The push for regulatory clarity in the crypto industry is growing stronger by the day…
Longtime readers will know we’ve been closely tracking the progress of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025 – or CLARITY Act.
This highly anticipated digital asset legislation will provide the industry with a framework to finally begin working in tandem with regulators instead of fighting them at every turn.
This will unleash a new wave of tokenization for equities, debt, real estate, commodities, and even alternative assets. This influx of legislation and regulatory clarity is setting the stage for a financial revolution in which the modern financial system moves onchain…
And it’s happening faster than a lot of people realize.
The CLARITY Act has been making its way through Congress and is on the fast track for becoming the next major piece of digital asset legislation to be made into law this year.
And therein lies the opportunity.
We believe this is going to trigger a historic boom in a special subset of cryptocurrencies that I call “AI coins.”
These tokens are all at the nexus of cryptocurrencies and artificial intelligence and are uniquely positioned to benefit from the establishment of the onchain financial system… and in particular the further development of AI agents that will give rise to the Web3 agentic economy.
This is something my analysts – particularly Brownstone’s senior crypto analyst, Ben Lilly – and I have written about at length in The Bleeding Edge…
The pivotal moment is coming with the signing of the CLARITY Act into law.
We’re on the cusp of incredible change for the industry. There will be a vote on it by the end of this month, in fact. And after that, we expect it will be full steam ahead for the crypto and blockchain industries…
If you missed out on the initial build-up of the AI boom… if you didn’t get in on Bitcoin when I first recommended it at just $240 … these AI coins are an incredible opportunity to benefit from this cross-section of two powerful technologies with the backing of the U.S. government and true regulatory clarity moving forward.
Innovation and investment are about to take off. This is your moment to get ahead of it.
I hope you’ll join me for my AI Supercharged event next week. On Wednesday, I’ll get further into this opportunity – including the five coins I’m most excited about right now. You can go here to automatically sign up to join me.
You can also sign up for alerts, which I highly recommend. Not only will you get texts from us to help ensure you don’t miss the strategy session at 8 p.m. on September 24, but you can also get access to a special report my team and I have put together on one of my favorite stocks to take advantage of the AI data center boom.
Just go here to automatically join the guest list, and then you can sign up for alerts while you’re there.
Now, on to the AMA…
Hello to the team,
I have a question in regards to Bloom Energy servers. With all the power needs of the hyperscalers and our aging energy infrastructure, it seems like Bloom Energy has a potential solution.
The company marketing emphasizes that their solution of very cost-effective and carbon-neutral, essentially a fuel cell with natural gas as its source, but with no emissions.
So my question relates to the efficiency of the fuel cell compared to a natural gas plant. If all their claims are true, carbon-neutral, cost-efficient, this business will have a very substantial TAM. Just curious about your take on it.
P.S. I own shares of Bloom Energy, but I’m curious has to how they really compare to a natural gas plant.
Bien à vous!– Jean-François B.
Bonjour Jean-François,
This is an interesting question because there is a lot of nuance with regard to Bloom’s approach, and the company’s marketing gives an impression that is different from reality.
Let’s take Bloom Energy’s mission “To Make Clean, Reliable Energy Affordable for Everyone in the World,” for example. In fact, the whole positioning of the company is as a clean energy company.
However, to your point, Bloom Energy’s fuel cells are powered primarily by fossil fuels, specifically natural gas, and they do emit CO2. Bloom Energy’s technology converts natural gas to electricity through an electrochemical process rather than through a combustion process.
Source: Bloom Energy
It’s a very simple reaction. The natural gas reacts with oxygen ions from the air to produce carbon dioxide, water, and electricity.
In the field, Bloom Energy’s fuel cells produce about 835 lbs of CO2 per megawatt hour (MWh). Most modern natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) turbines will produce around 825 lbs of CO2 per MWh.
Some installations of Bloom Energy fuel cells are probably a bit less than the NGCC turbines, but they are pretty close in terms of CO2 output. And Bloom Energy’s fuel cells degrade with every year of use, as all battery technologies do, so efficiency declines with every year of use by a small amount.
The bigger issue for Bloom Energy is that the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) is significantly higher than when using NGCC turbines.
For example, a deal that Bloom Energy announced in December of 2024 was to deliver 19 MWh for $125 million. That amounts to $6,580 per kilowatt (KW) to deploy.
When we compare that to an NGCC plant, we’d see ranges of $1,579 per KW for a 34 megawatt (MW) plant, all the way down to just $670 per KW for a much larger 1,680 MW plant.
Prices drop quickly with scale for NGCC. Either way, NGCC deployments are a fraction of the cost of a Bloom Energy installation.
So the real question that I have is, how much more will industry be willing to pay for the appearance of being “clean”?
Bloom Energy installations might be able to get subsidies in some cases, but as we learned above, the CO2 emissions are roughly the same, and it’s fossil fuel-based. There should be no subsidies. Bloom using natural gas is not cleaner than NGCC turbines.
I believe that Bloom’s share price has benefited from the appearance of being clean and the fact that NGCC turbines have a backlog of as much as two years. Bloom has filled a short-term demand need for natural gas energy production.
The real question is, once NGCC turbine manufacturers scale up their turbine production, will the industry be willing to pay 4–10 times more per unit of electricity for Bloom’s technology just for the appearance, not the reality, of being “cleaner”?
Bloom Energy (BE) now trades at a very rich 11.3 times annual sales for a company with only 29% gross margins, 12% EBITDA margins, and a negative $90 million in free cash flow this year.
I hope that information is useful.
This is a message for Mr. Brown. I understand the new dollar, but would you please explain how to go about with our old dollars and what happens to them?
Thanks.
– Grace A.
Hi Grace,
We’re going to be living in a world for the foreseeable future where we’ll have three different kinds of dollars (or euros, yen, etc.).
We’ll have our physical “old dollars,” cash. We’ll have the digital old dollars that reside in our bank accounts. And we’ll have the new dollars – U.S. dollar stablecoins – which will reside in our digital wallets and be accounted for on a blockchain.
Cash, while still in use today, is being used less and less. Some of us prefer it for certain transactions. Some just like the feel of paper money. But in time, physical currencies will disappear entirely.
I’m not aware of any substantive plan or timeline to do so, but it is inevitable that physical currencies will go away, and all transactions will become digital.
When that happens, we’ll be left with two kinds of U.S. dollars – the old dollars that exist in our traditional finance bank accounts and the new dollars (stablecoins) that exist in our digital wallets.
For those of us who want to interact, transact, and invest in the Web3/blockchain economy, we need to have a portion of our dollars as stablecoins. And we also need to have old dollars to interact/transact in the Web2 world.
I believe this dichotomy will exist for at least the next decade, probably longer. It’s just not realistic to live only with stablecoins and digital wallets right now.
Banks and financial systems will all need to be upgraded to support blockchain-based transactions, and that will take a long time, though some companies are already building the foundation for real-world assets to make their way onchain.
In time, though, more and more transactions will move to stablecoins for the benefits they provide. Transaction costs are a fraction of traditional finance, settlement is nearly instantaneous, and the transactions are transparent and immutable.
Jeff,
Reporting what looks to be an error in this report. On page 6 of this report, you say, “But that doesn’t mean that there are high-growth investment opportunities.”
I’m hoping you meant to say “But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t high-growth investment opportunities. This is an important topic for me since I am an 80-year-old gentleman with a cancer battle ahead of me, so I am definitely looking for high-growth opportunities! It’s not a type of cancer that will result in fatality, but it will require expensive ongoing chemo treatment, creating a serious income requirement!
I can’t say I’m impressed with my performance in the conventional stock market so far. Sitting right now with a 16% gain YOY. I’m willing to tolerate a bit more risk and hoping alt coins and crypto-related stocks will be the key. Struggling a bit with terminology – what exactly do you mean by “project”? I want to be an investor, not a banker or an entrepreneur. I need a full glossary of the crypto terms!
I appreciate your understanding and enthusiasm, and I’m intending to exert every effort to become a poster child for Brownstone!
Thanks.
– Joe W.
Hello Joe,
First off, I have to thank you for finding a mistake that my team and I missed in that report. You are 100% correct. I did mean to say “But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t high-growth investment opportunities.” There definitely are when it comes to the stablecoin space.
Second, and more importantly, my thoughts are with you in your battle. I’m going through something similar. Let’s stay positive and be proactive with our health.
Unfortunately, I can’t give any specific investment advice or financial counseling. Given your age and current situation, I recommend speaking with a financial advisor who can help sort out your needs to support your healthcare requirements and expenses.
All investments carry some level of risk, and markets can be volatile, so even if an investment works out fabulously over the next two or three years, there can be a lot of volatility month to month, which may not be suitable for income needs. Income-based strategies are quite different than trading or longer-term buy-and-hold strategies.
As for your specific question, there are blockchain-related companies like Coinbase (COIN), Kraken, or Circle (CRCL), and there are also blockchain “projects,” many of which aren’t structured like a normal corporation.
They are decentralized in nature and managed by foundations, typically. For example, there is no Bitcoin company or Ethereum company. These are well-known blockchain projects.
If you are interested in learning more about the blockchain industry and crypto terms, you might consider reading Cryptoassets: The Innovative Investor’s Guide to Bitcoin and Beyond by Chris Burniske.
And of course, we do an extensive amount of research on digital assets and cryptocurrencies at Brownstone Research. We write about it frequently in The Bleeding Edge, and more in-depth research is published in Permissionless Investor.
Wishing you the best in your treatment and recovery.
Hi Jeff and Team, thank you again for all the amazing research!
The SpaceX Raptor engine evolution shown in the picture is astonishing. Do you know how it was possible to achieve this radically simpler design?
Were the external pipes and other components just unnecessary (which seems unlikely)? Or were these items minimized and moved “inside”? Or maybe some of the components are integrated into other parts of the fuel system?
Please let us know if you have any insight about this. Thank you so very much!
– Anton L.
Hello Anton,
So incredible, isn’t it?!
For the benefit of those who didn’t see my issue of The Bleeding Edge – The Answer to Life – 42, which is highly recommended, I’ll repost the image below, which shows the evolution of SpaceX’s Raptor engine design.
SpaceX Raptor Engine Evolution | Source: SpaceX
The improvement between Raptor 1 and Raptor 3 is pretty extraordinary. Below is a simple chart to show the reduction in mass, the increase in thrust, and the doubling of the thrust-to-weight ratio (TWR).
Source: Wikipedia
To your question, Raptor 1 was very bulky and complex with a lot of external “plumbing.” It represents what was essentially a prototype design of the Raptor. The team at SpaceX went through an iterative process, making every effort to integrate and simplify the engine design.
For example:
It’s that final point, which is often referred to as 3D metal printing, that enabled the largest performance improvements in the Raptor. Without additive manufacturing, much of the new design simply wouldn’t be possible.
Musk’s fanatical approach to engineering, namely fast iteration and an incessant desire to simplify engineering design and increase performance, is the key to all of his companies’ radical improvements in technology.
SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink, xAI, and The Boring Company have all had similar transformations in technological design in just a few years.
It’s so exciting to watch.
That’s all for this week’s AMA. As always, you can reach out or follow up with us right here. I hope everyone has a great weekend.
Jeff
The Bleeding Edge is the only free newsletter that delivers daily insights and information from the high-tech world as well as topics and trends relevant to investments.
The Bleeding Edge is the only free newsletter that delivers daily insights and information from the high-tech world as well as topics and trends relevant to investments.
