The Commoner
Inflation Fell. Oil Is Already Trying to Take It Back.
June CPI fell as energy prices retreated. July oil is already moving the other way, leaving the Fed with a reprieve instead of an all clear.
10 min read
TFTC / Marty Bent
The Commoner
Truth for the Commoner, every weekday. Money, machines, and the people trying to control both.
Independent writing by Marty Bent at TFTC since 2017. Commentary on money, markets, AI, energy and privacy.
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1,477 posts
The Commoner
The War Premium Is Back
Iran and the United States are trading fire again. Hormuz traffic is slowing, oil is rising, and the inflation trade is back before it ever really left.
8 min read
The Commoner
Strategy Sold bitcoin. The Market Absorbed It.
Strategy sold 3,588 BTC for $216 million to support preferred distributions, yet bitcoin trades above its average sale price. Jensen Huang makes the case for companies owning their…
7 min read
The Commoner
Europe Is Completely Dystopian Now
Europe is completely dystopian now. Chat Control, DAC8, in-car cameras, and VPN restrictions point to the same surveillance machine.
8 min read
The Commoner
Chat Control Shows Europe's Orwellian Turn
Brussels is trying to revive Chat Control through procedural games. Plus: broken money turns inflation pain into class war, AI agents become real business, and Bitcoin tech keeps m…
8 min read
The Commoner
GPUs Are Not Bitcoin ASICs, But The Credit Structure Rhymes
GPU financing is rhyming with the ASIC loan cycle while Japan’s bond market screams that sovereign debt stress is spreading.
6 min read
The Commoner
Housing Inflation Is Policy All The Way Down
Fed-linked research and common sense point to the same conclusion: open-border policy created an artificial housing-demand shock. Plus PJM grid stress, RBA wage revolt, Capital War…
10 min read
The Commoner
A Court Cannot Move Your Bitcoin, But It Can Cloud the Title
A New York dormant-wallet lawsuit, Euroclear’s frozen Russian asset fight, OFAC stablecoin freezes, and the right to run local AI all point to the same lesson: control the ledger,…
11 min read
The Commoner
The State Wants a Seat at the AI Cap Table
OpenAI may offer the US government a stake in the company. The AI industry is moving onto wartime footing while bitcoin remains outside every cap table.
8 min read
The Commoner
The AI War Is Being Fought at Every Layer
BPI tracks the anti-data-center ground game while Claude Code and Fable 5 show the same AI conflict at the model-access layer. Plus bitcoin probes $58k, global liquidity shifts, an…
10 min read
The Commoner
Protect Kids, Verify Everyone
The KIDS Act would push the internet toward age verification gates under the banner of protecting kids. Parents should parent. Government should stay out of building identity rails…
7 min read
The Commoner
The Debasement Trade Is Being Tested
Michael Howell says bitcoin weakness reflects a slowing liquidity impulse, not a dead debasement thesis. Plus Jay Patel, Strategy capital management, and Jordi Visser on the AI sha…
7 min read
The Commoner
The Government Has No Business Deciding Who Gets Access to GPT-5.6
OpenAI is reportedly limiting GPT-5.6 access at the US government’s request. Marty argues AI safety has become regulatory moat-building as open-weight models catch up and crush pri…
9 min read
The Commoner
Bitcoin's Selloff Is Stress-Testing the Leverage Built Around It
Bitcoin broke below $59k, stress-testing leverage around the asset while the network keeps clearing blocks. Plus DMND's first known Stratum V2 block, AI compute bottlenecks, miners…
7 min read
The Commoner
Catholic Leaders and Law Enforcement Unite Against the Crypto Industry's Most Important Bill
Catholic leaders and four major law enforcement associations oppose the CLARITY Act's BRCA provision. The bill that would have kept Samourai's developers free needs a floor vote by…
13 min read
The Commoner
Apple Is About to Kill Sparrow Wallet. Here's What It Means for Freedom Tech.
Apple is threatening to terminate Craig Raw's developer account by June 30, which would end all new Sparrow Wallet installs on macOS. Meanwhile, central banks are accumulating gold…
7 min read
The Commoner
Japan Drops a Frontier AI Model Ten Days After the U.S. Shut Down Anthropic's
Sakana AI's Fugu Ultra claims frontier parity the same week the U.S. forced Anthropic offline. Bitcoin miners pivot to AI as hashrate drops. Howell says Warsh will let markets tigh…
9 min read
The Commoner
America Built a Nuclear Reactor from Nothing in 9 Months. Ward 250 Is Now Critical.
Valar Atomics' Ward 250 achieves criticality in 9 months from empty site. Plus private credit seizing, Saylor's STRC problem, and yen carry trade risk.
9 min read
The Commoner
Midjourney's Full-Body Scanner and the Good Side of the AI Revolution
Midjourney, bootstrapped to $200M with zero investors, unveiled a full-body ultrasonic CT scanner: no radiation, no MRI, 60x faster. Plus Warsh dot plot results, Iran peace deal, a…
10 min read
The Commoner
250,000 Victims. 149 Districts. The Rape Gang Inquiry Report Drops. Starmer Has Not Said a Word.
A 219-page independent inquiry funded by 20,000 public donations estimates 250,000 victims across 40% of the UK. Grooming gangs since the 1950s. Institutional cover-up by police, s…
9 min read
