After Microsoft MSFT President Brad Smith dismissed the development of any super-intelligent Artificial Intelligence (AI) within the next 12 months, the tech giant announced a $3.2 billion investment in the U.K.

What Happened: Microsoft’s U.K. investment is for artificial intelligence infrastructure and training, which will be spread over the upcoming three years. This marks the company’s largest investment in the U.K. since it started doing business in the country 40 years ago.

The investment will bring more than 20,000 of the most advanced GPUs to the U.K. by 2026 by growing its data center footprint across sites in London and Cardiff and a potential expansion into northern England.

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Circle, in a public letter addressed to Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Chairman Sherrod Brown, D-OH, on Thursday to push back against claims that it banked Justin Sun and, separately, had financed Hamas. 

The letter — penned by Circle’s Chief Strategy Officer Dante Disparte — was written in response to a Nov. 9 letter from the Campaign for Accountability which claimed that Circle does not prevent illicit finance activities. 

The letter from the Campaign for Accountability executive director Michelle Kuppersmith claimed that there were ties from Circle to Sun, based on “recently published studies and reports of law enforcement operations.”

Circle, in its Nov. 30…

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Kristin Johnson of the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said there are many ways of handling cryptocurrencies in the country, but legislating through courts could provide a solid, if slow, path.

Speaking at the Blockchain Association’s Policy Summit in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 30, Johnson said the “best outcome” for corporate governance of crypto firms would be to have companies implement their own plans. She cited policymakers introducing reporting requirements for Binance as part of a $4.3 billion settlement with the crypto exchange.

We’re honored to welcome @CFTCjohnson to the #BAPolicySummit stage for our next session as she sits down with…

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Dynamic Yield by Mastercard, a digital personalization and artificial intelligence subsidiary of Mastercard, announced the launch of its Shopping Muse generative AI chatbot assistant for ecommerce on Nov. 30. 

The AI system was revealed in a company blog post. According to Dynamic Yield, Shopping Muse is “an advanced generative AI tool that revolutionizes how consumers search for and discover products in a retailer’s digital catalog.”

Shopping Muse generative artificial intelligence

Generative AI systems, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and DALL-E, are designed to convert colloquial user commands into text, video, audio, or even computer code.

In the case of Shopping Muse, users can make…

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If US regulators approve spot bitcoin ETFs, Ark Invest and 21Shares are well-positioned to rapidly accumulate assets, according to Bloomberg Intelligence analysts.

The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) could also have a leg up — if allowed to launch at the same time — given its current asset base of roughly $23 billion assets under management, according to Bloomberg Intelligence’s James Seyffart and Eric Balchunas.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission is set to rule on the Ark 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB) by Jan. 10, and industry watchers expect the regulator could greenlight a bunch of other similar offerings at that time. 

The regulator could also choose to deny these…

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A recent initiative by Binance introduces what it describes as “the world’s first cryptocurrency triparty arrangement with a third party banking partner.” This project aims to attract institutional clients who prefer not having their capital solely under the control of the exchange.

Ever since the FTX fraud, crypto traders have been leery of assurances by exchanges that they always have all the assets they say they do, backing deposited capital. The concept of proof-of-reserves got a big boost in response as one approach to addressing the longstanding issue of counterparty risk.

That’s a risk retail investors became well acquainted with in 2022, when multiple centralized crypto…

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IOTA, an open-source distributed ledger and cryptocurrency focused on the Internet of Things (IOT), saw its native IOTA token rally 43% on Nov. 29 after announcing the creation of the Iota Ecosystem DLT Foundation and its registration in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. This makes IOTA the first DLT foundation to be regulated by the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM).

According to a press release from the project, the foundation will be seeded with $100 million in IOTA tokens, which will be vested over a four-year period and traders clearly perceived the announcement and funding plan as a short-term bullish catalyst.

Historically, ecosystem and developer incentives by…

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Elon Musk is going through it. Crypto might just be the answer.

First, he paid way too much to take Twitter private last year. Now, he’s mugging off the biggest companies in the world — specifically Disney and CEO Bob Iger — for pulling advertising from X after Musk’s comments about Israel and Palestine and concerns about pro-Nazi content.

X, formerly known as Twitter, will go bankrupt over a sustained advertising boycott, the world’s richest man told CNBC DealBook’s Aaron Sorkin at an event overnight. 

“You’re going to blackmail me with advertising money? Go fuck youself,” Musk said.

Okay, Elon Musk, you’ve previously said that X would never launch its own token….

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Hester Peirce, commissioner at the US Securities and Exchange Commission, isn’t quite sure what her agency’s endgame appears to be. 

“There doesn’t seem to be a rhyme or reason for a lot of cases we bring,” Peirce said Thursday during a fireside discussion at the Blockchain Association Policy Summit in Washington, DC. 

Peirce’s agency brought a total of 784 enforcement actions during the 2023 fiscal year, a 3% increase from 2022, largely thanks to SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s escalating interest in the cryptocurrency space. 

The SEC increased its enforcement actions involving securities offerings by 48% in 2023, one of which was the agency’s case against NFT issuer Stoner…

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