Chris Campbell:

Nasdaq Tells SEC: “Tokenize Stocks Now!”

This week, Nasdaq urged the SEC to approve tokenized stocks — real shares that would live both on the exchange and on a blockchain.

Meanwhile, Galaxy Digital, the crypto investment firm led by Mike Novogratz, just put its own shares (GLXY) on the Solana blockchain with the help of tokenization experts at Superstate. This isn’t a copy or a synthetic — it’s the real stock, recognized by regulators, mirrored directly on a blockchain. If you hold the token, you hold the share.

That means dividends can be distributed like an airdrop via stablecoins. Voting for board members could happen with a click. Settlement happens in seconds instead of two days. And down the line, these shares could even trade on decentralized platforms alongside Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other DeFi assets.

The big bet here is about the rails.

If equities, treasuries, and funds all end up living on blockchains, then the chains that host them — Solana for speed, Ethereum for security and institutional comfort — become the core settlement layers for global finance.

If you want exposure to this shift, watching the ecosystems around Solana and Ethereum is the most direct way to play the theme.

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Ray Blanco:

This Bizarre Martian Rock Formation Is Our Strongest Evidence Yet for Ancient Life on Mars

The Perseverance rover may have just found the first extraterrestrial life form. A year ago, the rover came across mineral patterns that resembled the chemical signature of bacteria. Now, after one year of careful analysis, NASA confirmed its findings.

“After a year of review, they have come back and they said, listen, we can’t find another explanation,” Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy, said during a news briefing. “So, this very well could be the clearest sign of life that we’ve ever found on Mars, which is incredibly exciting.”

The Perseverance rover has been methodically exploring Jezero Crater since its landing in 2021. The mission can’t directly detect bacteria, but it can look for indirect signs of life, especially ancient life.

In the crater, Perserverence encountered a distinctive formation of pale, fine-grained mudstones named Bright Angel. And in these rocks, the mission found leopard-like patterns etched into the mudstone. Perseverance’s analysis revealed the presence of organic matter, as well as iron, phosphorus, and sulfur. All of these are consistent with Martian microbes munching in the mud.

This is the first time something like this has been discovered outside of the Earth.

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Davis Wilson:

FTC Orders AI Companies To Hand Over Info About Chatbots’ Impact on Kids

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is ordering seven AI chatbot companies to provide information about how they assess the effects of their virtual companions on kids and teens.

OpenAI, Meta, its subsidiary Instagram, Snap, xAI, Google parent company Alphabet, and the maker of Character.AI all received orders to share information about how their AI companions make money, how they plan to maintain their user bases, and how they try to mitigate potential harm to users. 

The inquiry is part of a study, rather than an enforcement action, to learn more about how tech firms evaluate the safety of their AI chatbots. Amid a broader conversation about kids' safety on the internet, the risks of AI chatbots have broken out as a particular cause for concern among many parents and policymakers because of the human-like way they can communicate with users.

“For all their uncanny ability to simulate human cognition, these chatbots are products like any other, and those who make them available have a responsibility to comply with the consumer protection laws,” FTC Commissioner Mark Meador said in a statement.

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