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Cryptocurrencies fell Thursday night after President Donald Trump signed an executive order creating a strategic bitcoin reserve for the United States and, separately, a “digital asset stockpile.”

The price of bitcoin was last lower by 3% at $87,586.86, according to Coin Metrics. Shortly after the news broke, it fell to as low as $84,688.13.

Earlier losses in other coins – specifically those that rallied at the beginning of the week after Trump said they would be included in the strategy – also eased. Ether was down 2%, trading at $2,184.08. XRP and Solana’s SOL token retreated 1% and 3%, respectively. Cardano’s ADA token tumbled 13%.

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Bitcoin (BTC)

White House crypto and AI czar David Sacks detailed in a post on X that the bitcoin reserve will include bitcoin already owned by the U.S. government that it seized from past law enforcement actions – a move, he emphasized, that will “not cost taxpayers a dime.” The U.S. currently owns more than 198,000 bitcoins worth about $17 billion, according to Arkham.

The stockpile of other coins will include “digital assets other than bitcoin forfeited in criminal or civil proceedings.” Sacks said the government will not acquire additional assets for it “beyond those obtained through forfeiture proceedings.” Arkham data shows the U.S. government owns about 56 ether tokens worth almost $119 million. It does not list XRP or the Solana or Cardano tokens.

Investors initially dumped their coins at the notion of the U.S. having no immediate planned purchases of bitcoin, per the order, against the backdrop of major weakness in equities.

“It is good news, but not what the market wanted in the short term,” said Steven Lubka, head of private clients and family offices at Swan Bitcoin. “People were hoping for near-term buy pressure.”

Sacks did point out that the Secretaries of Treasury and Commerce are authorized to develop “budget-neutral strategies for acquiring additional bitcoin, provided that those strategies have no incremental costs on American taxpayers,” and that there’s no plan to accumulate additional assets for the crypto stockpile beyond what’s already been obtained by the government.

The announcement came days after Trump teased new details on the highly anticipated bitcoin reserve that had become one of his biggest promises to the crypto industry on his campaign trail, and on the eve of the first White House Crypto Summit.

The crypto market has been rocked this week by the tariff war and inflation concerns, which have largely overshadowed the speculative excitement around the bitcoin reserve. JPMorgan on Wednesday said it doesn’t expect a big move higher in crypto in the near term, given the broader economic uncertainty and weakening demand.

Bitcoin briefly returned to the key $90,000 level earlier this week and is now hovering just below it. Investors and analysts have warned that until bitcoin can meaningfully hold above it, it’s at risk of a bigger pullback toward $70,000.

James Lavish of Bitcoin Opportunity Fund reacts to proposed U.S. strategic crypto reserve

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Amazon deploys its 1 millionth robot in a sign of more job automation

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Amazon deploys its 1 millionth robot in a sign of more job automation

An Amazon logistics center in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Dummerstorf, Germany, on Nov. 27, 2024.

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Amazon announced Monday its millionth worker robot, and said its entire fleet will be powered by a newly launched generative artificial intelligence model. The move comes at a time when more tech companies are cutting jobs and warning of automation.

The million robot milestone — which joins Amazon’s global network of more than 300 facilities — strengthens the company’s position as the world’s largest manufacturer and operator of mobile robotics, Scott Dresser, vice president of Amazon Robotics, said in a press release

Meanwhile, Dresser said that its new “DeepFleet” AI model will coordinate the movement of its robots within its fulfillment centers, reducing the travel time of the fleet by 10% and enabling faster and more cost-effective package deliveries.

Amazon began deploying robots in its facilities in 2012 to move inventory shelves across warehouse floors, according to Dresser. Since then, their roles in factories have grown tremendously, ranging from those able to lift up to 1,250 pounds of inventory to fully autonomous robots that navigate factories with carts of customer orders.

Meanwhile, AI-powered humanoid robots — designed to mimic human movement and shape — could be deployed this year at factories owned by Tesla.

Job security fears

But although advancements in AI robotics like those working in Amazon facilities come with the promise of productivity gains, they have also raised concerns about mass job loss.

A Pew Research survey published in March found that both AI experts and the general public see factory workers as one of the groups most at risk of losing their jobs because of AI.

That’s a concern Dresser appeared to attempt to address in his statements. 

“These robots work alongside our employees, handling heavy lifting and repetitive tasks while creating new opportunities for our front-line operators to develop technical skills,” Dresser said. He added that Amazon’s “next-generation fulfillment center” in Shreveport, Louisiana, which was launched late last year, required 30% more employees in reliability, maintenance and engineering roles. 

However, the news of Amazon’s robot expansion came soon after CEO Andy Jassy told CNBC that Amazon’s rapid rollout of generative AI will result in “fewer people doing some of the jobs that the technology actually starts to automate.”

Jassy said that even as AI eliminates jobs in certain areas, Amazon will continue to hire more employees in AI, robotics and elsewhere. But in a memo to employees earlier in June, the CEO had admitted that he expects the company’s workforce to shrink in the coming years in light of technological advancements. 

The decline may have already begun. CNBC reported that Amazon cut more than 27,000 jobs in 2022 and 2023, and had continued to make more targeted cuts across business units. 

Other big tech CEOs such as Shopify’s CEO Tobi Lutke also recently warned of the impact that AI will have on staffing. That comes as a vast array of firms investing in and adopting AI execute rounds of layoffs. 

According to Layoffs.fyi, which tracks technology industry layoffs, 551 companies laid off roughly 153,000 employees last year. And a World Economic Forum report in February found that 48% of U.S. employers plan to reduce their workforce due to AI.

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Chipmakers get larger tax credits in Trump’s latest ‘big beautiful bill’

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Chipmakers get larger tax credits in Trump’s latest ‘big beautiful bill’

U.S. President Donald Trump (right) and C.C. Wei, chief executive officer of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (left), shake hands during an announcement of an additional $100 billion into TSMC’s U.S. manufacturing at the White House in Washington, DC, U.S., on March 3, 2025.

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The latest version of U.S. President Donald Trump’s “big beautiful bill” could make it cheaper for semiconductor manufacturers to build plants in the U.S. as Washington continues its efforts to strengthen its domestic chip supply chain.

Under the bill, passed by the Senate Tuesday, tax credits for those semiconductor firms would rise to 35% from 25%. That’s more than the 30% increase that had made it into a draft version of the bill. 

Companies eligible for the credits could include chipmakers such as Intel, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and Micron Technology, provided that they expand their advanced manufacturing in the U.S. ahead of a 2026 deadline

The new provisions expand on tax incentives under the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, which provided grants of $39 billion and loans of $75 billion for U.S.-based semiconductor manufacturing projects. 

But before the expanded credits come into play, Trump’s sweeping domestic policy package will have to be passed again in the House, which narrowly passed its own version last month. The president has urged lawmakers to get the bill passed by July 4.

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Trump has previously stated that tariffs, as opposed to the CHIPS Act grants, would be the best method of onshoring semiconductor production. The Trump administration is currently conducting an investigation into imports of semiconductor technology, which could result in new duties on the industry.

In recent months, a number of chipmakers with projects in the U.S. have ramped up planned investments there. That includes the world’s largest contract chipmaker, TSMC, as well as American chip companies such as Nvidia, Micron and GlobalFoundries.  

According to Daniel Newman, CEO at tech advisory firm Futurum Group, the threat of Trump’s tariffs has created more urgency for semiconductor companies to expand U.S. capacity. If the increased investment tax credits come into law, those onshoring efforts are only expected to accelerate, he told CNBC. 

“Given the risk of tariffs, increasing manufacturing in the U.S. remains a key consideration for these large semiconductor companies,” Newman said, adding that the tax credits could be seen as an opportunity to offset certain costs related to U.S.-based projects.

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Tesla shares drop on Musk, Trump feud ahead of Q2 deliveries

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Tesla shares drop on Musk, Trump feud ahead of Q2 deliveries

Elon Musk, chief executive officer of Tesla Inc., during a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa’s president, not pictured, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, May 21, 2025.

Jim Lo Scalzo | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Tesla shares have dropped 7% from Friday’s closing price of $323.63 to the $300.71 close on Tuesday ahead of the company’s second-quarter deliveries report.

Wall Street analysts are expecting Tesla to report deliveries of around 387,000 — a 13% decline compared to deliveries of nearly 444,000 a year ago, according to a consensus compiled by FactSet. Prediction market Kalshi told CNBC on Tuesday that its traders forecast deliveries of around 364,000.

Shares in the electric vehicle maker had been rising after Tesla started a limited robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, in late June and CEO Elon Musk boasted of its first “driverless delivery” of a car to a customer there.

The stock price took a turn after Musk on Saturday reignited a feud with President Donald Trump over the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the massive spending bill that the commander-in-chief endorsed. The bill is now heading for a final vote in the House.

That legislation would benefit higher-income households in the U.S. while slashing spending on programs such as Medicaid and food assistance.

Musk did not object to cuts to those specific programs. However, Musk on X said the bill would worsen the U.S. deficit and raise the debt ceiling. The bill includes tax cuts that would add around $3 trillion to the national debt over the next decade, according to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office.

The Tesla CEO has also criticized aspects of the bill that would cut hundreds of billions of dollars in support for renewable energy development in the U.S. and phase out tax credits for electric vehicles.

Such changes could hurt Tesla as they are expected to lower EV sales by roughly 100,000 vehicles per year by 2035, according to think tank Energy Innovation.

The bill is also expected to reduce renewable energy development by more than 350 cumulative gigawatts in that same time period, according to Energy Innovation. That could pressure Tesla’s Energy division, which sells solar and battery energy storage systems to utilities and other clean energy project developers.

Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday that Musk was, “upset that he’s losing his EV mandate,” but that the tech CEO could “lose a lot more than that.” Trump was alluding to the subsidies, incentives and contracts that Musk’s many businesses have relied on.

SpaceX has received over $22 billion from work with the federal government since 2008, according to FedScout, which does federal spending and government contract research. That includes contracts from NASA, the U.S. Air Force and Space Force, among others.

Tesla has reported $11.8 billion in sales of “automotive regulatory credits,” or environmental credits, since 2015, according to an evaluation of the EV maker’s financial filings by Geoff Orazem, CEO of FedScout.

These incentives are largely derived from federal and state regulations in the U.S. that require automakers to sell some number of low-emission vehicles or buy credits from companies like Tesla, which often have an excess.

Regulatory credit sales go straight to Tesla’s bottom line. Credit revenue amounted to approximately 60% of Tesla’s net income in the second quarter of 2024.

WATCH: Threats to SpaceX & Tesla as Musk, Trump feud heats up

Threats to SpaceX & Tesla as Musk, Trump feud heats up

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