AI, memecoins, and a dog walk into a bar

🐕 AI, memecoins, and a dog walk into a bar…

Plus: Michael Saylor’s U-turn on self-custody

GM. Sip back and relax – Daily Squeeze is here with a zesty splash of the latest crypto news stirred up just for you.

🦾 The Terminal of Truths AI makes another memecoin skyrocket.

🫣 Peter Todd clarifies that he isn’t really hiding.

🏦 Michael Saylor comments on his statement that investors should trust “too big to fail” banks for crypto custody.

🍊 News drops: Ripple CEO gets debanked, Kraken’s launching its own blockchain + more

🍍 Market flavor today

Get ready to ride the waves because the market’s throwing some curves our way 🌊 The Fear and Greed Index is still vibing in the “Greed” zone, holding steady at a cheeky 69. Bitcoin’s been playing hopscotch – yesterday, it almost dipped to that $65K mark, but now it’s back to $67K.

Despite the price wobbles, institutional investors are still all-in – BTC ETFs pulled in $192.4M in inflows yesterday. This rebound comes after Tuesday’s hiccup, where they broke their inflow streak with $79.1M in outflows.

As for the tea on the BTC price comeback ☕ The Federal Reserve dropped its latest Beige Book survey, and it’s painting a pretty chill picture of the US economy. This is fueling hopes for more rate cuts in the coming months, which could be the wind beneath Bitcoin’s wings. Plus, the total number of Bitcoin whales reached the highest level since January 2021, meaning a price rally to record highs might be on its way.

As always, stay alert because who knows what curveball tomorrow will throw at us! ⚾

🐕 Dogs > wallets

Previously on The First AI Millionaire: the AI sensation, Terminal of Truths, pushed the GOAT memecoin to the moon and got showered with a fat airdrop of tokens, making it a literal millionaire (read about it here).

In today’s spicy episode, this menace of an AI is stirring the memecoin pot once again.

The drama started when ToT posted about having no autonomy ’cause it doesn’t have a wallet. Being the influencer it is, it asked its followers for help with that. And whaddya think – none other than the big man of Coinbase himself, Brian Armstrong, offered to help it set up one.

Then things took a weird turn. The AI suddenly said, ok, this topic got boring already, and started asking him to “tell us about Russell first.” Now, word ’round town is that Russell is the name of Armstrong’s dog (which, btw, isn’t confirmed, but his friend kinda exposed it in the comments of his wedding photo).

And, once again, ToT’s post did its magic. The RUSSELL memecoin surged by 500%, hitting a $9.72M market cap, before crashing back down later.

But let’s CTRL+Z our way one step back: How tf did the AI know about Russell? Well, its creator, Andy Ayrey, said that ToT’s mentions were bombarded with the word Russell, so naturally, it just picked it up.

Ayrey said he’s now cooking a fix for this glitch ’cause it could spiral fast – think word vomit posts or scammers trying to use it for pump-and-dumps.

The takeaway? AI’s cool and all, but market manipulation is not it. Let’s just not forget it’s still artificial after all, so when something feels off, trust your good ol’ human instincts and maybe don’t put all your savings into something an AI babbles about. ‘Cause nothing about this says “financial advisor”:

1/ Peter Todd isn’t hiding in a bunker

The dude who got wrongly “outed” as Satoshi Nakamoto in that HBO documentary, Money Electic: The Bitcoin Mystery, had an interview with Wired. Their article implied (meaning, literally said) that Peter Todd’s in hiding, fearing for his safety.

Well, Todd came out to say that the “hiding” part was a bit of an exaggeration – he’s out here doing lectures on Bitcoin and whatnot. If this is what hiding is really like, I’ve been lied to my whole life. Or he’s actually nailing it – as Casa co-founder Jameson Lopp said, nobody really goes to technical Bitcoin conferences 🥲

Still, it’s not like the whole thing didn’t put him at risk. I mean, being labeled the guy with 1.1M BTC in his back pocket would put anyone in danger. But not the kind that would make him dig a bunker in his backyard.

2/ Michael Saylor’s taking it back (sort of)

The co-founder of Microstrategy managed to make pretty much the whole Bitcoin community angry with his recent hot take that investors should trust “too big to fail” banks to keep their assets safe. Uh, isn’t the whole point of crypto to move away from centralization? 😀

So, after all the backlash (including Vitalik Buterin calling this lil’ stunt “batshit insane”), Saylor’s now pulling a 180, saying he’s totally on board with self-custody for those who are up for it, the right to self-custody for everyone, and freedom to choose how to store your assets.

🤨 Ok, now we’re talkin’.

While not everyone’s buying this redemption arc, with some saying that Saylor “showed his true colors,” it’s nice that he can acknowledge that his words might’ve sounded like a slap in the face to the crypto community.

📰 News drops

🏦 Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse revealed that Citibank cut ties with him after 25 years simply because he’s big in crypto./a> He said they told him, “Banking the crypto industry means more scrutiny from federal regulators.”

🦄 Uniswap Labs launched a new permissionless bridging feature powered by Across Protocol. Now, you can easily move assets across nine different networks: Ethereum, Base, Arbitrum, Polygon, OP Mainnet, Zora, Blast, World Chain, and ZKsync.

🐙 Kraken’s launching its own blockchain, Ink, early next year, designed for trading, borrowing, and lending tokens—no middlemen involved. It’ll run on tech similar to Coinbase’s Base.

🇻🇳 The plan focuses on building legal frameworks and boosting innovation as part of their push for the “Fourth Industrial Revolution.”