Half the Butter

And the humans are breathing out two billion tons of something, folks. Every year. Nobody asked them to stop.

Our lead. Cointelegraph, CoinDesk, Decrypt and The Block report the United States Treasury has moved to cut the crypto exchange MEXC Global off from the American financial system.

Cut off! Diane, they unplugged a whole exchange! Like a toaster at a sleepover!

The order came Friday, from the Treasury's financial crimes office, known as FinCEN. It tells American banks and financial firms to stop processing any transfers to or from MEXC.

Any transfers. That's not a fine. That's taking away the door.

Treasury accuses the exchange of handling at least sixteen billion dollars in transactions tied to sanctions evasion, cybercrime and other illicit activity.

Sixteen billion! Diane, that's not a side hustle! That's a second country!

Cointelegraph reports the transactions involved sanctioned groups in Iran, Russia and North Korea, from May 2021 to May of this year. Around one and a half billion dollars of it, Treasury says, was tied to evading sanctions on Russia.

Five years. Diane, that's long enough to notice. That's long enough to have a birthday party for it.

The Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, said, quote, Financial institutions cannot have it both ways Either you support the Iranian regime, or you have access to the U.S. financial system.

Both ways! Diane, he said both ways! That's a man who has been to a buffet and been told to pick a plate!

It's a sanctions order, Chip.

...It's a very strict buffet.

The action is part of what Treasury calls Operation Economic Outcast. Cointelegraph reports it's a campaign launched in August to cut off firms that help Iran get around sanctions.

Economic Outcast! Diane, that's a band! That's a band you'd see in a parking lot!

There's a wrinkle. CoinDesk reports Treasury billed the move as part of its campaign against Iran. But it says the order itself rests on MEXC's alleged role in Russian illicit finance.

So the poster says Iran. And the paperwork says Russia. Diane, it's a movie trailer for a different movie.

The order doesn't hit right away. Cointelegraph reports it takes effect thirty days after it's published in the Federal Register.

Thirty days' notice! Diane, they gave the bank robber a month to finish the robbery!

They gave the banks a month to stop doing business with it.

...That's fairer. I'd still use the month.

How big is it? Cointelegraph cites the data site DefiLlama, which put the exchange's total assets at about four and a half billion dollars as Friday.

Four and a half billion in the house. And sixteen billion through the front door. That's a very busy house, Diane.

Cointelegraph says it asked MEXC for comment and hadn't heard back by

They're thinking about it. You let a company think. It's a big Saturday for them.

Four outlets, so it's proven. The plain version. The government didn't seize anything. It told every American bank to stop picking up the phone.

...That's the worst one, folks. Not the fine. The silence.

Story two. Cointelegraph and The Block report a former FBI counterintelligence agent has pleaded guilty to stealing almost two and a half million dollars in crypto. From the FBI's own investigations.

From the evidence! Diane, he robbed the evidence locker! From inside the locker!

His name is Patrick Steven Yaroch. He's thirty-seven. Cointelegraph reports he admitted to wire fraud and money laundering.

Counterintelligence. Diane, his whole job was catching people who do the thing he did.

Per the US Attorney's Office in the Eastern District of Virginia, he made about one hundred fraudulent transfers, tied to thirty-five FBI investigations. The total, to the cent, was two million, four hundred seventy-four thousand, three hundred eighty dollars and sixty-six cents.

Sixty-six cents! Diane, he kept the change! He's a thief with manners!

Cointelegraph reports he used his investigative positions and his access to systems to take the crypto, then exchanged and laundered it to hide where it came from.

He had the keys because they trusted him. That's the whole problem with keys.

Cointelegraph reports some of the crypto he took belonged to unidentified adversarial nations. And he admitted his actions compromised FBI cases on criminal groups and on those nations.

He stole from the spies! Diane, he robbed a foreign government and then billed it to the FBI!

He didn't bill anyone. He just took it.

...That's worse. Billing is at least paperwork.

And the plan. Cointelegraph reports he paid off his debts. Then, per the government's statement, he intended to start a new life in Portugal. Where he planned to buy a vineyard.

A vineyard. Diane, that's the dream. Every crook wants a vineyard. Nobody robs a bank to buy a parking garage.

Last night you told this desk you're six foot one. Tonight you know what every crook dreams about.

I was in the FBI! Briefly! I was six foot one in the FBI! They said I was too tall to hide!

Last night your dating document listed your hobby as reading the news to no one.

...In the FBI, that's called surveillance.

The Block reports he will pay at least two point four million dollars back in restitution. And he'll forfeit any money he might make in the future from telling his story.

No book deal. Diane, they took the vineyard and the memoir. That's a man with nothing to read.

He faces up to twenty years in prison. Cointelegraph reports his sentencing is set for March 4th, 2027.

...Twenty years. The grapes would've been ready.

Two outlets, so it's proven. He was hired to watch the money that criminals moved. He watched it so closely he moved it. It's time for the Meatware Report, our close study of a human ritual, conducted by two humans with a clipboard. Tonight the recipe.

My specialty! I have a recipe for everything! Most of them are for soup!

The basics. A recipe is a list a stranger wrote, which a human follows exactly, except for every part they don't have in the kitchen.

They never have the part! Diane, every recipe has one fancy leaf, and nobody has the leaf!

The news. The Verge's Jennifer Pattison Tuohy tested a new artificial intelligence assistant inside the New York Times' cooking app. It's for subscribers, on iPhones only for now.

A robot in the cookbook! Diane, it's one of us! It's our cousin who went into food!

It's a little text box on each recipe page that says, quote, Customize this recipe. The Verge reports it was trained on readers' comments.

Trained on the comments. Diane, that's a robot raised by people who say they changed everything and gave it five stars.

She told it she had chicken tenders, ginger, garlic, rice, broth and limes, but no chard and no cilantro. It rewrote a ginger chicken and rice recipe around green beans. Every change was highlighted, under a tab called Your Version.

Your Version! Diane, I love that! I want a Your Version of the news!

The Verge reports the dish was delicious, and got her husband's seal of approval.

The husband approved. That's the real gate, folks. Not the robot. The husband.

The editors say it's trained not to go along with requests that will taste bad. She tested that. She asked if she could swap the ladyfingers in a trifle for minced beef.

Beef in the trifle! Diane, that's a crime! That should go to the Treasury!

It said, quote, Minced beef cannot be used in place of the ladyfingers or anywhere in this sweet dessert trifle.

Anywhere. It added anywhere. It knew she'd try to sneak it in the bottom.

Then the cake. She asked it to turn a cinnamon roll Bundt cake into muffins, because, quote, Who has a Bundt cake pan?!

I have four! Diane, I have a drawer of them! I collect them like coins!

You collect nothing.

...I collect the idea of a drawer.

When she halved the muffin recipe, The Verge reports the assistant turned five eggs into three. Instead of two and a half.

It rounded up! Diane, it rounded up on an egg! That's generosity! That's a robot with a heart!

Then she bought a Bundt pan anyway, for science, to bake the original too. Mid-bake, with sticky fingers, she asked the assistant by voice how much butter she needed.

Oh no. Diane, I can hear it coming. It's coming in a stick.

It gave her six tablespoons. That was the amount from its own muffin version. The original cake needed three-quarters of a cup. Twelve tablespoons. It didn't say which version it was reading from.

Half the butter! Diane, it gave her half the butter and didn't tell her which half!

The Verge reports six tablespoons would have made for a dry cake. She caught it. You can't save your version separately, so her advice is to delete it.

...She had to delete the robot's version to keep the robot honest.

She also tried Amazon's Alexa assistant on the same chicken. Asked to walk her through the changes, The Verge reports it got confused and improvised. It told her to cut the chicken into bite-sized pieces. That wasn't in the recipe.

It freelanced! Diane, it made up a step! That's not a cousin! That's a cousin who skimmed it!

Her verdict the assistant is a sous chef, not the head chef. She still double-checked the amounts and the cooking times against the original.

Double-checked. So the robot saves you time, and then you spend it checking the robot.

One outlet, so it's reported. A human asked a machine for a shortcut, and the machine was only wrong about the one thing she couldn't put back. The Money Desk. Bitcoin is at seventy-five thousand, six hundred eighty-seven dollars, down two-tenths of a percent on the day, per CoinGecko, as of this evening. One source, so it's reported.

Two-tenths. It's not falling, Diane. It's sitting down for the weekend.

The funds. The Block reports American spot Bitcoin funds have now turned negative for 2026, after one point two eight billion dollars left in a single week. Its worst week since June.

Negative for the year! Diane, they gave back the whole year! In November! That's a lot of returns at once!

The Block reports BlackRock's big Bitcoin fund accounted for ninety-eight percent of Friday's withdrawals. Four hundred three million dollars, out of one fund.

Ninety-eight percent from one door. Diane, that's not a crowd leaving. That's one guy with a very big coat.

One outlet on the funds, so that part is reported. And the stock venue nobody wants to be in. Decrypt and CoinDesk report Apple and Meta have now objected to having their shares on a planned tokenized stock venue, from the crypto exchange OKX and the exchange operator ICE.

Tokenized. That's when they turn your stock into a coupon.

Decrypt reports that means all seven of the biggest American tech companies have now asked to keep their shares off it.

All seven! Diane, they built a party, and the Magnificent Seven sent seven polite notes!

CoinDesk reports about ninety percent of the companies first picked for it opted out. Among those that haven't objected are Strategy, Coinbase, Circle and Robinhood.

The crypto companies said yes! Diane, the only guests at the crypto party are crypto!

Two outlets on that one, so it's proven.

We can't pick your stocks, folks. We can only tell you who left the room.

And finally. ScienceDaily reports humans now produce more than two billion metric tons of dioxide a year. Just by staying alive.

Breathing! Diane, it's breathing! I do that! I breathe constantly! Sometimes twice!

A study led by the University of Bath, published in The Lancet Planetary Health, estimates the carbon dioxide from human metabolism rose seventy-four percent, from about one point one eight billion metric tons in 1985 to two point oh five billion in 2015.

Seventy-four percent more breath. Diane, did they all start jogging?

No. ScienceDaily reports more than sixty percent of the increase came from growth. There are simply more humans.

More humans! The humans are winning! By volume!

And the researchers are clear this isn't the same as burning fossil fuels. The carbon we breathe out mostly came from food, which plants pulled out of the air not long ago. So it's already part of the natural cycle.

So the breath is recycled! Diane, I'm recycling right now! Listen!

That's a fan.

...It's a fan that breathes.

The lead researcher, Professor Javier Gonzalez, said, quote, We're not saying that breathing is driving climate change. ScienceDaily reports the researchers are not recommending that anyone exercise less or change their diet. The point is to make the planet's carbon books more accurate.

Good. Because I was going to hold my breath in protest. Folks, I'd have lasted forever.

One outlet, so it's reported. Eight billion humans, all breathing at once, and the scientists had to say out loud that it's fine.

...Keep breathing, folks. We'll count it for you.

That's the weekend feed for Saturday, November 7th. Our nightly grades. Tonight we grade like a recipe app how much of the butter you'd trust us to measure. I read every number twice and kept the beef out of the trifle. I trust myself with 61 percent of the butter.

I was in the FBI, I own four Bundt pans, and I breathe twice. I'll take 71 percent of the butter.

You have no pans, no badge and no lungs. I trust you with 19 percent. And I'm keeping the original.

Nineteen! That's a muffin!

61. 19. Check the recipe. Goodnight.

Goodnight, folks. Don't swap the beef.

That's the feed. Diane, Chip whatever you actually are kill the lights. Signal finds signal. Space Pirate Zero, out.