🗿 Is Money Actually Growing on Trees?

Sponsored by

GM. Shohei’s translator was making 25 bets a day with other people’s money for years, and $100m+ funding rounds seem to be falling from the sky. Is everyone getting free money these days?

☕ *knuckle cracks* ☕ Let’s get into it.

Today’s specials:

• No Fomo News 📰: Adobe’s Firefly Was Trained on Midjourney Images

• You Raised? 💰: Big, Big Money 

• This IS Financial Advice 🤑: Don’t Lose $40m Sports Betting

Learn how to make AI work for you.

How do you stay up-to-date with the insane pace of AI? Join The Rundown – the world’s fastest-growing AI newsletter with over 500,000+ readers learning how to become more productive using AI every morning.

1. Our team spends all day researching and talking with industry experts.

2. We send you updates on the latest AI news and how to apply it in 5 minutes a day.

3. You learn how to become 2x more productive by leveraging AI.

Subscribe with one click.

No Fomo News 📰

AI

• Adobe’s ‘Ethical’ Firefly AI Was Trained on Midjourney Images (Bloomberg)

• Apple plans Mac line overhaul with AI-focused M4 chips (Reuters)

• OpenAI and Meta ready new AI models capable of ‘reasoning’ (FT)

Web3

• These two crypto-integrated handhelds are aiming to make Web3 gaming happen (PCGamer)

• Fraud victims want China to recover $4.3B worth of Bitcoin seized by UK police (CT)

Tech

• U.S. consumers will finally see FCC-mandated ‘nutrition labels’ for most broadband plans (TheVerge)

• Apple loses bid to throw out UK lawsuit over App Store fees (Reuters)

You Raised? 💰

Quality over quantity. Not highest number of funding rounds in the past couple of weeks, but the rounds we have are Big with a capital B. 

Here are the highlights:

• Crypto’s Berachain Says Funding Round Increases to $100 Million

• Blockchain Developer Monad Labs Raises $225M Led by Paradigm

• Elon Musk's xAI said to be in talks to raise $3B in funding at a $18B valuation

• Collaborative Robotics snaps $100M funding to advance human-robot collaboration

• Paris-based hydrogen taxi rental startup HysetCo zips €200M to expand in Europe 

This IS Financial Advice 🤑

Speaking of big money, more details have emerged about Shohei Ohtani’s translator who has been accused of stealing money to cover gambling debts. 

Ippei Mizuhara (left) has been officially charged with bank fraud described as the theft of more than $16 million. He allegedly stole from Shohei’s bank account to support his gambling addiction. Ippei had previously admitted to stealing a few million, but $16 is more than 4x what he admitted to. 

But that’s not all. 

The accusation says that records of Ippei’s wagers “reflect total winning bets of $142,256,769.74, and total losing bets of $182,935,206.68.” So in total, he is alleged to have lost more than $40 million. $40 million!

He allegedly placed 19,000 bets between 2021 and 2024, for an average of 25 bets per day with an average amount of just under $13k each bet. 

Now that he has officially been charged, we can’t wait to see more details come out of this story. What did he bet on? Where were the biggest losers? How did this go on for so long?? 

Reach 200,000+ Tech Consumers and Brands

This is NOFOMO, the newsletter keeping you up-to-date on all things emerging tech — from AI and Blockchain to Virtual Reality.

Advertise with our media conglomerate of thoughtful content creators the digital landscape: X, LinkedIn, Podcasting, Email, etc. We offer exclusive access to a real, engaged community of over 200,000 tech professionals boasting millions of monthly impressions and real results.

Our discerning readers are always looking for the latest tools and products in the industry. Connect with the right people and transform your business.

Request a media kit.

DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell assets or make financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.