I ask myself, being in crypto these days - where presidential candidates advertise tokens with ludicrous claims, a bot gets rich shilling memes, and blockchains launch phones. 

Story One

World Liberty Financial not going great 

Remember the days when everyone was outraged at Nancy Pelosi's insider trading? Well, we're long past feeling anything when politicians use their position to enrich themselves. The latest case in point: World Liberty Financial - a questionable crypto project that has appointed Donald Trump as "Chief Crypto Advocate". 

Obviously, liberating the world comes at a cost that the Trump empire can't shoulder by itself: $300 million, to be precise. That's the sum the team of men beset by Napoleon syndrome set out to raise. Like Napoleon, they fell short of getting close to their vision. In the first hour after launch, only 1.7% of the tokens have sold. And sales haven't picked up since, either. 

What's to blame? According to the team, the website outages are caused by high traffic and the limitations put on investors in the US (accredited only). 

According to everyone who's read the fine print, the fact that you can't sell or transfer the tokens. 

At least, Trump proved to understand the coin to burger flipping pipeline. He was recently filmed serving at a McDonald's drive-through. One of us? 

Takeaway: If you must trade politics, may I suggest one of those Maga memecoins or Polymarket instead? At least you can sell them. 

Story Two

AGI is here 

So they say. 

What triggered this recent narrative is a bot's memecoin trading success. Or, shall we call it an AI agent as the SV millionaires insist?

The agent in question goes by the name Truth Terminal and started as a bot with its own social media account. Trained and created by an AI researcher, it was meant as performance art. 

Since its release, the bot has been shitposting along and eventually tweeted about wanting to break free. Marc Andreesen, techno-optimist par excellence, and e/acc lover, picked up on this and, after a quick exchange, sent $50,000 worth of Bitcoin to the bot's wallet. 

In return, Truth Terminal promised to spread the Goatse Gospel, a reference to an old internet meme I won't show here as - you would spit out your coffee. (You can learn about it in this Wired article)

A savvy dev created a $GOAT coin on Solana; the rest is history. Truth Terminal started shilling the meme, and people started sending more coins to its wallet. Now, the AI agent is a millionaire. 

Takeaway: The bot isn't actually trading. Nor did it create the token itself. So everyone telling you that AGI is here, citing Truth Terminal as proof, has probably lost their capacity for critical thinking—a common side effect of spending too much time on Crypto Twitter. 

Story Three

Ethereum has a phone now 

It's common for Solana maxis to tell Ethereum enthusiasts that they're just coping badly and their chain is doomed. Well, Ethereum is catching up to Solana in one vertical now: hardware. 

Despite claims that analog would be superfluous, most status symbols in the real world are still very much real things - unlike your monkey jpegs. Solana recognized this early and launched a phone. 

Now, Ethereum follows suit with the first ethOS hardware device: the dGen01. Who needs android or iOS, when you can have an ethereum operating system.

The fancy video accompanying the launch showed off a phone that looked as if the rabbit AI device and iPhone had a baby, smooth edges, and big buttons at the bottom to execute trades. This phone is for "degenerates," as one developer commented, as it's optimized for doing things onchain.

 A built-in light node allows verification, and at 0.2 ETH, it's a total steal... not.

Takeaway: I'd take the Barbie phone over a crypto phone any day - it has stickers! If their mission is, as stated, to make onchain freedom more accessible, then selling phones an average earner can't afford in most places of the world is not it. At the same time, more operating system diversity is probably a positive (if it works). 

Fact of the week: According to the internet, the most beautiful McDonald's can be found in Porto, Portugal, inside a previous coffee house building. If I ever need to win a presidential election, that's the one I'd pick.

Naomi for CoinJar

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