Coinbase on Friday said the SEC has agreed to drop the lawsuit against the company with prejudice, meaning it cannot be filed again.  The move, which is still subject to the approval of the SEC’s Commissioners, is yet another signal that the Trump administration plans to be more friendly to crypto than the SEC was […]

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Crypto exchange Bitby disclosed a breach that that amounts to a loss of $1.4 billion, the largest crypto theft of all time.

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You read that headline correctly! The best deals for TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 tickets are about to end in just 7 days. Save up to $1,130 on individual passes and up to 30% on group tickets. Don’t wait — these offers end on February 28 at 11:59 p.m. PT. Join us in celebrating 20 years of […]

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On Friday morning Coinbase announced that SEC staff have “agreed in principle to dismiss its unlawful enforcement case against Coinbase, subject to Commissioner approval.” CEO Brian Armstrong called it “great news” in a post on X, saying it would be a full dismissal with no fines paid and no business changes while thanking the Trump administration. Under the direction of Gary Gensler, the SEC argued that some crypto assets should be governed under securities laws, which firms like Coinbase opposed, saying it needs new rules.

Neither his post nor the one from Coinbase mentioned the funding contributed to political campaigns in the last election cycle, where CNBC noted Coinbase was one of the top corporate donors. It gave over $75 million to Fairshake and other pro-crypto PACs and made a reported seven-figure donation to Trump’s inaugural committee, and Armstrong reportedly made more than $1.3 million in personal contributions.

As Bloomberg points out, Armstrong referred to this in a podcast interview last year, saying, “To actually be on everyone’s radar and have political power in DC and actually matter, a couple of things were required: One was that we needed to have money – specifically, the industry needed to be giving more to super PACs.” Similarly, Coinbase chief legal officer Paul Grewal tweeted last August that “Coinbase’s efforts to support a more free and fair economic future are succeeding,” in reference to a post saying crypto corporations had contributed nearly half of all corporate money spent on the 2024 election cycle.

Now, Armstrong expects to “continue working productively with the SEC on any number of items over the years, just as we do with every agency around the world where we operate” as they await the appointment of Trump’s nominee to run the agency, Paul Atkins.

Coinbase is working on its re-entry to India more than a year after it officially ceased operations in the world’s most populous nation. The American crypto exchange is engaging with various Indian authorities, including the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), an Indian government agency that scrutinizes financial transactions, according to two sources familiar with the matter […]

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Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech!  This week we’re looking at how fintech heavyweights such as Klarna and Stripe are incorporating crypto into their strategies, which companies are planning for IPOs, one fintech’s Super Bowl ad, Stripe’s new lead of startups and venture capital, and more! To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important fintech […]

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Hacker Eric Council Jr. pleaded guilty Monday to charges of conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft and access device fraud after he took over the SEC’s X account in January 2024. Once Council gained access to the account, his unnamed co-conspirators posted a doctored image, message, and fake quote by then SEC Chairman Gary Gensler saying Bitcoin Exchange Traded Funds (ETC) have been approved, which caused the currency’s value to spike more than $1,000.

The 25-year-old Alabama resident had used a SIM-swapping attack to move a phone number associated with the @SEC account to the SIM card in an iPhone he had purchased. After others obtained the personal information of a person with access to the account, Council printed off a fake ID and used it to get AT&T to give him control of their number so that he could have the account’s recovery codes sent to his own phone. The co-conspirators paid Council in Bitcoin for his role in the scheme.

Investigators found after Council’s arrest that he’d made some choice searches, including: “What are the signs that you are under investigation by law enforcement or the FBI even if you have not been contacted by them.”

Council is scheduled for sentencing on May 16th and faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

Indian food delivery company Swiggy’s stock fell below both its IPO price and its last private valuation as mounting losses and a wavering market position in quick commerce pressured its margins in the last quarter. On Thursday, the food delivery company’s stock fell as low as ₹374.80 ($4.29) below its November IPO price of ₹390, […]

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Stripe has closed on its $1.1 billion purchase of stablecoin platform Bridge — marking the payment giant’s largest acquisition to date and tangible push into crypto. Co-founded in 2022 by Coinbase and Square alumni Zach Abrams and Sean Yu, San Antonio, Texas-based Bridge built an API that helps companies accept stablecoins. The pair raised $58 […]

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Apps distributed through both Apple and Google’s app stores are hiding malicious screenshot-reading code that’s being used to steal cryptocurrency, the cybersecurity software firm Kaspersky reported today. It’s the “first known case” of apps infected with malware that uses OCR tech to extract text from images making it into Apple’s App Store, according to a blog post detailing the company’s findings.

Kaspersky says it discovered the code from this particular malware campaign, which it calls “SparkCat,” in late 2024 and that the frameworks for it appear to have been created in March of the same year.

On iOS and in some Android instances, the malware works by triggering a request to access users’ photo galleries when they attempt to use chat support within the infected app. Once permission is granted, it uses Google OCR tech, which lets it decipher text found in photos, to look for things like screenshots of crypto wallet passwords or recovery phrases. The software then sends any images it finds back to the attackers, who can then use the info to access the wallets and steal crypto.

Kaspersky says it can’t “confirm with certainty the infection was a result of a supply chain attack or deliberate action by the developers.” The company names two AI chat apps that seem to have been created for the campaign and appear to still be available on the App Store, called WeTink and AnyGPT. Additionally, Kaspersky found the malicious code in a legitimate-seeming food delivery app called ComeCome, which you can also still download.

Neither Apple nor Google immediately responded to The Verge’s request for comment.

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Last Friday, AI startup OpenAI filed a new application to trademark products associated with its brand — “OpenAI” — with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Normally, this wouldn’t be newsworthy. Companies file for trademarks all the time. But in the application, OpenAI hints at new product lines both nearer-term and of a more […]

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Over the last couple years, it feels like we’ve heard news of mass layoffs and hiring freezes from tech companies nearly every week, and since the beginning of 2024, there’s been a new wave of layoffs and firings.

In the first few days of January 2024 alone:

• Google cut around a thousand employees
• Discord cut 17 percent of its staff
• Twitch cut a third of its staff (and Amazon fired hundreds from Amazon Prime Video and MGM Studios)
• Unity cut 25 percent of its workforce
• Humane cut four percent of its employees

And all that adds to the tens of thousands of tech and gaming layoffs that hit in 2023.

Elizabeth Lopatto spoke to experts in an article published last year to try and answer the question of why so many layoffs are happening right now despite tech companies continuing to register sizable profits. One reason is that “investors have changed how they’re evaluating companies,” even if there’s a lack of evidence that the layoffs can help solve any of the problems they may have.

Here’s all our coverage of the recent outbreak of layoffs from big tech, auto, crypto, gaming, and more.

• Microsoft’s ‘performance-based’ cuts have started.
• Zuckerberg says Meta will lay off more ‘low-performers’
• Meta is laying off employees at WhatsApp, Instagram, and more
• Brave has laid off around 15 percent of its employees.
• Apple is cutting jobs across its Books and News apps
• Dell is creating a new sales team to focus on AI.
• Intuit fires 1,800 employees to hire 1,800 employees and focus on AI.
• Best Buy is laying off more employees as it reckons with falling sales
• Microsoft layoffs hit HoloLens, Azure cloud teams
• Microsoft shuts down Bethesda studios behind Redfall and Hi-Fi Rush
• More Google layoffs.
• GTA 6, BioShock publisher Take-Two to lay off hundreds and cut projects
• Best Buy Geek Squad employees report mass layoffs
• Amazon lays off hundreds in the AWS physical store technology team.
• EA is the latest gaming company to lay off workers.
• “Why are we expected to do the coding Olympics for every company that wants to interview you?”
• Mozilla is laying off around 60 workers and scaling back its Mastodon instance.
• Paramount is cutting 800 jobs as it looks to “grow revenue, while reducing costs.”
• Warner Music Group to lay off 600 employees and close the Interval Presents podcast division.
• Amazon Health, Corsair, DocuSign, Drizly and Glowforge are the latest tech layoffs.
• Snap is cutting 10 percent of its staff
• Almost 30,000 workers in tech have been laid off this year.
• Jack Dorsey’s Block is also cutting jobs.
• Alphabet posted $307.4 billion in revenue for the 2023. It also spent $2.1 billion on layoffs.
• PayPal is laying off 9 percent of its employees.
• This is not “Play Nice, Play Fair,” Blizzard.
• Embracer lays off 97 Eidos employees and cancels new Deus Ex game
• Microsoft lays off 1,900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox employees
• Vroom goes screech — laying off 800 workers and exiting used car sales.
• eBay will lay off 1,000 employees — 9 percent of the company
• Riot Games cuts more than 500 jobs
• TikTok is cutting jobs, too.
• Layoffs at the developer of Dead by Daylight.
• Google CEO tells employees to expect more job cuts this year
• YouTube is the latest part of Google to be hit with layoffs
• Google layoffs continue with ‘hundreds’ from sales team
• Google’s latest layoffs are just the beginning
• Layoffs hit a Gearbox studio.
• Instagram’s latest job cuts reportedly affect around 60 workers.
• Audible is laying off 5 percent of its staff.
• Discord is laying off 17 percent of employees
• Google confirms it just laid off around a thousand employees
• Google is losing its Fitbit leaders and laying off hundreds of AR employees
• Twitch is cutting one-third of its staff
• Hundreds of Amazon Prime Video and MGM Studios workers are being laid off.
• Humane lays off 4 percent of employees before releasing its AI Pin
• Twitch is reportedly planning to lay off 35 percent of its staff.
• Unity is laying off 25 percent of its staff
• 2023’s great games were overshadowed by a dark cloud of layoffs
• What do Houston, Nashville, and Dallas have in common?
• A $2 million dollar investment yesterday, layoffs today.
• Etsy is cutting around 225 jobs.
• Unity is probably going to do layoffs
• Ubisoft lays off dozens of workers as gaming industry struggles drag on
• Google’s postpandemic ‘reckoning’
• The Google News team just got a little smaller.
• LinkedIn lays off hundreds of employees for the second time this year
• Job cuts hit Qualcomm.
• Telltale Games laid off staff — but it’s unclear how many jobs were cut.
• More layoffs at Twitch.
• Naughty Dog is reportedly the latest studio to cut developer jobs
• Worms publisher Team17 loses its CEO, starts “period of consultation” ahead of restructuring.
• Epic Games cuts around 830 jobs
• BioWare is laying off ‘approximately’ 50 people
• Google’s $99 a night company hotel advertises ‘no commute’ as a perk
• CD Projekt Red is laying off about 9 percent of its staff
• Amazon is forcing some staffers to relocate as part of its return-to-office mandate.
• Microsoft is laying off 276 employees in Washington.
• Niantic lays off staff and shuts down games as it focuses on Pokémon Go
• Plex lays off more than 20 percent of its staff
• Google is laying off employees at Waze
• Ford is reportedly preparing more layoffs.
• Reddit is cutting ‘roughly 90’ staffers and reducing hiring.
• Verizon warns customer service employees of impending layoffs
• Meta has started its third of three planned rounds of layoffs.
• Disney’s third planned round of layoffs has started.
• Meta’s next round of layoffs will start next week
• Microsoft won’t give salaried employees raises this year
• Nuro plans for more layoffs as the AV sector’s economic woes deepen
• Unity is laying off 600 employees.
• Clubhouse is laying off more than half of its workforce
• Amazon is laying off Studios and Prime Video staffers.
• Lyft lays off nearly a third of its employees.
• Dropbox is laying off 500 people and pivoting to AI
• More Amazon layoffs.
• More Lyft layoffs are coming.
• Whole Foods is laying off several hundred corporate workers.
• Insider laid off employees on Thursday, too.
• “Why should we stay at Meta?”
• Meta layoffs hit London.
• Meta’s latest layoffs cut employees in technical roles
• Amazon is laying off some advertising staffers.
• Meta’s next round of layoffs might happen this week.
• “Humbled” Silicon Valley VCs are loading up on money from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE.
• DPReview’s archives live on!
• Meta’s layoffs are reportedly ‘gutting’ its new customer service teams
• Amazon’s layoffs could affect its gaming efforts.
• Apple has reportedly started a small number of corporate layoffs
• EA is laying off 6 percent of its workers
• Lucid’s laying off 18 percent of its workers
• The site that’s supposed to help people find jobs is laying off thousands of people.
• Amazon is shutting down DPReview, the go-to camera reviews website
• How Apple’s avoiding layoffs: delaying bonus payments, pausing hiring, cutting travel budgets.
• Amazon’s layoffs included ‘just over 400’ job cuts at Twitch.
• Amazon’s latest layoffs cut 9,000 more jobs in divisions including Twitch and AWS
• Even Apple can’t escape the economy.
• Meta is laying off 10,000 more employees in a series of cuts
• Waymo has laid off over 200 employees this year.
• Cerebral’s laying off even more staff.
• Meta’s “year of efficiency” reportedly isn’t off to a good start.
• Thursday has brought even more layoff news.
• Ebay is the latest to announce layoffs.
• Zoom is laying off 1,300 employees, around 15 percent of its workforce
• Pinterest’s new round of layoffs comes weeks after its last cuts
• Rivian is laying off 6 percent of its employees — again
• Is it time to start the Intel deathwatch?
• PayPal is laying off 2,000 employees.
• January was the worst month for tech layoffs.
• Why are so many tech companies laying people off right now?
• Spotify is laying off 6 percent of its global workforce, CEO announces
• More details come out on which departments saw layoffs at Google, Microsoft, and Amazon
• Today on The Vergecast: Elon Musk status update, M2 MacBook Pros, and tech layoffs.
• Google cuts 12,000 jobs in latest round of big tech layoffs
• 1,852 Amazon workers are out of a job in Seattle.
• Amazon begins another round of job cuts as it lays off more than 18,000 people
• Microsoft says it has changed its ‘hardware portfolio’ amid layoffs
• Microsoft announces big layoffs that will affect 10,000 employees
• DirecTV is reportedly laying off hundreds of workers.
• Verily, Alphabet’s health-focused company, is cutting jobs
• Meta confirms it’s rescinded some full-time job offers
• Esports and lifestyle brand 100 Thieves is laying off staff
• Amazon confirms it’s laying off 18,000 workers.
• Amazon confirms its massive layoffs will affect 18,000 employees
• Vimeo is laying off 11 percent of its workforce in another round of job cuts
• Apple’s market cap is down $1 trillion from its peak exactly one year ago.
• Micron will cut 10 percent of its workforce next year.
• Some ex-Meta employees say they’re not getting full severance.
• GameStop is reportedly cutting more jobs.
• Kraken crypto exchange lays off 30 percent of workforce
• DoorDash announces layoffs affecting 1,250 workers
• Job cuts are coming to a Silicon Valley original.
• Alexa isn’t pulling its weight.
• Robot delivery startup Nuro is laying off 20 percent of its workers
• Amazon’s CEO says more layoffs will happen in 2023
• Roku lays off 200 US employees
• Steve Aoki dropped the beat at Amazon during layoffs
• Amazon employees are still waiting to hear if they’ll keep their jobs.
• Amazon confirms cuts to hardware and services teams
• The Amazon layoffs have started.
• Ask A Manager has weighed in.
• The Tech Winter, visualized.
• Amazon mass layoffs will reportedly ax 10,000 people this week
• Tim Cook confirms that Apple’s slowing down on hiring.
• Twitter reportedly cut thousands of contractors without warning
• Disney is preparing to cut jobs, according to leaked memo from CEO
• Meta announces huge job cuts affecting 11,000 employees
• Twitter’s layoff notices in Africa are missing something.
• Meta layoffs are starting tomorrow, and they’re going to be bad.
• Elon Musk’s Twitter layoffs leave whole teams gutted
• Amazon confirms a “pause” on corporate hiring.
• Amazon curbs corporate retail hiring for the rest of 2022
• Lyft to lay off 13 percent of its workforce as economic outlook darkens
• Peloton CEO promises the company is ‘done’ with layoffs
• Twitter braces for layoffs
• Intel layoffs are coming in Q4 as it cuts billions in spending
• Wireless ISP Starry lays off half its workers in a bid to save cash
• Leaked documents show just how fast employees are leaving Amazon
• Warner Bros. Television’s massive job cuts worsen WBD’s diversity problem
• Layoffs at Gimlet and Parcast expose cracks in Spotify’s exclusivity model
• Intel reportedly planning major layoffs, likely affecting thousands of jobs
• Peloton’s CEO doesn’t understand why people aren’t happier he laid off 500 people
• Peloton CEO cuts 500 more jobs to ‘assure the future viability of the business’
• Warner Bros. Discovery is ‘absolutely not for sale,’ says CEO
• Meta is freezing hiring
• CNN lays off audio staffers as it shifts podcast strategy
• Meta and Google’s definitely-not-layoffs prod employees to compete for new jobs.
• Patreon is laying off 17 percent of its workforce and closing offices
• The T-Mobile / Sprint merger hasn’t created jobs — it’s cut thousands
• Snap lays off 20 percent of employees and cancels projects
• Ford is laying off thousands of employees, and here’s the memo explaining the change
• Wayfair lays off 870 people, about 5 percent of its global workforce
• Crypto.com laid off 260 employees — then quietly let go of hundreds more
• Peloton gears up to hike prices, lay off 800 employees, and shutter stores
• Rivian is laying off 6 percent of its employees
• Shopify is laying off 1,000 employees
• Zuck turns up the heat
• Ford will reportedly slash a quarter of its workforce to fuel EV expansion
• Google pauses hiring for two weeks to ‘review our headcount needs’
• Apple reportedly wants to slow down hiring in 2023
• Giant NFT marketplace OpenSea lays off about 20 percent of its staff
• Read the memo Google’s CEO sent employees about a hiring slowdown
• Ford-backed autonomous car startup Argo AI lays off 150 employees
• GameStop is laying off staff and has fired its CFO
• Substack CEO says he’s ‘very sorry’ about laying off 13 people
• Tesla lays off nearly 200 Autopilot employees who help train the company’s AI
• Netflix cuts around 300 jobs after losing subscribers
• Tesla accused of violating federal law over ‘mass layoffs’ at Gigafactory
• Tesla layoffs reportedly affect hourly workers, too
• Spotify will reduce hiring by 25 percent
• Coinbase is laying off 1,100 employees as Bitcoin prices continue to fall
• BlockFi and Crypto.com lay off hundreds of staff as coins slump
• Crypto winter has come, and Coinbase is in trouble
• Elon Musk reportedly orders hiring freeze, 10 percent staff reduction at Tesla
• Klarna used a prerecorded video message to lay off 10 percent of employees
• Snap plans to slow hiring, warns that revenue will grow slower than expected
• Meta freezes hiring for Messenger Kids, shopping team, and other products
• Netflix is laying off 150 employees and cutting dozens from its Tudum fansite
• Here’s the memo Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal sent about firing execs and a hiring freeze
• Uber CEO vows to be ‘hardcore about costs,’ slow down hiring in memo to employees
• Netflix tried and failed to build fandom with Tudum
• The company behind celebrity cameo videos has laid off a quarter of its workers
• Netflix is laying off staff from the fansite it just launched
• Fired Peloton employees crash new CEO’s first all-hands

Five years ago, SpaceX launched Starlink, which has since grown into its biggest revenue driver, expanding to more than 100 countries. But as Starlink scaled, it faced a major hurdle: accepting payments in developing markets, where traditional banking infrastructure is unreliable, slow, and prone to blocking transactions. Many local banks across Africa, Latin America, and […]

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Final hours for 2-for-1 Passes! One of the best Super Early Bird Deals for TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 will be wrapping up in just 24 hours for the rest of the year. The 2-for-1 Pass lets you bring a friend, colleague, or business partner, for nearly free. Buy one pass at the Super Early Bird rate […]

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The newest generation of startups aiming to solve cross-border payments are focusing on stablecoins — cryptocurrency coins often pegged to actual currencies or other commodities to help them keep stable prices — to build solutions that work faster and often cheaper than classic financial rails. This trend is also driving a surge in investor interest […]

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Chinese AI company DeepSeek has been accused of IP theft, faced privacy inquiries in Europe, and has been the target of an enormous cyberattack. Now, it appears the company has a new headache on its hands: a U.S. trademark conflict. On Tuesday, DeepSeek filed an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) seeking […]

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After MoviePass’s historic implosion, subscribers to the “Netflix for movie theaters” were already cautious around the company’s 2023 relaunch. These moviegoers may grow even more skeptical after MoviePass sent out an email blast on Wednesday, which surveyed customers about their interest in web3. “Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain technologies are transforming the business landscape at an unprecedented […]

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Only 3 days remain to score the ultimate deal for TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 — two of the same ticket types for the price of one! Don’t wait to take advantage of these massive savings. This limited-time offer ends this Friday, January 31 at 11:59 p.m. PT — after that, these 2-for-1 Passes will be gone. […]

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