Crypto News: Volatility reigns

Good morning. Volatility reigns on AI. Flaws in programming language expose the technology’s vulnerabilities. And why the hemp drink loophole strikes a chord with Willie Nelson. Listen to the day’s top stories.

— Angela Cullen

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The AI selloff faded but nobody’s breathing a sigh of relief as volatility continues to reign. SK Hynix scrapping plans for a potential $10 billion US listing of its Solidigm unit didn’t help. Adding to the sobering sentiment, OpenAI shifted its valuation goal for a new $30 billion funding round, now targeting $1.25 trillion. Anthropic is reportedly aiming for a $2 trillion valuation for its IPO expected later this year. So what level of return justifies investing in a technology that threatens unemployment, or even human extinction?

The Obscure Rule Helping to Supercharge Retail Trading

Donald Trump wasn’t happy that speed restrictions were still in place for the militarized version of Starlink in Ukraine. He called Elon Musk and asked him to fix it, according to the Wall Street Journal. As of late Thursday, Ukrainian troops were still seeing limits on connection speeds, although the service had improved slightly in some areas, a person familiar said. The system has become a major flashpoint between the US and Ukraine, which has accused the US of trying to pressure it into surrendering to Russia.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is betting big on US-style expressways, but truckers want none of it. They prefer slower, busier roads, where repair shops are never more than a few miles away. It’s not the only example of how things aren’t quite working out as New Delhi had anticipated. As Gen Z discontent grows at home, India’s place in the world is shifting, and it no longer sees the US as benign, says veteran foreign policy analyst Suhasini Haidar.

No crease. Apple has demonstrated there’s strong appetite for its $2,000-and-up foldable iPhone Duo, which went on sale today. The real test will be if it can meet the demand. Consumers placing new orders are being offered delivery at the end of January. The phone’s engineering and component costs have pushed its price to new levels, but buyers seem to be over the sticker shock.

Deep Dive: Critical Flaws

PHP works behind the scenes on servers. — PHP works behind the scenes on servers to determine how millions of websites behave.

Governments, banks and airlines are still working to update websites and protect against critical flaws in the widely used programming language PHP after the vulnerabilities were discovered this week.

They’re racing to make the urgent fixes before criminal hackers can weaponize the weaknesses, which only came to light when researchers uncovered them with the help of powerful new AI tools.
So what is PHP and what does it all mean? The language underpins as much as 70% of the Internet, according to cybersecurity firm Wiz. The vulnerabilities can make a PHP server mishandle its working memory, potentially letting an attacker read sensitive data or run commands.
Tellingly, although AI helped discover the PHP flaws, AI’s advances are also making cyberattacks harder to stop.

The Big Take

llustration of high-speed market-making.

High-frequency traders like Jane Street and Hudson River have fought over every nanosecond in their bid to be the fastest market-makers on Wall Street. But their rivalry has now morphed into something that goes beyond pure speed. These days it’s all about compute.

Big Take Podcast

A Microsoft data center in Aldie, Virginia.

Big Tech’s AI Goldilocks Moment

Opinion

Pandering to Vladimir Putin won’t bring peace to Ukraine, Bloomberg’s editors write. Every ally relying on US weapons and technology must now ask whether that dependence could be used against it.

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Before You Go

Infused drinks from CAAN, Cheech & Chong and Willie’s Remedy+. — Photo Illustration with infused drinks from CAAN, Cheech & Chong and Willie’s Remedy+.

Three sips and the truth. The $1.5 billion hemp drink market pioneered by legendary stoners like Willie Nelson is facing an existential crisis, unless lawmakers in Washington strike a deal overturning legislation that’s poised to make the psychoactive-infused seltzers and sodas illegal in the coming weeks.

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