Sup, nerds!

Here’s what you’re getting in today’s edition:

• 💅 This is cool: Your AI fitness ring may be lying to you

• 🔎 This seems important: 1M new use cases for crypto

• 🤝 Partner: Some of the best credit cards for balance transfers​

• 🔪 Let's dissect this: What happens when the richest person in the world is anonymous?

• 💡 Bellwethers in Web3: Ron Bodkin, Theoriq CEO

Terms used in this edition (click for an explanation, or ask Web(GPT)3!):
Web3.

💅 This is cool:

Your AI Fitness Ring May Be Lying to You (But Just Ignore It and Enjoy Your Health Data Privacy)

In one sentence: AI can hallucinate and deliver laughably wrong information with confidence (☝️), so we’re hesitant to embrace the Cudis ring’s new AI-generated workout plans — but everything else is cool.

A confident idiot is a dangerous thing (even if well intentioned).

Like Chevy’s uncle Steve, who is now banned within the extended family from working on anyones cars.

The man is convinced he’s a mechanic, just because he goes to one or two car shows per year. In reality he knows nothing and has done thousands of dollars of damage to multiple family members’ cars.

Which is why we’re excited, but also a little skeptical of Cudis’ Genesis Smart Ring.

It’s a web3 and AI enabled fitness tracker (kind of like the Oura ring), which will build AI-generated workout plans for its users, and reward them with crypto when they complete a workout.

We’ve actually written about it before — we love that it gives users full control over their health data, allowing them to even go as far as to sell it anonymously if they so choose.

But the newly announced AI generated workout plans?

We’re not sure we trust them as much.

Not because we think anything nefarious or damaging will come of it — more that it’ll actually be less effective than a cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all workout plan.

Because AI has a tendency to hallucinate and deliver laughably wrong information, with sheer, unadulterated confidence (see header image ☝️).

And until that can be reliably solved for, we can’t help but paint AI and uncle Steve with the same brush.

Either way, the product itself is still super cool thanks to its privacy features, and the fact that it pays you to workout.

🥇 Want the news before anyone else?

🔎 This seems important:

Millions of Online Stores Can Now Accept Crypto, Thanks to One Payment Provider’s Update

In one sentence: Shopify merchants can now accept hundreds of different cryptocurrencies via Solana, bringing more use cases to the crypto space (and more value by proxy).

“Crypto news media doesn’t repeat itself, but it certainly rhymes”
— Us, said just now.

We closed out yesterday’s lead article with this:

And today we got wind of this:

The crypto payments platform Helio just made a massive update to its Solana Pay plugin for Shopify, allowing millions of Shopify merchants to accept payments in hundreds of different cryptocurrencies.

Which is important, because:

The more use cases crypto has → the more valuable crypto becomes → the more crypto payment integrations exist → the more use cases crypto has.

It’s a beautiful self-perpetuating cycle of adoption 🥲

🤝 Partner:

Hands Down Some of the Best Credit Cards for Balance Transfers

Did you know some credit cards can actually help you get out of debt faster?

Yes, it sounds crazy. But it’s true. 

The secret: Find a card with a “0% intro APR" period for balance transfers.

Then, transfer your debt balance and pay it down as much as possible during the intro period. No interest means you could pay off the debt faster.

Check out the full list of cards you can use to do this here.

🔪 Let's dissect this:

What Happens When The Richest Person In The World is Anonymous?

In one sentence: If BTC eventually reaches $200k, assuming Elon’s wealth stays the same, and Satoshi doesn’t sell a single coin…the anonymous Satoshi Nakamoto will be the richest person in the world.

It’s Friday - so let’s cap things off with something a bit fumb (fun + dumb).

As of today (14 June, 2024), the real-time Forbes Billionaires List features 15 people who’ve have made a majority of their fortune thanks to the world of crypto (compared to just nine in 2023).

And while some early adopters spent BTC slightly recklessly in the early days - like the guy who spent 10,000 BTC on two Papa Johns’ pizzas in 2010 - others have hodl’d for years.

Right now, BTC’s market cap sits at a cool $1.3 Trillion USD, which is roughly half the market cap of the entire crypto market.

And Satoshi Nakamoto (the creator of BTC and the BTC Whitepaper) holds 1.1M of the total 21M supply.

Satoshi has never touched their 1.1M BTC and has always remained anonymous.

Right now, Satoshi is worth ~$73B USD.

Now, here’s the crazy part: Elon Musk is currently the richest person on Earth with a net worth of $212.8B USD.

If BTC eventually reaches $200k, and Elon’s wealth stays the same, and Satoshi doesn’t sell a single coin…

Satoshi Nakamoto will be the richest person in the world.

Can the world live with the richest person on Earth being anonymous?

Ponder over the weekend and hit reply if you have any thoughts.

Happy Friday!

💡 Bellwethers in Web3

"Bellwether's in Web3," is a daily profile series recorded live with Nolcha Shows and Movement Labs in collaboration with Bellwether Culture. Check out the latest video below.

Interview: Ron Bodkin,
Co-founder and CEO of Theoriq

Ron Bodkin is the co-founder and CEO of Theoriq, a blockchain platform that helps enables trustworthy collaborating agents. He has over 15 years of experience in AI, including data science, analytics, and machine learning.

Ron previously worked at Google, focusing on how AI can be used in different industries and making sure it's used responsibly. He was also the VP and GM of AI at Teradata, after Teradata acquired his company, Big Think Analytics. Before that, he led AI Engineering and was the CIO at the Vector Institute.

Follow: @ronbodkin (Twitter), @TheoriqAI (Twitter) & Ron Bodkin (LinkedIn)