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BYD’s blazing-fast Flash charging tech for EVs got hot enough to roast a turkey

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A real-world test of BYD’s Megawatt Flash Charge technology recorded battery temperatures of 169.6°F, well above China’s recommended safety ceiling for lithium iron phosphate cells, raising concerns about long-term battery health.

Amazon Builds AI Agent Payments With Coinbase and Stripe

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Amazon Builds AI Agent Payments With Coinbase and Stripe




Bedrock AgentCore Payments turns Amazon’s agent platform into a transactional layer, with Coinbase supplying x402 stablecoin rails and Stripe contributing wallet infrastructure via Privy.

Ranked: The Animals That Kill the Most Humans

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See more visualizations like this on the Voronoi app.

Bubble graphic showing the world's 10 deadliest animals based on estimated human deaths per year.

Ranked: The Animals That Kill the Most Humans

See visuals like this from many other data creators on our Voronoi app. Download it for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Key Takeaways

  • Mosquitoes kill an estimated 760,000 people each year, more than any other animal.
  • Humans rank second due to homicide, followed by snakes at roughly 100,000 deaths annually.
  • Most of the deadliest animals spread disease rather than killing through direct attacks.

Most people fear sharks, lions, or wolves. But the animals responsible for the most human deaths are far smaller and far more common.

Using data from Our World in Data, this visualization ranks the world’s deadliest animals by estimated annual human deaths, revealing that small disease-carrying creatures kill far more people than large predators.

The Deadliest Animals by Human Deaths

Mosquitoes are responsible for an estimated 760,000 deaths each year by spreading diseases such as malaria, dengue, and yellow fever.

According to the World Health Organization, malaria alone caused roughly 600,000 deaths in 2022, with the heaviest burden falling on African countries including Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

RankAnimalEstimated Human Deaths per YearPrimary Mechanism
1Mosquitoes760,000Disease (malaria, dengue, yellow fever)
2Humans600,000Homicide
3Snakes100,000Venomous bites
4Dogs40,000Rabies
5Freshwater snails14,000Schistosomiasis
6Kissing bugs8,000Chagas disease
7Sandflies5,000Leishmaniasis
8Roundworms4,000Ascariasis
9Scorpions3,000Venomous stings
10Tapeworms2,000Cysticercosis

Human-caused deaths come in second, driven by hundreds of thousands of homicides each year. Far behind, snakes cause an estimated 100,000 deaths annually from species like the king cobra to Australia’s tiger snake.

Even dogs, among the most familiar animals, are linked to around 40,000 deaths annually due to rabies, a largely preventable disease that persists in regions with limited access to vaccines.

Freshwater snails, sandflies, and kissing bugs also spread deadly diseases, disproportionately affecting lower-income regions with limited healthcare access. These organisms transmit illnesses like schistosomiasis, leishmaniasis, and Chagas disease, which are often preventable or treatable but still remain deadly without adequate medicine.

Diseases Drive the Deadliest Threats

Contrary to popular perception, larger animals are far less deadly than smaller ones. Even dangerous creatures like scorpions and snakes are overshadowed by pathogens carried by insects and parasites.

The ranking highlights a counterintuitive reality: humanity’s deadliest animals are rarely large predators. Instead, the biggest threats are species that spread infectious disease, especially in regions with limited healthcare access and mosquito control infrastructure.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

To learn more about this topic, check out this graphic on the leading causes of death in America.

Bitcoin Hits Rare 10-Year Funding Extreme— History Points to Recovery

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30-day average funding rate for bitcoin futures contracts


  • The 30-day average funding rate for bitcoin futures contracts stayed in the negative range for 67 days in a row, the longest negative streak seen in nearly 10 years.
  • Brent crude surged above $103 following renewed conflict near the Strait of Hormuz, ushering in a risk-off trend for crypto assets.
  • The 20-day exponential moving average acts as dynamic support of current BTC recovery.

The pioneer cryptocurrency Bitcoin (BTC) retraced from its weekly high of $82,833 amid the renewed uncertainty in the middle east war. The pullback gained additional momentum as BTC’s futures logged their 67th straight day of negative funding rates— a move that highlights sellers’ conviction for a prolonged correction in its price. However, the historical data identifies this setup sets the stage for a potential recovery in the market. Here are key levels to watch in Bitcoin price in May 2026.

Why Bitcoin Price Reverted From $83,000 Barrier

Bitcoin price is up 0.18% on Saturday to trade at $80,344. This shallow uptick follows the re-escalating geopolitical tension as U.S. airstrikes against Iranian military facilities, Following attacks on American naval destroyers in the Strait of Hormuz.

President Donald Trump has called this strike a “Love tap” in an ABC interview, while adding that the ceasefire with Iran is still intact but harder action is possible if Tehran refuses a deal. The move triggered notable volatility in oil market prices as benchmark index Brent Crude rose 2.9% to approximately $103 per barrel.

Thus, the broader crypto market witnessed a quick pullback, dragging BTC to $80,000 level.

What Are Funding Rates, and Why Do They Matter Now?

Perpetual futures contracts are those that are not bound to expire ever, and that track the Bitcoin spot price, in which exchanges implement a periodic payment scheme called funding rate, to ensure that the price of the perpetual market remains grounded. When the majority of traders are bullish and long positions dominate, long holders pay short sellers. The opposite is when bearish sentiment gains the upper hand and shorts stack up – the shorts pay the longs.

If the funding rate is negative, it indicates an imbalance in the market, favoring wagers against the market. Short sellers are paying a continuous, compounding cost to maintain their positions. 

According to K33 Research, the Bitcoin futures funding rates have been negative for straight 67 days, projecting its longest streak in a decade. Such a long period highlights short sellers’ determination to pay premium to long holders and hold their position against Bitcoin even during a recovery momentum.

“I care about this regime for one simple reason: timing,” said Vetle Lunde, Head of Research at K33. “Lasting negative funding rates have a very strong track record of flagging where you should buy with conviction.”

History Says Bitcoin Often Rallies After Extended Negative Funding

When K33’s data is compared with on-chain analytics providers such as Glassnode and CoinGlass, it shows a similar trend in every case of long periods of negative funding.

The COVID Crash Bottom occurred in March 2020: The world markets froze and Bitcoin lost control and dropped to $3,800. Traders started to bet further price drops, leading to funding rates going sharply negative. Rather, the bottom was created and Bitcoin entered a record run that saw it surpass $60,000 within a year.

June – August 2021 – China Mining Ban: Bitcoin’s future was suddenly placed under a cloud of fear following Beijing’s sudden ban on crypto mining. The price slipped back to $30,000 and funding rates turned negative for 49 days. The market calmed, the shorts started to give way and Bitcoin rallied to a new all-time high later that year.

November 2022 – The FTX Collapse: FTX, one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges, has collapsed, leaving a shudder in the crypto industry. Funding turned into a negative and open interest increased on the short side as traders took on more contagion bets and the price of Bitcoin settled around $15,500. It had reached $23,000 when the short side had essentially all capitulated by the end of January 2023.

2023 — Silicon Valley Bank Crisis: Negative funding coincided with a brief fall in Bitcoin price to under the $20,000 mark during the banking crisis.The negative funding coincided with a slight drop in Bitcoin’s price to under $20,000 during the banking stress. Within a few weeks, a recovery occurred.

30-day average funding rate for bitcoin futures contracts
Bitcoin Funding Rate

In each of these instances, the theme is the same: short sellers have been piling on for a long time and they go wrong — and when they begin to cover the squeeze makes the rally even bigger.

The Short-Squeeze Coiling Beneath the Surface

The current situation is very volatile, especially because of the structure of open interest. On major exchanges, open interest is also going up but funding continues to be in negative territory, where new short trades are being made and not unwinding. The combination of rising open interest and negative funding is a classic “loaded spring” set-up: With fuel increasing for a short squeeze, waiting for a catalyst to set it off.

This week, FxPro chief market analyst Alex Kuptsikevich highlighted that Bitcoin surged to $82.8K on Wednesday and failing to breach 200-day moving average, is “not a sign of buyer exhaustion,” and a few analysts have pointed to $83,200 as the technical threshold that if breached could lead to a forced short cover and ascent to $93,000.

K33 also pointed out that Bitcoin activity on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) has remained quiet even as the cryptocurrency has regained ground, as overall institutional positioning is far from the high of 2024 and 2025. Participation is still resuming, but with a certain hesitation.

Bitcoin Price at a Crossroad as Channel Breakout May Fail

Over the past week, the Bitcoin price showed a notable rally from $74,912 to a weekly high of $82,833. Amid this recovery, the coin buyers gave a decisive breakout from the resistance trendline of a rising channel pattern in daily charts.

While the breakout was expected to further fuel the bullish momentum, the escalated geopolitical tension pushed Bitcoin BTC0.39% within the channel range again to trade $80,388. This could be a retesting period for Bitcoin price to reattempt channel breakout and bolstering its position for a continued recovery.

The post-breakout rally could challenge immediate resistance of $84,330, followed by a leap to $98,000.

Bitcoin price
BTC/USDT -1d Chart

On the contrary, if sellers continue to defend the channel resistance at $81,300 mark, the Bitcoin price could witness renewed selling pressure and potential retest of $73,500 support.

10 beautiful, unexpected, and downright weird takes on the lamp

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Designers love to experiment, but there’s one particular object where they tend to get especially creative and even weird: lighting.

Picture a ceramic lamp sculpted into a car, a fixture and shade cast in metal swirls, and something that looks like a cork UFO. These out-of-the-box designs are part of a new exhibition during New York’s Design Week showing the unusual territory where designers are taking lighting.

From left: Hawa Al-Najjar, Mazhariyya Lamp, 2025. Suna Bonometti, Solid Lace, 2026. outgoing, beacons (scale-less-ness), 2024. [Photos: Aaron S. Cheung/Esto/Head Hi, Brooklyn]

Now in its sixth edition, the Head Hi Lamp Show brings together 36 eccentric lamps from designers located around the world. It is organized by Alexandra Hodkowski and Alvaro Alcocer, the founders of Head Hi, an architecture bookstore and cafe in Brooklyn. This year they brought in Stephen Markos, founder of the design gallery Superhouse, to curate the show.

Alexandra Hodkowski and Alvaro Alcocer [Photo: Wade James Michael/courtesy of Head Hi]

“The exhibition celebrates our universal relationship to light, design and creative expression and, more specifically, objects that have the ability to change our spatial understanding, to tone our immediate atmosphere,” the organizers said in a news release.

From left: Bill Carroll, Landcruising, 2025. Clement Heyraud, Colonne, 2025. Emilia Schonthal, Lamp (Fragment), 2024. Narawit Christopher Gale (Kidtofer), H3LLR8SR, 2025. [Photos: Aaron S. Cheung/Esto/Head Hi, Brooklyn]

The lamps on view all function, but they celebrate creativity and form above all. The lineup also includes a lamp composed of a red metal frame draped with a sky print fabric as its shade by the Malaysian designer Jun Ong, a paper sconce printed with a figurative graphic by the San Francisco–based practice Studio Ahead, and a totemic marble piece by the Venetian artist Giacomo Bianco.

From left: Jun Ong, AERO LAMP, 2025. MMOOS., MOSTRO VII, 2024. John Gnorski represented by Studio AHEAD, Man Kozo Lantern, 2026. [Photos: Giacomo Bianco/Esto/Head Hi, Brooklyn (Mostro VII), Aaron S. Cheung/Esto/Head Hi, Brooklyn (others)]

The show is on view at Head Hi and online from May 18 through October. All the lamps are available for sale, too.

Ethereum under pressure after 577K ETH transfer – Will ETH price slide?

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Garrett Jin has deposited 225,627 ETH into Binance



Ethereum inflows raise capitulation fears, yet Binance data shows mega whales steadily absorbing supply.

A Coding Implementation to Build Agent-Native Memory Infrastructure with Memori for Persistent Multi-User and Multi-Session LLM Applications

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In this tutorial, we implement how Memori serves as an agent-native memory infrastructure layer for building more persistent, context-aware LLM applications. We start by setting up Memori in a Google Colab environment and connecting it to both synchronous and asynchronous OpenAI clients, so that every model call can automatically pass through the memory layer. We then move on to practical examples that show how user data is stored, retrieved, and separated across different identities, agent roles, and sessions. We also test streaming responses, async calls, and a small customer-support agent workflow to understand how memory behaves in realistic multi-turn applications. By the end of the tutorial, we gain a clear understanding of how Memori helps us build AI agents that do not treat each conversation in isolation but instead retain useful context across interactions.

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import subprocess, sys
def _pip(*pkgs):
   subprocess.check_call([sys.executable, "-m", "pip", "install", "-q", *pkgs])
_pip("memori>=3.3.0", "openai>=1.40.0", "nest_asyncio")
import os, getpass, time, uuid, asyncio
import nest_asyncio; nest_asyncio.apply()
if not os.getenv("OPENAI_API_KEY"):
   os.environ["OPENAI_API_KEY"] = getpass.getpass("OPENAI_API_KEY: ")
if not os.getenv("MEMORI_API_KEY"):
   v = getpass.getpass("MEMORI_API_KEY (leave blank for rate-limited tier): ")
   if v.strip():
       os.environ["MEMORI_API_KEY"] = v.strip()
   else:
       print("→ No MEMORI_API_KEY set. Continuing with rate-limited tier.")

We install Memori, OpenAI, and Nest AsyncIO so the tutorial runs smoothly inside Google Colab. We load the required Python modules and prepare the notebook to handle async execution without runtime issues. We also collect the OpenAI API key and optional Memori API key, allowing the workflow to run either with authenticated Memori access or the rate-limited tier.

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from memori import Memori
from openai import OpenAI, AsyncOpenAI
client       = OpenAI()
async_client = AsyncOpenAI()
mem = Memori()
mem.llm.register(client)
mem.llm.register(async_client)
MODEL        = "gpt-4o-mini"
WRITE_DELAY  = 6
def ask(prompt, system=None):
   msgs = []
   if system: msgs.append({"role": "system", "content": system})
   msgs.append({"role": "user", "content": prompt})
   r = client.chat.completions.create(model=MODEL, messages=msgs)
   return r.choices[0].message.content
def banner(t): print("\n" + "="*78 + f"\n {t}\n" + "="*78)

We import Memori and create both synchronous and asynchronous OpenAI clients for different LLM interaction patterns. We register both clients with Memori so that memory can automatically intercept and enrich chat completion calls. We also define a reusable ask() helper and a banner() function to keep the tutorial output clean and organized.

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banner("Part 1 — Basic memory: facts persist across turns")
mem.attribution(entity_id="alice@example.com", process_id="personal-assistant")
ask("My name is Alice. I love hiking, Italian food, and I'm allergic to peanuts.")
time.sleep(WRITE_DELAY)
print("[Alice]", ask("What do you know about me? Be specific."))
banner("Part 2 — Multi-tenant memory: Bob's facts don't leak into Alice's recall")
mem.attribution(entity_id="bob@example.com", process_id="personal-assistant")
ask("I'm Bob. Vegetarian, write Rust for a living, live in Berlin.")
time.sleep(WRITE_DELAY)
mem.attribution(entity_id="alice@example.com", process_id="personal-assistant")
print("[Alice]", ask("What's my favorite cuisine and any dietary issues?"))
mem.attribution(entity_id="bob@example.com", process_id="personal-assistant")
print("[Bob]  ", ask("Which programming language do I write professionally?"))

We begin by testing basic memory persistence: Alice shares personal facts, and the model later recalls them. We then switch to Bob and store a separate set of details to demonstrate multi-tenant memory isolation. We return to Alice and Bob separately to confirm that each user’s facts remain scoped to the correct entity.

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banner("Part 3 — Same user, different agent personas via process_id")
mem.attribution(entity_id="alice@example.com", process_id="fitness-coach")
ask("Goal: sub-25-minute 5K by June. Currently I run 30 minutes flat.")
time.sleep(WRITE_DELAY)
mem.attribution(entity_id="alice@example.com", process_id="meal-planner")
ask("Prefer low-carb dinners on weekdays.")
time.sleep(WRITE_DELAY)
mem.attribution(entity_id="alice@example.com", process_id="fitness-coach")
print("[fitness-coach]", ask("Remind me of my running goal."))
mem.attribution(entity_id="alice@example.com", process_id="meal-planner")
print("[meal-planner] ", ask("Suggest tonight's dinner."))
banner("Part 4 — Sessions group related turns")
mem.attribution(entity_id="alice@example.com", process_id="personal-assistant")
project_session = f"project-fastapi-{uuid.uuid4().hex[:8]}"
mem.set_session(project_session)
ask("Notes: building a FastAPI app called 'Lighthouse', Python 3.12, "
   "deploying to Fly.io.")
time.sleep(WRITE_DELAY)
ask("Decision: SQLAlchemy + Alembic for the data layer.")
time.sleep(WRITE_DELAY)
mem.new_session()
ask("Random aside: I just adopted a puppy named Mochi.")
time.sleep(WRITE_DELAY)
mem.set_session(project_session)
print("[project session]",
     ask("Summarize what we've decided about Lighthouse so far."))

We show how the same user can have different memories across different agent personas using separate process_id values. We store Alice’s fitness goal under a fitness coach and her dinner preference under a meal planner, then verify that each agent recalls only its relevant context. We also create a project-specific session for a FastAPI app and show how session management keeps related project decisions separate from unrelated personal details.

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banner("Part 5 — Streaming")
mem.attribution(entity_id="alice@example.com", process_id="personal-assistant")
stream = client.chat.completions.create(
   model=MODEL,
   messages=[{"role": "user",
              "content": "In two sentences, what do you remember about me?"}],
   stream=True,
)
print("[stream] ", end="")
for chunk in stream:
   d = chunk.choices[0].delta.content
   if d: print(d, end="", flush=True)
print(); time.sleep(WRITE_DELAY)
banner("Part 6 — Async LLM calls")
async def async_demo():
   r = await async_client.chat.completions.create(
       model=MODEL,
       messages=[{"role": "user",
                  "content": "What dietary restriction do I have? (asked async)"}],
   )
   return r.choices[0].message.content
print("[async]", asyncio.run(async_demo()))
banner("Part 7 — Mini support agent across multiple sessions")
def support(user_id, prompt):
   mem.attribution(entity_id=user_id, process_id="support-bot")
   return ask(prompt, system=(
       "You are a calm, helpful customer support agent. "
       "Use what you remember about the user. If you don't know, say so."
   ))
USER = "charlie@example.com"
mem.attribution(entity_id=USER, process_id="support-bot")
mem.new_session()
print("[support T1]", support(USER,
   "Hi! I'm Charlie, on the Pro plan. Email: charlie@example.com. "
   "Billing question for next month."))
time.sleep(WRITE_DELAY)
mem.new_session()
print("[support T2]", support(USER,
   "Hey, me again. What plan am I on and what's my email of record?"))
banner("Done. Open  to inspect memories, "
      "or use Memori BYODB to point at your own Postgres.")

We test Memori with streaming responses to confirm that memory continues working when tokens arrive incrementally. We then run an asynchronous OpenAI call and verify that the async client can also access stored user context. Also, we built a mini support-agent flow that remembers Charlie’s plan and email across separate sessions, demonstrating how Memori supports realistic, long-term customer interactions.

In conclusion, we built and tested a complete Memori-powered memory workflow for LLM agents. We saw how Memori stores basic user preferences, keeps Alice’s and Bob’s memories isolated, and allows the same user to maintain different memories across separate agent personas, such as a fitness coach and a meal planner. We also explored how sessions help us group project-specific conversations, while unrelated details stay outside the active session context. Beyond basic recall, we verified that Memori continues to work with streaming outputs, asynchronous OpenAI calls, and a mini support-agent scenario where a user’s plan and email are remembered across new conversations. Also, we created a practical foundation for building personalized AI assistants, support bots, workflow agents, and multi-agent systems that remember important context while keeping memory organized, scoped, and reusable.


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The post A Coding Implementation to Build Agent-Native Memory Infrastructure with Memori for Persistent Multi-User and Multi-Session LLM Applications appeared first on MarkTechPost.

SUI Surges 19% as Institutional Staking and Real-World Adoption Increases

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🚨


The current breakout in the cryptocurrency market is significant, with Sui leading the charge.

A combination of strategic institutional staking, a tightening token supply and growing real world utility behind the asset has led to an 18.8% upturn in relatively short order for SUI.

This rally is one of many realignments as capital, infrastructure, and adoption continue to consolidate around next-generation blockchain ecosystems.

Aggressive Accumulation Based & Institutional Confidence

One major trigger of this explosion is a Nasdaq-listed company named Sui Group Holdings that has made an undeniable bet on the Sui ecosystem. The firm has staked 108.7 million SUI tokens, about 2.7% of the circulating supply.

It is an intentional, active engagement and not a passive waiting. By staking away such a large amount, you eliminate those tokens from the market and very quickly restrict supply. In liquid-sensitive markets, this is taken to mean institutional investors are coming in on a bag-holding level.

A firm positive market response to decreasing supply combined with rising demand, pushes price higher, clearly. In addition to short term price action, this institutional support is often a reference point for retail investors contemplating the long term value of the token.

The Appealing Economics of SUI Supply Shock

The staking of 2.7% of SUI’s circulating supply implies a level of structural adjustment in the economics of the token

When tokens are locked in staking, they become temporarily illiquid and the amount of trading volume on exchanges is reduced. This is similar to a large shareholder locking up a big block of shares during an uptick in demand within traditional finance.

This immediately brings about a supply shock. With fewer tokens up for grabs, market participants are often forced to raise their bids to secure them, and even higher during accelerating momentum. The effect is more severe in crypto markets where liquidity constraints can accelerate price movements at a rapid pace. With SUI having recently gained some traction, and the supply contraction serving as a sharp catalyst, this rhythm pushes the price higher.

Real-World Adoption and Strategic Partnership

Institutional staking may have sparked initial momentum, but real-world adoption is fueling a sustained cycle. This evolution is at the core of a collaboration between Paga, a multi-million-user fintech platform, and Sui network.

Paga is still bringing tokenized assets and blockchain-based payment infrastructure into its platform, the latter being an actual move of incorporating decentralized technology into traditional financial services.

This collaboration is critical. Most blockchain projects are still in speculative trading, projects like this clearly specify experiences. Sui is establishing itself as a platform for actual finance, rather than speculation-by embedding tokenized assets into a well-established payment system.

The Presence of ETF Brings An Additional Layer Of Credence

Adding to these factors is the recent launch of a spot ETF connected to SUI. Even though it’s something recent, this is an accessible entry point for both institutional and traditional investors via an exchange-traded product.

ETFs make it easy since investors do not have to deal with crypto wallets or exchange themselves. That reduces barriers and funnels fresh capital into the system. The ETF, in addition to staking and strategic partnerships, is a mechanism that serves as a connection between traditional finance and decentralized asset markets in order to strengthen the market position of SUI.

SUI Recovery Potential Remains Significant

Nevertheless, SUI is still about 70% below its all-time high, which is a crucial detail to contextualise investor interest despite the recent gains. Typically, this is where assets trading well below previously peaked areas will benefit from increased attention while the upward momentum phase plays out.

SUI Surges 19% as Institutional Staking and Real-World Adoption Increases

Most players still see the current rally as the start of a broader recovery cycle, not as the last shot of the dying bull. Solid fundamentals combined with an appealing price formation creates a good investment thesis. Our market participants are positioning themselves for a durable reset rather than chasing the fleeting profits of upside down.

A Narrative Market Fueled by Structure, Not Hype

What separates this rally from many which are common is the fundamental quality of its drivers. Unlike totally FOMO driven spikes, SUI momentum is supported by fundamentals: institutional staking, supply reduction, real-world use cases and availability through ETFs.

This does not remove volatility, with cryptocurrency markets remaining as fluid as ever, but it does appear to indicate a more stable platform for growth.

With capital increasingly favoring projects that showcase real utility with a scalability story, Sui is fast becoming one of the most formidable contenders in the next generation of blockchain.

As supply pressures accelerate, as alliances proliferate and institutional participants continue to stake out ground, this rally might be less of a brief surge than something with more lasting significance.

Disclosure: This is not trading or investment advice. Always do your research before buying any cryptocurrency or investing in any services.

Follow us on Twitter @nulltxnews to stay updated with the latest Crypto, NFT, AI, Cybersecurity, Distributed Computing, and Metaverse news!



Hantavirus: Ship evacuations enter second day

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The last 24 passengers aboard the MV Hondius are set to evacuate the ship on May 11, before the vessel gets disinfected and goes back to the Netherlands. At least two passengers have tested positive since disembarking.

Entain presses football regulator over illegal gambling sponsorships at Premier League clubs

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Soccer coaches watching evening training session on grassroots soccer pitch during community football development program. Entain presses soccer regulator targeting illegal gambling sponsorships Premier League clubs


Soccer coaches watching evening training session on grassroots soccer pitch during community football development program. Entain presses soccer regulator targeting illegal gambling sponsorships Premier League clubs

Entain is calling on England’s new soccer watchdog to intervene against Premier League clubs taking sponsorship money from gambling operators that are not licensed in Britain. The move increases pressure on clubs already facing scrutiny over the sport’s relationship with the growing black market betting industry.

The owner of Ladbrokes and Coral said the Independent Football Regulator, known as the IFR, already has the power to stop those arrangements under proposed licensing rules. Those draft rules would prevent clubs from accepting revenue tied to “serious criminal conduct,” which Entain argues includes gambling companies illegally taking bets from British customers.

Premier League clubs are being sponsored by criminal gambling firms. The Independent Football Regulator can stop this tomorrow by simply acknowledging that unlicensed gambling companies targeting UK customers through English football are breaking the law – plain and simple.

Stella David, Entain plc CEO

The company made the case in its response to the IFR’s latest consultation covering licensing rules for clubs across the top five tiers of English men’s soccer. The regulator was created to strengthen financial oversight and improve governance standards throughout the game.

According to Entain, several Premier League sides currently have sponsorship agreements with gambling companies that do not hold UK licenses. The firm said those operators may be committing offenses under section 33 of the Gambling Act 2005 whenever they accept bets from customers in Britain.

Stella David, chief executive of Entain plc, said: “Premier League clubs are being sponsored by criminal gambling firms. The Independent Football Regulator can stop this tomorrow by simply acknowledging that unlicensed gambling companies targeting UK customers through English football are breaking the law – plain and simple.”

She added: “The regulator does not need any new powers, new legislation, or even a new rule to make this happen. In fact, it has already drafted one.”

Entain shares concerns over black market betting on the Premier League

The dispute arrives as English soccer prepares for major changes to gambling advertising. Premier League clubs agreed to phase out front-of-shirt gambling sponsorships from the start of next season, although betting companies will still be allowed to advertise through sleeve logos, pitchside boards and other commercial deals.

Campaigners and several sporting bodies have also faced growing calls to reduce gambling advertising more broadly, amid concerns that younger fans are being heavily exposed to betting promotions during live sports broadcasts and online coverage.

Entain argues that tighter restrictions on licensed operators are helping unlicensed companies gain visibility through football sponsorships and social media marketing. The company cited Betting and Gaming Council research estimating that unlicensed sponsorship could make up more than half of UK sports sponsorship spending by October 2027.

The firm also pointed to analysis from Yield Sec claiming that 92% of online betting content in some social media categories directed users toward unlicensed websites. Other industry estimates suggest British consumers now spend roughly £4.3 billion ($5.9 billion) each year with black market gambling operators.

The UK government has already indicated it could tighten the rules further. In 2023, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport announced plans to consult on banning unlicensed gambling operators from sponsoring British sports teams as part of wider efforts to combat illegal gambling.

ReadWrite has reached out to the Independent Football Regulator for comment.

Featured image: via Entain press release

The post Entain presses football regulator over illegal gambling sponsorships at Premier League clubs appeared first on ReadWrite.

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