The U.S. Senate Banking Committee Advances the "Financial Transparency and Regulatory Compliance Act"

Feb. 27 — Semafor, an American financial outlet, reported Tuesday citing people familiar with the matter that PayPal is not currently in talks to sell itself to Stripe or any other company. The payments giant has also been working with investment banks for months to prepare for potential activist shareholder campaigns or hostile takeover bids, the sources added. The move follows a steep drop in PayPal’s stock price, which has management concerned the company could become vulnerable to such threats, the sources said. Investment bankers first began advising PayPal during the tenure of former CEO Alex Chriss, who was dismissed earlier this year.

On February 27, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Federal Reserve is secretly mounting a legal challenge in response to two subpoenas issued by U.S. prosecutor Jeanine Pirro as part of her criminal investigation into Jerome Powell. Pirro, a long-time ally of former President Donald Trump, launched the probe to review Powell’s alleged false statements to Congress last summer regarding the Fed’s renovation project. This prompted Powell to issue an unprecedented public response: in a January 11 video address, he said the investigation was a pretext for Trump’s ongoing pressure on the Fed to cut interest rates and undermine the central bank’s independence. In the confidential proceeding, the Fed is seeking a judge to quash the subpoenas to reduce or eliminate its obligation to respond. Specific legal arguments have not been disclosed. It is not uncommon in high-profile investigations for subpoena recipients to challenge the scope of a prosecutor’s requests or whether privileg

February 27 — Blockspace-cited sources report Magic Eden will close its Bitcoin and EVM markets and cease support for its multi-chain wallet. The platform is expected to announce a phased withdrawal of these services as early as Friday, with the Bitcoin and EVM markets shutting down in the first week of March. Shortly after, Magic Eden plans to discontinue its cross-chain wallet service: the wallet will shift to asset-export-only mode in mid-March before fully closing in early April. Notably, Magic Eden will continue supporting NFTs and assets on Solana, sources clarified.

On February 27, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) posted on social media, noting that one of the biggest challenges facing cryptocurrency is whether artificial intelligence (AI) will adopt it. He posed a key question: If a ChatGPT or Claude instance needs additional computing power, will it pay via bank transfer, credit card, or cryptocurrency? The traditional financial system has a natural barrier for AI payments: AI lacks a passport, address, Social Security number, or even a name, so it cannot complete the KYC (Know Your Customer) process. By contrast, cryptocurrency is inherently digital and permissionless—AI can directly access the blockchain, making it a more suitable payment method for AI. Another possibility is the "agency model," where each AI is treated as a human agent: the human completes KYC and is liable for the AI’s actions. This model also raises legal challenges, namely who is responsible for the AI’s conduct. Either way, integrating AI with transaction a

February 27 — Per The Information, Google has struck a multi-billion-dollar AI chip deal with Meta. Meta has signed an agreement to lease Google’s AI chips — called TPUs — to develop new AI models. Meta is also in talks with Google to purchase TPUs for its data centers as early as next year. Google has established a joint venture focused on leasing its tensor processing units (TPUs) to other AI customers.

February 27 — Block, the Bitcoin payments firm founded by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, is reportedly cutting 4,000 jobs (nearly half its workforce), per Cointelegraph. The company is betting on artificial intelligence (AI) to boost future labor productivity. Following the layoff announcement, Block’s stock jumped 22% in after-hours trading. Since 2024, Block has been restructuring its business model and workforce amid underperforming shares. It has also heavily invested in developing AI tools to improve operational efficiency, including its in-house tool Goose. In a letter, Block founder Jack Dorsey noted: “AI tools have already redefined how we build and run a company — we’ve seen this firsthand internally. A far smaller team can now achieve more, and do it better, using the tools we’ve built.”