Blockspace: IREN’s $3B Note, CME Compute Futures, Mike Alfred’s Stock Picks, Trump’s Q1 Bitcoin Equities

The BlockSpace Live episode delivers a high-octane wrap-up of the week's most pivotal developments in AI and Bitcoin, pivoting from traditional mining narratives to the explosive convergence of cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence, and geopolitical compute power. The show opens with Iron's landmark $3 billion convertible note offering, the largest in public Bitcoin mining history, underscoring the sector's pivot toward hybrid AI infrastructure. A viral story follows: an anonymous user named Soup uses AI tools like Claude to recover a forgotten Bitcoin wallet containing five BTC after years of failed attempts—highlighting the democratization of crypto recovery through affordable AI compute. The discussion then shifts to GPU market dynamics, with Luxor’s Mike San Miguel detailing the rise of GPU rental platforms like Pearlcoin and the looming arrival of AI-specific ASICs, which could reshape the compute landscape by 2027. Mike Alfred of Alpine Fox shares his bullish thesis on Iron and Cypher, emphasizing operational excellence over headline-grabbing deals, while forecasting a 300,000–500,000 BTC price target and a 20-year AI supercycle. The episode also covers Trump’s increased crypto equity holdings via a family trust, sparking debate over political alignment with tech markets. Finally, Kush Bavaria of Ornan explores the launch of CME’s first compute futures based on their H100 index, framing compute as the new geopolitical asset class—replacing oil in strategic importance. The show concludes with a sobering look at local resistance to AI data centers, exemplified by HUD-8’s stalled Logan County project, where rural communities protest over water use and economic displacement.