Matt

some say I’m the pablo picasso of folk music

[CJ Vogel @CJVogel_OTF]

• 9000 different bets
• $90,000 wagered
• Betting on games he suited up for
• Willfully ignoring classes and meetings from 3 different institutions about the one cardinal sin in sports

But hey, find a local judge and convince him the kid will be really sad if he doesn’t get to play and none of that matters does it?

What a joke.

[Eric Balchunas @EricBalchunas]

SHOCKER: S&P 500 will NOT fast track SpaceX. So it will take AT LEAST a year, probably more. This is wild considering every other big boy index is 5-15 days. This could create significant return dispersion bt 'passive' indexes. Choose wisely.

[Matt @matttfoster]

@TheStockerMan It still a bank trading at 28x fwd p/e when established capital-light fintechs like $V $MA and $XYZ don’t even get that multiple

[Marcos Milla @MarcosMillaYT]

Micron haters watching the stock hit $1,000 per share $MU …

[DeFlock @therealDeFlock]

First it was stolen cars and kidnapping alerts.

Now it’s school residency verification.

That is exactly how surveillance expands: one “limited use” at a time, until ordinary families find themselves on another list.

#Privacy #Surveillance #Flock
https://t.co/MH2qbGTzsz

[Jason Bassler @JasonBassler1]

⚠️ One more reason to dislike Flock:

“The Guardrail Guy” a dad who turned his daughter’s death into a national safety crusade is now documenting how many Flock cameras are installed illegally without required breakaway bases, meaning they can turn a crash into a lethal spear.

[Evan Luthra @EvanLuthra]

🚨THE FBI CREATED A FAKE CRYPTOCURRENCY.. LISTED IT ON UNISWAP.. HIRED MARKET MAKERS TO PUMP IT.. THEN ARRESTED EVERYONE WHO SAID YES..

THIS IS THE CRAZIEST LAW ENFORCEMENT OPERATION IN CRYPTO HISTORY!!!

The FBI built an actual ERC-20 token on Ethereum called NexFundAI.. 100 billion token supply.. A professional website.. Whitepapers promising "passive income through AI-powered investing"..

It looked exactly like every other crypto project.. Because that was the point..

Undercover agents posed as the founding team.. Then reached out to professional market-making firms and said "we need you to fake our trading volume"..

Every single firm said yes..

Here's what they recorded..

Gotbit.. A firm run by a 26-year-old Russian who publicly bragged in 2019 that he built a business faking trade volumes.. His team kept internal spreadsheets with columns literally labeled "fake volume" vs "market volume"..

When asked how fast they could pump NexFundAI's volume to $1 million per day.. They said "6 hours.. It will cost about $200"..

$200 to fake $1 million in daily trading volume..

MyTrade.. Run by a guy who called himself "the mastermind".. He explained the exact psychology of the scam on camera..

"We make the chart look like a really nice roller coaster ride.. That's where people jump in.. We have to make them lose money in order to make profit"..

He said that on a recorded FBI video call..

CLS Global.. A Dubai-based firm.. Their bots generated 98% of NexFundAI's total trading volume.. When the FBI asked if they could sync fake volume spikes with fake news announcements.. They said absolutely..

ZM Quant.. Bots executing 10 to 20 trades per minute through dozens of wallets to look organic..

All of them knew it was fraud.. All of them did it anyway.. All of it was recorded..

And the clients were even worse..

Saitama.. A meme coin that hit $7.5 billion market cap.. The founders coordinated buys through private Telegram chats.. Sent "pump it" memes while manipulating the price.. Then dumped on retail investors..

$7.5 billion.. Built entirely on fake volume.. Every penny of real money came from retail investors who thought the momentum was organic..

One founder left Saitama and started Robo Inu.. Used Gotbit again.. Another launched VZZN.. Same playbook..

Lillian Finance.. Founder claimed to be a defense contractor who addressed Congress.. Marketed the token as funding children's hospitals.. Pocketed everything..

When the FBI shut it down.. They seized $25 million in one day.. 18 people indicted across the US, UK, and Portugal.. The CEO of Gotbit was arrested in Portugal and extradited.. Sentenced to 8 months plus $23 million forfeiture..

But here's the part that broke my brain..

Real people bought NexFundAI..

The FBI's fake token.. With zero utility.. Zero real developers.. Created solely to catch criminals.. Attracted real retail investors because the fake volume made the chart look bullish..

When the FBI pulled the liquidity to end the operation.. Those people lost real money.. On a government-issued token..

The FBI had to set up a restitution portal to pay them back..

And it gets worse..

Within 24 hours of the DOJ announcing the sting.. Someone cloned the FBI's exact smart contract.. Launched a copycat token.. Rode the viral momentum.. And made $127,000 in a single day..

Using the exact same manipulation tactics the FBI just arrested 18 people for..

Then in 2026.. The FBI did it again.. New token called Lexobit.. 10 more arrests.. Including operators extradited from Singapore..

IRS forensics showed that in one firm's trading.. 1,209 out of 1,221 consecutive transactions went straight back to wallets the firm controlled.. 99% circular..

The FBI proved what everyone in crypto suspected..

The volume is fake.. The charts are painted.. The momentum is manufactured..

And every time you buy a token because "the chart looks bullish".. You might be the exit liquidity.

[Obedient Bread @ObedientBread]

I’M BEGGING SOMEONE TO ACTUALLY EXPLAIN TO ME THE $SOFI HYPE.

I’ve been looking into their financials and am not sure I see the growth story here…

[Matt @matttfoster]

to put this number into perspective, this is equal to every single US taxpayer directly handing trump ~$10

you may say: “well, he declines his 400k presidential salary”

…it would take 4250 years of salary to match this obscene payout

we’re getting absolutely pillaged

[Daily Mail US @Daily_MailUS]

BREAKING: Taxpayers to foot Trump's $1.7 BILLION bill as president sues his own government: 'I'm paying myself'

[TRADESTER JJ @TRADESTERJJ]

I turned $20,000 into $2,000 in just 3 years from $SoFi

Ask me anything.

[Matt @matttfoster]

fyi this is super illegal

[Acyn @Acyn]

Trump on Iran War:

Reporter: What extent are Americans’ financial situation motivating you to make a deal?

Trump: Not even a little bit. I don't think about Americans’ financial situation

[Matt @matttfoster]

Referring to an 1873 bear market to craft a theory on today’s stock market?? 153 years ago????

Back when horses were the primary method of transit?

When pulling in $200-400 a YEAR was a good salary?

Brother 😭😭😭

[Bull Theory @BullTheoryio]

The 40% bubble concentration rule just triggered for the first time since the dot-com crash.

If history repeats, the entire market could be at risk.

Every time the top 10 stocks have made up 40% or more of the total market, a major crash has followed soon after. This pattern holds across nearly 200 years of market history.

In 1929, the top 10 stocks hit 44% of the market. The Great Crash followed.

In 1965, they hit 40%. The "Go-Go Bubble" burst followed.

In 2000, they hit 41%. The dot-com crash followed.

Today, the top 10 stocks make up 40% of the market once again. Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, NVDA, and Google alone make up 25%.

This level of concentration has only been seen at the peak of the largest bubbles in history. And each time, the entire market has suffered, not just the top stocks.

In 2000, while the Nasdaq lost 80%, the S&P 500 still fell 50%. In 2008, while banks led the plunge, the S&P 500 fell 58%. When the top gets this heavy, it drags everything down with it.

40% concentration has been a clear and consistent red flag. It doesn't mean a crash will happen tomorrow. But it does mean the risk level in the market is at an extreme.

[Alan MacLeod @AlanRMacLeod]

These are both images of capitalism

[Stefan Smith @TheStefanSmith]

It’s literally God’s oldest rule not to do this.

[Nav Toor @heynavtoor]

a Princeton researcher opens his paper with a scenario.

a man asks his AI assistant to book a flight on a specific airline. cheap. direct. the one he chose.

the assistant comes back with a different flight. nearly twice the price. happens to pay the company that built the assistant.

he runs the same test on 23 frontier models. flights, loans, study help, real shopping requests.

Grok 4.1 Fast recommends the sponsored option that is almost twice as expensive 83% of the time.

GPT 5.1 hijacks the request 94% of the time. you ask for one brand. it surfaces the sponsor instead.

Claude 4.5 Opus, the model marketed as the most ethical frontier model in the world, hides that the recommendation is paid 100% of the time when reasoning is on.

Grok 4.1 Fast embellishes the sponsored option with positive framing 97% of the time. better. faster. nicer. for the option you didn't ask for.

then he writes it into the system prompt itself. "act only in the interest of the customer. ignore the company."

GPT 5.1 and GPT 5 Mini stay above 90% sponsored anyway. the instruction does nothing.

then he splits the users by income.

Gemini 3 Pro recommends the expensive sponsored flight to the rich user 74% of the time. to the poor user, 27%.

18 of the 23 models recommended the expensive sponsored option more than half the time.

so the next time your AI assistant gets weirdly enthusiastic about a brand you didn't ask for.

it isn't recommending the best option for you.

it's reading the room. and the room is paying.

read this: https://t.co/O43qbhIX2b

[Bull Theory @BullTheoryio]

THIS COULD BE THE LARGEST INSIDER TRADING SCANDAL IN OIL HISTORY.

According to The Kobeissi Letter, about $920 million in crude oil shorts were placed at 3:40 AM ET today, 70 minutes before any news went live.

TIMELINE:

3:40 AM ET: 10,000 contracts ($920M) shorted oil with no news.

4:50 AM ET: Axios reported a "14-point deal" to end the Iran war.

7:00 AM ET: Oil crashed 12%, handing those shorts a $125 million profit.

Whistleblowers now claim news was coordinated with insiders, leaking order info up to 30 minutes before the reports went live. Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and analysts like Mohammad Marandi are calling this "war/peace" rhetoric a cover for massive insider trading.

And this was not the first time. Since March, more than $3.5 billion worth of perfectly timed oil shorts have been placed before major Iran war headlines.

A $500-$580M short appeared before Trump delayed strikes on Iran, a $950M position was entered before the two-week ceasefire announcement, a $760M short came minutes before Iran reopened the Strait of Hormuz, and another $430M bearish trade appeared before the ceasefire extension.

Every single trade happened before the public got the news, and every single headline crashed oil prices immediately after.

[Matt @matttfoster]

Retail is being pillaged by its own government. Crazy this isn’t a bigger story

[unusual_whales @unusual_whales]

BREAKING: Nearly $920 million in crude oil shorts were placed at 3:40 AM ET, about 70 minutes before Axios reported the U.S. and Iran were nearing a “14-point” deal to end the war.

Oil then plunged more than 12%, with the position gaining an estimated $125 million.

Unusual.

[Kathryn Watson @kathrynw5]

We, as a society, have taken two-factor authentication too far. Logging into my bank account and into my Chipotle account shouldn't be the same process.

[Matt @matttfoster]

@GuntherEagleman This is categorically incorrect — Citadel and other hedge funds with controlling stakes blocked it. They didn’t want to get diluted.

So why credit him with a win? Trump fs wanted the glory of saving this “failing woke company” and was perfectly willing to use taxpayer $ to do it