Cardano, you did it. Welcome home @OrionFund Next steps and updates to follow shortly. Time to execute.

We may be at "the end of the beginning" of AI. Oracle just sent a force majeure notice on Project Jupiter, a Stargate datacenter for OpenAI (developed by Blue Owl Capital, powered by Bloom Energy and financed with some $18 billion of bank loans - Stargate is backed as well by SoftBank Group Corp. Lots of players.) The public reason is power delays - so this is widely thought to be a move to protect itself from the costs of a possibly delayed completion. However, I do worry as well that we're seeing OpenAI demand softening, leading to a delay (or unwillingness, or inability) to pay Oracle, which then causes Oracle to call a force majeure a full two years early. We've seen this before with fiber - vendor financing, capex that doubled in six years, then a bust that ended in a wave of credit defaults. AI capex is up nearly 10x on the same pattern, and a 5% 10-year makes every GPU lease harder to justify. Credit events are often catalysts to end a cycle. Maybe not, but I am keeping a close eye on how this unfolds. PS. Remember how fiber ended: many of its builders went bust, and Google, Netflix and AWS were built on what they left behind. The next winners - and those we're looking at as VCs - will be the ones who use what this cycle paid for. Sharing below slides we shared with some of our LPs this week to introduce this idea further :)

This is huge!! A major distribution milestone is here. Now owning CNTs will be seamless using @FireblocksHQ

Calling all builders in AI and web3 - join us on October 6 for a private founders & friends happy hour organized together with @sequoiaTPI during @Techweek_ in San Francisco. No stage, no pitch decks, just good conversation. Join us - space is limited! Link below 👇

What's next for Cardano? This Thursday, we'll discuss exactly that with six people who are shaping the answer. Meet the panel: ∙Frederik Gregaard, CEO, Cardano Foundation ∙Laura Mattiucci, Director of Marketing & Communications, Cardano Foundation ∙Elis Moormaa, Global Events Team Lead, Cardano Foundation ∙Samiz Bayan, Partner, @DraperDragon ∙Damien Czapla, Amaru Maintainer ∙Daniel Ribar, Director of Project Catalyst, Cardano Foundation Moderated by Nicolas Cerny, Governance Lead, Cardano Foundation. On the table: TOKEN2049 week and the side events around it, node diversity and what Amaru is building, the Catalyst 2026 Pilot, the 2027 global events strategy, and where the ecosystem goes from here. Your questions will shape the last 20 minutes of the discussion, so leave your questions and set your reminders below. See you there!

Just back from @EBlockchainCon in Barcelona. European funds are aligned on RWAs and tokenization, and more relaxed about regulation than before, even with the Clarity Act stalled. My take on stage: the winners are the ones building invisible infrastructure, stablecoins, and settlement sitting quietly under a product, the way Uber and Netflix buried the internet's plumbing. @opentrade_io, @centrifuge, and @mogul__club are doing exactly that. Thanks to my co-panelists, the organizers, and everyone I've met for a great time.

Cardano has never had a shortage of talented builders. What it's lacked is a bridge from that talent to Silicon Valley networks, mentorship, and capital. That's the gap the Genesis program is built to close, and this week, we watched the first cohort pitch on stage after four weeks of building, testing, and rewriting their ideas. Thirteen teams, spanning AI, payments, DeFi, infrastructure, and consumer, some brand new to Cardano and some who've been building here for years. Great judging panel including @TimDraper, @Andytang, @samizb, Aleeha Banerjee from our investment team, and Stephen Wood from @Cardano_CF. It was amazing to see Orion Fund come to life in person alongside the builders. Every part of Orion came together: @Cometa_Labs providing technical mentorship and growth support, our very own @DraperDragon investment team mentoring and advising founders, and @draper_u making it all possible. Best of all, this is only the beginning. Our investment and growth teams will continue working with these founders well beyond Demo Day, with many more cohorts to come across all stages this year and next. Thank you to everyone who made it happen!

Cardano and Bitcoin founders don't usually end up pitching to the same investors in the same room. On October 7 they will. Hosting UTXO Pitch Night at @token2049 Singapore with @DraperDragon and @Cardano_CF, up to $500K on the table for founders across Cardano, Bitcoin, and the wider UTXO ecosystem. LAVO rooftop, Marina Bay Sands. Come say hi! More below 👇

AI teams are building on a fragmented model landscape. Switching providers means rewriting integrations, costs are unpredictable, and there's little visibility into what you're actually paying for. Which is why we're backing @Leapnode_AI, the routing layer giving developers 100+ models through a single interface, directing each request to the most efficient provider available.

The strongest signal an ecosystem can send is founders choosing to build in it. The Genesis Pre-Accelerator cohort is set, building on Cardano at @DraperU in Silicon Valley. A four-week residency for early-stage teams from Argentina, South Africa, Germany, Australia, Andorra, and the US, working in payments, institutional DeFi, compliance, and enterprise tools. Every team gets an investment, not a grant. Founder success and ecosystem upside point the same way. It ends with Pitch Day in front of angels and early-stage VCs. Ready to raise? Apex Growth Accelerator applications close Sept 1. Congrats to the cohort, and thanks to @DraperU and @Cardano_CF.