Author: GT

In early March of this year, President Donald Trump announced plans for a crypto strategic reserve that would include five cryptocurrencies: bitcoin, ether, XRP, solana and cardano. Federal reserves are held so that the government can tap into them in emergencies. For instance, the government has reserves of military equipment and medical equipment. Of course, probably the most famous federal reserve is its stockpile of gold. And while some have referred to bitcoin as “digital gold,” there are differences. As Eswar Prasad, a professor of trade policy at Cornell University, told NPR, as opposed to digital assets like crypto, gold…

Nintendo announced on Thursday that it is working on Virtual Game Cards, a feature that makes digitally downloaded games more portable across different devices. With the highly awaited Nintendo Switch 2 on the horizon, these Virtual Game Cards will make it easier for users to port over their existing Switch games to their new devices. As it stands, Switch games can be purchased either as a physical game card — like a traditional video game cartridge — or as a digital download. While physical game cards can easily be ejected and reinserted into another Switch for easy play, digital downloads…

Mexico City-based Mendel has raised $35 million in a Series B round of funding, it tells TechCrunch exclusively. Corporate spend management platform Mendel last raised in December 2021 — a $15 million Series A round and $20 million in debt — after participating in Y Combinator’s Winter 2021 cohort. With this latest capital infusion, the startup has brought in a total of $60 million in equity funding and $50 million via a credit facility. Mendel’s mission is straightforward: to reinvent corporate spend management by automating most of the operations for an enterprise CFO that are currently done manually. Or put…

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) confronted Paul Atkins, President Donald Trump’s nominee for SEC chair, over his financial ties and potential conflicts of interest during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Banking Committee. Atkins, a former SEC commissioner, is set to sell his stake in Patomak Global Partners, a consulting firm he founded that has worked with major financial institutions and crypto firms, including the collapsed exchange FTX. Warren pressed him to disclose the buyers and the price to ensure the sale was not a way for people to buy influence. When Atkins stated that he had followed White House ethics…

A Shell logo is displayed on May 03, 2024 in Austin, Texas.Brandon Bell | Getty Images News | Getty ImagesU.S. activist investor Elliott Investment Management has taken a short position against British oil major Shell as part of a global hedging program.The move, which was first reported by British newspaper The Times on Thursday, comes shortly after it emerged Paul Singer’s hedge fund had taken a near 5% stake in Shell’s struggling rival, BP.Elliott is said to have amassed an £850 million ($1.1 billion) bet against Shell, The Times reported, citing filings with the Financial Conduct Authority.The position is reportedly…

A logo hangs on the building of the Beijing branch of Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) on December 4, 2020 in Beijing, China.Vcg | Visual China Group | Getty ImagesTaiwan investigators on Friday alleged that Chinese chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Co. (SMIC) illegally recruited high-technology talent.Taiwan’s Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau (MIJB) said in a statement that SMIC had used a Samoa-based entity as cover to set up a subsidiary on the island “under the guise of foreign investment” and has been “actively recruiting” talent from Taiwan.CNBC was unable to independently verify the claims and SMIC was not immediately available…

A fledgling open source startup that’s setting out to tackle API sprawl in the GraphQL ecosystem has secured the backing of e-commerce giant eBay. WunderGraph, as the company is called, today said it has raised $7.5 million in a Series A round of funding to “scale its open source GraphQL federation.” Investors include eBay’s VC arm eBay Ventures, Karma Ventures, and Aspenwood Ventures. In addition to investing in the startup, eBay is also serving as a core design partner as WunderGraph has set about building an open source alternative to rival products from GraphQL company, Apollo. “Our investment in WunderGraph’s…

BlackRock has launched its iShares Bitcoin exchange-traded product (ETP) in Europe, marking a significant moment for Bitcoin’s institutional adoption in the region. The product began trading on March 25 on major European exchanges, including Xetra, Euronext Amsterdam, and Euronext Paris. However, analysts believe that the demand for the ETP in Europe will be lower compared to the U.S. market, where BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF has experienced significant inflows. In fact, BlackRock’s U.S. ETF has captured over 50% of the market share for spot Bitcoin ETFs, with its holdings valued at $49 billion as of March 27, 2025. While the…

Meta, X, and Snap are celebrating a new Utah law that will require Apple and Google to take responsibility for verifying users’ ages on their app stores and obtain parental consent for minors. The tech giants have been battling to determine which party should be responsible for age verification on the app stores. Companies like Meta believe the app stores themselves should verify users’ ages because these entities host and distribute the apps. The app stores, however, argue that companies making the apps should bear the responsibility as they’re the ones offering the product to end users. Utah isn’t the…

Over the past five years, shares of Strategy (NASDAQ: MSTR) are up by a whopping 3,000%. It continues to be one of the hottest stocks on the market, with a gain of 80% over the past 12 months. And year to date, it’s up by a robust 15%, despite the broader market’s slide. And the best may be yet to become. That’s because Strategy — until recently known as MicroStrategy — remains resolute in pursuing its Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) buying mission. If the price of Bitcoin goes parabolic, as many expect it to do, then the stock could go parabolic…