WHAT’S INSIDE:

Feature: It Takes Two To TACO + The 3% Inflation Trap

Top Tech News: Trump delays Iran strikes 5 days; stocks surge and oil falls 11%; execs warn Hormuz risk on a 2-week clock; Warren pressures DOD over Anthropic

Company Watch: Bezos seeks $100B for AI-led manufacturing rollups; Kalshi targets $22B on a $1B raise; Fal chases $300–350M at $8B; Musk unveils $25B Terafab 

Buzzy Tools: Cursor Composer 2 leap, Grok “computer-use” tease, Claude Code Channels for team workflows, Supermemory persistent context, Adapt no-code AI

Buzzy Tech: China fusion momentum; cars may need 300GB RAM by 2030; low-energy desalination pump; lunar mass-driver concept; DNA robots

Crypto: Fidelity pushes SEC custody reforms; $3.5B inflows lift sentiment; Polymarket tightens integrity; prediction-market VCs launch fund; MoonPay agents

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Top Technology News

Trump Postpones Iran Strikes — Trump delays power plant attacks for 5 days citing "productive talks" with Iran. Tehran denies negotiations. Markets surge in response (Dow up 1,076 points), Oil drops 11%.

C-Suite Deadline — Corporate executives set 2-week timeline for Hormuz resolution before oil spikes sharply. Energy experts warn of economic strain if not.

Warren Targets DOD-Anthropic Rift — Sen. Warren demands answers on Anthropic blacklisting from DOD contracts while OpenAI secures expanded deals.

Project Maven's Conversion — Pentagon's flagship AI warfare initiative transforms from controversial experiment to mission-critical infrastructure.

Gas Prices Spike Across U.S. — National average jumped 60 cents (+20%) in two weeks. California hit $5.53, while Southwest states saw 47-cent weekly increases.

It Takes Two To TACO + The 3% Inflation Trap

Tech Buzz Editorial Feature

Trump's five-day pause on strikes against Iran's power plants just triggered the biggest S&P 500 rally since early February. Oil collapsed more than 10%, stocks surged across the board, and traders started using a phrase that would have seemed absurd six months ago: "Trump Always Chickens Out."

TACO for short. Born during the tariff wars, when markets learned to buy every dip after Trump threatened trade Armageddon and then blinked, the pattern has now migrated from soybeans to shooting wars. Desks are literally front-running presidential climb-downs in the middle of an active conflict, parsing Truth Social posts for relief-rally timing like they're Fed minutes.

The mechanics are familiar. Trump pushes to the brink. Markets wobble. He pulls back just enough to produce a snapback. A Reuters column explicitly described Monday's rebound as investors "hoping it proves to be the latest 'Trump Always Chickens Out' signal to buy." Algorithmic and discretionary traders have turned geopolitical brinksmanship into a tradeable pattern. One strategist told Reuters the conflict could actually set up stocks to "outperform dramatically" once it ends, because every pause feels like a new entry point.

But under the surface, this is less about Middle East strategy than about how markets have been conditioned to treat volatility as transient noise. Oil shock, equity selloff, then a sudden "very good and productive talks" announcement: the sequence has become so legible that traders try to get ahead of the next bounce before the headline even drops.

The Economic Damage May Already Be Done

The TACO framing makes for good market color, but the underlying damage is accumulating. Shipping data show at least $10.7B worth of cargoes stuck in Hormuz. Gulf producers have already forfeited more than $15.1B in energy revenue since the war began. Brent spiked close to $120 earlier this month on fears over attacks on Iranian infrastructure before plunging back after Trump's postponement. Those swings happen in hours now, but the structural risk hasn't disappeared.

For U.S. households, the shock still looks manageable. Energy products represent only about 2% of total consumption, and balance sheets are relatively healthy. That buffer is why Wall Street can treat each pause as another buying opportunity. The same Reuters piece stresses that "for now at least," American consumers can cope with $100 oil without triggering a broader demand collapse.

But the picture looks radically different for U.S. allies in Asia. Japan relies on the Middle East for roughly 95% of its oil imports. About 70% of that supply transits the Strait of Hormuz, the exact chokepoint being contested. Analysis from Japanese and international institutions warns that a sustained oil spike feeds directly into headline inflation, especially with a weak yen amplifying import costs. A regional risk study found Japan and South Korea at the top of Asia's vulnerability league, with around 87% and 81% of their energy derived from imported fossil fuels. Compare that to much lower shares for China and India, and the strategic asymmetry becomes stark.

A separate Reuters analysis notes that $100 oil is already straining Asia's "cash-strapped" governments, forcing a choice between wider subsidies that blow out fiscal targets or passing through prices and risking stagflation. The fragility matters beyond macro wonkery. If America's closest tech and security partners face genuine inflation stress while Wall Street celebrates another TACO rally, that gap creates ripple effects for semiconductor supply chains, hardware production timelines, and the geopolitical coalitions that underpin the entire AI buildout.

3% Inflation Is Here To Stay

BNP Paribas strategists now say "3% inflation is here to stay," lifting their 2026 U.S. forecasts to 3.2% core and 3.3% headline. The culprits stack up: robust domestic demand, sticky services inflation, lingering tariff effects, and now higher energy costs. Goldman Sachs economists estimate the current oil spike will add roughly 1 percentage point to global headline inflation over the next year while shaving 0.4 points from GDP growth. That combination creates a trap for central banks. Ease too slowly and they tighten into an oil-driven slowdown. Ease too fast and they validate 3% as the new normal, potentially igniting another bubble in the exact sectors regulators already flag as vulnerable: AI-exposed equities and private credit. The Fed has already pared back projected rate cuts, and markets are pricing a "higher for longer" path even as growth indicators soften.

The Uncomfortable Endgame

Threading all of this together leaves investors in an awkward spot. Symbolic gestures and social media posts now moving trillions across oil, bonds, and tech stocks. The energy shock is asymmetric in ways that let U.S. markets treat it as temporary while import-dependent allies absorb lasting damage. And the TACO pattern itself is teaching traders to bet on tactical pauses rather than strategic resolution.

The problem with that approach is simple: it works until it stops working. Every successful climb-down reinforces the reflex to buy the dip. Every relief rally trains algorithms to front-run the next one. But wars and energy shocks follow different rules than trade negotiations. Hormuz can close. Supply can actually disappear. And if Trump's next post says talks collapsed instead of "very productive," the same crowded trades that cushioned volatility on the way down will amplify it on the way back up.

For founders, investors, and anyone building for the next five years rather than the next five minutes, the lesson is uncomfortable but clear. Relying on a politician's next tactical pause as your macro hedge is momentum trading dressed up as geopolitical analysis. The more durable edge will come from stress-testing energy assumptions, recognizing that allies face structural vulnerabilities U.S. markets can ignore, and understanding that in this regime, even the safest-feeling bets are really just crowded positioning waiting for a different headline. The TACO bell keeps ringing, but eventually someone has to pay the check.

Companies To Watch

Latest deals and trending companies

[Open] Project Prometheus — Jeff Bezos seeks $100B to acquire manufacturing firms using AI for operational efficiency and supply chain enhancement.

[Open] Kalshi — Prediction-market platform raising $1B led by Coatue, doubling valuation to $22B for hedging and institutional market-making.

[Open] Fal — AI cloud infrastructure raising $300-$350M at $8B valuation, up from $4.5B. Reached $400M ARR with Adobe, Shopify as clients.

Elon's Terafab Launches — Musk unveils $25B chip fab producing 100-200B custom AI and memory chips annually for Tesla Full Self-Driving and xAI's Grok.

Blue Origin Space Compute — Jeff Bezos launches an orbital data center initiative targeting space-based computing for AI applications and autonomous satellite ops

NVIDIA Turns Datacenters to Grid Assets — NVIDIA partners with energy giants to transform AI factories into grid assets, providing backup power & load balancing.

Thiel's $2B AI Bet — Peter Thiel places a $2B bet on a New Zealand startup making cow tracking collars powered by algorithms.

Buzzy Tools & Tech

The Latest Trending Tools & Cutting Edge Technology Developments

Buzzy Tools

Buzzy Tools To Watch and Try Today

Cursor's Composer 2 — Coding model outperforms Claude Opus 4.6

Grok Computer — Elon Musk teases a computer-use agent for Grok

Claude Code Channels — Enables team messaging on coding projects

Supermemory ASMR Agent — Memory system enables persistent context

Adapt.com — Streamlines enterprise AI adoption with no-code interfaces

Buzzy Technology

Buzzy Tech Discoveries and Breakthroughs Trending Today

China's Fusion Energy Push — China emerges as serious contender in fusion race

Cars Need 300GB RAM by 2030 — Micron predicts vehicles require 300GB RAM 

Ion Membrane Water Pump — Enables low energy desalination, water purification

Lunar Mass Drivers — Cannon-like mass drivers on Moon for launching to orbit

DNA Robots — Targeted drug delivery, disease detection, molecular manufacturing

AI Tokens as Compensation — AI tokens emerge as engineering compensation

Cryptocurrency News

The Latest News in Crypto & Blockchain

Fidelity Pushes SEC on Brokers — Fidelity urges SEC to modernize broker-dealer rules for crypto custody and trading, arguing current regulations stifle innovation and institutional adoption.

Bitcoin $3.5B Inflows — Digital asset products recorded $3.5B weekly inflows as Bitcoin rallied amid Iran conflict deescalation.

Polymarket Cracks Down — Polymarket implements enhanced market integrity rules to prevent insider trading and manipulation after facing regulatory scrutiny.

Prediction Market VCs Launch Fund — Polymarket's Shayne Coplan and rival Tarek Mansour back new venture fund targeting prediction market and Web3 infrastructure startups.

MoonPay's Wallet Standard for AI — MoonPay launches open wallet standard enabling AI agents to autonomously manage crypto payments and transactions.

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