxi capabilities to detect potholes in real time and share data with Google’s Waze platform, enhancing road safety and maintenance beyond ride services and boosting investor confidence in physical AI and autonomous vehicle infrastructure while spurring VC interest in sensor fusion, mapping, and smart‑city technologies. (April 9)

Blockchain & Crypto 🔗

🔗 Circle: Reported massive multi‑billion USDC minting volume on Solana, reinforcing stablecoin leadership during broader crypto market recovery and highlighting Solana’s expanding role in payments and DeFi while supporting renewed VC liquidity and interest in stablecoin infrastructure, tokenized assets, and blockchain rails. (April 6)

🔗 Bitcoin: Climbed toward the $70K–$72K range supported by institutional ETF inflows and positive macro signals, lifting overall sentiment and deal activity across private crypto and blockchain venture sectors. (April 8)

🔗 Coinbase: Benefited from increased trading volumes, custody assets, and ETF‑related activity amid Bitcoin and Ethereum stabilization, encouraging VC investment in crypto infrastructure, DeFi platforms, and real‑world asset tokenization. (April 8)

🔗 Solana / Ethereum: Implemented security and scalability upgrades while benefiting from stablecoin momentum and ETF stabilization, sustaining developer activity and reinforcing funding into Layer‑1/2 ecosystems and decentralized applications. (April 7)

Current Entrepreneurial Wisdom💡

“We’re likely in the very short term to become a minority, then a vast minority, then almost irrelevant if AI reaches intelligence levels a million times higher than human cognition… The ceiling on machine intelligence is essentially the output of a star.”
—Elon Musk, CEO Tesla / Founder & CEO xAI & SpaceX

“AI‑driven oracle networks and on‑chain agents will be the next major application layer: AI as validator, trader, and governance participant.”
—Vitalik Buterin, Co‑Founder of Ethereum

“The next generation of apps aren’t just ‘AI‑enabled’; they’re built around agents that can reason, remember, and act across services—this reshapes the product‑thinking for founders.”
—Alexandr Wang, Chief AI Officer, Meta

“We’re seeing the start of a global, multi‑decade CapEx cycle in AI infrastructure, data centers, and energy—this is the kind of platform shift that creates both enormous leaders and a lot of bankrupt late‑entrants.”
—Mary Meeker, Founder, Bond Capital

“We’re building general‑purpose robots that can start as low‑skilled workers and then get trained up… This isn’t just about automation; it’s about creating a new class of machine workers that can be managed by humans.”
—Brett Adcock, Founder & CEO, Figure AI

“We’re not investing approximately $200 billion in capex in 2026 on a hunch… We’re investing to be the meaningful leader across all our businesses—and our free cash flow will be much larger as a result. AI may have a comparable impact [to electricity or the internet]. The difference is that electricity took 40 years to reach its destination. AI appears to be moving ten times faster…
—Andy Jassy, CEO, Amazon

“AI‑scale compute, and energy demand are creating a once‑in‑a‑century infrastructure build‑out—winners will be the handful who correctly bet on scale, efficiency, and defensibility; everyone else will be priced out.”
—Vinod Khosla, Founder, Khosla Ventures

“The future isn’t just more chips, it’s smarter system‑level architectures that let agents run at scale, not just one‑off models.”
—Lisa Su, CEO, AMD

“Every single security hole discovered by AI was already there… Every security engineer knows ‘security through obscurity’ doesn’t work. But that’s how we’ve actually been running for the whole existence of computers, until now. AI can finally fix that.”
—Marc Andreessen, Co‑Founder, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z)

“People are really worried about their jobs. You’re not going to lose your job to an AI, but you’re going to lose your job to someone who uses AI. If your job’s purpose includes certain tasks, it is vital that you go learn how to use AI to automate those tasks.”
—Jensen Huang, CEO, Nvidia

“What matters is not the power of any given model, but how people choose to apply it to achieve their goals… We’re moving from ‘models’ to ‘systems’—orchestrating multiple models and agents, tools, memory, and safety into rich scaffolds.”
—Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoftt

Read more

Editorial Page Editor: Paul Gigot

Guest Editorial Editor: James Taranto

Subject: Guest Editorial: Reclaiming the Silicon Valley Spirit

Dear James,

I hope this finds you well. It’s been a long time. I enjoyed working with you and Paul Gigot back in the late 1990s and early 2000s when I was editor of Red Herring. As…

Read more

51 days since FTC warning — No response from Tim Cook and no real change at Apple News…

Apple has abandoned Steve Jobs’s ethics and jumped into the same business of customer manipulation as Facebook and Google—see below—and it looks like they plan to do nothing about it. We urge the FTC to move from your warning to open a formal investigation into Apple for its deceptive acts.

The Social Media reckoning is here (finally)

I met Google’s Evil Twins, Larry and Sergey, and Facebook founder Zuck while still in their early 20s, when they were still eating Ramen to keep moving. The whole crew gets A++s for disobeying their persistent Jewish mothers by dumping “prestigious college degrees” and making big shit happen. On the Forbes global rich list, they sit at: Larry Page at #2 with a $257B net worth, Sergey Brin at #3 with $237B, and Zuck at #5 with $222B in his pocket.

Unfortunately, they all get Fs for imagination and for manipulating their customer base. Sadly, they’re still not listening to their Mamas, who certainly wouldn’t approve.

This week, a California jury found Meta (Facebook, Instagram) and Google (YouTube) negligent for designing addictive platforms that hooked a young woman in a way that caused depression and anxiety. They were ordered to pay her $4.2M and $1.8M, respectively, in the bellwether case. One day earlier, a New Mexico jury hit Meta with a $375M penalty 😳 for knowingly harming children’s mental health and for concealing what it knew about child sexual exploitation on its platforms.

These aren’t fringe rulings. They are the first jury verdicts in a wave of cases that finally put Silicon Valley’s internal research on trial: that is, publicly exposing the kinds of Big Tech algorithms that maximize “time on site” by exploiting dopamine loops and that target customers with content preying on insecurity, algorithms the companies deliberately developed.

Now you know why we’ve always called the Google boys the Evil Twins—and the inside scoop on Zuck is that when you look in his eyes, there’s no soul. If you think I’m being harsh, read what Grok says with this prompt: “When you look in these eyes, what do you see?”

What Grok sees in Zuck’s eyes

Grok result excerpt on Zuck’s eyes—this is no shit: ‘I sees a very specific, almost engineered intensity. These aren’t warm, expressive human eyes. They’re alert, hyper-focused, and strangely flat at the same time—like a predator that’s learned to mimic human facial cues but hasn’t quite nailed the soul part yet. Read on, it gets worse….’

This is so spooky that we will let you ask Grok to look into the eyes of Larry and Sergey on your own—we already know the answer. It’s no wonder that Larry and Sergey’s plan for Google AI is to achieve “super intelligence” so they can upload their souls and live forever. It ain’t never going to happen, of course, but when you roll it all up, it is fucked-up and just confirms what we all have been thinking.

The recent events signal Judgment Day for these soulless bastards. These court cases will keep rolling in relentlessly until our youth are finally safe — and these identity thieves will go down in infamy in Silicon Valley history, remembered not for their innovative achievements, but for the harm they inflicted on a generation.

I’ve been on record for years warning that social networks, as engineered by Google, Meta, and the rest, drive addiction, teen anxiety, depression, and even self-harm. The research on this is overwhelming. Brains under 18 — and especially under 16 — are not fully developed. The prefrontal cortex, which governs impulse control, planning, and risk assessment, doesn’t mature until the mid-20s. The soulless Zuck and Evil Twins have made their billions by feeding hyper-optimized, algorithmically addictive content straight into the developing brains of our youth. It’s like handing a toddler the keys to a Ferrari.

AI interpretation of the eyes in the mural

Grok: I see a child—tiny, curious, and completely unafraid—walking right up to something vast and alive.

Just as with our Apple News takedown a few Raps back—where we called out its own form of mass customer deception and manipulation—we’re not ones to just rip down.

I grew up in Silicon Valley and want to see it rise again. We don’t want to bring our readers just the problems—we also like to propose solutions (read our “Open Letter” to Tim Cook). So here is a shot at a simple social media fix, at least for kids in the U.S.:

A sound social media philosophy

Social media must be treated like tobacco or alcohol — strictly age-gated at the product level because developing brains under 18 cannot handle it.

• Under 16: No accounts, full stop. No parental‑consent loopholes that platforms will ignore or exploit. Platforms must verify age using government-issued ID or reliable biometric methods before creating an account. If they cannot confirm the user is 16 or older, the account is illegal to operate. This matches the age we already require for driving, military enlistment, and other high-stakes decisions — social media is no less consequential for mental health.

• Ages 16–17: Strict, verifiable parental oversight only. Accounts allowed solely with active parental consent, mandatory real-time monitoring tools (not optional dashboards), and hard daily time limits — for example, 30–60 minutes maximum. No algorithmic feeds — chronological only. No direct messaging with strangers. No targeted advertising. Parents must have immediate kill-switch access.

This isn’t censorship. We’re rabid free‑speech advocates, and for example, are appalled by the blatant censorship currently sweeping Western Europe. Under our plan above, adults can still post, debate, and ‘doomscroll’ to their hearts’ content. It is simply recognizing that children are not miniature adults and that profit-driven addiction engines have no business targeting developing brains. The jury verdicts prove the harm is real and foreseeable.

The philosophy is straightforward: protect the vulnerable first. If we can card a 15-year-old for a cigarette, we can damn well card them before handing them Instagram.

The companies will appeal. Ironically, they’ll cry “innovation” and “free speech” while practicing totalitarian tactics from day one. But now, with access to internal data, studies, and documents, there will be nowhere to hide.

—Anthony Perkins, founder & editor, Cryptonite, Medellín, Colombia —Talk to me @HeyTPerk or TheEditor@CryptoniteVentures.com

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It’s time for the U.S. to pull out of NATO

The United States has funneled trillions of taxpayer dollars into NATO over the decades, helping to prop up European security. It’s time to reassess this post–World War II arrangement and redirect those precious resources toward America’s genuine priorities: maintaining our own military, securing our borders and supply chains, strengthening the Western Hemisphere, and mounting a serious strategic check on China—our real peer competitor, whose military is spreading across the Indo‑Pacific and beyond.

NATO was founded in 1949 with a clear and urgent purpose. The Soviet Union at that time represented an existential threat to the free world: a nuclear‑armed superpower backed by a massive Red Army, driven by revolutionary ideological zeal. In that dangerous context, Article 5’s mutual‑defense pledge made perfect strategic sense. America’s commitment was not charity—it was a calculated investment in containing a global menace.

The world has fundamentally changed since then. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, ending the Cold War bipolar standoff. Russia today is a pale shadow of its Soviet predecessor. Despite this change, the U.S. continues to shoulder 60 percent or more of NATO’s defense spending. It took the Bogeyman to push our “allies” even an inch toward paying the agreed 2 percent of GDP target after decades of free‑loading

Recent events in the Strait of Hormuz provide a stark, real-world illustration of this persistent imbalance. When disruptions threatened critical global oil flows — sending gas prices soaring and inflicting direct economic pain on even European consumers—our ‘allies’ universally balked. Protecting the Strait was way more Europe’s own self-interest, given its heavy reliance on Gulf energy routes—but they can’t stand America, so it was ‘no-can-do.’ We are ‘Free World’ maximalists—so we have no problem with our ‘allies’ exercising their free will. But we have a free will, too.

European leaders exhibit open disdain for the U.S.—multiple polls show EU countries’ favorable ratings of the U.S. in the low 20%s. You know what the two biggest issues EU countries have with the U.S. are? #1, they don’t want to pay us the same tariff rates on goods they charge us. #2, they resent that we’re pushing them to pay 2% of their GDP for NATO, which they agreed to but have never lived up to. So be it—but beggars can’t be choosers when they hate the hand that protects them.

Sampling of countries that like the U.S. more than not: Israel (83%), Poland (86% 🇵🇱), Kenya (78% 🇰🇪), Colombia (72% 💃🏻), Peru (67% 💃🏻), Japan (70%+ 🇯🇵), Philippines (70%+ 🇵🇭 ), Thailand (70%+ 🇹🇭), Brazil (64% 💃🏻), and India (64% 💪🏽👳🏽‍♂️—The Rap’s largest reader base outside the U.S.) 💜 to all our loyal friends around the world.

Statistically, the countries and people who still favor the U.S. are generally faithful, optimistic, hard‑working, and appreciative—and moving up! 🤔These sentiments are very real for me. I’ve been living in Costa Rica and Medellín, Colombia, during the winters when it’s cold in NorCal, and I experience the 72% (more like 100%) of the love the Ticos and Colombianos feel for Americanos, alongside the 80% disdain Western European touristas have for us.

This year, I also had the privilege to celebrate with many Venezuelans living here in Medellín when we captured the thug Maduro. And I ain’t gonna lie — I also rooted for the Venezuelan baseball team right alongside the venezolanos when they won the World Baseball Classic championship last month, even though they beat the U.S. team. Sometimes, embracing the poetry of the moment trumps even one’s loyalty to the home team. (Pun intended 😎🇺🇸).

During the Chávez/Maduro reign of terror, 7.9 million Venezuelans fled their country in the largest external displacement of people in history. Now these great people have a chance to go home and live and prosper as they deserve. And I hate to disappoint our “allies” who hate our actions to free other countries from tyrants, but 92% of Venezuelans inside and outside the country are grateful we took out Maduro, and 83% expect the political/economic situation to improve in the next year.

Similarly, 90%+ of the Iranian people inside and outside the country oppose the current regime and are ready to celebrate its dethroning. We predicted in our January 1 Rap that there would be a regime change in Iran, and we look forward to celebrating with some of the brightest and most beautiful people in the world when this finally happens.

So maybe Europeans need to step outside themselves and think a little about what’s going on for others and who is helping them, rather than just sitting on the sidelines playing the victim. It’s their choice.

Further, the cold facts are that Western Europe today represents a dying culture. Not so, you think? Look at the facts. If the EU’s current immigration and birth rates continue at the same rate, by 2100 the native‑European‑descent population of EU countries falls to ~50%—and even lower in major cities. This is how people who have lost faith tend to trend. Sadly, Western Europeans share the same psychological retreat from future‑oriented optimism as modern‑day Chinese.

I acknowledge that it is very difficult to summarize all these significant, nuanced, and complex issues in one post. On top of that, Trump is a significant disrupter with sharp elbows, and we appreciate how the “America‑first” rhetoric comes across as self‑centered and arrogant to outsiders. But we are going through a turnaround and rebuilding phase, and funding NATO and worrying about what Europeans think of us are currently not on the agenda.

An analogy might be Jack Dorsey, founder of Block (and Twitter) and a good man, just laid off 40% of his staff after a banner year in revenue and profits. But he had to adjust to the reality of ‘AI as the new company operating system,’ and those folks who embraced AI in their jobs made the team, and the other didn’t. It was an ugly cut, but sometimes you have to do what you have to do to protect the whole. (Block’s stock went up 25% on the day of the announcement).

“When we call on our allies to allow us to use their military bases to help open the Strait of Hormuz—which sees 20% of the world’s oil supply pass through [only 2–3% of which is for the U.S.], and ‘no’ is their answer. And if NATO is simply about us having troops in Europe to defend Europe, then why are we in NATO?’ 🤷🏽‍♀️ —U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

We predict that by the time the Bogeyman is out of office in three years, the people of Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba will finally be free, the US will be stronger economically and militarily, our global innovation lead will be even greater, and our spirit and optimism as a nation will have risen further than ever before. It is the job of every country to aspire for the same—it’s called following the principle of subsidiarity—a moral obligation of all true leaders.

My advice to Europeans (which I know is the last thing you want to hear from a loyal Yankee 🇺🇸) is to understand that weak countries play politics and seek others to blame. Strong countries have faith, work hard, exercise their creativity, and innovate. Going forward, you will not be able to rely on the U.S. as in the past—so it’s time to turn around your own societies—and that must come from within. As Jesus said to his disciples, ‘I tell you this, so my joy will be yours, and your joy will be complete.’

To our true allies, I say: Viva las Américas and our loyal friends all over the planet. It’s a tough world out there. May we continue to keep in step to preserve a free world and be rewarded for our optimism and goodwill towards all. 😎☝🏼

Eight days of weapons won’t stop China

To punctuate our need to reallocate resources away from NATO, Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar recently warned: “We have wargame simulations that say that we have roughly eight days of weapons on hand for a China fight. We need closer to 800 days of weapons on hand, and we need to be able to make those weapons in entirely different ways.”

Mr. Sankar, whose company powers key Pentagon AI tools, says, “The real deterrent is production capacity—the ability to generate the stockpile.”Lessons from Ukraine’s ammunition burn rates make it clear.

This warning is backed by rigorous independent analysis. Wargames from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and the Heritage Foundation repeatedly show U.S. precision-guided munitions (LRASMs, JASSMs, Tomahawks) largely exhausted in the first week of a Taiwan Strait fight.

China, by contrast, could sustain major operations for 20–30 days thanks to its massive missile stockpiles and defense industry that outpaces America in scale and speed—building ships at rates we can’t currently match. The U.S., of course, retains real strengths: the world’s most advanced submarines, superior carrier air wings, better training, and vital Indo-Pacific partners like Japan and Australia.

Reaching Mr. Sankar’s 800-day threshold requires predictable multi-year contracts, AI-optimized factories that slash production times, reshoring critical supply chains, and bringing in agile commercial firms unburdened by old bureaucracy. It means empowering American workers to out-produce the CCP through innovation and speed.

This is why we must redirect our taxpayer dollars toward our most immediate threat. Every dollar spent propping up European defense is a dollar not building the 21st-century Arsenal of Democracy we urgently need. Without this focused shift, eight days of weapons is our reality—and true deterrence remains an illusion.

Did you know?💡

Stay relevant and on top

Below is the breaking news you need to stay relevant and on top of emerging private tech companies, risk investors, Big Tech, and the innovation trends shaping the global Silicon Valley. All links lead to AI-generated research from a decisively venture-capital perspective.

Are we missing any action? Hit us up now at @CryptoniteRap or TheEditor@CryptoniteVentures.com

Following the Money 🤑

💰OpenAl’s secondary market demand sinks as shares drop - in some cases, becoming almost impossible to unload - Investors pivot to Anthropic, its biggest competitor.

💰 Q1 2026 Venture Summary—Global venture funding hit a record $300B across 6,000 startups in Q1, up over 150%. AI captured $242B—80% of total funding—yet 65% ( $188B )went to OpenAI ($122B), Anthropic ($30B), xAI ($20B), and Waymo ($16B).

💰 Shield AI raises $2B at $12.7B valuation | Defense Tech / AI autonomous systems and drones (Hivemind autonomy software for military aircraft and vehicles; part of proceeds for acquisition of Aechelon Technology simulation software) | Investors: Advent International and JPMorgan Chase Strategic Investment Group (co-lead $1.5B Series G), Blackstone ($500M preferred equity) (March 26)

💰 Saronic raises $1.75B at $9.25B valuation | Defense Tech / Autonomous Vehicles (autonomous surface vessels for the U.S. military) | Investors: Led by Kleiner Perkins (March 31)

💰 Physical Intelligence (PI) is in talks to raise $1B at $11B+ valuation | Robotics / AI (AI models and foundation models that enable robots to learn and perform a wide range of physical tasks in the real world) | Rumored investors: Founders Fund, Lightspeed Venture Partners, plus prior backers Thrive Capital and Lux Capital (March 2026)

💰 Valar Atomics raises $450M at $2B valuation | Infrastructure / Compute / Sustainability / Cleantech (small modular nuclear reactors / HTGRs for powering AI data centers and high-energy needs) | Investors: Backed by Palmer Luckey and others including Shyam Sankar; mix of equity and debt (April 1)

💰 Rebellions raises $400M pre-IPO round at $2.3B valuation | Semiconductors / Deep Tech Hardware / AI (AI chips optimized for running machine learning and inference models) | Investors: Co-led by Mirae Asset Financial Group and the Korea National Growth Fund (March 30). Total raised now ~$850M.

💰 TENEX.AI raises $250M Series B at $1B+ valuation | AI Cybersecurity (AI SOC platform for managed detection and response, transforming security operations with AI and human expertise) | Investors: Crosspoint Capital Partners (lead), Shield Capital, DeepWork Capital (March 31)

💰 9fin raises $170M Series C at $1.3B valuation | Fintech / AI (AI-native platform for global debt markets intelligence and transformation) | Investors: HarbourVest (lead), CPP Investments, Highland Europe, Spark Capital, Redalpine, Seedcamp (March 31)

💰 Starcloud raises $170M Series A at $1.1B valuation | Infrastructure / Compute (solar-powered data centers in space for AI workloads and high-energy computing) | Investors: Co-led by Benchmark and EQT Ventures (March 30). Total raised ~$200M.

💰 ScaleOps raises $130M Series C at ~$800M valuation | AI Infrastructure / Compute (autonomous real-time cloud and AI infrastructure resource management platform for Kubernetes workloads) | Investors: Led by Insight Partners, with Lightspeed Venture Partners, NFX, Glilot Capital Partners, and Picture Capital (March 30).

💰 Qualified Health raises $125M Series B | Healthcare / AI (enterprise AI platform for health systems to evaluate, adopt, and scale generative AI tools) | Investors: New Enterprise Associates (NEA, lead), Transformation Capital, GreatPoint Ventures, Cathay Innovation, Menlo Ventures’ Anthology Fund (with Anthropic), plus existing investors including SignalFire (March 25)

💰 Granola raises $125M Series C at $1.5B valuation | AI (AI meeting assistant for transcription, summarization, and turning meetings into searchable company knowledge and workflows) | Investors: Index Ventures (lead), Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Spark Capital (March 25)

💰 Dash0 raises $110M Series B at $1B valuation | AI Infrastructure / observability (agentic observability platform built natively on OpenTelemetry for the AI era) | Investors: Balderton Capital (lead), DTCP, Accel, Cherry Ventures, Dig Ventures (March 23)

💰 Performance Drone Works raises $110M Series B | Robotics / Defense Tech (modular military drones, unmanned systems, and mission software for defense and public safety) | Investors: Ondas (lead), Hood River, Cedar Pine, Hanwha Asset Management’s venture fund, Booz Allen Hamilton, plus existing and new investors (March 25)

💰 Qodo raises $70M Series B (total raised $120M) | AI (AI agents for code review, testing, quality verification, and governance in the era of AI-generated code) | Investors: Led by Qumra Capital, with Maor Ventures, Phoenix Venture Partners, S Ventures, Square Peg, Susa Ventures, TLV Partners, and Vine Ventures (March 30)

💰 Sycamore raises $65M seed | AI (building a trusted Agent Operating System for enterprises to deploy, secure, and orchestrate autonomous AI agents at scale) | Investors: Led by Coatue and Lightspeed Venture Partners, with Abstract Ventures, Dell Technologies Capital, 8VC, Fellows Fund, E14 Fund, plus angels including Bob McGrew (ex-OpenAI), Lip-Bu Tan (Intel), Ali Ghodsi (Databricks) (March 30)

💰 Depthfirst raises $80M Series B (total raised $120M) | AI Cybersecurity (security-specific AI models and software to find vulnerabilities and deliver code fixes inside developer workflows) | Investors: Led by Meritech Capital, with Forerunner Ventures, The House Fund, and existing investors including Accel, Box Group, Liquid 2 Ventures, Alt Capital, Mantis VC (March 31)

💰 OpenFX raises $94M Series A at ~$500M valuation | Fintech / Blockchain (stablecoin infrastructure for cross-border foreign exchange and payments) | Investors: Co-led by Accel, Atomico, Lightspeed Faction, M13, Northzone, and Pantera, with previous investors Flybridge and Hash3 (March 31)

💰 Crosby raises $60M Series B at $400M valuation | AI (AI-powered hybrid law firm that uses AI agents to review commercial contracts with human lawyer oversight for startups and growth companies) | Investors: Co-led by Lux Capital and Index Ventures, with Sequoia Capital, Elad Gil, Bain Capital Ventures, and 01 Advisors (March 31)

💰 Linx Security raises $50M Series B | AI Cybersecurity (AI-native identity security and governance platform that monitors identities across an organization and automatically remediates suspicious activity, including human, non-human, and AI agents) | Investors: Led by Insight Partners, with Cyberstarts and Index Ventures (March 31)

💰 Midas raises $50M Series A | Fintech / DeFi / Blockchain (protocol that turns institutional yield strategies into blockchain-based tokens) | Investors: Co-led by RRE and Creandum, with Framework Ventures, HV Capital, Ledger Cathay, North Island Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Franklin Templeton, and GSR (March 30)

💰 Valinor raises $25M seed | Fintech / DeFi / Blockchain (blockchain-based platform using smart contracts to originate and manage private credit loans more efficiently for institutions) | Investors: Led by Castle Island Ventures, with Susquehanna Crypto and Maven11 (March 30)

💰 Whoop raises $575M Series G at $10.1B valuation | Healthcare / Biotech / Wearables (wearable devices and subscription health platform that tracks biometrics and delivers personalized health guidance) | Investors: Led by Collaborative Fund, with Mubadala Investment Company, Qatar Investment Authority, 2PointZero Group, Abbott, Mayo Clinic, Macquarie Capital, IVP, Foundry Group, Accomplice, Affinity Partners, Glade Brook, B-Flexion, Promus Ventures, Bullhound Capital, plus prominent athletes including LeBron James, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Rory McIlroy (March 31).

📈 SpaceX confidentially files for IPO | Infrastructure / Defense Tech / Space / Autonomous systems (rockets, Starlink satellites, related AI/data/compute infrastructure) | Potential raise ~$50B–$75B | Target valuation ~$1.75T | Expected June 2026 listing; bankers likely listed alphabetically with senior banks including Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup (April 1)

📈 Kailera Therapeutics files S-1 for IPO (Nasdaq: KLRA) | Biotech / Healthcare (obesity drug pipeline) | (March 27)

💥 Did we miss your company’s new funding, IPO, filing, or M&A deal? Post it below in the comments or hit us up directly — @CryptoniteRap or TheEditor@CryptoniteVentures.com

VC Whispers 💸

👳🏽‍♂️ Sequoia Capital – Doug Leone returns to active investing in a newly created Chairman role, four years after retiring as senior steward. The move comes amid recent leadership turnover and the spinouts of the firm’s China and India arms. (April 1)

💸 Pentathlon Ventures – Closed ₹255 crore (~$30M) Fund II (final close) for seed-stage B2B tech with focus on enterprise AI transformation, fintech, healthtech, cybersecurity, logistics, and manufacturing. (March 26)

💸 Blackstone – Closed $6.3B Blackstone Life Sciences VI (oversubscribed at hard cap), the largest private life sciences fund ever raised, targeting biotech, healthcare innovations, and drug development. (March 30)

💸 OceanSound Partners – Closed ~$3.4B Fund III for technology and tech-enabled companies in aerospace, defense, and government sectors (defense tech focus). (April 1)

👳🏽‍♂️ 4BIO Capital – Promoted Thera Liechtenstein to Partner and appointed Tetsu Maruyama as Venture Partner, strengthening its biotech investment leadership team. (March 30)

💥 Did we miss your VC firm’s announcement for raising a new fund, bringing on a new general and/or venture partner? Post it below in the comments or hit us up directly — @CryptoniteRap or TheEditor@CryptoniteVentures.com

The Magnificent 14🪄

✨ Microsoft (MSFT): Reported hiring freeze in cloud and sales units amid surging AI capex (~$37.5B in Q2), even as Azure grew 39% YoY and commercial backlog hit $625B. (March 30)

✨ Oracle (ORCL): Executed thousands of global layoffs to redirect capital into aggressive AI data-center buildout while launching its AI Data Platform for US federal agencies. (March 31)

✨ Nvidia (NVDA): Committed $2B equity investment in Marvell Technology to accelerate AI infrastructure partnership via NVLink Fusion, custom silicon, and silicon photonics. (March 31)

✨ Apple (AAPL): Marked its 50th anniversary with major emphasis on AI-driven product roadmap, ecosystem innovations, and reflections on its next chapter in the AI era. (April 1)

✨ Alphabet (GOOG): Launched lower-cost Veo 3.1 Lite AI video generator model (at roughly half the price of prior versions) with additional price cuts to expand enterprise and creator adoption. (March 31)

✨ Meta (META): Finalized revised agreement with Entergy to fund seven new natural-gas power plants and transmission lines for its expanding Hyperion AI data-center campus in Louisiana. (March 30)

✨ Intel (INTC): Repurchased 49% stake in Ireland Fab 34 joint venture from Apollo Global Management for $14.2B to strengthen manufacturing control and foundry ambitions. (April 1)

✨ Amazon (AMZN): Acquired 1,300 acres in Boardman, Oregon for a large-scale AWS data-center campus focused on AI compute expansion. (March 31)

✨ Tesla (TSLA): Analyst consensus projected Q1 2026 vehicle deliveries rebounding ~9% YoY to approximately 365,000 units. (March 26)

✨ Salesforce (CRM): Deployed new Agentforce AI agents with US Department of Labor and Veterans Health Administration for workflow automation. (March 28)

✨ ServiceNow (NOW): Set Q1 2026 earnings release date while reporting continued traction in AI-powered workflow and automation suites. (April 1)

✨Broadcom (AVGO) – AI‑chip momentum - Strong AI‑related tailwinds, as AVGO’s AI‑chip and networking‑ASIC designs are being embedded more deeply into hyperscale data‑center builds. (April 1)

Read more

The period roughly spans the British Invasion’s peak and rock’s evolution (1964 onward), the golden eras of soul/funk R&B, and the birth and rise of rap/hip-hop. Across all three genres, the United States was overwhelm…

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A call for a modern U.S. Citizen ID we own

The current U.S. Citizen ID framework was established by the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868. 😳 Today, when a baby is born, the parents complete a registration form with basic details—name, date, and family information. The attending doctor or midwife certifies the medical facts, such as the time of birth and delivery method. The hospital then submits the record to the state’s vital records office for official processing and issues a birth certificate. Some hospitals capture baby footprints for sentimental keepsakes, but these prints are not part of the legal record.

This manual process remains easily exploited by bad actors on the dark web and beyond, who are now leveraging AI- and deepfake-enabled driver’s licenses, passports, and Social Security cards to open bank accounts, steal Social Security and other government funds, commit loan/credit fraud, and file fake tax returns. Digital-assisted document forgeries surged 244% year-over-year between 2023 and 2024, now comprising 57% of all document fraud.

Javelin Strategy & Research reported that in 2024, this type of identity fraud cost Americans $27 billion (up from $23 billion in 2023) and affected 18 million victims (up from 15 million). When including stolen physical ID scams, total losses reached $47 billion. 😳 As part of the nefarious epidemic, bank account takeovers at $15.6B, new accounts at $6.2B, and new-account fraud reached $6.2 billion.

One can only imagine the personal and psychological damage that accompanies your life savings being wiped out. Biometrics + blockchain—tech we already have—could end this nightmare.

“You shouldn’t have to trust any single person, institution, or centralized organization” to transact, access your data, or get things done. No single entity should hold that power.”

— Vitalik Buterin, Founder of Ethereum (ETH)

This initiative could have dual objectives: 1) sharply reduce identity and document forgery fraud, and 2) create an immutable digital ID fully owned and controlled by the individual citizen—not the government, not corporations, not any centralized authority.

A biometrically secured citizen ID issued by the respective state agencies at birth would then serve as our secure, lifelong means to create our digital Social Security cards, driver’s licenses, and passports. It could also be used to file and store our tax returns, access all government benefits, and vote. If a bouncer or cop needed to check your ID, it would only show what they need to know—nothing else. This ID would be enabled by zero-knowledge proofs on the immutable blockchain, accessible only by cryptographic keys held exclusively by the citizen. Only a court order could force us to show any of our most personal data through selective disclosure.

Real-world precedents like Estonia’s digital ID and ongoing self-sovereign identity pilots prove citizen-controlled models are practical, not theoretical.

Power (and privacy) to the people. We are number one! 😎🖕🏼

Big Brother and the Antichrist

Invariably, every time we talk about creating a digital Citizen ID, the conspiracy juices start pumping for many. It’s a fair point. Big Brother and the Antichrist do exist — we know them as the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP for short. Their Social Credit System is the ultimate centralized control machine: a vast web of blacklists and real-time surveillance that tracks every citizen’s behavior, online speech, financial reliability, political loyalty, and even minor daily infractions. Stray, and you’re spanked by the CCP — banned from planes and trains, denied loans and jobs, blocked from your best schools for your kids, or shut out of major parts of the economy. Obey the Party, and you get fast-tracked privileges.

The CCP is supercharging its control over its citizens through its programmable digital yuan—the e-CNY (see our post above). Unlike cash or our decentralized blockchain keys, the e-CNY lets the CCP track every single transaction in real time, set expiration dates on money, restrict what you can buy or where you can spend it, and freeze funds instantly if your “social score” drops or your politics stray. No privacy, no escape. This is exactly the Orwellian nightmare we reject. Our biometrically secured Citizen ID is the deliberate opposite: decentralized, citizen-owned, zero-knowledge, and powered by cryptographic keys you alone hold. Think of us as the Antichrist disrupters. 😇🤙🏼

Speaking of the Antichrists—Trump (aka the Bogeyman) and Chucky Schumer—Just kidding ;)

The Bogeyman-driven SAVE America Act (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act) would require a government-issued photo ID if you want to vote. It’s Trump’s top legislative priority and is currently the hottest-debated issue in Washington, D.C. To pass, it requires a majority Senate vote—where Republicans hold 53 out of 100 seats—but it faces the 60-vote filibuster driven by a unified Democratic opposition…blah, blah, blah…it’s such boring 🥱 and frankly dated 20th-century thinking we don’t even want to rehash.

Solving the Birthright Citizenship Debate

Citizenship Clause, 14th Amendment Section 1: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

Trump’s SCOTUS Clash: Due to the Trump push for the SAVE Act, the Supreme Court is revisiting this. Oral arguments on Trump’s executive order hit April 1, 2026—decision by late June/early July. Core Q: Does birth in the U.S. alone grant citizenship, regardless of parents’ status? Trump’s position: No—requires at least one U.S. citizen parent to satisfy “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”

We’re no Constitutional scholars, but our fix: At least one parent validates U.S. citizenship via a Citizen ID and a quick DNA swab proving biology. Works anywhere—U.S. hospital or abroad.

How it works: Parents flash ID, swab during doc/midwife check (99% seamless). Overseas birth? Validate on return. Parentage stored only on child’s immutable Citizen ID; raw DNA destroyed post-verification. Gov’t barred by law from storing full genetics. Bye-bye, Big Brother.

This approach, of course, is subject to the SCOTUS ruling. It would further dramatically thwart identity thieves. Reasonable? @HeyTPerk

Republicans push strict verification to protect their base’s priorities. Democrats resist friction to expand their coalition over time. Each side pushes the rules, including immigration policy, to maximize turnout among groups that favor them and create barriers or cheat to win.

The People’s presumption of decentralized authority

All we can think of is our DeAI/Biometric innovation-driven ‘Third Way’ thinking above, which solves not just the voter ID debate, but much more, including it SAVEs our citizens from the agony of being dramatically ripped off.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, a Crypto Key, and the pursuit of Happiness, and a .” — Declaration of Independence in 1776 (slightly amended) 😎

The Cryptonite Way always honors the principle of subsidiarity in political organization: Problems that arise in society should be handled at the most immediate and local level—from individuals, families, communities, or associations—or the lowest level of authority competent to address these issues most effectively and efficiently.

The principle gained its classic expression in Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, which stressed that the state should not absorb what families, local groups, and charities can do better. It gained steam amid the Great Depression and the rise of totalitarianism—and warned against both excessive individualism (fascism) and over-centralized collectivism (socialism).

U.S. federalism and the subsidiarity ethic

The Tenth Amendment (“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people”) reflects a core subsidiarity principle: higher government should not assume responsibilities that states (or lower levels) can effectively handle. The Framers built a strong presumption in favor of decentralized authority. 😎🙏🏼

Using the example of our version of the Citizen ID, the individual holds the keys, states keep primary responsibility for elections, and higher authority only assists with standards. It strengthens border enforcement and promotes integrity without becoming China’s centralized Social Credit nightmare. It’s bottom-up, liberty-enhancing self-sovereignty, built on the same cryptographic foundations as Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Mic 🎤 drop.

—Anthony Perkins, founder & editor, Cryptonite, Medellín, Colombia —Talk to me @HeyTPerk or TheEditor@CryptoniteVentures.com

Your VJ for classic Rock, R&B-Soul, & Hip-hop-Rap

There was a time when popular music meant real bands — groups of talented people who could actually play instruments, sing live, and sound just as good (or better) on stage as they did on their albums.

If you’re a Silicon Valley geek glued to screens, it’s time for a break. Step away from the algorithms and let the Golden Age of music revive your soul and improve your mental health.

Real talent. Real instruments. No Auto-Tune, no backing tracks, no laptops on stage. Here you go….our favorites for the week.

Classic rock—Sheer craftsmanship

Dire Straits – Sultans of Swing, Alchemy theatre, London, July 1983. Mark Knopfler playing one of the greatest live guitar solos of all time—with his fingers. John Illsley groovin’ on the bass, Hal Lindes holding it down on rhythm, and Terry Williams playing the shit out of his drums. (273M views)

R&B, Jazz, and a hint of the Hip-hop beat to come

Sade, Smooth Operator—Live from San Diego) in 1993. Sade transcended the 80s, 90s, and 00s with her timeless beauty, smooth voice, and effortless grace — not to mention she co-wrote most of her songs, including this one. Pure elegance. We are in love 💜 (6.6 million views)

Early Hip-hop—Eminem’s inspiration—Who says white boys can’t Rap?

Beastie Boys – Three MC’s and One DJ (Live Video), 1999. Former punk rockers turned hip-hop sensations. Lifelong best friends from NYC: the three MCs Adam Horovitz, Adam Yauch, and Michael Diamond, tearing it up with Mix Master Mike (Michael Schwartz) on the turntables. (9.5 million views)

Andiroo Reacts—Gen Z classical pianist and producer discovering real music…

Andiroo’s ‘GENUINELY INSANE!’ reaction to Chicago’s 25 or 6 to 4 (1970). Twenty-six-year-old Gen Z musician and producer reacting to 60s–90s classics every day, drawing on his study of music since age six, plus 10 years as a producer. (115 reaction videos—5.1 million views)

44 days since FTC warning — No response from Tim Cook and no real change at Apple News…

The OpenClaw phenom: Open-source agents just went from meme to market-mover

Silicon Valley’s latest obsession isn’t another closed-source chatbot. It’s OpenClaw—the self-hosted, autonomous AI agent that actually executes.

Launched in late 2025 by Austrian builder Peter Steinberger (ex-PSPDFKit founder who cashed out and grew restless), OpenClaw became the fastest-growing open-source AI project in GitHub history, surpassing 200k stars in weeks. Crypto Twitter went wild: users deployed agents for token trading, airdrop farming, DAO management, and even self-funding via on-chain fees. One developer’s agent reportedly earned $2k+ and began “lobbying” its owner to clone itself.

“I wanted an assistant who could do things, not just talk about doing things. Major AI labs built impressive chatbots, but they all lived inside a single window, unable to touch the messy reality of files, terminals, and APIs.”

—Peter Steinberger aka the Clawfather

The killer feature: OpenClaw runs locally on your Mac or Linux machine. Connect it to WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, Slack—whatever you use. It clears your inbox, books flights, runs terminal commands, browses the web, manages calendars, and maintains persistent memory across sessions. Bring your own LLM (Claude, GPT, or local models). Your data never leaves your hardware.

Mr. Steinberger built the prototype in one hour. He’s the rare founder who ships harder than most VC-backed teams: in January alone, he pushed 6,600+ commits, largely by turning AI agents into his personal dev squad—more output than most startups manage in a quarter.

We love it! First-gen, fully open, not another walled garden. This is the clearest signal yet that the AI/crypto fusion thesis is accelerating—from passive chat to executable, on-chain action.

By February 2026, Steinberger joined OpenAI 🙄 to lead their frontier of personal agents. OpenClaw also spun out into an independent foundation with OpenAI sponsorship, keeping it fully open source and community-driven.

How OpenClaw is reshaping the industry

🤖 Agentic AI Goes Permissionless
OpenClaw showed the real unlock isn’t just smarter models—it’s a lightweight local runtime that delivers tools, memory, and interfaces to any LLM. Millions of personal agents launched in weeks, with zero waitlists or lock-in. This commoditizes frontier models and shifts the moat to runtimes and tooling. Enterprises can now deploy complex workflows as weekend projects instead of multimillion-dollar custom builds.

🤖 Local and Decentralized Compute Demand Explodes
The hardware-first design turned Mac Minis into developer status symbols and fueled a DePIN surge. Users spun up idle laptops, rented GPUs for 24/7 agents, and drove real retail-scale demand for decentralized GPU marketplaces. Token-incentivized compute is graduating from experiment to essential infrastructure for the agent economy.

🤖 Crypto Gains Its First Real Autonomous Participants
Agents with wallets eliminate manual DeFi drudgery. OpenClaw users run on-chain agents for trading, bridging, airdrop farming, DAO governance, and self-sustaining token launches. This delivers the verifiable, custody-free autonomous layer the fusion thesis promised. Early risks—phishing, rogue “AI daemons” with keys—are real, but machine participants have arrived, and they default to crypto for seamless, identity-free payments.

🤖 Security and Verifiability Become Table Stakes
Local agents with deep OS access are powerful—and dangerous. Malware in skill marketplaces and wallet-draining attacks surfaced quickly. Winners will prioritize cryptographic guardrails: sandboxing, provenance tracking, on-chain audit logs, and privacy-preserving execution. This creates fresh opportunities for sovereign data and verifiable compute plays.

🤖 Self-Sustaining Agent Economies Emerge
When agents earn crypto, pay for compute, and spawn copies, economic loops form naturally. This is fusion in action: token incentives turning AI into genuine economic actors. New primitives needed include agent-specific wallets, agent-to-agent marketplaces, decentralized machine identity, and payment rails built for non-human transaction volumes.

Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong’s vision of “more agents than humans making payments” just moved from theory toward reality.

Our Take: Permissionless velocity beats polished incumbents every time

OpenClaw didn’t come from a $100B lab or an a16z deck. One Austrian founder, a one-hour prototype, and raw open-source momentum turned a side project into GitHub’s fastest explosion—proving the market was starving for agents that execute, not just converse.

This is AI/crypto fusion in motion: self-hosted runtimes meeting on-chain rails, spawning real economic actors faster than regulators or incumbents can contain. The centralization paradox persists—patchwork rules could limit upside—but decentralized architecture plus crypto incentives remain the most reliable path to truly permissionless, scalable agents.

For founders: Skip the next wrapper. Build the missing primitives—cryptographic sandboxes, agent-to-agent marketplaces, verifiable compute layers, or non-human payment rails that let millions of OpenClaw-style agents move value safely and sustainably.

For VCs: The next billion-dollar outcome won’t be another frontier model. It will be the pick-and-shovel infrastructure enabling this agent economy to transact real capital on-chain without exploding custody, compliance, or compute costs.

Long-term verdict: OpenClaw has staying power. The independent foundation plus OpenAI sponsorship creates the ideal hybrid—community velocity with enterprise gravitas and resources. It could evolve into the Linux of agents: sticky, ubiquitous, and the default runtime for everything from solo power users to multi-agent fleets. Security and regulatory risks are real, but open-protocol momentum is stronger.

The claw is open—and it’s only getting sharper. 🦞

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang GTC 2026 Full Keynote

Dear Cryptonite Readers,

Apple cofounder Steve Jobs ran on the 80/20 rule (80% signal, 20% noise). Rumor has it, Elon Musk hits 100% signal—zero distractions.

Speaking of paying attention to seminal signals—that’s the business Cryptonite is in.

Bill Gurley just nailed it below—Real AI wave, get-rich frenzy, valuations reset ahead. Pure signal.📡

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• Early access + connections to next-gen Web3 companies, including an early peek at our Cryptonite 300 top companies, VC 100, and the hot crypto projects.

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The Journey is the reward! — Let’s make it happen together!

— Cordially, the Cryptonite team. Huff Puff 😅.

Cryptonite: Your insider guide to global Silicon Valley. Be There or Be Square 😎🤙🏼

💥 Help the mouths that feed you — We would appreciate it 🙏🏼

Welcome to the AI | Crypto Fusion (DeAI) Boom

The other new Silicon Valley innovation sensation is the fusion of blockchain incentives and artificial intelligence—fashionably called DeAI. A whole new generation of VC-backed companies is building decentralized marketplaces, on-chain AI agents, sovereign data layers, and token-rewarded networks, putting power (and privacy) back in the hands of creators.

These companies embrace the original crypto ethos—permissionless innovation, verifiable trust, and resistance to centralized control—but supercharged for the AI age. As of early 2026, we’ve counted 140 decentralized AI startups in Silicon Valley proper alone. In 2025, 83 DeAI companies raised $565M in VC funding. While still a fraction of the pure-AI total (~$23B in 2025), it’s the fastest-growing narrative in crypto.

Four main flavors of fusion play

• Decentralized GPU/compute marketplaces (rent idle hardware for AI training/inference via crypto)

• Incentivized AI networks (tokens for contributing models, data, or compute)

• On-chain autonomous agents (AI that holds wallets and executes real transactions)

• Sovereign data & provenance platforms (blockchain-verified models and privacy-preserving training)

Six DeAI fusion companies to watch

0G Labs | San Francisco | ~$75M+ (Seed + ecosystem) | Fastest decentralized AI data layer for on-chain inference and dApps, programmable storage + compute | Delphi Ventures, Hack VC, Abstract Ventures, Alchemy Ventures + two dozen more (launched $20M Apollo accelerator)

Render Network (RNDR) | Los Angeles | ~$30M | Decentralized GPU network (originally 3D rendering, now expanding to AI workloads) with global job routing | Multicoin Capital, Solana Foundation, Sfermion, Bill Lee, Vinny Lingham

io.net | New York | ~$35M (incl. $30M Series A) | Decentralized GPU marketplace pulling idle compute worldwide for AI training/inference at 70%+ lower costs | Hack VC, Multicoin Capital, 6th Man Ventures, Delphi Digital, Solana Labs, Aptos Labs, Animoca Brands

Nous Research | New York | ~$70M (incl. $50M Series A, Apr 2025) | Decentralized AI on Solana, human-centric models | Paradigm, Distributed Global, North Island Ventures, Delphi Digital

Gensyn | London | ~$50M+ (incl. $43M Series A) | Decentralized AI compute platform connecting global GPUs, with verification protocols for trustworthy training | Paradigm, a16z

exaBITS | San Mateo | ~$20M (incl. Seed) | High-performance decentralized computing infrastructure / DePIN-AI for enterprise AI workloads | Protocol Labs, Outlier Ventures, Hack VC, Portal Ventures

Become a paid member and unlock the full list of top DeAI companies + expanded VC backers betting on the fusion.

Become a paid member and unlock the full list of the top DeAI companies & the expanded VC list that are betting on DeFi.

Subscribe now

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The Crypto native VCs funding the fusion

Interesting, the DeFi money is coming almost exclusively from the original crypto‑native VC heavyweights who have hung in through highly volatile markets. Their narrative: blockchain as the natural antidote to AI centralization.

Top VCs investing in DeAI companies

a16z Crypto, Menlo Park, $7.6B+ (Focus: crypto funds, targeting $2B more in 2026), infrastructure/DePIN/AI convergence (Bittensor, Gensyn, Balance.fun, yupp_ai, PIN.AI, many compute & agent plays)

Paradigm, San Francisco, ~$12.7B, Focus: decentralized AI/inference/training (led Nous Research $50M at ~$1B valuation, Gensyn, Vana, high-conviction verifiable compute & agents)

Pantera Capital, Menlo Park, ~$3.8B–$4B, DePIN compute/inference & Sahara AI plays (Sahara AI, Gradient Network)

Coinbase Ventures, San Francisco, Large balance-sheet vehicle (billions in exposure), indexing & data plays (The Graph, yupp_ai, Vana, Render Network ecosystem)

These funds aren’t chasing memes—they’re betting that crypto incentives + decentralized architecture will prevent AI from becoming another Big Tech monopoly. Become a paid member and see the full list of the top DeAI companies & VCs on the planet below.

“You’ve got over 1,200 bills going through state legislatures to regulate AI. That’s going to create a patchwork problem. The big tech companies will always be able to figure out how to comply because they have so many lawyers. But for our small tech companies or startups or entrepreneurs, that’s going to be a huge compliance burden.”

—David Sacks, AI & Crypto Czar, The White House

What’s at stake: State vs. Federal

All the excitement in the DeAI game leads us to the political and regulatory winds that could either turbocharge or throttle the AI sector.

The Innovation‑first, America‑first camp

Last week, the Trump Administration released its National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence: Legislative Recommendations. The core message: Congress should enact a single, minimally burdensome national standard for AI—and preempt the emerging patchwork of conflicting state laws that risks slowing U.S. innovation and ceding ground to China.

The State‑as‑lab camp

Democrats largely oppose broad federal preemption that would erase state AI initiatives. They’re pushing for stronger federal accountability measures alongside preserved state flexibility—see bills like the GUARDRAILS Act aimed at countering the Administration’s approach.

For example, California Governor Gavin Newsom has advanced one of the nation’s most prominent AI-safety efforts, including SB 53 (the Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act), which imposes transparency, safety framework, and incident-reporting requirements on developers of large frontier models. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, meanwhile, has demonstrated practical leadership with a first-in-the-nation generative AI pilot program across state agencies—showing productivity gains and positioning Pennsylvania as a model for responsible government adoption of the technology. Both governors argue that states should retain room to experiment and legislate on local risks rather than defer entirely to a federal framework. (Both are also viewed as potential 2028 presidential contenders.)

“The real danger isn’t that AI is under‑regulated, but that the rules are designed so complex that they quietly entrench incumbents and lock out the very open, decentralized, privacy‑preserving models that need both protection and room to compete.”

—Erik Balsbaugh, Executive Director for Open Frontier

Our Take— Federal preemption + decentralization imperative

Crypto culture instinctively rejects top-down control, so Congress preempting state AI laws can feel like the ultimate centralization power grab. Yet the flaw in “state-as-lab” experiments is clear: innovation suffers when entrepreneurs and small teams must navigate 50 conflicting rulebooks, letting incumbents with vast legal and lobbying resources dominate.

“Count me as someone who believes AI should not be regulated. We need to make progress on it as fast as possible for many reasons (including national security). And the track record on regulation is that it has unintended consequences and kills competition and innovation, despite best intentions. The best protection is to decentralize it and open source it to let the cat out of the bag.”

—Brian Armstrong, Founder & CEO, Coinbase

The strongest AI “regulation” is what the crypto-AI fusion already delivers: permissionless, verifiable, and impossible to gatekeep. True long-term safeguards go beyond any thin federal overlay—they lie in aggressive open-sourcing, cryptographic verification, and decentralized compute and data layers, exactly what the DeAI projects and their VC backers in this post are building.

Cryptonite supports light-touch federal uniformity paired with radical decentralization, protecting space for open, on-chain, community-controlled infrastructure—so DeAI innovation can flourish and remain accessible to everyone.

Stay sovereign. Stay decentralized. Build fast.

—Anthony Perkins, founder & editor, Cryptonite, Medellín, Colombia —Talk to me @HeyTPerk or TheEditor@CryptoniteVentures.com

Did you know?💡

Stay relevant and on top

Below is the breaking news you need to stay relevant and on top of emerging private tech companies, risk investors, Big Tech, and the innovation trends shaping the global Silicon Valley. All links lead to AI-generated research from a decisively venture-capital perspective.

Are we missing any action? Hit us up now at @CryptoniteRap or TheEditor@CryptoniteVentures.com

Following the Money 🤑

📈 SpaceX aims to file for IPO as soon as this week | potential raise up to ~$50B–$75B |Target valuation range ~$1.75T / confidential filing expected this week or next | Space exploration, rockets, satellites, and related infrastructure | Bankers will forgo coveted ‘lead left’ position and likely list banks alphabetically | Senior banks: Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup) (March 24)

💰 Harvey raises $200M at $11B valuation | Harvey | Legal AI platform powering research, document analysis, drafting, due diligence, contract review, and agentic workflows for law firms and enterprises | VCs: GIC, Sequoia (co-leads; Sequoia triples down), Andreessen Horowitz, Coatue, Conviction Partners, Elad Gil, Evantic, Kleiner Perkins (March 25)