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Today’s Menu

• Google's "thinking budget" maneuver masks AI limitations behind cost-saving veneer

• Cryptocurrency stability amid political chaos suggests market evolution beyond headline reactions

Markets

TODAY IN AI

Google's "thinking budget" maneuver masks AI limitations behind cost-saving veneer

Google has entered the AI reasoning race with Gemini 2.5 Flash, positioning the model as a cost-effective alternative to competitors while introducing a novel concept called "thinking budget" that fundamentally changes how developers interact with AI systems.

Unlike traditional AI deployments where reasoning capabilities are either always on or always off, Google's approach introduces a sliding scale of intelligence. Developers can now allocate up to 24,000 tokens specifically for model reasoning, effectively creating a metered approach to AI intelligence. This represents a radical shift in how organizations will budget for AI, potentially transforming intelligence itself into a rationed commodity.

Early benchmarks suggest Gemini 2.5 Flash achieves performance comparable to OpenAI's o4-mini and surpasses Claude 3.5 Sonnet on reasoning and STEM challenges. The model's ability to toggle between efficient operation and deep reasoning addresses one of enterprise AI's most persistent challenges: unpredictable costs when handling complex tasks.

The strategic release timing is particularly noteworthy, arriving just as OpenAI captured headlines with its own advanced reasoning models. By emphasizing practical deployment considerations, Google is making a calculated appeal to budget-conscious business customers who may be wary of deploying models that apply maximum reasoning to every task regardless of complexity.

^{Today In Crypto}

Cryptocurrency stability amid political chaos suggests market evolution beyond headline reactions

The Easter weekend offered a revealing glimpse into cryptocurrency's evolving market dynamics, with Bitcoin maintaining remarkable price stability despite extraordinary political developments that would have previously triggered significant volatility.

President Trump's explosive call for Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's termination—declaring his removal "cannot come fast enough"—represents an unprecedented presidential challenge to central bank independence. This direct confrontation follows Powell's warnings that Trump's aggressive tariff policies could simultaneously increase inflation and unemployment, potentially pushing the economy toward stagflation.

Despite this high-stakes political drama playing out in public view, Bitcoin and broader cryptocurrency indexes barely moved. The CoinDesk 20 Index gained less than 0.1%, with Bitcoin itself showing similar restraint—a stark contrast to its historical pattern of amplifying market reactions to macroeconomic uncertainty.

This unusual stability amid governmental turmoil suggests cryptocurrency markets may be developing a more mature relationship with headline risk. Rather than immediately reacting to every presidential statement or policy shift, investors appear to be taking a longer view, filtering out short-term noise in favor of broader regulatory and adoption trends.

Meanwhile, traditional safe-haven assets like gold continue strengthening, with the precious metal's performance over the past two decades now outpacing the S&P 500 even when accounting for dividends. This persistent gold rally raises questions about whether Bitcoin's narrative as "digital gold" remains intact, or if traditional precious metals still dominate investor preferences during periods of monetary uncertainty.

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Until next time,

Damon James