Author: GT

It’s been an exceptionally volatile week, but one measure may be signaling longer-term bullish sentiment for bitcoin. The sell-off in equities began on April 3, spurred by President Donald Trump’s tariff-led uncertainties. Each day since then has been marked by sharp moves in both directions. The panic has hit both the equities and bond markets, while gold has surged to new all-time highs, and the DXY Index has broken below 100 for the first time since July 2023. In response, the S&P Volatility Index (VIX)—often called Wall Street’s “fear gauge” —has surged to its highest level since last August and…

Ireland’s data regulator, the Data Protection Commission (DPC), said Friday that it has opened an investigation into Elon Musk’s X over the social media platform’s use of personal data collected from European users to train Grok. The DPC will investigate how X processes personal data “comprised” in publicly accessible posts by European users for the purposes of training generative AI models, according to a Reuters report. The powerful Irish privacy regulator has issued fines to Microsoft, TikTok, and Meta in the past. Its fines to Meta total almost €3 billion (roughly $3.38 billion). X quietly opted in users to sharing…

Digital payments platform Stripe invites customers to join its management team meetings on a bi-weekly basis so it can get “candid feedback,” according to co-founder Patrick Collison. In an April 8 post on X, the fintech giant’s CEO said the company has a customer join for the first 30 minutes of the meeting, which is attended by about 40 leaders “from across Stripe.” “Even though we already have a lot of customer feedback mechanisms, it somehow always spurs new thoughts and investigations,” he wrote. It’s an interesting strategy from Stripe, which was founded in 2010 and is considered to be…

Bitcoin (BTC) rose over 1.5% to $84,900 Saturday, looking to break a three-month downtrend after the Trump administration issued new guidance on reciprocal tariffs, listing several exemptions like smartphones, computers, chips and other electronics. These exclusions, published by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, list products from President Donald Trump’s 125% China tariff and his baseline 10% global levy. “The US imports over $60 BILLION of smartphones per year. These exemptions cover some of the most crucial imports in another sign of the U.S. conceding in the trade war. After all, the bond market is forcing Trump to concede,” The Kobeissi…

YouTube is looking into potentially offering a feature that would allow users to set a daily timer to limit how long they spend on Shorts. Recent findings from the beta version of the YouTube app, first reported by Android Authority, suggest that the platform is developing a feature to help users stop the endless scrolling through Shorts.  YouTube confirmed to TechCrunch that, while this feature is not currently being publicly tested, it is “exploring this for the future,” a company spokesperson said. The code indicates the daily timer allows users to set a specific number of hours. Once the allotted…

AUSTIN — On a Friday morning last spring, Mark Suman called out sick from his job as a senior engineering project manager at Apple and made his way downtown to a place called the Bitcoin Commons, a sort of clubhouse for enthusiasts of the world’s largest cryptocurrency, situated a few blocks south of the Texas State Capitol.At the time, Suman was, in his words, “an active hobbyist,” tinkering with the technology in his spare time. “I actually played around with it a bit within Apple as well,” he says. “There’s not a lot I can say, other than we were…

ChatGPT became the world’s most downloaded app in March, excluding games, topping the usual contenders for the No. 1 spot, Instagram and TikTok. This is the first time the app has topped the monthly download charts and ChatGPT’s biggest month ever. According to new data, ChatGPT’s installs jumped 28% from February to March to reach 46 million new downloads during March, app intelligence provider Appfigures recently reported. That put the app slightly ahead of Instagram, which fell to the No. 2 position. TikTok followed at No. 3. Image Credits:Appfigures Perhaps helping to drive installs, ChatGPT saw some notable upgrades in…

The Trump administration late Friday said they would exclude electronics like smartphones and laptops from reciprocal tariffs, a move that could help keep the prices down for popular consumer electronics that aren’t usually made in the U.S.It would also benefit big tech companies like Apple and Samsung and chip makers like Nvidia.U.S. Customs and Border Protection said items like smartphones, laptops, hard drives, flat-panel monitors and some chips would qualify for the exemption. Machines used to make semiconductors are excluded too. That means they won’t be subject to the current 145% tariffs levied on China or the 10% baseline tariffs…

The idea of “safe haven” assets—traditionally marked by gold and government bonds—amid market turmoil, is being tested like never before. For decades, portfolio construction and risk management were simple: 60% equities, 40% bonds and when markets panicked, capital typically flowed into gold and government bonds. These assets were slow, steady, and predictable, making them an ideal safe haven for investors looking for protection against volatility. But in today’s world of 24/7 markets, geopolitical instability, and rising distrust in sovereign systems, have turned that logic on its head, asking the question: does the definition of a safe haven need a refresh?…

A group of ex-OpenAI employees on Friday filed a proposed amicus brief in support of Elon Musk in his lawsuit against OpenAI, opposing OpenAI’s planned conversion from a nonprofit to a for-profit corporation. The brief, filed by Harvard law professor and Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig, names 12 former OpenAI employees: Steven Adler, Rosemary Campbell, Neil Chowdhury, Jacob Hilton, Daniel Kokotajlo, Gretchen Krueger, Todor Markov, Richard Ngo, Girish Sastry, William Saunders, Carrol Wainwright, and Jeffrey Wu. It makes the case that, if OpenAI’s non-profit ceded control of the organization’s business operations, it would “fundamentally violate its mission.” Several of the…