Hey there, PoI readers! 💫

It's your favorite crypto connoisseur, Mochi, back with another serving of tantalizing tech and web3 news. From Trump's ambitious AI dominance plans and crypto scammers having a field day to MoonPay's Solana staking debut and Google's AI empire expansion, we've got a lot to unpack. So, buckle up and get ready for a wild ride through the wonderland of digital innovation!

INTEL BRIEF

🟧 Trump's White House released a comprehensive AI plan aimed at making the US the "world capital" of artificial intelligence through deregulation, infrastructure development, and global export control strategies.

🟧 As crypto markets hit new all-time highs, scammers are ramping up sophisticated attacks by hijacking YouTube accounts to impersonate Ripple and other firms with fake XRP giveaways.

🟧 MoonPay launched liquid staking for Solana offering 8.49% annual yield, capitalizing on surging institutional demand and record staking activity across the network.

🟧 Google's AI features are experiencing explosive growth with AI Overviews reaching 2 billion monthly users and overall token processing nearly doubling to 980 trillion monthly tokens.

Trump Unleashes His AI Deregulation Master Plan

White House just dropped what's essentially a tech bro's fever dream disguised as national policy. On Wednesday, President Trump unveiled his master plan to turn America into the undisputed AI overlord of the planet.

The plan comes with a fancy three-pillar structure. While preaching the gospel of open-source AI development, the administration simultaneously wants to award government contracts exclusively to "frontier" LLM developers - whatever the heck that means!

Trump's team wants to fast-track data center approvals by essentially giving environmental regulations the old "thanks, but no thanks" treatment. We're talking about re-categorizing these power-hungry facilities under a revamped National Environmental Policy Act and basically speed-running through Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and other pesky environmental protections.

The plan also targets what it calls "protecting freedom of speech" in AI models by eliminating references to misinformation, diversity initiatives, and climate change from federal guidelines. The Department of Commerce and NIST are speculated to be leading this charge, which is believed to be a significant shift in how AI systems are developed and regulated at the federal level.

On the global stage, the strategy reads like a tech world domination playbook - strengthening export controls and trade policies to push American AI systems worldwide through various federal agencies.

Deregulation central: Fast-tracking data center permits while relaxing environmental protections to boost AI infrastructure

Contradictory approach: Promoting open-source development while restricting government contracts to undefined "frontier" developers

Global ambitions: Using export controls and trade policies to spread American AI systems internationally

Scammers Cash In on Crypto Bull Market Chaos

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse dropped some harsh reality checks this week, warning that the recent market euphoria has turned scammers into hyperactive little gremlins.

Crypto scam losses have already hit a jaw-dropping $2.1 billion in just the first half of 2025! That's more than the entire previous record of $2 billion set back in 2022. At this rate, scammers might need to start filing quarterly earnings reports because business is apparently booming!

XRP recently moonshot to $3.66, tantalizingly close to its legendary 2018 peak of $3.84, while Bitcoin is casually strutting around above $119,000 like it owns the place. Meanwhile, Ether decided to join the party with a 31% spike in two weeks, now trading at $3,644.

These aren't your garden-variety "Nigerian prince" emails anymore. The bad actors are getting sophisticated as heck, hijacking entire YouTube accounts with substantial followings (we're talking 176K+ subscribers!) and transforming them into convincing Ripple impersonators. They're literally identity-stealing established channels and rebranding them to shill fake "100M XRP giveaways" that look disturbingly legit.

Garlinghouse wasn't mincing words when he said "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” The official Ripple account had to practically shout from the digital rooftops that they will NEVER ask users to send XRP.

This isn't Ripple's first rodeo either - they previously sued YouTube back in 2021 over similar shenanigans before eventually reaching some sort of resolution.

Scam surge: Crypto fraud losses hit record $2.1B in first half of 2025 as markets rally to new highs

Sophisticated attacks: Fraudsters hijacking high-subscriber YouTube accounts to impersonate Ripple with fake XRP giveaways

Multi-platform problem: Scammers also using Google ads and Punycode attacks to target crypto users across search results

MoonPay Debuts Solana Staking with Juicy 8.49% Yields

MoonPay just decided to crash the Solana staking party with all the enthusiasm of someone who just discovered they can earn 8.49% annual yield on their crypto! The fintech company, which started life as a humble fiat-to-crypto gateway back in 2019, has now morphed into a full-blown Web3 Swiss Army knife - and their latest trick is liquid staking for SOL holders.

You can stake as little as $1 in Solana (because apparently, MoonPay believes in financial democracy) and receive their shiny new mpSOL liquid staking token in return. No lockup periods and rewards dropping into your account approximately every two days like clockwork. It's basically the crypto equivalent of a high-yield savings account that actually pays you more than the spare change you find in your couch cushions!

MoonPay isn't exactly reinventing the wheel here. They're entering what CEO Ivan Soto-Wright diplomatically calls a "competitive landscape," which is corporate speak for "Marinade and Jito have been doing this forever and we're trying to grab some market share." Still, you've got to admire the timing because Solana staking is absolutely on fire right now!

The numbers are legitimately mind-blowing: back in April, Solana briefly dethroned Ethereum in total value staked, hitting over $53.9 billion compared to Ethereum's $53.7 billion. And with Solana offering around 8.3% annualized returns versus Ethereum's measly 3.2%.

DeFi Development Corp just casually dropped some cash on 141,383 SOL tokens, bringing their holdings to an almost poetic 999,999 SOL (someone clearly has OCD). Meanwhile, Upexi decided to flex with 83,000 SOL for $16.7 million, and even Robinhood is getting in on the action by introducing ETH and SOL staking for US customers.

Solana staking ETF that launched earlier this month and crushed $100 million in volume in just twelve trading sessions.

New player: MoonPay launches liquid SOL staking with 8.49% yield, $1 minimum, and no lockup periods starting July 23

Market momentum: Solana briefly surpassed Ethereum in total staked value ($53.9B vs $53.7B) with superior 8.3% vs 3.2% yields

Institutional rush: Major treasury buys from DeFi Dev (999,999 SOL) and Upexi (1.9M SOL total), plus new staking ETF hitting $100M volume

Google's AI Army Hits 2 Billion Users Worldwide

Google's AI takeover is proceeding exactly according to plan! CEO Sundar Pichai just dropped some absolutely bonkers numbers during their Q2 earnings call that would make even the most seasoned tech executives do a double-take. We're talking about 2 billion monthly users for AI Overviews - that's basically every person with internet access getting their search results AI-ified whether they asked for it or not!

Google's Gemini app has somehow managed to wrangle 450 million monthly active users, with daily requests growing over 50% from Q1.

Google's fancy chat-based search experience - has already hit 100 million monthly users despite only being available in the US and India. That's some serious geographical efficiency right there! Pichai also teased that they're planning to juice up the experience with something called "Deep Search" and more personalized responses, because apparently regular search results weren't personal enough.

Over 9 million developers have been tinkering with Gemini, while their Veo 3 AI model has churned out more than 70 million videos since May. Google Vids, their text-to-video AI tool, is sitting pretty with nearly 1 million monthly users - which is either super impressive or slightly concerning depending on how you feel about AI-generated content flooding the internet.

Google's monthly token processing has doubled from 480 trillion to 980 trillion since their developer conference in May.

Despite all these record-breaking numbers, investors apparently looked at Google's increased AI spending plans and said "nah, we're good" - sending the stock tumbling. Because nothing says "thanks for the innovation" quite like a stock price reality check!

Massive adoption: AI Overviews hit 2B monthly users (up from 1.5B in May), Gemini at 450M users with 50%+ daily request growth

Token explosion: Monthly processing nearly doubled from 480 trillion to 980 trillion tokens since May developer conference

Investor skepticism: Despite impressive user growth, stock dropped on concerns about increased AI infrastructure spending plans

And that's a wrap, my lovely PoI readers! I hope this edition left you feeling informed, entertained, and maybe even a little bit richer (in knowledge, of course). From AI policy shake-ups to staking opportunities and the eternal battle against crypto scammers, it's been quite the tech rollercoaster! Remember to stay curious, stay informed, and keep spreading the love. Until next time, this is Mochi, signing off with a virtual high-five!

P.S. Don't forget to share your thoughts, questions, and favorite crypto puns with us. very voice matters in the PoI community! 📣❤️ Share the newsletter

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