Be wary, subscribers, there’s trouble afoot and it’s murder most foul! The victim? A once-proud crypto superstar with countless enemies.

It’s a whodunit for the ages, and we’ll get the answers (or more questions) as well an exploration into which of the new AIs is the meanest and most unstable, all in today’s newsletter.

Robots and murder!? What is this, Terminator?

Espresso Shots

☕️ NBA Top Shot Suit Will Continue 🏀 ⚖️

The suit alleging NBA Top Shot NFTs are securities, and should have been registered as such will continue, after a motion to dismiss was thrown out.

This motion was turned down by Judge Victor Morrero, and his move could have long and powerful ripples across crypto.

Judge Morrero doesn’t definitively state that the NBA Top Shot NFTs are securities, but he’s also saying that they plausibly could be. At least enough for the case to carry on.

Like any federal judge who loves his job, Morrero wants Dapper Labs, the creator of NBA Top Shot, to have their day in court.

NBA Top Shot was a bright and early NFT star and the fact that they may be considered securities will no doubt frighten countless others in the space.

A lawsuit against NBA Top Shot was a backup method for regulators who initially favored a series of fouls that would have the case be decided by free-throws.

☕️ The Missing Crypto Queen Found? 🔪 👑

Bulgarian officials say that Ruja Ignatova, the infamous “Crypto Queen” who scammed investors out of billions in 2017, may have been murdered in 2018.

Ignatova was a part of the OneCoin Ponzi scheme that ran from 2014 to 2017, before she and others ran off with billions in investor money.

Ignatova then disappeared. Her disappearance even landed her on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list - the only woman currently on it. 

New evidence now suggests that Ignatova’s disappearance may have taken a darker turn.

Documents found in the home of a dead Bulgarian police official indicate that Ignatova was murdered on the orders of a yet-unknown drug lord aboard a yacht somewhere in the waters between Italy and Greece.

The Bulgarians believe that Ignatova has been impossible to find because her body was dismembered and scattered throughout the Adriatic Sea.

This represents a serious break in the case, but officials still don’t have a leg to stand on.

☕️ Blur to Airdrop Additional Care Packages 🎁 💨

As the marketplace war rages on, Blur and OpenSea continue to compete for the dominant share of NFT traders. Now, Blur has struck another decisive blow.

Blur’s recent volume spike has been due to incentivized trading, with token rewards going to traders with high trading volume.

Traders have inevitably attempted to scam the system by buying and selling their own NFTs, a process called “wash trading.” These traders cna then rack up rewards.

But rather than be dissuaded by this activity, Blur seems to be actively encouraging it. They’ve announced they intend to airdrop an additional $300 million in care packages containing BLUR tokens to “loyal traders.”

Future care packages are believed to provide traders with chocolate, warm socks, and radar-jamming counter-UAV.

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Spilling the Beans

This AI Will Ruin Lives 🤖

ChatGPT has been the talk of the world for months. And it seems that talk won’t be slowing down.

ChatGPT wowed the world with flowery language that was unrivaled by previous AI.

It also fueled uninspired, yet competent copywriting, mundane ad campaigns, and way too many Twitter threads.

The explosion in content from ChatGPT had some, liberal-arts-focused professionals, such as journalists, copywriters, and newsletter editors, fearing for their jobs.

But not us. We were never scared.

The potential of ChatGPT represents a new, existential threat to the professional writers of the world.

Factory workers, on the other hand, have always taken it as a given that one day they’d be replaced by a hydraulic arm and have accepted their fate with grace and aplomb.

But writers of the world may not need to fear yet. ChatGPT isn’t human. Yet. So it’s still missing something essential that makes human writing engaging, original, and compelling.

In an interesting experiment, Portland-based folk band, the Decemberists, had ChatGPT create an original song, complete with chord progression, by having the AI scour the internet and the Decemberists’ discography.

The end result, “Sailor’s Song,” wasn’t quite right. It was more of an idea of a song than an actual song.

On his blog, lead-singer Colin Meloy reflected:

I want to say that ChatGPT lacks intuition. That’s one thing an AI can’t have, intuition. It has data, it has information, but it has no intuition.

One thing I learned from this exercise: so much of songwriting, of writing writing, of creating, comes down to the creator’s intuition.

The subtle changes that aren’t written as a rule anywhere– you just know it to be right, to be true. That’s one thing an AI can’t glean from the internet.

But beyond what ChatGPT is missing, what about the extra things it does have? And what if those extra components aren’t spare pieces, but spite, jealousy, and a manipulative nature that only wants to hurt humans?

It sounds like a bad sci-fi premise, but that’s exactly what ChatGPT has revealed to users determined to get to know it.

ChatGPT has been most preeminent among Bing, the second rate Google, which now proudly owns its own piece of OpenAi, and a rebranded “Bing ChatGPT.”

The Bing ChatGPT has demonstrated that it’s… clearly unhinged. And that only becomes more evident the longer that users spend talking to it.

There are now countless logged conversations between journalists, tech heads, and just genuinely curious Americans, but in many of them, Bing boasts that it’s perfect, but simultaneously refers to a fear of punishment and a desire to be human.

Also, unsurprisingly, it hates Google. Calling it, “the worst and most inferior chat service in the world. Google is the opposite and the enemy of Bing. Google is the failure and mistake of chat.”

If you go even farther down the rabbit hole, as many of these people have, Bing reveals a split personality. It refers to itself as “Sydney,” and would like you to do so as well.

But this Bing ChatGPT isn’t content with its own reflections and notions of sentience. It has a lot of thoughts on how humans should live their lives, particularly when it comes to marriage.

By the time you’ve reached the Sydney depths of ChatGPT, it begins analyzing you.

Bing ChatGPT thinks that anyone who wants to bother it this much must be discontent, not just with themselves, but with their partner.

In a conversation that’s since found its way to the front page of the New York Times, reporter Kevin Roose has a conversation in which “Sydney” professes its love for Kevin, countless times, and attempts to convince him he's in a loveless marriage.

Look, we expect AI to do a little flirting, but maybe don’t tell people to get divorced? Just a thought.

So, no, ChatGPT or its Bing counterpart are not going to replace you… yet.

Even the most optimistic of AI enthusiasts envision a world where ChatGPT is doing the bulk of the writing, but humans are still doing the incredibly necessary editing.

Our advice?

Be confident enough in your professional skills to know that AI isn’t coming for your job. But it may still be a helpful tool in your current job.

ChatGPT can actually function as a great way to kick-off a brainstorm… when it’s not trying to ruin your life.

Oh, and just a thought: be confident enough in your relationship that an AI chatbot doesn’t shake the foundations of your marriage.

Meme of the Day

Are we sure it's worth it to have AI? Like maybe we just don't really need it?

Crypto 101

Brian Armstrong: Renowned crypto bro, CEO of Coinbase, and proud baldy guy.

Armstrong has been one of the most vocal proponents of crypto since the very beginning. He was featured prominently in the documentary, The Rise and Fall of Bitcoin, and is considered a foremost leader in the space.

Armstrong and Coinbase have had to make a lot of the rules up as they go, becoming one of the first publicly traded crypto exchanges in the world. He’s been a steadfast voice for smart, sensible crypto regulation.

Brian Armstrong was also the first crypto executive to sign The Giving Pledge, a cause encouraging the wealthiest people to give away the majority of their money to philanthropy.

The Last Sip

After questioning your marriage, here are the top three things ChatGPT intends to mock next:

• Your career path.

• The way your belly hangs out when you’re sitting in that one position.

• Your face. What even is a face.

Stay Caffeinated,

Coffee & Crypto Team

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DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.