On the recent trend in XMR zaps. Caveat up front: I’m no Monero expert and don’t use it so do your own research. Don’t trust; verify, etc.

Privacy tech is under-utilized and I’m all for experimentation so good for the users who are trying it out. Take back privacy where you can get it!

That being said these privacy coins like Monero traded auditability for privacy and if someone found an inflation bug and went on a spending spree you might not know for a long time. With recent advancements in AI by the frontier labs who have been training extensively on cybersecurity and math tasks the odds of finding such a bug, should it exist, goes up by the day.

Even worse depending on the bug there’s no real recourse if it has existed for years. You’ll just have to accept the new coins even after a patch most likely. If someone did discover such a bug they’re incentivized to slow roll it. Perhaps drum up interest by sending fat zaps for months before making big trades for BTC? Not saying that’s happening now but it’s a strategy to watch for.

Bitcoin started the global arms race for compute.

The transformer architecture came long after we had ASICs for mining which taught us how to manage data centers at all scales: GPU, FPGA, home ASIC rig, up to full data centers.

We considered global consensus long before we needed to manage compute hungry frontier labs and coordinate across sovereign borders.

The AI race is inextricably linked to Bitcoin in many ways. “Digital gold” will serve a bigger role in the next great competition than gold did in the previous ones.

Don’t get sloppy anon.

During times like these where every project is actively under attack by agents of all kinds (AI or state) amid the chaos there’s opportunity for malicious updates to slip in too.

In fact it’s almost certainly already happened on important projects.

Be mindful anon.