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China lockdowns, more military aid for Ukraine and Twitter is warming to Musk. China lockdownsChina’s coronavirus outbreak worsened, with ri [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( China lockdowns, more military aid for Ukraine and Twitter is warming to Musk. China lockdowns China’s coronavirus outbreak worsened, with rising cases in Beijing sparking fears about an unprecedented [lockdown of the capital](. Residents rushed to stock up on supplies after the government announced mass testing, while President Xi Jinping is also trying to quell escalating [anti-government criticism]( in Shanghai, which is in its third week of lockdown. The country's benchmark stock index slumped the most in almost two years, while the offshore yuan weakened more than 1% at one point. Military aid The U.S. announced [additional military aid]( for Ukraine as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that Washington wants to see Russian forces ground down. Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken committed a total of $713 million in foreign military financing as they visited Kyiv for the highest-level U.S. talks since Russia invaded. The U.S. said it will start [sending diplomats]( back to Ukraine. Russia's war is turbocharging the world's [addiction to coal](. Twitter friends Twitter is growing more receptive to Elon Musk’s $43 billion [takeover offer](. Musk met with Twitter executives on Sunday, a person with knowledge of the matter said. Separately, Musk’s short-lived effort to take Tesla private has loomed over his reputation and Twitter bid. Now, a series of [text messages]( that Musk exchanged with Silicon Valley friends, investors, and the managing director of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund during that saga have come to light as part of an ongoing shareholder lawsuit. Stocks drop European equities [traded poorly](, taking the risk-off baton following a very weak session for Chinese equities. The Stoxx 600 dropped as much as 2.25% as of 5:45 a.m. NYT. Miners, oil & gas and consumer discretionary stocks led the selloff after Beijing’s Covid outbreak reinforced concerns about an economic slowdown. A bid for haven assets underpinned bonds and the U.S. dollar. Commodities slumped, with base metals trading poorly and WTI crude down as much as 5.1%. [Bitcoin]( fell to a six-week low. Coming up... It’s a quiet start to the week with just the Chicago Fed National Activity Index at 8:30 a.m. and the Dallas Fed Manufacturing Activity Outlook at 10:30 a.m. Scheduled central bank appearances are due from BOC's Governor Tiff Macklem and ECB's Fabio Panetta. The Coca-Cola Co. and Activistion Blizzard are among the companies reporting earnings. What we've been reading Here's what caught our eye over the weekend. - France gives [Macron a second chance](. - [Commodity traders]( should be regulated. - [Netflix's](evolution in four charts. - Therapy for [crypto addicts](. - What to expect from the [iPhone 14](. - U.K. [property asking prices]( hit a record. - Teaching your [old car new tricks](. And finally, here’s what Joe’s interested in this morning Crypto breaks a lot of people's brains in part, I think, because it's so backwards. There's so much money in it, but nothing actually delivers so far. Bitcoin (by far the most mature project) is still not a widely used currency or a stable store of value. In theory, it can be of value to people who are unable to use the existing financial system (for whatever reason), but its usage is limited. And it's not even that good for privacy or evading the law, for political dissidents. There's tons of money in Web3, but there's not really a Web3 yet. Everyone in crypto uses centralized services like Twitter or Discord, just like the rest of us. Basically, there's a set of ambitions about what the internet could theoretically look like one day, but it's not there yet. And in the meantime, despite having failed so far to deliver on its stated ambitions, people in the space have made insane amounts of money. It's hard to think of anything comparable, where so much money has been made, with so little having been delivered. Anyway, on today's Odd Lots podcast, my co-host Tracy Alloway and I speak with Bloomberg Opinion columnist Matt Levine as well as Sam Bankman-Fried, the co-founder and CEO of the crypto trading platform FTX. The topic is basically: how do you actually make money in crypto? There's tons of money going into the space, but what's it all going to do? Where's the alpha to be found? What opportunities can be exploited? It's a fascinating discussion, but basically the answer is -- in so many words -- get in before other people. Whether it's early stage token investing, or even yield farming in DeFi, the name of the game is putting money into some kind of project before everyone else does. That's kind of it! At some point, valuable services might emerge that deliver real world economic value (defined broadly) but for the moment, most money is made basically getting into something before the wall of money gets there. Check it out on [Apple]( or [Spotify]( or elsewhere. Follow Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal on Twitter [@TheStalwart]( Special Daily Brief: Russia's Invasion of Ukraine [Keep up with the latest news]( on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, one of the worst security crises in Europe since World War II. 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