Robinhood Crypto has expanded its services to Spain, enabling users to trade, stake, and invest in cryptocurrencies directly on the platform. 

This expansion is part of Robinhood’s ongoing strategy to grow its presence across the European Union, following the introduction of the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulations, which establish clear rules for the digital asset industry.

Robinhood began its European expansion in late 2023, gradually introducing features to users across the region.

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TikTok-owner ByteDance plans to spend more than $12bn on artificial intelligence infrastructure this year, betting on the cutting-edge technology for new growth while under pressure from Washington to sell its popular video-sharing app in the US.

The Beijing-based company has budgeted Rmb40bn ($5.5bn) to acquire AI chips in China in 2025, according to two people familiar with the plans, which would double the amount it spent last year. The group also plans to invest about $6.8bn overseas to beef up its foundation model training capabilities using advanced Nvidia chips.

About 60 per cent of ByteDance’s domestic semiconductor orders would go to Chinese suppliers such as Huawei and Cambricon, while the rest would be spent on Nvidia chips that have been watered down to align with US export controls, according to the people.

Beijing has given Chinese tech companies informal guidance to buy at least 30 per cent of their chips from the country’s own suppliers, the people added.

The $6.8bn in overseas investment was budgeted to build out ByteDance’s AI computing capacity for model training. This investment could face challenges from recently expanded US export controls designed to hamper Chinese companies building sensitive technologies.

The push comes as ByteDance faces pressure in its core social media business. TikTok restored service to 170mn US users on Sunday after the country’s incoming President Donald Trump vowed that companies that distributed and hosted the platform would not be held liable for violating a US law that banned the video app unless it was sold.

While Trump signed an executive order on Monday to keep TikTok open for 75 days, he said he wanted a US company to have 50 per cent ownership in TikTok in the future. Trump said he could “certainly” put tariffs on China if it rejected a deal.

Any such transaction could affect plans for a future ByteDance initial public offering, with the company valuing itself at $300bn during a recent share buyback programme.

The company drew up its huge purchasing budget for graphic processing units in 2025 before the recent interventions in the US.

ByteDance, which under the direction of the tech group’s founder Zhang Yiming has become the frontrunner in China’s AI race, is doubling down to build out its own AI infrastructure to train its foundation model, as well as to implement AI functions across its various platforms.

It has ramped up computing capacity in south-east Asia, particularly in Malaysia. Though Chinese companies have been banned from purchasing Nvidia chips outside of the US since 2023, they have been able to secure access to chips through rental agreements with third-party data centre providers, several industry insiders said.

This loophole was closed last week by the outgoing Biden administration, which issued new rules that the identity of both the owner and operator of the chips must undergo a review process.

While Trump could take a different stance on export controls, the regulations — if strictly implemented — would make ByteDance’s chip purchases overseas more difficult than ever.

It has already made large orders to build up overseas AI capacity this year, such as through rental agreements, according to one of the people. It should be sufficient for most of the company’s needs in 2025 but what happened after that remained uncertain, the person added.

ByteDance’s budget for purchases of AI chips overseas was previously reported by news outlet The Information. In response to the FT’s reporting, ByteDance said: “The anonymously sourced information about our plan is incorrect.”

ByteDance also faces challenges from deep-pocketed local competitors, such as Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent, which are investing heavily in generative AI. Alongside these rivals, it has been pushing out more capable models and lowering costs for developers.

Chinese companies still need to build up the capacity of AI data centres onshore to support the use of AI applications even after the models have been trained.

ByteDance plans to use most of its Chinese AI chips — including Huawei’s Ascend and Cambricon — for “inference” tasks, the computation undertaken by large language models to generate a response to a prompt.

ByteDance released its AI chatbot Doubao in August 2023 and the AI app has become China’s most popular AI application, according to website analytics site Aicpb.com.

Doubao, which means “beanbag” in Chinese, had 71mn regular monthly active users as of December, compared with OpenAI’s 300mn weekly active users globally.

Nvidia recorded $11.6bn in revenue from China, including Hong Kong, or about 13 per cent of its global total, during the first three quarters of 2024, according to company filings.

ByteDance is by far the largest client for Nvidia in China. The TikTok parent can only buy less advanced chips such as Nvidia’s H20 for Chinese data centres, a specialised and less-powerful version of its GPUs tailored to align with US export controls.

In 2024, it ordered about 230,000 of Nvidia’s chips, mostly H20s, according to estimates from tech consultancy Omdia. This compares with 485,000 of the more advanced “Hopper” chips bought by Microsoft last year and the 224,000 acquired by Meta.

Tech companies around the world have spent an estimated $229bn on servers in 2024, according to Omdia, led by Microsoft’s $31bn in capital expenditure and Amazon’s $26bn.

Additional reporting by Ryan McMorrow in Beijing and Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington

• President Trump has signaled his intent to reverse Biden’s EV policies
• Trump declared a “national energy emergency”
• Electric vehicle charging infrastructure spend will be paused

While the 47th US President’s inauguration was arguably overshadowed by the number of tech bros and questionable world leaders who were invited, Donald Trump didn’t waste any time getting to work. As soon as he entered the White House, he signed a raft of executive orders.

In fact, President Trump told a massive crowd that was packed into an arena in Washington DC that he would revoke “80 destructive and radical executive actions of the previous administration”.

Renowned U.S. entrepreneur Mark Cuban has voiced his frustration over President Donald Trump’s launch of the Official Trump meme coin on the weekend before his inauguration.

The Dallas Mavericks owner called the move a setback for crypto’s legitimacy, suggesting it undermines ownership and promotes speculation.

Cuban Slams Trump’s Meme Coin Move

The billionaire, a mainstay of the popular reality show “Shark Tank,” took to X on January 20 to express his disapproval of the President’s meme coin rollout, labeling it as “self-serving” and “the biggest bunch of nonsense” he had ever encountered in crypto.

Cuban argued that initiatives like Trump’s were harmful to the industry’s reputation as they prioritized risk-taking over value creation.

“This is the biggest bunch of self serving Bullsh*t I have ever heard. In your world there is no ownership. Just speculation,” he said.

Furthermore, the businessman hinted that the launch could open doors for scammers targeting crypto newbies, adding that the incoming head of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) would not be pleased with the development.

In his tirade, Cuban also questioned the value proposition of meme coins like TRUMP, asking, “What is the utility for the buyer?” He went further to label such ventures as gambling in disguise, warning that they could damage efforts to validate cryptocurrencies. “Goodbye whatever hope the crypto industry had of legitimizing itself,” the 66-year-old asserted.

He is not alone in his criticism. Yesterday, former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan decried the speculative nature of meme coins, describing them as a “zero-sum lottery” that often results in a price collapse.

Ever since its introduction last Friday, the TRUMP token has experienced a rollercoaster ride, going from a low of $6.24 to a high of $75.35 to achieve a market cap of more than $15 billion. Currently, it is trading around the $38 level after losing more than half its value following the launch of the First Lady’s own meme coin, MELANIA.

However, with a market cap north of $7 billion, TRUMP is the 28th largest cryptocurrency in the market and #3 among meme coins.

Meme Coin for the Treasury

Interestingly, despite his earlier critique, Cuban floated the idea of creating a meme coin of his own, modeled on Trump’s but under different terms.

The TRUMP token was launched with 80% of its supply withheld by a company linked to the new occupant of the Oval Office. They are set to be unlocked over the next three years, with any revenue derived from trading fees going into the company’s coffers.

However, Cuban’s proposal would see all revenue from the sale of his meme coin go to the U.S. Treasury to help offset the national debt. In this way, he argued, he could turn the speculative nature of such assets into a mechanism for public good. Further, he stated that the wallet address would be public, allowing everyone to track the funds.

Ethereum is off to a rocky start this 2025, and its vibrant dev community isn’t happy. According to reports, the Ethereum Foundation has recently moved a substantial amount of Ether. The foundation’s transactions to move and sell its tokens became messier when one of its employees attempted to explain the situation, generating a lot of backlash.

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Ethereum’s recent transactions have occurred since Bitcoin and other top tokens have been ripping through the charts. Price-wise, Ethereum is trading between $3,200 and $3,384, which is too far from 2021’s high of $4,870.

What’s Up, Ethereum Foundation?

The Ethereum Foundation, the primary organization supporting the development of the blockchain, is not helping the cause. Regardless of its intention or the overriding objectives for unloading massive ETH tranches, these moves still leave a bad taste in the mouths of most holders and supporters.

According to a recent post by Spot On Chain on Twitter/X, the foundation has recently moved another 100 ETH in exchange for 336,475 DAI. According to the account, the foundation sold 200 ETH tokens for $67k in the first few days of 2025 at an average cost of $3,361. The account added that ETH is 31% below its 2021 high of $4,878, while Bitcoin continues to retest its highs and currently breached the $109k level.

[ATTENTION] The Ethereum Foundation just sold another 100 $ETH for 336,475 $DAI!

In total, they have sold 200 $ETH ($672K) in 2025 at an average price of $3,361 over the past 12 days.$ETH remains 31% below its 2021 ATH of $4,878, while $BTC has hit a new ATH of $109K today!… https://t.co/9CWWVsrfhj pic.twitter.com/ZOr504i1HG

— Spot On Chain (@spotonchain) January 20, 2025

Ether Supporter’s Comments Draw Negative Feedback

The foundation’s latest transaction, the sale of 100 tokens, came after Josh Stark’s comments came to light. Stark, a popular ETH supporter, defended the foundation’s decision to sell these ETH tokens, arguing that they’re still actively using the blockchain’s native token.

the EF uses Ethereum all the time, for instance to (1) swap ETH for stables (usually @CoWSwap) and (2) to pay people (grantees, team members) in stables and ETH, on mainnet and L2s. Events we run (like Devcon and Devconnect) take onchain payments and use onchain ID for tickets.

— Josh Stark (@0xstark) January 20, 2025

In a Twitter/X posting, Stark explained that the foundation uses its tokens every time. These tokens buy stablecoins, pay their people in stablecoins, and support the blockchain’s events.

Stark’s comments didn’t sit well with some crypto observers and commentators. Twitter/X user WazzCrypto hit Stark for using ETH “dump” as an explanation to support the foundation’s transactions. User @VelvetMilkman was disappointed with Stark, arguing that it’s a lame excuse for using the altcoins.

Meanwhile, X user Trading_Axe has a more scathing, and no holds barred take on the issue:

Their brains actually do not work at all.

The fuck you need 300K for so urgently?

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What could you POSSIBLY, as the ETHEREUM FOUNDATION, when the entire world is watching, need 300K OF A PUBLIC SELL ORDER for?

Mindless cockroaches.

Retar Dio.

— ً (@trading_axe) January 20, 2025

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Buterin Sets The Record Straight For ETH

Many critics say Ethereum is losing ground against other blockchains, particularly Solana. As such, many recommend that Ethereum stake its tokens instead of selling them to generate yields. The increasing number of comments and criticisms against the foundation has caught the attention of Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s co-founder.

Buterin said the team has also explored many options, including staking their tokens. However, regulatory issues and potential problems with the hard fork prevented them from doing so. Although there’s a friendly regulatory environment right now, the risks associated with staking remain high.

Featured image from ETF Stream, chart from TradingView

Those allegations murder-for-hires, in fact, dissuaded the first Trump administration from granting clemency to Ulbricht: The White House in 2020 considered freeing Ulbricht but ultimately rejected the idea because of the alleged role of violence in the case, according to one former government official involved in the process who spoke to WIRED on condition of anonymity.

Since then, however, the Trump administration has shifted its stance on Ulbricht’s case—in part, perhaps, due to its embrace of the libertarian cryptocurrency community, for whom Ulbricht has become a martyr and cause célèbre. At the Libertarian National Convention in Washington, DC last May, then-presidential candidate Trump promised to commute Ulbricht’s sentence “on day one” if reelected. (Ultimately, day one passed with no clemency for Ulbricht, even as Trump pardoned more than a thousand participants in the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol, though Trump ally Elon Musk promised in a post to X on Monday evening that “Ross will be freed too.”)

Just what role Ulbricht will play in the free world is far from clear. Even in his statement to the judge at his sentencing hearing in 2015, Ulbricht never fully acknowledged the harm inflicted by the Silk Road’s drug sales and still shows little remorse for his actions in his account’s public posts to X, Jared Der-Yeghiayan, a former Homeland Security Investigations agent who infiltrated the Silk Road undercover as part of the case against Ulbricht told WIRED in November

“The idea of him being released doesn’t bother me in the least,” says Der-Yeghiayan, who now works as the head of strategic intelligence at cryptocurrency tracing firm Chainalysis. “I do get bothered if there’s now a perception that he did nothing wrong, that doesn’t acknowledge the facts of the case.”

Among some advocates of criminal justice reform, however, Ulbricht has become an exemplar of over-sentencing, particularly given that he was technically charged with nonviolent crimes. “Ross has served more than enough time. He has been a model prisoner. He’s a first-time, nonviolent offender. He poses zero safety risk to the community,” Alice Johnson, CEO of the justice reform foundation Taking Action for Good told WIRED in November. Johnson, spent two decades in prison herself for attempted possession with intent to distribute before her life sentence was commuted by Trump in 2018 and pardoned in 2020. “I believe that Ross’ case is going to pave the way for many others who have been unjustly given these draconian sentences to come home.”

On Tuesday night, Ulbricht’s supporters celebrated his freedom and voiced their gratitude to Trump for his clemency. “Words cannot express how grateful we are,” reads a tweet from @Free_Ross, an X account devoted to the more than decade-long effort on Ulbricht’s behalf. “President Trump is a man of his word and he just saved Ross’s life. ROSS IS A FREE MAN!!!!!”

Additional reporting by Joel Khalili

President Trump has followed through on one of his key campaign promises — at least for those in the crypto community — pardoning the sentence of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht.

“I just called the mother of Ross William Ulbricht to let her know that in honor of her and the Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly, it was my pleasure to have just signed a full and unconditional pardon of her son, Ross,” Trump wrote on a Truth Social post.

The move assures an imminent release for Ulbricht, who in 2015 was convicted of engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise and distributing narcotics, along with a host of related crimes, via his operation of the darknet Silk Road marketplace. He was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.

Ulbricht’s case has become a cause célèbre for many in the crypto community who note he did not himself sell drugs or other illegal items, but instead operated a platform where others were allowed to transact.

Then candidate Trump promised a “Day One” commutation of Ulbricht’s sentence last May, while addressing the Libertarian Party convention

The price of bitcoin (BTC) rose in the minutes following the news, possibly as the pardon, along with a flurry of executive orders over the past hours, signals the president’s intention to follow through on campaign promises.

Another one of those promises was a far friendlier crypto regulatory stance, including the possibility of the creation of a strategic bitcoin reserve.

Eli Lilly & Co., the Fortune 500 pharma firm that manufactures weight-loss injection Zepbound (tirzepatide), has a comparable oral medication in the works that could be approved by the FDA as early as 2026, CEO Dave Ricks told Bloomberg TV on Jan. 13, 2025.

Gam1983/Getty Images

Microsoft and OpenAI announced Tuesday that they have adjusted their partnership so that OpenAI can access competitors’ compute.

The new agreement “includes changes to the exclusivity on new capacity, moving to a model where Microsoft has a right of first refusal (ROFR),” Microsoft says. “To further support OpenAI, Microsoft has approved OpenAI’s ability to build additional capacity, primarily for research and training of models.”

The foundation of their relationship (which runs through 2030) stays pretty much the same — Microsoft keeps its exclusive rights to OpenAI’s tech for products like Copilot, and OpenAI’s API remains exclusive to Azure. They’ll maintain their two-way revenue-sharing setup (it’s been reported that Microsoft gets 20 percent of OpenAI’s revenue). Prior to today’s change, OpenAI was locked into using Microsoft’s Azure cloud infrastructure exclusively for its computing needs.

The models OpenAI hopes to build and the user base it’s looking to serve require billions of dollars in compute. It has been previously reported that some OpenAI shareholders felt Microsoft wasn’t moving fast enough to supply OpenAI with computing power, hence why the startup partnered with Oracle back in June (with the blessing of Microsoft) for the necessary compute.

There’s been a lot of buzz about Microsoft and OpenAI facing relationship woes after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was briefly ousted from the company, causing a lot of very public drama. The New York Times reported that the relationship has grown increasingly strained due to financial pressures at OpenAI, concerns about stability, and growing friction between employees at both companies.

Last March, Microsoft hired Inflection CEO Mustafa Suleyman to lead its consumer AI efforts, along with most of Inflection’s staff, in a $650 million deal. According to The New York Times report, this move particularly angered some OpenAI leadership, including Altman.

OpenAI’s deal with Microsoft also has an unusual escape clause: if OpenAI creates artificial general intelligence (AGI), it could close off Microsoft’s access to some of its most powerful models developed after that point. AGI, reportedly, is defined as a system capable of generating more than $100 billion in profits. This was originally meant to keep such powerful AI from being commercialized, but now OpenAI is reportedly considering dropping this provision, likely to secure more Microsoft funding.