Strategy’s Michael Saylor calls Bitcoin code a constitution, warns against changes
Michael Saylor, executive chairman of Strategy, the largest corporate Bitcoin holder with 843,775 BTC acquired at an average price of about $75,476 per coin, has publicly urged that Bitcoin's code should remain untouched, describing its consensus rules as a constitution. He argues that these rules define property rights, scarcity, and settlement finality, and any attempt to rewrite them constitutes a coup against holders' economic sovereignty. Saylor opposes proposals such as BIP-110, which aims to restrict non-monetary data embedding on Bitcoin’s base layer, including inscription protocols like Ordinals, BRC-20 tokens, and Runes. He views invalidating legitimate fee-paying transactions as censorship, which he considers an existential threat to Bitcoin's value. His opposition extends to covenant proposals that would allow more complex spending conditions, as well as larger block sizes, all of which he categorizes as “constitutional offenses.” This stance reflects his architectural philosophy to keep Bitcoin’s base layer simple and secure, allowing innovation only on secondary layers. Saylor’s position aligns with others like Adam Back, CEO of Blockstream, who also opposes BIP-110. Strategy has not bought or sold Bitcoin in the latest reporting period. Saylor’s framing signals how the largest corporate holder perceives Bitcoin’s value, emphasizing scarcity, immutability, and predictability over programmability or new use cases. Changes to Bitcoin occur through rough consensus among miners, node operators, and developers, but Saylor’s labeling of certain proposals as constitutional violations highlights his significant economic influence in the network’s governance.
Core Scientific lands AMD AI deal as bitcoin mining operation winds down
Core Scientific has entered into a 15-year agreement with Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) for 529 megawatts of AI infrastructure capacity in the United States, marking a strategic shift from bitcoin mining to AI data centers. This partnership could generate over $14 billion in base contracted revenue and includes rights for AMD to reserve an additional 1.9 gigawatts of capacity through 2028, potentially expanding the total capacity to approximately 2.5 gigawatts. AMD has directly leased 377 megawatts across Core Scientific sites in Texas and Oklahoma, while an unnamed cloud provider leased another 152 megawatts in Alabama and Georgia under agreements supported by AMD. The collaboration will focus on data center design and deployment of AMD Instinct GPUs, EPYC processors, and ROCm software. Core Scientific's colocation services generated $136.7 million, representing 83% of its $164.2 million revenue in the second quarter, while self-mining revenue declined by 66% to $21.5 million. The company also terminated its agreement to purchase bitcoin-mining chips from Block. As of mid-July, Core Scientific was billing customers for 437 megawatts, equating to about $635 million in annualized colocation revenue. The agreements are expected to support AMD customer deployments starting in 2027. Additionally, Core Scientific sold 2,385 bitcoins for $208.2 million in the first quarter and held 848 bitcoins valued at $49.7 million as of June 30, up from 547 bitcoins three months earlier.
Ionic Digital jumps 25% in Nasdaq debut after expanding Celsius bitcoin mining assets into AI infrastructure
Ionic Digital, a bitcoin mining and AI infrastructure company, debuted on the Nasdaq under the ticker IOND, opening at $50 and rising over 25% to nearly $63, which implied a valuation of about $2.75 billion. The company was established in January 2024 to acquire nearly all of Celsius Mining's assets during Celsius Network's bankruptcy restructuring following its 2022 collapse. Ionic took control of Celsius' bitcoin mining equipment, infrastructure, approximately $195 million in cash, and 540 BTC valued at around $35 million at that time. Initially, Hut 8 managed Ionic's mining operations under a four-year contract, but Ionic ended this agreement within a year and assumed direct control of its mining sites, while Hut 8 retained a minority stake. Ionic continues bitcoin mining at four locations in Midland, Texas, producing just under 25 BTC in May and holding a total of 2,861 BTC, ranking it 28th among publicly traded corporate bitcoin holders. In 2025, Ionic began diversifying into AI and high-performance computing infrastructure, following a trend among bitcoin miners seeking more stable returns. In October, Ionic signed a 10-year lease with AI cloud provider Nscale for its Ward County site in West Texas, securing nearly $2 billion in contracted revenue, with a February amendment potentially raising this to $2.6 billion according to an SEC filing. This expansion into AI infrastructure marks a significant shift from its original bitcoin mining focus.
Robinhood Chain Tops Solana in Tokenized Stock Volume Via Memecoin Pairs
Robinhood Chain, launched three weeks ago, has achieved an average daily decentralized exchange (DEX) volume of $29.7 million for tokenized stocks over the past week. This volume surpasses the combined tokenized stock trading volumes of Solana's two venues, xStocks and Backpack, which totaled $24.5 million. The increase in volume is attributed to memecoin pairs that trade against tokenized stocks such as Nvidia, Tesla, Intel, Roblox, and SpaceX. Among these, the Artificial Inu memecoin paired with Nvidia (AI/NVDA) leads with $2.6 million in daily volume. Tokenized Nvidia is the most traded stock on Robinhood Chain, with $13.9 million in volume in the past day, followed by SpaceX at $6.2 million, Apple at $4.5 million, and GameStop at $2.2 million. The chain holds approximately $81 million in active market value of real-world assets and $489 million in stablecoins. Daily active traders of tokenized stocks on Robinhood Chain peaked above 20,000 during the week of July 20, the highest among tracked stock-token platforms. While Robinhood Chain's tokenized stock volume leads Solana's venues, its overall DEX volume and value locked remain smaller. Binance's BNB Chain with its bStocks platform leads the market with an average daily DEX volume of $676.8 million over the same period. The reported tokenized stock volumes exclude the chain's official market-maker address to avoid inflating activity metrics.
Circle is arming USDC with 1,000 IBM patents to secure its grip on global banking rails
Circle has acquired nearly 1,000 blockchain-related patents from IBM, aiming to enhance the infrastructure that connects stablecoins like USD Coin (USDC) with traditional banking and payment networks. The portfolio includes over 680 patent families covering blockchain technology, banking, financial services, insurance, enterprise infrastructure, supply-chain verification, and secure cloud operations. This acquisition positions Circle as the leading holder of blockchain patents in the United States. Among the patents is an active IBM patent titled “Blockchain settlement network” (US11599858B2), which describes transferring digital value over a blockchain alongside an off-chain payment and monitoring the transaction until settlement occurs. Another patent, “Blockchain compliance verification network” (US11676117B2), addresses capturing payment information and maintaining compliance and settlement records on a blockchain, explicitly covering anti-money laundering (AML), know your customer (KYC), sanctions compliance, and ISO 20022 payment messaging. Additionally, a patent application (US20220172198A1) details a conventional payment network operating in parallel with a blockchain settlement network, including a token service provider that can trigger blockchain settlement while the underlying payment is processed. Circle’s General Counsel, Sarah Wilson, emphasized the importance of intellectual property in advancing the company’s mission and expanding support for USDC, the Circle Payments Network, its Arc blockchain, and a growing suite of on-chain financial tools. Circle and IBM also plan to explore further commercial opportunities related to these patents. The acquisition may provide Circle with intellectual property leverage as stablecoins increasingly integrate with global banking rails.
Reader comments