PhD, GenAI Architect, Data Scientist, DeFi Researcher, Product Leader, Trader, Entrepreneur, metal aficionado, Opinions are my own. NFA.
Atlanta, GA
Joined July 2010
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Correct.
Think about the power Hegseth is asserting here. He is claiming that the DoD can force all contractors to stop doing business of any kind with arbitrary other companies.
In other words, every operating system vendor, every manufacturer of hardware, every hyperscaler, every type of firm the DoD contracts with—all their services and products can be denied to any economic actor at will by the Secretary of War.
This is obviously a psychotic power grab. It is almost surely illegal, but the message it sends is that the United States Government is a completely unreliable partner for any kind of business. The damage done to our business environment is profound. No amount of deregulatory vibes sent by this administration matters compared to this arson.
Preach Dario.
A statement from Anthropic CEO, Dario Amodei, on our discussions with the Department of War.
anthropic.com/news/statement…
Good take Jeff
If being popular was my goal, I’d jump on the cheerleading bandwagon for the announced strategic reserve as a game-changer like everyone else. Of course I am thrilled at the idea of a strategic reserve in the US where bitcoin is finally being recognized. But as someone who at times must be contrarian in seeking alpha, here are my thoughts for the many who follow me because I speak my mind for which I hope you’ll appreciate that my views are still at large as aligned with anyone else who wants to see broad bitcoin adoption at the sovereign level–
People are comparing the EO strategic reserve as a breakthrough moment like when the Bitcoin spot ETFs launched, where the ST price action might go down near term but eventual institutional flows would come in and this would be a game changer. I disagree with this comparison. I think this is more similar to the ProShares futures-based Bitcoin ETF launch moment in 2021. Because while it is true that BITO raised a lot of money at the peak of market exuberance, it also found a material ceiling for “real flows” as the product itself was fundamentally flawed. It also did not start the expected global arms race of spot ETFs to launch elsewhere. Eventually, we would learn that we really needed the real thing, the spot ETF 3 years later to truly unleash the moment. We needed the US to first launch the real thing, not the fake thing, for the rest of the world to follow. Yet make no mistake that BITO was helpful in bridging the gap.
In my opinion, EO Strategic Reserve represents a similarly imperfect outcome. An EO is a singular political directive that can stick or disappear as easily as Biden’s EO on gender-affirming care for minors or the EO that sought to restrain the AI industry. Without the collective power of legislation that reflects the will of the people’s coalition building, it is not likely the game-changing thing that kicks off a bunch of second order things people expect. People are generally already suspicious of the overreach of executive authority and one must account for there being a net negative that comes with these types of theatrics as well, especially for non-believers. So the question is: did we get enough net benefits against the costs?
At the core, we all know Trump is a transparently transactional person. He recognized that bitcoin, whether he believes in it or not, symbolized the ethos of his political capital and capitalized its base to the max to win the office. And all of this visually came down to this moment last night when you watch the video of his signing the EO. Before signing, he asks two questions: 1) "This is something YOU believe in, right?" 2) "And I made the promise, right?" What is happening here is a total relinquishment by transaction consummation. Trump is now officially “off the hook” for what the Bitcoin community did for him. If you want something else later, he’ll want something else from now on.
And so in my humble opinion, we asked for too little. Having only bitcoin and not the rest of the altcoins in the strategic reserve by framing that as if it should have even been a considered question is not a win. “Exploring” or “studying” concepts is not a win. “Not selling” is not a win. None of these things at the core require an EO at all to do anything. They are merely symbolic things that may kick off some events (or it may not). Comparing the current environment to Operation Chokepoint 2.0 and claiming we should now be “grateful” makes it sound like “being neutral” is itself a win. It’s not. Chokepoint 2.0, SAB 121 were evil things. That can’t be the benchmark for our industry to feel like we are owed to feel grateful for anything else. For the Bitcoin Roundtable fundraiser to have been one of the largest contributors to his election campaign, one must ask if this the “strategic reserve deal” that people had in mind at the time versus now. The fact that the Polymarket bet “Will Trump create bitcoin reserve in the first 100 days?” is still sitting at <50% “yes” today reflects the ambiguity of this expectation. In other words, promises were made, but the market is not sure if promises were kept, though the one thing for sure is that now Trump is off the hook.
Maybe this is the best we can do for now. It doesn’t mean the crypto council, policymakers, lobbyists and the executive team are not doing all the best they can. I’m sure they did and are. At the same time, it is rational to consider disappointment if this represents the culminating moment of peak performance since November and consider this is a short-term bearish set up. We are so used to being treated so badly that we are conditioned to think every small thing is the biggest win ever. My one ask for the industry is that we strive to set our bars higher, where we demand really meaningful things so we can celebrate really meaningful things, especially as we head into the heat of the two most important things that will come out of Congress: market structure and stablecoin legislations. We deserve it, and we helped elect a lot of people for it. Hold them all accountable for real progress. Then after the hard work is done, let's celebrate those wins when we cross the finish line.
Bryan Conklin retweeted
If being popular was my goal, I’d jump on the cheerleading bandwagon for the announced strategic reserve as a game-changer like everyone else. Of course I am thrilled at the idea of a strategic reserve in the US where bitcoin is finally being recognized. But as someone who at times must be contrarian in seeking alpha, here are my thoughts for the many who follow me because I speak my mind for which I hope you’ll appreciate that my views are still at large as aligned with anyone else who wants to see broad bitcoin adoption at the sovereign level–
People are comparing the EO strategic reserve as a breakthrough moment like when the Bitcoin spot ETFs launched, where the ST price action might go down near term but eventual institutional flows would come in and this would be a game changer. I disagree with this comparison. I think this is more similar to the ProShares futures-based Bitcoin ETF launch moment in 2021. Because while it is true that BITO raised a lot of money at the peak of market exuberance, it also found a material ceiling for “real flows” as the product itself was fundamentally flawed. It also did not start the expected global arms race of spot ETFs to launch elsewhere. Eventually, we would learn that we really needed the real thing, the spot ETF 3 years later to truly unleash the moment. We needed the US to first launch the real thing, not the fake thing, for the rest of the world to follow. Yet make no mistake that BITO was helpful in bridging the gap.
In my opinion, EO Strategic Reserve represents a similarly imperfect outcome. An EO is a singular political directive that can stick or disappear as easily as Biden’s EO on gender-affirming care for minors or the EO that sought to restrain the AI industry. Without the collective power of legislation that reflects the will of the people’s coalition building, it is not likely the game-changing thing that kicks off a bunch of second order things people expect. People are generally already suspicious of the overreach of executive authority and one must account for there being a net negative that comes with these types of theatrics as well, especially for non-believers. So the question is: did we get enough net benefits against the costs?
At the core, we all know Trump is a transparently transactional person. He recognized that bitcoin, whether he believes in it or not, symbolized the ethos of his political capital and capitalized its base to the max to win the office. And all of this visually came down to this moment last night when you watch the video of his signing the EO. Before signing, he asks two questions: 1) "This is something YOU believe in, right?" 2) "And I made the promise, right?" What is happening here is a total relinquishment by transaction consummation. Trump is now officially “off the hook” for what the Bitcoin community did for him. If you want something else later, he’ll want something else from now on.
And so in my humble opinion, we asked for too little. Having only bitcoin and not the rest of the altcoins in the strategic reserve by framing that as if it should have even been a considered question is not a win. “Exploring” or “studying” concepts is not a win. “Not selling” is not a win. None of these things at the core require an EO at all to do anything. They are merely symbolic things that may kick off some events (or it may not). Comparing the current environment to Operation Chokepoint 2.0 and claiming we should now be “grateful” makes it sound like “being neutral” is itself a win. It’s not. Chokepoint 2.0, SAB 121 were evil things. That can’t be the benchmark for our industry to feel like we are owed to feel grateful for anything else. For the Bitcoin Roundtable fundraiser to have been one of the largest contributors to his election campaign, one must ask if this the “strategic reserve deal” that people had in mind at the time versus now. The fact that the Polymarket bet “Will Trump create bitcoin reserve in the first 100 days?” is still sitting at <50% “yes” today reflects the ambiguity of this expectation. In other words, promises were made, but the market is not sure if promises were kept, though the one thing for sure is that now Trump is off the hook.
Maybe this is the best we can do for now. It doesn’t mean the crypto council, policymakers, lobbyists and the executive team are not doing all the best they can. I’m sure they did and are. At the same time, it is rational to consider disappointment if this represents the culminating moment of peak performance since November and consider this is a short-term bearish set up. We are so used to being treated so badly that we are conditioned to think every small thing is the biggest win ever. My one ask for the industry is that we strive to set our bars higher, where we demand really meaningful things so we can celebrate really meaningful things, especially as we head into the heat of the two most important things that will come out of Congress: market structure and stablecoin legislations. We deserve it, and we helped elect a lot of people for it. Hold them all accountable for real progress. Then after the hard work is done, let's celebrate those wins when we cross the finish line.
Wonder if we wick to low 70s prior to tariff day next Tuesday, perhaps during low liquidity weekend or US hours Monday..
Would be a nice setup for a v-shape rally if Trump delays tariffs on Tuesday
Excellent report on what’s coming. DeFi implications will be huge
1) What's Next for Hyperliquid
Key takeaways from my latest Messari report
The market is still underpricing the implications of the upcoming opportunities for $HYPE.
In my third report on Hyperliquid, I preview the next leg up through the 3 most exciting catalysts:
🧵👇
Model distillation is using a “teacher” model to train another with synthetic data it generates. This is standard practice. OpenAI and Anthropic have historically had the best reasoners and are naturally ideal candidates for teacher models.. 👇
🚨🇺🇸🇨🇳 MICROSOFT & OPENAI SUSPECT DEEPSEEK OF “BORROWING” THEIR TECH
Microsoft and OpenAI are investigating whether DeepSeek, a Chinese AI startup, helped itself to OpenAI’s data using its API.
Microsoft’s security team flagged suspicious large-scale data extraction in late 2023, suggesting DeepSeek may have sneakily bypassed restrictions to grab more than it paid for.
Not-so-coincidentally, DeepSeek just dropped “R1,” an AI model that supposedly rivals OpenAI, Google, and Meta—at a fraction of the cost.
The news sent tech stocks into meltdown mode, erasing nearly $1 trillion from companies like Microsoft, Nvidia, Oracle, and Google.
Investors weren’t thrilled about a potential AI leapfrogging moment.
Trump’s AI czar David Sacks:
"There’s substantial evidence that what DeepSeek did here is they distilled knowledge out of OpenAI models and I don’t think OpenAI is very happy about this.”
OpenAI isn’t naming names but warns China is constantly trying to siphon off US AI tech and says it’s working with the US government to lock things down.
Source: Bloomberg
Media Source: Reuters
This can all be done in an automated fashion with no human in the loop. However the major 1P providers spend time and resources aligning models (RLHF). This process is expensive and DeepSeek likely skipped it entirely since they’re resource constrained.
this would be an amazing thing, and not sure how you'd accomplish it technically. but a better use-case for btc hodlers is native btc bridge to HyperEVM with coin-margined trading against it. btc hodlers don't want to trade away their btc. they want to trade *against* it.
2025 predictions:
1. ai will go into defi via defi-enabled agents
2. btc top at 160k
3. eth top at 6500
4. sol top at 350
5. memes without ai underperform
6. quality ai projects outperform
7. nvda flips aapl mc