Tech catches a bid while Bitcoin stalls under its weekly ceiling. 🚨4 Levels To Watch as Oil Hits Six-Week Highs Tech catches a bid while Bitcoin stalls under its weekly ceiling. Sep 3 READ IN APP None of this is financial advice. Do your own research. By reading this newsletter, you acknowledge and accept the terms and conditions outlined in our disclaimer . Hey Traders, Overnight the U.S. and Iran exchanged their heaviest fire since July near the Strait of Hormuz, then both sides tried to talk the escalation down. Trump said the latest strikes would not last long. Oil still opened the day at six-week highs because the waterway remains the risk. Wall Street finally caught a bid after three down sessions. Soft private payrolls cooled the most aggressive hike talk, semiconductors led, and stocks treated the tape as a pause rather than a clear. Bond yields stopped climbing for a session, but they did not break. Bitcoin bounced with risk instead of fading it, then stalled under the same ceiling that has capped the week. The tax on duration is still energy plus sticky inflation, with Friday’s jobs report next. Here is what we are watching. Poll of the Day ( Presented by Rain Trade ) 🎯 POLL With oil and yields going up, what triggers the next massive Bitcoin move? U.S. labor data 📊 Geopolitical calm 🕊️ ETF flow reversals 💸 Today’s Charts: Chart #1 – Bera(BERAUSDT) 2-Hour Chart #2 – ENS(ENSUSDT) 4-Hour Chart #3 – ONDO(ONDOUSDT) 12-Hour Chart #4 – Copper (COPPER) 6-Hour Chart #5 – Strategy Inc(MSTR) 1-Hour Chart #1 – Bera(BERAUSDT) 2-Hour( Powered by Rain Trade 📊) Chartist: Trader J (For the chart screenshot, ) Looking for a short on BERA back into the $0.19 resistance zone, lining up with the 0.5 Fib, anchored VWAP from the high and previous month’s POC. Above us, the 100 SMA is still pointing down, adding further resistance. This horizontal has rejected price several times, so I’ll be looking for another rejection from the zone. Trade Levels: Entry: $0.1900 Stop Loss: $0.1988 Take Profit Levels (TP): TP1: $0.1744 Powerful narratives create powerful moves. With 247 Research , you get the insights to be early to the biggest trends in crypto. Chart #2 – ENS(ENSUSDT) 4-Hour ( Powered by Rain Trade 📊) Chartist: Chaoss (For the chart screenshot, ) Entry determined by a combination of metrics on price action, including a key level area of support, 4h FVG, ATL 0.618 fib retracement region, Stop loss placed below all of these areas and below the 618. Both the MACD and the RSI have peaked to the low point, and a bullish divergence print would support these entries. Cashflow on the oscillator has also started to form lows and is showing signs of facing up. Trade Levels: Entry: $1.51 Stop Loss: $1.56 Take Profit Levels (TP): TP1: $ 1.30 Chart #3 – ONDO(ONDOUSDT) 12-Hour( Powered by Rain Trade 📊) Chartist: Panda (For the chart screenshot, ) Ondo has been consolidating at its mid range after the recent 28% sell off. Its currently consolidating in a descending channel with multiple 12h closes under key SMAs whilst holding a tight range indicating compression. In addition, there is a lot of liquidity building around the .31 region which might suggest that Ondo sweeps the August lows prior to beginning its move to the upside to test the SMAs and yearly open level. Trade Levels: Entry: $ 0.317 Stop Loss: $0.294 Take Profit Levels (TP): TP1: $ 0.368 Midterms vs. Trump: The Oldest Rule in Politics Meets the Biggest Exception Every midterm punishes the president’s party. Rain Trade has Republicans at 16%. The pattern says Democrats win. This market isn’t asking who wins. It’s asking, is Trump the exception or the rule? The 86% price says “rule.” The 16% price says “exception.” Both are live. Both have arguments. Neither is official. Trade on Rain Trade Chart #4 – Copper (COPPER) 6-Hour( Powered by Rain Trade 📊) Chartist: Trader J (For the chart screenshot, ) (Copper refers to the metal and not a cryptocurrency.) Copper remains in a bullish uptrend, so I’m looking to buy the pullback into the macro 0.618 Fib at $6.34. This is a strong confluence zone with the 100-day SMA, anchored VWAP from the swing low and a clean horizontal support that has reacted multiple times previously. Looking for this area to hold and give us the continuation bounce. Trade Levels: Entry: $6.34 Stop Loss: $6.29 Take Profit Levels (TP): TP1: $6.56 Chart #5 – Strategy Inc(MSTR) 1-Hour( Powered by Rain Trade 📊) Chartist: The Nagel (For the chart screenshot, ) (MSTR refers to the stock of Strategy Inc and not a cryptocurrency.) MSTR has broken above all the local bearish VWAP’s and seems to be trying to form a 5 wave move to the upside , so im targeting the extreme for a 4th wave pull back at the 0.5fib pull from the low of wave 2 , this lines up with the resistance horri as well as a back test of the VWAP. Trade Levels: Entry: $115 Stop Loss: $110 Take Profit Levels (TP): TP1: $ 150 Banter’s Take We view the recent geopolitical friction near the Strait of Hormuz as a temporary volatility spike rather than a fundamental shift in global liquidity. While oil markets reacted sharply to the escalation, the broader sentiment suggests that diplomatic channels are already working to de-escalate tensions. Our focus remains on the confluence between traditional risk assets and crypto. With Semiconductors leading the Wall Street recovery and Bitcoin holding its key levels, we see a constructive setup where traditional and digital markets are moving in lockstep. The technicals for assets like Copper and MSTR point to continuation, but we remain cautious until the jobs report and central bank commentary confirm that the “shock” narrative has fully faded. Moving forward, our strategy prioritizes disciplined entry points over chasing headlines. We will continue to refine our outlook based on incoming data, ensuring our trades remain grounded in the confluence of technical structure and fundamental catalysts that define our research methodology. Get 247 Rese

The multi-million-dollar cash flow pipeline feeding RH, Uniswap, and ARB. Robinhood Chain Eclipses Solana in Retail Value Capture The multi-million-dollar cash flow pipeline feeding Robinhood, Uniswap, and Arbitrum. Sep 3 READ IN APP None of this is financial advice. Do your own research. By reading this newsletter, you acknowledge and accept the terms and conditions outlined in our disclaimer . GM Investors Bitcoin spent the last 48 hours defending the mid-$77,000s while oil prices and Fed policy did the talking. Brent sat near $93–$95 after fresh U.S.-Iran friction. The 10-year yield held around 4.8%. That is a hostile tape for risk, and yet the loudest on-chain data this week did not come from Bitcoin or Solana. It came from a two-month-old chain. Robinhood Chain is now the most fee-productive network in crypto on several daily prints. Our research puts the seven-day annualized fee run-rate near $650 million, driven by 216 tokenized U.S. equities and a memecoin machine that arrived uninvited. One recent day produced about $3.83 million in network revenue and $254 in Ethereum settlement cost. That is a distribution pipe with near-total margins, not a neutral L2. The market is treating this as a chain story. Our desk treats it as a capture story. Who keeps the cash: HOOD, Uniswap, Morpho, PONS, or ARB if the fee switch ever flips. Here’s what our desk is watching. Stop Trading Headlines. Start Trading Alpha. The desk that moves before the market does • Live community of traders who actually execute, not just talk • Real-time calls dropped while the candle is forming, not after it closes • 4.9/5 rating by 1000+ traders because signal beats noise, every single time Join 247 Research. Get the 24/7 terminal free. Distribution Trumps Ideology in Crypto Market Analysis The economic numbers emerging from Robinhood Chain defy conventional crypto market wisdom. Over the past twenty-four hours, the network generated $4.45M in total fees and $3.83M in net revenue. At the same time, Robinhood paid just $254 to settle that massive batch of transactions directly to Ethereum layer-1.x That creates an astonishing gross profit margin exceeding 99%. No protocol in the history of decentralized finance has printed cash margins at this pace. In fact, Robinhood Chain alone generated more gross profit yesterday than the prior single-day record for all layer-2 networks combined. Traditional blockchain teams spent years arguing that blockspace must be dirt cheap to attract adoption. Robinhood proved that proprietary access to capital matters far more than theoretical protocol decentralization. The average transaction fee on Robinhood Chain has increased by nearly 5,000% since early August. Robinhood is currently charging roughly 129 times more per transaction than Solana. Yet users pay that steep premium without hesitation. They are not transacting on Robinhood Chain for permissionless philosophy or censorship resistance. They trade there because Robinhood offers exclusive access to 216 tokenized US equities that do not trade anywhere else onchain. Our research indicates this setup fundamentally alters the valuation calculus for retail-focused layer-2 networks. Robinhood is not building a neutral public utility. It has built a high-margin monetization pipeline for 28 million funded retail brokerage accounts. Those accounts represent $355B in total platform assets with an average account balance of $12,500. By contrast, Coinbase averages roughly $2,050 per funded user. That retail liquidity density gives Robinhood an overwhelming advantage over every competing decentralized venue. On-Chain Data Signals a Massive Tokenized Equities Shift The operational trajectory of Robinhood Chain shows exponential acceleration across every financial and operational metric over the last two weeks. Cumulative Volume and TVL : Total decentralized exchange volume reached $34.6B across 576M total transactions, pushing network total value locked to $1.27B across 12.3M unique wallet addresses. Tokenized Equities Liquidity : Tokenized stock products reached 192 active listings with $96.7M in total circulating supply, while dedicated liquidity across spot decentralized venues climbed to $42.5M. Network Fee Trajectory : Trailing seven-day annualized fee revenue reached $650M, a massive expansion compared to its thirty-day annualized baseline of $181M. Daily Corporate Crypto Revenue : Robinhood generated $5.21M in total daily crypto revenue on September 2, up 374% from its second-quarter daily average of $1.10M. Quarterly Run-Rate Comparison : Third-quarter crypto revenue has already banked $81M through early September, surpassing the entire second quarter tally of $100M by 18% with four weeks remaining. Perpetual Derivatives Footprint : Decentralized perpetual futures volume executed through Lighter reached $7.29B, proving retail demand extends well beyond basic spot equity wrappers. The sheer velocity of this daily fee generation is already shifting corporate equity projections. If September daily revenues simply hold near the $2M threshold, third-quarter crypto earnings will surpass the second quarter by 70%. Public equity markets typically lag on-chain realities by several weeks. Equity analysts will soon have to factor this explosive fee vertical directly into Robinhood corporate cash flow projections. Mapping Value Capture Across Altcoins and Protocols The central dilemma for crypto investors is figuring out which altcoins actually capture economic value from this activity. The windfall is not isolated to corporate shares of Robinhood. It is leaking directly into specific on-chain protocols. Uniswap stands out as the primary decentralized execution beneficiary. Robinhood Chain recently contributed over 75% of total protocol fees collected by Uniswap. Over the last two weeks alone, Uniswap processed another $2B in tokenized equity trading volume. Retail equity swappers are inadvertently powering the most aggressive deflationary supp

Plus: Jobs' green shoot | Thursday, September 03, 2026 Axios Macro By Neil Irwin and Courtenay Brown · Sep 03, 2026 Today, we look at new comments from top Federal Reserve officials tapping the brakes on expectations of an imminent interest rate hike. 🛑 Plus, some encouraging signals from private-sector jobs data ahead of tomorrow's government release. Situational awareness: Former Treasury secretaries Hank Paulson and Bob Rubin are out with a new op-ed describing the grave global risks from frontier AI models. 😱 They call for Presidents Trump and Xi Jinping of China to work toward an AI cooperation treaty modeled after the SALT nuclear agreements between the U.S. and the Soviet Union "that averted the mutual destruction both feared." Today's newsletter, edited by Jeffrey Cane and copy edited by Katie Lewis, is 950 words, a 3.5-minute read. 1 big thing: Not so fast on rate hikes Federal Reserve chairman Kevin Warsh. Photo illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios. Photo: Tierney L. Cross/Bloomberg via Getty Images After Fed chairman Kevin Warsh's speech in Jackson Hole six days ago, the markets penciled in an interest rate hike for the central bank's mid-September meeting. Comments from two influential officials now throw those expectations into question. The big picture: With August jobs and inflation data due out before a policy meeting in two weeks, the decision of whether to tighten policy appears to be on a knife-edge. A meaningful contingent of Fed leadership is eager to raise interest rates to address stubbornly high inflation, while another, as Fed governor Christopher Waller put it this morning, channeling John Lennon , is willing to "give disinflation a chance." It's a close enough call that Warsh will likely be able to steer a decision whichever way he prefers. Driving the news: At a Reuters newsmaker event this morning, Waller noted two consecutive months of improving inflation data. If it continues in August reports over the coming days, he said, "I would be inclined to support" holding rates steady. But if the incoming data shows "improvement has been fleeting," he is open to a rate hike, Waller added. Yesterday, New York Fed president John Williams told CNBC that "I think we have to wait and see" whether an interest rate increase is needed. "There's no clear signs right now whether monetary policy is currently sufficient to make sure we bring inflation back to target in the next year or two, or whether you need to see further action to do that." State of play: Their comments come after Warsh said that the Fed "must be confident that underlying inflation is moving to our objective, clearly and at sufficient speed," or else they "have work to do." That leaves room for a judgment call on whether that bar has been reached. Warsh has resisted hanging policy decisions on the fine details of each incoming data release, as Waller seems inclined to do. CME's FedWatch tool now puts the odds of a rate hike at the meeting concluding Sept. 16 as essentially a coin flip, whereas yesterday, the futures market-based odds favored an increase. Zoom in: The New York Fed president is vice chair of the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee and has traditionally acted as part of a leadership troika, with the chairman and vice chair of the Board of Governors. Traditionally, governors like Waller are reluctant to dissent from policy decisions, though that norm has dissolved in the last couple of years. Three reserve bank presidents, meanwhile, dissented at the late July meeting favoring a rate hike, implying that Warsh will face internal disagreement — the "good family fight" he often speaks of — no matter which way he ultimately leans. Of note: Waller has offered none-too-subtle criticisms of Warsh's reticent communication style. Warsh has said he wants markets to react to "the ball" of incoming data, not "the ref," or how the Fed may react to it. This morning, Waller made his own addendum to that metaphor. "I view myself as a home plate umpire in baseball," he said . Both the pitcher and the batter "want to play the ball, but they cannot do that until they know the umpire's strike zone," which is essentially the umpire's reaction function. "If the ball goes here, it's a strike; if it goes there, it's a ball. The players don't expect the umpire to have a perfect strike zone — they just need a rough idea of its parameters and some guarantee that it won't change much on every pitch." A MESSAGE FROM AXIOS Peek inside the forces reshaping health care with Axios Future of Health Care 2. Labor's lower-rung rebound Courtesy: Bank of America There is a bright spot in a labor market that private-sector reports suggest cooled last month. Lower-paid workers are switching jobs more often and getting bigger raises when they do. Why it matters: Lower-paid workers are typically among the first to feel a cooling labor market. But now the quirks of the economic cycle — including the AI investment boom — may be helping cushion the blow. By the numbers: Bank of America Institute estimates payroll growth slowed to 1.5% year over year in August, from 1.8% in July, based on anonymized customer account data. After-tax wage growth was 4.7% for lower-income households, compared with the 3.5% gain for higher-income households — extending a reversal of the K-shape divide in wage growth . The intrigue: Job switching has picked up particularly among weekly-paid workers, who tend to hold lower-paid, hourly jobs. The typical raise associated with changing jobs reached 12.5% in July, the highest in more than three years. "You don't move jobs, obviously, if you're fearful of the labor market," David Tinsley, a senior economist at the Bank of America Institute, told reporters this morning. Zoom in: Tinsley pointed to construction, where data center development is supporting nonresidential activity just as the workforce faces a labor supply squeeze. Roughly 60% of construction workers are paid weekly, he said. Yes, but: Lower tax

AI menu pics are turning off diners... September 03, 2026 Presented By Welcome aboard. Southwest is taking another step toward being more like other airlines by opening its first four airport lounges in partnership with Chase. We assume that despite the airline joining the race to attract big spenders, seating in the lounge will still be for whoever gets to the chair first. — Matty Merritt, Molly Liebergall, Dave Lozo, Holly Van Leuven, Abby Rubenstein In today’s newsletter, we’ll get into: Google not being forced to sell its ad business Layoffs at Uber Why delis are adding AI slop to the menu Markets Nasdaq 26,217.83 +0.45% S&P 7,666.6 +0.46% Dow 53,061.95 +0.56% 10-Year 4.796% -- bps Bitcoin $77,103.01 -0.16% Snowflake $305.84 -4.37% Data is provided by *Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 6:30pm ET. Here's what these numbers mean. Markets: Like an influencer days after posting an apology video, stocks staged a comeback yesterday as pressures eased from oil prices and bond yields. Snowflake, which dipped during the day, soared 23% in after-hours trading after beating earnings expectations with a 35% year-over-year revenue jump. Markets Sponsored by Doroni A stock for your watchlist: They’ve reserved Nasdaq ticker DRNI and raised 40m+ from 14,000+ investors. Invest in Doroni at $3.30/share today and get up to 20% bonus shares . KEEP THE FAM TOGETHER A judge won’t make Google sell its ad business Getty Images It turns out that “we’re not breaking up!” banner was a good investment. Despite US District Judge Leonie Brinkema agreeing with the Department of Justice last year that Google’s ad business acted as an illegal monopoly, she ruled yesterday that Google won’t be forced to sell it off. This marks the second time Google has come through monopoly accusations from the government without having to lop off any of its business arms, as courts seem wary of breaking up tech giants. In an abbreviated opinion, Brinkema officially rejected the DOJ’s request to splinter the company. However, the judge accepted other proposals to curb Google’s control over how publishers use its ad tech. Her full ruling won’t be available for two weeks once confidential information is redacted. ICYMI: The DOJ and 17 states sued Google three years ago, alleging that the company’s control of its ad server (what publishers use to run ads) being tied directly to its ad exchange (the marketplace used to buy and sell ads) was anti-competitive. The DOJ claimed Google’s ad server held 91% of the global market share. Last year, Brinkema ruled in favor of the DOJ. But yesterday, she refused to order the sale of the exchange. The courts have been letting Big Tech stay big Even in its shortened form, yesterday’s decision mirrors other judges’ concerns in Big Tech antitrust cases: Last year, a district judge said Google was illegally dominating online search, but ruled that it didn’t have to sell Chrome because AI would probably disrupt search anyway. Meta also avoided a breakup when a court found that the FTC was right that the company had built an illegal social networking monopoly, but TikTok’s subsequent popularity changed that view. Looking ahead… the recent spate of Big Tech punishments with no teeth coming from US courts doesn’t bode well for upcoming government antitrust trials against Amazon and Apple.— MM Sponsored By Doroni Kiss the morning commute goodbye? The intrusive thought to drive 100mph down the shoulder of the highway might not live in the recesses of your mind much longer. Doroni is aiming to pave that path through the skies. And with Morgan Stanley projecting that the urban air mobility market will reach $1t by 2040 , the timing couldn’t be better. Doroni built the H1-X, the flying car that could soon redefine your daily commute. Capable of traveling 100 miles at 120mph, a crawl down the highway turns into a minutes-long flight . It’s been reserved by 600+ people—good for $240m in potential revenu—and commercial deliveries are targeted for 2028. For a limited time, invest in Doroni and get up to 20% bonus shares . World Tour de headlines Getty Images 🚘 Uber to lay off 10% of staff to become “simpler and faster.” The job cuts will affect about 3,300 people, as the company looks to get rid of layers of management and put cash toward beating its robotaxi and delivery competitors. The company said it will reduce the number of two-person or smaller departments by half and slash the number of managers by 20%. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said the changes would “generate savings that we intend to reinvest in growth, innovation, and the capabilities that will matter most over the coming years.” It’s also targeting WFH: Uber said only 1% of staff will be allowed to work remotely. 🛢️ Chevron to invest $7 billion to more than double its oil production in Venezuela. After the US government announced a major deal for Venezuelan oil, now it’s the private sector’s turn. Chevron, the only major US oil company that currently has a presence in Venezuela, plans to spend the money over the next five years through its joint partnerships to boost its crude production there. The investment is the first large commitment from an American oil company since the US arrested Venezuela’s then-President Nicolás Maduro in January and President Trump vowed to revive the country’s troubled oil industry. 🏀 Clippers and owner Ballmer punished in salary cap probe. The NBA yesterday suspended LA Clippers owner Steve Ballmer for one year, fined the team $30 million, and docked it five first-round draft picks beginning in 2029, saying the team and its leadership circumvented the league’s salary cap for Kawhi Leonard. The league said a law firm’s investigation found “a pattern of misconduct and multiple significant rules violations,” including helping Leonard secure off-court deals. The team maintained its innocence, saying, “We vehemently reject the NBA’s findings,” and that it plans to challenge the findings and the penalties. —A

Plus: Food price worry | Thursday, September 03, 2026 Axios Markets By Emily Peck and Matt Phillips · Sep 03, 2026 👋 Welcome back, and happy Thursday. S&P 500 futures are little changed as Brent oil futures top $97 per barrel. U.S. Treasury yields are steady, while the Japanese yen is rallying. Broadcom is down in the premarket session after reporting quarterly numbers last night. ( Guidance undershot expectations .) 🗓️ Today, a hard truth: Investors can't just keep ignoring the way the war in Iran impacts their money. Plus, another kind of bread input: wheat prices. They are rising. Let's carb load on delicious content! In 957 words, a 3.5-minute read. 1 big thing: Markets can't ignore the war anymore By Emily Peck Photo illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios. Photos: Getty Images Oil prices are heading back toward $100 a barrel, and, perhaps more crucially, the price of diesel fuel futures is now sitting at an all-time high. Why it matters: Investors are starting to recognize that higher oil prices from the Iran war aren't something they can continue to ignore. The big picture: Higher energy prices are showing up across the economy, driving up costs for companies, regular people and even governments around the world that are now facing higher borrowing rates. The rising price of energy is a big factor pushing bond yields higher and worrying policymakers in the U.S. and the rest of the developed world. Catch up quick: After falling off initial early war highs, oil prices started rising in July. At the time, attacks on commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz reignited fighting, and President Trump said the "memorandum of understanding" the two countries had signed weeks before was "over." State of play: Tensions have intensified over the past few days. The price of a barrel of Brent crude oil, the global benchmark, was trading at $95 yesterday afternoon, up from the low $80s a month ago. By the numbers: The yield on the 10-year Treasury — a benchmark for mortgages and other loans — was hovering at around 4.8% yesterday, after touching its highest level in nearly three years. Follow the money: Government bond yields around the world are also at multiyear highs. The U.K.'s 10-year gilt hit its highest level since 2008; Germany's long bond rose to its highest since 2011. And the government bonds of Japan, an importer of oil vulnerable to energy price shocks, touched their highest level since 1996. Stocks are moving close to sideways over the past week. How it works: The rise in oil prices is driving up inflation expectations, as people expect higher energy costs to drive up both the cost of making things and the cost of moving those things from place to place. That's impacting government bond yields, as investors demand more interest to compensate for inflation eating away at the value of their money. Those inflation expectations are also affecting stock valuations, some analysts believe — expectations for future earnings don't look as high once you take higher inflation into account. Zoom out: The correlation between the price of oil and the 10-year Treasury yield is close to its strongest in five years, per an analysis from Morgan Stanley. (That means they're moving up together.) The stock/oil correlation is close to its most negative. (Stocks move down, while oil moves up.) Yes, but: Government bond yields are moving up for other reasons as well — including unsustainable deficits, geopolitical uncertainty and even the AI boom, as we've written about before . The relationship between stocks and oil can be murky. Certainly the war is driving up share prices in sectors like energy. Catch up quick: The initial shock of the U.S.-Iran war clobbered stocks back in early March, but they bounced back — partly after the two sides reached a ceasefire agreement in June. Energy prices also retreated as it became clear that other forces — especially China importing less oil — were keeping them in check. The bottom line: Those days may now be behind us. "For global markets the oil pain has become too great to ignore," investor Bob Elliott wrote in a note yesterday morning. Bonus chart: Diesel hits record high By Emily Peck Data: FactSet; Note: NY Harbor ultra-low sulfur; Chart: Emily Peck/Axios The market for diesel fuel is feeling the energy squeeze most acutely. Diesel is a key input for just about anything grown or transported through the U.S. And the price of benchmark diesel futures is sitting at an all-time high of $4.73 per gallon. A MESSAGE FROM AXIOS Peek inside the forces reshaping health care with Axios Future of Health Care 2. Grain expectations By Emily Peck Data: CME Group via FactSet; Chart: Emily Peck/Axios The price of wheat is soaring — trading at levels last reached in early 2023, when markets were climbing down from the price shock of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Why it matters: Escalating tensions in the war are again pushing up prices for this critical grain. Zoom in: Attacks on Black Sea ports, grain terminals and commercial vessels since July have disrupted grain exports in the region — together Russia and Ukraine are responsible for 27% of global wheat exports, S&P notes . Exports from those countries are effectively at a "standstill," the International Grains Council reported. Chicago wheat futures — the global benchmark — are up about 30% since the beginning of July. What to watch: How the rise in wheat futures impacts global food prices. The big picture: War and extreme weather are already driving up food prices this summer: The United Nation's cereal price index — a measure of global prices for critical food commodities — was up 3.4% in July from the previous month. Reality check: Prices are still well off the heights of 2022, at the start of the war. Americans don't rely on Russia and Ukraine for wheat — the U.S. is a major wheat producer and exporter, but it does import a small share of its supply, mainly from Canada. The bottom line: Tensions in Russia's war with Ukrai

Plus: Portfolios are increasingly built around goals, not assets. September 3, 2026 PRESENTED BY Good morning. When it comes to private-market assets, regulators are taking the Queen approach: I want it all, and I want it now. Private markets have traditionally been limited to institutional and accredited investors because of their high costs, illiquidity, opacity and complexity. But the second Trump administration and SEC Chair Paul Atkins have made expanding investor access a top priority. On Monday, the SEC submitted a proposal to the White House Office of Management and Budget that would give retail investors greater access to private markets through registered funds and allow advisors to charge performance fees to a broader set of clients. Whether retail investors can own private assets is one question. Whether they should is a different can of worms. INDUSTRY NEWS Vanguard’s Altruist Deal May Shake Up Robo-Advice Photo by josefkubes via iStock Dance the robot. Vanguard’s acquisition of custodian Altruist for more than $4 billion may be the biggest wealth management news of the year. And developments haven’t slowed down. Just this week, Altruist announced a new financial planning tool on its AI-powered wealthtech platform, Hazel, that aims to connect six areas of advisor work in a matter of minutes: retirement savings, portfolio positioning, cash flow, estate needs, tax exposure and insurance and risk coverage. The transaction will give Vanguard access to advisors using Altruist, and, by extension, their clients. However, Altruist’s financial planning capabilities may also meaningfully reshape Vanguard’s robo-advice offering. Vanguard said Altruist will continue to act as its own business once the deal closes. But bringing some of Altruist’s technology to Vanguard Digital Advisor was likely a core reason the asset manager made the offer in the first place, sources told Advisor Upside. “Even though Altruist is advisor-facing, Vanguard [will own] the underlying infrastructure and has every strategic incentive to extend a Hazel-lite experience into its Digital Advisor tool,” said Tamara Stelting, executive consultant at The Arch’s Anvil. “[It] could allow the investor to access deeper planning intelligence beyond ETF allocation while still enjoying the conveniences, automation and mobile accessibility they experience with Digital Advisor.” Let’s Get Digital Vanguard’s robo-advisor already has some financial planning capabilities. Beyond portfolio management, the platform provides a debt payoff calculator and tax-loss-harvesting strategies, while users can set goals such as buying a house or paying for education and see how they fit into their overall plan. But a simplified, retail-friendly version of Hazel could make that planning substantially more in-depth. “Vanguard [will own] the AI capability to build that without licensing it from a third party, and closing the advice-access gap for exactly this segment is the stated thesis behind the deal,” said Will Trout, director of securities and investments at Datos Insights. Robo-advisors made a big splash when they first hit the scene around 2010. And for a time, many firms were either developing their own or buying others: Some have remained strong. Vanguard currently manages more than $30 billion in assets across its robo-advisor accounts. Meanwhile, Wealthfront manages nearly $55 billion in assets. Others, however, including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and US Bank have retreated from the space, shuttering robo-advisors and selling off accounts amid thin margins and difficulty in attracting high-net-worth clients. Even Charles Schwab ended its hybrid human-advice tier earlier this year. A client-facing version of Hazel for Vanguard’s robo-advisor might shake up the space significantly, putting pressure on competitors, Trout said. Robo-advisors have historically differentiated themselves around fees and portfolio construction, but they could increasingly compete on planning. “If Vanguard proves that same capability works at the mass affluent, self-directed tier, the other robo platforms will need a credible answer fast, or risk losing the planning sophistication argument to the cheapest provider in the category,” he said. Written by Griffin Kelly PRESENTED BY FERROVIAL Trade Tech Hype for Roads and Runways Photo via Ferrovial The tech valuations and hot IPOs turning clients’ heads this year bring as much volatility as they do opportunity. A steadier play could be sitting in plain sight: the roads, airports, and power stations clients already rely on every day. After all, come bear or bull, the grid stays lit. And backing them now may matter more than ever: America’s infrastructure faces a $3.7 trillion funding gap through 2033 . Public-private partnerships are becoming part of the fix. Ferrovial operates under that exact model, through decades-long contracts that often pay more as prices rise since demand for them rarely dries up: governments still have to build, and people still have to travel. Read more. * INVESTING STRATEGIES Goals Are the New Blueprint for Portfolio Construction Portfolio construction these days is less a matter of what and more a matter of why. As advisors put greater emphasis on financial planning, they’re moving beyond traditional asset allocation toward what might be called outcome allocation. The two approaches can overlap, but the latter puts the individual client’s goals at the center of the process. “Historically, portfolios were built around labels: US equity, international equity or fixed income,” Mayank Goradia, head of portfolio construction at Fidelity, said during a midyear review. “Increasingly, advisors are starting with the investor objective, and then determining which combination of tools can best help them achieve that outcome.” That could mean focusing on income, tax efficiency, downside risk management, growth or wealth transfer, he added. “We’re seeing this marriage of financial planning and portfo

Plus: That Ford’s a tank. They’ll take that as a compliment. September 3, 2026 PRESENTED BY ORACLE NETSUITE Good morning. There’s been turnover at 10 Downing Street, sure, but nothing like this. A watchdog group accused Booking.com of “systemic security failures” after it was able to create a fraudulent holiday rental listing at the official residence of the UK Prime Minister. Consumer organization Which? said in a report Wednesday that the online travel platform’s automated and AI fraud controls didn’t stop its researchers from advertising a “1 bedroom apartment in the heart of London” at the PM’s address. They were also able to accept reservations, process payments and send a direct message containing an external URL asking for credit card details. The group said it received requests from 14 people to stay there. Which? ’s researchers also managed to leave a fake review for an “exceptional” stay at the listing, which included “hanging out with Larry the Cat,” the domestic tabby who has served as Downing Street’s Chief Mouser since 2011. In a statement, Booking.com said Which? ’s “limited test is not a true reflection of the experience of millions of listings on our platform.” Now, if you’ll excuse us, we need to check our Labor Day weekend reservation at Élysée Palace … MARKETS S&P 500 7,666.60 ▲ +0.46% DJI 53,061.95 ▲ +0.56% PSLV $21.35 ▲ +1.76% *Presented by Sprott. Stock data as of market close on September 2, 2026. Most silver funds hold contracts. PSLV holds silver. *Please see important PSLV disclosures below. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE Uber, Waymo and Tesla Speed Toward Driverless Future The Cybercab in the mirror has never been quite as close as Elon Musk invariably made it out to be. But now, at long last, Tesla’s fully autonomous robotaxi is upon us. The company is hosting a launch event in Austin, Texas, today, after quietly building up a fleet of about 50 operational Cybercabs in the city’s streets. In a note to clients on Wednesday, Morgan Stanley analyst Andrew Percoco wrote that Wall Street will likely need to see “more than a handful” of new Cybercabs on the road to be stirred. In the meantime, the Cybercab’s chief rivals, Uber and Waymo, are both making moves to remain one step ahead of the category’s latest entrant. Cash Cab According to a Reuters report , Waymo is in the final stages of raising debt for the first time in its history, seeking more than $3 billion from big-name lenders such as Blackstone and Pimco. The move comes as Waymo expands into San Diego, Denver and Tampa Bay this month, and rolls out service for its new “Ojai” minivan model; Waymo now services 14 US cities. Uber, meanwhile, is cutting about 10% of its global headcount, or 3,300 employees. The restructuring will allow it to “innovate across our core businesses and build the autonomous future,” CEO Dara Khosrowshahi wrote in a memo obtained by Bloomberg . The company has vowed to commit more than $10 billion to various robotaxi partnerships in the coming years, including an agreement to buy 35,000 autonomous vehicles from Lucid. The end goal? According to COO Andrew McDonald in a recent podcast appearance, a near-future world in which robotaxis help send car ownership into extinction. But to win the robotaxi game, players ultimately need to get wheels on the road, as cheaply as possible: Percoco previously surmised that the robotaxi company offering the lowest costs would win the most market share, assuming all else is equal. For Tesla, Percoco has written that means its robotaxi and full-self-driving units could be worth $1 trillion … or roughly equivalent to its entire market cap today. Tesla already has a few hundred self-driving Model Y robotaxis on roads today, but the Cybercab, which features just two seats and no steering wheel, is expected to be cheaper to produce and deploy. Waymo currently has about 4,000 cars on the road, with plans to add thousands more by the end of the year. Drive to Survive: Goldman Sachs Research estimated earlier this year that the total number of robotaxis on the road will increase from about 7,000 last year to 1 million by 2030 and 6 million by 2035. It all adds up to potentially $440 billion worth of economic disruption in the coming years, Goldman says, when factoring in both lost car sales as well as lost wages and lower booking fees for human rideshare drivers. Written by Brian Boyle PRESENTED BY ORACLE NETSUITE Close the Books, Not Your Calendar Photo via Oracle NetSuite Whether you’re chasing down numbers, double-checking spreadsheets or rewriting the same commentary, every month-end close can easily eat up a whole week you never get back. By the time it gets finished, half of it is already old news. The 2026 AI-Powered Financial Analysis Handbook could help you cut that time down by 20 to 30% using AI tools that plug straight into live financial data, instead of another Excel export. Written by Nicolas Boucher, a finance leader with over 15 years in the field, you’ll discover 15 ready-to-use prompts , a look at Oracle NetSuite ’s built-in AI tools, and a 30-day plan to help you put them to work. Grab the handbook and get that week back. INDUSTRIALS Ford, GM Face Off Overseas in Bids to Build British Army’s Next-Generation Vehicle The charismatic US general George S. Patton is credited with the quip, “No good decision was ever made in a swivel chair.” In which case, hopefully, Ford executives weren’t sitting down when they came up with their plan to team with UK company Ricardo and US defense contractor General Dynamics to compete for a major British defense contract. The three will develop a proposal based on Ford’s Ranger pickup to supply the £2 billion ($2.7 billion) Light Mobility Vehicle program. Re-Reporting for Duty During World War II, Ford was a crucial part of the US-wide mobilization to support the Allied forces, building thousands of light military utility vehicles, light armored tracked vehicles, tank engines and other parts. By 1990, however, g

Just read it, it’ll make sense... 🥛 BONER pilled 🍆 Just read it, it’ll make sense... Chevy Cassar GM. This is Milk Road, the daily newsletter delivering an artful blend of crypto insights and d*ck jokes. Here’s what we’ve got for you today: ✍️ Uniswap found its cash machine in a weird place. 🎙️ The Milk Road Show: First ICOs, Then ETFs… This Could Be Crypto’s Next Capital Wave . 🍪 Tom Lee: Traditional financial rails weren't built for agents. Prices as of 2:00 p.m. ET. Powered by CoinGecko. UNISWAP FOUND ITS CASH MACHINE IN A VERY WEIRD PLACE 🍆 Since 2020, the UNI token did pretty much one thing, and one thing only: it let you vote on stuff. Every dollar of Uniswap's trading fees went to the people supplying liquidity (cash) to its pools, while holders got the opportunity to vote on protocol changes. But that changed in December after holders passed a proposal called UNIfication. Now the protocol takes a slice of those trading fees → uses that money to buy UNI on the open market → and destroys it. (A buyback, basically.) Except the shares get shredded instead of stuffed in a vault somewhere. That engine has been live since December... but the fuel for said engine only turned up in July, with the launch of Robinhood Chain (the Ethereum L2 built for 24/7 onchain stock trading). Uniswap deployed there a day after it launched and became the DEX that nearly everything on the chain traded through, now handling 86% of its daily volume. And in late July, UNI holders voted to switch protocol fees on for Robinhood Chain trades… Source: DefiLlama Revenue went from ~$100k a day to ~$244k a day, with Robinhood Chain alone now making up 60% of the burn. That shakes out to roughly $90M of UNI destroyed per year against a ~$3.5B market cap, or ~2.5% of the supply retired annually (better than the average S&P 500 buyback yield). Standard Chartered's Geoff Kendrick set a $100 UNI target for the end of 2030 back in June - then last month, said it might be too low. Which raises the question: are people really that interested in tokenized stocks? In a sense, yes. Uniswap did ~$130M of tokenized stock volume in a single day, roughly 10x where it sat a month earlier. But a big slice of those fees isn't coming from anyone trading tokenized NVDA. It's coming from memecoins. And what people are doing with them is... creative. See, there’re these two launchpads, Bankr and long(dot)xyz, that let anyone mint a memecoin whose trading pair is a stock token instead of a stablecoin. I.e. To buy the memecoin, you pay in tokenized shares. And in an automated market maker, whatever you pay in, stays in the pool. So every purchase pulls stock tokens out of circulation. So, hypothetically… say you were to spot a stock with heavy short interest, meaning plenty of people are betting it falls. And say that stock is HIMS, the company selling men's hair and 'bedroom performance' pills, with 58.7M shares sold short. … so you mint a memecoin called BONER, point its trading pair at tokenized HIMS stock, and start posting about how “a big green BONER candle will take HIMS to the moon.” Yeah, well - someone did pretty much exactly that on August 20th… Source: MEXC By last weekend, the BONER pool held 31,198 of the 58,714 tokenized HIMS shares in existence. (Yuh. More than half the float is sitting inside a joke coin's liquidity pool!) But then the NYSE shut for the weekend, which meant no live share price to arbitrage against and no way for the issuer to mint more tokens. As a result, BONER ran 1,000% in 24 hours to a ~$40M market cap, with a few thousand dollars of buying pushing tokenized HIMS to $132.64, while the actual TradFi share had closed Friday at $28.84. 👇 Source: DEX Screener Then Monday hit. The NYSE opened, the issuer minted fresh tokens into the premium, and the whole thing collapsed inside of two hours. Real HIMS barely moved, finishing the day at $29.41 - because the squeeze happened inside the tokenized wrapper rather than the stock itself, and those 58,714 tokenized shares are about 0.1% of the shares sold short. Nowhere near enough to force a single short seller to cover (but you can see how, down the line, this sort of thing could lead to another GameStop). And the theme is spreading... Nine memecoins now trade in HIMS-quoted pools, SAYLORMOON holds 26% of tokenized Strategy stock, and memecoin pools have swallowed roughly 11% of tokenized Tesla. Every one of those trades settles on Uniswap. And every one burns UNI. Long story longer: the animal spirits are returning to crypto, and they've got a hard on for stock/memecoin pairings. The beauty of all this? You don’t have to pick the right memecoin to win, you can just buy the picks and shovels. (E.g. Uniswap.) In fact, that’s exactly what our PRO analyst John Gillen has been doing. He bought UNI on August 28th at ~$4.45, then added again two days later as it kept running. He's already up ~22% and reckons almost everyone is still out of position on the trade. Don’t miss his next entry - try Milk Road PRO for a buck for 7 days to get all of his trades in real time. BITE-SIZED COOKIES FOR THE ROAD 🍪 Selling out: Fed Chair Warsh disclosed 30 crypto positions back in April. By August he'd sold them all in to meet the ethics requirements at the Fed. Here’s what he sold… Tom Lee: Traditional financial rails weren't built for agents. A card swipe moves through 24 different systems to get validated - useless for microtransactions. Raoul Pal: The doom narrative about the dollar collapsing has cost people more money than anything else in financial history. RATE TODAY’S EDITION What'd you think of today's edition? 🥛🥛🥛🥛🥛 F**king great 🥛🥛🥛 Meh, do better 🥛 You didn't bring the heat MILKY MEMES 🤣 Source: @naiivememe Source: @Ministerr ROADIE REVIEW OF THE DAY 🥛 VITALIK PIC OF THE DAY This content is for educational purposes only. Read full disclaimer Interested in reaching smart readers like you? Sponsor Milk Road Update your email preferences or unsubscribe here © 2026 ImpactDM

Plus: Uber slims down | Wednesday, September 02, 2026 Axios Closer By Nathan Bomey · Sep 02, 2026 Wednesday ✅. Today's newsletter is 802 words, a 3-minute read. 📈 The dashboard: The S&P 500 closed up 0.5%, ending a three-day slide. Treasury yields eased slightly, with the 10-year note at 4.78%. 🥶 Today's stock spotlight: Broadcom shares were down about 4% in extended trading after earnings, with Reuters attributing the drop to a fourth-quarter revenue forecast that failed to wow investors. 1 big thing: Chevron's Venezuela bet By Ben Geman and Nathan Bomey Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios Chevron this morning said it's investing $7 billion over five years in Venezuela and hopes to double its production there. Why it matters: Since Nicolás Maduro's capture, it's the biggest move by an oil giant to lay the groundwork for a major output boost in Venezuela. "Venezuela holds the world's largest reserves, but its fossil fuel industry has been worn down by years of mismanagement, corruption and sanctions," Bloomberg notes . 🛢️ Driving the news: Chevron plans to eventually produce 600,000 barrels per day from its Venezuelan operations, doubling its 2026 output. "With total costs of less than $20 per barrel and a large resource base, Venezuela is a platform of differentiated oil growth under Chevron's disciplined cash management model," Chevron said in a statement. The plan is separate from the Trump administration's recent deal to gain control of 17 huge oilfields there. 🤔 The big picture: Other U.S. oil giants' appetite to follow suit remains uncertain. Exxon and ConocoPhillips left the nationalized sector around two decades ago in a dispute with then-President Hugo Chávez's regime. But acting President Delcy Rodríguez, under pressure from Trump officials, has moved to make the oil sector friendlier to outside companies. 📊 By the numbers: Overall, Venezuela produces roughly 1.2 million barrels per day, a far cry from the roughly 3.4 million in the late 1990s. What we're watching: U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said deals that companies are signing this week will bring more than a doubling of the country's production in the next few years, per Reuters . 2. Uber slims down Photo: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images Uber is cutting 10% of its workforce to simplify its operations. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in an internal memo that the company is "removing layers, simplifying team structures, refining our global location strategy, and focusing our people and investments against the biggest opportunities ahead of us." The company had about 36,600 employees globally as of June 30, according to a public filing . Zoom in: Many of the cuts are aimed at reducing middle management, including "micro-teams" where managers have only one or two people reporting to them. The company also reduced the number of employees who are at least seven layers down from the CEO by 20%. And Uber is ending remote work for most employees — "going forward, only ~1% of employees will be remote," Khosrowshahi said. The big picture: The reductions come amid a fervent conversation over the role of AI in replacing jobs, but Uber didn't cite AI as a catalyst for the cuts. Go deeper 3. Other happenings Illustration: Maura Losch/Axios 📱 Fanatics launched a new app combining its sportsbook, casino and prediction markets, which automatically changes what customers can access based on their location and what's legal there. ( Axios ) 🔮 New Jersey asked the Supreme Court to settle the swirling legal question of how prediction markets should be regulated. ( NPR ) 💳 Waymo is in talks with lenders to borrow roughly $3 billion, the first time the robotaxi company has tapped the debt market. ( Bloomberg ) 🤖 Meta released Muse Spark 1.3, an updated AI model it says significantly improves performance in coding and agentic tasks. ( Axios ) A MESSAGE FROM AXIOS Sports media's next big opportunity Sports rights are becoming an even more valuable media asset. Rising rights fees, streaming ad demand and growing interest in women's sports are creating new upside well beyond ticket sales. The latest Media Trends Executive analysis examines how sports are reshaping the media business — and where the biggest opportunities are emerging. Read the full analysis. 4. 🇩🇪 Achtung, "Detroit-ization" The downtown Detroit skyline viewed from across the Detroit River. Photo: Roberto Machado Noa/LightRocket via Getty Images Germans fear the "Detroit-ization" of their industrial base, WSJ reports , citing the new "buzzword in the German media." Their trepidation stems from the bloated Volkswagen's attempt to implement significant job cuts as it struggles to keep up with Chinese competition and other automakers throughout the world. 💭 Nathan's thought bubble: As a former Detroit Free Press reporter and author of a book on Detroit's historic bankruptcy, I'll say this descriptor is imprecise at best. Yes, deindustrialization played a major role in Detroit's decline — but it was far more complex than that. It involved myriad factors, which I chronicle in 2016's " Detroit Resurrected: To Bankruptcy and Back " — so many that I don't have time to mention them here. But what Germany can learn from Detroit is that overcommitment to one particular industry does indeed place communities at risk of a sudden contraction when that industry runs into trouble. A MESSAGE FROM AXIOS Sports media's next big opportunity Sports rights are becoming an even more valuable media asset. Rising rights fees, streaming ad demand and growing interest in women's sports are creating new upside well beyond ticket sales. The latest Media Trends Executive analysis examines how sports are reshaping the media business — and where the biggest opportunities are emerging. Read the full analysis. Why stop here? Let's go Pro. Axios Pro Deals helps you get smarter and faster on the deals, opportunities, and investments that matter most. Get started today . Follow Axios across:

Buying a Birkin from Hermès is hard. Buying it from a claw machine is fun. Byron Gilliam “Anticipation is the greatest part of pleasure.” — Angela Carter The transaction is the product Hermès Birkin bags are the quintessential Veblen good: The more they cost, the more people want them. The most affordable model — the Birkin 25 — now costs $13,500. The Diamond Himalaya (pictured above) will set you back $250,000. If, that is, you can persuade Hermès to sell you one. Few do. Last year, Hermès faced a class action lawsuit alleging that the company unlawfully ties the purchase of its Birkin handbags to the purchase of other Hermès products: If you don’t buy enough shoes, scarves, clothing, and jewelry from Hermès, it won’t let you give it tens of thousands of dollars in exchange for a handbag. It’s difficult for me to imagine caring enough about something as non-essential as a handbag that I would take the seller to court for not letting me buy from them. Is that a good use of the US legal system? Judge James Donato seemed to think not. He dismissed the case last September, ruling that consumer frustration over not getting a bag is a personal grievance, not a violation of federal law. The frustration, however, is real. Unlike other Hermès products, which you can purchase on its website, Birkin bags are only sold in stores. You will not, however, see one there — unless you’ve been deemed worthy of being escorted into a back room for a private viewing. To even be considered for such a privilege, you’ll need a salesperson to advocate for you. Hermès does not pay its sales associates their usual 3% commission on Birkin bags, so you’ll have to earn their trust by buying a bunch of other things first. The effective acquisition cost of a Birkin bag is therefore much higher than the sticker price, as outrageous as that already is. It also includes  the time spent cultivating a relationship with a sales associate, the cost of all the other Hermès products you had to buy, and the effort of making repeated trips to a store that is probably not nearby. Still, it can be a good investment. Birkin bags on the secondary market have appreciated by roughly 12.5% per annum over the past 45 years (based on these two sources ), outperforming the S&P 500 by about 1% a year. Even more impressive is the risk/reward. The worst year for Birkin bags on record was 1986, when they were up only 2.1%. The next year, the S&P 500 fell 21% in a single day. That kind of Sharpe ratio — up 12.5% a year with zero down years — would make any hedge fund manager a legend. But only if they could have bought the bags — which they almost certainly could not have. The reason Birkin bags have been such a good investment is that Hermès has spent decades carefully cultivating the exclusivity of the brand by making them difficult to purchase. They probably didn’t mind being sued for it. A class-action lawsuit by people trying to compel you to sell them your product might be the best possible branding for a luxury-goods maker like Hermès. Not so good for the brand? People buying your product from an onchain claw machine. The journey is the reward When Beezie, an onchain marketplace for tokenized collectibles, raised $4 million from investors in July, CEO Andrea Miele mentioned “luxury” as an upcoming product category. This week, she hinted that Birkin bags would be one of the luxuries on offer. I can only hope that means they’ll be available through the onchain gacha and claw machines that have proven so popular with collectors of Pokémon cards. Spend, say, $5,000 for a Birkin bag. Find out which one you get after you buy it. It might be a Diamond Himalaya! Probably not, though. You will probably spend $5,000 to get a Birkin bag worth, say, $4,000 (assuming there is such a thing). But for a few seconds — before the gacha machine dramatically reveals what you’ve purchased — you will revel in the possibility that you might get one that’s many multiples of what you paid for it. A bag you would never otherwise think of buying. Beezie refers to itself not as a commerce platform, as you might expect, but as an “anticipation engine” — because that’s what you’re really paying for when you play one of its onchain claw machines: the sweet anticipation of not knowing exactly what you’re purchasing until after you’ve purchased it. I suspect it will be very popular — with everyone other than Hermès. If tokenization does for handbags what it did for Pokémon cards, a lot of the world’s Birkin bags will be acquired in onchain gachas and virtual claw machines. Hermès will not want you to do that. It has spent decades turning the sale of its handbags into an elaborate ritual of scarcity, status, and privilege. Seeing the bags sold by the onchain version of a machine you’d expect to find next to the Skee-Ball at Chuck E. Cheese will be understandably jarring for Hermès. Really, it doesn’t want its bags to be resold at all. If Hermès sees your Birkin on eBay, it’ll be the last one it ever sells you. The private room in the back of the store will be forever off limits. (Cruel, I know.) But Hermès will only have itself to blame, in my opinion. It’s already gamified Birkin bags — by turning their purchase into a quest. Hermès’ restrictions introduce friction and uncertainty into what would otherwise be just another add-to-basket transaction. The transaction itself has therefore become a large part of the product. People aren’t just buying a Birkin; they’re buying the thrill of acquiring one. Tokenized Birkins will allow onchain platforms like Beezie to distill that thrill into a few seconds of anticipation. — Byron Gilliam 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