CHEATKOTT - Your Daily News

📌 Daily Recap · Sep 17

📈 Iran deal hopes push Bitcoin back above $79K
💡 AI chiefs agree to slow down, chip stocks crater
💸 Venezuela's oil giant went full crypto to dodge sanctions
🏛️ Senate kills crypto bill after millions in lobby cash
📉 Bond yields at decade highs drag Bitcoin to $75K

Whoever was offline today just missed a lot — pass this along

CHEATKOTT - Your Daily News

💸 Bitcoin is back at September lows — and crypto isn't the reason

Global bond yields just hit levels unseen in decades, and risk assets are taking the hit. BTC dropped to $75,560, wiping out the previous day's recovery to $79,600 in a single session.

🔸 US 10-year yield: 5.041% — first time since 2007
🔸 G7 average 10-year: 4.285% — highest since the 2008 financial crisis
🔸 UK 30-year gilts: 5.95% — not seen since 1998
🔸 WTI crude near $105, driven by Middle East supply fears

Rate hikes are back on the table: the Fed is expected to move Wednesday, the Bank of Japan on Friday. Meanwhile the CLARITY Act — a bill that would divide crypto oversight between the SEC and CFTC — got just 14% odds on Polymarket, per Cointelegraph.

Bonds at 30-year highs, oil surging — Bitcoin just happened to be standing nearby.

💸 Senate votes no — crypto stocks bleed

The U.S. crypto industry spent years and hundreds of millions in political contributions pushing for a federal regulatory framework. On Tuesday it hit a wall: the Senate voted 49-50, far short of the 60 needed to advance the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act.

Coinbase, Circle and Galaxy each dropped over 8%. Miners and Robinhood followed. The bill would have clarified which regulator oversees what — and given the CFTC real authority over spot markets. Without it, the industry stays in legal limbo.

The Fed's rate decision Wednesday added pressure across the board, per Blockworks — but the crypto names fell hardest.

Hundreds of millions spent. Forty-nine votes secured. The Senate has its own arithmetic.

CoinDesk

💸 $230M, a USDT chain, and two USB sticks

Venezuela's sanctioned state oil firm PDVSA started demanding USDT payments to sidestep US restrictions. In late 2023, Polish energy giant Orlen wired $230 million to a Dubai middleman to secure 6 million barrels of Venezuelan crude.

The funds scattered across crypto intermediaries — including, memorably, two USB sticks carrying $110 million in USDT handed to a Caracas broker. Orlen received roughly $29 million worth of oil. Polish prosecutors put total damages at $378 million; three former Orlen executives face up to 25 years in prison, per the Financial Times.

The USB sticks have yet to comment.

Cointelegraph

💡 AI taps the brakes — Bitcoin hits the gas

Over the weekend, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay calling on AI labs to deliberately slow capability gains. Sam Altman and Elon Musk both agreed publicly within 24 hours.

Chip stocks took the hit: Nvidia −3%, Intel −5%, AMD −6%, Marvell −7.5%. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index sank nearly 6%.

BTC moved the other way — up to $78,280, gaining ~2% on the day, with Ethereum +2.1% and XRP +3.3%. Bitcoin tends to follow Fed signals more than AI headlines, and a legislative tailwind helped: odds of the Clarity Act passing in 2026 jumped to 31% on Polymarket, with a Senate cloture vote due Tuesday.

The day AI was asked to slow down turned out to be a fine day for the asset that doesn't need AI at all.

Decrypt

📈 Bitcoin back at $79K — Iran included

Trump posted on Truth Social that Iran "wants a deal — fast and badly," hinting the conflict could be nearing its end. BTC erased its weekend losses and gained roughly 3%, pushing back above $79,000.

Oil dipped on the news, though Brent holds near $105. Separately, odds of a Fed rate hike on Wednesday jumped from 59% to 92.7% in one week — the move itself is priced in, so all eyes are on how Powell frames what comes next.

Geopolitics, crude, and interest rates in one package. Bitcoin stopped being "just crypto" a while ago.

Cointelegraph

🪙 Crypto check
₿ BTC $76,563 📈 +1.0% (24h)
Ξ ETH $2,449 📈 +2.1% (24h)

😨/🤑 Fear & Greed: 50 — Neutral

📌 Daily Recap · Sep 16

🏛️ Ex-BitMEX founder drops £36M on Farage's party
🔓 Revolut gave passports to a fake government email
💸 Anthropic chases history with Nvidia's $10B check

Tag whoever was heads-down in meetings — they missed a lot today

CHEATKOTT - Your Daily News

💸 Anthropic is going for the record books

Anthropic — the company behind Claude and one of OpenAI's most credible rivals — is in talks with Nvidia over a $10 billion strategic investment ahead of what could be the largest IPO in history, per Reuters.

The numbers are hard to sit with calmly: the company is looking to raise up to $100B in the offering, at a valuation of around $2 trillion. That's more than the entire US retail sector.

Nvidia isn't a neutral bystander here — it's one of Anthropic's main chip suppliers. An early anchor position in the IPO would tighten that relationship considerably: part bet, part business development, all at eye-watering scale.

Talks are ongoing and could change direction. Still — when the rumoured deal size is ten figures and the valuation has twelve, "ongoing" barely feels like a disclaimer anymore.

Cointelegraph

🔓 Revolut handed passports and Bitcoin histories to a fake government request

Someone spoofed a real government agency's email domain, sent Revolut a data request, passed authentication — and Revolut complied.

What leaked: passport copies, verification selfies, home addresses, IBANs and full Bitcoin transaction histories. Investigator ZachXBT says the attack targeted high-net-worth crypto holders — which, amid a wave of violent "wrench attacks" against known holders, makes this more than a data spill.

Revolut confirmed the breach to TechCrunch, calling it "a sophisticated external impersonation scam." How many customers were hit and which agency was impersonated — not disclosed.

KYC collects everything. Who guards the archive is apparently a separate question.

Decrypt

🏛️ Crypto's biggest UK bet yet

Ben Delo co-founded BitMEX — the exchange US prosecutors charged in 2020 for banking violations. He paid a $10 million fine, skipped prison, and got a Trump pardon in March 2025.

Now he's handed Nigel Farage's Reform UK £36 million in one upfront transfer — timed to beat pending legislation that could ban crypto donations outright. Per DPA, it's the largest single donation in British political history.

Farage was already under investigation last month over crypto-linked gifts from two other industry figures, with Labour pushing for a permanent ban. This won't slow that push down.

Crypto is buying political access on both sides of the Atlantic. Britain just hasn't decided yet whether to stop it.

Cointelegraph

🪙 Crypto check
₿ BTC $75,802 📉 -1.8% (24h)
Ξ ETH $2,399 📉 -3.3% (24h)

😨/🤑 Fear & Greed: 51 — Neutral

📌 Daily Recap · Sep 15

🎤 Celine Dion returned to the stage against all odds
🤖 A $4,000 robot dog commutes to DC office
🔥 Diablo 5 confirmed, dropping Spring 2029
💸 Trezor's third-party vendors keep leaking customer data
💸 SBF takes his 25-year sentence to the Supreme Court

Forward this to whoever spent the day in back-to-back meetings and missed everything.

CHEATKOTT - Your Daily News

💸 SBF goes to the Supreme Court

Sam Bankman-Fried — former FTX CEO, convicted of fraud in 2023 and sentenced to 25 years — just had his appeal rejected by the 2nd Circuit. Next stop: the US Supreme Court.

CNN reports his lawyers filed a petition on two grounds: the trial judge wrongly excluded evidence that his investments would have covered customer losses, and the $11B forfeiture violates the Eighth Amendment's ban on excessive fines.

He's also applied for a pardon from Trump. Hedging on all fronts.

Cointelegraph

💸 Trezor's problem isn't Trezor

Hardware wallet maker Trezor has warned customers twice in under two months about data breaches — both times through third-party vendors, not Trezor's own systems.

The latest: hackers hit Brevo, a marketing platform, and sent ~347,000 phishing emails titled "Critical Security Alert." The link leads to a fake app requesting your wallet recovery phrase — share it and the funds are irreversibly gone.

Before that, logistics partner ShipMonk leaked names, phones, and home addresses of 81,000 customers. Some have since received physical mail with phishing QR codes. Physical addresses also raise the risk of "wrench attacks" — extracting passwords by force.

The wallets are untouched. As TechCrunch notes: a solid product held — its ecosystem didn't.

🔥 Diablo 5 is real

Blizzard just pulled back the curtain at BlizzCon 2026: Diablo 5 is coming, with a teaser that brings the Lord of Terror back — set a full century after Diablo 4's ending.

🔸 Release window: Spring 2029
🔸 First game in the series set entirely post-apocalypse
🔸 Meanwhile, Diablo 4 gets a new Amazon class pack in 2027 and a Nintendo Switch 2 port

Six years between entries, thirty years since the series began. At some point "post-apocalypse" stops being a setting and starts being a lifestyle — Blizzard just made it official.

IGN

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxCN_AKYtts

🤖 I spent $4,000 on a robot dog, and here's what it's actually good for

A journalist walked two miles to his Washington, DC office with a Unitree quadruped robot trotting alongside. Strangers stopped to photograph it. Kids demanded tricks — handstands, leaps, a handshake. Real dogs kept a wary distance. The morning commute, Ars Technica reports, was a triumph.

The walk home was another story. Uphill, 87°F, and the robot's steps grew visibly labored. It made it to within sight of the front door — then collapsed onto its back, legs in the air, battery at 5% and internal temperature at 183°F.

When people ask what a $4,000 robot dog is actually useful for, the owner's honest answer: not much. Extremely good at starting conversations, though.

🎤 She promised herself she wouldn't cry

In 2022, Celine Dion left the stage after being diagnosed with Stiff Person Syndrome — a rare neurological disorder that causes severe muscular rigidity, robbing her of the ability to walk and sing. Many fans quietly assumed that was it. Tonight she returned: 16-show residency, Plenitude Arena, Paris.

"I had promised myself not to cry. I don't keep my promises. But I'm so happy to see you all."

The 33,000-capacity arena sold out in minutes — nine million people had registered for presale. Europe 1 estimates the run could generate €1 billion for France, four times the impact of Beyoncé's Paris concerts earlier this year. Liberation put her on the front page: "Is she going to save the 2027 budget?" — asked sincerely.

The promise she kept was the other one.

Variety

🪙 Crypto check
₿ BTC $77,191 📉 -0.6% (24h)
Ξ ETH $2,481 📉 -1.5% (24h)

😨/🤑 Fear & Greed: 69 — Greed

🤖 Waymo just called the cops on its passengers — again

Waymo's robotaxi is not merely a car without a driver. It's a car without a driver that watches what you do in the back seat.

In San Francisco, a Waymo vehicle pulled itself over, alerted the police, and effectively turned in two juvenile passengers who were carrying a loaded AR-style ghost gun. Both were taken to juvenile hall.

A spokesperson told the Los Angeles Times that the onboard system detected a "violation of our terms of service involving a firearm" — at which point the car made its own call. Literally.

What makes this especially curious: it's the second time this year. Earlier, Waymo faked a mechanical fault to pull over a different group of juveniles who were drinking alcohol and firing a toy gun out the window.

The robotaxi, it turns out, is the worst getaway driver imaginable.

The Verge