Oil tops $100 and drags everything down with it Brent crude punched through $101 and WTI hit $92.61 after Houthi attacks on Saudi tankers widened the Iran conflict into Red Sea shipping lanes, sending the Nasdaq down 2.2% and the S&P 500 down 1.3% as traders priced the oil shock straight into inflation expectations. Crypto slipped with the rest of the risk stack, with total market cap down about 2% to $2.21T, bitcoin:native near $64,700, and the Fear & Greed index at 37. Rate markets now see an 82% chance of a September Fed hike, up from 52% a week ago, per CME FedWatch.

260718🔍[#음중풀캠#] ‘DAILY:DIRECTION – DOWN WITH IT’ ▶ #쇼음악중심# #음중# #데일리디렉션# #DAILYDIRECTION# #DOWN_WITH_IT# @_official_DD

Dear Joe, I wish I could sit down with you face to face and explain why so many of us were offended by the UFC fight on the South Lawn of the White House. For me, it had nothing to do with the UFC or who showed up for the fights. The brand you and Dana have built is a bona fide American success story. More power to you. As for the fighters, in my book, anyone brave enough to put it all on the line in the arena is remarkable to witness. Their dedication and discipline inspire me. I don’t understand anyone who can’t admire that. And as for the people who attended, I, for one, love Shane Gillis. I think he’s hilarious and brilliant. It was a show. A once-in-a-lifetime spectacle. I can’t blame anyone for wanting to witness it firsthand. My problem is that I believe some of our public spaces are sacred. And unlike many of the great powers that came before us, these American monuments belong to all of us. Not to whoever happens to hold power at the moment. The White House does not belong to Donald Trump. It does not belong to any President. It belongs to the people. To treat it as Caesar treated the Colosseum is antithetical to everything our founding fathers fought for. This is not Rome. Presidents are not emperors doling out bread and circuses for the peasants. The White House is the People’s House. This “celebration” could have happened in any stadium within a stone’s throw of the South Lawn. No one would have had an issue with it. But that was obviously Donald Trump’s whole point. By holding the event on the South Lawn, what he was saying to the rest of us is: “This is my house. I own it. I will do with it what I please. I’ll build a colosseum and have the gladiators fight under my gaze. I’ll tear down the East Wing. I’ll pave over the Rose Garden. I’ll cover everything in gold and marble. I’ll erase the names of all the men who came before me.” The fights were an exhibition of imperial domination, not a celebration of our 250th anniversary as a democracy. The White House is not Buckingham Palace. It is not the Palace of Versailles. It is not the Forbidden City of Beijing. It does not belong to an emperor, or a king, or a commissar. The White House belongs to us. All of us. The person who sits behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office is nothing more than an honored guest. A temporary caretaker. The President is our servant. Not our Caesar. Respectfully, Hunter P.S. Cage match between me and Don Jr.? Your call on the venue. Anywhere but the South Lawn.

Been obsessed with the stock market since I was a teenager. Have traded through the dotcom bubble, the financial crisis and just about every market mania since. But I’ve never seen anything like the skepticism surrounding AI. Not even close. Every time one bubble narrative falls apart a new one takes its place. Rumors become headlines. Misleading data goes viral. Claims that could be debunked with 5 minutes of research get repeated by major media outlets, influential investors and Wall Street analysts. It’s relentless and honestly pretty fascinating to watch. Of course there will be spectacular failures and massive wealth destruction along the way. That’s what happens during technological revolutions. But I’ve never witnessed this much effort to convince the world that something so transformative is actually one giant speculative bubble destined to take the entire economy down with it. I understand why AI scares people. What I find harder to understand is why so many investors seem to be rooting for it to fail.

🔥 INSIGHT: AI needs blockchain, according to @vechainofficial CEO @sunshinelu24. Sitting down with @itsciaranlyons, Lu makes it clear he's bullish on where blockchain and AI meet. Hear why he's betting on the convergence in the latest #CHAINREACTION#.

🔥 INSIGHT: Where are AI agents actually headed? @vechainofficial CEO @sunshinelu24 sat down with @itsciaranlyons to share his take on the future of AI agents. Catch his full outlook on #CHAINREACTION#.

🔥 INSIGHT: What happens if you switch Ethereum off tomorrow? Sitting down with @itsciaranlyons, Real Vision co-founder @RaoulGMI said you'd wipe out about 75% of stablecoins and DeFi, most of the RWA market, the digital art market and every layer 2 in a single day. He puts the lost activity at $1 trillion to $2 trillion over five years, which is why he thinks ETH is undervalued, he said on #TRADESECRETS#.

Boston Symphony CEO Chad Smith said the orchestra, which recently parted ways with its brilliant and popular conductor Andris Nelsons, must serve communities “more expansively and inclusively” and think differently about “whose voices get to be heard, whose stories get to be told.” In her latest essay, @HMDatMI rejects that woke conceit with characteristic ferocity. “If a listener needs to see himself ‘reflected,’ it would be more efficient to take a selfie than to attend a performance of a Mozart piano concerto,” she writes. One listens to Mozart “to lose oneself in a bygone world of grandeur and beauty.” Down with phony inclusivity, she argues—and up with transcendent art.

Last week TRM announced #Ardence#, an AI investigation platform that combines on-chain data with 55+ off-chain sources. This Wednesday on TRM Talks, @ARedbord sits down with its builders Simon Warren and Lexie Nappi to talk about how to build an AI platform investigators can trust. Follow TRM Talks on Spotify: