Wessel van Rensburg

reaction.lifeWhy stablecoins are Silicon Valley's Pandora's boxStablecoins betray the essence of money itself: credit.

7 Aug 2025

New essay ↓ with Andreas Dombret www.reaction.life/p/why-stable... #stablecoins Stablecoins are Silicon Valley's Pandora's box. The Trump admin just signed the GENIUS Act, but the warnings should be louder. Here's what everyone's missing about why stablecoins betray the essence of money itself 🧵

Wessel van Rensburg reposted

Deborah Cole

@deborahcole.bsky.social

Just 8% of Germans think Trump has changed the US for the better. Only 1 in 10 say the US and German govts still "share the same fundamental values," although 1 in 3 said most Americans and Germans do. More than half said a US vacation was "unimaginable" now www.spiegel.de/ausland/us-m...

spiegel.de(S+) US-Midterms-Umfrage: Was Deutschland eint? Die Abneigung gegen die USAWaffenkäufe, Techkonzerne, Donald Trump: Kurz vor den Zwischenwahlen in den USA zeigt eine neue Umfrage, wie die Deutschen auf Amerika blicken. Und ob ein anderer Präsident daran etwas ändern würde.

yacnews.comCanada moves to diversify away from Starlink with Telesat and partners in Europe, South Korea and NorwayCanada to reduce its reliance on Elon Musk’s Starlink, investing roughly $5 billion in Telesat’s satellite network and expanding cooperation with European, South Korean and Norwegian partners. Carney ...

The detail that matters: Telesat's 69 military satellites launch on SpaceX Falcon 9s. Canada can diversify the constellation, but for now not the ride to orbit. Starshield showed the risk is who holds the off switch.

Anonymous@youranoncentral.bsky.social

Canada is moving away from Elon Musk’s Starlink, committing roughly $5 billion to Telesat and expanding satellite partnerships with Europe, South Korea and Norway. Carney cited Ukraine’s Starshield restrictions as a warning against relying on one provider.

The new Dutch champions are chip equipment, chips, biotech and AI compute. They depend on scarce engineers, grid capacity, housing, export controls and EU-level supply chains. Policy tuned to Shell and Unilever fits them badly.

Merien ten Houten@merien.com

Ooit was de Nederlandse beurs Philips, Unilever, Shell, ABN Amro, Akzo... Nu is het ASML ... ... ... ING Nebius argenx NXP Maar in de hoofden van beleidsmakers is het nog steeds Shell en Unilever..

I am sure historians will note that talk of responsible stakeholder capitalism, ESG had just reached a high water mark at the US Business roundtable and Davos circa 2019 to 2020, and that this was abandoned without blinking.

Schooley@schooley.bsky.social

That this is in THE WASHINGTON POST is almost too much irony to bear.

vist.lyEurope’s satellite merger tests drive for space independenceThe three-way deal aims to strengthen Europe’s satellite industry as Elon Musk’s Starlink sets the pace in low Earth orbit. It could also leave the EU with fewer suppliers for its own secure commun…

The complaint is a merger it would leave the EU with two major suppliers for IRIS², a €15.6bn network where Airbus already builds platforms and Thales Alenia Space supplies payloads. Scale will help against Starlink, and the lack of a deep European capital market.

POLITICO Europe@politico.eu

A proposed deal between Airbus, Leonardo and Thales aims to strengthen Europe’s satellite industry as Elon Musk’s Starlink sets the pace in low Earth orbit. It could also leave the EU with fewer suppliers for its own secure communications network. 🔗 vist.ly/5p2bq

The price may be bargaining power as a customer. Both can't be maximised. But that is a small price for sovereignty.

bloom.bgIsrael Election 2026 Live: Voting and Latest Updates

The reputational damage to Meta and US big tech not just in Brazil worldwide will have long term consequences.

Adam Schwarz@adamjschwarz.bsky.social

Lula: "We had to overcome foreign interference through digital platforms, which we will have to regulate. A crime in the digital world must be treated the same as a crime in the real world. We cannot have monstrous companies earning millions... not paying taxes... wanting to steer elections."

Wessel van Rensburg reposted

Nick Srnicek

@nsrnicek.bsky.social

22h

Big tech is so desperate for capital, they're even raising money from the stock market for basically the first time in their existence

Wessel van Rensburg reposted

Bloomberg News

@bloomberg.com

Israelis are showing up to voting stations in droves, in what may end up being one of the most widely attended elections in a long time — or ever. Follow our live blog for the latest: bloom.bg/4iHb3N0

Wessel van Rensburg reposted

Adam Schwarz

@adamjschwarz.bsky.social

Wessel van Rensburg reposted

Ron Filipkowski

@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social

From Zelenskyy. Patriot interceptors that could save innocent lives are sitting in European countries for weeks, which they paid for, unable to be transferred to Ukraine because Hegseth refuses to sign off.

Wessel van Rensburg reposted

Joseph Cotterill

@jsphctrl.ft.com

Replying to @jsphctrl.ft.com

Good day for noting that big currency sell-offs in Brazil (like today) also tend to make global coffee and sugar cheaper. Big falls in the real give farmers more incentives to earn dollars from exports and increasing global supply. Arabica coffee futures are off over 3% today.

Wessel van Rensburg reposted

Jesse Felder

@jessefelder.com

‘JP Morgan estimates that only 20% of AI capital expenditures will be funded by free cash flow in 2027, with the remaining 80% requiring external financing.’ thedailyshot.com/2026/10/26/c...

Wessel van Rensburg reposted

ian bremmer

@ianbremmer.com

in the two hours after voting was extended in brazil, 35k more people cast ballots. makes no difference to lula’s margin of four million votes… story reflects more brazilians’ understandable lack of trust in their supreme court (61% distrust stf justices) than any claims of electoral manipulation

Wessel van Rensburg reposted

POLITICO Europe

@politico.eu

Wessel van Rensburg reposted

Schooley

@schooley.bsky.social

That this is in THE WASHINGTON POST is almost too much irony to bear.

Wessel van Rensburg reposted

George Pearkes

@peark.es

*ANTHROPIC FILES PUBLICLY FOR US IPO www.sec.gov/Archives/edg...

sec.govsec.gov

Wessel van Rensburg reposted

Bloomberg News

@bloomberg.com

Microsoft will offer buyouts to about 60,000 workers, part of the company’s efforts to trim costs and retool its workforce for the AI era. Read more: bloom.bg/3TX8U6D 📷: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

wsj.comOpinion | Viktor Orbán, U.N. Secretary-General?Trump officials push the idea of a U.S.-Russia-China joint candidate.

Power has it's own logic, and that will prevail.

Saritha Rai@saritharai.bsky.social

China’s DeepSeek wants ubiquity. Beijing has mixed feelings. The global AI race is being fought on two contradictory fronts: a push to make the tech cheaper and more open - and a geopolitical drive to keep it tightly controlled within national borders www.bloomberg.com/news/newslet... #AI

Wessel van Rensburg reposted

Norman

@noaasm.bsky.social

We are really living in the dumbest timeline - Sources from three countries confirm that the Trump Administration has advocated Viktor Orbán for the role of United Nations Secretary-General www.wsj.com/opinion/vikt...

Brazil: With the count complete, the electoral court gave Lula 51.8% of valid votes against 48.2%, a lead of roughly 4.4 million votes. That reverses the first round on 4 October, where Flávio Bolsonaro finished first with about 47% to Lula’s 45%, which went against nearly all late polls.

@petergeoghegan.bsky.social

The coming dispute: A Supreme Court justice extended voting by two hours at the last minute, and that decision may be challenged in court by the Bolsonaro camp. CNBC reported last night that Flávio Bolsonaro was refusing to concede.

Wessel van Rensburg reposted

Jo Wolff

@jowolff.bsky.social

Incredible gender difference in voting intention in Brazil.

Wessel van Rensburg reposted

Peter Geoghegan

Wow. Vučić has conceded Serbian election. Massive moment for the entire Balkans

leviathan.raak.workOpen tools are not enough: Europe needs a stateleviathan.raak.work

Open tools are not enough: Europe needs a state. That is my conclusion from the closing debate at the National Design Debate 2026, "Shaping Europe", between Koert van Mensvoort and @marleen.oso.social Stikker. Here is where I agree with them, and where I part ways.

Fix that and Europe becomes a formidable Leviathan. It must be under democratic control, so its technologies reflect the humanist values Europeans say they want. I left closer to Van Mensvoort than I expected. Europe can do this, if it changes its attitude.

http://leviathan.raak.work/posts/open-tools-are-not-enough/

leviathan.raak.workOpen tools are not enough: Europe needs a stateleviathan.raak.work

But Europe is not a state. It is an association of states pulling in opposite directions. It has no single capital market, which holds back its tech sector and its growth more than anything else.

The Netherlands, with Germany, has been the main obstacle to a capital markets union. Credit to Wennink: he went further than Draghi and called for one, with a coalition of the willing if the EU will not move.

leviathan.raak.workOpen tools are not enough: Europe needs a stateleviathan.raak.work

Here I part ways. Open tools alone cannot do the job. A protocol can be open while the costly servers and the moderation that run on the layer above it at scale still end up in a few hands.

The state is a collective technology too, like language, and a crucial one. Organised well, it can bring capital to bear on European technologies that stand next to China's and America's. Small tools cannot do that.

leviathan.raak.workOpen tools are not enough: Europe needs a stateleviathan.raak.work

Stikker also argues capitalism rests on extracting value. Regenerative value lasts longer but never shows up in GDP or the planning models. As long as only extractive models justify investment, we go further down the wrong path. Her answer is an economy built on commons.

Her proposal: treat AI as digital public infrastructure, as with Linux and the Web. Publicly funded, under public control. I agree. GPT-NL needs far more than its roughly 12 million euros. Anthropic is thought to have received $125 billion.

leviathan.raak.workOpen tools are not enough: Europe needs a stateleviathan.raak.work

Stikker says AI is driven by stock-market mechanisms, not by the technology. If so, public money should not flow into AI without public control. Question the assumptions in the Draghi and Wennink reports before it does.

Van Mensvoort offers a test rooted in humanism, Erasmus's tradition: ask of every gadget whether it strengthens your humanity or outsources it. He polled the room. Nearly everyone had used AI that month. Few used a European one.

leviathan.raak.workOpen tools are not enough: Europe needs a stateleviathan.raak.work

Van Mensvoort says imagining a future worth living in is the hard part. Disaster is easy to picture. A future you would wish on others, and could actually achieve, is harder. It is also the more urgent task, and the one most people skip.

Stikker asked the cultural and design sectors to make what they believe in, not only what clients ask for. Fair. But belief without capital stays a gesture. Conviction has to be funded to become infrastructure.

leviathan.raak.workOpen tools are not enough: Europe needs a stateleviathan.raak.work