Sources: Seoul-based AI chip designer FuriosaAI seeks to raise a $300M-$500M Series D to fund mass production of its 2nd-gen RNGD chip and is eyeing a 2027 IPO — Artificial intelligence chip designer FuriosaAI is seeking to raise as much as $500 million in a funding round …
CoinGecko: over 53% of the 20.2M crypto tokens launched since 2021 are now inactive, with 7.7M tokens failing in Q4 2025, after Oct. 10 “liquidation cascade” — Over 13.4 million tokens have been erased between mid-2021 and 2025, according to a new analysis by CoinGecko. — What to know:
Similarweb: Threads had 141.5M DAUs on iOS and Android as of January 7, driven by Instagram promotions, while X had 125M DAUs; X continues to lead on the web — A report from market intelligence firm Similarweb suggests that Meta's Threads is now seeing more daily usage than Elon Musk's X on mobile devices.
Luminate 2025 report: the global music industry hit 5.1T streams, up 9.6% YoY and a single-year record; AI artist Xania Monet had 125M on-demand audio streams — The global music industry hit 5.1 trillion streams in 2025. It's a new single-year record, up 9.6% from 2024, which held the previous record.
ZachXBT: a crypto user lost $282M+ in BTC and LTC in a hardware wallet social engineering scam; XMR jumped as the attacker began converting the funds to Monero — Partner offers — Quick Take — XMR hit an all-time high of $797.73 on Jan. 14, coinciding with a series …
OpenAI plans to test ads below ChatGPT replies for users of free and Go tiers in the US; source: OpenAI expects to make “low billions” from ads in 2026 — $500bn start-up seeks ways to fund expansion and fend off competition from rivals Google and Anthropic
Unsealed docs from Elon Musk's OpenAI lawsuit, set for a jury trial on April 27: Sutskever's concerns about treating open-source AI as a “side show”, and more — This is an excerpt of Sources by Alex Heath, a newsletter about AI and the tech industry, syndicated just for The Verge subscribers once a week.
The US says Taiwanese companies will invest $250B+ in chip production in the US as part of a trade deal, with Taiwanese government guaranteeing $250B in credit — The U.S. and Taiwan have reached a trade agreement to build chips and chip factories on American soil, the Department of Commerce announced on Thursday.
Equal1, which was spun out from University College Dublin, raised $60M to deploy its new quantum server for data centers, bringing its total funding to $85M — UCD spinout has developed a quantum server for data centres — Equal1, the Irish quantum computing company that was spun …
Depthfirst, which provides AI-native tools for codebase scanning, credential exposure protection, and more, raised a $40M Series A led by Accel Partners — Cybercriminals are increasingly using AI in their attacks. At the same time, cyber defenders are also turning to the technology to fight back.
The US Senate passes the Defiance Act that would allow victims to sue over nonconsensual, sexually explicit AI-generated images, amid furor over Grok images — The US Senate unanimously passed legislation Tuesday that would allow victims to sue over nonconsensual, sexually explicit AI-generated images …
A look at Confer, an open-source AI assistant project from Signal creator Moxie Marlinspike that is designed to provide end-to-end encryption for AI chats — Moxie Marlinspike—the pseudonym of an engineer who set a new standard for private messaging with the creation of the Signal Messenger …
The UK plans to bring into force a law this week that will make it illegal to create non-consensual intimate images, as Ofcom investigates X — The UK will bring into force a law which will make it illegal to create non-consensual intimate images, following widespread concerns over Elon Musk's Grok AI chatbot.
Sources: the US nears a trade deal with Taiwan that would reduce tariffs on the island's exports and include a commitment from TSMC to build 5+ fabs in Arizona — The deal would cut tariffs and include a commitment from Taiwanese Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation, the island's chip giant …
Tucuvi, which develops AI agents that check in with patients and escalate cases to human teams when needed, raised a $20M Series A, led by Cathay and Leadwind — Tucuvi was co-founded by Maria Gonzalez, whose mother passed away after a reported hospital administration error.
Instagram says there was no breach and it fixed an issue that let an external party send password reset emails, after reports that 17.5M users' data was exposed — The company claims there was no breach of its systems. … If you're one of the many, many people who received a password reset email …
Tel Aviv-based Torq, which operates an autonomous AI-powered security operations platform, raised $140M led by Merlin Ventures at a $1.2B valuation — The Israeli cybersecurity startup Torq is planning to announce Sunday that it has closed a $140 million funding round, raising its valuation to $1.2 billion.
Malwarebytes: a 2024 Instagram data breach exposed information on 17.5 million users, including emails, phone numbers, and physical addresses — As spotted by Malwarebytes, the alleged leak includes usernames, email addresses, phone numbers and more. — If you received a bunch …
A profile of Grubhub parent Wonder, which has raised about $2B and is rolling out robotic meal-assembly tech acquired from Sweetgreen for $186M in November 2025 — E-commerce mogul Marc Lore's Wonder is leaning into automation in a $2 billion effort to do to restaurants what Amazon did to shopping.
The UK government says X restricting Grok's image creation to paid users is insulting as it just makes the ability to generate unlawful images a premium service — Spokesperson says limiting access to paying subscribers just makes ability to generate unlawful images a premium service
Sources: OpenAI has been slow to expand in-app checkouts for ChatGPT as the startup and its partners Shopify and Stripe struggle to standardize merchant data — OpenAI's efforts to turn ChatGPT into a go-to personal shopper are off to a slow start. — Challenges with wrangling product data mean …
ThreatModeler, which helps developers identify vulnerabilities in their applications, acquires IriusRisk, its largest competitor, a source says for $100M+ — Invictus-backed cybersecurity company ThreatModeler acquires competitor IriusRisk for over $100 millionGETTY IMAGES
Docs: Character.AI and Google agree to settle lawsuits with families of teenagers who killed or harmed themselves after interacting with Character.AI's chatbot — The cases involving Character.AI's virtual companions highlighted concerns about artificial intelligence and mental health
Cambodia extradites Chen Zhi, the chairman of online scam conglomerate Prince Group, to China; in October, the US DOJ seized $12B in bitcoin belonging to Chen — Justice Department accused Chen Zhi of running a sprawling scam empire targeting Americans — Chen Zhi, the alleged ringleader …
Chinese robot vacuum maker Roborock unveils the Saros Rover, a concept robot vacuum with two wheel-legs to let it climb steps, as robotics dominates CES — Roborock, a Chinese robotic vacuum cleaner brand, unveiled a concept device with two legs that can climb stairs in people's homes …
Yoolim Lee / Bloomberg : Sources: Seoul-based AI chip designer FuriosaAI seeks to raise a $300M-$500M Series D to fund mass production of...
