Ukraine
President Volodymyr Zelensky made a whirlwind trip from Ukraine to London, Paris, Brussels, and stopped over in Poland on the way back. As usual lots of thanks and lots of asks. His track record on the asks is quite good.
In Brussels, he had the opportunity to meet with King Philippe I of Belgium.
He told him about the Peace Formula, which is designed to restore a just peace in Ukraine. I handed over a fragment of a Russian Su-25 plane shot down in Ukraine. Ukrainian pilots wrote “Together we will win” on it.
He said he is grateful to His Majesty, the Belgian government and the entire Belgian people for their comprehensive support of Ukraine since the first days of the full-scale invasion.
He am also said he was grateful for helping Ukrainians who were forced to temporarily leave their homes due to the war and found shelter in Belgium.
Some upcoming game changers are Ukrainian pilots are undergoing training on Western planes, which will be handed over in the near future, and Ukrainian production of their own long range missiles.
Space
SpaceX’s Starship super heavy rocket, which has been in development since 2012, passed its last and most critical test before an orbital launch attempt as early as next month. In what’s called a static fire, 31 of its 33 Raptor 2 engines (one was disabled and another shut itself down) were ignited for seven seconds while firmly secured to the orbital launch mount at Starbase in Brownsville, TX. The purpose of the test is to verify all integrated systems supporting the vehicle leading up to launch, including fueling, sound suppression, fire suppression, and of course engine ignition. This was the largest number of engines ever ignited on a rocket simultaneously.
Starship will rendezvous with NASA’s Orion space capsule in lunar orbit on the Artemis III mission in 2025 and bring the first humans back to the surface of the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972. One day it will take the first humans to the surface of Mars.
Crypto
Believe it or not, one of the most ubiquitous methods to access crypto is an ATM. As of September 2022, there were 63,000 crypto ATMs. Axios reported they can be found at truck stops and bars around the world. Recently, ATM operators have been going bankrupt. Profit margins were high from fees, but consumers have awakened to connecting their digital wallets to their bank account. ATM failures are not a reflection on crypto. The failures are due to the realization the ATMs didn’t not really serve a legitimate purpose. Crypto market cap is at $1.01 T with 41% of it Bitcoin. Bitcoin pulling back a bit but still more stable than many tech stocks.
Wall Street
Mixed back this week. Definitely not a rally. All six GAMMAT stocks were flat or down, but still adding up to $7.6 T in market cap. They each have their challenges but I think they will work their way through them. Tesla has made a nice recovery from a recent low. If you own a Tesla, you can see how many moving parts they do not have, thereby nice margins.
