The Bitcoin Layer

🚨 NEW VIDEO 🚨 RISE of the American Empire with Brent Johnson @SantiagoAUFund breaks down the dollar squeeze nobody saw coming, why deglobalization is breaking the world in half, and how the US-China chip hostage exchange ends.

Bitcoin's hashrate has been flat near 900 EH/s for seven months, down from 1,100 in October, because public miners are redirecting megawatts toward AI inference. CoinShares expects AI to make up 70% of public-miner revenue by the end of 2026, up from around 30% today. @JohanMBergman walks through what the pivot means for the network in yesterday's letter.

🚨 NEW VIDEO 🚨 BREAKING: CME Launches Compute Futures, The New Oil Nik on the CME launching compute futures, Nvidia at $5.3T, Jensen forward-buying Samsung's RAM, and why the AI revolution is supportive of bitcoin.

@ChrisMasterjohn compares a central bank setting interest rates to an external manager injecting drugs into the system and distorting the price of borrowing, instead of letting supply and demand for savings determine what money should cost.

"As the backbone of the digital economy, compute is the new oil of the 21st century." Terry Duffy, CME CEO, announcing a futures market for compute today.

AI tokens are becoming the new oil. They are the fuel underpinning the cost of virtually everything digital, every product and service delivered through a screen. Your tuition, your tax filing, your research access will increasingly anchor to the cost of AI compute, the same way a steak reflects the price of energy. @timevalueofbtc breaks it down in his latest letter.

OPEC belongs to the offshore dollar era, 1971 to 2020. @LeveredUSTs on the transition to the next dollar order.

Bitcoin doesn't do well when the economy is crashing; it does well when people earn money. The AI capex super cycle is exactly the setup bitcoin needs. Nik walks through it in the latest Global Macro Update. Full video on Substack for TBL Pro.

The labor market is telling a very different story than the AI fear narrative suggests. Initial claims and continuing claims are both benign. ISM Services new orders are strong. Jevons' Paradox is playing out with software developer job listings, and hires are going up, not down, even as AI coding tools become more powerful. Efficiency creates more demand.

Because the drop from $85,000 towards $65,000 happened almost overnight, it left an ‘air pocket’. And because it was relatively large in size, the market is able to gain some real ground without heavy resistance. Another great analysis by @JohanMBergman

The question that matters above $80,000: are long-term holders selling into this rally? If they are, this rally fails on its first attempt and we revisit the low $70,000's. If they aren't, the bears lose their last good setup.

In TBL's latest letter, @JohanMBergman flags a quiet but important moment: bitcoin just reclaimed both the Short-Term Holder Cost Basis and the Active Investor Cost Basis around $80,000. These are the average prices recent buyers and active market participants paid for their coins. When price climbs back above them, the average holder stops being underwater. The case for a trend reversal is building.

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Based on the tag of the second arrow’s range and subsequent bounce during February, March, and April, we think the $60,000s were an absolute gift. Pats on the back if you stacked in the $60,000s. Technically, now that we have crested $73,700 and will likely close a third week above, we believe this level marks a wildly important level of support. There is a channel we’ve drawn to guide us during this post-bear rally, but it matters more for momentum than it does for the overall direction of the market. What we really want to see is for bitcoin to hold $73,000 for the next month or two.

🚨 NEW VIDEO 🚨 Nik walks through TBL Pulse behind the paywall, looking at the TBL Liquidity Cycle and Johan's state quadrant, plus why rate cuts are getting priced out and why the $1 trillion hyperscaler CapEx wave makes the AI-doomer labor narrative look badly miscalibrated.

At @TheBitcoinLayer, we're building frameworks that give our readers guidance and clarity. Bitcoin is trading above $80,000 and the market structure is improving on multiple fronts. We mentioned that the low $80,000s was probable, but this is the area bulls need to gain. It won't be easy, so we'll keep watching the data. Bulls still need to gain more ground for a real regime change.

US 10-year yields peaked at over 5% this cycle, and now years have gone by without even really threatening 4.75%. The current rise in yields feels scary, but it is more in line with the premise that 'sub-4% yields' does not offer enough real return for investors. Especially if they view forward inflation in the 3-4% range.

In our latest letter, Nik draws the line in the sand at $73,000. Three consecutive weekly closes above $73,700 turn this level into wildly important support, and holding it for the next month or two is what gathers the speculative energy needed for new highs. Sub-$70,000 was a gift, and we're unlikely to see it again.

From 2017 - 2025, bitcoin’s median nominal change has followed changes in our TBL Liquidity Index. For the most part, as the median change in liquidity becomes more positive, so does bitcoin’s nominal change. In the chart, we observe that a +1-point change in our index from May 1st has been associated with a $1000 increase in bitcoin’s price over the past 9 years. Nothing to write home about for bitcoiners, but certainly a point of reference for us liquidity watchers over the summer.

A snippet from our latest TBL Pro Q&A with @crossbordercap on how the Treasury, not the Fed, is now driving liquidity in the system. Full video available on Substack.