The Blockspace Pod: Block’s Layoffs, Magic Eden Drops BTC + ETH, MARA Gets Serious on AI, Jane Street’s Lawsuit

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4.7 • 698 Ratings

🗓️ 28 February 2026

⏱️ 63 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On the latest Blockspace roundup, the gang cover’s Block’s 40% workforce reduction and our scoop that Magic Eden is quitting the Bitcoin and Ethereum NFT game. Get your tickets to OPNEXT 2026 before prices increase! Join us on April 16 in NYC for technical discussions, investor talks, and intimate conversation with the brightest minds in Bitcoin. Welcome back to The Blockspace Podcast! Today, Charlie and Colin cover the Block’s 40% workforce reduction and why the stock ripped 20% on the news. We also dive into the bitcoin mining conditions that are driving hashprice to all-time lows, Blockspace’s scoop that Magic Eden is sunsetting its Bitcoin Ordinals marketplace, MARA’s latest AI partnership, and the Terra/Luna lawsuit against Jane Street. Plus, Luxor’s Michael San Miguel joins the show to discuss the ins and outs of the GPU market. Subscribe to the newsletter! https://newsletter.blockspacemedia.com Notes: * Block laid off 40% of its 10,000 employees. * Block stock surged 20% after the layoff news. * Bitcoin hash price hit an all-time low of $28. * Bitcoin difficulty adjusted upward by 14.73%. * Magic Eden is shutting down BTC and ETH marketplaces, multi-chain wallet * Bitdeer sold all its bitcoin; Cipher plans to sell its bitcoin in 2026 * MARA forms partnership with data center developer Starwood Timestamps: 00:00 Start 03:33 Hashrate update via Luxor’s Hashrate Index 09:29 Block lays off 40% of staff 16:37 Magic Eden shutting down 25:54 GPUs & compute 28:03 GPU vs ASIC complexity 29:04 Upgrading hardware 32:16 Finding a compute buyer 34:00 Powershell vs Neocloud 37:12 Compute still in price discovery mode 42:05 MARA earnings 45:20 CIPHER dumping bags 48:44 Jane Street is the new boogyman 59:34 Everyone's short MSTR 👉CleanSpark CleanSpark (Nasdaq: CLSK) is a market-leading data center developer with a proven track record of success. We own a portfolio of power, land, and data centers across the United States powered by globally competitive energy prices. Sitting at the intersection of Bitcoin, energy, operational excellence and capital stewardship, we optimize our infrastructure to deliver superior returns to our shareholders. Monetizing low-cost, high reliability energy by producing a global emerging critical resource – compute – positions us to prosper in an ever-changing world. 👉Luxor, Blockspace's preferred mining pool Bitcoin mining revenue changes every day. Difficulty adjusts. Fees move. Prices shift. And that makes it hard to plan. Luxor Pool’s Fixed Payouts let miners lock in revenue at a guaranteed daily rate for up to 18 months. According to Hashrate Index, miners who used rolling fixed payout strategies since the last halving have outperformed FPPS mining by up to 15 percent. Fixed Payouts give you predictable daily revenue, so you can plan, budget, and grow with confidence. With Luxor, uncertainty is optional. Learn more at luxor.tech/mining

Transcript

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0:00.0	The biggest news this week is Block laying off 40% of its workforce.
0:04.0	We'll get the tweet up here from Jack Dorsey.
0:07.0	And he basically goes into that this is a preemptive move where they're not hurting, they're comfortable, they're making money.
0:14.0	But he's just saying, look, now it takes maybe one person to do a job of two or three people formerly because of these AI tools.
0:21.2	Block's stock did exactly what you would expect in this scenario.
0:25.0	It popped.
0:26.2	It ripped like 20 plus percent after market hours.
0:29.4	Obviously, from a shareholder perspective, like a good decision.
0:32.7	Depending on where you fall on the white pill versus black pill for AI, this is either
0:36.8	important for mass layoffs to come or something that is just part of the natural technological progression.
0:47.3	Holy smokes, AI is coming for your job. It already took 40% of blocks workforce. Yes, this is the Blockspace Live show. We do this
0:56.6	every Friday at noon Eastern. Make sure if you're on YouTube, hit that bell so you get a notification.
1:04.2	If you're on Twitter, just turn it on notifications for the Blockspace account. This show is brought to
1:08.9	you by Clean Spark. so thank you very much.
1:11.5	Tuning in.
1:12.6	We have a banger show.
1:16.0	There's actually too much news, so we had to pair some stuff down last minute.
1:19.5	We got Jack Dorsey Block laying off 4,000.
1:20.6	That's 40% of their workforce.
1:22.4	We've got Jane Street conspiracies. We've got our Magic Eden story, which went viral last night.
1:26.2	And Sailor is the most shorted stock.
1:34.8	Hey, Charlie here. Guess what? We just announced our next Bitcoin Technical Conference, Op Next.
	...

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