Month: April 2025

The HackerNoon Newsletter: Your Career Is Not Your Personality. Sorry. (4/21/2025)

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How are you, hacker? 🪐 What’s happening in tech today, April 21, 2025? The HackerNoon Newsletter brings the HackerNoon homepage straight to your inbox. On this day, we present you with these top quality stories. From Startup Fundraising, Fake VCs, and an Actual Stalker: My Founder Horror Story to Real Growth Isn’t About More Discipline … Read more

The Future of Private Student Loans in the Age of AI

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Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash Artificial intelligence (AI) is radically reshaping the landscape of personal finance, and the private student loan market is among the most affected sectors. As lenders integrate advanced data analytics and machine learning into their operations, the traditional barriers in student lending—inefficiency, bias, and inflexible loan structures—are beginning to dissolve. … Read more

Andor’s second season traces the long arc of Star Wars’ revolutionary history

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Star Wars, an epic story about rebellious heroes fighting back against power-hungry fascists hellbent on enslaving an entire galaxy, has always been deeply political. But there are few pieces of the franchise that have ever come close to Disney Plus’ Andor series in terms of thoroughly unpacking what being locked in endless cycles of conflict … Read more

An AI doctoral candidate in California says they had their student visa revoked

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An AI doctoral student in California had their SEVIS record — the digital proof of their valid student visa — terminated, putting their immigration status at risk. Speaking to TechCrunch, the student, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal, said they were notified via their college’s international student center that they’d been identified in a criminal records … Read more

Consensys, Solana, and Uniswap CEO donated to Trump's $239M inauguration fund

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New filings from the Federal Election Commission (FEC) reveal that several cryptocurrency firms and their executives made significant contributions to US President Donald Trump’s inauguration fund after the results of the 2024 election.  According to FEC filings made public on April 20 by the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee, Uniswap CEO Hayden Adams donated more than $245,000, … Read more

Strategy’s Bitcoin Buying Spree Has Minimal Impact on Prices, TD Cowen Says

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Despite its growing footprint as a major corporate holder of bitcoin (BTC), Strategy’s large-scale purchases of the cryptocurrency appear to have little, if any, influence on its price, according to a research paper by TD Cowen. The findings published Monday challenge a popular theory among skeptics — that Strategy’s aggressive buying spree is helping prop … Read more

Meet GetBlock: HackerNoon Company of the Week

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Welcome to HackerNoon Company of the Week where every week we introduce you to a prominent tech company with innovative ideas and ample drive to change the world. All the data and information are taken from HackerNoon’s tech company database, where we rank S&P 500 companies and top startups. This week, we introduce GetBlock, a … Read more

5 Ways the SEC Can Embrace Innovation

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The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has long been the world’s most influential financial regulator, helping to ensure our capital markets are the deepest, fairest, and most accessible in the world. But its continued relevance will depend on whether it can do more than merely respond to innovation — it must proactively foster it. For … Read more

Bitcoin price tops $88.5K as BTC doubles down on stocks decoupling

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Bitcoin (BTC) doubled down on its divergence from stocks at the April 21 Wall Street open as US trade war tensions escalated.  BTC/USD 1-day chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView Trade war reactions fuel BTC price gains Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD matching month-to-date highs above $88,000. Bitcoin continued higher after the weekly close … Read more

Valorant’s mobile version is coming to China first

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Valorant’s mobile spinoff is “really happening” and it’s coming to China first. In fact, it seems pre-registration for a playtest of Valorant Mobile is already open to Chinese players, spotted Esports Insider.  Riot Games first said it was creating a mobile version of Valorant in 2021, and the previously PC-only game launched on Xbox Series … Read more

Is ETH Still Special?

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We are never shy about holding ETH to account as crypto’s second largest asset and the DeFi intuition gateway for traditional investors. But mainstream adoption requires a growth story, and so far this year ETH is (put kindly) failing to lead. ETH sits in 16th place in the CoinDesk 20 YTD performance leaderboard, down 53%. … Read more

GSR Anchors $100M Investment in Upexi to Purchase SOL, Stock Rockets 700%

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Crypto trading firm GSR led a $100 million private placement into Upexi (UPXI), a consumer-goods company pivoting to a digital asset-based treasury strategy. The company, whose products include medicinal mushroom gummies and pet-grooming tools, said it will use the capital to accumulate and stake solana (SOL) tokens. The Tampa, Florida-based company had a market cap … Read more

Verizon’s consumer chief: Net neutrality ‘went literally nowhere’

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Today, I’m talking with Verizon consumer CEO Sowmyanarayan Sampath, who goes by “Sampath.” As CEO of Verizon’s consumer division, Sampath oversees the biggest part of the business: Verizon Wireless, which has more than 115 million wireless connections, and Fios, which adds another 10 million or so consumer broadband connections to the mix. That’s something like … Read more

The Verge’s 2025 Mother’s Day gift guide

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Chances are, your mom changed your diaper, packed your lunch, and helped guide you through your teenage years — all without expecting anything in return. She deserves a standing ovation, but since that’s tough to wrap, a thoughtful Mother’s Day gift is a fine alternative. This year, we rounded up a collection of gifts that … Read more

Put your brand at the center of the AI conversation — host a Side Event during TechCrunch Sessions: AI

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This June, the most influential minds in artificial intelligence will converge at TC Sessions: AI — and your brand has a unique opportunity to be part of the action. From June 1–7, TechCrunch is curating a weeklong series of Side Events that orbit the main stage event on June 5 at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall. … Read more

Bitcoiner PlanB slams ETH: ‘Centralized & premined’ shitcoin

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Pseudonymous Bitcoin stock-to-flow (S2F) model creator PlanB attacked Ethereum and mocked the project’s co-founder, Vitalik Buterin. PlanB mockingly reposted a June 2022 X post by Buterin in which the Ethereum co-founder said S2F “is really not looking good now.” PlanB responded with a new posting stating, “Ethereum is really not looking good now.” Source: PlanB … Read more