After becoming the <a href="https://futurism.com/spacex-first-astronauts-poles">first humans to fly over the Earth's poles in space</a>, a crew of private astronauts — or space tourists, depending on your perspective — report that the world's southernmost continent is indeed a vast expanse of snow and ice.
"Hello, Antarctica," <a href="https://x.com/satofishi/status/1907345866421395867">tweeted</a> Chun Wang, the crypto entrepreneur who financed and is leading the private space mission, Fram2. "Unlike previously anticipated, from 460 km above, it is only pure white, no human activity is visible."
As seen in a video Wang uploaded, it's a breathtaking spectacle, even if a lot of it is obscured by a swirling blanket of clouds. No humans have ever been <a href="https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1906951397477929029?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1906951397477929029%7Ctwgr%5Ef49aaa1a3a938a03dbd1755ee8b7095c21ba7500%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.usatoday.com%2Fstory%2Fnews%2Fnation%2F2025%2F04%2F02%2Fspacex-launch-views-fram2-video%2F82775125007%2F">afforded such a view</a>, in person, of the pale Antarctic landscape. Wang remarked that he's surprised that he couldn't spot any human presence on the frigid continent — which probably shouldn't be entirely surprising, since the entire enormous continent is <a href="https://www.antarctica.gov.au/about-antarctica/people-in-antarctica/how-many/">only home to a few thousand people</a>.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Hello, Antarctica.
Unlike previously anticipated, from 460 km above, it is only pure white, no human activity is visible. <a href="https://t.co/i7JawFYzW2">pic.twitter.com/i7JawFYzW2</a>
&mdash; Chun (@satofishi) <a href="https://twitter.com/satofishi/status/1907345866421395867?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 2, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The Fram2 mission launched Monday night from Florida using a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. After reaching orbit, a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule nicknamed "Resilience" separated from the rocket, carrying a team of four spacefarers, including Wang, to an altitude of 285 miles. The three others are Norwegian cinematographer Jannicke Mikkelsen, German robotics researcher Rabea Rogge, and Australian polar explorer Eric Philips. Now, they're anticipated to spend up to four days in space, taking in the view and carrying out a multitude of science experiments.
Unlike other crewed missions, Fram2 struck a high orbital inclination, or angle, perpendicular to the equator, putting its path directly above the Earth's North and South poles. This has never been done by a crewed mission before, largely because traveling at an angle far from the equator requires more power, and thus more fuel — a lot more.
In our age of burgeoning space tourism, however, practical concerns like those can be ignored: Fram2 launched southward, instead of embarking on the typical easterly heading. 
Its scientific objectives sound more ostensible than actual, as <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/30/science/fram2-space-tourism-spacex/index.html">some critics have noted</a>. Wang, the mission commander, is not a scientist or engineer. There isn't a lot to be gained from achieving a crewed polar orbit, other than the undeniably cool novelty. Some of the experiments sound like pure PR fluff, such as one involving Oura, a <a href="https://ouraring.com/blog/oura-medical-university-of-south-carolina-partnership/">wearable health ring gadget</a>. On the other hand, it does provide an opportunity to gauge how more or less regular bodies handle space, rather than the battle-tested constitutions of bona fide government-trained astronauts.
So far, Wang and company's experience has been pretty cushy, aside from a few bumps in the road. 
"The ride to orbit was much smoother than I had anticipated," Wang <a href="https://x.com/satofishi/status/1907286344168276215">wrote in a tweet</a>. "Apart from the final minute before [second stage engine cutoff], I barely felt any G-forces — it honestly felt like just another flight."
The infamous space motion sickness, though, set in once they hit microgravity. "We felt nauseous and ended up vomiting a couple of times," Wang wrote. "It felt different from motion sickness in a car or at sea."
Thankfully, that quickly changed. "By the second morning, I felt completely refreshed," Wang concluded. "The trace of motion sickness is all gone."
More on spaceflight: <a href="https://futurism.com/boeing-starliner-disaster-worse-astronauts">Boeing's Starliner Disaster Was Even Worse Than We Thought, Astronaut Reveals</a>

Cold Take

Extremely breathtaking, to be clear.

Space Tourists Startled to Discover That From Space, Antarctica Looks Pretty Much Like You'd Expect

Data centers are everywhere. As the world's tech companies demand more computing power to make their software run, the facilities have popped up in every corner of the planet. They make up the backbone of global network servers, cloud computing — and of course AI.
Microsoft has been a major player in the global data center boom, but its ambitions may now be faltering, in a bellwether for the AI industry. The tech behemoth recently decided to scale back data center projects around the globe, in countries including the UK, Australia, and Indonesia. It's likewise pulled back on data center development in Illinois, North Dakota, and Wisconsin, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-03/microsoft-pulls-back-on-data-centers-from-chicago-to-jakarta?sref=YfHlo0rL">according to Bloomberg</a>.
That's on top of last week's news that Microsoft had walked away from two data center projects in the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-26/microsoft-abandons-more-data-center-projects-td-cowen-says?sref=YfHlo0rL">US and Europe</a>, piling on to a February announcement that it was <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-24/microsoft-cancels-leases-for-ai-data-centers-analyst-says?sref=YfHlo0rL">cancelling data center leases</a>.
Microsoft's moves are a brisk 180 from the company's early-January plans to spend <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/03/microsoft-expects-to-spend-80-billion-on-ai-data-centers-in-fy-2025.html">$80 billion</a> on AI data centers in 2025. They come as the greater US economy crumbles in reaction to Donald Trump's so-called "<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/03/economy/reciprocal-tariff-math/index.html">reciprocal tariffs</a>," which some analysts say are more akin to war-time <a href="https://prospect.org/economy/2025-04-03-theyre-not-tariffs-theyre-sanctions/">economic sanctions</a>.
"These are just sanctions, imposed to intimidate countries and companies into submission like they're universities or law firms," <a href="https://x.com/ddayen/status/1907825827758354925">said David Dayen</a>, executive editor of The Prospect. "They're what a mob boss would do."
Trump's tariffs are likely to have a hugely negative impact on the US tech sector more broadly, and on data centers specifically. Once these tariffs go into place, the prospect of building <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-tariffs-could-stymie-big-162220129.html">new data centers</a> will become much more risky, as foreign-made resources skyrocket in price. Running existing facilities will likewise come at a premium, as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/02/business/trump-renewable-energy-tariffs.html">renewable energy growth</a> slows to a crawl and <a href="https://www.barrons.com/articles/gasoline-heating-electricity-prices-tariffs-e52169a6">traditional energy costs</a> soar.
That's not to mention the already shaky ground of AI development. In recent months, some investors have grown wary that an <a href="https://www.investors.com/news/technology/ai-stocks-bubble-dot-com-era/">economic bubble</a> was forming around the AI industry — a hypothesis that Microsoft's rollback would seem to support. The shaky <a href="https://www.investors.com/news/technology/artificial-intelligence-stocks/">CoreWeave IPO</a> and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-hype-train-profits-valuations-startups-google-openai-2024-7">nonexistent AI profits</a> don't help.
It's all piling up into a record low day for tech stocks, especially whales like Microsoft, which hit a <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/MSFT">one-year low</a> as soon as the gates opened on Wall Street this morning.
In all, the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/03/mag-7-relinquishes-more-than-800-billion-as-tech-drives-stock-market-nosedive.html">top seven US tech stocks</a> — Microsoft, Tesla, Nvidia, Alphabet (Google), Apple, Meta, and Amazon — are poised to shed over $800 billion in market capacity today, a huge chunk of the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-03/trump-s-second-term-brings-worst-stock-market-start-since-2001?sref=YfHlo0rL">$3 trillion in S&amp;P 500 value</a> erased in the 10 weeks since Trump took office.
We now sit on the precipice of a <a href="https://aldianews.com/en/politics/policy/trumps-tariffs-new-era">new economic era</a>. How this all shakes out for companies like Microsoft will probably be a tale for the history books. When it comes to tech, one thing's for sure: the AI hype train is now screaming out of the station.
More on AI investments: <a href="https://futurism.com/ai-researchers-tech-industry-dead-end">Majority of AI Researchers Say Tech Industry Is Pouring Billions Into a Dead End</a>

Bursting Bubbles

It's all going down.

Something's Gone Wrong With Microsoft's Huge AI Data Center Investments

Donald Trump's eponymous meme coin is worth less than ever in the wake of his tariffs finally being launched.
Less than 24 hours after the president announced the long-anticipated <a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/04/02/trump-tariffs-april-2-liberation-day">reciprocal trade tariffs</a> on domestic imports, his <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/official-trump">$TRUMP cryptocurrency</a>'s value dropped to a meager $9 per token.
That's a new all-time low — and remember, it was <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/trump-meme-coin">only launched about 10 weeks ago</a> ahead of the real estate scion being sworn in for a second time.
Obviously, there are far bigger concerns afoot than the president's shitcoin tanking — but you have to admit that it's pretty hilarious that it's happening this way.
Still, the debacle illustrates that Trump's nonsensical trade war isn't just hurting the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-02/trump-says-he-s-signing-executive-order-on-reciprocal-tariffs">entire global economy</a>, which has essentially been lit on fire by the tariffs, but even his own business interests.
Ironically, the tariff announcement came just after news broke that the Trump coin would be "<a href="https://x.com/Cointelegraph/status/1907126051425182170">unlocking</a>" 40 million tokens, or 20 percent of its locked-down supply, later in April. It's the first time the memecoin has held such an event since its launch in January and could, theoretically, have <a href="https://beincrypto.com/learn/token-unlocks-guide/">generated the kind of buzz</a> that would drive its value up.
Instead, it made nary a blip — and after the tariff-induced price slump, it's hard to imagine anyone actually wanting to buy $TRUMP anytime soon.
Per a very unofficial poll on the <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/official-trump">crypto ticker site CoinGecko</a>, meanwhile, a whopping 77 percent of people who took a confidence survey about the official Trump coin said they felt negatively about it.
From overtaking the <a href="https://cryptopotato.com/trump-overtakes-shib-in-meme-coin-battle-btc-nears-105k-weekend-watch/">$SHIB and $PEPE memecoins</a> — yes, we're rolling our eyes too — when its value surpassed $60 per token and rising to an <a href="https://www.coinbase.com/price/official-trump">all-time high</a> of nearly $75, the Trump coin has been remarkably volatile even for its market.
Even on unelected co-president Elon Musk's X social network, news of this latest Trump slump resulted in japes and jibes.
"Donald Trump just destroyed the entire financial markets, stocks, crypto and even his shitcoin," <a href="https://x.com/Djbousquet/status/1907558168995180580">one user jeered</a>. "Everyone fucking hates him now. What a fraud."
In another post, a satirist jokingly begged the president to mention his memecoin at all.
"Pls just talk about $Trump coin," <a href="https://x.com/forexxjamess/status/1907532594133999716">the user wrote</a>. "Need money back Sir."
Those who willingly bought the president's memecoin are, clearly, in the "find out" portion of the "eff around and find out" adage amid the tariff turmoil — and unfortunately, the rest of the world is right there with them.
More on the tariffs: <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-tariffs-signs-ai">Trump Tariffs Show Signs of Being Written by AI</a>

Trump Slump

"Need money back Sir."

You’ll Never Guess What Happened to Trump’s Meme Coin After He Announced His Tariffs

Just before <a href="https://futurism.com/trumps-tariffs-brutalize-crypto">announcing a major escalation</a> in his tariff war on Wednesday evening — followed by a <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/02/stock-market-today-live-updates-trump-tariffs.html">major stock market wipeout</a> the following morning — president Donald Trump freed up the sale of his Truth Social shares.
As the <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/1b41e7c2-c835-4aa0-b874-6f8a8add107e">Financial Times reports</a>, Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) revealed that it was planning to sell more than 142 million shares in a late Tuesday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Most notably, the shares listed in the document include Trump's 114-million-share stake, which is worth roughly $2.3 billion and held in a trust controlled by his son Donald Trump Jr. Other insiders, including a crypto exchange-traded fund, and 106,000 shares held by US attorney Pam Bondi were also included in the latest filing.
While the filing doesn't guarantee any future sale of shares, investors weren't exactly smitten with the optics. Shares plunged eight percent in light of the news, according to the FT, and are down over 45 percent this year amid Trump's escalating trade war.
The timing of the SEC filing is certainly suspect. Trump's "liberation day" tariff announcement on Wednesday <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-02/wall-street-trading-desks-warn-s-p-500-selloff-will-get-worse?sref=YfHlo0rL">triggered a major selloff</a>, causing shares of multinational companies and stock futures to crater.
Trump also vowed in September that he wasn't planning to sell any of his TMTG shares, which caused their value to spike temporarily at the time.
Now that the shares are up for grabs, the president has seemingly had a change of heart — or, perhaps, is getting cold feet now that the economy is feeling the brunt of his catastrophic economic policymaking. It's also possible Trump was always planning to cash out and leave investors exposed.
Meanwhile, Trump Media released a <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/trump-media-responds-to-inaccurate-stories-about-filing-of-form-s-3-1034543633">statement on Wednesday</a>, accusing "legacy media outlets" of "spreading a fake story suggesting that a TMTG filing today is paving the way for the Trump trust to sell its shares in TMTG." The company said this week's filing was "routine."
Experts have long pointed out that if Trump were to sell, it could lead to TMTG spiraling.
It's still unclear whether the company — which <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/02/14/trump-media-djt-earnings-report-2024.html">reported a staggering $400 million loss</a> in 2024, while only netting a pitiful $3.6 million revenue — will realize the mass sale of millions of shares.
But even just the suggestion appears to have spooked investors.
"In this offering it says the Trump trust could sell shares — it doesn't necessarily mean that they will," Morningstar analyst Seth Goldstein <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-media-filing-opens-door-president-sell-2b/story?id=120409342">told ABC News</a>. "It signals to the market that they could."
"This leaves it up in the air if and when a share sale will happen," he added.
In short, instead of building a viable business that generates meaningful revenue to reflect its valuation, TMTG still feels more like an enrichment scheme for Trump and his closest associates.
"Trump Media has been pretty unsuccessful at creating an operating business model, but they have been quite successful at selling their stock," University of Florida finance professor Jay Ritter told ABC News.
More on TMTG: <a href="https://futurism.com/trumps-failing-truth-social-better-biden">Trump's Failing Truth Social Was Doing Much Better Under Biden</a>

Keeping the Door Open

Huh.

It's Interesting How Truth Social Moved to Sell Stock Right Before Trump's Tariffs Were Announced

If you follow tech stocks, there's probably one thing on your mind today: Donald Trump's tariffs.
Yesterday, Trump announced his long-teased "<a href="https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/trump-tariffs-trade-war-stock-market-04-03-2025/card/math-behind-new-tariffs-points-to-trade-imbalance-as-key-issue-W4I7vbzaO5qFZS43hAjc">reciprocal tariffs</a>" on foreign imports coming into the US. Among them are a 32 percent tariff on Taiwan, 24 percent on Japan, 26 percent on India, and 34 percent on China — all major players in the global tech trade.
As a result, the magnificent seven (M7) stocks — a stock trader term for the current whales of the tech industry: Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla — are in a freefall today, as investors sell off their shares to brace for economic uncertainty. Among the tech industry, the stagnant AI sector is being hit particularly hard, as <a href="https://www.semafor.com/article/04/03/2025/trumps-tariffs-are-a-major-setback-for-ai">energy costs</a> are anticipated to skyrocket along with the cost of important resources like steel, precious minerals, and semiconductors.
As such, the cost to build and run <a href="https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/03/trump_tariffs_servers/">data centers</a>, the massive facilities that make AI computing possible, is expected to spike as the supply chain adjusts to the new normal.
The vast majority of chips that power these data centers come from hard-hit countries like Taiwan, Thailand, Japan, and Vietnam, while the US makes just <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/dependencies-us-semiconductor-industry#:~:text=While%20the%20United%20States%20is,motivating%20efforts%20to%20reshore%20production.">11 percent of its chips</a> at home. Trump's tariffs will force countries from those companies to hike their chip prices, and US companies will no doubt hike their prices to compensate, which will ultimately run off to consumers.
That's a crushing blow for American AI companies, which were already facing the consequences of <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/ai-hype-cliff-costs">investor skepticism</a>, <a href="https://www.tradingview.com/news/moneycontrol:bcb1c485e094b:0-alphabet-shares-tank-7-on-revenue-lag-bump-up-in-ai-spending/">lagging revenue</a>, and a <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/519006a9-82c6-4939-afa1-58921a399105">disappointing debut AI IPO</a> by CoreWeave.
Broader details about how these tariffs will affect the tech industry are foggy right now, as the stock market is moving at a breakneck pace, but there is one common theme: <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2025/04/03/apple-leads-premarket-slide-in-tech-stocks-as-trumps-reciprocal-tariffs-trigger-global-selloff/">everything is down</a>. Apple, for example, is heading for its biggest <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20250403150102/https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/03/tech-stocks-sink-after-trump-tariff-rollout-apple-leads-drop.html#">single-day plunge</a> in stock price in nearly 5 years, dropping over 8 percent in just the first few hours of trading. Other M7 stocks are likewise plummeting, with Amazon down almost 9 percent, and Nvidia down by 6.7 at the time of writing. Tesla has continued its <a href="https://www.barrons.com/articles/tesla-stock-price-musk-trump-tariffs-deliveries-3cc5fe90">months-long cascade</a> with a 7 percent dip so far.
If you're wondering why we're doing this, you're not alone. For decades, the United States has sat atop the global economic food chain. Thanks to years of <a href="https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/us-military-strength-secures-financial-dominance">military</a> and <a href="https://crgreview.com/the-cruel-hypocrisy-of-american-imperialism/">economic</a> supremacy, the US dollar became the <a href="https://www.cfr.org/report/managing-worlds-dollar-dependency">world standard</a>, making it easy to export cheap consumer goods as high-paying American jobs became starvation industries in countries dependent on US trade.
Trump's tariffs seem to be an attempt to reverse all that — an <a href="https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/the-new-industrial-geography/">economic experiment</a> that's never really been attempted at this scale. The entire move hinges on the bet that companies will <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/03/business/economy/trump-tariffs-us-manufacturing-economy.html">shift production</a> from places like Vietnam and Taiwan back into the US, a gamble which <a href="https://www.barrons.com/articles/reciprocal-tariffs-job-losses-china-stocks-ed0ddbf4">business leaders</a> say comes with high costs and even higher risks.
As Trump's tariffs aren't enshrined in law, they could be easily undone by the courts or the next presidential administration, making a <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/01/liberation-day-tariffs-economy-trump-00264079">long-term investment</a> into, say, a $5 billion semiconductor plant on US soil hard to justify from a business standpoint — and at the end of the day, isn't what this is all about?
More on the AI economy: <a href="https://futurism.com/ai-hype-america-financial-ruin">AI Hype Will Plunge America Into Financial Ruin, Economist Warns</a>

Bare Market

Feeling liberated?

Trump's Tariffs Are a Bruising Defeat for the AI Industry

Donald Trump's <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/04/02/business/trump-tariffs-liberation-day">sweeping global tariffs</a> have scythed through all sectors of the economy — including crypto, a market that the sitting president was hailed as a champion of.
On Thursday, the morning after Trump signed an executive order enacting his "Liberation Day" tariffs, blockchain assets across the board slumped considerably as a mass sell-off ensued. 
Bitcoin, the first and largest cryptocurrency, fell by 4.2 percent down to about $82,200, <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/price/bitcoin">according to CoinDesk data</a>, liberating nearly $6,000 in value. Ether, meanwhile, tumbled by 5.6 percent to around $1,700.
The downturn reverberated through major crypto entities. Among exchanges, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/us-crypto-stocks-slide-trumps-sweeping-tariffs-jolt-markets-2025-04-03/">Reuters reports</a>, Coinbase Global fell by 7.7 percent, and Strategy, a major Bitcoin holder, followed with a 5.6 percent loss. One of the world's largest crypto miners, Marathon Digital Holdings, stumbled by 8.3 percent.
According to the <a href="https://www.binance.com/en/square/fear-and-greed-index">Crypto Fear &amp; Greed Index</a>, which gauges market sentiment for Bitcoin and other major crypto, the prevailing mood is "extreme fear." Yesterday, pre-tariffs, it was "neutral."
Some crypto leaders remain bullish. "There are no tariffs on Bitcoin," wrote Michael Saylor, cofounder and chairman at Strategy and a notable Bitcoin evangelist, <a href="https://x.com/saylor/status/1907775832262652046">in a tweet</a> Thursday morning.
Crypto taking collateral damage from the tariffs is ironic, given that advocates of decentralized assets promised that it'd be above the hype- and panic-driven vicissitudes of the old-fashioned stock market — which, by the way, is also absolutely foundering in the wake of Trump's "reciprocal" action. Over $2 trillion was vaporized Thursday from the S&amp;P 500, an index that tracks five hundred of the US's largest publicly traded stocks, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-03/trump-tariffs-set-to-zap-nearly-2-trillion-from-us-stock-market?sref=YfHlo0rL">Bloomberg reports</a>. 
Deepening the irony, Trump was perceived as friendly to the crypto industry, even peddling his own <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-supporters-lost-money-meme-coin">dodgy meme coin</a> that <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-memecoin-lost-money">crashed and burned</a> in a way that stank of a rug pull. Crypto <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/nov/13/bitcoin-share-price-btc#:~:text=The%20price%20of%20bitcoin%20scaled,in%20value%20since%20election%20day.">soared in the wake of his election victory</a> — as did the stock market.
The two may not be so unlike each other after all. These latest crypto declines are indicative of a growing correlation between digital assets and macroeconomic policy shifts, Marcin Kazmierczak, CEO at blockchain firm RedStone, told Reuters. "But protectionist policies that potentially weaken dollar hegemony could accelerate interest in decentralized alternatives over the medium-to-long term," he added.
Then again, there's no accounting for plain old fear. The tariffs have been looming for a while now, but their actual scale <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/wealth/investors-stunned-by-trump-tariffs-prepare-global-growth-shock-2025-04-03/">has clearly startled investors</a>, with Chinese goods <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-threatens-retaliation-trump-hits-highest-us-tariff-country-rcna199433">slammed</a> with a 54 percent import tax. Even allies like Japan have been smacked with a 24 percent hike.
"Uncertainty breeds caution in all markets, and crypto is experiencing a tension between short-term speculation, slow-moving policy shifts, and institutional pullback," Gadi Chait, investment manager at Xapo Bank, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2025/04/02/bitcoin-braced-for-atomic-bomb-amid-serious-trump-crypto-price-warning/">told </a><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2025/04/02/bitcoin-braced-for-atomic-bomb-amid-serious-trump-crypto-price-warning/">Forbes</a>. "When fears of inflation driven by tariff uncertainty rise, crypto suffers in the short term. In the past few weeks, bitcoin has been trading within a wide range of $76,600 to $94,500." 
In other words, crypto has always been volatile, so a rebound is likely — but by no means guaranteed.
"If prices break decisively below $76,600, it could signal a significant shift in market sentiment," Chait said.
More on crypto: <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/bitcoin-spa-mold-uti">Visitors At This Bitcoin-Heated Spa Are Complaining About Mold and UTIs</a>

Coin Flip

Trump, friend of crypto bros.

Trump's Tariffs Are Brutalizing the Crypto Industry

A crypto billionaire and a <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-ketamine-don-lemon">filthy rich ketamine user</a> have launched a trip to the stars — stop us if you've heard this one before.
We promise it's not quite as Silicon Valley as it sounds, though as <a href="https://www.9news.com.au/world/eric-philips-spacex-fram2-mission-to-launch-australian-polar-explorer-into-space/a2449932-ef52-4b45-85a3-dae53108a52a">Australian explorer</a> and freshman astronaut <a href="https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/04/four-private-astronauts-launch-on-first-human-mission-to-fly-over-the-poles/">Eric Phillips told Ars Technica</a>, there are shrooms involved.
Alongside Norwegian filmmaker Jannicke Mikkelsen, German roboticist Rabea Rogge, and Chinese crypto billionaire Chun Wang, Philips is a member of SpaceX's Fram2 mission. The first private flight of its kind, the four-person team launched in a Crew Dragon capsule atop a Falcon 9 rocket for the first-ever civilian mission flying over Earth's poles.
Chartered by Chun — and, of course, greenlit by SpaceX owner and resident White House <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/elon-musk-drug-use-government-security-clearance">psychonaut Elon Musk</a> — the four-person crew <a href="https://futurism.com/spacex-first-astronauts-poles">launched on March 31</a> and are currently in orbit, working on <a href="https://f2.com/research-announcement.pdf">nearly two dozen</a> scientific experiments they have planned for their short journey.
Among them, as Ars noted, is the plan to become the first mushroom growers in space — but "they’re not the ones you’re thinking," Philips told the website. Instead, <a href="https://f2.com/research.pdf">per a Fram2 statement</a> released ahead of the launch, they'll be growing delectable oyster mushrooms.
FOODiQ Global, the Australian company behind the "Mission MushVroom" experiment aboard Fram2, said in the press release that "oyster mushrooms are the perfect space crop" because they grow rapidly and have tons of nutrients. They even have "the unique ability to make vitamin D," the statement noted.
Along with all those nutritional benefits, those yummy shrooms will almost certainly taste better than <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-nasty-pizza">space food</a> — if top space minds can figure out a way to cook them in orbit, that is.
In an <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/space-nutritionist-mushrooms-superfood-nasa-study-spacex-mars-travel-2025-3">op-ed for Business Insider</a>, FOODiQ founder and CEO Flávia Fayet-Moore said that she identified mushrooms as an ideal in-orbit crop, particularly for years-long missions to Mars and other planets.
"Can you imagine eating thermostabilized, dehydrated food for five years?" the space nutritionist — yes, that is <a href="https://www.tatlerasia.com/power-purpose/leadership/kristine-jane-atienza-space-nutrition-analogue-astronaut?expand=1">apparently a real thing</a> — wrote. "I can't."
We won't know how well the shrooms grew in microgravity until Fram2 gets back to Earth this week.
More on space life: <a href="https://futurism.com/boeing-starliner-disaster-worse-astronauts">Boeing's Starliner Disaster Was Even Worse Than We Thought, Astronaut Reveals</a>

Far Out

"The perfect space crop."

Astronaut Insists the Mushrooms He's Growing in Space Are "Not the Ones You’re Thinking"

President Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs on most goods imported into the US yesterday, affecting over 100 countries — including <a href="https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/trump-tariffs-trade-war-stock-market-04-03-2025/card/trump-s-tariffs-are-truly-global-just-ask-the-penguins-of-mcdonald-islands--DBGMupJLhQYVM4gQ9fdJ">uninhabited territories in the middle of the ocean</a>.
It's a baffling decision that's expected to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/live-blog/trump-tariffs-market-reactions-live-updates-rcna199172">wreak havoc on the international economy</a>, heightening existing concerns over an imminent recession.
Worse, as <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/trump-tariff-rate-formula-replicated-chatgpt-observers-claim">Cointelegraph reports</a>, there seem to be signs that the befuddling measures were cooked up by an AI chatbot.
Basically, Trump's tariff rates divide the trade deficit between the US and a given country by the value of the total goods imported from it, and then divide the result by two.
As observers quickly noticed, chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT were prone to duplicating that calculation, suggesting that lethargic administration officials might have turned to the tech to devise the plan.
"What would be an easy way to calculate the tariffs that should be imposed on other countries so that the US is on even playing fields when it comes to trade deficit. Set a minimum of ten percent," crypto trader Jordan "Cobie" Fish <a href="https://x.com/cobie/status/1907608124766433337">asked ChatGPT</a>.
The AI tool happily obliged, coming up with a strikingly similar formulation, dividing the trade deficit by total imports to calculate the tariff rate.
However, even the chatbot warned that doing so wouldn't make much sense.
"This method ignores the intricate dynamics of international trade — such as elasticities, retaliatory measures, and supply chain nuances — but it provides a blunt, proportional rule to 'level the playing field,'" ChatGPT wrote.
"Confirmed, ChatGPT..." Journal of Public Economics editor Wojtek Kopczuk <a href="https://x.com/wwwojtekk/status/1907580634974884311">tweeted</a>. "Exactly what the dumbest kid in the class would do, without edits."
A breakdown of which country got hit hard and which was spared highlights how the new tariff rates largely ignore the greater international trade context.
"I suspect his is also why countries like Iran, which we basically do not trade with, gets off so easily," another user <a href="https://x.com/jeremychrysler/status/1907581401249055138">replied</a>. "No trade = no trade deficit!"
It's not just ChatGPT. Elon Musk's AI chatbot Grok <a href="https://x.com/i/grok/share/HxJhYJrZM4dfbnH0lFAlO6Juw">gave a similar answer when given the same prompt</a>, suggesting adjusting tariff rates "based on deficit size."
Again, Grok warned about such a plan being largely illogical — and potentially self-defeating.
"This method assumes tariffs directly reduce imports by raising prices, but in reality, factors like demand elasticity, currency exchange rates, and global supply chains complicate the outcome," Grok wrote. "It also risks retaliation or higher costs for US consumers."
"For a truly 'even playing field,' you’d need to consider production costs, subsidies, and labor standards abroad — data that’s harder to quantify simply," the chatbot added.
Anthropic's Claude AI chatbot <a href="https://claude.ai/share/e9173584-11ed-4142-9e7c-5f552f9cdadf">made a similar suggestion</a>, adding the same caveats.
Could the pattern be a coincidence? Sure. But the White House has <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-admin-accused-ai-executive-orders">already been accused of using AI</a> to generate sloppily-written executive orders, which bore hallmarks of AI tools like ChatGPT.
The administration has also made a big deal of its use of AI for governing, with Elon Musk's DOGE <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/5222849-doge-is-using-ai-the-wrong-way/">crowing about its use of the tech</a> and the General Services Administration <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/trump-administration-launching-ai-tool-government-use-rcna197525">launching a chatbot</a> last month designed to support staff at the agency.
The bottom line, though? AI or not, economists are warning that the tariffs are ill-advised and likely to devastate the global economy. The stock market is <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/04/03/tariffs-trump-stock-market-reaction-live-updates/82778683007/">already taking a hammering</a> this morning.
"There is no economic rationale for doing this and it will cost the global economy dearly," London School of Economics professor Thomas Sampson <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c93gq72n7y1o">told the BBC</a>.
More on tariffs: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/trump-tariffs-ai">Trump's Tariffs Are Wreaking Havoc on the AI Industry He Claims to Support</a>

"Exactly what the dumbest kid in the class would do."

Trump Tariffs Show Signs of Being Written by AI

Incredible things have been happening in Japan. This is the country that gave us karaoke bars, sushi conveyors, and square watermelon — not to mention those <a href="https://www.nippon.com/en/guide-to-japan/gu900284/">high-tech toilets</a>.
It's also a world leader in public infrastructure, sporting wonders like the lofty <a href="https://www.europeansprings.com/greatest-feats-of-engineering-part-5-the-tokyo-sky-tree/">Tokyo Sky Tree</a>, the immense <a href="https://www.japan.travel/en/spot/1524/">Metropolitan Area Outer Underground Discharge Channel</a>, and the 300-meter tall <a href="https://hrcjapan.com/en/experiencing-the-akashi-kaikyo-bridge-japans-engineering-marvel/#:~:text=The%20Crown%20Jewel%20of%20Japanese,greatest%20engineering%20feat%20in%20Japan.">Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge</a>. There's also the matter of the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/travel/japan-shinkansen-bullet-trains-60-years/index.html">Shinkansen bullet train</a> network, connecting riders to major cities across the country at speeds of up to 225 mph.
Undergirding these dazzling public works is good old <a href="https://eosglobalexpansion.com/deep-dive-into-japans-engineering-industry/">Japanese engineering</a>, known for precision, innovation, and dependability.
Case in point, the West Japan Railway Company (JR West) just announced the completion of a 3D-printed train station, which it says is a world first. Plans to replace a crumbling wooden station in Wakayama Prefecture were <a href="https://www.westjr.co.jp/press/article/2025/03/page_27597.html">first announced</a> on March 11, 2025, and the printed building was more or less put together by March 26th in the span of just under three hours.
To do it, JR West contracted Serendix, which specializes in <a href="https://serendix.com/1">3D printed homes</a>. Serendix delivered the station in four parts by rail, which were then pieced together during a break in the train schedule. Though the rural station weighs in at just 10 square meters, the construction time is more than half the previous estimate of six hours.
The construction method reportedly cut down on cost as well, <a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/03/26/japan/station-3d-printer/">according to The Japan Times</a>, coming in at half the price of reinforced concrete. The company boasts that it should likewise be able to withstand the region's devastating earthquakes.
Once the station goes online in July, citizens of the coastal city of Arida will be able to resume 90-minute trips to the uninhabited island of Jinoshima, a popular destination for summer travelers.
The ease with which Japan rolled out the station underscores the country's commitment to public transit. Surprisingly, the majority Japan's metro and regional rail services are <a href="https://theworld.org/stories/2025/01/23/japans-transit-system-is-private-should-other-countries-consider-the-same">privately owned</a> — an anomaly compared to most publicly-owned systems throughout the world. The secret is that many of Japan's transit companies also operate as <a href="https://www.theworldfolio.com/interviews/the-real-estaterailw/4188/">property developers</a>.
With some <a href="https://www.dlapiper.com/en/insights/publications/2020/07/planning-and-environment-journal-issue-4/land-development-and-building-construction-regulation-in-japan">carefully regulation</a>, these companies are able to rapidly develop urban areas <a href="https://www.ur-net.go.jp/overseas/urtod.html">around public infrastructure</a>, and invest in innovative new technology like 3D printed buildings.
But Japan's success with rail privatization is even more of an outlier. Most privatization ventures throughout the world have failed spectacularly. In the UK, for example, <a href="https://tribunemag.co.uk/2023/11/mick-lynch-rail-privatisation-has-been-30-years-of-failure">rail privatization</a> has led to rising fees, service reductions, staffing issues, and major delays, thanks to deregulation allowing <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/27/the-guardian-view-on-private-equity-and-public-services-this-trend-needs-reversing">private equity vultures</a> to pick the system clean.
More on transit: <a href="https://futurism.com/driver-flies-uber-headquarters">After Uber's App Cost Him His Job, a Disgruntled Driver Flew to San Francisco and Showed Up at Its Headquarters</a>

Pre Fab

Okay, that's pretty neat.

Japan Deploys Entire 3D-Printed Train Station

Tesla released some <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-2025-q1-sales-results-worse-expected">terrible news about sales</a> this morning, but then a funny thing happened: after an initial crash, its stock started to rise significantly.
Why? Well, it seems a lot like it has to do with a <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/04/02/trump-musk-leaving-political-liability-00265784">Politico story</a> reporting, per three unnamed insiders, that president Donald Trump had been telling confidantes of Musk's upcoming departure in a few months — purportedly to focus on his many businesses, and not because he can't get security clearance <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/elon-musk-drug-use-government-security-clearance">due to drug use</a>.
Though both the White House and Musk himself have spun the reporting as "<a href="https://x.com/PressSec/status/1907476290438901863">garbage</a>" and "<a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1907519073287635313">fake news</a>," the writing was nevertheless on the wall. By the time the markets closed, Tesla was trading for about $282 a share, in a 5.3 percent increase from the $254 price per share it held when markets opened this morning.
The stock jump is all the more telling in context, considering that just 48 hours ago, Musk's electric vehicle company was <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2025/04/02/why-tesla-stock-is-soaring-today/">trading at $259 per share</a> — right after the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-31/musk-sees-tesla-as-a-buying-opportunity-despite-doge-blowback?cmpid=eveapac&amp;amp;utm_medium=email&amp;amp;utm_source=newsletter&amp;amp;utm_term=250331&amp;amp;utm_campaign=eveapac&amp;amp;sref=9rGv1w9C&amp;amp;embedded-checkout=true">multi-hyphenate himself admitted</a> that his government work was hurting Tesla's stock price.
Just a few weeks ago, Wedbush analyst <a href="https://x.com/Teslarati/status/1902518710491140386">Dan Ives said in a note to investors</a> that Musk needed to "change the narrative" to save his EV company. Its brand image, the <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-biggest-supporter-out-of-patience">longtime Tesla bull</a> wrote, was suffering from a "tornado crisis" due to massive backlash against the billionaire's draconian politicking — and the only way out of it was to "formally announce Musk is going to balance DOGE and being Tesla CEO."
Obviously, Musk isn't exactly following that advice by insisting that Politico's reporting, which was later <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/02/elon-musk-trump-doge-tesla-white-house-wisconsin-supreme-court.html">corroborated by NBC</a>, is somehow false. Regardless, the markets have spoken — and it seems like even they think he's full of crap.
For months now, Tesla has been shaken not only by anti-Musk protests, but also by investor anxiety about whether or not the company's figurehead is asleep at the wheel.
In an obvious reference to <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/tech-issues-hit-doges-5-things-email-requirement/story?id=120189752">DOGE's cruel attempt</a> at getting government employees to justify their jobs, Tesla investor and celebrity photographer <a href="https://x.com/avenaim/status/1894547033320820791">Jerry Avenaim jokingly tweeted</a>, "Please share five things you did for Tesla shareholders this week."
"Or are you working remotely?" Avenaim continued. "Asking for all of us."
Is Musk gonna get his eye back on the ball after all? Or will he dig his heels in for more culture warring?
It's impossible to tell right now, but Tesla shareholders may be in for a nasty surprise in the morning: after a White House event announcing draconian new tariffs, Tesla's stock is again getting hammered in after-hours trading.
More on Tesla: <a href="https://futurism.com/musk-government-go-after-tesla-critics">Musk Says Government Will "Go After" Tesla Critics</a>