Friday May 22, 2026
The Delegation Told You Everything
The delegation that traveled with President Trump to China last week told you everything about where US economic strategy is heading, and almost nobody in the investment community caught it. The CEOs on that plane were hardware operators. Pure software founders were absent. The official rationale pointed to intellectual property exposure, data sovereignty, and the privacy risks of putting code-based businesses in a room with Beijing. All of that is a real concern, but it’s not the main story.
The real story is jobs. Specifically, the kind of jobs that ripple outward into local economies and show up in employment data the administration can point to. A new hardware facility generates six to seven support positions for every direct hire. Software historically delivered three to five, and the math is getting worse as AI eats into the middle layer of engineering, customer support, and back-office functions that used to surround every software company. If you are an administration trying to demonstrate that your industrial policy is producing tangible American employment, you bring the people whose factories build things, not the people whose products write themselves.
This is the part the mainstream press is missing. For two decades the investor consensus has been that software ate the world and hardware was a commodity game with thin margins and capex headaches. That logic produced the valuation multiples we still live with today. But the political economy is now pulling in the opposite direction. Hardware is becoming the strategic asset, not because it is more profitable, but because it is more legible to voters and more defensible against geopolitical risk. Capital follows narratives, and the narrative is shifting.
Watch what gets subsidized, watch what gets celebrated at state dinners, and watch which CEOs get the photo op. Those signals matter more than any short term earnings report. The administration is telling the market what it values, and what it values is anything that creates a job you can drive past on your way to work. For investors building thematic exposure, the picks-and-shovels question is no longer just about AI. It is about which companies the political tailwind is now blowing behind.
Happy Bitcoin Pizza Day! On May 22, 2010, a programmer named Laszlo Hanyecz made what’s now considered the first real-world commercial transaction using bitcoin. Hanyecz posted a request on the BitcoinTalk forum offering 10,000 BTC to anyone who would get him two pizzas. A fellow forum user took him up on it, called Papa John’s, and had two pies delivered to Hanyecz’s Florida home in exchange for the bitcoin, which were worth around $41 at the time.
At today’s price of roughly $77,200 per bitcoin, those same 10,000 coins would be worth about $772 million, making it the most expensive pizza order in history, but the trade proved something far more valuable that bitcoin could function as actual money.
So raise a slice today to Laszlo, the unsung hero who showed the world that magic internet money or digital gold could buy something as wonderfully ordinary as pizza. Enjoy the long weekend!
◾ Starship launch scrubbed in last seconds over hydraulic pin issue on launch tower; Flight 12 rescheduled for tonight at 7:30 PM ET (Ars Technica)
◾ Rep Nick Begich (R-AK) introduces Strategic Bitcoin Reserve bill (Begich.house.gov)
◾ US awards $2B and takes equity stakes in quantum computing firms (WSJ)
Government & NGO Actions
◾ Trump postpones AI model executive order (NYT)
◾ France to invest €1B in quantum tech, €550M in microelectronics (Reuters)
◾ California Governor signs executive order to support AI-displaced workers (CA.gov)
◾ Pentagon testing rival models to replace Anthropic (Bloomberg)
◾ CFTC signs MOU with NHL to protect integrity of event contracts (CFTC)
Financial Notices & Public Company Releases
◾ Financial updates:
OpenAI Q1’26: Revenue ~$5.7B | $30B TTM revenue | Q1 operating margin -122% | Weekly active ChatGPT users (Q1 average) ~905 million | Paying ChatGPT consumer subscribers (Q1) 55M (TheInformation)
Take-Two $TTWO Q4’26: Revenue $1.7B | Op income $11M | Net loss $60M | aEBITDA $244M (Take-Two)
Webull $BULL Q1’26: Revenue $160M +36% y/y | Net loss $22M (SEC Filing)
◾ Blockchain.com confidentially files for US IPO (Reuters)
◾ Oura Ring confidentially files for IPO (WSJ)
◾ VCI Global $VCIG receives Nasdaq late filing notice (Globe Newswire)
Restructuring, Hacks, Losses & Legal Updates
◾ Apple $AAPL asks Supreme Court to overturn Epic Games ruling, arguing lower courts improperly expanded payment restrictions (9to5Mac)
◾ Galaxy Digital $GLXY faces off with BitGo over $100M termination fee (Bloomberg)
◾ Fantasy Top closes, refunds capital to investors (X)
◾ Everclear to wind down cross-chain protocol (X)
◾ Zero Network ending operations (X)
Crypto Protocols, Applications & Business News
◾ Coinbase $COIN to launch perp-style equity index futures (Coinbase)
◾ MoonPay acquires Decent.xyz, launches MoonPay Trade unifying access to 200+ blockchains via single institutional API (PR Newswire)
◾ Binance launches first pre-IPO perpetual for SpaceX (X)
◾ Brag House $TBH and IP Strategy $IPST partner on blockchain IP rights (Globe Newswire)
◾ IG Europe partners with Bitpanda to expand across Europe (Finance Magnates)
◾ Kraken parent secures VARA authorization in UAE (Kraken)
◾ Boerse Stuttgart and Societe Generale to develop blockchain-based securities settlement (SG Forge)
AI Models, Applications & Developments
◾ SpaceX looks to build 10 GW solar factory in Texas (Bloomberg)
◾ Anthropic in talks to buy $5B of AI chips from Microsoft $MSFT (CNBC)
◾ Jensen Huang: Nvidia $NVDA has “largely conceded” China AI chip market to Huawei (CNBC)
◾ Benzinga adds financial data APIs for AI models and RAGs (PR Newswire)
◾ TD Bank $TD launches agentic AI for mortgage and HELOC applications (PR Newswire)
◾ WhiteFiber $WYFI signs 5-year, $160M AI compute agreement (PR Newswire)
◾ $META and Broadcom $AVGO to launch $125M UCLA semiconductor research hub (CNBC)
◾ Standard Chartered CEO apologizes after saying AI will replace “lower value” human workers (Reuters)
◾ Anthropic-backed enterprise services firm acquires Fractional AI (Business Wire)
◾ ChatGPT released for PowerPoint (Engadget)
The Attention Economy, Gaming & Interactive Shifts
◾ $IMAX exploring sale (CNBC)
◾ Spotify $SPOT teams with Universal Music to let users create covers and remixes (PR Newswire)
Space Systems, Satellites & Cosmic Activity
◾ NASA Administrator expects Chinese to fly around moon in 2027 (SpacePolicyOnline)
◾ Varda announces successful reentry of 6th capsule (PR Newswire)
◾ Chinese crypto investor Chun Wang named commander on first SpaceX Mars flyby (X)