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“The highs that it painted in January 28th of this year was the highest that the S&P had, was at which was exactly 7,000. And Ryan, as of today, we are at 7,036 on the S&P 500 So we are up into new all-time high territories as of today, the day of recording the 16th and also the 15th, two all-time highs in a row.”

“Trump did something that I don't really think anyone saw coming, at least most people did not see coming. He just blocks the Strait of Hormuz. It's like, oh, you guys are going to block it, we're going to block it. And now we are securing the Strait to allow for ships who are not going to Iran. So any country going to the UAE, to Saudi Arabia, those ships can go to those ports so long as they are not going to Iranian ports.”

“Meanwhile, Saylor's stretch is new STRC, not that new, but new into the zeitgeist is printing billions of dollars. The market clearly likes it. It's putting a very healthy bid on Bitcoin. Is this the best instrument Saylor has ever created? Will it be the catalyst to send Bitcoin to all-time highs, or alternatively, will it be our demise?”

“Also, World Liberty Finance had some drama in the week. This is, remember Trump's DeFi project. It was caught doing some on-chain shenanigans. We're going to explore that and ask the question, is this the new cycle FTX? Did World Liberty just pull a sandbag, McFreed? We got Justin Sun weighing in on that.”

“The SEC just gave DeFi a broker exemption, very material for a lot of the company's protocols, apps that we know and love. We'll talk about the significance of that and what we can do now. And also, the Bitcoin community taking quantum seriously, putting forward a quantum plan to free Satoshi's Bitcoins.”

“A 20 year old man allegedly threw a Molotov cocktail at the gate of Sam's home. No one was hurt, but according to the criminal complaint against the suspect, this was someone who had a document that identified views opposed to artificial intelligence, also had a list of names and addresses of other AI executives, investors, and board members. This is someone who was very clearly concerned about the existential risk that AI posed in his opinion, and so decided to take matters into his own hands and go try to attack Sam Altman.”

“The state of Maine recently passed a temporary moratorium that would ban data centers larger than 20 megawatts until November 2027. There's a suburb of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Port Washington, which is gonna be the home of one of these big OpenAI Oracle Stargate data centers. That town recently voted overwhelmingly in favor of restricting the building of future data centers. Basically, you have to get voter approval before you do any of these things. Then there's also similar efforts going on in places like Ohio, Missouri, Indiana, Georgia, North Carolina.”

“There's a new report out from Stanford this week, the 2026 version of their AI index, which sort of catalogs various trends in the AI industry. And, basically, their takeaway was that, in The US, people have very low trust in not only AI, but on the question of whether their own government can regulate AI in a responsible way. The global average on that question was 54 percent of, like, do you trust your own government to responsibly regulate AI? In The US, that is only 31 percent.”

“Words have power too. There was an incendiary article about me a few days ago. Someone said to me yesterday, they thought it was coming at a time of great anxiety about AI and that it made things more dangerous for me. I brushed it aside. Now I'm awake in the middle of the night and pissed. So what do you make of the idea, Kevin, that a reason for the negative sentiment against the AI companies and the industry at large is being driven by investigative journalism?”

“I mean, one thing that I've been thinking about over the past few days is, like, this is happening at a time when unemployment is below 5 percent, and the S and P 500 is near a record high. And so if all of this is starting to happen when things are relatively good, economically speaking, in this country, I think the fear and the expectation among the leaders of these companies is that it will get much worse if and when AI does actually start to cause, like, mass disruptions to the labor market.”

“Standard Bitcoin transactions rely on a type of cryptography called ECDSA. But a sufficiently powerful quantum computer running this mathematical thing called Shor's algorithm can solve these problems. Meaning, someone can forge Bitcoin signatures and steal all of the Bitcoin.”

“Aviv's paper proposed a really clever mechanism that effectively makes Bitcoin transactions quantum resistant. It effectively hides a brilliant hash puzzle inside Bitcoin's existing rules. So you don't need to change Bitcoin.”

“The other one I really like is climate, meaning quantum computing can help model climate oriented scenarios and extreme weather much better thereby theoretically allowing people to have more advanced notice in climate emergencies. So there's and that just scratches the surface.”

“The law really hasn't dealt with anything quantum yet. Like there's been post-quantum cryptography standards by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST, and regulators are starting to require quantum-resistant encryption for financial institutions.”

“AI will realize that it needs crypto, like, someday. I actually think they are starting to realize that, like, crypto is really necessary for a lot of AI applications to work and be effective.”

“Apple is actively testing four different frame designs for smart glasses that they're like their goal is to go sell these in 2027. I think this is Apple basically accepting reality that the Vision Pros did not land the way they hoped, and so they're going to hopefully move into something that has a lot more market appeal and people are a lot more excited about.”

“Vercell's CEO is Guillaume Rauch... he recently said the company's annual recurring revenue has gone from about $100 million at the start of 2024 to a run rate of $340 million by the end of February this year. When he was asked about an IPO, he basically said that Vercell is 'very much a working public company' and that it's 'ready and getting more ready every day.'”

“Anthropic temporarily banned the creator of OpenClaw... basically, this happened shortly after Anthropic changed their pricing so that Claude subscriptions no longer covered usage through third party tools like OpenClaw. Users now have to pay separately through the API, so they can't just use the Claude Mac subscription, which, to be fair, is a subsidized subscription.”

“Trump officials are apparently encouraging banks to test Anthropics' Mythos model. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessett and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell brought banks and executives in for a meeting this week, and they encouraged them to use this new model to detect security vulnerabilities.”

“Early on Friday morning, someone came in through a Molotov cocktail at Sam Altman's home in San Francisco. Nobody was hurt. The suspect was later arrested at OpenAI headquarters where he was threatening to burn the building down. This came just a couple of days after the New Yorker published a really long investigation.”

“Notably, they are not releasing this model to the public because they claim it is too dangerous to do that. Instead, they are giving access to a consortium of tech companies, including Cisco, Broadcoms, or makers of Internet infrastructure, as well as Microsoft, Apple, Amazon. Basically, every big tech company that is not OpenAI or Meta is getting access to this model, but not general access. Just access to do defensive cybersecurity testing, basically, to go out and harden their systems and their infrastructure and their software before the general public can get its hands on this model.”

“One of them was that this model apparently found a twenty seven year old security flaw in OpenBSD. OpenBSD is an open source operating system that runs on firewalls and routers. It is sort of like a critical security layer on the Internet, and it was designed specifically to be hard to hack. And this model, because of its advanced coding and reasoning capabilities, was able to find this bug that twenty seven years worth of professional security researchers had not been able to find.”

“Alex Stamos said, like, yes. This is a big deal. And he was hoping for a long time that we would see a consortium come together like this because of exactly what you just said, Kevin. The intelligence in in these machines and their ability to work autonomously are now great enough that they can chain together exploits that human beings either would never see, would take them a long time to see, or they would just never get to because we're we're limited in ways that these machines are not.”

“You have a new model that you claim is the most powerful model in the world. So instead of selling it, you give a $100,000,000 of claud credits away to a consortium of companies that includes many of your competitors, which is what Anthropic is doing. That is not how I personally would market a spooky new model if I were in the business of marketing spooky new models.”

“On June 10 in San Francisco, we are doing the second ever installment of Hard Fork Live. It's happening on June 10 in San Francisco at the Blue Shield of California Theater. Bigger venue than last year. Tickets will be on sale at nytimes.com/events. Not today, but next Friday, April 17.”

“The post was deleted after many, including Trump supporters, criticized the imagery. Trump also said he won't apologize to to pope Leo after lashing out at the pontiff for his comments criticizing the war in Iran. Pope Leo called the president's threats last week to destroy Iranian civilization unacceptable.”

“The US Navy now restricting the movement of ships in and out of the Strait Of Hormuz, part of a blockade of Iranian ports announced by president Trump Sunday after peace talks with Iran produced no agreement. Iran has remained defiant, saying it will not surrender to threats from The US.”

“Democratic California congressman Eric Swalwell and Texas Republican Tony Gonzalez are stepping down from their house seats, both bowing to pressure to leave congress or face expulsion following sexual misconduct allegations.”

“The defendant is alleged to having traveled across state lines with the intent to both target an individual and a major technology company. This was not spontaneous. This was planned, targeted, and extremely serious.”

“The NAR is revising its housing forecast down for the year. That's because the war with Iran has raised the cost of borrowing, and that sent mortgage rates up. The association went from rejecting a double digit increase in existing home sales to just 4%.”

“Bitcoin cycle lows are projected for late 2026.”

“was the recent bounce off $65,650 the bottom?”

“are we seeing a 'bearish flag' formation leading to new yearly lows”

“We never keep our entire portfolio on an exchange.”

“Protect your BTC From Taxes”

“80% [of the funding was] allocated to AI startups.”

“We also discuss the implications of new AI regulations... [including] Georgia's AI bills.”

“NOAA Labs breakthrough [is a primary focus of the episode].”

“We also discuss... Meta's recent AI security incident.”

“In this episode, we examine the astonishing $300 billion venture funding in Q1 2026.”

“When we look at the historical data, Bitcoin cycle lows are projected for late 2026 based on current liquidity trends.”

“By owning the entire stack, Hyperliquid's advantage is vertical integration which allows for much higher efficiency.”

“The industry is realizing that seat-based SaaS is facing a crisis as artificial intelligence reduces the headcount needed for enterprise tasks.”

“The intensifying Iran conflict creates extreme oil price volatility that has kept global markets on edge all week.”

“We've developed a system where STRC fixes the yield gap with price-stable returns for long-term holders.”

“The central bank needs more evidence that inflation is heading toward two percent.”

“Hospitals are diverting patients as digital systems remain offline following the breach.”

“This legislation represents a generational investment in our nation's crumbling transit networks.”

“Emergency crews are on high alert as record rainfall is expected tonight.”

“The switch to solid-state chemistry could fundamentally change the economics of transportation.”

“Diplomatic efforts are currently at a standstill after overnight clashes on the border.”

“The Labor Department reports a significant and unexpected rise in consumer costs for March.”

“The justices are considering how much privacy citizens can expect in the digital age.”

“Climatologists are calling this an unprecedented shift in global ocean temperature patterns.”

“Public health officials emphasize there is no immediate cause for panic among the general population.”

“Diplomatic efforts have hit another significant roadblock today in Cairo.”

“The latest price index rose more than most economic analysts expected.”

“This proposal includes funding for several thousand new border agents.”

“This is the first national standard for these specific chemicals.”

“Crude oil futures settled lower after a particularly volatile week.”

“But this isn't about retribution. This is about preventing them from imposing their will on the Middle East and on US security interests in the Middle East for the next three, five or seven years. And in that case, I am okay with this conflict. We are achieving a lot of mission, but we haven't won.”

“And the fourth and the most important, the one that does not exist at this moment, is 10 to 14 large surface combatants. We know them as ages destroyers, like the Arleigh Burke class destroyers you're seeing on the TV, Launch of the Tomahawks. Those same ones have a great air defense system. They're the perfect escort ship. I think 10 to 14 of them is kind of the right number to at least get the initial choke, the 250 ships that are stuck on the inside the Gulf out.”

“China since 1949, since the communists took over, has a track record of never ever ever helping in any international organization or environment. They're cheap skates at the United Nations when it comes to paying bills. I mean, we may not pay our bill but at least we volunteer to have a big bill. On top of it, they don't untreat the security anywhere in the world.”

“And what my largest concern is that sometimes when the president says we won, the next words I have is about our cease operations. That would actually lead to a capital L loss for the United States and for our allies and partners because very quickly, we become clear to everyone that Iran remains in control of the Straits of Hormuz at this time. We have not yet established our control over that.”

“The second is that we have combat air patrol, probably either two or four set slots, which means four or eight aircraft persistently overhead whenever we're convoying with F-15s, F-16s or F-18s equipped with what's called the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System, APKWS, a cheap rocket, a $25,000 rocket that is extremely effective against the Shahed drones. It's used extensively by Ukraine and it's effective in a maritime environment.”

“In the case of President Trump, you know, you and I have talked before about his negotiating style. He likes to carry a big stick. He weighs it initially. He then uses it. And then, of course, he very quickly pivots to, you know, you can have peace if you'll just make the right deal. Everything is about the art of the deal, isn't it?”

“I think we would have to assume that they're non-negotiable or it's going to be anything about regime change or human rights within Iran. They're going to want to be absolutely sure that they can maintain control in Iran. The other three files—nuclear, missiles, and proxies—are different, but regime survival is hardline.”

“The nuclear file, I think it's entirely possible that the Iranians will be willing to agree to most of what the United States is asking for on the nuclear file because, you know, this is the one area where it's obvious that the US will not be willing to compromise. So we might look to see whether they've actually moved towards the idea that they would have to accept an end to their nuclear program.”

“The newly appointed Iranian ambassador in Lebanon, the Lebanese have withdrawn their agreement to his appointment, and he is to stay even though he's not being given credentials by the government of Lebanon. Now it's an extraordinary statement that Lebanon is not a sovereign country and that the sovereignty in Lebanon is possessed by the Iranians.”

“I think that we saw a very strong statement from Rutte, the Secretary General of NATO, saying that the coalition would always come together and it would support the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. And in a way, the Iranians have helped us in this respect, because closing international waters is obviously against international law.”