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

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Rundown by Public.com – March 25, 2026
Episode Title: Stablecoin Regulation Fears Hit Crypto, OpenAI Ends Sora
Host: Zaid Admani

Episode Overview

In this fast-paced, informative episode, host Zaid Admani delivers a concise yet comprehensive market roundup, spotlighting the latest in crypto regulation, the abrupt shutdown of OpenAI’s Sora, viral toy sales, and major corporate moves in tech and retail. The focus is on how new legislation and strategic shifts by leading companies are shaping investor sentiment and stock movements. The episode is geared toward anyone seeking a quick catch-up on hot market topics with commentary and insights.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Market Recap and Middle East Tensions (00:35–02:03)

Both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq fell on Tuesday:
- S&P 500 down 0.4%
- Nasdaq down 0.8%
Ongoing volatility tied to conflicting reports about tensions with Iran:
- Deployment of more US troops led to higher oil prices midday.
- After market close, news of negotiation progress with Iran causes reversal—oil drops over 5%, Brent crude below $100/barrel.
“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.” (01:04)
U.S. sends 15-point proposal to Iran; Iran opens Strait of Hormuz to non-hostile ships—potential for partial reopening.

2. Stablecoin Regulation & Fallout (02:04–05:06)

Major Senate progress on the Clarity Act, a crypto-focused bill that would ban stablecoin yields:
- “In simple terms, this bill would block companies from offering anything that looks like interest on stablecoin balances...” (02:28)
Stakes are significant:
- Yield is a main draw for stablecoin holders. Removing it could slow adoption.
- Immediate market reaction: Circle (USDC issuer) stock fell 20%, Coinbase down 10%.
How stablecoin revenue works:
- Users buy USDC → Circle invests USD in treasuries → earns interest → shares yield with partners like Coinbase.
- “Banks don’t love stablecoins offering yield because it basically competes with them.” (03:14)
Traditional banks may benefit if regulation passes.
“Now, to be fair, this bill still is being negotiated, and there’s a chance that things change in the final version.” (03:44)
Stocks already showing signs of recovery the next day: Circle +5%, Coinbase +2%.
Host plug: Interview with Circle’s CFO recommended for deeper stablecoin insights.

3. OpenAI Shuts Down Sora (05:07–06:45)

Sora, OpenAI’s viral AI video platform (launched September), is discontinued:
- Once #1 on the App Store; hype faded rapidly after a few weeks.
Sora consumed massive computation resources, distracting from more profitable projects.
“OpenAI is feeling the pressure from how fast Claude seems to be getting steam these days.” (06:07)
Company’s new focus: enterprise customers, coding tools, agentic AI; avoiding ‘sidequests.’
Disney partnership (potential $1B investment, 200+ characters licensed to Sora) is called off as the deal never closed.
Raises questions on next moves for Disney’s new CEO, Josh D’Amaro, and potential deals with other AI video companies.

4. Company Moves: ARM Holdings & Pop Mart (06:46–09:18)

ARM Holdings:

ARM pivots to making its own chips for the first time:
- Launching AGI CPU, manufactured by TSMC, targeting data center market.
- Meta announced as first major customer.
“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...” (07:56)
ARM aims for $15B/year from the new business—could triple revenue.
Stock up over 10% on news.

Pop Mart:

Chinese toy giant behind Labubu viral toys takes a hit:
- 2025 revenue: $5.4B (up 185% YoY), profits quadrupled.
- Stock down more than 20% due to concerns over overreliance (nearly 40% revenue from Labubu/Monsters line).
“If the Labubu hype continues to fade... the company could be vulnerable.” (08:56)
CEO highlights growth in Skull Panda brand, but still small compared to Labubu. Stock has lost nearly half its value since last summer.

5. Costco Enters the Energy Drink Market (09:19–End)

Kirkland (Costco’s brand) launches a Celsius-copycat energy drink:
- 200mg caffeine, similar flavors, 24-pack for $16.99, about $0.70/can (half competitive price).
Immediate impact: Celsius stock down 15% for the week.
“This is just what Costco does... launch their own Kirkland version and undercut on price.” (09:48)
- Kirkland brought in $90B revenue last year.
- Most profits come from membership fees, allowing slim margins (~15%) on Kirkland products.
Host (a daily Celsius drinker) says, “If it tastes even remotely decent, I think I might be making the switch.” (10:34)

Notable Quotes

“The market seems to be yo-yoing... push and pull between escalation and de-escalation with Iran.” (01:04 – Zaid Admani)
“Earning yield has been one of the main reasons people actually hold stablecoins. If you take that away, then suddenly stablecoins become less attractive...” (02:32 – Zaid Admani)
“Banks don’t love stablecoins offering yield because it basically competes with them.” (03:14 – Zaid Admani)
“OpenAI is feeling the pressure from how fast Claude seems to be getting steam these days.” (06:07)
“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...” (07:56 – Zaid Admani)
“If the Labubu hype continues to fade... the company could be vulnerable.” (08:56 – Zaid Admani)
“This is just what Costco does... launch their own Kirkland version and undercut on price.” (09:48 – Zaid Admani)
“If [Kirkland energy drink] tastes even remotely decent, I think I might be making the switch.” (10:34 – Zaid Admani)

Timestamps for Important Segments

00:35 – Market recap & Middle East news impact
02:04 – Stablecoin regulation & market reaction
05:07 – OpenAI ends Sora; Disney fallout
06:46 – ARM’s new chip strategy & stock surge
08:15 – Pop Mart’s reliance on viral toys backfires
09:19 – Costco takes on Celsius with Kirkland energy drinks
10:34 – Host’s personal take on switching to Kirkland

Tone and Language

The episode mixes concise technical explanations with casual, approachable commentary. Zaid offers opinions, context, and industry gossip, always circling back to investor implications. His tone is conversational and pragmatic, matching the podcast’s reputation as a “daily rundown” for active investors.

Takeaways

Market volatility is trending as global and legislative uncertainty persist.
Major stablecoin regulation could benefit traditional banks at the expense of crypto firms.
OpenAI pivots to sharpen monetization, cutting high-profile projects like Sora.
ARM’s expansion into chipmaking, and Pop Mart’s reliance on one hot product, both highlight risk/reward in pivots and hype cycles.
Costco’s Kirkland continues to disrupt markets—including energy drinks—leveraging low margins for high-volume success.

This episode is especially useful for investors needing a quick, digestible catch-up on market-moving stories of the day.

Transcript

A (0:00)

Public.com presents the rundown. Your daily market update in under 10 minutes. My name is Zadod Mani and Today is Wednesday, March 25th. In today's episode, we'll break down why crypto stocks dropped after a new stablecoin proposal. We'll also tell you why OpenAI is pulling the plug on Sora and an update on the labubu hype. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out why Costco might end up dominating the energy drink space. We gotta great show for you today. Let's go. Markets were back in the red on Tuesday with the S P 500 falling.4% while the Nasdaq 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 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 US 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 a 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 choppy. 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. Run through some headlines starting with stablecoins. 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 Base. 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 stablecoin, 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 usdc, you're basically giving Circle real US Dollars. They then take that cash and invest it in treasury bonds with 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 gotta say, this is a big win for traditional banks. Now, banks don't love stablecoins offering yield because it basically competes with them. You know, banks pay like 0.5% on savings accounts, while stablecoins earn 3 to 4%. So, yeah, that's a big shakeup 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 gonna 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 OpenAI, 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 OpenAI products, the hype faded pretty fast. I mean, I haven't seen a Sora video in a long time. So OpenAI 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 OpenAI's plan to cut down on sidequests 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 sidequests anymore. Instead, the company has to refocus on enterprise customers, coding tools and agentic AI to maximize revenue. I think OpenAI is 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 OpenAI's partnership with Disney. Remember back in September, Disney agreed to to invest $1 billion into OpenAI and also license 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, pretty interesting first week for Disney's new CEO, Josh d'. Amaro. 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 CH 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 at GTC last week, also uses arm's 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 TSMC 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 GR 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. ARM stock 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 Labubu 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 Monsters product line, which includes the Booboo. 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 Labu hype continues to fade, which anecdotally, I feel like it has, then the company could be vulnerable. The popmart 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 double. But it's still nowhere close to matching Labubu's sales. And that's why Popmart 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 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 $0.70 per can. I mean, that is like half the price of what a typical Celsius costs. 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 launched 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 gonna 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.