emilyvuong

A few hours until Kevin Warsh's first meeting as Fed Chair will begin.
In history, only two Fed Chairs have changed interest rates during their first FOMC meeting after taking office: Bernanke in 2006 and Powell in 2018.
Powell stood on that stage for 8 years.
It's almost certain that interest rates will remain unchanged; what the market is waiting for is a signal for upcoming FOMC meetings.
Oil is cooling down, and the Hormuz conflict has also come to an end.
If this trend continues, inflation will ease over time.
Will Kevin maintain a neutral stance or turn hawkish in his first m

🔴 Ethereum has just fully activated the devnet with all EIPs for Glamsterdam — the biggest upgrade since The Merge.
This is the final phase before hardening and rolling it out to the public testnet; the mainnet date is still a long way off.
The original target was June 2026, but it’s unlikely to make it. The testnet may begin in Q3.
EF has a track record of delays; The Merge was also pushed back and shuffled around; and Glamsterdam’s scope is much larger than Pectra/Fusaka — ePBS alone hasn’t ever been tested at mainnet scale, and more than 25 additional EIPs could be added.
The techn

🔴In just 3 months, market expectations have completely reversed due to the Fed’s decision.
- March 2026: Most economists expect the Fed to CUT interest rates by the end of 2026 (62%).
- June 2026: The reversal signals the Fed will RAISE interest rates (55%), with rates expected to fall back to near 0.
Inflation has returned to ~3.5–3.8% due to the impact of the Hormuz conflict. Meanwhile, the labor market continues to grow by >2%.
There are no longer any reasons for expectations like in March.
Risk asset valuations will likely need to be updated to the new baseline case soon.

🔴The CapEx-to-revenue ratio of technology stocks in developed markets has reached 11.5% — the highest level in history.
Meanwhile, the rest of the market is only around 7.0%. AI is officially no longer a short-term market craze but has become the largest infrastructure investment cycle in history.
Big tech is spending on infrastructure at a scale far beyond traditional industries.
The profits of the internet era are being pumped back into the foundation of the AI era.

🇺🇸 The US FY26 budget deficit is at its third-highest level in history
🔴In the first 8 months of the fiscal year, the US has a budget shortfall of 1.2 trillion USD — the third-largest ever. This level is only surpassed by FY21 (the period of massive COVID stimulus) and FY24.
And there are still 4 months left until the fiscal year ends (September 30). In fiscal year 2021, the large deficit was due to the US launching emergency relief packages during the pandemic.
🔴The large deficit this year occurs in the absence of any clear crisis. The deficit is reinforced by a trio: increased spen

🔴Onchain TCG Gacha: $230 million in revenue per month for the next potential niche in RWA?
In May 2026, users spent up to $230M just to buy gacha in onchain card games. This figure has increased ~22 times in just 17 months, from $10.4M in January 2025.
Onchain TCG gacha spend data by chain shows a broader picture:
- Solana accounts for 63.7% ($146.6M)
- Polygon accounts for 25.5% ($58.8M)
-> Only 2 chains hold nearly 90% of the entire market. The remaining share is contested by Base, BNB Chain, MegaETH, Abstract, which together make up 11%.
🔴 Why does Solana dominate?
Gacha is

🔴 Bitcoin ETF is seeing the strongest sell-off ever
This June, US native Spot ETFs for Bitcoin have recorded net outflows of -$2.1B—even though there are still more than 2 weeks left in the month.
Only for $IBIT:
- 5 consecutive weeks of outflows—the longest streak since Oct/2025. Money has net withdrawn -$4.2B over those 5 weeks
- YTD 2026: -$412M — negative for the first time on a year-over-year basis
In the previous 2 bull runs, IBIT pulled in +$36.8B (2024) and +$24.8B (2025).
Bitcoin ETF fund flows—once a tailwind for Bitcoin—are also fleeing.

🔴The AI enterprise landscape in 2026 has completely changed
In Q1/2026, Anthropic accounts for 40% of total enterprise AI spending in the U.S.
Meanwhile, OpenAI — the company that once defined the entire industry — has dropped to 27%.
Google, with its entire infrastructure including GCP, Workspace, and integrated Gemini: 21%.
In 2023, OpenAI was nearly monopolizing enterprise AI. Now, OpenAI must consider lowering token prices to regain market share from Anthropic.
The most puzzling thing is that Google is losing the AI race. Google has everything that a "winning" company should nee

🔴U.S.–Iran: Closest to an agreement ever before
This morning, Mehr announced 14 terms believed to be part of the U.S.–Iran agreement, including:
- Comprehensive ceasefire
- The U.S. withdraws forces from the area, reopens Hormuz within 30 days
- The U.S. disburses $24B and supports Iran’s reconstruction with at least $300 billion.
-> Trump immediately rejected, saying the terms Iran proposed are not related to the document that has been agreed upon in writing.
JD Vance also confirmed that Iran’s frozen assets will not be disbursed immediately upon signing the agreement.
Iranian

According to Bloomberg, the inflation in 16GB DDR4 and DDR5 RAM prices has moved close to the 300% YoY range as global memory supply is being drained by AI data centers.

🔥@CantonNetwork Fundraising $355M: RWA continues to be the story attracting money into crypto
📌Digital Asset, the company behind Canton Network, just raised $355M in a funding round led by a16z crypto. Participating are HSBC, BNP Paribas, ABN Amro, SBI Group, SoFi, Apollo, ADIA, Tradeweb, Broadridge, CME Ventures, S&P Global, Coinbase Ventures, Polychain, Citadel Securities, and Optiver.
📌Looking at the list of investors, Canton is bringing traditional finance giants into crypto: banks, funds, exchanges, market makers, custodians, and crypto VCs.
📌Canton, unlike current Layer 1s tha

🇨🇳 China continues to accelerate gold accumulation.
Beijing purchased an additional 10 tons of gold in May — the largest monthly purchase since January 2025.
Marking the third consecutive month that China has returned to net gold buying.

🔥The AI fever far exceeds any CAPEX cycle in history
📌Currently, the dot-com bubble can no longer be compared to the AI craze. According to Financial Times forecasts, CAPEX for AI software is projected to reach 9% of U.S. GDP — an unprecedented figure in Wall Street history.
📌In fact, the dot-com bubble did not account for a large percentage of capital attraction; the historical booms in the United States even far surpassed the dot-com bubble, but are less often mentioned:
🔸Railroads in the 1880s: Peak around 5–6% of U.S. GDP, the largest infrastructure cycle before AI.
🔸Electrifi

🔴SoftBank injects more capital into OpenAI
📌SoftBank wants to borrow $6B by pledging OpenAI shares to continue funding the company. However, the negotiation process has stalled after the earlier borrowing target was reduced from $10B to $6B , as lenders remain hesitant.
📌Banks will not easily agree to use the shares of a private company like OpenAI as collateral—especially since AI valuations have been pushed too high and are difficult to verify with current cash flow. This falls under the lender’s risk control requirements.
📌SoftBank shares fell 8.3% in the Tokyo session, reflecti

🔥U.S. inflation highest in 3 years - officially surpassing 4%.
📌Headline CPI:
🔸CPI for May +4.2% YoY, in line with forecasts, higher than the +3.8% of the previous month - the first time CPI exceeds 4% since April 2023.
🔸Monthly, CPI +0.5% MoM, in line with forecasts and lower than the +0.6% of the previous month.
📌Core CPI:
🔸Core CPI increased 2.9% YoY, in line with forecasts, higher than 2.8% last month and the highest in 9 months.
🔸However, monthly, core CPI only rose 0.2% MoM, below the 0.3% forecast and significantly down from 0.4% last month.
-> Data is quite noisy,

📌 📌 📍 Q2/2026 is the worst quarter for the ICO/IDO market since 2020.
Total funds raised through IEO, ICO, and IDO in Q2 only reached $58M, a decrease of up to 85% compared to the previous quarter. The number of public sales also plummeted from 105 deals in Q1/2026 to 37 deals in Q2/2026, a decline of 65%.
The weakest signal appeared in May, when the entire market only recorded 13 token sales. This is the lowest level since December 2020, when only 4 deals were completed.
The most recent peak of public 📌 fundraising was Q1/2025, with nearly $849M raised through 429 deals. Since then

🔥Claude Fable 5 and the new risks of DeFi
📌Anthropic has just launched Claude Fable 5. This is Anthropic's most powerful model, completely surpassing the rest of the market. Mythos's capabilities are so advanced that security companies are facing unprecedented cybersecurity risks.
📌Benchmark tests the agent-style coding task handling ability, with Fable 5 reaching 80.3%.
- Far surpassing the old model Opus 4.8 at 69.2%
- Currently, competitors GPT-5.5 at 58.6% and Gemini 3.1 Pro at 54.2% are left far behind
📌On FrontierCode Diamond, Fable 5 scores 29.3%: twice as high as Opus 4.8