Block's Bitkey adds screen, finally closes hardware wallet's biggest hole
Block launched a new Bitkey hardware wallet with a secure touchscreen on April 27, addressing the original device's structural flaw: users had to blindly trust their phone to approve transactions and security settings.
Rocket Lab books record Neutron backlog before first flight
Rocket Lab signed its largest contract ever, five Neutron and three Electron dedicated launches, pushing backlog to $2.2B and proving the medium-lift market will pay full price for a working alternative to Falcon 9.
Army taps AeroVironment for loitering drone that changes small-unit strike
The Army awarded AeroVironment a prototype contract for Switchblade 400 under the LASSO program, positioning the drone as a core component of a $1.2 billion multi-year modernization of tactical precision strike.
Tenstorrent ships Galaxy Blackhole, taking on Nvidia in inference
Tenstorrent began volume production of Galaxy Blackhole, a $110,000 AI inference server that claims 23 PFLOPS performance and 350+ tokens per second, challenging Nvidia's GPU dominance with a clean-sheet hardware design.
Cryptographers propose trustless proof for data marketplace payments
A new zero-knowledge system called ZK-Value would let data contributors cryptographically verify their earnings in AI training pipelines without trusting the operator's math.
SpaceX rideshare hits 54 flights as New Glenn stays grounded
SpaceX launched its third rideshare of 2026, deploying 45 payloads including a South Korean Earth observation satellite delayed four years by Russia's invasion. The cadence gap with Blue Origin widens.
Tenstorrent's $110K AI Server Challenges Nvidia's Inference Dominance
Tenstorrent launches Galaxy Blackhole inference servers at 3-5x cheaper per node than Nvidia DGX, with 16 units already deployed at Equinix and performance claims that undercut the GPU+LPU disaggregation trend.
Square Flips Bitcoin On for Millions of U.S. Merchants by Default
Block's Square platform automatically enabled Bitcoin Lightning payments for millions of eligible U.S. sellers, shifting from opt-in to opt-out with zero processing fees through 2026.
Cashu Adds Hardware Enclaves to Fix Its Biggest Trust Flaw
Cashu creator Calle announced non-custodial ecash mints using hardware enclaves where operators cannot access Bitcoin keys, eliminating the protocol's single largest trust weakness.
USA Rare Earth ships first domestic NdFeB magnets, backed by $1.6B CHIPS funding
USA Rare Earth commissioned its Oklahoma magnet factory in Q1 2026 with government and private backing totaling $3.1 billion, becoming the first integrated rare earth supply chain under U.S. ownership.
AST wins 248-satellite license as its prime launch partner gets grounded
The FCC authorized AST SpaceMobile's full 248-satellite constellation on April 21, but three days earlier New Glenn suffered an upper-stage failure that will ground the rocket, the vehicle designed to deploy most of AST's satellites by 2026.
Tor Browser 15.0.11 patches critical Firefox flaw across all platforms
Tor Project released Tor Browser 15.0.11 on April 28 with urgent Firefox ESR security fixes; TorVPN for Android cleared by Cure53 audit, signaling mobile rollout ahead.
FCC Greenlights AST SpaceMobile's 248-Satellite Constellation
The FCC approved AST SpaceMobile to deploy 248 satellites for direct-to-smartphone broadband using 700/800 MHz spectrum in partnership with AT&T and Verizon, just days after the company lost a $23 million satellite to a launch failure.
AST SpaceMobile Loses Block 2 Satellite to New Glenn Orbit Error
AST SpaceMobile's BlueBird 7 launched aboard New Glenn on April 19 but was placed in too-low an orbit by the upper stage, forcing de-orbit. The loss threatens the company's 45-satellite 2026 target and exposes launch cadence risk.
Bitcoin Core 31.0 Ships Private Transaction Broadcasting
Bitcoin Core 31.0, released April 20, 2026, adds a toggle for routing all transaction broadcasts through Tor or I2P, severing the IP-address-to-transaction link that chain analysis firms have relied on for years.
GPS III SV10 Completes $10B Navigation Overhaul, Adds Laser Link Test
SpaceX launched GPS III SV10, the final satellite in the U.S.'s decade-long GPS III modernization, carrying an experimental optical communications terminal that could reshape how the nation's foundational navigation system resists jamming.
New Glenn's First Booster Reuse Succeeds, Upper Stage Fails Customer
Blue Origin landed its first reused New Glenn booster on NG-3 today, but the upper stage placed AST SpaceMobile's BlueBird 7 satellite into a lower-than-planned orbit, rendering it a total loss—splitting the mission verdict on booster reuse versus operational reliability.
Fedimint v0.11.0 Ships Gateway Recovery via Mnemonic
Fedimint released v0.11.0 on April 17, 2026, with gateway recovery from seed phrases and NAT-transparent networking — removing the last major operational barrier to running community Bitcoin banking infrastructure.
Blue Origin Attempts First Reflown New Glenn Booster, AST SpaceMobile Payload Ready
Blue Origin hot-fired its first recycled New Glenn booster on April 16, targeting April 17 launch of AST SpaceMobile's BlueBird 7 satellite—the company's critical proof point for booster reuse cadence.
Bitcoin Lens Claims the Block Is Physics Long-Sought Smallest Unit of Time
Bitcoin Lens, a formal research institution, argues Bitcoin's block is the first empirical instantiation of the chronon, physics' theoretical smallest unit of time proposed in 1927, reframing quantum mechanics and quantum computing in the process.