Grinex, a US-sanctioned cryptocurrency exchange registered in Kyrgyzstan, said it’s halting operations after experiencing a $13 million heist carried out by “western special services” hackers.

Researchers from TRM, which has confirmed the theft, put the value of stolen assets at $15 million after discovering roughly 70 drained addresses, about 16 more than Grinex reported. Neither TRM nor fellow blockchain research firm Elliptic has said how the attackers slipped past Grinex’s defenses. Grinex said it has been under almost constant attack attempts since incorporating 16 months ago. The latest attacks, it said, targeted Russian users of the exchange.

Damaging “Russia’s financial sovereignty”

“The digital footprints and nature of the attack indicate an unprecedented level of resources and technology available exclusively to the structures of unfriendly states,” Grinex said. “According to preliminary data, the attack was coordinated with the aim of causing direct damage to Russia’s financial sovereignty.”

“Due to the attack, the Grinex exchange is forced to suspend operations,” Grinex continued. “All available information has been transferred to law enforcement agencies. An application has been submitted to the location of the infrastructure to initiate a criminal case.”

TRM said that TokenSpot, a second Kyrgyzstan-based exchange, was also breached. Two of the exchange’s addresses sent funds to the same consolidation address used by the affected Grinex-linked wallets. What’s more, both exchanges became inoperable on Wednesday, suggesting they were hit by the same attacker.

TRM said TokenSpot was a front for Grinex, which the US Treasury Department sanctioned last year. The department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said that Grinex, in turn, was a rebrand of Garantex, an exchange it had sanctioned in 2022. The department said then that Ganantex had “directly facilitated notorious ransomware actors and other cybercriminals by processing over $100 million in transactions linked to illicit activities since 2019.” Last year’s sanctions against Grinex came a few months after TRM said that the exchange was likely a front for Ganantex.

• The dual agent AI system autonomously solved Anderson’s conjecture from 2014
• Rethlas explores problem-solving strategies like a human mathematician would
• Archon transforms potential proofs into projects for the Lean 4 verifier

A research team led by Peking University developed a dual-agent AI system capable of solving advanced mathematical problems while also verifying its own results.

The system resolved a conjecture proposed in 2014 by Dan Anderson, completing the process within 80 hours of runtime.

The underground market for stolen credit card data has long operated as a volatile and highly deceptive ecosystem, where even experienced actors routinely fall victim to scams, exit schemes, and compromised services.

In recent years, this environment has become even more unstable, driven by increased law enforcement pressure, internal distrust among criminals, and the rapid turnover of marketplaces. As a result, threat actors are increasingly forced to adopt more structured approaches to identifying reliable suppliers and minimizing risk within their own illicit operations.

A guide found on an underground forum by Flare analysts sheds light on how threat actors themselves navigate the volatile world of credit card (CC) marketplaces.

The document, titled “The Underground Guide to Legit CC Shops: Cutting Through the Bullshit”—provides a structured look at how actors attempt to reduce risk in an ecosystem plagued by scams, law enforcement infiltration, and short‑lived operations.

Analysis of the guide reveals more than just practical advice. It outlines a methodology for vetting carding shops, operational security practices, and sourcing strategies, effectively documenting how today’s fraud actors think about trust, reliability, and survivability.

While parts of the guide appear to promote specific services, suggesting a possible vested interest from its author, it still offers a valuable glimpse into the inner workings of the carding economy, and the evolving standards actors use to operate within it.

From Opportunistic Fraud to Supplier Vetting Discipline

One of the most striking aspects of the guide is how it reframes carding from opportunistic fraud into a process‑driven discipline. Rather than focusing on how to use stolen cards, the document emphasizes how to evaluate suppliers.

This shift reflects a broader evolution within underground markets, where the primary risk is no longer just operational failure, but being defrauded by other criminals or interacting with compromised infrastructure.

The author repeatedly stresses that legitimacy is not defined by branding or visibility, but by survivability. In other words, a “real” shop is one that continues operating over time despite law enforcement operations, scams, and internal instability.

This aligns with observed trends in underground economies, where the lifespan of marketplaces has become increasingly unpredictable, forcing actors to adopt continuous verification practices.

The guide makes it clear that what separates a “legitimate” shop from the rest isn’t branding or uptime, it’s the quality of the stolen data it delivers. References to “fresh bins” (BIN = Bank Identifiable Number) and low decline rates point directly to the sources behind the data, whether from infostealer infections, phishing campaigns, or point-of-sale breaches. In this ecosystem, reputation isn’t built on promises but on consistently providing cards that actually work.

Shops that fail to maintain reliable data sources are quickly exposed, while those with steady access to fresh compromises rise to the top.

Building Trust in a Trustless Market

Transparency is another recurring theme. The guide highlights the importance of clear pricing models, real‑time inventory, and functional support systems, including ticketing and escrow services. These characteristics closely mirror legitimate e‑commerce platforms, underscoring how leading carding shops have adopted business practices designed to build user confidence and reduce friction.

Equally important is the role of community validation. The guide dismisses on‑site testimonials as unreliable, instead directing users toward discussions in closed or invite‑only forums. This reflects a broader fragmentation of the underground landscape, where trust is increasingly tied to controlled environments and long‑standing reputations.

Actors are encouraged to look for sustained discussion threads and historical presence, rather than isolated positive feedback.

The document also reveals a strong awareness of adversarial pressures. The emphasis on security‑first infrastructure, such as mirror domains, DDoS protection, and the absence of tracking mechanisms, suggests that operators are actively defending against both law enforcement monitoring and competing criminal groups.

In effect, these marketplaces function not only as distribution platforms, but as hardened environments designed to ensure operational continuity.

The Technical Checklist 

Beyond high‑level principles, the guide introduces a step‑by‑step vetting protocol that provides insight into how threat actors conduct due diligence. Technical checks such as domain age, WHOIS privacy, and SSL configuration are presented as baseline requirements.

While these checks are relatively simple, they demonstrate an effort to apply structured analysis to what has historically been a trust‑based decision process.

The guide also highlights the importance of identifying mirror infrastructure and backup access points, noting that established operations rarely rely on a single domain. This reflects a practical understanding of the instability of underground services, where takedowns and disruptions are common. The presence of multiple access points is framed as an indicator of operational maturity and resilience.

Social intelligence gathering plays an equally significant role. Rather than relying on direct interactions with vendors, users are encouraged to analyze forum discussions, track vendor histories, and identify patterns of behavior over time.

Particular attention is given to detecting coordinated endorsement campaigns, such as multiple positive reviews originating from newly created accounts, a tactic frequently associated with scams.

Operational Security 

Another critical component of the guide is its focus on operational security. The recommendations provided, while framed in the context of carding, closely mirror practices observed across a wide range of cybercriminal activities. Users are advised to avoid direct connections, utilize proxy services aligned with target geographies, and compartmentalize their environments through dedicated systems or virtual machines.

The discussion of cryptocurrency usage is particularly notable. The guide strongly discourages direct transactions from regulated platforms, instead advocating for intermediary wallets and privacy‑focused assets such as Monero. This reflects a growing awareness among threat actors of blockchain analysis capabilities and the risks associated with traceable financial flows.

Taken together, these OPSEC recommendations highlight an important shift: actors are no longer relying solely on tools to evade detection, but are adopting layered strategies designed to reduce exposure across the entire operational chain. This level of discipline suggests that even mid‑tier actors are increasingly adopting practices once associated with more advanced threat groups.

Scale vs. Exclusivity

The guide further categorizes carding shops into distinct operational models, including large automated platforms and smaller, curated vendor groups. This segmentation reflects the diversification of the underground economy, where different actors prioritize scale, accessibility, or quality depending on their objectives.

Automated platforms are described as highly efficient environments, often featuring integrated tools and instant purchasing capabilities. These operations resemble legitimate online marketplaces in both structure and functionality, enabling users to quickly acquire and test data at scale.

In contrast, boutique vendor groups emphasize exclusivity, higher quality, and controlled access, often relying on invitation‑based systems and long‑term relationships.

Commercial Interests and Operational Reality

Despite its structured approach, the guide is not without bias. The inclusion of a direct endorsement for a specific platform suggests that the author may have a vested interest in promoting certain services. This is a common pattern in underground communities, where informational content is often used as a vehicle for subtle advertising or affiliate activity.

Such endorsements should be viewed with caution. However, they do not necessarily invalidate the broader insights provided by the guide. Instead, they highlight the complex interplay between information sharing and commercial interests within cybercriminal ecosystems.

From a defensive perspective, the guide offers valuable intelligence into how threat actors assess risk and make operational decisions. The emphasis on verification, community validation, and layered security reflects a level of maturity that complicates traditional disruption efforts. Rather than relying on single points of failure, actors are increasingly building redundancy and adaptability into their workflows.

Ultimately, the document serves as both a playbook and a signal. It demonstrates that the carding ecosystem became more structured, more cautious, and more resilient. For defenders, understanding these dynamics is critical to anticipating how these markets will continue to evolve, and where opportunities for disruption may still exist.

How Flare Can Help

Flare helps organizations stay ahead of fraud by continuously monitoring underground forums and marketplaces, revealing how threat actors source, vet, and use stolen credit card data. This provides early insight into attacker behavior, including how they optimize success rates, build trust, and adapt to defenses.

By turning this intelligence into actionable insights, Flare enables security teams to detect exposures, anticipate fraud campaigns, and disrupt attacker workflows-shifting from reactive response to proactive, intelligence-driven defense.

Learn more by signing up for our free trial.

Sponsored and written by Flare.

London School of Economics’ Viet Nguyen-Tien and University of Birmingham’s Gavin Harper and Robert Elliott examine whether EVs have passed a tipping point for adoption.

A version of this article was originally published by The Conversation (CC BY-ND 4.0)

When the Strait of Hormuz first closed in March and oil hit $120 a barrel, a very old question came back: is this finally the moment electric vehicles (EV) take off for good – or just another false start?

EVs have been here before. They surged after the 1973 oil embargo, collapsed when oil fell, and surged again. Each wave died when the external pressure eased.

We think this time is different. In a new discussion paper, we argue that the economic case for electric vehicles is now improving on its own terms. This is because of what has happened to batteries, not because of the oil price. The same evidence, though, shows the transition creates new problems as serious as the ones it solves.

Why this time is different

Battery costs have fallen 93pc since 2010. That is the number that changes everything. A pack that cost more than $1,000 per kilowatt-hour in 2010 cost $108 by late 2025, driven down by a decade of learning, investment and policy support.

Research on the global battery industry finds that every time cumulative production doubles, costs fall by around 9pc. More buyers, more production, lower costs, more buyers.

Unlike the 1970s, this loop does not need an oil crisis to keep spinning. Electric cars have crossed lifetime cost parity with petrol vehicles across much of Europe; in the used-car market they now have the lowest total cost of ownership. Newer models even match petrol cars in estimated lifespan – something early EVs could not claim.

Global sales surpassed 17m in 2024, one of the fastest technology diffusion processes in the history of transport. Norway is near-fully electrified. And Ethiopia reached around 60pc EV sales share in 2024, powered by cheap hydroelectricity – some way ahead of the US, for instance, which sits at around 8pc.

An economic platform, not just a better engine

The deeper reason this wave will not fade is not technical – it is economic. An EV is a platform. Its value grows as the network around it grows, just as smartphones became indispensable not because of the hardware but because of everything connected to it.

Every charger built makes the next EV more attractive. Every software update raises the value of every car already on the road. Every recycled battery feeds back into the supply chain that makes the next one cheaper. It’s part of the reason some other technologies like hydrogen fuel cell vehicles have struggled to get off the ground in numbers – the tech exists, but all the other elements aren’t quite there.

One study of 8,000 drivers in Shanghai found that range anxiety – the fear of running out of charge – has a real economic cost due to unnecessarily avoided trips. But that cost is falling sharply, not because batteries improved, but because charging networks expanded.

Making real-time charger availability visible could add six to eight percentage points to market share by 2030. And because EV charging is far more flexible than other household electricity demand, drivers can shift away from peak hours remarkably easily when the price is right – turning the car into a grid asset, able to store and release electricity when needed. These are economic network effects, not engineering features.

Swapping one dependency for another

Ending oil dependence does not end geopolitical exposure. It relocates it.

In late 2025, China introduced rules requiring government approval for exports containing more than 0.1pc rare earths. The leverage that once came from control of oil flows now comes from control of processing capacity and component supply chains.

The minerals at stake – lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite and neodymium to name but a handful – carry their own geopolitical risks and, as we have written elsewhere, serious human costs in the communities that mine them. This creates a predictable cycle of social contestation that threatens to stall the transition unless the industry commits to responsible, sustainable innovation.

The metal cobalt traditionally helped EVs travel further on the same charge. And when prices spiked, so did research into making batteries with less or even no cobalt. Today, more than half of all EV batteries sold globally are cobalt free.

Four decades of patent data show the same pattern: higher mineral prices consistently redirect research and development toward mineral-saving technologies.

Recovering lithium and cobalt from used batteries is becoming economically viable too, shifting part of the supply chain away from geopolitically exposed extraction sites. In addition, Norway and other countries are looking to exploit new critical mineral resources to diversify supplies.

The transition is real – but not risk-free

The Hormuz crisis is a reminder of what concentrated energy dependence costs. The EV transition does not need it. The learning curve keeps falling, the platform keeps compounding, the economics keep improving. That is what makes this wave different.

What it does not do is eliminate geopolitical risk. Unlike oil, where leverage comes from energy flows, EV supply chains concentrate power at materials, processing capacity, and technological bottlenecks – supply chains that are highly concentrated and carry their own serious risks. Fuel dependence becomes mineral dependence. That dependence is highly concentrated.

Traditional carmaking regions are already absorbing concentrated job losses, and history shows such disruptions leave persistent scars even if the long-term aggregate effects are positive. Yet electric vehicle assembly is proving more labour-intensive in western countries than expected – requiring more workers on the shopfloor, not fewer, at least in the ramp-up phase. Contrast this with China, where massive automation has led to the creation of ‘dark factories’ where there are so few humans, internal lighting isn’t required.

The same regions facing losses could benefit. But the gains and losses do not fall on the same people. That is where the work remains.

By Dr Viet Nguyen-Tien, Dr Gavin D J Harper and Prof Robert Elliott

Viet Nguyen-Tien is an applied economist at the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) at the London School of Economics (LSE) with an interest in economic and political issues related to technology, energy and the environment.

Gavin Harper is a research fellow at the Birmingham Centre for Strategic Elements & Critical Materials in Birmingham Business School at the University of Birmingham focused on issues at the critical materials/energy nexus.

Robert Elliott is an applied economist at the University of Birmingham who works at the intersection of international economics, development economics, environmental and energy economics and international business.

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OpenAI is losing two of the architects of its most ambitious moonshots. Kevin Weil, who led the company’s science research initiative, and Bill Peebles, the researcher behind AI video tool Sora, both announced their departures on Friday. The exits come as OpenAI consolidates around enterprise AI and its forthcoming “superapp.”

The departures follow OpenAI’s decision to cut back on “side quests,” including customer-facing bets like Sora and OpenAI for Science. Sora, which was losing an estimated $1 million per day in compute costs, was shut down last month.

OpenAI for Science was the internal research group behind Prism, an AI-powered platform that promised to accelerate scientific discovery. It’s being absorbed into “other research teams,” according to Weil’s social media post announcing the news.

“It’s been a mind-expanding two years, from Chief Product Officer to joining the research team and starting OpenAI for Science,” Weil wrote. “Accelerating science will be one of the most stunningly positive outcomes of our push to AGI.”

The team had a short and bumpy road after its formal announcement in October 2025. Weil deleted a tweet claiming GPT-5 had solved 10 previously unsolved Erdős mathematical problems, but that claim fell apart immediately when the mathematician who runs the website erdosproblems.com called it out.

Weil’s departure comes a day after his team released GPT-Rosalind, a new model to accelerate life sciences research and drug discovery.

In a social media post announcing his departure, Peebles credited Sora with igniting a “huge amount of investment in video across the industry,” and argued that the kind of research that produced the video tool requires space away from the company’s mainline roadmap.

“Cultivating entropy is the only way for a research lab to thrive long-term,” he wrote.

OpenAI is also losing Srinivas Narayanan, its chief technology officer of enterprise applications, Wired reports. Narayanan reportedly announced the news internally that he was leaving to spend more time with family.

This article was updated to include the departure of Srinivas Narayanan.

• The Orion spacecraft uses eight processors running identical instructions simultaneously
• A fail-safe design prevents faulty computers from sending incorrect commands
• Triple redundant memory corrects single-bit errors automatically on access

The NASA Artemis II mission relies on a computing system built to remain operational under extreme conditions and hardware faults.

Unlike the Apollo program, where onboard computers handled limited functions, the Orion spacecraft manages life support, navigation, and communication through integrated flight software.

Gamers seeking victory in any fast-paced game will want every frame they can get. Sony designed the INZONE M10S II with this specific purpose in mind, and they accomplished it by including two different modes. Switching between settings is simple on this 27-inch OLED panel. If you keep the resolution at 1440p, the display will run at a scorching 540 hertz. Drop the resolution to 1080p and you’ll be rewarded with an even faster refresh rate of 720 hertz.

That kind of flexibility is invaluable when you’re playing different games with varying demands on your screen. Some titles are all about the details, while others are simply about obtaining that speed, since every millisecond counts. Fortunately, the tandem OLED build of this display keeps the image quality sharp even while switching between modes. Sony also included a brilliant feature called motion blur reduction, which keeps fast-moving objects clear and prevents the screen from becoming too dim even when you’re in the thick of things.

INNOCN 27″ OLED 2K QHD 2560 x 1440p 500Hz Gaming Monitor, Gaming Console Ready, VRR, G-SYNC Compatible…

• 【Epic QD-OLED 500Hz Monitor】 A new generation of gaming monitor is emerging, this new 27 Inch 1440p 500hz monitor adopts QD – OLED panel and…
• 【Rare 500Hz Refresh Rate & 0.03ms】INNOCN 2780M – Ultra-fast 500Hz OLED display. The faster speed lets you respond quickly to opponents and stay a…
• 【Powerful Connectivity】 2780M 2560 x 1440p 500hz gaming monitor delivers powerful connectivity: 2 x DP, 2 x HDMI, 1 x 3.5MM Audio Jack, wide…

The display itself is also quite forgiving in terms of placement, since the special anti-glare coating does an excellent job at maintaining visibility regardless of the lighting conditions in your room. With that level of control over reflections, your emphasis remains where it should be: on the game. For the competitive crowd, there is an extra tiny tool in the arsenal known as tournament mode. When you turn it on, the display basically shrinks to 24.5 inches, with black bars on the sides, but you still get the desired high refresh rate.

Ergonomically, the setup feels perfectly natural on almost any workstation. The stand can tilt from minus five to thirty-five degrees and adjusts in height by roughly five inches to maintain your screen at the ideal angle. Plus, it swivels left and right, allowing you to have a good perspective regardless of your preferences.

In terms of input, you have two HDMI 2.1 connections and one DisplayPort 2.1 connector to keep up with the latest graphics cards. Variable refresh rate support almost guarantees that you’ll never have to struggle with those annoying screen tearing bugs. As an added bonus, you get two pre-tuned picture settings for shooter games: one that gives you the familiar look of a regular display, and another that really shows off the OLED panel. Sony plans to sell the monitor for $1,099, with a release later this year.
[Source]

A newly discovered live recording from Yusef Lateef arrives via Resonance Records for Record Store Day 2026, capturing the saxophone icon in an intimate club performance that stands out as one of the most compelling archival jazz releases of the year.

Yusef Lateef Alight Upon The Lake: Live at the Jazz Showcase captures the artist backed by a superb swinging quartet featuring Kenny Barron on piano, Bob Cunningham on bass, and Albert “Tootie” Heath on drums.

One of the better sounding of Resonance’ RSD new offerings, as with most of these shows from Chicago’s Jazz Showcase — a venue run by jazz enthusiast Joe Segal — the tapes used for creating this release are recorded in monaural, yet effectively document the sound of the band in the club. 

Pianist Kenny Barron stands out as a featured performer, the band playing two of his compositions including the nearly 30-minute opening track “The Untitled”– almost half of it showcases Barron’s lush, wave-like solo explorations. Likewise, his “Inside Atlantis” stretches for nearly 20 minutes.

Lateef’s playing is, not surprisingly, beautiful and inventive. Yet he also takes time to let loose such as on the lighthearted boogie-woogie show closer “Yusef’s Mood.” This has the feel of a vintage 1940s–50s Jazz at the Philharmonic blowing session, driven by the same raw energy as Illinois Jacquet and Flip Phillips, with flashes of the R&B honk and swagger you’d hear from Joe Houston and Big Jay McNeely.

The vinyl quality is fine on this new RSD release as are the production elements as we’ve come to expect from Resonance. The 3LP set features liner notes by noted Yusef Lateef biographer Herb Boyd, plus interviews with musicians Bennie Maupin and Wayne Segal (son of the club’s found and the frontline person maintaining his father’s sizable tape archive). 

Whether you need to own Alight Upon The Lake: Live at the Jazz Showcase on vinyl is a personal decision versus just getting the CD version. The 3LP version will likely run you upwards of $60 (estimated) on RSD, However, the 3CD set is available for pre-order for just $29.98 at Amazon. 

Either way you go, this will be a fun listen for fans of Mr. Lateef’s music. 

Mark Smotroff is a deep music enthusiast / collector who has also worked in entertainment oriented marketing communications for decades supporting the likes of DTS, Sega and many others. He reviews vinyl for Analog Planet and has written for Audiophile Review, Sound+Vision, Mix, EQ, etc.  You can learn more about him at LinkedIn.

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The crew of NASA’s Artemis II mission have safely returned to Earth, but if your Moon fever has yet to break, or you’re curious to get a big picture view of how the second of a planned five Moon missions was pulled off, PBS has a new documentary you’ll want to watch. The hour-long Return to the Moon was produced for PBS’ NOVA and aired on TV on April 15, but you can view the episode in its entirety on YouTube right now.

Return to the Moon covers the history of NASA’s Artemis program, and specifically the planning and preparation that went into Artemis II. Per the documentary’s official description:

Follow the four members of the Artemis II crew as they embark on a perilous 10-day journey to orbit the Moon, venturing beyond Earth orbit for the first time since Apollo and farther into the Solar System than any humans have gone before. And get an inside look at the preparations needed to overcome the extreme engineering challenges of human-crewed spaceflight, all the way from launch to splashdown.

The last Apollo mission was in 1972, so Artemis II getting a group of four astronauts anywhere near the Moon has naturally generated a lot of excitement. The crew flew further away from Earth than anyone has gone so far, captured some stunning photos of both the Moon and our home planet and managed to make everyone feel better about their dislike of Microsoft Outlook. Few Moon missions have been as well-documented or relatable.

The S’porean couple behind Freshio Gelato is proving that age has no limit

At 73 and 77, most people would be slowing down. But Tan Kian Tat (KT) and his wife, Zheng Yazhu, were just getting started again.

Once a “crawfish king” in China, the retired KT and his wife have returned to work life in Singapore—this time scooping out up to 500kg of gelato a month at Freshio Gelato, a homegrown gelato business they built without touching a cent of their retirement savings.

A path that began far from the kitchen

KT’s path began far from any kitchen.

For 15 years, he dominated China’s crawfish export industry, running eight factories across different provinces and shipping US$40 million worth of frozen crawfish to Europe and the US in a single three-month season. 

I was the biggest exporter—they called me the crawfish king in China.

Meanwhile, his wife, Yazhu, wasn’t idle. 

She ran two cafes in Shanghai for four to five years, serving Singaporean food and acting as a distributor for Neapolitan coffee brand Izzo.

When they left China in 2011 to retire after more than 20 years, they simply handed their cafés to trusted workers, who later expanded those locations to five across the city.

The struggle with idle time

Retirement, however, felt suffocating for this couple wired for work.

After leaving the country, the couple travelled the world for three years before settling in Vancouver, where Uncle KT’s family lived. But the slow pace of retirement clashed with his personality.

“I’m a workaholic. I always loved working, moving here and there,” he said. “In Vancouver, it would be like, this week maybe we drive down to the USA, then next week we come back—where to go again? It’s too much of nothing to do and just spending money only.” 

Seeking purpose, the elderly couple then chose to return to Singapore, where they were born, to spend their golden years.

To pass the time, KT drove for Grab while Yazhu worked as a McDonald’s barista, but two years of being pushed around by younger colleagues left her in tears. “They always bully me in McDonald’s,” she told him. “Ask me to throw rubbish, do this, do that.”

Taking a leap into entrepreneurship

In 2019, an HDB café lease opened in Sengkang North. Drawing on Aunty Yazhu’s café experience, they took the leap—this time with gelato.

The choice wasn’t random. KT understood that cooking at their age would be physically demanding and stressful. Gelato offered something different.

“Gelato is a dessert, it has timing—always after lunch or dinner. Before that big hour, you have a quiet period to prepare,” he explained. “You make them all in pans, and put them ready on display. When the order comes, just need to scoop and go.”

Initially, the couple adopted a supplier-based model, buying ready-made gelato to serve at Freshio Gelato. But it soon fell short of expectations.

“If you’re a big shop, they send you very fresh batches, maybe made just yesterday,” KT said. “But if you’re a small shop, sometimes they will send you old gelato that has a layer of ice over it. They don’t even put a date on it, so we don’t know when they were really made.” 

At their first outlet, the business barely covered rent and operations. Worse still, supplier flavour options were limited. As such, in 2021, Yazhu encouraged KT to learn to make gelato from scratch and breathe new life into the business.

Learning how to make gelato from scratch

That same year, with the Sengkang North lease expiring and a tiny 300-square-foot unit available at City Gate, the elderly decided to shift to the latter unit. 

Before opening, KT flew to Thailand’s Dream Cones school for a two-week gelato course. At 66, he became the oldest student.

The master didn’t believe that I myself was actually an enrolled student. He was thinking, “Am I visiting someone?” The other students were all in their 20s.

KT acknowledged that his food processing background and engineering knowledge gave him an edge. At the end of the course, when the instructor conducted a blind taste assessment, his pistachio gelato won hands down.

“[The master] praised me for the textures, the flavour and the smoothness, because I can understand some food science, the quick freezing and chilling, the infusion of the flavour.”

Back in Singapore, their cramped shop with just two tables became proof of concept. Customers immediately noticed the difference between house-made and ready-made gelato.

Word spread. Despite a limited social media presence, customers returned repeatedly, bringing friends.

By 2023, frequent overcrowding pushed them to relocate to a larger space at Sunshine Plaza on Bencoolen Street, strategically positioned near 5,000 to 6,000 students from nearby universities like Singapore Management University, Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, and LASELLE College of the Arts. 

Competition eventually arrived, with international brands marketing their “own farms” and “dairy heritage,” drawing long queues. But KT and Yazhu remained unfazed, content serving their S$4.50 gelato in their cosy spot.

The science of flavour and texture

Making gelato in-house is where KT’s past expertise truly shines. As a trained refrigeration engineer, he repairs his own equipment and speaks with technical precision about freezing points.

“You must understand this to make gelato from scratch,” he insisted. “What are the contents of your ingredient, because it changes the textures and freezing point.” 

The display freezer maintains -14 degrees Celsius, yet each of his 35 rotating recipes must remain perfectly scoopable. This is trickier than it sounds, especially with alcohol-based flavours.

Making gelato also demands intense concentration. Blending generates heat, so the mixes have to rest on ice. Timing matters in everything, especially when infusing.

A moment’s distraction once burned a coconut base, but KT turned the mistake into a “roasted coconut” flavour customers loved. “Sometimes a mistake is actually a blessing in disguise,” he said. However, he could never replicate it consistently, so it left the menu.

His 16-flavour display always stocks the classics children demand: pistachio, hazelnut, vanilla, and strawberry. The remaining slots rotate based on customer requests, like the black grape flavour created for a regular whose son loved them.

When his Italian ingredient suppliers visit, KT makes them taste his current gelato first, before it joins the display refrigerator.

Throughout his life of running businesses, he has maintained strict financial discipline. His initial S$50,000 investment came from funds he could afford to lose.

I won’t stress myself out. This is just a very small token to keep myself active and busy. If it goes, it goes. If it doesn’t, let it close—it’s okay.

He cautioned other seniors against using retirement funds to start a business, noting that success is never guaranteed and that having savings to fall back on is essential.

Passing the torch and opening a second location

Today, the Sunshine Plaza outlet is led by KT’s goddaughters Lee Qi and Joey, recent graduates passionate about carrying forward the Freshio Gelato legacy and reviving its social media presence.

His son Alex also contributes with design ideas, new products, and demographic strategy.

But even with the next generation stepping in, the elderly couple are not ready to retire just yet.

In late Mar this year, they opened a new outlet at Kadayanallur Street near Maxwell Food Centre, employing a different strategy while Sunshine Plaza bets on students. The outlet instead targets Chinese and Taiwanese tourists who frequent the hawker centre’s famous chicken rice stall.

The new Freshio Gelato serves durian desserts and newly launched yoghurt and açai bowls on top of their regular gelato flavours, which KT shared that “customers photograph from every angle before eating.” 

With its mobile gelato machine, Freshio Gelato is also able to supply gelato at any location and event. This includes corporate bookings handled through organisers serving both private companies and public sector clients, from Changi Airport to Sentosa hotels.

The business also partners with organisations such as The Foundry charity next door, the Photographic Society on Waterloo Street, and YMCA graduation events, serving hundreds of guests at a time.

In total, the business moves through roughly 500kg of gelato a month. Till this day, KT and Yazhu leave the shop at 2AM, and face peak crowds from 1-3PM and 8-10PM, timings they call the prime time for dessert.

Freshio Gelato has redefined the couple’s retirement

Running Freshio Gelato has redefined retirement for the elderly couple.

“It’s just keeping active and providing another kind of financial income every month,” KT said. But more than money, it means staying relevant through “intergenerational collaboration” with his grandchildren and his younger customers.

“If you TikTok, I can also do TikTok,” he said with a laugh. “I learn from younger people and enjoy working alongside them.” 

His advice to elderly entrepreneurs stands in practicality. Find something that keeps you engaged, risk only what you can afford to lose, and never stop moving. 

For KT, that something turned out to be gelato.

• Learn more about Freshio Gelato here.
• Read more articles we’ve written on Singaporean businesses here.

Featured Image Credit: Freshio Gelato, Divyanshu Mahajan via Google Reviews