OpenAI Grants Pentagon Access to AI Models Following Anthropic Rift

Posted on February 28, 2026 by Olumide Adesina

OpenAI has chosen to deploy its own AI models within the Defense Department’s classified network after rival Anthropic PBC’s relationship with the Pentagon fell apart amid concerns about surveillance and autonomous weapons.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said late Friday that he and the department had reached a consensus that supports the company’s position against “human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems, and domestic mass surveillance.”

Altman posted on the social media platform X, saying, “As part of the deployment, the startup also built safeguards to ensure its models behave as they should.” OpenAI declined to comment on whether Anthropic’s work would be replaced by the company’s services for the department.

The Defense Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Friday evening.

Anthropic stated on Friday that “no amount of intimidation or punishment from the Department of War will change our position on mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons.” Anthropic has stipulated that its products cannot be used for surveillance on Americans or to carry out strikes without human involvement.

The Pentagon offered Anthropic terms earlier this week that included some language that the company had proposed on surveillance and autonomy.

However, according to the source, Anthropic did not go far enough to guarantee that the department would not be able to impose any restrictions when it felt the need to do so.

The Trump administration and Anthropic, which has garnered strong support for its position in Silicon Valley, where tech workers rallied to the company’s side and urged it to, are at risk of growing more divided as a result of OpenAI’s agreement with the Pentagon.

US Government Bars Anthropic From Federal Agencies and Contractors

Posted on February 28, 2026 by Olumide Adesina

President Donald Trump ordered US government agencies to cease using Anthropic PBC’s products, ending a dispute between the artificial intelligence behemoth and defense officials over technology safeguards

The Pentagon then deemed Anthropic PBC a supply-chain risk. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directed the Pentagon to prohibit any business dealings with Anthropic by its contractors and their associates.

Hegseth gave Anthropic six months to transfer AI services to another supplier in a post on X. Hegseth wrote, “The ideological caprices of Big Tech will never subjugate America’s warfighters.” “This choice is final.”

Hegseth had given the business until Friday to give the Pentagon permission to use the Claude chatbot for any legitimate purpose, free from Anthropic’s usage restrictions.

The company has demanded that Claude not be employed in fully autonomous weapons operations or for widespread surveillance against Americans. Anthropic said in a statement on Friday that it has not heard directly from the government regarding the status of negotiations and that it will contest any designation of supply chain risk in court.

Since its establishment, Anthropic has positioned itself as a business committed to the ethical application of AI to prevent disastrous consequences from the technology. Chief Executive Officer Dario Amodei and Hegseth, who has vowed to eradicate “woke” practices at the expansive agency he oversees, were in a high-stakes conflict over Amodei’s stance.

Bitcoin Plunges To $63K as Israel Launches Strikes on Iran

Posted on February 28, 2026 by Olumide Adesina

The US and Israel launched military strikes in Iran, which caused the largest cryptocurrency to drop by roughly 3 percent in a few hours and prolonged what had already been a challenging weekend for risk assets. As a result, Bitcoin approached $63,000 in Saturday’s trading.

Bitcoin dropped back to its lowest point since the February 5 crash, when it momentarily fell below $60,000. Israel Katz, the Israeli Defense Minister, proclaimed an immediate state of emergency in the country. According to The Wall Street Journal, a US official acknowledged US involvement in the strikes.

There is a known pattern to the sale. The stock and bond markets are closed on weekends, but Bitcoin trades around the clock, seven days a week. Because of this, it is one of the few sizable and liquid assets that traders can sell when geopolitical risk escalates after regular business hours. As a result, during weekend evenings, bitcoin frequently serves as a pressure-relieving valve for the general risk-reduction sentiment.

Derivatives data show that approximately $100 million in long positions were liquidated across major exchanges within minutes of the headlines. In the wake of the attack, the Israel Defense Forces issued a warning about potential missile retaliation and enforced a nationwide ban on gatherings, schools, and workplaces, except in critical sectors.

NVIDIA Plunges 5% as Blowout Earnings Fail to Burst AI Bubble

Posted on February 27, 2026 by Olumide Adesina

NVIDIA posted a huge drop after its most recent forecast failed to allay concerns about an AI bubble. The largest one-day decline since April 16 occurred in New York, where the shares dropped 5.5 percent to $184.89. The decrease came after an initially impressive first-quarter sales forecast.

NVIDIA’s revenue increased by 73 percent in the fourth quarter, easily surpassing the average analyst estimate. The response provided a clear reminder of the current skepticism about Nvidia. Investors want more reassurance that the chipmaker can sustain its booming AI spending after its sales growth exploded, making it the most valuable company in the world.

According to analysts at Hargreaves Lansdown, investors are still unsure about “whether the current AI spending wave can sustain growth beyond the next few years, and whether Nvidia will remain as dominant as AI shifts from training models to running everyday tasks.”

CEO Jensen Huang dismissed the worries, claiming that clients are already profiting from their newly purchased processing power. Clients will continue to invest at high levels because of this, he said. The Big Short, famous investor Michael Burry, exacerbated the concerns on Thursday.

He pointed out that Nvidia’s purchase commitments now total $95.2 billion, up from $16.1 billion the previous year. That might be dangerous if demand falters. Colette Kress, the chief financial officer, attempted to allay additional worries expressed by analysts, such as the threat of supply limitations.

According to her, the business has acquired enough parts to satisfy rising demand. She told analysts that producing enough of Nvidia’s most cutting-edge chips is still a challenge. However, Kress predicted that the company’s current Blackwell lineup and its upcoming successor, Rubin, would still surpass previous sales forecasts.

Netflix Stock Surges 10%+ After Smartly Bowing Out of Warner Bros. Bidding War

Posted on February 27, 2026 by Olumide Adesina

Netflix withdrew from the Warner Bros. acquisition battle. Discovery makes room for Paramount Skydance Corp., a competing bidder. to seal the historic $111 billion deal.

The leader of the streaming market stated that it didn’t want to continue bidding even though it thought its deal would have satisfied regulators and increased shareholder value.

“We’ve always been disciplined, and the deal is no longer financially attractive at the price required to match Paramount Skydance’s latest offer,” Netflix said in a statement on Thursday.

Rather, it will continue to invest in its operations, spending roughly $20 billion this year on movies, television series, and other forms of entertainment.

After-hours trading saw a 13% increase in Netflix shares, suggesting that investors were pleased with the company’s decision to back out of the deal. Warner Bros. declined, and investors stopped expecting a bidding war.

Shares of Paramount barely changed. In December, Netflix agreed to pay $82.7 billion, including assumed debt, to buy Warner Bros.’ studio and streaming divisions; however, the auction remained open due to multiple counteroffers from Paramount for the entire business.

Warner Bros. is late on Thursday. considered Paramount’s most recent $31-per-share offer to be the best.

“The Paramount merger agreement will create tremendous value for our shareholders once our board votes to adopt it,” Warner Bros. In a statement, CEO David Zaslav said. “The potential of a combined Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. excites us.” Discovery and are eager to begin collaborating to tell the stories that inspire people worldwide. “Sha has been made possible by Netflix’s decision not increase their offer.”

Silver Calms Following Turbulent Volatility; China Faces Tightening Supply Crunch

Posted on February 27, 2026 by Olumide Adesina

Global silver prices have stabilized after an incredible period of volatility, but China’s supply is constrained as investment and industrial demand deplete stockpiles.

A backlog of orders is making it difficult for domestic producers and traders to fulfill, which is driving up short-term prices and severely backwardating the market.

The market’s overwhelming preference for timely delivery of the metal is evident in the front-month contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange, which has reached a record premium.

The depletion of deliverable material and an inventory crisis are the main causes of this significant backwardation, according to Zhang Ting, senior analyst at Sichuan Tianfu Bank Co. Institutions are still motivated to keep controlling the market to make money.

Short sellers on the Shanghai Gold Exchange who wagered that silver prices would decline have been paying deferral fees to long-holders to avoid having to make deliveries, underscoring the lack of metal to close positions.

The 61 percent gain in the first few weeks of the year has been largely erased by the silver market’s historic selloff since the end of January.

The independence of the Federal Reserve, as the white metal momentarily surpassed gold as a reserve asset, amid anxieties over the dollar and escalating geopolitical conflicts, was fueled by a surge of speculative buying in China and other countries.

Extreme movements, like a global supply squeeze in the fall, are nothing new to the relatively illiquid silver market. Chinese inventories were already exhausted when demand for investments surged. Stockpiles at SHFE and SGE-affiliated warehouses have since decreased to levels not seen in over ten years.

Ripple Details How XRPL Was Built to Block Control by Any One Entity

Posted on February 26, 2026February 26, 2026 by Olumide Adesina

David Schwartz, CTO of Ripple, stated that the XRP Ledger (XRPL) was purposefully created to be uncontrollable by the company or any one entity.

His comments followed Cyber Capital founder Justin Bons’s assertion that XRPL is essentially centralized and permissioned, which sparked a lengthy discussion in the cryptocurrency community about what decentralization really entails and whether validator lists constitute hidden control.

Networks like Ripple, Stellar, Hedera, Canton, and Algorand depend on permissioned elements, according to Bons’ post on X on February 24. He asserted that Ripple and its foundation have “absolute power and control over the chain” thanks to XRPL’s Unique Node List, or UNL, and that deviating from the published list could result in a fork.

Schwartz disagreed, stating that the description was “objectively nonsensical.” According to him, XRPL nodes choose which validators to believe on an individual basis and won’t consent to censorship or double-spending unless their operators do.

Schwartz did concede that validators could work together to stop the chain from the standpoint of honest nodes, but he asserted that they can’t impose double-spends. He likened the possibility of node operators switching to a different UNL in this scenario to altering Bitcoin’s mining algorithm following a majority attack. Ripple must adhere to U.S. regulations, the XRPL co-architect added in response to regulatory pressure. He contended that XRPL was purposefully created in order to prevent Ripple from censoring transactions.

Nvidia’s Rosy Revenue Forecast Fails to Impress Investors Amid AI Overheat Fears

Posted on February 26, 2026 by Olumide Adesina

NVIDIA did not impress investors with its most recent sales projection, indicating that the company will continue to be plagued by worries about an overheated AI economy.

NVIDIA shares dropped as much as 1.5 percent during a conference call with analysts despite the chipmaker’s first-quarter outlook easily exceeding the average Wall Street estimate.

Not much had changed in the stock by Wednesday night,

The skepticism surrounding Nvidia is now a stark reminder. The chipmaker’s explosive sales growth made it the world’s most valuable company, and CEO Jensen Huang pushed back on concerns during Wednesday’s call, arguing that customers are already making money from their newly acquired computing power. Investors are seeking stronger assurances that booming

AI sales are still possible. Huang said that “you need compute capacity, and that translates directly to growth, and that translates directly to revenues,” which is why clients will keep investing at elevated levels.

Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress tried to defuse other issues raised by analysts, such as the specter of supply constraints, by saying, “I’m confident their cash flows are growing.” She told analysts that producing enough of Nvidia’s most advanced chips is still a challenge, but the company has secured enough components to be able to meet growing demand.

However, Kress said that the company’s current Blackwell lineup—and a new successor, Rubin—will still beat sales projections from the past.

NVIDIA previously stated that by the end of 2026, the chips would generate $500 billion.

Silver Soars on Safe-Haven Demand: Middle East Friction Meets US Tariff Turmoil

Posted on February 26, 2026 by Olumide Adesina

Silver prices rose sharply as traders considered Middle East tension and the uncertainty surrounding US import tariffs.

Gold recovered some of the losses from the previous session, rising as much as 1.4 percent.

Tensions over an American military buildup ahead of this week’s next round of nuclear talks with Iran, along with a lack of clarity regarding US trade policy, have helped the metal in recent sessions.

Silver surpassed $90 per ounce. Following a historic two-day rout at the beginning of the month, gold has recovered more than half of its losses and is now trading above $5,000 an ounce. Yuxuan Tang, head of macro strategy for Asia at JP Morgan Private Bank, stated, “It appears that a breakout to the upside is imminent.”

She stated that several factors “may prove sufficient to catalyze a more sustained shift,” including Iran risk and tariff uncertainty.

President Donald Trump’s broad-based 10 percent import levy went into effect in the US on Tuesday following a Supreme Court decision that invalidated his previous reciprocal tariff system. He has not formally issued this directive, despite his subsequent threat to increase the levy to 15%. The Trump administration is also preparing a series of national security investigations into the effects of specific imports on products like industrial chemicals and batteries, which could pave the way for further tariffs.

Some importers are requesting tariff reimbursements from the government in the interim. David Wilson, director of commodities strategy at BNP Paribas SA, stated, “It’s going to have dramatic implications for the US budget deficit, the US dollar, and Treasuries.”

The so-called debasement trade, in which investors gravitate toward hard assets like bullion out of fear of inflation or dollar depreciation, has been influenced by worries about growing sovereign debt.

Gold Climbs as Dollar Slips Amid US Tariff Uncertainty and Middle East Tensions

Posted on February 25, 2026 by Olumide Adesina

Gold increased as traders considered the uncertainty of US import tariffs and Middle East tensions, as the dollar declined.

Gold has stabilized above $5,000 an ounce after more than half of the losses incurred during a historic two-day rout at the beginning of the month. “It appears that an upward breakout is imminent,” stated Yuxuan Tang, who is the head of macro strategy for Asia at JP Morgan Private Bank.

Iran risk and tariff uncertainty are two elements that “may prove sufficient to catalyze a more sustained shift,” according to her.

Donald Trump’s universal 10 percent import tax went into effect in the United States on Tuesday, following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn his previous reciprocal tariff policy. The president has not formally issued this directive, even though he later threatened to increase the percentage to 15%.

The Trump administration is preparing a series of national security investigations into the effects of specific imports on goods like batteries and industrial chemicals, which could lead to more tariffs. In the meantime, some importers are asking the government to reimburse them for tariffs.

The so-called debasement trade, in which investors have shifted from bonds and currencies to hard assets like gold, is influenced by concerns about growing sovereign debt. Before the sharp decline at the end of January, this was a key factor in the multiyear gold bull run.

Gold, which doesn’t pay interest, may face challenges because of the possibility of a short-term hold on US interest rates. Fed Bank of Boston President Susan Collins stated on Tuesday that rates are likely to remain unchanged “for some time” due to recent economic data that indicates an improvement in the US labor market.

According to minutes released earlier this month from the Fed’s January policy meeting, the US central bank’s officials seemed hesitant to lower borrowing costs.