₿ΞΞnThereDoneThat Capital 賢い

Semi-retired hedge fund founder. Ex hot-shot lawyer, ex hot-shot strategy consultant. Macro+picks in crypto, commodities, tech, old-economy & a few special sits

[₿ΞΞnThereDoneThat Capital 賢い @BeenThereCap]

I nailed the GFC - saw it coming, heavily shorted into it, kept making money running net-flat for months while most were getting destroyed. Then I botched the turn, getting net short early into a monster rally and giving back more than half my fund's outperformance.
1/4

[₿ΞΞnThereDoneThat Capital 賢い @BeenThereCap]

Important if true.

[will depue @willdepue]

I have a major result to share.

I’ve found conclusive forensic evidence that the top 4 Chinese AI labs—DeepSeek, Moonshot, MiniMax and Ant Group—have built their newest models on NVIDIA’s most advanced Blackwell chips, which are barred from export to China.

This sounds insane, but I discovered that almost every AI model carries a hidden signature of the GPU that trained it. When a model is first set up, the starting values of its weights are laid out in a pattern that depends on the exact GPU. Each combination of GPU and seed number produces a unique pattern—a sort of fingerprint of the hardware used to create the model. Traces of that pattern survive training into the published model.

Again, this evidence isn’t based on any insider information or leaking. It’s based on a forensic analysis of the model weights released by the companies themselves.

I searched more than six trillion combinations of chip layout and seed number and matched them to open-weights models. In doing so, I found conclusive evidence that six Chinese AI models—including DeepSeek-V4-Pro, Kimi K3, and MiniMax-M3—were initialized on NVIDIA Blackwell systems. Four of the models match Grace Blackwell, the GB200 and GB300 parts in NVIDIA’s flagship liquid-cooled rack-scale systems.

I then verified these results on real hardware. Running unmodified PyTorch with the seeds I’d recovered, a Blackwell B300 reproduced DeepSeek-V4-Flash’s untouched starting weights bit for bit, and a rented GB200 reproduced Kimi K3’s to a correlation of 0.999995. A Hopper H100 reproduced none of DeepSeek-V4-Flash’s, and changing the seed by one broke the match. (DeepSeek’s seed is 953049583 by the way.) The method also was verified to match 24 known open-weights models to the hardware that developers said they used.

It is exceedingly unlikely that these results are a coincidence. Across six trillion combinations, the best accidental match should reach only about 8 sigma (i.e., eight standard deviations above what random chance would produce). The real matches range from 49 to 1,385 sigma, and even the weakest single test hits 20.

These were data-center-scale training runs. With some analysis of release schedules and model details, I estimate that the largest, Kimi K3 and DeepSeek-V4-Pro, used 2,000 to 3,000 Blackwell GPUs each. Clusters of this size cost on the order of $150 to $200 million each to buy, and across these labs alone would add up to more than half a billion dollars of export-controlled GPUs, not counting experimental compute or otherwise. It’s quite likely that we see multi-billion dollar expenditure on export-controlled GPUs.

I am highly confident in this result, and it has been independently verified by senior researchers at OpenAI and Anthropic. You can read the full report at https://t.co/YOtzND0Jqk.

There is much more I’ve identified about these models through other forms of checkpoint forensics like this, and will have more to share soon.

[₿ΞΞnThereDoneThat Capital 賢い @BeenThereCap]

Oh yeah, that's exactly what $NVDA will choose to do to enhance its shareholder value: Destroy the capital stack of $CRWV and everyone else $NVDA has invested in.

Because $NVDA has never noticed the AI bears yelling about how $NVDA's vendor-financing web is fragile and will crash the entire AI ecosystem.
🤦‍♂️

[Special Situations 🌐 Research Newsletter (Jay) @SpecialSitsNews]

Following Jensen Huang's resignation and active DOJ antitrust investigations, Nvidia's new leadership could face massive regulatory settlement fines if impropriety is found with respect to Chinese GPU sales.

Rather than draining operating cash during a capex supercycle, the board could liquidate Nvidia's multi-billion-dollar strategic equity book to cover the penalty.

Dumping these stakes into thin natural bids could trigger downward price pressure, making these partner stocks prime short candidates before the forced selling hits the tape. $NVDA $CRWV $INTC

[₿ΞΞnThereDoneThat Capital 賢い @BeenThereCap]

Key Jensen-saga questions: Who leaked the news, why, and why now?

One scenario is (1) Team Bessent, (2) with the dual goal of reducing China's chip supply *and* getting Lutnick fired, (3) waiting until after the election no matter which party they thought was likely to win.

[Jarrett Renshaw @JarrettRenshaw]

White House discussing Howard Lutnick's future as Commerce secretary, people familiar say - https://t.co/iRnhPhurw5

[₿ΞΞnThereDoneThat Capital 賢い @BeenThereCap]

Every 2 years the losing political party's moderates argue it lost because it wasn't moderate enough, and the extremists argue it lost because it wasn't extreme enough. Their debate entirely ignores factors/dimensions that affect an election other than where on the moderate-extreme spectrum a party spent the last 2 years. And if one wants to simplify to only that dimension, the moderates are *always* right. It's always so tedious.

[Kevin Roberts @KevinRobertsTX]

Saying, “We’ve got to start talking to independent voters,” here is Swamp talk for “run to the middle.” Running to the middle is not what got Trump popularly elected in 2024, but it is what got Republicans crushed in the midterms. Bold conservatism is what will attract independent voters and win elections.

[₿ΞΞnThereDoneThat Capital 賢い @BeenThereCap]

@DonutShorts "Jensen made me do it."
Problem solved.

[₿ΞΞnThereDoneThat Capital 賢い @BeenThereCap]

@NateSilver538 It depends on whom you mean by "people."
Investors and tech industry folks are 100% on top of it.
Political and general-interest media folks, not so much.

[₿ΞΞnThereDoneThat Capital 賢い @BeenThereCap]

What is your support for this (the weak link in your argument IMO): China "almost certainly would not [work hard to build its own frontier GPUs] if less powerful [US] GPUs were still available in China"?

If I were China, I would work like hell to develop them no matter what U.S. chips I can get. No R&D cost would be too high; the payoff x odds of success would be higher.

[寂寞的乔丹 @hhp121222]

老特五月访华没带黄仁勋这个事，据说是出发去中国前，对所有要去的人进行了一个背调，然后中情局就把黄仁勋这事儿给捅出来了。

卢比奥看到简报后，应该是擅作主张，把黄仁勋给拿掉了，所以当时出访去中国的名单里面没有黄仁勋。

最后还是特朗普，看到名单觉得非常奇怪，这么大的企业，而且是在风口浪尖上和中国去讨价还价的当口，怎么可能没有黄仁勋呢，再说了，这点事对特朗普来说也不算啥。

所以这就有了黄仁勋紧急飞到阿拉斯加，在半途中登上了空军一号。

这么一来，所有的细节都对上了。

所以很多事情，当时觉得奇怪，但实际上全都是有原因的，无风不起浪。

[₿ΞΞnThereDoneThat Capital 賢い @BeenThereCap]

Compound, your scenario might fall apart by failing to account for the initial public leak of this situation occurring via a classified U.S. government document authored by Marco Rubio, which was shown to the NYT. *That* part of the leaking had to have been by a U.S. government insider. Can your scenario incorporate that requirement?

[₿ΞΞnThereDoneThat Capital 賢い @BeenThereCap]

This is not a "tinfoil hat" scenario; it is the most plausible detailed scenario any of us can devise from the outside.

[Compound248 💰 @compound248]

My tinfoil hat theory on Jensen situation.

Bear in mind, the only way Jensen gets ousted is if there is a BAD smoking gun, possibly around a crime.

A theory:

> honeypot Chinese spy-CEO girl gets Jensen

> she buys GPUs for megaspeed

> those GPUs ultimately go to China

> JH figures it out; tries to stop

> CCP tells him, “ha, gotcha b!tch” and blackmails him into continuing

> pressures JH to ship more GPUs

> JH has Nvidia ship said GPUs and tells team to not look too closely

> JH starts defending China as a potential customer publicly (see Dwarkesh pod below)

> CIA figures out what’s happening

[Note: Trump mentioned on 60 Minutes interview the US discovered a major AI CEO breaking the law. Trump threatened him with prosecution if he didn’t get onboard Team USA ASAP. “Do you like wearing orange?”]

> This is Jensen

> JH shuts down honeypot relationship and related GPU shipments

> China says, “No. If you don’t ship, we will destroy you.”

> Stuck between US legal system and Chinese blackmail, JH risks calling China’s bluff

> China does initial leak on JH honeypot affair. JH denies it to Nvidia board (6-12 months ago)

> US CIA / DoJ knows he did it

> China is not bluffing

> China sees anti-AI blue wave at last week’s US ballot box (which it helped catalyze) and decides now is the time to hit Jensen

> Leaks the story aggressively. Kill three birds with one stone: take out blackmail target; disrupt important AI leader; feed AOC’s oligarch AI wet dream

> Nvidia board forced to investigate. Discovers JH a) lied; b) broke the law; and c) had an affair with Nvidia employee

> Nvidia board doesn’t want to fire him but almost has to, especially if he knowingly broke the law

AND SO HERE WE ARE.

Critical question for $NVDA board is did JH knowingly do something illegal. Because everything else falls in a “policy violation” bucket that can be managed without termination.

But if he broke major laws, the board is trapped, barring USG intervention.

We shall see.

[Alex Cohen @anothercohen]

This is an absolute masterpiece.

10/10.

No notes

[₿ΞΞnThereDoneThat Capital 賢い @BeenThereCap]

Based on the price action premarket + 1st 15 minutes of open, there is a decent chance that the Nasdaq 100 closes green today.

Every Mag7 except $NVDA, plus $SPCX, is already green now. SOXX -1.0%.

[₿ΞΞnThereDoneThat Capital 賢い @BeenThereCap]

$NVDA has lost $2.2 trillion of market cap in 5 weeks.

24,285m shares x ($240 - $151)

[₿ΞΞnThereDoneThat Capital 賢い @BeenThereCap]

@PythiaR I reposted because it's a good outcome, but: Jensen has 60 direct reports. That is not a number that reveals a strategy-only guy.

[Pythia Cap: Partially Conductive @PythiaR]

Jensen steps down as day to day remains on board and strategic advisor which is what his value add is anyway.

They’ll be fine.

But like rule #1 of HR is don’t fuck the employees and rule #2 is don’t fuck the customers… pretty low bar.