Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Ethereum treasury company SharpLink reported a $1.08 billion net loss for the six months ended June 30. Its Aug. 7 quarterly filing attributes most of that result to price-related accounting charges. Much of the company’s treasury is staked, making conversion time a material part of its liquidity profile.The filing attributes $827.7 million of the loss to an unrealized decline in the value of ETH and another $267.8 million to impairments of LsETH and weETH, tokens representing liquid staking and restaking positions. Those predominantly non-cash charges exceeded the net loss because other results partly offset them.The six-month loss was 934.3% above…

Editor’s Note: Today’s story is the answer to the August Puzzler. Tides are among the clearest signs of the Moon’s pull on Earth. Just 239,000 miles (385,000 kilometers) away, the Moon’s gravity pulls on Earth’s oceans and solid crust, subtly distorting them into a more oblong shape with bulges roughly extending toward and away from the Moon. High tides happen throughout Earth’s oceans, but in some places they leave an unusually strong fingerprint on the landscape. Among those places is Roebuck Bay, a crescent-shaped feature in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. Roebuck Bay’s tidal range can reach a remarkable…

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has built a brand as one of Europe’s most vocal critics of the United States and Israel, recognizing Palestinian statehood over Gaza and denying the U.S. military the use of its Rota and Morón bases during the war against Iran. And while he seems perfectly comfortable playing hardball with governments worlds apart from his own ideology, when it comes to Spain’s fraught relations with Morocco, Sánchez has folded far more than his reputation suggests. Nowhere was that clearer than in his handling of the recent crisis in Ceuta. On July 30, around 70,000 migrants crossed…

Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg laid out a vision Monday of what he said artificial intelligence can do for the world, imagining a future where everyone has their own, all-knowing AI agent that strives to improve all aspects of their lives. Zuckerberg detailed his ambitions for the technology in a 6,500-word essay published online where he also outlined why he favours open-source AI technology, in which developers make key components accessible for anyone to examine, modify and build upon. In a document derided by critics as fantastical, Zuckerberg said his company is working towards an era where everyone will have…

OpenAI has bought back $7 billion worth of shares from employees at the privately held frontier AI lab as part of an effort to provide liquidity to its workforce. The deal, reported by Bloomberg, valued OpenAI at $852 billion, the same as its most recent fundraising round in March, which added $122 billion to the company’s war chest. The company also filed confidentially with the Securities and Exchange Commission in June to prepare for a potential IPO later this year. However, a tender offer suggests that an IPO may not be forthcoming soon. With many tech companies remaining private longer…

OpenAI has developed a new model called “GPT 5.6 Cyber,” designed for vulnerability research, penetration testing, and incident response. OpenAI says GPT 5.6 Cyber is only available to select companies, including Accenture, IBM, Capgemini, Cognizant, EY, KPMG, PwC, NCC Group, and SpecterOps. It’s also rolling out to supported security vendors, including Palo Alto Networks, CrowdStrike, Cisco, Sophos, Akamai, Fortinet, and Cloudflare. OpenAI says it won’t give regular users access to the underlying models, citing security risks, and it makes sense because models have been abused to launch security attacks. Instead, OpenAI says approved partners will use them inside existing security products,…

Trump Media said it plans to revamp its digital asset treasury strategy after unrealized losses on crypto and securities helped push the company to a $238 million net loss in the second quarter.The company reported $190.4 millio n in unrealized losses across its digital assets, pledged digital assets and equity securities in its Q2 earnings release on Monday.Trump Media said the new framework is intended to preserve its long-term digital asset exposure while managing volatility and improving the productivity of its balance sheet.Trump Media is the publicly traded company behind Truth Social, Truth+ and financial services brand Truth.Fi. The company…

More than 100 people died after a powerful earthquake struck western Colombia, collapsing and severely damaging scores of buildings in major cities including Cali and Pereira.The US and Colombian geological surveys reported that a 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck at 7.34am local time on Monday, with its epicentre in the western department of Chocó. It was felt in neighbouring Venezuela, still reeling from a deadly double earthquake on 24 June.Colombia’s president, Abelardo de la Espriella, said 111 people had been killed and 87 injured, while 61 buildings had collapsed.“The ⁠national government has all of its capabilities deployed to protect lives, assist affected…

Greece’s power distribution operator HEDNO disputes suggestions that the network is a major cause of wildfires, saying only about 1 percent of wildfire incidents recorded in 2025 were attributed to the electricity grid, compared with roughly 3 percent in the U.S. The company also said its crews have been deployed to major fire fronts to support emergency services and restore electricity to affected communities.  “The easy targeting of HEDNO whenever a fire breaks out serves neither the truth nor the protection of the public but creates false impressions, and, in many cases, appears to serve short-term expediencies and self-serving agendas…

President Trump may want to let go of the Middle East. But it won’t let go of him.Over the weekend, Mr. Trump said his new strategy was to be “low-keying it” in Iran, a suggestion that he wants to pressure the country into making a favorable deal without taking major military action. But a stark reminder of the limits of U.S. power in the region came from Israel, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared Sunday he was “ruling out” Mr. Trump’s peace plan for Gaza.The two Middle East conflicts have underscored Mr. Trump’s eagerness to declare success and his inability…