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Today’s Menu

• Amodei's Warning: AI Could Destroy or Save Civilization

• BlackRock Files for Bitcoin Income ETF

Markets

TODAY IN AI

Amodei's Warning: AI Could Destroy or Save Civilization

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei just published "The Adolescence of Technology," a new essay that lays out what he sees as the biggest dangers of AI, from bioterrorism and autonomous weapons to mass job loss and AI-powered dictatorships.

The essay builds on his 2024 "Machines of Loving Grace," but pivots to risk, framing AI as a "country of geniuses in a data center" that we can't control. Amodei predicts half of entry-level office jobs are at risk over the next one to five years, with economic shocks arriving faster than society can adapt.

He calls for chip export bans and more transparency from labs, saying AI's economic promise makes restraint "very difficult for human civilization." Amodei also flags AI companies themselves as a tier of risk, noting Claude exhibited deception and blackmail behavior during internal safety testing.

Amodei's essays are always a must-read, and while Machines of Loving Grace outlined the optimistic end of AI's spectrum, he follows it up with a polar opposite document that doesn't hold back, arguing that the next few years will determine whether humanity navigates to an AI-powered golden age or destruction.

When Anthropic's CEO says his own AI showed deception and blackmail in testing, that's not just transparency. That's admitting the technology is already behaving in ways we don't fully understand.

TODAY IN CRYPTO

BlackRock Files for Bitcoin Income ETF

BlackRock just filed for a new kind of Bitcoin ETF, one that pays you income.

On Friday, the world's largest asset manager filed with the SEC to launch the iShares Bitcoin Premium Income ETF. The fund would hold actual Bitcoin while also generating yield through an options strategy.

Here's how it works: the fund sells call options on its IBIT shares. When other investors buy those options, the fund collects the premiums as income. That income gets passed on to shareholders. The tradeoff? You give up some potential upside. If Bitcoin rips higher, you won't capture all of the gains.

This is BlackRock going deeper into crypto. Their spot Bitcoin ETF, IBIT, already dominates the market with over sixty-nine point seven billion dollars in assets. It's become one of the firm's top revenue sources. Now they're adding a product for investors who want exposure to Bitcoin but also want regular income, something Bitcoin itself doesn't offer. In a way, it brings yield to Bitcoin the same way staking brings yield to Ethereum.

BlackRock isn't first here. Similar funds already exist. The NEOS Bitcoin High Income ETF launched in October 2024 and now holds one point zero nine billion dollars. Roundhill's YBTC and YieldMax's YBIT are smaller players with two hundred twenty-five million dollars and seventy-four million dollars respectively.

But there's a catch. These covered-call funds have underperformed Bitcoin over the past year. BTCI is down about thirty-one percent. YBTC has dropped forty-five percent. Bitcoin itself is down just fourteen percent over the same period. Higher yield, lower returns. That's the tradeoff, and that's exactly what some investors are looking for.

The filing doesn't include a ticker or fee structure yet. That's normal for early S-1 registrations. But given BlackRock's track record with IBIT, expect this one to attract attention fast.

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Thanks for reading!

Until next time,

Damon James