Musk hints at suing Microsoft, US Rep wants Gary Gensler fired…

Top Stories This Week

Elon Musk threatens Microsoft with lawsuit, claims AI trained on Twitter data

Microsoft has been threatened with a lawsuit from Twitter CEO Elon Musk, who claimed the Big Tech firm “illegally” trained its artificial intelligence on Twitter data. The entrepreneur suggested that Microsoft mined user tweets to train its AI-powered applications. Musk tweeted that it was “lawsuit time” after reports that Microsoft would cease supporting Twitter across its online social advertising tools. Musk and Microsoft are believed to be at odds over artificial intelligence. The tech billionaire is developing a ChatGPT rival known as “TruthGPT”. Microsoft owns a 49% stake in OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT.

Rep. Davidson to introduce legislation to fire SEC boss Gensler for crypto overreach

U.S. Representative Warren Davidson announced plans to introduce legislation to fire Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler. According to the lawmaker, the upcoming bill is meant to “correct a long series of abuses.” Davidson disclosed the plan after the SEC’s latest attempt to revisit the definition of “exchange.” The week wasn’t the best for Gensler. During an oversight hearing, Gensler was heavily criticized for his approach on crypto assets.

Australia installs more Bitcoin ATMs than whole of Asia

Australia surpassed the continent of Asia in terms of the total number of crypto ATMs installed. Since the beginning of 2023, the country has been on a crypto ATM installation spree, climbing from fifth to third position in the rank in January alone. Data from Coin ATM Radar confirms that Australia has kept up the effort to install avenues for fiat-to-crypto conversions, reaching 364 crypto ATMs across the country, behind the United States and Canada.

Societe Generale subsidiary launches euro-pegged stablecoin on Ethereum

Societe Generale-Forge, a regulated subsidiary of French banking firm Societe Generale, has launched a euro-pegged stablecoin for qualified institutional clients. Dubbed EUR CoinVertible, the stablecoin was designed in response to the growing demand for a new settlement asset for on-chain transactions, said Societe Generale-Forge. The stablecoin will offer new solutions for corporate treasury; cash management and cash pooling; on-chain liquidity funding and refinancing solutions.

Intel will stop manufacturing chips for Bitcoin miners

Intel has reportedly announced plans to discontinue its line of Blockscale Bitcoin mining chips in an effort to reduce costs. The decision comes nearly one year after the company announced the hardware line. The chip-manufacturing company will stop taking orders for the Blockscale 1000 Series ASICs by October and is estimated to end shipping in April 2024. Mining firms Argo Blockchain, Block, Hive Blockchain Technologies and Griid Infrastructure were among the first companies to integrate the technology into their operations.

Winners and Losers

At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $27,331, Ether (ETH) at $1,845 and XRP at $0.44. The total market cap is at $1.15 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.

Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week are Casper (CSPR) at 3.51%, OKB (OKB) at 3.33% and UNUS SED LEO (LEO) at 2.06%.   

The top three altcoin losers of the week are SingularityNET (AGIX) at -23.73%, Immutable (IMX) at -23.28% and Stacks (STX) at -22.94%.

For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.

Most Memorable Quotations

“Crypto is not a new financial product, but an evolution or fundamental change in the way individuals and organizations exchange value.”

Gabby Kusz, CEO of the Global Digital Asset & Cryptocurrency Association

“When I am asked to consult or advise for [stablecoin] projects […], my first advice has now become to avoid US operations and a US domicile. The jobs are going…