Greg Guenthner:

Bitcoin Enters 'Rektember' After Best August Since 2017

Bitcoin climbed 25% in August, its strongest month since November 2024 and the best August rally since 2017. But September is off to a rough start, with Bitcoin falling below $77k.

Since 2013, September has been Bitcoin's worst month on average, delivering a loss near 3% and only five positive returns in 13 years. Though notably, the last three years have all ended September green for Bitcoin.

But there are real headwinds afoot. Fed Chair Kevin Warsh used his Jackson Hole speech Friday to lean hard on elevated inflation, and the bond market reacted strongly. Sovereign yields pushed to new cycle highs and the U.S. 10-year reached 4.784%. Markets now price a 66% chance of a 25-basis-point hike at the September 16 meeting, with another possible hike before year-end. Continued U.S. strikes against Iran pushed WTI crude to $88 a barrel, up 2% on the day and the highest since late July.

Higher rates tighten financial conditions and lift the dollar, which is the standard headwind for anything on the risk end of the curve. That's bad for Bitcoin.

Will the tailwinds of ETF inflows, DAT inflows, and a booming onchain crypto market be enough to take Bitcoin higher? Or will the headwinds of war, higher oil, inflation, and potential rate hikes stop the rally?

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Ray Blanco:

It Turns Out That Orion's Much-Maligned Heat Shield Performed Really Well

Perhaps the biggest question going into the Artemis II mission this spring was how the heat shield at the base of the spacecraft would perform during reentry through Earth's atmosphere.

The ablative heat shield, designed to char upon reentry while keeping the crew safe, had experienced unexpected losses of large chunks during a test flight in late 2022. After much deliberation, NASA decided to fly the Artemis II heat shield as is but modify the spacecraft's reentry trajectory.

The heat shield worked. The crew of Artemis II safely splashed down in the Pacific Ocean after a triumphant trip around the Moon. Afterward, they and other NASA officials offered general comments, saying the heat shield looked good.

After the Artemis I mission in 2022, there were more than 100 char loss sites observed across the dish-shaped heat shield at the base of the Orion crew vehicle. On the Artemis II heat shield, there were approximately nine char loss sites observed.

"So it was a big improvement," said Paul Hill, former director of Mission Operations at NASA.

The success of the Artemis II heat shield, which now appears to have been confirmed by an extensive data review, will give NASA confidence in the performance of its deep-space vehicle for future lunar missions.

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Ari Goldschmidt:

Meta Hit With Sweeping New Claims That Its AI Glasses Violated the Consent of "Millions" of Bystanders in Searing Lawsuit

An ongoing class action lawsuit against Meta, which accuses the tech giant of misrepresenting its privacy practices regarding its controversial Meta AI Glasses, was amended yesterday to include a new class of "bystander" plaintiffs who claim that Meta violated their privacy without their consent.

The implications are considerable. The new violations occurred even if bystanders never purchased the AI-powered glasses themselves, the expansive amended complaint alleges, reflecting rising anxieties around what the increasing ubiquity of AI-integrated surveillance technologies – from smart glasses to Flock cameras – mean for everyday life.

The lawsuit was first filed back in March after a joint investigation by a pair of Swedish newspapers found that Meta had stored content captured by its Meta AI Glasses and funneled it to human reviewers for the purpose of training AI models, according to Kenyan whistleblowers working for the content moderation outsourcer and longtime Meta partner Sama.

Meta is accused in the lawsuit of engaging in false advertising, wrongly telling purchasers that the smart glasses are "designed for privacy" and that users are "in control of your data and content," despite content collected through the glasses' AI features winding up in front of human reviewers who say they saw intimate material.

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