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The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission just approved the first-ever batch of spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds to come out of the U.S.

The agency gave the green light on Wednesday to sponsors of 10 ETFs, including BlackRock, Invesco, Fidelity, Grayscale, and Ark Invest — paving the way for these funds to begin trading as soon as this week.

The move was largely expected, even after a social media hacking snag. A false statement saying the regulator had approved a bitcoin ETF was published Tuesday on the SEC’s social media account on X, formerly known as Twitter. The agency later clarified that its account had been compromised.

The actual approval Wednesday marked a massive step for the cryptocurrency, as it will give investors increased ways to gain exposure to the token — not just from holding it directly, but via existing financial instruments that trade on a regulated stock exchange.

Scaramucci says 2023 was best year for his crypto funds, will buy bitcoin ETF

But what does that all mean exactly, and how does it affect investors? CNBC runs through everything you need to know about the bitcoin ETF milestone.

What’s a bitcoin ETF?

An ETF is an investment fund that tracks the performance of an underlying asset. That could be stocks, a basket of currencies, a precious metal like gold, or, in this case, bitcoin.

It’s a way for investors to get exposure to the value of the underlying asset without directly owning it.

ETFs trade on traditional stock exchanges, and their value should rise when the underlying asset increases in price, or fall if it decreases.

As crypto investors look to assess what the market impact of a bitcoin ETF might be, many are comparing Wednesday’s news to the greenlighting of the SPDR Gold Shares ETF — the first-ever spot gold ETF — in 2004.

The total gold market capitalization was worth around $1 trillion to $2 trillion before the gold ETF was approved, and this subsequently ballooned to $16 trillion in a few years after, according to Vijay Ayyar, vice president of international markets for Indian crypto exchange CoinDCX.

“Bitcoin’s adoption will be much faster and bigger than that,” Ayyar told CNBC via WhatsApp.

The U.S. has finally approved a bitcoin ETF. So what next?

Ayyar said the story for bitcoin and crypto will “accelerate” in 2024, as the approval of a spot bitcoin ETF could spark interest from retail investors who were previously sitting on the sidelines.

What does a bitcoin ETF mean for investors?

A bitcoin ETF opens up the audience of people and institutions that can buy and sell bitcoin to those with little experience trading cryptocurrency.

“This ETF has two main impacts: increased distribution in the US (a moderate impact, as there have been ETFs outside of the US for years) and increased credibility of crypto as an ‘asset class’ (a very high impact),” Kevin de Patoul, co-founder and CEO of crypto liquidity provider Keyrock, told CNBC.

“There is now a U.S. bitcoin spot ETF, and bitcoin is no longer considered shady or infamous. This significantly changes the perception for the mainstream public.” 

It also means that bitcoin could start appearing in mainstream portfolios, where many more retail investors can gain exposure.

Big institutional fund managers can add it to their investment funds. Retirement planners can now include it in employer-sponsored 401(k) plans.

This makes it much easier to own bitcoin, as you don’t have to rely on a vulnerable piece of hardware for storage. Investors don’t need to tackle the difference between “hot” and “cold” wallets, which store digital tokens.

Instead, they can just buy an ETF from one of the many regulated asset managers that are set to go live with their own ETFs.

ARK Invest President says Bitcoin ETF is about removing barriers to crypto investing

“The approval of a Bitcoin ETF has huge implications for US investors because they can now hold crypto in their brokerage account, which they couldn’t do before,” Timo Lehes, co-founder of blockchain firm Swarm Markets, told CNBC.

“This gives the green light for portfolio diversification into the asset, and we expect major inflows of capital into the market, as a result.”

A bitcoin ETF could bring the cryptocurrency exposure to a more diverse set of holders with different levels of size and experience in the market.

Ayyar said the approvals Wednesday “mark a key moment in the maturity of the crypto asset class.

“Mass retail now has an easy, safe way to gain exposure to the asset class through their brokerage account,” Ayyar told CNBC.

“The ETF approval also provides a credible stamp of approval for large institutions and market participants that were waiting for an easier way to access the asset class rather than buying crypto directly, which always has inherent price and custody risks.”

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Tesla asks for $243 million verdict to be tossed in fatal Autopilot crash suit

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Tesla asks for 3 million verdict to be tossed in fatal Autopilot crash suit

Dillon Angulo, 33, looks at a roadside memorial sign reading “Drive Safely In Memory Naibel Benavidez” next to the site of a car crash where a Tesla driver using Autopilot killed her, and left him catastrophically injured in 2019, on Aug. 12, 2025, in Key Largo, Florida.

Eva Marie Uzcategui | The Washington Post | Getty Images

Tesla has filed a motion to appeal the verdict in a product liability and wrongful death lawsuit that could cost the company $242.5 million if it is not reduced or overturned.

Elon Musk‘s automaker has asked for the verdict to be tossed or for a new trial in Florida’s Southern district court.

Gibson Dunn, which is representing Tesla in the appeal, argued that compensatory damages in the case should be steeply reduced from $129 million to $69 million at most. That would result in Tesla having to pay a $23 million award if the prior verdict holding the company partially liable for the crash stands up.

The firm also argued that punitive damages should be eliminated or reduced to, at most, three times compensatory damages due to a statutory cap in the state of Florida.

The suit focused on a fatal crash that occurred in 2019 in Key Largo, Florida, in which George McGee was driving his Tesla Model S sedan while using the company’s Enhanced Autopilot, a partially automated driving system.

While driving, McGee dropped his mobile phone and scrambled to pick it up. He said during the trial that he believed Enhanced Autopilot would brake if an obstacle was in the way.

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McGee’s Model S accelerated through an intersection at just over 60 miles per hour, hitting a nearby empty parked car and its owners, who were standing on the other side of their vehicle.

The collision killed 22-year-old Naibel Benavides and severely injured her boyfriend, Dillon Angulo.

A jury in a Miami federal court earlier this month said that Tesla should compensate the family of the deceased and the injured survivor, paying a $242.5 million portion of a total $329 million in damages that they decided were appropriate.

In their motion to appeal, Tesla’s lawyers argue that the Model S vehicle had no design defects, and that even alleged design defects could not be blamed for the crash, which they say was caused entirely by the driver.

“For as long as drivers remain at the wheel, any safety feature may embolden a few reckless drivers while enhancing safety for countless others,” the appeal states. “Holding Tesla liable for providing drivers with advanced safety features just because a reckless driver overrode them cannot be reconciled with Florida law.”

Tesla did not respond to a request for additional comment.

Brett Schreiber, lead trial counsel for the plaintiffs in this case, said in a statement that he believes the court will uphold the prior verdict, which should not be seen as “an indictment of the autonomous vehicle industry, but of Tesla’s reckless and unsafe development and deployment of its Autopilot system.”  

“The jury heard all the facts and came to the right conclusion that this was a case of shared responsibility but that does not discount the integral role Autopilot and the company’s misrepresentations of its capabilities played in the crash,” he said.

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Ambarella stock rips 20% higher after earnings as AI demand boosts guidance

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Ambarella stock rips 20% higher after earnings as AI demand boosts guidance

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Ambarella stock roared 20% higher Friday as the chip designer reported better-than-expected second-quarter results and issued strong guidance.

Here’s how the company did compared to LSEG expectations:

  • Earnings: 15 cents per share adj. vs 5 cents per share expected
  • Revenue: $96 million vs $90 million expected

Ambarella, which is known for its system-on-chip semiconductors and software used for edge artificial intelligence, said it expects third-quarter revenue between $100 million and $108 million, beating the LSEG estimate of $91 million.

The company boosted its fiscal year revenue growth outlook to a range of 31-35%, to $379 million at the midpoint, which topped the $350 million expected by LSEG.

“After a multi-year period of significant edge AI R&D investment, our broad product portfolio enable us to address a rising breadth of edge AI applications,” CEO Fermi Wang said in a call with analysts Thursday.

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Wang singled out strength in “portable video, robotic aerial drones and edge infrastructure.”

Edge computing refers to the direct processing and storing of data at the device level instead of those actions being handled remotely in the cloud at a data center.

Ambarella had a net loss of $20 million, a loss of 47 cents per share in the second quarter. That narrowed from the same quarter a year ago, when the company had a net loss of $35 million, a loss of 85 cents per share.

The company said stock-based compensation and the amortization of acquisition-related costs weighed on earnings.

In June, Bloomberg reported that the company was considering a sale and had held talks with banks. Shares climbed 20% higher on the news.

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Ambarella year-to-date stock chart.

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Marvell stock slumps 16% after data center revenue, forecast disappoint

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Marvell stock slumps 16% after data center revenue, forecast disappoint

Marvell Technology Group Ltd. headquarters in Santa Clara, California, US, on Friday, Sept. 6, 2024.

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Shares of Marvell Technology plunged 15% on Friday after the artificial intelligence chipmaker’s data center revenue fell short of estimates and it gave lackluster guidance for the current quarter.

Here’s how the company did in comparison with LSEG consensus:

  • Earnings per share: 67 cents adjusted vs. 66 cents expected
  • Revenue: $2.01 billion vs. $2.01 billion expected

Revenue jumped 58% from a year ago in the fiscal second quarter that ended Aug. 2, a record for the company that was fueled in part by “strong AI demand” for its custom silicon and electro-optics products, Marvell CEO Matt Murphy said in a statement.

The company had net income of $194.8 million, or 22 cents per share, compared with a net loss of $193.3 million, a loss of 22 cents per share, during the same period last year.

For the fiscal third quarter, the company called for revenue to be $2.06 billion, plus or minus 5%. That was slightly below the $2.11 billion forecast by analysts, according to LSEG.

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Marvell is known for creating customized chips and hardware, which it offers to cloud providers such as Amazon and Microsoft.

Sales in its data center segment reached $1.49 billion during the quarter, which fell short of Wall Street’s projected $1.51 billion, according to StreetAccount.

On a conference call with investors, Murphy said the company expects “overall data center revenue in Q3 to be flat sequentially,” which he attributed to nonlinear growth in its custom AI chips business. Fourth-quarter growth is expected to be “substantially stronger” than the third quarter, Murphy said.

He added that “lumpiness” of the guidance is normal as large hyperscalers build out infrastructure.

Still, some investors were hoping for greater clarity around the company’s pipeline of new customers.

“Without this, we find it very difficult underwriting the company’s 20% data center market share target,” Cantor analysts wrote in a Thursday note to clients. “Thus, we wait for more bottoms up granularity before potentially turning more positive.”

Analysts at Bank of America downgraded Marvell’s stock to neutral from buy on Friday and lowered their price target to $78 per share from $90, partly on concerns around the company’s AI growth prospects “in the near/medium term.”

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Marvell year-to-date stock chart.

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