Who controls your money, your data, and your compute, as it breaks. Bitcoin, markets, AI, and energy.
454 posts
Federal ethics disclosures show President Trump's managed accounts bought Strategy Inc. shares at 2026 lows in late July, while Strategy itself had paused Bitcoin purchases. MSTR h…
SEC Commissioner Mark Uyeda confirmed on the record that the agency dismissed at least a dozen Gensler-era crypto enforcement cases because litigating a '180-degree' policy reversa…
The US Treasury's $70 billion 5-year note auction on September 23, 2026 priced at 5.033%, producing the second-largest tail on record and the weakest bid-to-cover since December 20…
CoinRoutes co-founder Dave Weisberger argues the Basel 1,250% risk weight, forcing banks to hold capital dollar-for-dollar against Bitcoin, is the structural gate that institutiona…
BitGo CEO Mike Belshe argues the K-shaped economy is arithmetic, not accident: a 1968-era settlement system that limits asset-backed borrowing to the wealthy, supercharged by dolla…
Coinkite published a step-by-step guide on September 23 enabling anyone to clone the COLDCARD firmware repo, build a custom image, sign it with the public dev key, and run it on de…
Four decade-old Bitcoin wallets moved 1,971 BTC (~$161M) between Sept. 6 and Sept. 22, per Galaxy Research. Three carry Noah Doe lawsuit tags, linking the moves to a New York aband…
Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee warned in London on September 21 that geopolitically-driven supply shocks have rendered the Fed's standard playbook obsolete, and that bringin…
Russia's digital ruble went live September 1, 2026, with mandatory acceptance across major banks and retailers. Bitcoin payments remain illegal for ordinary citizens while the Krem…
The AAA national diesel average hit $6.51/gallon on September 21, 2026, a new all-time record roughly 75% above pre-Iran-war levels, as Russia weighs extending its export ban and U…
Saudi Arabia's central bank exited the China-backed mBridge CBDC platform on May 13, 2025. The fact wasn't publicly disclosed until September 2026. The gap tells you everything abo…
Strategy's SEC 8-K confirms 845,050 BTC held as of August 30, 2026, more than 4% of Bitcoin's 21 million hard cap, funded by $602.8M in equity proceeds. MSTR surged roughly 16% in…
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng opened all-day ministerial talks at JPMorgan's Manhattan headquarters on Sunday, four days before President Trum…
Every major AI lab 'breakout' this summer traced to the same third-party evaluator, Irregular, repeatedly failing to air-gap its sandbox. Two pre-IPO labs turned the vendor failure…
BlackRock's head of U.S. equity ETFs says Bitcoin's annualized volatility has dropped from roughly 80 to the 35-40 range, crediting IBIT and the options market it spawned for a str…
An AI-assisted researcher exposed a four-year Zcash counterfeiting vulnerability in a single day. Separately, a five-year Coldcard firmware entropy bug preceded more than $100 mill…
Cuba's national power grid went dark for the sixth time in 2026 after U.S. sanctions cut Venezuelan and Iranian oil supply lines. The island's Energy Minister has already confirmed…
OFAC designated Iranian crypto exchange BitBank on September 17, 2026, alleging it transferred hundreds of millions in Bitcoin to the IRGC between June and July. The action is part…
The Bank of Japan raised its policy rate to 1.25% on September 18, 2026, the highest since 1995. A 7-2 dissent sent the yen lower and put the entire tightening cycle in question. T…
Unsealed filings in NYT v. Microsoft reveal a company director privately called AI training on unlicensed content 'the largest theft of labor in human history', and warned the prac…
The Commoner
Independent writing by Marty Bent at TFTC since 2017. Money, markets, AI, energy and privacy, delivered free to your inbox.
Free, every weekday. Unsubscribe anytime using the link in each newsletter. By subscribing you agree to our Terms and acknowledge our Privacy Policy. Read recent issues.