Ima Short | Wall Street Memes

Guys. I’ve worked it out. I’ve solved the problem guys. It’s so OBVIOUS.

Look, it’s a well known thing now that OpenAI just doesn’t make money and has been struggling to find out how to capitalize off their insanely costly technology.

But guys. That’s the point. They can’t make a profit off ChatGPT because they’re a non-profit. It all makes sense now! They can’t legally make money because they exist for the good of humanity. Of course! It’s so OBVIOUS now! Those defense contracts were a charitable endeavor!

Wait, what’s that? OpenAI is still technically a non-profit but it’s a shell company that manages a for-profit company within that non-profit? …oh. Well. ok. I mean, that doesn’t sound shady at all…

So AI can’t make money, but people keep spending on it. $121 billion sounds small even.

Does it mean there’s a bubble? Well, yes, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to pop any time soon nor does it mean that AI has no utility.

I for one use AI to supplement my personal human social relationships.

Will I ever pay for that service? Err, no.

And that’s part of the problem, right? Everything’s free now so everyone expects everything for free which means no one wants to pay and we need another revenue stream and all anyone’s ever been able to think of is advertising so adverts are literally everywhere now and everything is unusable.

Can’t wait for ChatGPT to go the same way.

Oh the other model is to sell data to the advertising companies. OpenAI’s doing that too.

OH but there’s a secret third option if you don’t mind going evil and that’s defense contracts. Yeah, if consumers refuse to pay you any money then force them to through taxes and get your friends to agree to funnel that money into your face.

Easy. Peasey.

For the CEO of maybe the biggest AI company in the world right, Sam Altman sure doesn’t seem to have much positive to say about AI all the time.

Maybe it’s just to grab headlines (shit it’s working) but Saltman’s always going off on some sensationalist warning about the dangers of AI. Errrr… wait, isn’t that the product that you’re selling?

Maybe it’s a tactic, like, it builds on the mystique of how powerful these broken calculators are. Or another tactic is that it’s a straight up threat. Like, “Ohhh, these things are pretty dangerous, better pay us more to make sure that they’re safe…” “Oh yeah, this AI comes with a ‘won’t murder everyone function’ but that’s only on the premium tier plan…”

Because that certainly seems to be the approach with Nostradamus-Altman’s latest prophecy.

In a recent interview with Axios, Altman said, “We’re not that far away from a world where there are incredibly capable open-source models that are very good at biology,” he said. “The need for society to be resilient to terrorist groups using these models to try to create novel pathogens is no longer a theoretical thing.”

And to avoid this “world-shaking cyberattack” would require a “tremendous amount of work.” Aaaand there it is. Man, everything really is just an advert, isn’t it?

I mean, he has a point. Last year over $1.4 billion dollars of money in crypto was stolen from crypto industries in cyberattacks last over (crypto).

And things are potentially only going to get worse. Idk if you saw this but there was a story recently saying that quantum computers might be able to crack Bitcoin keys in just 9 minutes.

It’s a huge finding that will have massive repercussions (a quantum leap, if you will) for finance, Web3, NFTs and my bro Darren who put all his life savings into BTC when it hit its ATH.

So, yes, cyptophers (people who use crypto) knew this was on the horizon but they thought they had more time (don’t we all). But Google’s Quantum AI researchers have just published a white paper (what is with you guys and white papers?) that moves the date for the great quantum jailbreak (q-day) up to 2032.

What they found was that the number of quantum bits (qubits) required to break bitcoin, ether and most other cryptocurrencies isn’t in the millions, it’s more like 500,000.

Crap.

Ok, ok, settle down everyone. Stop screaming. We’re still a long ways off. The most advanced quantum chip out there is Google’s own Willow which has a pathetic 105 qubits. (Wait, what’s stopping anyone from stapling 5000 of those to each other?)

If you’re wondering more about how this actually works, here’s a paragraph from the Forbes article that I’m cribbing, they explain it much better than I could:

“Bitcoin’s security relies on a single mathematical assumption: that deriving a private key from a public key is computationally impossible for any existing machine. The specific math is called the Elliptic Curve Discrete Logarithm Problem. Every time someone sends bitcoin, they reveal their public key. A classical computer would need longer than the age of the universe to reverse-engineer the private key from it.”

But quantum computers aren’t classical computers and they can compute far more complicated computational computations, the kind that could “derive a private key, forge a digital signature and drain a wallet.”

Bitcoin mining though wouldn’t be affected, that uses a different algorithm or something, idk, I’m not smart.

As expected, the markets reacted to this news with supposedly quantum resistant crypto coins surging a massive 50% in value. Guys calm down, nothing’s happened yet.

Sell your Bitcoin.

I’m serious. This is a huge finding that will have massive repercussions (a quantum leap, if you will) for finance, Web3, NFTs and my bro Darren who put all his life savings into BTC when it hit its ATH.

What they found was that the number of quantum bits (qubits) required to break bitcoin, ether and most other cryptocurrencies isn’t in the millions, it’s more like 500,000.

Crap.

Quantum Shmantum

If you’re wondering more about how this actually works, here’s a paragraph from the Forbes article that I’m cribbing, they explain it much better than I could:

Bitcoin mining though wouldn’t be affected, that uses a different algorithm or something, idk, I’m not smart.

As expected, the markets reacted to this news with supposedly quantum resistant crypto coins surging a massive 50% in value. Guys calm down, nothing’s happened yet.

IF YOU’RE ONLY HERE FOR THE HOT TIP, TLDR;

Ditch the bit(coin), ETH and the standard cryptos and maybe have a look at Quantum Resistant Ledger (QRL) and Cellframe (CEL) which have ballooned 50%. Other quantum resistant tokens like Abelian (ABEL), up 25%, and Qubic (QUBIC) and QANplatform (QANX), both up 10%, and Zcash (ZEC), up 7%, are well worth a look. Geez, surely we’ve run out of three-letter acronyms by this point.

OH wait, sorry, should have said, this isn’t financial advice, ignore me! IGNORE ME! DELETE THIS MESSAGE!

It feels like a depressing inevitability but as the war in Iran continues on, with no signs of slowing down, it looks like oil might top out at $200 and we will all feel the effects in one way or another.

As strategists from Macquarie Group have recently warned, if the war continues into June, crude oil prices would move to above $200 per barrel, forcing gas to $7 a gallon. This sucks for me in particular because I drink about a gallon of gas every day and I just don’t have those kinds of savings.

So if you, like me, are a human being that spends money, just how can you avoid this seemingly inevitable massive recession that we’re all heading for?

Err, bitch, you really think if I knew I would be here writing for Wall Street Memes Dot Com? No, I’d be selling my advice for MILLIONS.

Because, I don’t think it’s really that avoidable, don’t you?

Oh, but I still have to write something? Ok, damn, alright, well here’s four ideas off the top of my head:

Switch To Electric Car

If you don’t want to pay for gas, then don’t pay for gas! Quickly! Buy yourself an electric car that runs on cheap, cheap oil-powered power instead.

Get Off The Grid

Literally. Maybe get some solar panels, a wind turbine, your own nuclear power plant if you can, anything to stop paying those crazy energy bills.

Diversify Your Investments

Idk about money things, but there’s probs some moves you can make to anticipate what’s going to happen, right? Like shorting stock and things like that? Idk, this isn’t financial advice.

Quit Drinking Crude Oil

This one’s more for me, but I should really get off that, it’s getting to be a very expensive hobby…

Famed stock broker and economist, Peter ‘the stiff’ Schiff just took to Twitter (X) to say that “we are headed for a full-blown financial crisis,” geez, tell us something we don’t know.

By this point it’s par for the course. I mean, what are economists supposed to do if not predict that it’s the end of the world all the time?

Except this time, they’ve actually got a leg to stand on.

I mean, you’ve got Iran, Palestine, Ukraine, tariffs, global warming (still, don’t forget about that one), inflation and just general economic shit. So, yeah, don’t exactly need Pete’s credentials to see the writing on the wall.

Here’s the full tweet:

It’s not a rosy outlook and might just get him in trouble with our dear leader. His pessimism has gotten him in trouble before.

A few months ago, daily children’s television show about a talking fox and his buddies, Fox And Friends, hosted ‘stockbroker’ Peter Schiff on the podcast for some reason. But here’s the thing: Trump likes the fox but he also likes himself so it’s kind of awkward to have himself-critic on the thing he likes. It’s kind of hard to get your head around, “Thing I like likes thing I don’t like?” *Tim Allen wooouuuuhh?? noise*

“Why would Fox and Friends Weekend (of all things?) put on a ‘Stockbroker’ named Peter Schiff, a Trump hating loser who has already proven to be wrong,” said Trump on Truth Social. (What would a social truth look like? Oh, like the popular kid who just tells it like it is and is actually really mean but calls it honesty, is that what Truth Social is?)

Related story: Donald Trump

“Either the show made a mistake, or it is heading in a different direction. He thinks prices are going up when, in fact, they are coming substantially down. Gasoline hit $1.99 a gallon yesterday, in certain states, and is down BIG since Biden.”

Biden? Jesus Christ, he’s DEAD, move on!

Oh wait, I forgot to mention the ‘crazy’ part I teased in the headline. Bitcoin critic Schiff responded on X, saying, “Since Pres. Trump called me a jerk and a loser for claiming that prices are still rising when he insists they’re coming way down, I challenge him, or his designee, to a debate on the U.S. economy and the efficacy of his policies. If I’m as wrong as he says I am, let him prove it.”

In a separate post, Schiff also said that Donald should change the name of his social media site to “Lie Social.” Hahaha. That’s clever.

So whether Trump will actually take up the ‘stockbroker’ on his debate offer remains to be seen but no, he definitely won’t, what are you talking about? Of course that’s not going to happen.

Sayonara, Sora!

In a massive pivot that might be a bellwether for the AI industry, OpenAI is officially shutting down their flagship video-generating app ‘Sora’, reportedly blindsiding partners like Disney.

Since its launch in 2024, Sora has made headlines with its hyper-realistic AI videos, but clearly OpenAI have failed to find a profitable use case for the tech.

fruit love island sora — Fuck. How am I going to watch ‘AI Fruit Love Island’, now??? Oh, that’s not Sora, Ok, never mind, carry on.

Whilst AI videos now seem to dominate internet content, few of them actually use Sora. OpenAI have one eye on their competitor, Anthropic’s Claude, who don’t provide video generation and have become the industry standard for professional AI.

In many ways, Sora has served its purpose of showcasing OpenAI’s tech visually to the general public and now it’s not making any money it can be quietly retired.

Disney Is FURIOUS (but in a polite, corporate way)

Just maybe not too quietly because, according to Reuters, Disney didn’t even know Sora was getting shut down until it was announced. And that’s mega awkward because Disney inked a massive one billion dollar investment in OpenAI’s video technology, hoping to license their own characters to AI users.

In response to the news, a Disney spokesperson tactfully said, “We respect OpenAI’s decision to exit the video generation business and to shift its priorities elsewhere.”

This doesn’t mean Disney is out of the AI video game altogether though and will likely find another partner to help achieve their twelve-fingered-princess dreams.

It’s unclear however whether this is the end of Disney’s OpenAI alliance all together or if Disney’s internal ‘DisneyGPT’ will continue to be used. Let’s assume yeah, though.

So will we see other companies pivot away from AI video generation? Probably not, but it is a massive shunning of the technology, which might have reached a peak in terms of its use.

80 BILLION DOLLARS

That’s how much Meta (Facebook) spent on their now-defunct VR platform. If it helps to imagine, that’s roughly the GDP of Slovenia, oh that doesn’t help you? I’m sorry, I thought you were Slovenian…

Yes, it’s true, the day has FINALLY come. People are cheering in the streets. There are fireworks. They’re burning an effigy of Mark Zuckerberg. Because on June 15, Meta will shut down ‘Horizon Worlds’ the company’s flagship VR world.

Although the ‘game’ will still be available on mobile for some ungodly reason.

Here’s some corporate speak garbage announcing the change, “We are separating the two platforms so each can grow with greater focus, and the Horizon Worlds platform will become a mobile-only experience.” Shut up, don’t spin this as a positive, we all know you messed up.

This is all part of Meta’s winding down from the whole VR craze of the 2010s so they can instead jump on the AI craze of the 2020s. This news follows the firing of 1,000 employees (around 10% of workers) from Reality Labs, Meta’s in house VR dev team.

Reality Labs by the way was once the trailblazing company Oculus VR before it was bought and folded into the company. So it’s a little sad to see the same pattern play out of ‘small company makes something interesting, gets absorbed by larger rival, then is gutted and discarded.’ Rinse and repeat.

But it does make business sense, unfortunately. Since 2020, Reality Labs have racked up total losses of $80 billion. And after launch it just didn’t connect with users. Turns out people don’t want to put on a ski-goggle-brick just to check their emails. On top of that the launch was massively fumbled, with the promoted product looking no better than a really really janky Sims.

Hide Your Facebook In Shame

So what do you do with a failed product launch and billions in losses? You go ALL IN BABY! That’s right, Facebook had already doubled down on the tech by rebranding as ‘Meta’ and doubling down on the narrative that the ‘metaverse’ was the future without ever really explaining what it was.

Back in 2021, the Zuck said, “Our hope is that within the next decade, the metaverse will reach a billion people, host hundreds of billions of dollars of digital commerce, and support jobs for millions of creators and developers.” Eesh.

Stock nosedives followed and now the company is trying to backpeddle saying, ‘No, no, we’re not a metaverse company, we’re an AI company now!’ whilst they still have ‘WE ARE A METAVERSE COMPANY’ stapled to their forehead.

Even the Meta website hasn’t yet caught up with the pivot, saying, “The metaverse is the future of digital connection.” Are you sure about that?

So yeah, I’m sorry for anyone and everyone who put time, effort and money into this project, Facebook just went too hard, too fast and ran something promising into the ground. It was ever thus. Welcome to the wacky world of tech.

With bombs, probably…

Construction projects, buying concert tickets, untangling cables and going to war all seem to have one thing in common and that’s that they all take waaaay longer than you’d expect. It feels like every modern war has had a ‘this will be done by Christmas’ mentality, and this Iran ‘conflict’ is no exception.

What started as just a simple assassination turned into a bombing campaign and now seems to be an all out war pulling in much of the world, if not militarily, at certainly economically.

And just when everyone’s hoping the temperature will be turned down, Iran starts sabre-rattling again saying, that they would target “economic centres and banks” and “destroy” the global economy. No! Not the banks! We need those!

The Iran with a plan

Speaking to Reuters, Ebrahim Zolfaqari, a spokesperson for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said, “Get ready for the oil barrel to be at $200 because the oil price depends on the regional stability which you have destabilised.”

I mean, he ain’t wrong.

Of course, this is a threat from America’s enemy in this war so take that with a pinch of salt, but with oil already topping $100 per barrel, and the strait of Hormuz still an active warzone, we are likely to see that figure climbing for a while.

Even with Russia’s oil that we supposedly don’t want…

So who’s to say? But until this all gets cleared up, I’m putting my money into windmills.

Graphs, graphs, graphs, who doesn’t love a good graph, huh? Do you know the great thing about graphs? You can make them say whatever you like.

Case in point: this viral X post from Against Wall Street (no relation) in which they line up Bitcoin price graphs from 2022 and 2026 to imply that a big crash is on the horizon.

And yeah, when you put a big yellow line over the top of things it’s hard not to see what they’re seeing, but let’s look closer, shall we?

Bitcoin graph X post — Exhibit AAHHHH!!!

First up is the fact that the comparison is between two different price points (obviously, I guess), but more importantly, they’re completely different periods, May-June for 2022 and Feb-March for 2026. And not even that, they don’t cover the same length of time. The ‘26 one is way more spread out but I guess you just have to imagine it’s squished?

Which brings us to the main point which is that even the yellow lines don’t actually line up. These are different lines guys! Every angle is slightly different. I mean, yeah, asset price is going to up and then down and then up again but that doesn’t mean it’s the same thing. Anyone can draw lines over things and make them look the same. And like, I know that they do look spookily similar but only similar, not identical.

I’d like to point you towards this website, you’ve probably come across it, it’s called ‘spurious correlations’, have a click through some random ones, it’s really entertaining. But it just goes to show that, say it with me: correlation does not equal causation. Vaguely similar looking graphs can always be found and made to look like that means something.

Bitcoin? When Did That Ever Go Down?

Even if Bitcoin was doing exactly the same thing as before, this stuff is unpredictable, right? That’s the whole point? Why would this exact up and down from four years ago mean that this exact up and down will lead to the same next thing? Could be completely different guys.

Look, I’m not an expert in this (can you tell?) but it seems to me that people are desperate for any kind of certainty about what’s going to happen next. Even if the info is bogus, they’d rather have the feeling of security over the terror of uncertainty.

And especially when there’s money to be made, these things spread like wildfire. I guess that’s what keeps economists employed, doesn’t it?

Sure, maybe I’m wrong and Bitcoin really will dip exactly the way Against Wall Street predicts but I’m just saying, keep your wits about you, yeah? Don’t fall for everything you see. Alright, you go have fun now, I’ll see you back here for dinner.

But we already knew things were a little fucked, didn’t we?

The Strait of Hormuz, artery for 20% of the world’s oil is blocked and oil prices have skyrocketed. Well, someone who maybe knows what they’re talking about has gone full ‘the end is nigh’ and it’s got everyone spooked.

S&P Global vice chair Daniel Yergin recently penned an essay for the Financial Times explaining that this “nightmare scenario” of wild oil prices will “send the world economy plummeting into a deep recession.” …Great.

The “world is looking at the biggest disruption in oil production in history as well as a resounding shock to global gas markets,” Yergin continued. “The key question for global energy markets now is the duration of this explosive war.”

My vote is never and we just go full Mad Max.

And if all that sounds like we’ve been here before, well we have.

It’s 2008 again, always has been…

Alright, sit down, shut up and strap on because I’m about to give you an economics lesson you’ll never forget.

It’s 2026. Trump just bombed Iran, sparking a regional war, blocking the Strait of Hormuz and sending oil prices soaring to above $100 a barrel with no signs of slowing down.

It’s 2008. Oil prices are sitting steady at around $50-$70/bbl (Brazilian but lift) when BOOM. July 2008. Prices rocket to $147 per Brazilian butt lift. …Sound familiar?

So why did this happen twice and what can we learn so this doesn’t happen a third time? Well, strap on, because I’m about to give you… wait, I already said that.

It’s all basic economics, mate. There are innumerable factors that economists still debate to this day, but in just one word: the-‘08-oil-spike-was-due-to-strong-demand-and-a-stagnant-supply. China and India were booming, but the world just didn’t have the oil that they needed.

Combine this with geopolitical panic and you’ve got a recipe for what very much looks like 2026. You had a pipeline explosion in Nigeria, North Korean missile tests, hurricane Kartina and just two years before, Israel v Lebanon plus Iran nuclear fears.

Historically these kinds of political crises stoke fears of war and supply chain collapse which encourages stockpiling which leads to price hikes. Then when war happens and the supply chain does collapse, oil becomes more scarce and the prices go up regardless.

And in case you thought this was just about oil, think again because oil is everything. In 2008 for example, rising oil prices meant that energy costs went up, delivered goods became more expensive due to higher fuel costs and consumers were pushed into spending less.

And less consumer spending means what? That’s right: a recession.

So yes, the Iran war and rising oil prices is a recession indicator, like everything else going on at the moment. And what goes up must come down. Just like in 2008, that massive oil peak suddenly dipped causing all sorts of problems and we very well may see the same.

This is what we call a market correction, or equity correction: a 10% (or higher) drop in a stock index’s value. To some extent, a drop like that can be eaten, but when it drops any lower, say 20%, that’s when we’re in bear market territory and things get a lot more dicey.

So what can we do? Well, unless you’re Donald Trump, Jerome Powell or Jesus Christ himself, not freaking much because we are all at the whims of the laws of economics, buffeted about by the ocean of history.

But at least this time we can look back on 2008 and see what’s coming. Iran and oil costs are steering us into a massive economic storm, no doubt about it. All you can do is tie down anything not bolted to the floor and open your umbrella.

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Guys. I’ve worked it out. I’ve solved the problem guys. It’s so OBVIOUS.

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