Axios

Bitcoin mining has become very big business — one that Chinese entrepreneurs have built a vast infrastructure to exploit. The New York Times reports on the bitcoin mining boom in rural China, where firms have set up vast server farms to help maintain the bitcoin blockchain by solving cryptographic problems in return for payment in bitcoins.

Bitmain China is one firm cashing in, operating a bitcoin farm on the outskirts of the Gobi Desert near the Mongolian border that mints $318,000 worth of bitcoin each day.

Why it matters: Bitmain's success illustrates one half of China's love-hate relationship with Bitcoin. Regulators are cracking down on potentially dangerous speculation in the currency and worry that it will aid in the evasion of strict rules on moving money in and out of China. But government officials still want to allow profitable mining of the currency and cultivate expertise in a technology that will be important for the future digital economy.

In many ways, the release of the first iPhone 10 years ago launched the smartphone era. Since then, mobile data consumption has skyrocketed and, in the process, helped turn wireless companies into digital media conglomerates.

By the numbers:

• Mobile data traffic has experienced a nine-fold increase since 2012 in North America, and it has the highest smartphone and 4G network adoption rates of any region worldwide, according to GSMA.
• In 2016, there were 291 million unique wireless subscribers in North America, representing 80% of the region's population.
• There are now more mobile subscriptions in the U.S. than people.

The median household earned more money in 2016 than ever before, according to new Census Bureau data. The typical family earned $59,039, up 3.2% compared to 2015 and beating the previous all-time high of $58,149 from 1999. (Census Bureau officials, however, warned that the the 2016 number isn't directly comparable to estimates from before 2014, when its survey was modified to capture more sources of income.)

Data: U.S. Census Bureau; Chart: Lazaro Gamio / Axios

Researchers in Brussels have designed a way for robots to merge their control systems with one another to create a larger robot. The new technology allows a robot to split into several smaller units and then merge again in different shapes and configurations.

Why it matters: Robots will eventually move out of the predictable environments of manufacturing floors and into changing worlds that will require them to adapt. That's the goal of research into autonomous, modular robots like these.

NBC News correspondent Katy Tur is out today with a 2016 memoir, "Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History." In a WashPost review scheduled for Sunday's Outlook section, Carlos Lozada says she "chronicles the Trump campaign — and the indignities of reporting while female":

• During his campaign events, Trump often called out the news media, but he delighted in singling out Tur, publicly deriding her as "little Katy" and a "third-rate reporter." Part of the animosity was in response to Tur's (accurate) reporting about his behavior at rallies ...
• Trump went so far as to kiss her — an unwelcome and uninvited act — just before he appeared on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
• "Before I know what's happening, his hands are on my shoulders and his lips are on my cheek," Tur writes. "My eyes widen. My body freezes. My heart stops." Her immediate reaction is telling. "F—. I hope the cameras didn't see that. My bosses are never going to take me seriously."

Hope Hicks, who has been serving as interim communications director since Anthony Scaramucci was fired, will keep the job permanently.

Why it matters: Trump trusts Hicks to speak on his behalf in a way he'll never trust another member of the comms staff, viewing her almost as another daughter, Axios' Jonathan Swan points out. And Hicks understands that Trump largely views himself as the communications director in charge of his own messaging.