Author: GT

In 2010, a programmer who was mining bitcoin famously made the comically expensive mistake of spending 10,000 bitcoin on two pizzas. As of this writing, those coins would be worth $850 million dollars. While there are few comparisons to that kind of miscalculation, the prospect of adding interest payments to fast-food orders is raising concerns nonetheless. Stemming from a partnership announced earlier this week between DoorDash and Klarna, customers can now buy a burrito or McDonalds order and pay for it later across four interest-free payments. The deal provides diners — who spend at least $35 — more flexibility, say…

With prices down 47% year to date, Dogecoin’s (CRYPTO: DOGE) Trump-inspired rally is quickly unraveling. While it is normal for volatile assets to give up some of their gains after a big move, the controversial meme coin is performing worse than many of its peers. Is this dip a buying opportunity or a signal for investors to run for the hills? Let’s dig deeper to find out what the next 12 months could have in store. A rising tide can lift all boats, and the cryptocurrency industry is no exception. However, while digital asset prices tend to be highly correlated…

Jesse Powell has a lot on his plate. He is helping the crypto industry flex its newfound influence in Washington, DC, and Kraken, the crypto exchange he founded in 2011, is planning to go public next year. But as he pulls up a chair at a San Francisco coffee shop, what’s top of mind for Powell is not politics or business. It’s real estate. He wants to talk about the gorgeous white tower known to locals as ‘Susie’s Building’ that was built in the 1920’s—and whose residents don’t want Powell to live there. “It’s right around the corner, I can…

We may not have an agreed-upon definition of AI “agent” yet, but a multitude of startups want to create “agentic” tools to automate various tasks online. One such firm, Browser Use, has attracted a ton of interest from developers and investors thanks to its solution that makes websites more “readable” for AI agents. Browser Use told TechCrunch that it has raised a sizable $17 million seed funding round led by Felicis’ Astasia Myers with participation from Paul Graham, A Capital, and Nexus Venture Partners. The company’s funding hasn’t previously been reported. Browser use’s website. Browser Use, part of Y Combinator’s…

Social network Bluesky, an alternative to X built on open source technologies, has scored a big win in terms of attracting notable users to its platform. The company on Sunday confirmed that former president Barack Obama has joined its service. Bluesky OOO Rose Wang replied to a post where someone wondered if the account posting as Obama was legitimately him by writing “Confirmed!” In his first few posts on the platform, Obama celebrated the 15th anniversary of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), calling it “a reminder that change is possible when we fight for progress.” The former president maintains a…

President Trump followed through on a popular campaign promise this month. After laying the groundwork for a strategic reserve of cryptocurrency holdings in earlier commitments, the March 6 signing of Executive Order 14233 seeks to establish an official Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a separate Digital Asset Stockpile. Many crypto investors had been hoping for a truly game-changing strategic reserve, paving the way to massive federal purchases of Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) and other digital assets. The executive order didn’t exactly deliver on those bullish hopes, and the immediate market reaction was largely negative. On the other hand, this two-pronged digital asset strategy…

Richard Teng, chief executive officer of Binance Holdings Ltd., at an event hosted by the Foreign Correspondents Association in Singapore, on Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. Ore Huiying | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesBinance CEO Richard Teng says the Trump administration has been a “fantastic” reset for the cryptocurrency industry.”It’s an extremely different environment that we’re operating in,” Teng told CNBC on Tuesday.In the span of 16 months, Binance has gone from a political outcast to a possible power broker in Washington. Once the poster child for regulatory defiance – Binance was slapped with a record $4.3 billion settlement with regulators and forced…

Jonah Peretti’s career to date has been defined by constant reinvention. As the founder and CEO of BuzzFeed, Peretti has been at the forefront of digital media for almost two decades, navigating changes as the once small startup transformed into, at one point, a multimedia powerhouse. But as the company grows older, one question lingers: Has Peretti’s relentless drive for innovation made him too entrepreneurial to lead BuzzFeed to long-term stability? “The nice thing about this field,” Peretti muses, “is you do something [different] all the time. It’s not been 20 years of one job. It’s been 20 years of…

A human rights campaigner, Tanya O’Carroll, has succeeded in forcing social media giant Meta not to use her data for targeted advertising. The agreement is contained in a settlement to an individual challenge she lodged against Meta’s tracking and profiling back in 2022. O’Carroll had argued that a legal right to object to the use of personal data for direct marketing that’s contained in U.K. (and E.U.) data protection law, along with an unqualified right that personal data shall no longer be processed for such a purpose if the user objects, meant Meta must respect her objection and stop tracking…

A new report showcases the 20 top-trending open source startups around the world, more than half of which are closely aligned with AI. The report is the handiwork of European venture capital firm Runa Capital, which has operated the Runa Open Source Startup (ROSS) Index since 2020. The Index serves quarterly updates on the fastest-growing projects in terms of GitHub “stars” — a metric that’s something akin to a “like” on social media. Beginning in 2023, Runa started producing annual reports, highlighting the most popular commercial open source startups in a given year. Last year’s report demonstrated that AI and…