Democratic Senator Adam Schiff introduced a bill to ban prediction markets related to war, death and terrorism amid escalating insider trading concerns related to military operations. US Democratic Party Senator Adam Schiff introduced legislation Tuesday that would explicitly bar federally regulated prediction-market platforms from listing contracts tied to war, terrorism, assassination and individual deaths. The bill, called the DEATH BETS Act, would amend the Commodity Exchange Act to make those contracts prohibited for entities overseen by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). In a statement announcing the bill, Schiff said markets that let traders profit from violent events create incentives for the misuse of classified information, threaten national security and encourage violence. He said prediction markets had become a “Wild West” and called for Congress and the CFTC to make clear that such “death bets” are not allowed. Read more
AI scaling drains trillions in energy while amplifying errors. Neurosymbolic reasoning and decentralized cognitive systems deliver reliable intelligence without the risk. Opinion by: Mohammed Marikar, co-founder at Neem Capital Artificial intelligence has consistently been defined by scale, so far — bigger models, faster processing, expanding data centers. The assumption, based on traditional technology cycles, was that scale would keep improving performance and, over time, costs would fall and access would expand. That assumption is now breaking down. AI is not scaling like other software. Instead, it is capital-intensive, constrained by physical limits, and hitting diminishing returns far earlier than expected. Read more
The US banking giant seeks trademark protection for “WFUSD,” covering crypto trading, payments, staking software and blockchain-based financial services. US banking giant Wells Fargo has filed a trademark application covering a wide range of cryptocurrency trading, payments and blockchain software services. A filing submitted to the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on Tuesday seeks protection for the name “WFUSD.” The application is currently awaiting assignment to an examining attorney, according to official trademark records. The filing outlines a broad list of potential products and services linked to digital assets, including “cryptocurrency trading services; cryptocurrency exchange services; cryptocurrency payment processing; financial brokerage services for cryptocurrency trading; electronic transfer of virtual currencies.” Read more