Macro, money, and the forces reshaping the financial system. The stories behind the headlines.
969 posts
Ethiopian Electric Power slashed Bitcoin miner electricity to 23% of contracted supply after El Niño cut reservoir inflows by at least 20%, exposing the structural fragility of sov…
The House Financial Services Committee marks up H.R. 8957, the American Reserve Modernization Act, on September 16 at 10 a.m. ET, the first time a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve moves t…
CFTC Traders in Financial Futures data for the week ending Sept. 8 shows leveraged funds rebuilt ~1,669 BTC of net short across four Bitcoin futures markets. The headline reads bea…
The New Delhi Declaration commits BRICS to local-currency trade settlement and BRICS Pay interoperability. Iran, already routing trade outside SWIFT via bilateral deals with Russia…
The FOMC votes on interest rates September 16. The BEA revises the PCE price index, the Fed's own inflation target, back to 2021 just 14 days later. Governor Christopher Waller has…
The Treasury's August Monthly Treasury Statement shows the FY2026 deficit at $1.97 trillion through eleven months and gross interest expense at a record $1.4 trillion on a last-twe…
Iran-backed Houthis seized Mayyun Island on September 11, completing their takeover of Bab el-Mandeb. Hormuz has run at 7% of normal transit volume since late February. Saudi Arabi…
Real Macro CEO Jeff Currie told CNBC on September 10 that Brent above $107 and a $110/barrel diesel crack spread are the physical economy's bill coming due for a decade of underinv…
Senate Republicans dropped a revised Digital Asset Market Clarity Act ahead of a September 15 cloture vote. Passage odds sit around 16%, but the real stakes are whether self-custod…
August PPI came in at +0.4% MoM and +5.4% YoY, driven by a 24.1% monthly surge in diesel fuel prices. With the September 16 FOMC meeting six days away and CPI printing tomorrow, th…
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent went on X urging senators to vote yes on the September 15 cloture motion for the CLARITY Act, framing a no-vote as surrendering ground to adversari…
Treasury's OFAC sanctioned 36 targets on September 8-27 Iranian airlines plus foreign intermediaries in Turkey, Malaysia, and Kazakhstan, completing the U.S. campaign to blacklist…
Iran's IRGC Navy announced September 8 it seized a US Anduril Dive-LD autonomous underwater drone at the Strait of Hormuz entrance. The Pentagon hasn't confirmed it. The photograph…
Former Silvergate CEO Alan Lane published his first public account of the bank's 2023 wind-down, alleging a coordinated Biden administration campaign forced a solvent institution t…
China is bidding up crude from Africa, Canada, and Latin America as Iranian supply collapses under US sanctions. Congo's Djeno crude hit a $20/bbl premium over Brent this week, up…
Block filed with the OCC to charter Builders Bank & Trust, N.A., a national trust bank that would custody bitcoin under direct federal oversight and replace the company's patchwork…
Iran's central bank has quietly dropped the requirement for exporters to route foreign earnings through its official FX platform, allowing cross-border trade to settle via domestic…
MENA on-chain crypto volume tripled from $100B to $350B in three years, with Bitcoin dominance hitting 64.8% during the Israel-Iran conflict and P2P trading surging in Egypt after…
Japan's Cabinet Office revised Q2 2026 GDP to 1.4% annualized on September 8, but the internals are weak. The BOJ is set to hike into structural fiscal insolvency, and the shockwav…
Strategy repurchased 1,810,885 shares of STRC for $176.3M in the week ending September 7, bought zero bitcoin, and doubled its Digital Credit Securities Repurchase Program ceiling…
The Commoner
Independent writing by Marty Bent at TFTC since 2017. Money, markets, AI, energy and privacy, delivered free to your inbox.
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