Daily TEA: Crypto Cards and Tech Tensions Rise?
Crypto Cards, Tether, Cloud Outages, Meta AI, Nvidia
Hello, dear TEA-mates, here’s what you need to know today.
1.💳 Coinbase One Card Offers Up to 4% Bitcoin Rewards
Coinbase announced the Coinbase One Card, a credit card exclusive to Coinbase One subscribers, launching this fall in partnership with American Express and issued by First Electronic Bank. It offers up to 4% Bitcoin rewards on purchases, surpassing Gemini’s 3% rate, aiming to integrate cryptocurrency rewards into daily spending to boost user engagement in the crypto market. Read More
🍵 TEA For Thought: Coinbase is on fire lately.
2. 🏦 Tether Acquires 32% Stake in Elemental Altus Royalties
Tether Investments purchased 78,421,780 shares of Elemental Altus Royalties Corp., a Canadian gold royalty firm, for approximately $89.4 million, securing a 31.9% stake. Completed on June 10, 2025, this acquisition aligns with Tether’s diversification into stable assets like gold and Bitcoin, supporting its gold-backed stablecoin Tether Gold (XAUt) and expanding its financial ecosystem. Read More
🍵 TEA For Thought: Tether’s push of USDT to Superchain, launch of a gold stablecoin, and now frantic acquisition of gold-discovery companies are alarming. The concentration of power in a single company is concerning—who’s behind Tether, and what are their goals?
3.☁️ Google Cloud Outage Impacts Multiple Services
On June 12, 2025, a Google Cloud outage, triggered by a configuration error, disrupted services like YouTube, Gmail, and third-party platforms, including banking and retail, for several hours. Google resolved the issue and is implementing preventive measures, highlighting the fragility of centralized cloud infrastructure. Read More
🍵 TEA For Thought: This incident highlights the critical need for decentralized cloud infrastructure to avoid single points of failure, a risk no one can afford to face.
4.📱 Meta AI App Sparks Privacy Fears Over Public Sharing
Meta’s new AI app, leveraging user data from its platforms, has raised privacy concerns due to its data collection and public sharing features. Users can hit a share button after asking a question, previewing the post before publishing, but many are unaware they’re sharing text conversations, audio clips, and images publicly, including sensitive queries. For instance, an audio of a man asking, “Hey, Meta, why do some farts stink more than other farts?” was shared, highlighting the issue. Privacy advocates criticize the lack of clear privacy settings. Read More
🍵 TEA For Thought: Like the previous news, Meta’s ability to expose private information is a concern since they already hold the data. I think a platform where users can share AI search results voluntarily is a great idea, as seen on Reddit with funny outcomes. However, when private data is at stake, every workflow step must be rigorously monitored with no margin for error.
5.🌐 CCP Firms Move Data Abroad to Access Nvidia Chips
Nvidia will exclude China from its 2025 financial forecasts due to U.S. CHIPS Act export restrictions on advanced AI chips. Meanwhile, a Wall Street Journal report reveals Chinese companies are bypassing these controls by transporting data to regions like Southeast Asia and the Middle East for processing on Nvidia chips. In March 2025, four Chinese engineers flew to Malaysia with suitcases containing 80 terabytes of data on 15 hard drives for AI model training at a data center with 300 Nvidia-equipped servers. The operation, planned meticulously over months, involved a Malaysian entity in Kuala Lumpur to reduce scrutiny amid Nvidia’s stricter end-user audits. Read More
🍵 TEA For Thought: These reports suggest the CHIPS Act is indeed affecting the CCP’s tech development. It’s worth noting that the CCP does not represent the Chinese people, who lack the ability to choose their government under the current regime.
Prompt Tip of the Day: Four Tips to Get Better Results
Role-based prompting: Assigning a specific role upfront (e.g., "Act as a technical product manager...") drastically improves tone and relevance.
One-shot and multi-shot prompting: Providing examples helps steer style and formatting, particularly for writing-intensive or classification tasks.
Chain-of-thought reasoning: Explicitly requesting step-by-step reasoning enhances accuracy in math, logic, and following instructions.
Clarify First (my go-to): I ask the model to pose follow-up questions before answering if anything is unclear. This simple change significantly reduces hallucinations and vague responses.
TEAHEE Moment
👆Boston Dynamics brings five of their four-legged robots to the AGT stage!
Stay sharp, stay informed. See you tomorrow.
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