Connect with us

Published

on

Galaxy Digital's CIO explains what to expect from crypto in the second half of 2023

Bitcoin touched a 13-month high on Thursday as the drumbeat for institutional bitcoin demand grew louder following comments from BlackRock CEO Larry Fink.

The cryptocurrency was last lower by 1% at $30,178.41, according to Coin Metrics. Early in the morning, it climbed to about $31,450, reaching its highest level since June 2022. It gave back those gains, however, after better-than-expected U.S. jobs data increased investor worries about path of interest rates.

The earlier move was in contrast to weaker stock prices and yields. Additionally, the minutes of the Federal Reserve’s June meeting, released Wednesday, showed that most officials would support more rate increases ahead. Cryptocurrency liquidity has been low for several months, continuing to exaggerate both up and down moves.

“There is still a weight on the price,” said Noelle Acheson, economist and author of the “Crypto is Macro Now” newsletter. “We have often over the past few weeks seen selling resistance at around $31,000. That will eventually be broken, but meanwhile traditional markets seem to be entering a more risk-off mood – we can’t yet assume that bitcoin will just shrug that off.”

Stock Chart IconStock chart icon

hide content

Bitcoin (BTC) pulled back Thursday following better-than-expected U.S. jobs data.

Sentiment among traders was high though, after BlackRock CEO Larry Fink gave bitcoin perhaps its biggest ever endorsement from a major institutional player. Speaking on Fox Business News on Wednesday, Fink called bitcoin “an international asset” and said it’s “not based on any one currency so it can represent an asset that people can play as an alternative.”

Bitcoin has steadily climbed since June 15, when BlackRock, the largest asset manager in the world, first filed to launch a spot bitcoin ETF. The number of coins held by institutions through trusts, ETFs and funds has spiked since then, reaching its highest level in more than a year, according to CryptoQuant, and bitcoin open interest is back to pre-FTX levels.

“Market participants are reacting favorably to the entrance of legacy financial institutions into bitcoin — a trend that lends further validity to an asset that was once believed to be a passing fad,” said Michael Sonnenshein, CEO of Grayscale, whose bitcoin trust is awaiting the green light to convert into an ETF.

“More importantly, though, recent news of new entrants into bitcoin underscores the staying power of this asset class more broadly, and many investors view this as a once in a generation investment opportunity,” Sonnenshein added.

Continue Reading

Technology

Meta removes Facebook page allegedly used to target ICE agents after pressure from DOJ

Published

on

By

Meta removes Facebook page allegedly used to target ICE agents after pressure from DOJ

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks during a roundtable on “Antifa,” an anti-fascist movement he designated a domestic “terrorist organization” via executive order on September 22, at the White House in Washington, D.C., Oct. 8, 2025.

Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters

Meta removed a Facebook group page on Tuesday that was allegedly used to “dox and target” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Chicago after being contacted by the Department of Justice.

Attorney General Pam Bondi revealed the Facebook takedown in an X post, and said that the DOJ “will continue engaging tech companies to eliminate platforms where radicals can incite imminent violence against federal law enforcement.”

A Meta spokesperson confirmed that the tech giant removed the Facebook group page, but declined to comment about its size and the specific details that warranted its removal.

“This Group was removed for violating our policies against coordinated harm,” the Meta spokesperson said in a statement that also referred to the company’s policies pertaining to “Coordinating Harm and Promoting Crime.”

Meta’s removal of the Facebook group page follows similar moves from rivals like Apple and Google, which have recently removed apps that could be used to anonymously report sightings of ICE agents and other law enforcement.

Read more CNBC tech news

Apple took down the ICEBlock app nearly two weeks ago following pressure from Bondi, who said at the time that the app was “designed to put ICE agents at risk just for doing their jobs.”

Apple said at the time in a statement that it removed the ICEBlock app based on information provided by law enforcement about alleged “safety risks.”

Google, which did not maintain the ICEBlock app on its app store, said in October that while the DOJ never contacted the search giant, the company removed “similar apps for violations of our policies.”

ICEBlock creator Joshua Aaron criticized both Apple and the White House in an interview with CNBC, and compared his app to others like Waze, which let drivers report when they see law enforcement officers in order to avoid getting ticketed for speeding.

“This is about our fundamental constitutional rights in this country being stripped away by this administration, and the powers that be who are capitulating to their requests,” Aaron said.

WATCH: Roth Capital Partners’ Rohit Kularni on OpenAI’s Sora.

Roth Capital Partners' Rohit Kularni: Here's what OpenAI's Sora means for social media platforms

Continue Reading

Technology

OpenAI forms expert council to bolster safety measures after FTC inquiry

Published

on

By

OpenAI forms expert council to bolster safety measures after FTC inquiry

OpenAI’s EMEA startups head Laura Modiano spoke at the Sifted Summit on Wednesday, 8 October.

Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images

OpenAI on Tuesday announced a council of eight experts who will advise the company and provide insight into how artificial intelligence could affect users’ mental health, emotions and motivation. 

The group, which is called the Expert Council on Well-Being and AI, will initially guide OpenAI’s work on its chatbot ChatGPT and its short-form video app Sora, the company said. Through check-ins and recurring meetings, OpenAI said the council will help it define what healthy AI interactions look like.

OpenAI has been expanding its safety controls in recent months as the company has faced mounting scrutiny over how it protects users, particularly minors.

In September, the Federal Trade Commission launched an inquiry into several tech companies, including OpenAI, over how chatbots like ChatGPT could negatively affect children and teenagers. OpenAI is also embroiled in a wrongful death lawsuit from a family who blames ChatGPT for their teenage son’s death by suicide.

Read more CNBC tech news

The company is building an age prediction system that will automatically apply teen-appropriate settings for users under 18, and it launched a series of parental controls late last month. Parents can now get notified if their child is showing signs of acute distress, for instance.

OpenAI said it began informally consulting with members of its new expert council as it was building its parental controls. The company brought on additional experts in psychiatry. psychology and human-computer interaction as it formalized the council, which officially launched with an in-person session last week.

In addition to its expert council, OpenAI said it is also working with researchers and mental health clinicians within the Global Physician Network who will help test ChatGPT and establish company policies. 

Here are the members of OpenAI’s Expert Council on Well-Being and AI:

  • Andrew Przybylski, a professor of human behavior and technology at the University of Oxford. 
  • David Bickham, a research scientist in the Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children’s Hospital. 
  • David Mohr, the director of Northwestern University’s Center for Behavioral Intervention Technologies.
  • Mathilde Cerioli, the chief scientist at Everyone.AI, a nonprofit that explores the risks and benefits of AI for children.
  • Munmun De Choudhury, a professor at Georgia Tech’s School of Interactive Computing. 
  • Dr. Robert Ross, a pediatrician by training and the former CEO of The California Endowment, a nonprofit that aims to expand access to affordable health care. 
  • Dr. Sara Johansen, a clinical assistant professor at Stanford University who founded its Digital Mental Health Clinic.
  • Tracy Dennis-Tiwary, a professor of psychology at Hunter College.

If you are having suicidal thoughts or are in distress, contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 for support and assistance from a trained counselor

WATCH: FTC launches inquiry into AI chatbots acting as companions

FTC launches inquiry into AI chatbots acting as companions

Continue Reading

Technology

Oracle Cloud to deploy 50,000 AMD AI chips, signaling new Nvidia competition

Published

on

By

Oracle Cloud to deploy 50,000 AMD AI chips, signaling new Nvidia competition

We're still early in the AI cycle, says Bernstein's Stacy Rasgon

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure on Tuesday announced it will deploy 50,000 Advanced Micro Devices graphics processors starting in the second half of 2026.

AMD shares climbed about 2%. Oracle shares sank 4% while Nvidia was more than 3% lower.

The move is the latest sign that cloud companies are increasingly offering AMD’s graphics processing units as an alternative to Nvidia’s market-leading GPUs for artificial intelligence.

“We feel like customers are going to take up AMD very, very well — especially in the inferencing space,” said Karan Batta, senior vice president of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

Oracle will use AMD’s Instinct MI450 chips, which were announced earlier this year.

They are AMD’s first AI chips that can be assembled into a larger rack-sized system that enables 72 of the chips to work as one, which is needed to create and deploy the most advanced AI algorithms.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman appeared with AMD CEO Lisa Su at a company event in June to announce the product.

Read more CNBC tech news

Earlier this month, OpenAI announced a deal with AMD for processors requiring 6 gigawatts of power over multiple years, with a 1-gigawatt rollout starting in 2026. As part of the deal, and if the deployment goes well, OpenAI may end up owning as many as 160 million shares of AMD, or about 10% of the company.

In September, OpenAI entered into a five-year cloud deal with Oracle that could be worth as much as $300 billion.

OpenAI has historically been closely linked with Nvidia, whose chips were used to develop ChatGPT. Nvidia’s chips dominate the market for data center GPUs with more than 90% market share. Nvidia also invested in OpenAI in September.

But OpenAI leaders say the company needs as much computing power as possible, which means it needs AI chips from multiple suppliers. OpenAI also has plans to design its own AI chips with Broadcom.

“I think AMD has done a really fantastic job, just like Nvidia, and I think both of them have their place,” Batta said.

Tuesday at Oracle AI World, founder and Chairman Larry Ellison is set to take the stage and share his views on the latest OpenAI deal and what his company is doing to stay ahead of its main cloud competitors – Microsoft, Amazon and Google

“Oracle has already shown it is willing to place big bets and go all in to meet the AI moment. The company must now prove that beyond capacity, it can capitalize on its massive underlying data and enterprise capabilities … to add meaningful value to the enterprise AI wave,” said Daniel Newman, CEO of The Futurum Group, on the sidelines of Oracle’s conference.

Stock Chart IconStock chart icon

hide content

Oracle and AMD one-day stock chart.

Continue Reading

Trending