Data Centers Drove Half Of All Growth In US Electricity Use In 2025

The Petrogas-Dollar: Symptom Or Strategy? Authored 'No1' via Gold and Geopolitics substack, Three people sent me Richard Medhurst’s petrogas-dollar piece this week. I read it. Twice even. There’s a lot in there that I feel is correct. The chronology of the Levantine Basin deals. Cheney’s 2001 National Energy Policy. The roughly $35 billion of Chevron contracts signed across Israel, Syria, Greece, and Cyprus in the past six months. None of that is in dispute. The piece is, on the facts, broadly accurate. What I think though is that the reading of those facts is faulty. Some history.  In 1944 Bretton...

California Bans Government Officials From Using Insider Knowledge To Bet On Prediction Markets Authored by Dylan Morgan via The Epoch Times, California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday issued an executive order banning state officials from using insider knowledge to profit, or assist another person in profiting, on prediction markets, effective immediately. The governor’s office said there have been mounting reports of individuals in the federal government with access to sensitive government information placing well-timed bets ahead of major Trump administration actions. These reports are currently allegations and have yet to be verified. “Public...

IMF Panics, Warns Tokenization Could Bring Crypto Risks Into Global Financial Markets Authored by Francisco Rodrigues via CoinDesk.com, Tokenization could reshape finance by enabling instant settlement and cutting out intermediaries, and introduces new risks that regulators are not yet equipped to manage, the IMF said. Tokenization could amplify volatility through automated markets and smart contracts, the report said. The IMF called for clearer legal frameworks and stronger global coordination, warning that tokenized assets moving instantly across jurisdictions could complicate oversight and deepen financial fragmentation in the absence of proper regulation. Tokenization, the representation of...