Author: GT

We’re thrilled to announce that Baiju Bhatt, co-founder of Robinhood and founder and CEO of Aetherflux, will be joining us for a rare, intimate fireside chat as part of TechCrunch’s StrictlyVC evening series on June 18 on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park. As with all of our StrictlyVC evenings, the event will feature just a handful of select conversations — and Bhatt’s will be one you won’t want to miss. If you’ve followed the transformation of retail investing over the last decade, you’ve seen Bhatt’s fingerprints all over it. As the co-founder of Robinhood, he helped redefine how millions…

By Jonathan Stempel NEW YORK (Reuters) -Nike was sued on Friday by purchasers of Nike-themed non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and other cryptocurrency assets who said they suffered significant losses when the athletic wear company abruptly closed the business that created those assets. In a proposed class action filed in Brooklyn, New York federal court, purchasers led by Australian resident Jagdeep Cheema said the sudden closure in December of Nike’s RTFKT unit caused demand for their NFTs to dry up. They said they would never have bought the NFTs at the prices they did, or at all, had they known the tokens…

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump and his allies have raked in nearly $900,000 in trading fees over the past two days from the president’s $TRUMP cryptocurrency token, according to Chainalysis, a blockchain data company. The surge came after a Wednesday announcement in which the top 220 holders of the token were promised dinner with the president.”Have Dinner in Washington, D.C. With President Trump,” reads a message on the front page of the Trump coin’s website. The event, which is black tie optional and hosted at the president’s private club in the Washington area, is scheduled for May 22, with a reception…

For the first time in roughly five years, OpenAI is gearing up to release an AI system that’s truly “open,” meaning it’ll be available for download at no cost and not gated behind an API. TechCrunch reported on Wednesday that OpenAI is aiming for an early summer launch, and targeting performance superior to open models from Meta and DeepSeek. Beyond its benchmark performance, OpenAI may have a key feature up its sleeve — one that could make its open “reasoning” model highly competitive, TechCrunch has learned. Company leaders have been discussing plans to enable the open model to connect to…

Evernote founder Phil Libin is ready to liven up your video meetings. The entrepreneur’s video startup, mmhmm, launched in 2020 amid the pandemic, on Thursday unveiled its latest product: a video toolkit for online meetings called Airtime. The suite includes two related tools: a virtual camera that helps you appear more polished on video calls, and a presentation tool that allows you and your colleagues to appear on screen as your present your slides. The company thinks these products will help make online meetings more engaging and professional, as today people tend to show up to meetings in more casual…

Shares of Cantor Equity Partners (CEP) experienced a significant surge of 134% over the past week, with a notable 50% increase on Thursday, following the announcement of a planned merger to form a new Bitcoin-centric company named Twenty One. The Nasdaq-listed shares were trading at approximately $24.80 prior to the announcement. The merger, which involves a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC), aims to launch Twenty One as a publicly traded entity with a focus on Bitcoin investments. The company plans to debut with a treasury of over 42,000 BTC, valued at approximately $3.9 billion at current market prices. Twenty One’s…

Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Paul Atkins looks on during his swearing-in ceremony, at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 22, 2025. Kevin Lamarque | ReutersWASHINGTON — SEC Chair Paul Atkins said on Friday that innovation in the crypto industry “has been stifled for the last several years,” and that changes are sorely needed.”The market itself seems to indicate that the current framework badly needs attention,” Atkins said at a roundtable held by the SEC’s recently launched Crypto Task Force.The half-day session at the SEC’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., is a notable event for Atkins,…

We are thrilled to announce that Astro Teller, the head honcho of Alphabet’s X, the Moonshot Factory, will be joining us as a featured speaker at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, happening October 27-29 at Moscone West in San Francisco. The whole affair promises to be fun filled and rife with intel and insights that you won’t want to miss. Astro Teller — whose official title is Captain of Moonshots — has been heading up X since 2010, where he oversees the company’s ambitious projects aimed at solving some of the world’s most challenging problems. On his watch, X has developed such…

ARK Invest has significantly revised its price forecast for Bitcoin, projecting a potential rise to $2.4 million by the end of 2030. This marks an increase from its previous bull case target of $1.5 million, reflecting growing institutional interest and Bitcoin’s evolving role as “digital gold.” According to ARK research analyst David Puell, the firm now estimates Bitcoin’s bear and base case scenarios at $500,000 and $1.2 million, respectively, up from earlier projections of $300,000 and $710,000. These predictions are based on various factors, including Bitcoin’s total addressable market (TAM) and its penetration rate within the broader financial landscape, which…

Jonathan Raa | Nurphoto | Getty ImagesWASHINGTON — Senators Adam Schiff and Elizabeth Warren are warning that President Donald Trump’s private dinner with holders of his meme coin may constitute “pay to play” corruption, and are calling for an ethics investigation.The Democratic senators, from California and Massachusetts, respectively, sent a letter on Friday to the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, asking for a probe to determine if President Trump violated federal ethics rules by offering exclusive access to top investors in his $TRUMP coin.The letter pertains to a promotion, announced on the meme coin’s website on Wednesday, offering the top…