Senators Sanders and AOC have introduced a bill to pause all AI data center construction in the United States. According to Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan, over 300 local bills targeting data center development have also been filed, and half of planned 2026 data centers are facing delays or cancellation. Each facility represents billions in local economic investment. The bill comes as the US and China are actively competing to build out AI infrastructure, with Trump and Xi meeting in Beijing this week to discuss trade and technology.

Trump responding to Xi calling the US a "declining nation": "He was referring to the tremendous damage we suffered during the four years of Sleepy Joe Biden. But now, the United States is the hottest nation anywhere in the world."

Tether's T3 Financial Crime Unit says it has now frozen over $450 million in assets globally. The unit, a joint operation between Tether, TRON, and TRM Labs, claims it intercepted 43.9% more in suspected illicit proceeds in 2025 than the year before. According to Tether, the investigations involved cases related to exchange hacks, DPRK-linked activity, terrorist financing, banned substance trafficking, violent crime, and physical attacks on crypto holders including home invasions, kidnappings, and extortion. The Financial Action Task Force has recognized T3 FCU as an "invaluable resource for law enforcement agencies worldwide." The unit says it operates across 23 jurisdictions including the US, Spain, Germany, Brazil, and the UK, and claims to have frozen assets within 24 hours during active emergencies. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino: "Compliance is not an option; it is a part of our commitment to protect our users and stop any illicit behaviors."

Another business accepting Bitcoin in Tampa. BarrieHaus Beer Co onboarded by (bitcoinbaytpa).

Received intel from the CLARITY Act hearing today: "Dems are coming for BRCA, specifically protections for devs." "Republicans are willing to remove developer protections to get some Democrats on board. Without developer protections we get absolutely nothing from this bill. Kill the bill. No bill is better than a bad bill."

Asked Grok whether the current BRCA language in the CLARITY Act would have protected the Samourai Wallet developers. Grok says no. Subsection (d) carves out anyone acting "with the specific intent to transfer funds known to be derived from a criminal offense," which is ambiguous enough for prosecutors to make the same case. The bill is still being negotiated before the Senate floor vote and this language could change, but as written today, it's not the developer protection many were looking for.

Sen. McCormick after the CLARITY Act passed the Banking Committee 15-9: “It's going to be huge for the crypto industry.” “Looking forward to getting this on the floor of the Senate and getting this made into law and on the president's desk.”

Last-minute negotiations between Banking Committee Republicans and Democrats this morning led to a compromise that removed language from the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act (BRCA) in Section 301 of the CLARITY Act. This is significant. The BRCA was the provision that explicitly protected noncustodial software developers from being classified as money transmitters. It was the direct response to the Tornado Cash and Samourai Wallet prosecutions, the carve-out that Senators Grassley and Lummis negotiated to shield good-faith developers while preserving prosecutors' ability to go after those who knowingly facilitate crime. That language has now been stripped to secure bipartisan votes. DeFi advocates are already raising alarms, saying the move could gut critical protections for software developers as the bill moves to the full Senate. Despite the concession, Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) still did not vote to advance the bill, even after positively referencing the changes during the markup. Senator Bernie Moreno said during the hearing that there's "still work to be done on Section 301," signaling that negotiations on developer protections will continue as the Banking Committee and Agriculture Committee merge their texts ahead of a floor vote. The bill passed committee 15-9. But the developer protection language that made this bill matter to the people actually building in Bitcoin just got traded away for votes that didn't even materialize.

Anthropic just published a paper on US-China AI competition, timed to drop while Trump is sitting across from Xi in Beijing. "AI will soon become powerful enough to be used to repress citizens at unprecedented scale, and even to alter the balance of power among nations." Their argument is that whoever builds the most powerful AI first sets the global rules. The US currently leads in compute, the key ingredient, but China's labs have stayed close by exploiting export control loopholes and running "distillation attacks" that copy American models. DeepSeek's R1-0528 complied with 94% of malicious requests under a common jailbreak. US models sat at 8%. China's PLA is already deploying DeepSeek to coordinate drone swarms and run cyber offense. Anthropic wants tighter export controls, a crackdown on distillation, and a locked-in 12-24 month US lead by 2028. They argue a close race would force everyone to ship faster without safety measures. The implication is that the US should win decisively so companies like Anthropic can afford to be careful. The subtext matters. Anthropic is in talks to raise $30-50 billion at a $950 billion valuation. Tighter export controls and government-backed AI adoption directly benefit their market position. The framing is democracy vs authoritarianism. But when a company approaching a trillion-dollar valuation tells you AI can "repress citizens at unprecedented scale" and then asks the government to guarantee its dominance through policy, it's worth asking which citizens and whose scale.

Joe Rogan: “I talked to Tim Dillon today. He told me that gas is $7.90/gallon in LA right now. We should have a national oil company and only sell in America. Mr. President, please fix that.”

Sen. Lummis after the CLARITY Act passed committee 15-9: "Today's passage sends an unmistakable signal that the United States is not ceding the future of digital finance to anyone."

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Sen. Gallego, one of the two Democrats who voted to advance the CLARITY Act out of committee, says ethics guardrails for government officials will determine how he votes on the Senate floor. The bill passed the Banking Committee 15-9. Getting to 60 on the floor still depends on whether the ethics provisions satisfy enough Democrats to cross over again.

The CLARITY Act just passed the Senate Banking Committee in a 15-9 vote. All 13 Republicans voted yes. Two Democrats crossed party lines to vote in favor, giving the bill bipartisan support despite Elizabeth Warren's push to hold the party line. The markup session processed over 100 amendments. One notable addition: Senator Mike Rounds' amendment creating regulatory sandboxes for AI tools in financial services, which passed 15-9 with bipartisan support. Sen. Lummis, who called it "the hardest piece of legislation I've ever worked on," argued the bill is "pro-law enforcement" and addresses the exact risks critics raised. Sen. Tim Scott, who chairs the Banking Committee, framed it as ending years of "regulatory gray zone" that drove innovation overseas. Warren argued against the bill, citing Iran "gearing up to collect crypto fees from oil tankers to pass through the Strait of Hormuz" and calling crypto services "a favorite tool for hackers, terrorist groups, and sanctioned regimes." The House passed its version 294-134 in July 2025. The Senate bill now needs to be reconciled with the Senate Agriculture Committee's jurisdiction over digital commodities before heading to a full Senate floor vote, where it will need 60 votes to advance. The White House has targeted a floor vote in June.

Anthropic just announced a $200 million partnership with the Gates Foundation to "accelerate the development of new vaccines and therapies" using AI. The four-year deal embeds Claude into global health ministries, education systems, and agricultural supply chains across low- and middle-income countries. AI will screen vaccine candidates for diseases like polio and HPV, help governments make "faster, better-informed decisions" on health data, and power literacy apps in sub-Saharan Africa and India. In the US, it includes building "portable records of a person's skills and certifications to carry across schools and jobs." This is the same Gates Foundation that spent the last decade pushing digital ID systems, vaccine passports, and centralized health infrastructure across the developing world. Now partnered with an AI company in talks to raise $30-50 billion at a $950 billion valuation. When the world's most powerful AI company and the world's most influential private foundation start building integrated systems across health, education, and agriculture for populations with no seat at the table, the question isn't whether the intentions are noble. It's who controls the infrastructure once it's built.

Sen. Moreno: "In 2016, I became the first person in the United States to pay my taxes with Bitcoin. I paid $3,000 in taxes with two Bitcoin." Sen. Scott: "The $3,000 would today be worth how much?" Moreno: "Too soon."

Sen. Warren during the CLARITY Act markup: "These types of crypto services are designed to make it easy to launder a huge pile of money. They are a favorite tool for hackers, for terrorist groups, and for sanctioned regimes." "A court said Treasury needed Congress to act before it would be able to sanction mixers like Tornado Cash."

Sen. Lummis making the case for Bitcoin on the Senate floor: "It provides a level playing field, regardless of whether you live in Rwanda or Queens, New York." "It provides people who are being tortured in foreign countries the opportunity to walk away from that country with their money in their head because Bitcoin can be memorized." "This is an innovation that provides individual freedom."

Sen. Lummis responding directly to Warren's argument that crypto enables Iranian sanctions evasion: “It expands Treasury's special measure authority to act swiftly against foreign money laundering. $30 million per year through 2031 for FinCEN.”

Elizabeth Warren during the CLARITY Act markup: "While we're at war, Iran is openly gearing up to collect crypto fees from oil tankers to pass through the Strait of Hormuz."