Explaining the difficulty whipsaw

A Zoomer arrested for stealing $46M from the US Marshals, Kraken makes history with a Fed Master Account, and IREN builds to 150,000 GPUs.

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Chris Johhansen of Ion Stream and Kaan Farahani of Luxor join us to talk about the insane arrest of John DeGuida for allegedly stealing $46 million from the US Marshals Service. We break down Kraken Financial’s historic Fed Master Account and what a "skinny" seat at the table means for the industry. Plus, we analyze the massive pivot from ASICs to GPUs and review the tumultuous Bitcoin hash rate data from February.

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Notes:

* Zoomer stole $46M from US Marshals Service (his dad!)

* Kraken gets first Fed Master Account.

* Iren expanding GPU fleet to 150,000.

* Difficulty adjustment targeting 7.5% up.

Timestamps:

00:00 Start

04:53 Difficulty Report by Hashrate Index

07:49 $46M Stolen from US Marshals Service

15:35 Kraken Financial Granted Federal Reserve Master Account

21:48 AI Compute & Neocloud Dynamics

24:11 AI boom vs crypto boom

27:39 AI inference vs training

30:44 Scoping AI deals

32:41 H100 are still viable?

36:35 Hashrate

37:46 February suprises

44:40 What ASICs are profitable?

45:36 More hashrate declines?

47:36 5 cents per KWH

49:29 Hashrate prediction

52:51 IREN Expands GPU Fleet

1:01:44 Cry Corner: Miners Are Dumping BTC?

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