AI Cartel Wipes Out 150 Billion, Then Cancels Their IPO

Big AI companies including OpenAI, Anthropic, and their CEOs Sam Altman and Dario Amodei are publicly calling for government regulation to slow AI development — and the hosts argue this is straight-up regulatory capture designed to crush open-source competition. Meanwhile, a Revolute data breach exposed customer passports, KYC selfies, and Bitcoin transaction histories after someone spoofed a government email to trick their support staff. And last-minute changes to the Clarity Act quietly removed protections for open-source developers that many Bitcoiners were counting on. In this episode: • Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, and even Steve Bannon and Bernie Sanders united behind AI regulation calls — David Sacks publicly called it a cartel move to freeze out competitors via compliance costs • Bernie Sanders proposed legislation with up to 20 years in prison and a corporate death penalty for violating AI development pauses — compared to penalties for illegal nuclear weapons development • The Revolute breach: hackers used compromised Italian law enforcement systems to send fraudulent data requests, running the operation for six months and collecting 147 gigabytes including customer passports, KYC selfies, and full Bitcoin transaction histories • Electrum pushed new security patches after Bitcoin Red Team disclosures; Blue Wallet CTO flagged 45 app store crypto wallets with critical or high-risk vulnerabilities • Clarity Act update removed the sunset on the ethics ban for politicians issuing tokens, making it permanent and enforceable by state attorneys general — but also stripped the open-source developer carveout, leaving non-custodial devs potentially liable if they can be shown to have known about illicit activity on their platform • Samurai Wallet developers remain in federal prison; hosts detail how the FBI used the app from outside their New York office to establish jurisdiction, and how the devs face $240 million in forfeiture despite collecting roughly $6 million in fees • The hosts recommend running local AI models now, pointing to tools like Bionic and devices like the DJX Spark as ways to stay ahead of potential open-source crackdowns Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/dw095j2bE5M