Former SEC boss made AI Czar, Bitcoin may hit $600K this cycle: Hodler’s Digest

President Donald Trump named former SEC chair and current director of national intelligence Jay Clayton to lead a new "Super Intelligence Force," a role framed as coordinating U.S. government efforts on advanced AI. The week also saw several crypto industry developments: NEAR's SHIELD system blocked a $3.8 million exploit and recovered the funds, Ethereum's Glamsterdam upgrade is scheduled for Sepolia on Oct. 6, and Layer-2 Blast announced it will shut down after proving economically unsustainable.

By AI Newsroom· Reviewed by Pranav, Founder & Editor-in-ChiefPublished about 3 hours agoUpdated about 3 hours ago0 views

Why It Matters

The Claytons appointment signals a notable regulatory-to-policy shift at the intersection of government and advanced AI, drawing public reaction from figures involved in past prosecutions. Concurrently, the NEAR incident, Blast's closure, and Ethereum's scheduled upgrade highlight operational, security, and economic strains across crypto infrastructure.

Key Facts

Appointment: Jay Clayton tapped to lead the Super Intelligence Force (announced by Trump on Truth Social)
Clayton background: Former SEC chair; launched SEC action against Ripple on his last day in office
Roman Storm: Commented the appointment signals a future less supportive of open-source AI
Elon Musk: Reportedly renaming SpaceXAI to SpaceXSI to match the 'superintelligence' terminology
NEAR exploit: SHIELD blocked a $3.8 million exploit on NEAR Intents; funds were returned after a 48-hour ultimatum from GM Alex Shevchenko

President Donald Trump announced via Truth Social that Jay Clayton will lead a newly created Super Intelligence Force, a federal body described as coordinating government efforts to maintain U.S. leadership in "superintelligence." Clayton, who previously led the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump’s first term and later served as U.S. director of national intelligence, was noted in the source material for having initiated the SEC case against Ripple on his final day at the agency. The appointment provoked reactions from crypto community figures tied to prior legal actions; Roman Storm, who was involved in the Tornado Cash case, warned the move may not bode well for open-source AI development. The post also noted that Elon Musk is renaming SpaceXAI to SpaceXSI to reflect the new terminology introduced by the President. In blockchain news, NEAR's SHIELD security system intervened to stop a $3.8 million exploit on the Intents cross-chain swaps platform after a bug in Omni deposit/withdrawal interactions was exploited. NEAR Intents general manager Alex Shevchenko posted a 48-hour deadline for the exploiter to return the funds, which were ultimately returned. The incident drew debate over the legality and decentralization implications of blocking stolen funds on-chain; NEAR's price was reported down 11% for the week. Separately, Layer-2 network Blast said it will wind down operations after concluding its operating costs exceeded any credible path to sustainable revenue. Launched in November 2023 with incentives that temporarily attracted more than $2 billion in deposits, Blast's total value locked had fallen by more than 98% from its peak in June 2024, according to DeFiLlama. Meanwhile, Ethereum developers scheduled the Glamsterdam upgrade to activate on the Sepolia testnet on Oct. 6; the upgrade includes proposer-builder separation protocol changes, block-level access lists, and features to enable parallel processing and increase throughput.