BlockAI News editorial desk — breaking stories and market signals from the Web3 × AI frontier.
Funding
Solana yield exchange Exponent raised $5 million seed led by Multicoin Capital, with Solana Ventures, RockawayX, L1D and angels Anatoly Yakovenko and Nick Ducoff. Total raised: $7.1M. The platform has cleared $2B+ in yield volume across 35,000+ users since late 2024.
Funding
Tether Investments proposed merging Twenty-One Capital (43,514 BTC, $3.3B), Jack Mallers' Strike (operating in 100+ countries) and Raphael Zagury's Elektron Energy (~50 EH/s mining capacity) into a single publicly listed Bitcoin platform. XXI shares jumped 8% in after-hours trading.
AI
Google began Gemini rollout in cars on April 28–30. GM is upgrading roughly 4 million MY2022+ Cadillac, Chevrolet, Buick and GMC vehicles via OTA, and Polestar swapped Google Assistant for Gemini Live in U.S. cabins — the largest in-car AI deployment to date.
Prediction Markets
Gemini secured a CFTC Derivatives Clearing Organization license on April 29 — Gemini Olympus, LLC is now an approved DCO. Combined with its existing DCM authorization, the Winklevoss exchange now has a full-stack U.S. trading license to clear and settle derivatives and prediction markets.
Funding
MARA Holdings agreed to acquire Long Ridge Energy & Power from FTAI Infrastructure for $1.5 billion, adding a 505-MW Ohio gas plant, 1,600+ acres and a path to 1 gigawatt of HPC, AI and Bitcoin-mining capacity.
Funding
Sweden's Legora closed a $50 million Series D extension, bringing the round to $600 million at a $5.6 billion post-money valuation. Nvidia's NVentures, Atlassian, Adams Street and Insight all participated, and ARR has crossed $100 million.
AI
Walrus launched MemWal, an SDK giving AI agents encrypted, verifiable, portable memory on its decentralized network. OpenClaw and NemoClaw integrations ship the same week, targeting an addressable market analysts size at roughly $70B.
AI
Tether-backed Oobit launched Agent Cards — virtual Visa cards funded from a USDT treasury and issued per AI agent. Spend policies are server-enforced, every transaction logged in real time. KYB-verified onboarding rolls out through Q2 2026.
AI
Elon Musk told a California federal court it was "partly" true xAI used distillation on OpenAI models to train Grok. He framed the practice as a "general" industry approach — the rare public admission lands mid-trial in his lawsuit against OpenAI and Altman.
Web3 Security
TRM Labs put North Korea's cumulative crypto theft above $6 billion since 2017 — with two April incidents at KelpDAO ($292M) and Drift Protocol ($285M) accounting for 76% of 2026 losses across just 3% of incidents.
AI
Stripe launched Link, a digital wallet for both humans and autonomous AI agents, at its Sessions 2026 conference. Agents access funds through an OAuth flow with per-transaction approvals and per-agent virtual cards issued via Stripe's new Issuing for agents.
Funding
Anthropic is fielding preemptive offers to raise roughly $50 billion at a $850–$900B valuation. Investors have 48 hours to confirm allocation. A May board meeting is expected to formalize the round, lifting the AI lab past OpenAI on paper.