💸 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

🪙 Crypto check
₿ BTC $65,352 📈 +1.6% (24h)
Ξ ETH $1,968 📈 +4.5% (24h)

😨/🤑 Fear & Greed: 30 — Fear

🚗 Samurai in sheet metal

To mark 25 years in Japan, Lamborghini built exactly 25 Revuelto Impavidos through its Ad Personam program. The name alone spans three cultures — Spanish, Italian, Bushido — and the design follows through: katana creases on the doors, gold odoshi lacing, a front fascia shaped after the samurai helmet crest maedate.

Four colorways, each symbolic. One pulls from the Sanada clan's battlefield red.

The drivetrain is standard Revuelto: naturally aspirated V12, three electric motors, 1,001 hp, 217 mph+. No price listed. With 25 cars, it sells itself to whoever gets the call.

Uncrate

🎮 Faye steps forward — with a war of her own

The God of War saga started as a Greek warrior's revenge on Olympus, evolved into a Norse epic, and now takes its boldest turn yet. Faye — Kratos' wife, who died in *Ragnarok* — is the protagonist this time.

God of War Laufey arrives on PS5 on February 16 next year. Players follow Laufey through the afterlife of gods, picking up right where *Ragnarok* left her. A gameplay teaser dropped about a month ago already showed she's nobody's background character — she's cutting enemies apart mid-air and wielding magic against creatures the franchise has never shown before.

At San Diego Comic-Con, Santa Monica Studio confirmed the release date and added one more thing: a new Kratos-led God of War is also coming after this one.

Faye isn't a detour. She's a whole new door.

Engadget

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLMX2w3cwuE