Scott James

Iran hits Amazon data centres in jolt to Gulf AI drive First known military strike on a US hyperscaler rattles regional ambitions to build multibillion-dollar cloud facilities

Fascinating on the military targeting of AI infrastructure and the geopolitics of locating data centres near conflict zones

‘The strikes mark what is believed to be the world’s first military attack against the US “hyperscalers” that dominate the global cloud computing market.’

Trump is the best argument against a dollar CBDC you could ever ask for

Kevin Warsh’s push to shrink Federal Reserve’s balance sheet would evolve slowly Central bank chair nominee faces scepticism over his hopes to scale back one of policymakers’ most powerful tools

A new Fed Governor committed to returning to a pre 2008 monetary paradigm is not a serious candidate for reconciling the demands of the international monetary system with the whims of Trump’s foreign policy

'Number Goes Up'—Iran Conflict Has Bitcoin Bulls Eyeing $500K Arthur Hayes says the Fed will eventually print money to fund the Iran war, sending bitcoin higher. Strategy bought $204M of BTC through the strikes.

So much pRiCe DiScOvErY

"The longer Trump lingers in Iran, the higher the likelihood of the Fed printing money to support the Pax Americana war machine…And ultimately BTC number goes up."

Trump’s Way of War Iran, Venezuela, and the end of the Powell Doctrine.

From neocons to neoDons - or the logic of mob violence

‘For Trump force is not something to employ only when all other means have been exhausted, but rather one of several tools available to increase leverage, maximize surprise, and produce outcomes.’

Trump’s Way of War Iran, Venezuela, and the end of the Powell Doctrine.

From neocons to neoDons - or the logic of mob violence

‘For Trump force is not something to employ only when all other means have been exhausted, but rather one of several tools available to increase leverage, maximize surprise, and produce outcomes.’

If I'm reading this correctly, the not-shocking conclusion is stablecoins benefit Wall Street banks much more than regionals and community banks.

Add'l speculation by me: the market may not view stablecoins as a competition threat but a but a deregulatory advantage for large tradfi incumbents.

*Thucydides is typing*

‘The real price discovery happens on Monday’ 👀
finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin...

‘The real price discovery happens on Monday’ 👀
finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin...

‘Large mining operations require steady power.

A sustained conflict that damages infrastructure could reduce the hash rate or mining capacity tied to the country.’

4/n

‘Elliptic found Iran’s central bank accumulated at least $507 million in USDT in 2025, likely to steady the rial and finance trade. That effort has mostly failed, with data showing that the rial has lost more than 96% of its value against the USD.’

3/n

‘Chainalysis estimates IRGC-linked addresses accounted for more than 50% of total Iranian crypto inflows in the fourth quarter of 2025, with over $3 billion in value received last year.’

2/n

Iran crisis puts the regime's $7.8 billion crypto shadow economy in spotlight Fresh U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran have drawn new attention to a financial network Tehran has built in parallel to its battered banking system: bitcoin mining and a fast-growing

Of course there’s a crypto angle:

‘Iran allows licensed operators to use subsidized electricity in exchange for selling mined BTC to the central bank. Bitcoin has served as a tool for paying for imports and settling trade outside the dollar system’

🧵 1/n

We probably spent too long in February taking the Donroe Doctrine seriously

He’s after the Fifa peace prize

Let’s see how international creditors feel about late hegemony in the morning

Absolute historicism + merlot is a heady brew

Morbid symptoms of Trump etc but livelier discussion about caesarism in Xi’s China

In a room of neo-Gramscians puzzling over global disorder and folks the mood is not upbeat

How not to talk about capitalism The more it penetrates our daily lives, the less we seem to understand the “system that runs the world”

‘Though kaleidoscopic and beautiful, simply narrating capitalism within economic life is useless as a guide to navigating its crisis-ridden empire. He is most likely to join Braudel, whose works currently serve as an elaborate stand for my computer screen.’

The primary role of central banks is now to defend monetary sovereignty, discuss

Five perspectives on stablecoins Evaluating the state of the academic and policy discourse

What much of the crypto community continues to misread is just how much the crowding out of bitcoin by stablecoins represents the unironic reassertion of state power and dollar hegemony

Frieden: ‘A government that intervenes as systematically in trade is not going to have any compunctions about intervening directly in financial and capital flows, and using dollar stablecoins is part of that.’

*Not counting Wilson twice obvs

Fwiw, when Starmer goes we’ll have had the same number of PMs since 2007 (8) as during the entire postwar settlement from 45-79

Woefully little I’m afraid, other than Schenk’s 2010 Decline of Sterling. I once did a journal search and there’s very little political economy work on the £ or ¥ since the 90s. Tbh it’s my next project if I ever get round to it

Hedge Funds Ramp Up Bearish Pound Bets as Starmer Crisis Deepens Hedge funds are betting on more pound weakness as UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s future hangs in the balance.

We’re fixated with the prospects for US dollar decline, but more immediately it’s unclear to me how long the UK’s dysfunctional politics can continue to support the world’s fourth global reserve currency