This week’s focus includes the introduction of the digital ruble, Bitcoin surpassing $81,000, Nvidia's acquisition of Hugging Face, the decoding of a 370-year-old cryptogram, and a future where AI doesn’t lay off workers but simply stops hiring them.
Digital Ruble Has Launched
As of September 1, the Bank of Russia has officially launched the digital ruble, allowing any citizen to open an account on the Central Bank’s platform via their banking app, with the ability to deposit up to 300,000 rubles monthly. Transfers and payments are currently free of charge.
Additionally, Moscow hosted the founding congress of the Association of Crypto Exchange Operators (AOЦВ), which aims to gain self-regulatory organization (SRO) status for crypto exchanges. To operate legally, exchanges must now have a minimum capital of 15 million rubles, be listed in the Central Bank’s registry, and maintain SRO membership.
Bitcoin's August Surge and the Threat of Rektember
In August, Bitcoin experienced a significant increase of approximately 25%, climbing from $64,000 to $82,000, with inflows into crypto funds exceeding $2.9 billion in just one week. Major holders accumulated an additional 60,000 BTC, while the correlation with gold reached its highest point in six years.
However, September, often referred to as Rektember, is historically the worst month for Bitcoin, averaging a -3% return. Resistance remains strong in the $83,000–86,000 range, with analysts anticipating a daily close above $83,000 to confirm a bullish trend reversal.
Nvidia's $12.93 Billion Acquisition of Hugging Face
Nvidia has confirmed its acquisition of Hugging Face for $12.93 billion, which is nearly three times the platform's valuation from just three years ago, despite its annual revenue being around $150 million.
This purchase reflects Nvidia's intent to gain control over a key entry point into the open AI model ecosystem, paying 86 times the annual revenue. A crucial question remains: will Nvidia maintain the platform's neutrality, which has historically supported competitors?
Fable 5.1 and the Decoding of a 370-Year-Old Cipher
Anthropic has released Fable 5.1 and Mythos 5.1, with the former seeing a price reduction of 25-45% due to cheaper caching. An Enterprise Frontier Safeguards system for client cloud data storage is also expected this fall.
Fable 5.1 has shown impressive performance in benchmarks, identifying a fault in the Millennium that had stumped engineers for five years and producing a map of Venus with 25% greater accuracy. However, the standout story is the alleged decoding of a 1653 cryptogram by AI in just 44 minutes. The challenge is that independent experts have found ten discrepancies, and academic verification is still pending.
AI Centaur Reversed: Who Finances the Transformation?
Mark Zuckerberg promises a personal superintelligence for everyone, while Bill Gates admits there is no clear plan for entering this new era. Doctorow flips the centaur metaphor, suggesting that decisions are now made by algorithms while humans work at machine speed as overseers.
Consultant Nikhil Suresh has not found any successful AI projects in corporations over the past year and a half; however, these projects do not get shut down because promoting AI is beneficial for careers, while opposing it is risky. Notably, employment for young specialists in AI-vulnerable professions has dropped by 19% — there are no mass layoffs, but new hires are simply not happening.
This is a condensed version of the podcast. To watch the full episode:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63l1ByyI2fM
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