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A piece of crypto history was unsealed this week. One of Mike Caldwell's original physical bitcoins, minted between two thousand eleven and two thousand thirteen, had its tamper-evident hologram peeled after twelve years, with twenty-five bitcoin swept on-chain at a value of nearly one point eight million dollars. It's a quiet reminder that even in a digital currency, the physical artifact still carried meaning.
Across the Atlantic, Britain's Competition and Markets Authority has put new constraints on Google's AI search operation, requiring the company to let publishers opt out of having their content appear in AI-generated results. It's a meaningful shift in the power dynamic between platforms and the people who create the content those platforms depend on, and regulators elsewhere will be watching closely.
Meanwhile, Microsoft is again facing friction over how it handles security disclosures. Researcher Ammar Askar published a working exploit for a Visual Studio Code vulnerability within an hour of reporting it, citing frustration with the company's responsiveness. It's the latest in a pattern that raises real questions about whether large tech firms are taking independent security researchers seriously enough.
Stay curious out there. Tech Beat out.
