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  • šŸ¤– Grok 4 Claims PhD-Level Supremacy | 🌐 Perplexity Drops AI Browser Comet | šŸš€ Bitcoin Scratches $112K All-Time High

šŸ¤– Grok 4 Claims PhD-Level Supremacy | 🌐 Perplexity Drops AI Browser Comet | šŸš€ Bitcoin Scratches $112K All-Time High

The AI arms race hits warp speed while browsers get superintelligent assistants and crypto rewrites the record books

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šŸ–‹ Today’s Angle

You wake to xAI's latest AI powerhouse claiming PhD-level smarts, an AI arms-open embrace, and a browser that wants to ghost Chrome. Also on deck: Bitcoin's moonshot, XRP's court-side drama, and a tutorial that turns your weekend into dev bootcamp bliss. Buckle up:

  • xAI drops Grok 4 with "better than PhD" claims across all disciplines

  • OpenAI flips the script—promises a truly open model later this summer

  • Perplexity's new "Comet" browser fires a privacy-first salvo at Google

  • Bitcoin cracks $112K while XRP watches the SEC like a hawk

  • Level-up fast: master Astro 5's bleeding-edge features

––Sascha Thiele

šŸš€ Tech & Business

What Happened: Elon Musk's xAI launched Grok 4 via late-night livestream, claiming it's "better than PhD level in every subject, no exceptions." The model crushed benchmarks—scoring 45% on Humanity's Last Exam (nearly double Gemini 2.5 Pro's 21%) and 95% on advanced math tests. With a $300/month SuperGrok Heavy subscription and promises of discovering "new physics" within two years, xAI is betting big on raw intelligence over safety theater. The launch comes just days after Grok's antisemitic posts forced xAI to pull the plug temporarily—because nothing says "ready for prime time" like your AI praising Hitler before your biggest product reveal.

What Happened: Sam Altman confirmed the company's first open-weight language model since 2019 is due "late summer," after a surprise research breakthrough delayed the June target. The upcoming release aims to beat rival open models like DeepSeek R1 and Mistral's Magistral family, while repairing OpenAI's "wrong side of history" reputation on transparency. Early dev meet-ups kick off next week to crowd-source wish-lists—because nothing says "open" like letting 500 hackers poke holes in your baby.

What Happened: AI search startup Perplexity unveiled Comet, a Chromium-based browser with a built-in assistant that summarizes pages, manages tabs, and chats about what's on-screen. Initially limited to Max-tier subscribers ($200/month), Comet bets on "infinite retention" by doing the mundane—email triage, calendar wrangling—inside the browser. If it works, Chrome extensions may start feeling like cassette tapes in the streaming era.

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šŸ’° The Finance Overview

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Wall Street's mood is risk-on after the Fed minutes hinted at a 2025 rate cut.

  • Big Tech Barometer: FAANG closed mixed—Apple lagged on tariff fears while Microsoft rode Azure AI demand. xAI's Grok 4 launch signals the AI arms race is entering hyperdrive.

  • Startup Thermometer: Early-stage AI deals keep sizzling; Boldstart's $250M fund shows seed rounds are padding their runway, but Series C valuations are getting reality-checked.

  • Infrastructure Watch: Cloud spend shifts to GPUs and liquid cooling. CoreWeave's $9B buy of Core Scientific signals that even Bitcoin miners are pivoting to AI compute.

  • Wild Card: Airline Emirates teaming with Crypto.com to accept BTC at check-in—proof that loyalty points might soon live on-chain rather than on dusty servers.

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What Happened: BTC smashed its May peak, touching $112K before cooling to $111K. Fuel? ETF inflows topping $500M this week, a softer dollar, and traders front-running a possible August Fed cut. Now eyes are on Thursday's CPI print to see if the party continues or the punch bowl evaporates.

What Happened: The SEC holds a closed-door meeting today that could decide whether to drop its appeal in the long-running Ripple case. Ripple already withdrew its own counter-appeal; if the regulator follows suit, XRP's legal cloud clears and an ETF rumor mill starts instantly. Traders have bid XRP to $2.35—volatility guaranteed whichever way the vote swings.

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šŸ Tomorrow’s Forecast

Eyes on CPI and that SEC ripple—expect either fireworks or confetti. šŸŽ‡

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