Good morning,
Hope everyone had a good weekend.
We honored the 25th anniversary of 9/11 here in the US, which was a particularly somber one. If you or a loved one was impacted by that fateful day you were in my thoughts this weekend.
Given the long list of market and financial events this week I wanted to provide at least SOME guidance and commentary as we kick off the week.
If you guys missed the Friday meme coin guide I dropped last week, make sure to take a look. The uncertainty around the Fed this week, CLARITY, macro updates, and the move in yields in creating a nice little pull back across the board if there are some names you want exposure to.
Tomorrow will be our usual post for paid subs but let’s take a look at the most important events, themes, and news drops to pay attention to this week.
Some of these will absolutely determine how our portfolios shift throughout the week and through the end of the year.
Crypto’s Clarity Act
This week could be a monumental one for the crypto industry if the CLARITY Act ends up passing tomorrow. The market structure bill is set to hit the Senate tomorrow but it remains unclear if Senate leaders have the 60 votes need to pass it (reports indicate at least 7 Democrats would need to vote yes).
You can view the live odds of CLARITY passing on Polymarket, where the odds recently moved up to about 31% (up from about 12% a week ago). Volume is picking up as trader’s place their bets on the outcome this week.
Trump reportedly met with various advisers on Friday to discuss some of the ethics provisions in the bill, which were key facets preventing it from moving forward.
I don’t want to speculate hard on what crypto does if this thing passes (as I am confident in the long run SOMETHING passes) but it has seemed like crypto has remained coiled waiting for this outcome to potentially leg up higher. The arguments that we are going to plummet to $40,000 seem to be weakening with each passing week as more bears turn bullish.
"President Trump had already agreed to the toughest ethics restrictions on federal officials in American history to get this bill done. Time for Democrats to take yes for an answer."
—Senator Lummis
The momentum and optimism returning is undeniable now.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see many of the ETH related alts, memes, and defi tokens rip if it passes as people gain some more confidence in the longer term applications and guardrails in the space.
I remain bullish on NEAR right now and have purchased more AAVE and AVAX as well this week.
Right now, broadly, the future looks bright for crypto in 2027 and beyond, now we are merely waiting to see what or who kicks off the official departure from this non conventional bear market we’ve found ourselves in.
Other Crypto Headlines To Watch:
The UAE is now working to integrate Avalanche AVAX into the UAE PASS Digital Vault, serving over 12M users (CoinTelegraph)
FIL Filecoin is up over 22% in the last 24 hours ( it is now trending on CoinGecko)
Solana dApps recorded nearly $8 million in daily revenue on September 11, the highest level since October 2025 (SolanaFloor)
Strive has purchased 469 Bitcoin for $36.6 million
Strategy has repurchased $139M of STRC 0.00%↑
Fed Interest Rate Decision
This is a seismic week for those monitoring the US Federal Reserve.
After months of shifting expectations, stubborn inflation data, and an economy that has continued to throw mixed signals, we are finally approaching another major decision point for monetary policy this year.
The Fed will deliver its long awaited interest rate decision this week - will they hike 25bps or do nothing?
Scenario one is the 25bps hike.
Most are arguing this has quickly become the base case after hotter inflation data, oil pushing above $100 with new Iran/Hormuz clashes, and Treasury yields surging across the curve. Pay attention to what Warsh says after an announcement.
If the Fed frames this as a one off to try and get ahead of inflation than we likely see a short term panic dump followed by neutral to bullishly choppy moves through the end of the year.
Scenario two is no hike at all.
This would now be the real surprise and it would be slightly entertaining to see the reactions online.
At face value that might seem bullish but all you have to do is recognize that bonds are telling us inflation is an issue and it wouldn’t be surprising for the narrative to quickly become that Fed is falling behind the curve again. Long term treasurys would likely pump higher if the Fed does this (investors accounting for future inflation).
Watch Warsh. My gut tells me this time around markets will respond to him specifically rather than the actual decision (it will be volatile either way).
For stocks, crypto, bonds, the dollar, and basically every risk asset we follow and cover here, this is one of those weeks where a few sentences from Kevin Warsh can completely change the tone of the market and the fate of our positions in the short term.
We shall see.
No hike would be darkly entertaining for sure.
We will talk about it tomorrow but there are a few names I am watching closely at the moment including:
AI Doomer Psy Op or Real Threats?
As of about 8:49am ET futures are down. Two of the biggest drivers of market uncertainty in equities this week are likely oil prices and the new “slowdown” calls in the AI space that came about as a result of multiple warnings from top executives in the industry.
Jacob Coxon, a former Anthropic engineer kick started the AI fear porn cascade last week:
Do not underestimate the power of this technology. These will soon be superhuman systems that can hack anything, revolutionize any field overnight, and acquire real power and resources. We have all witnessed the progress in each of these domains, and progress is not slowing. The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt. If anything, many executives and senior researchers will couch their phrasing in the press to sound sensible - but I hear the same people express fear privately. No other human activity poses this level of danger.
Shortly after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for the industry to slow the development of frontier AI and warned that increasingly autonomous systems could create catastrophic risks.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman agreed with the basic premise of that while Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis and Elon Musk have also voiced support for greater caution around advanced AI.
The Chinese have since denounced the fear campaign saying it is rooted in fear mongering as they strive for major advances in AI while all of this is playing out in the West. One of their spokespeople said:
"Fearmongering, confrontation and vicious competition will only disrupt the process of global AI governance, which serves no one's interest."
President Trump came out this morning to say that he thinks there is a “sick conspiracy” on AI and data centers.
Why is this happening? I would be hesitant to simply accept it at face value.
There are a couple angle to consider here…..
Are there actually some very real threats from AI coming? Probably. Are they overstated recently? Maybe.
Is this a psy op to coordinate a slow down conveniently while padding the impact on stocks and the economy? Would be pretty clever way to run cover for slowing growth or numbers without detonating the market entirely
Is China financing this psy op to slow AI support in the US?
I don’t know to be honest, could be any of these or a combination of them. I really only care about the impact it has on our bags in the short term lol.
If we find ourselves in some Terminator scenario where AI minds have commandeered manufacturing facilities to create their own Army, than pass me the .308 and some modelos and let’s go to work!
Otherwise, I will just wait and see what the future holds for us.
NVDA 0.00%↑ PLTR 0.00%↑ and a few other companies came out this week saying that they are going to restrict their use of AI on sensitive projects — the market liked this and those names are up today as the broader market remains down (maybe a good hint into what the motives of this media narrative really are).
In other news on this front, Anthropic released a detailed threat intelligence report with some insane findings including:
Claude got used as the engineering workforce for an actual weapons programs. A Yemen based terror cell ended up using multiple Claude instances to help develop guidance software for rockets and missiles, including a program targeting a 2,000+ km range and a hypersonic glide vehicle variant
One person used Claude to help build a nationwide surveillance system covering roughly 25 million SIM cards in Mali, designed to collect communications data and generate intelligence dossiers while bypassing normal legal process requirements.
The biological stuff is probably the most unsettling and something people are talking about with the recent alarm from executives. Anthropic uncovered users applying Claude to gain of function research (shoutout Fauci), mammalian adaptation of avian influenza, toxin redesign and other dual use work. Anthropic now says it can no longer confidently assure that its newest models are incapable of meaningfully assisting sophisticated users with dangerous biological research.
You can read the full report HERE.
Pretty wild stuff. The fears about AI “ending humans” are likely not THAT far fetched. It is a matter of the vehicle in which these threats would arrive.
Does a terror cell use it to develop an insane new bio weapon?
Does a rogue AI mind use it to shut off power and water treatment facilities?
Your imagination is the limit here, but the scary part is there are likely threats we cannot even fully conceive yet that AI will drum up in the coming months and years. Also worth considering the possibility that this entire theme/idea (AI/rogue AI) could be used as the next major psy op against all of us.
Imagine a large scale cyber attack by “rogue AI” that the government/private sector uses to consolidate even more influence and power like they did during Covid?
That would be bleak.
"I would rather they make fun of me than to wake up one day and discover that someone used our model Claude to kill a bunch of people."
— Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei
Brief update this afternoon.
I will see you guys in the morning for a new watchlist for equities, some updates on the meme coin front, and other stories we are locked in on this week.
Andy