E125: SpaceX launch, Fox News settlement, "Zombie-corn" exodus to AI, late-stage implosion

It’s too early to definitively judge this prediction because its main time horizon is “by the end of 2026,” and today is November 30, 2025.

What we can say so far:

• SpaceX/Starlink is clearly the dominant LEO satellite‑broadband provider today, with thousands of satellites (7,000–9,000+ launched) and millions of subscribers worldwide, operating in over 100 countries. (globenewswire.com) This supports the direction of the prediction (Starlink becoming very powerful).

• However, SpaceX does not have a regulatory or practical monopoly on new satellite‑broadband spectrum. Amazon’s Kuiper (now branded Amazon Leo) has an FCC license requiring it to launch about half of its ~3,236‑satellite constellation (≈1,618 satellites) by July 2026, and it has already launched over 100–150 satellites and begun enterprise preview, with broader service planned for 2025–2026. (cnbc.com) That means at least one other operator is meeting FCC‑style deployment milestones, contradicting the claim that "the only company that actually has the capability to build and to launch is SpaceX."

• Other LEO and multi‑orbit competitors exist and are still investing heavily, notably Eutelsat/OneWeb, which already operates a global LEO constellation (~648 satellites) and is funding a next‑generation extension to be delivered from 2026 onward, plus participation in the EU’s IRIS² program. (reuters.com) This suggests a multi‑player market, not an obviously uncontested monopoly.

• The prediction also asserts that incumbent terrestrial and satellite telecom providers will be left in a “really difficult spot” over the following years due to this supposed SpaceX monopoly. While many telcos face structural and financial pressures, the period he’s pointing to ("the next couple of years" after 2026) has not occurred yet, so we cannot empirically assess that part.

Because (1) the key date (end of 2026) has not yet arrived, and (2) the downstream effects he describes are meant to play out in the “next couple of years” after that, the overall outcome of the prediction cannot yet be scored as right or wrong. The early evidence shows Starlink dominance but also clear, growing competition and non‑monopolistic FCC licensing, which weakens the reasoning behind the prediction but does not yet conclusively falsify its main time‑bound claims.

As of November 30, 2025, there is not enough elapsed time or measurable data to judge this prediction.

1. 10x total value vs. the internet era

   • The "internet era" typically refers to a 20–30 year period (mid‑1990s through 2010s) that saw the creation of trillions of dollars of equity value and massive productivity changes.
   • The current generative‑AI wave effectively began around late 2022–2023 with systems like ChatGPT and rapid investment into foundation models and AI infrastructure. Any claim that this wave will ultimately generate 10x the value of the internet era can only be evaluated over decades, not ~2.5 years.
   • While AI‑related public firms (e.g., Nvidia, major cloud providers) and a few private companies have seen huge increases in market cap, there is no accepted, comprehensive measurement yet of total AI-related value creation comparable to the mature internet era.

2. Index-style investing in AI startups will lose money overall, with a few big winners

   • Venture and startup outcomes are power‑law distributed in general; historically, broad index‑like baskets of early‑stage startups tend to underperform the few outliers that dominate returns, but hard data on this specific AI wave is not yet available.
   • Most 2023–2025 AI startup financings are still in early stages; exits (IPOs, large acquisitions, or write‑downs) are only beginning. Until full return distributions for this AI "vintage" are known—likely many years from now—it is impossible to say whether a broad “AI startup index” would lose money overall or not.

Because both parts of the prediction concern long‑run, cycle‑level outcomes that play out over a decade or more, the available evidence by late 2025 is insufficient to confirm or falsify them.

Evidence since April 2023 clearly shows (1) a large and growing overhang of overvalued late‑stage unicorns/zombiecorns and (2) a major talent and capital shift into AI startups—but available data do not let us say that a large share of those zombiecorns have already undergone recapitalizations that wipe out common equity, nor that such recaps are the primary driver of founders/employees moving into AI.

1. Zombiecorn overhang and valuation stress

• Analysts estimate that roughly 1,000+ unicorns were created in the 2020–21 boom and that hundreds are now “zombie unicorns”: overvalued, growth‑stalled, and stuck with high preference stacks and little prospect of exiting at their last private valuations. Multiple venture analyses describe a large accumulation of such zombie unicorns, with companies “neither dead nor alive” and LP capital trapped. (www-tc.aicoin.com)
• One investment‑bank analysis notes that of the 787 companies that became unicorns in 2021, an estimated 517 have not raised any capital since then—consistent with Friedberg’s point that many late‑stage companies are functionally stuck below their prior valuation marks. (business-money.com)
• CB Insights/PwC data on the global top 100 unicorns in 2023 show only 25 down rounds among all unicorns that year, with 79% of top‑100 unicorn valuations unchanged, and only a handful seeing large valuation increases (mostly AI). This indicates stress and stagnation, but not yet a broad wave of formal recaps. (pwc.co.uk)
• A PitchBook/EquityZen summary reports that 44% of late‑stage funding rounds in 2023 were flat or down, again confirming widespread valuation pressure but not specifying that common equity is being wiped out en masse. (blog.equityzen.com)

2. Recaps and cram‑downs wiping out common: present but not clearly “a large share”

• There are documented late‑stage “cram‑down” or recap deals where existing shareholders—often including common—are effectively wiped out or drastically diluted, such as Tonal’s proposed financing at ~90% below its prior valuation and Plenty’s recap round reportedly valuing legacy shares at under $15 million vs. a prior $1.9 billion valuation. (theinformation.com)
• Legal and VC‑practice commentary notes increased use of pay‑to‑play and cram‑down terms in 2023–24, particularly in distressed later‑stage financings. (axios.com)
• However, broad quantitative data show that many unicorns have avoided such painful recapitalizations so far by cutting burn, doing small insider extensions/bridges, or simply not raising, rather than fully resetting their cap tables. Several venture overviews explicitly state that incentive misalignment has “delayed the necessary market rebalancing,” with many zombie unicorns still living off past mega‑rounds instead of taking down‑round recaps. (www-tc.aicoin.com)
• Because of the opacity of private markets, there is no comprehensive dataset showing that a large share of late‑stage zombies have already been recapped in ways that zero the common; the best available sector‑level data (on down/flat rounds and lack of follow‑on funding) are consistent with some harsh recaps but also with a substantial number of companies still in limbo.

3. Founder/employee exodus into AI startups

• There is strong evidence of a big shift of founders, operators, and researchers into AI during 2023–25. High‑profile examples include:
  • Ilya Sutskever leaving OpenAI to found Safe Superintelligence Inc. (SSI), which rapidly reached multi‑billion‑dollar valuations. (en.wikipedia.org)
  • Mira Murati leaving OpenAI and launching Thinking Machines Lab in 2025, quickly hiring ~30 top researchers from Meta, Mistral, and OpenAI and raising multi‑billion‑dollar funding. (en.wikipedia.org)
  • Mustafa Suleyman leaving Google/DeepMind to co‑found Inflection AI. (en.wikipedia.org)
  • Other senior alumni from Big Tech or successful startups founding AI firms like Sierra (Bret Taylor, Clay Bavor) and AI21 Labs. (fortune.com)
• Funding flows reinforce this: one analysis reports that in early 2024, 75% of $2 billion raised by Kruze Consulting’s startup clients went to AI startups, with non‑AI sectors heavily capital‑starved. (ft.com) Carta’s data show overall startup headcount shrinking in 2023, with departures outpacing hires and new hiring concentrated in areas—like AI—where innovation and funding are strongest. (wsj.com)
• However, media coverage of AI founders and senior hires overwhelmingly features people coming from Big Tech (Google, Meta, OpenAI, Apple), successful or at least non‑recapped startups, and elite research labs—not specifically from recapitalized, underwater zombiecorns whose common equity was just wiped. The causal link Friedberg emphasized (equity wipeouts at zombiecorns → founders won’t “go work for the VCs” → they instead start AI companies) is plausible but not well‑documented at scale.

4. Why the outcome is ambiguous

• Directionally, Friedberg captured real macro trends: there is a large cohort of overvalued late‑stage private companies with preference overhangs; down rounds, cram‑downs, and failures have increased; and founders/employees are disproportionately flocking to AI, where the funding window is open.
• But to declare the prediction right would require evidence that a large share of those zombiecorns have already undergone recapitalizations that effectively wipe out common, and that these events are clearly driving a major exodus of their founders and employees into AI startups. Public data do not establish either point quantitatively.
• To declare it wrong would require evidence that such recap/wipeout events are rare or that talent is not moving into AI; instead, we see a growing (but only partly measured) incidence of harsh recaps and a very clear shift of talent and capital into AI.
• The time window is also still in progress: “over the next few years” from April 2023 reasonably extends beyond late 2025, and several venture commentators explicitly say the real re‑pricing and cleansing of the zombie unicorn overhang has been delayed and may still lie ahead. (www-tc.aicoin.com)

Because (a) private recap data are opaque, (b) aggregate statistics show valuation stress and some recaps but not a clearly documented broad wipeout of common across zombiecorns, and (c) the AI‑talent boom is evident but not clearly traceable specifically to those recap events, the prediction’s accuracy cannot be determined in a data‑driven way at this point. It is directionally on‑trend but not verifiable or falsifiable at the level of specificity Friedberg claimed, so the fairest classification is ambiguous.

Available venture data show that far more than “dozens” of new AI‑driven startup unicorns were created globally in the ~2 years after early 2023.

Key points:

• Using CB Insights data, AltIndex reports that 83 companies became unicorns in 2024, of which 36 were AI startups (≈45%), and that 22 AI startups reached unicorn status in 2023. That’s ≈58 new AI unicorns across 2023–2024 alone.(altindex.com) Even if you restrict to the post‑ChatGPT “AI wave” (early 2023 onward), this is well above the “dozens (≥24)” threshold.
• A UBS report based on CB Insights similarly finds 186 AI unicorns by end‑2023, with 16 new AI unicorns added in 2023.(scribd.com) Combined with the 36 new AI unicorns in 2024, that still implies >50 new AI unicorns in 2023–2024, comfortably satisfying the prediction.
• CB Insights’ own “State of AI” / Generative AI reports note that out of 16 new AI unicorns in 2023 year‑to‑date, 11 were generative‑AI companies, showing that a large share of unicorn creation was directly driven by AI technologies.(edocr.com)
• A Nikkei/CB Insights analysis cited by NASSCOM shows generative‑AI unicorns alone grew from 20 at end‑April 2023 to about 37 by mid‑2024 (an 85% increase), and that generative‑AI startups made up around 60% of new unicorns at that point, again underscoring how much of new unicorn formation was AI‑driven.(community.nasscom.in)
• These counts refer specifically to startups whose core business is AI (including generative AI, AI infrastructure, and AI applications), matching the spirit of the prediction that the “AI wave” itself would mint the new unicorns.

Because multiple independent tallies based on CB Insights data show well over two dozen new AI unicorns, and in fact several dozen, created worldwide between 2023 and 2024 (before mid‑2025), sacks’s forecast that “dozens of unicorns could be created in the next couple of years” by the AI wave is borne out by the data.

Evidence by mid‑2025 shows multiple AI unicorns in both of the categories Sacks described.

1. AI infrastructure unicorns ("vector databases, agent platforms," broader infra)

• CoreWeave: An AI cloud‑infrastructure provider focused on GPU‑based compute for AI workloads. By May 2024 it raised a $1.1B round at about a $19B valuation, and its IPO in March 2025 valued it around $19–23B, clearly making it an AI infrastructure unicorn well before and by mid‑2025. (time.com)
• Scale AI: Provides data and evaluation infrastructure for training and deploying AI models. It has been a unicorn since 2019 and reached $13–14B valuation in 2024, explicitly framed as core AI infrastructure. (cxotech.com)
• Crusoe: Described as a “vertically integrated AI infrastructure provider” with AI‑optimized data centers. It joined the unicorn club in 2022 and later raised funding at a $2.8B valuation in 2024 and $10B valuation in 2025, confirming its status as an AI infrastructure unicorn throughout the relevant period. (investclub.sv)
• 01.AI: An LLM company that developed efficient AI infrastructure and inference engines; it achieved unicorn status (> $1B valuation) in November 2023, again prior to mid‑2025. (en.wikipedia.org)

These examples show far more than two distinct AI infrastructure unicorns existing by mid‑2025, in line with Sacks’s expectation for that segment.

2. Vertical/professional AI copilot unicorns

• Poolside: Builds an AI‑powered coding copilot; in June 2024 it raised $400M at a $2B valuation, making it a unicorn developer‑tools copilot. (interstellardesign.studio)
• Harvey: Markets itself explicitly as an AI "copilot" for lawyers, automating legal research and drafting. A July 24, 2024 funding round valued Harvey at $1.5B, establishing it as a legal‑AI copilot unicorn well before mid‑2025; subsequent rounds later pushed this much higher. (news.aibase.com)
• OpenEvidence: Business Insider’s May 7, 2025 report describes OpenEvidence as an AI copilot for doctors that helps clinicians access and interpret medical research, noting it raised capital at a $1B valuation with only ~20 employees. (businessinsider.com)

By mid‑2025 there are therefore multiple unicorns each for coding, law, and medicine copilots, satisfying the prediction that there would be “multiple unicorns” in the professional copilot category.

3. Overall context: “Dozens of new unicorns” in AI Independent market analyses report dozens of new AI unicorns: one 2025 funding overview notes 47 new AI unicorns in 2024 alone, across infrastructure, healthcare, platforms, and applications. (secondtalent.com) This supports Sacks’s broader claim that many unicorns would be minted across AI, not just in the two example sub‑segments.

Given (a) the clear presence of multiple AI infrastructure unicorns and (b) multiple profession‑specific copilot unicorns by around mid‑2025, Sacks’s prediction—both in spirit and in the normalized form you provided—has been borne out by events.

Multiple sources show that Dalíland received its U.S. public release on June 9, 2023, in theaters and on VOD. Wikipedia notes that the film "was released in the United States on June 9, 2023" with a theatrical and on-demand release. (en.wikipedia.org) MovieInsider likewise lists Dalíland as having a limited theatrical release on Friday, June 9, 2023. (movieinsider.com) WhenToStream further confirms a theatrical/PVOD date of June 9, 2023, with later streaming on Hulu in October 2023. (whentostream.com)

The podcast episode was released on April 21, 2023, and the film’s U.S. public release on June 9, 2023 occurred about seven weeks later—roughly “two months” and clearly by late June 2023. Since the film did indeed become publicly available within that time frame, Jason’s prediction that it would be “coming out in two months” is right.

Evidence from 2023–2025 shows that a much larger wave of markdowns, down‑rounds, and loss recognition in late‑stage VC and growth portfolios did in fact play out after April 2023, relative to what had been recognized up to that point.

By mid‑2023, reporting on venture‑fund performance showed that funds had already begun marking down portfolios, but LPs and analysts were still warning that most write‑downs were yet to come. Returns for venture funds were negative for multiple consecutive quarters in 2022, with large, late‑stage‑heavy funds driving the worst performance; Tiger Global, for example, had already marked down its private startup holdings by about 33% in 2022, erasing roughly $23 billion in value, while investors expected “the bulk of startup write‑downs” was still ahead. (devdiscourse.com) This matches Chamath’s framing that the recognition process had “barely begun” by spring 2023.

Over the following 1–2 years, quantitative data show a broad, historically large reset in private valuations, with down‑rounds and write‑downs particularly concentrated in later‑stage companies:

• Carta’s State of Private Markets reports for 2023 and 2024 show that roughly 19–20% of all venture rounds in 2023, and about 20% on average over 2023–2024, were down rounds—about double the ~10% rate seen from 2019 through mid‑2022, and the highest sustained levels in their dataset. (carta.com) Q1 2024 saw an even higher spike, with about 23–24% of new rounds being down rounds, a five‑year high. (crowdfundinsider.com) Cooley’s Q4 2023 venture report likewise found that 25% of deals that quarter were down rounds—one of the highest readings in the history of their report and well above normal. (cooley.com)
• Carta’s 2024 year‑in‑review notes that late‑stage valuations were hit especially hard: combined valuations at Series E+ were down 18% year‑over‑year, consistent with significant markdowns in late‑stage VC portfolios that had been priced at 2021 peaks. (carta.com) An independent analysis of VC fund activity by AVP finds that late‑stage and growth portfolios experienced larger net value write‑downs than early‑stage funds in 2022–2023, reflecting how the steep 2019–2021 step‑up at late stage was followed by disproportionately large post‑2021 write‑downs. (avpcap.com)
• Crossover and late‑stage investors (the ones most exposed to 2020–2021 unicorn rounds) publicly reported large markdowns on individual holdings: Tiger Global’s venture funds, SoftBank’s Vision Fund, and public‑markets managers like Fidelity and BlackRock all disclosed substantial valuation cuts to prominent late‑stage companies (Stripe, Reddit, Grammarly, Gopuff and others), indicating that losses were being formally recognized across many large late‑stage portfolios. (gifp.us.org)
• The correction also showed up in real company outcomes: shutdowns and insolvencies of VC‑backed startups surged. Carta data cited by the Financial Times report that 254 of its venture‑backed clients shut down in Q1 2024 alone, with the bankruptcy rate more than seven times 2019 levels—a concrete form of loss crystallization for many late‑stage investors who had funded these companies at high valuations during the 2020–2021 boom. (ft.com)

Timing-wise, the bulk of this adjustment did occur in roughly the 2023–early‑2025 window Chamath pointed to. By mid‑2024, Carta’s data show the share of down rounds starting to decline from the Q1 2024 peak, suggesting the most intense phase of repricing was passing. (carta.com) A 2025 analysis of European VC valuations similarly notes that the proportion of down rounds fell in 2025 from the elevated ~18–19% levels of 2023, concluding that “the worst of the market rationalization that began in late 2022 has passed,” even though some sectors (notably AI) still face elevated correction risk. (developmentcorporate.com)

Some commentators in 2024–2025 still argue that many “zombie unicorns” remain on books at overly optimistic marks and that another round of write‑downs is likely. (duetpartners.com) That debate speaks to whether the clearing process is fully finished, not to whether a much larger wave of markdowns occurred. On the core claim—that, as of April 2023, the recognition of losses in late‑stage VC portfolios was only in its early innings and that a materially larger wave of markdowns and restructurings would arrive over the next 1–2 years—the subsequent data and industry reporting are broadly consistent. Hence, the prediction is best characterized as right (directionally and within the stated timeframe), even if some residual overvaluation remains in parts of the market.

Friedberg’s claim was that, after April 2023, there would be multiple additional major negative valuation events (large write‑downs, bankruptcies, distressed financings) among tech/biotech firms that IPO’d or raised money at peak 2020–2021 valuations. That’s what happened.

Examples:

1. WeWork (tech / SPAC IPO 2021)

   • Peak private valuation about $47B; went public via SPAC in 2021 at a much lower valuation.
   • Filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November 2023 with an equity value under $50M, a near‑total wipeout from peak, explicitly noted as a collapse from its earlier multibillion valuation. (forbes.com)

2. Better.com / Better Home & Finance (fintech, SoftBank‑backed, 2020–21 peak valuation)

   • Raised at ~$6B–$7.7B valuation in 2020–2021 and planned a $7.7B SPAC listing in 2021.
   • When the SPAC finally closed in August 2023, the stock collapsed more than 90% on debut (from ~$17+ for the SPAC to nearly $1), leaving the public valuation a tiny fraction of the boom‑time number. (cnbc.com)

3. Byju’s (edtech, late‑stage private tech, peak 2022 valuation ≈ $22B)

   • Once valued around $22B in 2022.
   • By late 2023 Prosus marked its stake below $3B, and in its 2024 financial year it fully wrote off its 9.6% stake—effectively taking the equity value to zero from the perspective of a major investor, citing a “significant decline in value.” (reuters.com)

4. Biotech: record wave of bankruptcies, including recent 2020–21 IPOs

   • Industry data show 2023 hit a 10‑year high for biotech bankruptcies, with 18 companies filing—more than any year since 2010, after a 2020–2021 IPO surge. (thepharmanavigator.com)
   • One concrete example: Zymergen, which went public via IPO in April 2021, ultimately filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in October 2023 and moved to liquidate in early 2024—another post‑boom collapse of a 2021 IPO biotech. (en.wikipedia.org)

These are just a few clear cases; broader analyses of SPACs and venture‑backed firms also document a wave of post‑2020/21‑boom bankruptcies and near‑wipeout valuations in 2023–2024. (ft.com)

Given the number and scale of such events occurring after April 2023, Friedberg’s prediction that there would be “multiple hammers” still to drop on peak‑era tech/biotech valuations is right.

Chamath’s normalized prediction was that, starting in 2023 and through at least the 2024–2025 cycle, the U.S. would cease to be a viable jurisdiction for major crypto businesses and most meaningful crypto innovation and company formation would move abroad. The evidence through late 2025 points the other way.

1. The U.S. remains the single largest country hub for crypto developers. Electric Capital’s 2024 geography data shows the U.S. still has the largest share of crypto developers of any country (~19% of global developers), even though its share has fallen over time and Asia is now the top continent by region. (developerreport.com) That is a loss of dominance, not an industry that is “dead.”

2. U.S.-headquartered crypto companies still attract the most venture capital. Galaxy Digital’s VC reports for 2024 show that in both Q1 and Q4 2024, companies headquartered in the U.S. accounted for roughly 37% of all crypto deals and about 43–46% of all crypto VC capital—more than any other country. (galaxy.com) A jurisdiction that continues to lead in deal count and capital raised has clearly not become non‑viable for building new crypto businesses.

3. Regulation has moved toward integration, not exclusion.

   • The SEC approved 11 spot Bitcoin ETFs in January 2024 and then approved exchange applications for spot Ether ETFs in May 2024, integrating the two largest cryptoassets into mainstream U.S. securities markets. (apnews.com)
   • In September 2025 the SEC adopted generic listing standards that make it easier and faster to launch a broader range of crypto ETFs, which industry sees as a major structural win. (investopedia.com)
   • Congress passed, and the president signed, the GENIUS Act in July 2025, establishing a national regulatory framework for payment stablecoins—explicitly aimed at making the U.S. a leader in stablecoin and digital dollar infrastructure. (en.wikipedia.org)
   • A 2025 executive order created a U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a digital asset stockpile, with the administration publicly stating it wants the U.S. to be the global “crypto capital.” (en.wikipedia.org) These moves are inconsistent with a country where crypto is “dead” or fundamentally non‑viable.

4. Large U.S. crypto firms are not fleeing; several are expanding domestically.

   • Coinbase remains the dominant exchange in the U.S., with about 41% of North American crypto activity and $234 billion in quarterly volume in 2025, and is adding regulated products like CFTC‑compliant perpetual futures for U.S. customers. (coinlaw.io)
   • Circle, issuer of USDC, completed a U.S. IPO on the NYSE in June 2025 at a multibillion‑dollar valuation, with USDC still the second‑largest stablecoin. (en.wikipedia.org)
   • Kraken, a U.S.-based exchange, continues to rank among the larger global exchanges by volume, and in 2025 the SEC agreed in principle to dismiss its enforcement case with no penalties or structural changes—hardly a signal that the U.S. is unworkable for major exchanges. (en.wikipedia.org)
   • Major non‑U.S. players are re‑entering and investing in the U.S. market: for example, OKX announced a relaunch in the U.S. in 2025 with a new headquarters in San Jose, explicitly citing an improving U.S. regulatory environment. (cointelegraph.com)

5. Innovation and company formation are globalizing, but not concentrated “outside the U.S.” at the expense of viability here. Developer and startup activity has clearly become more geographically distributed—Asia and emerging markets have gained share and some projects choose offshore hubs. (developerreport.com) Yet the U.S. still leads by country in developers and VC dollars, continues to produce heavily funded new L1s and infrastructure projects, and now anchors some of the largest regulated crypto capital markets through ETFs and listed companies.

Taken together, by late 2025 the U.S. is no longer as dominant as it once was and did go through a hostile regulatory phase—but it demonstrably has not ceased to be a viable jurisdiction for major crypto businesses, nor has “most meaningful” innovation obviously moved elsewhere. The prediction that “crypto is dead in America” and that the U.S. would effectively lose its viability for major crypto operations through the 2024–2025 cycle is therefore wrong.

The prediction has two key parts: (1) U.S. regulation would effectively ban most significant crypto activity and (2) this would drive a substantial share of major crypto companies and new startups to move their primary operations overseas by around 2026. As of late 2025, both are contradicted by observable facts.

1. No effective ban on most significant crypto activity

   • The SEC approved 11 spot Bitcoin ETFs in January 2024, integrating bitcoin exposure into mainstream U.S. capital markets rather than banning it. (apnews.com)
   • In September 2025, the SEC adopted generic listing standards that make it easier to launch a wide range of crypto ETFs (including multi-asset products), indicating increasing formalization, not prohibition. (investopedia.com)
   • Banking regulators that had previously issued very cautious crypto guidance under Biden reversed course in 2025: the OCC and FDIC both rescinded prior restrictive guidance and explicitly allowed banks to engage in crypto custody, stablecoin activities, and other digital-asset services, subject to risk management. (reuters.com)
   • Major U.S. exchanges like Coinbase, Kraken, and Gemini continue to operate large U.S. businesses. While there were enforcement actions (e.g., Kraken’s forced shutdown of U.S. staking in 2023; SEC lawsuits against Binance and Coinbase), these targeted specific products/legal theories rather than banning trading, custody, development, or mining broadly. (sec.gov)
   • By 2024–2025, the regulatory trend is loosening, not tightening: the SEC has been dropping or settling several high‑profile enforcement actions against major exchanges under a more crypto‑friendly administration. (theverge.com)
     Taken together, U.S. policy created friction and uncertainty, but the presence of regulated ETFs, active exchanges, public crypto companies, and newly relaxed banking rules is incompatible with an “effective ban on most significant crypto activity.”

2. No clear evidence of a mass relocation of primary operations overseas

   • Several U.S. firms did expand abroad or choose foreign hubs for regional operations — for example, Coinbase picking Ireland (later Luxembourg) as its MiCA hub for the EU, explicitly to grow outside the U.S. amid regulatory pressure at home. (cnbc.com)
   • Venture firm a16z opened a London crypto office in 2023 citing a more predictable regime than the U.S., but then closed that London office in 2025 and refocused on the U.S. market after the political/regulatory environment shifted. (cointelegraph.com)
   • Major issuers like Circle and major exchanges like Coinbase and Gemini remain U.S. companies: Circle lists extensive U.S. state licenses and executed a NYSE IPO in 2025; Coinbase is a large S&P 500‑component U.S. exchange; Gemini completed a Nasdaq IPO in 2025. None of these have shifted their primary corporate identity away from the U.S. (en.wikipedia.org)
   • Developer data show the U.S. share of global crypto developers has declined materially since 2018, but the U.S. is still the single largest country for crypto developers (roughly ~19–26% depending on the year), indicating erosion of leadership but not a wholesale exodus of primary activity. (developerreport.com)
     There is some movement of talent and some product lines overseas, but the evidence does not support that a substantial share of major crypto companies or the bulk of new startups have relocated their primary operations abroad. Instead, U.S. firms have adopted a multi‑jurisdictional strategy while keeping core corporate structures and large teams in the United States.

Because (a) U.S. regulation has not amounted to an effective ban on most significant crypto activity, and (b) there has been no clear, large‑scale relocation of primary operations for a substantial share of major firms and startups, the prediction should be rated wrong.

Nikki Haley did not win the 2024 Republican Party presidential nomination. She suspended her campaign on March 6, 2024, after heavy Super Tuesday losses, leaving Donald Trump as the last major Republican candidate for the nomination.(aljazeera.com)

The GOP primary results show that although Haley won the District of Columbia and Vermont Republican primaries, Trump dominated the rest of the contests and secured the delegate majority.(en.wikipedia.org) Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee on March 12, 2024, when his delegate count passed the required threshold.(en.wikipedia.org)

Because the prediction was that Haley would win the Republican nomination—defeating Trump, DeSantis, and others—and the nomination instead went to Trump, the prediction is wrong.