Kelly Loeffler: "At the SBA we found $200B in fraudulent PPP loans that the Biden Administration tried to hide, and forgive, and sweep under the rug." "We've turned the first $22B of that over to Treasury for collections, and to DOJ for prosecution."

The European Central Bank's latest financial stability review warns that the war in the Middle East is "putting the resilience of the financial system to the test" and that "the repercussions for the global economy and financial stability are becoming graver the longer it lasts." The ECB says equity valuations are "stretched by historical standards," bond risk premia are "compressed globally," and that investors are underestimating downside risks. It cites uncertainty around US trade policy and reduced commitment to multilateral cooperation as amplifying factors. Vice President Luis de Guindos described the current investor mood as a "bittersweet situation," warning that complacency combined with geopolitical shocks "could give rise to a change in markets." The ECB also flagged hedge fund positions in eurozone sovereign bonds that could amplify sudden repricing, growing risks in private credit markets, and rising cyber threats from new AI models.

U.S. banking regulations went from roughly 5,000 restrictions in 1970 to 52,475 today. Most of that spike came after 2010.

Hunter Biden: "I think there's incredible promise in cryptocurrency. I think it is incredible freedom in a world in which we've been controlled by banks. I truly believe in what Satoshi, kind of the manifesto of Bitcoin."

The cultural rot is downstream of the money. "People aren't having children because of the money. People aren't getting married because of the money. OnlyFans is a thing because of the money. It's a rot that goes beyond the physical and into the spiritual." - Smeet Bhatt

Taiwan has surpassed India as the fifth largest stock market in the world. The shift is largely driven by TSMC, which manufactures the majority of the world's advanced semiconductors and has seen its valuation surge alongside the global AI buildout. NVIDIA alone says it is spending $100 to $150 billion per year in Taiwan.

Sen. Cynthia Lummis: "If the Clarity Act doesn't pass this Congress, American software developers will be targeted again for prosecution in the near future just for publishing code."

Tether froze $344M of Iran's stablecoin holdings. Now they're down to two options: the yuan and Bitcoin. "Bitcoin is the only emergent financial technology that works as a neutral settlement layer in an increasingly trustless and fractured world order." - Smeet Bhatt

Rubio: "We cannot and will not allow any cases of Ebola to enter the United States."

Trump: "We don't need oil. We don't need the strait. We don't need anything."

The Fed's response time has been collapsing. The next step is preemptive action. "2008 was 7 months. 2019 was 3 days. March 2020 was overnight. SVB was hours. Either we get an inflationary recession then stimulus checks, or in advance of one we get stimulus." - Smeet Bhatt

Trump: "We're releasing a lot of information having to do with extraterential, extraterrestrial things."

A Wyoming LLC filed a lawsuit in New York Supreme Court seeking ownership of 39,069 Bitcoin wallets it claims are abandoned property. The plaintiff, operating under the pseudonym "Noah Doe," says he built an algorithm to identify dormant Bitcoin wallets that have been inactive for at least five to six years. He brought USB drives containing the wallet addresses to the NYPD's 17th Precinct, reporting them as found property under New York's lost-and-found law. The complaint claims notices were sent to wallet owners via OP_RETURN blockchain messages, a public webpage, and a global press release. Owners were given 90 days to respond. Of the original 42,001 wallets flagged, 2,932 were removed after some showed on-chain activity. The remaining 39,069 wallets did not respond. The plaintiff is now asking the court to declare him the legal owner of all 39,069 wallets and the Bitcoin inside them under New York Personal Property Law Article 7-B, which governs found and abandoned property. The wallets reportedly hold approximately 3.8 million BTC. The complaint argues that losing a private key does not destroy the property interest in a wallet, likening dormant wallets to abandoned bank accounts. The case names all 39,069 wallet holders as "John Doe" defendants. The plaintiff is not claiming to have the private keys to any of the wallets. He is seeking a court order declaring ownership. The complaint was filed May 1, 2026 under Index No. 153119/2026. h/t (DailyStackHQ)

Start your day with signal, not noise. The Bitcoin Brief delivers the stories shaping bitcoin, macro, and freedom tech. Free. Subscribe:

TFTC – Truth for the Commoner

Subscribe to Bitcoin Brief

Subscribe to Bitcoin Brief

Rubio: "Over 10 million barrels of Venezuelan oil have been delivered to the United States since the third of January… The money's going to an account in the United States."

Trump: "The numbers of fraudulent people on Social Security. People that are 115 years old. 125 years old. Getting payments. They accept them."

Mastercard Transaction Services (US) LLC has been granted a BitLicense by the New York State Department of Financial Services, placing one of the world's largest payment networks inside the state's crypto regulatory framework. The BitLicense covers virtual currency business activities in New York, including transmission, storage, and conversion of digital assets. It is one of the strictest crypto licensing regimes in the country. The approval follows a series of moves by Mastercard into digital asset infrastructure. The company recently partnered with Chainlink to connect its network of 3.5 billion cards to onchain crypto purchases. It also acquired London-based stablecoin infrastructure platform BVNK in a deal reportedly valued at $1.8 billion. BVNK supports transactions across major blockchain networks in over 130 countries. Visa has been making similar moves in the stablecoin space. Both major card networks appear to be positioning themselves as intermediaries between traditional finance and digital assets.

"There's a family at a kitchen table trying to figure out how to pay the bills. A mile away there's a family watching CNBC playing 18 holes of golf on a Wednesday afternoon and their portfolio is doing exceedingly well." - Smeet Bhatt Two completely different worlds.

Huang: “Taiwan is the epicenter of the AI revolution.” “Four years ago, five years ago, NVIDIA was spending about $10, $15 billion a year in Taiwan. Now, we're spending $100, going to $150 billion in Taiwan each year. $150 billion from one company alone.”

Robinhood announced today that users can now connect AI agents to the platform to autonomously trade stocks on their behalf. Users create a separate "agentic trading account," load it with funds, and connect their own AI agent via Robinhood's Model Context Protocol (MCP) service. The agent can analyze portfolios, assess concentration risk, review analyst notes, and execute trades. Users receive notifications on every trade and can pause autonomous trading at any time. Some trades require manual approval before execution. Robinhood says it has built in fraud detection to review suspicious activity. The feature launches in beta for equities only. Options, crypto, event contracts, futures, and prediction markets are planned for later releases. Robinhood is also launching a virtual credit card that lets AI agents make purchases on users' behalf, available to Gold Card holders with configurable spending limits. "Our mission has always been to democratize finance for all, and now, that mission extends to AI agents," CEO Vlad Tenev said.