Ion Stoica, the cofounder of Databricks, has a new startup called SkyPilot. The pitch is disarmingly simple: companies need computers, different providers sell those computers, switching between them is painful and expensive, so SkyPilot makes it easy to use any of them.
In Stoica’s own words, the result is “more compute, better compute, cheaper compute.”
What SkyPilot actually does SkyPilot originated from UC Berkeley’s Sky Computing Lab, where Stoica and cofounder Zongheng Yang developed the framework as an open-source project. The core research paper was presented at the NSDI 2023 conference, and the underlying concept is what the team calls “sky computing.”
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SkyPilot lets companies run AI workloads across AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, and specialized providers as if they were a single, unified resource pool. Instead of signing a long-term contract with one cloud provider, companies can dynamically shift workloads to wherever compute is cheapest or most available at any given moment.
The framework includes automatic failover mechanisms and optimization for spot instances, those discounted compute resources that cloud providers sell when they have excess capacity. SkyPilot handles the job migration automatically, so a workload interrupted on one cloud can resume on another without human intervention.
By mid-2026, the project had announced a managed control plane integration with Nebius AI Cloud and expanded partnerships with providers like Runpod and AMD hardware, signaling a growing ecosystem around the technology.
What this means for investors SkyPilot is transitioning from a UC Berkeley research project into a commercial entity, following a playbook that Stoica has executed before. Stoica cofounded Databricks, which grew into one of the most valuable private companies in enterprise software. He also cofounded Anyscale, the company behind the Ray distributed computing framework.
SkyPilot faces competition from cloud providers themselves, all of whom have strong incentives to keep customers locked into their ecosystems. AWS, Google, and Microsoft aren’t going to make interoperability easy out of goodwill.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Brazil’s Largest Bank Expands Bitcoin and Ether Trading to All Customers
Sujha Sundararajan
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Sujha Sundararajan
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Sujha has been recognised as 🟣 Women In Crypto 2024 🟣 by BeInCrypto for her leadership in crypto journalism.
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June 12, 2024
Brazil-based Itaú Unibanco, one of the largest private banks in Latin America, has announced expanding its Bitcoin and Ether trading services to all customers.
The bank with over 60 million customers, started offering to buy and sell cryptos through its investment platform – ‘Ion’ – in December 2023. Initially, the bank offered the services to selected clients, slowly opening to wider customer base who download the platform’s app.
Guto Antunes, head of Itaú Digital Assets, confirmed the move during an interview with a local publication on Monday. He noted that the bank has been carrying out weekly surveys with customers for whom cryptocurrency operations were permitted.
The survey found high degree of acceptance and that clients had huge trust in Itaú’s custody. Notably, the financial institution did not hire third-party services to keep customers’ crypto wallets safe, but created a tool internally. However, the bank received support from tokenizer Liqi for the development of the solution.
“We have a stake and a partnership with Liqi, but nothing in terms of custody. The entire custody solution, since it was conceived, was created with architecture and fiduciary duty within Itaú.”
In Align With the Central Bank of Brazil Further, the bank created a separate digital wallet for each client, Antunes added. This would satisfy the asset segregation requirements, required by Brazil’s Central Bank (BC) in the infra legal regulation of cryptos.
Brazil’s central bank has planned to divide crypto regulation process into segments, with regulatory proposals expected by the end of this year.
The bank’s ‘Ion’ app saw over 3.5 million downloads both in Android and iOS, per Antunes’ statement. “Even in the staggered phase it was a relevant number for the crypto universe and a surprise,” he noted.
The bank currently supports Bitcoin and Ether trading, with plans to expand it to other cryptocurrencies as customer demand rises. This also depends on the process of regulatory risk analysis, he said.
Additionally, Itaú is anticipating the BC to present a set of rules that provide clarity on stablecoin operations in Brazil.
“We are aligned with the BC in the development of regulation, we want to grow in the right way.”
Antunes said that the real challenge during the testing was training managers on advising clients regarding the new asset type. “We created a network-first solution, an AI chatbot, that experts and managers have access to to understand key customer questions,” he added.
The bank’s 60 million customers can now buy BTC and ETH through the firm’s Ion app.
The largest banking institution in Latin America has opened the doors for all of its clients to get exposure to Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Itaú Unibanco, Brazil’s largest bank by assets under management, is now offering BTC and ETH trading to its more than 60 million clients. Users can access both tokens through the company’s Ion app.
In December 2023, Itaú launched the cryptocurrency trading platform for select clients. According to the firm’s Head of Digital Assets, Guto Antunes, the bank decided to expand its operations due to weekly surveys showing high demand for crypto services.
Although the company is only offering the two largest assets by market capitalization, the idea is to add support for other tokens in the future. "It starts with bitcoin, but our overarching strategic plan is to expand to other crypto assets in the future," Antunes said last year.
Institutions in Brazil have been relentlessly pushing the envelope when it comes to crypto services in the country. Alongside Itaú’s crypto trading platform unveiled last year, Brazilian neobank Nubank partnered with Circle to offer USDC access to the company’s 80 million customers.
Latin America is quietly becoming a regional powerhouse in terms of crypto adoption. Recently, a grassroots Argentinean organization called Crecimiento revealed plans to create a Crypto Silicon Valley in Buenos Aires. Across the Andes, Chile has been paving the way for friendlier regulation in terms of fintech companies, with the country approving a new financial technologies law in 2023.
And the region is one that desperately needs more financial inclusion. It is home to more than 650 million people, of which 122 million are unbanked, while citizens of several nations grapple with double and triple-digit inflation.
Ion Protocol secures $7 million to develop its Nucleus platform, aimed at improving monetization for rollups and appchains. Nucleus will enable networks to offer native yields for assets backed by ETH, BTC, and USD, incentivizing deposits and maximizing the value of bridged assets. The platform addresses a common limitation of Ethereum rollups by providing default yields and optimizing liquidity through infrastructure products and loans.
Ion Protocol has successfully secured a $7 million investment to support the development of its innovative native yield platform, Nucleus. The funds come from various investors, including Gumi Capital Cryptos, Robot Ventures, BanklessVC, NGC Ventures, Finality Capital, and SevenX Ventures. The raised capital will be used to enhance the platform, which aims to address monetization challenges for rollups and appchains while promoting new decentralized use cases.
Nucleus is a key solution designed to improve the yield of assets transferred to rollup and appchain networks. Through this platform, any network will be able to offer its users native yields for assets backed by ETH, BTC, and USD. The system provides financial incentives for making deposits into the networks, allowing users to generate returns on a wide range of assets simply by integrating into the network environment.
The Ion team is proud to announce Nucleus, the 1st step in transforming how users interact with networks.
The Nucleus vision is one where networks can bring safe yield to their users at scale.
Join us in our journey with Nucleus as we expand the scope of what Ion will enable! https://t.co/xOz2SNZlHS
— Ion Protocol (@ionprotocol) August 12, 2024
Nucleus co-founder Chunda McCain stated that participating in the staking and restaking ecosystem to generate yield is becoming a powerful economic incentive for everyone involved in the crypto economy. He noted that networks failing to offer their users the option to maximize the value of their bridged assets are missing out on revenue opportunities.
Nucleus Breaks the Limitations of Rollups Nucleus’s plug-and-play platform allows rollups to innovate on their existing business models and ecosystem designs, making deposits genuinely attractive to users. Additionally, it addresses a common limitation in Ethereum rollup solutions, which often provide cheaper and faster transactions but require users to forgo staking yields on the mainnet, where returns are around 3-4%.
Bridged assets typically do not earn interest, representing a significant opportunity cost. Nucleus aims to provide default yields for users across more than 20 rollups and appchains in the coming months.
The platform sources its yield from infrastructure products like bridges and oracle networks, transferring the revenue to networks, apps, and users. Additionally, Nucleus uses capital lent on its lending platform and reallocates unused borrower liquidity to facilitate smooth liquidity movement between chains. This strategy aims to minimize risks and optimize performance for users and networks.
Ion Protocol plans to use the fresh capital to build its native yield protocol called Nucleus. Nucleus is designed to address rollups and appchain issues related to monetisation. The platform gets its yield by securing other platforms like Oracle networks and bridges. Ion Protocol has secured $4.8 million in a funding round backed by Gumi Capital Cryptos, Robot Ventures, BanklessVC, NGC Ventures, Finality Capital and SevenX Ventures.
Ion Protocol is building a rollups and appchains layer that allows decentralised apps, networks and users to earn yield by depositing any staked or restaked asset.
According to the announcement, Ion gets its yield by securing other platforms like Oracle networks and bridges, which are then passed on to depositors.
The company plans to use the fresh capital to accelerate the development of its native yield platform dubbed Nucleus.
Explaining how Nucleus works, the team told The Block that any network can use the platform to provide its users with native yield for ETH, BTC and USD-backed assets, providing a financial incentive for users to make deposits on the networks.
Commenting on the fundraising Nucleus co-founder Chunda McCain said in a statement: “Participating in the staking and restaking ecosystem to generate yield has become and will only become a more powerful economic incentive for every stakeholder in crypto.”
“Any network unable to provide their users with the option to maximise the value of their bridged assets and bring new sources of revenue to their ecosystem is leaving money on the table. Our plug-and-play platform allows rollups to innovate on their pre-existing business models and ecosystem design while making depositing truly compelling for users.”
Ion Protocol also claims its platform can be used to lend or borrow against any staked or restaked asset with no exposure to price-based liquidation risk. It has built a zero-knowledge machine learning framework, which underwrites the credit risk thus enabling “hyper-efficient loans” with minimal liquidation risk.
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Business leader and consultant Jake Claver recently shared insights into the potential price trajectory of XRP during a discussion on YouTube.
Claver suggested XRP could experience dramatic growth, possibly reaching prices in the four-digit range. He provided a breakdown of the key factors that could fuel this XRP value surge.
XRP Role in Global Financial Infrastructure First, Claver pointed to the growing global financial infrastructure around digital assets. He highlighted Project Ion by R3 and the DTCC, which aims to streamline financial markets through real-time settlement using digital assets.
According to Claver, this infrastructure is already in place and could serve as the foundation for XRP’s widespread adoption. With the possibility of settling transactions in real-time using tokens like XRP, Claver asserted that the digital asset is in a promising position within global finance.
Furthermore, Claver discussed XRP’s potential in a hypothetical scenario where it could rival SWIFT in global transaction processing. He noted that if XRP could capture just 10% of SWIFT’s market share, prices could rise to between $50 and $100. He pointed out that this market handles over $5 trillion daily transactions.
“If you had 10% of SWIFT, a $50 to $100 XRP makes a lot of sense,” he said.
Claver emphasized that both supply and demand would play a major role in driving the surge. He explained that the available supply of XRP is limited, with a large portion already allocated in escrow.
Impact from Institutional Adoption and ETFs Another significant factor driving the potential for XRP’s growth is the surge in institutional interest. Claver discussed how the filings of 17 ETFs related to XRP could pave the way for massive institutional liquidity to flow into the market.
He believes these ETFs could create an environment where XRP becomes a central asset in broader financial markets.
Meanwhile, Claver noted that the resolution of Ripple’s lawsuit with the SEC is crucial for this institutional potential.
Host Zach Rector suggested that, just from ETFs and broader institutional adoption, XRP could rise to around $20 or $30 by the end of this year and into the next.
Crisis Scenario Could Push XRP’s Price to Four Digits One of the more extreme scenarios Claver proposed was the potential for a global financial crisis that could send XRP’s price soaring to four-digit levels. He theorized that if there was a market-wide liquidity crunch, such as exchanges becoming illiquid or issues with Tether, XRP could serve as a mechanism to stabilize the markets.
In this crisis scenario, XRP would drain liquidity from exchanges and the broader financial system.
Claver suggested that as institutional demand for XRP rises due to the need for real-time settlement in a turbulent market, its price could rapidly increase as buyers scramble to secure the limited supply. In his words:
“…if they rolled out these ETFs at the same time exchanges were pushing the value up, I think you could see prices driven to four digits in a very short period of time, with the demand placed on the limited supply that’s still out there.”
Essentially, Claver’s insights paint a picture of an XRP that could far exceed its current price range, with the potential for prices ranging from $100 to $9,999 in the future. However, these predictions remain purely hypothetical.
DisClamier: This content is informational and should not be considered financial advice. The views expressed in this article may include the author's personal opinions and do not reflect The Crypto Basic opinion. Readers are encouraged to do thorough research before making any investment decisions. The Crypto Basic is not responsible for any financial losses.
An official from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has confirmed that El Salvador is complying with an agreement to back away from using Bitcoin (BTC) as a reserve asset.
In a new press briefing, the IMF addresses a question from financial software company Ion Group asking how El Salvador is still accumulating BTC despite agreeing to stop making any more purchases as part of a loan agreement.
[adinserter block="1"]
El Salvador President Nayib Bukele pushed back against those conditions earlier this year, saying,
“’This all stops in April.’ ‘This all stops in June.’ ‘This all stops in December.’
No, it’s not stopping.
If it didn’t stop when the world ostracized us and most ‘Bitcoiners’ abandoned us, it won’t stop now, and it won’t stop in the future.
Proof of work > proof of whining.”
Data from the blockchain “de-anonymizer” Arkham shows that the El Salvador government has been acquiring one BTC every single day for some time.
But Rodrigo Valdes, the director of the IMF’s Western Hemisphere Department, says that despite these purchases, the country is still working within its “performance criteria” set forth by the IMF.
“In terms of El Salvador, let me say that I can confirm that they continue to comply with their commitment of non-accumulation of bitcoin by the overall fiscal sector, which is the performance criteria that we have. But on top of that, I think this is very important for the discussion in El Salvador.
The program of El Salvador is not about bitcoin. It’s much more, much deeper in structural reforms, in terms of governance, in terms of transparency. There is a lot of progress there. And also, on fiscal. And authorities have been making a lot of progress implementing the reform.”
PANews reported on April 22 that NeoCognition, an AI research lab founded by Ohio State professor Yu Su, announced the completion of a $40 million seed funding round. The round was co-led by Cambium Capital and Walden Catalyst Ventures, with participation from Vista Equity Partners, Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, and Databricks co-founder Ion Stoica, among others. NeoCognition focuses on developing self-learning AI agents, aiming to enable intelligent agents to continuously learn and build "world models" in any vertical domain, transitioning from general-purpose to rapidly specialized "expert" agents. The company plans to primarily provide enterprise and SaaS companies with agent systems that can be used to build AI employees or enhance existing products. The team currently consists of approximately 15 people, most of whom hold PhDs.
Key Takeaways GM shares declined 3.8% to $80.60 following the reveal of multiple battery energy initiatives The automaker unveiled a collaboration with Peak Energy focused on sodium-ion battery technology for grid storage Additional announcements included bidirectional charging capabilities and a new electric vehicle charging application UBS analysts reaffirmed their Buy recommendation with a $102 price objective for GM shares May inflation reaching 4.2% likely contributed to negative market sentiment Shares of General Motors tumbled close to 4% on Tuesday following the automaker’s rollout of multiple battery energy initiatives that didn’t generate the market excitement Ford experienced with its energy business launch in the previous month.
General Motors Company, GM
During midday trading sessions, GM shares traded at $80.60, representing a 3.8% decline, contrasting sharply with the S&P 500’s modest 0.1% dip. The sell-off occurred despite the company’s efforts to generate positive headlines.
The battery initiative announcements encompassed bidirectional charging technology, enabling electric vehicles to supply power to residences or feed electricity back into the power grid. Additionally, GM introduced a new electric vehicle charging application and revealed that battery recycling company Redwood Materials plans to utilize decommissioned EV batteries to energize one of its facilities.
The centerpiece announcement involves GM’s strategic collaboration with Peak Energy, an emerging company specializing in grid storage solutions. The partnership will concentrate on developing sodium-ion battery cells designed for large-scale energy storage purposes. GM Ventures has made a strategic capital investment in Peak Energy, while GM secures exclusive manufacturing privileges for cells created in its Michigan battery research facilities.
The Sodium-Ion Advantage Sodium-ion battery technology offers lower production costs compared to lithium-ion alternatives. While they provide less energy density per volume unit, this limitation becomes negligible for fixed storage applications such as utility grids and data center operations.
“When engaging with utilities, hyperscalers, or other electricity providers requiring energy storage capabilities, their main concern isn’t maximizing range or reducing weight,” explained Kurt Kelty, GM’s vice president overseeing battery and sustainability operations. “Their focus is providing dependable, cost-effective power across extended timeframes.”
Following the announcement, UBS analyst Joseph Spak maintained his Buy recommendation and $102 price objective for GM. He emphasized that the sodium-ion technology remains in early development stages, with only laboratory testing facilities operational and no manufacturing plant established. GM hasn’t disclosed the investment size or provided deployment schedules regarding gigawatt capacity.
UBS noted that GM Ventures historically avoids substantial investments, suggesting the Peak Energy stake likely won’t significantly impact GM’s financial statements. The company indicated this venture aligns with its previously announced spending framework.
Ford Set a High Bar GM shareholders may have anticipated a response similar to Ford’s market reaction. Ford shares surged from approximately $12 to $17 in May following the introduction of Ford Energy, its utility-scale battery storage division. Wall Street analysts projected Ford Energy could contribute around $500 million in operating profits by decade’s end.
Ford shares also experienced downward pressure on Tuesday, falling 2.9% to $14.50, indicating some cooling of the earlier investor enthusiasm.
Broader market conditions also worked against GM. U.S. inflation registered at 4.2% in May, marking the highest level in years, which appeared to dampen overall market sentiment.
GM stock has appreciated 73% over the trailing twelve months and currently trades above its Fair Value according to InvestingPro analysis. UBS maintains its $102 price target for the stock.
