Andrew here. Usually, investors hate when companies announce huge spending plans. That’s why it has been so wild to see them cheer as Microsoft and Meta announced mammoth new artificial intelligence investments.

The more they spend, the higher their stocks seem to go. Microsoft raised its suggested annual outlay to $120 billion — up from an originally mind-bending forecast of $80 billion. Such spending helps prop up much of the economy — the semiconductor industry and all of its component parts, as well as the energy
industry, the real estate business and more. More below.

• For decades, the gaming industry has mastered the art of engagement.

• In-game assets, items like skins, weapons, and characters, have been owned and controlled by game publishers.

• Blockchain enables players to mint their in-game assets as NFTs – unique, interoperable, and tradable tokens.

In a major step for the crypto world, the U.S. Senate on Tuesday passed the GENIUS Act: a bipartisan bill that lays out clear rules for stablecoins. 

The 68-30 vote marks the Senate’s first big approval of any crypto-related law, showing how Washington’s attitude toward the industry is starting to shift.

The legislation, formally called the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins GENIUS Act, is seen as a breakthrough moment for digital assets,  especially stablecoins, digital tokens tied to the U.S. dollar. 

The U.S. Congress has officially passed the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act (GENIUS Act).

The legislation represents one of the most comprehensive federal efforts to date aimed at regulating and fostering the responsible growth of stablecoins, a class of digital assets with value typically pegged to fiat currencies like the U.S. dollar.

The Senate on Tuesday passed legislation to establish a regulatory framework for stablecoins, putting the cryptocurrency industry, which had long been viewed with suspicion by lawmakers in Washington, on the brink of a major policy breakthrough.

Bipartisan approval of the bill, known as the GENIUS Act, followed an aggressive lobbying campaign aimed at transforming the cryptocurrency industry’s image from scandal-plagued experiment to legitimate financial sector.

John Wu, President of Ava Labs the Avalanche developer, discusses the need to break down silos for digital assets in this opinion piece.

In financial services, innovation often stalls not because of technological limitations, but because of a reluctance to change a widely entrenched mindset. While institutional adoption of blockchain and digital assets is now rapidly picking up pace, this challenge has been present since the outset. The barriers aren’t purely technological – they’re conceptual.

Throughout history there have been very few moments when two transformational technologies emerge in parallel — and it's even rarer that their paths converge in ways that amplify each other's strengths. This is exactly, however, what we're currently witnessing with artificial intelligence and blockchain.

On April 25, 2025, the Cornell Blockchain Conference at Cornell Tech’s Verizon Center in New York City spotlighted a growing convergence between academic rigor, institutional credibility, and a maturing blockchain industry. What emerged was not just a conversation about scaling technology—but about scaling trust, regulation, and the next wave of entrepreneurs. Abhishek Bhattacharya, the President of Blockchain at Cornell Tech, helped coordinate the event on the main stage.

Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies dipped after President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on US trading partners worldwide, triggering a slump in risk assets.

The largest digital asset fell as much as 4.5% to about $81,770 as of 10:06 a.m. in New York, while other tokens including Ether and XRP also declined. Solana tumbled 10%.

Open innovation has evolved with tokenization, enabling secure, global collaboration and knowledge-sharing across industries.

Unlike centralized corporate structures, tokenomics fosters transparency, trust, and fair value distribution, empowering communities over corporations.

Tokenization accelerates open innovation, reshaping business by leveraging shared technology, global talent, and decentralized incentives for sustainable, knowledge-driven growth.

There are many questions swirling around Washington and the crypto market regarding how exactly the Trump administration will attempt to execute on the president’s plan for a strategic cryptocurrency reserve.

Yet one important point is clear: The US would have to acquire three of the tokens that he wants included in the stockpile. And that’s causing backlash among both supporters and critics of the notion that the government should be invested in digital assets.

Feb 13 (Reuters) - Crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN.O), opens new tab beat estimates for fourth-quarter profit on Thursday, driven by higher trading volumes in bitcoin and other digital tokens following the U.S. election.

Unprecedented interest in crypto, fueled by Donald Trump's victory in the November presidential election, pushed bitcoin beyond $100,000 in the quarter as investors anticipated more crypto friendly policies under the new administration.

Feb 12 (Reuters) - Robinhood (HOOD.O), opens new tab beat expectations for fourth-quarter profit on Wednesday, driven by a surge in equity, option and crypto trading on its platform following Donald Trump's return to the White House, sending its shares up more than 14% after the bell.

Robinhood's transaction-based revenue, or income generated from fees for facilitating trading in options, cryptocurrency and equities, jumped 236% in the quarter to $672 million from a year earlier.

We appear to be entering a period of hyper-tokenisation in the US (“Digital asset industry fears Trump memecoin backlash”, Report, January 23), as forces align between a crypto-friendly administration, lawmakers and heads of agencies, coupled with a market environment where tech entrepreneurs and investors are working together to deploy this technology in the real world.

Sometimes when you think about AI outcomes, you’re really just addressing issues of fairness and equity, and how we run our societies.

I think there’s an undercurrent of that in the places where we meet to discuss these things. For example, I thought about this listening to a recent talk by John Wu, president of Ava Labs.

Watch Carol and Tim LIVE every day on YouTube: http://bit.ly/3vTiACF. Bloomberg News Wall Street Reporter Sonali Basak breaks down earnings from JPMorgan, Wells Fargo and Citi. Hagar Chemali, Founder and CEO at Greenwich Media Strategies, shares her thoughts on Israel bracing for an unprecedented attack by Iran. Rich Lesser, Global Chair of BCG, discusses risks and disruption concerning CEOs. John Wu, President at Ava Labs, talks about seeing a new wave of blockchain innovation. And we Drive to the Close with JJ Kinahan, CEO at IG North America. Bloomberg News Squawk Desk Reporter Bill Maloney also participates in the conversation. Hosts: Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec. Producer: Paul Brennan.

Real-world assets (RWAs) are on fire, with RWA governance tokens surging as institutions explore new use cases for on-chain finance.

The combined capitalization of RWA protocols’ governance tokens jumped 28% in 24 hours and 81% over the past seven days to tag $8 billion, according to CoinGecko.

Nearly 5.5 million businesses were launched in the United States last year, making 2023 the highest year on record for new startups, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Business Formation Statistics. With the many elements involved in building a successful startup—from obtaining critical seed funding to scaling at a manageable pace—founders may not initially focus on things like team building, company culture and employee benefits. But they should. Considerable research shows that businesses that prioritize employee happiness have workers who are more engaged and productive. And the companies on this year’s list of America’s Best Startup Employers have figured this out.

John Wu is the president at Ava Labs. We discuss:

- Ava Labs overview

- What makes the Avalanche Blockchain unique

- Plan to scale to 100K TPS

- Avax staking

- JPMorgan utilizing Avalanche for tokenization

- Amazon Web Services partnership

- How to bring in the next 1 billion users to Crypto

- Bitcoin Spot ETF launch

- US Crypto Regulations

It’s been over a decade since the first application for a spot bitcoin ETF was filed. After a number of denials over the years, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has approved all 11 applications from spot bitcoin ETF issuers, marking a potential watershed moment for the crypto industry and potentially opening the floodgates by making it easier for institutional investors and consumers alike to invest in the biggest digital asset.