Bitcoin drops, stocks, plunge, and a wait, what, a sriracha shortage, too? Oh, come on!

God, we love the Finals. On to game six!

Bitcoin plunged to its lowest level in about 18 months after the freezing of withdrawals by the Celsius lending platform added to concern that systemic risk in the crypto ecosystem will accelerate the digital-asset market meltdown. The world’s largest digital token tumbled as much as 17% to $22,603 -- its lowest since December 2020. Other cryptocurrencies also declined as a broader sell-off continued. Bloomberg has more here.

Markets are beginning to anticipate an even faster pace of interest rate hikes, and Federal Reserve officials apparently are contemplating the possibility, too. Specifically, policymakers are entertaining the idea of a 75 basis point increase to the Fed’s benchmark funds rate that banks charge each other for overnight financing, according to CNBC. More here.

This really does not feel great.

What to Do Before the Recession Comes: the U.S. economy isn’t looking great. In Q1, the U.S. GDP contracted by more than 1%. The Atlanta Federal Reserve’s GDP model now indicates a gain of just 0.9%. This sluggish economic activity comes as the Fed raises rates to fend off inflationary pressures not seen in decades. All that said, some asset classes can thrive in this kind of environment… like this one.

Capital Rx, a five-year-old, New York-based pharmacy benefit manager promising greater transparency than rival companies, has raised $106 million in Series C funding led by B Capital Group. General Catalyst, Transformation Capital and Edison Partners also participated in the round, which brings the company's total funding to $175 million. Forbes has more here.

Corvia Medical, a 12-year-old, Tewksbury, Ma..-based maker of shunt implants for heart failure, has raised $54 million in Series C funding from undisclosed investors. The company is a spin-out of Third Rock Ventures and was backed previously by General Catalyst Partners, AccelMed, Lumira Ventures and Edwards Lifesciences. Mass Device has more here.

Echodyne, an eight-year-old Seattle-based maker of commercial radars for defense and autonomous tech, has raised $135 million in Series C funding co-led by Bill Gates and Baillie Gifford. The company says it has now raised $195 million altogether. TechCrunch takes a look here.

Magic Spoon, a three-year-old, New York-based DTC breakfast brand that makes "childlike cereal for adults," raised $85 million in Series B funding. HighPost Capital led the round,  joined by Siddhi Capital, Coefficient Capital, Constellation Capital and Carter Comstock. More here.

ImCheck Therapeutics, a seven-year-old French immunotherapeutics startup, has raised €96 million in Series C funding co-led by Earlybird and Andera Partners. Other investors in the round included Invus, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and earlier backers Kurma Partners, Eurazeo, Gimv, EQT Life Sciences and Boehringer Ingelheim. FierceBiotech has more here.

Pixellot, a nine-year-old Israeli company that sells AI-based automatic video and analytics software to the sports market, has raised $161 million in funding led by PSG, with participation from earlier investor Israeli Secondary Fund. More here

TestGorilla, a three-year-old, Amsterdam-based assessment platform that can ostensibly be used to screen for a wide range of job categories, verticals, and skills, has raised $70 million in Series A funding co-led by Atomico and Balderton Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Alice Technologies, a nine-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based startup developing software to help construction companies plan projects including bridges, tunnels, high-speed rail systems and mixed-use towers, today announced it raised $30 million in a Series B funding round led by Vanedge Capital, with participation from Access Partners, Bouygues, Gaingels, GRIDS Capital, JLL Spark and MetaPlane. TechCrunch has more here.

Atmos Labs, a year-old, Chicago-based ​​play-and-earn video game publisher, raised $11 million in seed funding. Sfermion led the round, joined by Animoca Brands, Collab+Currency, FBG Capital, Alumni Ventures, RedBeard Ventures, DWeb3, LD Capital, and others.

Bttn, a 15-month-old, Seattle-based medical supplies e-commerce startup, raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Tiger Global, with participation from Fuse. TechCrunch has more here.

Prenda, a seven-year-old, Mesa, Az.-based startup that's building up a network of tuition-free 'micro schools' of 10 students or fewer, has raised $20 million in Series B funding led by Seven Seven Six. The company had previously raised a little more than $26 million from investors, including Y Combinator, where it was part of a 2019 cohort. TechCrunch has more here.

Submittable, a 12-year-old, Missoula, Mt.-based company that helps corporations, governments and nonprofits manage their programs focused on social good, has raised $47 million in Series C funding led by Accel-KKR, with support from existing investors. The company has now raised $66 million altogether. GeekWire has more here.

OKAPI: Orbits, a 3.5-year-old, Germany-based space traffic management platform, has raised $5.8 million in seed funding. MunichRe Ventures led the round, joined by Dolby Ventures, Herius Capital, and APEX Ventures. Tech.eu has more here.

Velocity Career Labs, a four-year-old, Denver, Co.-based startup that's trying to rethink how career credentials are shared across the global labor market, including by using a blockchain, has $6.5 million in funding. Counterpart Ventures led the round, joined by Pearson Ventures. More here.

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Amplify Partners, a nearly 10-year-old, Bay Area-based venture firm that focuses on technical founders, has closed two new funds: a $400 million early-stage fund (the firm's fifth), and a $300 million fund designed to support existing Amplify portfolio companies as they grow. More here.

Third Rock Ventures, the 15-year-old, Boston-based life sciences venture firm, raised $1.1 billion for its sixth fund, per an SEC filing first flagged by Axios. More here.

Electric Last Mile Solutions plans to liquidate after struggling to raise additional funding and secure an auditor amid a pending SEC investigation, the company announced yesterday. The company went public via a SPAC in June of last year. The Information has more here.

Warehouse giant Prologis said today that it will acquire its smaller rival Duke Realty in an all-stock deal valued at about $26 billion, including debt, in a vote of confidence for the red-hot industrial real estate sector. CNBC has more here.

Semiconductor powerhouse Qualcomm is acquiring Israeli company Cellwize for $350 million. Qualcomm invested in Cellwize. a nearly nine-year-old outfit focused on mobile network automation and orchestration, in November 2020 through its investment arm, Qualcomm Ventures. Cellwize wound up raising $56 million altogether. Calcalist has more here.

Spotify is acquiring Sonantic, a four-year-old, London-based startup whose AI voice platform gave Val Kilmer a voice in the “Top Gun: Maverick” movie. Terms of the deal aren't being disclosed; according to Crunchbase data, the company had raised just €2.3 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Federal securities regulators have expanded their investigation into the planned merger between a blank check acquisition company and former President Trump's social media business, known as Truth Social, according to a new filing with the SEC. Axios has more here.

Blue Nile, the dot-com era, Seattle-based online retail of diamonds and jewelry, has agreed to go public at an implied $683 million enterprise valuation via a blank-check company called Mudrick Capital Acquisition Corp. II. MUDS, as the SPAC is known, has traded on the Nasdaq since January 2021 and terminated, "by mutual agreement," plans announced in April 2021 to merge with trading card company Topps Co. Blue Nile has sold fine jewelry and diamonds online since 1999. Morningstar has more here.

It’s been seven months since a consumer-facing firm last listed in London, and offerings look scarce for the rest of the year as a cost-of-living crisis rips through people’s wallets. In fact, London’s IPO market is on track for its worst first half since the depths of the financial crisis in 2009, with just over $800 million raised so far in 2022, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Preet Bharara, the former federal prosecutor, high-profile Donald Trump critic and host of a popular podcast (he sold its parent company to Vox last year), is joining WilmerHale, the law firm that has become home to a number of former government officials. The New York Times has more here.

Brian Brooks, a former Coinbase attorney, the current CEO of the bitcoin mining company Bitfury, and for eight months during the Trump presidency, the acting comptroller of the currency, said that during his stint with the U.S. government, he urged the head of a major bank not to ban its customers from buying firearms with the bank’s cards. (We think this was also the stance of his former boss.) American Banker has more here.

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal told workers today that the company will be hosting another all-hands meeting, this time with a guest speaker fielding questions: Elon Musk.  Agrawal said in an email the virtual meeting with Musk will take place Thursday. Twitter workers will be able to submit questions for him to answer starting Wednesday. Business Insider has more here.

MicroStrategy founder and CEO Michael Saylor’s big bet on Bitcoin has backfired in a major way as the paper loss for his firm’s holdings of the largest digital asset has reached roughly $1 billion. The obvious concern is that this company melts down, as it nearly did more than 20 years ago, losing $6 billion in a single day, and garnering SEC accusations of fraud. Business Insider published a great piece about Saylor's checkered career in the fall of last year.

IPOs in China raised more than $33.8 billion so far this year, up from more than $30.4 billion a year earlier, according to Dealogic. This year’s tally is the highest figure since at least 2009, according to Dealogic. How is that possible? Listings are priced modestly. High trading volumes are a positive, too, bankers say, because liquidity helps give investors confidence they can trade in and out of newly public stocks rapidly if needed. Another driver, says the WSJ, is that Chinese companies typically have to undergo a long approval process before listing on a domestic exchange and are therefore eager to join the public markets once they get the go-ahead. More here.

Sequoia Capital has launched two new funds: a $2 billion early-stage, venture and growth fund to invest in India and an $850 million dedicated fund for Southeast Asia, as the firm doubles down on the region at a scale unrivaled by most of its peers -- and at a time when money is proving increasingly hard to come by. TechCrunch has more here.

Cryptocurrency trading firm BlockFi is laying off roughly 20% of its staff—or about 85 people—as it stares down a collapsing valuation and crypto market turmoil. The crypto lending company’s decision comes a week after The Block reported that BlockFi was seeking funding for a down round that would give it a $1 billion valuation, sharply lower than the $5 billion it had been seeking previously and the $3 billion it notched in March 2021. The Information has more here.

Elon Musk’s bankers have a dilemma: do they help him kill the Twitter deal?

This Hudson Yards hotel is 642 feet tall, but its "architect" says he never saw the plans.

Four parenting rules from 70 parents who raised highly successful adults.

An Asheville, N.C. eatery that serves affordable Indian street food was just named America’s most outstanding westaurant at the James Beard Foundation awards.

Crop circles were made by supernatural forces -- named Doug and Dave.

A freshly restored 1962 Volkswagen Samba Microbus is coming up for auction in August.

Those Adilette slides we'd mentioned? "Fake," says Kanye.

A sriracha shortage is coming (stock up before it's too late!). “We probably have enough for at least a month or so,” the owner of a sushi restaurant tells the WSJ. “But after that we’re kind of screwed.”

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