The Bitcoin Catalyst Wall Street Isn’t Pricing In

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Presented collaboratively by Early Riders & Onramp Media…

Final Settlement is a weekly podcast covering capital markets, dealmaking, early-stage venture, bitcoin applications and protocol development.

This week Michael, Liam, and Brian break down Moonshot's Kimmy K3 release and what a more open, cheaper Chinese frontier model means for the race against Claude Fable 5 and GPT 5.6, from cyber guardrails and export controls to the Trump administration weighing a ban on Chinese models. They dig into the AI capital markets: Anthropic and DeepSeek's IPO plans, Nous Research's $75 million raise at a $1.5 billion valuation, Gavin Baker's intelligence-per-dollar thesis, Liquid AI, and OpenShip's self-hostable app platform. The guys run through the payments story: the $53 billion Stripe, Advent, and Block bid for PayPal, Visa's new OUSD stablecoin platform, and Amazon Japan's move into a yen-backed stablecoin. They cover a stack of digital asset headlines: IBIT options limits rising to 1 million contracts, Citadel's $400 million investment in Crypto.com at a $20 billion valuation, the ECB's digital euro pilot, Velocity's $38 million Series A, Tether's Genius Act countdown, and Lynn Alden's new Bitcoin-focused PE firm. They close on where the Clarity Act stands, Early Riders' mid-year letter, Onramp's back-to-basics promo, and AI's arrival in film and music.

Chapters

00:00 - Introduction and Weekly Recap

01:26 - Kimmy K3 Release and Open Source AI Models

05:43 - Meta-level Analysis of AI Race and AGI

08:04 - AI Development: Capabilities and Guardrails

09:44 - AI as a Commodity and Data Strategies

11:08 - Global AI Race and Export Controls

13:13 - US-China AI Power Dynamics

16:46 - US Regulatory Posturing and Competition

21:55 - US and Chinese AI Model Competition

24:58 - AI Infrastructure and Market Share Shifts

31:40 - AI and Financial Markets: IPOs and Capital Flows

36:29 - Open Source AI Projects and Sovereignty

37:16 - Fintech and Payments: Stripe, PayPal, and Crypto

49:05 - Digital Asset Headlines: Tether, Stablecoins, and Regulation

52:58 - Crypto Market Dynamics and Capital Flows

55:25 - Bitcoin and Digital Asset Strategies

01:00:16 - AI and Bitcoin: The Future of Capital and Innovation

01:12:50 - Closing Remarks and Future Outlook

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