In 2026, there is no shortage of cryptocurrencies that are exploding in value. Hyperliquid is up 262%. NEAR Protocol is up 231%. Zcash is up 159%.
But the one that has my attention right now is Venice Token(VVV -3.11%), an AI crypto that is up a head-spinning 1,700% this year. If Venice Token can keep up that pace of growth, a crypto investor could theoretically turn a relatively modest upfront investment into $1 million within just a few years.
What is Venice, and why is it soaring in value?
For crypto investors, “Venice” can have several different meanings. Venice is the name of an artificial intelligence (AI) start-up company that has raised over $65 million from VC investors. Then there’s Venice, the AI platform that is now generating $100 million in annual revenue. Finally, there is Venice, the token that is up 1,700% this year.
Right now, Venice Token ranks 55th among all cryptocurrencies, with a $1.4 billion market cap. At that size, it is quickly approaching the point where it starts to appear on institutional investors’ radars.
Image source: Getty Images.
Venice Token is valuable because it unlocks the full power of the Venice AI platform. This is a privacy-focused alternative to ChatGPT that has both a free version and a paid, subscription-based version.
The Venice AI platform does not log or store any user information, including prompts or responses, making it the “anti-ChatGPT.” In terms of user experience, it feels much like using a traditional AI chatbot for text, images, and videos.
Just be aware — when you buy Venice Token, you are not buying equity in Venice (the start-up). Instead, you are getting a token for using advanced features on Venice (the AI platform). The better the AI platform becomes, the more valuable the token becomes, and the more valuable the start-up becomes. Currently, Venice (the start-up) is valued at $1 billion.
Millionaire math
Let’s do a little millionaire math with Venice Token. If you invest $1,000 today and the crypto token continues to soar by 1,000% each year, your total stake will be worth $1 million in roughly three years.
Today’s Change
(-3.11%) $-0.86
Current Price
$26.92
Key Data Points
Market Cap
$1.3BMarket cap calculated using publicly traded shares outstanding only. Does not include unlisted, private, or dual-class non-traded shares. Implied market cap may vary.
Day’s Range
$26.53 – $28.70
52wk Range
$0.92 – $34.53
Volume
28.9M
But just how likely is that? Yes, the AI sector is growing extremely rapidly, but at some point, the growth has to trail off, right? I wouldn’t bank on any AI crypto growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 1,000%.
Just look at how many other highly touted AI cryptos have crashed and burned after just a single fantastic year. Take Virtuals Protocol(VIRTUAL -6.69%), for example. VIRTUAL went absolutely ballistic in late 2024 amid all the hype about AI agents. But it’s now down 83% from its January 2025 all-time high.
That being said, Venice is the hottest AI crypto right now, and could be worth a closer look. If there’s any AI crypto that can help turn average investors into millionaires, it’s Venice.
Google for Startups will host its Gemini Startup Forum at Google‘s Mountain View headquarters in California next month.
The two-day event brings founders of startups at the Seed to Series A funding stages together with Google’s AI experts.
The forum is run with Google DeepMind and Google Cloud. Google says it explores “how AI will redefine your industry, transform your company, and unlock unprecedented growth.”
Google notes that the more than 100 startups taking part, from 17 countries, were selected from over 2,000 applications.
One of them is French music marketing company Base for Music, which tells us it’s the only music tech company in the cohort.
The company sells what it calls a marketing operating system to producers, labels, and music companies. It pulls ad spend, audience, CRM, and streaming data into one environment, which Base for Music says lets it track the return on each marketing investment.
It raised EUR €1.5 million (USD $1.73m) in a June 2025 funding round backed by Belgian music tech investor LeanSquare, French investors from Super Capital and One Green, and angel investors specializing in the marketing tech sector.
Base for Music was founded in 2021 and reports it now supports more than 20,000 artists and labels worldwide.
The company works with distributors and aggregators, servicing their clients or equipping their in-house marketing teams. It tells MBW its main partners include Ditto, iMusician, IDOL, and, more recently, TikTok-owned SoundOn, and Cinq Music.
Base for Music explains that its technology helps artist teams decide which releases to promote, when, and how much to spend.
The company claims that marketing ROI has long been “a black box for the industry,” and that its tech can now predict that return before a campaign launches.
“The main piece missing today [for us] is clear, structured financial data tied to streaming revenues.”
Maxence Bazin, Base for Music
Asked what challenges the company set out to solve, Maxence Bazin, Base for Music’s CEO and founder, said: “Mastering effective music marketing today requires a combination of media buying expertise, data analysis, and AI – there’s no way around it.
“The core challenge we set out to solve was building a technical infrastructure capable of aggregating these fragmented marketing data sources and correlating them to surface key growth signals.
“The alternatives out there each offer centralization tools focused on one specific aspect of marketing. This forces teams to navigate between disconnected solutions, and more importantly, risks overwhelming them with information at the very moment they need clarity to make the best strategic decisions.
“We spent nearly five years developing our own marketing operating system: a platform that centralizes all of these marketing data sources and correlates them to enable data-driven strategic decisions. With the rise of AI, we’re now able to apply this approach at a much greater scale, and more importantly, begin predicting the outcomes we can expect from a campaign before it even launches.”
Base for Music points out that the music industry mostly links AI with creation, but Bazin argues that “AI, data and media buying are opening a new chapter for music marketing: turning fragmented data into fully controlled ROI.”
Bazin added: “Our conviction is that a technical infrastructure built specifically for music marketing has never made more sense. Combined with the power of AI, this technology lets us follow remarkable growth among the artists we support, day after day.”
The company built its own AI, Base Intelligence, over the past year as part of the Google for Startups program in France.
It turns each artist’s data into recommendations, delivered in the company’s Artist Dashboard or as reports for account managers.
Bazin cites a campaign for Brazilian artist Tom Ribeira as a case study. The campaign was run in partnership with Ribeira‘s management team at Grand Musique Management, a prominent artist management firm based in France.
Grand Musique Management has been a Base for Music partner “since its earliest days and now applies the platform’s data-driven approach across its entire roster,” according to the startup.
Base for Music reports that Ribeira went from zero to over 200,000 monthly listeners on Spotify in less than six months with his debut EP, “on a €1,000 investment that became profitable within three months.”
Asked about the Ribeira campaign, Bazin told MBW: “Based on the signals we detected across platforms, we used our Marketing OS to manage the total planned marketing budget of €1,000 for the release of his debut EP.
“This was the full campaign spend, allocated across different platforms to reach specific audiences and generate as many engaged listeners as possible. This approach allowed us to stimulate the algorithmic recommendation of the EP’s lead track on Spotify, using media buying as an acceleration lever that triggers growth across other channels.”
A report outlining the campaign highlights the performance of Pedaço, which it describes as Ribeira‘s debut single. The single, released on June 5, 2025, shares its name with Ribeira‘s debut EP, which came out in March 2026.
The report puts total ad spend at €1,216 across three campaigns run between June and August 2025.
The first, on Instagram, found that nearly 90% of the listeners it sent to Spotify were in Brazil, so the other two targeted Brazil only.
The report credits the campaigns with getting the track picked up by Spotify‘s algorithm, which now accounts for close to 62% of its streams.
By the end of 2025, the track had earned €1,317 in net Spotify revenue, the report claims, and its algorithmic streams have continued into 2026 without further ad spend.
“Data ownership would simplify the entire process, but we don’t see the market moving in that direction anytime soon.”
Maxence Bazin
For now, Base for Music‘s ROI predictions rely on industry averages, Bazin says.
Asked what is still missing in music marketing, Bazin said: “The main piece missing today [for us] is clear, structured financial data tied to streaming revenues. Combined with marketing data, this would allow music marketing to precisely measure the return on investment of streaming campaigns.
“Every artist and label we work with has their own distribution partner, which currently limits our access to this type of data. This is why our current ROI prediction models rely on standard financial benchmarks, such as average per-stream revenue by DSP.
“Direct access to this data would allow us to correlate the territories and audiences targeted by marketing activity with the streaming revenues they actually generate. Once that bridge is built, it becomes possible to drive an artist’s growth with a precise, real-time understanding of profitability.”
Commenting on whether data ownership has to change, Bazin said: “Data ownership would simplify the entire process, but we don’t see the market moving in that direction anytime soon. In the meantime, the only path forward is to adapt, which means building powerful technology capable of operating across external platforms.
“This is precisely why we founded Base for Music, and the development of AI represents a real opportunity for us to deploy that vision at scale.”
Asked what an artist team might be able to do in marketing five years from now, Bazin said: “In five years, music marketing could be continuously fed by all of an artist’s revenue streams, whether that’s streaming, merch or live, giving teams complete visibility over every investment made across an artist’s career.
“Each area of activity and the data it generates would become a source of insight that can be correlated with the others. That correlation would allow each revenue stream to act as a lever for the rest, unlocking full control over an artist’s overall growth.
“Getting there requires a powerful marketing operating system capable of processing and correlating ever-growing volumes of data through AI, as well as artist teams and partners willing to pool their actions and expertise.”Music Business Worldwide
Check your Capital One Shopping portal homepage for the following offer for Columbia sportswear clothing retailer:
Get 30% back at Columbia.
Some got an email for 35% or even 50% back.
Capital One Offers in the bank/card login are likely running similar deals.
Check your own portal and email to see what offers are available for you.
Our Verdict
50% is pretty amazing for an affordable clothing retailer. I see 30% on the portal, but got one email for 35% and another for 50% back.
As always, keep in mind that Capital One Shopping portal does not require having a Capital One card or bank account. Also remember that the rewards are not cash but rather they cash out as gift cards for various brands.
About Me:
Sanjay Kathuria, founder of ProfitsFirst, is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and renowned options trading expert with 16+ years of corporate experience. Financially independent by 39, he has empowered over 25,000 individuals and 10,000+ SMEs to achieve financial freedom. As an ET ’40 Under 40′ awardee, Sanjay’s content on passive income and investment strategies has reached over 1 million followers across social media. Join his mission to simplify business finance and unlock your path to financial independence with proven strategies and insights.
Disclaimer:
This video is for educational purposes only and is not financial or investment advice. I am not a SEBI-registered advisor. Investments in stocks, mutual funds, real estate, digital assets, and other instruments involve risk, including possible loss of capital. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Please do your own research and consult a SEBI-registered financial advisor before making investment decisions.
A bipartisan Senate bill would eliminate the $35,000 lifetime cap on tax-free rollovers from a 529 plan to the beneficiary’s Roth IRA.
The 15-year account rule, the five-year contribution lookback, and the annual Roth IRA limit would all remain.
Nothing changes unless Congress passes the bill, and the new rules would first apply in the tax year after it becomes law.
Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE) introduced the 529 Retirement Enhancement Act of 2026 (S. 5550) last week. The bipartisan bill would remove the $35,000 lifetime limit on rolling unused 529 plan money into a Roth IRA for the account’s beneficiary. Every other rollover rule created by the SECURE 2.0 Act would stay in place, including the annual cap tied to Roth IRA contribution limits.
The bill applies the change to distributions made in taxable years beginning after the date of enactment. If the law is signed in 2026, the first allowed rollovers past $35,000 could happen in 2027. That timing matters for families weighing what to do with a 529 when a child skips college or finishes school with money left over.
In the announcement, Cruz said, “The law currently penalizes families when their children receive a scholarship or choose an alternative to college, leaving education savings unused.”
It’s important for families to realize that just because this is federal law does not mean that all states conform with the rules. For example, California currently treats the 529 plan to Roth IRA conversion as a non-qualifying distribution. That means California families who do this would face state taxes and a state tax penalty.
Here’s what to know about this bill.
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Why It Matters
529 plans were originally intended as education savings vehicles. However, over the last several years, the definition of qualified expenses has expanded. This has given families more opportunity to avoid any future 529 plan penalties for unused funds.
The Roth rollover is a tax-free exit for leftover money, but the $35,000 cap limits how much can leave that way per beneficiary.
529 plans held $568 billion across 17.3 million accounts in mid-2025, an average of roughly $32,900 per account, according to the latest 529 plan statistics. That average balance is right under the current rollover cap.
The families most affected by removing the limit are those who saved well above average in a 529 plan and those whose child earned a full scholarship.
In nearly 20 years of writing about college savings, I’ve found that worry over leftover money is one of the biggest reasons families never start saving in a 529 plan. Parents want to know what happens if their child doesn’t use the money for college, and whether they’ll owe a penalty to get it back. An uncapped Roth rollover would give those families a clearer answer: money a child doesn’t spend on school could become that child’s retirement savings instead.
What Would Change And What Wouldn’t
The proposed bill removes the lifetime cap and nothing else. Every eligibility test from SECURE 2.0 still applies, which keeps the rollover a slow, multiyear process for anyone with a large balance. Before planning around the bill, families should know how the current 529-to-Roth rollover rules work, because each of these stays the same:
The 529 account must have been maintained for the beneficiary for at least 15 years.
Contributions made in the five years before the rollover, plus their earnings, can’t be moved.
Each year’s rollover counts against the beneficiary’s Roth IRA limit, which the IRS set at $7,500 for 2026, reduced by any other traditional or Roth IRA contributions that year.
Earned income is still required: the beneficiary generally needs wages or self-employment income for the rollover year.
Roth IRA income limits still wouldn’t apply to these rollovers.
529-To-Roth IRA Rollover Rules: Current Law Vs. S. 5550
Rule
Current Law
Under S. 5550
Lifetime Rollover Cap
$35,000 per beneficiary
No cap
Annual Rollover Limit
Roth IRA limit ($7,500 in 2026), minus other IRA contributions
Unchanged
Account Age
Open at least 15 years
Unchanged
Recent Contributions
Last 5 years of contributions and earnings excluded
Unchanged
Earned Income
Beneficiary generally needs earned income
Unchanged
Roth Income Limits
Don’t apply
Unchanged
Effective Date
Rollovers allowed since 2024
Tax years starting after enactment
Source: S. 5550, IRS. The College Investor.
How Long Would A Large Rollover Take?
Without a lifetime cap, the annual Roth limit becomes the only issue. Moving a large balance into a Roth IRA account would take a decade or more.
At the 2026 limit of $7,500, rolling over $35,000 takes five years (four years at $7,500 plus $5,000). A $60,000 balance would take eight years, and a $100,000 balance would take 14 years. The IRS adjusts the IRA limit for inflation, so later years could allow more, and money still sitting in the 529 keeps growing too.
Also important to realize that the rollover also uses up the beneficiary’s own contribution limits. A 24-year-old receiving a $7,500 rollover in 2026 can’t add a dollar more to their own Roth IRA that year. For a young worker who wouldn’t otherwise max out a Roth, that’s a gift of tax-free growth. For one who already contributes the full amount, perhaps after opening an investment account as a teen, the rollover replaces savings rather than adding to them.
Vanguard also notes that changing the 529 beneficiary may restart the 15-year clock pending IRS guidance. A family planning to change the 529 beneficiary to a sibling and then roll the money over should confirm the account’s eligibility first, since the bill doesn’t address that question.
Which Families Would Benefit Most?
Families with more than $35,000 left in a 529 after a child’s education would gain the most from the proposal. A student who earns a full scholarship, attends a U.S. military academy, or picks a trade program that costs less than the account balance can end up with a surplus no tuition bill will absorb.
Under current law, the scholarship exception to the 529 withdrawal penalty waives the 10% additional tax on withdrawals up to the scholarship amount, but the earnings are still taxed as income.
The bill would let that surplus keep growing tax-free in a Roth IRA instead, one year at a time. Families with balances below $35,000 gain nothing new, since current law already lets them move the full amount if the account meets the 15-year and earned income rollover tests.
And again to re-emphasize, not all states conform with these rules. Please check your state’s rules before you do this rollover so you don’t run into any unexpected tax bills.
How This Connects
State tax treatment of 529 plan to Roth IRA rollover rules vary.
Not every state treats a 529-to-Roth rollover as a qualified distribution, and a nonconforming state may tax the rollover or recapture prior state deductions. Check your state’s 529 plan rules before moving money, even if S. 5550 becomes law.
The bill also fits a broader pattern: Congress has steadily expanded 529 flexibility, from student loan repayment and apprenticeships to the higher education and financial aid changes in the OBBBA.
What’s Next
The proposal would need to clear the Senate Finance Committee, which writes tax law and drafted the original SECURE 2.0 rollover provision. Neither Cruz nor Blunt Rochester sits on that committee.
Signals to watch include a Finance Committee cosponsor, a House companion bill, or the language riding along in a larger tax or retirement package. Until any of that happens, the $35,000 cap stays in effect, and families opening a 529 plan now start the 15-year clock on the day the account opens.
Editor: Colin Graves
The post Senate Bill Would Eliminate The $35,000 Cap On 529-To-Roth IRA Rollovers appeared first on The College Investor.
Mikel Arteta tells me he is not a fan of the word pressure, an external force that may make leaders freeze. He prefers to talk about expectation, desire, and fulfilling tasks. “It’s about putting a lot of focus on leading yourself,” he says. “And making very clear who you want to be, what you want to accomplish in life, what is your purpose, what drives you, what is your passion, and then making sure that you create your ecosystem around you to achieve.”
Arsenal, the English Premier League champions he manages, used to be the “bridesmaid club”, missing out again and again in the battle for the most lucrative title in world soccer. They were “chokers” who did not have what it takes to be truly elite.
Last year, that changed, as Arsenal won the title for the first time in 22 years. “We showed very important values not only in sport, but in life,” Arteta said at the time. “Perseverance, to be resilient, to be composed in moments when people are doubting. And to be vulnerable.” Fans were in tears as they celebrated on the streets of North London, Arsenal’s home.
Leading a squad of 24 soccer players through the roller-coaster of sport is not the same as running a global business. Traits, though, are similar. Arteta is known for strict discipline and for a management approach that follows the “aggregation of marginal gains” rule. Every incremental improvement may appear insignificant, but together they are the difference between winning and the alternative, which in Arteta’s world is not much of an alternative. As Bill Shankly, one of the all-time great managers in English football, once said: “If you are first, you are first. If you are second, you are nothing.”
For Arteta, health is a “foundational” part of elite level leadership. Which is why he agreed to have his whole genome (the DNA make up of his body) sequenced, to better understand how his body works and the possible future health risks.
“You have to lead—whether it is your family or your club,” he told me. “You had better look after yourself and you had better lead yourself first.
“In order to do that, the foundation is your health. I think without that, there is nothing underneath. Your energy, your well-being, your capacity to basically connect with people emotionally, and to be able to handle all the situations, challenges, and the amount of work and stress that we go through daily at work.”
Arteta partnered with the global healthcare company Bupa, which offers genome sequencing to, the firm says, “better understand how genetics and lifestyle may shape health.”
Mikel Arteta for Bupa Genomics campaign.
Bupa
“Mikel now has those insights to share with a doctor if he needs them in the future,” said Melvin Samsom, group chief medical officer at Bupa.
“His results have prompted him to look more closely at his nutrition and choices that support his long-term health. A genetic test is the starting point. We combine genomic insights with clinical guidance and preventive care so people can understand what their results mean and take informed steps to look after their health, whether that means acting on a risk today or having useful information to draw on later.”
Arteta, who had a serious heart condition when he was young, said having the test gave him peace of mind and helped with conversations with his family about the future and living healthily. I asked him about “going public” with such personal information (the test revealed an increased likelihood of coeliac disease and a level of lactose intolerance).
“[Arteta’s] results have prompted him to look more closely at his nutrition and choices that support his long-term health. A genetic test is the starting point”
Melvin Samsom, group chief medical officer at Bupa
“I think we talk publicly about a lot of things that are not as relevant as health, and we focus so much on success and success related to your professional life,” he said.
“I think we need to have a space to talk about your personal life, about your family, about your health, about how you feel about yourself, the kind of changes that you go through in your life. I don’t feel the same way as five years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago—and I noticed that. I want to be able to recognize what is happening in my body, and I need support in order to do that because I don’t know.
“I want to have the best people around me, to guide me. And suddenly, when I get up in the mornings and I feel like I need more sleep or my big toe, because of my arthritis and all my years playing football, is hurting, [this is] one of the things that can help me to go through the day better, because the last thing that I want is to find limitations at my age, at 45.
“Whether it’s to play with my children or to go out on the pitch and run with the boys and be passionate about what I do and be active and be demanding [about] the way they have to look after themselves, but then don’t do it myself.
“So, we decided to open that door. I’m far from perfect. There are things happening in my body that I know now that I didn’t know before—it is my responsibility to get things done and try to improve them.”
Arteta reveals that his children regularly admonish him—“Daddy! Too much cheese!”—and that, since the genome results and some changes in eating and sleeping routines, he is already feeling healthier. And that affects how he leads.
“We are in front of a lot of people every single day,” he said. “They have an expectation for you to produce, to inspire, to guide them, and we had better be in the best possible way.
“I put health as the foundation. Why? Because I think it’s very difficult to feel emotionally good with yourself if physically you’re not at your best, or you are not doing the things that can help you to be your best. If you are fatigued because you are not eating the right way, or if you are in pain. Pain inhibits your muscles, inhibits your brain because you don’t feel good, and then that has other consequences.”
“Face those challenges that life brings us, that an opponent can bring or a situation or contest—just be prepared and face it”
Mikel arteta, manager of English Premier League team, arsenal
Many C-suite leaders talk about the stress of handling volatility, and about keeping calm despite the challenges around them whether that is geopolitics or the race towards the AI-enabled future. Try compressing all of those pressures into 90 minutes and a game where all the outcomes are uncertain, and plausibly existential for the person in charge (soccer managers are regularly sacked).
“We live in an environment that is extremely unpredictable, and actually enjoying that unpredictability, it’s a joy, you know?” Arteta said when I asked him about handling rapid-change environments. “Every day is new. Every day we’re going to have something that we haven’t experienced the day before, and we need to feel lucky. So face those challenges that life brings us, that an opponent can bring to us, that a situation or a contest can bring to us, and just face it, and try to be prepared.
“If [an unexpected challenge] happens, just have the approach of, okay, that’s great. We didn’t expect that in front of us. How good are we going to feel if between us we are able to resolve it, overcome it, and actually get it done? And we find a lot of joy and pleasure by doing that. And that’s the culture that we have created [at Arsenal]. And if we can learn from it, because that’s going to make us better, and that’s going to prepare us for the next time. But never, never use [unpredictability] as an excuse to justify that we haven’t been able to do it, because then we’re not going to be satisfied.”
The BBC reported last month that Arteta deliberately disrupts his players’ routines—turning the changing room heat up too high, or disrupting pre-season travel plans—so that they become used to handling uncontrolled and sometimes negative events.
“Every detail matters, and you have to be ready for it, and you have to have the mindset to think, okay, I’m going to be a bit pessimistic in the way that my teammate is going to behave here, so I’m very proactive to already have the solution for him,” he said. “Not to think that it’s going to be exactly as we predicted and it’s going to be as good as we want it to be.
“We live in an environment that is extremely unpredictable, and actually enjoying that unpredictability, it’s a joy”
Mikel arteta
“So, I don’t have to react because if you do have to react, which happens in football a lot, you’re going to be a second late and a second late in the Premier League, in the Champions League, it costs you big time. So [you need to] constantly have the capacity to read clues. When a magician is showing you a card, probably that’s the only place that you should not be looking. The opponent can be very similar to that. So have the capacity to detect, to find clues around you, and understand where the possible threats are coming from.”
Could a football manager like Arteta lead a Fortune 500 company?
“I don’t know,” he laughs. “I’ve never thought about it. I would be fascinated. Anything that’s new, that requires connecting with people, creating a plan, having a vision, and being able to translate that idea for people to buy into it, to feel part of something and actually deliver it. In any kind of role, it’s something extremely rewarding at every level. I would love to at least understand it.”
Before we finish, I ask Arteta (because why wouldn’t you?) for any advice he may have for my son and daughter, aged 22 and 26, in this turbulent world. He talks again about drive and passion and having your tribe around you. “It cannot be social media,” he continues, “I’m sorry, that’s not your ecosystem. Your ecosystem is your parents, your brother, your coach, your best mate, it is people that are contributing daily to achieve and to feel in the way that you want, and the rest is just—I would put a rain jacket on it.”
“Rounder wheels,” elite performance coach Sir David Brailsford, joked when asked why the British cycling team had been so successful in the 2012 London Olympics. Arteta is a “rounder wheels” leader, every change and tweak aimed at achieving more for himself, his family, and his club. Whether that is about his health or any other part of his life.
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