capagris | Elemental

Younger brother came into town for the holidays, we were talking about crypto yesterday. Trying to figure out why it's been so weak, even with strong equity markets. He threw me a curveball. "Crypto isn't that cool anymore." Blew my mind. The kid is 22. "Prediction markets are better, and stocks too because they don't get rugged 24/7". I looked much deeper last night...and what I'm observing under the surface is not technical or fundamental. It's cultural. A social shift. Attention has relocated. Starts on youtube. Views are down across anything related to crypto. A crypto youtuber with 139K subscribers said that his viewership had dropped more in the last 2 weeks than anything he's seen in 5 years. Second point. Attention is shifting from the top. The biggest crypto influencers are publicly "losing interest" in crypto, and switching to stocks (sources attached). Third point. Crypto has long been a free-spirited, lawless, young man's game. But with legacy brokerages like Schwab/JPMorgan getting involved + gov't interest, is crypto losing the demographic that made it popular in the first place? Potentially...as the perception's changed. Fourth point. Optionality. Every vehicle is becoming more accessible. From $COIN adding stock trading, to $HOOD adding 0DTE options, to prediction markets as a whole... Everything's right there...without the perceived risk of a rug-pull via the “lawless” crypto landscape that defined crypto’s appeal in the first place. Question is...does real-world crypto utility generate enough demand to offset a sustained decline in retail participation? All I'm saying is the divergence of the once highly correlated $BTC - $QQQ pair is highly suspect. And it's only getting wider. Yes, you can argue some of these things happen in every crypto bear market, but there's new variables & moving parts now (optionality + legacy brokerages participation + gov't interest) that change the game. Crypto seems to be in a transition phase...from a momentum asset to an infrastructure asset. Fundamental transitions like this are usually not kind to price in the medium term. Long term, I'm bullish on the crypto's utility and think it will be everywhere, but the real world utility/adoption (and subsequent growing pains...) is something I'm watching in 2026.

An antifascist group calling itself “Youth Equality Coalition” is carrying out a campaign across the United Kingdom targeting nationalist flags and far right demonstrations.

Idk why gas prices are so culturally salient in america. You could drive an hour a day and it probably comes to less than $3k/year. Is it because they put the price on billboards along the road?

The UK House of Lords has just legalised abortion up to birth. Women can now end the life of their unborn baby at any stage, for any reason, without legal consequences. A truly dark day for Britain.

> Be Vercingetorix > Trick Caesar into building wall around Alesia > Call in your backup armies to trap Caesar against his own wall > Watch Caesar build another wall > Get defeated > Surrender > Throw down your arms > Be paraded around Rome in Caesar’s triumph

Being broke in Italy still beats being rich anywhere else

we ruined such a good thing

this is the culinary equivalent of jangling keys in front of a baby's face if you are impressed by or enjoy this you're worse than cattle

Clavicular ends and walks out of his Channel 5 interview with Andrew Callaghan after Andrew reveals he’s satisfied with how he looks and doesn’t need looksmaxxing