Improving Blockchain Data Usability: A Key to Unlocking Institutional Capital

Data is an essential element of an efficient market. If market efficiency is the degree to which prices reflect all available information, having quality information is crucial. And to get to information, you need data. Traditional financial markets are data-rich and have high levels of standardization and accessibility, giving market participants abundant avenues for analysis. … Read more

🏆 Startups of the Year 2024: Less Than a Month Left to Vote for Your Favorite Startup

HackerNoon’s annual Startups ✨ of The Year 2024 is coming to an end 🎉 🎊 ✨ With over 4.1M votes aggregated and 151.4k startups nominated across 2.9k cities and 98 industries, this edition has been our largest yet! What Does This Mean for Your Startup? Being nominated among so many remarkable companies is an achievement in itself. Winning … Read more

Delta Air Lines bets on ‘blended-wing’ flight to reduce emissions

JetZero aims to launch a demonstrator proof of concept by 2027. | Image: JetZero Delta Air Lines is backing a startup that wants to design more fuel-efficient, blended-wing-body aircraft in the hopes of reducing its carbon footprint and making air travel more sustainable.  The airline said today that it will help support the development of … Read more

Flex, a Brex for business owners, has raised $25M at a $250M valuation

Flex, which offers personal finance software and payments infrastructure for business owners, has raised $25 million in equity funding while securing a $200 million credit facility, it told TechCrunch exclusively. The equity funds were raised at a valuation of “just under $250 million.” The company last raised a $20 million Series A announced in September … Read more

What Crypto Must Do to Activate the Wealth Advisory Segment

The success of bitcoin spot ETFs combined with bitcoin’s price action have driven investors to demand direct access or exposure to crypto from their service providers. Institutional investors and traditional financial services providers now have a responsibility to at the minimum learn about crypto, if not actively look into adoption. The spotlight now is increasingly … Read more

Growth at all costs is destroying the internet. PR maven Ed Zitron says that’s an opportunity for startups

If you spend any amount of time online, you probably noticed that your user experience keeps getting worse.  Websites are waterlogged with autoplay ads, pop-ups, and tracking scripts. Customer service chatbots are useless, despite the promises of generative AI. Social media algorithms boost rage-bait to keep you scrolling and engaged. Dating apps hide all the … Read more

Nintendo wins piracy lawsuit against file-sharing site

Nintendo has won its legal battle against Dstorage, the French company it accused of hosting pirated games on its file-sharing site 1fichier.com. In a press release sent to outlets like Eurogamer and GBATemp, Nintendo says a French Court agreed that 1fichier.com is “liable for failing to remove or block access to unauthorised copies of Nintendo … Read more

EU must ‘fully’ apply its market fairness rulebook on Google, search rivals urge

The European Union is once again being urged to expand its investigation of Google under the bloc’s Digital Markets Act (DMA). The big aim of the EU’s flagship competition reform — which came into force last spring — was to level the digital playing field by forcing platform giants into fairer dealing with rivals and … Read more

Arbitrum Rises 12% Amid Robinhood Listing

U.S.-based trading app Robinhood (HOOD) listed arbitrum (ARB) on Wednesday, leading to a 12% rise in the layer 2 network’s native token. ARB is currently trading at $0.42 having slumped to an all-time low of $0.35 on Tuesday. Trading volume is also up by 10% to $400 million over the past 24 hours. Total value … Read more

YouTube brings its more affordable ‘Premium Lite’ subscription to the US

YouTube is expanding its pilot of a new Premium Lite subscription plan to the United States, the company announced today. Priced at $7.99 per month compared to the $13.99 charge for regular YouTube Premium, the cheaper tier offers “most” videos without ads — including “gaming, fashion, beauty, news, and more.” The major exception is music. … Read more

Bitcoin’s Risk-Adjusted Returns Took a Hit in February

Bitcoin’s struggles in February saw its risk-adjusted returns weakening significantly according to data from research service Ecoinometrics. While over the past year, bitcoin’s total returns have matched those of gold, a traditional safe-haven asset, when adjusting for risk, bitcoin is behaving more like a major stock index. Risk-adjusted returns measure an asset’s profitability relative to … Read more

AI pioneers scoop Turing Award for reinforcement learning work

Two trailblazing computer scientists have won the 2024 Turing Award for their work in reinforcement learning, a discipline in which machines learn through a reward-based trial-and-error approach that lets them adapt within constrained or dynamic environments. Andrew G. Barto, a professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Amherst; and Richard S. Sutton, a professor at … Read more

Trump’s Strategic Crypto Reserve is a Positive, Market Has Got it Wrong, Bitwise Says

U.S. President Trump’s announcement last weekend about the formation of a strategic crypto reserve in the U.S. is bullish despite the market’s subsequent reaction, asset manager Bitwise said in a research report Tuesday. Crypto markets soared following the news, but by Monday had given back all these gains. Bitwise noted that investors became disgruntled with … Read more

YouTube launches a $7.99 per month, ad-free Premium Lite subscription

YouTube on Wednesday announced a new premium subscription tier called Premium Lite, which will users to watch “most” videos ad-free for $7.99 per month. With YouTube Lite, customers will be able to watch videos across verticals like gaming, fashion, beauty, cooking, news, and more, ad-free, but will be shown ads on music content and music … Read more

Google’s Shopping tab has a new AI tool that takes your fashion idea and suggests similar clothing

On Wednesday, Google announced the launch of a new AI image feature for its Shopping tab, designed to help users find clothing items they envision by allowing them to search using their own words. The company is also expanding its AR beauty and virtual try-on tools. The new feature, “Vision Match,” is now available in … Read more

Ripple-Funded Non-Profit Aimed at Crypto Education Goes Live

The Ripple-backed National Cryptocurrency Association (NCA) launched on Wednesday. Describing itself as independent and non-political, the NCA said it aims to provide clear, unbiased information on how digital assets function and their role in finance. It says its aim is to “demystify crypto.” The group was seeded with $50 million in funding from Ripple and … Read more

Why I love the Logitech MX Vertical wireless mouse

Petey the cat pretends to ignore Victoria’s wireless mouse. Victoria Song is a senior reviewer at The Verge who mostly focuses on health tech and wearables and who, she says, occasionally has “existential crises over silly gadgets I bought on TikTok against my better judgment.” One of her favorite gadgets is the Logitech MX Vertical … Read more

COTI Unveils Africa Tokenization Council to Leapfrog Africa into the Future of Finance

What if Africa became the next hub for blockchain innovation? On March 5, 2025, COTI announced the Africa Tokenization Council, partnering with key players to drive AI and blockchain adoption across Africa and the Middle East. This effort brings together African officials and global blockchain leaders to spark investment and innovation in the region. COTI’s … Read more