BIG NEWS -Future of Disruptive Tech is being rebranded. We are changing our name to “Next Wave.” So if you see an email in your income from “Next Wave” please don’t be alarmed "(or hit spam).

_{Read Time: 10 Minutes}

Today’s Menu

• xAI's Grok Imagine Dominates Video Generation Rankings

• Bitcoin Crashes to Two-Month Lows in Brutal Market Selloff

Markets

TODAY IN AI

xAI's Grok Imagine Dominates Video Generation Rankings

xAI just released the Grok Imagine API, a new AI video generation and editing suite that jumped to the top of Artificial Analysis rankings for both text and image-to-video outputs while undercutting rivals on price.

The API handles text-to-video, image-to-video, and video editing tasks, with clips up to fifteen seconds and native audio baked in. Grok Imagine costs four dollars twenty cents per minute with audio included, coming in significantly cheaper than Veo three point one at twelve dollars per minute and Sora two Pro at thirty dollars per minute.

Editing tools let users swap objects, restyle entire scenes, animate characters with custom performances, and shift environments on command. Imagine debuts at number one on Artificial Analysis text and image to video leaderboards, and comes in behind just Veo three and Sora Pro in Arena's Video Arena.

This is an impressive move up the leaderboard for xAI, especially given the wildly low price point compared to top rivals. If the quality holds up at scale, the aggressive pricing could make Imagine the default choice for creators and now devs to integrate into apps who need to iterate fast without burning through budgets.

When you top the video generation leaderboards at one-third the price of Sora Pro, that's not just competition. That's forcing the entire market to reprice.

TODAY IN CRYPTO

Bitcoin Crashes to Two-Month Lows in Brutal Market Selloff

Pain. Bitcoin plunged to two-month lows on Thursday as a wave of selling hit everything at once. BTC dropped below eighty-three thousand dollars, falling as low as eighty-one thousand three hundred dollars before recovering slightly. That's a six percent drop in twenty-four hours.

Ethereum fell to two thousand eight hundred dollars. Solana slid to one hundred seventeen dollars. Over eight hundred million dollars in leveraged positions were liquidated. Nearly seven hundred million dollars of that came from longs.

But this wasn't just a crypto sell-off. Stocks, gold, silver, everything got hit. Microsoft dropped twelve percent after earnings disappointed on cloud growth. The Nasdaq fell over two percent before recovering to close down zero point seven percent.

But the wildest move was in gold. After hitting a record five thousand six hundred dollars per ounce, gold crashed hard. According to The Kobeissi Letter, gold lost three point two trillion dollars in market cap in under an hour, that's fifty-eight billion dollars per minute. It then bounced back two point three trillion dollars by the afternoon. The total swing: five point five trillion dollars. That's over three times Bitcoin's entire market cap.

Coin Bureau CEO Nic Puckrin said: "Gold and silver just don't do this. When they actually do, we need to pay attention."

Remember that historic government shutdown we had from October to November last year? Well another shutdown is looming again. So far lawmakers have failed to advance a funding vote, with a midnight deadline approaching. The last shutdown in October lasted forty-three days and saw Bitcoin drop around fifteen percent.

Analysts warn the next stops could be eighty thousand dollars and then seventy-four thousand dollars, the April 2025 lows. But not everyone is bearish. Matt Mena at 21Shares called current prices a "compelling entry point" and still expects Bitcoin to hit one hundred thousand dollars by the end of Q1.

For now, the market is on edge.

Want to share The Future of Disruptive Tech with a friend, family member, or coworker? Pass this link along to them.

Thanks for reading!

Until next time,

Damon James