Author: Coindesk

Tether, issuer of $144 billion dollar stablecoin USDT, has boosted its stake in Latin American agricultural firm Adecoagro (AGRO).The $12.41 per share offer, which is subject to certain closing conditions, would take Tether’s stake in Adecoagro from 51% to 70%, according to an announcement on Thursday.AGRO shares jumped over 7% to $11.95 in pre-market trading following the announcement.Adecoagro’s business is focused on sugar, ethanol, dairy and crop production Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. It owns 210,400 hectares of farmland and several industrial facilities across these countries. The company has a market cap of just under $1.12 billion. Tether views its Adecoagro’s…

Artificial intelligence-focused firm CoreWeave raised $1.5 billion for its initial public offering (IPO), valuing the company at roughly $23 billion, Bloomberg reported on Thursday night, confirming earlier reports that it had downsized its IPO.The cloud provider sold 37.5 million shares at $40 each. It had initially planned to sell 49 million shares at $47 to $55 each, but a weaker-than-expected stock market posed difficulties for the company.The company initially sought to raise $4 billion at a $35 billion valuation, reporting $1.9 billion in revenue last year but still seeing a net loss of nearly $900 million.AI powerhouse Nvidia, an investor…

CoreWeave is looking to downsize its initial public offering just one day before hitting the market, Semafor reported.The AI infrastructure firm was previously expected to raise $3 billion at a $30 billion valuation, according to the story, but the size has been cut and the valuation lowered to just $23 billion.A separate story from Bloomberg said CoreWeave is now looking to raise only $1.5 billion.CoreWeave is in close partnership with bitcoin miner Core Scientific (CORZ), which was expected to profit from the IPO if the results are positive and sustain strong revenue growth over the next few years.In early U.S.…

Shares of GameStop (GME), the embattled video game retailer turned memestock darling, plunged 25% on Thursday, more than erasing all the gains since the company earlier this week announced it will add bitcoin (BTC) as a treasury reserve asset.GME fell to just above $21 during the session, trading at its lowest price since October and down over 28% from its Wednesday peak of nearly $30.The price action happened after the company unveiled plans late Wednesday for a $1.3 billion, 0% convertible note offering to raise money for its BTC acquisition plan. After an initial wave of euphoria among the crypto…

The market capitalization of tokenized gold climbed to a record $1.4 billion in March with trading volumes soaring to yearly highs, CoinDesk Data’s monthly stablecoin report shows.The growth in market value and activity happened alongside the physical yellow metal’s rally to fresh all-time highs above $3,000 per ounce. Tether’s gold-backed token (XAUT) and Paxos’ PAXG dominate among the offerings, with market capitalizations of $749 million and $653 million, respectively.The trading volume with gold tokens surpassed $1.6 billion through the month, the highest level in more than a year, according to the report.Gold-backed tokens’ market capitalization and trading volume (CoinDesk Data)…

The Sei Foundation, the nonprofit development organization behind the layer-1 blockchain Sei (SEI), is exploring the acquisition of bankrupt personal genomics company 23andMe and putting the genetic data of 15 million users on blockchain rails. The foundation announced the initiative in an X post on Thursday, calling the plan its “boldest DeSci bet yet” — referring to the decentralized science movement. Earlier this year, it also launched a $65 million venture capital fund dedicated to DeSci startups building on the Sei network.The foundation said that genomic data security is a national security matter, particularly as 23andMe grapples with financial difficulties.…

In the beginning, there were only CPUs, then GPUs, for bitcoin mining. Then came the mighty ASIC in 2013, and with it, the “shoebox” form factor that has become emblematic of the bitcoin mining industry.What comes next? Will the shoebox design persist as standard for bitcoin mining ASICs? Or will another form factor that more resembles traditional datacenter servers win out?ASIC manufacturers are increasingly betting on the latter – or at least, that a hydro-cooled server rack design will become a substantial portion of bitcoin mining fleets. Moreover, they’re leaning into the “direct-to-chip” cooling for further efficiency gains.Auradine’s new AH3880,…

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) seized more than $200,000 in cryptocurrency from several wallets and exchange accounts linked to the Palestinian militant group Hamas, according to a Thursday announcement.According to the FBI, more than $1.5 million in crypto — largely in the form of donations from Hamas supporters around the world — has flowed through the seized wallets and exchange accounts since last October. The wallet addresses were allegedly promoted in a group chat claiming to be associated with Hamas, a U.S. and European Union-designated terrorist organization, and donations were subsequently laundered through a series of crypto exchanges and…

Remittance app Abound raised $14 million in a seed round following investment from crypto heavyweights Circle Ventures and the Near Foundation.The app aims to be a financial bridge between non-resident Indians (NRIs) and India, and has processed $150 million worth of remittances with about 500,000 monthly active users. Abound is incubated by the digital arm of the Times of India Group, one of the country’s largest news agencies.“Indians in America have a unique financial reality — one that spans two countries, two economies, and two currencies. Yet, the financial services available today weren’t designed for their needs,” said Nishkaam Mehta,…

Paul Atkins, the former member of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that President Donald Trump has tapped to run the agency, assured a different direction for the agency on crypto from the last four years, though he wasn’t pressed with big-picture digital assets questions during a Thursday confirmation hearing.Now that Trump has secured the cabinet-level echelon of his government, the White House is working on shepherding top agency chiefs through the Senate confirmation process. While many of the crypto headlines are coming from the administration and Congress these days, those running the regulatory agencies will ultimately be the ones…