Tech
How “Bitcoin Jesus” Avoided Prison, Thanks To One Of The “Friends Of Trump”
This story was originally published by ProPublica. Republished under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license.
Days into President Donald Trump’s second term in the White House, a cryptocurrency billionaire posted a video on X to his hundreds of thousands of followers. “Please Donald Trump, I need your help,” he said, wearing a flag pin askew and seated awkwardly in an armchair. “I am an American. … Help me come home.”
The speaker, 46-year-old Roger Ver, was in fact no longer a U.S. citizen. Nicknamed “Bitcoin Jesus” for his early evangelism for digital currency, Ver had renounced his citizenship more than a decade earlier. At the time of his video, Ver was under criminal indictment for millions in tax evasion and living on the Spanish island of Mallorca. His top-flight legal defense team had failed around half a dozen times to persuade the Justice Department to back down. The U.S., considering him a fugitive, was seeking his extradition from Spain, and he was likely looking at prison.
Once, prosecutors hoped to make Ver a marquee example amid concerns about widespread cryptocurrency tax evasion. They had spent eight painstaking years working the case. Just nine months after his direct-to-camera appeal, however, Ver and Trump’s new Justice Department leadership cut a remarkable deal to end his prosecution. Ver wouldn’t have to plead guilty or spend a day in prison. Instead, the government accepted a payout of $49.9 million — roughly the size of the tax bill prosecutors said he dodged in the first place — and allowed him to walk away.
Ver was able to pull off this coup by taking advantage of a new dynamic inside of Trump’s Department of Justice. A cottage industry of lawyers, lobbyists and consultants with close ties to Trump has sprung up to help people and companies seek leniency, often by arguing they had been victims of political persecution by the Biden administration. In his first year, Trump issued pardons or clemency to dozens of people who were convicted of various forms of white-collar crime, including major donors and political allies. Investigations have been halted. Cases have been dropped.
Within the Justice Department, a select club of Trump’s former personal attorneys have easy access to the top appointees, some of whom also previously represented Trump. It has become a dark joke among career prosecutors to refer to these lawyers as the “Friends of Trump.”
The Ver episode, reported in detail here for the first time, reveals the extent to which white-collar criminal enforcement has eroded under the Trump administration. The account is based on interviews with current and former Justice Department officials, case records and conversations with people familiar with his case.
The Trump administration has particularly upended the way tax law violators are handled. Late last year, the administration essentially dissolved the team dedicated to criminal tax enforcement, dividing responsibility among a number of other offices and divisions. Tax prosecutions fell by more than a quarter, and more than a third of the 80 experienced prosecutors working on criminal tax cases have quit.
But even amid this turmoil, Ver’s case stands out. After Ver added several of these new power brokers to his team — most importantly, former Trump attorney Chris Kise — Trump appointees commandeered the case from career prosecutors. One newly installed Justice Department leader who had previously represented Trump’s family questioned his new subordinates on whether tax evasion should be a criminal offense. Ver’s team wielded unusual control over the final deal, down to dictating that the agreement would not include the word “fraud.”
It remains the only tax prosecution the administration has killed outright.
Ver did not reply to an extensive list of questions from ProPublica. In court filings and dealings with the Justice Department, Ver had always denied dodging his tax bill intentionally — a key distinction between a criminal and civil tax violation — and claimed to have relied on the advice of accountants and tax attorneys.
“Roger Ver took full responsibility for his gross financial misconduct to the tune of $50 million because this Department of Justice did not shy away from exposing those who cheat the system. The notion that any defendant can buy their way out of accountability under this administration is not founded in reality,” said Natalie Baldassarre, a Justice Department spokesperson.
In response to a list of detailed questions, the White House referred ProPublica to the Justice Department.“I know of no cases like this,” said Scott Schumacher, a former tax prosecutor and the director of the graduate program in taxation at the University of Washington. It is nearly unheard of for the department to abandon an indicted criminal case years in the making. “They’re basically saying you can buy your way out of a tax evasion prosecution.”
Roger Ver is not a longtime ally of Trump’s or a MAGA loyalist. He renounced his U.S. citizenship in 2014, a day he once called “the happiest day of my entire life.” In the early days of bitcoin, he controlled about 1% of the world’s supply.
Ver is clean-cut and fit — he has a black belt in Brazilian jujitsu. In his early 20s, while he was a libertarian activist in California, Ver was sentenced to 10 months in prison for illegally selling explosives on eBay. He’s often characterized that first brush with the law as political persecution by the state. After his release, he left the U.S. for Japan.
Ver became a fixture in the 2010s on the budding cryptocurrency conference circuit, where he got a kick out of needling government authority and arguing that crypto was the building block of a libertarian utopia. At a 2017 blockchain conference in Aspen, Colorado, Ver announced he had raised $100 million and was seeking a location to create a new “non-country” without any central government. For years, Ver has recommended other wealthy people consider citizenship in the small Caribbean nation of Saint Kitts and Nevis, which has no individual income tax.
“Bitcoin completely undermines the power of every single government on the entire planet to control the money supply, to tax people’s income to control them in any way,” he told a gathering of anarcho-capitalists in Acapulco, Mexico, in 2016. “It makes it so incredibly easy for people to hide their income or evade taxes.” More than one friend, he said with a smirk, had asked him how to do so: They “say, ‘Roger, I need your help. How do I use bitcoins to avoid paying taxes on it?’”
Renouncing U.S. citizenship isn’t a magic get-out-of-tax-free technique. Since 2008, the U.S. has required expatriates with assets above $2 million pay a steep “exit tax” on the appreciation of all their property.
In 2024, the Justice Department indicted Ver in one of the largest-ever cryptocurrency tax fraud cases. The government accused Ver of lying to the IRS twice. After Ver renounced his citizenship in 2014, he claimed to the IRS that he personally did not own any bitcoin. He would later admit in his deal with the government to owning at least 130,664 bitcoin worth approximately $73.7 million at the time. Then in 2017, the government alleged, Ver tried to conceal the transfer of roughly $240 million in bitcoin from U.S. companies to his personal accounts. In all, the government said he had evaded nearly $50 million in taxes.
Ver’s defense was that his failure to pay taxes arose from a lack of clarity as to how tax law treated emerging cryptocurrency, good-faith accounting errors and reliance on his advisors’ advice. He claimed it was difficult to distinguish between his personal assets and his companies’ holdings and pinpoint what the bitcoin was actually worth.
The Biden administration’s Justice Department dismissed this legal argument. Prosecutors had troves of emails that they said showed Ver misleading his own attorneys and tax preparers about the extent of his bitcoin holdings. (Ver’s team accused the government of taking his statements out of context.) The asset tracing in the case was “rock solid,” according to a person familiar with the investigation who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. A jury, prosecutors maintained, was unlikely to buy Ver’s defense that he made a good-faith error.
By the time of Trump’s election, Ver had been arrested in Spain and was fighting extradition. He was also the new owner of a sleek $70 million yacht that some law enforcement officials worried he might use to escape on the high seas.
In Trump, Ver saw a possible way out. After the 2024 election, he was “barking up every tree,” said his friend Brock Pierce, a fellow ultrawealthy crypto investor who tried to gin up sympathy for Ver in Trump’s orbit.
Ver had initially gone the orthodox route of hiring tax attorneys from a prestigious law firm, Steptoe. Like many wealthy people in legal jeopardy, Ver now also launched a media blitz seeking a pardon from the incoming president. “If anybody knows what it’s like to be the victim of lawfare it’s Trump, so I think he’ll be able to see it in this case as well,” Ver said in a December 2024 appearance on Tucker Carlson’s show. On Charlie Kirk’s show, Ver appeared with tape over his mouth with the word “censored” written in red ink. Laura Loomer, the Trump-friendly influencer, began posting that Ver’s prosecution was unfair. Ver paid Trump insider Roger Stone $600,000 to lobby Congress for an end to the tax provision he was accused of violating.
Ver’s pardon campaign fizzled. His public pressure campaign — in which he kept comparing himself to Trump — was not landing, according to Pierce. “You aren’t doing yourself any favors — shut up,” his friend recalled saying.
One objection in the White House, according to a person who works on pardons, may have been Ver’s flamboyant rejection of his American citizenship. Less than a week after Trump was inaugurated, Elon Musk weighed in, posting on X, “Roger Ver gave up his US citizenship. No pardon for Ver. Membership has its privileges.”
But inside the Justice Department, Ver found an opening. The skeleton key proved to be one of the “Friends of Trump,” a seasoned defense lawyer named Christopher Kise. Kise is a longtime Florida Republican power player who served as the state’s solicitor general and has argued before the U.S. Supreme Court. He earned a place in Trump’s inner circle as one of the first experienced criminal defenders willing to represent the president after his 2020 election loss. Kise defended Trump in the Justice Department investigation stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and against charges that Trump mishandled classified documents when leaving the White House.
Kise had worked shoulder-to-shoulder on Trump’s cases with two lawyers who were now leaders in the Trump 2.0 Justice Department: Todd Blanche, who runs day-to-day operations at the department as deputy attorney general, and his associate deputy attorney general, Ketan Bhirud, who oversaw the criminal tax division prosecuting Ver. Kise reportedly helped select Blanche to join Trump’s legal team in the documents case, and he and Bhirud had both worked for Trump’s family as they fought civil fraud charges brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James in 2022.
On Ver’s legal team, Kise worked the phones, pressing his old colleagues to rethink their prosecution against Ver.
Kise scored the legal team’s first big victory in years: a meeting with Bhirud that cut out the career attorneys most familiar with the merits of the case.
In that meeting, however, it wasn’t clear that the new Justice Department leadership would be willing to interfere with the trajectory of Ver’s case. While the Trump administration had backed off aggressive enforcement of white-collar crimes writ large, the administration said it was still pursuing most criminal cases that had already been charged.
Bhirud initially expressed skepticism that Ver accidentally underpaid his taxes. It was “hard to believe” that a man going by “Bitcoin Jesus” would have no idea how much bitcoin he owned, Bhirud said, according to a person familiar with the case.
Bhirud and Blanche did not respond to detailed questions from ProPublica.
The Justice Department stuck to its position that either Ver would plead guilty to a crime, or the case would go to trial.
But Kise would not stop lobbying his former colleagues to reconsider. Blanche and Bhirud had already demanded that career officials justify the case again and again. Over the course of the summer, Kise wore down the Trump appointees’ zeal for pursuing Ver on criminal charges.
Kise and the law firm of Steptoe did not respond to questions.
“While there were meetings and conversations with DOJ, that is not uncommon. The line attorneys remained engaged throughout the process, and the case was ultimately resolved based on the strength of the evidence,” said Bryan Skarlatos, one of Ver’s tax attorneys and a partner at Kostelanetz.
It was a chaotic moment at the Justice Department, an institution that Trump had incessantly accused of being “weaponized” against him and his supporters. After Trump took office, the department was flooded with requests to reconsider prosecutions, with defendants claiming the Biden administration had singled them out for political persecution, too.
While many cases failed to grab the administration’s attention, Kise got results. Last week, Kise’s client Julio Herrera Velutini, a Venezuelan-Italian billionaire accused of trying to bribe the former governor of Puerto Rico, received a pardon from Trump.
“Every defense attorney is running the ‘weaponization’ play. This guy gets an audience because of who he is, because his name is Chris Kise,” said a person who recently attended a high-level meeting Kise secured to talk the Justice Department down from prosecuting a client.
As Kise stepped up the pressure, Ver’s case ate up a significant share of Bhirud’s time, despite his job overseeing more than 1,000 Justice Department attorneys, according to people familiar with the matter. Ordinarily, it would be rare for a political appointee to be so involved, especially to the exclusion of career prosecutors who could weigh in on the merits.
Bhirud began to muse to coworkers about whether failure to pay one’s taxes should really be considered a crime. Wasn’t it more of a civil matter? It seemed to a colleague that Bhirud was aware Ver’s advocates could try to elevate the case to the White House.
The government ceded ground and offered to take prison time off the table. Eventually, Ver’s team and Bhirud hit on the deal that would baffle criminal tax experts. They agreed on a deferred prosecution agreement that would allow Ver to avoid criminal charges and prison in exchange for a payout and an agreement not to violate any more laws. The government usually reserves such an agreement for lawbreaking corporations to avoid putting large employers out of business — not for fugitive billionaires.
By the time fall approached, Kise and Bhirud, with Blanche’s blessing, were negotiating Ver’s extraordinary deal line by line. Once more, career prosecutors were cut out from the negotiations.
Ver’s team enjoyed a remarkable ability to dictate terms. They rejected the text of the government’s supposed final offer because it required him to admit to “fraud,” according to a person familiar with the negotiations. In the end, Ver agreed to admit only to a “willful” failure to report and pay taxes on all his bitcoin and turned over the $50 million.
The government arrived at that figure in a roundabout manner. It dropped its claim that Ver had lied on his 2017 tax return. The $50 million figure was based on how much he had evaded in taxes in 2014 alone, plus what the government asserted were interest and penalties. In the end, the deal amounted to the sum he allegedly owed in the first place. He never even had to leave Mallorca to appear in a U.S. court.
Under any previous administration, convincing the leadership of the tax division to drop an indicted criminal case and accept a monetary penalty instead would be a nonstarter. While the Justice Department settles most tax matters civilly through fines, when prosecutors do charge criminal fraud, their conviction rate is over 90%.
People “always ask you, ‘Can’t I just pay the taxes and it’ll go away?’” said Jack Townsend, a former DOJ tax attorney. “The common answer that everybody gave — until the Trump administration — was that, no, you can’t do that.”
When the Justice Department announced the resolution in October, it touted it as a victory.
“We are pleased that Mr. Ver has taken responsibility for his past misconduct and satisfied his obligations to the American public,” Bhirud said in the Justice Department’s press release announcing the deferred prosecution agreement. “This resolution sends a clear message: whether you deal in dollars or digital assets, you must file accurate tax returns and pay what you owe.”
Inside the Justice Department, the resolution was demoralizing: “He’s admitted he owes money, and we get money, but everything else about it stinks to high heaven,” said a current DOJ official familiar with the case. “We shouldn’t negotiate with people who are fugitives, as if they have power over us.”
Among the wealthy targets of white-collar criminal investigations, the Ver affair sent a different message. Lawyers who specialize in that kind of work told ProPublica that more and more clients are asking which of the “Friends of Trump” they should hire. One prominent criminal tax defense lawyer said he would give his clients a copy of Ver’s agreement and tell them, “These are the guys who got this done.”
The only one of Ver’s many lawyers to sign it was Christopher Kise.
from the bye-bye dept
Even at the best of times, the hallmark of RFK Jr.’s Health & Human Services is chaos. Whether it’s misinformation on vaccines and other public health matters, his unique ability to exit very smart people from public health agencies, or his desire to upend established government health protocols, it’s a constant frenzy when Kennedy is in charge.
But these aren’t the best of times for Kennedy. In fact, it appears that both legal and political mechanisms are starting to mete out consequences for all the nonsense going on at HHS. It was only days ago that a federal court issued an injunction on the CDC’s changes to vaccination schedules since Kennedy remade ACIP in his image, and in fact the new ACIP appointments themselves may be illegal. Almost simultaneously, reports came out that the White House is attempting to yank Kennedy and HHS out of the spotlight due to their becoming a political liability heading into the midterms.
And now, in what will both be a reaction to and furtherance of all of that chaos, Robert Malone has announced that he is leaving ACIP altogether. Malone is a proud anti-vaxxer and claims to have “invented” mRNA technology, a claim that is heavily disputed, to put it mildly. In the wake of the court’s injunction on ACIP and its recommendations for vaccine schedules, there was reporting that Kennedy was planning to disband ACIP once again and remake it with all new members as a quicker fix than appealing the court’s decision. As a result, Malone jumped straight to social media to claim that’s exactly what happened, before later retracting his statement.
On Thursday, Malone claimed on social media that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had disbanded ACIP and planned to completely reconstitute it (again), without appealing the judge’s ruling or defending Kennedy’s ACIP picks from the judge’s claims that they were unqualified. But soon after, Malone retracted his claim, saying it was a miscommunication and that disbanding ACIP was merely one of the “options being considered.”
In other words, he took half-baked information and made definitive claims to the masses, claims that turned out to be incorrect. So, you know, basically on par with all of the nonsense he’s spewed about vaccines. HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon then had to issue a statement to the press to clean all of this up, stating that anything that doesn’t come directly from him or HHS brass was “baseless speculation”.
And it was that, of all things, that caused Malone to quit.
Malone told Roll Call today that Nixon’s response was what led to his departure. “After Andrew trashing me with the press, I am done with the CDC and ACIP,” Malone said in a text message Tuesday morning. “That was the last straw.”
“Suffice to say I do not like drama, and have better things to do,” he added.
And then he went to the New York Times as well.
“Hundreds of hours of uncompensated labor, incredible hate from many quarters, hostile press, internal bickering, weaponized leaking, sabotage—I have better things to do,” he said.
On the one hand, I don’t think much of Malone’s qualifications for being a member of ACIP, so I’m not exactly sad to see him exit stage left. But it is interesting to see that the impression of chaos, infighting, bickering, and internal backstabbing that you get viewing HHS from the outside is mirrored by someone on the inside.
This would be funny if this weren’t a matter of public health. If there weren’t a measles outbreak that is still ongoing in this country (we’re already at 1,487 CDC confirmed cases this year). If some of the public and some doctors didn’t take what comes out of this very important government agency seriously.
But all those things are true. The chaos has to end. And for that to happen, RFK Jr. must go.
Filed Under: acip, anti-vaxxers, cdc, health & human services, rfk jr., robert malone, vaccines
The U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford, the lead ship of the Gerald R. Ford-class of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, is taking a short break to freshen up during a long deployment to the Middle East. Souda Bay, in Greece, will be the Gerald R. Ford’s home for at least a few weeks, according to the United States Naval Institute.
This current deployment for the ship has been a busy one, between a number of issues onboard the ship, including a large fire in the laundry room that resulted in over 200 smoke inhalation injuries. That, and the ongoing conflict with Iran means that the Gerald R. Ford is more than ready for repairs.
Importantly though, the ship is not out of the fight. A statement from U.S. Fleet Forces Command states: “The aircraft carrier remains fully mission capable,” continuing on to say: “The port call allows for the ship to undergo efficient assessment, repairs, and resupply. Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group continues its overseas deployment.”
The biggest and newest carrier
Given that operations in and around Iran and the Strait of Hormuz don’t seem to have a clear end date, it’s likely that the Gerald R. Ford will remain in theater after repairs are made. It also appears that the Navy isn’t taking any chances at de-arming it for the repairs in Greece.
The Gerald R. Ford measures at 1,106 feet and a displacement of 100,000 tons, making it the largest warship ever made. It is the first ship of its namesake class and represents the tip of the spear when it comes to aircraft carrier technology. It is in the process of replacing the Nimitz-class of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.
As of now, there is a single Gerald R. Ford-class carrier in service. It was designed to have a 50-year service life that, thanks to its two nuclear reactors, only needs to be refueled once, giving it essentially unlimited range on the ocean.
The cancellation marks the latest retreat in a broader industry pullback from electric vehicle programs, as automakers grapple with falling demand, shifting regulations, and rising costs. More than a dozen global carmakers have already delayed or abandoned their all-electric goals, reversing commitments made when government incentives and climate policies favored…
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Crunchyroll has finally arrived on Apple TV as a dedicated channel, which means users can stream and download their favorite anime all within the Apple TV app.
Crunchyroll is now an Apple TV channel
When Apple first revealed Apple TV channels, it felt like the obvious endpoint for all streaming services. Netflix never joined up, and others like HBO exited channels, but one beloved service has finally appeared.
The anime streaming platform Crunchyroll has shown up as a channel within the Apple TV app. It may be officially launching Friday, as there is no announcement or documentation showing the change.
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A federal judge has sided with Anthropic in its twisty legal battle with the Trump administration, awarding the tech company an injunction against the government’s recent order that labeled it a “supply chain risk,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
On Thursday, Judge Rita F. Lin of the Northern District of California ordered the Trump administration to rescind its recent designation of Anthropic as a security risk, as well as to back off its order that federal agencies cut ties with the company.
“It looks like an attempt to cripple Anthropic,” Lin reportedly said during the court proceedings. Lin ultimately argued that the government’s orders had flouted freespeech protections for the company.
The drama between the Pentagon and Anthropic erupted last last month over a dispute concerning guidelines for the government’s usage of the AI company’s software. Anthropic had reportedly sought to enforce certain limits on how the government could use its AI models, such as banning their use in autonomous weapons systems or mass surveillance. The government disagreed with those limitations, ultimately labeling the company a supply chain risk—a designation typically reserved for foreign actors. President Trump further ordered federal agencies to cut ties with the company.
Not long afterward, Anthropic sued the agency, along with Hegseth.
The White House has spent recent weeks attacking the company, characterizing it as “a radical-left, woke company” that is jeopardizing America’s “national security.” Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, meanwhile, has called the Defense Department’s actions “retaliatory and punitive.”
On the heels of Judge Lin’s ruling, Anthropic sent TechCrunch the following statement: “We’re grateful to the court for moving swiftly, and pleased they agree Anthropic is likely to succeed on the merits. While this case was necessary to protect Anthropic, our customers, and our partners, our focus remains on working productively with the government to ensure all Americans benefit from safe, reliable AI.”
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TechCrunch has separately reached out to the White House for comment.
Xero, the New Zealand-founded accounting platform used by 4.6 million subscribers worldwide, announced on Wednesday a multi-year partnership with Anthropic that will embed Claude directly into its product and, more unusually, bring Xero’s financial data into Claude.ai itself. The deal means small business owners will be able to ask Claude questions about their cash flow, overdue invoices, and profit margins without leaving Anthropic’s chatbot.
The integration works in two directions. Inside Xero, the company’s existing AI assistant JAX (Just Ask Xero), which launched in September 2025, will be powered by Claude’s reasoning capabilities to automate financial workflows: tracking cash flow, flagging unpaid invoices, analysing revenue and profit performance, and suggesting actions. Inside Claude.ai, users will be able to connect their Xero accounts and work with live financial data for business planning, scenario modelling, and year-end analysis without switching between tools.
Xero’s engineering teams will also adopt Claude Code and Cowork, Anthropic’s developer tools, to accelerate their own product development. Financial data shared between the platforms will be used solely for the user’s session and will not be used to train Claude’s models, according to the announcement.
The multi-model hedge
What makes the partnership notable is not just its scope but its context. Xero already works with OpenAI. In October 2025, when JAX launched its expanded feature set at Xerocon Brisbane, Xero announced a collaboration with OpenAI to bring deep web research, including tax laws and market trends, directly into the platform. Now Anthropic gets the financial data integration and the agentic workflow layer.
This is a deliberate multi-model strategy. Xero is treating AI providers the way enterprises have traditionally treated cloud providers: spreading workloads across multiple vendors to avoid lock-in, leverage each provider’s relative strengths, and maintain negotiating power. OpenAI handles web research and information retrieval; Anthropic handles financial reasoning and workflow automation. The business logic sits in JAX, Xero’s own orchestration layer, which coordinates multiple AI agents behind the scenes.
For Anthropic, the deal is part of a broader enterprise push. Two weeks ago, the company committed $100 million to its Claude Partner Network, a programme that provides training, technical support, and joint go-to-market resources for organisations deploying Claude. Anchor partners include Accenture, Deloitte, Cognizant, and Infosys. The Xero partnership is a different kind of bet: not a consulting firm reselling Claude, but a vertical SaaS platform embedding it directly into a domain-specific product used by millions of small businesses.
Why the chatbot matters more than the plugin
The more interesting half of the announcement is not Claude inside Xero but Xero inside Claude. When a small business owner asks Claude about their cash position, Claude will pull live data from Xero and combine it with whatever else the user brings to the conversation: a lease agreement they have uploaded, a market report they are reading, a hiring plan they are modelling. The financial data becomes one input among many in a general-purpose reasoning environment.
This is the pattern Anthropic is building toward: Claude as the interface through which people interact with their professional tools, rather than each tool providing its own separate AI assistant. It is the same logic that drove the Model Context Protocol, Anthropic’s open standard for connecting AI models to external data sources and tools. If Claude becomes the place where small business owners do their financial thinking, Anthropic captures the relationship even if Xero is the system of record.
Xero, for its part, benefits from reaching users where they already are. The company reported NZ$1.2 billion in revenue for the first half of fiscal year 2026, up 20 per cent year on year, and recently acquired US bill payments company Melio to strengthen its position in the American market. But Xero’s core challenge, like that of every vertical SaaS company, is that its users spend most of their time outside the product. If Claude can surface Xero’s insights in a conversation the user is already having, that is a distribution advantage Xero could not build alone.
The data question
The partnership’s success will depend on trust. Small business financial data is among the most sensitive information a company holds, and sending it to a third-party AI platform, however reassuring the privacy commitments, requires a level of confidence that many business owners and their accountants may not yet have. The announcement states that financial data is used only for the user’s session and is never used for training. Whether that assurance is sufficient for the accounting profession, which is built on confidentiality and fiduciary duty, remains to be tested.
There is also the question of accuracy. When an AI model makes a mistake in a creative writing task, the consequence is a bad paragraph. When it makes a mistake in a cash flow forecast or tax analysis, the consequence can be a missed payroll or a compliance violation. Xero’s Diya Jolly, the company’s chief product and technology officer, framed the integration as shifting the “admin burden to a team of agents.” That framing works only if the agents are reliably correct, and in financial services, the tolerance for error is measured in basis points, not sentiment.
Claude-powered insights within Xero and the Xero integration into Claude.ai are expected to become available in the coming months. No specific launch date has been announced.
High-speed rail, or train systems that are capable of speeds of at least 186 mph, simply doesn’t exist in the United States. High-speed rail had its start in Japan in 1964 with the bullet train, and only one year later, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the High-Speed Ground Transportation Act into law, seeking a similar system in the United States. Sixty-one years later, multiple countries have robust high-speed rail systems, including China and much of Europe. We’ve landed a man on the moon and completely mapped the human genome, but high-speed rail has yet to take off in the U.S. In California, however, change is on the horizon.
Described as “a bold vision to transform the state’s future by delivering fast, reliable, zero-emission train service,” a high-speed rail system is being planned in two phases across Northern California, Central Valley, and Southern California. The project, delivered by the California High-Speed Rail Authority, faces skepticism from the public and critics alike, with Forbes describing the project as a “disgraceful boondoggle,” in 2025.
However, the project recently hit a major milestone that literally paves the way for future success. Less than a year after construction started, work has been completed on a railhead facility located on 150 acres in Kern County. This facility will serve as a logistics hub, receiving, storing, and finally distributing material before it moves to active construction zones where workers can begin laying rail. Let’s see what is next in this ambitious project.
The high-speed rail project is planning to soon lay tracks
The first phase of the high-speed rail project encompasses 494 miles and is designed to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles. Because the new trains will reach speeds much higher than even Amtrak’s Acela, the route will take less than three hours, with stops in San José, Fresno, Bakersfield, Burbank, and more. The second phase extends the route to Sacramento and San Diego, with stops in Stockton, Modesto, San Bernardino, and Riverside.
The new hub just south of Wasco, California is equipped with six rail connections for receiving and sending out equipment and supplies, with 10 miles of temporary rail lines that connect it to the national freight network. The facility also has a workshop and maintenance yard, along with the warehouse that stores everything needed for a new high-speed line, including rail, concrete ties, fiber optics, and crushed rock.
Now that the hub is open, crews will start staging material to lay tracks. The High-Speed Rail Authority eventually plans to open another railhead further north to support the project when it moves on to the second phase. Ultimately, the opening of the railhead marks a distinct shift in the project, from preparation to actual construction, something many critics thought they’d never see.
Other states have ambitions for high-speed train projects too
There are still lawmakers that support a national high-speed rail system, including Representative Seth Moulton of Massachusetts. In 2020, Moulton pitched a $205 billion national rail system that would be funded by the federal government. He re-introduced the bill with some support from fellow lawmakers in 2024, but it appears to have stalled.
Meanwhile, there are a few other high-speed rail projects scattered across the country. In Nevada, an affiliate of the company behind the Orlando-Miami train line is planning a 218-mile high-speed train line linking Las Vegas to Rancho Cucamonga, California. It will be constructed on land between the north- and southbound lanes of I-15, simplifying the project by avoiding negotiations with private landowners. Service is expected to begin in late 2028.
There’s also a plan being partially funded by Microsoft for a high-speed line connecting Portland, Oregon with Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada, but it’s still in the planning stages with some critics arguing that it makes more sense to improve service on the Amtrak lines that already exist in the region. In Texas, a line connecting Houston and Dallas was proposed way back in the 1990s. In 2023, Amtrak assumed control of the project, receiving a $64 million federal grant. It’s now on the hunt for private partners for the 240-mile route.
Apple has confirmed to Engadget that the Mac Pro, the desktop tower-shaped computer that was last updated in 2023, has been discontinued. As 9to5Mac notes, the computer no longer appears in the lineup of Macs on Apple’s website or in its storefront. That means at least for now, the Mac Studio is the Apple’s top-of-the-line professional computer.
The current version of the Mac Pro was introduced in 2019, with a distinct cheese-grater design, Intel chips and a bevy of easily-accessible expansion slots. Apple released the computer as a make-good for several years of inadequately meeting the performance needs of professional Mac users, but its uncontested time at the top of the company’s lineup was short-lived. A year later in 2020, Apple began transitioning to its custom M-series Arm chips, proving Macs could be more powerful and power-efficient by abandoning Intel entirely.
Apple eventually updated the Mac Pro to the M2 Ultra without updating the computer’s design, but by then the writing was on the wall. The far smaller Mac Studio, introduced in 2022, also supported the new chip, and it’s been updated since then while the Mac Pro has languished. Bloomberg reported Apple was planning to retire the Mac Pro in November 2025, so it’s not all that surprising the company quietly pulled the plug only a few months later.
Apple’s effort to cater to professionals, creatives and anyone with a chunk of change to drop on a fast computer lives on through the Mac Studio, and the recently announced Studio Display XDR, itself a replacement for the Pro Display XDR Apple announced for the 2019 Mac Pro. Now all the company needs to do is update the Mac Studio with an M5 Max chip to make it the most “pro” computer Apple offers.
Update, March 26, 6:25PM ET: Added confirmation from Apple that the Mac Pro has been discontinued.
Tech
LAiV Unveils Crescendo VERSE: All-in-One R2R DAC, Headphone Amp, and Preamp Targets Sub-$1,000 Market
The LAiV Crescendo VERSE lands at a moment when hi-fi is quietly being redefined. LAiV’s new component combines an R2R ladder DAC, discrete headphone amplifier, and active preamp into a single compact chassis priced under $1,000; exactly the kind of “one box” solution more listeners are gravitating toward as systems shift away from racks of separates and toward streamlined setups built around headphones, powered speakers, or compact amplifiers.
The idea that serious high-end sound can’t exist below four figures is starting to look outdated, and products like this are a big reason why.
What’s Inside the LAiV Crescendo VERSE: R2R, FPGA, and Full Digital Control
At the core of the Crescendo VERSE is LAiV’s proprietary balanced R2R ladder DAC architecture, built from tightly matched resistors (0.05% tolerance) to prioritize tonal accuracy, stable imaging, and long-term listenability. This is not a chip-based DAC. It’s a discrete ladder design aimed at delivering a more natural, less processed presentation; the kind of approach usually reserved for significantly more expensive hardware.
Supporting that DAC stage is an FPGA-based digital processing platform, which handles signal management and gives the VERSE its flexibility in playback modes and resampling.
The VERSE is designed to give users control over how their digital signal is handled rather than forcing a single approach.
The Crescendo VERSE supports native 1-bit DSD playback, keeping DSD signals in their original format without converting them to PCM, while also handling high-resolution PCM up to 768kHz and DSD up to at least DSD256 via its digital inputs. An integrated sampling rate converter (SRC) adds further flexibility, enabling PCM upsampling from 1x to 16x and DSD resampling up to DSD512 for those who want more control over how their digital content is processed.
There are also selectable playback modes (including NOS and SRC behavior), which means users can prioritize either signal purity or smoother multi-format playback depending on their system and library.
LAiV does include a small but important caveat: switching between PCM and DSD tracks in a mixed playlist can produce audible clicks or pops when using native mode. If your library jumps between formats, the multi-bit DSD mode converts everything to PCM for uninterrupted playback.
Digital Only Connectivity?
LAiV made a deliberate call with the Crescendo VERSE: this is a digital first component. It offers USB, optical, coaxial, and I2S inputs, with the latter configurable and clock aware for more advanced setups. All inputs support high resolution playback, with USB and I2S handling up to 768kHz PCM and high rate DSD. What you will not find here are any analog inputs. That omission is not an oversight, it is a statement. The VERSE is designed to be a dedicated digital front end, not a catch all hub trying to do everything at once, which may not be ideal for those who may wish to add an analog source.
Active Preamplifier
The Crescendo VERSE includes a discrete, output buffered preamplifier stage rather than a simple variable DAC output. It uses analog domain volume control to preserve signal integrity and maintains low output impedance for proper matching with downstream gear. Both balanced XLR and single ended RCA outputs are available and can be used simultaneously, which makes integration straightforward whether you are running active speakers, a power amplifier, or a hybrid system. This is where the one box concept starts to make practical sense in a real system.
Enough for Your Planars in Balanced Mode
The headphone stage is fully discrete and built with flexibility in mind, offering selectable gain settings to accommodate everything from sensitive in-ear monitors to more demanding full size headphones. Output is available via 4.4mm balanced and 6.35mm single ended connections. Power output reaches up to 1100 mW per channel in balanced mode and roughly 230 to 290mW single ended, which is enough for the majority of headphones people are actually using, although high impedance dynamic headphones are definitely a stretch and there is way to drive electrostatic headphones.
Physical Design & Usability
The Crescendo VERSE is built around a compact, desktop friendly chassis measuring approximately 230 mm wide (9.1 inches), 220 mm deep (8.7 inches), and just under 50 mm tall (about 2 inches), with a weight of about 0.9 kg (just under 2 pounds).
The enclosure uses a precision machined aluminum housing with a thick front panel and tight panel tolerances that give it a more serious, component grade feel than most devices in this price range. Finish options include a silver chassis with gold accents or a darker variant, both of which lean into a more distinctive, design forward aesthetic rather than disappearing into the background.
On the front, a dot matrix LED display provides clear readouts for input selection, volume level, sample rate, and playback status, while a central rotary encoder handles volume, input switching, and menu navigation with direct, tactile control. A full function remote is also included, allowing access to key settings such as gain, input selection, and playback modes without needing to interact directly with the unit.
The Bottom Line
What LAiV has created with the Crescendo VERSE is not a lifestyle product and not a stripped down DAC. It is a focused digital control center built around an R2R DAC for tonal character, a proper preamp stage for system integration, and a capable headphone amplifier for personal listening. There is no streaming platform, no analog input stage, and no attempt to be everything to everyone. That focus is the point.
At $849, it is a direct challenge to the idea that meaningful high end performance has to be expensive or complicated. The Crescendo VERSE is trying to be enough: a compact, high performance hub that can anchor a serious desktop or small room system without the cost and complexity that used to define the category. If it delivers on the promise of R2R performance at this level, the definition of affordable high end audio may need a reset.
We will know soon enough. James Fiorucci’s full review drops later this week, and if this category is on your radar, it is one you will want to read.
Where to buy: $849 at LAiV
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Fosi Audio has built its reputation the hard way by delivering affordable gear that actually works as promised, earning a loyal following in the entry-level category where expectations are low and competition is relentless. Now it is stepping into a far more crowded and scrutinized arena with the S3, a $259 balanced HiFi music streamer, DAC, and preamp designed to anchor a modern two channel system.
That puts it directly in the crosshairs of established players like WiiM and Bluesound, both of which have already set a high bar for usability, ecosystem integration, and streaming performance at relatively accessible price points.
The S3’s pitch is straightforward. Combine network streaming, high resolution DAC capability, and preamp functionality into one compact and affordable component. Execution is where this category gets brutal. Fosi Audio has proven it can win on value. The question now is whether it can compete on polish, software, and long term usability where the real battles are fought.
Streaming Platform, Architecture, and Real World System Flexibility
The Fosi Audio S3 Balanced HiFi Music Streamer is built around the Amlogic A113X streaming platform, paired with an AKM 4493SEQ DAC and OPA1612 op amps in a fully balanced circuit design. That combination forms the foundation of its digital and analog performance, aiming for a low noise signal path and consistent channel separation at a price point where that is not always guaranteed. It is a familiar architecture on paper, but one that has proven effective when properly implemented.
On the streaming side, the S3 supports dual band Wi-Fi across 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz, along with a 10/100 Ethernet port for more stable wired operation. Bluetooth 5.3 is included with SBC and AAC codec support, which covers basic wireless playback but does not target higher quality Bluetooth use cases. Streaming protocol support is broad and practical, including Spotify Connect, TIDAL Connect, AirPlay 2, Google Cast, DLNA, and Roon Ready (still awaiting certification), allowing the S3 to integrate into multiple ecosystems without forcing users into a single platform or app.
Playback capability varies depending on the input path. HDMI and optical inputs support up to 24-bit/192kHz PCM, while Wi-Fi streaming is also capped at 24-bit 192kHz. Google Cast reaches 24-bit/96kHz, AirPlay 2 is limited to 16-bit/48kHz, and Bluetooth tops out at 24-bit/48kHz. For users within the Roon ecosystem, the S3 supports up to 32-bit384kHz PCM, which represents its highest resolution playback scenario.
As a component, the S3 is designed to function as more than just a streamer. It can operate as a digital transport, standalone DAC, or preamp, making it suitable as the central source in a compact two channel or 2.1 system. Connectivity reflects that goal, with HDMI eARC, RCA and XLR outputs, optical input, and a dedicated subwoofer output, allowing it to integrate into both traditional HiFi systems and TV based setups without additional hardware.
Control and system management are handled through the Fosi Audio app, which manages setup, input selection, and playback, along with a built in 5-band EQ for basic tuning. A Bluetooth remote with a range of over 15 meters is also included for direct control.
Power is supplied via a 12V 1.5A external adapter, and the compact chassis measures 17.3 by 17.3 by 4.7 cm, or 6.81 by 6.81 by 1.85 inches, making it easy to integrate into space conscious desktop or rack based systems.
The Bottom Line
The S3 is Fosi Audio taking a serious swing at becoming the center of an affordable modern system. At $259, what makes it stand out is the combination of balanced XLR output, HDMI eARC, subwoofer integration, and broad streaming protocol support in a single compact box. That is not common at this price, and it positions the S3 as more than just a basic streamer. It is a true digital front end for someone building a clean, minimal two channel or 2.1 setup without stacking multiple components.
What it does not offer is just as important. There is no room correction, no advanced DSP beyond a basic 5-band EQ, and Bluetooth is limited to SBC and AAC with no LDAC, aptX HD, or aptX Lossless support. Qobuz Connect is also not supported at launch. Roon Ready certification is also not available yet, which matters in this category, even if AirPlay 2 and Google Cast provide a workaround. Long term usability will also depend heavily on the stability and refinement of the Fosi control app, where competitors already have a clear edge.
This is aimed squarely at users who want a simple, affordable, and flexible streaming hub with modern connectivity, especially those building their first real Hi-Fi system or upgrading from a basic Bluetooth or single box solution. It is less compelling for experienced users who prioritize mature software ecosystems, advanced room correction, or higher end wireless codec support.
The competition is not forgiving. The S3 goes directly up against WiiM with the Pro and Pro Plus, and Bluesound with the NODE, both of which offer more established software platforms and, in some cases, features like room correction or broader ecosystem support. Fosi is betting that its hardware value and connectivity will be enough to pull buyers in. Whether that is enough will come down to execution, because in this category, good hardware is only half the story.
Where to buy: $259.99 at Fosi Audio or Amazon
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