Author: GT

Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, Tumblr, WooCommerce, and a range of other online services, is reducing its workforce. The layoffs will impact 16% of staff across divisions, an Automattic blog post published Wednesday reveals. Ahead of the layoffs, Automattic’s website listed 1,744 employees, which means north of 270 people may have lost their jobs. (Automattic declined to confirm this number but we’re hearing the exact number was 281.) The post, which was also shared with company employees via Slack earlier on Wednesday, explains that this “restructuring” was necessary due to the competitive nature of the market and the speed with…

Digital assets have grown into a multi-trillion-dollar market, yet they remain largely disconnected from traditional finance. Institutional investors increasingly want to own and monetize digital assets, but most banks, broker-dealers and asset managers operate on infrastructure designed for stocks and bonds — not blockchain-based assets. While spot crypto ETFs are an important step toward integration, they only enable passive exposure to the asset class. For digital assets to fully mature, they need a mechanism that bridges them with the entirety of the existing capital markets infrastructure in a familiar, regulated way. You’re reading Crypto Long & Short, our weekly newsletter…

Guests including Mark Zuckerberg, Lauren Sanchez, Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai and Elon Musk attend the Inauguration of Donald J. Trump in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda on January 20, 2025 in Washington, DC. Donald Trump takes office for his second term as the 47th president of the United States. Julia Demaree Nikhinson | Getty ImagesAmazon submitted a bid to the White House to purchase the social media app TikTok from its Chinese owners, CNBC has confirmed.The company sent its proposal in a letter this week to Vice President JD Vance and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, according to a source familiar with the…

As it prepares to transition from a nonprofit corporation to a for-profit, OpenAI says it’s convening a group of experts to “help OpenAI’s philanthropy understand the most urgent and intractable problems nonprofits face today.” This group, which OpenAI says will incorporate feedback from “leaders and communities” in health, science, education, and public services, particularly within OpenAI’s home state of California, will be announced in April and submit insights to OpenAI’s board of directors in the next 90 days. “[T]he Board will consider these insights in its ongoing work to evolve the OpenAI nonprofit well before the end of 2025,” OpenAI…

The latest IP to be mined into a Hollywood blockbuster is appropriately a video game that celebrates digging: “A Minecraft Movie.”Like “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” and “Jumanji” before it, “A Minecraft Movie” centers on four misfits who enter a mysterious portal that pulls them into a strange land, this time cubic, like Lego only on shrooms.The Jared Hess-directed action-adventure artfully straddles the line between delighting preteen gamers and keeping their parents awake. It’s an often-bananas adaptation, with bizarre digressions into turquoise blouses and tater tot pizzas. It has Jennifer Coolidge being very Jennifer Coolidge. Need we say more?If you’ve…

Fidelity Investments rolled out an IRA plan that invests directly in crypto on Wednesday, giving investors another method for tapping this asset class. The brokerage firm offers bitcoin (BTC), ethereum (ETH) and Litecoin (LTC) to any U.S. citizen over the age of 18. The assets are custodied by Fidelity Digital Assets and held in a cold wallet. The crypto IRA product has no fees, and customers can invest in a Roth IRA, traditional IRA or rollover IRA, according to Fidelity’s website. The new product comes as financial advisors are increasingly offering crypto to their clients. A survey by TMX Vetta…

Eric Trump says his family was “the most canceled company, probably on Earth.”That was then. With his dad, President Donald Trump, back in the White House, he sees a new money-making opportunity. “It actually is what drove us toward cryptocurrency,” the president’s middle son told CNBC, referring to the Trump family’s latest business endeavors. “You realize that cryptocurrency was a lot faster, it was a lot more pragmatic, it was a lot more transparent, it was exponentially cheaper.”In 2022, about two years after the end of President Trump’s first term, two subsidiaries of the Trump Organization were convicted by a…

On Wednesday, Rippling publicly released the affidavit of the Rippling employee who testified that he was working as a spy for the HR tech company’s arch rival Deel.  And the account, coupled with Rippling’s lawsuit filed against Deel last week, reads like a corporate espionage movie script, complete with a sting operation and a smashed phone. It’s the latest escapade between the two. TechCrunch has documented the most Hollywood-esque parts of the testimony below, but be aware that this is only one side of the story — the side Rippling wants everyone to know, as its PR machine has blasted…

With IRS audits on the rise for 2025, cryptocurrency holders face more scrutiny than ever. It’s not just about paying taxes. The evolving rules mean even small oversights can lead to large penalties or expensive audits. You’re reading Crypto Long & Short, our weekly newsletter featuring insights, news and analysis for the professional investor. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Wednesday. Below are five common missteps that often catch crypto investors off guard — and how you can stay compliant. Neglecting wallet-based accounting: The IRS now expects detailed reporting of each wallet’s transactions and balances. That…

United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying the first two demonstration satellites for Amazon’s Project Kuiper broadband internet constellation stands ready for launch on pad 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on October 5, 2023 in Cape Canaveral, Florida, United States.Paul Hennessey | Anadolu Agency | Getty ImagesAmazon has set a date for the long-awaited maiden voyage of its Kuiper internet satellites.The satellites are slated to take off on United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on April 9 at 12 p.m. ET, Amazon said in a blog post. The launch will be livestreamed on ULA’s…