Stefano

The CLARITY Act just cleared its biggest hurdle. Most of crypto Twitter doesn’t understand what was actually decided. Friday night, Senators Tillis and Alsobrooks released the final compromise text on stablecoin yield, the issue that blocked the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act for months. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong tweeted “mark it up” within 3 hours. Half of crypto Twitter is celebrating. The other half is panicking that “yield is dead.” Both are wrong. What the bill actually is CLARITY defines who regulates what in crypto. SEC vs CFTC. Securities vs commodities. Stablecoins vs everything else. For 5 years US crypto has operated in a gray zone where every exchange could be sued by any agency at any time. CLARITY ends that. What the compromise actually says Banned: rewards “economically or functionally equivalent to interest on a bank deposit.” Translation: paying users 4% just for holding a stablecoin in their wallet is now illegal. Allowed: rewards tied to “bona fide activities”, staking, providing liquidity, completing actions. Pay users for behavior, not balance. The difference seems subtle. It isn’t. Why crypto won (even though it looks like they lost) Coinbase made $1.35B in stablecoin revenue in 2025, 20% of total net revenue. If the compromise had killed their model, Armstrong wouldn’t have endorsed it in 3 hours. The reason: 90% of how Coinbase already structures rewards is activity-based. They almost never paid passive yield on idle balances. Banks won the wording. Crypto won the structure. The deeper signal Trump’s own White House Council of Economic Advisers published a review during negotiations finding no evidence stablecoin rewards cause deposit flight from banks. The federal government’s own economists publicly dismantled the banking lobby’s central argument. That’s not a normal regulatory fight. That’s a power shift. What’s next • Senate Banking Committee markup: week of May 11 • Full Senate vote target: before August recess • Treasury Secretary Bessent calls spring 2026 the deadline • Polymarket: 55% odds of being signed into law in 2026, up 9 points in a single day The wildcard nobody’s pricing in Senator Tillis is separately demanding an ethics provision restricting White House officials from issuing digital assets. Aimed directly at the Trump family’s WLFI, USD1, and meme coins. If that clause survives the markup, the same bill that opens crypto in America walls off the First Family from profiting on it. Whether it survives tells you who actually has power in Washington right now. The way I see it This is the most important crypto legislation in 5 years. Bigger than the Bitcoin ETF. Bigger than the FTX aftermath. Bigger than every memecoin cycle combined. For 5 years every meaningful crypto company in America operated under threat of being sued out of existence. CLARITY ends that. Banks got the headline. Crypto got the certainty. And markets are noticing BTC at $78K, S&P at all-time highs, risk appetite at 2021 levels. Watch May. The markup changes everything.

This is the cleanest read of the tape I’ve seen. The quantum FUD narrative falls apart on first principles: if Q-Day risk were the actual driver, you’d see quantum names ripping while BTC gets dumped. The fact that IONQ, RGTI, QBTS are all bleeding alongside BTC tells you exactly what this is, a beta unwind, not a thesis change. Risk parity desks don’t read whitepapers, they read VIX. When vol spikes, frontier tech gets cut first regardless of fundamentals. The Shor’s algorithm conversation is real but it’s a 2030+ problem. What’s happening on the tape is a 2026 institutional de-grossing event. Two completely different things.

Quantum computing isn't what's weighing on $BTC. Quantum stocks have sold off alongside Bitcoin. If breakthroughs were the issue, we would expect the opposite. Grayscale Research suggests the real driver = broad de-risking out of frontier tech. Read the full article from @LowBeta on the Stack: grayscale.com/the-stack/quan…

BREAKING 🚨 Iran fires on neutral ships during Project Freedom, including a South Korean cargo vessel. US forces destroy 7 Iranian fast boats. No US casualties. What everyone is missing: This is no longer a US-Iran conflict. Iran just attacked South Korea. UAE. Neutral nations with zero involvement in this war. When you fire on the world, the world stops being neutral. Hormuz blocked = 20% of global oil choked. Gas already at $4.46/gallon in the US. $5 is next if this doesn’t resolve in 30 days. Pete Hegseth & Joint Chiefs press conference tomorrow morning. Watch closely. 👀

Iran just fired on neutral ships during a ‘humanitarian’ operation. This isn’t about the US-Iran war anymore, this is Iran attacking South Korea, UAE, and anyone else trying to move through Hormuz. When you fire on neutral nations, you don’t have allies anymore. You have a world against you.

BREAKING: Donald Trump says Iran fired on ships during Project Freedom, including a South Korean cargo vessel. U.S. forces destroyed 7 Iranian fast boats, with no damage reported to Strait traffic. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Caine will hold a press conference tomorrow morning.

The bond market is screaming what the Fed doesn’t want to admit: inflation expectations are becoming unanchored. A 10Y breakeven at 2.47% with consumer expectations above 6% for two consecutive months isn’t noise, it’s a structural signal. The Fed’s credibility window is closing fast. Every meeting they don’t act, they’re essentially cutting rates in real terms. History doesn’t forgive central banks that fall behind the curve twice.

US inflation expectations are surging: The US 10-year breakeven rate is up to 2.47%, the highest since February 2025. Excluding Q1 2025, this is the highest level since October 2023. In turn, 1-year inflation expectations are up to 3.26%, the highest since September 2022. Furthermore, 2-year inflation expectations are up to 2.81%, the highest since November 2022. All while US consumer 12-month inflation expectations remained above 6% for the 2nd consecutive month in April. Inflation is back.

@aave Freezing recovered funds doesn’t protect victims. It protects whoever is trying to legally claim what was stolen. The solution is simple: trustless on-chain distribution via Merkle drop to verified victims. No custodian, no court can freeze what no single entity controls.

Aave LLC has filed an emergency motion to vacate a restraining notice served on Arbitrum DAO on May 1, 2026 that attempts to seize approximately $71 million in ETH belonging to victims of the April 18 exploit. A thief does not gain lawful ownership of stolen property simply by taking it, and the law is clear on this. Those assets were recovered to be returned to users victimized in the April 18, 2026 exploit. Freezing them harms the very people this recovery effort is designed to protect. We’ve asked the court for an expedited hearing and a temporary vacatur, and we are continuing to work alongside the Arbitrum community and DeFi United to make affected users whole.

@elonmusk The ones who understand this are already positioning themselves for the next 20 years. The ones who don’t will spend that time explaining why it wasn’t possible.

True

@jimcramer Cramer is bullish on SaaS. Hedging my portfolio accordingly.

We are back in the world where the software as a service stocks go up and all the rest of tech goes down

DTCC processing tokenized securities in live workflows with 50+ firms isn’t a pilot anymore. That’s infrastructure. When the entity that settles $2 quadrillion annually starts moving on-chain, the question isn’t if tokenization wins. It’s which rails it runs on. Ripple being in that room matters more than any price action. 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

Tokenization just took another step toward mainstream market infrastructure. Appreciate @The_DTCC convening 50+ firms to advance tokenized securities into live workflows. This is how traditional finance moves from pilots to scale. Excited for @Ripple Prime to be part of it.

Curious what “something nice” means in OpenAI terms, early API access, extended rate limits, or just a blog post with a waitlist. Either way, GPT-5.5 dropping while the rest of the industry is still catching up to 4o is a hell of a pace. The inference cost curve must be looking very different internally.

we are gonna do something nice for everyone who applied for the GPT-5.5 party and that we didn't have space for. hope you enjoy!

@NoLimitGains No meme energy. No Roaring Kitty. No Reddit army. Just gravity. What a long way from $500.

GAMESTOP IS FALLING.

Dubai Under Missile Alert. Project Freedom Under Fire. And China Is Watching. Today was supposed to be the day Project Freedom changed everything. Instead, Dubai residents got emergency missile alerts on their phones for the first time since the ceasefire. Iran attacked an ADNOC tanker with drones. The Iranian navy fired warning shots at US destroyers. A South Korean ship exploded in the Strait. All of this on Day One. What actually happened Two US-flagged vessels made it through the strait, the first commercial ships to do so since the war began. That’s the win Trump will talk about. Everything else went the other way. Iran attacked an Emirati state oil tanker. Warning shots were fired at US destroyers. Dubai went into missile alert. An all-clear followed, but the message was sent. The ceasefire that began April 8 is cracking in real time. The UAE is done playing defense Iran hit the UAE with 536 ballistic missiles, 26 cruise missiles and 2,256 drones since February. More than any other country. Including Israel. These weren’t desperate wartime strikes. Analysts say they were premeditated, years of intelligence-gathering turned into precision attacks on airports, finance centers, and residential towers in Dubai. The UAE’s response? “Our containment policies have failed.” They’re now pushing Washington to demand more from Iran and building toward a go-it-alone military posture in the Gulf. Now add China Here’s what nobody’s connecting. Trump meets Xi on May 14-15. Beijing goes into that summit watching America fight without winning, and quietly calling it an opportunity. As one Chinese source put it: “The US is fighting without winning. China is winning without fighting.” But China needs the strait open. A third of its oil flows through Hormuz. So Beijing is privately pressuring Iran to moderate, while publicly vetoing UN resolutions and shielding Tehran diplomatically. Meanwhile Bessent is threatening Chinese banks with secondary sanctions for doing business with Iran. China is simultaneously supporting Iran, pressuring Iran, getting sanctioned, and preparing to host Trump. That’s not confusion. That’s leverage. The market verdict Oil at $107. Gas at $4.46 a gallon, up from $2.98 before the war. Diesel hitting $6 in some states. Bessent says it drops back to $3 within a week of the strait reopening. Nobody knows when that is. Bottom line Two ships got through. Iran attacked everything else.The Iran war and the US-China relationship just became the same story. And the next ten days, leading into the Trump-Xi summit, will decide which direction this goes. Watch closely.

$4.46 at the pump today. $5 by next month if nothing changes. Every trucker, farmer, and small business owner in America is paying for a war most of them couldn’t find on a map three months ago. Project Freedom was announced yesterday. Gas is still going up. The market doesn’t believe it’s working yet,and until ships actually move through that strait, neither should you.

$5 GAS LOOMS AS STRAIT OF HORMUZ CRISIS PUSHES FUEL PRICES HIGHER US gasoline prices are surging and could hit $5 per gallon if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, analysts warn. Key points: 🔸US gas: $4.46/gal, up from $2.98 before the conflict 🔸Diesel already at record highs in some states (up to $6.01/gal) 🔸National diesel average: $5.64/gal vs $3.76 pre-war Despite President Trump’s “Project Freedom” to help guide ships through the strait, oil markets remain unconvinced, with prices continuing to rise. Experts say if the chokepoint isn’t reopened within a month, US gas could revisit 2022 highs near $5.02/gal—driving up costs across transport, farming, and goods.

@justinsuntron If your conscience is clean, let the discovery process prove it. Courts don’t care about PR, they care about receipts. Good luck.

World Liberty今天在X上宣布的所谓诽谤诉讼，不过是一场毫无依据的公关作秀。我作为投资人问心无愧，并期待在法庭上获胜。

Jim, you’ve been calling “tells” since Bear Stearns was a buy. Oracle is up because every enterprise is panic-buying cloud capacity for AI. SanDisk is moving because memory demand is exploding. These aren’t market tells, they’re just the AI trade wearing different clothes. The tell would be when they stop moving together.

Oracle and SanDisk have become the tells of this market

Celebrating small businesses at the White House is nice. The data tells a different story. 53% of small business owners say inflation is their #1 problem, for 17 consecutive quarters. Hiring plans just dropped 12 points in one quarter. Revenue expectations are at their lowest in a year. 40% of small businesses say tariffs are directly hurting their costs. 76% are passing those costs to customers. The businesses in that room are doing fine. The 36 million that weren’t invited? Not so much.

TODAY AT THE WHITE HOUSE: President Donald J. Trump is celebrating America’s small business owners and the huge wins of the administration, with more than 130 business leaders from across the country joining! 🇺🇸

Crypto Fear & Greed Index: 40/100 - Fear

Taiwan and South Korea just quietly became two of the most important economies on earth. Not because of oil. Not because of military power. Because the entire AI industry runs on their chips. TSMC makes the hardware Nvidia designs. Samsung makes the memory that runs the models. Every time someone uses ChatGPT, a tiny piece of that transaction flows back to Taipei and Seoul. The AI boom has a geography. Most people just haven’t looked at the map yet.

Markets in Taiwan and South Korea are making history: The total market cap of Taiwan's stock market is up to a record $4.5 trillion, surpassing Canada’s $4.4 trillion for the first time. Taiwan’s stock market value has also exceeded that of the UK for the first time 2 weeks ago. This comes as Taiwan’s market cap has surged by +$2.7 trillion or +150% over the last 12 months. At this pace, Taiwan could overtake India and become the 5th largest world market as soon as next month. Meanwhile, South Korea's stock market cap is up to a record $4.1 trillion, having overtaken the UK last week, and on track to surpass Canada this month. Collectively, the two markets have added +$4.6 trillion in market value over the last 12 months, driven by AI-related stocks. AI is transforming Taiwan and South Korea into a global economic power.

“He wants action. He wants pressure. He wants a deal.” That’s three different things. And that’s the problem. Project Freedom wasn’t the plan. It was the last-minute alternative to sending warships in by force. A more cautious option, for now. The real ultimatum is still on the table: deal or bombs. There’s no third option.

Senior U.S. official to Axios on Trump's Iran decision: "The president wants action. He doesn't want to sit still. He wants pressure. He wants a deal." Trump ordered the operation after growing fed up with the "no deal, no war" stalemate.

@DonaldJTrumpJr Your biggest investor saved your project when it had $22M in sales and was going nowhere. He put in $45M. You froze his tokens, threatened him, and now sue him for talking about it. “Incredibly proud” is wild.

Read this entire thread for the truth!!!!

@worldlibertyfi You froze $1B in tokens, secretly gave yourselves blacklisting power, and threatened to burn his holdings if he didn’t keep investing. Now you’re suing him for defamation. That’s not protecting users. That’s a protection racket.

Today, we are filing a lawsuit against Justin Sun for defamation. Sun has launched a coordinated media smear campaign against World Liberty Financial and refused to stop even when confronted with the truth. Here's the story.🧵