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Bitcoin surged on Thursday, a day after El Salvador passed a law to adopt bitcoin as legal tender.

The cryptocurrency jumped more than 13% to trade above $37,000 before settling lower at $36,435.96 at about 4:48 a.m. ET, according to CoinDesk data.

On Wednesday, lawmakers in the Central American country passed a law that made bitcoin legal tender. Among other things, it means prices can now be shown in bitcoin and tax contributions can be paid with the digital currency.

Bitcoin proponents, who have long seen the digital coin as a viable alternative to fiat currencies, welcomed El Salvador’s moves.

The country has struck a partnership with digital wallet company Strike, to build the country’s modern financial infrastructure using bitcoin technology.

Other cryptocurrencies got a lift as well, and ether and XRP were both trading higher.

Bitcoin is still significantly off of its record high of $64,829.14 that was hit in April.

Bitcoin is known for wild price swings that have prompted critics to suggest it is not suitable to be an effective currency. El Salvador’s case will be closely watched to see how bitcoin might work as a payments mechanism on a country-wide basis.

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Cramer says this retail stock is ‘one of the greatest performers of all time’

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Cramer says this retail stock is ‘one of the greatest performers of all time’

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Google taps AI vibe-coder Replit in challenge to Anthropic and Cursor

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Google taps AI vibe-coder Replit in challenge to Anthropic and Cursor

People walk next to the Google Cloud logo, during the 2025 Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain, March 4, 2025.

Albert Gea | Reuters

Google Cloud announced Thursday a multi-year partnership with artificial intelligence coding startup Replit, giving the search giant fresh firepower against the coding products of rivals, including Anthropic and Cursor

Under the partnership, Replit will expand usage of Google Cloud services, add more of Google’s models onto its platform, and support AI coding use cases for enterprise customers.

Google will continue to be Replit’s primary cloud provider. 

Replit, founded nearly a decade ago, is a leader in the fast-growing AI vibe-coding space.

In September, the startup closed a $250 million funding round that almost tripled its valuation to $3 billion, and said it grew annualized revenue from $2.8 million to $150 million in less than a year. 

And new data from Ramp, a fintech company that also tracks enterprise spending on its platform, found that Replit had the fastest new customer growth among software vendors. Google, meanwhile, is adding new customers and spending faster than any other company on Ramp’s platform.

Put those together, and you get a clearer picture of why both companies see opportunity.

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Vibe-coding emerged as a phenomenon earlier this year after AI models became more adept at generating code using only natural language prompts, allowing users with little experience in programming to use AI to create functioning code and potentially full applications. 

Anthropic announced on Tuesday that its product Claude Code hit $1 billion in run-rate revenue. The coding startup Cursor, in November, closed a funding round that valued it at $29.3 billion, while also announcing it reached $1 billion in annualized revenue. 

Replit, which bills itself as an easy-to-use product for non-developers, could help drive Google Cloud adoption among enterprises, and expand the reach of its AI efforts beyond traditional engineers. 

Google is riding on the momentum of its new top-scoring model, Gemini 3. Shares of Alphabet have risen more than 12% since its debut. 

Google gathers AI momentum after Gemini 3 release

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Mark Zuckerberg comes to his senses on metaverse spending, and we’re thrilled

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Mark Zuckerberg comes to his senses on metaverse spending, and we're thrilled

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