Deep thinker

Today, 1 ZEC is worth only 0.01 BTC. Someday, 1 $ZEC will be worth more than 1 BTC.

Republicans didn’t lose the election without reason. The Iran war drove up energy prices and the cost of living, and that was certainly one factor. But mistakes in other Republican-backed policies are also costing the party votes. Take the construction of AI data centers, for example. Expanding AI infrastructure is undoubtedly a good thing. In fact, it is essential for the United States to maintain its global technological leadership. The problem is that, due to electricity supply constraints and existing infrastructure limitations, many data centers are being built near residential communities. What does that mean for nearby residents? Potentially, 24/7 equipment noise, growing pressure on electricity and water resources, and a steady deterioration in their living environment. The AI boom generates enormous profits for tech giants and helps America maintain its global competitive edge. But what do nearby residents get in return? Possibly nothing but constant low-frequency noise and a higher cost of living. This is exactly the problem Republicans are facing: A policy may benefit the nation, but if ordinary people bear the costs without sharing in the benefits, it may be an economic success and a political failure. The loss of votes in some traditionally Republican strongholds deserves to be examined from this perspective. Local opposition to data centers may not be the decisive factor, but it reflects a fundamental political reality that Republicans are overlooking: Voters are not going to tolerate 24/7 noise outside their homes simply because America is ahead of China in AI. America needs AI data centers, but that doesn’t mean sacrificing residents’ quality of life. The United States has vast amounts of land. The government should encourage large AI training facilities to be built away from residential areas, rather than forcing ordinary families to bear the costs just to make construction cheaper for corporations. Technological competition determines a nation’s future, but quality of life determines how voters cast their ballots.

The Left: “If you kill a murderer, the number of murderers in the world stays the same, because you’ve become one yourself.” The Right: “Then kill another one. Now there’s one fewer murderer in the world.” A funny little story.

The midterm elections were a tragedy. Voters didn’t vote because they supported the Democrats, but because they were fed up with Trump, the war in Iran, and the high cost of living. If Trump truly wants to Make America Great Again, he should voluntarily resign. Vance could then take office, pardon Trump, end the war in Iran, bring down prices, and lead the Republican Party back to victory.

The Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act is the stupidest piece of legislation in history. Bar none. This is like the United States deciding during World War II to ban nuclear weapons research out of fear that atomic bombs could destroy humanity. The problem is, Nazi Germany wouldn’t have abandoned its nuclear weapons program just because America stopped its own research. Just imagine: if Nazi Germany had developed the atomic bomb first, would the world today still look anything like it does now? The same logic applies to artificial superintelligence. The United States can pass laws banning its own companies from developing it, but can it force other countries to stop as well? Once another country succeeds, it could gain an unprecedented technological advantage. And then everything could be lost. Are Democrats really this stupid?

The results of this election reveal a great deal. In my view, many voters do not necessarily like the Democratic Party all that much. Rather, they are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with Trump. For the Republican Party, Trump’s continued presidency could present three increasingly difficult problems. First, the war with Iran. Trump and Iran’s current leadership have developed deep hostility toward each other, making political reconciliation extremely difficult. But as long as tensions in the Middle East remain unresolved, it will be difficult to ease energy prices and inflationary pressures. And the cost of living is precisely one of the issues American voters care about most. Trump could find himself trapped in a political dilemma: maintaining a hardline position would make it difficult to reduce the costs of war and its economic consequences, while making concessions could damage his political image. More importantly, as long as Trump remains president, negotiations with Iran may be extremely difficult. The hostility between Trump and Iran’s leadership is not merely political; it has become deeply personal. Second, Congress. Trump has made too many enemies across both parties. If Republicans lose control of Congress, he could face more aggressive investigations and congressional oversight, while his ability to govern during the remaining two years of his presidency could be severely constrained. Third, legal risks. Trump has long faced various legal controversies and allegations of conflicts of interest. If the political environment deteriorates further, these issues could once again become a serious burden for the Republican Party. Therefore, I believe Republicans should seriously consider an alternative political path: After the new Congress takes office in 2027, Trump voluntarily resigns, allowing JD Vance to succeed him as president. Such a transition could potentially address several problems at once. First, Vance could consider granting Trump a presidential pardon for any potential federal criminal liability, reducing his future legal risks. This would also be beneficial to Trump himself. Second, unlike Trump, Vance would not bear the same direct political responsibility for launching the war with Iran, nor does he have the same history of personal hostility with Iran’s leadership. This could give him considerably more diplomatic flexibility. He might find it easier to pursue a ceasefire, negotiations, and eventually a gradual reconciliation with Iran, creating the conditions for greater stability in the Middle East and lower energy prices. Third, Vance could redirect the Republican Party’s political agenda away from international conflicts and political confrontation and toward domestic economic issues, particularly inflation, housing, energy, and the cost of living for ordinary American families. Fourth, if Vance became president in early 2027, he would have nearly two years to establish his own governing record before running in the 2028 presidential election as the incumbent president. For Trump, voluntarily stepping down could offer a way to preserve his political influence while reducing future risks. For Vance, it would be an opportunity to reshape the Republican Party’s governing agenda. For Republicans, it could provide a chance to move beyond the war and political controversies and reconnect with moderate voters. If Trump has become a political liability that the Republican Party struggles to overcome, a voluntary transfer of power may be worth considering rather than insisting that he remain in office until the end of his term. Trump makes a graceful exit. Vance begins a new chapter of leadership. Republicans refocus on inflation and the cost of living. Perhaps this is a political path worth seriously considering.

I believe that when the new Congress takes office in 2027, Trump voluntarily stepping down and allowing JD Vance to assume the presidency could be a political option worth considering for the Republican Party. First, Vance could pardon Trump for potential federal criminal offenses, reducing his future legal risks. Second, unlike Trump, Vance would not bear the same direct political responsibility for starting the war with Iran. This could give him greater flexibility to end the war, bring down oil prices, and ease inflation. Third, on Ukraine, Vance could adopt a more neutral, less interventionist approach, redirecting more resources and attention toward the American economy. Most importantly, if Vance takes office in early 2027, he would have nearly two years to end the wars, stabilize energy prices, ease the cost of living, and build a record of achievements ahead of the 2028 presidential election. For Republicans, this may be a political path worth seriously considering: Trump makes a graceful exit, Vance begins a new chapter of leadership, and the 2028 election shifts its focus back to what matters most to ordinary Americans — prices and the cost of living.

There is no doubt that the Iran war was a major mistake. For most Americans, whether Iran can develop nuclear weapons is not their primary concern. What they care about is their own wallets. To most Americans, Iran is Israel’s problem, not America’s. And that is why Trump lost. In a democracy where elections determine political power, an American president has one mission above all else: lower prices and reduce the cost of living. Prices = Votes.

After reading Binance’s announcement, I just tried to withdraw my ZEC from Binance to Zodl, but the withdrawal was rejected because the “network is busy.”

I was genuinely shocked by Binance’s investigation report. I expected to read about exceptionally sophisticated techniques used by North Korean hackers. Instead, what shocked me most was Binance’s own security management. According to the report, an employee ran code supplied by an outside recruiter on a work computer. For a development device with access to financial infrastructure, shouldn’t such a high-risk activity be subject to strict controls and confined to an isolated environment? After compromising one computer, the attackers were able to use an internal AI tool to compromise other employees’ computers. Were internal permission boundaries and security isolation actually working? Even more alarming, deployment credentials stored on an employee’s computer ultimately allowed the attackers to reach the wallet signing service. Why did the multiple independent checks that should have stood between development devices and control over funds fail to stop the attack? And once malicious on-chain authorizations had been established, revoking them required a specially developed procedure. Shouldn’t a wallet system handling billions of dollars already have had a response plan for this scenario? This is the world’s largest crypto exchange? Financial institutions must assume that someone will eventually be deceived and that a computer will eventually be compromised. The purpose of a security framework is to prevent one person’s mistake from escalating into billions of dollars in losses. Binance seriously needs to reassess whether its access controls, risk isolation and incident response capabilities are adequate for the scale of assets it holds.

The Binance hack could further accelerate the adoption of privacy coins by making more people realize that asset security is about more than protecting private keys. It also means limiting the exposure of financial information. On a public ledger, wallet balances, transaction histories, and fund flows can all help attackers identify targets. As blockchain analytics become more powerful, these risks become harder to ignore. Privacy cannot guarantee absolute security, but it can make targets harder to discover, identify, and track. Shielding balances and transactions should be an important line of defense for digital assets. A mature financial system must make transactions verifiable while protecting users’ financial privacy. $ZEC $ALEO

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The Binance Incident Is Another Reminder: Financial Privacy Is Also a Form of Security On October 30, President Trump was asked by reporters in the Oval Office about whether the funds stolen from Binance could be recovered. He said: “You know the old-fashioned way when you used to sign a check, take it out. These are different. People never see the money anymore. So I’ve always felt it was a little bit dangerous.” Even political leaders who support the development of cryptocurrencies may still lack full confidence in the security of digital assets. And those concerns are not without reason. Over the past decade, the cryptocurrency industry has suffered numerous major exchange hacks. Mt. Gox in 2014, Bitfinex in 2016, Coincheck in 2018, and Bybit in 2025 all suffered enormous losses from serious security breaches. This raises an interesting question: Why have the early Bitcoin holdings believed to belong to Satoshi Nakamoto remained untouched by any known private-key theft for more than a decade? One possible explanation is that these assets have barely moved. They have not been frequently used for transactions, smart contract approvals, or interactions with external applications. Their potential attack surface is extremely limited. By contrast, exchanges and active wallets must constantly process transfers, signatures, approvals, and interactions with external systems. Every additional interaction can introduce another potential point of attack. But is wallet theft purely a technical security problem? Not necessarily. On public blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, anyone can examine wallet balances, transaction histories, and fund flows. Hackers can do more than search for technical vulnerabilities. They can use on-chain analysis to identify high-value wallets, study transaction patterns, and potentially trace those wallets back to their owners. As artificial intelligence and blockchain analytics continue to advance, the ability to identify and target potential victims may become even more powerful. Therefore, beyond strengthening cryptographic security, private-key management, and system defenses, I believe two additional approaches deserve greater attention. First, minimize unnecessary wallet interactions. For large, long-term holdings, consider using dedicated cold wallets and avoiding frequent signatures, approvals, and connections to untrusted applications. Reducing unnecessary interactions helps minimize potential entry points for attackers. Second, protect financial privacy and reduce unnecessary exposure of asset information. If attackers cannot easily determine how much a wallet holds, where its funds come from, or where they are going, it becomes much harder to identify high-value targets and launch targeted attacks based solely on publicly available blockchain data. This is one of the main reasons I have long been interested in privacy-focused cryptocurrencies such as Zcash. Privacy technology cannot eliminate private-key theft, malware, social engineering, or vulnerabilities within exchanges. But it can reduce a category of risk that has long been underestimated: targeted attacks enabled by excessive exposure of financial information. The traditional approach to security is to prevent attackers from stealing assets, even when they know those assets exist. Privacy technology adds another layer of protection: making it harder for attackers to discover valuable assets worth targeting in the first place. The future of financial security will not be determined solely by who builds the strongest defenses, but also by who can minimize unnecessary exposure to risk. $ZEC

Just when the whole world thinks Trump is ready to accept a possible defeat in the midterm elections, not so fast. The real drama may only be beginning. Trump has never been one to give up easily.

If blockchain represents the future of finance, why does a traditional banking system that has existed for centuries still offer so many protections for customer assets that the cryptocurrency industry has yet to establish? Blockchain can address the problems of asset ownership and value transfer. But finance is not just about moving assets. It is also about preventing theft, correcting errors, combating fraud, and protecting customers. The future of finance will not be determined by technological efficiency alone, but ultimately by security and trust. The recent Binance security incident serves as a reminder to the entire industry: Being able to transfer billions of dollars in assets is a technological achievement. Being able to prevent billions of dollars in assets from being stolen is what financial infrastructure must deliver. So how do we ensure asset security? Security technology naturally comes first. But I believe there is another long-overlooked aspect of security: keeping assets hidden from potential attackers and reducing the chances of being discovered and targeted in the first place. On public blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, anyone can examine wallet balances, transaction histories, and fund flows. A wallet holding hundreds of millions of dollars may remain under the watchful eyes of the entire world. As AI and blockchain analytics continue to advance, attackers can identify high-value wallets more efficiently, continuously monitor their transactions, analyze fund movements, protocol interactions, and behavioral patterns, and search for potential vulnerabilities. This means that while transparency is a fundamental part of how blockchain establishes trust, it can also become a weakness in asset security. Consider a simple analogy. In the real world, criminals are often more likely to target wealthy individuals because they know those individuals possess wealth worth stealing. Even the strongest security systems cannot completely eliminate the risk of being targeted. The same logic applies to blockchain. If a wallet publicly holds large amounts of BTC or ETH, attackers do not need to guess where the money is. They can simply monitor high-value wallets, study their transaction patterns, and wait for an opportunity to exploit a weakness. But what if the assets and transactions themselves were difficult for outsiders to discover? How would attackers identify their targets in the first place? This is where privacy coins such as Zcash demonstrate their value. Through shielded addresses and zero-knowledge proofs, Zcash can conceal transaction amounts, participants, and related asset information. When shielded transactions are used correctly, users’ balances and financial activities are not publicly exposed in the same way as ordinary BTC or ETH wallets. This does not mean that wallets become completely undiscoverable or immune to attacks. Rather, it removes a major source of information that attackers rely on to identify large holdings, track transactions, and search for opportunities. Traditional security technology focuses on preventing attackers from breaking into your wallet. Privacy technology goes one step further by making it harder for attackers to know which wallets are worth targeting. The former increases the difficulty of an attack. The latter reduces the likelihood of becoming a target. I believe this distinction will become increasingly important in the age of AI. As automated blockchain monitoring, intelligent analysis, and vulnerability discovery become more powerful, publicly exposed high-value wallets may face increasingly sophisticated and persistent targeted attacks. For high-net-worth investors and institutions, a sound asset security strategy should include not only portfolio diversification, self-custody, multisignature wallets, and hardware wallets, but also minimizing unnecessary exposure of financial information on public blockchains. $ZEC

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The Binance incident highlights an important advantage of privacy coins. Traditional blockchain security focuses on preventing attackers from stealing assets. Privacy technology goes a step further by making it harder for attackers to identify assets worth targeting. The former protects control over assets, while the latter reduces the risk of targeted attacks caused by information exposure. This is one of the reasons I see long-term value in Zcash. As AI-powered blockchain analytics become increasingly sophisticated, financial privacy may evolve from a personal preference into an essential component of digital asset security. Privacy does not guarantee absolute security, but information exposure is itself a risk. A truly mature digital asset security system should not only prevent assets from being stolen, but also minimize the chances of their owners becoming targets in the first place. $ZEC

Binance wallets were attacked, while Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin has remained untouched for more than a decade. This reveals an important principle of security: Reducing the attack surface can sometimes be more effective than constantly adding new layers of protection. Satoshi’s wallets are no mystery. The associated Bitcoin addresses and their enormous holdings have been visible on the public blockchain for years. Anyone can observe them. Yet these coins have barely moved for over a decade, and the wallets have no need to interact frequently with external systems, leaving very few potential entry points for attackers. Exchange wallets, by contrast, must constantly process deposits, withdrawals, and fund transfers. They depend on complex software systems, access controls, and operational procedures. Every additional interaction can introduce another potential point of attack. This shows that asset security depends not only on how strong the defenses are, but also on how many opportunities for attack are exposed. But we can take this idea one step further: What if we could not only minimize wallet activity, but also hide how much wealth a wallet holds, where the funds come from, and where they go? Wouldn’t that reduce the risk even further? This is where Zcash offers something unique. On transparent blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum, hackers can use publicly available data to identify high-value wallets, track fund movements, and leverage AI-powered analysis to find potential targets. Zcash, through shielded transactions powered by zero-knowledge proofs, can conceal sensitive information about balances and transaction relationships, making it much harder for outside observers to determine which wallets hold substantial wealth. This means privacy does more than protect personal financial information. It can reduce the likelihood of assets being discovered, tracked, and specifically targeted before an attack even begins. Of course, privacy cannot eliminate software vulnerabilities, private key theft, or compromised internal systems. But it can limit the information attackers use to identify and select their targets. A truly strong security system should not only make it difficult for attackers to steal your assets. It should also make it difficult for them to find you in the first place. $ZEC