A former BlackRock fund manager just issued a major warning on the US economy.

In a new interview on Market Disruptors, Edward Dowd forecasts an incoming recession and market meltdown driven in part by a housing crisis and a bursting AI bubble.

Dowd points to collapsing new home permits since 2022 and falling tenant rents as early signs of a housing crash.

He also warns that government spending cuts and a slowdown in illegal immigration will sap economic growth, with stock markets facing a potential 50% drop based on historical patterns.

“The idea here is you have a recession that we think manifests itself pretty soon, and the stock markets bottom sometime in the first quarter of 2026.

Then you have a recovery, that’s the ideal situation… We’re not claiming anything’s going to go systemic. We’re not doom and gloom. It’s just we think it’s an old-fashioned deep recession and hopefully it’s quick. Typically speaking in recessions like in the dot-com recession and the great financial crisis, stocks went down 50% before they recovered, so we’re nowhere near down 50% yet and we think that’s coming.”

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped from its all-time high of 45,073 in December of 2024 to a low of 38,314 last month, registering a 15% decline.

Dowd traces the crisis to a global debt problem, temporarily masked by COVID-era money printing and spending, with commercial real estate and rising auto loan delinquencies signaling a broader credit crunch.

In the long run, he expects deflationary pressures to force the Federal Reserve to slash rates and print money.

For protection, Dowd advocates holding cash, pointing to Berkshire Hathaway’s massive position in T-bills/bonds, as well as physical gold, while cautioning against Bitcoin’s volatility and historic correlation with risk assets.

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The post Market Meltdown and Recession Incoming, Warns Former BlackRock Fund Manager Edward Dowd appeared first on The Daily Hodl.

The US stock market is seeing a slight downturn as President Donald Trump proposes a new round of tariffs on the European Union (EU) and tech giant Apple.

In a new post on Truth Social, Trump says that he’s going to recommend a hefty tax on EU goods starting June 1st due to their unfair economic practices and unwillingness to negotiate.

“The European Union, which was formed for the primary purpose of taking advantage of the United States on TRADE, has been very difficult to deal with.

Their powerful trade barriers, VAT taxes, ridiculous corporate penalties, non-monetary trade barriers, monetary manipulations, unfair and unjustified lawsuits against Americans companies, and more, have led to a trade deficit with the US of more than $250,000,000 a year, a number which is totally unacceptable.

Our discussions with them are going nowhere! Therefore, I am recommending a straight 50% tariff on the European Union, starting on June 1st, 2025. There is no tariff if the product is built or manufactured in the United States.”

Regarding Apple, Trump says that he’s imposing tariffs on the tech giant until the firm relocates its manufacturing base to the US.

“I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhones that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else. If that is not the case, a tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S.”

News of the new tariff recommendations caused US stock markets as well as Apple stocks to pull back. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq saw dips of 0.67% and 1%, respectively, and Apple shares fell 3%.

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Bitcoin’s price actions took a turn for the worse yesterday after US President Trump recommended a 50% general tariff against the European Union.

The altcoins have also bled out on a daily scale, with more than $100 billion leaving the space within this timeframe.

BTC Pushed Below $107K

In general, it was a very good, some would say historic, week for the primary cryptocurrency. It started on a volatile foot as it pumped from $104,000 to $107,000 on a couple of occasions on Sunday and Monday but was stopped in its tracks and driven south hard.

However, the bulls kept the pressure on, and that upper boundary finally gave in on Wednesday. Moreover, bitcoin rocketed past its January all-time high of $109,100 and set a new one at almost $110,000.

It was met with immediate resistance there and a drop to $106,500, but that was short-lived. Bitcoin began another, even more impressive leg up in the following hours and tapped a fresh peak at $112,000 on Pizza Day.

It retraced slightly to $111,000 on Friday but remained at around that level until the POTUS recommended a new set of tariffs against the EU to start from June 1. In minutes, BTC’s price tumbled below $107,500, bounced off, and then slipped again to under $107,000.

It has recovered some ground now and sits above $108,000, but it’s still over 2% down on the day. Its market cap has plunged to $2.150 trillion, while its dominance over the alts stands tall at 61% on CG.

Alts in Red

The altcoins have followed BTC on the way south, with substantial losses of up to 10% from the likes of DOGE, ADA, SUI, SHIB, LINK, and AVAX. Ethereum has slipped by over 5% and is now down to $2,550. XRP has dropped to just over $2.3 after a 4.4% daily decline.

Even more painful price drops are evident from ENA, WIF, TIA, S, IP, and PEPE as all of them have plunged by double digits.

The total crypto market has lost over $100 billion since yesterday and is down to $3.530 trillion on CG.

The post Crypto Markets Shed Over $100 Billion After Trump’s Latest Tariff Threats (Weekend Watch) appeared first on CryptoPotato.

HodlX Guest Post  Submit Your Post

AI (artificial intelligence) creates an ethical crisis of algorithmic censorship. By glossing over this problem, we risk allowing governments and corporations to control the global conversation.

Both AI technology and industry have gone parabolic. Its censorship potential becomes greater every day.

Every one to two years since 2010, the computational power of training AI systems has increased by a factor of 10, making the threat of censorship and control of public discourse more real than ever.

Corporations worldwide ranked privacy and data governance as their top AI risks, while censorship didn’t register on their radar.

AI – which can process millions of data points in seconds – can censor through various means, including content moderation and control of information.

LLMs (large language models) and content recommendations can filter, suppress or mass share information at scale.

In 2023, Freedom House highlighted that AI is enhancing state-led censorship.

In China, the CAC (Cyberspace Administration) has incorporated censorship strategy into generative AI tools, requiring chatbots to support “core socialist values” and block content the communist party wants to censor.

Chinese AI models, such as DeepSeek’s R1, already censor topics like the Tiananmen Square massacre, in order to spread state narratives.

“To protect the free and open internet, democratic policymakers – working side by side with civil society experts from around the world – should establish strong human rights–based standards for both state and non-state actors that develop or deploy AI tools,” concludes Freedom House.

In 2021, UC San Diego found that AI algorithms trained on censored datasets, such as China’s Baidu Baike, which associates the keyword ‘democracy’ with ‘chaos.’

Models trained on uncensored sources associated ‘democracy’ with ‘stability.’

In 2023, Freedom House’s ‘Freedom on the Net’ report found that global internet freedom fell for the 13th consecutive year. It attributed a large part of the decline to AI.

Twenty-two countries have laws in place requiring social media companies to employ automated systems for content moderation, which could be used to suppress debate and demonstrations.

Myanmar’s military junta, for instance, used AI to monitor Telegram groups and detain dissidents and carry out death sentences based on their posts. The same happened in Iran.

Additionally, in Belarus and Nicaragua, governments sentenced individuals to draconian prison terms for their online speech.

Freedom House found that no fewer than 47 governments used comments to sway online conversations towards their preferred narratives.

It found that in the past year, new technology was used in at least 16 countries to sow the seeds of doubt, smear opponents or influence public debate.

At least 21 countries require digital platforms to use machine learning to delete political, social and religious speech.

A 2023 Reuters report warned that AI-generated deepfakes and misinformation could “undermine public trust in democratic processes,” empowering regimes that seek to tighten control over information.

In the 2024 US presidential elections, AI-generated images falsely implying Taylor Swift endorsed Donald Trump demonstrated that AI is already manipulating public opinion.

China offers the most prominent example of AI-driven censorship.

A leaked dataset analyzed by TechCrunch in 2025 revealed a sophisticated AI system designed to censor topics like pollution scandals, labor disputes and Taiwan political issues.

Unlike traditional keyword-based filtering, this system uses LLMs to evaluate context and flag political satire.

Researcher Xiao Qiang noted that such systems “significantly improve the efficiency and granularity of state-led information control.”

A 2024 House Judiciary Committee report accused the NSF (National Science Foundation) of funding AI tools to combat ‘misinformation’ on Covid-19 and the 2020 election.

The report found that the NSF funded AI-based censorship and propaganda tools.

“In the name of combating alleged misinformation regarding Covid-19 and the 2020 election, NSF has been issuing multi-million-dollar grants to university and non-profit research teams,” reads the report.

“The purpose of these taxpayer-funded projects is to develop AI-powered censorship and propaganda tools that can be used by governments and Big Tech to shape public opinion by restricting certain viewpoints or promoting others.”

A 2025 WIRED report discovered that DeepSeek’s R1 model includes censorship filters at both the application and training levels, resulting in blocks on sensitive topics.

In 2025, a Pew Research Center survey found that 83% of US adults were concerned about AI-driven misinformation, with many showing concerns about its free speech implications.

Pew interviewed AI experts, who said that AI training data can unintentionally reinforce existing power structures.

Addressing AI-driven censorship

A 2025 HKS Misinformation Review called for better reporting to reduce fear-driven calls for censorship.

The survey found that 38.8% of Americans are somewhat concerned, and 44.6% are highly concerned, about AI’s role in spreading misinformation during the 2024 US presidential election, while 9.5% held no concerns, and 7.1% were unaware of the issue altogether.

Creating an open-source AI ecosystem is of the utmost importance. This means companies disclose training dataset sources and biases.

Governments should create AI regulatory frameworks prioritizing free expression.

If we want a human future, instead of an AI-managed technocratic dystopia, the AI industry and consumers need to build up the courage to tackle censorship.

Manouk Termaaten is an entrepreneur, an AI export and the founder and CEO of Vertical Studio AI. He’s aiming to make AI accessible to everyone. With a background in engineering and finance, he seeks to disrupt the AI sector with accessible customization tools and affordable computers.

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