Author: GT

What would your finances have looked like had you diverted just $1000 away from your 401(k) match in 2015 and purchased Bitcoin instead? Bitcoin opened at $320.43 on January 1, 2015. At that price, a $1000 investment would have purchased approximately 0.3122 Bitcoin. As of March 29, Bitcoin is at $83,810.76, making the same $1000 investment worth $260,159, a gain of over 26,000%. In contrast, if you had invested that $1000 in a diverse 401(k) portfolio, average returns show an expected 5-8% gain per year, depending on your mix of stock, bond, and cash investments. In over a decade, that…

Prolific fintech investor and QED Investors co-founder Frank Rotman said Friday that he will transition to a partner emeritus role by year’s end to focus on founding his own startups. But those startups won’t necessarily be financial technology companies. In a post on X, Rotman — who helped start QED in 2007 — declared that “the first business” that he plans “on getting out of the ground is in the music industry.” He wrote: “It’s easy to call me crazy for all the obvious reasons, but it’s worth reserving judgment until you learn more about the business that’s evolved in…

Sid Powell, CEO and co-founder of Maple, is taking a page from Wall Street and bringing it on-chain. His company is rethinking institutional lending with crypto as the foundation — starting with Bitcoin. In an interview with TheStreet Roundtable, Powell described the approach as “asset-backed lending on-chain.” It’s already getting attention from high-net-worth individuals and fixed-income investors. Maple makes loans to institutions like trading firms and hedge funds, using crypto — like Bitcoin — as collateral. Borrowers get stablecoins sent directly to their wallets, while Maple holds the collateral in liquid digital assets. Investors then earn yield from those loans,…

Elon Musk’s AI startup, xAI, has acquired his social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, in an all-stock deal, he announced in a post on X Friday. “xAI has acquired X in an all-stock transaction,” Musk said. “The combination values xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion ($45B less $12B debt).” Musk went on to describe the two companies’ futures as “intertwined.” He added, “Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent.” The acquisition places X — the highly influential social media platform Musk purchased in 2022 under its former…

Elon Musk has sold social media site X to his own xAI artificial intelligence company in a $33 billion all-stock deal, the billionaire announced on Friday. Both companies are privately held, which means they are not required to disclose their finances to the public. Musk said in a post on X that the move will “unlock immense potential by blending xAI’s advanced AI capability and expertise with X’s massive reach.” He said the deal values xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion. Musk, who serves as CEO of Tesla and SpaceX as well as an advisor to President…

‘Tesla Takedown’ organizers have promised their biggest day of global action this weekend, encouraging thousands to protest outside Tesla showrooms, dealerships, and even charging stations to peacefully object to Elon Musk’s role in slashing government spending.  As Tesla protests have spread, so has the backlash. Activists holding up signs are being conflated with masked vandals throwing Molotov cocktails. On social media, and in Washington, the distinction is fading fast.  President Donald Trump has called attacks on Tesla “domestic terrorism” and threatened to send “terrorist thugs” to prisons in El Salvador. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has pledged to prosecute “those…

Bitcoin hovered in the mid-$80,000 range over the past week, peaking at $88K while briefly approaching $89K before dipping again. The price action suggests growing stability, even as markets respond to Trump’s tariff rhetoric. With the Fed holding off on interest rate cuts, bitcoin appears to be consolidating despite broader economic uncertainty. At his Senate confirmation hearing, Paul Atkins, Trump’s pick to lead the SEC, signaled a clear shift from his predecessor Gary Gensler’s hardline stance on crypto, vowing a more balanced and “principled” regulatory approach. Atkins criticized Gensler’s aggressive interpretation of securities laws as applying broadly to crypto and…

An investment firm with ties to U.S. President Donald Trump’s sons, Eric and Donald Trump Jr., is putting some of its excess cash into a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) — an unusual twist on the increasingly popular strategy of holding bitcoin as a corporate reserve. Dominari Holdings (DOMH), located in the Trump Tower in New York City, made headlines last month after the Trump brothers joined its 58-year-old board of advisors and became investors. In an earnings report on Friday, it announced that it would adopt a bitcoin reserve strategy and invest a portion of its cash reserves into…

Thomas Fuller | SOPA Images | Lightrocket | Getty ImagesAppLovin CEO Adam Foroughi hit back at new short-selling allegations from Muddy Waters Research after the ad-tech company’s stock suffered its steepest drop on record on Thursday.Foroughi penned a new blog post that asked investors to “dig deeper” on the allegations, saying the report’s claims about the success of their AI-powered ad tactics could be easily disproven by artificial intelligence models like Grok “in minutes.”Muddy Waters on Thursday became the third short-selling firm to publish research meant to raise significant investor skepticism about the company’s technology, after AppLovin’s stock price soared…

It’s only been a day since ChatGPT’s new AI image generator went live, and social media feeds are already flooded with AI-generated memes in the style of Studio Ghibli, the cult-favorite Japanese animation studio behind blockbuster films such as “My Neighbor Totoro” and “Spirited Away.” In the last 24 hours, we’ve seen AI-generated images representing Studio Ghibli versions of Elon Musk, “The Lord of the Rings“, and President Donald Trump. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman even seems to have made his new profile picture a Studio Ghibli-style image, presumably made with GPT-4o’s native image generator. Users seem to be uploading existing…