🤖 The next big AI trade might not be Nvidia

While markets pile into chipmakers, Franklin Templeton and Circle are pointing elsewhere: blockchain as the infrastructure layer for the agentic AI era.

Agentic AI doesn't answer prompts — it autonomously pays for API calls, buys compute, books services. Many transactions are fractions of a cent, which breaks traditional rails where fees exceed the transaction itself. Blockchain fixes this with programmable settlement and no intermediary.

Franklin Templeton's Sandy Kaul says investors are missing the infrastructure that will run machine-to-machine commerce. Circle CEO Allaire goes further — agentic AI and blockchain are one shift, not two. Agents become economic actors; subscriptions die; pay-per-task wins.

An AI trade with zero Nvidia in it, via Business Insider.

CoinDesk

📌
🎬 X-Men crash Doomsday trailer but skip the MCU entirely
💸 US Army burned through unlimited AI tokens in six weeks
🤖 Musk wants Grok to rewrite Homer before New Year
🎮 Sony goes digital-only and quietly kills used game market
⛓️ Blockchain quietly positioning as the real AI infrastructure play

Forward this to whoever spent the day in meetings — they missed a lot

🪙 Crypto check
₿ BTC $63,972 📉 -2.6% (24h)
Ξ ETH $1,857 📉 -2.6% (24h)

😨/🤑 Fear & Greed: 27 — Fear

💸 OpenAI is building a city for AI

$750 billion through 2030 — up 25% from earlier estimates. With Stargate losing steam, the company's next move is Project Camellia: 1,400 acres northwest of Savannah, Georgia.

🔸 at least 3.2 gigawatts from Georgia Power
🔸 50% property tax break for 15 years
🔸 power from 2028 — first GPU could light up sooner

To lead construction, OpenAI hired Brett Mayo, who built xAI's Colossus in Memphis at record speed — a site now facing an NAACP lawsuit over unpermitted gas turbines. As TechCrunch reports, neither company will say how Camellia gets powered.

"Green AI" remains a better slogan than a plan.

💸 The exchange that invented the perpetual swap is shutting down

BitMEX — the platform that created perpetual futures in 2016, now a fixture on every major exchange — is closing after nearly 12 years. Its token marked the occasion with a 90% crash, from $0.06 to $0.002, per CoinGecko. It started dropping an hour before the announcement. The market always knows.

By shutdown, BitMEX held just 0.08% of Bitcoin futures volume — $84M a day. Owners had explored a $1B sale before choosing an orderly wind-down, per Cointelegraph.

The instrument BitMEX invented now drives billions across its competitors. The inventor closed with 0.08%. Crypto has a way of eating its own parents.

💸 The million-dollar pass

Weird Al Yankovic — the parody legend — already made headlines this month for rejecting an AI ad deal. Turns out that wasn't his only recent "no."

He told TribLive he was offered a seven-figure sum for a single show at the Riyadh Comedy Festival, a state-sponsored event under Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Chappelle, Burr and Louis C.K. all went; paydays reportedly reached $1.6M per show, with restrictions barring jokes about the government or religion.

"I don't need to take any amount of money if it makes me feel icky — and that kind of did."

Turns out his price was zero.

Variety

🐄 First cows on the exchange

Banks discount livestock collateral by up to 60% — a R$20,000 cow becomes R$8,000 on a loan, because lenders have no reliable way to confirm the animal is alive. Brazilian startup Cowmed fixed that with AI sensor collars.

Fazenda Engenho Velho pledged ten dairy cows against a R$100,000 loan — the first livestock collateral formally registered on Brazil's B3 stock exchange. The collars capture health and location data; Cowmed hashes it into a unique cryptographic ID for each animal. No farm inspection needed.

Cowmed tracks 100,000 cows across six countries and expects to tokenize 20% of that herd within two years, per Decrypt. Four more farmers are already in the pipeline.

RWA tokenization has cleared $10 billion in DeFi. Cows just joined the asset class. Hooves and all.

🤖 CEO as a mascot — involuntarily

Robinhood launched its own blockchain earlier this month — $700 million in assets, 300,000 daily active addresses, 10 million transactions in a day. Big numbers draw big crowds. Not all of them welcome.

On Thursday, someone hijacked CEO Vlad Tenev's X account to shill $VLAD — the supposed "official Robinhood Chain mascot" — with a wallet address and a fake promise of in-app listing. Robinhood confirmed the hack, killed the post, and is working to restore access. The memes, it turns out, were not officially endorsed.

Via CNBC.

CoinDesk

📌 Daily Recap · Jul 25

🏙️ OpenAI is literally building a city in Georgia
📉 BitMEX invented perpetual swaps, then died with a 90% crash
🎤 Weird Al turned down seven figures to stay home
🐄 Brazilian startup tokenized a live cow on the blockchain
😬 Robinhood's CEO got his X account hijacked, awkward timing

Someone in your life missed every single one of these — send it over

🪙 Crypto check
₿ BTC $64,349 📈 +0.6% (24h)
Ξ ETH $1,883 📈 +1.4% (24h)

😨/🤑 Fear & Greed: 26 — Fear

📱 The newcomer they're already afraid of

Foldables are still a niche market — Samsung leads, Huawei trails, everyone else picks up crumbs. Apple hasn't entered yet. Counterpoint Research went ahead and modeled what happens when it does.

Their 2026 forecast: one in four foldable smartphones shipped globally will be an iPhone Ultra. Straight to second place, ahead of Huawei, behind only Samsung.

🔸 Samsung: drops from 40% to 32%
🔸 Apple: debuts at 25%
🔸 Huawei: slides from 30% to 24%
🔸 Motorola: 8%, HONOR: 3%

The overall market is projected to grow 21% year-over-year — largely on the strength of Apple's entry alone.

A fun wrinkle: Samsung just unveiled the Galaxy Z Fold8 in a shorter, wider form factor — exactly the shape rumored for the iPhone Ultra. Samsung's mobile chief told Joanna Stern the resemblance is purely coincidental. Sure it is.

9to5Mac

🎬 The Blade Runner universe is back — and the power balance has flipped

Quick context: Blade Runner is Ridley Scott's 1982 sci-fi classic about humans and engineered humanoids called replicants. The 2017 sequel went quiet after that.

The first live-action series in franchise history lands November 25 on Prime Video. Eight episodes, Michelle Yeoh and Hunter Schafer leading, Scott as executive producer.

The trailer is dense neon cyberpunk — and looks expensive. Set 50 years after 2049, replicants now run society, humans are the minority. Schafer plays blade runner Cora; Yeoh plays the replicant she reluctantly teams up with. Billed as a limited series — one contained story, full stop.

For a franchise that's struggled with sequels, that might be exactly right.

Engadget

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Dr8I_RyRCg

⚽ Same bridge, twice, two hours apart

Cristian Volpato — 22-year-old Socceroos midfielder who played at this year's World Cup — had quite the Thursday night in Sydney.

First stop on Anzac Bridge: 86–94 km/h in a 60 zone, breath test clean. Two hours later, same road, now 109 km/h — and a positive roadside test for cocaine.

His licence is suspended for six months; police have taken a secondary sample and inquiries continue. Football Australia and his club Sassuolo haven't commented, per BBC Sport.

Twice. Same bridge. Two hours apart.

📌 Daily Recap · Jul 26

📱 Apple enters foldables and owns a quarter of the market
🎬 Blade Runner finally gets its first-ever live-action series
⚽ Socceroos star caught speeding twice on the same bridge

Someone near you had a long day and missed all of this — be the one who fixes that