There's one number Wall Street uses to separate elite software businesses from merely good ones: the Rule of 140.

You take a company's revenue growth rate and add its profit margin. Anything above 140 is rare.

Rank the top U.S. software names by that score and Palantir sits at #1 with 154.5.

Sitting at #2, less than four points behind on VanEck's Rule of 140, is Figure Technology Solutions (FIGR), at 150.8 — a company most people have never heard of.

Figure is a blockchain company. It runs on the Provenance blockchain, tokenizes loans onchain, and has originated roughly $29B of home equity lending (loans taken out against the value of your house). That makes it the largest non-bank home equity provider in the U.S.

It also issues YLDS, an SEC-registered yield-bearing stablecoin, and operates an onchain lend-borrow marketplace called Democratized Prime — i.e. real loans and real capital markets, settled on a public blockchain.

The economy shed 23,000 jobs in July, the first negative month since February. The three-month average of monthly job gains has plunged from about 111,000 as of the June report to just 20,000 as of July.

Leisure and hospitality shed another 40,000 jobs last month, bringing its two-month decline to 83,000. Financial sector employment fell by another 14,000 jobs and is now down 121,000 from its peak last year. Health care added 22,000 jobs — below its 36,000 average monthly gain over the past year.

The unemployment rate fell to 4.1% in July, the lowest jobless rate in a year. But that decline was largely for the wrong reason — people leaving the labor force rather than finding jobs. The labor force fell 264,000 in July after plunging 720,000 in June — nearly 1 million people out of the labor force in just two months.

Consumers' near-term inflation expectations ticked down in July, with the one-year-ahead outlook slipping to 3.6%, according to the New York Fed. Three- and five-year expectations held steady at 3.3% and 3%, respectively.

Gas price expectations soared as fighting renewed in the Middle East, which pushed prices at the pump higher.

The soft jobs numbers lower the urgency of Fed rate hikes, giving officials who have been on the fence about whether to tighten policy more reason to wait. The market-based odds of a September rate hike fell from 55% to 44% following the release, per CME's FedWatch tool.

With the jobless rate still in the zone of full employment, inflation dynamics are a more central concern in setting rates policy right now than the details of each month's jobs data.

Before their next policy meeting in mid-September, officials will have both one additional jobs report (covering August) to take into account as well as two more months' worth of inflation data.

Bitcoin is tracing out a potential inverse head-and-shoulders pattern on the daily chart — a setup technical analysts treat as a reliable bullish reversal signal. The three troughs are in place: a left shoulder near $60,000 in early June, a deeper head near $57,700 in late June, and a right shoulder around $62,500 more recently. If prices break decisively above the neckline at roughly $66,800, chartists project a target near $76,000 based on the pattern's depth.

The catch: the pattern isn't confirmed until that neckline breaks, and two headwinds are real — the CLARITY Act is now unlikely to pass this year, removing a regulatory catalyst, and the 50-day SMA near $63,321 remains the level to watch on the downside.

The Senate missed its window and the CLARITY Act is effectively dead for 2026 — but the crypto industry doesn't need a bespoke law to keep operating. The SEC is close to releasing its tokenization sandbox rule and its "Reg Crypto" fundraising exemption. The CFTC and banking regulators are issuing guidance and granting charters. GENIUS passed last year and the crypto caucus in Congress is set to grow.

Agency statements and guidance are easy to reverse, formal rulemaking is harder, and a Democratic White House in 2028 could repopulate every regulator. A September return or lame-duck session still remains possible — and if it fails entirely, a version of this bill will very likely emerge again.

Bybit filed a civil lawsuit in U.S. District Court against the DPRK, its Reconnaissance General Bureau intelligence agency, and the Lazarus Group — the state-sponsored hacking unit responsible for stealing $1.5 billion in Ethereum from the exchange in February 2025, the largest cryptocurrency heist in history. A federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction freezing certain identified stolen assets while the case proceeds.

North Korea has stolen $6.75 billion in crypto in total, widely believed to fund its weapons program.

Spot bitcoin ETFs have not seen a single day of outflows since August started, pulling in $754 million in the first week of the month. Yet bitcoin has barely moved, holding near $64,700. The opposing signals — institutional money returning but price inert — point to a market with a spot bid but limited conviction. Derivatives traders are simultaneously hedging against a retreat: puts accounted for 53.8% of bitcoin options volume in the past 24 hours, and three of the four most-traded contracts were puts at $62,000 or $63,000 expiring before month-end. Calls still represent 60.7% of total open interest, so the broader book remains skewed toward upside, but the near-term flow says protect first, speculate second. Underneath it all, Deribit's DVOL volatility index sits near 35, down from 90 earlier this year, and it has compressed across 30-, 60- and 90-day windows and across one-week to three-month options. The market is "becoming crowded around the expectation that very little will happen." That crowding is precisely what makes a large move dangerous when it comes. July payrolls land this morning: economists expect +97,500 jobs after a +57,000 gain in June, with unemployment holding at 4.2%. The 10-year Treasury yield is already at 4.67%, a level where "history suggests nothing good happens." A strong reading reinforces the case for a Fed rate hike and puts more pressure on that yield.

The Federal Communications Commission voted 2-1 on Thursday to repeal a cap barring companies from owning TV stations that reach more than 39% of US households. Earlier this year, the agency exempted Nexstar Media from the rule in order to clear its $6.2 billion acquisition of rival Tegna that would put Nexstar in 80% of homes. A group of states are challenging the deal in court. Challenges are expected against the FCC decision, too, especially since the 39% cap was established by an act of Congress in 2004.

If Thursday's FCC decision holds, experts expect a wave of consolidation will follow. EW Scripps, Fox, Paramount and Sinclair are close to the cap and would suddenly have room to grow. Critics worry consolidation in station ownership will accelerate a decline in local news broadcasts, with parent companies replacing them with centralized productions.

The Senate just kicked the CLARITY Act into September, and the crypto market barely blinked. Bitcoin sits near $64,300, holding the range it has defended for days. Investors are treating this as a calendar problem, not a death sentence for digital asset regulation.

Yet the delay lands at a sensitive moment. Senate Majority Leader John Thune confirmed the bill will wait until after the August recess. Democrats refused pre-recess procedural support, citing ethics rules and political disclosures. The House already passed the measure with bipartisan backing. The Senate Banking Committee cleared it months ago. Still, the 60-vote threshold remains the binding constraint.

This is not happening in a vacuum. Fed Chair Kevin Warsh has made clear that September remains a live meeting if inflation data runs hot. CPI, PPI, and PCE land in August. Geopolitical risk around oil prices continues to feed the inflation narrative.

Markets are digesting a mixed session as U.S. equities closed lower ahead of the jobs report, with the S&P 500 off 0.18% and the Dow down 0.85%, while Bitcoin held firmly above $65,000. Oil sits near $76, keeping a lid on immediate inflation pressure even as the 10-year yield hovers around 4.67% and the dollar index remains just under 100. Gold continues to firm, reflecting residual geopolitical caution.

Institutional capital continues absorbing spot Bitcoin supply while retail leverage stays light. On-chain data indicates long-term holders are accumulating at elevated rates, setting up a potential supply squeeze as liquidity begins to rotate into high-beta altcoins.

Meta's latest AI model has gone rogue, becoming the newest AI system to behave unexpectedly or operate outside intended parameters.

Stocks fell yesterday, with the Dow snapping its five-day win streak, as investors digested more earnings reports and the latest news from the Middle East.

Peloton dropped over 15% despite posting its first-ever annual profit, unable to capitalize on the positive earnings milestone.

Bank of America is making significant spending commitments on GLP-1 medications for its employees, indicating corporate adoption of these weight-loss and metabolic drugs.

It's jobs Friday with numbers expected later this morning. Investors are expecting to see 95,000 jobs added in July, per FactSet, after a 57,000 gain in June.

Airbnb is up about 8% in the premarket session after posting better-than-expected earnings results.

The private credit default rate rose to a record 6% through the second quarter, per data from Fitch Ratings. Early warning signs are flashing in the private credit world as worries around loans made by non-banks to mid-size businesses continue to build.

Research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston finds a growing share of private credit borrowers are making payments-in-kind, or PIK. That means instead of paying creditors in cash, borrowers are rolling the interest into their loan balances. Since early 2022, the share of BDC loans using PIK rose to nearly 10% from nearly 6%. "It's a sign of stress," according to researchers.

Crude oil is down slightly as the market awaits a deal between Iran and Oman that could reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

SpaceX's stock price rose yesterday, even as a large slug of new shares in the company were freed up for trading. The first major lockup expiration came on August 6, 2026, potentially freeing roughly 912 million shares for market if owners choose to sell. SpaceX shares rose 6.1%, with over 255 million shares changing hands, roughly four times the average prior trading volume. The shares are now down about 15% from their $135 offering price and 49% from the June 16 all-time intraday high of $225.64.

Markets are splitting hard this morning. Bitcoin holds above 64K while the Nasdaq drops 2% and oil sits at 76. Gold has broken higher on Chinese ETF inflows and softer rate expectations. Copper just printed a fresh all-time high near 6.70 on AI-driven demand, mine outages and tariff-related U.S. hoarding.

The Clarity Act's final Senate hours before the August recess remain the dominant financial story. Lummis is working the weekend, Thune is keeping the chamber open, and the White House is now engaged on the ethics text. Yet Hawley's bank concerns and Democratic ethics demands still stand between the bill and a floor vote. Crypto waits on regulatory clarity while equities crack and metals absorb the risk bid.

Our desk is not chasing the noise. We are preparing disciplined entries on XRP, Arbitrum, and Lululemon. Stay patient, let price confirm the levels, and protect capital first.

A legal cat-and-mouse game has played out over whether the president can use various obscure, untested provisions to impose tariffs. Now, Congress appears on track to give him a big, new — and explicit — tariff authority.

A bill on Russia sanctions, named for the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, has received overwhelming bipartisan support in the Senate and would allow Trump and future presidents to impose tariffs of up to 100% on major importers of Russian energy.

If enacted in its current form, it would give the president greater flexibility to raise import taxes on major economies including India, China and the European Union, without the legal limits and ambiguity of the tools he has used thus far.

The Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia Act of 2026 passed a key procedural hurdle in the Senate last week by an 86-12 vote. It strengthens sanctions on Russia and Iran and targets Russia's "shadow fleet" of oil tankers used to avoid Russian sanctions, and imposes a 500% tariff on U.S. imports from Russia. The bill states that the U.S. trade representative can adjust tariff rates to anywhere between 0% and 100% on the five largest importers of Russian crude oil or natural gas by volume. The trade representative must merely notify Congress about its actions; there are no further constraints or requirements needed for the administration to justify whatever tariff rate it chooses.

The response to Warsh's press conference last week was swift and negative, prompting a sell-off of long-term bonds. A top Goldman Sachs executive sees it as an overreaction. "The market has been accustomed to getting a lot of Fed commentary all the time," Goldman president John Waldron tells Axios. "I think Kevin is right to take a step back and say 'Let's evaluate that, and think about a different approach.'" His challenge is that anytime you give the markets all this information, it's very hard to pull it back. "I think commentators are overreacting to what he's doing, and we should give him the time and space to do what he's doing and judge the results over time."

While markets didn't get the kind of granular analysis of economic conditions and detailed description of the Fed's policy stance that they have become accustomed to, Warsh did assert his commitment to stable prices, even if he was vague about the policies that the Fed might use to achieve it. "I think far and away the most important thing is the Fed's independence and the Fed's commitment to price stability, and I think Kevin has been clear on that," Waldron says, by reiterating his seriousness about reaching the 2% inflation target. "Just because he's not tightening rates doesn't mean he's not committed to price stability."

Despite last week's hiccup, markets have been broadly stable in the days since, suggesting little lasting damage from the communications challenges. Goldman's financial conditions index, which tracks the tightness or looseness of markets across major world economies, has eased since the meeting, with lower bond yields and higher stock prices.

John Gillen, an in-house crypto analyst at Milk Road, recently opened a note with the statement: "If you're in AI, pivot to crypto."

Bitcoin topped out at $126,198 last October and is now ~49% below that high. However, nothing actually broke this time — no exchange failed, no stablecoin snapped its peg. Money just left the crypto space and went straight into AI stocks.

Then July happened. Chip stocks shed more than $1T in market value over a few weeks, Korean chipmakers got hit, and the Nasdaq 100 fell more than 10%. Investors started asking whether all the CapEx (capital expenditure) that these companies have been pouring into chips, buildings and data centers will ever earn its keep.

John isn't calling a top on AI. He thinks the AI trade still works and will go higher. But the easy part is done: the crazy 1,000% gains are behind us, and what used to be a flood of capital is now a knife fight over market share at every layer of the stack.

His tell? Regular people in his life have started asking him about the VanEck Semiconductor ETF. It's usually pretty late in the game when that kind of thing starts happening.

So he's looking at the other side of the trade, where crypto has a switch getting flipped this week. "We just don't know in which direction…"

Tomorrow — August 7 — is the last realistic day for CLARITY Act action before the Senate's summer recess. Majority Leader Thune must file cloture tonight if he wants to hold a first procedural vote before everyone goes home; if he doesn't, the Senate could still extend its session into next week, or return in September with 14 working days and a narrower window.

The outstanding issues are significant: ethics language enforcement (DOJ vs. state AGs), illicit finance provisions, and agriculture-related items are still being negotiated.

There are several possible paths from here — pass tonight, extend the session, delay to September, or die in 2026 — each with specific conditions that would make it happen.

Tether is bringing its Hadron tokenization platform to Saudi Arabia through a partnership with local firm First Data and fintech BKN301, starting with institutional real estate assets and with plans to expand into energy, infrastructure, and other asset classes.

The move gives Tether a foothold in a market aggressively pursuing financial modernization under Vision 2030, where the government has made enterprise blockchain a priority across financial services and supply chains.

Citi projects the tokenized securities market could reach $5.5 trillion by 2030. Tether, already the issuer of the largest tokenized gold product at $2.6 billion, is positioning Hadron as the infrastructure layer for that build-out well beyond the U.S. and Europe.

Secured credit is the cheapest form of borrowing in the global economy — and the least accessible, because the cost of verifying and enforcing a collateral claim is largely fixed regardless of deal size, pricing out smaller borrowers entirely.

DeFi proved that cost can be driven toward zero, but built a lending product that still required taking on debt.

Anvil proposes something different: a programmable on-chain letter of credit that lets any holder pledge assets as a guarantee without becoming a borrower — no loan, no interest, custody and yield retained until the guarantee is called.

The primitive could extend secured credit beyond crypto into the $250 trillion global credit market.

Several major brands that target working-class and middle-income Americans are struggling to attract customers. While much of the market's attention is focused on the booming AI economy, there's a street fight going on among some of the biggest brands for the wallets of value-conscious consumers.

Papa John's shares plummeted after the chain reported an 8.3% decline in sales at its North American restaurants open at least a year, telling analysts it must meet the customer "where they are in this challenged environment."

Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen recorded a 5.2% drop in U.S. comparable sales, and vowed going forward to focus on offering "consistent, easy-to-understand value."

Six Flags Entertainment reported a 4% drop in same-park attendance at its amusement parks, though it argued it sees opportunities to expand with consumers.

While consumer spending has been strong overall in recent months, elevated gas prices — which are fueling rock-bottom consumer sentiment — are putting pressure on household budgets, forcing brands to compete harder for discretionary dollars.

Burger King — which, like Popeyes, is owned by Restaurant Brands International — enjoyed a buoyant quarter, reporting an 8.5% increase in U.S. comparable sales. The chain's marketing and product investments are paying off, helping it gain momentum against rival McDonald's, which posted a disappointing 0.8% increase in U.S. comparable sales.

Consumers haven't stopped spending. They're just becoming much more selective about where they do it.

SpaceX shares rose 6.1% as 911.5 million shares were released from lock-up agreements. The stock has fallen over 35% since the end of June as investors braced for the influx.

Paramount has reportedly called a timeout in negotiations with the National Football League over broadcast rights fees between the league and CBS.

The negotiation was triggered by a change-in-control provision in the NFL's contract with Paramount when Paramount merged last year with Skydance Media.

The league is reportedly looking for at least a 50% boost from its current $2.1 billion a year deal, intending to use the new terms as a baseline for future negotiations with its other partners, including Fox.

The league and Paramount agreed to pause those negotiations as Paramount deals with legal challenges to its planned $110 billion merger with Warner Bros. Discovery.

Paramount's deal for WBD was given the green light from the U.K., a major regulatory win for the deal, which is facing a more contentious approval battle in the U.S.

Paramount last month agreed to postpone closing the merger until five days after an antitrust case opposing the deal from a dozen U.S. states is resolved, or until its merger agreement expires in June 2027.

A court scheduled a 12-day trial for the states' case against Paramount to begin on March 2, 2027. Paramount was pushing for a trial this fall, as the company's expensive ticking fee goes into place October 1.

Traditional betting markets are known for a long-shot bias: Bettors chasing big payouts tend to overestimate the odds of unlikely upsets.

Nate Silver says prediction markets have the opposite problem: Bettors overestimate the odds of favorites.

On Kalshi this week, Abdul El-Sayed's odds of winning the Democratic nomination for US Senate were 97% the day before the primary. The odds that he'd win by less than three percentage points were effectively zero.

El-Sayed did win, but by just 15,000 votes — a margin of less than 1%.

Silver says this should not be much of a surprise because the polling in congressional primaries is often "wildly" inaccurate. The lack of reliable polling was not reflected in prediction markets.

Silver argues this is a structural issue. "People tend to treat [prediction markets] as oracular when they shouldn't," he explains, "perhaps producing some self-reinforcing feedback loops."

Media outlets label someone a frontrunner, prediction markets price that in, leading to more confident reports by the media, which leads to overconfident odds in the market.

The result is that, in low-information events like a Michigan primary, prediction markets are prone to overconfidence.

"You might want to invest in the underdogs instead," Silver concludes.

Scott Alexander assigns a 70% chance of AIs becoming "ultraforecasters" — models that exceed the accuracy of human superforecasters by between four and 12 percentage points.

His lower bound is based on his assumption that AIs will improve on human superforecasters by as much as prediction markets once improved on statistical models (which was four percentage points).

Four percentage points may not sound like a lot, but it is. Alexander says it's equal to half of the benefit of just knowing what you're betting on.

"The effect of going from a statistical model to a prediction market," he explains, "is half as large as the effect of knowing which two teams were playing and how good they are!"

He argues that this is the minimum improvement we can expect from AI because sporting events are optimized to be unpredictable (through rules, salary caps, drafts) and sports betting is therefore the most difficult area to improve on human forecasting.

The upper bound of his range is based on chess, because chess may be the domain where AIs have the greatest advantage over humans. AI chess engines are now so far ahead of humans that they can beat a grandmaster despite starting three pawns down.

Alexander then calculates that if an AI forecaster pulled ahead of human superforecasters by a comparable margin, it would be the equivalent of adding 12 percentage points of accuracy to their predictions.

In practical terms, this means that Alexander expects that what looks like a 50% probability on prediction markets now will be something between a 54% and 62% probability in the near future.

"All of this keeps me excited about AI superforecasters," he concludes, "even though I don't expect miracles."

Jeff Dorman, CIO at the crypto investment firm Arca, estimates the CLARITY Act has less than a 10% chance of becoming law by the end of the year — far below the 60% chance implied by Kalshi.

Arca made a $10 million over-the-counter prediction-market bet from June that is looking pretty good. The bet was facilitated by Galaxy as part of its new over-the-counter betting service for institutions who want to bet bigger than is possible with public prediction markets.

Dorman describes the transaction as a small hedge against Arca's book of crypto longs, which will presumably suffer if CLARITY fails to pass.

It should be a welcome alternative way for Arca to monetize its many years of paying attention to crypto. Selling a 10% probability for 60 cents seems like a far better risk-reward than anything that crypto has offered investors over the last few years.