survive

The cryptocurrency bubble is crashing again. The problem is that it is not at all clear that this time they will survive.

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Cryptos are not raising their heads. In the last 11 months the value has fallen from those $124,000 in July 2025 to the $67,000 where it is moving today. This 46% drop has spread to the rest of a market that He has already cracked other times and then recover. It is not at all clear that this time he will succeed.. Crypto winter. yesterday bitcoin fell 7% in a single day and both its value and that of the rest of the cryptocurrencies have been in free fall for months. What differentiates this crash from previous ones is the breaking of a trend. Until not long ago, large and small investors seemed to see a great opportunity in cryptocurrencies, but we are facing a “crypto winter” in which the stampede of these digital assets is colossal. Record settlements. The apparent panic over that bubble burst seems to be behind a streak of massive withdrawals from investments in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. On Bloomberg indicate that the current perception of bitcoin as a value asset in free fall has caused 1.5 billion dollars to be liquidated in just 24 hours. Even Strategy betrays itself. The company Strategy had become the staunch defender of bitcoin, but for the first time since 2022 it has sold bitcoins. The amount has been anecdotal, because they have sold 32 BTC (about 2.2 million dollars at current value) and they own 843,706 BTC in these moments. However, it is a sale with a lot of symbolism, because it betrays that HOLD spirit of crypto believers. Curiously, the analysts they fully trust in the future of Strategy, which they see reaching a value of $400 per share, 185% more than the current value. The failure of ETFs. It was assumed that the exchange traded funds with bitcoin as the main asset, they were going to result in stability and massive attraction of institutional capitalbut they are becoming a burden for investors, who have been withdrawing from their positions for 11 days: in less than two weeks 3.5 billion dollars have been liquidated, confirming that in the face of uncertainty, professional investors are the first to abandon ship. How was that safe haven value? for a long time bitcoin has been compared to gold in terms of its ability to become a refuge value in the face of potential crises. What is happening leaves that argument in a very bad place, although it is true that we have experienced other notable falls in bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in the past. Contagion effect. The collapse of bitcoin has spread to the rest of the cryptocurrency market. Ethereum, Solana and Dogecoin suffer combined losses of $1.6 billion, and once again it is confirmed that the interdependence of “altcoins” with bitcoin is too important. AI as savior. While cryptos bleed, Wall Street is experiencing a paradoxical sweet moment thanks to artificial intelligence. This technology is what is causing all the bullish momentum in the market, and we are seeing how the money that previously flowed into digital assets now rotates to tangible technologies (or at least that are being used). Loss of identity. Some experts they point out that bitcoin is losing precisely what made it different. It is behaving like an asset vulnerable to interest rates and global politics. It has stopped becoming an alternative and has become just another piece on a game board that is now rewarding those who have dedicated themselves to AI. It is paradoxical that bitcoin is being so punished when we have also been talking about the AI ​​bubble. In Xataka | Predicting bitcoin’s growth seems impossible: these charts prove it

This is the plan to survive between June 6 and 9

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If you live in Madrid and you are not Catholic or you have tickets to see Bad Bunny, I have a plan for you the first weekend of June: flee. Run away from the city, go out, make plans with friends, write to that cousin you haven’t seen in three years and who you only vaguely remember lives by the beach. Because Madrid faces one of the biggest mobility challenges that have been seen in the city. And it is that the visit of Pope Leo XIV to Madrid between June 6 and 9 coincides with the concert marathon that Bad Bunny It will be offered at the Metropolitan Stadium on May 30 and 31, and June 2, 3, 6, 7, 10, 11, 14 and 15 at a time when the city is overwhelmed by the works. These will be the restrictions for a city that expects the arrival of more than one and a half million people. Madrid fights against its own collapse They say that when a large star dies it generates a huge explosion in its outer layer, but in its center the density increases so quickly and becomes so heavy that it collapses on itself. creating a black hole. Of course, if a city runs the risk of fulfilling the metaphor, it is Madrid. Nobody rules out that when its two stars shine brighter, the city will turn in on itself. through any of the holes that right now hurt its surface. Leaving aside the dramas, the truth is that Madrid faces what is probably its greatest mobility challenge in history. Right now, let’s remember that The entrance to the city on the A-5 operates at half throttlewith an underground work that continues to advance but has not yet sunk the cars underground. In addition, there are active works at the northern entrance to the city, in the Four Towers area, and a little further down the Santiago Bernabéu Metro works have occupied part of the road. Without forgetting the new Ventas Park on the M-30. As if this were not enough, the Sales works and the section affected by the expansion of Metro line 11 and the Line modernization 6. Without forgetting the affection caused by the construction of the new Conde de Casal interchange. Nor the partial closure of Metro line 10 where trains do not run between the Cuzco and Nuevos Ministerios stations. The organizers of the event will have to deal with this context. visit of Pope Leo XIV. In total, there are 21 scheduled activities that will continue from their landing and subsequent visit to the Carabanchel neighborhood on June 6 until their departure on June 9 after a meeting with volunteers at IFEMA. But in between, attention is focused on three major events: the mass in the Plaza de Cibeles and the subsequent procession to celebrate Corpus Christi Day on June 7 and an event inside the Santiago Bernabéu on June 8. During the mass it is estimated that up to one and a half million people could gather. These events coincide with the aforementioned Bad Bunny concerts in the Metropolitan State, east of the city. And a few hundred meters from the Plaza de Cibeles is the Retiro Park where the Book Fair reaches its midpoint on those days. An event that is not clear if it will be able to operate at full capacity because its workers have not yet been informed if the trucks carrying the material will be able to reach the heart of Madrid completely naturally. The Madrid City Council has asked companies to facilitate teleworking for their employees, aware of the expected mobility problems. “They will affect us all,” warned José Luis Martínez-Almeida, mayor of the city. With this in mind, The Madrid City Council has already made the traffic conditions public and on public transport for the most problematic days. This will be the action plan: Cuts that are already active: Plaza de Lima: all central lanes closed in both directions (only the sides are open) and changes of direction are not allowed. Buses on lines 14, 27, 40, 43, 123, 126, 147, 150, N22, N24 and S10 are affected. Check all the modifications here. Plaza de Cibeles: cut off the right lane of the Paseo del Prado in the north direction, three lanes of the Paseo de Recoletos and the bus docks. Lines 1, 2, 9, 10, 15, 20, 34, 51, 52, 74, 146, N5, N6, N7, N12, N15, N20 and N21 will be affected. Wednesday June 3: Total closure of the Plaza de Lima: cars traveling through Castellana will have to detour through the surrounding streets. Thursday June 4: Total cut of the Plaza de Cibeles: same situation. The City Council warns that even residents will have problems accessing it with their vehicles. Saturday June 6: Closure of the Nuevos Ministerios Metro station from 5:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. at the entrances closest to Plaza de Lima (the Castellana exits). The exits of the shopping center, Orense and Agustín de Betancourt will be open. Sunday June 7: Between 6:00 and 10:00: closure of the Bilbao, Tribunal, Plaza de España, Noviciado, Ópera, Sol, Sevilla, Banco de España, Retiro, Príncipe de Vergara, Serrano, Colón and Chueca Metro stations. The trains will not stop there. Between 10:00 and 14:00: closure of the Colón, Serrano, Velázquez, Retiro, Banco de España, Sevilla and Chueca stations. At the moment, no further communications have been made about possible traffic cuts during the Pope’s visit to Carabanchel or the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium, but it is recommended to pay attention to the communication channels in case new mobility restrictions are applied. Obviously, it is recommended to use public transport as much as possible and avoid using a car. Photo | Edgar Beltran and Xataka In Xataka | Madrid finally has 600 million euros and everything is ready for “La Diagonal”: the northern section of Metro L11

Intel has a plan to stand up to TSMC in 2027. First it has to survive 2026

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During his almost four years at the helm of Intel, Pat Gelsinger stated on several occasions how important the semiconductor manufacturing business was for this company. In fact, many of the decisions he made pursued strengthen your competitiveness in a sector strongly dominated by Taiwanese integrated circuit manufacturer TSMC. However, the continuous delays in the manufacturing processes, the million-dollar losses and the drop in the stock market value of this company they ended up hastening his departure. Lip-Bu Tan, the current CEO of Intel, assumed leadership of the company in March 2025. At that time, a very uncertain future loomed over this company, and it was not at all clear what role Intel’s chip factories would play in the company’s global strategy. In fact, the leaks that predicted the possible segregation of semiconductor production plants into an independent company suggested that Lip-Bu Tan was willing to do without its chip factories. Fourteen months after his arrival to the general management, the panorama is very different. Integrated circuit manufacturing plants once again occupy a central position in Intel’s strategy. has confirmed it recently Lip-Bu Tan without the slightest ambiguity on CNBC’s Mad Money. From his statements it is clear that he aspires to consolidate Intel as the Western alternative to TSMC. And its cutting-edge nodes and Apple play a fundamental role in this ambitious plan. Node 18A is Intel’s best hope The most advanced integration technology Intel currently has in large-scale production is 18A lithography. In theory it is comparable or slightly superior to 2nm nodes from TSMC and Samsung. When Tan took the reins of the company, the performance of the 18A node it was not good. In fact, the outlook looked so bad that was forced to ask for help to some of its partners in the integrated circuit manufacturing ecosystem to analyze the data it had and find a way to optimize production and increase its competitiveness. “Performance” evaluates what percentage of the chips produced are working correctly. A low one triggers million-dollar losses An important note: in this context “performance” evaluates what percentage of the chips produced work correctly. Low performance triggers million-dollar losses. Tan has explained that the industry standard requires improving that performance by 7 to 8% each month, and has confirmed that now Intel is reaching that figure. There is no doubt that it is an unmistakable sign that the situation is changing. So much, in fact, that customers are starting to knock on the door. Intel has already closed agreements chip manufacturing with Tesla and Google. AND, as we told you at the beginning of this monthApple is exploring the possibility of Intel and Samsung manufacturing the advanced chips for their devices in the US. In all likelihood, the loss of influence and priority in the TSMC production chain that it has maintained for more than a decade has led to this decision. Now Nvidia has these privileges. There are several compelling reasons why Apple may be interested in Intel manufacturing its integrated circuits in the US. Or Samsung in its state-of-the-art plant in Texas. Or you could even work with both companies simultaneously and not completely break its business relationship with TSMC. Either way, this diversification strategy would allow Apple to effectively protect itself from supply chain disruptions triggered by geopolitical instability. And also the shortage of some components caused by the massive construction of data centers to artificial intelligence (AI). The next step will be node 14Athe integration technology with which Intel hopes to be able to compete head-to-head with TSMC in 2027 and 2028. Tesla has already confirmed which will order chips with this photolithography from Intel for its electric vehicles and robotics projects. Image | Intel More information | DigiTimes Asia In Xataka | Bill Gates has X-rayed Intel. And his diagnosis is overwhelmingly accurate.

the EU’s plan to survive China’s mineral blackout

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The clock of global geopolitics has begun to count down the minutes for the European Union. In an unprecedented move that certifies the end of frictionless globalization, Brussels is finalizing the details of what will be its first major strategic “bunker” of critical minerals. As advanced Reutersthe EU has already selected the materials that will inaugurate this joint reserve: tungsten, rare earths and gallium. Magnesium, germanium and graphite could soon be added to this initial list. A firm step. The initiative of the community bloc is not a coincidence; It is its last great asset to shield its economy against the crushing dominance of Beijing in the production of elements that today are the oxygen of modernity. We are not talking about simple raw materials; We talk about vital components for the defense industry, semiconductors and the energy transition. In fact, almost all of these minerals—with the exception of magnesium—are on the list of the 12 elements. considered critical by NATO for military production. Without them, it is impossible to manufacture everything from armor-piercing ammunition that uses tungsten, to the latest generation radars and combat aircraft that depend on gallium arsenide and gallium nitride. The urgency lies in the data. According to a wrecker report of the European Court of AuditorsEurope is addicted to Chinese minerals: the Asian giant supplies 97% of the magnesium consumed by the EU, refines more than 80% of the planet’s rare earths and controls an overwhelming 98% of the world’s gallium refining capacity. The level of dependency is such that Europe flagrantly fails to comply with its own security threshold, which establishes not depending on a single country for more than 65% for the processing phase. But why step on the accelerator now? The response is dated on the calendar: June 15, 2026. As explained Xinhuaon that day the new regulations of China’s Mineral Resources Law come into force. These regulations will give Beijing absolute power to determine total production caps, restrict which entities can operate mines and, most worryingly for the West, subject any foreign investment in the sector to national security reviews. So how will this logistics shield be built? Moving from intent documents to operational reality requires massive infrastructures. As confirmed Reutersthe European Union is already in advanced talks with large logistics centers to store these industrial treasures. The main candidate is the port of Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, the largest in Europe. A spokesperson for the port authority has confirmed the ongoing talks, underlining the full readiness of its facilities to assume this strategic role and contribute to European goals. But the bunker will not be centralized in a single point. Italy’s Industry Minister Adolfo Urso revealed that EU officials recently visited Porto Marghera, near Venice, to assess its viability as a storage hub. The port of Trieste is also competing to become the great logistics node of the Mediterranean. However, in this deployment there is a big elephant in the room: financing. Acquiring and maintaining these reserves will require a monumental financial muscle whose origin and distribution mechanisms among Member States are still unknown. The bath of reality. Storing minerals is not like storing natural gas. While rare earth oxides are relatively stable materials, processed gallium metal or certain forms of graphite require highly controlled environmental conditions, a technical challenge that has yet to be resolved. This bunker is just a patch. How an analysis of Rare Earth Exchangestrategic inventories can cushion the impact of a sudden supply outage, but they do not replace an industrial ecosystem. Europe has a deep structural problem, since it is useless to have tons of rare earths stored in Rotterdam if the continent lacks the capacity to refine these materials, convert them into metal and manufacture magnets on a large scale. China has been building this complex ecosystem for decades, while Europe is just beginning to take stock of its own dependence. Added to this deficit is a paralyzing bureaucracy: the few European mining projects are stuck for years in a tangle of administrative permits, making this warehouse an even more desperate measure. The new industrial cold war. While Europe strives to design this defense mechanism against the clock, its rival continues to move chips. China is not only legislating to restrict exports, it is accelerating the construction of its own strategic reserve sites, shielding by law that its resources remain within its borders for a minimum of five years. The creation of this European bunker marks a point of no return. These maneuvers demonstrate that Western governments have definitively abandoned the supply model driven by the free market to embrace deeply interventionist industrial policies. The ambitious goals of the EU Critical Raw Materials Law for 2030 – extracting 10% and processing 40% of what it consumes in its own territory – today seem like an unattainable mountain. The Rotterdam mineral bunker will not solve Europe’s industrial orphanhood, but in the new era of resource geopolitics, it is the only lifeline left to buy the time it so desperately needs. Image | Unsplash Xataka | The condemnation that afflicts China: after decades of manufacturing a competitive desktop processor, it is six years behind

Castilla-La Mancha accuses the Southeast of “watering wildly”, while irrigators find it impossible to survive what is coming

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On May 20, just before the Supreme Court will definitively close the door to the aspirations of irrigators to maintain the Tajo-Segura transfer as until now, the spokesperson for the Junta de Castilla – La Mancha He stood in front of the media and said it: water cannot be limited to the irrigators of the region while in the Levant “it is watered freely”, he came to say. That’s the gossip, but that’s not the news. The news is that, 47 years after the inauguration of the transfer and after a decade of judicial conflictthe battle for the water of the Tagus returns to the negotiating table. Not because of ecological flows; That (barring a surprise) has already been decided: he has returned to the table because the most difficult thing remains. Say who pays the bill. Whose water is it? Because that is the heart of the matter and where Castilla – La Mancha is wrong. As I have explained the Supremethe arguments of the Central Union of Irrigators of the Tajo-Segura Aqueduct do not apply, precisely, because it is not about taking water from ‘someone’ to give it to another ‘someone’. The ecological flows (which taxes come by the jurisprudence of the same court and by the EU directive) cannot have “a use character, and must be considered as a restriction that is generally imposed on exploitation systems.” The problem is that these flows represent, according to the technical reports, a water loss of around 40% for the irrigators of the east. Irrigators who, let us remember, have the right to that water according to the current transfer rules, who have made investments and have built businesses (‘livelihoods’) counting on that water that the State had granted them. Rules that do not apply. Due to the court battle, the new flows have not come into force and, at this time, the old rules continue to be used to send water to the Segura basin. In fact, for the April-June quarter There are 180hm3 authorized (a much larger amount than would correspond to the new standard). And the irrigators are nervous. With sense, too: the Administrations’ alternative (desalination) is lost in combat. And, in any case, that is water is between three and ten times more expensive. This is important because (as explained by the Community of Irrigators of Campo de Cartagena) “The irrigable surface has not expanded by one square meter since 2017“. It is no longer a question that without water they cannot grow; it is a question that without water they cannot “maintain what we already cultivate.” And that would lead us to a more than considerable industrial reconversion throughout the region. But there doesn’t seem to be any other solution. Because, as we see, the cuts are due to legal imperative. The administrations have little else to do: they have already been delaying the application of ecological flows for years and the situation has not improved one bit. It doesn’t mean that all this is over. It is likely that the Union will appeal to the European Court, but the reorientation of the agrarian model in the southeast cannot be extended if we want it to remain alive. That is to say: the hour of truth arrives. For decades, politicians have been passing the buck without taking the necessary measures (no matter how painful they may be). That is the economic, ecological and social bill that we are paying now. The only reasonable question is whether we have learned our lesson. Image | David Algas Oroquieta In Xataka | The Tagus reservoirs have reached their maximum level. The response of the authorities has been to empty them immediately

To survive the end of oil, China has resurrected an old German technology from World War II: turning coal into plastic

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While the world assumes that China’s energy transition is based exclusively on solar panels and electric vehicles — and, in part, it is, consolidating as the first great ‘electrostate’—, reality hides a much darker side. Faced with the outbreak of the Third Gulf War, Beijing has not even flinched. Beyond its immense strategic oil reserves, the secret of its resistance lies in an even more daring maneuver: the resurrection of German technology from World War II. An old German technology. Faced with the instability of oil imports, China has perfected the use of coal to produce petrochemical products. This synthesis technology (historically known as the process of fischer–Tropsch) was originally developed by Germany to sustain its military economy during World War II. Although it is widely known in the chemical industry, its main defect has always been the enormous pollution it generated. China has improved it. Far from settling for an outdated process, Chinese researchers have radically improved it. According to the state agency Xinhuaa team from Peking University has achieved a historic breakthrough by adding a minimal amount of methyl bromide (five parts per million) to the catalytic process. This surgically “turns off” the pathway that forms carbon dioxide as a byproduct, reducing these emissions from 30% to less than 1% and opening the door to near-green manufacturing to convert coal-derived synthesis gas (syngas) into olefins, the building blocks of plastics. At an industrial level, expansion is already a fact. As detailed South China Morning Postin Turpan prefecture (Xinjiang), construction has just begun on the world’s largest coal-to-ethylene glycol (a toxic compound used for plastics and antifreeze) project, with an astonishing capacity of 2.4 million tons per year. Even, as the magazine highlighted ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineeringresearch is being carried out on how to integrate this process (called PFTO) to chemically recycle tons of plastic waste, converting it into syngas and then back into light olefins. Did you see it coming? It is not the first time that China decides to take sides and prevent rather than cure. The Asian giant has decided to completely decouple its industry from maritime vulnerabilities and Western influence. “This is not China’s war, but Beijing began preparing for it years ago,” points out The New York Times. Everything accelerated during Donald Trump’s first term, prompting President Xi Jinping to demand complete “self-sufficiency” that would insulate China from any disruption to foreign supply chains. Time has proven them right. The war in Iran has brutally increased the price of crude oil, suffocating international petrochemical competitors that depend on black gold. In contrast, local Chinese coal has only gotten cheaper. According to Reutersthis has been a financial triumph: shares of companies such as Ningxia Baofeng Energy, which produces millions of tons of chemicals from coal, have risen 30% since the start of the conflict, while traditional Asian refiners such as Rongsheng Petrochemical have lost up to 27% of their stock market value. Furthermore, the Chinese media analyzed by Carbon Brief They insist on a unanimous nationalist message: in the face of a real emergency, coal is the only resource that the nation truly controls, acting as the great “ballast” guarantor of its national security. A change to other sectors. The change is undeniable. As revealed Bloombergthe country’s main coal miner, China Shenhua Energy, has cut its overall budget by 16%, but has almost doubled its investment in coal-to-chemical conversion, from 2.5 billion to 4.1 billion yuan by 2026. But at a devouring pace, as The New York Times provides information that measures the phenomenon: in 2020, China used 155 million tons of coal to manufacture chemicals; by 2024, the figure jumped to 276 million, and in 2025 it grew another 15%, single-handedly exceeding the total annual coal consumption of the entire United States. The research center CREATE confirms this trend in its reportconfirming that the use of coal in the chemical industry grew by 20% year-on-year only in the first half of 2025. Added to this is that, as the American media explains80% of Chinese nitrogen fertilizer (a third of the world’s supply) is already made with coal rather than oil or gas, allowing Beijing to keep its product at less than half the global market price. Behind it there is a very high cost. All this bold industrial maneuver has a severe climate cost that is already setting off international alarms. China’s draft 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) has set extremely cautious climate goals. As the experts explain CREATE and collect Financial Timesthe set goal of reducing carbon intensity by only 17% is “disappointing” and leaves room for the country’s emissions to continue growing between 3% and 6% in real terms over the next five years. This new government plan de facto reverses the international promise to “phase down” coal consumption, replacing it with a consumption “plateau” and explicitly protecting the large-scale expansion of the coal-based petrochemical industry. Only chemical projects already planned to be built between now and 2029 could increase China’s annual carbon dioxide emissions by an additional 2%. The forecasts are resounding. According to Bloomberg, By 2030, China’s chemical roadmap will massively stop using oil as a primary fuel (thanks to the adoption of its electric vehicles) and will take advantage of its modernized facilities to seek 85% self-sufficiency in all advanced materials and chemicals, displacing traditional giants. A feared crisis of overcapacity. The European ideas laboratory MERICS warns of collateral consequences: The Chinese domestic economy, with consumer confidence stagnant since the pandemic, has no way to absorb all this gigantic new production of materials and plastics. As a direct result, Chinese factories are forced to export their immense surpluses to the rest of the world at fire sale prices. This aggressive price war propelled China’s trade surplus to a stratospheric record of $1.2 trillion in 2025. According to the complaint MERICSthese massive exports are cannibalizing the industrial base of other nations; In the European Union alone, up to 500 manufacturing jobs are being lost daily due to the total … Read more

If the question is how to survive the tsunami of information in the age of AI, the answer is simple: learning not to read

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This morning I counted the open tabs on Day, my browser. Twenty-five. There was a Counterpoint analysis there that I opened five days ago to read “as soon as I can” but that I haven’t touched yet. A very good looking thread from X. Three newsletters to medium scrollwaiting for me like half-done homework. And so on a few more things. I’ve been writing about technology for fifteen years. My job is literally to read, filter and think about what I read. And yet, or precisely because of that, it is increasingly difficult for me to distinguish when I am informing myself from when I am simply moving my eyes. We have been treating reading as a virtue in itself for centuries. “Read more” has always been the universal advice, the automatic response to almost any shortcoming. AND tmade sense when the problem was the scarcity of sources. But the problem began to be different and we continued the same, with the same reflection. The mistake is that we have transferred the respect and moral inertia that we had for a good book to formats that do not deserve it. We read an endless thread of X, a marketing PDF or a newsletter inflated feeling that passing your eyes over that text is a meritorious act by default. It is no longer. Or at least, not always. I know this goes against me. AI has broken the equation in a way that borders on absurd comedy. Today anyone generates a ten-page report on any topic in three minutes. Any creator inflates an idea of ​​a paragraph until it fills a thousand words without adding a single new piece of information, just trash. And the great paradox is something we saw coming a long time ago: Our best defense is to use that same technology. We live in a loop where A machine lengthens a text to make it seem important, and we use another machine to summarize it for us in three bullets and thus save us the procedure. Some give the badge and others neutralize it. The amount of text available is no longer related to the knowledge it contains. There are more words than ever because it is easier than ever to generate them, but It is not at all clear that there are more ideas. What is growing is the pressure to consume them all. I feel like, often, that fear of being left out seems like intellectual curiosity when what’s underneath is simple FOMO. Traditional functional illiteracy consisted of deciphering the letters but not understanding a word of what they said. The new one looks more like the opposite: We understand each text perfectly, but we have lost the ability to decide if it deserves to be read.. We don’t filter. We do not rule out. We don’t say “this is bullshit that doesn’t give me anything.” Not enough. And we don’t do it because discarding information is something that we continue to feel like a loss, like an act of laziness that gives us away. But it is just the opposite. The ability to not read (identify in three seconds that something is not worth your next ten minutes) is today an act of intelligence that contributes almost as much as reading itself. And for that you need to develop your own red flag. In my case, if a text promises a revelation but the first paragraph is pure introductory nonsense, get out. If I sense grandiloquent adjectives and filling robotic structures, out. If there is not a single piece of data before the first scroll, on the run. I don’t even mention the monoline structure so common in X and LinkedIn. There, it directly catapults. When ChatGPT arrived, many of us thought that the risk of AI was that people would stop reading. It may be worse: that you read more than ever without thinking more than ever. Let it process without digesting. Accumulate information like someone who accumulates open tabs, with the vague promise of returning to them. We know he won’t. We never go back. I know this because I haven’t closed those twenty-five tabs all week and in the end I will close them all at once, without reading them, with a mixture of relief and guilt. But I have begun to understand that closing tabs suddenly after having selected the most interesting thing is a very healthy practice. In the end, the new functional illiterate is too much like my browser this morning: overloaded with tabs, full of promises to read, and completely unable to process a single more idea. In Xataka | There is a generation working for free as a documentarian of their own life: they are not influencers but they act as if they were. Featured image | Xataka

the heir of the DVD to survive streaming

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Video StoreAgea distributor founded by former Sundance Festival programmer Ash Cook, sells independent films on encrypted USB drives and splits the revenue 50/50 with the filmmakers. The project arrives at a time when the festival circuit no longer guarantees distribution for the majority of titles and physical support is experiencing a recovery that no one expected. The origin. Ash Cook spent years as a programmer at the Sundance festival, specializing in independent film, always listening to the same conversation. Filmmakers, sales agents, distributors and acquisitions managers agreed on the same diagnosis: independent film distribution was broken. The Cook’s response to these questions was to found Video StoreAge together with Aidan Dick, head of communications for another specialized festival, Frameline, with a specific proposal: to sell indie films on encrypted USB drives. The company launched its first collection in February 2026 and has several presentations planned in Los Angeles on March 18, 19 and 21. The first USB includes, among other titles, ‘Heightened Scrutiny’ by Sam Feder and the extraordinary ‘The People’s Joker’ by Vera Drew (which you can check out on Filmin), a trans autobiographical parody of the Batman universe that has accumulated a 96% on Rotten Tomatoes. The data. In 2025 only 19 films coming from Sundance Distribution was secured in the United States, compared to 30 in 2024 and 38 in 2019. Only 11% of films selected at top-level festivals end up selling rights to the entire world. By 2025, only half of the ten documentaries in competition at Sundance found distribution. They are very weak numbers and some professionals blame the streaminglittle concerned about this independent cinema, by ending an entire sector of medium-sized distributors that absorbed the most risky titles. The third way. Video StoreAge’s proposal is similar in spirit to a DVD: a physical copy of the movies, they can be played on any computer, and it is yours forever, without depending on platforms. Each quarter, the company releases a collection of five feature films and five short films on encrypted USB drives (using patent-pending technology). Files are played using a built-in player and cannot be copied or ripped. They are sold by quarterly subscription, in individual packages, or combined at the buyer’s choice. The short films are free extras. How the money is distributed. Video StoreAge splits the profits 50/50 with the filmmakers and only acquires the physical distribution rights, leaving the filmmaker free to seek distribution in theaters, streaming platforms or any other means. At the moment the scale is modest, around 20 titles in the first year. A partnership with the latest alternative festival Slamdance (perhaps the most notable indie festival outside of Sundance) allowed them to offer two titles as limited editions during the festival itself, ‘Danny Is My Boyfriend’ and ‘The Bulldogs’, before their official release. The return of the physicist. Curiously, this happens in a very peculiar context: DVD, Blu-ray and 4K UHD sales fell just 9% in 2025, compared to declines of more than 20% in the previous two years. The unexpected culprit: Generation Z and for two reasons. First, the fatigue of streaming and second, the unreliability of digital catalogues, with films that disappear without prior notice due to expired contracts or tax reasons. All this while the premium 4K UHD segment grows 12% year-on-year. The parallel with the resurgence of vinyl is inevitable, although at the moment this return of DVD does not have an industrial infrastructure behind it to support it, but it does have many specialized publishing labels such as Criterion or Arrow. What remains to be resolved. There are questions to answer: Video StoreAge has not detailed the technical specifications of the medium or publicly addressed issues of long-term durability of flash memories, a weak point compared to pressed optical discs that, when well preserved, do not suffer data degradation. On the other hand, the target audience for this product, willing to pay for indie films on an alternative physical medium, is small. Enough to be profitable? In Xataka | For years Blu-ray resisted streaming: now Sony has decided to close the chapter on its home recorders

is to survive long enough to get the uranium out of there

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Extracting radioactive material in conflict zones is one of the more complex missions that exist and usually requires highly specialized equipment, millimeter protocols and logistics comparable to that of a large-scale military operation. Plus: unlike other interventions, it is not enough to reach the objective. Because exposure time, safety of the environment and subsequent transportation are critical factors that they condition everything. Nuclear objective without clear plan. Officially, the United States has presented the war against Iran as an operation aimed at preventing Tehran get nuclear weaponsbut reality is stubborn and somewhat more ambiguous. Because while the official discourse insists on eliminating this threat, operational decisions show that the focus is right now in degrading missiles and dronesnot so much in securing enriched uranium. This contradiction has generated criticism even within the own political systemby showing that there is no clear strategy to solve the key element of the problem. The core of the problem. It we count a week ago. In reality, the critical point is not the bombed facilities, but the material that has survived to those attacks. We are talking about hundreds of kilos of highly enriched uranium that remain buried in underground complexes like Isfahan or Natanz, protected by rubble and structures designed precisely to resist attacks. That stock, a prioriis enough to bring Iran closer to a nuclear capability if it decides to reactivate, making it the most valuable and dangerous asset in the conflict. The strategic dilemma: leave. And here emerges the key idea that defines the entire “nuclear” situation: the United States’ problem right now is not simply to invade Iran, but survive long enough to get the uranium out of there. The reason? Recovering that material would involve deploying hundreds or thousands of soldierssecure hostile perimeters, excavate collapsed tunnels, and operate for days under constant threat from drones, missiles, and asymmetric attacks. The difficulty, therefore, is not only in locating it, but in maintain the forces on the ground the time necessary to extract and evacuate it safely. Extreme complexity. Experts describe this hypothetical mission as one of the most complex never raised in recent war history. Mainly because it would be necessary to coordinate special forces, engineers, protection units and air resources, in addition to create improvised infrastructure to transport the material out of the country. All this in an environment where every minute increases the risk of casualties, sabotage or contamination, and where the operation could last longer than expected without guarantees of total success. The uncomfortable alternative. There is, as almost always, a plan B. Given this scenario, the option that seems to prevail right now is the simplest: avoid operation and rely on deterrence. There is no doubt, this implies assuming that the uranium will remain in Iran, under indirect surveillance, with the apparent threat of new attacks if an attempt is made to recover or enrich it. Plus: this solution does not remove the “official” problem which gave rise to an entire war, if anything it only freezes it, leaving open the possibility that the country reactivates its program in the future. A latent risk. Under these scenarios, the result stages a conflict that has weakened capabilities visible, but has left intact the most determining elementor at least the one that has given rise to giving free rein to the war machinery to two (+1) nations. Meanwhile, the kilos of buried uranium have become a permanent pressure factorboth for Iran and its adversaries. And, above all, it reveals a most disturbing paradox, because you can win an air war and still lose control of the central strategic objective. Unless, of course, that wasn’t the goal. Image | x In Xataka | The US has asked all its allies in Hormuz for help. The answer he received was anticipated by Spain before anyone else: “no” In Xataka | The world is desperately asking Ukraine for its antidote to the Shahed. And Ukraine has decided to keep them for its war

The EU has a perfect plan to suffocate Russia. The problem is that now it needs its oil to survive

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In December 2025, we said goodbye to the year by telling Vladimir Putin a resounding da svidániya (До свида́ния). The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the Commissioner for Energy, Dan Jørgensen, pompously announced a political agreement to end Russian gas imports (both by pipeline and liquefied) by 2027. The political message was crystal clear: Europe wanted to show that it was no longer dependent on Moscow. The blackmail was over. But in its eagerness to celebrate the blackout of Russian gas, Brussels forgot a small detail: Putin’s oil still runs through the veins of Eastern Europe. And the embargo, in reality, has lasted very little. Barely three months later, physical reality has imposed itself on diplomacy. Today we find ourselves with a brutal paradox: the same European Union that designed an unprecedented economic war architecture against Moscow, and that asked its citizens to make sacrifices in the name of collective security, is now pressuring invaded Ukraine to open the tap on Russian crude oil. Deep down in the Kremlin, Putin always knew that the laws of politics rarely win against dependence on infrastructure. The epicenter of this crisis has its own name: the Druzhba pipeline (Interestingly, “friendship” in Russian). As revealed by an exclusive from Financial Timesthe EU is pressuring kyiv to allow inspection and repair of this infrastructure that transports Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia. The problem lies in a Russian attack that occurred on January 27. As detailed ReutersUkrainian Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal confirmed that a bombing severely damaged the sensors and internal equipment of the infrastructure. The story is expanded by the CEO of Naftogaz, Sergii Koretskyi, in statements to Financial Times: The attack caused a storage tank with 75,000 cubic meters of oil to catch fire, unleashing a fire the size of a football field that took 10 days to extinguish. Ukraine claims that repairing this in the middle of war is slow and dangerous. However, Hungary and Slovakia do not buy this version. According to EuronewsPrime Ministers Viktor Orbán and Robert Fico have created a joint investigative committee, demanding immediate access to the area. Orbán has gone further, accusing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of lying and orchestrating “state terrorism” and, together with Fico, demands that an independent investigation mission be deployed on the ground to verify the damage, something that kyiv refuses for security reasons in the middle of the war. The perfect storm in the Middle East Europe is not asking Ukraine for this favor on a whim, but out of pure survival. And to understand it you have to look to the Middle East. The recent coordinated attack by the US and Israel against Iran, which culminated in the assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, has unleashed chaos. The Iranian response has caused a blockage de facto of the Strait of Hormuz, 20% of the world’s daily oil supply passes through this maritime funnel. The impact has been devastating: hundreds of ships are paralyzed, insurance premiums have shot up by up to 50% and the daily cost of renting a supertanker has risen by 600%. This has destroyed European plans.As analyst Shanaka Anslem Perera emphasizesEuropean sanctions have collided head-on with thermodynamics, and thermodynamics has won. With the EU’s gas reserves at 30% in mid-February, Qatar’s LNG trapped after the Hormuz blockade and the alternatives of Norway, Algeria and the US at the limit of their capacity, Europe has been left without a plan B. “The EU does not return to Russian oil because it wants to, it returns because it has no other option,” says Perera. So, are we once again dependent on Russia? For some EU countries, dependency was never cut. According to The Moscow TimesHungary and Slovakia continued to enjoy legal exemptions from European sanctions and were almost 100% dependent on the southern branch of the Druzhba pipeline, receiving some 150,000 barrels per day in January. The reason is purely economic, since Russian crude oil is between 13% and 20% cheaper. Although Croatia has offered its Adria pipeline (JANAF) to ship non-Russian oil to these countries, Euronews explains that Budapest resists. Orbán considers that it is not commercially viable, demands that Croatia allow the passage of sanctioned Russian oil and defends that its energy security cannot be an “ideological” issue. Curiously, while Europe suffers from its dependence, Russia observes the crisis of its allies from afar. According to an analysis of the cnnFollowing Khamenei’s death, the Kremlin has issued strong verbal condemnations but has refused to provide real military aid to Iran. Ukrainian military analysts note that Russia even refused to “blind” Israeli radars using its bases in Syria. Moscow, bogged down in Ukraine, does not have the resources to open new fronts, demonstrating that its alliances are more transactional than strategic. The pipeline crisis has mutated into lethal financial blackmail for kyiv. As noted Financial TimesHungary has vetoed the approval of an EU aid package for Ukraine worth €90 billion (scheduled for 2026-2027). Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó made it clear: there will be no money until oil flows through the Druzhba again. In Brussels, the European Commission is looking for shortcuts. Euronews points out that complex legal options are being consideredsuch as invoking Article 327 (which prevents countries excluded from an agreement from blocking the rest) or using the withholding of defense funds (the SAFE program) to pressure Orbán, who is in the midst of an election campaign. In the midst of the crossfire, diplomacy tries to survive. Deutsche Welle reports that Zelensky remains open to negotiating an end to the war with Russia. Although the talks were scheduled for March in Abu Dhabi, the instability in the Middle East due to Iranian missiles has led the Ukrainian leader to propose moving the dialogue table to Switzerland or Turkey. The great silent winner and European weakness While the West hyperventilates, calm reigns in Asia. China foresaw this scenario and he has been shielding himself for years. During 2025, $10 billion was spent … Read more

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