Enron headquarters (Greg Smith/Getty Images)

Enron 2.0

Birds aren’t real, and neither is the Enron relaunch

What we do know: the guy behind “Birds Aren’t Real” is involved and there’s probably a cryptocurrency coming soon.

12/2/24 4:00PM

Enron posted an obscure hype video on X on Monday morning, alluding to “growth,” “change,” and “rebirth,” kickstarting speculation about what’s going on with the bankrupt energy company now.

We're back. Can we talk? pic.twitter.com/9kt4g0Q84Z
— Enron (@Enron) December 2, 2024

I reached out to Enron’s PR team and a representative from media-strategy firm Stu Loeser & Co. replied, saying that they would have “more to share soon — including a big announcement in the energy space,” matching language seen on the company’s site:

But if you scroll the site, it feels… off. First, all mentions of “energy” are obscure at best, and the rest of the company’s listed values (Energy, Nurture, Repentant, Opportunity, and Nice) are accompanied by descriptions that are more whataboutisms than substance. Additionally, while Enron’s site has a careers page, where you can add your email address to get updates on job opportunities, the employee profiles on the page appear to be fake.

A reverse image search of “Aaron,” an HR manager at Enron, shows that it’s a stock photo from Getty Images.

The site’s terms of use also states: “THE INFORMATION ON THE WEBSITE IS FIRST AMENDMENT PROTECTED PARODY, REPRESENTS PERFORMANCE ART, AND IS FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY.”

Who would relaunch the Enron brand under what appears to be a misleading (at best) website, and why? On the second point, it just feels like a crypto play, reminiscent of when Alex Mehr and crypto influencer Tai Lopez bought the rights to the RadioShack brand and tried to launch a cryptocurrency exchange called “RadioShack DeFi,” using the RadioShack X account to draw attention to their new project. (They have since sold the brand rights to UniComer Group, an El Salvadoran retail group that opened the first RadioShack in the Latin American county in 1998.)

One thing pointing in the direction of Enron’s relaunch being crypto-related is the message under the hype video warning readers that “this is the final tweet in this thread,” and any other posts below from impersonators are scams. These messages are common on virtually every big crypto account on X, such Trump’s World Liberty Financial. It’s interesting to see the Enron account lead with this despite no other mentions of cryptocurrencies.

pic.twitter.com/5iNscOdW12
— Enron (@Enron) December 2, 2024

Enron’s site also has a page for “decentralization,” saying: “True innovation doesn’t ask for permission. Decentralized technology is advancing, and we will of course have a role to play in its future. We couldn’t be more excited to show you, but until then please stay vigilant and avoid falling for scams. When we announce something, you’ll know.” Again, we have a vague “energy-related” announcement coming from a company that’s excited about decentralization and is warning its X followers about scam links, and an “Enron” LinkedIn page already posted a now deleted link to an Enron meme coin on Sun Pump.

I feel pretty confident that seven days from now, when the timer on Enron’s site hits zero, we’ll get a press release saying that Enron is launching a Web3 energy trading product on the blockchain. Or something like that.

My next question was who is running the Enron account, and the answer appears to be Connor Gaydos, the cofunder of “The College Company.” According to Enron’s Certificate of Incorporation, shared with me by the company’s comms rep, I saw that Gaydos is the sole incorporator of the business, in Fayetteville, Arkansas. According to its LinkedIn, The College Company “creates and operates clothing brands in the United States,” and it has served “notable names such as Billie Eilish, Justin Bieber, Kacey Musgraves, Brockhampton, and more.”

The College Company had owned the Enron trademark since June 2021, allowing it to legally sell merchandise with the Enron logo, and that trademark is now owned by Gaydos’ new Enron Corp. (For those curious, The College Company also owns one other trademark, “Birds Aren’t Real,” alluding to a Gen Z conspiracy theory that birds are government agents.)

Basically, Gaydos formed a new Delaware corporation, “Enron Corporation,” transferred the ownership of the Enron trademark to this new organization, and is now planning to launch something in the “energy space,” that, given the context clues on its X account and website, is almost certainly going to be a cryptocurrency.

If it feels like we’re entering a Golden Age of Grift, it’s because we probably are. I for one am excited for the launch of Enron Coin.

Sage D. Young6/16/26

Hyperliquid reclaims all-time high

HYPE, the native token powering perpetuals exchange Hyperliquid and its underlying blockchain, rebounded to reclaim its all-time high previously set at the start of the month.

Treasury firms Hyperliquid Strategies and Hyperion DeFi have also rallied as the token increased double digits in the last 24 hours to trade as high as $76.70, rising past its record price set nearly two weeks ago, according to CoinGecko. In the interim between all-time highs, HYPE pulled back to around $53.

The token has several tailwinds, the first coming from ETF flows. Since their inception in May, HYPE ETFs have yet to record negative weekly outflows, posting a cumulative total net inflow of $171.8 million, per SoSoValue.

The second comes from Hyperliquid spending basically everything it earns in fees to buy HYPE, a mechanism embedded into the protocol’s codebase.

The venue’s buyback funding mechanism is set to add a new source of yield. Validators of the network activated “AQAv2,” which means stablecoin deployers will share about 90% of reserve yield revenue on their supply within the protocol.

Around $6.1 billion of Circle’s USDC resides in Hyperliquid, per DefiLlama. Accrual begins on August 26 and the first payment is made on October 3, the network announced in its Discord channel last week.

A substantial amount of capital is riding on different positions of HYPE. In total, a move down to under $53 would result in the liquidation nearly 1.8 million HYPE worth of leveraged long positions on the on-chain perps venue, or $131.7 million, data from CoinGlass shows. For the upside, a climb above $100 results in the liquidation of more than 3 million worth of leveraged HYPE short positions, or $221.5 million.

HYPE’s rebound to all-time high comes after Michael Selig, chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, defended his agency’s decision to approve regulated perpetuals, or futures contracts without expiration dates, CNBC reported on Monday.

Last month, the CFTC approved bitcoin perpetual futures trading in the US through regulated prediction markets firm Kalshi and an affiliate of centralized exchange Coinbase.

“Perps are highly likely to become lightly regulated and thus approved in the US,” said David Pakman, head of venture investments at CoinFund.

“We expect to see perps for many different types of assets, from commodities to equities,” Pakman told Sherwood News.

Yaël Bizouati-Kennedy

6/16/26

Bitcoin is “caught between flow deterioration and macro relief”

Sage D. Young6/15/26

Crypto market snaps back as sentiment lifts, with altcoins from ethereum to XRP soaring

The market capitalization of the crypto industry has jumped around $83.2 billion in the last 24 hours, with privacy-focused token Zcash and worldcoin, the native cryptocurrency of the network backed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, leading market gains, jumping over 22%.

But the last 24 hours have been good across the board:

Ethereum has increased more than 9% to trade above $1,800, amid BitMine Immersion Technologies acquiring $139.2 million worth of ethereum.
XRP and solana have rebounded from multiyear lows, each rising roughly 10%.
HYPE has bounced up 12%.
Dog-based memecoins dogecoin and shiba inu have chased gains of more than 4%.

“Investors have been eager to see some positive signs around the Iranian conflict ending, coupled with hopeful outlooks around the CLARITY act, both breathing some life into assets,” Kairos Research cofounder Ian Unsworth told Sherwood News.

Simon Shockey, a crypto strategist at crypto wallet infrastructure firm Privy, said the upswing stems from several things converging. He pointed to how alt markets broadly were “very oversold” following the bug found in Zcash that shook confidence.

Friday, Zcash founder Zooko Wilcox said Anthropic didn’t find any more serious bugs with the Zcash protocol after Shielded Labs requested the AI firm run a security audit of the network with Mythos.

Shockey added that the pool of willing sellers has dwindled. “Even if structurally, AI is a much more compelling and asymmetric bet in the eyes of allocators, many of these crypto assets have simply run out of marginal sellers despite some shorter-term narrative-driven pumps. The only people left to sell at this point are the teams themselves and VCs.”

“Net-net: oversold conditions plus exhausted seller bases plus a macro backdrop that’s stabilized equals a snapback, especially in names that have real usage or community conviction behind them,” Shockey told Sherwood.

Yaël Bizouati-Kennedy

6/15/26

Bitcoin hits highest level in 2 weeks following news of Iran deal

Bitcoin crossed $66,500 Monday morning as the broad crypto market welcomed the return of a risk-on mood.