Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! Your usual host Kirsten has passed the reins to me, Rebecca Bellan, for the day, and I want to talk about Aurora Innovation and its last-minute save. […]
Read more Next week, Google will begin allowing kids under 13 who have parent-managed Google accounts to use its Gemini chatbot, according to The New York Times. The Times reports that Gemini will be available to kids whose parents use Family Link, a Google service that enables families to opt into various Google services for their child. A Google […]
Read more A recently released Google AI model scores worse on certain safety tests than its predecessor, according to the company’s internal benchmarking. In a technical report published this week, Google reveals that its Gemini 2.5 Flash model is more likely to generate text that violates its safety guidelines than Gemini 2.0 Flash. On two metrics, “text-to-text […]
Read more Apple and Anthropic are teaming up to build a “vibe-coding” software platform that will use generative AI to write, edit, and test code for programmers, Bloomberg reported on Friday. The iPhone maker is planning to roll out the software internally, according to Bloomberg, but hasn’t decided if it will launch it publicly. The system is […]
Read more This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.
A senior State Department official demanded records of communications with journalists, European officials, and Trump critics
A previously unreported document distributed by senior US State Department official Darren Beattie reveals a sweeping effort to uncover all communications between the staff of a small government office focused on online disinformation and a lengthy list of public and private figures—many of whom are longtime targets of the political right.
The document, originally shared in person with roughly a dozen State Department employees in early March, requested staff emails and other records with or about a host of individuals and organizations that track or write about foreign disinformation—including Atlantic journalist Anne Applebaum, former US cybersecurity official Christopher Krebs, and the Stanford Internet Observatory—or have criticized President Donald Trump and his allies, such as the conservative anti-Trump commentator Bill Kristol.
The broad requests for unredacted information felt like a “witch hunt,” one official says—one that could put the privacy and security of numerous individuals and organizations at risk. Read the full story.
—Eileen Guo
The US has approved CRISPR pigs for food
Most pigs in the US are confined to factory farms where they can be afflicted by a nasty respiratory virus that kills piglets. The illness is called porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome, or PRRS.
A few years ago, a British company called Genus set out to design pigs immune to this germ using CRISPR gene editing. Not only did they succeed, but its pigs are now poised to enter the food chain following approval of the animals this week by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Read the full story.
—Antonio Regalado
This article is from The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly health and biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, sign up here.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 The US has closed a China tariff loophole
The costs of plenty of goods are likely to shoot up in response. (NYT $)
+ But China is still extremely dependent on US-made car chips. (WSJ $)
+ Chinese retail giant Temu is pivoting its business model. (Bloomberg $)
+ Sweeping tariffs could threaten the US manufacturing rebound. (MIT Technology Review)
2 DOGE’s future is looking uncertain
It’s fallen far short of its goal to slash $2 trillion in spending. (WP $)+ No more late-night ice cream for Elon Musk. (CNBC)
+ DOGE’s tech takeover threatens the safety and stability of our critical data. (MIT Technology Review)
3 Microsoft is hiking the price of its Xbox games console
By a whopping 27% in the US. (The Guardian)
+ Apple estimates that the tariffs will add $900 million to its costs. (WP $)
+ But Apple isn’t announcing any price increases (yet.) (TechCrunch)
+ Here’s what is—and isn’t—getting pricier under the tariffs. (Vox)
4 Tech giants have been accused of deliberately distorting AI rankings
A new study claims they’re making untrue claims about the best models. (New Scientist $)
+ It accuses benchmark organisation LM Arena of unfair practices. (TechCrunch)
+ The site’s operators refute the findings, saying its conclusions are wrong. (Ars Technica)
5 Europe wants to replicate America’s military-industrial complex
And US contractors are likely to benefit. (WSJ $)
+ US soldiers may finally be able to repair their own equipment. (404 Media)
+ Generative AI is learning to spy for the US military. (MIT Technology Review)
6 Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI will move forward
A judge rejected OpenAI’s attempt to dismiss the case. (FT $)
7 What a post-4Chan internet looks like
What was once contained to a tiny corner of the web is now commonplace. (New Yorker $)
+ How to fix the internet. (MIT Technology Review)
8 How North Korea infiltrates the US
Fully remote coders are not who they appear to be. (Wired $)
9 You no longer need a password to open a new Microsoft account
The company’s gone passkey-first. (The Verge)
10 Fecal transplants are a possible way to treat gut disease 
And the approach is becoming more mainstream. (Undark)
+ How bugs and chemicals in your poo could give away exactly what you’ve eaten. (MIT Technology Review)
Quote of the day
“What about the next Taylor Swift?”
—US District Court Judge Vince Chhabria questions how powerful musical AI tools will affect up-and-coming musicians during Meta’s copyright court battle, Wired reports.
One more thing
Your boss is watching
Working today—whether in an office, a warehouse, or your car—can mean constant electronic surveillance with little transparency, and potentially with livelihood-ending consequences if your productivity flags.
But what matters even more than the effects of this ubiquitous monitoring on privacy may be how all that data is shifting the relationships between workers and managers, companies and their workforce.
We are in the midst of a shift in work and workplace relationships as significant as the Second Industrial Revolution of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. And new policies and protections may be necessary to correct the balance of power. Read the full story.
—Rebecca Ackermann
We can still have nice things
A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)
+ This is cool: scientists have successfully triggered a lightning strike using a drone. 
+ It’s the age-old question—why do so many men refuse to wear shorts in hot weather?
+ The American accent that’s hardest for British actors to pull off seems to be either New York or Boston.
+ Happy 50th birthday to David Beckham, best of British.
Most pigs in the US are confined to factory farms where they can be afflicted by a nasty respiratory virus that kills piglets. The illness is called porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome, or PRRS.
A few years ago, a British company called Genus set out to design pigs immune to this germ using CRISPR gene editing. Not only did they succeed, but its pigs are now poised to enter the food chain following approval of the animals this week by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The pigs will join a very short list of gene-modified animals that you can eat. It’s a short list because such animals are expensive to create, face regulatory barriers, and don’t always pay off. For instance, the US took about 20 years to approve a transgenic salmon with an extra gene that let it grow faster. But by early this year its creator, AquaBounty, had sold off all its fish farms and had only four employees—none of them selling fish.
Regulations have eased since then, especially around gene editing, which tinkers with an animal’s own DNA rather than adding to it from another species, as is the case with the salmon and many GMO crops.
What’s certain is that the pig project was technically impressive and scientifically clever. Genus edited pig embryos to remove the receptor that the PRRS virus uses to enter cells. No receptor means no infection.
According to Matt Culbertson, chief operating office of the Pig Improvement Company, a Genus subsidiary, the pigs appear entirely immune to more than 99% of the known versions of the PRRS virus, although there is one rare subtype that may break through the protection.
This project is scientifically similar to the work that led to the infamous CRISPR babies born in China in 2018. In that case a scientist named He Jiankui edited twin girls to be resistant to HIV, also by trying to remove a receptor gene when they were just embryos in a dish.
That experiment on humans was widely decried as misguided. But pigs are a different story. The ethical concerns about experimenting are less serious, and the benefits of changing the genomes can be measured in dollars and cents. It’s going to save a lot of money if pigs are immune to the PRRS virus, which spreads quite easily, causing losses of $300 million a year or more in the US alone.
Globally, people get animal protein mostly from chickens, with pigs and cattle in second and third place. A 2023 report estimated that pigs account for 34% of all meat that’s eaten. Of the billion pigs in the world, about half are in China; the US comes in a distant second, with 80 million.
Recently, there’s been a lot of fairly silly news about genetically modified animals. A company called Colossal Biosciences used gene editing to modify wolves in ways it claimed made them resemble an extinct species, the dire wolf. And then there’s the L.A. Project, an effort run by biohackers who say they’ll make glow-in-the-dark rabbits and have a stretch goal of creating a horse with a horn—that’s right, a unicorn.
Both those projects are more about showmanship than usefulness. But they’re demonstrations of the growing power scientists have to modify mammals, thanks principally to new gene-editing tools combined with DNA sequencing that lets them peer into animals’ DNA.
Stopping viruses is a much better use of CRISPR. And research is ongoing to make pigs—as well as other livestock—invulnerable to other infections, including African swine fever and influenza. While PRRS doesn’t infect humans, pig and bird flus can. But if herds and flocks could be changed to resist those infections, that could cut the chances of the type of spillover that can occasionally cause dangerous pandemics.
There’s a chance the Genus pigs could turn out to be the most financially valuable genetically modified animal ever created—the first CRISPR hit product to reach the food system. After the approval, the company’s stock value jumped up by a couple of hundred million dollars on the London Stock Exchange.
But there is still a way to go before gene-edited bacon appears on shelves in the US. Before it makes its sales pitch to pig farms, Genus says, it needs to also gain approval in Mexico, Canada, Japan and China which are big export markets for American pork.
Culbertson says gene-edited pork could appear in the US market sometime next year. He says the company does not think pork chops or other meat will need to carry any label identifying it as bioengineered. “We aren’t aware of any labelling requirement,” Culbertson says.
This article is from The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly health and biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, sign up here.
US crypto exchange Kraken has detailed a North Korean hacker’s attempt to infiltrate the organization by applying for a job interview.
“What started as a routine hiring process for an engineering role quickly turned into an intelligence-gathering operation,” the company wrote in a May 1 blog post.
Kraken said the applicant’s red flags appeared early on in the process when they joined an interview under a name different from what they applied with and “occasionally switched between voices,” apparently being guided through the interview.
Rather than immediately rejecting the applicant, Kraken decided to advance them through its hiring process to gather information about the tactics used.
International sanctions have effectively cut North Korea off from the rest of the world, and the country’s ruling Kim family dictatorship has long targeted crypto companies and users to top up the country’s coffers. It’s stolen billions worth of crypto so far this year.
Kraken reported that industry partners had tipped them off that North Korean actors were actively applying for jobs at crypto companies.
“We received a list of email addresses linked to the hacker group, and one of them matched the email the candidate used to apply to Kraken,” it said.
With this information, the firm’s security team uncovered a network of fake identities used by the hacker to apply to multiple companies.
Kraken also noted technical inconsistencies, which included the use of remote Mac desktops through VPNs and altered identification documents.
Kraken CSO @c7five recently spoke to @CBSNews about how a North Korean operative unsuccessfully attempted to get a job at Kraken.
Don’t trust. Verify 👇 pic.twitter.com/1vVo3perH2
— Kraken Exchange (@krakenfx) May 1, 2025
The applicant’s resume was linked to a GitHub profile containing an email address exposed in a past data breach, and the exchange said the candidate’s primary form of ID “appeared to be altered, likely using details stolen in an identity theft case two years prior.”
During final interviews, Kraken chief security officer Nick Percoco conducted trap identity verification tests that the candidate failed, confirming the deception.
Related: Lazarus Group’s 2024 pause was repositioning for $1.4B Bybit hack
“Don’t trust, verify. This core crypto principle is more relevant than ever in the digital age,” Peroco said. “State-sponsored attacks aren’t just a crypto or US corporate issue — they’re a global threat.”
North Korea pulls off biggest-ever crypto hack
North Korea-affiliated hacking collective Lazarus Group was responsible for February’s $1.4 billion Bybit exchange hack, the largest ever for the crypto industry.
North Korean-linked hackers also stole more than $650 million through multiple crypto heists during 2024, while deploying IT workers to infiltrate blockchain and crypto companies as insider threats, according to a statement released by the US, Japan and South Korea in January.
In April, a subgroup of Lazarus was found to have set up three shell companies, with two in the US, to deliver malware to unsuspecting users and scam crypto developers.
Magazine: Japanese porn star’s coin red flags, Alibaba-linked L2 runs at 100K TPS: Asia Express
Crypto exchange Kraken has completed its acquisition of the futures trading platform NinjaTrader and reported its first quarter revenues jumped 19% year-on-year to $471.7 million.
Kraken said in a May 1 report that its NinjaTrader acquisition would give its US customers access to the traditional derivatives market, aligning with its plans to expand its offerings and be the go-to platform for all types of trading.
NinjaTrader is a registered Futures Commission Merchant with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Last month, it rolled out trading for over 11,000 stocks and exchange-traded funds to certain US clients.
The deal, which Kraken dubbed the largest ever between a crypto and traditional finance firm, allows NinjaTrader to expand to the UK, continental Europe and Australian markets and comes as Kraken is preparing for an initial public offering in early 2026. The company is exploring a debt package worth between $200 million and $1 billion to facilitate that transaction.
Kraken revenue, trading volume falls on Trump’s return
Kraken’s $471.7 million revenue in Q1 marked a 19% increase from the year-ago quarter but a 6.8% fall from Q4 2024.
The exchange reported that trading volume fell 9.6% quarter-over-quarter to $208.7 billion while the value of its custodied assets fell 18% to $34.9 billion over the same time.
Kraken attributed the drop to a “slowdown in overall market trading activity” as US President Donald Trump’s threats of implementing sweeping tariffs triggered an 18% fall in the crypto market cap over the quarter.
Kraken is one of several crypto platforms that saw record or near-record highs in trading activity in Q4 as Trump’s November election win sparked larger-than-usual market volatility.
Related: Kraken rolls out ETF and stock access for US crypto traders
Kraken said that despite a “softening market,” its adjusted EBITDA — earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization — jumped 1% from the previous quarter to $187.4 million.
The firm also saw the number of funded accounts on its platform increase 10% quarter-on-quarter to 3.9 million, signaling “deeper client engagement.”
Reuters reported on April 18 that Kraken restructured its workforce after Arjun Sethi was appointed as co-CEO last October. Sethi has laid off around 400 employees since.
Magazine: Crypto wanted to overthrow banks, now it’s becoming them in stablecoin fight
Tether, the company behind the world’s largest stablecoin by market capitalization, has released its financials for the first quarter of 2025, disclosing nearly $120 billion in exposure to US Treasurys and over $1 billion in operating profit.
According to Tether’s Q1 2025 financial report, the company’s assets include $98.5 billion in direct US Treasury bills, along with over $23 billion in additional exposure through repurchase agreements and other cash-equivalent assets.
According to the announcement, Tether holds $5.6 billion in excess of reserves for its USDt (USDT) stablecoin, down from $7.1 billion in excess from the last quarter of 2024. The stablecoin has a market capitalization of $149 billion as of May 1.
“Circulating supply of USDT grew by approximately $7 billion in Q1, with a 46 million increase in user wallets,” it said.
The company’s excess capital continues to fund strategic investments, with more than $2 billion allocated in renewable energy, artificial intelligence, peer-to-peer communications, and data infrastructure.
The stablecoin market is broadly dominated by tokens pegged to the US dollar, with USDT and Circle’s USDC holding a combined 87% share. According to the US Treasury’s Q1 2025 report, the market cap for dollar-backed stablecoins is poised to reach $2 trillion by 2028.
European Union officials have recently raised concerns about the risks of overreliance on dollar-pegged stablecoins. According to the Bank of Italy, disruptions in the stablecoins market or the underlying bonds could have “repercussions for other parts of the global financial system.”
Magazine: Crypto wanted to overthrow banks, now it’s becoming them in stablecoin fight
Key takeaways:
-
Despite weak US manufacturing data, Federal Reserve liquidity plans and strong corporate earnings keep equities and crypto afloat.
-
The total crypto market capitalization rose 8.5% since March.
Cryptocurrency traders have frequently zoomed in on the need for crypto to show a clear “decoupling” from the stock market, and over the past 10 days, the intraday movements of Bitcoin (BTC) and major altcoins have closely tracked those of the S&P 500, even as trade war developments have dominated market sentiment.
A decoupling would validate digital assets as an independent class and address growing concerns about a potential global economic recession. This ongoing correlation has led market participants to question whether the cryptocurrency market is destined to follow the stock market’s lead indefinitely, and what conditions would be necessary for a genuine decoupling to occur.
Stock market shows strength despite trade tensions
The S&P 500 reached its peak on Feb. 19 and has since struggled to reclaim the 5,800 level, a support that had held for four months. Despite persistent pressure from US trade disputes with Canada and Mexico, as well as the imposition of new tariffs affecting nearly every major economic region, equities have demonstrated notable resilience.
Chinese state media recently reported that the United States has quietly initiated trade negotiations. Although China officially maintains a 125% retaliatory tariff on US imports, it has granted waivers for sectors such as ethane, semiconductors, and certain pharmaceuticals. The United States, in turn, has partially exempted automakers from new tariffs. These actions suggest that both sides are gradually making concessions.
There is a reasonable possibility that the S&P 500 established a bottom at 4,835 on April 7, with further gains from the current 5,635 level remaining plausible. The stock market has responded positively to robust first-quarter earnings, as companies adapt to tariffs by relocating production outside China or expanding operations within the United States.
For instance, Microsoft reported a 13.2% year-over-year increase in revenue, with higher margins and strong demand for artificial intelligence. Meta also delivered earnings and revenue that exceeded market expectations on April 30. These results have alleviated concerns about a potential AI bubble or the risk that the trade war could force companies to reduce investment.
The market’s focus shifts to the Federal Reserve
Rather than concentrating on the recent decline in US PMI manufacturing data-which reached a five-month low in April, market participants are closely monitoring the Federal Reserve’s next policy moves. Following a year of balance sheet reduction, the Fed is now considering asset purchases to help ease selling pressure.
An increase in liquidity is typically favorable for risk-oriented assets. Therefore, even if a full decoupling does not occur, cryptocurrencies could still benefit from a more supportive macroeconomic environment.
Despite the short-term correlation, the cryptocurrency market has outperformed equities in recent months. Since March, the total crypto market capitalization has risen by 8.5%, while the S&P 500 has declined by 5.3%. Over a six-month period, this divergence becomes even more pronounced: the total crypto market cap is up 29%, while the S&P 500 is down 2%. It is therefore inaccurate to suggest that these markets move in perfect synchrony, particularly when viewed over longer timeframes.
Related: Bitcoin to $1M by 2029 fueled by ETF and gov’t demand — Bitwise exec
It is still premature to declare a definitive bottom for the S&P 500 or to conclude that the trade war has been resolved. An economic recession would likely have negative implications for both markets. However, the current strength in equities indicates reduced risk aversion among investors. For the time being, the elevated correlation between cryptocurrencies and stocks may represent the most favorable scenario.
This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.