Dec 2, 2025 5 min read Daily Rundown

⛵ Costco Sued USA

Plus: The Open Trap, Vanguard breaks its crypto vow

Good Morning, Early Adopters!

From courtroom tariffs to crypto U-turns, today’s markets are being reshaped by decisions that once seemed unthinkable.

LAWSUIT

Costco Just Sued America for a Trillion-Dollar Refund

👀 What’s happening: Costco has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government, Customs and Border Protection, and former CBP commissioner Rodney Scott, seeking a full refund of import tariffs levied under Trump’s “emergency powers” rule. The case challenges the legality of tariffs enacted through the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the same law now under review by the Supreme Court. If the Court rules these tariffs unconstitutional, the Treasury could be on the hook for nearly $1 trillion in refunds.

🔥 How this hits reality: What started as a trade war tool is now a legal time bomb. If Costco wins, every major importer, from Apple to Walmart, could line up for reimbursement, detonating fiscal and policy chaos. It’s corporate America testing how far “rule of law” bends when politics and profit collide. The deeper message: Trump’s tariff populism may have aged into a trillion-dollar liability.

⛵ Key takeaway: Costco isn’t just fighting tariffs; it’s suing to reset how America prices globalization itself.

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CLOUD

AWS and Google’s “Open” Cloud Looks More Like a Walled Garden

👀 What’s happening: AWS and Google just launched a joint multi-cloud interconnect that links Google’s Cross-Cloud Interconnect with AWS Interconnect, promising frictionless data flow between their systems. They even call it an “open specification” for other providers to adopt. The timing, however, is rich, as both companies spent the past year assuring regulators that no interoperability problems existed in the first place.

🔥 How this hits reality: “Open” should mean freedom of choice. But when two market leaders define what openness looks like, it usually means everyone else just plays by their rules. This move lets AWS and Google set the technical and economic boundaries of “multi-cloud,” turning a supposed win for transparency into a new layer of dependency disguised as collaboration.

⛵ Key takeaway: When giants preach openness, read the fine print; it’s usually ownership in drag.

CRYPTO

Vanguard Just Broke Its Crypto Vow

👀 What’s happening: Vanguard, the world’s second-largest asset manager, has reversed its years-long ban on crypto exposure. Starting this week, 50 million brokerage clients can trade Bitcoin and crypto-linked ETFs directly on Vanguard’s platform. The firm won’t issue its own tokens or meme-coin funds, but it will now support most regulated digital-asset products, ending a stance once framed as “protecting investors from speculation.”

🔥 How this hits reality: This is not a retail feature rollout. It is the final validation of Bitcoin as a mainstream asset class. Because Vanguard, the last institutional holdout of the “Boglehead” era, just legitimized it. With BlackRock already running a $70 billion Bitcoin ETF and Vanguard now opening the gates, crypto liquidity just got the biggest trust-grade upgrade possible. Wall Street’s most conservative custodian has joined the casino, and that means the house rules just changed.

⛵ Key takeaway: When Vanguard bends, the market isn’t “adopting crypto;” it’s absorbing it.

BAY AREA MEMOS

The EU has backed a proposal to ban under-16s from using social media and AI chatbots without parental consent.
Starbucks and its union remain deadlocked after a three-week “Red Cup” strike, with sharp disputes over impact and no progress toward a contract.
Nvidia is investing $2B in Synopsys to push GPU adoption across its design and simulation tools, making GPUs core to modern engineering workloads.
Seven years into its Google shift, Airbus still relies on Microsoft due to huge spreadsheets, contract-tracking needs, and classified data limits.
A day after Naver acquired Upbit’s parent company, the exchange revealed a $30M crypto heist, prompting immediate buyer’s remorse.

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