News & Updates
The latest news and updates from companies in the WLTH portfolio.
Anthropic launches Claude Design for slides and prototypes
Anthropic is launching Claude Design, a new product that lets users create designs, prototypes, slides, one-pagers, and other visual work using Claude. The tool is available in research preview for Claude Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise subscribers and is rolling out to users throughout the day, the company said. Claude Design is powered by Claude Opus 4.7, which Anthropic describes as its most capable vision model. After submitting a prompt, users receive an initial design from Claude. Refinements are made through conversation, inline comments, direct edits, or purpose-built sliders that Claude creates for adjusting individual design elements like color, spacing, and layout. An onboarding workflow lets Claude read a company's codebase and existing design files to establish a shared visual language, so that colors, typography, and components carry over automatically into new work. Organizations are not limited to a single design system and can update their standards as needed. The tool supports imports from text prompts, image and document uploads in formats including DOCX, PPTX, and XLSX, and a web capture tool that allows users to pull elements from their company's website. Export options include PDF, URL, PPTX, and standalone HTML, with an additional path to send work into Canva, where it opens as a fully editable and collaborative file. Designs can also be handed off to Claude Code for implementation. Despite surface-level similarities to tools like Canva, Anthropic has told TechCrunch that the two are meant to work alongside each other. The target user is someone without a design workflow already in place who needs to turn a concept into something presentable without delay. For Enterprise organizations, Claude Design is off by default and must be enabled by an administrator in organization settings. Access is included with existing subscription plans, with the option to continue beyond usage limits by enabling extra usage. The release fits into a pattern of Anthropic expanding its presence in workplace and professional software. Earlier this year, the company introduced Claude Cowork, an agentic assistant designed to take on tasks like file management and drafting on behalf of users. Claude Code, a developer tool, has also been a significant driver of subscriber growth. TechCrunch notes that Anthropic has since added agentic plug-ins to Cowork, extending its ability to handle specialized, department-level workflows automatically. The timing of the launch is notable: as Engadget points out, Adobe $ADBE and Canva each unveiled their own AI-powered visual tools during the same week. Anthropic said it plans to make it easier to build integrations with Claude Design in the coming weeks.
SpaceX plans California rocket launch this weekend. How to watch
For the fourth time in April, SpaceX will launch its Falcon 9 rocket from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Getting off the ground from Santa Barbara County, the rocket will thunder into the sky to deliver another batch of the company's Starlink broadband commercial satellites into Earth orbit. And just like most rocket launches from the site, the mission is sure to draw crowds near and far who want to see the rocket climb into the sky. But for those who prefer to watch remotely, SpaceX will have you covered with a livestream of the mission. Here's everything to know about the latest SpaceX mission, and how to watch a webcast of the Falcon 9 launching in Santa Barbara County. Is there a rocket launch today? Next liftoff from California SpaceX is working toward a Saturday, April 18, launch from Southern California, with a four-hour launch window opening at 7 a.m. PT. The launch will take place from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County. A Federal Aviation Administration operations plan advisory suggests a backup opportunity is available the next day if the launch were to be postponed. What is launching from Vandenberg? Falcon 9 to deploy Starlink satellites SpaceX will launch its famous two-stage 230-foot Falcon 9 rocket, one of the world's most active, to deliver 25 Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit, an altitude nearer Earth's atmosphere where they're able to circle the planet quickly. How to watch SpaceX launch livestream Californians, of course, have plenty of opportunities to see a rocket in person both near the launch site as it lifts off, and further away as it soars overhead. But SpaceX also provides a live webcast of its missions for those who prefer to watch from home or for those viewing the launch locally and looking for updates in real-time. As with most SpaceX missions, the launch will be available to stream on the company's website and its new X TV mobile app, beginning about five minutes before liftoff. SpaceX may also provide updates on social media site X. Does Elon Musk own SpaceX? What to know about rocket company SpaceX is the commercial spaceflight company that billionaire Elon Musk, the world's richest man, founded in 2002 and leads as the CEO. SpaceX is headquartered at Starbase in South Texas near the U.S.-Mexico border. The site, which is where SpaceX has been conducting routine flight tests of its 400-foot megarocket known as Starship, was recently voted by residents to become its own city. As a major government contractor, SpaceX serves as the launch service provider for a variety of government missions both civil and military. For the Department of Defense, SpaceX's Falcon 9 helps launch classified satellites and other payloads into space. And for NASA, Falcon 9 most often helps propel astronauts to the International Space Station on SpaceX's Dragon crew capsule - the only U.S vehicle capable of carrying NASA astronauts to orbit. What is Starlink? Starlink is SpaceX's internet satellite business. With more than 10,000 satellites in its growing orbital constellation, Starlink has become a lucrative part of Musk's business empire, serving millions of customers around the world. Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at [email protected]
$20 million construction permit approved for new xAI building
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WMC) - xAI, the supercomputer company founded by business magnate Elon Musk, has been approved for a million-dollar construction permit for a new building. According to planning documents, xAI is constructing a new building on its site that has been approved for commercial use. The building is expected to be over 300,000 square feet and will be used as office space; estimated cost of the construction project is $20,065,398. This news comes after the NAACP filed a lawsuit against xAI, claiming that the company violated the Clean Air Act by operating gas turbines at their Southaven facility. Click here to sign up for our newsletter! Click here to report a spelling or grammar error. Please include the headline.
Rush hour chaos after Stagecoach bus breaks down on major road
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SpaceX plans California rocket launch this weekend. How to watch
For the fourth time in April, SpaceX will launch its Falcon 9 rocket from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Getting off the ground from Santa Barbara County, the rocket will thunder into the sky to deliver another batch of the company's Starlink broadband commercial satellites into Earth orbit. And just like most rocket launches from the site, the mission is sure to draw crowds near and far who want to see the rocket climb into the sky. But for those who prefer to watch remotely, SpaceX will have you covered with a livestream of the mission. Here's everything to know about the latest SpaceX mission, and how to watch a webcast of the Falcon 9 launching in Santa Barbara County. Is there a rocket launch today? Next liftoff from California SpaceX is working toward a Saturday, April 18, launch from Southern California, with a four-hour launch window opening at 7 a.m. PT. The launch will take place from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County. A Federal Aviation Administration operations plan advisory suggests a backup opportunity is available the next day if the launch were to be postponed. What is launching from Vandenberg? Falcon 9 to deploy Starlink satellites SpaceX will launch its famous two-stage 230-foot Falcon 9 rocket, one of the world's most active, to deliver 25 Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit, an altitude nearer Earth's atmosphere where they're able to circle the planet quickly. How to watch SpaceX launch livestream Californians, of course, have plenty of opportunities to see a rocket in person both near the launch site as it lifts off, and further away as it soars overhead. But SpaceX also provides a live webcast of its missions for those who prefer to watch from home or for those viewing the launch locally and looking for updates in real-time. As with most SpaceX missions, the launch will be available to stream on the company's website and its new X TV mobile app, beginning about five minutes before liftoff. SpaceX may also provide updates on social media site X. Does Elon Musk own SpaceX? What to know about rocket company SpaceX is the commercial spaceflight company that billionaire Elon Musk, the world's richest man, founded in 2002 and leads as the CEO. SpaceX is headquartered at Starbase in South Texas near the U.S.-Mexico border. The site, which is where SpaceX has been conducting routine flight tests of its 400-foot megarocket known as Starship, was recently voted by residents to become its own city. As a major government contractor, SpaceX serves as the launch service provider for a variety of government missions both civil and military. For the Department of Defense, SpaceX's Falcon 9 helps launch classified satellites and other payloads into space. And for NASA, Falcon 9 most often helps propel astronauts to the International Space Station on SpaceX's Dragon crew capsule - the only U.S vehicle capable of carrying NASA astronauts to orbit. What is Starlink? Starlink is SpaceX's internet satellite business. With more than 10,000 satellites in its growing orbital constellation, Starlink has become a lucrative part of Musk's business empire, serving millions of customers around the world. Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at [email protected]
Cybertruck Sales "Propped Up" By SpaceX Buying Spree - Conservative Angle
Bloomberg is out with a new report saying Tesla's Cybertruck sales were "propped up" in the fourth quarter by purchases from companies inside Elon Musk's business empire. SpaceX accounted for 1,279 Cybertruck registrations, or about 18% of all U.S. Cybertruck registrations during the last quarter of 2025. The report went on to say that xAI, Boring Co., and Neuralink also purchased the stainless-steel EV during the period. "That means almost one in every five Cybertrucks registered during the period were delivered from one part of Musk's sprawling business empire to another," Bloomberg's Dana Hull noted. Hull added, "Without those sales to other Musk-run companies -- which included xAI, Boring Co. and Neuralink, in addition to SpaceX -- Cybertruck registrations in the fourth quarter would have fallen 51%." Hull quoted Sam Fiorani, vice president of global vehicle forecasting for advisory firm AutoForecast Solutions, who said, "Tesla is running out of buyers for the Cybertruck." Hull said the registration data was sourced from S&P Global Mobility and, in her words, suggests only that "demand for the pickup is fading just two years after launch." Cybertruck's struggles are not unique to Tesla. In fact, electric pickups have been a major bust across the U.S. EV market. Ford recently converted its electric F-150 Lightning production lines to extended-range hybrid vehicles. And we're sure in President Trump's war economy, autos will be converting EV lines or other production lines into making weapons (read report). Despite the continued downturn in EVs, Cox Automotive data show the Cybertruck was still the top-selling EV truck in the U.S. in the first quarter. High sticker price and elevated interest rates are likely major factors behind the Cybertruck's dismal sales. Bankrate data show the national average 60-month loan rate for new vehicles is still above 7%, down from 8% during the Biden years but still sharply higher than the sub-4% levels seen in 2021. Federal subsidies for EVs have also been cut under the Trump administration's second term.
Report: SpaceX's Starlink Outage Left Navy Drone Ships Dead in the Water
A global outage of SpaceX's Starlink satellite network last year left two dozen U.S. Navy unmanned vessels stranded off the California coast, disrupting communications and halting operations for nearly an hour during critical military tests. Reuters reports that the incident involving drones designed to enhance U.S. military capabilities in potential conflicts with China was one of several Navy test disruptions linked to Starlink, according to internal Navy documents reviewed by Reuters and a person familiar with the matter. During a series of Navy tests in California in April 2025 involving unmanned boats and flying drones, officials reported that Starlink struggled to maintain a solid network connection due to the high data usage required to control multiple systems, according to a Navy safety report reviewed by Reuters. "Starlink reliance exposed limitations under multiple-vehicle load," the report stated. The report also identified issues related to radios provided by Silvus and a network system provided by Viasat. In the weeks preceding the global Starlink outage in August, another series of Navy tests was disrupted by intermittent connection issues with the Starlink network, Navy documents show. The causes of the network losses were not immediately clear. As SpaceX prepares for what is expected to be the largest IPO in history this summer, with a projected valuation of $2 trillion, the company has established itself as the world's most valuable space company. This dominance stems partly from its indispensable role in providing the U.S. government with an array of technologies spanning satellite communications, space launches, and military artificial intelligence. Starlink has become particularly crucial to essential military programs, ranging from drone operations to missile tracking. The network operates a low-earth orbit constellation of nearly 10,000 satellites, providing the military with a communications system designed to be resilient against potential adversary attacks. However, the Navy's difficulties with Starlink during its autonomous drone program highlight the vulnerabilities inherent in the Pentagon's increasing reliance on a single company and the associated risks. The Pentagon did not respond to questions about the drone test or SpaceX's work with the Navy. The Pentagon's chief information officer, Kirsten Davies, said the "Department leverages multiple, robust, resilient systems for its broad network." Both the Navy and SpaceX did not respond to requests for comment.
Kraken to buy derivatives firm Bitnomial in $550M deal
Bitnomial bills itself as the first crypto-native business in the U.S. to hold CFTC-issued licenses required to operate an exchange, a clearinghouse and a brokerage. Kraken has agreed to buy Bitnomial, a derivatives company, in a deal worth up to $550 million that's expected to close by June, the crypto exchange announced Friday. "The shape of a market is determined by its clearing infrastructure [and] the U.S. has had no clearing infrastructure built for digital assets," Kraken co-CEO Arjun Sethi said in a statement Friday. "Bitnomial spent a decade building ... capabilities that cannot be retrofitted onto legacy systems. "That is the regulated foundation we are adding ... starting with spot margin, perpetuals, and options for US clients under CFTC regulation," Sethi added. Bitnomial bills itself as the first crypto-native business in the U.S. to hold all three Commodity Futures Trading Commission-issued licenses required to operate an exchange, a clearinghouse and a brokerage. "Bitnomial was built on a simple conviction: that the future of derivatives is digital-asset-native, and that the U.S. should lead it, not follow it," the business's founder and CEO, Luke Hoersten, said Friday in a statement. "Joining Payward [Kraken's parent company] means we can now build that future at the scale it deserves." Kraken has made several acquisitions during the second Trump administration, starting with futures platform NinjaTrader for $1.5 billion in March 2025. It continued that trend through the summer and fall, buying no-code trading platform Capitalise.ai in August, multi-asset investment platform Breakout in September, derivatives platform Small Exchange in October and tokenized equities firm Backed in December. More recently, Kraken became the first crypto firm to receive a master account with the Federal Reserve. Sethi confirmed this week the company has filed confidentially for an initial public offering. The Bitnomial transaction values Payward's equity at $20 million. The companies tout the acquisition as one that "opens a new channel for partners, including fintechs, banks, brokerages and payment providers to offer regulated U.S. derivatives products to their own end users through a single integration." Buying Bitnomial adds regulated U.S. derivatives to a stable of capabilities that includes crypto trading, tokenized equities staking and on/off-ramps, Kraken said. As for the future Hoersten is hinting at, Bitnomial, in the release, said it envisions "crypto-settled products, tokenized assets and eventually the kind of continuous, capital-efficient contracts that have transformed global markets."
Anthropic's Claude Design turns chatbot conversations into prototypes, slide decks, and marketing assets
The tool runs on the Claude Opus 4.7 vision model and is currently offered as a Research Preview to subscribers on the Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise plans. Anthropic is launching Claude Design, a tool that lets users create designs, prototypes, presentation slides, and one-pagers just by chatting with the bot. The product sits under Anthropic Labs and runs on Claude Opus 4.7, which the company calls its most powerful vision model yet. It's rolling out as a research preview for Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise subscribers. Enterprise customers won't see it right away. The feature is off by default and has to be turned on by an admin in the organization settings. Anthropic is going after two audiences here. First, designers, who rarely have the time to prototype a dozen different directions. And second, founders, product managers, and marketers who have ideas but no design chops. The pitch, in Anthropic's words, is to give "designers room to explore widely and everyone else a way to produce visual work." If you've used a chat-based AI tool before, the workflow will feel familiar. You describe what you want, Claude spits out a first version, and then you refine it through conversation, inline comments, direct edits, or custom sliders. Claude builds the sliders itself, and they control things like spacing, color, and layout. The tool can also read codebases and design files to build a design system with colors, typography, and components, then apply that system automatically to new projects. Teams can maintain multiple systems side by side. Claude Design takes text prompts, uploaded images, and documents in DOCX, PPTX, and XLSX formats, plus references to codebases. A web capture tool grabs elements straight from live websites, so prototypes can closely mirror the real thing. So far, Anthropic says teams have used the tool to turn static mockups into interactive prototypes, sketch out wireframes for product features, build pitch decks from rough outlines, and put together marketing assets like landing pages and social graphics. Exports work in PPTX, PDF, HTML, and Canva, or you can share a document through an internal organization URL. The company also refers to so-called "Frontier Designs", in which code-supported prototypes can be built with voice, video, shaders, 3D graphics and built-in AI. Once a design is complete, Claude creates a handoff bundle that can be passed to Claude Code for implementation with a single command. Anthropic has announced that it will facilitate integrations with other tools in the coming weeks. For collaboration, Claude Design offers organization-wide restricted sharing. Documents can remain private, be made readable via a link, or be released for editing. Colleagues with editing rights can work on the same document in a shared group conversation with Claude. Access is bundled into each subscription and falls under the usual usage limits, which users can stretch further with "extra usage." To get started, head to claude.ai/design. Anthropic recently launched Anthropic Labs, an umbrella brand for experimental products where the company tests new applications beyond the standard chat interface. Claude Design fits into a broader push to tie Anthropic's language and vision models to real-world workflows, putting it in direct competition with design and presentation platforms like Figma and Canva, along with prototyping tools like Vercel's v0.
Anthropic CEO To Visit White House Over Pentagon Lawsuit
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei plans to visit the White House on Friday to meet with President Donald Trump's top adviser in an effort to resolve the company's ongoing lawsuit with the Pentagon. Amodei is meeting with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Axios reported. The company filed a lawsuit in March, after the Pentagon formally notified the artificial intelligence company that its products pose a risk to the U.S. supply chain. Despite the lawsuit, the government is reportedly considering granting federal agencies access to Anthropic's advanced AI model "Mythos." In an email on Tuesday, Gregory Barbaccia, CIO at the White House Office of Management and Budget, said that the department is preparing safeguards to give agencies access to Mythos. This will reportedly be a modified version of the advanced AI model. The email did not specify a timeline for the rollout. Mythos was announced earlier this month. It is part of Anthropic's "Project Glasswing," which allows select organizations to access the unreleased Claude Mythos Preview model. "It would be grossly irresponsible for the U.S. government to deprive itself of the technological leaps that the new model presents. It would be a gift to China," a source close to negotiations told Axios. This is the second time that Amodei has met with White House officials. In February, the CEO held a meeting with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to discuss the government's use of Anthropic's AI model, CNBC reported. Photo: Shutterstock Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei set to meet White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles amid AI fight: reports
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei was reportedly set to meet Friday with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, in the wake of a bitter feud in which the Pentagon blacklisted the AI giant and the exec lashed out at the Trump administration. The West Wing meeting was expected as leaders in the US and beyond have been grappling with Anthropic's Mythos, a new artificial-intelligence model that the company itself says could create widespread online disruption due to its ability to breach cybersecurity defenses. "It would be grossly irresponsible for the US government to deprive itself of the technological leaps that the new model presents," a source close to the talks told Axios. "It would be a gift to China." The White House confab comes as Anthropic has been in discussions to provide government agencies with advance access to the system, according to the Wall Street Journal. The administration has convened meetings involving Vice President JD Vance, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, along with senior execs including Amodei, to coordinate preparations for Mythos. Instead of a public release, Anthropic has unveiled "Project Glasswing," a plan to share Mythos with a handpicked group of about 40 companies including Amazon, Apple, CrowdStrike, Google, JPMorgan Chase and Nvidia. They are receiving early access to the model so they can use it to find and fix security flaws. Anthropic and the White House have feuded for months over safety restrictions. After the company refused to remove safeguards blocking its AI models from being used to power autonomous weapons or mass surveillance of Americans, the Pentagon last month labeled the company a supply-chain risk -- barring it from working with the Department of War and prohibiting contractors from using Anthropic's AI models in their work with the Pentagon. The White House directed all federal agencies to drop Anthropic's tech, too. Meanwhile, Amodei lashed out at the president in a leaked internal email, accusing the Department of War of targeting Anthropic for not giving "dictator-style praise to Trump." The exec later apologized, as his company fought the blacklisting in court. Still, the feds have been prepping a version of Mythos for key agencies, according to Bloomberg. Recent days have seen staff from two large agencies contact Anthropic about integrating Mythos into their cyber-defense projects, Politico reported. Anthropic has been working with lobbyists with White House ties as it tries to ease the tensions, according to the Journal. Following the blacklisting, the company hired mega-lobbyist Brian Ballard, the publication reported. He raised over $50 million for Trump's 2024 presidential run. The company works with Carlos Trujillo, a veteran of the first Trump White House, too. The Pentagon reached agreements with Anthropic rivals OpenAI and xAI to use their models in classified settings. But security analysts say it could take months before those systems are integrated into operations at the level Anthropic's technology has achieved.
Anthropic introduces Claude Design, powered by Opus 4.7 | News.az
Anthropic Labs has recently unveiled a new product called Claude Design, designed for its flagship AI model. The tool, as described by Anthropic, enables users to collaborate with Claude to produce polished visual work such as designs, prototypes, slides, one-pagers, and more. The company is billing the tool as a way for non-designers to mock up visuals, and a way for designers to quickly test out a range of initial prototypes. It's powered by Claude's most recent new model, Opus 4.7, which is trained to handle difficult coding prompts and complex, long-running tasks, News.Az reports, citing foreign media. Claude Design is available starting today to Claude Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise Subscribers. Anthropic joins a growing number of companies developing their own AI-based design tools, including Figma, Canva, Adobe Express, and Google's Stitch. As each of these companies expands its AI capabilities, the segmentation between their capabilities is becoming less and less pronounced: Canva is an AI company with design tools, Figma is a UX company running on AI, and, now, aixploria.comis a powerful chatbot with a design and UX assistant. How Claude Design works Claude Design functions like an ultra-intelligent middle man between designers and product engineers. To use the tool, users start with a text prompt, as well as supplementary materials they want to use for reference, like a codebase, images, or documents. For example, a user might type, "Prototype a serene mobile meditation app. It should have calming typography, subtle nature-inspired colors, and a clean layout." From there, Claude Design will produce a first draft. The tool's UX is designed to make editing intuitive: an inline comment box facilitates specific tweaks, like, in this case, adding a dark mode toggle; custom sliders automatically spawn for small adjustments, such as color and type size; and users can also make direct edits on the draft themselves. It's clearly designed to feel iterative and collaborative; like bouncing ideas off of a very fast colleague. This same workflow applies whether a user is making an app, a webpage, a powerpoint, or a social media post. Bigger teams can bring Claude Design into the loop on their company's needs by uploading a codebase and design files. Claude will then digest that information and create a design system that uses the appropriate colors, typography, and components automatically. Once a design is complete, it can be shared as an internal URL within an organization, saved as a folder, or exported to Canva, PDF, PPTX, or standalone HTML files. Claude Design offers a one-stop shop for design consultation on app prototypes, web UX, and marketing assets, and it feels like an encapsulation of where the industry is headed. In the AI design space, the biggest players aren't specializing -- they're becoming jacks of all trades.
Anthropic's Mike Krieger steps down from Figma's board - The Economic Times
Anthropic's Chief Product Officer, Mike Krieger, has stepped down from Figma's board. This move coincides with Anthropic's reported entry into web design, potentially competing with Figma's core products. Krieger's departure was confirmed in a filing, stating it was not due to any disagreements with Figma.Anthropic's Mike Krieger, the startup's chief product officer, has stepped down from the board of design software firm Figma. The Dario Amodei-led company is reportedly foraying into the web design space, which could compete with Figma's core products. Krieger's departure was disclosed in a filing submitted by Figma to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on April 14. "Krieger's decision was not due to any disagreement with Figma on any matter related to its operations, policies, or practices. The Board thanks Krieger for his service and contributions to Figma and the Board," the filing mentioned. The development comes just as Anthropic released Opus 4.7 on Thursday, the latest upgrade in its flagship Opus family of large language models (LLMs). The update is expected to introduce design capabilities that could challenge Figma's core offerings. According to The Information, Anthropic's push into the web design space aims to enable users, regardless of technical expertise, to create presentations, websites, landing pages, and other digital products using natural language prompts. Valued at roughly $10 billion, Figma builds widely used tools for designing interfaces for websites and applications. In February, the company also announced a partnership with Anthropic to integrate its Claude AI models into Figma's platform as design assistants. Krieger was previously a cofounder and chief technology officer (CTO) of Instagram between 2010 and 2018, and is also known as the cofounder of the AI news app Artifact. According to his LinkedIn profile, he joined Anthropic as chief product officer in 2024 and transitioned to the startup's newly organised Labs team in January this year. The team is dedicated to incubating products at the frontier of Claude's capabilities. According to TechCrunch, Krieger joined Figma's board less than a year ago.
BingX Brings SpaceX Pre-IPO Exposure On-Chain, Expanding Its Gateway to Future-Valued Assets - CryptoCurrencyNews
PANAMA CITY, April 17, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- BingX, a leading cryptocurrency exchange and Web3-AI company, has announced the launch of SpaceX Pre-IPO perpetual futures, alongside the introduction of the SpaceX Xpool Airdrop campaign. This dual initiative enables users to gain exposure to one of the most closely watched private companies while earning rewards through participation. SPACEX (VNTL) perpetual futures officially launched on April 14, 2026, and quickly gained strong traction among users, with SPACEX (PreStocks) launching on April 16, 2026. Within the first 24 hours of its launch, SpaceX (VNTL) rose to the third-largest new TradFi asset on the platform by trading volume. BingX is also introducing a dedicated airdrop event for SpaceX Pre-IPO RWA, offering structured rewards for new users and exclusive benefits for VIP members, with BingX Xpool staking to become available from April 21, 2026. This initiative reinforces BingX's commitment to enhancing user experience while leveraging its proven track record of delivering stable returns through the Xpool ecosystem. "SpaceX is exactly the type of high-interest asset that users have historically been unable to access," said Pablo Monti, Spokesperson at BingX. "This launch not only expands our TradFi offerings, but also bridging the gap by unlocking access to high-growth private market opportunities." About BingX Founded in 2018, BingX is a leading crypto exchange and Web3-AI company, serving over 40 million users worldwide. Ranked among the top five global crypto derivatives exchanges and a pioneer of crypto copy trading, BingX addresses the evolving needs of users across all experience levels. Powered by a comprehensive suite of AI-driven products and services, including futures, spot, copy trading, and TradFi offerings, BingX empowers users with innovative tools designed to enhance performance, confidence, and efficiency. BingX has been the principal partner of Chelsea FC since 2024, and became the first official crypto exchange partner of Scuderia Ferrari HP in 2026.
Claude Design: Anthropic Pushes Opus 4.7 Into Production With Bigger Visual Reach
Claude Design moved into a new phase on April 16, 2026, as Anthropic released Opus 4. 7 and positioned it as its latest production model. The update targets autonomous software engineering, longer agentic work, and higher-resolution visual processing. Pricing on the API stays unchanged at $5 per million input tokens and $25 per million output tokens. Claude Design gains in coding, vision, and long-task handling The most striking result in Claude Design is the jump on SWE-bench Pro, the benchmark tied to agentic coding. Opus 4. 7 reaches 64. 3 percent, ahead of Opus 4. 6 at 53. 4 percent, GPT-5. 4 at 57. 7 percent, and Gemini 3. 1 Pro at 54. 2 percent. On SWE-bench Verified, the score rises to 87. 6 percent. Anthropic also says the model reaches 94. 2 percent on GPQA Diamond, a doctoral-level reasoning benchmark, putting it close to GPT-5. 4 Pro at 94. 4 percent. The company is presenting Claude Design as a model built for long, complex tasks with limited supervision, including multi-session projects that must stay coherent from start to finish. New visual support and a finer API control point A second shift in Claude Design is image handling. Opus 4. 7 processes images at a resolution three times higher than Opus 4. 6, which Anthropic says should improve interfaces, slides, and generated documents. The related release note also points to a maximum image size of 2, 576 pixels on the long side. On the API, Anthropic adds a new effort level called "xhigh, " placed between "high" and "max. " That gives developers a more precise way to balance reasoning depth and latency. The model also keeps the same token pricing as Opus 4. 6, a detail that matters for teams watching cost as closely as capability. Claude Design and the competition for professional workflows The new release lands in a crowded field. Anthropic places Opus 4. 7 against GPT-5. 4 and Gemini 3. 1 Pro across several evaluations, while also stressing that Claude Mythos Preview remains reserved for a limited set of cybersecurity partners in the Project Glasswing program. In that setup, Anthropic is effectively running two tracks: Opus for commercial deployment and Mythos for the frontier. Anthropic says the model also shows stronger literal instruction-following, which may force developers to revisit prompts that worked more loosely on Opus 4. 6. The same release highlights filesystem-based memory across sessions, meant to preserve notes and reduce the need to rebuild context. Immediate reaction from the benchmark picture Artificial Analysis identified GDPval-AA, the evaluation Anthropic cites for economically valuable knowledge work across finance, law, and related fields. Anthropic says Opus 4. 7 leads that benchmark, alongside a state-of-the-art result on Finance Agent, reinforcing the company's push beyond coding alone. In practical terms, Claude Design is being framed as a tool for professional workflows that mix analysis, documents, and long-running execution. What happens next for Claude Design Claude Design is already available to Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise subscribers, and through the API, Amazon Bedrock, Vertex AI, and Microsoft Foundry. The next test will be how quickly developers adapt prompts, workflows, and review processes to the model's more literal instruction handling and higher-resolution visual output. For teams watching the pace of model releases, Claude Design now sits at the center of Anthropic's most aggressive production push yet.
Claude Design Marks Anthropic's New 2-Track Push Into Products and Power
Anthropic's latest move suggests the company is no longer treating claude design as a side experiment. Instead, it is tying a new AI-powered design tool to Claude Opus 4. 7 while keeping Mythos out of public release. That combination matters because it points to a split strategy: one model for commercial reach, another for higher-risk testing. With venture capital offers rising and enterprise demand accelerating, the shift raises a sharper question about what Anthropic wants to become next. Why the timing matters now The release comes after concerns around Mythos and cyber risk helped shape expectations for Anthropic's next step. Opus 4. 7 is being positioned as the public-facing model, while Mythos remains the more advanced system reserved for early partners testing security vulnerabilities in software. That distinction is central to understanding the company's current direction. The new tool also extends Anthropic beyond chat interfaces and developer products into visual workflows, putting claude design at the center of a broader push into websites, landing pages, and presentations. This timing is important because Anthropic is not entering a quiet market. The design category already includes entrenched products from Adobe and Figma, while Google Stitch, Microsoft Designer, Gamma, and Wix are also in the frame. The company's move is therefore less about adding another feature and more about attempting to redefine the starting point of design itself. What Claude Design changes in the market The key difference is not incremental automation. The design tool would let users describe what they want in natural language and have the model build the first version. That shifts the product from assisting a designer to replacing the first drafting step. In practical terms, that could compress the time and cost needed to create digital assets that help drive conversion in digital commerce. That is where the competitive pressure becomes tangible. Adobe and Figma are built around human-led workflows, even when AI is embedded inside them. Anthropic's approach is more direct. If claude design can generate usable starting points for non-technical users, agencies and in-house teams that bill for early-stage design work may face a new kind of competition: the tool itself. The market reaction has already reflected that concern, with Adobe, Wix, and Figma each falling more than two percent after the plans became public. Anthropic's broader business picture also explains why the company may be moving this way. Its annualized revenue has climbed from $9 billion to $30 billion, and more than 1, 000 enterprise customers now spend over $1 million each year. Those numbers suggest a company under pressure to turn technical momentum into a wider product stack. Expert signals point to a dual-track strategy Named experts and institutional data point to a company operating on two levels at once. Eric Karazanian, lead economist at Ramp, has estimated that Anthropic's enterprise business could overtake OpenAI's soon, a sign that commercial adoption remains strong even as product complaints circulate in the market. Separately, the company has said it does not have enough compute, and that constraint appears to be shaping how capacity is allocated between public users and enterprise customers. Institutional and market data support the scale of the ambition. Venture capitalists have offered valuations up to $800 billion, more than double Anthropic's $380 billion valuation from its February funding round. On the secondary market platform Caplight, the company is already trading at $688 billion. Those figures do not prove durability, but they do show that investors are pricing in much more than a single model release. The same pattern appears in pricing. Anthropic has reworked Claude Enterprise from a flat fee of up to $200 per user per month to a $20 base fee plus usage-based compute charges. For heavy users, that could mean costs doubling or tripling. That pricing shift suggests the company is trying to align revenue more closely with inference costs at the same time that demand for Claude Code and Claude Cowork is increasing pressure on compute. Regional and global ripple effects The immediate effects are likely to be felt far beyond Anthropic's own customer base. A tool like claude design could alter how startups, enterprise teams, and agencies approach product development, especially when the output is a website, landing page, or presentation that traditionally required multiple steps and specialist input. The broader industry response also matters because AI competition is increasingly moving from model quality to workflow control. That makes the global implications larger than a single product launch. If the company's dual-track approach works, public users get a commercial layer in Opus 4. 7 and design tools, while select partners continue testing Mythos for security research. If it does not, the company risks being pulled between hype, compute constraints, and rising expectations. The pace of releases has been roughly every two weeks since January, and that rhythm suggests Anthropic is trying to keep momentum alive even as scrutiny intensifies. For now, the clearest signal is strategic: Anthropic appears to be building a stack, not just a model. The question is whether claude design becomes the proof point for that ambition or the place where the company meets its toughest competition.
Anthropic CEO Visits White House to Address AI Model Hacking Concerns
On Friday, Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, will meet with Susie Wiles, the White House Chief of Staff. This meeting underscores the federal government's urgency in grasping the national security implications of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) models. AI Model Hacking Concerns Anthropic's recent advancements in AI technology have raised significant questions. Policymakers are particularly focused on understanding the potential risks associated with AI model hacking. Dario Amodei's presence at the White House highlights the importance of addressing these fears. Key Points of the Meeting * Participants: Dario Amodei and Susie Wiles * Date: Friday * Focus: National security implications of AI * Concerns: AI model hacking The discussion aims to explore how federal oversight can help mitigate risks arising from powerful AI technologies. As AI continues to evolve, ensuring its safe and responsible use has become a pressing concern for the government. Importance of Collaboration The meeting demonstrates a collaborative approach between tech leaders and government officials. Such dialogues are essential for developing policies that can safeguard national security while fostering innovation in AI. As discussions unfold, stakeholders will look for strategies to balance technology advancement with necessary regulations. The outcome could shape the future of AI governance in the United States.
Anthropic launches Claude Design for prototypes
The new research preview, powered by Claude Opus 4.7, lets users build prototypes and decks. Anthropic introduced Claude Design Today, a new product built for people who need to produce visual work quickly but don't come from a design background. The tool, developed under the company's Anthropic Labs division, is available now in research preview for Claude Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise subscribers. This new Design is not an image generator. It is closer in spirit to a visual prototyping assistant. Users describe what they want, and the tool builds a first version. From there, the design can be refined through conversation, inline comments or direct edits. Custom sliders, generated by Claude itself, allow users to adjust spacing, color and layout in real time. The product is powered by Claude Opus 4.7, a model Anthropic released Thursday with improved visual intelligence and stronger performance across coding and multi-step tasks. What Claude Design actually does The tool covers a range of visual work. Founders and account executives can turn rough outlines into presentation decks. Product managers can sketch feature flows and pass them directly to Claude Code for implementation. Marketers can produce landing pages, social assets and campaign visuals. Designers working under time pressure can spin up interactive prototypes without going through code review. For teams, Claude Design can read a company's codebase and design files during onboarding to build a custom design system. Once that system is in place, every project the tool creates automatically uses the company's colors, typography and components. Teams can maintain more than one design system and refine them over time. Finished work can be exported as a PDF, PPTX, standalone HTML file or shared as an internal URL. Users can also send designs directly to Canva, where they become fully editable and collaborative. Anthropic said the two tools are intended to work together rather than compete. Claude Design is built for getting from an idea to something visual fast. Canva is where teams polish and collaborate on the result. How Claude Design fits Anthropic's broader direction The launch is part of a broader push by Anthropic into enterprise and professional tools. In January, the company introduced Claude Cowork, an agentic assistant designed for complex workplace tasks. Weeks later, it added plug-ins to Cowork intended to automate specialized functions across different departments. Claude Design follows the same logic. Anthropic has built its reputation on models trusted by businesses and developers, and its entry into visual creation reflects that same orientation. The focus is on slide decks, wireframes and prototypes rather than the kind of open-ended creative generation that has drawn criticism from artists and illustrators. The company has largely stayed away from consumer-facing image and video generation, and this Design stays on that side of the line. What comes next Anthropic said it plans to expand Claude Design's integrations over the coming weeks so teams can connect it to more of the tools already in their workflows. For Enterprise organizations, the product is turned off by default and must be enabled by an administrator in organization settings. The rollout is gradual and access is included in existing subscription plans, with the option to continue beyond standard usage limits by enabling extra usage. Users can access the tool at claude.ai/design. The launch comes days after a Bloomberg report that venture capitalists have offered Anthropic a preemptive funding round that would value the company at $800 billion or more, which would nearly match its rival OpenAI. Anthropic has not pursued those offers, according to the report.
Anthropic-OpenAI Race Obscures The Real Cybersecurity Breakdown: Analysis
As the two AI platforms pursue competing initiatives over vulnerability discovery, the question of who will win is the least of security teams' concerns. Following the announcement heard-round-the-world last week from Anthropic about its progress on AI-powered vulnerability discovery with Claude Mythos, OpenAI followed up this week with not one, but two, announcements of its own in the space. Security teams, however, are not wasting any time pondering which horse to bet on. [Related: Anthropic Claude Mythos Suggests Vulnerability Management Will Soon 'Break': Forrester] OpenAI introduced its Trusted Access for Cyber initiative back in early February, highlighting the usefulness of GPT‑5.3‑Codex for rapidly uncovering software flaws. However, it was clearly Anthropic's disclosure of the vulnerability discovery gains being made in its unreleased Claude Mythos model that has gained the lion's share of attention so far from CISOs and security teams. In part, that's because Anthropic simultaneously announced its "Project Glasswing" initiative featuring collaborations with a who's who of the tech and security industries. This week, OpenAI responded with the announcement of GPT‑5.4‑Cyber on Tuesday, followed by another update Thursday on Trusted Access for Cyber. The latter announcement disclosed that initiative supporters include Cisco, CrowdStrike, Nvidia, Oracle and Zscaler. As with Anthropic's Project Glasswing, the goal of the OpenAI initiative is to "build the trust, verification and accountability needed to make these tools available" the cyber defense teams, OpenAI said in a post. For those keeping score at home, Anthropic also announced general availability Thursday for Claude Opus 4.7 -- a model with cyber capabilities that, though useful, are "not as advanced as those of Mythos Preview," Anthropic said in a post. Most security leaders and professionals, however, are likely not going to care very much about who is in the lead in the AI vulnerability discovery race. "That's the pulse that I'm getting from CISOs," Presidio's Dan Lohrmann told me this week. Instead, security teams are rightfully focusing on what the announcements mean for the threat landscape. Namely: the surge in cyberattacks they will face as soon as attackers get their hands on comparable, or even semi-comparable, capabilities. Smart CISOs realize "you cannot assume that, somehow, this is a secret that's going to stay secret," said Lohrmann, field CISO for public sector at solution provider powerhouse Presidio. The reality is, while there may be a window of time before attackers can fully tap into Anthropic- or OpenAI-level cyber capabilities, the required shift in patching schedules is going to so severe that organizations will need all the time they can get. That is, "you need to take immediate action now," Lohrmann said. Likewise, Bugcrowd's Trey Ford pointed out that AI platforms competing around frontier model access doesn't directly address the far bigger hurdles these models are exacerbating in vulnerability management. "The bottleneck was never the AI model," wrote Ford, chief strategy and trust officer at crowdsourced cybersecurity platform Bugcrowd, in email comments provided to media outlets Thursday. The far bigger concern, he wrote, is the massive shortcomings of human-coordinated processes needed to actually remediate the coming swarms of AI-discovered bugs. This latest phase of the AI platform rivalry is no doubt interesting to watch. But given the unprecedented security challenges that AI is on track to create, according to Ford, the OpenAI vs. Anthropic race is simply "the wrong conversation for security leaders this week."
Kraken to buy derivatives exchange Bitnomial for $550m in latest acquisition
This week, the crypto exchange said it had confidentially filed for a US initial public offering. Kraken's parent company, Payward, will buy derivatives exchange Bitnomial for over half a billion dollars in the American crypto exchange's latest acquisition. The Cheyenne, Wyoming-based company said Friday that it was buying Bitnomial for up to $550 million payable in cash and stock in a transaction that values Payward's equity at $20 billion. Kraken said the deal would help it update its infrastructure so it can offer round-the-clock trading of other assets. Kraken is pushing into the traditional finance world, allowing users to trade stocks, bonds, and other assets. It is even selling one of its products, the Krak mobile money app, as a "primary account for everything." "The US has had no clearing infrastructure built for digital assets," Arjun Sethi, co-CEO of Payward and Kraken, said. "Bitnomial spent a decade building it: crypto settlement, crypto collateral, continuous 24/7 markets. These are capabilities that cannot be retrofitted onto legacy systems." Kraken will add Buitnomial's spot margin, perpetuals, and options services for US clients, Sethi said. "Bitnomial was built on a simple conviction: that the future of derivatives is digital-asset-native, and that the US should lead it, not follow it," Luke Hoersten, fFounder and CEO of Bitnomial, said. He added: "Joining Payward means we can now build that future at the scale it deserves." Kraken is fast making acquisitions as part of its growth strategy. In 2025, the company made five acquisitions. Kraken co-CEO Arjun Sethi told DL News in September that the crypto exchange had more deals lined up. The company's portfolio now includes futures trading platform NinjaTrade, which it bought for $1.5 billion, proprietary trading form Breakout, tokenised assets platform Backed Finance, and token management platform Magna. Kraken this week confirmed that it had confidentially filed for a US initial public offering. It previously filed a draft statement of the Form S-1 to the Securities and Exchange Commission in November. The crypto exchange was initially expected to go public in the first quarter of the year, but froze the plans on hold due to the lacklustre market conditions, according to reports.
