Magic Eden coders gathered in an Airbnb in San Jose, California, to hack in preparation for the so-called bitcoin halving.
Amil Husain
In the East Foothills of San Jose, California, 17 coders working for the popular ordinals marketplace maker, Magic Eden, piled into a 4-bedroom, 3,875 square-foot house rented on Airbnb. Their goal was to spend a week hacking to prepare for the so-called bitcoin halving — an event that is baked into the chain’s code and helps to stave off inflation through programmatic monetary policy.
A lot of the talk surrounding the halving, which happens roughly every four years, has been pegged to the fact that new issuance of the world’s largest virtual coin would be cut in half. But the block that locked in the halving also coincided with a couple other major launches on the blockchain, including cutting-edge programming innovations that are expected to draw both a lot more coders and a lot more venture capital dollars into the bitcoin ecosystem.
Also unlike past halving events, the world’s largest cryptocurrency touched a new all-time high above $73,000 in March as record flows entered the bitcoin ecosystem via the newly-launched spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds in the U.S.
“Bitcoin has never been healthier – what was missing previously was a vibrant developer ecosystem on top,” said Magic Eden’s co-founder and chief operating officer, Zedd Yin.
Some of Magic Eden’s coders took breaks from hacking to play arcade games.
Amil Husain
Arcade games and hard liquor
Magic Eden’s pop-up hacker house was modest but had a few bells and whistles that carried the skeleton crew through the week.
Those perks included Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Street Fighter themed arcade-style machine games in the living room — plus a DIY open bar on a collapsible, plastic table in the dining room.
Engineers also went into the hackathon with the distinct advantage of knowing what they wanted to build. In the days leading up to the halving, Yin, 33, convened his team under the same roof in Northern California with one clear goal in mind: To code and launch the definitive marketplace for a new wave of digital products coming to bitcoin’s blockchain. On Monday morning, Magic Eden’s Runes Platform went live, helping to cement its place as the go-to forum to deal in these novel bitcoin offerings.
For years, rival chains like ethereum and solana have competed with bitcoin on functionality, because both have smart contracts — that is, programmable pieces of code — natively built into the base chain. That has been one of the chief reasons why developers around the world have flocked to these blockchains to build applications.
Magic Eden’s pop-up hacker house included arcade games and a ping pong table with a full bar.
Amil Husain
Enter Casey Rodarmor.
The popular bitcoin coder totally disrupted this dynamic last year when he introduced bitcoin’s version of non-fungible tokens known as ordinals, which developers ended up using as a base for bitcoin-issued coins called BRC-20 tokens. The launch was quiet, at first, but ultimately landed him tremendous acclaim.
Late Friday night, at the exact moment that the bitcoin halving initialized, Rodarmor unveiled his latest creation, runes, which is basically just a better and more efficient version of BRC-20 tokens.
“People really respect Casey and think that he sort of captured lightning in a bottle,” said Nic Carter of Castle Island Ventures. “And so there’s very high expectations for runes as well.”
Technically speaking, runes just enables asset issuance of fungible tokens on bitcoin’s base chain. That could be stablecoins, memecoins, or any variety of fungible token.
The reason this is significant to developers is because of its efficiency relative to existing BRC-20 tokens, bitcoin’s widely-used fungible token standard that has already received a ton of traction. Having a universally accepted token standard like this is seen as key to helping unlock scale of decentralized finance on bitcoin. Decentralized finance, or DeFi, is a parallel banking system that cuts out middlemen like lawyers and banks and relies upon code for enforcement.
“Fungible tokens are a significant part of every meaningful ecosystem like solana and ethereum, so runes is an important step in the evolution of bitcoin,” said Yin, who previously helped lead product for all institutional trading products at Coinbase.
Bill Barhydt, who runs Abra, a company that supports miners with a mix of services, including auto liquidations, and has access to macro data across the sector, said bitcoin simply cannot scale 100% on-chain via its own layer one. The problem has to do with the fact that bitcoin’s blockchain lacks the built-in smart contract capabilities necessary to reproduce the banking stack of a chain like ethereum or solana.
“BRC-20 tokens and ordinals, its successor runes, sidechains such as stacks, and DeFi on bitcoin are all showing strong promise in user adoption which stands to dramatically increase the demand for bitcoin block space and adoption, which I believe will create a positive feedback loop further driving bitcoin price gains in the coming years,” Barhydt said. “It’s truly remarkable the level of new development work happening around bitcoin,” he added.
Venture investors agree.
“I’ve never seen deal pacing move this aggressively in the bitcoin space in my entire career,” Carter tells CNBC.
For a week, the Magic Eden team gathered in an Airbnb in San Jose to work on the code for a new digital asset marketplace that would go live at the bitcoin halving block.
Amil Husain
Bitcoin ‘layer two’ interest spikes
Indeed, the VC appetite for these layer two bitcoin projects has been picking up in the last few months.
PitchBook says that the fourth quarter of 2023 was the first time in almost two years that deal value in the crypto sector had increased, reaching $1.9 billion — up 2.5% from the previous quarter. While still well off the 2021 high of $31 billion, funds are building back interest, and trust, in the space.
“There’s definitely been an awakening of capital interest in the bitcoin layer two space,” said Muneeb Ali, who co-founded Stacks — an open-source blockchain network that brings smart contracts to bitcoin.
Stacks is a separate chain to bitcoin but the two are able to work together. The project launched its own upgrade at the time of the halving block, as well, which reduced transaction time to five seconds, compared to the 10 to 30 minute block times tied to bitcoin’s base chain.
“Having so much VC interest just cements that the bitcoin ecosystem is primed to grow,” Ali said, who noted that the pace of projects launching on bitcoin has also picked up momentum in the last six months, from a half dozen projects going live to more than 50.
A new report released by Austin-based venture fund Trammell Venture Partners found that the bitcoin startup sector had a breakout year at the pre-seed stage, noting a 360% year-over-year increase in transaction count.
“Founders really want to be building on bitcoin specifically,” Christopher Calicott, the fund’s managing director and founding partner, said of the study’s findings.
The report also noted that early-stage, bitcoin-native startups raised just under $1 billion from 2021 through 2023.
Take Alpen Labs. The layer two project, which is bringing cutting-edge scaling technology known as zero-knowledge proofs to bitcoin, just emerged from stealth mode with Ribbit Capital leading a $10.6 million round. Another popular layer two solution dubbed “Build on Bitcoin,” or BOB, has raised $10 million in seed funding.
“Ordinals, BRC-20s and other innovations that came about in 2023 really helped build momentum ahead of the halving,” Ali said. “They made bitcoin fun again for developers and showed that users will favor NFTs, assets, and apps on bitcoin if given the opportunity.”
In the East Foothills of San Jose, California, 17 coders working for the popular Ordinals marketplace maker, Magic Eden, piled into a 4-bedroom, 3,875 square-foot house rented on Airbnb.
Amil Husain
DeFi on bitcoin rails
For years, developers have been trying to bake additional functionality into bitcoin’s base chain. Barhydt tells CNBC that demand for DeFi — specifically yield and lending — is a key driver of crypto adoption.
Sidechains like stacks, for example, have been working to bring the speed and competitive transaction costs of solana-type rails to the bitcoin ecosystem, in order to decongest the main chain and allow the overall bitcoin economy to scale.
With runes, these existing projects have a new tool they can use to grow, since it enables them to potentially plug into a native, lightweight token system on the main bitcoin chain rather than having to generate their own independent token environment.
“Runes presents an efficient system for creating and managing fungible tokens directly on bitcoin in a way that reduces blockchain bloat and improves scalability compared to other token standards,” said Hong Fang, president of crypto exchange OKX. “This has major implications for layer two solutions and sidechains that are working to scale bitcoin,” added Fang, who previously spent nearly a decade workingat Goldman Sachs.
Stacks’s Ali has dubbed the post-halving environment “bitcoin season two.”
“Season two is all about the return of builders to bitcoin. Users are finally separating bitcoin the asset from Bitcoin, as the rails,” he said.
As for Yin and his team — one other big takeaway of the runes hackathon was the need for a bit more due diligence on Airbnb properties.
The team had an outdoor gas fireplace that wasn’t working so there was a constant smell of a gas leak the entire week, the rental’s WiFi was down for the entire first day — and a handful of folks got Covid.
Jaguar is betting on expensive luxury EVs, like the controversial Type 00, as part of its comeback plans. The struggling British automaker sees an opportunity in the 140,000 euro ($160,000) to 300,000 euro ($350,000) price range.
Jaguar bets on $300,000 luxury EVs for survival
If you haven’t seen it yet, well, the Type 00 is unique, to put it nicely. Jaguar revealed the radical GT concept late last year, nearly breaking the internet.
Everyone from Tesla’s Elon Musk to Lucid Motors chimed in, poking fun at the design and Jaguar’s desperate search for a new image.
Although Jaguar’s design boss, Gerry McGovern, the man behind the Type 00’s controversial look, was fired earlier this month, that isn’t stopping the company from plowing ahead with plans to launch its first next-gen EV in 2026.
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Members of the media were invited to Jaguar’s UK headquarters earlier this month for a closer look at the flagship EV and a brief test run.
According to WIRED, which attended the event, the Type 00 “still looks odd,” but it packs some serious power. Unlike the two-door GT concept, the vehicle actually has four doors. Although the second set of doors is a slight improvement, the hood is still a bit too long.
Jaguar Type 00 first public debut in Paris (Source: Jaguar)
Jaguar’s managing director, Rawdon Glover, said the company has gone through about 150 prototypes, and that six months ago the hardware was updated.
The interior design wasn’t finalized with wires and bolted-on displays, but “it does have one of the nicest steering wheels I have seen in a long time,” WIRED said (at least it’s a start.).
Jaguar Type 00 first public debut in Paris (Source: Jaguar)
Like BMW and Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar stressed the importance of computing power. JLR’s vehicle engineering director, Matt Becker, said that, like BMW’s “Heart of Joy” ECU, Jaguar’s new tech cuts ECUs’ lag time to just 1 millisecond.
Thanks to the improved ECU and added software, the “car seems to keep accelerating with ease way beyond the 100-mph mark.”
Jaguar Type 00 luxury EV concept interior (Source: Jaguar)
Jaguar revealed the flagship EV will be equipped with a tri-motor setup, delivering over 1,000 hp. The setup will include two electric motors on the rear axle, plus one on the front.
Other specs, including charging speeds and official driving range, have yet to be revealed. However, Jaguar did say it’s aiming for around 400 miles (WLTP).
Glover made it clear that “Jaguar had to change” to ensure the brand’s survival. According to Jaguar’s boss, “there’s a space right at the top end of premium, but underneath the uber luxury of the Rolls Royce, the Lamborghinis, the Bentleys. There’s a big gap between 140,000 euros and 300,000 euros [$160,000 and $350,000].”
Jaguar has been successful in that segment before. Can it do it again as an all-electric brand? With other global OEMs, like Ford, water down EV plans, will Jaguar follow suit? “Anything’s possible,” Glover said, adding, “but it’s not in our plan.”
Jaguar’s electric four-door GT is expected to launch in the first half of 2026. It will be followed by at least two more luxury EVs, which are expected to be a sedan and an SUV.
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A California judge ruled late Tuesday afternoon that Tesla engaged in “deceptive marketing” in reference to its Full Self-Driving system, and that Tesla’s license to sell and produce cars in the state should be revoked for 30 days.
However, the California DMV has said it will give Tesla 60 days to comply and fix its marketing before going through with the suspension.
The ruling is big news in a case that has been ongoing for years now.
Tesla has been selling level 2 driver assist software since 2016 which it calls “Full Self-Driving” (FSD), despite that this software did not (and still does not) make its cars capable of driving themselves.
Tesla also provides software under the name “Autopilot,” another term that evokes some level of autonomy, though perhaps not as explicitly as the aforementioned FSD. Tesla long held the position that this word is meant to evoke airplane-like systems that still require a pilot, but can just do most of the work for them.
So eventually, in 2021, the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) officially started an investigation into Tesla’s marketing claims, to determine whether the company had lied to consumers.
During this time, the California legislature got involved as well, passing a law that specifically banned automakers from deceiving consumers into thinking vehicles have more autonomous capabilities than they do.
Well, after all these investigations and waiting, we finally have an an answer, and the judge’s ruling makes it quite clear: Tesla lied to consumers about its autonomous capabilities.
California court rules Tesla lied about autonomy
The court looked at Tesla’s marketing claims and also at surveys of people exposed to those claims and their opinion of whether a Tesla would be able to drive itself, given the marketing messages put out by the company.
It found problems both with the word Autopilot and the phrase Full Self-Driving.
The word “Autopilot” was not found to be “unambiguously false,” but the court said that its use “follows a long but unlawful tradition of ‘intentionally (using) ambiguity to mislead consumers while maintaining some level of deniability about the intended meaning.’” The court found that a reasonable person could believe that a car on Autopilot doesn’t require their constant undivided attention, which is incorrect as the driver is still fully responsible for the vehicle.
On “Full Self-Driving,” the court was even more harsh. It found that this feature name is “actually, unambiguously false and counterfactual” (comically, Tesla tried to argue here that “no reasonable person” could believe that Full Self-Driving actually means Full Self-Driving).
The court noted other language used by Tesla, including marketing copy that said “the system is designed to be able to conduct short and long distance trips with no action required by the person in the driver’s seat,” and suggested that “legal reasons” are the only things holding Tesla back from full autonomy. Tesla tried to say that this was a statement of future intent, but the court found that its use of the present tense shows otherwise.
Tesla has repeatedly changed its wording around FSD, first calling it Full Self-Driving Capability, then changing that to Full Self-Driving (Supervised) to emphasize the need for a driver to supervise the vehicle. The court noted these changes, and then said it would not be a burden to force Tesla to change its marketing further to clarify that its cars do not drive themselves.
The DMV could now shut Tesla down for 30 days if it does not comply
Which leads us to the proposed legal remedy: the court said that the DMV could suspend or revoke Tesla’s licenses for 30 days, stopping its ability to sell or build cars in the state.
Tesla’s first factory is in Fremont, California, where it still builds around half a million vehicles a year and employs some ~20,000 employees. Tesla says this remedy would be “draconian,” but the court said that without this option, there’s no reason to believe Tesla would stop its misrepresentations to the public.
The court also examined the possibility of financial restitution, but deemed that inappropriate. Since the case did not establish any quantifiable financial harm done by Tesla’s misrepresentation and noted the impracticality of accounting for that harm.
This ruling does not yet mean that Tesla can’t sell cars in California, which is its largest market in the US by far. The court noted that the DMV has the option of suspension or revocation, which the DMV can do at its discretion. And the DMV has said that it will allow Tesla 60 days to comply with the order before it takes action, and that it would focus on Tesla’s dealer license rather than its manufacturing license.
This would mean, specifically, that Tesla not refer to a level 2 driving system as “Autopilot” or using language that suggests these vehicles are autonomous. It will have to change its marketing materials and stop making public statements misleading the public about its autonomous capabilities.
Tesla said after the ruling that “sales in California will continue uninterrupted.” But we’ll see what happens in 60 days, and what sort of changes Tesla does or does not make to its deceptive marketing.
Tuesday’s ruling is just one of many legal cases against Tesla right now, specifically having to do with FSD. One relevant case is a class action lawsuit in California claiming Tesla misled customers about its cars self-driving capabilities. This ruling could provide fuel for that lawsuit, given a California judge has already gone on the record with an official determination that Tesla misled the public about FSD.
Electrek’s Take
Well, this ruling has been a long time coming, but it’s good that it has finally come.
Most significantly, there are around 4 million cars on the road that do not have the hardware Tesla said they have.
And these misstatements continue through today, with Tesla constantly hyping up its “Robotaxi” program, despite that those cars are only capable of level 2 driver-assistance. It even says that robotaxis are operating in California, when by any definition, they are not.
While courts have held Tesla to account a few times with small claims actions in the UK and the US, this is the first big, sweeping decision that could require the company to change its ways.
That said, government has gagged Tesla CEO Elon Musk before, to little effect. After the SEC found that he lied to investors in a tweet, it said that all his public statements must be pre-screened if they’re relevant to Tesla’s stock price.
That didn’t seem to change his behavior much, though. So given that history, he may continue with the same misleading public statements about FSD.
Which leaves it up to the California DMV: will it follow through and do something if the lies continue? Or will Tesla change its ways and start being more realistic about its cars’ capabilities? Either way, we’ll find out within 60 days.
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Waymo is reportedly looking to raise a massive new round of funding that would value the autonomous driving company at over $100 billion as it accelerates its expansion.
Since Alphabet spun out its self-driving car project into Waymo back in 2016, the company has been seen as the leader in the space, at least when it comes to deploying actual driverless vehicles on public roads without anyone in the driver’s seat.
While Tesla has been promising “Full Self-Driving” for years with a camera-only approach on consumer vehicles, Waymo has taken the more expensive, sensor-heavy robotaxi route.
It has been a capital-intensive journey, but it seems to be paying off in terms of deployment, as it now completes hundreds of thousands of paid autonomous rides per week in half a dozen US cities.
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Now, a new report from Bloomberg states that Waymo is looking to raise more than $15 billion in a new funding round.
According to the report, the round is expected to value Waymo at nearly $100 billion:
“Waymo, Alphabet Inc.’s autonomous driving unit, is in discussions to raise more than $15 billion at a valuation near $100 billion, in a financing round led by its parent company. The maker of robotaxis has discussed raising billions in equity from external backers as well as Alphabet, said the people.”
This would be a massive jump in valuation for the company. For context, Waymo raised $5.6 billion just a year ago in October 2024 at a valuation of around $45 billion.
If this new round goes through, it would more than double the company’s valuation in less than a year.
The funding push comes as Waymo aggressively expands its service. The company recently announced that it has completed over 14 million rider-only trips in 2025 alone. It is currently operating fully driverless commercial services in several major markets, including San Francisco, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and Austin, with plans to expand to cities like Miami and potentially international markets like London and Tokyo by 2026.
Waymo’s fleet currently consists of about 2,500 vehicles, primarily the Jaguar I-PACE, though it is transitioning to a custom-built robotaxi vehicle from Zeekr in the near future.
Electrek’s Take
Waymo can do a lot with $15 billion. It could 40x its fleet with 100,000 vehicles and still have a few billion left for operations.
For a long time, the narrative was that Waymo’s approach, HD maps, LiDAR, expensive sensors, and remote monitoring, was too expensive to scale compared to Tesla’s vision-only global fleet approach.
And while that might still be true in the long run if Tesla solves FSD, which is a big if, the reality on the ground today is that Waymo is the one offering rides with nobody in the front seat.
With 100,000 autonomous vehicles, it could capture 10% of the US ride-hailing market and likely become financially self-sustainable.
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