Author: GT

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Bitcoin has been relatively stable this week, trading around $80,000. While there hasn’t been anything too exciting, some analysts believe a big move is on the horizon. Arthur Hayes, former CEO of BitMEX, shared his prediction on X, stating, “I bet Bitcoin hits $110,000 before it retests $76,500.” Hayes attributes this potential rise to the Fed shifting from quantitative tightening (QT) to quantitative easing (QE) for Treasuries. He also speculates that if Bitcoin does hit $110,000 first, we could see a rapid surge toward $250,000. That’s an extremely bullish take, and while I remain cautious, I’ll gladly take it! Robinhood…

ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm since its launch in November 2022. What started as a tool to supercharge productivity through writing essays and code with short text prompts has evolved into a behemoth with 300 million weekly active users. 2024 was a big year for OpenAI, from its partnership with Apple for its generative AI offering, Apple Intelligence, the release of GPT-4o with voice capabilities, and the highly-anticipated launch of its text-to-video model Sora. OpenAI also faced its share of internal drama, including the notable exits of high-level execs like co-founder and longtime chief…

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…