Sam Lyman

Head of Research @bitcoinpolicy | Fmr Senior Advisor & Chief Speechwriter to @SecScottBessent | @Forbes Contributor | @PrincetonSPIA alum

[Sam Lyman @SamLyman33]

NEW: BPI research reveals that a Marxist-Leninist group with documented ties to China has been a critical mobilizer in efforts that have blocked or delayed $23.6 billion in AI investment in the US.

Its scalps include 10 data center moratoria, 1 permanent data center ban, and 4 rejected or scrapped AI projects.

In Part II of our foreign influence investigation, BPI exposes the Party for Socialism and Liberation (or PSL) as the political arm of Shanghai-based Neville Singham, and lays bare a national campaign launched by the party to stop America’s data center buildout.

Singham is the subject of multiple federal investigations into his reported ties to the CCP. Our research uncovers the anti-data-center organizing of his activist vehicle, the PSL, across 21 campaigns in 14 states, in roles ranging from lead organizer to one member of a broader coalition.

This report adds to the mounting evidence that China and its surrogates are committed to stopping America’s data center buildout so that Beijing can gain the advantage in the AI race.

[Sam Lyman @SamLyman33]

This campus was just one of many.

The CCP-aligned PSL successfully blocked or delayed $24 billion in data center investment here in the US.

The nonprofit/activist ecosystem is massive vector for foreign influence.

Read our full report here:
https://t.co/fMk5xTjcbK

[Sam Lyman @SamLyman33]

Fun fact: The woman pictured here credited the viral success of her campaign to the Party for Socialism and Liberation, a China proxy organization operating here in the United States.

PSL is the political arm of the Shanghai-based Neville Roy Singham, an avowed Marxist multimillionaire who has bankrolled anti-American, pro-CCP nonprofits to the tune of $278 million.

Singham’s political foot soldiers have been boots on the ground in dozens of anti-data center fights across the country. But striking down the $5 billion data center campus in Landover, MD, was by far their biggest scalp.

In the ongoing campaign against American AI, cui bono?

More than anyone, it’s our chief political adversary.

[Polymarket @Polymarket]

JUST IN: Maryland activist helps block a $5B AI data center planned for the site of an abandoned shopping mall that closed 24 years ago, after gathering over 25,000 signatures.

[Sam Lyman @SamLyman33]

@ChrisDeMuthJr Our nonprofit ecosystem is especially vulnerable. Stay tuned ...

[Sam Lyman @SamLyman33]

Add Physical Superintelligence to the list of frontier AI companies solving math.

Huge breakthrough here with a model that found a proof of the Aaronson‑Ambainis conjecture, which could have powerful implications for quantum computing.

[Physical Superintelligence @psipbc]

Today Physical Superintelligence PBC is announcing a proof of the Aaronson-Ambainis conjecture, one of the central open problems in quantum complexity, with major implications for quantum computing speedup.

https://t.co/sAewkKdSOu

Thread 👇

[BMTV @watchbmtv]

BPI's Zack Cohen on how a de minimis tax exemption could get Americans spending Bitcoin:

"Every time they buy a coffee, they don't have to keep track of the transaction."

"We would see a lot of Bitcoins come out of this state of just being held and move through the economy and actually stimulate the economy."

[Sam Lyman @SamLyman33]

Christianity offers its followers immunity from secular mind viruses like effective altruism.

Why? Because it tells a far more powerful story.

"We as humans are His image-bearers, not units of welfare whose value must be calculated."

A must-read from @NathanLeamerDC in @TGC

[Nathan Leamer @NathanLeamerDC]

For years I have read @TGC, so it was an honor to write this essay on the shortcomings of the secular philosophy of Effective Altruism.

At first glance, its call to do the most good possible sounds like something Jesus might say.

Yet Christianity places those truths inside a much larger story, one where goodness is defined not by our calculations but by God himself.

https://t.co/nIW70rb2aH

[Sam Lyman @SamLyman33]

AI agents have the potential to unlock trillions of dollars in economic activity. But only if we get the regulation right.

Alex draws up a great roadmap here 👇

[Alexander Grieve @AlexanderGrieve]

Personal agents are everywhere (Muse! Instinct! Hermes! GrokBot! Dots! Duet!).

And, increasingly, they're running into walls – similar walls to the ones banks threw up during the Open Banking fights of the past decade, as fintech users struggled to connect their apps to their bank-held financial data.

It's time for Open Agentic Commerce.

In Dodd-Frank Section 1033, the backbone of Open Banking, the definition of “consumer” reads: “an individual or an agent, trustee, or representative acting on behalf of an individual.” Congress obviously wasn’t contemplating AI agents when it wrote Dodd-Frank — but technology changing doesn’t obviate the underlying principle: consumers should be able to choose who, or what, transacts on their behalf.

Banks and companies like Amazon have real, legitimate concerns about agents becoming vectors for fraud or unauthorized transactions. But those are arguments for building portals for secure access, not for prohibiting agents altogether. Open Banking offers a useful lesson here, in that secure, standardized interfaces are preferable to forcing third parties into credential sharing or screen scraping.

We propose some basic guidance that relevant regulators (FTC, OCC, CFPB) could consider to help the market to coalesce around open norms before incumbents obtain sufficient lock-in, freezing the current landscape to their advantage.

With standards like these established, agents can make decisions that better serve the consumer, and will index on things like quality or price, rather than being funneled into a constrained set of options.

The push for Open Banking resulted in better experiences and lower prices for consumers. As agents become principal commercial actors, it is imperative that we lay the groundwork now so that an agent acting on your behalf is equally capable – if not more so – of delivering value and cost savings to you as you would be acting on your own.

Read our proposal below:

[Sam Lyman @SamLyman33]

It was a massive quarter for BPI, including the announcement of a new partnership with the State Department, Congressional testimony, and the President's endorsement of Data Center Dividends.

Dive deeper here 👇

[Bitcoin Policy Institute @bitcoinpolicy]

Bitcoin Policy Institute’s Quarterly Report for Q3 is live.

You can read about our Freedom Tech DC summit with Jack Dorsey and Michael Saylor, our new State Department partnership, Sam Lyman’s congressional testimony, our latest policy proposals, and much more.

Attached below is the executive summary. You can access the full report here:
https://t.co/XkDjqBOYpJ

[Sam Lyman @SamLyman33]

The beauty of Data Center Dividends is they can be paid entirely by the surplus tax revenue generated from data centers.

We're talking dividend payments of up to $8,900 per family per year. And that's after doubling the budget for schools, infrastructure projects, and public works in some locales.

In other words, no new taxes needed, and therefore no room for extortion.

I appreciate Adam's thoughtful critique here. But it misses just how much additional revenue data centers generate in towns that have extremely small populations to begin with.

Data centers are unlike any tax-revenue driver rural counties have ever seen. And the excess revenue is better spent by the families who live there than local government bureaucrats, who, let's be honest, are not exactly the world's best capital allocators.

We introduced the idea of Data Center Dividends last month in a research report that lays out their structure and the mechanics of how they could work to create a win-win for rural Americans and data center developers alike.

Read Adam's Substack post. It's thoughtful, and it flags a legitimate risk.

Then read our report, which explains how to mitigate that risk to pave the way for American reindustrialization👇
https://t.co/8mp8twDVjw

[Adam Thierer @AdamThierer]

These data center "dividend" schemes like what President Trump is now apparently floating (i.e., forcing data center developers to cut checks to people or provide other kickbacks to local governments as a condition of receiving the blessing to build) will just become a massive political shakedown racket over time.

​Those of you who are familiar with public ​choice economics understand the concept of a "milker bill." A milker bill is a law or some sort of proposal that policymakers float for the express purpose of just bleeding a particular industry or constituency dry of cash​ in exchange for political favors or kickbacks. Well, now we're going to have a variant of that except that it'll be data center milker proposals.

Pretty soon data center firms will be expected to not only be cutting a check to everybody in town, but to also fund every single school, to build every new fire station, and to name any local stadium or convention center as the price of admission to constructing a new facility in a state or local community. (And don’t forget about those campaign contribution checks that every lawmaker will be expecting to get in the mail, too!)

We've already seen some state and local officials talk about this openly. ​​In August, Ian Ullman, deputy director of Maryland Gov. Wes Moore's Maryland Energy Administration, told county officials who had enacted data-center moratoriums to use that time to negotiate for favors. His advice was remarkably explicit: “And make your wish list. This is the time.” Ullman said that counties willing to negotiate can “extract meaningful investment.” Likewise, San José Mayor Matt Mahan wants to pump data centers for money to finance affordable housing, parks, and home solar systems. Other state and local officials have looked to get data center developers to pony up cash or provide other deliverables as a condition of approval to build. Importantly, the threat of moratoriums or outright bans looms large in every negotiation now. ‘PAY UP OR GET OUT’ is the implicit (and sometimes quite explicit) message.

When people talk about investing in a community, the very act of building a new facility and business from the ground up IS an act of investing in that community. The jobs, tax revenues, and other benefits these firms create ARE investments in a community. If those firms want to go and also cut checks to people or make other community contributions, that's their business. But now we're off and running with a totally different sort of political extortion racket that threatens to make the entire enterprise of building very unprofitable very quickly. The distortionary effects here are significant in terms of whether or not the underlying investment happens at all, and clearly only much larger firms are in a position to pay the bribe to get the facilities built to begin with.

We hear a lot of talk from people today about the need for America to start "building again" and get serious about infrastructure development by reshoring and reinvesting in local communities. But then when a certain sector starts doing exactly that and provides massive investment to communities across America, what do we do? Apparently we now say ‘no thank you’ and then tell them that if they do want to build again and invest in communities that they first need to cut checks for the privilege of getting permission to build again. That's just not the way government should operate in America.

Meanwhile, China is currently encouraging a massive build out of data center capacity, welcoming the investment it brings to their communities, and enjoying the potential broader geopolitical benefits that will be associated with it as they look to overtake the United States in the race for global technology supremacy.

As they say, progress is a choice. So is national decline.

[Sam Lyman @SamLyman33]

ICYMI: POTUS has been touting "Data Center Dividends" - using surplus tax revenue from data centers to provide yearly payments to families in rural towns.

BPI laid out 3 paths for data center dividends last month: the dividend, credit, and endowment models.

Dive deeper here👇

[Innovation Council @innovationcncl]

🚨 President Trump says data center companies should invest in the communities where they operate.

“Ask for money. They got plenty of money!”

He points to Louisiana, where a data center deal includes payments of up to $50,000 for teachers.

[Sam Lyman @SamLyman33]

Every game, without fail.

GO COUGS!

[Sam Lyman @SamLyman33]

Data Center Dividends can jiu jitsu political momentum in the data center debate to favor families & builders.

Every data center town can build a micro-sovereign wealth fund, ensuring rural prosperity for decades to come.

A must-read from @t1Maverick in @AmericanIntel_ 👇

[American Intelligence @AmericanIntel_]

"Capital investment driving AI buildout creates a once-in-a-generation opportunity for local communities. They should make existing industry offers standard, permanent, and more generous for the American people they represent."

@t1Maverick, On Data Center Dividends 👇

[Maverick @t1Maverick]

great write up by @SamLyman33

https://t.co/p7wsxOQNnt

sam shows that each GW of compute (located in the average rural county) can support yearly transfers, or credits, worth thousands of dollars for each resident AFTER general fiscal priorities have been covered, all while NOT needing to impose any NEW TAXES on operators

this is a generational opportunity for rural america on a number of dimensions, with this being just one very tangible and direct expression of them

[Bitcoin Policy Institute @bitcoinpolicy]

American AI leadership requires U.S. open-source technology as the foundation other countries build on. As China pairs open models with affordable infrastructure and training, America needs competitive alternatives, writes BPI's Head of Government Affairs Ken Egan @Bayman11771 in @thecipherbrief.

That means capable open models, affordable hardware, financing, and support that give partners control over their AI systems.

Read more: https://t.co/8xWlcEA0uf

[Sam Lyman @SamLyman33]

@TXMCtrades Nah it’s actually a conservative estimate. See for yourself:

https://t.co/KqJF3aigh3

[Sam Lyman @SamLyman33]

NEW: President Trump has endorsed BPI’s original proposal of a Data Center Dividend.

POTUS: “The data centers are making an absolute fortune. But now, the people are going to benefit directly, whether it’s teachers that get paid a bonus [or] whether it’s people that live in the community that get paid a dividend.”

Our research, published just 3 weeks ago, introduced the idea of data center dividends, showing that the average family living in a rural data center town could receive up to $8,900 a year in dividend payments.

This is how you ensure that America's Heartland thrives in the AI age 🇺🇸

[Marty Bent @MartyBent]

“You can remit about $5,000 to $9,000 a year per household in a rural county just from the excess taxes generated by data centers.”

@SamLyman33 explains the dividends Trump is backing: fund local services first, then send surplus taxes to families.

https://t.co/hyRtm7U300

[Bitcoin Policy Institute @bitcoinpolicy]

Just 20 days after publishing our Data Center Dividends report, President Trump backed the concept surrounded by the world's AI leaders.

https://t.co/5KzCD6apQx

[Sam Lyman @SamLyman33]

When @DavidBeckworth talks, both TradFi & Bitcoiners listen. He's the rare scholar who can bridge the two worlds, speaking with just as much authority on stablecoins as he does on Federal Reserve policy.

Here, David dives deep on tokenization, skinny Fed master accounts, and more. A must-listen 👇

[Bitcoin Policy Institute @bitcoinpolicy]

Freedom Tech DC: The Stakes of Preserving Dollar Dominance with @DavidBeckworth and @SamLyman33

- Dollar stablecoins can extend the dollar’s global reach through private competition
- Limited-purpose Fed accounts could give stablecoin issuers direct access to payment rails
- Tokenized Fed reserves could enable settlement around the clock
- Stablecoins separate payments from lending, creating room for new providers alongside banks
- Tokenized Treasuries could open the market to more participants and expand trading capacity

(00:00) — Introduction

(01:28) — Stablecoins and dollar dominance

(02:21) — The global digital-currency race

(04:59) — Why private competition matters

(06:21) — Stablecoins and Fed master accounts

(08:18) — Tokenization and the Fed’s balance sheet

(10:14) — What stablecoins mean for banks

(13:08) — Tokenized Treasuries and market access

[Sam Lyman @SamLyman33]

@Wid_Lyman

[Sam Lyman @SamLyman33]

Mosquitoes are the deadliest animals to humans on earth, killing approximately 1 million people every year.

Living with them is a choice. We have the tech to eliminate entire species of mosquitoes in populous areas. We should do it.

This EO gets us one step closer to that goal.

[Crémieux @cremieuxrecueil]

Trump declared TICK AND MOSQUITO DEATH as policy