Global liquidity peaked: Bitcoin faces dry years

Other (19)

• Marty Bent argues Bitcoin will prevail as central banks globally continue to devalue their national currencies, reinforcing Bitcoin's role as a safe haven asset.
• Marty Bent believes Washington D.C. will become a crucial city for technological and policy developments over the next five to ten years, surpassing current hubs like Austin and Miami.
• Conner Brown notes that BPI's Q2 report highlights significant accomplishments in three months, demonstrating how AI tools amplify human productivity and enable deeper research and new international work.
• Conner Brown explains BPI developed a research paper on Taiwan diversifying its cash reserves into Bitcoin, noting Taiwan's history of using gold to fund an exiled government after fleeing mainland China.
• BPI's paper gained traction in Taiwan, leading to an invitation to brief the Legislative Yuan and Central Bank, who showed surprising understanding and detailed questions regarding Bitcoin's practicalities.
• Conner Brown states the US administration's Executive Order for the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve (SBR) is actively influencing global policy, though its implementation faces bureaucratic hurdles, including a past scandal involving mishandled funds.
• Conner Brown indicates the UK aims to be a 'fast follow' to US digital asset policy, having recently rescinded a stablecoin balance cap and showing unexpected openness to Bitcoin policy discussions in the House of Lords.
• BPI research, spearheaded by Sam Lyman, uncovered Chinese foreign influence, specifically from the Party for Socialism and Liberation, aggressively opposing US data center and Bitcoin mining projects with unfounded claims.
• Conner Brown warns that promoting pessimistic AI narratives while simultaneously building the technology, as some big tech executives do, risks repeating past mistakes like the nuclear energy industry's over-regulation.
• Marty Bent notes that Bitcoiners are early adopters of AI tools, developing complex workflows, unlike traditional think tanks or legacy institutions that demonstrate significant institutional inertia in AI integration.
• Conner Brown observes a coalition of diverse groups, including foreign adversaries, radical environmentalists, populists, national security hawks, and effective altruists, are strangely aligned in advocating for AI restrictions.
• Marty Bent describes TFTC's three-layered 'company brain' for AI agents, integrating flat markdown files, a QMD semantic search database, and an Obsidian vault (Cogni) to provide comprehensive, temporal context from all past content.
• Marty Bent leverages voice dictation via Super Whisper to interact with his AI agent 'Martin,' enabling him to articulate thoughts faster and more comprehensively for tasks like newsletter writing, similar to Napoleon's multi-scribe dictation.
• Conner Brown envisions an optimistic AI future where free and open-source models proliferate, amplifying human agency, creativity, and education to unlock unprecedented individual capabilities, contrasting with a dystopian consumption-focused path.
• Conner Brown emphasizes the critical need for American leadership in open-source AI to prevent strategic adversaries like China from dominating the field and embedding biases that could serve their interests.
• Conner Brown is increasingly convinced that an abundant future enabled by AI will strengthen the need for Bitcoin, as open-source AI agents, if trained neutrally, naturally prefer Bitcoin and stablecoins for digital commerce.
• Aven offers a Bitcoin Visa card that provides a line of credit up to $1 million, backed by Bitcoin custodied by BitGo, featuring fixed rates starting at 7.99% APR and 2% unlimited cash back.
• Unchained provides collaborative multisig Bitcoin custody, securing over $12 billion in Bitcoin for more than 12,000 clients, where users hold two keys and Unchained holds one, ensuring institutional-grade security and user control.
• CrowdHealth offers crowdfunded healthcare as an alternative to health insurance, significantly reducing monthly costs and negotiating prices down by 50-80%, with members paying a small amount ($500-$3000) for health events.

Other (15)

• Steve Hou joined Silicon Data almost two months ago as Head of Research, aiming to bring data and derivatives like futures contracts to the physical AI compute market.
• Silicon Data seeks to enable hedging against risks in the AI physical compute market, which Steve Hou estimates to be hundreds of billions, if not trillions, in size.
• Steve Hou believes futures contracts are a natural hedging tool for data center providers, compute providers, and companies buying compute, offering revenue certainty and enabling bolder acquisition strategies.
• The AI compute market, currently dominated by a few players like OpenAI and Anthropic, is expected to fragment as open models and enterprise AI drive broader demand, especially for inference.
• Steve Hou's Token Expenditure Index, an expenditure-weighted price index similar to the PCE for AI, tracks token price dynamics aggregated by usage patterns, reflecting consumer behavior and quality-price tradeoffs.
• The Token Expenditure Index primarily covers independent developers and small/medium enterprises using public routing platforms, making it a leading indicator for price sensitivity rather than total market demand.
• Steve Hou notes the index's recent plateau reflects a shift towards 'token efficiency' and substitution among models, not a decrease in overall token demand.
• Drawing on Jevon's paradox, Steve Hou argues that while frontier models' margins may face pressure from cheaper alternatives, the resulting market expansion will still lead to overall growth and profitability.
• Steve Hou's GPU Rental Index tracks on-demand rental rates for chips like the H100, A100, and B200, aggregating contracts from various providers to create apple-to-apple comparisons.
• The A100 chip's strong and increasing rental rate signals robust inference demand, indicating even older chips maintain value as workhorses for less computationally intensive tasks.
• The GPU forward curve, initially backwardated (downward sloping), has shifted upward and flattened into contango, implying cloud providers are less willing to discount long-term contracts due to firm demand and supply shortages.
• Memory (DRAM) prices are surging due to models' increasing memory hunger and context length, but Steve Hou anticipates algorithmic innovations like Kimi's memory efficiency improvements will eventually temper linear demand growth.
• Steve Hou expects increased demand for storage and memory from multimodal AI (voice, video), noting that conversational AI advancements, like the ability to interrupt, generate significantly more data.
• Steve Hou predicts US-China geopolitical decoupling will drive separate but parallel growth in AI capex, with both nations doubling down on investment and potentially restricting cross-border model access.
• The next major driver for AI is genuine enterprise adoption and demonstrable return on investment (RORI), enabled by cheaper models that allow companies to experiment without prohibitive token budgets.

Politics (11)

• Zohran Mamdani's first six months as New York City Mayor included freezing rent on nearly a million apartments and progressing universal childcare, fulfilling key campaign promises. Lulu Garcia Navarro notes his national political force after progressive endorsements.
• Mamdani states his administration paved over 170,000 potholes and delivered the lowest recorded numbers for shootings, victims, and murders in NYC history. They also secured over $10 million for workers and $64 million for tenants.
• Mamdani views President Trump's call for his deportation as part of the normalized corrosion of political life. He argues democratic socialism counters fear-mongering by demonstrating tangible results, prioritizing disagreement over demonization.
• Mamdani emphasizes that the normalization of political violence leads to threats against him and his family, and creates fear for ordinary citizens. He believes politics should allow vehement disagreement without silencing debate through intimidation.
• Mamdani, as a Democrat and Democratic Socialist, believes his party needs a vision for working people beyond merely opposing Republicans. He argues the struggles of one in four New Yorkers living in poverty reflect broader national issues.
• Mamdani's 58% approval rating reflects progress on universal childcare and a rent freeze, though free buses are still pending. He aims for free childcare for 2,000 children this fall, expanding to every two-year-old in four years.
• Mamdani's top advisor, Morris Katz, was involved in Graham Plattner's campaign which imploded over sexual assault allegations. Mamdani states his faith in Katz is undiminished, acknowledging Katz's decision to end the campaign.
• Mamdani advocates for a "big tent" Democratic Party that includes moderate Democrats, even those who work with APEC. He defines politics as the "art of making the principled possible" and focuses on areas of agreement.
• Mamdani attributes his smiling political persona to his parents, emphasizing showing the world who you are. He believes successful politicians need "honesty" about their beliefs and the ability to explain their purpose.
• Mamdani and his wife, Rama, navigate being newlyweds while he leads New York City, which he describes as a lot but wouldn't change. He considers scrutiny of his wife unfair and antiquated, viewing her primarily as an artist.
• Mamdani aims to make New York City a "fun" place by ensuring affordability extends to enjoyment, echoing the "eight hours for rest" labor adage. Initiatives include securing 1,000 World Cup tickets for $50 and making Fan Fests free.

Elections (2)

• Mamdani confirms his partnership with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on New York endorsements, citing her as an inspiration for fighting for working people. He views their collaboration as a collective effort to achieve an affordability agenda.
• Mamdani endorsed Dari Alisa Avila Chevalier, a progressive candidate with a "babies, not bombs" vision, over an incumbent supported by APEC. He criticized federal policy for prioritizing billions in Israeli military funding over the needs of impoverished US districts.

War (2)

• Mamdani agrees with Hassan Piker that politicians lacking honesty about the Gaza "genocide" cannot be trusted on domestic issues, eroding public confidence. He notes many Congress members privately acknowledge the situation but won't state it publicly.
• Mamdani believes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, facing an ICC warrant, "belongs in the Hague" as a war criminal. He states New York City will follow all applicable laws regarding a potential arrest during a UN visit.

Diplomacy (1)

• Mamdani advocates for the Democratic Party to become a "party of human rights for all people," including Palestinians, without exceptions. He asserts presidential candidates must be honest about US policy's consequences and offer alternatives.

Immigration (1)

• Mamdani supports a "secure and humane" US border policy that follows asylum laws, opposing ICE's "largest deportation machine." He states New York City cooperates on over 170 serious crimes but not civil immigration enforcement.