Axios

GameStop, the OG of meme stocks, closed down nearly 20% today after disclosing plans to sell more shares.

• It also reported preliminary Q1 results that suggest revenue is down as much as nearly 30% from a year ago.

The big picture: Friday's crash put an end to this week's brief rally in the company's share price, which followed the return of meme stock investor Keith Gill, or "Roaring Kitty," to X.

Sweetgreen's Neman has found a few benefits for AI.

• He says "it's important" to be curious about new technologies and that he hits the topic regularly with leaders across departments.
• Employees are mainly using it at the moment for tasks like sales forecasts, but Neman sees potential in tapping it to create personalized nutrition products and menus for the mainstream.

🧸 1 fun thing: The most fun way he's been using generative AI is during bedtime with his kids.

• "With my 3½-year-old — we'll write a story together. We'll ask him for some prompts on what [he wants] the story to be about. And I'll put his name in there and I'll sneak in some lessons I wanted to teach."

Open standards are great for mass adoption.

• You are reading this thanks to a variety of open standards, such as email and HTML.

The latest: Xapo, the digital asset manager, and Ripio, an Argentine crypto fintech, just announced their deployment of Lightspark's open standard for sending bitcoins: the universal money address, or UMA.

How it works: Users of any bank or fintech that integrates UMA will get an address something like an email.

• So, if I had an account at Xapo (I don't), I might have a UMA address as [email protected]. If Crystal had an account at Ripio (she doesn't) she might be [email protected].

Biden administration officials fear an economic threat from China is looming — that the global superpower is using the same tactics to boost its economy that proved disastrous for U.S. industry when used two decades ago.

Why it matters: That is the subtext of this week's escalation of the trade war between the two nations, including a 100% tariff on Chinese electric vehicles.

Lower-income households increased their spending by 2% in April, while high earners saw a slower spending increase, according to new credit and debit card data from Bank of America Institute.

Why it matters: Consumer spending drives the U.S. economy, and BofA's data provides a counterpoint to warning signs about a spending slowdown at the low end of the income scale.

The strength of Walmart's first-quarter results even surprised Walmart.

Why it matters: If the retail giant's earnings are truly a bellwether for consumer spending, one thing was confirmed Thursday morning — consumers are still spending on "value and convenience."

A resolution condemning a rule on how to account for cryptocurrency assets has been passed by both houses of the U.S. Congress, setting up a likely veto by the White House.

Why it matters: The crypto industry began its fight against chairman Gary Gensler's SEC in the courts, but has successfully extended it onto a new field: the legislature.

To understand what it will take to achieve the "last mile" of bringing inflation down to normal, you need to understand why it shot up so quickly in the first place.

Why it matters: Two of the leading economic policy minds of the last generation have sought to do just that in a new paper, unpacking why global inflation took off in the early 2020s — with results that suggest this inflationary episode can end with less pain for workers than in the 1970s and '80s.

Question: What kind of investor could possibly be dissatisfied with 45% returns in five months?

Answer: A crypto investor.

A lesson for the ages: When bored on the blockchains, trade memecoins.

If there's one name the average person knows from the 2021 NFT boom, it's OpenSea, the original NFT marketplace.

The latest: OpenSea has fallen to third place in terms of volume, according to DappRadar, a web3 statistics site.

• Yes, but: OpenSea is still No. 1 in users, a fact that company CEO Devin Finzer emphasized when he talked about OpenSea's strategy.

Why it matters: OpenSea looked invincible when NFTs were the talk of everywhere, which just goes to show how quickly things move on blockchains.

Between the lines: Blur is the No. 1 marketplace by volume, by DappRadar's accounting, and Magic Eden has moved into the second spot.

SocialFi is back and folks are talking about it "speedrunning" the history of social media on Web 2.0.

• But well-adjusted adults probably don't know what speedrunning is.

Zoom in: Speedrunning is a genre of YouTube video and video game play competition.

• Speedrunners master a video game to complete it with unbelievable speed. The point is to play some known territory perfectly, not one millisecond wasted.
• For example, according to Speedrun.com, the record for playing 1985's Super Mario Bros. is 4 minutes, 54 seconds and 631 milliseconds (second place is slower by much less than a second).

Context: Social media blockchainified (also known as SocialFi) is having its umpteenth moment now with Friend.Tech version 2.0 and Fantasy Top.

Free money is out there in crypto, but it's increasingly more complicated to get your hands on.

Why it matters: Decentralization isn't just a buzzword. The strongest crypto projects really are the ones where the most people own some of the digital asset.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average touched a record high at 40,000 on Thursday, with investors momentarily downplaying fears about inflation and delayed interest rate cuts.

Why it matters: The market has built on momentum in spite of persistent worries about inflation, and what the Federal Reserve may or may not do in response.

The funding structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) passes constitutional muster, the Supreme court ruled Thursday, rebuffing a challenge from payday lenders.

Why it matters: The CFPB was created in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and plays a crucial role in regulating things like mortgages and car loans, protecting consumers from predatory practices by banks and other financial firms.

The stock market hit a new record high on Wednesday, with all major indices notching uncharted territory.

Why it matters: The optimism embedded in stock prices stands in stark contrast to a much gloomier national mood in an election year almost no one is excited about.

Atlanta, Fort Worth and Raleigh are America's fastest-growing cities with more than 250,000 residents as of 2023, according to new U.S. Census Bureau data out today.

Why it matters: Late-pandemic shifts in where Americans live are still shaking out — with big implications for cities seeing massive growth or rapid decline.