Post Malone ends Stagecoach 2026 set with fiery pro-war anthem

This certainly wasn’t Post Malone’s first Indio rodeo.

The rapper-turned-country-star has been no stranger to our fair valley’s mega music festivals in (very) recent years. He first played a popular cover- (and guest-) filled set that served as his country coming out party at Stagecoach 2024, only to return for Coachella to play a set of headlining gigs that felt less unanimously well-received.

So, when this year’s Stagecoach lineup dropped with Post Malone’s name prominently displayed as the Sunday headliner, there was more than a little grumbling from some who seem to have grown tired of our heavily-tattooed frequent house guest and would’ve preferred to have spent the last evening of festival season with anyone else.

But while I still can’t necessarily endorse what I believe was an unprecedented decision to have Malone headline both festivals in back-to-back years , I can say this: I think old Posty finally found a festival groove that really works for him during his fourth weekend as a festival performer at the polo grounds.

While Malone’s Coachella show provoked criticism for everything from the country fried twang with which he delivered some of his rap hits to a stage presence that sometimes felt over-the-top in its aw shucks humbleness, the musician packaged his schtick Sunday, April 26, in a way that seemed perfectly pitched to Stagecoach’s country loving crowd.

That crowd, in turn, seemed to eat up a show that seemed to fully embrace much of what worked about Malone’s beloved first Stagecoach show — the casual, even intimate vibe and Post’s inability to resist covering his favorite country tunes — while dispensing with some of the aspects that made the Coachella show less successful.

Among the latter was that show’s comparatively elaborate set and truck stop theme, which, for Stagecoach 2026, were jettisoned in favor of a simple setup that used pyrotechnics and occasional fireworks to generate a more old-fashioned spectacle that felt appropriately Stagecoach.

Then there was the music itself. The Coachella crowd seemed more interested in the bangers like “White Iverson” and “Circles” that made Malone one of America’s most streamed artists — and are part of the reason many became uninterested, even annoyed by, Malone’s country evolution.

Somehow, Malone seems to have found a way to effectively merge all sides of the Post experience here — or at least an audience that was more sufficiently open to them. I felt this was particularly illustrated by one section near the end of the set that saw Malone play three songs in succession that felt like an ideal sampling of his many sides and earlier polo ground shows (and that delivered an experience that was uniquely Post Malone, of course).

First up was the cover of a modern country classic, Kenny Chesney’s “How Forever Feels.” Then came the immortal Post Malone rap banger “Sunflower,” and finally, the country anthem that feels so perfectly Stagecoach, “I Had Some Help,” which he memorably debuted with Morgan Wallen during the latter’s headlining set in 2024.

There was no Wallen this time — let’s not forget that Ella Langley told us during her Friday Mane Stage set that he was on “dad duty” this weekend and couldn’t come — but it was no matter, the crowd seemed plenty happy to belt out the words along with Post.

In a way, even Malone’s choice to mainly highlight lower-billed Stagecoach artists (Jake Worthington and Braxton Keith) as special guests rather than one of the many superstar collaborators from his country album “F-1 Trillion” felt oh-so-Stagecoach given that the festival more typically eschews eye-popping guest surprises in favor of having the billed artists join one another on stage.

There did seem to be one attempt at adding some higher star wattage when Shaboozey suddenly joined Malone on stage and danced around (but didn’t appear to sing much or at all) during “I Had Some Help.” But even that brief appearance felt highly casual (perhaps too much so) — though Malone did seem to mutter something about him and Shaboozey working on something together.

Heck, even Malone’s rather aggressive product placement of his Post-branded mini Bud Light cans (which have been heavily marketed at the festival, from plane banners overhead to a mini pop-up bar only selling that one item) seemed to land well enough with the Bud Light loving crowd.

But if Malone’s Stagecoach debut in 2024 marked the start of his transformation into a country artist, this seemed to be the one where he fully assumed all the trappings of a country star.

Those would include the symbolic and political ones, as Malone pointedly ended his show with a cover of Toby Keith’s “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue.”

That fist-pumping, unapologetically militant anthem was famously released by Keith in the wake of 9/11, and has become among the more polarizing country songs in recent memory because of its vengeful, jingoistic message. The song’s notoriety only seemed to grow during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars that would follow, when some would come to see it as the ultimate patriotic anthem while others came to regard it as summarizing everything that was wrong with the thinking that led the US into those wars in the first place.

So, for Malone to not only end the set by playing the song, but to pause for dramatic effect in the middle to loudly bellow its most contentious and memorable lyric, “and you’ll be sorry you messed with the US of A ‘cause we’ll put a boot in your ass, it’s the American way” — in a moment that felt like an exclamation point — was an unmistakably pointed choice at a time when the US finds itself in another war in the Middle East.

It was an unsubtle choice that felt especially notable given that Post Malone had never, until now, struck me as a very political artist. But I don’t think anyone would say that now, as Malone beamed from ear to ear and, with the US again in a controversial war, declared “and the eagle will fly and it’s gonna be hell when you hear mother freedom start ringin’ her bell and it’ll feel like the whole world is raining down on you.”

If nothing else, it was definitely the kind of message you won’t usually get at Coachella, delivered by a star who now seems fully at home both in the world of country music and its biggest festival.

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DC, WBA Announce First-Ever Anime Series, New Batman, Dazzle Annecy

In their first joint studio presentation at Annecy’s lakeside Bonlieu theater, DC Studios and Warner Bros. Animation unveiled Thursday a next wave of animated projects for the years to come, including DC Studios’ first-ever anime series, “Joker: Laugh Riot,” Scott Snyder’s take on “Absolute Batman” and a new “Krypto” series by “Spongebob” alum C.H. Greenblatt.

“Batman” and animation fans in the Annecy audience went wild as Peter Safran, co‑chairman and co‑CEO, DC Studios, and Sam Register, president, Warner Bros. Animation, Cartoon Network Studio, and Hanna‑Barbera Studios Europe, unveiled the three projects on stage alongside Warner Bros. Animation showrunners and executive producers who shared first looks and creative insights into the next era of DC animation.

As anime builds huge traction in the U.S. and global markets, Warner Bros. Animation and DC Studios are teaming up with Sola Entertainment to bring “Joker: Laugh Riot” to fans worldwide.

Helmed by “ChaO” award-winning director Yasuhiro Aoki, who previously worked on Warner Bros Animation and Sola’s joint feature “The Lords of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim,” the trailblazing show will take viewers alongside the Joker, as he launches a ruthless crusade through Gotham’s underworld to find Batman’s killer, who took away his greatest adversary —and, incidentally, his own kill. But as his violent quest for answers pushes him closer towards vigilante than villain, Joker is forced to confront the truth that without Batman, he doesn’t know who he is.

This brand new anime series comes as WBA and DC continue to push for more anime content, thanks to the support and insights of Jason DeMarco, senior VP, action and anime development at Warner Bros. Animation who produced “War of the Rohirrim,” alongside a “Rick and Morty” anime adaptation and “Lazarus” and “Uzumaki” series with Adult Swim.

In front of what Register dubbed “the best audience in the world for animation,” the announcement of an animated adaption of “Absolute Batman,” the award-winning and best-selling DC comic book series, was met with raucous applause and cheers by the Annecy’s crowd. Register and Safran, along with Peter Girardi, executive vice president, alternative programming atWarner Bros. Animation, unveiled the new adult animated series project, written by Scott Snyder with art by Nick Dragotta, as creators shared first look images of the upcoming series. Scott Snyder will serve as executive producer and showrunner, with Dragotta as producer.

The comic book series has sold more than 6 million copies to date, with the first issue of “Absolute Batman” reaching an eleventh edition. All “Absolute” titles, including “Absolute Batman,” rank among the top 10 best-selling comics of 2025.

Beyond adult animation, Warner Bros. Animation and DC Studios also revealed Thursday that a new “Krypto” animated series had been greenlit, with “Chowder,” “Jellystone” creator-writer C.H. Greenblatt set to drive this fun-filled, super-canine adventure.

The series, currently under development, follows Krypto as he tags along with a gang of misfit criminal wannabes who live down the block. They soon discover he’s a ball of destructive, lovable energy worse than any of them! As he accompanies them into misadventures and poorly laid plans, Krypto’s pure nature slowly ends up redeeming them, whether they want it or not.

Beyond these three greenlights, Safran, Register and Girardi shared updates on both adult, young adult and kids upcoming tv series, underlining the strong commitment both studios have in bringing DC characters to global audiences of all ages.

Adult animated fan-favorite shows “Creatures Commandos,” “Batman: Caped Crusader” both got the Bonlieu audience on its feet, the latter launching on Prime Video on July 31. New shows such as “Mister Miracle” were met with cheers and interest from the animation-loving crowd, as author Tom King shared his passion for this character. Under roaring applause from Annecy’s audience, King shared how grafetul he felt for bringing his comic series to life. “Today, as animation keeps reaching new heights, I am deeply convinced we can create our own ‘Breaking Bad,’ ‘Sopranos,’ ‘Mad Men’ level shows. And I’m truly happy to bring ‘Mr Miracle’ to the screen.”

On the Vertigo side of DC, “Get Jiro” is set to premiere this fall on Adult Swim. The show has a long history with Annecy, as WBA announced it here three years ago, before bringing it to a riveting work-in-progress session last year in Annecy as well.

Previously teased young adults, kids & family series included “My Adventures with Green Lantern,” a brand-new magical-girl inspired series from the “Adventure-verse,” kickstarted by Jake Wyatt’s 2023 hit “My Adventures with Superman,” “Starfire!,” presented by executive producer Josie Campbell, and Matt Bean’s “DC Super Powers,” while Safran and Register confirmed that the tenth season of “Teen Titans Go,” now DC’s longest running show ever, was currently in production. An achievement celebrated in the best possible way: with a small clip from the DC, Warner Bros animation teams, in wonderful Annecy fashion.

Safran, who attended Annecy this year for the first time, underlined how much the event had absolutely outdone his expectations. “Everyone in the team kept talking to me about it. Know I understand why.” In fact, as we write, the co-chairman and CEO of DC Studios might very well have booked his 2027 plane ticket already.

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Fomo’s $75M Raise Shows Big VCs Are Still Betting on Consumer Crypto

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Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. And check out our new daily news show covering all of the top stories in 5 minutes, downloadable on Apple Pod or Spotify.

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Today’s top news:

Crypto majors fall 3-7% as stocks sell off; BTC at $62.3k
Saylor raises $300M in cash; MSTR falls 5%
Fomo app raises $75M at $550M valuation as they expand into everything app
Bitmine, Sharplink and others team up for new R&D project ETHLabs
Trump signs executive orders accelerating U.S. quantum development

📈 Fomo Raises $75M at a $550M Valuation as Big VCs Bet on Consumer Crypto

A consumer crypto trading app just pulled in $75 million from investors who normally steer clear of crypto entirely.

Fomo, a social-first crypto trading app, raised a $75 million Series B led by Index Ventures at a $550 million valuation. Union Square Ventures joined, along with existing backer Benchmark and angels including Zynga’s Mark Pincus, Discord CEO Humam Sakhnini, and Eventbrite’s Kevin Hartz. Founded in 2025 by three former dYdX employees, Paul Erlanger, Se Yong Park, and Prashan Dharmasena, Fomo is built to make onchain trading feel like a normal consumer app: non-custodial, roughly 30-second onboarding, social features like leaderboards and copy trading, and access to more assets than Coinbase across multiple chains without managing wallets, bridges, or gas. Since launching in May 2025 it has crossed 625,000 users and $4 billion in trading volume, is adding around 3,500 users a day, and runs all of it on a team of 17. The round brings total funding to about $94 million.

Index partner Julia Andre said the firm sees a real market shift in consumer blockchain trading and a team that can capture it, putting it plainly that “we’re not doing Fomo because it’s a crypto business.” Co-founder Paul Erlanger was blunt about the problem they’re attacking: “Onchain trading is just impossible.” His goal is for Fomo to not read as a crypto app at all, the same path Coinbase and Robinhood are walking.

There is signal here in who’s writing the check. Index made its name on Figma and Scale AI, and Union Square Ventures rarely touches crypto. Established, non-crypto VCs leading a nine-figure raise for a crypto startup in the middle of a brutal down market is a high-conviction bet that the next wave of users arrives through a clean consumer app, not a clunky exchange. The timing fits too, with retail search and trading volume ticking back up as Bitcoin steadies near $64,000.

And Fomo’s ambition runs past tokens. It added perps in June and wants to be the front end for equities, derivatives, and prediction markets as they move onchain, which puts it on a direct collision course with Coinbase’s “everything app” and Robinhood. Co-founder Se commented how they plan to make acquisitions and build the engineering team with the new funds. They certainly have the warchest to make it happen now…

₿ Strategy Raises $300M in Cash and Buys Just 520 BTC

Strategy sold $335.5 million of MSTR stock last week but spent almost none of it on Bitcoin, buying just 520 BTC (~$35M) at an average of $67,068 to bring its stack to 847,363 coins. The rest went to cash.

Strategy increased its USD reserve by roughly $300 million to $1.4 billion, money set aside to support the credit quality of its preferred shares and cover dividends and debt.

Some are calling this damage control for STRC. Saylor’s dividend-paying preferred stock, the engine he’s used to fund Bitcoin buys, fell to a record low of $83 last week before clawing back, and the selloff dragged down Bitcoin and rattled sentiment across the market. By raising common equity and stockpiling cash instead of buying more Bitcoin, Strategy is signaling that shoring up its balance sheet matters more right now than adding coins.

Strategy Pads Cash Reserves to $1.4B After STRC’s Stumble

Strategy’s CEO even bought $1 million of STRC himself and said he’ll hold it until it returns to par, a public show of confidence as critics question whether the model holds up in a prolonged bear market.

So it’s becoming clear Saylor and Co are going to protect STRC and Bitcoin. And that likely means “sacrificing” MSTR (MSTR fell 3% on Monday while IBIT jumped 2.5%). Concerns of Saylor blowing up are likely exaggerated, but MSTR shareholders are likely in for more near-term pain…

🔬 BitMine, SharpLink, and Joe Lubin Fund a New Ethereum Research Lab

The two biggest ETH treasury companies just put money behind Ethereum’s research itself.

BitMine, SharpLink, and Joe Lubin are the primary backers of ETHLabs, a new independent nonprofit R&D lab staffed by five researchers who came out of the Ethereum Foundation.

ETHLabs’ stated goal is to make Ethereum the settlement layer of the global economy, and its early work is aimed squarely at institutions: faster settlement, native issuance, cross-chain movement, more mainnet capacity, and research grounding ETH’s monetary properties. Beyond the three anchor funders, community backers include Uniswap’s Hayden Adams, Base’s Jesse Pollak, and researchers Justin Drake, Danny Ryan, and Tim Beiko.

BitMine, Sharplink, Joe Lubin Back New Ethereum Research and Development Lab

BitMine and SharpLink are the two largest corporate holders of ETH, so the players with the most ETH on their balance sheets are now bankrolling the research meant to make ETH more valuable. Tom Lee framed it around institutions and AI agents driving adoption and the ecosystem needing more talent and research to support it. ETHLabs is also explicitly targeting value accrual and DeFi’s real-world traction, the exact areas ETH holders have long argued the Foundation underweights in the name of credible neutrality. To keep that money from looking like influence, ETHLabs routes every contribution through an independent grants administrator, putting a buffer between the researchers and the treasuries paying the bills.

This arrives during an Ethereum Foundation talent exodus and a louder fight over who steers Ethereum’s direction and how ETH the asset captures value. ETHLabs is being pitched as complementary to the Foundation rather than a breakaway, framed as two halves of a whole, idealism and pragmatism. The bet is simple: align the institutions that own the most ETH with the researchers who can grow it, and let an independent administrator keep everyone honest.

🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets

Crypto majors are very red this morning alongside stocks; BTC -3% at $62.3k; ETH -6% at $1,660; SOL -7% at $69.10; HYPE -7% at $63
DEXE (+35%), HASH (+15%) and RAIN (+9%) led top movers
Oil -3% at $73.80; Gold -1.5% at $4,140
Stock futures are very red as big Tech sells off; DOW -0.5%, Nasdaq -2.75%
The U.S. Senate passed a housing bill carrying a four-year ban on a Fed CBDC, a win for crypto advocates who oppose a government-issued digital dollar on surveillance grounds
OKX and the NYSE formed a joint venture led by Andrew Cuomo to bridge traditional and crypto markets, aiming to give OKX’s 120 million users access to ICE futures and NYSE tokenized equities
Trump signed two executive orders accelerating U.S. quantum computing and the shift to quantum-resistant encryption ahead of “Q-Day,” a push that also underscores the long-term threat quantum poses to Bitcoin’s cryptography
MoneyGram joined Solana as a validator, deepening its push into stablecoin payments by helping secure the network it’s increasingly building on
Bitcoin OG Adam Back has made a bet that Bitcoin will make it to $500k-$1M by 2028 and believes its market cap will eventually catch gold

Trump Orders Acceleration of Quantum Readiness as Bitcoin Faces Coming Risk

Corporate Treasuries & ETFs

The Bitcoin ETFs saw $68M in net outflows on Monday; the ETH ETFs saw $66M in outflows
The HYPE ETFs saw no net inflows on Monday
BitMine added $92 million of ETH as chairman Tom Lee reaffirmed his belief in a coming “crypto spring”

Meme Coin Tracker

Meme leaders were very red; DOGE -6%, SHIB -3%, PEPE -5%, PENGU -7%, TRUMP -8%, BONK -6%
FARM (+75%) and GTA6 (+240%) led movers on Solana
Base movers included PRVXT (+60%) and SYND (+60%)

📈 Myriad Market of the Day

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

A Wall Street Journal probe found that $1.9 million in Polymarket bets were fake, with none of the wagers shown across more than 1,100 creator videos actually placed
Bittensor’s founder acknowledged the protocol is still centralized, with core development guided by a small leadership group to move faster on AI innovation, but said ownership and the ecosystem are already decentralized and full protocol decentralization and immutability are the goal within 18 months

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

NFT leaders were mostly red; Punks -1.5% at 30.5 ETH, BAYC -1% at 9.18 ETH, Pudgy -3% at 4.65 ETH; Hypurr’s -6% at 213 HYPE
Cow’s (+56%), NPC (+22%) and Cyberkongz (+14%) led top movers

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Gerard Butler’s 98-Minute Sci-Fi Action Thriller Is a Streaming Smash Hit

gerard butler at the angel has fallen la premiere

Even though it wasn’t a huge hit when it was released in theaters in 2026, one of Gerard Butler‘s best movies in years is finding a second life on streaming. The sci-fi and action thriller mash-up stars Butler alongside Morena Baccarin and Roman Griffin Davis, and is currently climbing the streaming charts despite bombing at the box office and being met with divisive reactions from critics at the time.

Released back in January 2026, Greenland 2: Migration sees Butler once again playing a fearless husband and father trying to get his family to safety. The 98-minute apocalyptic film boasts state-of-the-art special effects, white-knuckle sequences that’ll put you on the edge of your seat (the mountaintop scene is absolute gold), and likely one of Butler’s best performances.

Grounded Drama Against a Disaster Epic Backdrop

Greenland 2: Migration picks up following the hugely successful Greenland, which was released back in 2020, and picks up with the Garrity family as they struggle to survive while living in a bunker after a planet-destroying comet hits the Earth. The problem is that the planet is still unstable, and an earthquake forces everybody out and into an unknown wasteland. John (Butler), Allison (Baccarin), and their son Nathan (Davis) must find a way to survive again in a world where the fallout and remaining comet fragments are the least of their problems.

The 2026 sequel closely follows the spirit of the first movie. It is a gripping portrait of a family fighting for survival when their odds are slim. Greenland 2: Migration reprises the first film’s particular approach, which is that the story never feels manipulated in order to depict John Garrity’s journey as overly heroic. He just does what’s needed to provide for his family, and at times, this can mean doing bad things. Greenland 2: Migration is now ranked #7 in the top 10 list of Prime Video‘s most-watched movies globally, standing above major hits like Sydney Sweeney’s The Housemaid and Jason Statham’s Shelter.

Gerard Butler Stretches Both His Acting & Action Muscles

Gerard Butler has always been associated with the action genre, and he’s got more than enough in his catalog to prove it. Films like 300 and the Has Fallen series are some of his most famous works, and fortunately, the 56-year-old actor is not showing any signs of stopping. More recently, films like Den of Thieves and Plane show he’s still got it.

But in the Greenland movies, he has done more than portray the typical action hero. The role demands more from Butler, and a good script draws out his dramatic range. The first movie saw him play a father and husband going against every obstacle out there to protect his family in the middle of the apocalypse. The sequel needed the same formula, but the actor went for more, playing a father and husband whose hope depends solely on giving everything to others.

Unfortunately, his strong performance – and arguably one of his best ever – wasn’t enough to convince audiences to go into theaters. Greenland 2: Migration flopped at the box office. Produced with a budget of $90 million, the film only grossed about $45 million. It was a different result than the one from the first movie, which grossed more than $53 million against a $35 million budget.

Critics were also seemingly not impressed with Butler’s performance, but many still singled out Butler’s performance as one of the best things in the movie. Today, the sequel sits at 48% on Rotten Tomatoes – a poor rating when compared to the 78% the first movie still has on the critics’ website.

Release Date: January 9, 2026
Runtime: 98 Minutes
Director: Ric Roman Waugh
Writers: Chris Sparling, Mitchell LaFortune
Producers: Basil Iwanyk, Gerard Butler, Alan Siegel, John Zois, Sebastien Raybaud, Brendon Boyea