Author: GT

The IRS lost two key directors working on crypto initiatives, Seth Wilks and Raj Mukherjee, on Friday after they accepted deferred resignation offers directed by the Department of Government Efficiency. Wilks and Mukherjee, who both went to the IRS from the crypto industry, are technically still employees with the IRS for the next few months but they are on paid administrative leave as of Friday afternoon, two people familiar with the situation told CoinDesk. President Donald Trump’s administration, through DOGE, offered deferred resignations to a wide array of federal employees earlier this year. Wilks, who was previously a vice president…

Google is expanding access to AI Mode, its experimental feature that allows users to ask complex, multipart questions and follow-ups to dig deeper on a topic directly within Search. The tech giant is also adding more functionality to the feature, including the ability to pick up where you left off on a search. Google launched AI Mode back in March as a way to take on popular services like Perplexity AI and OpenAI’s ChatGPT Search. The updates announced today are designed to allow AI Mode to better compete with the aforementioned services. With this expansion, Google is getting rid of the…

Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers is pissed off at Apple. Really, really pissed off. In Rogers’ newly released 80-page decision, she took Apple and its executives to task for defying the court’s orders in its original case with Fortnite maker Epic Games. Though Apple largely won that round, as it was determined the tech giant was not a monopolist, the court decided that Apple was behaving in an anticompetitive fashion in one specific area: by not allowing app developers to offer their customers other ways to pay outside of Apple’s own payment platform. The judge ruled that developers should be able…

A bitcoin (BTC) breakout earlier this week has traders eyeing the $100,000 level in the coming days, a euphoric trade that could be short-lived as May’s seasonality approaches. “Historically, the next couple of months have been weak for financial markets, with many investors abiding by the Sell in May and Walk Away adage,” Jeff Mei, COO at BTSE, told CoinDesk in a Telegram message. “That being said, markets have significantly underperformed over the last few months, but this year could buck the trend, with Bitcoin hitting $97K and other growth stocks coming back over the last few weeks. This past…

After nearly 13 years in business, Fivetran will now be able to offer its customers an end-to-end data movement solution. Fivetran, which helps enterprises move data from a variety of sources into cloud databases, announced on Thursday it has acquired Census, a reverse extract, transform, and load (ETL) platform that enables companies to transfer data out of databases and into operational tools. Census was founded in 2018 and raised more than $80 million in venture funding from such firms as Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, and Tiger Global. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Census was last valued at…

Crypto payments firm Mesh has announced an integration with Apple Pay that will enable merchants to accept cryptocurrency payments directly through Apple Pay. Scheduled for release later in Q2, this integration will facilitate crypto transactions for Mesh’s partner merchants without their own crypto infrastructure. The Apple Pay integration is powered by Mesh’s SmartFunding technology, which allows customers to pay with cryptocurrencies like BTC, ETH, or SOL. Merchants can then settle these payments in the stablecoin of their choice, including USDC, USDT, PYUSD, and others. This technology claims to simplify the transaction process, with users selecting Apple Pay at checkout, authenticating…

Eaton , a maker of power management solutions for AI data centers and other commercial markets, delivered a solid quarter on Friday that raised more questions for us than it answered. Earnings per share for the first quarter ended in March rose more than 33% from the year-ago period to $2.72, beating the LSEG compiled analyst consensus estimate by a penny. Revenue rose 7.3% to $6.38 billion, beating the LSEG compiled analyst consensus estimate of $6.26 billion. Organic sales grew 9%, far exceeding the Bloomberg estimate for a 6.8% increase. Eaton Why we own it: Eaton has exposure to several…

Anthropic on Thursday launched a new way to connect apps and tools to its AI chatbot Claude, as well as an expanded “deep research” capability that allows Claude to search the web, enterprise accounts, and more. The new app connection feature, called Integrations, and expanded deep research tool, dubbed Advanced Research, are available in beta for subscribers to Anthropic’s Claude Max, Team, and Enterprise plans, and soon Pro. In related news, Anthropic has also upped the rate limits for its AI-powered coding tool, Claude Code, for Max customers. Integrations and Advanced Research are both a part of Anthropic’s effort to…

Listen and subscribe to Opening Bid on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Charles Schwab (SCHW) wants its piece of the crypto trading pie. “There’s lots of ways for clients to get invested in crypto at Schwab. And we provide lots of insights and education around crypto,” Charles Schwab CEO Rick Wurster told me on Yahoo Finance’s Opening Bid podcast (video above; listen in below). “We are going to add spot crypto trading in the next 12 months. We’re going to focus initially on bitcoin and ethereum. It’ll be on our Thinkorswim platform…

A package from Temu is seen in front of a screen with the Temu logo. (Photo by Nikos Pekiaridis/NurPhoto via Getty Images)Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty ImagesBargain Chinese retailer Temu changed its business model in the U.S. as the Trump administration’s new rules on low-value shipments took effect on Friday.In recent days, Temu has abruptly shifted its website and app to only display listings for products shipped from U.S.-based warehouses. Items shipped directly from China, which previously blanketed the site, are now labeled as out of stock.Temu made a name for itself in the U.S. as a destination for ultra-discounted…