- Below is the latest edition of w3w, my free newsletter about emerging technology, including AI, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and more . If you would like to receive it in your inbox every Sunday, please subscribe here.
- I used several AI apps to assist production of this edition of w3w. Final edit 100% by me. For fuller detail, see the newsletter's commit history on GitHub.
- I'm also happy to highlight our affiliate, award-winning designer Kate Zimina of Roobinium. To get Kate's help on your next web3 project, email digitaldesigner2047@gmail.com or DM the Telegram handle @digitaldesigner2047.
On paper, Wall Street has experienced a tech-led bull market in 2025's first half, which ends tomorrow. This scenario should ring familiar, as it's been the norm for most of the last decade-plus.
Yet this particular bull run hasn't exactly felt that way in practice, has it? Volatility has spiked, often due to the new White House's highly (ahem) improvisational style of making economic policy day-to-day. In particular, President Trump has rendered the future of global trade — and thus the dollar's role as the world's reserve currency — far more uncertain. That has demonstrably carried real consequences at times for economic expectations and investors' appetite for higher-risk bets on tech.
Here's my scorecard of major market indicators in the first half, comprising the year-to-date performance of broad measures of crypto, stocks, and more as of Friday's closing bell on Wall Street. We're still a day short of the first half's finish line, to be sure. But I figure it's better to crunch the numbers a little early than too late. 🙃
One other calendar-related update: I will be taking next week off for the double "holiday" of U.S. Independence Day on the 4th and my birthday on the 6th. Then publication of w3w will resume as usual July 13.
By the way, I share my birthday with the highly incongruous trio of the Dalai Lama, George W. Bush, and 50 Cent. That is perhaps a useful metaphor for the very mixed signals markets have been sending lately:
- Since Trump's disastrous rollout of worldwide tariffs in early April, the rebound in tech stocks has expanded beyond the traditional "Magnificent Seven" club of trillion-dollar names in Big Tech. Only chipmaker Nvidia, which has been a very direct beneficiary of the AI boom, has ranked among the S&P 500's top 20 performers since April's market low. But investors have otherwise been reaching further afield than the usual tech heavyweights like Apple and Amazon to find pure-play bets on AI and other emerging trends, according to Yahoo Finance. Of course, Big Tech is experimenting frantically with AI. But it's not yet clear which of them will win. Plus, from a financial standpoint, an investor's upside from such companies' AI efforts might be diluted by their extensive businesses in other tech categories.
- Bitcoin is eating everything else in crypto. The big kahuna of digital currencies is up 14% in the first half, almost tripling the S&P 500's gain. But unlike previous crypto bull runs, bitcoin's strength hasn't carried over to the broader token market at all. Global crypto market cap is nearly flat for the first half at $3.3 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap. As bitcoin has far outperformed everything else, its share of the entire crypto market has soared to almost 65%, the highest level in more than four years.
- Bitcoin has uniquely benefited from three big factors, in my opinion: 1) Its popular U.S.-listed funds, which have effectively opened bitcoin to a broad audience of anyone with a conventional stock account. Yes, we're starting to see exchange-traded funds on other tokens as well. But to date, none has translated quite as well to an ETF as bitcoin. 2) Bitcoin is benefiting from the de-dollarization trade, as the rest of the world is getting more antsy about the U.S. in general. 3) Trump personally has reinforced the public's "number go up" perception of crypto markets as a venue purely for monetary use cases and speculation on token prices.
- By no means did Trump invent that last dynamic, to be sure. There's a long pattern of it among the general public that pre-dates even his first term, let alone the current one. But to the extent that "number go up" is clearly Trump's personal framing for crypto, and that he has the world's biggest microphone as U.S. president, and that he's been talking publicly about crypto far more frequently in this term, he's clearly having an effect on the broader public's perception, in my view. In effect, he's drawing mass attention away from non-monetary, web3 type use cases for blockchain tech as a platform for applications, to secure people's personal data, and so on. If you're a fan of such implementations, as I certainly am, this sets up an uphill battle for mindshare that we'll have to continue to fight for some time to come.
- Nevertheless, gold beat the pants off bitcoin as an investor safe haven in the first half. The yellow metal is up 25% year-to-date, nearly double bitcoin's gain. That suggests many normie investors remain wary of digital currencies, preferring to stick to more old-school assets instead.
- The masses' perception of AI also seems to lag Silicon Valley's unabashed giddiness markedly. In a recent NBC News poll, 74% of resppondents said they have tried popular AI apps at some point. But only 44% use them regularly. In addition, 47% said they believe a school that prohibits using AI would better prepare students for the future.
That's it for now. Thanks for reading the newsletter today! If you want to know more about w3w's history and (ahem) the author, that info is available here.
If you need to reach me directly, please email peter[at]w3w[dot]media.
Best wishes for a healthy and productive week ahead. 😊