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Now you can sing along with America’s Founding Fathers as you crush your opponents under oppressive rents and market domination. The Op Games, a publisher of board games and puzzles, is releasing a new version of Monopoly based on the hit Broadway musical Hamilton, marking the latest iteration of the classic economics game that has been a staple of family game nights for many decades. The Op Games plans to announce the new version today, a spokesperson told Fast Company. The game commemorates the 10th anniversary of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s rap-infused retelling of America’s origin story, which made its Broadway debut in the summer of 2015 and went on to win 11 Tony Awards and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. In Monopoly: Hamilton, hotels become Federalist Papers, houses become Letters, and the familiar Chance and Community Chest cards are named after the musical’s dueling protagonists: Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. Instead of boot or thimble, players can choose between an assortment of Hamilton-themed pieces, including a microphone, crown, or tricornered hat. [Photo: 1935, 2025 Hasbro. Hamilton by Lin-Manuel Miranda.] Can you say no to this? California-based The Op Games has carved out quite a niche for itself with cobranded versions of popular board games, such as a Jaws-inspired riff on Operation or a Trivial Pursuit edition that lets you test your knowledge of HBO’s Game of Thrones franchise. It licenses Monopoly from toy giant Hasbro, which has touted a “franchise-first approach” to IP as a cornerstone of its success. For instance, the Monopoly Go! mobile game, published by developer Scopely, has been an enormous success, contributing $126 million in revenue to Hasbro so far this year as of the third quarter. You could argue that all these variations cheapen the Monpoly brand (we’ll leave it up to you to decide if the world needs a Guy Fieri edition), but a Hamilton version of the capitalist-forward game makes more sense than most. [Photo: 1935, 2025 Hasbro. Hamilton by Lin-Manuel Miranda.] The title character, after all, played a key role in creating America’s financial system, and at least four of the musical’s characters are still pictured on our money today. While the cultural legacy of Hamilton has been rigorously debated and reassessed over the yearscritics have accused it of perpetuating a “founders chic” view of American history, or of being an overly earnest relic of the Obama erathe show remains a money-making juggernaut. Ten years on, it’s still playing at full capacity at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, where just last week it earned $3.9 million at the box office, more than any other show on Broadway. Monopoly: Hamilton will be available for purchase at the theater, on the Hamilton website, and at Barnes & Noble bookstores, retailing for $45. Just remember to collect 20 Hamiltons every time you pass Go.
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E-Commerce
The X of Y frameworkWere the Uber of healthcare or the Airbnb of financehas become a kind of startup reflex. Its useful, even comforting, to anchor a new idea to something people already understand. But what feels like clarity can become constraint. When you define your business through another companys success, you risk adopting their playbook instead of rewriting the rules. The best disruptors learn to move past comparison. They articulate what makes their idea not just different, but inevitable. Thats how you build conviction from your team, your investors, and your customers. Why comparison shrinks your story From a branding perspective, letting investors, consumers, or even your own team see your business through the lens of another company is risky. It narrows imagination and compresses potential before the company ever takes off. In Teddy Roosevelts words, comparison is the thief of joy. In the entrepreneurial world, comparison is the thief of innovation. The moment you define yourself through someone elses success, youre not building a new world; youre borrowing a corner of an old one. True disruptors dont emulate, they innovate. And not just in the product, but in how they communicate that product to the world. The biggest tech companies by market capFacebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google, Nvidiaarent the X of Y. They just are. They didnt build by reference; they built by invention. Yesterdays playbook wont win tomorrows game From a business model standpoint, the X of Y approach doesnt simplify, it hamstrings. What worked in one context often fails in another because conditions change faster than most disruptors realize. YouTubes monetization strategy, for example, only succeeded after the platform reached massive scale. Trying to apply that same model to a niche content business at launch would likely fail. OpenAI trained on freely available web data thats now largely cut off. Imitators entering the space today cant replicate those conditions, nor their success. Timing and first-mover advantage matter. Once a model exists, the data access, regulation, even consumer behavior conditions that allowed it to thrive are already evolving. The world moves on. What worked before doesnt necessarily work now. For disruptors, the takeaway is simple: Learn from others, but dont lean on them. The best leaders translate insight into original structure, a model built for todays conditions, not yesterdays advantages. Create a category: Lessons from Figures IPO I saw this dynamic play out firsthand during Figures IPO. With no natural comparison, we didnt fit into a familiar box. Yet, investors tried; they labeled us a blockchain company, a fintech lender, a financial marketplace. And each comparison carried its own limitations: valuation ceilings, volatility, market constraints. Bringing something truly new to market requires more than a great product. It demands changing perception. You have to teach the market how to think differently and convince them theyre ready for it. At Figure, we had to educate investors that what we were buildingblockchain-based capital marketswasnt a futuristic concept; it was a present-tense opportunity. We emphasized not just what we built, but why it mattered: faster, more transparent capital flows that could unlock a massive market. Once that clicked, investors stopped searching for a comparison and started seeing the scale of the opportunity. That shift made all the difference in a successful offering. Comparisons fall flat faster in todays world Were in an evolutionary moment. Like mobile did before, AI and blockchain are changing the rules of the game. Business models built around past infrastructure will quickly feel dated. Anchoring yourself to yesterdays success stories is like hitching your wagon to Craiglists star in 2008. It looked brilliant, until mobile changed everything. The X of Y mindset is its own kind of entrepreneurial Waiting for Godot. Leaders get stuck in a comparison loop, waiting for validation, for precedent, for permission to move. But the future never arrives for those who wait on it. Pioneering beyond precedent, especially when precedent itself is shifting, is hard. But thats where the opportunity lies. Leaders who thrive in this environment wont ask, Who are we like? Theyll ask, What are we building that no one else has imagined yet? Because real disruptors dont wait for Godot. They build the world everyone else is still waiting for. Michael Tannenbaum is the CEO of Figure.
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E-Commerce
Bitcoin is having a horrible week. Until yesterday, the cryptocurrency had declined by roughly 2.5% over the preceding five days. But in the last 24 hours alone, the coin has taken a major hitdown more than 10%. Worse, fear and greed indices, which measure the emotional state of investors who buy and sell Bitcoin, are near historic lows. Heres what you need to know. Why is Bitcoin sinking? Bitcoin has dropped precipitously over the past 24 hours. As of the time of this writing, it’s down more than 10% to $82,185 per token. Thats a low the coin has not seen since April. But why has Bitcoin been falling so much over the past 24 hours? There are two major factors at play. The first has to do with what happened in the stock market yesterday. When markets opened, AI-related stocks were flying high due to the previous days news that Nvidia Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA) had exceeded expectations for its Q3 2026 earnings. This good news, momentarily, gave investors a confidence boost. Nvidias results were a sign, many argued, that the AI bubble people have been talking about for months was perhaps overstated. But as the day continued, those bubble fears resurfaced, and investors sold Nvidia heavily, along with other AI stocks and other tech stocks. This selloff contributed to a steep decline in the markets, which ended down for the day. Unfortunately for cryptocurrencies, many people who invest in volatile AI stocks also invest in crypto. And when one of those assets declines, they tend to sell off the other asset to lock in any accumulated profits and buffer against losses elsewhere in their portfolio. However, you cant blame Nvidia and the tech stock slide yesterday for all of Bitcoins woes. A second factor likely influencing Bitcoins massive 24-hour drop is that, as CNBC notes, America’s job numbers for September were released, and they showed stronger-than-expected job growth data (119,000 new jobs versus the roughly 50,000 analysts expected). Why would good job numbers send Bitcoins price down? Because those better-than-expected jobs numbers sent the probability of a December rate cut by the Federal Reserve down from 50% to about 40%. Rate cuts are generally seen as good news for the prices of assets like Bitcoin because the cuts boost liquidity in the markets. At the beginning of November, many analysts expected there was a 90% chance of Fed rate cuts in December. By mid-November, that chance had been slashed to 50%. Now its down to 40%. This increasing likelihood that the Fed will not cut rates is likely weighing heavily on Bitcoins price today. Crypto fear and greed indices near historic lows A fear and greed index measures the emotional state of investors in a particular asset. Several crypto-focused platforms maintain their own Fear and Greed Indexes, including CoinMarketCap and Binance. As CoinMarketCap notes, its fear and greed index measures the prevailing sentiment in the cryptocurrency market on a scale of 0 (extreme fear) to 100 (extreme greed). This index helps investors understand the emotional state of the market, which can influence buying and selling behaviors. Currently, CoinMarketCaps Crypto Fear and Greed Index is at an 11. Thats the lowest level it’s recorded since June 2023, the farthest back the index goes. At 11, the index is currently lower than the 15 it was at on March 11, 2025, when crypto markets were also tumbling. This suggests that the emotional state of cryptocurrency investors right now is extremely fearful. Similarly, Binance’s Crypto Fear & Greed Index is also at an 11 (it ranges from 0 to 100). Thats four points lower than where it was yesterday, and 50% lower than where it was last week. While seeing the historic lows of the fear range of the index might further alarm Bitcoin investors, it should be noted that these indices can help track periods of over-selling (fear side of the spectrum) or when the token may be over-bought (greed side of the spectrum). However, these indices cant predict whether any token will continue to be sold off or if its price will rebound. Other cryptocurrencies are seeing a large selloff, too As the crypto Fear and Greed indices suggest, its not just Bitcoin that is seeing major selloffs as of late. Other cryptocurrencies are also down significantly across the board. This includes Ethereum (down 12% to $2,650), XRP (down 12.25% to $1.85), BNB (down 11.4% to $797), Solana (down 13.45% to $122.73), and Dogecoin (down 14.7% to $0.134).
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E-Commerce
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