Author: GT

Microsoft has released a browser-based, playable level of the classic video game Quake II. This functions as a tech demo for the gaming capabilities of Microsoft’s Copilot AI platform — though by the company’s own admission, the experience isn’t quite the same as playing a well-made game. You can try it out for yourself, using your keyboard to navigate a single level of Quake II for a couple minutes before you hit the time limit. In a blog post describing their work, Microsoft researchers said their Muse family of AI models for video games allows users to “interact with the…

Credit spreads are widening and have reached their highest levels since August 2024 — a period that coincided with bitcoin (BTC) dropping 33% during the yen carry trade unwind. One way to track this is through the ratio of the iShares 3–7 Year Treasury Bond ETF (IEI) to the iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (HYG). This IEI/HYG ratio, highlighted by analyst Caleb Franzen, serves as a proxy for credit spreads and is now showing its sharpest spike since the Silicon Valley Bank crisis in March 2023 — a moment that marked a local bottom in bitcoin just…

Bitcoin’s (BTC) recent stability amid Nasdaq turmoil driven by tariffs has generated excitement among market participants regarding the cryptocurrency’s potential as a haven asset. Still, the bulls might want to keep an eye on the bond market, where dynamics that characterized the COVID crash of March 2020 may be emerging. Nasdaq, Wall Street’s tech-heavy index known to be positively correlated to bitcoin, has dropped 11% since President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced reciprocal tariffs on 180 nations, escalating trade tensions and drawing retaliatory levies from China. Other U.S. indices and global markets have also taken a beating alongside sharp losses…

You won’t find anyone more bullish on Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) than Michael Saylor. As the executive chairman of the Bitcoin treasury company MicroStrategy, which now goes by the name Strategy, Saylor more or less pioneered the idea of taking a struggling company and using its available funds to buy hoards of the world’s largest cryptocurrency. Strategy began buying Bitcoin in 2020 and hasn’t stopped. It has paid off, and its stock has absolutely soared. The company has also been able to tap the capital markets to raise debt that it can then use to buy Bitcoin. Late last year, Saylor…

Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) fell by 5.4% on April 3 as the Trump administration’s newly announced tariff policies were digested by the market. Now, with economic uncertainty sky-high and investors looking for havens from the turmoil, it’s an open question whether the tariffs might deal severe harm to the cryptocurrency sector — or if crypto might just end up getting dragged down along with everything else. But is Bitcoin going to fare better than its peers as a result of its highly distributed and decentralized nature? Let’s look at its exposure to the emerging set of risks and figure it out.…

Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) is increasingly an asset that major businesses are looking to buy and hold. That doesn’t necessarily mean that average investors should copy their move — after all, it doesn’t make sense to buy most of the other assets that companies need to operate. Still, it’s worth diving a bit deeper into this trend to see if it’s worth following by buying more of the coin, or if it’s a better idea to stick to your prior plans. According to Elliot Chun, a partner at Architect Partners, a cryptocurrency advisory group, by 2030, roughly 25% of the companies…

San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie wants to bring his city back to its glory days. And he’s convinced tech leaders — who often pitch utopian ideals of their own — can help him deliver. “I’m a mayor that is picking up the phone and calling CEOs,” said Lurie during TechCrunch’s StrictlyVC event on Thursday night. “I’m calling entrepreneurs and saying, ‘How can we keep you here?’ or ‘How can we get you back?’” The first step to winning these folks back, he said, is addressing a rampant drug and homelessness crisis that’s pushed many business leaders out of the city.…

Welcome back to Week in Review! Tons of stuff for you today, including Nintendo’s Switch 2; capacity issues at OpenAI; a story that deserves the Hollywood treatment; and much, much more. Let’s go! It’s finally (almost) here: After almost 10 years, Nintendo finally released its Switch successor, the Switch 2. According to TechCrunch’s Amanda Silberling, the $450 system “tries to take a console that’s already beloved and simply just make it better.” I’m into that! Unfortunately, preorders in the U.S. might be delayed in response to Trump’s tariffs.  Delays, delays: OpenAI’s Sam Altman said in a series of posts on…

The big screen adaptation of video game mega-franchise Minecraft brought in $58 million on Friday, putting it on-track for a $135 million opening weekend domestically — or potentially even more. That would give “A Minecraft Movie” the biggest opening of the year, beating out “Captain America: Brave New World” (which earned $88.8 million during its opening weekend in February) and providing a much-needed boost to the theatrical box office. ComScore recently estimated that 2025 domestic box office was down 7% year-over-year, and that’s on top of significant declines from the pre-pandemic era. Coming to the rescue: Video games, particularly kid-friendly…

Elisabeth Diana, head of communications at human resources Deel, is no longer with the company, according to her LinkedIn profile. Bloomberg first reported the news that Diana had resigned from Deel, which was recently accused of planting a spy at rival company Rippling. TechCrunch reached out to Diana but had not heard back at the time of publication. Her LinkedIn profile shows that she started working at Deel (whose CEO Alex Bouaziz is pictured above) in November 2021 and stopped working there in April 2025. She was previously head of communications at Instagram and corporate head of communications at Facebook.…