What’s going on here?

Investments in private companies like OpenAI and SpaceX are usually reserved for the world’s wealthiest – but just like its namesake, Robinhood is snatching opportunities from the rich and handing them to the masses.

What does this mean?

🇪🇺 Europeans can now buy over 200 American stocks and ETFs on the platform via tokens: digital coins that represent an asset, like shares. The trades are commission-free and available around the clock on weekdays, making them much more accessible to folk in Europe.

🔐 Robinhood’s also planning to offer private investments that way soon, rolling out tokens for OpenAI and SpaceX in Europe this summer. And to make an even bigger splash, it’s giving away $1.5 million worth of those tokens.

🇺🇸 Americans, for their part, can now stake crypto on the app to earn passive income on their coins.

Why should I care?

For markets: Time to trade your leather wallet for a digital one.

Robinhood also announced this week that it’s in the process of building its own blockchain. That new, in-house system (based on Arbitrum) will be faster and cheaper, making it easier to trade crypto and traditional stocks in the same place. It helps, too, that the US has approved a handful of crypto regulations, designed to make the digital currencies more transparent and trustworthy.

The bigger picture: Robinhood is quick and nimble – and not just thanks to those green stockings.

After the last US election, Robinhood quickly reinstated many of the coins that it had previously delisted – including Solana and XRP. (Remember, this president has pledged to make America “the crypto capital of the world”). Plus, the platform’s made a couple of big purchases lately: Canadian WonderFi for nearly $180 million and crypto exchange Bitstamp for around $200 million. Investors approve of the ever-evolving digital strategy: Robinhood’s shares are up 175% from their April lows, when tariffs weighed on most stocks.

What’s going on here?

Apple’s considering swapping its in-house AI models for ones made by OpenAI or Anthropic – so forgive your software engineer friends for flaking to update their resumes.

What does this mean?

👨‍💻 Apple’s famous for tweaking its tech: an extra camera here, a few new emojis there, and suddenly the firm’s stores have customers lining up around the block. But a more radical plan – one to overhaul Siri with homemade AI features – seems to have stumped the company.

🔬 So Apple can either lock its product team in the lab until they finally come up with a solution, or… hand the job off to specialists. And it seems the firm’s leaning toward the latter, reportedly testing custom-made models from OpenAI and Anthropic.

⏰ Unsurprisingly, Apple’s engineers feel a little uneasy. But hey, at least they have the chance to land a nine-figure salary at Meta or OpenAI.

Why should I care?

Zooming out: A penny saved is a penny earned.

If Apple pulls the trigger (or, uh, signs the licensing agreements), the move would be an uncharacteristically thrifty one. See, rather than throwing more good money after bad, a deal would let Apple integrate top-of-the-line tools without having to build or maintain them itself. In comparison, rivals across the industry have stuffed billions of dollars into AI infrastructure. Meta, for example, is raising $29 billion in private credit just to fund data centers. Mind you, one of Apple’s potential solutions wouldn’t exactly come cheap. The firm is reportedly eyeing up Perplexity: the AI search engine recently valued at $14 billion.

For markets: We’ll always have Tesla.

Underwhelmed by Apple’s AI progress, investors have pushed the stock down 16% this year. That makes it the second-worst performer in the Magnificent Seven, outdone only by Tesla. At the same time, investors have rallied behind Nvidia, Microsoft, and Meta – enough, in fact, to send the tech-heavy Nasdaq index to a record high.