Simply incredible. A company that sold wool sneakers in Silicon Valley suddenly announced a shift to AI infrastructure, changed its name to NewBird AI, and its stock skyrocketed by 876 in one day. From $6.82 to $24.3. You’re not mistaken — not 8.76%, but a full 876%. Market capitalization was pumped up to $176 million in just a few hours. This is the purest example of how the three letters “AI” have become a universal cure-all for a market that has stopped questioning the fundamental laws of physics and economics.

Remember Allbirds? A few years ago, it was a status symbol. Eco-friendly, minimalist, comfortable. Programmers, venture capitalists, startup founders — everyone wore Allbirds. In 2021, the company went public with a bright shine, market cap exceeded $4 billion. A huge success. And then everything started to fall. Shoes quickly wear out, design is too uniform, not professional for sports, not fashionable for the street. Silicon Valley elites switched to Hoka and On Running. A fall from the peak by nearly 30 times. The company faced the threat of delisting from NASDAQ.

Then they made a move worthy of a casino. Not a casino in the traditional sense, but a speculative market casino where investor support is just a pretty presentation and promises. They announced convertible bonds worth $50 million and plans to develop AI infrastructure. That’s it. Nothing more concrete. Just the word “AI” — and the market turned upside down.

But wait. $50 million for AI infrastructure? Let’s consider reality. One NVIDIA H100 GPU costs about $30,000. With $50 million, you can buy fewer than 1,700 units. That’s a drop in the ocean. Real AI centers are tens of thousands of powerful processors, liquid cooling systems, megawatts of dedicated electricity, network bandwidth. It’s an abyss of capital investment. These $50 million wouldn’t even cover the electricity deposit for a large data center. But the market bought it. Fully bought it.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this trick. Remember 2017? Long Island Iced Tea, which sold iced tea, was in trouble. Sales were falling. Stock was falling. And suddenly, the boss’s head makes a decision: change the name to Long Blockchain Corp. No smart contract code, no understanding of technology. Just change the name. The result? Shares jumped more than 200% in a day. Then the SEC came, investigations, delisting, total failure. But at that moment, management had already taken their money.

Same scheme. 1999 — add “.com” to the name and your market cap doubles. 2017 — add “blockchain” and the same. Today — add “AI” and celebrate. It’s mass hysteria, and the market knows it well. When you change your name to cyberpunk style, when you announce entry into the hottest sector of the era, you become the coolest kid on the block. But only for a day.

Who is really buying these stocks? Not large institutional investors. They observe from the sidelines or use algorithms to profit from volatility. The real buyers are small investors who have lost rationality. Those who hesitated when the price rose from $6 to $10. Got excited at $15. Completely broke down at $20. And bought at $24, no longer thinking about anything. It doesn’t matter to them how many GPUs were bought. Only whether tomorrow another even more irrational person will buy this stock at $30.

This isn’t investing. It’s a game of “shell game.” The classic Ponzi scheme. Allbirds got funds to keep going, shares rose, delisting threat was removed. An ideal example of market capitalization management from a textbook.

True, artificial intelligence is indeed transforming the world. Real tech giants don’t sleep all night developing genuine AI systems. But in this huge wave of the era, there will always be those trying to take advantage of the situation. NewBird AI is an old bird in a new coat. It didn’t grow wings. It’s just temporarily caught in the hurricane of the era. The celebration still continues, the music hasn’t stopped. But the wind always stops. When gravity takes control of the market again, when those $50 million burn out in a pile of trash, prepare for a huge free fall. Sneakers won’t make NVIDIA grow.