The Commoner

Tuesday, November 3, 2026

Sup, freaks.

Calle's appeal to burned-out Bitcoin developers deserves our attention and our gratitude. Today, a reminder of why this work matters, followed by two AI developments, Liquid's reserve repair, Treasury's borrowing estimates and the latest from Poland's Constitutional Tribunal.

WHAT TO EXPECT IN THIS NEWSLETTER

• Marty's Bent: gratitude to Bitcoin's builders, and the mission that number go up can obscure.
• Researchers use AI to repair a small model's reasoning loops; Revolut reports lower costs from self-hosted models.
• Liquid's federation says one-for-one bitcoin backing has been restored.
• Treasury projects $618 billion of quarterly borrowing; Poland's disputed court meeting gets underway.
• Umbrel's security update provides a patched kernel on x86 and a different mitigation on Raspberry Pi.

Marty's Bent

Bitcoin Developers Are Burning Out

Calle put something into words last night that I've been noticing myself. Some of the people working on Bitcoin are burning out. I have seen the stress around AI-enabled vulnerability discovery and exploitation myself. Maintaining software that handles other people's money was already a serious responsibility. I can't imagine what it feels like to carry it through the current security chaos.

I know multiple people who basically quit working on Bitcoin because of how stressful it is to maintain software that handles money nowadays.

Before getting into anything else, I want to express my immense gratitude to everybody working on any part of the Bitcoin stack. Bitcoin Core, Lightning, other second layers, wallets, applications, and the companies making bitcoin easier to use. If you're giving people more functionality, more privacy, or more options for how they hold and use their money, thank you. This is extremely important work. A lot of it goes thankless, and the reward is often nowhere near commensurate with the responsibility people take on. Please know that your work is appreciated.

That gratitude needs to come with financial support, particularly from companies benefiting from Bitcoin. If your business depends on this software, help pay the people maintaining it. Fund security audits and independent code review. Financially support the developers working on critical parts of the Bitcoin stack so they can spend their time doing that work without wondering how they're going to pay their bills. We cannot keep asking these people to carry more responsibility while leaving them to figure out the funding themselves. Companies building on Bitcoin should make contributing back a regular part of their budgets.

Calle followed his observation with a question that should force some introspection from all of us: "Do we just accept fiat as the end game?" Why are we here? Why do we believe Bitcoin should exist? Why is it worth spending our time working on?

I think many people have lost sight of the answers in recent years. The institutionalization of bitcoin is a good thing. More people being able to access the asset and more institutions recognizing its value are welcome developments. However, if you become over-indexed on number go up, it's very easy to forget why any of this matters in the first place. Bitcoin is here to separate money from state. To separate money from central banks. To bring money back to the market and give individuals the ability to participate in a grassroots, freedom-oriented monetary system.

The gravity of that opportunity should not be understated. You can consciously decide to opt out of money issued and managed by central banks and governments. You can hold your own keys and transact on a network that doesn't require a central institution to approve your participation. This doesn't make you immune to laws or surveillance. It gives you an alternative that you can actually use. I don't think there has ever been an opportunity quite like this to give monetary power back to the individual on a global scale.

And look at what is being erected around us. A surveillance architecture that reaches into our data, our finances, and what we're allowed to do with both. The digital panopticon isn't something I want my children to grow up accepting as normal. Organizations like the Financial Action Task Force, the Bank for International Settlements, and the Federal Reserve have different mandates and powers, but none of them should get to decide that the common man has no alternative to the monetary arrangements they favor. Nor should governments that are drowning their own populations in bureaucratic bloat get to close off every exit.

If you're working on Bitcoin, you're working to empower the individual against that concentration of power. That is why I think the need for this work has never been greater. It is also why the current moment is so frustrating. Developers are trying to build something useful while dealing with regulatory pressure, threats to civil liberties, and now the worry about what AI might help an attacker find in their code. I don't want to dismiss that stress with a motivational slogan. I'm grateful to the people carrying it, and I believe the freedom they're making possible is worth fighting for.

At a time when so many people are worried about what AI might do to their careers, I can't think of anything more fulfilling to work on than Bitcoin. If a digital server running a model can do the job you used to do, why not direct some of your energy toward something that gives ordinary people more control over their lives? You don't have to maintain Bitcoin Core to contribute. Making a wallet easier to use, helping someone understand self-custody, supporting a developer, or building a business that lets people use bitcoin all move us in the right direction.

The playing field is being tilted toward technocrats and all-encompassing bureaucratic governments that care very little for the common man. We have an opportunity to tilt it back toward the individual. I want our children and grandchildren to have some semblance of freedom in the digital age, and I intend to spend my time working toward that outcome. To everybody doing the same through Bitcoin, thank you. I hope Calle's words remind you how important your work is and how many of us want you to succeed.

SIGNAL

An AI model repairs another model's reasoning loops

Rikiya Takehi and colleagues report an unusual experiment: GPT-6 Astra directly edited a small Qwen model's weights, lifting its MATH-500 score from 7.9% to 48.1% under their test settings. It used practice problems and evaluation feedback, but no gradient training. The gains largely came from stopping repetitive reasoning loops so the model could finish its answers. A nonlooping Gemma model did not materially improve. Interesting work, particularly the possibility of repairing specific weaknesses without retraining the whole model. It is not a demonstration of AI recursively making itself smarter.

Revolut makes self-hosted AI the default

Revolut's David Abitbol described the bank's self-hosted AI setup at an October conference: roughly 2,000 engineers served by GLM on 56 Nvidia B200 GPUs. He reported a blended cost of $0.30 per million tokens, an invoice one-tenth of previous Anthropic and OpenAI spending, and a 70% improvement in engineering lead time during the rollout. Claude Code and Codex remain available as exceptions. These are Revolut's reported results, not a comparison of fully accounted operating costs. Abitbol argues that removing token rationing let engineers use AI for more of their work. The model matters, but so does giving people the ability to use it.

Liquid says full bitcoin backing is restored

The Liquid Federation says its bitcoin reserves are fully restored, reestablishing one-for-one backing for all LBTC. Samson Mow identified a final 250 BTC deposit Monday as closing the remaining shortfall. The federation also promises clearer governance and additional safeguards, with details to follow. Good to see the reserve repaired. Users still need to distinguish backing from access to their funds: the announcement describes swaps through participating providers, not an unconditional reopening of every withdrawal route. The federation remains a trust assumption for anyone using the system.

Treasury's lower borrowing estimate starts with more cash

Treasury expects to borrow $618 billion in privately held net marketable debt this quarter, $10 billion below its August estimate. Before anyone celebrates fiscal restraint, the release says the reduction primarily reflects a higher opening cash balance. Exclude that cash and the estimate is $24 billion higher. Treasury also projects $800 billion of borrowing for January through March, assuming it ends that quarter with $1 trillion in cash. A bigger opening balance changes how much debt needs to be sold over a particular period. It doesn't fix the spending problem. Refunding details are due Wednesday.

Poland's tribunal meeting opens with a quorum dispute

Poland's Constitutional Tribunal meeting began Tuesday with eight judges present, RMF24 reports. Participants voted to recognize those eight as sufficient quorum to consider the court's 2027 budget proposal. Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, who is asserting authority to lead the tribunal, said twelve judges were eligible to participate. Bogdan Święczkowski did not attend. The fight extends to the basic functioning of the institution: who counts as a judge, who can participate and whose decisions carry authority. A vote by one side to proceed does not settle the competing legal claims. This remains a developing story.

⚡ FREEDOM TECH CORNER

DATA SNAPSHOT

Spot price, block height and hashrate estimate: November 3, 2026, 10:13 a.m. ET. Bitcoin Lab daily series and U.S. spot ETF flows: November 2, 2026.

Sources: Kraken spot quote, mempool.space block height and hashrate, Bitcoin Lab daily metrics, and TFTC ETF flows. Daily metrics use the provider’s November 2 observation, not live intraday estimates.

Have a great day, freaks.

Marty Bent · TFTC · Nostr

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