WAR (WAR) Surge

The New Cold War is a Tech Stock War The article argues that the contemporary geopolitical and economic rivalry between the US and China represents a "New Cold War," but one fundamentally fought through technology and financial markets, not physical barriers or conventional trade. Historically, US dominance was secured through financial systems. The Soviet Union, reliant on the rigid "Transferable Ruble," was ultimately undermined by its dependency on the US dollar for oil trade. Later, Japan's semiconductor challenge was countered not just by tariffs (e.g., Plaza Accord, 301 investigations) but by binding it to US Treasury bonds. China presents a more complex, "embedded" challenger. While it holds vast dollar reserves and US debt like Japan, its industrial base is stronger and more diversified than the Soviet Union's. Surviving the initial 2018 trade war phase, the conflict has evolved into a "tech-financial war." The core battlefield is now the stock market. US tech stocks (AI, semiconductors) are treated as sovereign assets, buoyed by bipartisan national will. China is pushing to strengthen its own financial markets to convert industrial strength into financial power and fund its tech ambitions. Companies like ChangXin (semiconductors), Moonshot AI, and DJI compete not just for market share but as financial proxies for their respective systems. The new paradigm is moving from globally efficient monopolies (Apple, Google) towards companies that achieve monopolistic profits within their respective geopolitical spheres. This competition over "pricing power" and financial valuation in segmented markets defines the current era, making the stock market the primary arena for this tech-centric struggle.

Investors who purchased the Vanguard Energy Index Fund ETF before the onset of the US war with Iran gained a profit, with a $1,000 investment growing to $1,031.85 (a 3.18% gain). The ETF benefited from rising oil prices after an attack on Iran disrupted energy supplies and shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical route for global crude oil and LNG trade. Supply fears drove Brent and WTI oil prices above $100 per barrel, supporting energy company stocks. The ETF climbed above $160 in early March, reaching around $170—a six-month high. It later experienced corrections as ceasefire talks and diplomacy reduced geopolitical risks. By early July, shares fell to around $150, the period's low, but recovered above $160 by August. Despite volatility, the ETF gained 7.66% over the past six months. This fund tracks a diversified portfolio of major energy companies, including oil producers, refiners, and exploration firms, with holdings in companies like Exxon Mobil and Chevron. While oil prices have retreated slightly from their peaks, geopolitical uncertainty continues to exert upward pressure on energy markets, with investor focus remaining on the Strait of Hormuz.

On August 10, Luke Dashjr, a long-time Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) editor and co-founder of Ocean mining pool, was removed from the BIP editing team for bypassing discussion protocols and preemptively assigning a number to BIP-110, a controversial soft fork proposal he helped draft. The conflict stems from Bitcoin Core's version 30 release in October 2025, which removed the default 83-byte limit on OP_RETURN, a field used for embedding non-transaction data. In response, BIP-110 aimed to enforce this limit as a consensus rule. It controversially lowered the activation threshold for miners to 55% and included a mandatory activation clause, causing significant community backlash. Major mining pools like Foundry USA and AntPool did not support it, with public criticism from figures like F2Pool's Wang Chun and Michael Saylor, who argued it compromised Bitcoin's neutrality. On August 8, at block height 961,632, nodes running the BIP-110 patch rejected the main chain block, causing a chain split. The minority chain, supported by only about 2.53% of the network's hash rate, produced just one additional block before stalling. The main chain quickly outpaced it by over 240 blocks. No major exchanges have supported the minority chain. The event highlighted Bitcoin's governance reality: while rules can be proposed by a few, ultimate authority lies with the economic majority—miners willing to expend hash power and users/exchanges recognizing a chain's validity. Following the failed split, BIP-110 proponents, including Luke Dashjr, have begun discussing a change to the proof-of-work algorithm to create a separate coin, though this remains in early discussion stages.

DeepSeek and other major AI players are quietly shifting their battle for supremacy to the infrastructure front, with Wulanchabu, a small city in Inner Mongolia, emerging as a key battleground. The article details a visit to the massive data center clusters there, highlighting the industry's pivot from a light-asset model of renting computing power to a strategic race to build and control foundational AI infrastructure. Wulanchabu's advantages—low electricity costs (around ¥0.32-0.35 per kWh, 90% green energy), cool climate, and proximity to Beijing—have made it China's largest AI computing cluster. Companies like Alibaba Cloud are deploying modular, prefabricated data center "cabins" that can be assembled on-site in as little as 100 days, dramatically accelerating deployment compared to traditional multi-year construction. This "new Foxconn" model standardizes components for mass production. The drive for efficiency is paramount. Alibaba’s latest architecture flattens design, integrating power distribution, backup batteries, and liquid-cooled server racks into single modules. The ultimate bottleneck is power. As AI training and, increasingly, inference demand skyrocket, electricity cost and availability become decisive competitive factors. The industry faces the challenge of aligning fast-paced computing demand with slower power grid planning. DeepSeek's significant investment in building its own computing center in Wulanchabu underscores this trend: securing large-scale, low-cost dedicated computing power is now a prerequisite for survival in the AI race. The article concludes that this Chinese manufacturing-supported paradigm for AI infrastructure, focused on modular, rapidly deployable, and cost-optimized data centers, could reshape the global AI landscape as it scales.

Peter Schiff, CEO of Euro Pacific Asset Management and a long-time Bitcoin critic, argues that Bitcoin is performing as "anti-gold," falling in price while traditional safe-haven assets like gold and silver rise. He points to a yearly performance where gold is up 9% and silver 11%, while Bitcoin is down 11%, citing this divergence as proof that Bitcoin's narrative as "digital gold" is flawed. Schiff links the surge in precious metals to geopolitical risks, war, and resulting inflationary pressures from higher oil prices, which drive investors to traditional safe havens. In contrast, Bitcoin recently fell below $64,000, extending its period of underperformance against major asset classes he tracks. This is not the first time Schiff has challenged Bitcoin's correlation with gold, having previously stated the connection "was never real." He has also warned of significant potential losses for corporate Bitcoin holders like MicroStrategy. Bitcoin proponents counter that short-term price divergence during a risk-off period does not settle the long-term debate on Bitcoin's role as a store of value.