Author: GT

After holding relatively stable during last week’s global market turmoil, cryptocurrencies have joined the sell-off. Bitcoin, the world’s most popular cryptocurrency dipped below $75,000 Monday morning before seeing a slight rebound. Bitcoin’s prices haven’t been this low since just after President Donald Trump’s Election Day victory last year launched a bull run in crypto prices. Trump, whose tariff announcements led to massive stock sell offs, has been a major promoter of the crypto industry and previously took credit when bitcoin’s price broke $100,000 in December. Bitcoin has been on a relatively steady slide in price since Trump took office earlier…

IBM on Monday said it has acquired Hakkoda, a data and AI consultancy based in New York. The acquisition would “further expand” IBM’s ability to bring consultants and AI to clients, particularly customers in industries like financial services, public sector, and healthcare and life sciences, said Mohamad Ali, SVP and head of IBM’s consulting business, in a statement. “With Hakkoda’s data expertise, deep technology partnerships, and asset-centric delivery model, IBM will be even better-positioned to deliver value faster to clients as they transform with AI,” Ali said. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The deal comes as IBM…

LONDON (AP) — Apple is fighting a British government order for the iPhone maker to provide so-called backdoor access to its encrypted cloud storage service, a U.K. court confirmed on Monday. The Investigatory Powers Tribunal revealed the legal battle when it rejected a bid by Britain’s Home Office to have the case heard in private. Apple had said in February that it would stop offering its end-to-end encryption feature for British users after the government reportedly issued the demand, which raised fears of electronic spying by national security officials. British media, citing unnamed sources, later reported that Apple was appealing…

A tugboat pushes a barge near the U.S. Steel Corp. Clairton Coke Works facility in Clairton, Pennsylvania, on Sept. 9, 2024.Justin Merriman | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesPresident Donald Trump on Monday ordered the proposed acquisition of U.S. Steel by Japan’s Nippon Steel to undergo a new review after the deal was blocked by President Joe Biden.Trump directed the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to review the acquisition again to assist “in determining whether further action in this matter may be appropriate,” according to a presidential action issued by the White House on Monday.U.S. Steel shares spiked 11% in…

Overwhelmed with trying to keep up with the different AI models you can use to make content? A startup called Krea is looking to solve this problem specifically for designers and other visual creatives, and it has now raised $83 million for its platform, which it believes will make working with generative AI a lot smoother.  San Francisco-based Krea says its “unified” platform provides tooling from multiple models, along with a custom interface aimed at making queries and subsequent edits sent to those models significantly easier and more customizable. Its user base includes creators at Perplexity AI, Loop Earplugs, Pixar, LEGO, and Samsung. Krea’s funding is…

A crypto market sell-off went from bad to brutal in European morning hours Monday as bitcoin pierced the $75,000 level — extending losses on major tokens to nearly 20%. Tokens XRP, solana (SOL), and dogecoin (DOGE) plunged over 5% in the hours ahead of the European open, erasing tens of billions in market capitalization, driven by a cascade of macroeconomic uncertainty and aggressive liquidations that neared $1 billion. The broad-based CoinDesk 20 (CD20) index, which tracks the largest tokens, slumped 12%, signaling a widespread risk-off sentiment gripping the sector. XRP and SOL led the decline, each nosediving more than 20%…

Goldman Sachs has lowered its forecast for U.S. crude oil prices as the investment bank sees the U.S. economy slowing and the risk of a recession rising due to President Donald Trump’s tariffs . Goldman on Sunday cut its December 2025 outlook for U.S. crude and global benchmark Brent to $58 and $62 per barrel, respectively. Prices are expected to fall further in 2026 with U.S. crude and Brent averaging $55 and $58 per barrel, according to the bank. “The risks to our reduced oil price forecast remain to the downside, because recession risk has grown further and because OPEC+…

Chief Executive of Apple, Tim Cook gives a thumb’s up during a tour the Apple Headquarters on December 12, 2024 in London, England. Chris Jackson | Getty ImagesApple has triumphed over an effort from the U.K. government to keep details secret of its appeal against an order to create a “backdoor” to iPhone users’ data.The U.K.’s Investigatory Powers Tribunal on Monday published a ruling dismissing the government’s attempt to prevent details from a hearing on the appeal from being made public. The government had tried to keep the information secret on the grounds it posed risks to national security.Judges Rabinder Singh and…

The U.K. government has lost its bid to keep secret the details of a surveillance order it brought against Apple, according to a newly released decision by the U.K. surveillance powers’ court. The decision, posted on Monday by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal in London, means that parts of the legal case will be held in public, despite objections from the U.K. government. In its ruling on Monday, the tribunal’s judges said they “do not accept that the revelation of the bare details of the case would be damaging to the public interest or prejudicial to national security.” This is the…

There haven’t been many dull moments in the cryptocurrency industry lately. The Trump administration took over in January, and there has been a monumental pivot to a much more pro-cryptocurrency approach. The president ordered the creation of strategic reserves for digital assets, and regulators have abandoned numerous lawsuits against companies in the crypto sector. Despite all this, Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) and XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) (Ripple) are down in 2025, though XRP has vastly outperformed Bitcoin during the past 12 months. It’s a bit of a head-scratcher, especially for Bitcoin, the largest and most prominent cryptocurrency. Is XRP’s relative strength a…