Mining

This week, there were big changes on both sides of the digital frontier, and two big stories got a lot of attention. One shows how hard it is to have both luck and freedom in the world's largest decentralized network, $BTC. The other signals a major and strategic change in the centralized world of AI, as a top AI company changes how it uses user data to build the next generation of models.

$BTC Miner Wins Block with $347,000 Against All Odds
A solo $BTC miner solved a block, which is an incredible achievement against odds that are thought to be as high as one in ten million. This event has been compared to winning a global lottery. The independent operator was able to validate block 920440 all by themselves, which earned them a huge reward of about $347,000.

A post on the social media site Reddit was the first to draw attention to this unusual success. The miner explained how they won, and public blockchain data quickly confirmed it. On-chain analysis showed that the block was mined by a group with a unique Coinbase tag, which means they were not part of any of the big mining pools that usually find new blocks. Many people saw the miner's use of an Umbrel server as a win for "self-sovereignty" because it showed that he didn't need middlemen or third-party pool operators at all.

The full reward, which was 3.141 $BTC, included the standard 3.125 $BTC block subsidy, which is what miners will get after the 2024 halving event. It also included an extra 0.016 $BTC in transaction fees that had built up from the 2,181 transactions that were part of the block. The operator could keep all of the money by mining alone, instead of sharing it with thousands of other people in the pool.

This win is so impressive because the $BTC network has so much computing power. The total global hash rate will have reached the huge milestone of 1 zettahash per second by 2025. This number, which stands for one sextillion calculations every second, shows how safe the network is, but it also makes it almost impossible for any one person to compete.

In today's mining world, operators have a hard choice to make. They can do "solo mining," which is a high-risk, high-reward way of mining where they compete against the whole global network by themselves. The chances of success are very low, but the reward could be the whole block reward. A lot of people think that this path isn't a good business plan and is more like a gamble than a business plan.

This is why most miners do "pool mining." Industrial-scale pools, which now make up about 75–85% of all block production in the world, let tens of thousands of miners combine their computing power. This group effort greatly raises the chances of finding a block, which means that you will get a steady, predictable, and reliable stream of fractional $BTC payments, minus a small pool fee.

In the end, this solo miner's $347,000 win does not mean that independent operators are now able to make a living. Instead, it is a strong and motivating reminder of the basic ideas behind the $BTC network. It shows that even though industrial-scale operations are in charge, the network is still a probabilistic system where, on rare occasions, the smallest participant can beat the odds and win. This reinforces the decentralized ethos that the network was built on.

Anthropic Changes AI Development Path with New User Data Controls for Claude
Anthropic, a top AI safety and research company, has announced big changes to its Consumer Terms and Privacy Policy in the world of centralized artificial intelligence. This change in strategy changes the way the company handles user data for its most popular AI models, like Claude. It marks the start of a new, data-heavy phase in the race for AI supremacy.

The main point of the update is that it gives its consumer-level users a clear choice. People on the Claude Free, Pro, and Max plans are now being asked to decide if they want to let their data be used to make AI models better and make safety measures stronger against harmful or biased content.

This choice is directly related to a new policy on how long to keep data. Anthropic is extending its data retention period from 30 days to a maximum of five years for users who choose to let their data be used for training. This longer time frame is very important for AI development because it gives research teams time to build, test, and improve new frontier models, which can take 18 to 24 months per cycle.

The company has been clear that this user data is very important. Synthetic data can be useful, but the best way to improve an AI's reasoning, accuracy, and ability to spot harmful requests is to have real users talk to it, code with it, and give it analytical prompts. This move shows that the whole industry is "hungry" for high-quality human interaction data, which is now seen as the most important resource for improving AI capabilities.

Users who care more about their privacy than improving the model can still choose not to participate. Users who don't want to share their data will still be protected by the current 30-day data retention policy. This lets users keep their current level of privacy, but they must choose to keep using the service by the deadline of October 8, 2025.

It's important to remember that this new policy doesn't apply to Anthropic's business or commercial services. Businesses that use Claude for Work or developers who use platforms like Amazon Bedrock and Google Cloud's Vertex AI to access the API are subject to different commercial terms that protect their data privacy and usually require them to keep their data for a very short time or not at all. We never use these clients' data to train models.

Anthropic has promised that privacy protections will stay in place even for users who choose to opt in. The company says it uses a mix of automated tools to hide or filter out sensitive personal information, and it does not sell user data to other companies. This move, however, clearly shows the main problem in the modern AI industry: the direct conflict between the huge technical need for user data to make better products and the growing consumer demand for privacy and data sovereignty.

#WriteToEarnUpgrade #Mining #MarketRebound #BTC #bnb

#Mining L’Angola souhaite prendre le contrôle ou du moins une part stratégique du géant mondial du diamant De Beers. En parallèle, cette dernière a annoncé la découverte d’un nouveau gisement de kimberlite, une très bonne nouvelle pour son retour en Angola après une longue absence.
En effet, prendre le contrôle de ce géant du diamant est un enjeu important pour l'Angola car en accédant à De Beers, il viserait à récupérer davantage de valeur dans la chaîne diamant allant du minage à la commercialisation de cette matière précieuse par ricochet son contrôle d'une part et jouir d'un pouvoir géopolitique et économique, d'autre part, car le diamant n’est plus uniquement un luxe mais un actif stratégique.
#Diamonds Aussi, l’Angola affirme que De Beers ne doit pas tomber entre les mains de ceux qui n’ont aucun intérêt pour le diamant naturel. Le secteur diamant, marché en mutation, fait face à des défis: moindre demande, concurrence des diamants de synthèse.
#Blockchain De Beers a déjà développé une plateforme blockchain "Tracr" pour suivre les diamants de l'extraction dans les mines jusqu’au client final, une preuve que les diamants et la crypto se croisent. Il sied de relever que dans un futur proche, la combinaison diamants et blockchain pourrait permettre de fractionner un actif minier ou un diamant de valeur en jetons numériques et de le rendre liquide ce qui était traditionnellement illiquide.
#HODLStrategy Pour un investisseur crypto, suivre les matières premières stratégiques tels que le diamant, minage, l'or, etc. est un moyen de diversification des investissements pour ne pas dire, un pont entre le mining réel et le mining numérique.
#binanceWrite2Earn Avec l’Angola qui entre dans le jeu, cela peut ouvrir de nouveaux scénarios d’investissement, pourquoi pas d'opportunité de contenu éditorial.
«Car où est le trésor de ton cœur, là aussi sera ton cœur.» Matthieu 6:21. Si l’Angola place le diamant comme trésor national, nous, investisseurs crypto, devons penser à où nous plaçons notre trésor numérique. Veillons à la provenance, à la transparence, et à l’horizon.
KILONGO SAMBU Roger.