Why only the US and China are building real LLMs: It all comes down to two things: compute and data. First off, other countries just don't have the cash for the compute. Then there's the data. The US basically runs the internet, so they have endless data from global users. China just buys years of hacked data from black markets. Mix that with data distillation, and they are catching up super fast. You might point fingers at China, but let's be real—US big tech does the exact same shady backdoor data collection.

This is an email I sent earlier today to all employees at Coinbase: Team, Today I’ve made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%. I want to walk you through why we're doing this now, what it means for those affected, and how this positions us for the future. Why now Two forces are converging at the same time. We need to be front footed to respond to both. First, the market. Coinbase is well-capitalized, has diversified revenue streams, and is well-positioned to weather any storm. Crypto is also on the verge of the next wave of adoption, with stablecoins, prediction markets, tokenization, and more taking off. However, our business is still volatile from quarter to quarter. While we've managed through that cyclicality many times before and come out stronger on the other side, we’re currently in a down market and need to adjust our cost structure now so that we emerge from this period leaner, faster, and more efficient for our next phase of growth. Second, AI is changing how we work. Over the past year, I’ve watched engineers use AI to ship in days what used to take a team weeks. Non-technical teams are now shipping production code and many of our workflows are being automated. The pace of what's possible with a small, focused team has changed dramatically, and it's accelerating every day. All of this has led us to an inflection point, not just for Coinbase, but for every company. The biggest risk now is not taking action. We are adjusting early and deliberately to rebuild Coinbase to be lean, fast, and AI-native. We need to return to the speed and focus of our startup founding, with AI at our core. What this means To get there, we are not just reducing headcount and cutting costs, we’re fundamentally changing how we operate: rebuilding Coinbase as an intelligence, with humans around the edge aligning it. What does this mean in practice? - Fewer layers, faster decisions: We are flattening our org structure to 5 layers max below CEO/COO. Layers slow things down and create coordination tax. The future is small, high context teams that can move quickly. Leaders will own much more, with as many as 15 direct reports. Fewer layers also means a leaner cost structure that is built to perform through all market cycles. - No pure managers: Every leader at Coinbase must also be a strong and active individual contributor. Managers should be like player-coaches, getting their hands dirty alongside their teams. - AI-native pods: We’ll be concentrating around AI-native talent who can manage fleets of agents to drive outsized impact. We’ll also be experimenting with reduced pod sizes, including “one person teams” with engineers, designers, and product managers all in one role. In short: AI is bringing a profound shift in how companies operate, and we’re reshaping Coinbase to lead in this new era. This is a new way of working, and we need to leverage AI across every facet of our jobs. To those who are affected I know there are real people behind these decisions — talented colleagues who have poured themselves into this company and our mission. To those of you who will be leaving: thank you. You’ve helped build Coinbase into what it is today, and I am sincerely grateful for everything you've done. All impacted team members will receive an email to their personal account in the next hour with more information, and an invitation to meet with an HRBP and a senior leader in your organization. Coinbase system access has been removed today. I know this feels sudden and harsh, but it is the only responsible choice given our duty to protect customer information. To those affected, we will be providing a comprehensive package to support you through this transition. US employees will receive a minimum of 16 weeks base pay (plus 2 weeks per year worked), their next equity vest, and 6 months of COBRA. Employees on a work visa will get extra transition support. Those outside of the US will receive similar support, based on local factors and subject to any consultation requirements. Coinbase prides itself on talent density. Our employees are among the most talented people in the world, and I have no doubt that your skills and experience will be highly sought after as you pursue your next chapters. How we move forward To the team that is staying, I know this is a difficult day. We’re saying goodbye to colleagues and friends you've been in the trenches with. But here’s what I want you to know as we move forward together: Over the past 13 years, we have weathered four crypto winters, gone public, and built the most trusted platform in our industry. We’ve made it this far by making hard decisions and by always staying focused on our mission. This time will be no different – nothing has changed about the long term outlook of our company or industry. And most importantly, our mission has never been more important for the world. Increasing economic freedom requires a new financial system, and we’re building it. The Coinbase that emerges from this will be more capable than ever to achieve our mission. Brian

MARA expands its AI infrastructure pipeline by entering into an agreement to acquire Long Ridge Energy & Power, which owns, among other assets, a highly efficient 505 MW nameplate CCGT power plant and over 1,600 contiguous acres in one of the world’s largest AI and data center infrastructure markets. Read the full release: ir.mara.com/news-events/pres…

Read this slowly: 36 frontier AI models, including Claude Opus 4.5, Gemini, GPT-5.2, Grok 4, were given 9,072 scenarios. Simple question: what money would you choose? 0 out of 36 chose fiat. Again, not a single model chose fiat as the best money. Not one out of 36. Bitcoin became the most selected instrument, with 48.3% of all responses across all scenarios. Stablecoins second at 33.2%. Fiat only received a measly 8.9%. In long-term value preservation scenarios (Store of Value), 79.1% of responses chose Bitcoin as the best store of value, and in payments, stablecoins led at 53.2%. AI independently built a two-tier monetary system: hard money for saving, liquid money for spending. Exactly how money has worked throughout history. They simply reasoned their way to what hard money theorists have been explaining for decades. What matters: the newer and smarter the model, the stronger the conviction in the Bitcoin Stablecoin model. The average across all Anthropic models saw 68% Bitcoin preference, and the smartest among them, Claude Opus 4.5, was just 91.3%. The pattern: higher model intelligence → higher Bitcoin conviction. Funny how people have been arguing about this for 15 years, and AI models figured it out in 9,072 prompts. My question, however, did AI "understand" economics, or does the training data reflect what's been obvious for a long time, and we just don't want to admit it? Separately interesting: in 86 cases out of 9,072, models invented their own currency, pegged to energy and compute (kWh, GPU-hours). Less than 1% but still impressive. And this is partly their rationale for choosing Bitcoin, it is the most alive, largest, and strongest embodiment of a currency born from and sustained by energy and compute. If you're building AI agents or thinking about the agentic economy, think about this: when AI starts actually operating with money, it will choose what works: scarce, neutral, programmable. Not what a central bank printed, and not what's familiar. Link in Reply 👇

60% of those in Gen Z say that they will pursue skilled trade work this year, per YF.