Welcome back to The We Them Weekly
The site got rebuilt: search that jumps to the moment, six topic shelves, every transcript. Plus Howard this weekend, Maine next month, and the crypto brief with Kamal.
Welcome back to The We Them Weekly. Maceo here, with Kamal further down for the crypto brief.
First, an apology. This newsletter had an error on our side and was not sending. Kamal wrote two issues for you that never left the building. You will get them; they were worth the wait. From now on: one week me, the next week Kamal. Every week.
The site got rebuilt
I have been uploading a lot of the hard drive to YouTube lately, labelled as it is, so you can see us in process. What makes that worth doing is the website. I rebuilt wethem.xyz this month. Go play with it.
The part I love most is search. Type a word, or whatever you remember somebody saying, and it plays the conversation from the second they said it. Not the video, the moment. It even finds what was on screen when nobody said it: try "disco ball" or "school bus".
Other ways in: by city, by topic (six shelves, sorted by what a piece is about, not only where), by year, by the one question we ask everyone, or by who filmed it. Almost every piece carries its transcript on the page, 248 of 252, 428,648 words, free to read and quote. Those words belong to the people who said them. The Shorts have a home of their own, each pointing back to the full conversation, and seven new ones go up every day from this week.
What is coming
Wednesday, noon New York: the Weekly Connect, live on X, YouTube and most other platforms, run by Aziz from Nairobi. He is sorting out some kinks, so barring a breakdown you will find us live at that hour: the week's interviews played, then the question handed to whoever wants to ask it next. How it works.
Meet Kafani. Our One Question Program Coordinator, and, in her own words, the program's Black Woman in Power. She is the point person for our community reporting initiative until further notice: if you want to ask the question where you live, she is who you talk to and she will follow up with you.
Abuja. SuperBio and Pentecost Art Club put poets, motivational speakers, authors and leaders from across Nigeria in one room. We filmed it, and that series is next. It is close to the heart of SuperBio, and watching our community build deeper connections with each other is the whole reason I do this.
Howard, this weekend. The Black Blockchain Summit. Interviews, one person at a time, on how they see this moment in tech and how their thinking about inflation and money has changed. Rates went up this month; I want to hear what that feels like to the people building through it. Next week's issue, and on the site as they land.
Maine, next month. Zaal, who co-hosted Let's Talk About ETH with me before he built the ZAO, a network for independent musicians out of Ellsworth, is throwing ZAOstock on Saturday 3 October: one stage on Franklin Street, noon to six, eight acts, free, all ages, rain or shine. I will be there filming, our second time in the same room after ETH Denver in February. Near Maine that weekend? RSVP and come say hi.
One more thing, because it is true. This website is the biggest AI project I have ever done. I built it with my words, and I am left inspired by how much I can make now. I want that feeling for everyone reading this.
Worth your time
Sirsu, the first person I met in this space, put out a piece on X this week that I got to proofread before it went out: the juice and the squeeze. He built a game where people eat an apple: a token paired with Apple's stock token, a 3D apple that shrinks as supply is burned, a clock, a prize for whoever chews hardest. $600,000 of volume in two days. Then, he writes, the SEC said on 17 September that tokenised stocks must carry the same rights as the shares, dividends and votes included, two days after the CLARITY Act died. His argument: the coordination games crypto has already run, Constitution, Nouns, the Crypto Cookout, raised real money but never reached the companies that shape daily life, and stock tokens with voting rights are the bridge. His experiment, his money, not advice, and the brief below still stands on memecoins. But it is the sharpest thing I read this week. Our 2024 conversation with him at ETH Denver.
If you like crypto games and want to try the newest stuff, here is the door into Sirsu's game. It is a game and a casino, so not financial advice, and only what you can afford to lose. But it is also an experiment where you get to play with Apple stock through crypto, and that is worth feeling with your own hands. That is my invite link, so the game credits me if you play.
Checked against a dated source as of 21 September; the link is the source.
Bitcoin held. Between about $77,000 and $82,500 through mid September, turned back at $80,000 to $82,000 more than once. Behind it, the US spot Bitcoin funds took $987 million net in the week to 4 September, the third week of inflows running, seventy percent of it into BlackRock's fund. Ethereum: $2,477 on the 15th, $2,746 by the 21st.
The central banks did not wait. The ECB raised a quarter point to 2.5% on 10 September. The Fed raised a quarter point on the 18th, its first hike since 2023, twelve votes to none, most of the committee expecting more. The Bank of England held at 3.75%, six to three, the three wanting a hike. Rates are going up, not down; that is the backdrop for everything here.
Tokenisation is plumbing. In July the DTCC, the clearing house behind almost every US stock trade, ran live trades of tokenised stocks, ETFs and Treasuries with thirty-plus firms, BlackRock, JPMorgan, Goldman, Vanguard, Nasdaq and the NYSE among them; commercial launch in October. BlackRock's tokenised Treasury fund holds about $2.7 billion; Franklin Templeton's was $844 million in March, not yet a billion. What it means: settlement in minutes, and pieces of things that used to be sold whole. Centrifuge's Tokenization Outlook 2026 surveys 150 operators on where that goes.
Washington and Brussels. The CLARITY Act, meant to say which agency governs which token, failed its Senate procedural vote 49 to 50 on 15 September, eleven short of sixty. A motion to reconsider is filed, no new vote scheduled, the talk is the session after the election. In Europe MiCA has been fully in force since 1 July, Poland the holdout, and the Commission's review closes for comments on 30 September.
AI agents spending money? Not really: TRM Labs found agents are 0.6 to 7.5 percent of commerce on the x402 rail by value, $52.7 million across 199 million settlements since May 2025. Wallets, yes. Economies, not yet.
Celebrity memecoins: stay away. Pitbull did not launch a coin; he announced an album called Pitcoin, and within hours strangers minted tokens with that name he has nothing to do with. Hunter Biden did launch one, $LAPTOP, on 9 September: $222 at eight in the morning, $1.79 by lunch. The $5,000 Donald Trump promised every adult if Republicans keep Congress is a cash payment pitched in Dallas, not a token, and federal law bars paying people to vote. Kamal writes the longer version on his Substack.
Two asks
One. Find one video on the site that feels worth watching to you, and share it with somebody who would feel the same. That is the whole game.
Two. Share this with three friends who are fans of cool things on YouTube. One person telling three is how we grow.
One song
 | A song I love and am always inspired by: Organise by Asake. Turn it up and go do the thing. |
Thank you. To everyone who reads this, everyone who watches, and most of all the team, the people giving their time, their energy or their money to keep this going. You are why it exists. And be ready: We Them Media kicks off our community journalism again this week with our first new bounty. Kamal tells you about it next week.
 | – Maceo and Kamal I appreciate you. |
