Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will push back at his press conference on Wednesday on calls from the White House and many on Wall Street for interest-rate cuts, economists say.
BUSINESS
Falling Shale Production Won’t Bail Out OPEC+
Low oil prices will at least slow shale oil production growth, but probably not enough to balance the market by itself.
International stocks have been crushing U.S. equities. Morgan Stanley expects a reversal.
Mike Wilson, chief market strategist at Morgan Stanley, says he likes U.S. over international equities from here
Inside The Waymo Factory Building A Robotaxi Future
An exclusive look inside the facility turning Jaguar EVs into robotaxis with the AI-driven fleet’s custom computing system, cameras, lidar and radar.
Tether Enters AI Arena With Tether.AI
Tether is about to enter the $25 billion crypto artificial intelligence sector, according to a post by its CEO Paolo Ardoino on X.
Tether AI, according to Ardoino, is a “fully open-source AI runtime, capable of adapting and evolving on any hardware and device, no API keys, no central point of failure, fully modular and composable, WDK-infused to enable USDT and Bitcoin payments.”
WDK is Tether’s Wallet Development Kit, a modular software development kit that enables businesses and developers to integrate non-custodial wallets and user experiences for Bitcoin and USDT across any app, website, or device, Ardoino explained in a November post on X.
On its Tether.ai website, Tether says its AI platform will integrate Keet, a peer-to-peer chat platform. Not much else is known about Tether’s AI initiative.
CoinGecko’s index of AI tokens is trading flat after the announcement.
My friend’s partner is pregnant, but she’s married to another man. Is he financially responsible?
“She claimed her husband was cheating on her and stopped paying their mortgage.”
Warren Buffett gave this timely investment advice at Berkshire’s annual meeting
The Berkshire Hathaway CEO had some choice words for investors before announcing he was stepping down after six decades.
Rivals Celtics And Knicks Await First NBA Playoffs Matchup Since 2013
On Monday night, the Celtics and Knicks will begin their Eastern Conference semifinals playoff series, the first time the teams will meet in the postseason since 2013.
Here’s How Trump And Oz Can Fix Medicare
Medicare Administrative Contractors (MACs), which most Americans have never heard of, pose a perilous hazard to your health.
Ether-Bitcoin ‘Squeeze’ Hints at Imminent Volatility as Ethereum Pectra Upgrade Nears
Crypto traders aiming to profit from a volatility surge should watch the Binance-listed ether-bitcoin (ETH/BTC) ratio, which could soon experience wild swings, according to a key indicator called Bollinger Bands.
Bollinger Bands are volatility bands placed two standard deviations above and below the 20-day simple moving average of an asset’s price.
The so-called Bollinger band squeeze occurs when the bands contract tightly around the price, suggesting low volatility and a period of consolidation. The market typically builds energy during the squeeze, which is eventually released in either direction, leading to a volatility explosion.
The Bollinger Bands on the ETH-BTC chart are now the tightest they have been since June 2020, according to TradingView.
The squeeze indicates that ether could soon experience increased volatility against BTC. Traders watch closely to see which way the price breaks out of the bands because, often, the big move happens in the same direction.
The volatility bullish signal comes as Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade, which aims to improve the blockchain’s scalability and validator operations and may sput market activity.
The impending upgrade, due May 7, greatly increases the maximum ETH a validator can stake, from 32 ETH up to 2,048 ETH. It also raises the number of “blob” data units per block from 3 to 6, allowing for a maximum of 9. Additionally, the upgrade will start the transition to the EVM Object Format (EOF), a new structure designed to make smart contracts more efficient.
“Layer-2 networks stand to benefit the most. By doubling blob capacity and making call data more expensive, Pectra solidifies blobs as the standard for rollup data posting. This reinforces Ethereum’s role as a data availability layer and strengthens its rollup-centric scaling strategy,” analytics firm Nansen said in a report shared with CoinDesk.
“DeFi will also see a lift,” the firm noted, saying, NFTs and blockchain games may benefit from the broader improvements.