Meta Bets $14.3B on the AI Arms Race

🧠 Meta goes all-in on AI:

 $14.3B Bet on Scale and the Superintelligence Race

Mark Zuckerberg is tired of playing catch-up in AI. So he just made one of his boldest moves yet, dropping $14.3 billion on Scale AI, a fast-growing infrastructure company that trains some of the most advanced AI models in the world.

The deal, which gives Meta a 49% non-voting stake in Scale, instantly makes it one of the largest strategic investments in AI to date and Meta’s biggest startup deal since WhatsApp in 2014. But this is more than a financial move. Meta has also tapped Scale’s 27-year-old founder and CEO, Alexandr Wang, to co-lead its top-tier AI team, signaling a serious escalation in the global race for AGI (Artificial General Intelligence).

🧠 Zuck wants superintelligence. Fast

Meta’s ambition is clear: build human-level intelligence before anyone else. And for Zuckerberg, that means turning Meta from a social media giant into an AGI-first company. After falling behind OpenAI and Google with its underwhelming Llama 4 release, Zuck is now rewiring the company, reorganizing teams, recruiting top minds, and even moving the new AGI team physically closer to his own desk.

Alexandr Wang, who scaled (pun intended) his company into a data powerhouse used by Meta, OpenAI, and the U.S. government, is now tasked with leading Meta’s superintelligence unit: focused on building machines that can reason, plan, and problem-solve like humans.

For Meta, it’s no longer about keeping up. It’s about staking a claim in the future of intelligence.

💡 Why Scale AI?

Scale isn’t building flashy chatbots: it’s the plumbing behind them. It specializes in data labeling, infrastructure, and tools that train the next wave of AI models. As demand for clean, accurate, and massive datasets explodes, Scale’s value has surged. It's expected to hit $2 billion in revenue in 2025, nearly tripling this year’s $870M.

By locking in a near half-stake, Meta now has privileged access to critical infrastructure without triggering the antitrust alarms that a full acquisition might cause, a tactic reminiscent of Microsoft’s playbook with OpenAI.

🤖 A pattern emerges across Big Tech

Meta’s move mirrors a broader shift. Tech giants are no longer going it alone, they’re investing big into smaller firms to absorb talent and accelerate innovation:

• Microsoft + OpenAI

• Google + Anthropic

• Amazon + Anthropic

• Now Meta + Scale AI

It's a race not just to build AI, but to build it faster, smarter, and bigger than anyone else.

📉 The stakes couldn’t be higher

Meta knows its dominance in social media won’t last forever. Ad revenues are maturing. The metaverse hasn’t taken off. AI is the next great platform shift, and Zuckerberg isn’t watching from the sidelines.

📚Read also: Singapore-based Trident Digital plans to raise $500M to establish a corporate XRP reserve

Trident Digital, a Singapore-based company, has announced plans to raise $500 million to create the world’s first large-scale corporate XRP reserve. It will involve holding, staking, and deeply engaging in the Ripple ecosystem over the long term to improve its decentralized finance strategy.

📊 Market Watch:

Markets Tumble as Israel Launches Airstrikes on Iran

A sudden escalation in the Middle East sent global markets into a tailspin late Thursday, after Israel launched preemptive airstrikes on Iran, kicking off what could become a wider regional conflict.

🔻 Dow futures dropped 400 points
🔻 S&P 500 fell 1.1%
🔻 Nasdaq 100 slipped 1.3%

The sharp sell-off came just hours after Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz declared a nationwide emergency, warning of imminent retaliation. "A missile and drone attack against the State of Israel and its civilian population is expected in the immediate future," his order stated, urging citizens to take shelter and follow defense instructions.

🪙 Gold soars, dollar drops, Bitcoin crashes

Amid the chaos, gold surged for a third straight day, gaining 0.8% and pushing spot prices to $3,406.61/oz, a record high driven by investor flight to safety. Silver, platinum, and palladium followed suit.

Meanwhile, the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index dipped 0.1%, and the US Dollar Index fell to a 2-year low, as confidence in fiat wavered.

Crypto took a hit:

• Bitcoin plunged from $107K to $102K within minutes, a 2.6% drop.

• Ethereum fell 5%, settled near $2,400.

“Crypto is reacting negatively to news of Israel strikes in Iran, in line with major risk assets,” said Caroline Mauron, co-founder of Orbit Markets. “Technical support is near $101,000, but headlines will drive action short-term.”

Oil trades higher on war fears

The only clear winner was oil. Prices surged above $72/barrel in a straight vertical line, reflecting fears of supply disruption from a full-blown Middle East war.

Asia wakes up to red screens
Wall Street had closed Thursday in the green, with the S&P 500 just 2% shy of all-time highs, but the optimism evaporated overnight.

• Nikkei 225 dropped 0.36%

• Topix slid 0.43%

• Kospi held firm, adding 0.38%

• Kosdaq rose 0.15%

• ASX 200 remained flat

• Hang Seng futures edged up slightly after Thursday’s gain

 No U.S. involvement confirmed (Yet)

Two U.S. officials told NBC News the airstrikes were conducted solely by Israel, easing immediate fears of U.S. entanglement. The White House has not yet issued a statement, and markets remain on edge for further developments.

📚Read Also: KuCoin launches licensed cryptocurrency exchange in Thailand

KuCoin has officially launched KuCoin Thailand, a licensed cryptocurrency exchange that follows the rules of Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). This marks an important step in KuCoin’s plan to grow globally while fully complying with local laws.

📜 Regulation Watch

The GENIUS Act nears final senate vote

The U.S. Senate has officially scheduled a final vote on the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act for Tuesday, June 17, potentially setting the stage for America’s first federal stablecoin framework.

This follows a 68–30 procedural vote on June 12 to advance the bill, bringing it closer to a full floor vote before heading to the House of Representatives.

🏛 What’s in the GENIUS Act?

The bill seeks to define how fiat-backed stablecoins should be issued, managed, and regulated, offering long-awaited clarity for crypto firms and financial institutions. It’s seen as a key stepping stone toward normalizing digital assets for daily use.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who led the push, claimed the legislation would help the U.S. become the “crypto capital of the world,” echoing recent rhetoric from Donald Trump on embracing digital assets.

“We want to make cryptocurrency a common part of everyday life,” said Thune. “The GENIUS Act is how we start.”

🏛 CLARITY Act in the House

Meanwhile, two House committees moved forward with the CLARITY Act, a companion bill focused on broader market structure. Lawmakers are working in parallel to create a comprehensive legislative package around crypto.

Warren sounds the alarm over Trump links

Not everyone is cheering. Senator Elizabeth Warren slammed the GENIUS Act on the Senate floor, calling it “a vehicle for corruption.”

She raised concerns that the bill lacks sufficient consumer protection and opens the door to political manipulation, pointing to Trump’s ties to World Liberty Financial, a crypto platform reportedly linked to his family and supporters.

“Trump’s crypto empire gives him a way to trade presidential favors for millions in donations or access,” Warren warned, citing fears of foreign influence and regulatory loopholes.

She also criticized the chamber for failing to vote on bipartisan amendments, adding that the bill, in its current form, is incomplete and potentially dangerous.

🧠 Why it matters

• The GENIUS Act could standardize stablecoin regulation across the U.S. and offer legal certainty for issuers.

• If passed, the U.S. may take the global lead in regulating digital dollars—something the EU and Asia are already accelerating.

• The bill also becomes a litmus test for how crypto will intersect with 2024 politics, particularly as Trump leans into the sector.

📚Read Also: Senator Lummis proposes RISE Act to shield AI developers from liability

Senator Cynthia Lummis introduced the Responsible Innovation and Safe Expertise (RISE) Act to protect AI developers from civil liability. According to Lummis, the bill, if passed, would have professionals using AI tools legally obligated to perform due diligence and validate the tech’s outputs.

A look back at four pivotal moments in the crypto world on this very day:

1.  🕵️ Someone woke up to zero BTC – June 13, 2011

   On this day in 2011, a Bitcointalk user named “allinvain” logged in to find their wallet emptied—25,000 BTC, worth about $500,000 at the time, was gone. It became the first recorded personal Bitcoin theft, carried out by someone who had quietly accessed their computer.

    A reminder that in crypto, self-custody comes with real consequences and no support lines.

2. ⚠️ The fall of Mt. Gox begins quietly – June 13, 2011

   While personal wallets were getting hit, Mt. Gox, the world’s largest Bitcoin exchange, was quietly being compromised from the inside. A hacker exploited an auditor’s breached machine, laying the groundwork for the series of massive hacks that would later destroy the platform.

   The warning signs were there. The cracks in crypto infrastructure started showing early.

3. 🏛️ The Feds hold their first Bitcoin auction – June 13, 2014

   The U.S. government began auctioning 30,000 BTC seized from Silk Road, marking a new era of legitimacy for Bitcoin.

   Major investors started showing up and Tim Draper ended up winning the auction, giving BTC a new kind of institutional spotlight.

Market-moving headlines 🔥

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