Author: GT

Cobalt is one of the world’s best battery materials, but geopolitically, it’s less than ideal. The world’s largest reserves are in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where mining has long been laced with human rights abuses, and 72% of the metal is refined in China. Cobalt may be used in a lot of electric vehicles, but the material isn’t just an EV problem. The U.S. military is dependent on cobalt for lithium-ion batteries that power drones and other devices, and for the alloys inside jet engines and magnets for missile-guidance systems. There aren’t any cobalt refineries in the U.S.…

DeFi Development Corp (JNVR), formerly known as Janover, added another $9.9 million in Solana’s SOL to its corporate treasury, pushing total crypto holdings to 317,273 SOL or about $48 million, the company said on Wednesday. The purchase, made through BitGo’s over-the-counter desk, includes a tranche of locked SOL. These are tokens typically tied to vesting or bankruptcy proceedings that can’t yet move on-chain but are cheaper than spot prices. “By gaining access to locked discounted inventory through a trusted partner like BitGo, we’re able to accumulate some of our SOL below market prices while deepening our alignment with the Solana…

For all the turmoil these days, the U.S. stock market remains extremely attractive to investors around the world, simply because of its sheer size and liquidity. But it’s still quite difficult for investors in other parts of the globe to trade stocks on U.S. exchanges. A San Mateo-based startup called Alpaca has quietly capitalized on that opportunity by offering an API to financial services firms that lets them sell trading services to their consumer user bases. Today, Alpaca claims it serves more than 5 million brokerage accounts, and has more than 200 financial clients in 40 countries. To build on…

Michael Saylor, CEO of Strategy, publicly endorsed newly appointed SEC Chairman Paul Atkins, stating on April 23 that Atkins “will be good for Bitcoin.” The statement came days after Atkins was sworn in as the 34th chair of the SEC during a White House ceremony led by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Atkins, who previously served at the SEC from 2002 to 2008, has a background in digital assets, including his role as co-chair of the Token Alliance and an advisor to the now-defunct crypto exchange FTX. Strategy, formerly MicroStrategy, recently added 6,556 BTC to its holdings for approximately $555 million,…

Cloud monitoring and security platform Datadog on Wednesday said it has acquired Metaplane, an AI-powered data observability startup. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. In a press release, Datadog said that the deal “accelerates” its expansion into data observability, building on the launch of related products. Metaplane will continue supporting its existing and new customers through a rebranded “Metaplane by Datadog” offering. “Observability is no longer just for developers and IT teams; it’s now an essential part of data teams’ day-to-day responsibilities as they manage increasingly complex and business-critical workflows,” Datadog VP Michael Whetten said in a statement.…

Bitcoin crossed $94,000 on April 23, triggering liquidations worth $635.9 million across crypto markets in 24 hours. According to CoinGlass data, more than $560 million of that came from short positions. Bitcoin led the way with $230 million in shorts wiped out, while Ether followed with $109 million as its price rose to $1,787, almost a 10% gain. Binance was the exchange with the highest share of liquidations in a recent four-hour window, totaling $18.7 million, of which 78% were short positions. Bybit and OKX also reported high volumes of liquidated positions, pointing to broad market volatility. The surge in…

YouTube said on Wednesday that it will launch a redesign of its TV app this summer. On the books are easier navigation, playback, and quality tweaks, as well as better access to comments, channel info, and subscribing. The company didn’t provide any further details about the redesign, but we’ve asked for a peek at the design assets and we’ll update if YouTube gets back to us on that front. The company also unveiled a few other new features for its apps. The company is also soft-launching an AI-powered feature called “Ask Music” that can generate a personalized radio station based…

For a robot, the real world is a lot to take in. Making sense of every data point in a scene can take a huge amount of computational effort and time. Using that information to then decide how to best help a human is an even thornier exercise.Now, MIT roboticists have a way to cut through the data noise, to help robots focus on the features in a scene that are most relevant for assisting humans.Their approach, which they aptly dub “Relevance,” enables a robot to use cues in a scene, such as audio and visual information, to determine a…

AI-generated code is no doubt changing how software is built, but it’s also introducing new security challenges. More than 50% of organizations encounter security issues with AI-produced code sometimes or frequently, according to a late 2023 survey by developer security platform Synk. For Endor Labs, that opportunity proved alluring enough that it chose to change course somewhat. Endor started off helping companies secure their open source package dependencies — in fact, it even raised a $70 million Series A round just two years ago to grow its developer pipeline governance service. But the startup’s co-founders, Varun Badhwar and Dimitri Stiliadis, saw…

Source: TradingView.com Bitcoin rose again Wednesday to bring the closely watched $100,000 mark back into striking distance. The cryptocurrency oscillated within a four-month falling wedge before breaking out above the pattern earlier this month. Investors should watch major overhead areas on Bitcoin’s chart around $100,000 and $107,000, while also monitoring key support levels near $85,000 and $76,000. Bitcoin (BTCUSD) rose again Wednesday to bring the closely watched $100,000 mark back into striking distance. The pioneer cryptocurrency, along with other risk-on assets, have rallied the past few days amid optimism that the White House could scale back its plans on tariffs…