Wednesday June 3, 2026
Two Visions, One Industry
Two ways to tackle AI landed in Washington this week, and they could not be more different in what they imply for the future of capitalism.
President Trump signed an executive order asking leading LLM companies to adhere to voluntary oversight by the federal government. Light touch, collaborative, and structured around the assumption that frontier AI remains in private hands with Washington as a partner rather than a principal. Senator Sanders went the other direction entirely, proposing that the government take a 50 percent ownership stake in these companies through a new tax, with the argument that this would give the public a direct role in regulating the models themselves.
Same problem, opposite answers. One leaves the cap table alone. The other rewrites it.
For investors, this fork matters more than the headlines suggest. The Trump path preserves the economics of every private and public AI company on the board today. Valuations hold their logic, exit math stays intact, and the federal role is closer to that of an interested observer with a seat at the table. The Sanders path is something else entirely. Half the equity in the most valuable technology platforms of the next decade would, in effect, become public property. The implications for venture returns, for IPO pricing, for the calculus of building a frontier lab in the United States at all, would be hard to overstate.
Neither path is going to play out in its current form. Executive orders evolve, and a 50 percent equity tax is not getting through this Congress. But the debate itself is the signal worth tracking. Washington has decided that AI is too important to leave entirely to the market, and the only real question now is what kind of state involvement gets normalized over the next few years. Voluntary partnership and partial nationalization are both on the table. That alone tells you the political ceiling for AI policy has moved, and it is not moving back.
◾ Trump signs EO asking tech companies to voluntarily give government oversight over new AI models (White House)
◾ SEC sets digital assets and DLT regulatory foundation as primary strategic goal (SEC)
◾ Blue Origin CEO: New Glenn to return to flight by year-end (Reuters)
Note: A few readers have flagged that articles sourced from PR Newswire were hitting a paywall, and I couldn’t find a workaround. Thanks to a tip from reader Aaron W., that’s now fixed. Any PR Newswire link in BitDigest going forward should open without issue.
Government & NGO Actions
◾ US sanctions Iran’s largest crypto exchange (Treasury)
◾ NY DFS partners with European Banking Authority to police stablecoin activities (DFS)
◾ Sen Sanders (I-VT) to introduce 50% tax giving AI company shares to US (NYT)
◾ UK to require $GOOGL to allow publishers to opt out of search (Reuters)
◾ UK warns Premier League against sponsorship deals with unauthorized crypto firms (Reuters)
◾ UK lawmakers say Bank of England should ditch proposals limiting stablecoin holdings (Bloomberg)
◾ South Korea secures access to Anthropic’s Mythos (Reuters)
◾ Georgia cracks down on illegal crypto mining (1TV)
◾ Dems ask Labor Department to rescind proposal for alternative assets in 401(k)s (Senate Banking)
◾ UK may send astronaut with physical disability to orbit on Vast space station (Gov.uk)
Financial Notices & Public Company Releases
◾ Operation updates:
Hyperscale Data $GPUS Total holdings 704 BTC (PR Newswire)
Strive $ASST +2,500 BtC (Sec)
◾ SpaceX plans to price $75B IPO at $135 per share (Reuters)
◾ Applied Aerospace & Defense $AADX raises $650M in IPO (Reuters)
◾ SpaceX seeks to keep IPO underwriting fees under 0.75% (Bloomberg)
◾ SpaceX expected to set IPO terms this afternoon (Bloomberg)
◾ Genius Group $GNS makes first investments under AI Treasury reserve (GlobeNewswire)
◾ Capital B seeks authority to buy more bitcoin (X)
Crypto Protocols, Applications & Business News
◾ Helium Mobile acquired by Noble Mobile (Helium)
◾ Kaiko acquires Amberdata in crypto data consolidation (Kaiko)
◾ Coinbase $COIN invests in ProShares’ GENIUS Money Market ETF $IQMM (X)
◾ SOL Strategies $STKE closes Houdini Swap acquisition (NewsFile)
◾ Fireblocks launches Flow stablecoin acceptance infrastructure for PSPs and fintechs (PR Newswire)
◾ Movement expands stablecoin settlement across US, EU and Canada (X)
◾ Telegram token rebrands to GRAM (Decrypt)
◾ Ripple bringing stablecoin to Turkey (Ripple)
◾ Franklin Templeton $BEN partners with MoonPay to tokenize money market funds (BusinessWire)
AI Models, Applications & Developments
◾ Perplexity CEO: best “token value per watt per user” wins AI LLM race (CNBC)
◾ DeepSeek expected to raise $7B at mid-$50B range in first fundraising (CNBC)
◾ Bitdeer $BTDR breaks ground on 100MW data center and power plant in Alberta (GlobeNewswire)
◾ Anthropic expands Project Glasswing, opens Mythos to 150 new companies (Anthropic)
◾ OpenAI to focus new tool design on financial tasks (Bloomberg)
◾ Microsoft $MSFT unveils Scout, AI built to function like executive assistant (Bloomberg)
◾ Microsoft $MSFT introduces Majorana 2 quantum chip (Microsoft)
◾ $UBER plans to cap usage of AI tools (Bloomberg)
◾ Mayo Clinic and Microsoft $MSFT collaborate on frontier AI model for healthcare (Microsoft)
◾ Microsoft $MSFT launches inaugural AI coding model (CNBC)
Space Systems, Satellites & Cosmic Activity
◾ Voyager to acquire lunar-focused Astrobotic Technology (Voyager)
◾ NASA abandons core module concept for space station (X)
◾ NASA testing new wastewater treatment facility for potential lunar base (NASA)