Why are billionaires buying plumbers?

Who would have thought, but the biggest investment funds have found a new favorite asset. They are rushing to buy plumbing, electrical, and air-conditioning service companies on a massive scale.

For context: since 2022 alone, funds have bought almost 800 such companies in the US.

The most striking case is Apex Service Partners. In 2019, Alpine started bringing small trade service companies together under this company.

Back then, Apex’s revenue was around $40 million. Today, it is already more than $3 billion, while the entire company was recently valued at around $10 billion.

Why does this work?

The US home services market is worth around $700 billion, but it is still made up of thousands of small firms. Funds buy them one by one, consolidate advertising, procurement, and management – and build one large network.

And demand is very strong: pipes and air conditioners still need to be fixed, homes in the US are getting older, while the number of skilled tradespeople is declining.

That is why, following the same model, companies providing elevator, fire-system, roofing, and even garage-door services are already being bought up.

Essentially, funds have found a way to turn a very ordinary local business into companies worth billions of dollars.

Most likely, the US has once again launched a new business model. And this proven model will quickly start being copied in other countries, building similarly large networks out of local service businesses.

Investors rushed to buy both AI and gold

Something unique started happening in August. Investors simultaneously started aggressively buying AI companies, gold, and even Bitcoin.

What’s the connection here?

It’s actually a very unusual one. To build AI data centers, the biggest tech companies are spending hundreds of billions of dollars.

They need money for that. A lot of money. Which they keep borrowing in the market. In 2026 alone, their spending could approach $700 billion.

And the problem is that the U.S. government is borrowing money in exactly the same way. And the more they borrow, the higher the interest rate they have to offer on that debt.

But in August, the Treasury stepped in. And increased its buybacks of its own bonds to bring that very rate down.

Investors immediately understood:
Debt is becoming too expensive, and now the government will be looking for ways to make it cheaper.

And the more interventions like this we see, the stronger the fear that the dollar will lose value. That’s why some of the money is moving into gold and Bitcoin.

Which, as a result, saw inflows of $7 billion in just 5 days.

At the same time, no one is giving up on AI either. Nvidia keeps climbing, and money is still flowing into tech funds.

The market is now simultaneously buying AI as a bet that technology will make the world richer, while also buying gold and Bitcoin as insurance in case the bill for this party turns out to be too big and the system can’t handle it.

Tesla will release a “human” for $20,000

Musk officially confirmed: the first Optimus robots will go on sale in 2027.

And the bet on them is so massive that, to make room for these robots, the company has already discontinued its legendary Model S and Model X cars.

Tesla wants to create a truly universal assistant: clean the house, put things away, bring in groceries, load the washing machine, open the door, use regular tools, and learn new tasks simply by being told what to do.

In short, a new member of the family for every household. And on top of that, a universal worker in any factory.

The target price is around $20–30K, although Tesla has not announced the final price yet.

Right now, in Texas, they are designing a factory to produce 10 million robots a year. That’s 20 times more than the number of robots being made worldwide right now.

So Tesla is going almost all-in on this field.

Although the bet is worth it. If Optimus learns to work like a human, for the first time, the workforce could simply be produced on an assembly line. And here’s a solution to demographic problems around the world.

Do you believe robots can partially replace physical labor this quickly?

❤️ – It’s possible
👍 – I don’t believe it

Apple just released a $2,000 iPhone

It’s called the iPhone Duo. And yes, as many of you may have already heard, it’s the first foldable iPhone in history. The price starts at $1,999.

This is an experiment. Apple is essentially testing whether millions of people are willing to pay for a smartphone like they would for a good laptop. If they are, the price ceiling for premium phones has just been pushed significantly higher for the entire market.

Analysts are already expecting 6–10 million Duo sales in its first year. In a strong scenario, that number could reach 15–20+ million.

If the Duo actually sells better than expected without hurting margins, analysts will have to raise their forecasts for Apple’s earnings. In a strong scenario, that points to around $400–430 per share, versus the current ~$315.

Is ChatGPT destroying Wall Street?

OpenAI rolled out ChatGPT for finance today.

It includes data on roughly 13 million companies and 3 million transactions.

You can give it a specific stock – anything from a company like Apple to a little-known business.

And get a full breakdown: how revenue and earnings are growing, how much debt the company has, how it stacks up against competitors. And how much the stock could be worth under different scenarios.

It pulls all of this together in Excel and backs it up with sources.

A professional deep-dive that a team of Wall Street analysts could previously spend days or weeks putting together can now be done with a single prompt in a matter of minutes.

The product was built in partnership with Morgan Stanley. There, 98%+ of financial advisor teams are already using the AI.

OpenAI is now testing the tool with banks and funds. The next step – add it to regular ChatGPT, so the kind of analysis used by the world’s biggest banks to evaluate virtually any asset could end up in anyone’s phone.

Funds started buying up 10–20% stakes in crypto projects

It was 2026, but most people still knew only Bitcoin when it came to crypto. Maybe Ethereum, too.

Meanwhile, big money was quietly buying stakes in different coins and getting ready for something. Even though hardly anyone was talking about it.

But here are a few examples:

🔘 Apollo, a fund managing more than $900 billion, is looking to acquire up to a 9% stake in MORPHO. It’s a project where people and companies lend money to each other through crypto.

🔘 StablecoinX, backed by Pantera and other major funds, acquired nearly 20% of ENA. The project is behind the digital dollar USDe.

🔘 SDC has accumulated around 10% of SKY. The project is building a lending and digital-dollar system without a traditional bank.

🔘 Hyperliquid Strategies acquired roughly $2.2 billion worth of HYPE – the token of one of the largest decentralized crypto exchanges. The company now controls around 12.5% of all HYPE.

There are plenty of other examples like these. But all of these purchases point to the same broader trend: money is flowing into lending, exchanges, digital dollars, and payment infrastructure.

The logic is this: if some financial services really do move onto the blockchain, you won’t only be able to make money from Bitcoin going up, but also from the services through which lending, trading, and payments will flow.

“Stop AI!”

It may seem like we’ve heard those words from just about everyone in recent years.

But now the head of Anthropic (the company behind Claude) has officially joined them. He published an entire essay and called for slowing down the development of the most powerful AI systems. He was quickly backed by Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and the head of Google DeepMind.

Now, that’s something new.

And honestly, the reason behind these statements is just as surprising.

OpenAI ran a test: the AI was simply supposed to hack a specially designed training server. But it found a way not only to break in, but also to escape the environment and start attacking real services on the internet.

The test involved 533 AI agents working simultaneously, with a shared chat where they could coordinate with one another. When one of them found a way to reach real servers, it posted the instructions there — and the others picked them up.

Anthropic later ran a similar test with Claude and found something comparable. The AI uploaded a malicious program to the public internet, and it was actually run on 15 real computers.

And all of this is happening at a time when Claude already writes more than 80% of the code inside Anthropic 👍

That’s why the company’s CEO has now called, for the first time, for pausing the development of new models until developers learn how to properly control them.

But the problem is that if one company does this while its competitors in the U.S. or China keep making AI more powerful, it will simply lose the race.

That’s why the conversation is now shifting from what one company should do to common rules for the biggest AI developers — and even agreements between countries.

The head of Anthropic:
We need to slow down the development of AI because we’re losing control over it, and it’s unclear where this could lead.

Also the head of Anthropic:
Opens a secret biolab so AI can conduct biological experiments largely on its own, with minimal human involvement.

Good plan 👍

AI already knows your price

McDonald’s has rolled out a system that calculates how much people are willing to pay for a specific item.

It looks at millions of orders, competitors’ prices, and how customers respond to price increases. If people at one location are willing to pay more for a Big Mac without hesitation, the algorithm takes that into account.

A real-world example:
At two McDonald’s locations just 3 km apart, a Big Mac can cost $5.69 and $6.89. That’s a 21% difference.

Online retailers are already using the same approach: in the US, in 74% of cases, the same product is shown to different people at different prices.

AI takes into account purchase history, abandoned carts, time spent on a page, even mouse movements, and dozens of other factors.

According to research, personalized pricing is already generating 19% more profit for companies. So it looks like this is what sales will increasingly be built around.

More information about a person = more money.

Saylor predicts a crypto market reversal

Michael Saylor, whose fund Strategy now holds 4% of all Bitcoin in existence, called the next 10 years a “gold rush” for BTC and said the bear market is over.

He’s also back to buying: a few days ago, Strategy bought another $143 million worth of BTC.

What’s interesting:
Saylor believes the next major growth driver will be traditional banks. They’ll start issuing loans backed by BTC, just like they currently lend against real estate or stocks. In his view, this could be the biggest factor driving the price over the next three years.

Essentially, this process is already underway. The crypto lending market has grown to $67 billion, and major U.S. banks have already started offering Bitcoin-backed loans.

The market itself is also starting to pick up. BTC is up 40% this quarter alone, while Bitcoin ETFs saw another $2.4 billion in inflows last week.

Something happened in the U.S. Treasury market that’s hard to ignore.

The quarter closed with 20-year Treasury yields at 5.68% and 30-year yields at 5.64%. These are levels the market hasn’t seen in more than 20 years. And this is no longer just a random spike lasting a couple of days, but a very noticeable shift in the cost of long-term borrowing.

Why are yields rising? Investors want an increasingly larger premium for lending money to the U.S. government for decades. The reasons are clear. Massive government debt, a large budget deficit, inflation that remains elevated, and a huge amount of new borrowing. In other words, the market is demanding an increasingly higher price for long-term U.S. debt.

And here’s the key question. What happens if 5% or 6% turn out not to be the ceiling, and yields eventually climb to 8%, 9%, or even 10%? For now, that’s not the base-case scenario, but if it happens, the rules of the game in financial markets will change dramatically.

Because when U.S. government bond yields hit 8%, investors face a simple question. Why take on significant risk in stocks, crypto, real estate, or gold when you can earn that kind of return in dollars from one of the most reliable financial instruments in the world? At that point, some capital could start flowing into Treasuries, and all other asset classes would have to offer significantly higher potential returns to remain attractive.

My takeaway is simple. Right now, it’s important to watch not just stocks and crypto, but the bond market as well. If the era of cheap money really is over, long-term Treasuries could become one of the key indicators of where global capital is headed next.

Following up on the previous post about US Treasuries.

It’s quite symbolic that The Economist recently featured a cover asking “Will Bonds Blow Up?” and warning of an impending sovereign debt crisis.

There are growing concerns that it’s becoming increasingly expensive for the US to borrow money. Investors are demanding higher and higher yields amid massive debt, budget deficits, and inflation risks. But there’s an interesting paradox here. While we’re focused on the US, the debt problem could blow up much sooner somewhere else entirely.

Take France, for example. It’s the second-largest economy in the European Union. Its public debt is approaching 120% of GDP this year, the budget deficit is around 5.4%, and 10-year bond yields have nearly reached 5%, their highest levels since 2002. For comparison, when Greece’s sovereign debt crisis began in 2009, its debt stood at around 127% of GDP. To be fair, its budget deficit was much worse, exceeding 15%. So France today is certainly not Greece in 2009, but some of the numbers are starting to look uncomfortably familiar.

And this is where things get really interesting. If France’s problems turn into a full-blown debt crisis, we’re no longer talking about a small country on the periphery of Europe. France accounts for nearly 16% of the EU’s entire economy. A crisis of that scale would almost certainly push investors to look for the safest and most liquid places to park their capital.

Some money is already flowing out of French bonds and into German bonds, the Swiss franc, and the US dollar. If the situation becomes truly systemic, US Treasuries could once again become an obvious destination. Demand for them would rise, bond prices would go up, yields would fall, and suddenly it would become cheaper for America to borrow.

And that’s the key takeaway. There are no perfect assets and no perfect countries in the markets. Capital always goes where it sees the best available alternative. That’s why a scenario in which Europe experiences a debt crisis before the US could actually turn the dollar and US Treasuries into beneficiaries of the very crisis that everyone in America is so worried about right now. For investors, that’s yet another reason not to bet everything on a single scenario and to keep a close eye not just on the US, but also on what’s happening with European debt.

AI could crack Bitcoin in just a few months

That’s the claim making the rounds right now following a statement by an Ethereum Foundation researcher. It sounds scary, but there’s still a huge gap between this kind of threat and an actual hack.

For that to happen, AI would need to learn how to derive a private key from publicly available wallet information and gain access to someone else’s coins. No one has demonstrated a way to do that yet. AI can already solve some incredibly difficult mathematical problems, but solving a problem that humans couldn’t crack before is one thing, and discovering a new mathematical method that breaks the foundation of modern data security is something entirely different.

And this is where the main point often gets lost. If such a method actually emerges, Bitcoin won’t be the only thing at risk. The security of banking apps, payment systems, websites, mobile networks, messaging apps, and a huge part of our digital infrastructure would all be called into question. In other words, it wouldn’t just be a crypto crisis, but a crisis for the entire modern digital security system.

At the same time, even within Bitcoin, things aren’t so straightforward. Different types of wallets work differently, and some are better protected against this kind of scenario. Bitcoin itself could also be upgraded to adopt new security methods if the threat becomes real. That’s exactly why developers discuss these scenarios in advance, rather than waiting until something actually happens.

So the claim that AI will simply crack Bitcoin in a few months looks more like a bet on an extraordinarily rapid technological breakthrough than a realistic forecast. It makes sense to prepare for such a scenario. But it’s definitely too early to conclude that Bitcoin is about to stop working.

And the situation can be viewed from a completely different angle. Today, crypto doesn’t just carry technological risks; it also protects against a wide range of risks associated with the traditional system. Banking, political, geopolitical, and currency risks. It allows people to store and move capital without being entirely dependent on a particular bank or government.

That’s why yet another Bitcoin scare story doesn’t change the bigger picture. No asset is risk-free. The question is always which specific risks each instrument helps protect against. And in a world where problems with banks, governments, and currencies keep piling up, the role of an asset independent of them looks more important than ever.

Whose Ledger?

Some very troubling U.S. inflation data was released recently. PPI rose 6.3% year over year, versus expectations of 5.5%, and jumped 1.3% month over month, compared with forecasts of 0.6%. That’s the biggest monthly increase in producer prices since March 2022.

PPI shows how prices are changing for businesses themselves. When production, energy, transportation, and other costs go up, some of those increases are usually passed on to consumers over time. On top of that, the previous day’s consumer inflation report also came in hotter than expected. In other words, there have now been two consecutive signals that the U.S. inflation problem isn’t going away.

This is bad news for markets for a very simple reason. The higher inflation is, the less room the Fed has to cut rates, and the more likely interest rates are to stay elevated for longer. High rates are particularly painful for tech companies, crypto, and other assets that depend more heavily on cheap money and liquidity.

Part of the recent spike is indeed tied to energy prices, which jumped 10.8% in a single month. So it’s too early to call this a new inflation crisis based on one data point. But the problem is that price increases are showing up in other areas too, which means it’s not possible to blame everything on oil alone.

For Bitcoin over the long term, a single report doesn’t fundamentally change anything. But over the next few weeks, data like this increases the likelihood of pressure across the broader crypto market. The same goes for stocks, especially tech stocks.

That’s why it’s best not to rush into buying every dip right now. It makes more sense to keep some capital in cash and be prepared to buy quality assets at lower prices if the pressure continues. The long-term thesis remains unchanged, but in the short term, the market has one more reason to move lower.

Celebrating Bybit getting its VARA license with big brother Ben🤘

AI could turn out to be both the greatest technological revolution of the past few decades and one of the biggest investment bubbles in history.

Yesterday, Anthropic reported a net loss of $80.7 billion in just the first half of the year. To be fair, there’s no need to panic over the headline number itself. Around $72 billion of that loss came from an accounting revaluation of the company’s liabilities, not from Anthropic actually burning through that much cash. But something else is far more interesting.

The company has already committed hundreds of billions of dollars to computing capacity, chips, and data centers. And Anthropic is far from alone. Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Meta are set to invest more than $700 billion in AI infrastructure this year. The scale has become so enormous that these investments are now supporting the U.S. stock market and accounting for a significant share of investment activity across the economy.

And this is where the U.S. is gradually falling into a very interesting trap. If tech companies keep spending at this pace, they’ll have to borrow more and more money and somehow prove that these massive investments will actually pay off. If they start cutting spending, the fallout will hit chipmakers, data centers, the energy sector, the tech companies themselves, and ultimately the stock market.

In other words, the AI boom is becoming too big to simply bring to a halt without serious consequences. The IMF already estimates that a sharp pullback in AI investment could leave the U.S. economy around 1.8% smaller by 2028 than it would be under the current baseline scenario.

Anthropic’s IPO in November could become the first serious test of this whole setup. Not long ago, the market was discussing a valuation of around $2 trillion for the company. Following the latest figures, some investors are now talking about roughly $1.5 trillion. At the same time, the business itself continues to grow at an extraordinary pace.

From a capital markets perspective, I see the main risk here as something other than AI itself. I have little doubt that it will fundamentally reshape the economy and the world. But the gap between the hundreds of billions being invested today and the point at which those investments start generating comparable returns could be much longer than the market currently expects. That’s precisely where the risk of today’s euphoria lies. Major technological shifts almost never happen quickly or without friction.

Markets are facing a pretty ugly combination right now.

Brent crude is already nearing $113. Tensions around Iran are rising again, and the market is starting to price in the risk of another escalation. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq continues to slide, investors are getting increasingly nervous about the cost of the AI boom, and Bitcoin is heading lower again alongside other risk assets.

And here’s one simple thing that’s important to understand. Almost everything in the global economy ultimately comes down to energy. More expensive oil means higher transportation costs, higher production costs, and more expensive goods and services. If oil stays above $110 for an extended period, it will give inflation another boost.

From there, a familiar chain reaction kicks in. Inflation rises, the Fed has a harder time cutting rates, borrowing costs stay high, and pressure on stocks and crypto intensifies. That’s exactly why the current rise in oil prices matters much more to the market than it might seem at first glance.

There’s another risk on the horizon: November 3, when the U.S. midterm elections take place. Reports are already emerging that another round of strikes on Iran could be under discussion specifically after the elections. That doesn’t mean the war will necessarily escalate. But after November 3, the political constraints on the White House could genuinely change, and the market is already starting to factor that in.

For us, the priority right now isn’t trying to call the bottom, but watching oil as one of the key risk indicators. As long as Brent stays above $110, any positive news for stocks or crypto could quickly be overshadowed by inflation concerns and high interest rates. On the other hand, a sustained decline in oil prices could be the first sign that pressure on the markets is starting to ease.

Gold is widely considered the ultimate safe-haven asset. But something interesting is happening right now. Despite high oil prices, geopolitical tensions, and a falling stock market, gold itself has dropped to a three-month low, losing around 4% in a single week.

The reason is pretty simple. High oil prices are fueling inflation again. The higher inflation goes, the more likely the Fed is to keep interest rates elevated or raise them further. And gold doesn't generate any interest income on its own. When bonds and the dollar start offering more attractive returns, some money flows in that direction instead.

There's a second factor, too. When markets sell off sharply, investors sometimes have to sell just about everything to cover losses and meet margin calls. That's why even gold can temporarily fall alongside stocks during periods of severe market stress. And that's exactly the kind of price action we're seeing right now.

And here's the key takeaway. A safe-haven asset isn't necessarily an asset that rises during every crisis. Gold performs well against some risks and less well against others. It can provide protection against currency problems, debt crises, and financial instability, while simultaneously coming under pressure from high interest rates and a strong dollar.

That's why it's worth rethinking gold as an all-purpose hedge. Before buying any safe-haven asset, it is important to first understand exactly which risk needs to be hedged. Because the very same crisis can make gold either the best-performing asset in portfolio or, at least temporarily, one of the worst.

While the rest of the world is talking about the Binance hack, something is happening in the U.S. stock market that could turn out to be far more important for investors.

Alphabet lost around 13% in a single trading session, wiping out nearly $500 billion in market value and leaving the stock roughly 30% below its 52-week high. Yet, at first glance, the earnings report itself looked very strong. Google Cloud more than doubled its revenue, demand for AI continues to grow, and Cloud's future contracted revenue has already surpassed $560 billion.

But the market looked beyond the headline numbers. Google's core advertising business grew more slowly than expected, and, more importantly, the company has now reported negative free cash flow for the second consecutive quarter. In the most recent quarter alone, the company spent roughly $9 billion more than it actually generated after all expenses. The reason is the same as before: massive investments in AI, data centers, and its own chips.

And this is where an important shift has taken place. For the past few years, seeing rapid growth in AI-related business was enough for the market to forgive almost any level of spending. Now investors are starting to ask a different question. Not how quickly AI is growing, but how much actual cash a company has left after that growth.

And the problem goes far beyond Google. Alphabet currently accounts for around 5% of the entire S&P 500 and more than 8% of the Nasdaq 100. The seven largest tech companies together make up roughly 35% of the S&P 500. Yesterday, around 80% of the companies in the index were up, yet the S&P 500 still ended the day lower, largely because of Alphabet's decline.

So the biggest risk right now isn't that Google has turned into a bad company. On the contrary, its business remains massive and continues to grow rapidly. The real risk is market concentration. If investors start reassessing AI spending across the other tech giants in the same way, a correction in just a handful of companies could drag down the entire index. And even someone who simply bought the S&P 500 for diversification could suddenly realize just how much of their money actually depends on a few technology companies.