Alibaba just turned its AI assistant into a shopping mall. The company’s Qwen AI app now connects directly to Taobao, Alipay, Fliggy, and Amap, letting users shop, pay, book travel, and order food without ever leaving the chat interface. The integration, launched on January 15, 2026, is Alibaba’s biggest bet yet that the future of…
The impact on crypto prices was quite minimal compared to the ceasefire between Iran and the US. US President Donald Trump announced on his social media platform that the two warring parties in Europe, Russia and Ukraine, have agreed to a three-day ceasefire. Bitcoin’s price reacted to the news positively, but in a more…
Coinbase x402 is now native to Amazon Bedrock AgentCore, letting AI agents pay for services in USDC without human input Summary AWS launched Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Payments on May 7, with Coinbase x402 and wallet infrastructure embedded to give AI agents autonomous USDC payment capability. Agents settle transactions on Base in roughly 200 milliseconds at…
Federal authorities just pulled the curtain back on one of the most elaborate insider trading operations in recent memory. On May 7, the DOJ, FBI, and SEC unsealed criminal charges against 30 individuals accused of running a scheme that allegedly generated tens of millions of dollars in illegal profits over the course of roughly a…
Early reports framed the incident as a 1inch exploit, but the protocol clarified that it was not compromised and no user funds were affected. TrustedVolumes, a liquidity provider on the Ethereum blockchain, lost about $5.9 million in funds to a hacker on Thursday. The attacker was able to exploit a vulnerability within the custom…
Connecticut SB5 passed both chambers on May 1 and heads to the governor, making it one of the most comprehensive state AI laws in the US. Summary Connecticut SB5 passed 131-17 in the House and 32-4 in the Senate on May 1, with Governor Lamont confirming he will sign the bill. The law covers AI…
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff sat down with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman al-Thani in Miami this week, in what amounts to the highest-level gathering of mediators since the Gaza ceasefire began in October. The meeting also included Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and Egyptian Foreign Minister…
Despite the headline loss, the company emphasized that it continued accumulating Bitcoin rather than selling into weakness. American Bitcoin (ABTC), the Trump family-backed BTC company, released its Q1 2026 financial results earlier in the week, and they showed a nearly $82 million net loss for the period. This was despite the firm mining a…
The US banking lobby is mounting a last-minute push to stall the CLARITY Act just days before its scheduled Senate Banking Committee markup on May 14. Summary Five major banking groups jointly rejected the Tillis-Alsobrooks stablecoin yield compromise, calling it insufficient days before the May 14 markup. Senators Lummis and Tillis publicly defended the deal,…
Aave, the largest decentralized lending protocol by total value locked, has been building something interesting south of the border. Through partnerships with a handful of Latin American fintech companies, the protocol now powers yield-generating products for over 130,000 users managing approximately $40 million in deposits. More than $20 million of those deposits sit in stablecoins,…
