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Arthur Hayes published a new long article titled "Safety First," with the core argument that the claims of "safety first" by Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX, which lead to a slowdown in AGI development, are not out of concern for human welfare but rather due to economic realities. The market does not want AI; it wants AI at "Chinese prices," meaning it needs intelligence that is 100 times cheaper than what is currently available. Hayes points out that "safety first" essentially destroys the demand for computing power. If the spending on training new models decreases and laboratories shift towards efficiency optimization, customers will spend less on computing power. The three major AI laboratories do not generate any profits, and their demand for computing power supports over $10 trillion in investment-grade debt and hundreds of billions in low-quality debt, which rely on profitable tech companies like Nvidia, Broadcom, Google, and Microsoft for off-balance-sheet endorsements. The real backstop is the holders of insurance policies in the United States.Hayes cites an analysis by Nick Nameth that reveals a "self-insurance scam": private equity giants (such as Apollo, KKR, Brookfield, etc.) acquire insurance companies, stuffing AI data center debt and SaaS private credit impacted by AI into insurance assets, and then provide false endorsements with minimal capital through affiliated self-insurance reinsurance companies. Nameth estimates that the total amount of these false reinsurance assets reaches $1.54 trillion. Once the AI data center debt is downgraded by rating agencies due to insufficient demand for computing power, insurance companies will be forced to add capital, while the affiliated reinsurance companies will be unable to pay, leading to insolvency for the insurance companies. In most states in the U.S., the insurance protection limit is only $250,000 to $300,000, and existing insurance companies only pay into the protection fund afterward, which encourages all parties involved to maximize risk-taking. When AIG was bailed out in 2008, TARP funds ultimately flowed to Goldman Sachs and led to record bonuses, while the general public only received foreclosure notices; Hayes believes this scenario will repeat itself.For cryptocurrency investors, the conclusion is a win-win situation. If the U.S. government chooses to become the "last buyer of computing power," it will print money in the name of national security to fund unproductive economic goods, driving up financial speculation and Bitcoin prices; if the government chooses to bail out insolvent insurance companies, it will also need to print money to cover bad AI debts, increasing the money supply and pushing up Bitcoin. Hayes specifically points out that the Federal Reserve voted unanimously last week to raise interest rates by 25 basis points, and RMP bond purchases have stopped since August 14, but commercial banks have taken over to create over $100 billion in currency, and the interest rate hike allows banks to earn an additional $7.5 billion in excess reserve interest each year. This money will be used to expand loans and market speculation, and the net effect remains stimulative. The fluctuations in the cryptocurrency market, which saw a slight increase at the end of August, are about to end, the supply of dollars will continue to grow, and Bitcoin and some selected altcoins will rise. Hayes also described this situation as "incredibly wonderful," stating that the government will not allow the free market to stop building AI data centers, there will be an oversupply of spot computing power, the usage of AI agents will increase, and the surge in money printing will drive investors to chase cryptocurrency assets.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced that it has reached a staff-level agreement with the authorities of El Salvador on the second and third combined reviews under the Extended Fund Facility arrangement. If approved by the IMF Executive Board, El Salvador will receive approximately $140 million (101.96 million SDR).Regarding Bitcoin-related arrangements, the IMF confirmed several key facts: the Chivo electronic wallet has essentially withdrawn from public participation, with majority ownership and operational control transferred to private operators; the increase in Bitcoin holdings since the first review has been verified as coming from private donations, with no public resources utilized; El Salvador has committed that there will be no further increases in Bitcoin holdings beyond the recorded private donations. The two parties also reached an understanding on modernizing the legal, regulatory, and supervisory framework for digital assets, as well as strengthening governance and risk management arrangements for public sector cryptocurrency holdings.

Trader Ansem posted that the altcoins of 2017 are essentially not much different from today's Meme coins. The former often attracted market funds through white papers and founder narratives, while today's Meme coins at least explicitly acknowledge that their essence is a form of attention trading.Ansem stated that he is currently more optimistic about Meme coins than ever before.

ARK Invest Research Director Lorenzo Valente commented on the OpenUSD stablecoin project launched by several institutions. He stated that, despite the strong capabilities of the participants (including Visa, Stripe, Mastercard, BlackRock, Coinbase, etc.), OpenUSD faces multiple significant obstacles:First, there are liquidity and cold start issues; USDC and USDT have already formed strong network effects, dominating exchanges, payment processors, and brokers, making it difficult for the new stablecoin to gain trading pairs and large-scale holding willingness;Second, the decision-making speed of the alliance composed of 500 competitors will be extremely slow, lacking successful precedents, and conflicts of interest will be hard to coordinate;Third, the regulatory and antitrust risks are extremely high; the joint issuance of currency by large banks and card networks is likely to become a regulatory focus;Fourth, the revenue-sharing model results in issuers retaining too little capital, making it difficult to cover high operational and promotional expenses;Fifth, the actual commitments from partners are limited, mostly consisting of letters of intent (LOI), and parties are still supporting competitors, preferring multiple hedges rather than exclusive binding.Valente concluded that OpenUSD is essentially similar to "a DAO of multiple competitors," making it difficult to execute and make decisions quickly, and it may ultimately repeat the governance failures of early DAO projects, which could not be effectively implemented.Affected by the OpenUSD plan, Circle's stock fell over 17% in a single day, and ARK Invest took the opportunity to buy in.

According to CoinDesk, U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis stated that establishing clear regulatory rules for the cryptocurrency industry "is not about helping the industry, but about protecting every American who wishes to participate in this economic activity."She emphasized that a clear and predictable regulatory framework helps ordinary investors to participate in the cryptocurrency market in compliance and manage risks, rather than just serving industry institutions or large companies.

Multicoin Capital co-founder Kyle Samani recently stated that Hyperliquid is essentially just a "Binance 2.0 without a marketing team."Samani believes that Hyperliquid made a lot of technical decisions during its development that are suitable for centralized systems but difficult to adapt to a permissionless decentralized environment. He stated that these architectural choices have caused the project to lag behind some competitors in its development towards decentralization.In addition, Samani pointed out that as the regulatory environment changes, the requirements for partners from compliant companies in the U.S. are increasing, and Hyperliquid's current model may face more challenges. He further stated that real American companies today would no longer choose to collaborate with it.Recently, Hyperliquid has become the market focus due to the continuous rise of the HYPE token and increasing trading volume, but discussions surrounding its level of decentralization, governance model, and regulatory risks are also heating up.

The Wall Street Journal published an article pointing out that although the GENIUS Act and the CLARITY Act are promoting the compliance of stablecoins, the essence of stablecoins still belongs to "private currency," which may pose structural risks to the financial system.The article notes that stablecoins aim to combine the stability of the US dollar with the efficiency of blockchain payments, but because they operate on fragmented, privatized infrastructure, they do not possess the unity of the traditional US dollar system. Although USDT and USDC are pegged to the dollar, their prices may still deviate from 1 dollar.In addition, there is an incentive for stablecoin issuers to enhance returns by allocating high-risk, low-liquidity assets. If the value of these related assets declines, it could trigger de-pegging and concentrated redemption risks. The article cites Chainalysis data stating that stablecoins account for 84% of illegal activities in cryptocurrency, mainly involving sanctions evasion and money laundering, while real economic payment scenarios account for less than 1%.The Wall Street Journal believes that stablecoins are replaying the path of private currency experiments from the "Free Banking Era" in 19th century America, and in the future, they may need to accept stricter regulation like banks and integrate more deeply into the central bank system.

According to the Iranian Tasnim News Agency, Iran has approved vessels carrying essential goods to pass through the Strait of Hormuz to Iranian ports.

Former Morgan Stanley NFA trader Jeff Park posted on the X platform that the Federal Reserve's recently announced reserve management-driven purchasing program, although labeled as "reserve management," is essentially still QE, just upgraded from "quantitative easing" to "qualitative easing."Under the ample reserves framework, reserves have perfect balance sheet flexibility due to a 0% risk weight under LCR, far surpassing short-term Treasury securities. This also explains why the SLR rule was suddenly relaxed before Thanksgiving and why a $40 billion monthly purchasing plan was quickly announced within two weeks before the end of QT.In short, short-term Treasury securities are "near-money," while reserves are "perfect money." Additionally, Jeff Park added that stablecoins are the most pressing "currency quality" issue at present, which is why cryptocurrencies are simply not going to disappear.

Former Goldman Sachs executive, author of "Global Macro Investor," and co-founder and CEO of Real Vision, Raoul Pal, stated at the Solana Breakpoint conference:"The decline in labor force participation means a decrease in the working population. And demographic structure is key to driving debt. Population growth will continue to decline, which means the debt-to-GDP ratio will continue to rise, and that is the problem.We have to face the global debt issue, and currency devaluation has always been a way to address (or rather postpone) this problem. We are starting to see signs that the Federal Reserve will have to reconsider its balance sheet and begin to think about how to 'monetize' all this debt. It is expected that over the next 12 months, we will need to print about $8 trillion in cash through liquidity injections.I know many people may think the crypto cycle is over and feel that 'the good times are gone.' But in fact, what drives all of this is cyclical, not from the Bitcoin halving cycle, but driven by the debt maturity cycle.So, I believe this is not a 4-year cycle, but a 5.4-year cycle. In a 5.4-year cycle, we have now passed the trough of the cycle, and the next step is the rising phase, with the cycle expected to peak at the end of 2026, not 2025. This is a breakthrough understanding for us as global macro investors: understanding that cryptocurrency is actually a macro asset.Additionally, the altcoin/Bitcoin cross rate is driven by the business cycle, and the business cycle seems to be bottoming out, not peaking."

The founder of the Bitcoin payment app Strike, Jack Mallers, posted on the X platform in response to the recent decline in the Bitcoin market. He stated that investors need to understand that what is truly collapsing is not the assets but the currency. Bitcoin is the only market that honestly reflects this. The record-high gold prices indicate that the fiat currency system has collapsed. Bitcoin acts like a liquidity alarm; buy the dip because the problem lies with the currency.

According to the 21st Century Business Herald, former chairman of the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission, Liang Ding-bong, stated in an exclusive interview that the US Nasdaq has begun experimenting with tokenized stock trading and using stablecoins (such as USDC) for settlement. Tokens are not a new concept; stocks are essentially a type of token. If stocks are transformed into digital tokens on the blockchain, all operations can be completed within a single system, achieving instant settlement. The combination of asset tokenization and central bank digital currencies can reshape the entire market's operational model. To establish such a new capital market based on asset tokenization, Hong Kong needs to overcome challenges in three areas: technological infrastructure, regulatory framework, and market acceptance.

According to Gelonghui, Palantir CEO Alex Karp publicly responded to short sellers, specifically naming "big short" Michael Burry, whose asset management company Scion disclosed in the latest regulatory filing that it holds a large number of put options on Palantir and Nvidia. Affected by this bearish sentiment, Palantir fell nearly 8% overnight, while Nvidia dropped nearly 4%.Karp stated on a program on Tuesday that the two companies Burry is shorting are highly profitable, and called his idea of shorting chip and ontology (a key supporting technology in AI systems) companies "simply insane," claiming that this move is essentially shorting AI. Karp declared that if Burry is ultimately wrong, he will celebrate, and criticized that "shorting is very complex, and honestly, I think this is market manipulation. We have achieved the best performance in history, and it's not even clear if he is doing this to close his position. These people publicly claim to be ethical, but in reality, they are shorting one of the best companies in the world."Previously, news revealed that the "big short" prototype Michael Burry's latest holdings show: 80% of his position is shorting Palantir and Nvidia.

ChainCatcher news, according to Jinshi reports, the S&P 500 index briefly turned negative but remains largely stable.

ChainCatcher news, according to official social media announcements, Huobi HTX will hold a themed debate titled "Meme Coins: A New Paradigm of the Digital Economy or Purely Speculative Tools?" in collaboration with SunPump today at 20:00 (UTC+8). At that time, crypto KOL Mr. Bai, 0xFuck.ETH, Btc Yichan, and Hong Kong Wang Fugui will represent the affirmative side, while Xiao Yu Daisy, Principal - Trading Academy, Xiao Wei, and Web3 Hot Treasure will represent the negative side. Nancy will serve as a special observer to delve into whether meme coins are an innovative practice of decentralized economy or a short-term game dominated by capital and emotions.This debate will be broadcast live on Huobi and simultaneously on Huobi HTX Twitter Space. Additionally, by following the official SunPump account (@sunpumpmeme), retweeting the event post, and tagging three friends, you will have the chance to share a reward of 50 USDT.

ChainCatcher news, according to market news, the U.S. Department of Justice memorandum states that it will essentially cease regulation of cryptocurrency exchanges and offline wallets.

ChainCatcher message, Robert Kennedy (RFK Jr) comments on the Federal Reserve: "It operates on behalf of a few Wall Street banks, functioning like a pump. It is essentially siphoning wealth and equity from the American middle class."