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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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Nvidia says U.S. government will allow it to resume H20 AI chip sales to China

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Nvidia says U.S. government will allow it to resume H20 AI chip sales to China

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang attends a roundtable discussion at the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris on June 11, 2025.

Sarah Meyssonnier | Reuters

Nvidia announced Tuesday that it hopes to resume sales of its H20 general processing units to clients in China, saying that the U.S. government had assured the company would be granted licenses.

Nvidia’s sales of the H20 chips, which had been designed specifically to keep them out of export controls on China, were halted in April.

“The U.S. government has assured NVIDIA that licenses will be granted, and NVIDIA hopes to start deliveries soon,” the company said in a statement.

This comes against the backdrop of a preliminary trade deal between Washington and Beijing last month that sought China to resume rare earth exports and the U.S. to relax tech export controls.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang in recent months has ramped up his lobbying against export controls, arguing that they inhibited American tech leadership. In May, Huang said chip restrictions had already cut Nvidia’s China market share nearly in half.

Huang also announced a new “fully compliant” GPU, NVIDIA RTX PRO, saying it was ideal for smart factories and logistics.

The potential change in U.S. stance follows a meeting between Huang and U.S. President Donald Trump last week.

In his meeting with Trump and U.S. policymakers, Huang had reaffirmed Nvidia’s support for the administration’s job creation and onshoring efforts, as well as the aim for America to lead in global AI, the company said.

Meanwhile, in Beijing, it was confirmed that Huang has met with government and industry officials to discuss the benefits of AI and ways for researchers to advance safe and secure AI for the benefit of all. 

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Cognition to buy AI startup Windsurf days after Google poached CEO in $2.4 billion licensing deal

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Cognition to buy AI startup Windsurf days after Google poached CEO in .4 billion licensing deal

In this photo illustration, a man seen holding a smartphone with the logo of US artificial intelligence company Cognition AI Inc. in front of website.

Timon Schneider | SOPA Images | Sipa USA | AP

Artificial intelligence startup Cognition announced it’s acquiring Windsurf, the AI coding company that lost its CEO and several other senior employees to Google just days earlier.

Cognition said on Monday that it will purchase Windsurf’s intellectual property, product, trademark, brand and talent, but didn’t disclose terms of the deal. It’s the latest development in an AI talent war, as companies like Meta, Google and OpenAI fiercely compete for top engineers and researchers.

OpenAI had been in talks to acquire Windsurf for about $3 billion in April, but the deal fell apart, and Google said on Friday that it hired Windsurf’s co-founder and CEO Varun Mohan. Google is paying $2.4 billion in licensing fees and for compensation, as CNBC previously reported.

“Every new employee of Cognition will be treated the same way as existing employees: with transparency, fairness, and deep respect for their abilities and value,” Cognition CEO Scott Wu wrote in a memo to employees on Monday. “After today, our efforts will be as a united and aligned team. There’s only one boat and we’re all in it together.”

Cognition didn’t immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment. Windsurf directed CNBC to Cognition.

Cognition is best known for its AI coding agent named Devin, which is designed to help engineers build software faster. As of March, the startup had raised hundreds of millions of dollars at a valuation of close to $4 billion, according to a report from Bloomberg.

Both companies are backed by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund. Other investors in Windsurf include Greenoaks, Kleiner Perkins and General Catalyst.

“I’m overwhelmed with excitement and optimism, but most of all, gratitude,” Jeff Wang, the interim CEO of Windsurf, wrote in a post on X on Monday. “Trying times reveal character, and I couldn’t be prouder of how every single person at Windsurf showed up these last three days for each other and for our users.”

Wu said that the acquisition ensures all Windsurf employees are “treated with respect and well taken care of in this transaction.” All employees will participate financially in the deal, have vesting cliffs waived for their work to date and receive fully accelerated vesting for their, according to the memo.

“There’s never been a more exciting time to build,” Wu wrote.

WATCH: Google snatches Windsurf CEO after OpenAI deal dissolves

Google snatches Windsurf CEO after OpenAI deal dissolves

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Musk’s xAI faces European scrutiny over Grok’s ‘horrific’ antisemitic posts

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Musk's xAI faces European scrutiny over Grok's 'horrific' antisemitic posts

The Grok logo is being displayed on a smartphone with Xai visible in the background in this photo illustration on April 1, 2024. 

Jonathan Raa | Nurphoto | Getty Images

The European Union on Monday called in representatives from Elon Musk‘s xAI after the company’s social network X, and chatbot Grok, generated and spread anti-semitic hate speech, including praise for Adolf Hitler, last week.

A spokesperson for the European Commission told CNBC via e-mail that a technical meeting will take place on Tuesday.

xAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Sandro Gozi, a member of Italy’s parliament and member of the Renew Europe group, last week urged the Commission to hold a formal inquiry.

“The case raises serious concerns about compliance with the Digital Services Act (DSA) as well as the governance of generative AI in the Union’s digital space,” Gozi wrote.

X was already under a Commission probe for possible violations of the DSA.

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Grok also generated and spread offensive posts about political leaders in Poland and Turkey, including Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Turkish President Recep Erdogan.

Over the weekend, xAI posted a statement apologizing for the hateful content.

“First off, we deeply apologize for the horrific behavior that many experienced. … After careful investigation, we discovered the root cause was an update to a code path upstream of the @grok bot,” the company said in the statement.

Musk and his xAI team launched a new version of Grok Wednesday night amid the backlash. Musk called it “the smartest AI in the world.”

xAI works with other businesses run and largely owned by Musk, including Tesla, the publicly traded automaker, and SpaceX, the U.S. aerospace and defense contractor.

Despite Grok’s recent outburst of hate speech, the U.S. Department of Defense awarded xAI a $200 million contract to develop AI. Anthropic, Google and OpenAI also received AI contracts.

CNBC’s April Roach contributed to this article.

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