Early Bitcoin investor and billionaire Chamath Palihapitiya has filed to raise $250 million in blank-check company “American Exceptionalism Acquisition Corp A,” targeting the decentralized finance, AI, energy and defense sectors.

The special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) would be led by Social Capital managing partner Steven Trieu as CEO and Palihapitiya as chairman, according to the registration statement filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday. 

The $250 million raise seeks to offer 25 million shares at $10 each under the ticker AEXA on the New York Stock Exchange.

Palihapitiya and Trieu are betting on decentralized finance, not Bitcoin, to lead the next wave of financial innovation, focusing on solutions that bridge traditional markets with blockchain technology:

“While Mr. Palihapitiya has long been a proponent of Bitcoin as an inflation hedge and alternative to fiat currencies, we believe that the next stage of development is the increased integration between traditional finance and decentralized finance.” 

Circle showed DeFi can ‘disintermediate’ TradFi, execs say

The pair pointed to the success of stablecoin issuer Circle Internet Group’s recent public listing, stating it “demonstrated how decentralized finance can be used to disintermediate traditional finance intermediaries and provide clear value for customers via reduced friction.”

The venture capitalists acknowledged the path toward mainstream acceptance of crypto and stablecoins has “taken longer than expected,” but that path “now appears to be inevitable.”

Palihapitiya has mixed results with past SPACs

Palihapitiya led several high-profile SPACs during 2020 and 2021, including successful mergers involving Social Capital Suvretta Holdings I and Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings V, now operating as SoFi Technologies.

However, other SPACs led by Palihapitiya, such as Social Capital Suvretta Holdings II, III, and IV, were liquidated, giving him a mixed record. 

SPACs face challenges because they are bound by strict time limits to find a private company to merge with, often struggle to identify companies worthy of high valuations, and operate under considerable regulatory scrutiny.

Palihapitiya once denounced crypto as dead in America

The naming of Palihapitiya’s American-themed SPAC comes two years after he declared the crypto industry “Dead in America,” pointing the finger at former SEC chair Gary Gensler for pursuing dozens of high-profile lawsuits against crypto firms.

Related: Ether ETFs smash records as crypto products see $3.75B inflows

Critics labeled Gensler’s crackdown part of “Operation Choke Point 2.0” — an alleged coordinated effort by regulators to pressure banks into distancing themselves from crypto firms.

Many of those cases, including ones against Coinbase and Ripple, have been dismissed under the new crypto-friendly SEC led by Paul Atkins, which has also created a Crypto Task Force to provide clearer rules while balancing innovation with consumer protection.

Magazine: How Ethereum treasury companies could spark ‘DeFi Summer 2.0

]]> https://earlybirdsinvest.com/bitcoin-bull-and-billionaire-files-for-250m-spac-targeting-defi-ai/feed/ 0 53952 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/billionaire-philippe-laffont-has-sold-shares-of-nvidia-for-8-consecutive-quarters-and-is-loading-up-on-this-historically-cheap-artificial-intelligence-ai-stock-instead/ https://earlybirdsinvest.com/billionaire-philippe-laffont-has-sold-shares-of-nvidia-for-8-consecutive-quarters-and-is-loading-up-on-this-historically-cheap-artificial-intelligence-ai-stock-instead/#respond Thu, 14 Aug 2025 07:39:29 +0000 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/billionaire-philippe-laffont-has-sold-shares-of-nvidia-for-8-consecutive-quarters-and-is-loading-up-on-this-historically-cheap-artificial-intelligence-ai-stock-instead/ Coatue Management’s billionaire investor has been swapping out shares of Wall Street’s premier AI stock for a dual-industry leader in the world’s No. 2 economy.

Investors may not realize it, but today (Aug. 14) is one of the most important days of the entire quarter. While earnings season is critical in helping investors learn about the operating health of America’s leading businesses, Form 13F filings, which are due today, are equally invaluable.

A 13F is a required filing due no later than 45 calendar days following the end to a quarter for institutional investors with at least $100 million in assets under management. It allows investors to track which stocks Wall Street’s smartest money managers purchased and sold in the latest quarter (in this instance, the June-ended quarter), as well as identify which trends have the attention of successful fund managers.

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Although Warren Buffett is the stock market’s most followed billionaire investor, he’s far from the only billionaire known for their outsized investment returns. For instance, Coatue Management’s Philippe Laffont, who’s been a big investor of the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution, is known for spotting phenomenal deals hiding in plain sight.

Laffont’s approach to the evolution of AI has been particularly interesting. Specifically, he’s pared down his fund’s stake in the face of the AI movement, Nvidia (NVDA -0.83%), for eight straight quarters, and has been buying shares of another historically cheap AI stock hand over fist.

Coatue Management’s billionaire chief has sold 83% of his fund’s Nvidia stake

While some billionaire money managers bid adieu to AI-graphics processing unit (GPU) colossus Nvidia many quarters ago, Coatue Management billionaire boss has been paring down his fund’s stake with some degree of consistency for two full years. Accounting for Nvidia’s historic 10-for-1 stock split in June 2024, Laffont has overseen an 83% reduction in his fund’s position in this AI powerhouse:

• Q1 2023: 49,802,020 shares of Nvidia
• Q2 2023: 46,449,700 shares
• Q3 2023: 45,410,400 shares
• Q4 2023: 43,222,010 shares
• Q1 2024: 13,851,410 shares
• Q2 2024: 13,754,447 shares
• Q3 2024: 10,138,161 shares
• Q4 2024: 10,006,488 shares
• Q1 2025: 8,545,835 shares

With Coatue’s average top-20 position held for roughly 21 months, as of the end of March, it demonstrates that Laffont and his top advisors aren’t shy about locking in gains when presented with the opportunity. Nvidia shares catapulting more than twelvefold since the start of 2023 has given Coatue’s brightest investor plenty of reason to cash in his chips.

The concern with Philippe Laffont’s persistent selling spanning eight quarters is there may be more than profit-taking on his mind.

For instance, while the addressable opportunity for AI is sky-high, historical precedent shows that every next-big-thing trend for three decades has endured a bubble-bursting event early in its expansion. Investors have a tendency to overhype the utility and early stage adoption rates of new technologies, which eventually leads to these lofty expectations not being met. No company has been a more direct beneficiary of the evolution of AI than Nvidia, which suggests it would potentially be the hardest hit if the AI bubble were to burst.

Another possible consideration for Philippe Laffont is growing competition in the AI-GPU space. Make no mistake about it, Nvidia’s Hopper (H100) and Blackwell GPUs are at the top of the pedestal, in terms of compute ability. But this doesn’t mean Hopper and Blackwell won’t endure headwinds in the coming quarters and years.

Specifically, internal competition could prove to be a thorn in Nvidia’s side. Many of its leading customers by net sales are developing AI-GPUs and solutions for their data centers. Even though these chips are slower than Nvidia’s and they pose no external competitive threat, they’re considerably cheaper, more readily accessible, and capable of taking up valuable data-center real estate. In short, these chips could crush Nvidia’s pristine pricing power and gross margin.

Nvidia’s valuation is worrisome, as well. Historically, megacap companies have peaked with price-to-sales (P/S) ratios of roughly 30 to 40. Nvidia is tipping the scales at a P/S ratio of more than 30, as of the closing bell on Aug. 11.

Image source: Getty Images.

Billionaire Philippe Laffont can’t stop buying this cash-rich AI stock

On the other end of the spectrum is a historically cheap and cash-rich artificial intelligence stock that Coatue Management’s billionaire chief can’t stop buying. I’m talking about China-based Alibaba Group (BABA 3.73%).

When 2024 came to a close, Alibaba was a relatively forgettable holding in Coatue’s portfolio, with just 192,728 shares held. But during the first quarter, Laffont came close to 20Xing this stake to 3,801,703 shares, based on the filed 13F.

While Alibaba’s growth ambitions very much rely on AI, this isn’t the company’s foundational operating segment responsible for most of its cash flow. Alibaba laid its roots through its e-commerce operations in China.

Whereas online retail sales have matured in the U.S., a burgeoning middle class in the world’s No. 2 economy by gross domestic product can generate high-octane e-commerce sales growth for the foreseeable future. Based on an analysis from DBS Treasures, Taobao and Tmall combine to account for a 41% share of China’s e-commerce space. These platforms should have little issue continuing to generate bountiful cash flow that Alibaba can redirect to faster-growing and/or higher-margin initiatives.

However, e-commerce isn’t the only arena that Alibaba Group is leading. According to estimates from tech analysis firm Canalys, Alibaba Cloud reined in 33% of Mainland China’s cloud infrastructure service spending during the first quarter, which was nearly double the 18% share Huawei Cloud earned as the No. 2 cloud infrastructure services provider.

Alibaba is aggressively incorporating generative AI solutions into its cloud platform and giving its clients access to the tools needed to build and train large language models. The expectation is that these AI solutions will enhance demand (and margins) for Alibaba Cloud.

Something else that’s likely attracted Laffont to Alibaba is the company’s capital-return program. It closed out fiscal 2025 (ended March 31) with $51.6 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments, along with $7.4 billion in equity securities and $6 billion in restricted cash. When combined with the cash flow being generated from Alibaba’s numerous operating segments, there’s more than enough capital available for share repurchases and dividends.

The proverbial cherry on the sundae is that Alibaba Group stock is historically inexpensive at an estimated 11 times forward-year earnings. This is modestly lower than its average forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio over the past half-decade, and it stands out amid a historically pricey stock market.

Billionaire investor Ken Griffin is placing a major bet on a company that’s far outperformed expectations this year.

According to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Griffin’s hedge fund Citadel has acquired 3,824,329 shares of NioCorp Developments Ltd (NB), a company advancing critical minerals development in the United States.

NioCorp’s flagship project in Nebraska aims to produce rare earth minerals like niobium, scandium and titanium.

Citadel’s holdings of NB represent 5.4% of its total portfolio, and 5.2% of the total outstanding shares.

NB, with a market cap of just $229 million, is trading at $3.16 after opening the year at $1.41 in January – a gain of 124% so far.

Citadel’s positioning in the company appears to underscore a focus on the energy sector, given its recent win on Chevron’s $53 billion takeover of competitor Hess Corporation.

Citadel Advisors, Adage Capital and HBK Investments were part of a group of investors betting on the acquisition as part of a merger arbitrage strategy, which involves betting on the outcome of a merger or acquisition, typically by taking long and/or short positions in the stocks of the companies involved.

Citadel and HBK each had the equivalent of $1 billion in shares, according to the firms’ latest filings, says Bloomberg.

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Warren Buffett has reduced Berkshire Hathaway’s stake in short-term Treasury bills by tens of billions of dollars and is doubling down on one broadcasting company’s stock.

New SEC filings show Buffett’s short-term Treasury bill holdings declined by $42.867 billion at the close of the second quarter of the year when compared to December 2024, with total holdings of T-bills now at $243.605 billion.

Meanwhile, Berkshire Hathaway purchased 5,030,425 more shares of Sirius XM Holdings (SIRI) last month at around $21 per share, bringing its total holdings of SIRI to 124,807,117 shares.

SIRI is trading for $20.97 per share at the close of the market on Wednesday.

Also last month, Berkshire Hathaway dumped nearly $1.23 billion worth of shares in the domain name giant Verisign.

Verisign announced the Omaha-based investment giant would sell 4,300,000 shares of the company’s common stock to the public for $285 per share. The sell-off materialized after Buffett’s firm acquired multiple new stocks in the first quarter of 2025.

Filings with the SEC earlier this year showed Berkshire added 865,311 shares of the swimming pool supply giant POOLCORP (POOL) for nearly $262 million in Q1. The firm purchased an additional 6,384,676 shares of the alcohol producer Constellation Brands (STZ) for nearly $961 million and it acquired 238,613 new shares of Domino’s Pizza (DPZ) worth approximately $204 million.

Berkshire also bought 112,401 new shares of Heico Corporation (HEI), an aerospace and electronics firm, worth nearly $50 million in Q1.

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Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio says the US government needs to rethink how it comes up with its economic data.

Over the weekend, President Donald Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Erika McEntarfer, because of a large downward revision of job numbers.

On Friday, the BLS revised down the job growth figures for June from 147,000 to 14,000, a 90% drop.

Figures for May were also revised down from 144,000 to 19,000, bringing the combined two-month downward revision to 258,000 jobs.

Some analysts at US banks began citing the data as possible evidence suggesting the economy was slowing down and flashing potential recession signals.

Despite the controversy over firing the BLS Commissioner, in a post on the social media platform X, Ray Dalio says he would have fired her, too.

“I probably would have fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics too.

That’s because its process for making estimates is obviously obsolete and error-prone, and there is no good plan in the works for fixing it. The huge revisions in Friday’s employment numbers are symptomatic of this, especially because the revisions brought the numbers toward private estimates that were in fact much better.

I assure you that this is something that I know a lot about because of how I use data to follow the economy and bet on where it’s going.”

Dalio says if Trump indeed fired the BLS chief purely for political reasons, that may be a “big problem.”

Therefore, the investor says, “It would be good if President Trump made his thinking clear.”

“In any case, we do need big renovations to the ways the government estimates what’s going on in the economy to make them more, not less, accurate.”

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Billionaire Ray Dalio says investment portfolios should hold a certain percentage of Bitcoin (BTC) or gold as a hedge against the devaluation of the US dollar.

In a new interview with Master Investor podcast host Wilfred Frost, the co-chief investment officer of hedge fund Bridgewater Associates says that a proper diversification of an investment portfolio should include 15% of either gold or Bitcoin as US debt rises and geopolitical tensions increase.

“My own approach is, in my share of my portfolio, I have gold and I have some Bitcoin, but not much… I’m not going to describe my own exactly, but I’ll say the following: if you were neutral on everything, in other words, you didn’t have a point of view, and you were optimizing your portfolio for the best return-to-risk ratio, you would have about 15% of your money in gold or Bitcoin. I’m strongly preferring gold to Bitcoin. But that’s up to you.”

The risk-reward ratio, also known as the risk-return ratio, is used by investors to determine the potential gain for every dollar risked on an investment.

Dalio, who has warned that a 1970s-style period of stagflation may be coming, when there’s high inflation, high unemployment and low economic growth, says Bitcoin or gold may be an effective store of value when the US dollar loses value against other currencies, such as through money printing.

“The issue is the devaluation of money… If you have that issue and times when it occurred, which was in times of excess debt and geopolitical problems – just go back and study history, study the British pound, study the Dutch guilder, study this – you would find that in all such periods, also like the Seventies, [gold’s] an effective diversifier.

So if you had no view, you would have about 15% in that portfolio as a hedge against the other. I hope that that’s somewhat of a guide.”

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Billionaire Bill Miller IV says proof‑of‑stake blockchains such as Ethereum and Solana are unlikely to “win at the end of the day,” arguing that Bitcoin’s proof‑of‑work design confers a durability other networks can’t match. 

In a July 28 interview with CNBC’s “Closing Bell,” the billionaire investor said recent US policy moves may give proof‑of‑stake assets a short‑term boost, but not a lasting edge over Bitcoin.

Miller assessed how market structure proposals define decentralization:

“If you look at the way the legislation [the CLARITY Act] was written, it allows technologies like Ethereum and Solana blockchains to be classified as ‘decentralized,’ when they are actually not.” 

He added that if those chains launched today, “they would go through a much different process.”

His core objection is governance, describing proof of stake as whoever has a big stake in the blockchain gets to “say what happens.” 

In Miller’s view, “that’s exactly how society works today, it’s not really a technological revolution.” By contrast, he called Bitcoin’s proof‑of‑work consensus “a game‑changing technology,” arguing that the energy cost tied to creating new bitcoin underpins network integrity rather than entrenching large token holders.

Regulatory-driven rally

Miller linked recent market gains in Ethereum to Washington’s policy calendar, pointing to the signing of the GENIUS Act and the advance of the CLARITY Act. 

President Donald Trump signed the GENIUS Act into law on July 18, creating the first federal framework for dollar‑backed stablecoins. 

The House cleared it on July 17 after bundling it procedurally with CLARITY and an Anti‑CBDC measure the prior day. The Senate then approved the consolidated version before the bill went to the White House. 

While CLARITY moved as part of that package to speed floor action, the enrollable text that ultimately became law was the GENIUS stablecoin framework. 

Miller’s point is that policy momentum can lift assets based on proof of stake, but he doubts it alters the long‑run race with Bitcoin. He added:

“People need to start thinking what problems these various blockchains solve. And the answer is: most of them actually don’t solve any real problems except for Bitcoin.”

Solving accountability

He framed Bitcoin as a solution to monetary accountability, mentioning its transparent and immutable ledger as a way to audit “who owns what” and where funds are flowing.

Other chains, in his view, don’t solve an additional problem that Bitcoin hasn’t already addressed, and they lack its liquidity and first‑mover momentum.

That thesis extends to corporate balance sheets: 

“It’s my take that in 20 or 30 years, every company will be a Bitcoin treasury company.” 

Furthermore, the billionaire predicted that bond managers buying “Bitcoin‑regulated bonds” and equity managers adding Bitcoin‑linked exposures will outperform peers who don’t. 

Miller concluded that it “remains to be seen” whether proof-of-stake technology can deliver a lasting advantage.

Mentioned in this article

Ethereum has been gaining ground in recent times, especially among institutional investors, as they believe that the leading altcoin is set to outperform Bitcoin. This is evidenced by the large buys that have dominated ETH as Ethereum treasury companies become a major player in the space. Amid this, billionaire and CEO of Galaxy Digital Investments, Mike Novogratz, has revealed the important level for Ethereum to beat to enter price discovery.

Ethereum Price Needs To Cross $4,000

În an interview with SquawkBox, Novogratz points to the recent strength of Ethereum amid rapid accumulation as a reason for it being a better bet than Bitcoin. The major reason outlined for why ETH was a better bet than BTC at this point is the fact that Ethereum treasury companies are now becoming a staple, with two ETH treasury companies, such as SharpLink and GameSquare Holdings, among others, already established and more on the way.

Related Reading

As these companies continue to accumulate ETH, the billionaire explains that with not much supply, the Ethereum price is likely to rise. He also brings up the fact that Ethereum has a very powerful narrative, and the market reaching record short levels has also aided its bullishness.

Given these, Novogratz explained that the Ethereum price is at least destined to knock on the $4,000 level a few times. Also, once the altcoin is able to take out $4,000, then the billionaire believes that the ETH price will enter into price discovery, which could drive it higher.

As Ethereum continues to look like the better bet, he also believes that the altcoin could end up outperforming the Bitcoin price over the next 3-6 months. This gives a short timeframe, especially as Bitcoin has already hit multiple new all-time highs over the past year, and Ethereum is yet to beat its highs from 2021.

ETH Is Already Outperforming Bitcoin

So far, in the month of July, the Ethereum price has greatly outperformed that of Bitcoin in terms of gains, lending credence to Novogratz’s expectations that the altcoin will outperform the pioneer cryptocurrency. According to data from CryptoRank, ETH is up more than 45% this month already compared to the less than 8% on record for Bitcoin.

Related Reading

Over the last 90 days, as well, the Ethereum price has doubled to put in more than 100% in gains. Meanwhile, Bitcoin’s gains still sit just above 22% for the same time period. Nevertheless, Bitcoin continues to dominate the market, with BTC dominance sitting above 61% and holding altcoin season at bay.

Featured image from Dall.E, chart from TradingView.com