Pete

[Electroverse @Electroversenet]

In 2016, the Netherlands Meteorological Institute adjusted temperatures at De Bilt, the country's main climate station.

Daily maximums from 1901 to 1950 were lowered by up to 1.9C, which removed 16 of 23 heatwaves from the record.

The altered data were then used to claim modern heatwaves were unprecedented.

Four researchers challenged the changes, but the institute dismissed the criticism, so the analysis went to peer review. In 2021, it was published, conclusively demonstrating the institute's method systematically erased historical heat extremes.

Today, the Meteorological Institute has quietly changed its approach, and as a result, seven erased heatwaves have been restored, including the extreme summer of 1947.

Here again, we have a government agency caught rewriting climate history. The Netherlands Meteorological Institute erased heatwaves of the past, ignored critics, and reinstated the truth only when the evidence became impossible to ignore.

Policies were built on that manipulated record. Dutch farmers lost livelihoods. Industry and the wider economy paid the price. But accountability is coming.

[Kevin Bass @kevinnbass]

I have conducted an audit of Anthropic's finances.

What I have found is so shocking that I am calling for a Congressional investigation.

Anthropic is not just seeking regulatory capture.

It has built a regulatory capture machine that cannot be turned off.

Structural financial incentives make it impossible for Anthropic -- I call it the Anthropic Network -- to turn off its own AI doom cycle.

It starts with METR.

Dario Amodei proposes "third-party evaluators" to assess the risk of Anthropic's models.

He proposes METR for this purpose.

But METR is financially dependent on the Anthropic's success -- specifically, on the explosive growth of more than $7 billion dollars in Anthropic stock.

Dustin Moskovitz invested this stock into Good Ventures Foundation, where it represents the majority of that organization's portfolio.

And GVF is the overwhelming funder of the entire Anthropic Network ecosystem.

This stock was worth $500 million early last year.

It is worth more than $7.7 billion just ~16 months later.

METR -- and all of those building a career its parent organizations -- cannot afford to disrupt that growth.

Because if Anthropic goes under, many of the organizations that fund METR go under as well.

But if Anthropic succeeds, METR and its parent organizations become more richly financed to regulate AI -- something those at METR want very much.

The "third-party evaluator" is not "third-party" at all.

The evaluator is on Anthropic's payroll.

If this were the end of it, that's bad.

But that isn't all.

The same organizations that fund METR also fund the many organizations, such as the Tarbell Center, that promote AI Doom.

The Tarbell Center publishes AI Doom articles in The Verge, Science, LA Times, The Dispatch, TIME, and others.

They are selling the problem, and then selling the solution to the problem -- from the same money pile: Anthropic's.

All of these organizations are financially dependent on the same exploding $7 billion money pile.

As Anthropic grows more and more powerful, its AI Doom Machine grows better and better financed -- louder and louder.

Meanwhile, the regulatory regime seeded in METR grows larger to solve the increasingly loud -- now hysterical -- problem of AI Doom that the Anthropic Network itself created.

From this standpoint, as Anthropic becomes more powerful, AI might be getting scarier, sure -- but the positive feedback loop also becomes more deafening -- independent of objective facts.

This itself is an objective fact.

The deafening AI Doom is part of an business model, that, as it expands, so too does the AI Doom messaging -- there is simply more money to do it.

But the problem also goes in the other direction:

If Anthropic dies, the Regulatory Regime and the AI Doom Machine are crippled or die.

Neither METR nor Tarbell nor the other organizations in the Anthropic Network can allow that to happen.

Hence, neither METR or the AI Doom Machine can be trusted to provide independent assessments of Anthropic's models or AI more broadly.

They simply are not organizations independent of Anthropic.

And Anthropic cannot detach itself from METR or Tarbell or countless other safety orgs (not shown here), either, because they drive hype for the models and the possibility of eventual regulatory capture, and Anthropic will not give that up willingly.

What's more, the people at all of these organizations are all the same ecosystem, the same community. They just shuffle between organizations.

The Anthropic Network is therefore, so long as it is successful, locked into a self-amplifying feedback loop inside an ideological monoculture.

And that feedback loop is winning.

That's what Jacob Coxon is.

China is keeping messaging tight. That is why optimism for AI is so high in China.

America has Anthropic: a massive company pushing anti-AI propaganda at a state level.

Anthropic will either create hysteria until American AI slows down and China wins, or it will create fractures throughout American society with severe political consequences.

Ironically, because of the structural financial incentives underpinning the Anthropic Network, it has become the same kind of self-amplifying virus that it fantasizes AI to become in the future -- while hiding its tracks just as carefully.

It is the mirror of the same AI virus that it hypothesizes to consume America.

Anthropic's business model, models itself after the very thing it claims to fear.

Except Anthropic's ideology infects humans, not computers.

Congress must investigate.

Evidence and Github in next post.

Then some supplementary figures.

[Acronym Foundation @AcronymFNDN]

8.8 million crypto card payments in a single month.

The important shift to note here isn't just volume, it’s abstraction. Digital assets are increasingly moving through familiar financial products without requiring consumers or merchants to change how they transact.

Adoption accelerates when modern rails fit into familiar experiences.

[Bri Teresi @briteresi]

Why Flexa Co-Founder Tyler Spalding Is Bullish on Zano 👀| Free the Money Ep. 40

@Trspalding is President of the @AcronymFNDN and the former Co-Founder & CEO of @FlexaHQ, a digital payments network. He has been mining and building in crypto since 2011 and has more than 20 years of experience across technology, payments and aerospace, including engineering work with the U.S. Air Force and NASA programs. His work in crypto and Web3 has spanned a number of projects, including @Anvil_xyz and @Spenders_club, with a longstanding focus on payments and bringing digital assets into real-world use.

In this episode, Tyler shares his perspective on what it will actually take for digital assets to become usable money and why privacy is essential for adoption at scale. For the first time publicly, Tyler discusses his longtime support for Zano, what he believes the project has gotten right, and why its approach to privacy and security has positioned it ahead of the curve in preparing for emerging AI threats.

We also discuss stablecoins, private digital dollars, Zano’s Hard Fork 6, cross-chain interoperability & Zcash. Tyler makes the case for Proof of Stake over Proof of Work, including the security risks he sees in PoW networks, and we explore the bigger challenge of moving crypto from something people simply hold to something they can privately and securely spend in the real world.

Remember to subscribe and hit the bell “🔔” icon to get notifications.

Want financial privacy? Check out my favorite privacy coin @zano_project

You can buy Zano seamlessly on MEXC using a VPN, or browse the full list of exchanges where Zano is available here: https://t.co/JBLBJ8WDtG

You can also find educational content, tutorials, and interviews on the official Zano YouTube Channel: https://t.co/DDYOYwjFq0

0:0 Background

2:46 Why Bitcoin Changed Everything for Tyler in 2011

5:48 Stablecoins & Digital Dollars: “Money Is Really Equal to Debt”

10:55 Discovering Zano: Why Tyler Became an Early Supporter

14:12 Why Privacy Is 100% Vital for Crypto Mass Adoption

19:53 Zano Confidential Assets: Bringing Privacy to Bitcoin & Crypto

24:38 Spending Private Zcash in the Real World With Flexa

27:49 Zano Hard Fork 6: Gateway Addresses & Cross-Chain Integration

31:19 Zcash vs. Zano

32:35 Freedom Dollar: The Private Stablecoin Built on Zano

35:56 AI Hacks: The Growing Security Threat to Crypto

39:15 How Proof of Work Vulnerable to a 51% Attack

45:50 Why Proof of Stake Could Be the Future of Crypto

46:34 Digital Spenders Club: Making Crypto Spendable in the Real World

51:38 No KYC: Paying Merchants Directly With Crypto

52:39 Tyler Spalding’s Must-Read Books on Money

54:19 Economic Finality

[Acronym Foundation @AcronymFNDN]

As markets outpace the financial infrastructure beneath them, protocols and tools that put digital assets to productive use are becoming essential to closing that gap and moving finance forward.

@CoinDesk Research’s recent report outlines how @anvil_xyz puts “dead capital” to work as collateral to back secured credit.

[Anvil 🛠️ @anvil_xyz]

741 million people hold over $2.3T in digital assets, yet much of that value remains disconnected from the broader financial system.

Meanwhile, financial services are either providing outdated collateral-backed solutions or simply unsecured credit.

In an interview with @jchains from @W3BCMedia, @m_at_anvil explains why Anvil built a dedicated collateral management layer to bridge that gap, enabling a way to provide fast, secure, universal credit.

[Anvil 🛠️ @anvil_xyz]

https://t.co/cHlsCA5KpR

[Trevor Filter @trev]

That was a fun space! @realupneet and I set a new record for most questions answered in one hour, and I got a chance to share a bit more about what’s been happening at @usefinal (plus, I actually remembered to hit the “record” button this time). https://t.co/53wnW58Gpu

[Amp @ampdotxyz]

@base and every one of them needs settlement that's instant and final. no waiting, no reversals. ethereum:0xff20817765cb7f73d4bde2e66e067e58d11095c2.

[Tyler Winklevoss @tyler]

You can now live on crypto and spend it at more than 30,000 retail locations across the United States. $AMP @amptoken - the collateral token of the DeFi-backed @FlexaHQ payment network - will be available for trading on Gemini in less than 2hrs. Let's go!

[AMPash29🐂🀄️ @AMPash29]

3.2 million followers of @CoinDesk need to go check out what @trspalding has built at @FlexaHQ and more recently @anvil_xyz @acr_nym_fdn

DeFi reshaping collateral describes Tyler perfectly.

$AMP $ANVL

[Pete @8002Pete]

@trev @realupneet Could you please comment on any commercial transaction this could lead to? Any launch partners looking to implement crypto payments in their business?

[Flexa @FlexaHQ]

Now live in Europe. 🇪🇺

Flexa is expanding its regulated money movement platform across 37 SEPA countries and territories.

Our infrastructure for moving value of any kind across borders and between digital and fiat currencies is now available to the broader European region, giving businesses, institutions, and developers a single regulated platform for moving digital assets and stablecoins wherever they need to go.

One platform. Instant authorization. Guaranteed settlement.

Read the full announcement: https://t.co/yElHPJW6UQ

[Trevor Filter @trev]

This is a launch I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. Getting Flexa live in Europe meant taking our high standards for compliance and seamless experience and bringing them with fresh eyes to one of the most demanding and exciting markets in the world.

We wanted to be set up to operate in the EU for the long haul—and today is a significant step forward in our work toward stitching a global infrastructure for the best digital asset payments and payouts experience, period.

[Wim den Oudsten @WimdenOudsten]

Wisten jullie dat Ab Osterhaus, de man die Nederland jarenlang waarschuwde voor “de volgende pandemie”, tegelijkertijd:

- oprichter was van Viroscience Erasmus MC (waar Koopmans, Fouchier, Kuiken en Rimmelzwaan vandaan komen)

- mede-oprichter van het Global Virus Network dat rechtstreeks gefinancierd wordt door de Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (€16-20 miljoen aan zijn centra)

- jarenlang voorzitter was van ESWI (de Europese influenza-lobby
met Pfizer, Sanofi en GSK als hoofdsponsors)

- eigen laboratorium ViroClinics had dat COVID-tests en vaccin-trials uitvoerde voor farmaceuten

- regelmatig sprak op het World Economic Forum naast mensen als Sigrid Kaag en Stéphane Bancel (CEO Moderna)

- en toch in de media steevast werd voorgesteld als “onafhankelijke viroloog”

Kortom: dezelfde man die ons vertelde dat we moesten oppassen voor “gain-of-function” en “de volgende zoönose” zat zélf in het centrum van de financiering, de lobby en de internationale netwerken die die onderzoeken mogelijk maakten én er miljarden aan verdienden.

Kleine wereld, hè?

[Matt Beall @MBeallX]

Bealls is (still) the only national retailer who accepts crypto. Check out bealls, we’re awesome. 😎 you probably won’t go back to wherever you’re shopping today... the place that doesn’t accept crypto and who overcharges you. 😊

[Daniel McCabe @dannymccb]

3. I’m confident. Flexa remains the most regulated crypto payments processor in the entire industry, and we’re still chasing more licenses. I know—because I hear it all the time from our customers—that Flexa has the best omnichannel crypto acceptance product out there. No one does enterprise crypto payments better than Flexa, and it’s not even close.

[Daniel McCabe @dannymccb]

2. We’re working tirelessly. The Flexa team is grinding it out, week after week. When we’re not building, we are meeting with the largest merchants and payment providers to help assemble their acceptance strategies—crypto payments from people, suppliers, agents, etc. The whole system needs an upgrade.

[Daniel McCabe @dannymccb]

1. Today, yesterday, the day before, etc.—our team is 100% dedicated to the mission of helping sellers thrive in the next era of commerce. We’ve always said this is a multi-decade effort, and nothing has changed. We will fight for a faster, more efficient, more accessible payments ecosystem until we achieve it.