Divergence VC

Next week.

China is cutting off the chemical that literally makes modern civilization possible. Starting May, sulfuric acid exports will stop, and very few understand its impact. The fertilizer that grows the food that feeds 8 billion people. The copper that powers every electric grid on the planet. The nickel in every EV battery. The processing of gold, uranium, lithium, and every critical metal that the energy transition depends on. There is no substitute for Sulphuric acid at scale. You cannot replace it. You either have it or your entire industrial supply chain starts breaking down. The US-Iran war made this worse before China even made its move. The Strait of Hormuz closure already cut off 45% of global seaborne sulfur supply, the raw material used to make sulfuric acid. Sulfur prices are up 70% since the war started. Sulfuric acid prices in Chile, the world's largest copper producer, jumped 44% in a single month. Chile alone buys over 1 million tons of Chinese sulfuric acid every year, and a fifth of its entire copper output depends on it. The Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Indonesia, and every major mining nation are now facing the same squeeze simultaneously. Now China is ending exports entirely starting May. The ban could last the full year. China exported $349 million worth of sulfuric acid in 2024, more than $100 million above the second-largest exporter. There is no country on earth that can replace that volume. Think about what this means in sequence. The Strait of Hormuz blocks sulfur from the Middle East. China then cuts sulfuric acid exports. Fertilizer production tightens globally. All 8 major fertilizer categories are already up in price this month. Food inflation follows. Simultaneously, copper processing slows. Electrification slows with it. Mining projects that were already marginal start shutting down. The entire critical mineral supply chain that the world spent the last decade building starts running backward. This is not the first time China has done exactly this. Gallium and germanium export controls in 2023. Graphite restrictions in 2024. Rare earth pressure ongoing. Every single one of those targeted a specific chokepoint that the West had no alternative for. Sulfuric acid is not a random chemical. It is the foundation underneath all of those other supply chains combined. Everyone is watching the US-Iran headline, but the real deal here is China's move, which could be a disaster for the world economy.

DeFi, simplified. Introducing two new vaults: EarnETH & EarnUSD One vault for ETH-based capital. One for stablecoins. Now live on stake.lido.fi/earn ↓

Lido Poolside: Institutional Join Lido contributors on Thursday, April 23rd to discuss the latest institutional Ethereum staking developments. Featuring guests from @CredoraNetwork, @FalconXGlobal, @FireblocksHQ & more. More info here: luma.com/ut0m3s7g

10 big HYPE call trades, $60M notional, across 40/50/55/60/80 strikes, all pointing to Jun 26. Someone is positioning for HYPE to rip before end of June.

$96M notional volume in 24 hours on Derive. $41M+ of that was $HYPE alone, with $29M+ in HYPE options specifically. Derive is the primary place for onchain hype volatility, and this demand only seems to be growing. New announcements around $kHYPE with @Kinetiq_xyz next week.

🚨BREAKING: JAPAN CLASSIFIES CRYPTO AS FINANCIAL INSTRUMENTS Japan has approved a bill to classify crypto assets as financial instruments. The move amends the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act. Crypto now sits alongside traditional financial assets. Trading on undisclosed information will now be illegal. The move aims to improve market fairness.

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Polymarket onchain volume in January has surpassed $4.6B, a new ATH

Coming soon: ADL & Reduce-only. Built for sharper risk control & fairer deal execution: • ADL — stabilizes during extreme volatility • Reduce-only — prevents unintended position increases Stay tuned for more updates!

🚨 ALERT: Bullish crossover for #Bitcoin on the MACD (weekly timeframe). This does NOT mean the bear market bottom is in. It happened 2 times during the 2022 bear market too. • 1st time: -60% • 2nd time: -40% It's unlikely Bitcoin will see such a deep correction, but we haven't bottomed.

5/ What's more - Hyperliquid is spearheaded by ex-Harvard classmates @chameleon_jef @iliensin, who bring deep quant expertise from firms like @weHRTyou to build out the world's most ambitious financial primitive. It's not just top down. Beyond the founding team, Hyperliquid has cultivated a highly engaged, mission-aligned community is just over 2 years.

3/ HyperEVM supports both standard EVM contracts and a novel architecture using Precompiles and System Contracts - unlocking direct access to deep, CEX-grade liquidity from smart contracts. A powerful design space for DeFi builders to create more capital-efficient, composable primitives.

While most launch an L1 first, @HyperliquidX flipped the script - focusing on product-market-fit, before building the ecosystem. And it's working: • >$1.2T cumulative perps volume • ~9.0% of Binance’s perps vol • ~14.1% of Binance’s perps vol • >65% market share among perp DEXs

🚨 BREAKING: HERE'S THE EXACT REASON WHY CRYPTO IS PUMPING RIGHT NOW: COINBASE JUST BOUGHT 11,298 BTC BINANCE JUST BOUGHT 8,191 BTC OKX JUST BOUGHT 6,773 BTC WHALES JUST BOUGHT 4,810 BTC WINTERMUTE JUST BOUGHT 8,919 BTC THEY BOUGHT OVER $2.7B WORTH OF $BTC IN JUST 30 MINUTES THIS IS A PURE, COORDINATED PUMP!!

A cracked team building in the AI agent space is @get_truenorth. Now integrated with Derive, showing live options market data directly in the terminal. Click Options and get options intelligence straight from the asset you're tracking. True North is invite-only, reply OPTIONS and get an exclusive invite code to the platform.

القيادة المحلية لانتقالي العاصمة عدن تعقد لقاءً موسعاً برعاية الرئيس الزُبيدي لمناقشة التحديات السياسية الراهنة. 📷 انتقالي العاصمة عدن يجدد تمسكه بمواصلة النضال الوطني حتى استعادة دولة الجنوب كاملة السيادة. 📷 انتقالي عدن يؤكد رفضه القاطع لسياسات التهميش ومحاولات كسر إرادة شعب الجنوب عبر إجراءات غير قانونية. 📷 القائم بأعمال الأمين العام وضاح الحالمي يدعو هيئات المجلس في مختلف محافظات الجنوب لمواكبة الانتفاضة الشعبية وحماية المكتسبات المحققة. 📷 اللقاء الموسع بالعاصمة عدن يؤكد على ضرورة الحفاظ على المنجزات السياسية والعسكرية وعدم الرضوخ لأي ضغوط تقوض مشروع الجنوب. 📷 انتقالي العاصمة عدن يعلن رفع وتيرة العمل الجماهيري لمواجهة سياسة فرض الأمر الواقع. 📷 اللقاء الموسع للانتقالي بالعاصمة عدن يستنكر المؤامرات السياسية التي تستهدف دور المجلس الانتقالي كحامل لقضية الشعب. 📷 اللقاء الموسع للانتقالي بالعاصمة عدن يدين الملاحقات والإجراءات التعسفية التي يتعرض لها رئيس تنفيذية انتقالي شبوة الشيخ لحمر علي بن لسود. 📷 اللقاء الموسع للانتقالي بالعاصمة عدن يندد بحملات الاعتقالات غير القانونية التي تطال النشطاء الجنوبيين ويطالب بوقف انتهاك الحريات. 📷 اللقاء الموسع للانتقالي بالعاصمة عدن يشدد على أهمية تعزيز وحدة الصف الجنوبي والتلاحم خلف الرئيس القائد عيدروس الزُبيدي لمواجهة التحديات. #الانتقالي_يمثلنا_والجنوب_يجمعنا #رمضان_في_ارض_الوطن #عدن_المستقله #AIC