Armstrong’s comment trails the South African Reserve Bank Governor Lesetja Kganyago rebuffing any claims of the crypto asset as a national reserve. He asked what strategic benefit Bitcoin has, considering history was replete with gold as a store of value.

Armstrong has argued that Bitcoin could outperform gold in a decade. He noted Bitcoin’s $2 trillion market cap already makes up 11% of gold’s $18 trillion value. He suggested countries consider allocating a similar portion of their gold reserves to Bitcoin.

This debate took center stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where Kganyago opposed industries lobbying for specific assets without clear public policy benefits. Armstrong then cited Bitcoin’s decade-long performance as the best-performing asset and asked for gradual adoption by governments.

In the U.S., Bitcoin reserves are gaining momentum. Wyoming, Texas, and Massachusetts are pushing legislation to classify Bitcoin as a strategic asset. At least 15 other states, including Ohio and Pennsylvania, are considering similar measures.

Additionally, an executive order issued by Donald Trump recently seeks to create a “national digital asset stockpile” to show the probable shift in monetary strategy by the United States. The call comes amidst debate by Armstrong about the future monetary systems position of Bitcoin globally.

Semler Scientific seeks $75 million through a private offering of convertible senior notes, intending to use a portion for Bitcoin investments.

Public medial device maker Semler Scientific announced plans to offer $75 million in convertible senior notes, with a portion of the funds set aside for purchasing Bitcoin (BTC). The offering will be made to qualified institutional buyers under Rule 144A of the Securities Act, the company said in a Jan. 23 press release.

The notes will be due in 2030 and will earn interest every six months. When converted, Semler Scientific can pay in cash, shares, or both. The final details, like the interest rate and conversion terms, will be set when the notes are priced, the press release reads.

A key part of this offering includes “capped call transactions” to help protect the company’s stock from dilution. These transactions aim to reduce the impact of converting the notes. If the buyers decide to purchase more notes, more capped calls will be made.

The Santa Clara-headquartered company says it plans to use some of the proceeds to cover the costs of these capped call transactions. The rest will go toward general corporate purposes, including the “acquisition of Bitcoin.”

According to data from BitBo, Semler Scientific owns 2,321 BTC, worth over $244 million, or 0.011% of Bitcoin’s total supply. The company first revealed its Bitcoin treasury plans in May 2024, and since then, its shares under the ticker SMLR have risen by more than 140%, according to Google Finance data.

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Elon Musk’s social media platform X has refused to remove a video that Axel Rudakubana watched minutes before murdering three young children, despite numerous requests from authorities in Australia and the UK.

Australian internet regulator eSafety said on Friday it noted with “great sadness” that the video — which shows the violent stabbing of a bishop in Sydney in April — was watched by the killer on X even though the regulator had requested the material be taken down from the platform for months before the attack in Southport last summer. 

Immediately following the Australian attack, companies including Google, Microsoft, Snap and TikTok “acted quickly to co-operate with eSafety and ensure the Wakeley stabbing video could not be accessed from their platforms. Some of these companies took additional, proactive steps to reduce further spread of the material,” the regulator said. “X Corp chose not to remove the video from its platform.” 

Video footage of the stabbing of a bishop at a church in west Sydney circulated online in April but X only geoblocked the footage in Australia, meaning that people elsewhere in the world, and local users of VPNs, could continue to view the violent attack. 

UK home secretary Yvette Cooper said this week that the government was contacting X directly to ask it to remove the video from the platform. “Companies should not be profiting from hosting content that puts children’s lives at risk,” she told the House of Commons.

Rudakubana, 18, was sentenced to life with a minimum of 52 years in prison on Thursday after admitting to the murder of three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport.

Musk tweeted repeatedly in the wake of the killings, accusing UK prime minister Sir Keir Starmer of “prioritising mosques over British girls in their dance classes”. Musk also amplified tweets by far-right agitator Tommy Robinson that claimed “Muslims run through the streets unchallenged by police, attacking any non-Muslim”. The interventions led to accusations that he was inflaming tensions that led to rioting across British towns and cities last summer.

On Friday, Musk shared an article about the Southport killings, saying “never forget”.

But he has so far refused to intervene to compel his company to take down the video that Rudakubana watched, and the video is still circulating on X as of Friday afternoon.

The Financial Times contacted X to ask why it had not removed the video, but received no response.

The court in the Rudakubana case heard this week that a search of a Lenovo tablet found in his house showed that he had deleted his entire browser history apart from one search on the day of the attack. Six minutes before he left to carry out the murders, he had searched X for “mar mari emmanuel stabbing”.

When police carried out the same search of X during their investigation, they found it led to posts containing footage of the Sydney attack three months earlier. 

The prosecution also outlined Rudakubana’s online profiles and social media handles in court, including his X account. As of Friday, his X account — which is protected, so that only followers could see his posts — had not been taken down. 

The Australian regulator sought to take legal action to try to force X to comply with a ruling to fully remove the video in April, a move that divided the country over whether the government was suppressing free speech or was correct to protect social media users from harmful and violent content. 

Musk criticised the decision, accusing the eSafety “commissar” of trying to censor the internet. 

That provoked a furious reaction from the country’s politicians, including Anthony Albanese, the prime minister, who said it was “distressing” that X was fighting the order to remove the video and criticised the billionaire’s stance. 

However, a court opted against extending an injunction on the video being shown on the basis that X had taken “reasonable steps” to stop the video being shown in Australia. The case had been seen as a potential test case for whether local regulations could be applied on a global basis. 

The eSafety commissioner dropped its case in June pending a review of Australia’s online safety laws. 

Additional reporting by Hannah Murphy

LG Electronics is betting on robotics as its next big growth driver. The South Korean electronics company said on Friday that it has agreed to acquire an additional 30% stake in Bear Robotics, a California-based startup it previously backed that is building AI-powered server robots for restaurants. The deal gives LG a majority ownership of 51% in the startup, which will now become a subsidiary of the larger company. LG declined to comment on the value of its latest stake; a local outlet in Korea say it’s around $180 million. If accurate, that would give Bear an overall valuation of $600 million.

A company spokesperson added that the exact figure would be disclosed once the deal closes.

Bear is known for its expertise in AI technology that is capable of controlling multiple robots, specifically the management of fleets remotely, LG said in its statement. The tech giant intends to integrate Bear with its commercial robot unit, which has developed “LG CLOi Robots,” to reinforce its home robot and industrial robot divisions.

The tech behemoth says it is working on developing a comprehensive software platform for commercial, industrial, and home robots using Bear’s technology. With the robotics industry moving more towards AI-focused solutions, this investment and deal is expected to improve LG’s robotics software capabilities, LG said.

The news comes less than a year after the electronics company poured $60 million into Bear Robotics in March 2024. That deal already made LG into Bear’s largest shareholder. Bear’s previous funding in 2022 valued it at over $490 million, per PitchBook data.

CEO and founder John Ha and the Bear management team will remain and continue to help create synergies with LG’s robotics unit.

Ha, a former Google software engineer turned restaurateur, founded Bear in 2017 after witnessing the challenges of running a restaurant, which motivated him to develop serving robots. The SoftBank-backed startup operates indoor delivery robots in the U.S., South Korea, and Japan. Its robots are designed to help deliver food to restaurant customers.

“This additional investment underscores our dedication to positioning robots as a pivotal growth engine for the company, reflecting our belief in their inevitable role in the future,” Lee Sam-soo, chief strategy officer at LG Electronics, said in a statement. “We will persist in driving innovation across all sectors of robotics, encompassing commercial, industrial and home applications.”

Robots and robotics were a bit theme this year at CES 2025, and LG made itself a part of that story. with LG CEO William Cho emphasizing the potential for robots to broaden their applications beyond their current roles in sectors like hospitality and delivery logistics.

LG’s interest in the tech goes back well before this year and the recent vogue of AI in everything, with both Korea and Japan being early commercial adopters of some of the earliest iterations in the field. The Korean electronics company has been researching and developing robot software and hardware more than a decade. In 2017, LG deployed guide robots at South Korea’s largest airport, Incheon International Airport.

LG also has a substantial home robotics business by way of its LG Home Appliance Solution Division. Its home robots are designed to work with home appliances and other domestic scenarios. One example the self-driving AI home hub, a project named Q9, which is scheduled for release later this year. It has autonomous driving technology and can sense voices, sounds, and images. The Q9 has Microsoft’s voice recognition and synthesis technology, so users can have easy and natural conversations with it.

Its industrial robot, the “Autonomous Vertical Articulated Robot,” uses sensors to navigate, move, and carry out tasks with its robotic arm.

Samsung, LG’s rival in the electronics sector, said earlier this month that it will roll out its home robot in the first half of this year.

TL;DR

What Might Come Next?

Gary Gensler’s tenure at the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) might be over, but the lawsuit against Ripple remains ongoing. The former Chairman resigned on January 20 (the day Donald Trump officially became America’s 47th President) and was replaced by Mark Uyeda.

Gensler was considered an enemy of the cryptocurrency industry, while his successor stands in the opposite corner. Last year, Uyeda criticized the SEC’s previous leadership for its negative stance on the sector:

“The Commission’s war on crypto must end, including crypto enforcement actions solely based on a failure to register with no allegation of fraud or harm.”

The XRP Army has interpreted the changes as a positive factor that could lead to a faster and potentially favorable resolution in the Ripple case. Most recently, John Deaton (an American lawyer representing thousands of XRP investors in the lawsuit) also gave his two cents.

He believes there are now three possible scenarios. The first involves continuing the SEC’s appeal. The securities regulator opposed a verdict from 2023 when Judge Torres ruled that XRP sales on public exchanges to retail investors did not constitute securities transactions.

The second option is a dismissal of the appeal. According to him, this would require Ripple to pay the previously ordered $125 million penalty. Recall that Judge Torres ruled that the company should settle the amount due to violating certain rules.

While the figure sounds substantial, it actually represents just a fraction of the $2 billion the watchdog initially asked for. Somewhat expected, many Ripple proponents viewed the decision as a major victory, while some of the company’s executives promised to respect the court’s ruling.

The third scenario seems like the most favorable (and most unlikely) for Ripple. According to Deaton, this includes the SEC withdrawing its appeal and scrapping the firm’s $125 million fine.

“I don’t see the SEC saying: “No, we’re going to deny a judge’s ruling.” So that’s why I think the middle one is the option.”

The SEC Looks Like the Underdog

Despite not outlining when the case might be officially over, Deaton believes Ripple’s victory is just a matter of time. He based his thesis on the fact that the current President of the USA – Donald Trump – has completely changed his stance on the digital asset sector, planning to make the country the crypto capital of the world. 

Last week, he doubled down on his supposed affection for the industry, launching a meme coin of his own. At first, the token, called Official Trump (TRUMP), experienced a spectacular price increase before heading south.

Most recently, Trump signed an executive order to review the creation of a “National Digital Asset Stockpile.” His initial intention was to establish a strategic BTC reserve in the US, but now the effort’s scope seems to have expanded to other cryptocurrencies, too.

My parents are literally the backbone of my story. They’ve always supported me in good and bad times and never for once left my side whenever I feel lost in this world. Honestly, having such amazing parents makes you feel safe and secure, and I won’t trade them for anything else in this world.

I was exposed to the cryptocurrency world 3 years ago and got so interested in knowing so much about it. It all started when a friend of mine invested in a crypto asset, which he yielded massive gains from his investments.

When I confronted him about cryptocurrency he explained his journey so far in the field. It was impressive getting to know about his consistency and dedication in the space despite the risks involved, and these are the major reasons why I got so interested in cryptocurrency.

Trust me, I’ve had my share of experience with the ups and downs in the market but I never for once lost the passion to grow in the field. This is because I believe growth leads to excellence and that’s my goal in the field. And today, I am an employee of Bitcoinnist and NewsBTC news outlets.

My Bosses and co-workers are the best kinds of people I have ever worked with, in and outside the crypto landscape. I intend to give my all working alongside my amazing colleagues for the growth of these companies.

Sometimes I like to picture myself as an explorer, this is because I like visiting new places, I like learning new things (useful things to be precise), I like meeting new people – people who make an impact in my life no matter how little it is.

One of the things I love and enjoy doing the most is football. It will remain my favorite outdoor activity, probably because I’m so good at it. I am also very good at singing, dancing, acting, fashion and others.

I cherish my time, work, family, and loved ones. I mean, those are probably the most important things in anyone’s life. I don’t chase illusions, I chase dreams.

I know there is still a lot about myself that I need to figure out as I strive to become successful in life. I’m certain I will get there because I know I am not a quitter, and I will give my all till the very end to see myself at the top.

I aspire to be a boss someday, having people work under me just as I’ve worked under great people. This is one of my biggest dreams professionally, and one I do not take lightly. Everyone knows the road ahead is not as easy as it looks, but with God Almighty, my family, and shared passion friends, there is no stopping me.