Cardano Roadmap for 2025: Link

*Cardano plans transition to 'full decentralized governance' after Wednesday's Plomin hard fork: LINK

LUTNICK: TETHER DID NO BUSINESS WITH ANYONE WHO WASN’T KYC-APPROPRIATE

LUTNICK: US DOLLAR STABLECOINS SHOULD BE AUDITED

Anthropic CEO on DeepSeek: LINK

*DeepSeek produced a model close to the performance of US models 7-10 months older, for a good deal less cost (but not anywhere near the ratios people have suggested.

*DeepSeek-V3 is not a unique breakthrough or something that fundamentally changes the economics of LLM’s; it’s an expected point on an ongoing cost reduction curve. What’s different this time is that the company that was first to demonstrate the expected cost reductions was Chinese. US companies will soon follow suit — and they won’t do this by copying DeepSeek, but because they too are achieving the usual trend in cost reduction.

*It's been reported DeepSeek actually had 50k Hopper generation chips6, which I'd guess is within a factor ~2-3x of what the major US AI companies have. Those 50k Hopper chips cost on the order of ~$1B. Thus, DeepSeek's total spend as a company (as distinct from spend to train an individual model) is not vastly different from US AI labs.

*R1, which is the model that was released last week and which triggered an explosion of public attention (including a ~17% decrease in Nvidia's stock price), is much less interesting from an innovation or engineering perspective than V3.

*Making AI that is smarter than almost all humans at almost all things will require millions of chips, tens of billions of dollars (at least), and is most likely to happen in 2026-2027. (AGI prediction?👀)

TRUMP OFFICIALS DISCUSS TIGHTENING CURBS ON NVIDIA CHINA SALES

FED LEAVES RATES UNCHANGED

*FED REMOVES REFERENCE TO INFLATION MAKING PROGRESS TOWARD GOAL

*TRADERS PRICE IN LESS FED EASING THIS YEAR AFTER FOMC STATEMENT

*TRADERS EXPECT THE FED TO WAIT UNTIL JUNE TO CUT RATES, BASED ON SHORT-TERM INTEREST-RATE FUTURES.

*POWELL: WE DON'T NEED TO BE IN HURRY TO ADJUST POLICY STANCE

*POWELL: DON'T HAVE COMMENT ON WHAT PRESIDENT TRUMP SAID

*POWELL: I'VE HAD NO CONTACT WITH THE PRESIDENT

*POWELL: SENTENCE ON INFLATION NOT MEANT TO SEND SIGNAL

Powell says removal of "inflation" line is just clean up to shorten sentence, not determination that inflation is rising again

*POWELL: FED VERY MUCH WAITING TO SEE WHAT POLICIES ARE ENACTED

*POWELL: WE DO EXPECT TO SEE FURTHER PROGRESS ON INFLATION

*POWELL: RIGHT NOW WE FEEL LIKE WE'RE IN A VERY GOOD PLACE

*POWELL: I WOULD SAY WE'RE MEANINGFULLY ABOVE NEUTRAL RATE

*POWELL: MOST RECENT DATA SUGGEST RESERVES ARE STILL ABUNDANT

*FED'S POWELL: WE INTEND TO REDUCE THE BALANCE SHEET SIZE

Powell gives an update on balance sheet policy that suggests no imminent changes:

*Reserves are still abundant.
*We're closely monitoring conditions.
*I don't have anything to say about particular dates.

*POWELL, ASKED ABOUT MARCH RATE CUT REPEATS DON'T NEED TO HURRY

*POWELL: FED'S ROLE WITH CRYPTO IS TO LOOK AT BANKS

*POWELL: BANKS ARE PERFECTLY ABLE TO SERVE CRYPTO CUSTOMERS AS LONG AS THEY MANAGE THE RISKS

*POWELL: FED DOESN'T WANT BANKS TO TERMINATE LEGAL CUSTOMERS

*POWELL: GREATER REGULATION ON CRYPTO WOULD BE HELPFUL

DEEPSEEK INTERNAL DATABASE PUBLICLY EXPOSED ⚠️

*Wiz Research has discovered "DeepLeak" - a publicly accessible ClickHouse database belonging to DeepSeek, exposing highly sensitive information, including secret keys, plain-text chat messages, backend details, and logs.

*Wiz Research team immediately disclosed the issue to DeepSeek, which promptly secured the exposure.

GOLD HITS NEW ALL-TIME HIGH

OpenAl in Talks for Huge Investment Round Valuing It Up to $340 Billion: WSJ

*SoftBank in Discussions to Lead Round and Invest $15 Billion to $25 Billion: Sources

*OpenAI was last valued at $157 billion in October, when it raised $6.6 billion

OPENAI TO LAUNCH NEW O3-MINI MODEL TODAY IN RESPONSE TO DEEPSEEK: WIRED