How financial advisors help clients navigate cancer treatment. August 30, 2026 Good morning and happy Sunday. The fiscal consequences of cancer can be dire, even coinciding with mortality rates. Financial advisors can actually help. But first, a word from the Advisor Upside team. Something odd is happening in the RIA market: the busiest H1 on record for M&A is also when deal prices stopped climbing. DeVoe & Company counted 167 deals in H1, yet none of the big buyers it surveyed expect valuations to rise further. 1 While prices are still high, buyers have grown disciplined about what they shell out for . 1 That discipline makes your own book’s value harder to guess. Buyers now pay a premium for some traits and discount others , which DeVoe says yields outcomes “more akin to the Wild West.” 1 Two firms with the same headline AUM can walk away with very different checks. So which end of that range is your book on ? It’s worth knowing before a buyer decides for you. We built a free valuation calculator with Diamond Consultants , a firm at the center of many of the biggest advisor moves in recent years, to give you a grounded estimate. See what your book could be worth. FINANCIAL PLANNING How Financial Planning Can Help Treat the ‘Financial Toxicity’ of Cancer Photo illustration by Connor Lin / The Daily Upside A cancer diagnosis is never something anyone is ready for, but when it happens, the effects can go well beyond the physical and emotional traumas that turn lives upside down. There are financial aspects that, if not addressed, can affect quality of life and even survival rates. Having a financial planner in their corner can help patients organize, ensure they’re getting the most from their benefits and prepare as much as possible for whatever comes next. “With cancer, you get diagnosed, and then there is this few-week window before they start treatment,” said Dr. Carolyn McClanahan, a physician and financial planner. That’s a critical time for putting a plan in place, as “once you start treatment, it can be a drain on your physical and mental health.” The National Cancer Institute has a term for devastating financial consequences resulting from the high costs of medical care patients and their families face: financial toxicity. While it’s inherently financial in nature, the stress it causes has real medical implications. That makes financial planning incredibly important, especially for those struggling with the high costs of care: A pilot study of 107 patients being treated for blood cancers found that comprehensive planning resulted in higher mental and physical quality of life, among those experiencing financial toxicity. Among patients facing a variety of high-risk diseases, along with financial toxicity, those who received financial planning intervention were 56% less likely to die during the course of their treatment. One Journey No one may be more familiar with the need for that than Matthew Wolniewicz, the president of Income America and someone well-known as a friendly face in the retirement-planning business. He was successfully treated for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2018. But last year, after what initially seemed to be a stroke, Wolniewicz found out that the cancer had returned. Now, it’s in remission, and he’s nearing his six-month appointment following a stem-cell transplant in March. “Once you hit the five year mark — it’s considered the gold standard — you’re really considered to be cured … It was pretty shocking that it came back,” he said. “From a financial planning standpoint, it was kind of crazy.” Even though both he and his wife, Athena, meet with their advisor every six months, they couldn’t access his accounts following his first trip to the hospital last year. “She didn’t have any of the passwords to any of the accounts, and I couldn’t log into my computer when [the cancer] came back, because I didn’t remember my password,” Wolniewicz said. “You have to have a plan in case you become incapacitated … That was one of the things I learned.” What makes the topic more salient than ever is that cancer rates have mysteriously been trending up worldwide among people younger than 50. More than ever, young people are being diagnosed with colorectal, breast, prostate, uterine, stomach and pancreatic cancers, among other types, according to the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center . Going through cancer — or other debilitating diseases — can mean taking time out of the workforce during one’s prime years for earning and saving. And the costs can be overwhelming, even for those with insurance. “I had serious cancer this year myself, and within the first week, even though I have good insurance, I had well over $1,000 out of pocket,” said Jon Dauphiné, CEO of the Foundation for Financial Planning , which supports pro bono work for at-risk groups. “Most Americans don’t have $1,000 in a savings account for emergency expenses.” Since the nonprofit began working with several partner organizations in 2018, it’s helped provide financial planning to 3,500 cancer patients through about $700,000 in grants, Dauphiné said. A Calming Presence The framework the group promotes is three meetings with patients. Taylor Jessee, a financial planner at Impact Financial, has two or three pro bono clients a year who are going through cancer treatment. “Every case is different,” said Jessee, who works with Virginia-based Cancerlinc, one of the organizations that has a partnership with the Foundation for Financial Planning. People often have high-level budgeting questions or want to know which accounts they should prioritize for paying expenses, he said. “These are heartbreaking situations. The majority of Cancerlinc patients are low-income families. They’re working with lower resources.” For those already working with an advisor, and who often have more resources, it’s helpful to tell them to breathe and that they can’t necessarily solve the financial problems of a cancer diagnosis all at once, Jes

Some economists say post-pandemic remote work has taken a toll on the entry-level employment rate. August 30, 2026 PRESENTED BY ORACLE NETSUITE Good morning and happy Sunday. WITW has WFH done to fresh and eager college grads? Employers may be slow to fire in today’s labor market, but they’re also slow to hire, and entry-level workers have been hit hard. Debate is fierce about why exactly they’re having so much trouble, and how much remote work is undermining their employability. That’s the subject of today’s deep dive. But first, a word from our sponsor, Oracle NetSuite . Finance leaders have a bread-and-butter method for projecting growth: the five-year plan. Last time you checked, how on track were you for yours? The odds might be stacked against many plans out there. Most companies fall into the trap of incremental budgeting . Last year’s allocation becomes this year’s baseline, locking capital in place while opportunities go unfunded. A core habit the top 20% of finance leaders share is reallocating capital continuously instead of defending it . Their teams move at least 50% of invested capital over a decade toward what is working, rather than protecting a budget line set at the start of the year. This is one of ten levers Business Partnering Institute’s Anders Liu-Lindberg breaks down in The CFO’s Playbook to Strategic Leadership , built to help you lead a long-term growth plan that delivers. Steal the playbook of the top 20%. ECONOMICS Why Is the Job Market so Tough for Younger Workers? Photo illustration by Connor Lin / The Daily Upside, Photo by Feedough via iStock Much of the COVID-19 pandemic already feels like ancient history: showing paper vaccine cards to get into bars, hoarding toilet paper and the Netflix docuseries about a zoo keeper named Joe Exotic, for example. But many of the virus’ effects on the workplace have stuck around. We may no longer be hyperfixated on office air quality or sitting 6 feet apart, but plenty of Americans were sent home in March 2020 without knowing that they were saying goodbye to working in-person full time, possibly forever. Last year, 35% of employees did at least some of their work at home, according to a recent study from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s great for working parents, pet owners, people with disabilities and rural residents, but studies show there’s one population group that’s struggling in the new landscape: Early-career workers and college grads hunting for jobs, who are finding they have fewer opportunities than they once did. While unemployment for college grads younger than 29 averaged 3.1% in 2017 to 2019, it jumped to 3.7% in 2022 through 2025, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York . Meanwhile, the unemployment rate for more experienced college grads fell to 1.8% from 1.9% over the same time period. Rookie Risk Companies, whether they be tech startups in Silicon Valley, banks on Wall Street or somewhere in between, have traditionally jumped at the opportunity to hire rookie candidates. Recent college grads offer firms the ability to train new team members in their unique work style, and build highly-motivated employees who may not yet have roots or caregiving responsibilities into future business leaders. For a recent study published in the Administrative Science Quarterly , researchers found that remote positions required 25% more skills, more experience and slightly higher educational credentials than their non-remote counterparts (same title, same employer, same year). The study included an analysis of more than 50 million job postings across 28 European countries and nearly 40 interviews with hiring managers in the US. The researchers found similar results in an online experiment with about 1,250 hiring managers. The reasons include remote work increasing the applicant pool, making a higher threshold necessary, and hiring managers prioritizing measurable credentials like degrees more when there will be less face-to-face interaction. Researchers think the largest factor, however, is that remote work has made training more challenging. “When a job is remote, it’s very hard to have on-the-job training and on-the-job support, which is really important when the junior or fresh graduates enter the work. They really need mentors or they need to watch how others are doing,” Shinan Wang, a co-author of the study and doctoral candidate at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, told The Daily Upside . “Firms therefore increase their hiring requirements … they simply want people who already have the skills.” The findings were exacerbated for fully remote jobs, with the data for hybrid ones looking more like that of in-person positions. The AI Effect With companies pouring money into artificial intelligence and AI-washing their layoffs , it’s no surprise that much of the concern for the higher unemployment rate among young college grads has centered around automation. Nearly half of recent grads say AI is already impacting hiring in their field, according to a survey earlier this year from ZipRecruiter. The tech may be less culpable, however, than remote work. Economists who authored a recent analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York estimate that working from home is behind 64% of the recent rise in unemployment among young college grads. Similarly to the previous study, they concluded that employers may be hesitant to hire new grads for teams that are spread out because it makes teaching harder. While the study suggests remote work’s impact on the labor market for young people predates the massive impacts of AI, it may not be an either-or situation, added Emma Harrington, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Virginia and co-author of the NY Fed’s study. “In the long run, it may just be both instead of one or the other: both forces that are making it harder and harder for people to get jobs initially and also ramp up in their career going forward,” Ha

Recs for a strong weekend 🛶 Moats & Boats The data layer of physical AI and robotics Shoal Research argues that training data may be the most valuable bottleneck in robotics because demonstrations must be physically performed and cannot simply be scraped from the internet. The report highlights Eastworlds, Virtuals Protocol’s robotics division, which uses teleoperated robots in real commercial settings to generate training data, record corrections and eventually train more autonomous models. It argues that owning the robot fleet, operators, paid deployments and data pipeline creates a stronger moat than selling raw recordings alone. However, falling data prices, simulation, in-house collection by robot makers and the risks of coordinating contributors through token incentives remain key challenges. The anatomy of a stablecoin card swipe The article explains how stablecoin cards preserve the existing card experience while replacing the slowest part of the system: settlement. Traditional issuers must pre-fund bank accounts, wait through banking hours and maintain separate pools of capital across currencies and jurisdictions. Stablecoin settlement instead allows them to pay networks such as Visa and Mastercard daily from a single global balance. Rain argues this frees idle capital, reduces reliance on correspondent banks and makes global card programs viable for smaller neobanks, marketplaces and fintechs. Merchants still receive local currency and users retain familiar rewards, making stablecoins an invisible infrastructure upgrade rather than a new payment experience. The financial container Aleks Larsen of Blockchain Capital argues tokenization will reorganize capital markets the way containerization reorganized trade. Before standardized boxes, cargo was loaded piece by piece by hand. In 1956, a converted tanker called the Ideal-X carried 58 detachable truck trailers from New Jersey to Houston, cutting loading costs to $0.16 per ton, roughly 36 times cheaper than loading cargo by hand. Stablecoins are his proof of concept, with $300B circulating at Visa-scale volume and velocity roughly 10 times that of M1 and M2. Tokenized real-world assets followed that liquidity to nearly $40B, up tenfold in two years. Larsen’s claim is that financial capability attaches to the asset rather than the owner’s institutional relationships, citing asset-level collateral eligibility on Aave (a Blockchain Capital portfolio company). Brought to you by: Avalanche Summit NYC returns September 16–17, bringing together the institutions, enterprises, investors, and builders turning blockchain technology into real business outcomes. From tokenized markets and institutional finance to payments and consumer applications, the Summit will explore how production-ready infrastructure is enabling faster settlement, lower costs, and entirely new products and revenue streams. Use promo code BLOCKWORKS15 for 15% off! Update your email preferences or unsubscribe here © 2026 Blockworks 133 W 19TH ST New York, New York 10011, United States

Spicy Take Sunday 🌶️ 🥛 'AI might invent its own currency' 💰 Spicy Take Sunday 🌶️ Chevy Cassar GM. This is Milk Road, the crypto newsletter that runs hotter than the Treasury's ink budget. Here’s a taste of this week’s menu: 🔥 AI might invent its own currency. 🥵 Trump said "Hyperliquid" and just like that, the printer's back on. 🌶️ Oracle’s bull case is basically just Larry Ellison's friend group. Milk Road is booking Q4 sponsorships now. If you want to reach 88,000 crypto and AI investors a day, book a call now. HOT TAKES OF THE WEEK 🔥 Tom Lee says AI agents might invent their own currency and leave humans behind 👻 Tom Lee, co-founder and head of research at Fundstrat Global Advisors and chairman of the board at BitMine, dropped one of the wildest lines of the week on the future of money. He calls it the "uncanny valley of wealth," the same discomfort humans feel watching a robot that looks almost-but-not-quite human, except applied to AI agents managing your finances. His actual warning is darker than that though: if agents can't run fast, cheap microtransactions on legacy rails like Visa or JP Morgan, they won't wait around, they'll just create their own monetary system and cut humans out of the loop entirely. That's exactly why BitMine has bought Ethereum every single week for 65 straight weeks, now over $14B worth, because Tom's betting crypto rails are the only thing standing between agents transacting for us and agents transacting without us. He's not shy on the price target either, he thinks the ETH/BTC ratio breaks its old 0.08 high and runs to 0.25 or beyond, which puts ETH somewhere around $6k if Bitcoin gets to $150k. 🎙️ Listen to the full episode here . Trump said "Hyperliquid" and just like that, the printer's back on 💵 John Gillen, Milk Road's own host and crypto analyst, broke down exactly what set off Bitcoin's $4B liquidation cascade and roughly $500B added to crypto's market cap in days. His read: volatility and shorts had been stacking for months, then Scott Bessent's Treasury buyback plans and Trump's offhand "Hyperliquid" line at the White House hit a market that wasn't positioned for either. John points out Trump threatened to use the military against the bond market over the weekend, and however you read that, it means liquidity is coming. His pitch now goes like this: The easy AI trades are mostly played out, so if you're rotating anywhere, rotate into crypto, especially Ethereum, where tokenization and agentic finance are stacking up as real demand. 🎙️ Listen to the full episode here . Melvin's biggest Oracle bull case is basically just Larry Ellison's friend group 😂 Melvin, Milk Road PRO's AI specialist and the top performer across the platform's five analyst portfolios, walked through his four largest positions, and Oracle was the one he called his most contrarian pick. His logic gets almost personal: Larry Ellison is one of Elon Musk's closest friends, and as Melvin put it, "Elon doesn't hang out with losers." Underneath the joke is a real thesis though, and it comes down to performance obligations, not friendships. Oracle's $638B in remaining performance obligations is bigger than its own market cap, and its database and healthcare-records business gives it a full-stack advantage as companies plug AI agents into sensitive internal data. 🎙️ Listen to the full episode here . YOUR COMPETITOR IS PROBABLY READING THIS This slot is usually paid for. But today it's ours, so here's the pitch. Here's what sponsoring Milk Road actually gets you: 88,000 opens per crypto newsletter send 187,000 unique readers across Milk Road newsletters every month 500K+ followers and subscribers across crypto, AI and stocks 3,400 paying PRO members If you run marketing at a crypto, AI or fintech company, we're booking Q4 sponsorships now. 👉 See the Sponsor Deck or book 15 minutes And if that's not you, forward this to whoever it is. HOT TAKES OF THE WEEK (P2) 🔥 David isn't buying the debasement trade narrative, and he used to work at Coinbase 🙅 David Duong, the former head of institutional research at Coinbase, joined Milk Road right as Bitcoin ripped through $72k on a massive short squeeze, and he threw cold water on the easy narrative going around. He said flatly that he doesn't think the debasement trade is actually back, arguing the real story is simpler: Bitcoin and gold got cheap enough that traders finally stepped back in, no Treasury conspiracy required. He does think the bottom is in, somewhere around $55-60k, and he's calling for Bitcoin to clear $100k by year end. His timeline for real conviction to build is post-Jackson Hole into September and October, once ETF flows and a possible CLARITY Act vote give the market something concrete to chew on. 🎙️ Listen to the full episode here . Lucas flipped from Solana maxi to Ethereum bull, and he's not being subtle about it 🔄 Lucas Tcheyan, Vice President of Research at Galaxy Digital and host of the Galaxy Grid podcast, spent years covering Solana almost exclusively before making a hard pivot toward Ethereum over the past year. He points to leadership shake-ups at the Ethereum Foundation as a good sign, not a bad one, plus a technical roadmap that's finally focused on the right priorities like layer-1 scaling and quantum resistance. Lucas didn't pull punches about the exodus either, pointing to a prominent Bankless host selling his ETH as basically the clearest signal that capitulation had already happened. His highest conviction trade right now is long ETH/BTC, and he's calling Ethereum a behemoth that institutions still meaningfully under-own relative to where it's likely headed. 🎙️ Listen to the full episode here . BITE-SIZED COOKIES FOR THE ROAD 🍪 Novogratz: "Web3 is kind of dead." The blockchain ecosystems that got valuable didn't earn it through transactions - they became money through storytelling. John Gillen: "If it [the CLARITY Act] does pass, that could be another major bullish catalyst because the market is positioned for

Any given Sunday... August 30, 2026 Presented By Melcher Oosterman Editor’s note Good morning. September means back-to-school, pumpkin spice lattes, and losing your fantasy football matchup by one point because of a Derrick Henry fumble. The 2026 NFL season kicks off next Wednesday (Sept. 9), when the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots meet for a Super Bowl rematch. Off the field, there’s a lot going on, from the NFL’s attempt to go global, to Netflix going all-in on the sport, to scientists trying to make the game safer. We’ll get into all that and much more in today’s special edition, Football Brew. Foreign turf The effort to take American football global Sebastian Widmann/Getty Image The NFL is making strides towards getting Taylor Swift’s husband to match her level of international fame. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell told German media last week that he has “no doubt” that the league will someday have an internationally based team . Squads are already playing more games abroad than ever before: A record nine international NFL games are scheduled for the upcoming season, up from just two in 2021. The games will take place across four continents, with Paris and Rio De Janeiro debuting as host cities. The league hopes that filling stadiums that typically host the other type of football will convert more foreigners into regular NFL watchers, leading to lucrative media rights deals. Where would the first non-US team be? Germany is often singled out for its sizable NFL fanbase that dates back to its postwar occupation by the US. Over 100,000 people attended two games in Frankfurt in 2023, while German Super Bowl viewership grew to 1.87 million this year from 1.55 million in 2025. Another option would be London, which has hosted the most international games in recent years and where the NFL has a strong operations foothold. Goodell previously said that the city could support not just one but two franchises. But some executives say that an international franchise in Canada or Mexico—the latter of which has ~40 million NFL fans—would make the most sense, as they’d be closer to US teams. Tackling challenges Skeptics of expansion argue that a team abroad would create logistical headaches beyond making sure Josh Allen’s passport isn’t expired. They worry that regular overseas travel could be taxing for players, and say that expansion requires the game schedule to be overhauled to give teams adequate rest. Plus, it might be hard to lure free agent players overseas. More than half of NFL players said they wouldn’t join a foreign team, according to a 2023 anonymous survey by The Athletic. There are past fumbles to learn from: A European NFL offshoot that existed from 1991 to 2007 failed to build a fandom due to teams changing cities and a lack of talent, costing the league $400 million in losses. —SK Sponsored By PwC AI’s stepping onto the pitch How much of an edge can AI give a sports team? And how do audiences feel about it? Sports games have become as fueled by data as they are by hot dogs, jersey sales, and fans yelling at the TV. With stats driving decisions about venue and broadcast logistics both on and off the field, market insights are beginning to drive more of the elements audiences know and love. What is the potential for AI models to drive predictive accuracy further into the future, and does this introduce multiple flags on the play? The Intelligence Shift host Dan Priest speaks with Andy Tabrizi, CEO of Recentive Analytics, about how AI is transforming sports forecasting, from stadium buildouts to predicting the next great talent. Tune in . Stream team Netflix wants a piece of the pigskin Aaron M. Sprecher/Getty Images There will be more than just rom-coms about busy career women going back to their hometown inns on Netflix around the holidays this year. Netflix’s new four-year deal with the NFL gives the streaming platform the rights to five games this season, three more than the previous year as it goes all-in on football. In addition to two Christmas Day games, Netflix will stream the Los Angeles Rams vs. the San Francisco 49ers in Australia in September, as well as a game on Thanksgiving Eve and one January Game: In its previous deal, Netflix aired two games that reportedly cost the company about $75 million apiece. There was some concern that technical issues , like the glitches during the Jake Paul–Mike Tyson fight last November, would be a problem. But both games went off without a hitch. Netflix and the NFL have what each other want. The NFL wants some of Netflix’s young and international audience as it tries to expand overseas. Meanwhile, Netflix sees live events as one of the best ways to court advertiser dollars, a big reason why the streaming giant also snagged the rights to WWE’s Raw .— MM Injury report How to build a better helmet Scott Taetsch/Getty Images There’s a reason why Patrick Mahomes’s helmet looks like that. The nearly $700 piece of headgear protecting the Kansas City Chiefs star quarterback sits high atop his dome in part because of a crowning discovery from decades of testing : Distance makes the head blow softer. In other words, the more space and time between shell contact and head contact, the better—similar to car crash safety techniques. That’s why today’s helmets are bigger and less rigid than their predecessors. Inside, 3D-printed, collapsible liners compress better than foam to absorb more impact. Modern progress happened quickly: “We’ve seen more change in roughly the last 14 years than we probably did in the previous 40,” the director of the Virginia Tech Helmet Lab—the leading authority in football helmet safety—told the publication Science. When the lab started rating headgear in 2011, helmets received top marks (five stars) if they were projected to expose wearers to zero to 10 concussive hits in a season. That cutoff is now zero to 1.86 hits, reflecting how much helmet manufacturers have raised the bar. Progress can’t come soon enough: