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Circle Internet Group released its third-quarter earnings on Wednesday, November 12, announcing a 66% jump in revenue and reserve income year-over-year (YOY). The $740 million figure stemmed, in large part, from a 97% increase YOY of average USDC in circulation. USDC, Circle’s flagship cryptocurrency stablecoin, is pegged to the U.S. dollar. It’s also one of the largest stablecoins in the world. In August, Circle announced Arc, a public blockchain designed specifically for stablecoins, such as USDC. In the earnings report, Circle claimed that over 100 companies are taking part in the launch of Arc public testnet. Jeremy Allaire, cofounder, CEO, and chairman…

The crypto market got some good news on Wednesday morning, as Circle reported better-than-expected earnings numbers, sending its stock soaring. Circle, a fintech company that issues and regulates stablecoins among other things, reported fourth-quarter and full fiscal year 2025 earnings early Wednesday, which showed that total revenue grew 77% to $770 million during the fourth quarter, and net income for the quarter increased by $129 million. Adjusted EBITDA also grew 412% during the quarter. For the full year, total revenue grew 64% to $2.7 billion. In response, Circle shares took off, skyrocketing more than 15% during pre-trading. By midday Wednesday, the stock …

Cisco is the latest company to announce a quantum breakthrough. On Tuesday, the company said it has developed a prototype entanglement source chip that has the potential to cut the timeline for practical quantum computing by as much as a decade. The chip was developed in partnership with UC Santa Barbara and is novel in that it generates up to one million entangled photon pairs per second, and does so at room temperature, saving considerable resources. Additionally, Cisco is also announcing the opening of Cisco Quantum Labs, which will be the company’s dedicated quantum research hub in Santa Monica, California. The chip itself was developed at Cisco’s “Outshift” i…

For 40 years, Cisco has been best known for building routers, switches, and other networking technology that connects computers within offices, data centers, and across the internet. Cisco’s also a software business, known for its cybersecurity products and familiar applications like the conferencing and communications platform Webex. And last year, the company announced the $28 billion acquisition of big data company Splunk, part of Cisco’s growing role in powering data-driven AI technology. Cisco also last year named Jeetu Patel as executive vice president and chief product officer, with the goal of breaking down barriers within the company as it bets big on provi…

Last week, Fast Company reported that regional banking giant TD Bank is planning to close more than 50 U.S. locations by the end of January. But TD Bank isn’t the only regional bank closing branches. In October, Citizens Bank disclosed that at least 14 branches throughout the United States will shutter, according to public filings. Here’s what to know and where they were located. Why is Citizens Bank closing branches? Reached for comment by Fast Company, a Citizens Bank spokesperson said its retail footprint is constantly changing along with people’s banking habits. “We regularly review customer banking patterns and make thoughtful adjustments, opening ne…

Behind its glittery facade, Claire’s is a financial mess. The tween retail icon behind millions of ear piercings and Y2K accessories filed for bankruptcy in August 2025, closing hundreds of stores and selling its North American business for just $104 million. So how does a brand with $1.4 billion in global sales end up with more than $500 million in debt? Fast Company staff writer Elizabeth Segran has been covering the company’s ups and downs for years. In this episode of FC Explains, she breaks down the full Claire’s story, from its mall-era dominance and surprising pandemic comeback to its failed IPO, crushing debt load, tariff difficulties, and the rise of sleeker…

One of the powers of the latest Claude AI model is that it can use any multiple external Python tools to perform complex tasks. And, as software engineer and AI expert Ashe Magalhaes has discovered, it turns out that the model can use these powers to build a Truetype font that you can install in your computer from any scanned page showing a full set of characters. It’s a great, easy way to turn your handwriting into a font, but you can use it to create any typeface you can imagine as long as long as you have the adequate drawing skills. I tried it myself and it was pretty simple! Before AI, you needed specialized tools like Calligraphr, HandFonted, or FontForge i…

Anthropic is undoubtedly having a moment right now. First came Claude Code, an AI-powered coding tool for developers, in early 2025, which quickly gained a cult following among that community. “You spent your holidays with your family? That’s nice I spent my holidays with Claude Code,” recently posted one tech-policy expert. But most people aren’t developers, let alone know their way around a command-line interface. So last week, Anthropic launched Claude Cowork, which the company calls “Claude Code for the rest of your work.” Available now as a research preview on Anthropic’s $100-per-month Max plan, Cowork is the best example of what “vibe coding“—an AI-powered app…

Before the holidays, Adam Conner began vibe coding. Like everyone else in the know, he was using Claude Code. Compared to popular chatbots, Anthropic’s advanced AI agent speaks the language of computers: code. Normally, you click buttons in browsers, open folders, and drag files. But you can also do so by coding—interacting with software by typing commands into a terminal, a text-based app. Claude Code goes beyond such primitive tasks, though: an AI that can code can effectively do nearly anything on a computer. “We expected developers to use Claude Code for coding, but then something unexpected happened,” an Anthropic spokesperson tells Fast Company. “We started…

With over 800 student organizations on campus, the University of Pennsylvania already seems to have a club for every interest, from investment banking to beekeeping—even cheese. Now, add AI to the mix. In September, dozens of Penn students gathered in the engineering school auditorium for the debut of the Claude Builder Club, sponsored by AI company Anthropic. Over the course of this semester, the Builder Club has plans to host a hackathon, demo night, and other opportunities to create projects using artificial intelligence. “I need the Claude premium for a year,” says Crystal Yang, a freshman who attended the first meeting. Claude, she had heard, is “better for c…

This article is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps. Subscribe here. Claude feels like a genie to me. With its Artifacts feature I can turn any idea I have into an interactive application, visualization, or graphic. Yesterday I created a Flashcard maker and a breathing app. No coding. Just a short AI chat conversation. No complexity. I dream up an idea, and Claude makes it instantly real. I iterate with chat to make it better. Read on for a guide to making the most of Artifacts with examples and ideas you can build yourself. How to turn ideas into apps (no coding) Create a free Cla…

Have you ever finished off your last pickle spear and, craving a little more of that vinegary punch, taken a couple of sips of brine straight from the jar? Or maybe you’re more open about your pickle juice habits and like to mix up a pickle martini in the light of day, rather than hunched over your fridge light at 2 a.m. Whatever you prefer, now there’s a product designed for exactly those kinds of moments. Claussen, the Chicago-based pickle purveyor, has picked up on the TikTok trend of using pickle brine as a mixer for everything from Diet Coke to “pickle cereal,” and they’re meeting customers where they’re at with a new drink called Just the Brine. As the name sugg…

Rarely have I more appreciated the chasm between me and Silicon Valley than I have while using OpenClaw. This new AI program, which previously went by Moltbot and before that Clawdbot, has achieved virality over the past week for its ability to control your digital life via text message. It’s an unashamedly geeky tool at the moment, but those who’ve been using it have hailed it as the future of digital assistants. There’s just one problem: OpenClaw is exorbitantly expensive to use. Okay, maybe not for the AI boosters who think nothing of dropping $200 per month on ChatGPT Pro or Claude Max. But definitely for me as someone who balks at even a $20 per month AI subs…

When we think of climate change, we may consider extreme weather events – record-breaking heatwaves, heavy downpours and devastating floods. But have you considered that these changes could also increase your risk of exposure to certain viruses? We now live in world where extreme weather events are common. With the increasing frequency of prolonged rainstorms and heatwaves, climate change may raise the likelihood of being exposed to sewage-associated viruses in rivers, lakes and coastal waters. Intense rainstorms can also result in rainwater overloading urban sewer systems. As a result, raw untreated sewage is released into rivers, lakes and coastal waters. Newly …

There was a time when few people in the coastal Pakistani city of Gwadar understood what climate change was. After a decade of extreme weather, many more do. Rain battered Gwadar for almost 30 consecutive hours last February. Torrents washed out roads, bridges, and lines of communication, briefly cutting the peninsula town off from the rest of Pakistan. Homes look like bombs have struck them and drivers swerve to avoid craters where asphalt used to be. Gwadar is in Balochistan, an arid, mountainous, and vast province in Pakistan’s southwest that has searing summers and harsh winters. The city, with about 90,000 people, is built on sand dunes and bordered by the Ar…

The stat that women receive less than 2% of VC funding is often cited—but that figure tells only part of the story. Angel investors, non-dilutive grants, and other funding methods are shifting the landscape for women and other underrepresented founders—especially at a time when DEI initiatives are in peril. This panel explores how investors are closing the funding gap and what you should know to get the capital you need. View the full article

When an X user recently pointed out the eye-popping increase in billionaires’ wealth since 2015, entrepreneur Mark Cuban, a billionaire himself, responded with his opinion on why, but he urged followers to consider a different question: “Why are we not giving incentives to companies to require them to give shares in their companies to all employees, at the same percentage of cash earnings as the CEO?” Cuban said. It is the right question to be asking. Because while the debate over wealth inequality continues, the solution has been hiding in plain sight for decades. The top 10% of U.S. households now control 67% of all wealth, while the bottom half holds just …

Once the ball starts rolling in the Spanish league, the game is on for some 50 analysts who start looking for signs of online piracy. They scan websites, social media posts, IPTV platforms and streaming portals in search of illegal broadcasts of La Liga matches. The trained analysts identify the pirated content and take the steps needed to take them off air, including notifying Internet intermediaries like Cloudflare, the U.S.-based company whose content-delivery network is believed to manage nearly 20% of the Internet traffic worldwide. And that’s when the real fight begins for the Spanish league. La Liga, one of the most active European leagues fighting piracy and a…

A widely used Internet infrastructure company said that it has resolved an issue that led to outages impacting users of everything from ChatGPT and the online game “League of Legends,” to the New Jersey Transit system early Tuesday. Around 10 a.m. ET, Cloudflare said it was “continuing to monitor for errors to ensure all services are back to normal.” Other platforms that experienced outages Tuesday included the social media site X, Shopify, Dropbox, Coinbase, and the Moody’s credit ratings service. Moody’s website displayed an Error Code 500 and instructed individuals to visit Cloudflare’s website for more information. New Jersey Transit said parts of its digi…

Internet infrastructure company Cloudflare on Friday said it was investigating an outage that took place in the morning that brought down several global websites including LinkedIn, Zoom and others, the second such crash to affect the company in less than three weeks. Cloudflare said the issue had been resolved, and that it was was “investigating issues with Cloudflare Dashboard and related APIs,” or application programming interface that allow software systems to communicate with each other. The company said the outage was not due to an attack. A change to how its firewall handles requests “caused Cloudflare’s network to be unavailable for several minutes this morning,…