Inside a week when stablecoins are rising, Intel sounded the alarm — and Figma prepared to shut down Broad Street.

Minutes after the closing bell echoed through the New York Stock Exchange, I tried to sum up an extraordinary stretch at the NYSE CUBE Studios. In one frenetic week we covered President Trump’s AI Action Plan, Tom Lee’s crypto thesis, Intel’s sobering earnings, a MedTech Cube event and clear signals that the initial public offering window is cracking open.

The latest episode of theCUBE  Pod — recorded right on the exchange floor — captures three powerful forces now reshaping Silicon Valley money: Washington’s deregulatory push, a suddenly liquid crypto market flush with stable‑coin yields, and an enterprise artificial intelligence boom already lifting large‑cap earnings.

Policy shockwave

The United States is taking the AI wave seriously. At this week’s event in Washington, venture capitalist and Trump crypto “czar” David Sacks unveiled the administration’s blueprint, and tech fever was unmistakable — AI and crypto dominated every hallway conversation.

My co‑host Dave Vellante put the moment in historical context. Looser rules, he warned, have often paved the way for crises — from the savings-and-loan meltdown to the 2008 mortgage collapse. “We’re now seeing the pendulum swing to looser regulations,” he said after ticking through past disasters.

For now, the capital markets are cheering. The Small Business Administration is fast‑tracking guarantees for AI‑driven manufacturing loans, and smaller firms are eager to pounce. The big unknown: Will the same deregulatory tide accelerate mainstream crypto adoption?

Stablecoins step into the limelight

Fundstrat co‑founder Tom Lee was a great surprise this week on theCUBE. Unlike his familiar “perpetual bull” stints on cable TV, he dove into digital‑money plumbing and declared, “Stablecoins are more stable than the Bermuda currency.” The math is working. By parking money into crypto, Lee can harvest yields that dwarf traditional bank spreads — Lee’s fund is throwing off roughly $100 million a year. Even JPMorgan — whose CEO Jamie Dimon once mocked bitcoin — now seems poised to move, judging from the Wall Street chatter.

A regulatory vacuum remains. Crypto veteran Ken Goodwin reminded me that Tesla still books its bitcoin as an intangible asset, muddying its balance sheet. Washington’s plan tackles AI first; crypto guardrails, he argued, are “two major blockers right now from full Armageddon of innovation.”

Wall Street’s IPO window creaks open

The buzz on Broad Street is real. Design‑software darling Figma expects nearly 2,000 guests for its NYSE debut — the excitement is so high that the city may close surrounding streets. Chipmakers and crypto plays are lining up next, and yes, SPAC chatter is back.

Enterprise AI is hot

Behind the policy headlines, earnings told a quieter story: AI is already moving revenue needles.

• Alphabet’s Google Cloud rose ~35 % (survey data pegs it closer to 40 %).
• ServiceNow crushed estimates.
• IBM lifted full‑year free‑cash‑flow guidance to $13.5 billion despite a sharp share‑price dip; we felt the selloff was an overreaction.
• Amazon Web Services grew 17 %, and execs say optimization headwinds are fading ahead of December’s re:Invent. Their earnings are next week and we will be watching that closely.
• Google Cloud’s New York ISV forum showed an ecosystem “blowing up” after smart bets on integration — those bets look ready to pay off.

The chip wars: ‘Nvidia is the new Intel’

Semiconductors dominated Thursday and Friday. Dave predicted, “Intel is going to be a shell of its former self,” noting plans to cut another 15 % of staff and warning that Arizona fabs could run 30% 40 % costlier than TSMC’s.

“Nvidia is now the new Intel — and Wintel,” he added, praising Jensen Huang’s graphic processing unit software stack. Dave doubts Advanced Micro Devices will seize the crown, expecting it to settle for 10% to 15 % share unless Nvidia stumbles.

I’m less dismissive. Under CEO Lisa Su, AMD still has cards to play; my gut says it’s a sleeper.

We agree on one key constraint: energy. Huang told Washington insiders that power availability will decide the AI race, while Vice President JD Vance even floated a “realignment of NATO” around nations rich in energy reserves, which was an idea we’ve been highlighting on theCUBE all year.

Life sciences: A major opportunity for AI factories

If GPUs guzzle watts, hospitals and drug‑discovery labs may benefit first. Our “MedTech Unplugged” day at the NYSE highlighted Babson Therapeutics’ finger‑stick blood test — it uses 93 % less blood and can be administered by a Costco cashier.

Expect health‑tech expos to resemble AI conferences within a year. Robotics, digital diagnostics and edge computing are converging fast — these markets are being AI‑ified in real time.

This week: Earnings gauntlet and Black Hat

Microsoft, Meta and Amazon report next, followed by Arm, Qualcomm and Samsung. Meanwhile, Black Hat opens under a cloud: Chinese actors are already exploiting a severe SharePoint vulnerability.

The bottom line

A year that began with recession worries now finds Wall Street bracing for exuberance. History urges caution — deregulation booms can bust, and energy bottlenecks, geopolitics and wafer supply still loom — but for the moment, money is flowing.

We like to say “damn the torpedoes” when growth markets accelerate. If AI productivity gains hit as expected, we could ride a wave that produces a remarkably healthy economic landscape.

Here is this week’s CubePod:

Image: theCUBE