The US Senate has passed a resolution to kill a Biden administration-era rule to require decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols to report to the Internal Revenue Service, which will now head to US President Donald Trump’s desk.
On March 26, the Senate voted 70-28 to pass a motion repealing the so-called IRS DeFi broker rule that aimed to expand existing IRS reporting requirements to crypto.
The Senate had voted to pass the resolution earlier in March, which also passed the House, but it was sent back to the Senate for a final vote before it could be sent to Trump.
Nearly 58% of Argentinians said they don’t trust President Javier Milei following his involvement in the $4.6 billion Libra crypto scandal, according to a recent poll.
“More than a month after the crypto fraud scandal broke out, how much do you trust Milei today?” polling platform Zuban Córdoba asked 1,600 respondents in its recently released March survey, to which 57.6% replied that they disapprove of him, while 36% said Milei still has their trust.
The remaining 6.4% said they weren’t sure, the report stated.
Percentage of trust that Argentines have in Milei after the Libra scandal. Source: Zuban Córdoba
This was the first time the question was asked within a Zuban Córdoba poll. However, several other metrics, such as Milei’s image and the national management approval rating, have plummeted considerably in recent months.
The latter of those metrics, for example, fell from 47.3% in November to 41.6% in March.
“Fifty-eight percent disapprove of Javier Milei’s management. Negativity increases slowly but steadily and seems to find no ceiling,” Zuban Córdoba said.
“The change in tone and evaluation of the government is consolidating as more and more problematic fronts appear on the political agenda.”
Zuban Córdoba conducted its study between March 12 and March 14, and the sample size of 1,600 participants had a confidence level of 95% and a sampling error of 2.45%.
Another survey from the University of San Andrés conducted between March 11-20 with 1,020 respondents found that Milei’s approval rating dropped to 45%.
However, not all polls paint the same picture of President Milei.
Data collected from Morning Consult between Feb. 27 and March 5 indicates that Milei still possessed a 62.4% approval rating after the Libra scandal.
Milei has distanced himself from Libra since the scandal, arguing he didn’t “promote” the LIBRA token in a controversial Feb. 14 X post — as fraud lawsuits filed against him allege — and instead merely “spread the word” about it.
The Libra (LIBRA) token soared to a $4.6 billion market cap shortly after Milei’s X post before tanking nearly 94% over the next few hours.
Argentina’s opposition party called for Milei’s impeachment but has had limited success thus far.
President Milei’s party still in lead as election looms
The controversy comes as the next Argentine election is set to take place on Oct. 26.
Despite the negative results, Milei’s La Libertad Avanza party is still most likely to take out the next Argentine election, with 36.7% in favor of the libertarian party, while Unión por la Patria comes in next at 32.5%.
However, only 43% of Argentine respondents believe that Milei — an economist prior to taking office — has sufficiently controlled inflation, while 63% of those polled oppose Milei’s efforts to secure a new loan from the International Monetary Fund.
Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon said the state’s proposed stablecoin might be ready to launch by July, with the Wyoming Stable Token Commission announcing interoperability protocol LayerZero as a partner for the token launch.
Speaking at the DC Blockchain Summit on March 26, Gordon praised the speed and efficiency of the Wyoming state government in embracing blockchain technology. Anthony Apollo, the executive director of the Wyoming Stable Token Commission, also confirmed:
“The Stable Token Commission has formally engaged LayerZero as our token development and distribution partner, and we have stable tokens — Wyoming stable tokens — on several test networks.”
Wyoming, which is represented by pro-crypto Senator Cynthia Lummis, has been planning a state-issued stablecoin for years and has a history of embracing innovation in digital assets.
Governor Mark Gordon of Wyoming speaking at the 2025 DC Blockchain Summit. Source: Sei
Wyoming lawmakers introduced the “Wyoming Stable Token Act” in February 2022 to establish a state-issued stablecoin pegged to the value of the US dollar and redeemable for fiat.
The bill was signed into law in March 2023, enabling the state treasury to develop a team of professional accountants, auditors, and technical experts to issue and manage the state’s stablecoin supply.
Following the passage of the Stable Token Act, the state began staffing its Stable Token Commission with officers and executives to research and develop the state’s stablecoin.
In August 2024, Governor Mark Gordon told an audience at the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium that the state was eyeing a Q1 2025 launch window for the stablecoin, which would be backed by short-term US Treasury Bills and repurchase agreements.
At the time, Gordon slammed the “too big to fail” ethos of US economics post-2008 financial crisis and called the Federal Reserve Bank a “drag on innovation.”
More recently, Anthony Apollo, the executive director of the Wyoming Stable Token Commission, told Cointelegraph that the state’s public budget should be onchain to ensure transparency, accountability, and efficiency in government spending.
US Securities and Exchange Commissioner (SEC) Hester Peirce offered a few suggestions for longer-lasting changes in crypto regulation between administrations with potentially different views.
Speaking at the DC Blockchain Summit on March 26, Peirce, who heads the SEC’s crypto task force, said she expected that the commission could create more “durability” for digital asset regulations through rulemaking at the agency and legislation in Congress. Such rulemaking and laws would be in contrast to guidance issued by the agency, such as a recent statement suggesting that memecoins do not qualify as securities.
“I hope people won’t be sitting around thinking about the Howey test,” said Peirce, referring to a method to determine whether an asset is a security. “Your lawyers have to think about these things, I’m not saying that they’ll not be relevant, but it shouldn’t be the kind of thing that is driving what you decide to build. I want there to be enough clarity on the question of what falls in our jurisdiction and then, if it does, how you can move forward.”
SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce speaking at the DC Blockchain Summit on March 26. Source: Rumble
Peirce’s remarks came as the SEC has dropped several investigations or enforcement actions against major crypto firms, including Coinbase, Ripple, Kraken and Immutable. Some see the commission’s change in policy under acting chair Mark Uyeda as an attempt by US President Donald Trump to have the agency drop cases against firms that supported his 2024 campaign.
Since the 119th session of Congress started in January, lawmakers have suggested that they intend to move forward with a market structure bill clarifying the roles the SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission will have over digital assets. On his third day in office, Trump signed an executive order establishing a working group that would explore, among other things, a regulatory framework for stablecoins.
Is a new SEC chair on the horizon?
Paul Atkins, whom Trump nominated as an SEC commissioner in December, will appear before US lawmakers in the Senate Banking Committee on March 27 and likely answer questions about his views on crypto regulation. Many in the crypto industry have indicated support for the former commissioner, who holds assets in real-world asset tokenization platform Securitize and controls a consulting firm tied to FTX.
If his nomination moves through the banking committee, it’s unclear whether the full Senate will vote to confirm Atkins to a term ending in 2031. He is expected to take over as SEC chair from Commissioner Uyeda.
It’s only been a day since ChatGPT’s new AI image generator went live, and social media feeds are already flooded with AI-generated memes in the style of Studio Ghibli, the cult-favorite Japanese animation studio behind blockbuster films such as “My Neighbor Totoro” and “Spirited Away.” In the last 24 hours, we’ve seen AI-generated images representing […]
Nvidia is looking to get into the server rental market. The semiconductor giant is reportedly nearing a deal to acquire Lepton AI, a company that rents out servers that are powered by Nvidia’s AI chips, according to The Information. Citing unnamed sources, the outlet says the deal deal is worth several hundred million dollars. TechCrunch […]
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced on Wednesday that the rollout of ChatGPT’s viral new AI image features to free users would be delayed, citing significantly higher demand than the company expected. “Images in ChatGPT are wayyyy more popular than we expected (and we had pretty high expectations),” Altman said in a post on X on […]
The health insurance giant is the latest to remove references to diversity, equity and inclusion policies amid mounting pressure from the Trump administration.
Enterprise browser startup Island just raised a sizable funding round — one that bumps up its valuation significantly, and less than one year after its last fundraise. Dallas-based Island raised $250 million in a Series E round led by Coatue that valued the company at $4.85 billion, the startup announced today. This brings the company’s […]
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.
China built hundreds of AI data centers to catch the AI boom. Now many stand unused.
Just months ago, China’s boom in data center construction was at its height, fueled by both government and private investors. Renting out GPUs to companies that need them for training AI models was once seen as a sure bet.
But with the rise of DeepSeek and a sudden change in the economics around AI, the industry is faltering. Prices for GPUs are falling and many newly built facilities are now sitting empty. Read the full story to find out why.
—Caiwei Chen
OpenAI’s new image generator aims to be practical enough for designers and advertisers
What’s new? OpenAI has released a new image generator that’s designed less for typical surrealist AI art and more for highly controllable and practical creation of visuals—a sign that OpenAI thinks its tools are ready for use in fields like advertising and graphic design.
Why it matters: While most AI models have been great at creating fantastical images or realistic deepfakes, they’ve been terrible at identifying certain objects correctly and putting them in their proper place. OpenAI’s new model makes progress on technical issues that have plagued AI image generators for years.
But in entering this domain, OpenAI has two paths, both difficult. Read the full story.
The AI Hype Index: DeepSeek mania, Israel’s spying tool, and cheating at chess
Separating AI reality from hyped-up fiction isn’t always easy. That’s why we’ve created the AI Hype Index—a simple, at-a-glance summary of everything you need to know about the state of the industry. Take a look at the full index here.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 The Trump administration has barred 80 companies from buying US tech The list of primarily Chinese firms is forbidden from buying American chips. (NYT $) + The list included a server maker that buys chips from Nvidia. (WSJ $)+ China disputed claims the firms were seeking knowledge for military purposes. (AP News)
2 A DOGE staffer provided tech support to a cybercrime ring And bragged about trafficking in stolen data and cyberstalking an FBI agent. (Reuters) + Elon Musk could use DOGE’s cuts to steer contracts towards his own firms. (The Guardian) + Can AI help DOGE slash government budgets? It’s complex. (MIT Technology Review)
3 The US government has hired a vaccine skeptic to conduct a major vaccine study The long-discredited David Geier will oversee analysis of whether jabs cause autism. (WP $) + The White House appears to be targeting mRNA vaccines. (FT $) + Why childhood vaccines are a public health success story. (MIT Technology Review)
4 Microsoft has unveiled two deep reasoning Copilot AI agents The two agents, called Researcher and Analyst, are designed to do just that. (The Verge) + How ChatGPT search paves the way for AI agents. (MIT Technology Review)
5 Inside the rise of Chinese hacking The cyber threat posed by the country is increasingly sophisticated—and aggressive. (Economist $)
6 Google has instructed workers to remove DEI terms from their work The company has offered up alternative language to use in its place.(The Information $)
7 Synthesia is offering shares to reward human actors for its AI avatars The compensation scheme is the first of its kind. (FT $) + Synthesia’s hyperrealistic deepfakes will soon have full bodies. (MIT Technology Review)
8 China’s RedNote is working to keep its influx of TikTok “refugees” To do so, it’ll need to expand its user base outside the Chinese diaspora. (Rest of World)
9 This operating system is designed to keep running during civilization’s collapse Collapse OS is designed to give us access to lost knowledge in case of disaster. (Wired $)
10 No one really knows how long people live Longevity research is bogged down in bad record-keeping. (NY Mag $) + The quest to legitimize longevity medicine. (MIT Technology Review)
Quote of the day
“There are so many great reasons to be on Signal. Now including the opportunity for the vice president of the United States of America to randomly add you to a group chat for coordination of sensitive military operations.”
—Moxie Marlinspike, founder of secure messaging platform Signal, pokes fun at the fallout surrounding US officials accidentally adding a journalist to a private military group chat in a post on X.
The big story
Longevity enthusiasts want to create their own independent state. They’re eyeing Rhode Island.
May 2023
—Jessica Hamzelou
I recently traveled to Montenegro for a gathering of longevity enthusiasts. All the attendees were super friendly, and the sense of optimism was palpable. They’re all confident we’ll be able to find a way to slow or reverse aging—and they have a bold plan to speed up progress.
Around 780 of these people have created a “pop-up city” that hopes to circumvent the traditional process of clinical trials. They want to create an independent state where like-minded innovators can work together in an all-new jurisdiction that gives them free rein to self-experiment with unproven drugs. Welcome to Zuzalu. Read the full story.
We can still have nice things
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