Ethereum Foundation Unveils "Strawmap" Roadmap, Outlining Seven Hard Forks Through End of 2029

February 27 — Per The Information, Google has struck a multi-billion-dollar AI chip deal with Meta. Meta has signed an agreement to lease Google’s AI chips — called TPUs — to develop new AI models. Meta is also in talks with Google to purchase TPUs for its data centers as early as next year. Google has established a joint venture focused on leasing its tensor processing units (TPUs) to other AI customers.

February 27 — Block, the Bitcoin payments firm founded by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, is reportedly cutting 4,000 jobs (nearly half its workforce), per Cointelegraph. The company is betting on artificial intelligence (AI) to boost future labor productivity. Following the layoff announcement, Block’s stock jumped 22% in after-hours trading. Since 2024, Block has been restructuring its business model and workforce amid underperforming shares. It has also heavily invested in developing AI tools to improve operational efficiency, including its in-house tool Goose. In a letter, Block founder Jack Dorsey noted: “AI tools have already redefined how we build and run a company — we’ve seen this firsthand internally. A far smaller team can now achieve more, and do it better, using the tools we’ve built.”

February 27, 2024 — Federal Reserve official Guerllespey said Tuesday: “While rate cuts are possible, I don’t want to implement significant cuts until inflation cools. We won’t cut rates prematurely to avoid letting the economy overheat. We need to proceed cautiously. I’m among the most optimistic Federal Reserve officials regarding rate cuts this year. The labor market remains stable, and the economy has stayed strong.” (Krypton Capital)

On February 27, per LookOnChain monitoring, a BlackRock ETF address is continuing to accumulate BTC. Over the past hour, the address has received 4,309 BTC from Coinbase—valued at $289.6 million.

February 27th: Per HTX market data, Ethereum has dropped below $2,000, now trading at $1,996.

February 27: Benchmark Reaffirms "Buy" Rating on Hut 8, $85 Price Target; 2026 Framed as "Year of Execution & Delivery" for AI Data Center Push Benchmark analyst Mark Palmer noted in the report that while Q4 performance was impacted by unrealized Bitcoin losses, Hut 8 is steadily evolving into a "power-first digital infrastructure platform" with a clearer long-term contracted cash flow path. Hut 8 posted a Q4 net loss of $301.8 million—primarily driven by a $401.9 million unrealized loss on digital assets—but hashrate revenue growth lifted year-over-year revenue nearly threefold to $88.5 million. Palmer identifies the 15-year, 245-megawatt IT lease with River Bend and Fluidstack (backed by Google’s financial support) as the core of his investment thesis: roughly $7 billion in underlying term commitments are pushing Hut 8’s valuation toward infrastructure-type multiples. Benchmark’s $85 price target stems from a sum-of-the-parts analysis covering: the River Bend lease, a pro