Back in May, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink predicted that compute could become a new asset class. He said, "A new asset class will be buying futures of compute."

The idea makes sense if you look at how AI companies operate. Training frontier AI models requires thousands of GPUs like Nvidia's H100 and B200. And companies usually rent this computing capacity on an hourly basis.

As demand grows, rental prices can fluctuate with GPU availability, hardware generation, and the cloud provider. An AI company renting GPUs would want protection against rising compute costs. This is not very different from how businesses hedge electricity or oil prices.

Even CME has announced plans for H100 and B200 rental-index futures. But they delayed it after the CFTC extended its review.

I see crypto projects following this trend, too. Some of them are planning to launch perpetual markets for AI compute. I am not sure if these perpetual markets match what a particular AI company pays for GPUs. Also, since it is a perpetual market, it comes with funding fees, liquidation risks, and other things I'd consider before even touching it.

What do you guys think? Could trading AI compute become as popular as trading oil futures? And will you trade it?

I posted this to Buttcoin. But please, those of you here, come at me with whatever you got. And I need to make this intro 100 characters so here are some extra words.

Tether just brought 15 Bitcoin mining players together around one software framework.

Bitmain. MicroBT. Foundry. F2Pool.

The pitch: connect the machines, cut operational friction, and build the foundation for AI automation.

The stakes go deeper.

Shared software could help smaller miners compete. It could also leave independent operators depending on the same code—and exposed to the same mistakes.

Owning the machines doesn’t automatically mean operational independence.

That’s what makes Tether’s MDK worth watching.

Will miners gain more freedom—or become dependent on software they can’t afford to leave?