Thursday October 17, 2024
A robot named Ai-Da is selling two portraits of Alan Turing at Sotheby’s.
◾ Italy plans to generate additional revenue in its 2025 budget by raising the tax on digital currencies from 26% to 42%. (Reuters)
◾ Amazon $AMZN is investing $500 million in small modular reactors (SMRs) to power its data centers. (Amazon)
◾ Ireland is drafting legislation to ensure that crypto firms comply with the EU’s new AML laws. (IrishExaminer)
Government & NGO Actions
◾ Russia’s Federal Financial Monitoring Service announced that its anti-money laundering (AML) process will continue to operate, despite recent concerns raised by the Financial Action Task Force. (News.bitcoin)
◾ The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) is seeking security and business audit requirements under Europe’s new crypto-asset regulation. (ESMA)
◾ EU officials stated that the large language models from OpenAI, Meta, Alibaba, and Mistral all fall short of regulatory requirements. (Reuters)
◾ The Caribbean Island of Anguilla is benefiting from the surge in AI due to its ownership of the “.ai” web domain. (APNews)
Financial Notices & Public Company Releases
◾ French narrative video game publisher Don’t Nod reported first half operating revenue of €14.5 million with an EBITDA loss of €1.3 million. (Dontnot-bourse)
◾ Hyperscale Data $GPUS declared a monthly cash dividend on its Series D Cumulative Redeemable Perpetual Preferred Stock. (Businesswire)
Restructuring, Hacks, Losses & Legal News
◾ The Department of Justice sentenced the lead promotor of the Forcount / Weltsys crypto Ponzi scheme to 20 years in prison. (Justice.gov)
◾ Chainalysis is being sued for calling YieldNodes an investment scam. (CoinTelegraph)
◾ Parents in Massachusetts are suing a high school for giving a low grade to a student who used AI to complete an assignment. (Gizmodo)
◾ Crypto game developer Fracture Labs is suing Jump Trading, accusing the market maker of involvement in a "pump and dump" scheme. (Cointelegraph)
◾ FTX’s former head of engineering is seeking leniency to avoid a prison sentence, citing his “limited” involvement in the FTX fraud and the positive steps he has taken in his life since then. (Bloomberg)
◾ Radiant Capital experienced an exploit resulting in the theft of $50 million. (Decrypt)
◾ Japanese video gaming and entertainment company Bandai Namco is cutting 15% of its workforce. (Bloomberg)
AI Announcements
◾ Alibaba $BABA says its new AI translation tool outperforms similar model from Google $GOOGL and Open AI. (CNBC)
Protocols, Applications & Business News
◾ Stripe is in advanced discussions to acquire Bridge, a fintech platform focused on stablecoins. (Bloomberg)
◾ The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) is introducing a digital asset launchpad, a sandbox to help scale adoption across digital assets. (DTCC)
◾ STKD is introducing an ETF that combines digital and physical gold in a single ETF: BTGD. (Businesswire)
◾ Robinhood $HOOD launched a desktop platform and added bitcoin futures and index options trading to its mobile app. (Reuters)
◾ Siam Commercial Bank is launching stablecoin-based cross-border payments. (Nikkei)
◾ Binance Labs invested in Lombard, a security-focused bitcoin staking platform. (BeInCrypto)
◾ Digital assets prime broker FalconX is launching auto-liquidation service to seamlessly convert bitcoin to cash. (FalconX)
◾ Sotheby’s plans to auction its first painting by an AI-powered humanoid robot. (NYPost)
Metaverse & Gaming Briefings & Activations
◾ Build A Rocket Boy, the gaming studio led by former GTA producer Leslie Benzies, announced that IO Interactive, the company behind the Hitman series, will publish its upcoming action game, MindsEye. (GamesIndustry.biz)
Market Data
◾ 71% of US consumers play video games with the largest cohort being adults aged 45 and older. (GamesIndustry.biz)
◾ 76% of Asian private wealth is invested in digital assets. (AspenDigital)
Thoughts on the Ecosystems
◾ BlackRock $BLK CEO Larry Fink believes bitcoin “is an asset class in itself” and that blockchain technology will “become very additive” to international currencies. (MotleyFool)