AI
Google to Spend Up to $185B on AI This Year as Pichai Hails 'Agentic Era'
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai announced capex of $175–$185 billion for 2026 to power autonomous AI agents, nearly 6× the company's 2022 spend.
BlockAI News
BlockAI News editorial desk — breaking stories and market signals from the Web3 × AI frontier.
Regulation & Policy
Justin Sun Sues Trump-Linked World Liberty Financial in California Federal Court
Sun's filing alleges his $75M investment was procured by fraud and that the project is 'on the verge of collapse.' WLFI had earlier frozen 595M of his unlocked tokens, worth ~$107M at the time.
Stablecoins
Peter Thiel-Backed Ramp Rolls Out Zero-Fee USDT ↔ USD Swaps Across Its Suite
Ramp now offers 1:1, feeless USD/USDT onramps and offramps on Ethereum, Solana, and Plasma. A structural shot at every retail exchange that charges spread on the same pair.
defi
Aave Hits 100% Utilization Across All Core Markets — $5B in Stables Stuck
After the Kelp DAO exploit triggered a $6.6B withdrawal in 24 hours, Aave's USDT, USDC and WETH markets are fully utilized. TVL has fallen from $25B to $17.5B.
Web3 Security
Jefferies: $606M April Crypto Exploits May Force Wall Street to Rethink Blockchain
After the $293M Kelp DAO bridge hack and other April incidents, Jefferies tells clients that banks, asset managers, and payments firms may decelerate tokenization rollouts — especially bridge-dependent designs.
Funding
Kalshi Plans April 27 Launch of Crypto Perpetual Futures, Going Head-to-Head With Coinbase
Codenamed 'Timeless,' Kalshi's new product uses the CFTC margin-trading license it recently won. Launch event April 27 in New York; first contracts tied to Bitcoin and other major tokens.
AI Models
SpaceX Wins Right to Acquire Cursor for $60B — or Pay $10B to Walk
Under the partnership, SpaceX can buy the AI coding startup later in 2026 for $60B. If it walks, Cursor collects $10B for the joint work. Context: Colossus (1M H100-equivalent) meets Cursor's dev distribution.
Funding
AI Lab NeoCognition Exits Stealth With $40M Seed to Build Self-Learning Agents
Co-led by Cambium Capital and Walden Catalyst, with Vista Equity, Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, and Databricks' Ion Stoica. CEO Yu Su's thesis: build generalist agents that specialize on the job.
Funding
Core Scientific Plans $3.3B Junk-Bond Sale to Bankroll Its AI Data Center Pivot
Senior secured notes due 2031 will fund six AI data centers leased to CoreWeave on a 12-year term — part of $17.9B raised industry-wide in AI infrastructure this year.
Regulation & Policy
New York Sues Coinbase and Gemini, Seeks $3.4B Over 'Illegal' Prediction Markets
AG Letitia James filed parallel suits April 21 in Manhattan state court, seeking at least $2.2B from Coinbase and $1.2B from Gemini. Claim: prediction markets are unregulated gambling.
Funding
Amazon Commits Up to $25B More to Anthropic, Bringing Total to $33B
$5B wires now; $20B tied to milestones. Anthropic commits $100B+ to AWS over 10 years and locks in 5 GW of Trainium compute through Trainium4.
AI Agents
Newborn Town Launches NUSD Pay for AI Agent Cross-Border Payments
Newborn Town announced NUSD Pay, an AI Agent Pay project focused on autonomous payment infrastructure and cross-border payment efficiency for AI agents.