The Rundown - Stablecoin Regulation Fears Hit Crypto, OpenAI Ends Sora

Episode Date: March 25, 2026

Market update for Wednesday March 25, 2026Interview with CFO of Circle (Spotify, YouTube)Check out the Public app for incredible investing tools and to support the show (LINK)Follow us on Instagram (@TheRundownDaily) for bonus content and instant reactions.In today’s episode:Crypto stocks drop after proposed stablecoin regulation threatens yieldsOpenAI shuts down Sora, ending a potential $1B deal with DisneyArm jumps after announcing plans to sell its own AI chipsPop Mart plunges as investors worry about slowing Labubu demandCostco launches a new Kirkland energy drink that could rival Celsius

Public.com presents the rundown. Your daily market update in under 10 minutes. My name is Zaid Admani, and today is Wednesday, March 25th. In today's episode, we'll break down why crypto stocks dropped after a new stable coin proposal. We'll also tell you why Open AI is pulling the plug on SORA and an update on the Laboo hype. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out why Costco might end up dominating the energy drink space. We got a great show for you today. Let's go.

Markets were back in the red on Tuesday with the S&P 500 falling 0.4% while the NASDAG dropped 0.8%. You know, it was another choppy day of trading. The market seems to be yo-yoing based on the latest information coming out of the Middle East. We're getting this constant push and pull between escalation and de-escalation with Iran. Around midday yesterday, reports came out that President Trump was deploying more troops in the region, and that sent oil prices higher and stocks lower. But then, after the market closed, we got a completely different tone. President Trump said that negotiations with Iran are actually progressing and that Iran wants to make a deal. And then according to the New York Times, the U.S. has even sent over a 15-point proposal

to Iran to end the conflict. On top of that, Iran itself sent a letter to the UN's International Maritime Organization, saying that non-hostile vessels can pass through the Strait of Hormuz in coordination with Iranian authorities. So there seems to be signs of de-escalation. And the big thing is that the Strait of Hormuz could partially be reopened. And that's why oil prices are pulling back hard this morning. Brent Crude is down more than 5% back below $100 a barrel. But look, the reality is the situation is changing by the hour.

And that's why I think the markets will continue to be chopping. We'll continue to stay on top of it and give you guys daily updates here. So make sure you guys are subscribed to the podcast and tuning in. every day to stay in the loop. Let's run through some headlines, starting with stable coins. There was a major development yesterday regarding the Clarity Act, which is a proposed legislation aiming to establish a framework for cryptocurrencies and digital assets. This bill is currently in the U.S. Senate, and in the latest version, this bill would ban

yields on stable coins. In simple terms, this bill would block companies from offering anything that looks like interest on stable coin balances, especially for just holding them passively on platforms like Coinbase. And that's a big deal because earning yield has been one of the main reasons people actually hold stable coins. If you take that away, then suddenly stable coins become less attractive and the adoption of stable coins could slow down. That's why stocks of Circle, which issues the USDC stable coin, dropped 20% yesterday, and Coinbase fell around 10% on this news. See, the more stable coins there are in circulation, the more money circle makes. When you buy

USC, you're basically giving Circle real US dollars. They then take that cash and invest it in treasury bonds, which earns an interest, and that's how Circle makes most of their money. Circle then splits part of their revenue with partners like Coinbase who pass some form of that to users in a form of yield. And I got to say, this is a big win for traditional banks. You know, banks don't love stable coins offering yield because it basically competes with them. You know, banks pay like 0.5% on savings accounts while stable coins earn 3 to 4%. So yeah, that's a big shake up when it comes to the Clarity Act. Now, to be fair, this bill still is being negotiated and there's a chance that things change in the final version. In fact, both Circle and Coinbase are bouncing back a little

bit today. Circle is up around 5% while Coinbase is up around 2% at the time of this recording. By the way, speaking of Circle, I actually interviewed the CFO of Circle last week. It was a really awesome conversation. We posted it on Sunday. I'm not going to lie, it got me pretty bullish on stable coins. So if you guys want to learn more about that, I highly recommend checking that conversation out. I'll put a link in the description. Let's shift gears and talk about open AI because they shocked some people yesterday by announcing that they are shutting down their SORA app.

If you guys remember, SORA came out back in September and it went super viral hitting number one on the app store. It was an AI app that allowed people to make AI generated videos from just prompts. And I felt like for three or four weeks, everything in my feed was a SORA video. But just like with other opening eye products, the hype faded pretty fast.

I mean, I haven't seen a SORA video in a long time. So Open AI decided to pull the plug. According to reports, behind the scenes, SORA was eating up a massive amount of computing power, and it also pulled resources away from other teams. Now, this seems to be part of Open AI's plan to cut down on side quest and focus on maximizing revenue. You know, we talked about this last week when there were reports that the CEO of products at OpenAI

told employees that they can't be distracted by side quests anymore. And instead, the company has to refocus on enterprise customers, coding tools, AI to maximize revenue. I think Open AIs feeling the pressure from how fast Claude seems to be getting steam these days. So yeah, SORA is now being shut down. And this also blows up Open AIs partnership with Disney.

Remember back in September, Disney agreed to invest a billion dollars into Open AI and also licensed more than 200 characters to be used for Sora. Apparently, that deal never closed. So it should be a pretty clean breakup. But I do wonder if Disney will do a similar deal with Google or another video AI company. So yeah, a pretty interesting first week for Disney's new CEO, Josh DeMorrow. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. Arm Holdings is surging this morning after announcing that they're going to start selling their own chip for the first time ever.

Now, this is a huge deal because up until now, Arm has been a behind-the-scenes player in the chip world. The company's chip design technology is licensed to companies like Apple, Nvidia, Amazon, and Google, who then build their own custom chips on top of ARMS technology. For example, Apple's M-Series chip is built on ARMS architecture. Nvidia's new Vera CPU announced that GTC last week also uses ARMS technology. So, Arm is basically the blueprint that every chip builder builds on. According to their most recent quarter, Arm made more than a billion dollars from these IP agreements. But now, Arm wants a bigger piece of the pie.

The company announced that their new chip will be called the AGI CPU, and they're going to be manufactured by TSM and sold directly to data center customers. In fact, Meta has already signed up to be their first major customer. Now, the reason this matters for Arm financially is because when Arm licenses its technology, it gets maybe 5% of the chip's value. But when Arm goes to sell these chips directly, it could capture 50% in gross profit, which is way more money per chip. Arm says that this new business could generate $15 billion a year within five years, which would triple the company's total revenue from where it is today. So that's why investors are loving it. Armstock is up more than 10% this morning at the time of this recording. Now, on the flip side, Pop Mart is getting absolutely

crushed this morning. Pop Mart is the Chinese toy company behind the Labibu toys that went super mega viral last year. And that was a big boost to their business. In fact, according to Pop Mart's latest earnings, they did $5.4 billion in revenue in 2025, which was up 185% from a year earlier. The company's profits also more than quadrupled. But the stock is still down big today because the company made almost 40% of their revenue from the Monstar's product line, which includes Labibu's. So investors are worried that the company is too dependent on Labubus. In fact, there was signs of slowing growth in Q4. So if the Labubu hype continues to fade, which anecdotally I feel like it has, then the company could be vulnerable. The Pop Mart CEO tried to calm things down on the earnings call saying the

company has more than just Labubus like their Skull Panda brand, which saw sales sales. double, but it's still nowhere close to matching Labubu's sales. And that's why Pop Mart stock is down more than 20% today. And if you zoom out, the stock has lost nearly half its value since peaking last summer. Let's wrap the show with the fun fact. Costco just launched a Kirkland-branded energy drink, and they're coming directly for Celsius drinkers like me. This Kirkland's signature energy drink looks like a straight-up Celsius clone. It's got 200 milligrams of caffeine per can. It's got similar flavors as well, but it's much cheaper. You can buy a 24-pack for just 1699, which works out to be about 70 cents per can. I mean, that is like half the price of what a typical

Celsius cost. Investors definitely took notice Celsius stock is down about 15% since the start of the week. You know, this is just what Costco does, though. They identify popular products with high margin, and then they launch their own Kirkland version and undercut on the price. In fact, the Kirkland signature brand did $90 billion in revenue. last year. Since Costco makes most of their profits from their membership fees, they tend to cap their margins on their Kirkland products to 15%, which allows them to undercut the competition when it comes to price. And the quality is usually really solid. So yeah, I got to imagine Celsius must be a bit nervous right now. Regular listeners know I'm an almost daily Celsius drinker,

but at 70 cents a can, I'm definitely going to try the Kirkland version. If it tastes even remotely decent, I think I might be making the switch. Well, all right. Guys, that's the rundown for today. Hope you guys enjoyed today's episode if you did. And you have like five extra seconds. Consider giving us a five-star rating on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you listen to your podcast. All that engagement really does help us out and it helps other people find the show. Thank you guys so much for listening, watching and commenting.

Shout out to Mike and Connor for all the work behind the scenes. And we'll see you guys back here. tomorrow. Rosen lasagna, medium power, 15 minutes. Sounds like Ojo time. Let's play. Feel the fun with Play-O-Jo. The online casino with all the latest slot and live

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