The Chart That Exposes The AI Trade
Eight major AI models shipped in two weeks, and the hosts open with several reported data points: open-weight models carrying most of the tokens on Vercel's AI Gateway, an Oracle force majeure notice on a Stargate site, and Epoch AI's estimate that the cost of a given level of performance has fallen about 47% a quarter since 2023. Michael's read is that AI will compete away the profits it touches, which raises the question of what the scarce unit is in an abundant world. From there the three of them discuss Amazon blocking Meta's Muse while Shopify opens its merchants to it, Block bringing bitcoin Lightning payments to x402 for AI agents, the Open USD stablecoin consortium, the CFTC's call to prepare for mass tokenization, Citi and Coinbase, BlackRock's model portfolios on Ondo, Binance's reported $100 million stake in Circle, and Apollo's warning that agents could set off a bank run. The hosts' single point of failure of the week is the reported Bitget hack.
Chapters
00:00 - Eight AI models in two weeks: what the singularity looks like 03:53 - Open-weight models, Oracle's Stargate notice, and Jevons paradox 07:15 - Frontier versus open models, and why the harness holds the value 10:46 - Amazon blocks Muse, Shopify opens the door 16:57 - Why blocking bots fails, and why agents may raise prices 23:13 - Block brings Bitcoin Lightning to x402 for AI agents 26:26 - What if the ads of the agent internet are just money? 29:07 - Open USD: Stripe, Visa, Mastercard, Coinbase and Shopify 30:56 - Mass tokenization, from the CFTC to the ECB's Pontes 33:51 - Citi and Coinbase, BlackRock on Ondo, Binance into Circle 36:50 - Stablecoins as the onramp, and the agentic bank run 41:02 - If intelligence is free, where does alpha come from? 44:09 - Single point of failure of the week: the Bitget hack 48:35 - Russia tells investors to eat stablecoin freeze losses 50:16 - The Epoch AI chart: cheaper faster than any tech in history
