In the immortal words of the Bangles, “it’s just another manic Monday.”

Even though you may wish it was Sunday, every day can be your fun day when you start your morning with our stimulating, pulse-pounding updates.

What are you waiting for!? Let’s read!

Espresso Shots

☕️ Binance Defies Sanctions in Iran 🔐 💰

Binance, participating in a decade-long American tradition, has become involved in some pretty shady stuff in the Middle-East.

Despite 2018 U.S. sanctions intended to cut Iran from the global financial system, Binance has engaged in roughly $8 billion in transactions with Nobitex, Iran’s largest crypto exchange.

These discoveries are part of an ongoing investigation by the U.S. Justice Department into money laundering conducted by Binance.

Investigators are saying that Binance’s illegal, digital trading in Iran is the worst thing to happen in the country since… I don’t know, yesterday?

☕️ Elon Slashes Twitter’s Workforce ✂️ 👥

After Elon Musk explicitly said that he wouldn’t lay off 75% of Twitter’s workforce, like a malicious, South African genie, he operated within the parameters of the wish and only laid off 50%.

3,700 jobs, also known as half of Twitter’s workforce, were terminated via email last Friday.

And just when Elon couldn’t get any cooler or more relatable, he drew the ire of Taylor Swift, AOC, and the rest of the blue check community by announcing plans to implement an $8 subscription fee for users to keep their verification.

“Twitter is simply the most interesting place on the internet,” Musk tweeted on Wednesday. And Twitter certainly has become the most interesting place on the internet, kinda like how a multi-car pileup is the most interesting place on the highway.

☕️ US Jobs Report 📈 📉

This October, the U.S. added 261,000 jobs. This was better than economists’ prediction of 200,000, but it’s clear that none of these new jobs will be at Twitter!

Fed Chair Jerome Powell noted “the labor market continues to be out of balance, with demand substantially exceeding the supply of available workers.”

Despite added jobs, the unemployment rate has risen to 3.7%, again, defying economists expected 3.6% in October. So it would seem these experts were wrong twice, much like Tom Brady when he unretired from football to save his marriage.

Spilling the Beans

Solana reaches for the stars!

Solana, the tenth largest crypto ecosystem by market cap, is trying to go mainstream.

Solana, a decentralized low-cost blockchain, made some news this week at Solana Breakpoint, their annual conference.

Attracting 13,000 attendees, Breakpoint saw the Solana team make a series of major announcements, including:

• A new Solana Store in Miami - in case you’re looking for a Solana surfboard.

• Solana smartphones which will reportedly be available in 2023.

• Solana DApp Store - a Solana decentralized app store is coming in 2023, an attempt at disrupting the all powerful Apple tax.

• Solana announced a Google Cloud Partnership.

Up until this point, Solana has struggled to truly compete with other Layer 1 Blockchains like Ethereum, despite faster transaction speeds and lower fees.

Even so, the last few months have seen Solana’s NFT community flourish with Magic Eden, Solana’s dominant NFT marketplace.

After Solana’s slew of announcements, its token Sol jumped to a 2-month high, a sign of renewed excitement from the Solana community.

While only time will tell whether Solana has a shot at dominating the Layer 1 space, its development team is certainly giving it their best shot, trying to overcome its reputation of being a spotty network.

Solana’s Breakpoint 2022 was held in Lisbon, Portugal, meanwhile my breaking point of 2022 was when Elon fired me from Twitter and I had to get a job writing this newsletter.

Meme of the Day

Oh, oh god - things seem bad in here.

The Last Sip

The employees at Twitter and verified celebrities aren’t the only ones voicing their displeasure at Elon Musk’s acquisition of the platform, President Joe Biden took some time out of his busy schedule of tapioca chewing and playing checkers to weigh in.

Biden, it would seem, doesn’t have issues with Musk so much as Twitter itself, stating, “Now what are we all worried about? Elon Musk goes out and buys an outfit that sends and spews lies all across the world.”

Biden went on to express concern for, um, the nature of the internet in general? Adding, “There’s no editors anymore. There’s no editors. How do we expect kids to be able to understand what is at stake?”

When further pressed by reporters, Biden kept calling them by his granddaughter's name and repeating, “I’m wet, I’m cold, I’m scared.”

At least two quotes in this section are real. Have a great week!

Stay Caffeinated,

Coffee & Crypto Team

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.