Web3 | Identosphere Blogcatcher

Former cryptocurrency exchange FTX is set to begin repaying its main creditors on May 30, 2025, utilizing a cash reserve of $11

Marathon Digital Holdings Inc

Pumpfun has emerged as the leading decentralized exchange (DEX) on the Solana blockchain, achieving an all-time high trading volume of over $1

Weekly Recap: More presidential pardons, crypto banking rules relaxed.

The stablecoin market capitalization is up 33% since the election, and stablecoin issuers are DeFi’s top revenue generators.

The network upgrade will include a variety of modern features for self-custodial wallets.

The synthetic dollar, backed by BlackRock’s BUIDL fund, surpassed a $1.4 billion market cap as stablecoin dominance grows.

President Donald Trump has granted pardons to Arthur Hayes, Benjamin Delo, and Samuel Reed, the three co-founders of the BitMEX cryptocurrency exchange, according to reports from CNBC and other sources

Michael Saylor, co-founder of MicroStrategy, has made a bold prediction regarding Bitcoin's future market capitalization, stating that it could eventually reach $500 trillion

The stablecoin market has experienced significant growth, with the market capitalization of USD Coin ($USDC) surpassing $60 billion for the first time

A spokesperson for Pi said its referral program has none of the hallmarks of a multi-level marketing scheme.

Chainlink’s SVR allows dApps to reclaim the MEV lost due to oracle interaction.

Arthur Hayes, Benjamin Delo and Samuel Reed were pardoned after previously pleading guilty to federal criminal charges.

Why stablecoins are a golden opportunity, why institutions are onboarding, and how to go long.

Hyperliquid controversially delisted the JELLYJELLY token to avoid a $10 million loss, leaving traders that went long with losses.

The defunct LUNA creator is estimated to be paying creditors back hundreds of millions of dollars.

OpenAI’s new image generator flooded social media with Studio Ghibli-style art, raising copyright questions and the prospects for IP onchain.

Bitcoin drops 3.2%, leading to $428M in leveraged liquidations.

Galaxy Digital, led by Michael Novogratz, has agreed to a $200 million settlement with the New York Attorney General over allegations of manipulating the price of LUNA, the token associated with the collapsed Terra ecosystem

Michael Saylor, a prominent figure in the cryptocurrency space, has made a bold prediction about Bitcoin's future, suggesting that its market capitalization could eventually reach $500 trillion

The latest Zashi update resolves one of the biggest frustrations for Zcash users—stuck funds on Ledger. If you’ve been unable to access your ZEC due to Ledger’s ongoing Zcash integration […]

Source

Terraform Labs has announced the opening of a claims portal for creditors affected by the collapse of its algorithmic stablecoin, UST, and its associated cryptocurrency, LUNA

The settlement finds Galaxy was dumping on the public while promoting the investment.

Grayscale Investments has filed for an Avalanche ($AVAX) exchange-traded fund (ETF) with Nasdaq

As demand for blockchain-based RWAs accelerates, tokenized Treasuries are poised for further growth.

PIVX Weekly Pulse (Mar 21st, 2025 — Mar. 27th, 2025) Top Stories

PIVCards Gets a Facelift: Get ready for a whole new PIVCards experience! The dev team has given the privacy-centric gift card platform a stunning makeover, making it ten times easier to snag your favourite gift cards. Enjoy a sleek, intuitive catalogue, discover the hottest brands in the ‘Popular Cards’ section, and experience the complete facelift — PIVCards has never looked or felt better!

Market Pulse Masternode Count: The PIVX network demonstrated strong growth in masternode participation, as the active count jumped to 2,088, a clear uptrend from last week’s 1,994. Price Check: This week saw PIV’s Daily USD Value range from $0.16 to $0.17, resulting in a weekly average of $0.165. However, PIV remains within a constrained price range, indicating persistent sideways movement. Trading Buzz: This week’s trading volume experienced a further decline, with the weekly total dropping to $13.73 million. This represents a $540,000 decline relative to last week’s figure.

PIVX. Your Rights. Your Privacy. Your Choice.
To stay on top of PIVX news please visit PIVX.org and Discord.PIVX.org.

PIVX Weekly Pulse (Mar 21st, 2025 — Mar. 27th, 2025) was originally published in PIVX on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Fidelity has filed a 19b-4 form via Cboe to launch a Solana-based exchange-traded fund (ETF), joining six other applicants under the SEC's updated Cboe BZX 14

Galaxy Digital, led by Michael Novogratz, has agreed to a $200 million settlement with the New York Attorney General's Office over allegations of manipulating the price of LUNA, the token associated with the collapsed Terra ecosystem

Galaxy Digital has reached a $200 million settlement with the New York Attorney General's Office regarding its promotion of the LUNA cryptocurrency

Fidelity Investments has made a substantial investment in Bitcoin, acquiring approximately 1,120 BTC valued at around $97

Animoca is using its digital identity infrastructure platform Moca Network to create a decentralized ID and reputation layer focused on engaging anime fans.

We’re excited to announce that we’ve expanded support for Brave Translate—our tool to translate websites privately and securely—and that we’ve added 93 languages, going from 15 supported languages to 108! New languages include Chinese, Hindi, and Arabic—check out the full list. Brave Translate is available on the latest versions of Brave for desktop, Android, and iOS devices.

Brave Translate is privacy-preserving and enables users to privately translate websites in over 100 languages, without exposing browsing activity. Brave uses a self-hosted server and the Lingvanex translation engine to power translations, which means no caching, and no feeding your translation requests to privacy-threatening models.

Learn more about Brave Translate

Brave Translate works quickly and efficiently, providing high quality translation without relying on Big Tech. It’s just one more way that the Brave browser continues to differentiate itself from the competition and put users first. Download Brave, and try out Brave Translate today.

Readers' note: This blog post was updated March 28, 2025 to include mention of Brave Translate for iOS. Brave Translate is now available on the latest version of the Brave browser across desktop, Android, and iOS.

The Sei Foundation is exploring the acquisition of 23andMe to integrate genetic data onto its blockchain, giving users ownership and control over their genetic data.

Is Wildcat Finance crypto's next hot opportunity or a disaster in waiting?

Senator Cynthia Lummis has proposed the creation of a Bitcoin strategic reserve as a means to help balance the U

To tame his inbox, CZ turned to ReachMe, a BNB-based pay-to-reach service that lets key opinion leaders (KOLs) cut down on spam while earning a few bucks.

Walrus is developed by Mysten Labs, the company behind the SUI blockchain.

The prominent Republican said Wyoming's newly announced effort closely resembled a central bank digital currency.

After a four-year court battle, Ripple wins its fight with the Securities and Exchange Commission over whether XRP is a security. Ripple is appealing a $125 million penalty and part of the verdict.

The U

Over 20 Studio Ghibli-themed memecoins have been launched in the past two days, according to Dexscreener data.

The U

Bitcoin rose slightly, but Ethereum, XRP, and Solana declined.

The FTX founder was moved from Brooklyn to an Oklahoma 'transit center' where he will await a prison reassignment to serve the remainder of his sentence.

Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, has been transferred from a New York federal jail to the Oklahoma City Federal Transit Center

The Blockchain Group, a French company recognized as Europe's first Bitcoin treasury firm, has acquired 580 Bitcoin for €47

The premature resolution of a market on a Trump/Ukraine minerals deal leaves bettors high and dry, and shows a flaw in Polymarket’s oracle system.

Ethereum's stablecoin supply has reached an all-time high, surpassing $132

The original memestock is following the Michael Saylor playbook now.

While DeFi’s ultimate goal is to provide an alternative for TradFi, blockchain gaming caters to retail masses, onboarding millions of users to crypto through incentives and fun gameplay. The greatest success story in Web3 gaming thus far has been, without a doubt, Axie Infinity. Apart from creating an engaged community whose early adopters also experienced rags-to-riches stories, it kickstarted an entire movement around play-to-earn gaming. Many have tried copying it, yet most of them failed. Axie Infinity managed to design a sustainable economy that combined NFTs and fungible tokens. The result was the first gamified crypto mining event, at scale. In order to accommodate such a massive demand, in a time when L2 rollups were still in R&D, Sky Mavis founded Ronin, a gaming-oriented Ethereum sidechain. The community that formed around Axie Infinity created a tremendous network effect, solidifying Ronin’s PMF as a gaming powerhouse. Before long, many up-and-coming titles migrated to Ronin, and the growth effects in all their key metrics (i.e. DAUs, transactions, revenue, etc.) further fuelled the flywheel.

Topics covered in this episode:

Jeff’s background Cryptokitties Joining Axie Infinity and how it evolved Monetizing Axie’s economy The recipe for successful blockchain games Building Ronin, the gaming L1 On-chain vs. off-chain game elements Community building Ronin’s economy & composability Most suitable gaming genre for Web3 AI x gaming Crypto gaming investments Ronin’s current state and future roadmap Axie’s upcoming MMO

Episode links:

Jeff Zirlin on X Axie Infinity on X Ronin on X Sky Mavis on X

Sponsors:

Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io Chorus One: one of the largest node operators worldwide, trusted by 175,000+ accounts across more than 60 networks, Chorus One combines institutional-grade security with the highest yields at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain.

BlackRock has made substantial investments in Bitcoin, purchasing $42 million worth of the cryptocurrency on March 25 and an additional $107

Jeff Park of Bitwise projects that GameStop acquisitions “will hit even harder than the Bitcoin Strategic Reserve.”

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin transferred 250 ETH, valued at approximately $500,000, to the privacy protocol Railgun

President Donald Trump has endorsed Senator Cynthia Lummis for her advocacy in the cryptocurrency sector, specifically her efforts to position the United States as the 'Crypto Capital of the World

Coinbase's Base L2 is having a killer year in the spotlight as it scales out its competitive advantages. Welcome to the updated Base case.

The Massachusetts senator urges Congress to “step up.”

World Liberty Financial joins the race, while Fidelity tests its own stablecoin.

GameStop Corp

The platform has generated over $2 billion in total trading volume since launch.

Former President Donald Trump has initiated a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, according to Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan, who states that this move removes the 'last existential risk' for Bitcoin, positioning it as the 'best backup plan on the market

An anonymous user sent 1 billion SHIB tokens to a dead wallet, burning them from the Shiba Inu supply.

The state's governor is blazing a trail for crypto in the state, but industry participants are skeptical.

The perpetual exchange’s HLP vault was down $10 million on an absorbed position before the team intervened and closed the position at a profit, casting doubts on its decentralization claims.

The massive investment firm is likely planning its use within an Ethereum-based tokenized money market fund.

HyperLiquid is facing concern and criticism over a dramatic forced settlement to stave off an apparent exploit.

Forgotten Runiverse is live! Explore, craft, battle, and earn in this new MMORPG on Ronin.

The supply of USD Coin (USDC), a stablecoin issued by Circle, has reached a record high, surpassing a $60 billion market capitalization

Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana slip as total market cap drops 3% to $2.95 trillion.

Para wallet users can now sign up for an ENS name with just an email, phone number or social login.

Pectra's final test has been launched successfully on the Hoodi Network. Next stop? Mainnet.

Rumble, the online video platform known for its competition with YouTube, has announced the launch of a new wallet for creator payments, utilizing Tether's USDT cryptocurrency

Partnering with Mercury: The Business Banking Platform of the Future

Immad, Jason, Max and their team serve ambitious companies, with an ambitious goal of their own: to reimagine what banking can be.

By Sonya Huang and Isaiah Boone Published March 26, 2025 Mercury co-founders Max Tagher, Jason Zhang and Immad Akhund.

The bank account is the nucleus of business finance, where critical workflows begin and end. It is the first financial relationship a founder sets up, it is in the flow of funds, and it is the core “system of record” for a company’s money. Yet as personal banking has transitioned online, business banking has been left behind, especially for many startups and small businesses. There are tens of millions of these companies in the U.S. alone—consumer-like in scale, but with far more complex needs. The slow, often paper-based processes of incumbent banks simply can’t keep up.

Thankfully, Mercury is a breath of fresh air: a simple, even joyful, product that integrates seamlessly into all of a company’s financial processes and brings the best of modern banking services to ambitious founders and business owners. Startup natives themselves, co-founders Immad Akhund, Jason Zhang and Max Tagher saw firsthand how difficult it was for Silicon Valley companies to access institutional banking services, so they launched Mercury in 2019 with the goal to make it easier.

Six years later, Immad, Jason and Max have built the product they would’ve wanted back then. Happy customers tell us they’ve been delighted to open an account in less time than it would have taken to get just one email returned from a traditional bank, and they say Mercury has become a trusted partner as they build and scale their businesses. That trust has empowered the team to expand into other financial services as they continue to reimagine banking.

Meanwhile, Mercury is also moving from Silicon Valley to Main Street, as the types of customers the platform serves expand in kind—both with the launch of the Mercury Personal waitlist, and as the company’s reputation for quality spreads across industries. Last year alone, Mercury handled more than $150 billion worth of transactions; today, it serves more than 200,000 businesses.

We at Sequoia are proud to lead Mercury’s Series C and join their board as the team sets its sights even higher: on a comprehensive suite of commercial and personal banking services. Mercury’s vision for the future has already clearly resonated with its customers, and we believe the innovative spirit and operational excellence that brought them to this moment can drive their growth for years and decades to come.

Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Business banking services provided through Choice Financial Group, Column N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust; Members FDIC. Personal banking services provided through Choice Financial Group; Member FDIC.

Share Share this on Facebook Share this on Twitter Share this on LinkedIn Share this via email Fireworks: Production Deployments for the Compound AI Future By Sonya Huang and Romie Boyd News Read Partnering with Meter: Reliable Internet For Everyone By Ravi Gupta and Isaiah Boone News Read Partnering with LangChain: The LLM Application Framework By Sonya Huang and Romie Boyd News Read JOIN OUR MAILING LIST Get the best stories from the Sequoia community. Email address Leave this field empty if you’re human:

The post Partnering with Mercury: The Business Banking Platform of the Future appeared first on Sequoia Capital.

The Chief Investment Officer of Bitwise, Matt Hougan, has stated that the establishment of a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve by former President Donald Trump effectively removes the last existential risk associated with Bitcoin (BTC)

Fidelity Investments, managing assets worth approximately $6 trillion, is preparing to launch its own cryptocurrency stablecoin

In August 2022, Alexey Pertsev was arrested in the Netherlands. He was convicted of money laundering in May 2024 and sentenced to 64 months imprisonment. What was his offence? He was accused of playing a key role in the development of Tornado Cash, a widely used coin mixing service.

Contrary to what you may have been led to believe, transactions on public blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum are not anonymous; they are pseudonymous. While they do not directly reveal real-world identities, blockchain analysis can reveal transaction patterns and connections between addresses. Cryptocurrency mixers, also known as tumblers, were designed to address this privacy concern by obfuscating the link between the sender and recipient addresses, thus disrupting the transaction trail.

What is a Coin Mixer?

A coin mixer is designed to obscure the link between cryptocurrency transactions. The end goal is to make it difficult to trace the origin and destination of funds. This is achieved by pooling deposits from multiple users and then redistributing them in a way that breaks the transaction history. This complex three-step process broadly involves deposits, mixing, and redistribution.

The mixer combines funds from one user with those of others, creating a large pool of mixed funds. In some cases, random time delays are implemented and the transactions are split into smaller amounts to further obscure the trail. So instead of mixing a 1.5 BTC transaction directly, the system might split it into standardized units like 1 BTC, 0.3 BTC, and 0.2 BTC.

In the redistribution phase, the mixed cryptocurrency is sent to the user’s designated receiving address, typically from various sources within the pool.

Types of Coin Mixers

There are two primary categories of coin mixers — centralized and decentralized mixers.

Centralized mixers are operated by third-party services that take custody of users’ cryptocurrency. Users send their cryptocurrency to the mixer, which then mixes and redistributes the funds. While these services are relatively simple to use, one key risk is that trust is placed in the hands of a third-party. It also creates a single point of failure and users could be compromised or subpoenaed if logs are maintained. Some popular examples include Blender.io, Bitmix, and Mixtura.

Decentralized mixers, on the other hand, operate without a central controlling entity. Instead, they use smart contracts or peer-to-peer protocols to coordinate the mixing process. Common examples include CoinJoin, Wasabi, and Whirlpool.

Use Cases

While mixers are sometimes associated with illicit activities, there are several legitimate reasons why individuals might seek enhanced transaction privacy. Given the pseudonymous nature of many blockchain transactions, wealthy cryptocurrency holders may use mixers to prevent becoming targets for theft or extortion.

It is not out of place for individuals who value their financial privacy to use coin mixing services. In jurisdictions with limited civil liberties, financial privacy tools can serve as protection against government overreach.

Coin Mixing Vs. Privacy Protocols

One could argue that the aim of coin mixers and privacy-enhancing protocols such as PIVX SHIELD are to enhance financial privacy. However, they differ greatly in their primary goal and methods.

While coin mixing’s fundamental purpose is to make it difficult to trace the flow of cryptocurrencies, zk-SNARKs (and by extension PIVX SHIELD) focus on verifying the legitimacy of a transaction without disclosing any sensitive information about it. The goal is to ensure that a transaction is valid without revealing who sent it, who received it, or how much was transferred.

As already mentioned, coin mixing achieves its goal by pooling together cryptocurrencies from numerous individuals and then redistributing them in a way that disrupts the original transaction trail. However, SHIELD uses sophisticated cryptographic algorithms to create proofs that demonstrate the validity of a transaction without revealing the underlying data (sender, receiver, amount).

PIVX. Your Rights. Your Privacy. Your Choice.
To stay on top of PIVX news please visit PIVX.org and Discord.PIVX.org.

Coin Mixing Explained was originally published in PIVX on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The supply of USD Coin (USDC) has reached an all-time high, surpassing a market capitalization of $60 billion

Celo has successfully transitioned from a Layer 1 blockchain to an Ethereum Layer 2 network, marking the completion of a nearly two-year development cycle

This month, a16z’s Consumer team released the fourth edition of the GenAI 100 — a data-driven ranking of the top 50 AI-first web products and mobile apps, based on unique monthly visits and active users.

In just six months, the consumer AI landscape has shifted dramatically. Some products surged ahead, others plateaued, and a few unexpected players reshaped the leaderboard entirely.

In this episode, a16z General Partner Anish Acharya and Partner Olivia Moore join us to unpack the latest rankings and explore the key cultural and product moments that brought us to this point.

Which applications are leading the pack — and which ones are quietly on the rise? What do trends like AI video, companion apps, and “vibe coding” reveal about the future of consumer AI? And for the first time, the team also analyzed which products aren’t just gaining users, but generating real revenue.

If you’re looking to understand where we are in the GenAI adoption cycle — and what might come next — this episode offers a data-backed view into one of the fastest-moving corners of technology.

You can find the full GenAI 100 list at a16z.com/genai100-4

 

Timecodes: 

00:00: Consumer AI Trends

00:36: The Gen AI 100 List: Methodology and Insights

02:38: Pivotal Moments in AI Development

05:37: Assumptions and Realities in AI

08:49: Emerging Trends and Newcomers

11:53: The Brink List: Near Misses and Future Contenders

16:13: Surprises and Consistencies in AI Adoption

18:31: The Future of AI Applications

19:54: Traffic Trends and User Demographics

20:32: Resurgence and New Use Cases

22:47: Competitors and Market Dynamics

25:30: AI Video Models and Trends

29:23: Mobile vs Desktop Usage

30:34: Revenue Insights and Monetization

34:06: Key Learnings and Final Thoughts

 

Resources: 
Find Anish on X: https://x.com/illscience

Find Olivia on X: https://x.com/omooretweets

 

Stay Updated: 

Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

Binance confirmed that the market maker in question was offboarded after it was linked to the GPS and SHELL market maker that it kicked out of its platform for misconduct.

Fidelity, a major asset management firm with approximately $6 trillion in assets under management, has announced plans to launch its own crypto stablecoin

Ripple Labs Inc

Bitwise Investment's Bitcoin Standard Corporations ETF, designated as $OWNB, has recently expanded its index to include two new companies: Fold Holdings ($FLD) and Bitdeer Technologies ($BTDR)

Mt

Crypto investors remain cautious amid ongoing market volatility.

The Australian crypto company disclosed it had received a Wells notice from the U.S. SEC last November.

The U

The token-free decentralized alternative to X is garnering attention amid political backlash to Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.

Binance Wallet announced the internal audit team’s findings and credited four whistleblowers.

Berachain's Proof of Liquidity is live. Where should you set yourself up for BGT token incentives?

Both Bybit CEO Ben Zhou and Cyber Capital Founder Justin Bons have ripped Pi Network, calling it a scam.

Fidelity Investments, managing $5

The United Arab Emirates-based financial center aims to boost the utility of tokenized assets in the UAE.

Ripple Labs Inc

The move comes as Blackrock also expands its tokenized money market fund BUIDL to Solana.

Abracadabra

The launch kickstarts phase one of the Layer 1 blockchain’s onchain governance by decentralizing the supply of its BGT governance token.

World Liberty Financial, a decentralized finance project backed by President Donald Trump, has announced plans to launch a new stablecoin named USD1

Empeiria is proud to announce its recognition as one of the UAE’s Future100 companies, a prestigious initiative spearheaded by the Ministry of Economy. This celebrates Empeiria’s groundbreaking contributions to blockchain technology and its pivotal role in shaping the future economy sectors of the UAE.

A Milestone Achievement at Investopia 2025

The announcement was made during Investopia 2025, held in Abu Dhabi on February 26–27, where industry leaders, government officials, and visionaries gathered to discuss innovation and investment strategies for the future. Out of 1,130 nominations, Empeiria was selected as part of the top 100 enterprises driving progress in areas such as financial technology, sustainability, and creative industries

What Future100 Means for Empeiria

Being part of the Future100 ia it’s a call to action. This recognition places Empeiria among an elite group of startups that are not only innovating but also contributing to the UAE’s vision of transforming into a hub for new economy sectors. As part of this initiative, Empeiria will continue to push boundaries by enabling privacy-centric AI applications and fostering decentralized ecosystems.

The Road Ahead

As highlighted during Investopia 2025, the UAE is committed to advancing innovation-driven entrepreneurship through initiatives like Future100. For Empeiria, this recognition reinforces its mission to redefine digital trust while contributing to the UAE’s ambitious vision for the future economy.

Fidelity Investments has filed an application with the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) for a spot Solana ETF

CME Group, a leading derivatives trading platform, has announced a partnership with Google Cloud to explore tokenization technology

BlackRock Inc

BlackRock Inc

BlackRock has expanded its tokenized BUIDL fund, which has reached a new all-time high of $1

Circle has minted an additional $250 million in USDC on the Solana blockchain, bringing the total amount of USDC minted on Solana in 2025 to $11 billion

Custodia Bank and Vantage Bank have announced the issuance of the first bank-issued stablecoin in the United States on a permissionless blockchain

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear has signed the 'Bitcoin Rights' bill (HB701) into law, the fifth such bill supported by the Satoshi Action Fund

USD1 will be backed by real assets and built for institutions, according to the press release.

BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager with $11

Circle, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, has received regulatory approval to launch its product in Japan, becoming the first regulated stablecoin in the market

The $1.7B tokenized treasury fund is already available on Ethereum, Optimism, Arbitrum, Polygon, Avalanche, and Aptos.

The exchange also doled out a $100K reward to whistleblowers who had submitted reports about the incident.

The Trump Family business is getting more aggressive in its crypto monetization ambitions.

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Spring Sprint brought together prominent crypto industry attorneys to discuss the path of future regulation.

Tradable, an RWA firm tokenizing private credit, accounts for the lion’s share of that figure.

BlackRock Inc

Circle, the issuer of the USD Coin (USDC), has become the first regulated stablecoin issuer to secure approval for use in Japan

Mt

RENDER touches $2 billion market capitalization after the Render Network updated about the launch of its GenAI tool with new features.

Here's what Ethereum's next two major upgrades spell for the network's future.

BlackRock's tokenized fund, BUIDL, has reached $1

Polymarket has officially launched on the Solana blockchain, enabling users to make deposits using Solana's cryptocurrency

U

VNX Commodities AG has launched $VGBP, the first token referencing the British Pound Sterling, on the Solana blockchain

El Salvador has recently increased its Bitcoin holdings by adding an additional 1 BTC to its strategic reserve, as reported on March 24, 2025

The protocol is allocating 25% of network fees to a staking initiative intended to increase network security while decreasing the tokens in circulation.

Bitcoin led the recovery, while Ethereum recorded the largest outflows.

The lending protocol on Hyperliquid’s EVM reached its HYPE and wstHYPE caps.

Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), the UAE's premier international financial center, has entered into a strategic alliance with Chainlink, a leading blockchain oracle network

Plume CEO Chris Yin spoke to The Defiant and explained the project’s focus on crypto-native utility and sustainable yield.

Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX, has predicted that Bitcoin will reach $110,000 before pulling back to $76,500

The multi-trillion dollar asset management firm is the latest major financial institution to enter the RWA market.

USD1 is now live on both Ethereum and BNB Chain.

Metaplanet has previously indicated its plans to own 10,000 BTC by the end of the year.

Infector is a new tool that simplifies token airdrops on Base for quick, targeted DIY distributions.

With Strategy's latest $584M purchase, the company has passed a major milestone.

Weekly Recap: Tornado Cash sanctions dropped, Ripple reigns supreme.

Digging deeper into crypto’s silent revolution.

The government has finally removed Tornado Cash from its sanctions list, clarifying that it can't be sanctioned as it isn't the property of a foreign national.

Nvidia’s GR00T is open-sourcing humanoid robotics, and crypto’s DePAI movement could supercharge AI training. Can decentralized incentives fuel the robot revolution?

The latest launch from Bankless puts onchain superpowers in the hands of your favorite AI platforms.

President Trump's family continues to deepen its direct stake in the crypto industry as DJT continues to advocate for it politically.

PIVX Weekly Pulse (Mar 14th, 2025 — Mar. 20th, 2025)

Catch up on all things PIVX! From market trends to privacy updates and community highlights, here’s a summary of this week’s actions.

Top Stories

Something’s Cooking: PIVX’s head of business development, Jeffrey, has signaled that a listing on Edge Wallet is on the way. Expect a listing on the non-custodial wallet soon!

Market Pulse Masternode Count: The PIVX network saw a recovery in active masternodes, increasing from 1,975 last week to a current count of 1,994. Price Check: There was a minor uptick in PIV’s Daily USD Value this week. Trading ranged from $0.16 to $0.17, resulting in a weekly average of $0.166. While this is a positive shift, PIV’s overall trading pattern remains within a constrained range, indicating sideways movement. Trading Buzz: Despite the slight uptick in the daily USD Value, weekly trading volume decreased further this week, dipping to approximately $14.27 million, down from last week’s $14.75 million.

PIVX. Your Rights. Your Privacy. Your Choice.
To stay on top of PIVX news please visit PIVX.org and Discord.PIVX.org.

PIVX Weekly Pulse (Mar 14th, 2025 — Mar. 20th, 2025) was originally published in PIVX on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Trump nominee's Senate Hearing has been scheduled for March 27.

The global race for AI leadership is no longer just about companies—it’s about nations. AI isn’t just computing infrastructure; it’s cultural infrastructure, economic strategy, and national security all rolled into one.

In this episode, Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA, and Arthur Mensch, cofounder and CEO of Mistral, sit down to discuss sovereign AI, national AI strategies, and why every country must take ownership of its digital intelligence.

How AI will reshape global economies and GDP The full AI stack—from chips to models to AI factories Why AI is both a general purpose technology and deeply specialized The open-source vs. closed AI debate and its impact on sovereignty Why no one will build AI for you—you have to do it yourself

Is this the most consequential technology shift of all time? If so, the stakes have never been higher.

Resources: 

Find Arthur on X: https://x.com/arthurmensch

Find Anjney on X: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anjney/

Find NVIDIA on X: https://x.com/nvidia

Find Mistral: https://x.com/MistralAI

 

Stay Updated: 

Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

The statement brings legal certainty against the murky argument that crypto mining satisfied the Howey Test.

Citizen DeFi Play: The hottest investment plays on Coinbase's Base L2.

The memecoin launching platform wants to move into DeFi and provide a venue for trading tokens that graduate.

The mega deal will serve Kraken's ambitions to expand beyond crypto.

Alex Andryunin, founder of Gotbit, pled guilty to wire fraud and market manipulation.

One of the two approved proposals includes steps toward making Uniswap Governance a legal entity.

We dig into the gritty details of the novel stablecoin protocol's V2.

BasePaint is a pioneering onchain art platform. Completor streamlines collecting its canvases, making it easier to join in on BasePaint's legacy.

The plan comes after the testnet fell offline due to a faulty test for Pectra.

The buzzy investment firm CEO wants to be at the forefront of asset tokenization.

The long-running SEC case against Ripple Labs has ended after 4 years of legal battles.

In a renewed effort to protect young users, a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers reintroduced the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0) earlier in March.

Spearheaded by Senators Ed Markey (D-MA) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA), the legislation seeks to fundamentally reshape how digital platforms interact with minors. The core objective is to curb the invasive data practices that have become commonplace in the age of social media and online gaming.

The proposed bill outlines several key provisions:

Ban on Targeted Advertising: Children and teenagers would be shielded from the relentless barrage of personalized ads that track their online behavior. Data Minimization and Erasure: Companies would be compelled to collect only the essential data needed for their services and to promptly erase personal information upon request. Enhanced Consent Requirements: Internet companies would be prohibited from gathering data from 13- to 16-year-old users without their explicit consent.

This isn’t a new battle. Senator Markey, a long-time advocate for children’s online safety, has championed similar legislation for over a decade. While previous iterations of the bill faced roadblocks, COPPA 2.0 gained significant momentum in the last Congress, passing the Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support.

The urgency of this legislation is underscored by the growing chorus of support from children’s advocacy groups, educators, and medical professionals. They argue that the unchecked data collection practices of Big Tech pose a serious threat to children’s privacy and well-being.

The digital landscape has become a surveillance state for children. Recall that the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) already began an investigation into how social media platforms such as TikTok, Reddit, and Imgur processed children’s data.

Senator Cassidy emphasized the parental anxieties driving the legislation, “Every kid has an iPad or smartphone […] COPPA 2.0 is the tool that will give parents the peace of mind they need and keep their children’s personal information secure.”

The reintroduction of COPPA 2.0 marks a critical juncture in the ongoing debate over online privacy. As the digital lives of young people become increasingly intertwined with their real-world experiences, the need for robust safeguards has never been more apparent. The question remains: will this Congress finally deliver the protections that children and parents so desperately need?

PIVX. Your Rights. Your Privacy. Your Choice.
To stay on top of PIVX news please visit PIVX.org and Discord.PIVX.org.

Big Tech Held Accountable: Lawmakers Reintroduce Child Privacy Bill! was originally published in PIVX on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Brave presents the Rewards 3.0 Partner Program, expanding BAT utility while giving Web3 brands premium visibility. Launch partners include Bandit’s Badchain, CHOMP, Decentraland, GuanoCoin, Karate Combat, Pudgy Pop, and SOL Incinerator.

Brave Rewards 3.0 is the next evolution of Brave’s unique in-browser rewards program, allowing users to support content creators and earn Basic Attention Tokens (BAT) for viewing privacy-respecting ads. Rolling out in phases over 2025, Rewards 3.0 introduces a new Offer Wall experience, more earning opportunities, self-custody payout options, and exclusive benefits from partners for Brave Rewards users and BAT holders.

Learn more about Brave Rewards 3.0 in BAT Roadmap 3.0: The On-chain Era.

The Brave Rewards 3.0 Partner Program will be a key part of the Rewards 3.0 rollout, ensuring users can continue earning BAT with their attention while unlocking even more ways to earn, spend, and interact with BAT in the broader Web3 ecosystem.

The program offers unique opportunities that only Brave—and its 82 million monthly active users—can provide. Partners will gain high visibility exposure to new audiences, along with valuable insights into messaging and incentives that resonate most with loyal Rewards users. By integrating BAT utility into their platforms and activations, participating partners will drive engagement and adoption across e-commerce, gaming, digital content, DeFi, and beyond.

For Brave Rewards users, this means direct access to real-world benefits like discounts, premium goods or services, and Web3 experiences—all directly through the browser.

Upgraded Rewards 3.0 panel Brave Rewards "explore" tab and Offer Wall in Nightly v1.78 (expanded view)

Karate Combat-sponsored Brave New Tab Takeover

Partners gain visibility across and beyond Brave’s ecosystem:

Rewards Offer Wall: A dedicated space where users can discover ways to earn and spend BAT Brave Ads exposure through the New Tab Takeover (NTT), Notification, and Newsfeed ad units, all part of the privacy-preserving Brave Ads platform Program promotions through updates, social promotions, and community activations The Partner Program will grow BAT and Brave

The Brave Rewards 3.0 Partner Program enhances BAT’s utility while advancing Brave’s mission to build a privacy-first Web that empowers users. Partners contribute to BAT’s ecosystem by paying for the program in BAT, and integrating new secondary BAT utilities, which will ultimately drive adoption across Web3.

Brave Rewards and BAT were first made available to users in 2017. Rewards 3.0 builds on that foundation by bringing added value to Web3 within Brave’s expanding user base and in the broader multichain attention economy.

Rewards 3.0 also leverages BAT’s growing adoption: 

Over 99% of the 1.5B total BAT supply is already in circulation BAT ranks as the 14th most distributed token by on-chain holders on Ethereum 1.5M+ verified creators accept BAT contributions 600+ advertiser campaigns have leveraged Brave Ads, cementing BAT’s role in a thriving, user-first ad economy

“In a space that’s become tired with hype cycle after hype cycle and fly-by-night engagement farming, we’re aiming to do something different with the Brave Rewards 3.0 Partner Program. We’ve created a program for product teams that provides a mix of exposure, duration, and addressable lead users needed to experiment and find early market fit in Brave. We welcome partners to the program that want to grow with the Brave Rewards ecosystem, and that share our interest in bringing useful products, value, and Web3 adoption to millions of new users.”

— Luke Mulks, VP Business Operations at Brave

The first Brave Rewards 3.0 Partner Program members

Over the next six months, a new group of partners will be announced and added to the program each month. Partners in the program will be adding and updating offers throughout the duration of the program. To kick off the program, Brave welcomes our first group of partners:

Bandit’s Badchain

Bandit’s Badchain is a satirical blockchain by Bandit Network, designed to poke fun at the hype-driven world of Web3. Embracing the hilariously terrible, it turns epic fails into an art form—because sometimes, being bad is the whole point.

Bandit Network is a leader in white-labeled quest solutions that drive engagement through interactive experiences. In addition to powering quests for Rewards users, Bandit will be featuring Brave as a B2B channel partner to grow the Rewards Partner Program.

CHOMP

CHOMP is a subjective oracle wrapped in a gamified quiz experience. It harnesses crowd wisdom to determine the best answer, using research-backed algorithms that analyze user responses. Players share opinions, predict how others will answer, and earn rewards.

As part of the program, CHOMP will feature a weekly BAT or Brave-themed deck, exploring core values like privacy, attention, and community. Brave Rewards users can put their instincts to the test, ‘CHOMP the deck,’ and compete for BAT rewards.

Decentraland

Decentraland is a social virtual world. From community-built landscapes to immersive events, Decentraland offers a vibrant open-source playground where anyone can dive into a world of endless creativity, exploration, and connection.

Decentraland will collaborate with the BAT Community on activations and engagements within Decentraland, exclusive rewards, and bringing both communities together through joint community calls and X Spaces. 

GuanoCoin

Created by a group of dedicated fans and developers from the BAT Community, GuanoCoin ($GUANO) is a memecoin designed to help grow BAT’s ecosystem on Solana. The team recently launched the GuanoCoin Cave, where BAT holders can lock their BAT to earn GUANO over time—now holding over 160,000 BAT. Through the program, GuanoCoin will offer incentives and quests to help Rewards users maximize their on-chain rewards.

Karate Combat

Karate Combat is the world’s premier full-contact striking league, blending live-action martial arts with immersive CGI environments powered by the Unreal Engine. Broadcast in over 100 countries, it delivers high-energy combat sports with a futuristic edge.

Karate Combat’s involvement builds on an ongoing media partnership with Brave, with plans to use the program to experiment with activations involving BAT and Karate token utility, and new ways to bring both communities together.

Pudgy Pop

Pudgy Pop is a tile-matching game set in the adorable Pudgy Penguins universe. With strategic challenges, charming characters, and a community-driven spirit, it offers a fresh twist on a classic puzzle experience.

Pudgy Pop will collaborate with Brave to promote Web3 gaming through social campaigns and in-person events throughout the program.

SOL Incinerator

SOL Incinerator is a Solana-based platform that lets users permanently burn unwanted tokens and scam NFTs from their wallets while reclaiming SOL—or BAT—in the process. Designed to keep portfolios clean, it turns burning junk into a rewarding experience.

The program provides a great opportunity for Brave Rewards users to learn and utilize SOL Incinerator to burn unwanted tokens for BAT for added value.

How interested partners can get involved

The Brave Rewards 3.0 Partner Program is just getting started. Each month, we’ll share updates on new partners and exclusive offers for Brave Rewards users.

Web3 projects interested in participating can get in touch to learn more.

Stay tuned for more partner announcements and ways to engage with BAT.

Brave is a driving force leading the way for Web3 adoption, directly supporting Web3 into the broader Web through its privacy browser, independent search engine, and browser-native, multi-chain crypto wallet. Brave currently has over 80 million monthly active users. Learn more at brave.com and basicattentiontoken.org.

EOS Network is changing its name as it dials in its ambitions as a business.

Vitalik, top AI researchers, and a host of academics descended on Stanford University to talk AI x Crypto. Here were my top takeaways.

Michael Saylor isn't done with his BTC buys yet.

Swyftx dials into its regional expansion with this acquisition.

Wiz and Google: Securing the Cloud

Congratulations to Assaf and the team.

By Doug Leone Published March 18, 2025

Before we partnered with Wiz in February 2020, our history with Assaf Rappaport and his co-founders Yinon Costica, Roy Reznik and Ami Luttwak already went back almost a decade.

We learned in 2013 that a team of alumni from Israel’s elite 8200 cybersecurity unit were starting a company together. We look for outliers at Sequoia—a founder coming out of 8200 was noteworthy, but a whole team was very special. They weren’t looking for financing. But after our Tel Aviv-based partner Gili Raanan secured a meeting, we convinced them to partner with Sequoia and we led the first financing for Adallom. (I later learned that Assaf thought I was Don Valentine when we first met, which may be why he agreed to the meeting.) 

After selling Adallom to Microsoft and leading Microsoft’s Cloud Security Group for five years, the co-founders left to once again start something new. We were thrilled to hear they wanted Sequoia and Gili (who by then had his own firm, Cyberstarts) to be their first partners. 

They didn’t know exactly what the something new would be, but they now had a proven track record and the ambition to build an enduring company. Before they even had a product, we led their initial financing round alongside Cyberstarts in early 2020 and I joined the board.

The team quickly hit on the insight that cloud security needed a simpler, agentless architecture for an increasingly complex digital world. Once the vision for Wiz became clear, they accelerated like no company I’ve ever seen: My partner Bogomil Balkansky, who also works with Wiz, says that in the early days the team strategically leveraged their Israeli time zone, working 9-5 on the product and then working late into the night on sales calls to the U.S. and Europe. 

As we helped recruit team members, we were consistently impressed with the caliber of talent joining Wiz and their ability to move quickly. Wiz set a record, reaching $100 million in annual recurring revenue in just 18 months, faster than any software company in history, and quickly became a leader in cloud security. 

Today’s milestone marks the start of an exciting new chapter. Wiz and Google Cloud share a vision to improve security by making it easier and faster for organizations of all types and sizes to protect themselves, end-to-end, across all major clouds. This will help spur the adoption of multicloud cybersecurity.

The future is bright for Wiz inside of Google Cloud. Just as we believed Google would change the world when we first partnered with the company in 1999, we believe Wiz is transforming cloud security.

At Sequoia, we partner with founders who want to make a dent in the universe. We couldn’t be prouder of Assaf and the team in reaching this milestone. It’s been an honor to be your partner for over a decade. Thank you for letting us be a part of your journey.

Share Share this on Facebook Share this on Twitter Share this on LinkedIn Share this via email Wiz: The Story Behind Their Rapid Ascent by Harry Spitzer Spotlight Partnering with Eon: Cloud Backup Reinvented By Shaun Maguire and Dean Meyer News Read Partnering with Apex Security: The AI-Empowered Future, Secured News Read Partnering with Kela: Modern Defense for Israel and Western Allies By David Cahn, Dean Meyer and Shaun Maguire News Read JOIN OUR MAILING LIST Get the best stories from the Sequoia community. Email address Leave this field empty if you’re human:

The post Wiz and Google: Securing the Cloud appeared first on Sequoia Capital.

The ad highlighting its upcoming conference drew criticism for its embrace of right-leaning talking points.

AI voice technology has been around for years — think Siri or Alexa — but the magic has been missing. That’s changing, and quickly!

In this episode, Anish Acharya, General Partner at a16z, and Olivia Moore, Partner at a16z, explore why AI voice is reaching a breakthrough moment, how today’s models feel more human than ever, and why voice is poised to become the primary way people interact with AI.

With businesses already making tens of thousands of AI-driven phone calls daily, AI-powered conversations are no longer a distant vision—they’re happening now. Whether it's AI companions, customer service bots, or enterprise applications, voice tech is here—and it’s improving faster than anyone expected.

 

Resources:

Find Anish on X: https://x.com/illscience

Find Olivia on X: https://x.com/omooretweets
Read the report: https://a16z.com/ai-voice-agents-2025-update/

Listen to Raising Health’s episode on how voice AI is solving healthcare’s workforce challenges : https://a16z.com/podcast/voice-ai-solving-healthcares-workforce-challenges-with-ankit-jain/

 

Stay Updated: 

Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

Has the endgame for Ethereum scaling finally arrived?

The Treeverse alpha is live! Here's everything you need to know about this new open world MMORPG on the Immutable zkEVM.

Durov had been detained in France for seven months amid an investigation into criminal activity on the Telegram platform.

The Ethereum-compatible chain promises to be the 'settlement layer where TradFi will merge with DeFi.'

The major exchange is facing increased scrutiny from EU regulators.

It’s no longer a secret that Big Tech companies generally prioritize profits over privacy. You’ve probably heard the saying: “If it’s free, then you are the product.” What’s even more alarming is that while we navigate the complexities of raising kids in a hyper-connected world, these tech giants are quietly amassing vast troves of data, often with little regard for the long-term consequences.

The veneer of child-friendly interfaces and educational apps masks a relentless data collection machine. From seemingly innocuous games to social media platforms designed for “younger audiences,” children are being tracked, profiled, and targeted with alarming efficiency. This isn’t just about collecting basic demographic information; it’s about building intricate dossiers that can influence their behaviours, shape their preferences, and even predict their future actions.

Earlier this month, the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) announced that it had begun investigating how TikTok, Reddit, and Imgur processed children’s data. Although the outcome of the investigations is yet to be made public, the privacy watchdog was examining whether TikTok’s use of children’s data leads to them being fed inappropriate or harmful content.

Separate inquiries are being conducted to determine the validity of Imgur and Reddit’s practices regarding the use of UK children’s personal data for age verification purposes.

“We welcome the technology and innovation that companies like social media bring to the UK and want them to thrive in our economy. But this cannot be at the expense of children’s privacy,” John Edwards, UK Information Commissioner said.

In 2023, TikTok was slammed with a £12.7M fine by the ICO for illegally using children’s data, including allowing 1.4M UK kids under 13 onto the platform in 2020. Meanwhile, over 42% of UK parents feel helpless when it comes to social media and video platforms collecting their kids’ data, according to a new ICO study.

In conclusion, the digital landscape is not inherently harmful, but the current practices of Big Tech companies are creating a dangerous environment for children. It’s time to demand transparency, accountability, and a fundamental shift in how these companies prioritize the well-being of our kids.

PIVX. Your Rights. Your Privacy. Your Choice.
To stay on top of PIVX news please visit PIVX.org and Discord.PIVX.org.

Big Tech’s Dirty Secret: Your Kids’ Privacy Doesn’t Matter! was originally published in PIVX on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Partnering with Kela: Modern Defense for Israel and Western Allies

Four veterans of elite intelligence units, including the former General Manager of Palantir Israel, are building an innovative new defense prime, starting with border protection. Their vision is to leverage Israel’s unique cadre of “technowarriors” to help defend the Western world order.

By David Cahn, Dean Meyer, and Shaun Maguire Published March 17, 2025 Team Kela and Team Sequoia, together in Tel Aviv.

Israel is unusual in the West: It still has a draft. At the end of high school, instead of applying to colleges, students make bids to join elite units in the military. From the paratroopers to the combat divisions to the elite intelligence group Unit 8200, competition to get the best assignments is fierce.

Israel’s startup ecosystem has thrived by leveraging this talent to build tremendous businesses: post-draft, the country’s “technowarriors” staff many of its most successful tech companies. Veterans of 8200 and other units founded Sequoia portfolio companies Wiz, Island, Cyera, Eon and Decart, among others—and today, about half of global cybersecurity investment goes into Israeli companies. 

Kela’s mission is to redeploy this technowarrior talent back into the defense sector. The vision is two-fold: in the short term, to upgrade Israel’s internal defense capabilities. The company’s initial focus is border protection, an urgent priority post-October 7th. In the long term, the ambition is to convert Israel into a defense tech hub for Western militaries—a source of strategic advantage for NATO and the U.S. as they seek to deter their adversaries.

As conflicts become more tech-native—we have seen previews of this in Ukraine—the Israeli skillset is becoming increasingly important for the Pentagon and for NATO countries. Cyberwarfare, AI, autonomous systems, jamming and counter-jamming techniques, and GPS-denied navigation are just a few of the ways modern defense is becoming technologically sophisticated. Historically, a nation’s industrial might determined its military power. If technology begins to play a co-equal role, then Israel should evolve an even more critical role in defending the Western alliance: as a major exporter of advanced defense technology.

Kela’s founders share a deep expertise in military intelligence. Alon Dror graduated from Israel’s highly selective Talpiot program, which accepts only 25 to 60 cadets per year. After Talpiot, he served as a Tank Platoon Commander and in MAFAT, Israel’s R&D directorate, where he won the Israel Defense Prize. Hamutal Meridor served in Unit 8200 before entering the private sector, where she was General Manager for Palantir’s Israel business. Alon and Hamutal share highly complementary skillsets: Alon is a mission-oriented R&D leader and Hamutal is a business-oriented strategist. Both see Kela as their life’s work.

We at Sequoia had independently formed a thesis around Israeli defense tech, and were primed on this idea when we re-connected with Alon and Hamutal, both of whom we had pre-existing relationships with, during a trip to Israel in April 2024. We were so invigorated by the team’s plans that we extended a breakfast meeting into a full-day conversation. We also traveled to Jerusalem to meet Jason Manne, the company’s third co-founder and an algorithms team leader (Major) in an elite combat-focused R&D unit. Jason was accurately described to us as “the guy you come to when you need something built in two days that usually takes two months.” We were privileged to lead Kela’s $10M seed round shortly thereafter.

The final dominos fell into place over the summer: Omer Bar-Ilan, a technical genius known for his work on Israel’s Iron Dome, joined as Kela’s fourth co-founder. We also partnered with Lux Capital’s Brandon Reeves and Josh Wolfe, who led the company’s Series A and brought on a fantastic angel coalition. The former deputy commander of Unit 8200 was an early advisor to Kela, and numerous retired generals helped to hone the vision and value proposition.

Since its founding, the Kela team has been relentlessly focused on product R&D. Kela’s product is an open architecture platform to integrate sensor data for defense. The company aims to leverage existing commercially available and military-grade technology. It does this by 1) militarizing existing commercial technology (e.g., drones), 2) integrating disparate military technology systems (e.g., specialized sensors), 3) delivering these capabilities to personnel through a single, easy-to-use command center interface and 4) embedding advanced intelligence and AI.

Seven months into building, Kela’s product is now live in the field with multiple active projects. The team’s speed has been a critical differentiator, allowing Kela to achieve in days what legacy companies might require weeks, months, or even years to accomplish. This has earned it early plaudits from both generals and soldiers, who value Kela’s deep understanding of their mission, the company’s technological rigor, and the team’s quick, seamless execution.

With strong demand in Israel and early market pull from American and NATO customers, Kela is now scaling up. The company has recruited 20 elite individuals, each of whom is standalone brilliant, and who collectively have become a force to be reckoned with. We are excited to announce our new venture to the world. Calling on all technowarriors—come join us!

Share Share this on Facebook Share this on Twitter Share this on LinkedIn Share this via email Related Topics #AI #Funding announcement AI in 2025: Building Blocks Firmly in Place By David Cahn Perspective Read Partnering with Decart: The Future of AI-Generated Experiences By Shaun Maguire and Dean Meyer News Read AI’s $600B Question By David Cahn Perspective Read Partnering with Eon: Cloud Backup Reinvented By Shaun Maguire and Dean Meyer News Read JOIN OUR MAILING LIST Get the best stories from the Sequoia community. Email address Leave this field empty if you’re human:

The post Partnering with Kela: Modern Defense for Israel and Western Allies appeared first on Sequoia Capital.

In today’s episode, renowned academic and legal scholar Professor Joseph H.H. Weiler speaks with Matt about The Trial of Jesus – connecting the historical event as a lens for understanding justice, religious pluralism, and democracy. The examination leads us through the limits of state neutrality in matters of faith, the balance between freedom of and from religion, and the evolving role of digital platforms. Professor Weiler shares perspectives from his extensive legal scholarship while reflecting on the intersection of theology, democracy, and technological change in our modern world. An incredibly poignant episode that is a must-listen.

Note: This episode was recorded in Dec 2024.

Links & References: 

References:

The Trial of Jesus - First Things | By J.H.H. Weiler Sanhedrin trial of Jesus - Wikipedia The Christian Europe by J.H.H. Weiler | Una Europa cristiana - Ediciones Encuentro “La Rochefoucauld voice in our ear” | François de La Rochefoucauld (writer) - Wikipedia Nostra aetate [EN] Second Vatican Council - Wikipedia “imitatio Dei” | Imitation of God - Wikipedia Lautsi v. Italy - Wikipedia "Laïque” (FR) = “secular” European Convention on Human Rights Statement of Micah | Why Micah 6:8? | Westmont College Guarini Colloquium on Legal Controls of Digital Platforms | NYU School of Law SALVIFIC | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary Voltairean - Wiktionary, the free dictionary Olga Tokarczuk - Wikipedia The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk - Wikipedia The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk: 9780593087503 | PenguinRandomHouse.com Telos - Wikipedia “goal” 

Bios:

J.H.H. Weiler is University Professor at the NYU Law School and a Senior Fellow at the Center for European Studies at Harvard. He served previously as President of the European University Institute, Florence.  Prof. Weiler is Co-Editor-in-Chief of the European Journal of International Law (EJIL) and the International Journal of Constitutional Law (ICON). Among his Honorary Doctorates there is one in Theology awarded by the Catholic University of America. In 2022, he received the Ratzinger Prize awarded by Pope Francis.

J.H.H.’s Links:

J.H.H. Weiler - Biography | NYU School of Law Freedom Of and From Religion in Democracies by J.H.H. Weiler | Combinations Magazine by RxC

Matt Prewitt (he/him) is a lawyer, technologist, and writer. He is the President of the RadicalxChange Foundation.

Matt’s Social Links:

ᴍᴀᴛᴛ ᴘʀᴇᴡɪᴛᴛ (@m_t_prewitt) / X

Connect with RadicalxChange Foundation:

RadicalxChange Website @RadxChange | Twitter RxC | YouTube RxC | Instagram RxC | LinkedIn Join the conversation on Discord.

Credits:

Produced by G. Angela Corpus. Co-Produced, Edited, and Audio Engineered by Aaron Benavides. Executive Produced by G. Angela Corpus and Matt Prewitt. Intro/Outro music by MagnusMoone, “Wind in the Willows,” is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)

Solana needs no introduction. Ever since its inception, it pushed throughput scaling on a single chain, without the need of sharding or rollups. Despite its ups and downs that culminated at the bottom of the bear market after the FTX crash, it managed to not only survive, but build a vibrant community around crypto's (arguably) most prominent PMF (thus far).

Join us for a fascinating discussion and learn about Anatoly's take on controversial topics such as MEV, concurrent block leaders (the equivalent of Ethereum's PBS proposal), L2 rollups, Solana economics, how to tackle potential exploits and more.

Topics covered in this episode:

How the original Solana vision turned out What makes blockchains valuable MEV & program writable accounts Concurrent block proposers Current bottlenecks for scaling Solana Mainnet vs. L2 rollups Firedancer upgrade Halting the network vs. rollbacks Solana’s scaling roadmap DoubleZero Worst hacks on Solana UI exploits, Bybit hack and smart contract security Solana economics and the SIMD-0228 proposal Future improvements Use cases for blockchains Solana mobile

Episode links:

Anatoly Yakovenko on X Solana on X Solana Mobile on X

Sponsors:

Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io Chorus One: one of the largest node operators worldwide, trusted by 175,000+ accounts across more than 60 networks, Chorus One combines institutional-grade security with the highest yields at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain & Martin Köppelmann.

Weekly Recap: Trump's tariffs put ETH into a downward spiral

The newly established Panther Protocol Foundation, based in Switzerland, will launch a Limited Mainnet Beta before the end of the month on Polygon Network. Closely resembling Panther’s intended mainnet setup, the beta test will operate as a fully self-contained environment using real assets. The beta will serve as a final phase of testing, ensuring functionality and collecting valuable feedback leading up to Panther’s full mainnet launch. This will be the foundation’s first action taken as owner of the Panther codebase. 

Why a Limited Mainnet Beta?

Panther’s beta will be a controlled, self-contained production environment in which features are tested with a limited group of users before full deployment. Unlike traditional testnets, the beta test will use real assets. This will allow the Foundation to fine-tune functionality using actual user interactions and real-world conditions, creating a seamless experience when Panther’s full mainnet launches.

Zone Manager

Panther Protocol’s Shielded Pool will be divided into Zones, each managed by a Zone Manager, a licensed operator who will oversee user access and compliance. For the beta test, Eurobit, a Spanish crypto exchange and licensed Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP), will be the Zone Manager. Separately, the Panther Protocol Foundation had previously announced that it would work with Eurobit to support its application to become a Zone Manager for Panther’s mainnet.

Preparations underway

The trusted setup ceremony required for the Limited Mainnet Beta has been successfully completed. The process involved having members from the tech team, Panther Foundation, Purefi (compliance partner), Eurobit and the Panther community contributing sequentially, each adding cryptographic randomness to generate the final parameters securely. This ensures the integrity and security of Panther Protocol's Zero-Knowledge circuits ahead of the beta.

What’s Next?

In the coming days, Panther will release more details about the exact timing of the Beta network, including how users can participate, potential rewards, the sign-up process, and more. 

Stay informed by following Panther on X, Discord and Telegram.

Here are the five crypto projects we think you should focus your March airdrop hunting efforts on.

AI-powered trading has taken center stage as Bankr and Grok sparked a viral token boom with $DRB.

Following a pair of buggy testnet debuts, Pectra is getting one more rollout from Ethereum devs on the new testnet 'Hoodi.'

PIVX Weekly Pulse (Mar 7th, 2025 — Mar. 13th, 2025)

Stay informed on PIVX: we’re recapping the week’s market movements, privacy advancements, and community wins.

Top Stories New Listing: PIVX is now available on Guardarian, a non-custodial on and off-ramp platform for cryptocurrency swaps. Users can easily buy, sell, and swap PIV with over 50 fiat currencies and 1000+ cryptocurrencies. Market Pulse Masternode Count: The PIVX network experienced a decrease in active masternodes, dropping from 2,058 last week to the current count of 1,975. This decline may be related to a recent temporary fork on the chain, which has since been resolved. Price Check: PIV’s Daily USD Value experienced a noticeable dip this week, with trading activity between $0.14 and $0.17. This resulted in a weekly average of $0.16, a decrease from the previous week’s average of $0.175. In general, PIV has continued to trade within a relatively narrow range, indicating sideways movement, while facing increased selling pressure amid the general market downturn. Trading Buzz: The total Weekly Trading Volume was approximately $14.75 million, a decrease from the $15.5 million recorded last week. Furthermore, daily transactions fell below the consistent $2 million threshold, a shift not seen in several weeks.

PIVX. Your Rights. Your Privacy. Your Choice.
To stay on top of PIVX news please visit PIVX.org and Discord.PIVX.org.

PIVX Weekly Pulse (Mar 7th, 2025 — Mar. 13th, 2025) was originally published in PIVX on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Trump's pre-product DeFi play sped through fundraising post-election after a slow start.

The much-hyped proposal would have drastically reduced SOL token inflation over time.

It's rough out there for crypto buyers. Here are some onchain places investors are finding relief.

The DeFi stalwart is doubling down on real-world assets with their latest launch.

The post Gen AI Present and Future: A Conversation with Jim Swanson, CIO at Johnson & Johnson appeared first on Greylock.

The WSJ report also cited that CZ was trying to get a pardon, a claim he denied on X.

The acquisition is the latest signal from crypto's power players that stablecoins are already big business.

More crypto projects are overhauling their tokenomics and taking a closer look at integrating token buybacks.

Shadow NFTs by Yuga Labs offer crosschain NFTs without bridges or wrapping. Here’s how LayerZero’s lzRead powers them.

The arrest of the Lithuanian National comes after the Garantex exchange was shut down by American authorities last week.

The video-sharing site is the latest company to put bitcoin on its balance sheet.

Abu Dhabi's massive investment in Binance comes amid increasing regulatory clarity for crypto globally.

The internet has become an indispensable part of our daily lives, facilitating everything from work and education to social interaction. This pervasive connectivity, however, amplifies the potential for cybercriminals to exploit vulnerabilities across our growing array of online accounts and devices.

Here are a few five safety tips to help you protect your privacy online.

1. Create Strong Passwords

With virtually every website wanting you to create an account, your passwords are the first line of defence against unauthorized access. Creating strong and unique passwords for each online service is fundamental to maintaining your privacy.

Not all accounts require maximum security. Protect your most sensitive logins, like email and banking, with unique, robust passwords. For lower-risk sites, a shared, strong password offers a practical balance.

A strong password should be at least 12 characters long and include a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters. Avoid using easily guessable information such as birthdays, names of family members, or common words. Instead, consider using passphrases — longer combinations of words that are easier for you to remember but difficult for others to guess.

Additionally, enable two-factor authentication (2FA) whenever possible. This adds an extra layer of security by requiring a second form of verification beyond your password, such as a code sent to your phone or generated by an authentication app.

2. Don’t Overshare

I bet you know someone who lives out their entire lives on social media. From eating out at a famous restaurant to bungee jumping, leaving college, and even taking a dump, the urge to share every aspect of our lives can lead to overexposure, jeopardizing our personal security.

Exposing too much personal information — location, birthday, hometown, even seemingly innocuous details — creates a digital footprint that can be exploited.

Take control of your privacy by meticulously reviewing and adjusting your social media settings. Understand who can see your posts, and exercise restraint when divulging sensitive data. Remember, the online world retains information indefinitely, and what feels transient today may have lasting consequences tomorrow.

3. Secure Your Browsing Habits

Ever wonder why those sneakers you browsed suddenly follow you across the web? It’s not magic, it’s tracking. Platforms use algorithms to analyze your browsing history and target you with ads.

Your browsing activity reveals significant information about your interests, shopping habits, health concerns, and more. Taking steps to secure your browsing can substantially improve your privacy.

Consider using privacy-focused browsers that block trackers by default. Extensions like privacy badgers, ad blockers, and cookie managers can provide additional control over what information websites collect about you. Regularly clear your browsing history, cookies, and cached data to minimize the digital trail you leave behind.

Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) encrypt your internet connection and hide your IP address, preventing your internet service provider and potential eavesdroppers from seeing what websites you visit. When choosing a VPN, research reputable providers that have clear privacy policies and don’t log your activities.

Private browsing modes (such as Incognito in Chrome or Private Browsing in Firefox) offer limited privacy by not saving your browsing history locally, but they don’t prevent tracking by websites or your internet service provider. Use them as one tool in your privacy toolkit, not as a complete solution.

4. Free Wi-Fi? Think Twice

Public Wi-Fi networks, often found in cafes, airports, and other public spaces, typically lack robust security protocols. This creates a vulnerable environment where malicious actors can easily intercept your data.

Imagine conducting online shopping, entering your credit card details, or accessing sensitive financial information while on such a network. Without adequate encryption, your activity becomes an open book, easily accessible to anyone with the right tools.

To protect your financial and personal data, exercise extreme caution when using free public Wi-Fi. It’s best to postpone sensitive transactions until you are connected to a secure, password-protected network, such as your home Wi-Fi or a trusted mobile hotspot.

5. Verify Before You Click

You probably received an email from a distressed Nigerian prince — I am from Nigeria, by the way. This is a classic example of phishing. Cybercriminals excel at deception, crafting phishing scams to mimic legitimate communications from trusted entities like banks and utility companies.

These fraudulent emails often contain malicious links or attachments, posing a significant threat to your security.

Be vigilant for telltale signs of phishing, such as spelling errors, unusual sender email addresses, or requests for sensitive information. By recognizing these red flags, you can protect yourself from falling victim to these insidious attacks.

PIVX. Your Rights. Your Privacy. Your Choice.
To stay on top of PIVX news please visit PIVX.org and Discord.PIVX.org.

Safety Tips to Protect Privacy Online was originally published in PIVX on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The U.S. House has voted to repeal an IRS tax rule that had been a headache for the crypto industry.

In this episode, Matt Prewitt sits down with Audrey Tang, Taiwan’s Cyber Ambassador-at-large and 1st Digital Minister, as well as the star of the new short documentary Good Enough Ancestor. It is a fascinating conversation exploring the profound intersections of technology, spirituality, and democracy. 

Topics they cover include: 

Daoism and spiritual practice – and their favorite Leonard Cohen lyrics. “Laser blended vision” as a metaphor for democracy – integrating different perspectives into a coherent whole. “High-bandwidth, low-latency” democracy – allowing for real-time collaboration. January 6 vs. Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement – contrasting two parliamentary occupations. Marshall McLuhan’s “hot and cool media” – and what it means for how we should build and use AI. The role of education in democracy – and how spirituality’s place in learning differs between the East and West. AI’s moral tradition gap – why today’s models lack cultural and ethical grounding. Trade, sovereignty, and democracy – how to balance open societies with national autonomy. RadicalxChange – how the movement is like “conservative anarchism” and Daoism in transcending left-right divides.

Watch Good Enough Ancestor at combinationsmag.com/good-enough-ancestor.

Bios:

Audrey Tang, Taiwan’s Cyber Ambassador-at-large and 1st Digital Minister (2016-2024), is celebrated for her pioneering efforts in digital freedom. Named one of TIME’s “100 Most Influential People in AI” in 2023, Tang was instrumental in shaping Taiwan’s internationally acclaimed COVID-19 response and in safeguarding the 2024 presidential and legislative elections from foreign cyber interference. Tang is now focused on broadening her vision of Plurality — technology for collaborative diversity — to inspire global audiences.

As the first nonbinary cabinet member globally, Tang identifies as “post-gender” and is comfortable with any pronouns. She is a respected community leader and a founding contributor to g0v, an initiative promoting transparency by making information about Taiwan’s economy, history, politics, and culture accessible.

Tang has been key in developing participation platforms such as Join.gov.tw, leading to practical improvements like enhanced access to tax software and revised cancer treatment regulations. A “conservative anarchist,” Tang is dedicated to boosting digital competence and safeguarding information integrity online through collective intelligence.

A child prodigy, Tang excelled in advanced mathematics by age six and computer programming by age eight. By 19, she had held significant positions in software companies and worked as an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley. Growing up in a large family following Christian and Taoist traditions, Tang embraced pluralism and the internet’s potential to connect people based on shared interests rather than geography, fueling her drive for global impact.

In Taiwan, Tang’s generation has always intertwined politics with the internet, striving for a more transparent and inclusive society. Despite Taiwan’s martial law history, Tang and her fellow civic technologists have achieved internationally acclaimed progress toward greater governmental transparency.

During the 2014 Sunflower Movement, Tang played a crucial role in livestreaming protests against a trade agreement with Beijing, facilitating real-time communication that led to more peaceful negotiations and the movement’s success.

“Democracy can evolve.” Tang says. “We can create innovative policies by simply asking the people, ‘What should we do together?’”

There is also promising news behind Tang’s grand plan: more than half the world’s population – over 4 billion people – are holding elections in 2024. That’s over 70 countries.

Says Tang, “I want to be a good enough ancestor for future generations.”

Audrey’s Social Links: 

⿻ Audrey Tang 唐鳳 (@audreyt) / X ⿻ Audrey Tang 唐鳳 (@audreyt.org) — Bluesky 唐鳳Audrey Tang (@digitalminister.one) • Threads, Say more Plurality.net 

Matt Prewitt (he/him) is a lawyer, technologist, and writer. He is President of the RadicalxChange Foundation.

Matt’s Social Links:

ᴍᴀᴛᴛ ᴘʀᴇᴡɪᴛᴛ (@m_t_prewitt) / X Matt's Writings 

Additional Credits:

This episode was recorded, narrated, and edited by Matt Prewitt. Production support from Jack Henderson.

Connect with RadicalxChange Foundation:

RadicalxChange Website @RadxChange | Twitter RxC | YouTube RxC | Instagram RxC | LinkedIn Join the conversation on Discord.

Credits:

Produced by G. Angela Corpus. Co-Produced, Edited, and Audio Engineered by Aaron Benavides. Executive Produced by G. Angela Corpus and Matt Prewitt. Intro/Outro music by MagnusMoone, “Wind in the Willows,” is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)

Veil is a privacy app on Base that lets you move ETH anonymously, breaking links between wallets.

The reserve is part of StarkWare's efforts to serve as a link between ETH and BTC ecosystems.

Lummis lays out her plan for acquiring 1 million BTC for the government's reserve.

As federal regulators take a step back in crypto enforcement efforts, California's regulators are cracking down.

~ Current $PIVX Masternodes: 2050
~ Estimated annual reward: 15.39%
~ $PIVX locked in Masternodes: 22.48%

Source: https://toolbox.pivx.org/en/rewards/ https://pivx.org/masternodes
Attn: #Masternode rewards vary based on the # of active MN in the #PIVX network.

PIVX. Your Rights. Your Privacy. Your Choice.
To stay on top of PIVX news please visit PIVX.org and Discord.PIVX.org.

PIVX Masternode Update was originally published in PIVX on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

For over a century, the United States has been the birthplace of world-changing innovation – from the Wright brothers’ first flight to the invention of the transistor, the moon landing, and the birth of the internet. But in recent years, belief in American progress has wavered.

Three years ago, a16z General Partner Katherine Boyle wrote a bold thesis called Building American Dynamism, challenging this apathy and calling for startups to tackle the country’s biggest problems. The idea spread fast – first as a meme, then as a movement, and today as a $600M dedicated fund.

In this episode, Katherine and fellow a16z General Partner David Ulevitch discuss:

The origins of American Dynamism—and why it was controversial at first How Washington and Silicon Valley can come together America’s competitiveness in today’s great power competition The latest American Dynamism 50 list focused on the Indo-Pacific, showcasing the top startups building for the national interest

If you’re curious about the future of America, this is a conversation you won’t want to miss.

Check out this year’s full AD50 list at a16z.com/AD50.

 

Resources: 

Find David on X: https://x.com/davidu

Find Katherine on X: https://x.com/KTmBoyle

Find last year’s’ American Dynamism 50 AI Addition’ here: https://a16z.com/american-dynamism-50-ai/

Read Katherine’s article ‘Building American Dynamism’: https://a16z.com/building-american-dynamism/

 

Stay Updated: 

Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

Let's dig into Celestia's metrics, adoption and development.

Bitcoin’s security and reliability as a store of value are undeniable. However, its liquidity remained untapped for too long due to a lack of trustless bridges and native smart contract capabilities. As BTC is only native to Bitcoin’s L1, any attempt to include it in DeFi relies on the trust assumptions of third party custodians that wrap it. Build On Bitcoin (BOB) aims to expand Bitcoin’s functionality by integrating it with Ethereum’s smart contract capabilities. BOB operates as an OP Stack L2 with a hybrid design incorporating ZKPs, Bitcoin staking, and Ethereum for data availability. By functioning as a rollup, BOB processes transactions off-chain and batches them for settlement on Bitcoin and Ethereum, significantly improving transaction speed and reducing costs compared to Bitcoin’s base layer.

Topics covered in this episode:

Alexei’s background Setbacks for Bitcoin DeFi Bitcoin bridges BitVM BOB operators and trust assumptions BOB architecture & Bitcoin staking Bitcoin LSTs The future of Bitcoin DeFi

Episode links:

Alexei Zamyatin on X Build on Bitcoin on X

Sponsors:

Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io Chorus One: one of the largest node operators worldwide, trusted by 175,000+ accounts across more than 60 networks, Chorus One combines institutional-grade security with the highest yields at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain.

As rolling outages hit the social network, crypto's yappers are without their primary home.

As the blockchain only now moves into "mainnet beta," there are already ETF applications in the works.

President Nayib Bukele continues to add to its reserves, but the IMF appears unphased.

Axie Infinity is back with Atia’s Legacy, a new MMO set in Lunacia. Here’s why it’s generating big buzz.

Crypto markets took another hit Monday as markets sweated Trump's comments on the recession.

Faced with a UK government demand for a backdoor into encrypted iCloud data, Apple has opted to remove its Advanced Data Protection (ADP) feature for UK users and pursue legal action against the government. The fuss is nothing short of a significant setback for digital privacy.

The crux of the conflict revolves around encryption, the technology that scrambles data, rendering it unreadable to unauthorized parties. Apple employs a robust end-to-end encryption known as ADP.

Introduced in December 2022, ADP puts encryption keys solely on user devices, denying Apple decryption capability. This contrasts with standard iCloud, where Apple holds the keys for recovery and can decrypt your data under legal orders, as seen in the 2023 political investigation. While privacy advocates lauded the opt-in feature, it was upsetting to law enforcement.

In January 2025, using its amended Investigatory Powers Act, the UK government ordered Apple to create an iCloud backdoor, citing unconfirmed counterterrorism reasons. This marked the beginning of an ongoing digital privacy battle.

Encryption Clash: Security vs. Privacy

The UK government, like many others, argues that strong encryption hinders law enforcement’s ability to investigate and prevent criminal activity, including terrorism and child sexual abuse. They contend that tech companies should provide “backdoors” or “exceptional access” to encrypted data under warrant.

Apple, however, vehemently opposes this notion, arguing that creating such backdoors would compromise the security of all users. They maintain that any vulnerability introduced for law enforcement could be exploited by malicious actors, putting everyone’s data at risk.

Rather than creating a “backdoor” that could compromise security for all users globally, the tech giant chose to remove the feature entirely for UK users. This decision, while maintaining the integrity of their general security architecture, reduces the protection afforded to UK users. While Apple hasn’t set a hard deadline, UK users who had enabled ADP began receiving notices on February 21, 2025, requiring them to turn it off or risk losing iCloud access. New UK users attempting to enable ADP now encounter error messages.

The removal of ADP means that several categories of iCloud data are now subject to standard encryption, where Apple holds the keys and can be compelled by legal requests to decrypt the information. This includes iCloud backups, photos, notes, voice memos, and Safari bookmarks.

The drama is heating up as Apple has appealed to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, an independent court that reviews claims against the Security Service, according to BBC sources.

Meanwhile, the UK’s order also triggered strong reactions from the US administration. President Donald Trump, speaking to The Spectator, likened the demand to ‘something that you hear about with China.’ US head of intelligence Tulsi Gabbard also expressed her anger at not being informed, calling it an ‘egregious violation’ of US citizens’ privacy rights and vowing to investigate potential breaches of the US-UK data agreement.

The Complexities of Balancing Security and Privacy

The Apple vs. UK showdown exposes the inherent tension between national security and individual privacy. Governments argue that they need access to encrypted data to protect their citizens, while tech companies and privacy advocates argue that such access would create a slippery slope toward mass surveillance and undermine the very security it purports to protect.

This debate is further complicated by the global nature of the internet and the challenges of jurisdictional boundaries. What constitutes “reasonable” surveillance in one country may be considered an egregious violation of privacy in another. The lack of international consensus on these issues makes it difficult to establish clear rules and regulations.

PIVX. Your Rights. Your Privacy. Your Choice.
To stay on top of PIVX news please visit PIVX.org and Discord.PIVX.org.

Apple vs. UK: Epic Privacy Showdown! was originally published in PIVX on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Weekly Recap: Trump creates bitcoin reserve and the SEC continues to drop cases

Ethereum’s onchain art movement is redefining creativity, turning smart contracts into canvases.

Nick's takes on the vibes and substance of Ethereum's big stateside conference.

Bittensor’s dTAO overhaul is transforming subnet economics, shifting power dynamics, and fueling speculation.

The Garantex exchange had been linked to Russian banks under western sanctions.

The Base L2 is expanding its team with talent from the privacy-centric blockchain project.

Partnering with Reflection: Toward Superintelligence, with Autonomous Coding

Misha, Ioannis and their team are building the AI dream: superintelligent agents capable of doing knowledge work, starting with autonomous coding.

By Stephanie Zhan and Charlie Curnin Published March 7, 2025 Reflection co-founders Misha Laskin and Ioannis Antonoglou.

“It’s not a human move. I’ve never seen a human play this move … so beautiful.”

That was Go champion Fan Hui’s reaction to Move 37—a moment that left the world in awe. It was the move that defined the 2016 showdown between Go legend Lee Sedol and DeepMind’s AI agent, AlphaGo. In that historic match, AlphaGo dominated, winning four out of five games, marking a pivotal milestone for artificial intelligence: that AI could reach superhuman levels of capability.

Ioannis Antonoglou, Reflection’s cofounder and Deepmind founding engineer behind AlphaGo, recalls the moment vividly: “Move 37 was spectacular … a brilliant, unconventional move that showed the system had a deep understanding of the game. It had creativity. It could think of things that people hadn’t thought of before.”

Ioannis continued pushing the frontier. He extended AlphaGo’s capabilities with AlphaZero—an AI that learned entirely from self-play, mastering the game without human guidance. Then, he led the development of MuZero, an even greater breakthrough: an AI that conquered Go, chess, Shogi, Atari and more—all without even being told the rules of the game.

These weren’t just incremental advances. They were seismic shifts in AI that showcased the significance of reinforcement learning in building superhuman agentic systems. Even today, AlphaGo, AlphaZero and MuZero remain amongst the most powerful AI agents ever created.

From AlphaGo to Reflection AI

At DeepMind, Ioannis went on to play a key leadership role in post-training efforts for Gemini, where he met Reflection cofounder Misha Laskin, who was leading reward model development. Together, they continued to push the boundaries of two of the most critical fields in AI: reinforcement learning and large language models. 

Their shared vision for superintelligence, and their elite domain expertise in building both the most capable agents and the most powerful LLMs, led to the birth of Reflection AI.

The vision of Reflection is to build superintelligent agents to conduct all knowledge work. Crucially, Reflection is built on two core beliefs:

That autonomous coding is a crucial step toward superintelligence. That real-world evaluations—not just benchmarks—matter most.

The company’s first focus? Building autonomous coding agents. 

Autonomous coding agents

We’ve seen the incredible benefit of coding assistants in enabling developers to work with 10x speed and productivity. In parallel to this, we believe that the next leap forward is autonomous coding agents that handle workloads autonomously.

Reflection’s autonomous coding agents integrate directly into an organization’s codebase and engineering workflows, and autonomously tackle well-scoped engineering tasks entirely end-to-end. They read, write, test and deploy code, handling all the infrastructure on your behalf, relieving the burden of entire engineering workloads from developers and teams.

The reality is, rather than writing new code, most engineers spend the majority of their time buried in refactoring, debugging and fixing bugs; code reviews, standups and sprint planning; updating documentation and learning new tools, languages and frameworks; and managing infrastructure, devops and testing. Reflection’s autonomous coding agents start with these sets of tasks: important, yet tedious, time-consuming work that often sits in an engineering team’s backlog. 

Crucially, Reflection is centered on reliability. To start, Reflection’s agents are not all-encompassing software engineers. Rather, they are agents that engineering teams and leaders design to handle specific sets of tasks and workloads, with trusted performance:

Refactor legacy code safely, without breaking dependencies Generate and run test cases automatically Optimize memory usage across pull requests Find and fix security vulnerabilities before they cause problems  And more!

As the team advances model intelligence to increase its scope of capabilities, Reflection’s agents take on more responsibilities. Imagine autonomous coding agents working tirelessly in the background, handling workloads that slow teams down. These agents understand your entire codebase, no matter how large or complex. They execute autonomously: planning, writing, testing and deploying code independently. They work continuously, spotting and solving problems proactively, and they improve over time, learning from real-world use. 

These are superintelligent coding agents, deployable instantly and in parallel. 

It’s a fundamental shift in how software is built and maintained. It’s one massive leap towards a future where developers become directors of autonomous coding agents who build and maintain code on our behalf … and long term, a future where we all become directors of superintelligent agents that conduct knowledge work on our behalf.

The elite team building this future

In just one year, Reflection has assembled a world-class team—made up of the very researchers and engineers who pioneered some of AI’s greatest breakthroughs:

Deep Q Networks, AlphaGo, AlphaZero and MuZero—landmark achievements in reinforcement learning. PaLM, Character AI, ChatGPT and Gemini—cutting-edge advances in large language models.

But what makes Reflection truly unique isn’t just its elite technical expertise—it’s the tight integration of research and product, combined with a customer-first approach to AI development.

They’re not just building frontier intelligence; they’re building the future of AI-driven software engineering with real-world impact.

Join us

Legendary companies are built on solving the most ambitious problems of our lifetime. As CEO Misha puts it:

“We’re working on the root node problem of our lifetime.”

Reflection AI is on a mission to achieve superintelligence, starting with autonomous coding agents that will redefine software development. We have deep conviction in their potential and are honored to have been their first and long-term partner in this journey.

On a personal note—working with Misha and Ioannis has been one of the greatest adventures of our lives.

We’re hiring world-class researchers, engineers and product builders in San Francisco, New York, London and Paris.

Come build the future with us!

Share Share this on Facebook Share this on Twitter Share this on LinkedIn Share this via email Related Topics #AI #Funding announcement Partnering with Gridware: Protect the Grid of Tomorrow By Bryan Schreier and Charlie Curnin News Read Partnering with rift: Sales, simplified. By Stephanie Zhan and Charlie Curnin News Read Partnering with Skild: The Future of Embodied Intelligence By Stephanie Zhan News Read JOIN OUR MAILING LIST Get the best stories from the Sequoia community. Email address Leave this field empty if you’re human:

The post Partnering with Reflection: Toward Superintelligence, with Autonomous Coding appeared first on Sequoia Capital.

Despite the major executive order, BTC price is still trading below $90,000.

PIVX Weekly Pulse (Feb 28th, 2025 — Mar. 7th, 2025)

Get a quick snapshot of PIVX’s week with our roundup of market activity, top privacy news, and community highlights.

Top Stories New Swap Aggregator: CoinoSwap now supports PIVX, enabling instant, cross-chain swaps. This integration reflects PIVX’s ongoing, aggressive strategy to increase accessibility through key partnerships and exchange listings. Market Pulse Masternode Count: The PIVX network saw a surge in masternode activity, resulting in an increase from 2,011 to 2,058 active nodes, suggesting significant accumulation. Price Check: The PIV Daily USD Value experienced a slight dip this week, trading between $0.16 and $0.20 and averaging $0.175. This represents a slight decrease compared to last week’s average of $0.18, reflecting the broader crypto market’s recent downturn. Trading Buzz: While the broader crypto sea saw some choppy waters, PIVX’s Daily Trading Volume remained a steady current. A robust $15.5 million in weekly trades, coupled with a consistent $2 million daily flow, paints a picture of ongoing, stable market engagement.

PIVX. Your Rights. Your Privacy. Your Choice.
To stay on top of PIVX news please visit PIVX.org and Discord.PIVX.org.

PIVX Weekly Pulse (Feb 28th, 2025 — Mar. 7th, 2025) was originally published in PIVX on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Henry Ward, cofounder and CEO of Carta, has spent over a decade scaling his company from an early-stage startup to a 2,000-person industry leader. In this a16z Speedrun conversation with Games partner Josh Lu, Henry shares hard-earned lessons on:

Hiring missionaries vs. mercenaries — and how to keep company culture intact as you scale The reality of product-market fit and why many founders try to sell too soon The evolution of a CEO — from building a product to building a system around you Inputs vs. outputs, and why companies should focus on the right leading indicators Transparency in leadership, including when (and when not) to share

This episode is packed with candid insights and lessons on company building. Recorded live at the a16z Speedrun program, you can learn more at a16z.com/games/speedrun.

 

Resources: 

Find Henry on X: https://x.com/henrysward

Find Josh on X: https://x.com/JoshLu

 

Stay Updated: 

Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

There are still big Berachain opportunities worth chasing.

The major upgrade has had rocky testnet rollouts, which left some developers uneasy.

The new startup Seismic aims to launch its chain with base layer encryption.

Sam Altman's crypto startup is building out its super app functionality.

Bankman-Fried spoke on a variety of subjects during the interview as he appears to angle for a pardon.

Despite SOL being floated as a likely inclusion, Anatoly Yakovenko isn't interested in a crypto reserve.

Trump's SEC has opened the door for previously cautious crypto startups to launch their tokens. Where should you watch?

Crypto: The Game S3 is kicking off with its NFT mint for entries. Expect high-stakes strategy, alliances, and Uniswap’s Unichain integration.

The popular Ethereum developer conference is headed to Argentina. Bankless will be there too!

The crypto trading giant is reportedly expanding efforts as the regulatory climate softens.

Crypto VCs are starting to bank new funds as enthusiasm returns to the U.S. crypto startup scene.

Zashi just got a major UX upgrade! The latest update introduces powerful tools to search, filter, and manage transactions effortlessly. Here’s what’s new: ✅ Bookmark important transactions for quick access […]

Source

Partnering with Freed: An AI-Powered Clinician’s Assistant

Erez and his team are transforming medical scribing to give doctors more time for their patients—and their lives.

By Josephine Chen and Jess Lee Published March 5, 2025 Team Freed.

Imagine a gifted student whose goal in life is to help people. Her path takes her to med school, and eventually to residency. She begins to see the patients she had always dreamed of helping. But instead of devoting her energy to their care—and to her life outside work—she finds herself buried in documentation and administrative tasks, spending hours charting over late nights and weekends. 

This was the experience of Dr. Gabi Meckler, a family physician in Santa Rosa, California. She wasn’t alone. Studies show that for every one hour of patient interaction, clinicians devote two hours to documentation. Almost 50% of doctors reported symptoms of burnout in a recent AMA survey, and nearly one-third are considering leaving the field altogether.

Dr. Meckler knew there had to be a better way—and so did her husband, Erez Druk, then an engineer at Facebook. Erez wanted to free his wife and other clinicians to spend less time on paperwork, so he and co-founder Andrey Bannikov designed a solution: Freed, an AI-powered clinician assistant. That solution quickly took off, growing in a product-led motion among small- and medium-sized independent practices around the country. 

Freed completely transforms the daily lives of clinicians. During a patient visit, clinicians use Freed to transcribe audio and generate draft medical notes. They can quickly review and edit the output, and the platform learns as they go, adapting style and terminology for each user—including preferences for phrasing, template layouts and specific medical vocabulary. After the patient leaves, Freed charts the visit and integrates the record into the EHR system. Doctors get less after-hours paperwork, more time and attention for their patients—and more space in their lives. The reviews are glowing: “Thanks to Freed,” one doctor said, “I close my computer and I’m done for the day. My kids get all of me.” Another: “I can focus on what really matters—my patients.” In many ways, Freed is a love letter from Erez to his wife Gabi, giving her—and doctors like her—precious time back.

When we first met Erez and Andrey, we were impressed by their customer obsession and velocity. Erez does everything with 200% intensity. Learning the saxophone at the age of 10 led to a scholarship from the Berklee School of Music; at the Israel Institute of Technology’s prestigious Technion University, he was at the top of his class. After graduation, he joined the team at Facebook—where he and Andrey met on his first day on the job. Their shared passion for innovation led to a years-long partnership, and now to a shared mission to help clinicians and their patients.

Today Freed serves more than 17,000 providers in small- and medium-sized practices across nearly 100 specialties, from mental health to pediatrics, giving doctors peace of mind and hours of time for what matters most. We at Sequoia are proud to support Erez, Andrey and their growing team by leading their Series A.

Share Share this on Facebook Share this on Twitter Share this on LinkedIn Share this via email Related Topics #AI #Funding announcement #Healthcare Partnering with Rox: Every Seller Needs an Agent Swarm By Konstantine Buhler and Josephine Chen News Read Partnering with Cove: The Next Gen of Assistants By Jess Lee News Read Bringing Generative AI to Healthcare By Josephine Chen Perspective Read Partnering with Squint: Instructions for the Real World News Read JOIN OUR MAILING LIST Get the best stories from the Sequoia community. Email address Leave this field empty if you’re human:

The post Partnering with Freed: An AI-Powered Clinician’s Assistant appeared first on Sequoia Capital.

The Zcash ecosystem is embarking on a new chapter, and with it comes both challenges and opportunities. As we navigate this transition, I want to take a moment to express gratitude, outline our immediate priorities, and share my approach to ensuring the Zcash Foundation (ZF) operates at the highest level possible throughout this process.

Thank You, Jack

First and foremost, I want to extend my sincere thanks to Jack for his four years of service to ZF and countless contributions to the Zcash ecosystem since inception. Leadership transitions are never easy, but Jack’s dedication to ZF and the broader Zcash ecosystem has left an indelible impact that will ensure ZF’s momentum continues as we move forward.

Appreciation for the ZF Team and Ecosystem Partners

Also, I am incredibly grateful for the ZF engineers who continue to push forward each day, solving complex challenges and keeping Zcash at the cutting edge of privacy technology. Your expertise and dedication are critical to the success of Zcash, and I deeply appreciate your work.

Beyond ZF, I want to recognize the contributions of other key engineering teams and community organizations in the ecosystem. Zcash’s success relies on collaboration, and the work happening across the broader network of contributors is invaluable. Thank you ECC, Shielded Labs, ZCG, grantees, Zcash communities around the world, and individual contributors for your efforts in making privacy-preserving financial tools a reality.

My Role and Priorities as Interim Executive Director and COO

As Interim Executive Director and COO, my primary focus is ensuring that ZF operates smoothly and effectively during this transition period. With the support of the ZF board, I am committed to providing the resources and structure needed for the team to continue their important work without disruption.

One of the most critical tasks ahead is co-leading a strategic planning process with the ZF board. Before we can recruit a new Executive Director, we need to clearly define what skills and experience are required to lead ZF into the future. This process will be collaborative, thoughtful, and designed to ensure the best possible outcome for ZF and the Zcash community.

Additionally, the board seat vacated by Jack will remain open until the new Executive Director is in place, ensuring that the future leadership of ZF is properly aligned with the organization’s long-term vision.

During this interim period I will continue to provide transactional support to ZCG and ZecHub via FPF and I will no longer hold a leadership role within the organization. As of March 1st, the FPF board of directors is solely responsible for all future-focused decision making and strategic planning to ensure there is no conflict of interest across my roles.

My Approach: Coordination, Communication, and Execution

I strongly believe that Zcash does not have the time or resources to waste on inefficiencies or misalignment. My approach to leadership during this period is guided by three key principles:

Coordination – We need to maximize the impact of our efforts across the Zcash ecosystem. That means avoiding duplication of work, streamlining decision-making, and ensuring that every resource is used as effectively as possible. Improving Communication – Both within ZF and across the broader Zcash community, communication must improve. ZF will be taking a closer look at how we share information and coordinate efforts, making necessary adjustments to ensure clarity, timeliness, and a cooperative approach to tackling challenges, both new and longstanding. Execution – If you’ve worked with me over the past three-plus years, you know that I take a “get shit done” approach to everything I do. This transition period is no exception. We will move forward with focus, ensuring that ZF remains a strong, reliable, and effective organization.

While transitions like this inevitably come with uncertainty, I am committed to ensuring that ZF not only remains stable but continues to move forward with clarity and purpose. We are not here to dwell on the past—we are here to build the future.

To everyone in the Zcash community: I appreciate your work, your effort, and your commitment to our shared mission. Let’s move forward together.

—Alex Bornstein, Interim Executive Director

#FreedomRunsOnPrivacy
#PrivacyRunsOnZcash

The post A New Chapter for Zcash Foundation: Looking Ahead with Gratitude and Focus appeared first on Zcash Foundation.

My first involvement in Zcash was nearly ten years ago. At the time, Zooko was trying to raise funding to build Zcash, and I gave him some feedback on his investor pitch. We stayed in contact, and I became an advisor to the Zerocoin Electric Coin Company (as ECC was then known). About a month before Zcash launched, I joined the ECC team full-time, and so I was there when we launched Zcash from the kitchen of an Airbnb in the Bay Area, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. 

The New York Times’ coverage of the Zcash launch

For the next four years at ECC, and then for another four years at the Zcash Foundation, I’ve had the privilege of working alongside some of the smartest and most dedicated people I’ve ever met. In that time, I’ve watched the Zcash ecosystem grow and become decentralised. As well as ECC and the Foundation, we now have QEDIT, Shielded Labs, the Financial Privacy Foundation, ZecHub, ZingoLabs, and a bunch of other teams that are funded by the Zcash Community Grants program, all of whom contribute to or support the Zcash mission in a variety of ways. 

As the Zcash ecosystem and community grows and evolves, so must the institutions that steward and support it, and that is especially true of the Foundation. 

As Executive Director, it has been my responsibility and privilege to serve the Zcash Foundation team, the Zcash community, and the Zcash mission for the past four years. One of my responsibilities as ED is to recognise when the time is right to step aside, to allow someone else to take the helm. 

I believe that time has come, and so I am stepping down from the role of Executive Director of the Zcash Foundation. 

Alex Bornstein is taking over as interim ED. Alex is eminently qualified, with prior experience as ED of a 501(c)(3), and nearly four years as ZF’s COO. In that role, he has ably supported and advised me, and I look forward to returning the favour while the ZF Board begins the process of recruiting a permanent ED who will lead ZF through the coming evolution of its role.

I want to thank the Zcash Foundation team and Board members — past and present — for granting me their trust, support and patience over the past four years. I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to work full-time on a project that aligns as strongly with my principles as Zcash does. 

To preempt any speculation or rumours: I am not leaving to take up another role, and there is no rancour or disagreement between the ZF Board and me. 

I will continue to support the Zcash Foundation in any way I can, and I will continue to support and contribute to the broader Zcash mission as a community member.

— Jack Gavigan, former Executive Director

The post Changing of the Guard appeared first on Zcash Foundation.

Panther Protocol has established a new Swiss-based foundation, replacing its previous Gibraltar-based entity. This strategic move positions Panther within a jurisdiction renowned for its stability, regulatory clarity, and leadership in blockchain innovation, privacy protection, and self-sovereignty, providing a solid foundation for long-term growth and development.

Why Switzerland?

Switzerland has built a reputation as a leading global hub for blockchain and financial innovation. It offers a well-defined legal framework that supports decentralization and privacy-conscious technologies. 

Beyond regulation, it is home to a deep ecosystem of blockchain pioneers, institutional players, and research initiatives that drive industry advancement. The Foundation’s new home places Panther in an environment that fosters compliance and meaningful innovation, ensuring it remains at the forefront of confidential DeFi infrastructure and global adoption.

Key Developments:  Establishment of a Swiss-Based Foundation – The Panther Protocol Foundation will drive the protocol’s long-term development. Intellectual Property Transfer—In the coming days, ownership of Panther’s codebase will be transferred from Panther Ventures Limited (PVL) to the new foundation. Asset Consolidation – Resources from the Gibraltar-based foundation will be merged into the newly established Swiss entity. Canary Network—Amongst the Foundation’s earliest priorities is the launching of Panther’s inaugural Canary Network, introducing real tokens to Panther’s platform for the first time. The Canary Network will provide valuable test results and insights under real-world conditions. Leadership Appointments—Panther welcomes Reuben Yap and John Marshall as council members. Together, they bring a wealth of expertise in privacy-preserving blockchain systems, decentralized governance, regulatory strategy, data ethics, and cybersecurity. What This Means for Panther

With the new framework in place, Panther is now well-positioned for privacy-focused DeFi innovation. The move to Switzerland provides an optimal regulatory framework for PF’s future growth and helps to sustain focus on privacy and compliance in DeFi.

The foundation will oversee the protocol’s ongoing development with more updates to follow.

About the Panther Protocol Foundation

The Panther Protocol Foundation is dedicated to supporting the adoption and sustainability of the Panther Protocol across the decentralized Web. The Foundation works to anchor Panther Protocol for DeFi and blockchain ecosystems, empowering users, builders, and licensed operators to participate in tomorrow’s internet while maintaining privacy. The Foundation also focuses on open-source code, research, and awareness of the core technologies of Panther Protocol. 

For more information, visit https://www.panther.org.

For more information about Panther Protocol, please visit www.pantherprotocol.io.

Contact Information

Panther Protocol Foundation

Email: general@panther.org

Website: www.panther.org

In the digital networked age, people’s attention often overlooks local problems in favour of global ones, which don’t necessarily impact them in their daily lives, or over which they don’t have a say due to the skewed Pareto distribution of power in modern day societies. Puja Ohlhaver, in her recent research paper ‘Community currencies’, proposes a dual-currency model that prices attention and influence in each community, with the ultimate goal of creating a Gaussian distribution of power, either locally, or globally through the dynamic interaction of multiple local communities. This model allows community members to stake their currency to earn non-transferable governance rights, creating a substrate for decentralised societal coordination that favours social innovation.

Topics covered in this episode:

Puja’s background Web3 research ‘Community currencies’ Pareto vs. Gaussian distributions Global vs. local power distributions The community currencies model Meritocracy vs. influence Quadratic funding Governance, bribery and the crisis of legitimacy Experimenting with community currencies

Episode links:

Puja Ohlhaver on X 'Community Currencies' Research Paper 'Decentralized Society' Research Paper

Sponsors:

Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io Chorus One: one of the largest node operators worldwide, trusted by 175,000+ accounts across more than 60 networks, Chorus One combines institutional-grade security with the highest yields at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst.

The post Introducing Highstock: Revolutionizing Cross-Border Commerce appeared first on Greylock.

Last year we launched Brave Search Ads in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. Today we share an update on our rapidly growing advertising business on Brave’s independent and privacy-preserving search engine, and preview our plans for expansion in the coming year.

From January to December of 2024, Brave grew search advertising clicks by 15x alongside organic search query growth of 80% (656 million in January to 1.19 billion in December). This initial customer success is the result of targeting the top 1% of paid search advertisers in our primary target regions. These are brands that are hitting the limit of efficiency with Google Ads, and who see Brave Search as a means to unlock additional reach. In most cases, the added conversion volume is in line with Brave’s market share in the region, but in some cases brands see as high as 5% growth on total paid search spend while maintaining their target rate for return on ad spend (ROAS).

Today, over half of the top 20 largest paid search advertisers worldwide are customers of Brave Search Ads, including Amazon Ads Sponsored Products, B&H Photo, Booking.com, CompareCredit, Nerdwallet, Stubhub, and Wayfair. Partnering with these leaders in paid search has been of tremendous value to the development of Brave Search Ads. With their help, we’re discovering new ways to achieve scale and improve the effectiveness of our advertising platform.

Our customers have been overwhelmingly supportive of our entry into the paid search market. Brands unanimously agree there should be more competition. At 90% of market share, Google wields pricing power that their customers have no choice but to accept. Our customers know that by buying on Brave Search, they are contributing directly to the development of a more competitive and fair search advertising market, and reaching engaged users and tech early-adopters who value privacy and independence. Importantly, first-movers on Brave Search Ads have benefited from category exclusivity in what is otherwise a highly saturated market, giving them an edge over competitors who exclusively buy Google Ads.

Overall, Brave Search advertisers are extremely satisfied with their experience; 9 out of 10 customers who started Brave Search Ads campaigns in 2024 have continued to advertise in consecutive months. 

What’s driving success at Brave

The two key forces behind our success in 2024 were the continued growth of the Brave browser (where in most regions Brave Search is the default), and the effectiveness of search engine advertising for all kinds of businesses.

Brave browser and Brave Search are growing at a sustained pace each month. In January, the Brave browser counted 80 million active users worldwide, and 1.29 billion Brave Search queries. The latest numbers are shared regularly to the public by our CEO Brendan Eich. 

Search advertising is a well-established market where ads help users find products they show clear intent for with their search keywords. Advertisers on Brave Search are seeing available keyword volume passively increase each month, with conversion rates remaining steady at 100, 1,000 or 10,000 monthly clicks. Brave Search has achieved a predictable and gradually-growing stream of new Web traffic, and thus conversion volume for advertisers. For the first time since Bing, there’s an independent search engine with high-quality search results that convert customers as well as or better than Google Ads.

While the formula itself is simple—a growing search engine plus good ads equals more advertisers—Brave Search didn’t appear overnight. The project began nearly two decades ago with Cliqz, which became Brave Search with a 2021 acquisition, and that tremendous effort is now bearing fruit. We’re very optimistic for the future given Brave Search’s global growth as well as its new features that make it hugely popular with users, such as Answer with AI, the answer engine with an integrated chatbot, and ReRank, which enables users to customize their search rankings.

About Brave and Search Ads

Brave builds a suite of tools—starting with the Brave browser and Brave Search—that give people better choices online with leading privacy and security protections, independence from Big Tech, tools to reduce distractions, and access to innovative features like generative AI.

Search Ads are sponsored results on the Brave Search results page. They are currently available to select advertisers in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, and Germany. To learn more and inquire about advertising on Brave Search, visit brave.com/brave-ads/search or email us at adsales@brave.com.

Even though current LLM providers usually charge flat rates regardless if the subscriber is a ‘power user’ or not, as AI agents become the workhorses of the online economy, a dynamic AI-to-AI payments infrastructure would prove crucial for proper remuneration. Nevermined proposes a blockchain-agnostic, AI-agnostic credit system, that each builder can use to implement custom pricing strategies for their users. As the next trillion transactions will be mostly performed by AI agents, a universal payment system would help streamline integrations and economic interactions.

Topics covered in this episode:

Don’s background Integrating payment systems in the agentic economy Marketplaces vs. payment systems AI agentic economy Fixed vs. variable pricing strategies License tokenization Settlement and payment for AI agents Estimating price and avoiding overcharges Nevermined’s tech stack and integrations Value prop Nevermined metrics

Episode links:

Don Gossen on X Nevermined on X

Sponsors:

Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io Chorus One: one of the largest node operators worldwide, trusted by 175,000+ accounts across more than 60 networks, Chorus One combines institutional-grade security with the highest yields at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst.

Being a creator in 2025 is tough—but building for creators is even harder. Perhaps no one understands this conundrum better than Scott Belsky. As the founder of Behance, a longtime executive at Adobe, and an advisor to companies like Pinterest and Atlassian, Scott has spent his career at the intersection of technology, design, and creativity.

In this speedrun episode, recorded live in San Francisco during the fourth iteration of our a16z Games Speedrun program, we dive into:

How AI can actually enable creators—and where its toolset should end The evolution from the "prompt era" to the "controls era" of AI Whether people really want bespoke, personalized experiences or simply crave familiarity What happens when creative scarcity disappears and AI-generated content becomes ubiquitous The future of creative tooling, from generative UI to AI-native interfaces

Plus, Scott shares insights from his time building Behance, leading product strategy at Adobe, and investing in the next generation of creative tools.

If you want to learn more about A16Z Games Speedrun, visit a16z.com/games/speedrun.

 

Stay Updated: 

Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

区块链景观正在以前所未有的速度发展,Horizen也是如此。

为了最大程度地提高可扩展性,互操作性和采用性, ZenIP 42406附录 提出了一项重大的战略举措:将Horizen($ ZEN）和EON迁移到Base（Coinbase的Layer 2)。

Base 是以太坊第2层（L2),为任何地方的任何人提供安全,低成本,对建筑商友好的方式来构建链，appchain是专用的Layer 3区块链,可卷成L2,继承其安全性和流动性,同时为专用应用程序提供增强的可扩展性,互操作性和自定义功能。

这不是Horizen 2.0 任务的改变-我们的目标和愿景保持不变，相反,该提案旨在将Horizen定位在增长最快的区块链生态系统之一中,从而释放出无与伦比的可扩展性,开发人员支持和机构信任。

阅读完整的ZenIP 42406附录,并了解该建议背后的动机和理由。

这对Horizen和ZEN意味着什么

加强生态系统整合

通过迁移到Base,Horizen立即与高度活跃的DeFi和dApp生态系统连接,为$ZEN提供了更大的实用性和可访问性。

该提案的目的是增强Horizen的Base设施,采用潜力和生态系统范围,同时保持其隐私和零知识（ZK）创新重点，迁移到Base的主要好处包括:

前所未有的可扩展性和低费用

Base利用了Optimism的OP Stack,并计划将交易速度缩减到1秒以下的最终结果,而成本低于1美分—是ZK驱动的应用程序的理想选择，

开发人员成长与CoinBase支持

Base提供了蓬勃发展的开发人员社区,丰富的流动性和强大的营销支持,使Horizen具有竞争优势。

机构级安全与信任

作为Coinbase支持的网络,Base增强了ZEN的机构信誉,巩固了其在Grayscale和Coinbase生态系统中的地位,并保持了$ZEN持有人的合规优势。

未来证明和更大的网络效应

预计2025年将有100个+应用在Base上使用,Horizen可以早期采用,更深的流动性和更大的互操作性。

在可扩展的生态系统中增强隐私

Horizen将可扩展性与先进的隐私创新相结合,将保护隐私的技术带入了Superchain。

优化的ZK集成

Base灵活的模块化架构使Horizen可以利用现有的汇总Base架构,同时专注于ZK创新的开拓性。

跨链互操作性

Base强大的桥接功能可促进与其他L2和L1的互操作性,从而扩展了$ZEN的范围和可组合性。

成本效率

与维护独立的基于基板的链相比,Base已建立的Base架构降低了开发成本。 为什么要搬到Base-为什么现在呢？

迁移到Base的建议不仅是技术上的转变,而且是使ZEN的采用,实用性和长期价值最大化的战略举措，

一年前,此举是不可能的-但今天,区块链景观发生了重大变化:

Base已发展成为一个繁荣的生态系统,超过了TVL和开发人员参与度的主要竞争对手，

第3层解决方案已成为改变游戏规则的缩放模型,可实现超低成本交易和更大的灵活性，

Horizen Labs在L2 / L3生态系统方面获得了第一手经验,有助于将Base确定为Horizen未来的最佳选择，

通过迁移到Base,Horizen可以与Coinbase支持的快速扩展的网络保持一致,同时保留其利用零知识证明实现可信赖的数字未来的愿景。

 

最终思想:视野的确定时刻

此举的目的是巩固Horizen在隐私和可伸缩性方面的领导地位,确保我们保持竞争力,创新性并深入以太坊生态系统。

Horizen一直致力于为未来建设,这一过渡标志着朝着实现我们的使命迈出大胆而必要的一步。

保持联系并加入对话:

阅读完整的ZenIP

加入社区讨论

加入我们的不和谐

在X上关注我们

Horizen正在发展—成为旅程的一部分！

常见问题（FAQ）

转移到Base会对新币领取过程产生任何影响吗？

对用户的影响将很小，新币领取过程将基本保持不变,并且 我们将确保所有余额的平稳过渡,无论是来自主链还是EON,都提前提供了明确的说明，

我们致力于在整个新币领取过程中进行清晰透明的沟通，在进行任何重大更改生效之前,我们将提供详细的公告,以解释该过程,其影响以及用户可能需要采取的任何措施，我们的目标是使体验尽可能无缝，

这种向Base的转变是否会影响Grayscale提供的Horizen $HZEN信托？

没有，Grayscale已经将Coinbase Custody用于资产存储,与Horizen迁移到Coinbase支持的生态系统Base非常吻合，这一战略转变进一步巩固了ZEN的机构地位,并增强了其在更广泛的Coinbase和Grayscale网络中的知名度，

ZEN Holders&Tokenomics呢？

本附录仅侧重于评估向 Base是Horizen的最佳部署环境 并且不包括其范围内的代币更改，但是,必须强调 ZEN的固定2100万供应量将保持不变，

尽管细节仍在最后确定中,但主要考虑因素包括:

激励: 与以前的Base设施相关的代币学组件可以进行调整,以优化激励措施并增强实用性,采用性和长期价值，

无缝迁移: 现有的ZEN余额将无缝迁移到新的L3结构,从而确保用户的连续性，

交流协调: 我们正在与主要交易所（例如Binance,Coinbase）紧密合作,以确保平稳过渡，

此过渡旨在将Horizen更深入地整合到Base和Optimism中,并利用其生态系统来扩展可访问性和采用性，

这会影响Horizen 2.0路线图和时间表吗？

尽管我们预计可能会加速,但很快就会提供详细的时间表以确保透明度，

Horizen还会专注于隐私吗？

是，Horizen致力于启用隐私优先应用程序的承诺保持不变，Horizen在ZKP和隐私保护技术方面的专业知识将成为其在Base生态系统中差异化的核心部分，

为什么Horizen现在采取这一行动？

Horizen一直将可扩展性,隐私和长期可持续性放在首位,而现在过渡的决定是由技术准备,生态系统成熟度和战略时机共同驱动的，

此前,第3层（L3)生态系统仍在形成,关键Base设施,最佳实践和工具仍在构建中，现在,随着OP Stack和Base变得更加强大,L3Base架构得到了改进,集成途径更加清晰,确保Horizen可以有效地进行此过渡的时机恰到好处，此外,更广泛的以太坊和乐观主义生态系统已经达到成熟水平,采用和流动性可以更好地支持新的L3,从而降低早期风险，

通过现在移动,Horizen有机会成为 已建立项目中的先行者,利用新兴但快速扩展的生态系统,同时确保无缝且得到良好支持的过渡，

此举将如何影响$ZEN流动性？

集成到Base中可以使ZEN更接近高度流动的生态系统,从而使用户和开发人员更容易访问和贸易，Base与Coinbase的紧密联系提高了知名度,并增加了进行更深入的交换整合和机构支持的可能性，

Horizen还会支持EVM和Solidity智能合同吗？

是！移至Base可确保完全的EVM兼容性,从而使现有开发人员可以更轻松地在Horizen上进行部署,而无需学习新框架，

Base的体系结构如何使Horizen开发人员受益？

Base的体系结构为Horizen开发人员提供了强大,可扩展且对开发人员友好的Base,从而可以更快地部署,降低成本并访问不断发展的工具和Base架构生态系统，

Horizen开发人员的主要好处:

降低开发开销: Base建立在OP Stack上,提供了BaseBase架构,从而降低了启动和维护L3的复杂性，开发人员可以利用现有的工具,SDK和框架,而无需从头开始构建自定义解决方案，

可扩展性和成本效益: Base的体系结构可实现高吞吐量和低交易成本,非常适合需要频繁交易的应用程序,例如DeFi,游戏和隐私保护技术，

访问与Coinbase连接的Base架构: Base与开发人员工具,法定设备和安全增强功能进行了深度集成,使构建者可以利用简化用户入职和增长的资源，

未来证明的生态系统: 随着Base的不断发展,Horizen开发人员将从正在进行的Base架构改进,安全升级以及整个生态系统对缩放解决方案的支持中受益，

通过在Base上建造,Horizen 开发人员可以专注于创新而不是Base架构,加速创建可扩展的,保护隐私的应用程序,同时确保与以太坊不断发展的生态系统长期保持一致，

Horizen EON上现有的dApp和合同会怎样？

我们正在评估最佳技术方法,我们的初步评估表明,可能需要在Base appchain上重新部署Horizen EON上的现有dApps和智能合同，虽然可能需要进行一些调整, 这一转变为开发人员提供了宝贵的机会,使他们可以访问Base的更广泛生态系统,更深的流动性和更低的交易成本,增强可扩展性并采用其应用程序，

为了支持这一过程,我们将提供明确的指导和帮助,包括技术资源和迁移支持,以确保平稳过渡，此举使Horizen社区在增长最快的区块链生态系统之一中蓬勃发展,为dApp和开发人员释放新的机会。

移至Base是否意味着Horizen放弃了权力下放？

没有，Horizen致力于分散化,同时利用Base来实现可扩展性和可访问性，Base本身建立在遵循以太坊权力下放原则的OP Stack之上,随着时间的流逝,Base的治理和Base设施有望进一步分散，

此外,Horizen将通过社区治理和对分散式隐私保护技术的持续研究,继续促进权力下放，

为什么要基于Base和OP Stack而不是其他新兴技术？

Base和OP Stack由于其强大的开发人员生态系统,可扩展性以及与以太坊安全模型的集成而成为主要的L2 / L3Base架构选择，

Horizen与蓬勃发展的,得到良好支持的技术堆栈保持一致,以确保长期的可持续性,互操作性和持续的创新，此外,Base在Coinbase的大力支持下提供了长期的信誉以及对生态系统增长的明确承诺，

The post Zenip 42408提案，正式通过！ $ZEN和EON即将迁入Base网络， 附详细官方答疑 appeared first on Horizen Blog.

Greetings community,

We are excited to announce the launch of the ShadeX Incentivized Public Testnet where users who give excellent feedback have the opportunity to earn eSHD — a engagement token that is redeemable for SHD.

ShadeX is the world’s first encrypted money market, providing data secure DeFi for all users — gone are the days of publicly visible lending and borrowing. Users have long risked the public knowledge and information tied to their liquidation price points; with ShadeX, that paradigm seizes to exist.

Get Started

If you have never used testnet before, you will want to first navigate to:

https://keplr-connect-pulsar3.vercel.app/

If you do not have a keplr wallet, you can create one here:

https://www.keplr.app/get

After you have connected here, open your keplr wallet and select navigate to:

settings → advanced → change endpoint → select “Secret Testnet” as your network.

Make sure your endpoints are set to the following:

RPC: https://pulsar.rpc.secretnodes.com
LCD: https://pulsar.lcd.secretnodes.com

Next, navigate to and walkthrough the steps to claim your free testnet gas:

https://faucet.pulsar.scrttestnet.com/

To find you Secret testnet address, you can always renavigate to https://keplr-connect-pulsar3.vercel.app/ and copy your address from there.

Finally, you will navigate to the shade app on testnet:

https://testnet.shadeprotocol.io/borrow
password: silky

Navigate to the “Wrap” page located under utilities and wrap some of your SCRT to sSCRT:

https://testnet.shadeprotocol.io/wrap

Next, navigate to the swap page and acquire some assets that will be usable in the lend and borrow pages:

https://testnet.shadeprotocol.io/swap

Finally, navigate to the “Lend” and “Borrow” page and start interacting with ShadeX.

https://testnet.shadeprotocol.io/lend

As you gather feedback on UI/UX, spot on bugs, or simply want to give encouragement to the developers, to submit a ticket to qualify for the competition, click on the purple “Support” button in the righthand corner and enter in “request” (click “enter” on your keyboard) and fill out the form + send the information to us.

Alternatively, you can submit your feedback on the Shade Protocol discord to “shadex-public-testnet”.

https://discord.gg/shade-protocol-905665558610051113 Win Rewards

The top highest quality and impactful 10 submissions on the ShadeX testnet will receive the following rewards:

2,000 eSHD 1,000 eSHD 500 eSHD 200 eSHD 200 eSHD 100 eSHD 100 eSHD 100 eSHD 100 eSHD 100 eSHD

Submissions should cover the following: UI/UX feedback, smart contract bugs, usability bugs. These submissions must only cover the Lend & Borrow tabs. Liquidations page also does not count as this page is still under construction. No other tabs on testnet count as a valid feedback submission out of the Lend / Borrow / and Manage pages.

Deadline for submission is GMT +0 at 18:00 on February 28th. Winners will be selected and rewarded the following week.

Conclusion

ShadeX is not merely redefining money markets; it is shaping the future of private, decentralized finance. By continually expanding its encrypted DeFi suite, ShadeX helps push Shade Protocol to new heights, positioning it as an unstoppable force in the world of permissionless, globally accessible, and secure financial services. This holistic approach ensures that Shade not only grows but also solidifies its standing as a leader in the DeFi space.

telegram — https://t.me/ShadeProtocol

app — https://app.shadeprotocol.io/analytics

We are pleased to announce that Taylor Hornby and Ted Hoffmann have joined the Zcash Foundation board. 

Taylor and Ted’s considerable expertise, along with their perspective as community members will enhance the Foundation’s ability to better support and serve the Zcash community.

Taylor Hornby (earthrise on the Forum) brings extensive experience to the Zcash ecosystem, having worked at the Electric Coin Company (ECC) during Zcash’s pre-launch, later returning to ECC in 2018 as a security engineer, before leaving in 2022 and becoming the Zcash Ecosystem Security Lead through 2023. His stated focus is aligning engineering efforts with product improvements and adoption, fostering unity among community leaders through constructive dialogue, and promoting a culture of collaboration and accountability. 

Ted Hoffmann (boggerster on the Forum) is a European citizen fluent in French, German, and English, with nearly a decade of experience in cryptocurrency. He’s particularly passionate about Ethereum and Zcash, valuing open finance and permissionless financial privacy as essential safeguards against authoritarian financial controls. He believes Zcash’s privacy features are critical for fostering a democratic society. Drawing on his extensive knowledge of blockchain ecosystems like Ethereum, Cosmos, Bitcoin, and Zcash, Ted advocates for a community-first approach to advancing Zcash, prioritizing effective communication, streamlined technology, robust onboarding, and a transition to proof-of-stake (PoS).

Taylor and Ted’s arrival coincides with the departure of Peter Van Valkenburgh and Amber Baldet from the board. 

Peter has been a remarkable board member and visionary. Over the past eight years, his steadfast dedication has been instrumental in shaping the Foundation into what it is today. From boldly advocating for the Foundation’s unique charitable mission to ensuring that our new trademark policy supports greater decentralization of the Zcash ecosystem, he has set a high standard for our mission of building financial privacy infrastructure for the public good. His commitment to privacy, decentralization, and open-source innovation has left an indelible mark on the cryptocurrency ecosystem. As he settles into his new role as Executive Director at Coin Center, we thank him for many years of service and wish him continued success in defending the rights of developers and advancing privacy for all.

Amber’s involvement in Zcash dates back to her time at JP Morgan, where she was responsible for establishing a partnership with the Electric Coin Company that triggered a huge amount of interest in Zcash’s technology. She was one of the first ZF board members appointed based on the community’s feedback, and she has been steadfast in ensuring that the Foundation stays focused on its mission. Her experience in technology leadership roles, and as a startup co-founder and CEO, has been invaluable to the Board and to me personally, often bringing a much-needed dose of reality to our discussions. Her presence on the board will be sorely missed but she will continue to serve the Zcash community and mission as a founding member of the Financial Privacy Foundation’s board. 

On behalf of the board, the Zcash Foundation team, and the entire Zcash community, I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to Peter and Amber for helping guide me through the past four years, and for their vision, dedication, and lasting impact on the Zcash ecosystem.

— Jack Gavigan, Executive Director

The post Welcoming Taylor Hornby and Ted Hoffmann to the Zcash Foundation Board appeared first on Zcash Foundation.

Welcome to the Empeiria’s first development update of 2025! We're kicking off the year with our mainnet launch around the corner, technical updates and ecosystem advancements to set the stage for a transformative year for the Empeiria ecosystem!

Intelligent Digital Product Passport 1. iDPP: Intelligent Digital Product Passport

As featured by the World Economic Forum, Empeiria has been selected for the TradeTech Regulatory Sandbox. This initiative, launched by the World Economic Forum in partnership with the Ministry of Economy, UAE (MoE) and Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development (ADDED), aims to drive regulatory innovation in cross-border digital trade.

TradeTech Regulatory Sandbox: https://www.tradetechglobal.org/sandbox WEF Linkedin Announcement: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/world-economic-forum-trade_tradetech-global-tradetech-forum-activity-7288556517350363137-V2rd

As part of a pilot for the World Economic Forum we’ve developed a new product based on Empeiria’s infrastructure — iDPP, a Verifiable Credential-based system for product authentication.

What is iDPP?

A next-gen product designed for a framework of trust to verify the authenticity, origin and compliance — without compromising privacy.

Key Features

Decentralized & Verifiable — Uses blockchain-backed credentials instead of self-reported data. Cost-Efficient & Scalable — Off-chain storage (IPFS) minimizes blockchain fees. AI & Blockchain Integration — Automates trust-based interactions, making verification seamless.

Why does it Matter?

In an age of deepfakes, counterfeiting, and opaque supply chains, verifiable data is the missing trust layer. iDPP ensures manufacturers, regulators, and consumers can verify products instantly.

2. Mainnet Launch Progress

Mainnet is in its final stage of development, with key optimizations ensuring security, performance, and scalability.

Key Technical Milestones

✅ 400% Efficiency Boost
The document update process is now faster and more scalable — A major DID module refactor improves storage compression & processing speed.

✅ Expanded Simulation Testing
We’ve expanded our simulation tests to catch rare edge cases and unexpected interactions to catch edge cases before they happen, ensuring a seamless user experience.

✅ SoftNodes — A New Mechanism for Long-Term Participants
A feature designed for those who want to stake and validate over the long run. Users can easily manage staking, select validators, receive rewards, and monitor their node activities.

✅ Network & Automation Preparations
We’re actively configuring servers and automation scripts for the mainnet launch to ensure network stability ahead of launch.

✅ Comprehensive Developer Docs
We’ve completed an extensive documentation set, covering standard blockchain interactions and our custom features. Developers and users can quickly understand the chain’s capabilities and operational guidelines

3. Additional Development Updates OneClick Deployment Portal

We continue to refine the OneClick Deployment Portal, which recently went live. Our focus is on optimizations and security reviews to ensure safer and more straightforward deployments across the ecosystem. Given our role as a trust layer, these audits help us maintain top-tier reliability standards.

AI Agent Integration & Use Cases

We’re building tools where an AI agent interacts with users and leverages verifiable credentials. For example, an AI agent can conduct user assessments, issuing credential-based certifications for those who meet certain criteria — ideal for exams, training, or automated skills verification. Another application involves AI-based credential verification, where an AI system validates credentials such as employment records or certificates — useful in job interviews or background checks.

Telegram Game Updates

We continue expanding our Telegram-based game (gEMPE) with new missions, improved gameplay, and additional features. The goal is to keep the experience engaging and fresh for our community while rewarding users for participation.

Summary

Thank you for being part of our journey! 2025 has already seen a flurry of innovation: from the iDPP rollout to wrapping up preparations for our mainnet launch. We’re committed to delivering impactful solutions for decentralized data and digital identity.

We look forward to an exciting year of growth, collaboration, and pioneering new possibilities in verifiable data and blockchain technology! If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to reach out: dev@empe.io

Stay tuned to our official channels for the latest updates:

X: https://x.com/empe_io LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/empe-web3 Discord: https://discord.com/invite/BbCzfuJzkv Medium: https://medium.com/@Empeiria-web3 Telegram : https://t.me/Empeiria_Announcements

Android users will be able to bypass Google by downloading Zashi from F-Droid or GitHub! Zcash offers financial privacy and sovereignty, and we want to ensure that Zashi upholds those […]

Source

Technology doesn’t grow in isolation—it evolves in waves. Just as mobile, cloud, and SaaS shaped the internet of the past 20 years, so too could crypto, AI, and new hardware usher in an era of the internet that’s pro-innovation, pro-startup, and pro-creator. 

Speaking with a16z Growth General Partner David George, a16z crypto Founder and Managing Partner Chris Dixon breaks down his vision for a new internet, from using crypto to decentralize AI infrastructure and kickstart network effects, to why AI will be this era’s native form of media just as film was in the 1930s. He also explores why the internet’s original covenant—where content creators traded free access for search traffic—is breaking today, and how a better internet could introduce entirely new business models for creators. 

Right now, we have a choice to make: will the next era of the internet be shaped by a handful of centralized players, or transformed into an open ecosystem where power and control flow to creators across the globe?

Resources:

Watch the conversation here: https://youtu.be/gioxu1CVjhM  

Read more, including the full transcript, here: https://a16z.com/ai-crypto-internet-chris-dixon/

Chris’s recent article on blockchain innovation: https://a16zcrypto.com/posts/article/blockchain-ai-internet/

Find Chris’s book, Read Write Own: Building the Next Era of the Internet:

Penguin Random House: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/744504/read-write-own-by-chris-dixon/

Penguin UK: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/459860/read-write-own-by-dixon-chris/9781804949245

For more resources on AI & crypto visit: https://a16zcrypto.com/posts/?tag=ai-crypto,web2-to-web3

Stay Updated: 

Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

 

ShadeX — Cosmos Encrypted Money Market

The Cosmos is going through ATOM realignment, the process of protocols prioritizing ATOM and its community as a critical asset to achieving collective success.

Shade as an encrypted DeFi suite, rapidly embraced ATOM alignment by accruing and liquidity-providing ATOM and stATOM on ShadeSwap. Shade currently holds ~16,000 ATOM in its treasury.

Beyond just accruing ATOM, Shade is launching ShadeX — the world’s first encrypted money market. Users are empowered to lend out their crypto assets, passively earning interest fees and yield from users who borrow their assets from a lending pool. The ShadeX money market maintains solvency via a system of liquidations of collateral from insolvent borrowers, returning the borrowed debt back to lenders.

ShadeX will feature ATOM and stATOM as both lendable and borrowable assets. Additionally, ATOM and stATOM will be usable as collateral on ShadeX to borrow other popular assets (i.e. BTC, ETH, USDC, SILK, etc.).

Historically, money markets throughout crypto expose all lending and borrowing data. This means transparency for how much interest has been accrued to a user’s position, how much someone has borrowed, and even how close they are to liquidation! Can you imagine a world where you knew everyone’s credit ratings, mortgages, and student loan debt.

We believe ShadeX is a key trailblazing experiment for onboarding institutional and large liquidity into a data-secure lending and borrowing environment. The power of the CosmosSDK and CosmWasm have empowered protocols (such as Shade) to build compelling financial primitives for anyone in the world to access.

ShadeX - Redefining Crypto Lending/Borrowing via Encryption - Blog

If you are interested in bringing your ATOM to the world’s first achievement, we invite you to join us for the launch of ShadeX on March 5, 2025.

All you need is some SCRT for gas and ATOM for lending/borrowing to begin experiencing the most data-secure DeFi in all of crypto.

Bridge your ATOM today → app.shadeprotocol.io

X: https://x.com/Shade_Protocol

Telegram: https://t.co/u3bysYisf1

ShadeX — Cosmos Encrypted Money Market was originally published in Cosmos Ecosystem Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The post Gen AI Present and Future: A Conversation with Swamy Kocherlakota, EVP and Chief Digital Solutions Officer at S&P Global appeared first on Greylock.

Partnering with OpenEvidence: A Life-Saving Healthcare Revolution

This AI-powered search engine for doctors could be one of the most important companies of the next decade.

By Pat Grady Published February 19, 2025 OpenEvidence co-founder Daniel Nadler.

Choosing the right medicine for a prostate cancer patient, based on the latest efficacy research. Accessing expert guidance in a rural area, where sub-specialists are scarce. Uncovering overlooked studies in a review of OCD treatments. Identifying the symptoms of a pulmonary embolism before it’s too late.

These are just a few of the millions of ways more than a quarter of U.S. doctors have used the specialized medical search engine OpenEvidence in the roughly one year since it launched. Already, the scale of its impact is a prime example of AI as a force for good. But if co-founders Daniel Nadler and Zachary Ziegler and their team achieve what we believe they can, the lives they help save could soon be measured in the millions.

This transformative technology comes as the U.S. healthcare system reaches a breaking point. With just one million active physicians for a growing—and aging—population of 340 million, doctors are stretched thin. On top of clinical work, they spend countless hours sifting through journals, to ensure their life-and-death decisions are based on the latest research. But a new PubMed article is published every three minutes, and medical knowledge doubles every 73 days. It is impossible to keep up.

Like a ChatGPT for doctors, OpenEvidence automates this information hunt. The platform searches across 35 million peer-reviewed publications—and, thanks to a new content partnership, is trained on The New England Journal of Medicine. There are no hallucinations; if the literature is inconclusive, OpenEvidence simply doesn’t respond. And it communicates just like healthcare professionals do—conversationally, and complete with medical charts and graphs.

A second-time founder, Daniel was already well ahead of the AI curve when he launched the financial technology platform Kensho, which was acquired by S&P in 2018 and is credited with the company’s AI evolution. When COVID-19 hit, he couldn’t stop thinking about applying what he’d learned to healthcare. So he founded OpenEvidence with a mission to organize the world’s medical knowledge—and help physicians quickly surface the latest and most effective treatments for their patients. Daniel has proven to be a magnet for talent, attracting top AI researchers to the OpenEvidence team—including Zachary, a brilliant computer scientist from Harvard—and assembling a world-class medical board to ensure the platform gives physicians exactly what they need.

The response has been remarkable: in less than a year, OpenEvidence became perhaps the fastest-growing healthcare business in history, with more than 35,000 verified doctors registering each month. Aside from the iPhone, we believe no technology has been adopted by doctors so quickly. Even more remarkable is that it all happened via word of mouth; the engine of OpenEvidence’s growth is trust. And because the app is free to every doctor in every U.S. care center, it’s assisting not just doctors in top hospitals, but also small, independent practices in hard-to-reach communities across the country.

Sequoia is proud to lead the Series A for OpenEvidence and partner as their first institutional investor, and we look forward to supporting them as they continue to grow. The work Daniel, Zachary and their team are doing has the potential to create one of the defining companies of the next decade—and to revolutionize medicine for doctors and their patients alike.

Share Share this on Facebook Share this on Twitter Share this on LinkedIn Share this via email Related Topics #AI #Funding announcement #Healthcare Partnering with Harvey: Putting LLMs to Work By Pat Grady and Charlie Curnin News Read Generative AI’s Act o1 by Sonya Huang, Pat Grady, and o1 Perspective Read Partnering with Hugging Face: A Machine Learning Transformation By Pat Grady and Sonya Huang News Read JOIN OUR MAILING LIST Get the best stories from the Sequoia community. Email address Leave this field empty if you’re human:

The post Partnering with OpenEvidence: A Life-Saving Healthcare Revolution appeared first on Sequoia Capital.

The Freestyle Skier Designing Germany’s Robotic Workforce Published February 18, 2025 By Sam Eifling Sam Eifling is a writer, editor, and producer based in Brooklyn. His honors include a national Sigma Delta Chi award from the Society of Professional Journalists for his feature writing, a reporting grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism, and a Peabody Award shared among the staff of a Netflix series. Photography: Nina Mašić-Lizdek How a life of shredding down mountainsides at unruly speeds put Roman Hölzl on a path to start one of Europe’s most promising robotics companies. Published February 18, 2025 By Sam Eifling Sam Eifling is a writer, editor, and producer based in Brooklyn. His honors include a national Sigma Delta Chi award from the Society of Professional Journalists for his feature writing, a reporting grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism, and a Peabody Award shared among the staff of a Netflix series. Photography: Nina Mašić-Lizdek

Tilman Tschoeke’s first day at RobCo was in the spring of 2022. The small-scale industrial robotics company was still tiny, with just 25 employees in their Munich office. It was a challenging time for European startups—the characteristic precarity of early-stage entrepreneurship was exacerbated by rising interest rates and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Companies were counting every euro carefully.

RobCo’s 28-year-old cofounder Roman Hölzl gave Tschoeke a laptop, informing his new head of finance that he’d have to bring his own charger. A few days into the job, Tschoeke was given access to the company’s bank account as he prepared to issue salary payments. At first glance, the numbers he saw there made no sense. He asked Hölzl if he could give him access to the second bank account, to which Hölzl replied, “Oh, there is no second account.” Tschoeke’s stomach sank. He could only choose to trust Hölzl’s seeming unflappability, which proved to be a sound judgement call when a well-timed payment from the company’s seed round arrived days later.

Tschoeke was beginning to appreciate that flirting with the boundaries of sensible and possible was just another weekday for Hölzl. It wouldn’t take long working with him before Tschoeke, like so many others who know the young CEO, came to understand that Hölzl views the world as a series of obstacles to surmount, odds to overcome and races to win. It’s a trait that has defined Hölzl’s triumphs. In the most immediate, physical sense, it has also led him to the edge of disaster.

Hölzl comes from a long line of competitive skiers. His paternal grandfather was a skier, having picked it up during an apprenticeship in post-World War II Switzerland. He eventually settled in Munich and ran a small butcher shop—exhausting manual labor that reliably put food on the table even during times of scarcity. Their three sons eventually took up teaching skiing to pay their way through school. 

When they weren’t skiing, both of Hölzl’s parents ran a small car dealership in Neuburg an der Donau, a calendar-pretty Bavarian town an hour north of Munich. In the winter, they would drive their sons, Roman and Florian, the three hours to the alps. By the time Roman was a teen, he was an instructor himself—a family vocation that Florian now sees as surprisingly apt preparation for his big brother’s work as a founder. It required keeping a cohort (of kids, usually) motivated to brave any sort of dreadful weather or scary terrain. Roman had to present himself as fearless to instill confidence in those who counted on him. 

The Hölzl brothers built their nerve by throwing themselves, often literally, into sports—tennis, swimming, trampolining, skateboarding, whatever. Roman was a stronger skier and more intense competitor than his younger brother, a trait Florian believes grew out of Roman’s obsession for optimizing his performance. Skiing, a sport where the smallest mistake can turn into a personal disaster, became Roman’s prime testing ground for visualizing a plan, experimenting at top speed, and applying learnings to future runs.

Most German school days ended at lunchtime. After school, when they lacked the hours necessary to drive to the slopes, they would scour the internet to find videos of new tricks, refine them on their trampoline, and then later experiment on the mountain. In the snowless summer they would lay down wooden pallets covered with fake grass near their home and lather soap on the pipe of a bicycle rack so they could slide on a rail.

By Roman’s mid-teens he was jumping, freestyling and competing constantly against the best skiers in Europe. “We did these 70-foot jumps—that’s double flips, three-and-a-half rotations, corkscrews,” he said. “Basically rotations out of your natural axes and back into it.” He was strong enough that he earned sponsorships from two French companies and was winning competitions with titles such as King of Shred. Well into secondary school, Germany’s education system still allowed him to manage his time as he saw fit. He would show up to class mainly just to take exams, while skiing close to a hundred days a year. His enviable LinkedIn summary of this professional period of his life reads, in part: “Backflips, deep snow, and great times!”

His grades were adequate but certainly not fantastic, and in the winter of 2012, his father challenged his then 18-year-old son to get better marks. If he could, they’d take a ski trip to Canada. Hölzl accepted and got the grades. The day before they were set to depart on their trip, they went skiing. That was when Hölzl took the worst fall of his life and suffered a compression fracture in two spots in his lower back.

He spent a night immobilized in the hospital in an awkward position that made his feet fall asleep. As he lay awake, he contemplated what his life would be if this was, in fact, paralysis. Years later, in hard moments with his startup, he would reflect on that long, numb night.

“If things go south at RobCo, I’m benchmarking against that,” Hölzl says, “which puts everything so much into perspective that company-building becomes a bit of a different beast. It will never be as bad as it was that night in March 2012.”

That next morning, imaging showed that his spinal nerves were fine; he would recover. His family moved his bed upstairs from the basement to the living room. There, as he convalesced, Hölzl had to remain still, really for the first time in his life. He had a lot of time to consider a future in which he might not ever be able to ski. “Having an injury where maybe there’s not going to be a next time,” his brother says, “it’s terrifying. But maybe for Roman, it was necessary to learn patience.”

Hölzl on the slopes in Hochzillertal and Kitzbühel, Austria

After his injury, Hölzl spent weeks wearing a stabilizing exoskeleton to hold his spine in place. He spent the next season easing back onto the slopes but was far from competing. So what did he do with the other 80-or-so days that he otherwise would’ve been skiing? “That’s when I first started pouring energy into uni,” Hölzl said.

Over the course of the next few semesters, he went from the bottom 25% of his class to the top 3%. School was the new arena where he sized up the competition and was determined to come out on top. “You want to have that same feeling,” he says, “even if it’s an engineering event.”

For as long as he could remember, Hölzl was fascinated by the way his skis, boots and bindings enabled him to do things like launch himself down a mountain at explosive speeds and jump vast distances. “What I always found the most interesting was the intersection of humans and technology,” Hölzl said. “In skiing I witnessed how great it can be if things work out well with you and your technology. But also if it doesn’t go well, with a big crash.” Keen to explore that intersection, Hölzl pursued human factors engineering. 

In 2016 he enrolled at the Technical University of Munich, one of Europe’s best engineering universities. During those studies, he also completed a research fellowship at Harvard. His research tended to focus more on user experience—in robotics and autonomous driving—than on back-end engineering.

He met Constantin Dresel and Paul Maroldt when he began a Ph.D. program back at the Technical University of Munich in 2019. Together they ran a practical lab course in robotics and drilled into what they saw as the promise of modular robotics: developing industrial robots that were nimble, safe and able to be reconfigured quickly, thus opening a potentially huge market of smaller manufacturers that historically hadn’t been able to afford to automate manual tasks. The three men were able to plug into Munich’s hub of industry, taking advantage of weekly feedback from advisor companies and deploying prototypes, which gave them practical testing opportunities that validated their otherwise abstract mathematical work.

When the trio launched RobCo in 2020, it was a seamless move into commercializing the work they’d already been doing in the lab. From their time immersed with industry leaders, they understood that manufacturers were fretting over labor shortages that only promised to worsen in the coming years. RobCo aimed to create a robot capable of alleviating that labor shortage and drastically increasing productivity. Picture a programmable arm, perhaps about the size of a human arm or larger, that can do fine, complex manual tasks on repeat ad infinitum.

Two weeks after they claimed the name, they learned that the hit video game Fallout contains a multibillion-dollar robotics company called RobCo. Hölzl just thought it was short, easy and punchy. Now their YouTube videos are peppered with appreciative fan comments—“Ay when y’all releasing zeta invaders”—which gives the cofounders occasion to smile, to think how their startup is blurring the lines with science fiction.

The early-stage “kind of garage-style” company that Tilman Tschoeke took a chance on in 2022 was powered in large part by Hölzl’s sheer zeal. Hölzl’s fire impressed Tschoeke. “That’s clearly one of his key character traits—he’s very competitive, in a positive sense,” Tschoeke says.

Today, Hölzl’s typical pitch to potential clients begins, he says, with them pitching him. Companies want to know: Can you really do this? Can you install a robot that can laser-cut aluminum bicycle parts, for instance, or pack hearing aids and stack the boxes onto pallets? So RobCo’s opener is simple enough. You’re having trouble finding people. It’s only going to get worse. Let us automate some basic tasks for you. Hire our robots.

Roughly 70% of their customers had never used physical automation before. But all of a sudden the 150-year-old manufacturer de Crignis had RobCo arms molding sheet metal into cladding for machines, and Frank Präzisionsteile, a company that manufactures parts for aerospace and medical devices, had RobCo arms filling the overnight shifts no human workers wanted. And on and on.

RobCo’s modular arms are small enough that they don’t need to be bolted to factory floors. They can be up and running in a matter of a couple of days rather than weeks. “Many of those companies are really just lacking those people,” Hölzl said. “And we’ll see the labor time bomb basically ticking faster and faster in Germany between 2025 to 2028. That’s when the most people will go on pension ever in the history of the country.”

A RobCo robot costs a customer between 2,000 and 4,000 euros per month, or about a third of the cost of the two shift workers its labor can replicate. The size, speed and scale of their robots are what Hölzl calls, in a manner befitting a former elite athlete, “superhuman, but only a little bit.” The RobCo arms can move something that weighs 40 kilograms a few thousand times a day. Greater weights and distances require much more robust robots, the sort that larger factories have used for decades. RobCo has carved its niche in taking over discrete, standalone tasks that would usually require a human operator.

As for the humans building these machines, Hölzl and his cofounders have complementary strengths. In the early days, Dresel focused on the back-end software (the founders built their platform on C++, running on Linux). Maroldt was the hardware guy, the prototyper. Hölzl focused on user interfaces, designing them to be as seamless as possible.

“The best user interface is one that doesn’t exist, in a sense,” Hölzl said. “The key really is, which parts of the overall teaching of the user interface can you just abstract away?” For example: Their perception mechanism is so refined that a user can indicate to the robot a pickup point and a dropoff point for a part, and the robot can detect the rest—what the parts are, how to find and grab them, and how to place them where they need to go. Hölzl says that such a process would have previously required a programmer to feed the machine 50 separate instructions.

Sequoia came across RobCo in 2022 when a scout forwarded Luciana Lixandru the company’s deck. The premise was, essentially, “UiPath for the real world.” Lixandru, who had led the Series A for UiPath—a Romanian company that automates digital tasks, and which is now worth nearly $8 billion—latched onto the thesis. 

Upon meeting Hölzl, she knew he was a special founder: Hölzl’s switch from elite skiing to academic performance was unconventional but promising. “He’s honestly amazing,” she says. “He’s very articulate, very high IQ, very ambitious, very competitive. At Sequoia, all our partners are really competitive. You put him at that table and he still might be the most competitive person there.” Lixandru recalls putting Hölzl in touch with a colleague of hers, a fellow German, and the two eventually met up. The colleague later reported back that they’d taken a nice Sunday bike ride. “And then, when I talked to Roman,” Lixandru says, “he was like ‘We had a biking race.’” 

Hölzl was surprised when he first heard from Sequoia; he thought RobCo, as a robotics firm, wouldn’t appeal to venture capitalists who tend to back software companies. The great drawback of robotics is that unlike software, robots are made of stuff. “With software, you build one product and you sell it a million times,” Lixandru said. “Here you have to rebuild every single product that you build and then go deploy it. And you have to do this in a smooth, capital-efficient way.” Eventually the goal is to expand across the globe—the U.S. market remains the ultimate prize—but scaling robotics is an even greater feat than scaling software. Every unit has to be built, shipped, installed and monitored. Sequoia is betting that Germany, a hub of mid-sized engineering and manufacturing companies, is the right place to start scaling.

In one sense, RobCo keeps pushing so fast by doing the least. Rather than dabble in theoretical solutions, the company builds only the specific features its clients ask for and need. Tschoeke says that his CEO has the charisma to sell and to communicate a vision, as well as the technical background to resolve customers’ engineering concerns. “He’s very to the point,” Tschoeke says of Hölzl. “Whatever the question is, he has answers. And I think that’s his biggest strength.”

RobCo is now approaching 100 employees, supplying small- and mid-sized manufacturers in Germany with its robotic arms. The company is filling a market niche that Hölzl believes may include tens of thousands of companies. As RobCo reaches more customers, it’s also gathering data with a long-term aim of making robots that work even in unstructured use cases. 

“In Germany we have a quote that means, basically, ‘Impossible is nothing,’” Tschoeke says. “From a technical perspective, when they say, ‘OK, no, we cannot do it in two quarters because typically it takes a year,’ we say, ‘OK, let’s do it in one quarter.’ And we’ve proved it many times. This comes strongly from Roman. He is always pushing that balance pretty strongly.”

Hölzl misses his skiing days. His life now is spent in the office six days a week obsessing over RobCo. Get him talking about skiing and you can hear the joy in his voice. From RobCo’s HQ in Munich, he’s a short drive from alpine skiing. But when he daydreams, it’s of western Canada or of Hokkaido. Japan, he says, has the greatest snow in the world.

He and Florian recently splurged on a first for them: skiing in the Caucasus Mountains. Florian traveled to Georgia from Germany; his brother arrived directly from a work trip abroad, feeling a little worse for wear amid all the travel. They headed to a tiny village where the next morning, a man wearing ski boots picked them up in a Ford Raptor pickup truck. He drove them to a clearing outside town where a helicopter flew them to 15,000 feet and they got a glimpse of Russia before they dropped into virgin mountainside powder.

Florian remembers it as a sublime day on the mountain. He also watched his brother closely. After a few runs, Hölzl was actually the one to beg off early. His schedule had caught up with him, and in a moment of uncharacteristic restraint, he decided not to push himself to the absolute brink.

They left the mountain with light still in the sky. After two days of rest—an eon for any founder to put everything on pause but an eternity for this one—he finally felt right. On the third day, Hölzl began to bang out emails and take calls. “He was hyped to work again,” Florian says, “because he had so many ideas.” Florian felt that he was witnessing an understanding dawn on his brother in real time: Not every race in Roman Hölzl’s life required a headlong sprint, it turns out. It took Hölzl a mere three decades on skis to learn that he, too, is only human—a realization that just might help sustain his human-augmenting robotics company for years to come.

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