Scott James

🎯 How long before Hegseth becomes the next Special Envoy for the Shield etc ?

Starting to wonder whether a scenario in which the oil price remains $90-100/bbl for an extended period might be the worst one here. High enough to do economic damage, not high enough for the US administration to seek a quick resolution.

Elon Musk Suddenly Confirms Imminent Crypto Game-Changer Amid Huge $1 Million Bitcoin Price Prediction Elon Musk Musk briefly sent the price of the meme-based bitcoin rival dogecoin sharply higher...

Parklife

Trump administration’s mixed messaging sparks wild swings in oil markets Confusion over US naval escorts in Strait of Hormuz exposes lack of clarity over war aims

📢 Precision guided bombing to manipulate energy markets is *weaponised price control*

Exclusive | Justice Department Probes Iran’s Use of Binance to Evade Sanctions The investigation is focused on money flowing through the crypto platform to a network that backs terror groups, including Yemen’s Houthi militants.

Complex interdependence: Iran weaponising chokepoints in oil markets and sanctions-busting crypto infrastructures feels like a special issue that could write itself

Trump administration’s mixed messaging sparks wild swings in oil markets Confusion over US naval escorts in Strait of Hormuz exposes lack of clarity over war aims

📢 Precision guided bombing to manipulate energy markets is *weaponised price control*

Energy markets currently hanging off Trump’s every word, but at some point their algorithms will have to adjust to the new structures of heightened geopolitical risks that US has now unleashed in the region

💯 Highlights how US strategy is spiralling by chasing the consequences of its own actions

Removes Khamanei > regime consolidates and retaliates > Hormuz closes > US doubles down on bombing > Iranian state / economy fatally weakened > oil and gas markets adjust to long run geopol risks

Why Escalation Favors Iran America and Israel may have bitten off more than they can chew.

Why the biggest danger for Trump is not a Forever War in Iran but the Forever Politics at home

The assumption here being that ending the war is simply at the discretion of the US, but completely ignoring just how much the stakes have been raised for Israel, Iran and the rest of the region and cannot now be so easily contained

As an IR professor, it's depressing that this is outperforming all others as the best theory of US foreign policy

*today

I suspect that this will be the week that many of the neocon usual suspects make the alarmed discovery that Trump doesn’t have the attention span to see this through

Iran hits Amazon data centres in jolt to Gulf AI drive First known military strike on a US hyperscaler rattles regional ambitions to build multibillion-dollar cloud facilities

Fascinating on the military targeting of AI infrastructure and the geopolitics of locating data centres near conflict zones

‘The strikes mark what is believed to be the world’s first military attack against the US “hyperscalers” that dominate the global cloud computing market.’

Trump is the best argument against a dollar CBDC you could ever ask for

Kevin Warsh’s push to shrink Federal Reserve’s balance sheet would evolve slowly Central bank chair nominee faces scepticism over his hopes to scale back one of policymakers’ most powerful tools

A new Fed Governor committed to returning to a pre 2008 monetary paradigm is not a serious candidate for reconciling the demands of the international monetary system with the whims of Trump’s foreign policy

'Number Goes Up'—Iran Conflict Has Bitcoin Bulls Eyeing $500K Arthur Hayes says the Fed will eventually print money to fund the Iran war, sending bitcoin higher. Strategy bought $204M of BTC through the strikes.

So much pRiCe DiScOvErY

"The longer Trump lingers in Iran, the higher the likelihood of the Fed printing money to support the Pax Americana war machine…And ultimately BTC number goes up."

Trump’s Way of War Iran, Venezuela, and the end of the Powell Doctrine.

From neocons to neoDons - or the logic of mob violence

‘For Trump force is not something to employ only when all other means have been exhausted, but rather one of several tools available to increase leverage, maximize surprise, and produce outcomes.’

Trump’s Way of War Iran, Venezuela, and the end of the Powell Doctrine.

From neocons to neoDons - or the logic of mob violence

‘For Trump force is not something to employ only when all other means have been exhausted, but rather one of several tools available to increase leverage, maximize surprise, and produce outcomes.’

If I'm reading this correctly, the not-shocking conclusion is stablecoins benefit Wall Street banks much more than regionals and community banks.

Add'l speculation by me: the market may not view stablecoins as a competition threat but a but a deregulatory advantage for large tradfi incumbents.

*Thucydides is typing*

‘The real price discovery happens on Monday’ 👀
finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin...

‘The real price discovery happens on Monday’ 👀
finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin...

‘Large mining operations require steady power.

A sustained conflict that damages infrastructure could reduce the hash rate or mining capacity tied to the country.’

4/n

‘Elliptic found Iran’s central bank accumulated at least $507 million in USDT in 2025, likely to steady the rial and finance trade. That effort has mostly failed, with data showing that the rial has lost more than 96% of its value against the USD.’

3/n

‘Chainalysis estimates IRGC-linked addresses accounted for more than 50% of total Iranian crypto inflows in the fourth quarter of 2025, with over $3 billion in value received last year.’

2/n

Iran crisis puts the regime's $7.8 billion crypto shadow economy in spotlight Fresh U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran have drawn new attention to a financial network Tehran has built in parallel to its battered banking system: bitcoin mining and a fast-growing

Of course there’s a crypto angle:

‘Iran allows licensed operators to use subsidized electricity in exchange for selling mined BTC to the central bank. Bitcoin has served as a tool for paying for imports and settling trade outside the dollar system’

🧵 1/n

We probably spent too long in February taking the Donroe Doctrine seriously