Launch
Visa Launches USDC Settlement in the U.S., Five Years After Everyone Else
Visa is settling in USDC over blockchains, offering seven-day settlement. It’s a real milestone—just one crypto solved years ago.
Deals
WTW Acquires Newfront: A $1.3B Shortcut to Pretending It’s a Tech Company
Inside WTW’s $1.3B Newfront acquisition and its big bet on agentic AI, tech shortcuts, and insurance’s latest attempt at innovation.
Launch
Trillium Turns Compute Into Collateral, Bringing Wall Street Energy to AI Infrastructure
Trillium Technologies just turned cloud computing into collateral with a $300M securitized “Compute Credit” offering. Welcome to the financialization of AI — where GPUs meet hedge funds.
Launch
Citi AI Expands to 80 Markets: Because Nothing Says “Innovation” Like Automating Your Expense Report
Citi AI expands to 80 global markets, promising automation, insights, and a “responsible AI-first culture.” We explain why it’s more hype than revolution.
Deals
Chime IPO: The Neobank That Prints Money Without Being a Bank
Chime filed to go public with an S-1 that’s equal parts alphabet soup and fintech fever dream.
AI
WarrenAI: Investing.com’s New AI Financial Assistant Promises to Make You Rich (Or at Least Feel Like Warren Buffett)
Investing.com just launched WarrenAI—an AI-powered financial research tool claiming to “revolutionize investor analysis.” Here’s everything to know about the ChatGPT-for-Wall-Street experiment.
Funding
Plaid's Half-Price Sale: Still Fetching Billions at a Discount
Plaid, the fintech darling once pegged at a dazzling $13.4 billion, has seen its valuation shrink to a modest $6.1 billion. But hey, who's counting?
Funding
Mercury Banks $300M to Disrupt Banking, Again, Still, Forever
Fintech startup Mercury just raised a cool $300 million, instantly tripling the number of VC group chats that will now start with “We should do something in fintech.”
Launch
Monzo Tackles the UK’s Most Taboo Topic: Asking for Your Money Back
British digital bank Monzo thinks you're too British to ask for your money back, so it built an app to do it for you.
Launch
Robinhood’s Prediction Markets Hub Turns Investing Into a Casino With Extra Confetti
Robinhood’s new Prediction Markets Hub turns interest rates and sports outcomes into bets. Is this financial innovation—or just gamified gambling?
Fintech
Klarna Files for IPO, Proving You Can Finance Anything—Even an Exit Strategy
Klarna, the global beacon of financial "empowerment" (also known as Buy Now, Panic Later), just had to file to go public.
Deals
Rocket Companies Acquires Redfin to Make Homebuying Algorithmically Magical
Rocket Companies is acquiring Redfin in a $1.75 billion all-stock deal, promising AI-powered homebuying convenience, cost savings, and 14 petabytes of consumer data — but raising big questions for real estate, mortgages, and housing competition.