Thursday July 2, 2026
America at 250: Still in Pursuit
This Fourth of July marks two hundred and fifty years since a few dozen men signed a document that did something no government had done before. Two and a half centuries is reason enough to look back, but the Declaration of Independence was never a backward looking document.It did not promise its citizens comfort, security, or an equal share of someone else’s labor. It promised them the “pursuit of happiness,” and the distinction matters more than we usually admit.
Thomas Jefferson could have followed the English philosopher John Locke and written “life, liberty, and property.” He chose “pursuit” instead. Property is a thing you hold, a possession the government can count, protect, or one day redistribute. By choosing the word pursuit, Jefferson signaled something far more demanding and far more free. He signaled motion, effort, and risk, and he located the whole American promise not in what you are given but in what you are free to chase. He placed happiness just over the horizon and declared that every person has the right to run after it. He chose the chase over the guarantee, the open road over the safe harbor, the opportunity over the outcome.
That single choice is the most American idea ever committed to paper. It says the country’s job is not to hand you a result but to clear the road so you can go build one yourself. Read the grievances against the King and you find the same theme everywhere. George III cut off our trade with the world. He taxed us without our consent. He sent swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. He obstructed the settlement of new lands and tried to keep a growing people penned in place. Strip away the eighteenth century language and you are reading a founding complaint about closed markets, extractive bureaucracy, and a distant authority that feared what free people might build if simply left alone.
The same forces Jefferson named in 1776 are still with us today. Those grievances are not relics. They describe living tensions, and finding where they reappear is the whole job of the investor. It is why BitDigest watches the frontiers it watches, because each one is a place where an old American argument is being settled all over again, about who gets to build and on whose terms. Bitcoin is the modern answer to taxation and debasement without consent, money that no King can dilute. Space is the new appropriation of lands the crown once tried to forbid, the frontier reopened. AI is the largest expansion of individual capability since literacy, multiplying what one determined person can do. Each is new ground where the conditions Jefferson fought for are being contested once more, and where ordinary people can use extraordinary tools.
The genius of this country was never a finished product. It was always a permission slip. Build, trade, strive, and rise as far as your effort will carry you.
Happy Independence Day. God bless the United States of America.
◾ OpenAI considering 5% stake for Trump administration (FT)
◾ WSJ: Musk showed investors new mobile AI device (WSJ)
◾ Meta $META planning to sell excess AI compute (Bloomberg)
I will be taking a break for the Independence Day holiday, and not publishing BitDigest tomorrow or Saturday. I will be back to my regular schedule on Monday.
Government & NGO Actions
◾ White House readies voluntary AI model standards (FT)
◾ EU upholds Google €4.1B ($4.67B) Android antitrust fine (CNBC)
◾ FTC warns AI bias safeguards may violate federal law (Reuters)
◾ FCC to vote on new C-band spectrum auction rules (Broadband Breakfast)
◾ UN chief: used well, AI could be most powerful engine for development, from health and hunger to learning and climate (UN News)
◾ Shanghai court sentences defendants in $29M cross-border crypto scam (WeChat)
◾ Bank of Korea endorses tokenized government bonds, unified blockchain ledger (Cointelegraph)
◾ Tennessee, Georgia crypto ATM bans take effect (Cointelegraph)
Financial Notices & Public Company Releases
◾ Financial updates:
Genius Group $GNS Q2'26: Revenue $3.2M +112% y/y | Net income $4.3M | aEBITDA $0.3M (Globe Newswire)
◾ Operation updates:
Metaplanet +2,823 BTC | Total holdings 43,000 BTC (Metaplanet)
Hyperscale Data $GPUS +67 BTC | Total holdings ~849 BTC (PR Newswire)
Forward Industries $FWD +500,000 SOL | Total holdings 7.55M SOLD (GlobeNewswire)
◾ SoftBank $SFTBY renews talks for $10B loan against OpenAI shares (Reuters)
◾ American Bitcoin $ABTC announces 15-to-1 reverse stock split (PR Newswire)
Restructuring, Hacks, Losses & Legal Updates
◾ Satellite TV provider Dish files chapter 11 bankruptcy (WSJ)
◾ California man with bipolar disorder sues over ChatGPT self-harm case (Reuters)
Crypto Protocols, Applications & Business News
◾ Robinhood $HOOD introduces commodity, ETF perps (Bloomberg)
◾ Tradeweb completes first real-time US Treasury transaction on chain (Tradeweb)
◾ Crédit Agricole launches euro-denominated stablecoin (CACEIS)
◾ Anchorage Digital brings off-exchange settlement to Binance (Binance)
◾ Robinhood $HOOD launches layer 2 blockchain (PR Newswire)
AI Models, Applications & Developments
◾ Super Micro $SMCI detains 2 Taiwanese employees over illegal AI server sales (Reuters)
◾ xAI introduces Voice Agent Builder, no-code platform for human-like voice agents (X)
◾ Apple $AAPL in talks to buy memory chips from Chinese semiconductor firms (MacRumors)
◾ Gas plants powering US data centers may emit excessive greenhouse gases (Reuters)
◾ Webull launches AI-powered Portfolio Advisor (PR Newswire)
◾ Applied Digital $APLD delivers 75 MW of AI capacity (Applied Digital IR)
The Attention Economy, Gaming & Interactive Shifts
◾ Meta $META says WhatsApp usernames carry multiple layers of scam defense (CNBC)
◾ Musk denies WSJ AI handset claim (Reuters)
◾ Sony to end physical disc production for PlayStation games (PlayStation Blog)
◾ World launches fully on-chain prediction market with Solana Phantom wallet (Prediction News)
◾ Sam Altman movie picked up by indie distributor (KQED)
Space Systems, Satellites & Cosmic Activity
◾ India readies launch of first private orbital rocket (Reuters)
◾ Orbital files to launch 100,000 orbital data centers (FCC)
◾ Blue Origin redesigning launch pad (CNBC)