Bitcoin miners are once again operating under survival conditions as hashprice slips near $42 per PH/s, signaling razor-thin margins, Miner Weekly reports. The retracement from $120,000 to roughly $100,000 per bitcoin has rippled upstream to manufacturers like Bitmain, which structured large orders in bitcoin collateral. American Bitcoin Corporation pledged 2,776 BTC, worth $333 million at the time, for 17,000 new ASICs, a deal now underwater as prices fall. “The math flips,” Miner Weekly notes, with Bitmain potentially collecting BTC worth far less over the next two years. Still, the arrangement shifts risk toward the manufacturer, reflecting miners’ regained bargaining power. Public firms are tightening liquidity, with CleanSpark selling nearly all October output and Marathon reporting trading losses. Meanwhile, AI-focused peers like IREN and Cipher secured multi-billion-dollar GPU contracts with Microsoft and AWS, underscoring the capital rotation from Bitcoin to other 21st century compute infrastructure.
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A new RAND Corporation report by Michael J. Mazarr, Amanda Kerrigan, and Benjamin Lenain outlines a framework for stabilizing the increasingly volatile U.S.–China rivalry. Funded by RAND supporter Peter Richards, the study finds that both nations face escalating risks of “outright military conflict, economic warfare, and political subversion.” The authors argue stabilization is essential, not through “collaborative coexistence,” which they deem unrealistic, but via pragmatic guardrails to prevent crises. Key recommendations include renewed communication between senior officials, mutual acceptance of each other’s political legitimacy, and formal mechanisms to manage risks in cyber competition, nuclear deterrence, and emerging technologies. On Taiwan and the South China Sea, the report proposes deterrence combined with confidence-building and restraint. RAND concludes that even modest cooperation on shared humanitarian or technological concerns could “preserve limited areas for positive coordination,” helping avoid destructive escalation in the world’s most consequential rivalry.
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In Mises Wire, Ryan McMaken argues that widespread government dependence, from food stamps to defense contracting, undermines democratic integrity by creating “a conflict of interest at the ballot box.” Citing recent data showing roughly 42 million Americans receive food stamps and over 70 million depend on Social Security, McMaken estimates that nearly half of U.S. adults receive taxpayer-funded income or benefits. He extends the critique to include federal employees, the military, and contractors, claiming “there is no difference at all,” between their compensation and welfare transfers from a fiscal standpoint. Drawing on Ludwig von Mises’s Bureaucracy, he warns that democracy cannot survive when “a great part of the voters are on the government pay roll,” as such groups vote to perpetuate public spending. McMaken concludes that runaway debt is “baked into the system” absent drastic political upheaval.
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Bitcoin over Gold: An Ethical, Ideological, and Strategic Case by Scott Wolfe makes the case that Bitcoin, unlike gold, embodies the moral and institutional values of liberal democracy. Wolfe argues that while gold has become the reserve of authoritarian regimes seeking opacity and control, Bitcoin represents “an open-source, decentralized, and censorship-resistant system” aligned with property rights and civil liberties. Tracing its roots to 1970s cryptography and the cypherpunk movement, he highlights figures like Judith “St. Jude” Milhon for linking technical freedom to social empowerment. The essay contrasts gold’s centralizability, exemplified by FDR’s 1933 confiscation order and modern state hoarding, with Bitcoin’s transparency, self-custody, and resistance to seizure. Wolfe further underscores Bitcoin’s environmental advantages, financial inclusion, and circular economies worldwide, concluding that “Bitcoin is peaceful resistance, democratic infrastructure, and a promise of sovereignty for all who choose to hold their own keys.”
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The contrast between traditional miners in survival mode and IREN securing multi-billion GPU deals with Microsft really highlights the importnce of strategic pivoting. While hashprice compression is hurting pure miners, IREN's dual aproach with Bitcoin and AI compute is looking smart. That capital rotation from mining to 21st century infrastrucure seems like the right move.