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Early Uber Investor: Avoid Saylor, Buy Bitcoin Directly

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Prominent Uber investor Jason Calacanis has reiterated that investors who want to get exposure to Bitcoin should buy the leading cryptocurrency directly instead of buying the shares of Strategy (MSTR). 

Calacanis, who has emerged as one of the most vocal Strategy bears, believed there is a 75% chance that he will end up being correct. 

As reported by U.Today, Saylor recently stated that investors should stay away from Saylor “as far as possible.”

Strategy’s recent plunge 

The shares of the biggest Bitcoin corporate treasury holder, which boasts a total of 639,835 coins, have now plunged by 35% from their local peak of $457. 

Strategy critics, including famed short seller James Chanos, have long argued that the company does not deserve to trade at a significant premium to net asset value (NAV). 

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Moreover, the company recently issued a new equity issuance policy, which will negatively affect its ability to buy Bitcoin in the future. 

Of course, the company also took a big hit in early September after it got snubbed by the S&P 500. Even though Saylor tried to downplay the severity of the decision, JPMorgan predicted that this could negatively affect Strategy as well as other Bitcoin treasury firms. 



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Stupid sexy Hollow Knight: Silksong mods for Hornet horndogs have begun to hit the Nexus, I'm sorry to say
Game Updates

Stupid sexy Hollow Knight: Silksong mods for Hornet horndogs have begun to hit the Nexus, I’m sorry to say

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Yes, this is news. You can bet your bottom it was news to me when I loaded up Nexus Mods for my daily look this morning and found that Hollow Knight: Silksong’s adult section had tripled in size overnight. It’s the sexy Hornet mods, they’ve broken containment, truth-telling hips and all.

Up until today, my searches for story-worthy Silksong mods had returned only the benign, including multiplayer and boss practice add-ons that you could comfortably show an elderly relative. No more. Last night saw a pair of sexy Hornet mods, the first to hit the Nexus to my knowledge, arrive.

Shot first was ‘Curvier Hornet’ from modder Sandinsoda. “It was bound to happen,” they wrote, pointing would-be sexy Skongers to requirements BepInEx 5 with Configuration Manager and Silksong Customizer. As you’d imagine, the mod makes the capeless version of Hornet you play as at one point in metroidvania a bit more, er, voluptuous in terms of figure.

Mere hours later, the chaser, a second mod. This time, ‘Curvy naked hornet’ by modder foureye5. Sandinsoda marched straight into its comments section, bellicosely bellowing “I wonder what prompted this”. Tension ensued for several hours, only to be broken by a third party, who replied: “Honestly it looks different enough to warrant it being a serious alternative. Like this one has better thighs. But yours has a better chest.”

“Fair enough,” responded Sandinsoda.

That’s the torrid tale of why if you pull up Silksong’s Nexus Mods page right now and filter so that only ones tagged adult show up, you’ll find three things. These two mods – the nude Hornet equivalent of Beavis and Butthead – and another mod that adds a swear to the text prompt for binding.

Are these curvy Hornet mods the first ever sexy Silksong works ever created? Almost certainly not, since it has a Loverslab page I refuse to verify my age in order to access, because I still have some shreds of dignity left. However, they are the first to emerge into what I’d deem the modding mainstream. Unrepentant. Insolent. Aimed a target audience of jokesters and probably at least one serious craver of Skong sexuality. Took them long enough, given they’ve even been preceded by a mod that makes Hornet disappear altogether.

What times in which we live.



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What we've been playing - potential games of the year, and good, and only good, games
Game Reviews

What we’ve been playing – potential games of the year, and good, and only good, games

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27th September

Hello and welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we’ve been playing. This week, Tom reminds everyone that three stars is a good review score; Jim thinks he’s found the next Balatro; Connor returns to work and to Hades 2; Bertie struggles to climb a train; and Marie outs herself as a Lego Jurassic World lover.

What have you been playing?

Catch up with the older editions of this column in our What We’ve Been Playing archive.

Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, PS5 Pro

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My review of Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is live, but I thought I’d sneak in a little inside baseball knowledge about reviews here, just for those of you who are keen enough to actually read this and not head straight to the comments to paste-in what you wrote on Friday morning while you were meant to be working.

We’ve seen you ask for more reviews on Eurogamer and this week we delivered a lot. But this won’t happen every week. Reviews take a lot of time and resources. Even if I decided every member of Eurogamer staff should dedicate their time to reviews and only reviews, we still wouldn’t be able to publish all the reviews we’d like to and that you want to see on the site. We’d also then have a site that was only reviews, which might be nice for a week, until we go out of business.

Finally, a note on review scores. I’ve written this before I’ve seen the aftermath of my three-star score for CrossWorlds, but I expect it was a mixture of “I knew it was going to be rubbish” and “why does Eurogamer hate games?” The reality is I very much enjoyed Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds. It’s a good game. But four stars on Eurogamer is a strong statement that means something is better than “good”. I don’t hate video games. I’ve made my love of video games into a career. Sometimes things are just good, and that’s OK.

-Tom O

Kill the Brickman, Steam Deck

Watch on YouTube

Kill the Brickman is an eccentric cross between Balatro and Arkanoid, which, like all the best video games, is about shooting bullets into dudes. Some of these bullets explode, or clone themselves, or inflict poison damage, and the dudes in question, all of whom deserve to die for reasons, are bricks. It is my most gripping obsession of the year.

It runs beautifully on portables and it’s a solid bedtime or bus game, with big, chunky 16-bit graphics that read easily on small screens. You aim and shoot rather like you would in the old Amiga classic Arcade Pool, with a little line tracing your bullet’s trajectory. This looks and feels so much like an old Amiga game you could probably get it running on one and convince people it came out in 1994. And that’s not a diss.

It’s one of those simple ideas that’s breathtakingly executed and gorgeously presented, like the aforementioned Balatro, or like Vampire Survivors – games that genuinely cause flipped tables during a Game of the Year discussions at popular websites near Christmas time. That studios can spend 500 times this game’s budget and produce something which doesn’t feel half as good to play is frankly unconscionable.

-Jim

Hades 2, PC

I am back from a two-week stint off work due to my ear falling off like Jeff Goldblum in The Fly, and having only recently been able to put headphones on, without my jaw also falling off, the 1.0 release of Hades 2 has been a sweet succor to both my physical and mental woes.

There are like a thousand opinionated paragraphs on why a game everyone played months ago is great, and most of them are likely correct so I won’t bore you with how widely getting a Zeus lightning attack-build to work makes me smile. But I will write with great adoration about how much I loved deleting an early access save file with over 40 hours on it.

It’s shedding you’ve got to do, really. I don’t remember half of what happened in Hades 2, and plenty has surely changed in the time since I first hit its farthest reaches. The result is a weird, but not unpleasant, experience, where you’re possessed with the spirit of yourself from weekends past. It’s nice to feel lurch in surprise at how you’re able to get so far so quick; it’s nice to feel talented at something.

-Connor

Baby Steps, PC

Watch on YouTube

That fucking train, man. Can I swear here? I’ll probably get told off. But this little outburst is so indicative of how Baby Steps makes me feel that I want to keep it in. I’m not the most cool-headed person. I get agitated. I literally twist myself around my chair and grip it like a constrictor snake when agitation flares inside me – it’s a wonder it’s still in one piece. And agitation flares a lot playing Baby Steps.

Case in point: a train moment, which I don’t want to detail too greatly for fear of spoiling it, but you’ll know it when you get there. (It has to be a nod to another video game, surely.) I fell so much during it. I spent hours there. Falling, climbing back up, falling again. And as much as I want to tell you that I coolly and methodically worked through it, I absolutely didn’t. I expleted. I bitterly persevered. It’s a great game.

-Bertie

Lego Jurassic World, Switch 2

Strange fact: I can’t play Lego games on TV because they make me motion sick, but if they’re on the Switch screen I’m fine. I’m not sure why. But that’s my not-so-smooth transition into talking about Lego Jurassic World!

As a long-time lover of the movies, or at least some of them, and the books, and Lego itself, this was always going to be a no-brainer for me. As such, I’ve completed the entire game twice, though never reached 100 percent completion. But it doesn’t bother me. Just racing through the familiar stories with familiar characters, all told with trademark Lego humour, is more than enough to make a cold night warm.

-Marie



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NFT Gaming

Tennessee Couple Hit With $6.8 Million Penalty for ‘Blessings of God Thru Crypto’ Fraud

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In brief

  • Michael and Amanda Griffis pleaded guilty to defrauding 145 investors out of $6.5 million through their fraudulent “Blessings of God Thru Crypto” commodity pool.
  • The scheme involved a fake trading platform designed to look like the legitimate Apex trading platform and guidance from the mysterious “Coach Wendy,” whose identity remains unknown.
  • Victims were duped into believing their funds would generate high returns through crypto futures trading, but more than $4 million vanished through an illegitimate overseas exchange.

A Tennessee couple who exploited their real estate connections to bilk investors out of millions through a fake crypto trading scheme has been ordered to pay over $6.8 million in restitution and penalties.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced Thursday that the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee entered a consent order against Michael and Amanda Griffis, Clarksville real estate agents who operated the fraudulent “Blessings of God Thru Crypto” commodity pool from 2021 to 2023. 

The couple was first charged by the CFTC in July 2023.

The regulator said the couple used their real estate business connections to persuade 145 investors to hand over $6.5 million, promising the money would generate profits through crypto futures trading on what they claimed was the legitimate Apex platform under the supervision of the mysterious “Coach Wendy.”



Under the court order, the couple must pay more than $5.5 million back to the victims and face an additional $1.35 million “civil monetary penalty.”

The Griffises funneled money into a sham platform modeled on an overseas exchange, while the true identity of “Coach Wendy” remains unknown to investigators.

Over $4 million was funneled offshore after hitting the fake exchange, while the rest covered the couple’s personal debts and expenses. Only about $855,000 was paid back to participants in Ponzi-style payouts, the CFTC said.

The ruling also imposes lifetime bans preventing them from commodity trading or CFTC registration, while barring future violations of federal commodity laws.

This case is part of a troubling pattern of fraudsters exploiting trust within community groups, like a Denver pastor and his wife that were recently ordered to repay $3.39 million after raising millions for worthless church tokens. Other examples include a Long Island man hit with a $228 million CFTC judgment, and a nine-year prison sentence for a Ponzi scheme operator that preyed on his Haitian church community.

In the latest case, investors may have ignored warning signs that could have indicated the fraud in question.

“An exchange website without any registered company details is a clear red flag that users could have noticed,” Karan Pujara, founder of scam defense platform ScamBuzzer, told Decrypt. 

Pujara said fraudsters often chase “quick money,” aiming to leave before being caught—and warned that in crypto, once funds are lost, they can move “across borders quickly,” making recovery difficult.

Even regulated platforms can fail investors, as seen with FTX, which held licenses but still misused customer funds, he noted.

Pujara advised investors to spread risk by using multiple exchanges and hardware wallets, noting, “Those who diversified kept their losses manageable, while those who concentrated all their funds in one place faced major losses.”

Daily Debrief Newsletter

Start every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.



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DOGE to the Moon: How Will ETFs Affect DOGE Price?
Crypto Trends

DOGE to the Moon: How Will ETFs Affect DOGE Price?

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  • DOGE ETF: first results
  • Dogecoin price prediction

The Dogecoin ecosystem has witnessed a massive influx of new investors after the first-ever U.S. Dogecoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) officially commenced trading last week. 

The product opened to remarkable demand, recording $6 million in trading volume within its first hour — a figure 140% higher than Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas’ day-one forecast and nearly six times greater than the average volume for new ETFs over an entire session.

DOGE ETF: first results

The strong debut of the Rex-Osprey DOGE ETF has sparked intense discussion across the crypto community and fueled optimism about a significant Dogecoin price rally in the near term. 

Balchunas had initially projected a modest $2.5 million for the ETF’s entire first trading day, but the product has far surpassed those expectations. 

This performance places Dogecoin among the most successful crypto-based investment products launched to date, outpacing many earlier ETFs that struggled to surpass $1 million in day-one volume.

Momentum around Dogecoin continues to build as the 21Shares spot-based DOGE ETF proposal was recently listed on the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), signaling potential for additional market adoption. 

Meanwhile, the U.S. SEC is reviewing further Dogecoin ETF applications from Grayscale and Bitwise, with a final decision expected on October 17. The success of the first DOGE ETF has likely improved the odds of approval for these upcoming filings.

Dogecoin price prediction

Dogecoin’s price responded positively to the news, climbing 5.12% in the first 24 hours to $0.28 and extending a two-day rally to reach an intraday high of $0.285 on September 18. 

This week, the token was consolidating above its breakout zone, with traders eyeing resistance levels at $0.39 and $0.43-$0.45. However, a fierce correction followed, with DOGE price hotting the floor at $0.22.

Source: CoinMarketCap

Historically, Dogecoin has shown a tendency to surge quickly once key resistances flip into support, suggesting further upside could be on the horizon as retail demand accelerates.

Should Dogecoin reclaim $0.45, it would return to price levels last seen at the end of 2021. This time, however, the move would come off a much stronger base near $0.20-$0.25, giving the rally a more sustainable structure. 

With ETF liquidity confirmed, institutional wallets reportedly accumulating nine-figure sums, and price levels approaching $0.30, top meme coin traders argue that the path to $1 DOGE is becoming more likely in this market cycle.



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One of our favorite video doorbells is 47 percent off in the run-up to Prime Day
Gaming Gear

One of our favorite video doorbells is 47 percent off in the run-up to Prime Day

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The Ring Battery Doorbell Plus is top pick for battery-powered doorbells, offering sharp 1536p video with a head-to-toe view that makes it easy to spot packages on the porch floor other doorbells might miss. It’s also the most responsive video doorbell our reviewer has tested, pulling up live feeds in about half the time of others.

Beyond that, the doorbell supports radar-based motion detection, which allows for more accurate notifications compared to previous models. It also retains support for color night vision, pre-recorded Quick Replies, and two-way talk, and, for $4.99 a month, you also get bonus features like package and people alerts. And because it works with Amazon Alexa, you can pull up the live feed on an Echo Show or Fire TV with just your voice for free.



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Atlanta reveals the lineup for 2026
Esports

Atlanta reveals the lineup for 2026

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Wizards of the Coast has revealed all but one of the sets for 2026. You can find the full announcement here, but first, let’s take a look at the holiday release of Final Fantasy:

Final Fantasy Holiday Release

The Final Fantasy set is getting an addendum in the form of a holiday release later this year. The Chocobo Bundle, four Scene Boxes, and a new variation of the Commander decks join the product lineup.

The Chocobo Bundle includes new versions of new and old cards.

The four scene boxes feature all-new cards for the Final Fantasy Commander set:

There’s also a new version of the Commander decks coming that features a code for the game it represents:

With the last of Final Fantasy out of the way, let’s dive into 2026:

Lorwyn Eclipsed – January 23rd

We’re kicking off the year with a turn to the idyllic realm of Lorwyn with Lorwyn Eclipsed. For years, fans have been asking us to head back to the plane of kithkin, boggarts, and all sorts of strange creatures. Now, you can join a cohort of Strixhaven students on their journey through this pastoral plane.

The other half of the Shocklands join into Standard and has even been influenced by the plane:

An Upcoming Universes Beyond Set

We’ll be unveiling our second set of 2026 at New York Comic Con on October 10, 2025.

This set will be available on tabletop and MTG Arena. Once we announce what this set is, we’ll publish all the reveals right here on DailyMTG.

I find this fascinating that whatever property this is hasn’t been revealed yet and is important enough not to reveal at a MagicCon. We will have to wait until October 10th to see what it is.

Secrets of Strixhaven – April 2026

Class is back in session with Secrets of Strixhaven! We’re returning to Arcavios and the greatest school in the Multiverse, Strixhaven University. Our adventure-hungry cohort from Lorwyn Eclipsed is hitting the books for a new academic adventure. This time, we’ll be taking a closer look at off-campus life as these brave students explore what lies beyond the walls of their colleges.You can explore Strixhaven when this set releases in April. Additionally, we’re excited to announce Strixhaven: Omens of Chaos, a brand-new young-adult novel written by Seanan McGuire. This novel will follow a different group of Strixhaven students in their quest to discover who they’re meant to be—and where, in the wide Multiverse, they might belong. We’ll share more about this novel in the future, but for now, check out the cover and this Command Tower promo card that comes with the novel.

Magic: The Gathering | Marvel Super Heroes – June 2026

Calling all Marvel fans! We’re assembling Earth’s mightiest heroes and beyond for Magic: The Gathering | Marvel Super Heroes, the next set in our collaboration with Marvel. This massive set draws upon characters from across the Marvel Universe, ranging from famous Super Hero teams to villains bent on world domination.

We’ll be revealing more about this team-up in the future when it’s time to assemble!

Magic: The Gathering | The Hobbit – August 2026

While it may not be an Unexpected Journey, we’re excited to announce that Magic is traveling back to Middle-earth for Magic: The Gathering | The Hobbit. Follow the intrepid burglar Bilbo Baggins and his party on their journey to the Lonely Mountain (and back again). Prepare to battle flesh-eating Trolls, tell Riddles in the Dark, and confront Smaug himself when Magic: The Gathering | The Hobbit releases worldwide on tabletop and MTG Arena next August.

Reality Fracture – October 2026

Years of subtle machinations will finally shatter the facade, revealing a villain you’ll have to see to believe. But not just yet. More will be unveiled soon enough …

We’ll have more to share about Reality Fracture in the future. For now, keep an eye on Magic Story to see how this saga unfolds.

Magic: The Gathering | Star Trek – November 2026

Our final Magic set of 2026 takes us to the final frontier. Magic: The Gathering | Star Trek invites players on a journey across the stars. This set will be warping into your hands in November 2026. Featuring characters, stories, and (of course) spaceships from the entire franchise, this set has something for every Star Trek fan.Magic: The Gathering | Star Trek will make the voyage to tabletop Magic and MTG Arena next year, and we’ll have more to share about this set in the future. Until then, prepare to boldly go where no Magic set has gone before.


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Trump Tariffs, U.S. GDP Rattle Markets, ETFs Bleed $500M: Crypto Daybook Americas
GameFi Guides

Trump Tariffs, U.S. GDP Rattle Markets, ETFs Bleed $500M: Crypto Daybook Americas

by admin



By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

It’s not been a happy 24 hours for crypto bulls, with the CoinDesk 20 Index dropping 5% and market leaders BTC$109,615.08 and ETH$4,016.39 falling nearly 2%.

Major altcoins such as XRP, BNB and SOL lost even more, and ASTR, the native token of Aster DEX, which recently flipped Hyperliquid in 24-hour volume, fell 4% as the decentralized exchange saw abnormal price movements in the XPL-USDT perpetual trading pair. Still, a few coins, including MNT, CRO, KAS, OKB and XMR, managed gains of around 1%.

The downturn coincides with a stronger dollar, pushed higher by Thursday’s U.S. GDP and jobless claims data. Meanwhile, market flow dynamics turned bearish.

“ETF behavior changed from a primary absorber of supply to a net seller this week,” analysts at BRN told CoinDesk. “Yesterday, Bitcoin ETFs posted $258 million of outflows while Ethereum ETFs recorded $251 million of outflows, marking four straight days of red for ETH funds.”

Whales have also become net sellers, offloading 147,000 BTC since Aug. 21, the most since the bull cycle began in early 2023, according to CryptoQuant.

Analysts at Bitunix exchange warned that President Donald Trump’s tariff announcements on Thursday have increased market uncertainty, with sentiment oscillating between “rising inflation” and “slowing growth.”

Trump announced tariffs of as much as 100% on trucks, furniture and pharmaceuticals, effective Oct. 1.

The Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, the core personal consumption expenditure, is due later today. The report is projected to show a 2.9% year-over-year rise in August, matching July. Month-on-month, it’s forecast to have increased 0.2%, slightly below July’s 0.3%, according to FactSet. A softer-than-expected print could temper the dollar’s rally, putting a floor under bitcoin and the wider crypto market.

Traders should remain vigilant about regulatory developments related to digital asset treasuries. A WSJ report on Thursday cited U.S. regulators’ concerns about unusual trading volumes and stock price volatility in over 200 companies linked to crypto treasury strategies. Regulatory pressure on these treasuries, or DATs, could accelerate market sell-offs.

Additionally, geopolitical developments warrant attention, as reports are circulating about Russia’s aerial incursions in Europe. WTI crude oil is already up 4% for the week, the most since June. Stay alert!

What to Watch

  • Crypto
  • Macro
    • Sept. 26, 8:30 a.m.: Canada July GDP MoM Est. 0.1%.
    • Sept. 26, 8:30 a.m.: U.S. August headline PCE Price Index YoY Est. 2.7%, MoM Est. 0.3%; core YoY Est. 2.9%, core MoM Est. 0.2%.
    • Sept. 26, 10 a.m.: (Final) September Michigan Consumer Sentiment Est. 55.4.
    • Sept. 26, 1 p.m.: Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman speech on “Approach to Monetary Policy Decision-Making.”
  • Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)

Token Events

  • Governance votes & calls
  • Unlocks
    • Sept, 28: JUP$0.4435 to unlock 1.75% of its circulating supply worth $28.89 million.
  • Token Launches
    • Sept. 26: Hana Network (HANA) to be listed on Binance Alpha, KuCoin, MEXC, BingX, and others.
    • Sept. 26: Mira (MIRA) to be listed on Binance Alpha, KuCoin, and others.

Conferences

Token Talk

By Francisco Rodrigues

  • Plasma, a new blockchain purpose-built for stablecoins, launched its mainnet beta and native token XPL on Thursday, debuting with a fully diluted valuation that’s now above $12 billion.
  • The layer-1 network, backed by Bitfinex, Bybit, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino and tech billionaire Peter Thiel, entered the market with over $2 billion worth of XPL tokens in circulation.
  • Built for high-speed, low-fee stablecoin operations, Plasma aims to serve as the back end for a new class of DeFi applications. At launch, liquidity was already deployed across major platforms including Aave, Ethereum, Euler and Fluid.
  • These include Plasma One, which is billed as a “stablecoin-native neobank.”
  • Some tokens sold to U.S. investors are locked until mid-2026 due to regulatory restrictions, which may lower the effective float in early trading.

Derivatives Positioning

  • Most major tokens, including BTC and ETH continued to experience capital outflows from futures market, leading to a decline in the notional open interest (OI).
  • That’s only to be expected as the market soon shakes out overleveraged bets.
  • Notably, the BTC and ETH OI have continued to decline in the past couple of hours, raising questions about the sustainability of the minor price recovery.
  • Smaller coins like KAS and KCS have seen a moderate increase in OI in the past 24 hours.
  • Volume in crypto perpetuals listed on Aster DEX has surged to over $46 billion in the past 24 hours, significantly higher than Hyperliquid’s $17 billion.
  • On the CME, BTC futures OI has almost reversed the early September spike from 134K BTC to 149K BTC, representing renewed capital outflows. On the other hand, OI in options continues to rise, approaching the November 2024 high of 56.19K BTC.
  • Positioning in ETH futures and options remains elevated on Deribit, with an annualized three-month basis at 7%, a significantly lower yield than SOL’s 15%.
  • BTC, ETH options risk reversals continue to lean bearish out to the December expiry, data from Deribit show. In SOL and XRP’s case, pricing is biased bullish for the year-end expiry.

Market Movements

  • BTC is up 0.4% from 4 p.m. ET Thursday at $109,669.81 (24hrs: -2.17%)
  • ETH is up 0.74% at $3,916.83 (24hrs: -3.12%)
  • CoinDesk 20 is up 0.18% at 3,820.89 (24hrs: -3.25%)
  • Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is unchanged at 2.9%
  • BTC funding rate is at 0.0049% (5.4082% annualized) on Binance
  • DXY is down 0.19% at 98.37
  • Gold futures are up 0.21% at $3,778.90
  • Silver futures are up 0.56% at $45.37
  • Nikkei 225 closed down 0.87% at 45,354.99
  • Hang Seng closed down 1.35% at 26,128.20
  • FTSE is up 0.37% at 9,247.82
  • Euro Stoxx 50 is up 0.38% at 5,465.79
  • DJIA closed on Thursday down 0.38% at 45,947.32
  • S&P 500 closed down 0.5% at 6,604.72
  • Nasdaq Composite closed down 0.50% at 22,384.70
  • S&P/TSX Composite closed unchanged at 29,731.98
  • S&P 40 Latin America closed down 1.12% at 2,908.21
  • U.S. 10-Year Treasury rate is up 0.3 bps at 4.177%
  • E-mini S&P 500 futures are unchanged at 6,664.75
  • E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are unchanged at 24,614.25
  • E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index are up 0.19% at 46,355.00

Bitcoin Stats

  • BTC Dominance: 59.06% (-0.03%)
  • Ether-bitcoin ratio: 0.03573 (0.52%)
  • Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 1,083 EH/s
  • Hashprice (spot): $48.79
  • Total Fees: 3.27 BTC / $364,469
  • CME Futures Open Interest: 134,940 BTC
  • BTC priced in gold: 29.2 oz
  • BTC vs gold market cap: 8.24%

Technical Analysis

XRP’s weekly chart. (TradingView/CoinDesk)

  • XRP is dropping fast toward the key $2.65-$2.70 price level identified by the swing high from May and intraday lows in August and earlier this month.
  • A break below would mark a significant weakening of buying demand, potentially yielding a slide toward $2.00.

Crypto Equities

  • Coinbase Global (COIN): closed on Thursday at $306.69 (-4.69%), -0.1% at $306.39 in pre-market
  • Circle Internet (CRCL): closed at $124.66 (-5.26%), +0.28% at $125.01
  • Galaxy Digital (GLXY): closed at $32.12 (-6.34%), -1.26% at $31.71
  • Bullish (BLSH): closed at $61.83 (-8.52%), +0.36% at $62.05
  • MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $16.07 (-8.9%), +0.62% at $16.17
  • Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $16.74 (-6.95%), +2.69% at $17.19
  • Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $16.84 (-1%), -0.77% at $16.71
  • CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $13.68 (-5.33%), -4.02% at $13.13
  • CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $42.16 (-6.31%), -1.4% at $41.57
  • Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $28.9 (-9.69%)

Crypto Treasury Companies

  • Strategy (MSTR): closed at $300.7 (-6.99%), +0.31% at $301.62
  • Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $30.21 (-4.46%), +1.66% at $30.71
  • SharpLink Gaming (SBET): closed at $16.31 (-7.22%), -0.98% at $16.15
  • Upexi (UPXI): closed at $5.28 (-14.29%), -0.38% at $5.26
  • Lite Strategy (LITS): closed at $2.54 (-5.93%), +1.97% at $2.59

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs

  • Daily net flows: -$253.4 million
  • Cumulative net flows: $57.2 billion
  • Total BTC holdings ~1.32 million

Spot ETH ETFs

  • Daily net flows: -$251.2 million
  • Cumulative net flows: $13.39 billion
  • Total ETH holdings ~6.57 million

Source: Farside Investors

While You Were Sleeping

  • Near $30M Ether Wipeout on Hyperliquid Stands Out as Crypto Market Sees $1B in Liquidation (CoinDesk): Nearly $1.2 billion in leveraged bets vanished as over-leveraged longs dominated losses, exposing overcrowded bullish positioning and rising risks on decentralized perpetual exchanges.
  • Key Indicators to Watch in Q4: Bitcoin Seasonal Trends, XRP/BTC, Dollar Index, Nvidia, and More (CoinDesk): Seasonal data show strong fourth-quarter tailwinds for BTC and ETH, while signals from XRP, the dollar index and Nvidia highlight technical and macro risks for traders.
  • Trump to Slap New Tariffs on Pharma, Big Trucks (The Wall Street Journal): The president announced Oct. 1 tariffs on imported branded drugs, heavy trucks and home goods, drawing warnings from U.S. pharmaceutical companies that higher costs could undermine domestic manufacturing and research.
  • Will China’s Digital Yuan Centre Be a Step Forward for Internationalisation? (South China Morning Post): On Thursday, the People’s Bank of China opened a Shanghai operations center and unveiled three platforms to expand e-CNY’s cross-border role, underlining Beijing’s bid to reduce China’s reliance on the U.S. dollar.
  • Curve Finance Founder Michael Egorov Launches Bitcoin Yield Protocol (CoinDesk): Yield Basis, a decentralized automated market maker (AMM) protocol backed by $5 million, debuts with capped pools and veTokenomics to remove impermanent loss and open sustainable bitcoin yield.



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The Return of the 'Razor Crest' in 'The Mandalorian and Grogu' Sucks
Product Reviews

The Return of the ‘Razor Crest’ in ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ Sucks

by admin



When Lucasfilm surprise dropped our very first trailer for The Mandalorian and Grogu this week, the first thing we saw was a very familiar ship: the bulky chrome body (now bedecked in stripes of yellow paint) and the barrel-shaped twin engines jutting out of either side. It was meant to invoke one thought to anyone who’s watched the show: the Razor Crest is back.

The thing is, the Razor Crest was blown into itty-bitty bits during the climax of The Mandalorian season two. We don’t know yet whether or not, months or a year or so later, Din Djarin managed to go back to Tython and collect all the remaining scrap from his old ride to be put back together—probably not, considering that The Book of Boba Fett dedicated an episode to Din getting a new ride in the form of a Naboo N-1 Starfighter. But whether or not he found the time to go back or just simply managed to buy another ship of the same type, an ST-70 Gunship is not really what the return of a ship that looks identical to the one he used to fly around in really says.

© Lucasfilm

It mostly just says, “That thing you know is back.” Which The Mandalorian has gotten, for good or ill, very good at saying; it’s now just applying that to something that’s been gone for a season and a bit of TV, rather than things we know from other old Star Wars material. And it’s just the latest in a long line of things that The Mandalorian, as a show, has given up on in terms of displaying any kind of real growth for its lead characters.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I didn’t particularly like the show’s new choice of ship for Din either. Going from an unwieldy metal brick of a transport ship to a slick, stripped-down starfighter—even putting aside the nostalgia play of it being a ship fans knew and recognized, instead of a new design like the Razor Crest had been when it was introduced—didn’t make sense for a character that was ostensibly still trying to be the bounty hunter he had been.

The N-1 was a hero’s ship, one that reflected that, for better or worse, Din’s status in the Star Wars galaxy had changed: he was no longer the lone wanderer just making his way on the fringes of the galaxy; he was thrust into the upper echelons of Star Wars‘ heroes and villains, rubbing shoulders with Luke Skywalker and being the onetime inheritor, whether he wanted to be or not, of the Mandalorian people’s legacy. He was recognized as recognizable and needed a vessel to match that.

The Razor Crest, in a lot of ways, represented the imperfect man we’d come to know over the course of The Mandalorian‘s debut season—it’s not a cool ship, it’s not decked out with a bazillion weapon hardpoints, it wasn’t luxurious inside or out, it was practical, rugged, the Star Wars equivalent of a hauling truck, and that made it perfect for a bounty hunter scrounging around from job to job. Replacing it with a starfighter that was distinctly impractical for the job of bounty hunting but was also the antithesis of everything that made the Razor Crest feel unique, felt like the show forcibly telling us that Din was moving on and accepting his new place in the galaxy, even if that new place was beholden to Star Wars‘ broader yearning for the familiar.

© Lucasfilm

Now, in The Mandalorian and Grogu, Din has kept that new status quo while also returning to familiarity with this “new” ship. There’s no moving on or mark of what his life was like when The Mandalorian first began anymore. Now he is more explicitly that unequivocal hero, allied with the New Republic, and brushing shoulders with familiar faces over and over. Because the Razor Crest itself has now become something Star Wars can mine for nostalgia, as much as one can mine nostalgia for something that’s just six years old (and has been gone for most of those six years). Now we can be sold all those Razor Crest toys again, except they’ve got yellow paint markings on them. She’s got a new hat!

But really it’s not the ship itself that is necessarily a problem here (again, I liked what The Mandalorian said about Din through his ship of choice in its first two seasons a lot), but what this return represents overall: The Mandalorian finds it really hard to let go of any potential opportunity for growth. The Razor Crest‘s return pales in comparison, narratively speaking, to the number of character throughlines that the series has set up and then promptly dropped. Seasons one and two set up a compelling arc of Din coming to question the orthodoxy of his own Mandalorian covert—and, through characters like Bo-Katan, the idea that there were other ways for him to exist and be Mandalorian outside of those not necessarily healthy teachings—climaxing in both his decision to remove his helmet and to give up Grogu to be trained as a Jedi.

© Lucasfilm

All that immediately turned around in season three, which opened with an arc of almost-penitence for Din, running back unequivocally into the arms and teachings of the covert with little engagement as to why he should do that. And that he did so with Grogu at his side again—a separation resolved between seasons in that aforementioned Book of Boba Fett appearance, largely at the heinous expense of mishandling the character of Luke Skywalker—was just further indication that the show could not imagine a way to follow through with the shifts in its status quo that it laid out. Din Djarin can only be the faceless adherent of the Way; only he can guide Grogu’s path, and now, he can only pilot that one kind of ship you know he piloted before.

It’s a strange sense of inertia that feels jarring as Din becomes the face of Star Wars‘ return to cinema at a time when the series needs newness to guide its way rather than resting on the laurels of familiarity. A couple splashes of paint just simply aren’t enough compared to the message The Mandalorian and Grogu‘s debut trailer sent: that sensation of newness has yet to be found here.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.



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Saudi Arabia & Other Investors Nearing $50 Billion Deal To Buy EA
Game Reviews

Saudi Arabia & Other Investors Nearing $50 Billion Deal To Buy EA

by admin


A new report claims that Electronic Arts is close to finalizing a deal to go completely private via a $50 billion buyout being put together by a group of investors that includes multiple private-equity companies as well as Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF). The deal could be unveiled as soon as next week.

On September 26, The Wall Street Journal reported that massive video game publisher EA, the company behind popular and lucrative annual sports games like Madden, was currently negotiating a deal with various private equity companies, including Silver Lake, that could be worth nearly $50 billion, according to sources that spoke with the outlet.  The groups involved in the deal include the controversial Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund, which has invested a lot of money in the video game industry over the last few years.

Kotaku has contacted EA about the reported deal.

Update: 9/26/2025: 5:30 p.m. EST: CNBC reports that among the investors is Affinity Partners. Notably, this is an investment company founded in 2021 by Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law. Kushner’s firm relies heavily on money from Saudi Arabia. Original story continues below.

The Wall Street Journal’s report claims that the deal is still being negotiated and discussions over price are still ongoing, but sources say EA could be valued at $50 billion. The outlet claims this would likely be the largest leveraged buyout of a company in history. Previously, the largest similar deal occurred in 2007 when a group of private-equity firms spent $32 billion on buying up Texas utility company TXU. This new reported deal, which has not yet been officially announced by EA or any parties involved, would be nearly twice as big, if you don’t factor in inflation.

If this all goes through, it’s just one more (very) big video game deal that the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund has made in recent years as part of the country’s government, trying to “sportswash” or, in this case, “gamewash” its abysmal human rights reputation and the fact that the nation is still ruled by a literal monarch. In recent years, the PIF has invested billions across multiple gaming companies, including Activision, Blizzard,  Nintendo, Capcom, and Nexon. It also completely owns King of Fighters and Metal Slug publisher SNK Corp, which reportedly led to the devs being forced to add famous soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo to the fighting game Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves earlier this year.

The PIF is run by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and these investments are part of the Saudi Vision 2030 strategy established during Salman’s mid-decade rise to power. While the plan is presented as a way for the country to diversify its oil-centric economy, the reality is much different. Here’s what former Kotaku writer Ian Walker wrote about Salman, the PIF, and Saudi Arabia’s plan in 2022:

In reality, however, Saudi Vision 2030 is largely a propaganda campaign focused on whitewashing Saudi Arabia’s atrocious human rights record. The regressive monarchy seemingly hopes that aligning itself with entertainment industries around the world might loosen the purse strings of businesses wary of investing in the oil-rich country’s economy, especially with the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the ongoing, U.S.-backed Yemeni genocide still looming overhead.

So yeah, while it might sound nice that EA reportedly won’t answer to stockholders in the near future, the publisher’s potential new owners and investors are much, much worse than some annoying dudes in suits yelling about the number not going up fast enough.



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