Artemis Analytics: total stablecoin transaction volumes rose 72% YoY to a record $33T in 2025, led by Circle's USDC at $18.3T and Tether's USDT at $13.3T (Suvashree Ghosh/Bloomberg)
Bloomberg.com
Stablecoin Transactions Rose to Record $33 Trillion, Led by USDC
Stablecoin transactions reached unprecedented heights last year, buoyed by favorable policy in the US under pro-crypto President Donald Trump.
Techmeme
Artemis Analytics: total stablecoin transaction volumes rose 72% YoY to a record $33T in 2025, led by Circle
By Suvashree Ghosh / Bloomberg. View the full context on Techmeme.
Chinese AI startup MiniMax jumped as much as 54% in its Hong Kong debut on Friday, after raising ~$619M in its IPO priced at ~$21.17 per share (Jeanny Yu/Bloomberg) https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-08/ai-firm-minimax-set-for-hong-kong-debut-after-619-million-ipo
Techmeme
Chinese AI startup MiniMax
By Jeanny Yu / Bloomberg. View the full context on Techmeme.
Source: Lambda, which rents access to AI chips and is backed by Nvidia, is in talks to raise $350M+ led by Mubadala Capital, ahead of an IPO planned for H2 2026 (The Information) https://www.theinformation.com/articles/nvidia-backed-cloud-provider-lambda-talks-raise-350-million-ahead-ipo
Techmeme
Source: Lambda, which rents access to AI chips and is backed by Nvidia, is in talks to raise $350M+ led by Mubadala Capital, ahead of an IPO planned for H2 2026
From The Information. View the full context on Techmeme.
Seattle-based Spangle AI, which makes AI tools for online retailers to build custom storefronts, raised a $15M Series A led by NewRoad at a $100M valuation (Taylor Soper/GeekWire)
GeekWire
Former Amazon execs raise $15M for agentic commerce startup that uses AI to generate custom storefronts
Spangle co-founders Maju Kuruvilla (left) and Fei Wang. (Spangle Photo) Spangle AI, a new Seattle startup that helps online retailers build customized
Techmeme
Seattle-based Spangle AI, which offers AI tools for online retailers to generate custom storefronts, raised a $15M Series A led by NewRoad at a $100M valuation
By Taylor Soper / GeekWire. View the full context on Techmeme.
Docs: xAI had a net loss of $1.46B in Q3, up from $1B in Q1; sources: xAI told investors it plans to build AI that will eventually power Optimus humanoid robots (Carmen Arroyo/Bloomberg)
Bloomberg.com
Musk’s xAI Burns Almost $8 Billion in Cash, Reveals Optimus Plan
Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI is burning cash quickly, with losses mounting as it spends to build data centers, recruit talent ...
Techmeme
Docs: xAI had a net loss of $1.46B in Q3, up from $1B in Q1; sources: xAI told investors it plans to build AI that will eventually power Optimus humanoid robots
By Carmen Arroyo / Bloomberg. View the full context on Techmeme.
Nvidia has hired Google Cloud VP of Marketing Alison Wagonfeld to be Nvidia's first CMO; source: Wagonfeld will report to CEO Jensen Huang (Patrick Coffee/Wall Street Journal) https://www.wsj.com/articles/nvidia-hires-google-veteran-as-its-first-chief-marketing-officer-3dc2163f?st=trauby&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Techmeme
Nvidia has hired Google Cloud VP of Marketing Alison Wagonfeld to be Nvidia
By Patrick Coffee / Wall Street Journal. View the full context on Techmeme.
Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves says xAI is set to spend $20B+ to build its MACROHARDRR data center in Southaven, its third in the greater Memphis area (Sophie Bates/Associated Press)
AP News
Elon Musk's xAI to build $20 billion data center in Mississippi
Elon Musk's AI company, xAI, plans to spend $20 billion on a data center in Southaven, Mississippi. Gov.
Techmeme
Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves says xAI will spend $20B to build its MACROHARDRR data center in Southaven, xAI
By Sophie Bates / Associated Press. View the full context on Techmeme.
Filings: Meta has hired Bill McGinley, a veteran Republican operative and the former top lawyer for DOGE, as a lobbyist (Emily Birnbaum/Bloomberg) https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-08/meta-hires-former-doge-trump-election-lawyer-as-lobbyist
Techmeme
Filings: Meta has hired Bill McGinley, a veteran GOP operative and a former top DOGE lawyer, as a lobbyist, the latest indication of its cozy Trump relationship
By Emily Birnbaum / Bloomberg. View the full context on Techmeme.
Snowflake agrees to acquire Observe, an observability platform built on Snowflake databases; the deal was previously reported to be valued at around $1B (Rebecca Szkutak/TechCrunch)
TechCrunch
Snowflake announces its intent to buy observability platform Observe | TechCrunch
Snowflake is bolstering its data stack to make the platform better suited to the sheer volume of data produced by AI agents.
Techmeme
Snowflake agrees to acquire Observe, an observability platform built on Snowflake databases; in December, the acquisition was reported to be valued at ~$1B
By Rebecca Szkutak / TechCrunch. View the full context on Techmeme.
Sources: Strava, the fitness app founded in 2009, filed confidentially for an IPO; its revenue grew more than 50% YoY in 2025 but was still less than $500M (The Information) https://www.theinformation.com/articles/strava-filed-confidentially-ipo-hired-goldman-sachs
Techmeme
Sources: Strava, the fitness startup founded in 2009, confidentially filed for an IPO; source: Strava grew revenue 50%+ YoY in 2025 but to still less than $500M
From The Information. View the full context on Techmeme.