rewrite this title Is Altman’s AI future too fast for Buterin’s taste

Plus: Phantom crushes airdrop dreams

GM. Welcome to the Daily Squeeze – where we crush the day’s Web3 fruit into a sweet mash of updates, seeds and all.

🤖 Sam Altman and Vitalik Buterin share their views on the future of AI.

🍋 News drops: Phantom token rumors, NFT tourist cards + more

🍍 Market flavor today

Is the crypto market playing hard to get or just teasing us? 🤷‍♀️ Bitcoin traded in the $96K – $100K range over the weekend but couldn’t quite push past $100K. Meanwhile, the Fear & Greed Index is still camping in Greed, at 76 today.

Spot BTC ETFs made a comeback: after losing $242.3M last Thursday, they snapped right back with $908.1M in inflows the very next day. Meaning: large investors still believe Bitcoin has more room to climb.

Plus, Japan’s Metaplanet has made it clear that it wants to pump up its Bitcoin holdings from 1,762 BTC to 10,000 BTC this year. That’s also a sign that some companies are still bullish on Bitcoin for the long run.

Markus Thielen, the founder of 10x Research, expects a positive tone in early January before a small dip happens around the Consumer Price Index data on January 15. He thinks a pickup in the market could arrive as we get closer to Trump’s inauguration – especially if inflation numbers look good.

That said, he believes that traders might become cautious again just before the Federal Reserve’s meeting on January 29.

Whether it’s a tease, a test, or just Bitcoin being Bitcoin, one thing’s for sure: this story isn’t wrapping up anytime soon. Stay tuned 😉

🥝 Memecoin harvest

These tokens woke up and chose violence today 🧨

Name

24H Change

Hyperfy HYPER

▲269K%

gAInzy GNZ

▲32K%

Hiero Terminal HTERM

▲19K%

Waveform WAVE

▲380%

Data as of 07:00 AM EST.

Check out these memecoins and plenty more here.

Ask 10 people what they think about AI, and you’ll probably get 15 opinions.

A student might say it’s the best thing ever (’cause, you know, imagine having to spend more than 5 minutes on an essay in 2025), someone like a translator might be worried about robots taking over their job… you get the gist.

And even tech leaders can’t agree. Case in point: Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, and Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum.

1/ Altman’s vision

Altman’s thinking big. He believes that OpenAI is on the verge of creating Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) – a super-smart AI that can perform any intellectual task humans can… and then some.

This year, he predicts AI agents will start joining the workforce, which would increase company productivity dramatically.

And that’s just the beginning. He’s also already teasing superintelligence, a system that surpasses human intelligence in every way (basically AGI on steroids).

According to Altman, it could change everything – speeding up scientific discoveries and innovation + driving massive prosperity.

TL;DR: chasing the ultimate AI future, no limits.

2/ Buterin’s vision

Silicon Valley tech culture is often associated with the e/acc (effective acceleration) philosophy – a “move fast, worry later” approach to innovation.

Well, Buterin’s been discussing something he calls d/acc. And the “d” stands for… not that you pervert – it’s defense, decentralization, democracy, and differential.

What’s the main idea of d/acc? Yes, keep innovating, but do it in ways that prioritize safety and human empowerment.

How, you may ask? Buterin suggests these strategies:

Liability: holding users, deployers, and devs accountable for AI-related harm (but don’t go overboard – let the little guys innovate without fearing lawsuits);

Global “soft pause” button: equipping powerful AI hardware with special chips that require periodic international approval to operate. No approval? All affected hardware shuts down. Bonus points if it involves blockchain for extra transparency.

TL;DR: chasing the ultimate AI future with caution.

So… what’s next? Thrills? Chills? A little of both? All we know is that the line between Black Mirror and reality is blurring faster than ever – so the conversation’s far from over.

🍋 News drops

🙅 Phantom’s putting the rumors to rest: there’ll be no token airdrop coming with its social discovery feature.

🏝 South Korea’s Jeju Island is tryna pull the “How do you do, fellow kids?” card. Rumor has it they’re dropping NFT tourist cards to attract younger visitors.

🎮 Meanwhile, PUBG creator Brendan Greene is cooking up Artemis, a next-gen gameplay-focused metaverse. And NFTs are apparently not invited to this party.

🔍 John Deaton, a former US prosecutor, offered to lead a Trump investigation into Operation Chokepoint 2.0 – an alleged effort to block crypto companies from banks. He says letting it slide would give regulators too much power to suppress industries they don’t like.

💸 Mining company MARA lent out 7,377 BTC last year. According to VP Robert Samuels, the lending gig involves short-term deals with trustworthy third parties.

🍌 Juicy memes