Dr. Mark Stephany’s The Ethics of Immutability weaves Bitcoin’s technical foundation with existentialist philosophy, arguing that the true revolution lies not only in decentralized money but in personal responsibility. He highlights Satoshi Nakamoto’s anonymity and decision to leave his estimated 1 million BTC untouched as an ethical example of selflessness and integrity. Drawing on Simone de Beauvoir’s The Ethics of Ambiguity, Stephany frames freedom as reciprocal, enhanced or depleted when others are free or not, and sees Bitcoin’s open, censorship-resistant design as a practical instantiation of that principle. The blockchain’s immutability becomes both metaphor and moral challenge: “if your life’s choices were encoded like transactions in an immutable ledger, would you be proud of the record?” Stephany concludes that Bitcoiners must go beyond HODLing, embracing action, solidarity, and innovation to ensure Bitcoin remains a tool for human freedom, accountability, and legacy.
-EDITOR·OP_DAILY SHARE TO X
The Treasury Department and IRS have tightened rules on when clean energy projects qualify for tax credits, reports Erin Schilling and Erin Slowey for Bloomberg. In new guidance, the agencies eliminated the long-standing “5% safe harbor” that allowed developers to claim eligibility by paying a fraction of project costs upfront, instead requiring physical construction work to begin. The exception applies only to small-scale solar facilities under 1.5 megawatts, which may still use the safe harbor. The move follows President Donald Trump’s directive to “strictly enforce” credit phaseouts under the GOP tax law, aimed at preventing “artificial acceleration or manipulation of eligibility.” Wind and solar projects now face tighter timelines, with construction required within a year or completion by 2027 to qualify. Developers are expected to accelerate work amid fears of lost incentives, reshaping investment strategies across the renewable energy sector.
-EDITOR·OP_DAILY SHARE TO X
During World War II, psychologist B.F. Skinner trained pigeons to guide missiles, convinced the birds’ trial-and-error learning offered a window into intelligence. As Ben Crair reports in MIT Technology Review, those experiments helped establish reinforcement learning, an approach later dismissed by mainstream psychology but embraced by computer scientists. Today, reinforcement learning underpins many of the world’s most advanced AI systems, from Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo Zero to OpenAI’s reasoning models. Richard Sutton, who with Andrew Barto won the 2024 Turing Award, calls it “basically instrumental learning,” directly inspired by animal behavior. The “bitter lesson,” Sutton argues, is that AI progress has come not from mimicking human cognition but from scaling the pigeon’s simple associative processes. Researchers now suggest that pigeons themselves may be far more cognitively sophisticated than once thought, with associative learning offering a common foundation for both natural and artificial intelligence.
-EDITOR·OP_DAILY SHARE TO X
HIVE Blockchain has pledged 1,565 BTC as deposits for new mining hardware purchases, leveraging its balance sheet to cut operating costs while expanding global capacity. In its latest earnings report, the company disclosed a deal with Bitmain for 16,560 S21+ Antminers, totaling 3.57 EH/s, along with a call option for another 15,000 S21+ Hydro rigs. Notably, HIVE structured payments in bitcoin with the ability to repurchase at the original strike price, a hedge that preserved upside when it recently reclaimed 86 BTC at $88,000 as prices neared $100,000. The company’s Paraguay expansion, fueled by facilities acquired from Bitfarms, drove a 39% increase in quarterly bitcoin production and reduced all-in power costs across regions. TheMinerMag estimates HIVE’s fleet hashcost has fallen to $34.5/PH/s, underscoring how flexible equipment deals and diversified energy sourcing are reshaping miner economics.
-EDITOR·OP_DAILY SHARE TO X
