WEDNESDAY, JUL15
1. Freedom funding gap, 2. Hassabis AI plan, 3. CleanSpark $6.6B lease, 4. NY halts data centers
From Proto and Bitkey - part of the Bitcoin ecosystem at Block, Inc.
1. philanthropy
According to a Journal of Democracy essay by Tim Reynolds and Alvaro Salas-Castro, philanthropy has made a structural error by funding outcomes like education, health and climate while starving the freedom that makes those gains durable. Of roughly $900 billion in annual global giving, the authors write that less than one percent flows to freedom, democracy and civil liberties, with education alone drawing more than twenty five times as much support and even animal welfare out-funding civil liberties. Reynolds chairs the Reynolds Foundation and Salas-Castro serves as its president, alongside founding the Democracy Lab Foundation. The essay reframes the gap not as a moral failing but as a mispriced asset, proposing that funders treat freedom as an asset class with tools to target risk and measure what they call “Freedom Alpha” across regime types. For a freedom-tech audience, the argument reads as a market thesis: raising freedom funding to ten percent of giving over the next decade is framed as an overdue correction rather than charity.2. frontier
Google DeepMind co-founder and CEO Demis Hassabis called Tuesday for a new US-led AI standards body with power to screen frontier models before release and coordinate an industry-wide slowdown if dangers mount, according to his essay, A Framework for Frontier AI and the Dawning of a New Age. Hassabis proposed a FINRA-style, industry-funded watchdog where labs would share models voluntarily up to 30 days before launch for testing on cyber, biological, and deception risks, with mandatory review to follow once the process proves workable, applying to open and closed models regardless of country of origin. Non-frontier models from startups or academia would be exempt. He argued the current moment demands cautious optimism, with commercial and geopolitical competition outpacing understanding of the technology, and said he believes AGI is only a few years away. For a freedom-tech audience, a voluntary industry body escalating toward mandatory government-backed review is a template worth watching, since the same centralizing logic could eventually reach other general-purpose technologies.3. cleanspark
CleanSpark has signed a 20-year, triple-net lease with an undisclosed high-investment-grade global technology company at its Sandersville, Georgia campus, the bitcoin miner announced Tuesday, expected to generate about $6.6 billion in contracted revenue and up to $11.6 billion if two five-year extension options are exercised. The lease covers 175 megawatts of critical IT load, with deliveries beginning in the fourth quarter of 2027, and CleanSpark projects a net operating income contribution margin near 100 percent, or about $330 million annually. CEO Matt Schultz called the deal validation of the company’s strategy of building “the second-mover advantage” by growing its portfolio before executing once the market matured. The same tenant separately signed a letter of intent and exclusivity arrangement covering CleanSpark’s entire 718-acre, 885-megawatt Texas portfolio across its Sealy and Brazoria campuses, positioning Sandersville as the first chapter of a larger relationship. The deal extends how bitcoin miners are converting stranded power contracts into long-duration AI revenue, treating energized land as the scarce asset rather than the hardware sitting on it.4. moratorium
New York has become the first US state to halt construction of large new data centers, with Governor Kathy Hochul imposing a one-year moratorium on facilities that use 50 megawatts or more, according to Reuters. Hochul said data-center development threatens to raise utility bills and deplete natural resources, and she will also pursue legislation to repeal the sales-tax exemption for hyperscale facilities. During the pause, the state will develop consistent environmental standards, and the ban lifts once those are finalized. For an audience tracking the energy-and-compute collision, the move is a turning point: the same surging power appetite driving miners and hyperscalers to lock up energized land is now colliding with the political limits of the grids that serve residents. A Reuters/Ipsos poll found only one in three Americans approve of the fast pace of data-center construction. Dozens of state legislatures have floated limits, but New York is the first to enact a full freeze, sharpening the competitive geography as capacity-restricted states push investment toward places like Texas and Ohio.Consider subscribing and sharing OP_Daily with your community.