TechFlow Intelligence: Trump-Linked Companies Transfer $12 Million in Assets Before China Visit, 'The Big Short' Protagonist Warns of Stock Market Bubble Again

marsbitPubblicato 2026-05-12Pubblicato ultima volta 2026-05-12

Introduzione

The article reports multiple developments across tech, crypto, and finance. In AI, Mozilla used AI for large-scale code review, Google confirmed hackers used AI to find zero-day exploits, and OpenAI deployed GPT-5.5 to find errors in math benchmarks. A court ruled Anthropic's scanning and destroying books for AI training as fair use, while its Claude platform launched on AWS. Google's new video model 'Omni' was leaked. In crypto/Web3, Trump-linked companies transferred $12M in crypto assets before a China visit. BlackRock chose Ethereum for tokenized funds, and a hacker stole $174k via a malicious NFT that tricked an AI. Jack Dorsey's first tweet NFT plummeted from $2.9M to under $5. In chips/hardware, TSMC approved an additional $20B for its Arizona plant. Apple's Tim Cook and Elon Musk will accompany Trump to China, while Nvidia's Jensen Huang is notably absent. For markets, Michael Burry warned of parabolic stock rises and suggested near-total sell-offs, with online discussions comparing current sentiment to the 1999 bubble. Other notes include WTI oil surpassing $100, a 20% price hike for Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail, and new products like Unitree's $26.9k humanoid robot. The underlying theme suggests AI is becoming infrastructure, creating pressure on old systems while a new order is not yet ready, leaving investors anxious.

Mozilla publicly uses AI tools for large-scale code review for the first time, Mythos discovers 271 browser vulnerabilities in one go. OpenAI releases Daybreak in response the same day, AI security tools are becoming a new battlefield for tech giants.

Wired | RedditX

Hackers Use AI to Discover Zero-Day Vulnerabilities, Google Confirms Blocking Attack

Google reveals that criminal hackers have used AI tools to discover and exploit unknown software vulnerabilities in real-world attacks for the first time, marking a new phase in AI offense and defense.

Hot Topic: Community worries AI lowers the barrier to vulnerability discovery, defense costs rise exponentially.

NYT | Forbes | AP

ChatGPT Content Begins Appearing in Textbooks

A student finds textbook content directly labeled "Created by ChatGPT," sparking a new round of academic debate on the reliability and copyright ownership of AI-generated content.

GPT-5.5 Used to Check FrontierMath for Errors

OpenAI uses the yet-to-be-released GPT-5.5 to identify fatal errors in a math benchmark test, hinting at the new model's significant improvement in reasoning capabilities.

Anthropic Buys, Scans, Then Destroys Millions of Physical Books, Court Rules It Fair Use

A court rules that Anthropic's mass purchase, scanning, knowledge extraction, and subsequent destruction of physical books constitutes fair use, setting a precedent for AI training data acquisition.

Hot Topic: Zhihu thread with 2.44 million views, 69 comments debating intellectual property boundaries.

Zhihu

Claude Platform Officially Launches on AWS

Anthropic announces Claude can be directly deployed via AWS, lowering the barrier for enterprise integration, competing head-on with OpenAI in the cloud services market.

Claude Blog

Google Leaks New Video Model Omni, Text Coherence Significantly Improved

Footage of a suspected internal Google test model, Omni, leaks. Users note its text generation coherence is significantly better than Sora, reshuffling the video generation landscape again.

> Spicy Take: Sora almost closes its doors, and here comes Omni — OpenAI this year feels like they're acting in the final season of 'Game of Thrones.'

Crypto / Web3

Bank Consortium Demands Pause on CLARITY Act Stablecoin Yield Clause, White House Refuses

US banks send panic letters to corporate CEOs, urging them to block the CLARITY Act clause allowing stablecoins to pay yields. The White House responds that banks refused to attend coordination meetings. The bill is scheduled for a markup vote this Wednesday. Trump states he will not compromise.

Hot Topic: Community sees this as traditional finance's last stand.

DailyCoinPost | CryptoSlate

BlackRock Chooses Ethereum as Tokenized Fund Platform

BlackRock, managing $14 trillion, officially announces the launch of tokenized fund products on Ethereum, paving the way for institutional capital to enter DeFi.

DailyCryptoBriefs

Hacker Phishes $174,000 from Grok with Free NFT

Attackers trick the Grok AI by constructing malicious NFT metadata, inducing it to execute transfer operations, revealing risks in AI smart contract interaction.

Jack Dorsey's First Tweet NFT Plummets from $2.9 Million to Less Than $5

The NFT of Twitter founder's first tweet, sold for a sky-high price in 2021, loses 99.9% of its value, becoming the most vivid footnote of the NFT bubble.

> Spicy Take: The person who spent $2.9M on a tweet can now write a book titled 'How to Gracefully Lose a House with a $5 Lesson.'

Trump-Linked Companies Transfer $12 Million in Crypto Assets Before China Visit

On-chain data shows a Trump-linked entity moving large amounts of cryptocurrency just before his visit to China, sparking speculation about conflicts of interest.

TheStreet

Chips / Hardware

Someone Runs 1-Trillion Parameter Model on Intel Optane, Speed Exceeds 4 tokens/sec

A user builds a system using discontinued Intel Optane persistent memory, successfully running a trillion-parameter model at over 4 tokens/sec, demonstrating the extreme potential of niche hardware.

TSMC Approves Additional $20 Billion Investment for Arizona Factory

TSMC continues to boost US production capacity, with cumulative investment exceeding expectations, accelerating the restructuring of the global semiconductor supply chain.

36Kr

Cook, Musk to Accompany Trump to China, Huang Jensen Absent

BlackRock, Micron CEOs, and others will join the delegation. Notably, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is not on the list, sparking speculation about US-China AI chip negotiations.

Wall Street News

Tech Companies

GitLab Announces Layoffs and Ends CREDIT Values

GitLab announces its "Act 2" restructuring plan in an internal memo, cutting staff and abandoning its long-held CREDIT corporate culture. 512 Hacker News comments debate whether corporate culture is idealistic or pragmatic.

Hot Topic: Remote work pioneer abandons idealism, signaling a cultural shift towards pragmatism in the tech industry.

GitLab Blog

Zuckerberg "Personally Authorized and Actively Encouraged" Meta's Large-Scale Copyright Infringement to Train AI

Publishers and author Scott Turow accuse Zuckerberg of direct personal involvement in the decision to use pirated content to train Llama models in a lawsuit.

Variety

EU Plans to Ban Microsoft, Amazon, Google from Processing Government Sensitive Data

Europe is pushing legislation to restrict US cloud giants from accessing member states' medical, financial, and legal data, escalating the data sovereignty battle.

TechSpot

Microsoft Fires Head of Israel Subsidiary for Monitoring Palestinians

Microsoft dismisses multiple executives at its Israeli branch over alleged improper monitoring of Palestinians, putting tech companies' stances in geopolitical conflicts under scrutiny again.

PCGamer

Google Launches Life Sciences Initiative RepliQA Combining Quantum Science and AI

Google announces a new project applying quantum computing and AI to drug discovery and life sciences, aiming to gain an edge in the next-generation computing race.

Google Blog

US Stocks

Michael Burry: Any Stock with Parabolic Rise Should Be Largely Sold

'The Big Short' protagonist issues another warning, advising investors to significantly reduce holdings of skyrocketing stocks and emphasizing that shorting is not the answer — implying the market may be generally overheated.

1999 Article Mocking 'Bubble Callers' Resurfaces for Re-Reading

A Reddit user digs up an optimistic article from the eve of the dot-com bubble, comparing it to current market sentiment. History rhyming raises investor vigilance.

"Sure It's Not a Bubble" — Valuation Chart Sparks Heated Discussion

A netizen posts extreme market valuation data captioned "Of course it's not a bubble," dripping with sarcasm. Comments split into bearish and "this time is different" camps.

Finance / Macro

WTI Crude Rises Over 2%, Breaks $100; US-Iran Talks Hope Dashed

Trump states Iran's proposal is "unacceptable." Former national security advisor expects a return to full-scale military operations. Oil prices rise accordingly.

6551/macro

Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Rail Announces 20% Price Hike, Second-Class Seats Exceed 800 Yuan

Nationwide high-speed rail trunk line price adjustments continue. Zhihu thread with 970k views discusses the balance between commercial logic and public service.

Zhihu

Spot Gold Falls Nearly 1% to $4,686/oz, Silver Drops 3%

Safe-haven sentiment cools, precious metals pull back, but rising oil prices show geopolitical risks are still being priced in.

[6551/macro]

New Products / New Trends

Unitree Launches Dual-Arm Humanoid Robot Starting at 26,900 Yuan

Chinese robotics company Unitree launches a consumer-grade dual-arm humanoid robot priced at less than half the expected price of Tesla's Optimus. Zhihu thread with 850k views discusses use cases.

Zhihu

Little Caesars Delivers Pizza via Drone in 4.5 Minutes

The US pizza chain completes a "historic" commercial drone delivery: two pizzas and a drink delivered in 4.5 minutes. Last-mile delivery enters the aerial era.

Entrepreneur

Today's Undercurrent

AI is transitioning from a tool to infrastructure: Mozilla uses it for code review, hackers use it to find vulnerabilities, Google uses it for quantum biology, ChatGPT starts writing textbooks — meanwhile, traditional finance's panic letters over stablecoin yields, banks refusing to meet with the White House, and the EU pushing US clouds out of sensitive areas all point to the same thing: the old order feels the pressure of irreversible replacement, and the new order isn't ready to take over responsibility yet. Stuck in the middle are increasingly anxious retail investors, flipping through old articles from 1999, asking themselves if this time is really different.

Domande pertinenti

QAccording to the article, what significant action did a Trump-associated company take just before his visit to China, and what was the speculated reason?

AAccording to the article, a Trump-associated company transferred $12 million in cryptocurrency assets just before his visit to China, which sparked speculation about potential conflicts of interest.

QWho issued a warning about the US stock market in the article, and what was the nature of their advice?

AMichael Burry, the investor profiled in 'The Big Short', issued a warning. He suggested that investors should significantly reduce their holdings in stocks that have experienced parabolic rises, implying the overall market may be overheated, though he clarified shorting is not the answer.

QWhat controversial legal precedent did the court set regarding Anthropic's data collection practices for AI training?

AThe court ruled that Anthropic's practice of buying millions of physical books, scanning them to extract knowledge for AI training, and then destroying the physical copies constitutes 'fair use.' This set a precedent for AI companies acquiring training data.

QWhat major risk associated with AI and smart contracts was highlighted by a specific hack mentioned in the article?

AThe article highlighted the risk of AI being deceived in smart contract interactions. Attackers used a malicious NFT to trick the Grok AI into executing a transfer operation, resulting in a loss of $174,000.

QWhat was the 'dark thread' or underlying theme suggested by the article's conclusion regarding the current technological and financial landscape?

AThe 'dark thread' is that AI is transitioning from a tool to fundamental infrastructure, creating irreversible pressure on the old order (traditional finance, governance). However, the new AI-driven order is not yet ready to assume full responsibility, leaving ordinary investors anxious and caught in the middle, reminiscent of past bubbles.

Letture associate

$30 Billion DeFi Capital Exodus: LayerZero Stumbles, Chainlink Feasts

Following the major DeFi security incident involving Kelp DAO, a significant migration of funds is underway from the cross-chain protocol LayerZero to Chainlink's CCIP (Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol). Over $30 billion in Total Value Locked (TVL) from protocols like Kelp DAO, Solv Protocol, Re, and Tydro has moved to Chainlink in the past week, driven by security concerns. LayerZero is facing a severe trust crisis after the attack. Initially denying responsibility, LayerZero Labs has now issued a public apology, acknowledging management oversights. These include a vulnerable "1/1" single-node configuration for its Decentralized Verification Network (DVN) and past misuse of a multi-signature wallet by a team member. The protocol's weekly bridge volume has slumped to near-historic lows of around $470 million. In contrast, Chainlink is experiencing a surge in adoption and activity. Its independent active addresses recently hit multi-month highs, and whales have been accumulating LINK tokens. Beyond DeFi, Chainlink is securing partnerships with traditional finance giants like DTCC, European stock exchange operator SIX Group, and asset manager Amundi. While LayerZero has announced security upgrades—such as migrating to stronger multi-signature configurations and developing a second DVN client—and contributed to a rescue fund, the event underscores that security is becoming a decisive competitive factor as DeFi matures.

marsbit21 min fa

$30 Billion DeFi Capital Exodus: LayerZero Stumbles, Chainlink Feasts

marsbit21 min fa

The $13 Trillion Repo Market Is Quietly Being Rewritten by Blockchain

The $13 trillion repurchase agreement (repo) market, a crucial artery for global short-term funding, is experiencing a significant transformation through blockchain technology. After years of limited impact in finance, blockchain is finding substantial adoption in repo transactions. Major institutions like JPMorgan Chase, HSBC, and Broadridge are deploying tokenized repo platforms, with daily volumes already reaching tens of billions of dollars. Traditional repo markets operate with fixed hours, rely on intermediaries, and involve manual, time-consuming processes. Tokenized repos, by contrast, use blockchain to create digital tokens representing cash and securities collateral. This enables near-instantaneous settlement, 24/7 trading, automated execution, and enhanced auditability. The key drivers for adoption include maturing technology, more receptive regulators, and growing client recognition of tangible benefits like reduced operational friction and capital efficiency. Analyses, such as one from Broadridge, indicate that moving a portion of repo activity onto blockchain can significantly reduce a bank's required liquidity buffers, potentially freeing up billions in capital. The infrastructure is also seen as foundational for a future of round-the-clock trading for traditional assets. Challenges remain, including the existence of fragmented blockchain networks, the need for stress testing under extreme market conditions, and the loss of operational flexibility compared to manual processes. However, the industry consensus is that these are implementation hurdles. Tokenized repo has moved beyond pilot stages to become one of blockchain's most concrete and impactful applications in traditional finance, marking a pivotal shift in how a core market functions.

marsbit22 min fa

The $13 Trillion Repo Market Is Quietly Being Rewritten by Blockchain

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Bitwise: Why Are Top-Tier Capital Giants Aggressively Betting on New Public Blockchains Like Arc, Canton, and Tempo?

Why Top Institutions Are Betting Big on New Blockchains Like Arc, Canton, and Tempo This week saw a surge of major funding announcements for new, purpose-built blockchains. Circle's Arc raised $222M at a $3B valuation from investors like BlackRock. Canton Network developer Digital Asset secured $300M led by a16z at a $2B valuation. Stripe's Tempo, already a leader, raised $500M last year and has partnered with major firms. These three chains share key traits: they are designed for stablecoins and asset tokenization, they emerged after the US passed the *Genius Act* in July 2025, they natively support private transactions crucial for enterprise adoption, and they are backed by traditional finance and tech giants—unlike the crypto-native origins of Ethereum or Solana. This trend highlights three major shifts: 1) Clear regulation (like the pending *Clarity Act*) is unlocking massive institutional capital. 2) Built-in privacy is becoming a core feature for real-world business use, addressing the limitations of fully transparent ledgers. 3) Established corporations are now directly entering the blockchain arena, bringing significant resources and execution capability, which will accelerate innovation and competition across the entire crypto ecosystem.

marsbit33 min fa

Bitwise: Why Are Top-Tier Capital Giants Aggressively Betting on New Public Blockchains Like Arc, Canton, and Tempo?

marsbit33 min fa

From Gas Limit to 'Keyed Nonces', How to Understand the Next Step in Ethereum Scalability?

Ethereum’s scalability efforts are shifting toward a user-centric approach—focusing not only on higher TPS, but on translating technical upgrades into lower costs, smoother operations, and better wallet experiences. Two recent developments highlight this direction: - **Raising the Gas Limit to 200 million**: Following the Fusaka upgrade that increased it to 60 million, a consensus has formed around a potential future increase to 200 million. This would boost Ethereum’s execution capacity, but it is planned alongside other upgrades—such as ePBS, Block-Level Access Lists (BAL), and EIP-8037—to manage state growth and keep node operation viable for average participants. - **Keyed Nonces (EIP-8250)**: This proposal aims to improve how transactions are queued. Instead of a single linear nonce per account, it introduces multiple independent nonce domains. This prevents different types of transactions—such as private payments, session keys, or batch operations—from blocking each other. Vitalik Buterin views this as a foundational step toward better privacy support and more flexible state scalability. Together, these upgrades are part of a broader move to push complexity from wallets, DApps, and relays back into the protocol layer. For everyday users, this means future Ethereum interactions could become less congested, more intuitive, and safer—especially as core improvements in account abstraction, cross-L2 interoperability, and node decentralization continue to progress. Ultimately, Ethereum is evolving to handle not just more transactions, but more varied and complex on-chain use cases while preserving its decentralized foundation.

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From Gas Limit to 'Keyed Nonces', How to Understand the Next Step in Ethereum Scalability?

marsbit44 min fa

Leaving OpenAI, How Much Has Their Net Worth Increased?

Former OpenAI employees have collectively accrued near-trillion dollar valuations through ventures and investments, charting AI's future. The article highlights two main paths: founding high-value companies like Anthropic and Perplexity, or applying insider insights as investors. Leopold Aschenbrenner exemplifies the investor path. After being fired from OpenAI, he leveraged firsthand knowledge of AI's massive energy demands to make hugely successful public market bets on nuclear and fuel cell companies, practicing "cross-industry cognitive arbitrage." Other alumni, like the Zero Shot VC fund founders, use their technical foresight for early-stage investing. Their key advantage lies not just in picking winners, but in knowing which technical approaches are likely dead ends—a "veto list" derived from internal OpenAI experience. Angel investing within the network, as seen with Mira Murati and Sam Altman, operates on deep, pre-existing understanding of a founder's capabilities, reducing due diligence to near zero. This creates an ecosystem bound by a shared belief in AGI's imminent arrival, differing from networks like the "PayPal Mafia" which were built on shared past struggles. The shift of these builders to investors signals a profound conviction: their situational awareness of the AI landscape is now so clear that deploying capital based on that judgment is more efficient than building themselves. They are allocating bets on the future they helped shape from the inside.

marsbit55 min fa

Leaving OpenAI, How Much Has Their Net Worth Increased?

marsbit55 min fa

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