Author: GT

(Reuters) – Ripple said on Tuesday it will buy multi-asset prime broker Hidden Road in a $1.25 billion deal, making it one of the largest acquisitions by the crypto company. This is the second billion-dollar-plus deal involving a crypto company this year, as digital assets such as bitcoin gain more prominence under U.S. President Donald Trump, who has promised to be the “crypto president”. “The U.S. market is effectively open for the first time due to the regulatory overhang of the former SEC coming to an end, and the market is maturing to address the needs of traditional finance,” Ripple…

The U.S. needs more coal to meet growing electricity demand from artificial intelligence data centers and other industries, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Tuesday.”If we want to grow America’s electricity production meaningfully over the next five or ten years, we [have] got to stop closing coal plants,” Wright told CNBC’s “Money Movers.”The energy secretary’s comments come as President Donald Trump is poised to sign an order Tuesday that will direct the National Energy Dominance Council to classify coal as a critical mineral. The order aims to permit federal agencies to find coal on federal lands and prioritize leases for extraction.The…

Plenty of materials — from sulfur and sodium to manganese and organic molecules — have tried to topple the ubiquitous lithium-ion battery. And, so far, they’ve all failed. Organic batteries, which are built from some of the most abundant chemicals here on Earth, including carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen, has been perhaps the most frustrating failure. They should be cheaper than today’s batteries that use metals. Yet no one has been able to crack the organic battery. Until now, perhaps. A young startup called XL Batteries has a new take on the chemistry, that it says should be cheaper, safer, and…

ARK Invest has acquired $26.6 million in Coinbase (COIN) shares while simultaneously unloading $12 million in its Bitcoin ETF. The moves come in response to recent market fluctuations following new trade tariffs announced by U.S. President Donald Trump on April 2. Trading data indicates that ARK’s investment in Coinbase included purchases of $13.2 million on April 7 and $13.3 million on April 4. This marks a significant investment as the firm navigates a turbulent market landscape. Conversely, ARK sold $12 million of its ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB) on April 7. This sale is among the largest daily transactions for…

A founder who has carved out a name for himself building products to help restaurants connect better with would-be diners has raised $50 million for his latest startup: a new take on the idea of customer loyalty.  Blackbird Labs has built a payments-meets-loyalty-meets-blockchain platform for restaurants to grow repeat business while reducing some of the friction around transactions. Now, with with some 1,000 restaurants signed up, CEO Ben Leventhal said Blackbird plans to use the money to launch its newest product, a cross-restaurant “points” service it’s calling Blackbird Club, as well as to expand into more markets outside of New…

Ever since it launched in 2009, Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) has stood alone as the world’s most valuable cryptocurrency. More than 15 years later, it still accounts for a whopping 60% of the value of the cryptocurrency market. However, the tech industry is filled with stories of industry leaders that once reigned supreme, but later gave ground to smaller, more nimble competitors. The one competitor that’s been getting a lot of buzz recently is XRP (CRYPTO: XRP), the cryptocurrency formerly known as Ripple. In terms of market cap, it seems inconceivable that XRP could ever overtake Bitcoin. Despite being the world’s…

Following the release of ChatGPT’s new image-generation tool, user activity has surged; millions of people have been drawn to a trend whereby uploaded images are inspired by the unique visual style of Studio Ghibli. The spike in interest contributed to record use levels for the chatbot and strained OpenAI’s infrastructure temporarily. Social media platforms were soon flooded with AI-generated images styled after work by the renowned Japanese animation studio, known for titles like Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro. According to Similarweb, weekly active ChatGPT users passed 150 million for the first time this year. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said…

First Solar is one of the best positioned companies in the clean technology space in the wake of President Donald Trump’s tariffs, according to Morgan Stanley. First Solar will have some near-term exposure to Trump’s taxes on imports, but the company “is a key beneficiary of tariffs over the long-term” because a significant portion of its solar panel manufacturing capacity is located in the U.S., analyst Andrew Percoco told clients in a Monday note. About 50% of First Solar’s capacity is located in Malaysia, Vietnam and India with the rest in the U.S., Percoco said. The company has about $500…

Glen Tullman, chairman and chief executive officer at Livongo Health Inc., speaks during the 2015 Bloomberg Technology Conference in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Tuesday, June 16, 2015.David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesDigital health startup Transcarent on Tuesday announced it completed its acquisition of Accolade in a deal valued at roughly $621 million. Transcarent first announced the acquisition in January, and the company said it has received all necessary shareholder and regulatory approvals to carry out the transaction. Accolade shareholders received $7.03 per share in cash, and its common stock will no longer trade on the Nasdaq, according to a release.”Adding Accolade’s people…

On Tuesday, Amazon debuted a new generative AI model, Nova Sonic, capable of natively processing voice and generating natural-sounding speech. Amazon claims that Sonic’s performance is competitive with frontier voice models from OpenAI and Google on benchmarks measuring speed, speech recognition, and conversational quality. Nova Sonic is Amazon’s answer to newer AI voice models such as the model powering ChatGPT’s Voice Mode, which feel more natural to speak with than the more rigid models from Amazon Alexa’s early days. Recent technological breakthroughs have made legacy models and the digital assistants they underpin, such as Alexa and Apple’s Siri, seem incredibly…