Trust Wallet has pledged to cover roughly $7 million in customer funds lost in a Christmas Day exploit, its founder, Changpeng Zhao, confirmed on the social platform X. The sudden breach has rattled part of the crypto community. Still, Zhao’s swift assurance aims to steady nerves and restore confidence in the popular self-custodial wallet.

The incident unfolded on December 25, when a compromised version of the Trust Wallet browser extension was used to drain assets from users’ wallets. 

Early investigations suggest the malicious code was active in version 2.68 of the extension, prompting unauthorised transfers across multiple blockchains, including Ethereum, Bitcoin and Solana. Within hours, on-chain data showed funds being siphoned away to unknown addresses, with losses quickly approaching $7 million.

In a post on X on Friday, Zhao emphasised that “user funds are SAFU,” using the popular crypto industry acronym for Secure Asset Fund for Users. He said Trust Wallet will reimburse affected users for their losses. The team is continuing to investigate exactly how the attackers were able to upload and distribute the compromised extension.

Chinpeng Zao

The wallet provider also described the breach as limited to the browser extension. Trust Wallet urged users to disable the compromised version immediately and update to the fixed release, version 2.69, available via the official Chrome Web Store.

Mobile app users and those using other extension versions were reportedly not affected.

How the Trust Wallet exploit played out

Security researchers and on-chain analysts have begun piecing together a timeline of the attack. Initial signs of preparation by the threat actors date back to early December, according to cybersecurity firm SlowMist. Their reporting indicates that malicious code was embedded into the extension build before going live, suggesting a carefully planned exploit rather than a simple automated attack.

Once live on Christmas Day, the compromised extension collected sensitive user data, including seed phrases, and transmitted it to a remote server controlled by the attackers. Victims who imported a seed phrase into the extension saw their wallets drained in a matter of minutes, even if they had followed common security practices.

Across the crypto community, on-chain sleuths flagged hundreds of wallets affected by the breach. The rapid movement of assets through mixing services complicated efforts to trace stolen funds, making recovery efforts challenging.

The broader market felt the shock of the news, coming at a time when crypto prices were already under pressure. Despite the relatively modest size of the loss compared with massive exchange hacks this year, the incident has drawn fresh scrutiny to browser-based wallet infrastructure and supply chain security.

Meanwhile, Zhao’s public promise to cover the losses was intended to reassure users that the incident would not result in personal financial loss. His message emphasised that affected funds will be reimbursed from Trust Wallet’s reserves, and that the issue appears to be confined to the compromised extension.

Some industry observers have raised questions about how the malicious version passed through review and was distributed via official channels.

There are early suggestions that the breach may involve a supply chain compromise or even insider knowledge, given how the altered code was able to slip into the official release. These suggestions have sparked debate across forums and social platforms, with some users voicing concerns about internal controls and review processes.

Trust Wallet has responded by prioritising the release of the patched extension and asking users to update immediately. It has also been recommended that those affected generate new seed phrases and migrate assets to secure environments.

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Tens of thousands of airline passengers are being warned to brace for major delays as federal officials say US airports have been overwhelmed by the holiday travel rush.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued eight separate airspace flow restrictions on Friday, which affect nearly every major air traffic control center in the US, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, and Miami.

The widespread series of Airspace Flow Programs (AFPs) will impact almost any major airport in the US or Canada flying to Florida or the Caribbean on Friday, one of the busiest travel days of the year, with some delays reaching over six hours.

Specifically, the FAA is slashing the number of planes allowed to take off and enter certain busy sections of airspace to prevent any dangerous situations of overcrowding as hundreds of flights all head to the same destinations.

Hourly limits have been set on how many flights can cross the FAA’s Flow Constrained Area (FCA) boundaries, specific zones over or around the US created by the agency marking flight routes which they expect to be too busy with holiday travel.

Friday’s zones include flight routes over the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea leading to southern Florida, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Turks and Caicos, St Lucia, Aruba region, Mexico, and San Diego.

Between 3pm and 6pm, the FAA expects the average delays to be the worst, with some routes over Mexico and the Dominican Republic expecting peak delay times exceeding three hours.

Maximum delays for flights traveling through the FCA over Florida will reach a staggering 398 minutes, or more than six and a half hours Friday afternoon.

A holiday traveler waits for her flight amid major airport delays due to high volumes of flyers during the Christmas travel week (Stock Image)

Travelers at San Francisco International Airport stand in long lines waiting for flights. Over eight million people are expected to fly during the final two weeks of December

Most of the travel restrictions began Friday morning and are scheduled to last until between 6pm and 10pm ET tonight.

Other major US travel regions being affected by the Monday restrictions include Salt Lake City, Houston, Jacksonville, Cleveland, Denver, Oakland, Kansas City, Memphis, Minneapolis, and Seattle.

Several major airports throughout Canada have also been impacted by the FAA’s holiday travel announcement, including Toronto Pearson International Airport, Montréal–Trudeau International Airport, and Vancouver International Airport.

Contributing to the overcrowding over Florida are the record 122million Americans who were expected to travel during the final two weeks of December. Over 8million of those holiday travelers will be flying, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA). 

In their annual report, AAA revealed that Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, and Miami were the top three domestic destinations for holiday travelers this year.

Meanwhile, Cancun, Mexico and the Dominican Republic’s Punta Cana were the top travel getaways internationally this week.

As of 12pm, over 3,600 flights entering or exiting the US have been delayed. Over 1,300 have been cancelled, with some forced to postpone due to a major winter storm expected to slam the US East Coast Friday night.

The FAA has also issued ground delays at Aspen/Pitkin County and Eagle County Regional Airports in Colorado, Witham Field in Florida, and Southwest Florida International Airport due to issues with ‘volume,’ or overcrowding.

Hundreds of flights to Florida and the Caribbean have been delayed Friday due to overcrowding at airports throughout the US and Canada heading to these destinations (Stock Image)

For travelers heading to the airport on Friday, AAA recommended flyers regularly check their flight status before leaving home and also sign up for airline alerts.

Travelers are also urged to arrive at the airport early, allowing at least two hours for domestic flights and three hours if you’re leaving the US.

Due to the massive crowds expected at airports throughout the US, passengers should also pack smart and keep any vital medications, chargers, and a change of clothes in their carry-on bags.

With delays and potential cancellations now expected to increase throughout the day, flyers should also go over their chosen airline’s policies on rebooking flights and refunds for any cancelled trips.

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A few days ago, I was watching a friend of mine play Genshin Impact when I saw a loading screen pop up. The art was beautiful, to be honest, almost to the point of it looking fake. So I asked him if it was AI-generated, and he responded: ‘Nah, this isn’t Expedition 33‘.

If you know Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, you know it recently won big at the Indie Game Awards – until it got disqualified this week for using generative AI despite a strict ban. Rules are rules, but it does make you wonder: if AI can slip into a space built on human originality and even win awards, how long before everyone quietly adopts it?

🌐 Nigeria might be getting a new subsea cable

Nigeria is in talks with Google to build a new subsea cable, and if it happens, it could finally ease the country’s long-standing internet fragility. Combined with the recently launched 2Africa cable, the pressure is now on other infrastructure players to step up. It’s not flashy, but it could quietly make Nigeria more resilient and easier to plug into the global digital economy.

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📱Apple will allow third-party app stores on iOS in Brazil

For what feels like the umpteenth time this year, Apple’s walled garden is getting chipped at – this time in Brazil. The company now allows third-party app stores and alternative payments, giving users more choice and developers a fairer shot. It’s a quiet shift, but one that keeps nudging the iPhone toward a more open and competitive app ecosystem.

🕵🏾‍♀️ Crypto theft hit a record high in 2025

Crypto theft hit a record $2.7 billion in 2025, with North Korean hackers behind some of the biggest breaches, including a $1.4 billion heist at Bybit. Investors and platforms are now facing the reality that even mainstream exchanges aren’t immune, forcing a rethink of security and trust in digital assets.

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Techloy Weekly is our flagship newsletter that brings you the most important technology news and insights across the world’s largest emerging markets from trusted sources. If you are looking for deeper insights into the technology industry, with data-led startup news and funding deals, engaging charts, and career data, become a Techloy premium member today to access all of our coverage. This week’s edition was written by Louis and edited by Kelechi.

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Updated

December 26, 2025

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Latest industry data by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has revealed that Nigerian internet subscribers used 1.2 million terabytes of data in November 2025. 

According to the data, internet usage increased by 1,085 terabytes to 1,236,544.10 terabytes from 1,235,459.47 terabytes of data in October 2025. The figure illustrates the increasing surge in internet adoption and the amount of time Nigerians spend online. 

However, the reason is not far-fetched. The data revealed that as data usage increases, Nigerian internet subscribers are also surging.

As of November 2025, the subscriber base stood at 144.8 million, representing a 1.5% increase from the 142.6 million subscribers reported as of October 2025. Breakdown shows that 144.2 million are connected via mobile, 313,713 via ISP, 238,496 via Voice over IP (VoIP), while 83,417 are connected via fixed wired.

The scenario presents a mixed situation for Nigerian internet subscribers. For many in 2025, the network has often marked by slow data speeds and dropped calls, leading to frustrations and a negative impact on daily activities. 

Meanwhile, the Quality of Experience (QoE) and performance report recently launched by the NCC aims to give Nigerians an overall perception of the network that works in their environment. 

Broadband penetration crossed 50%, though still short of the target

On a positive note, broadband subscribers and penetration continue to increase, signalling improved telecoms infrastructure. In November 2025, the data showed that broadband penetration stood at 50.58% from 49.89% in October.

While this has now crossed the halfway mark, it’s still short of the 70% broadband penetration target set under the National Broadband Plan (NBP 2020-2025).

Also, broadband subscribers increased from 108.6 million in October to 109.7 million in November. 

In terms of broadband penetration, the federal government has been making moves to improve telecoms Infrastructure and drive quality networks. For instance, the Project Bridge, an initiative to deploy a 90,000-kilometre fibre optic backbone, aims to revolutionise Nigeria’s digital infrastructure. 

In another recent development, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, Director General and Chief Executive Officer of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), revealed that Nigeria is in talks with Google to lay a new subsea cable. It signals the government’s intent to drive digital infrastructure.

While the investment seeks to strengthen the digital and connectivity backbone, it’s needed to help transform Nigeria into a digital hub in Africa and support the vision for a $1 trillion digital economy. 

Also Read: Nigeria has 177.4 million telecoms subscribers as of November 2025.

Despite tariff adjustments, internet data usage increased in Nigeria

Internet usage has witnessed a significant surge in Nigeria following the adjustment of telecom tariffs by 50%. This, in turn, saw mobile network operators (MNOs) increase both voice and data prices.  MTN, Airtel and Globacom rolled out new data subscription prices. They also increase voice call prices from N11 per minute to a range of about N15.40 to N16.50 per minute. 

The data revealed that since April 2025, when MNOs adjusted their data plans, internet usage has increased month-on-month from 983k+ in April to 1.2 million in November 2025. 

Also for MNOs, the adjustment has seen their voice and data revenue gain weight.

For instance, MTN Nigeria, in its financial statement for the nine months ending September 2025, revealed that active data users rose 12.8% to 51.1 million. Its data traffic expanded by 36.3% while average usage per user increased by 20.8% to 13.2 GB per month.

In Airtel Nigeria’s H1 2025 financial report, its voice revenue grew by 34.7% in constant currency to $268 million, driven by voice average revenue per user (ARPU) growth of 25.7%. Data revenue grew by 62.4% to $357 million from $229 million, fueled by the surge in data customers and data ARPU growth of 12.2% and 46.6%, respectively. 

For telecoms operators, the tariff adjustment raised their earnings and was also pushed by an increase in internet subscribers and broadband penetration, despite a shift in voice and data prices. 

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A British anti-disinformation campaigner told by the Trump administration that he faces possible removal from the US has said he is being targeted by arrogant and “sociopathic” tech companies for trying to hold them to account.

Imran Ahmed, the chief executive of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), is among five European nationals barred from the US by the state department after being accused of seeking to push tech firms to censor or suppress American viewpoints.

Ahmed lives lawfully in Washington DC with his American wife and daughter, meaning he is at risk of deportation. Late on Thursday a court granted him a temporary restraining order to block any attempt to remove him from the US or detain him.

Ahmed told the Guardian he believed he had been singled out for his work seeking greater accountability and transparency for social media and AI firms, which has led to Elon Musk’s X unsuccessfully suing CCDH.

Ahmed, who is a friend of Morgan McSweeney, Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, said it was another attempt to deflect accountability and transparency.

“This has never been about politics,” he said, adding that his organisation had worked successfully with the first Trump administration and would do so again if asked.

“What it has been about is companies that simply do not want to be held accountable and, because of the influence of big money in Washington, are corrupting the system and trying to bend it to their will, and their will is to be unable to be held accountable,” he said.

“There is no other industry, that acts with such arrogance, indifference and a lack of humility and sociopathic greed at the expense of people.”

The former European internal market commissioner Thierry Breton is among those to have been hit with a visa ban. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

As well as Ahmed, the state department has barred the former EU commissioner Thierry Breton. It accused the five people of leading “organised efforts to coerce American platforms to censor, demonetise and suppress American viewpoints they oppose”.

Sarah Rogers, an official at the state department, posted on X: “Our message is clear: if you spend your career fomenting censorship of American speech, you’re unwelcome on American soil.”

The sanctions are being seen as the latest attack on European regulations that target hate speech and misinformation. Campaigners in the UK have said the British government could be targeted further if the Trump administration steps up its attacks on tech regulation.

Ahmed, who began his career working with Labour politicians in Westminster, said he had not yet formally received any notification from the US government, and that he believed its case against him was unfounded. “I’m very confident that our first amendment rights will be upheld by the court,” he said.

The next court hearing, due on Monday, is expected to confirm the protective order that prevents the US government from detaining him, said Ahmed, who spent Christmas away from his wife and infant daughter amid the legal battle.

He said this was “a rational thing for us to do, given that in every other case to date where someone has had a green card withdrawn in the last few months, they have been arrested and detained and often spirited hundreds or thousands of miles away from their friends, family and support networks.”

The CCDH has previously angered Musk over reports chronicling the rise of racist, antisemitic and extremist content on X since he took it over. Musk tried unsuccessfully to sue the CCDH last year before calling it a “criminal organisation”.

More recently, the CCDH released a report warning about harmful answers produced by the latest version of ChatGPT when asked about suicide, self-harm and eating disorders.

“We’ve seen that social media and AI companies are increasingly under pressure as a result of organisations like mine,” Ahmed said. “No one likes being exposed as mendacious or hypocritical, but they call their friends in government or they call their pitbull litigation lawyers and start suing.”

Ahmed said it was particularly jarring to be targeted given that hate speech and misinformation was increasingly a bipartisan issue, raised as a concern by some Republican politicians as well as Democrats.

He said he was nonetheless ready to respond with a swift legal response when he heard the news. “When you take on the world’s biggest corporations and when you’ve had the experiences we’ve had, being sued by the world’s richest man, you dissociate and compartmentalise immediately.”

There had been a cost already, he said. “Nothing I’m going through compares to any of the parents I sit with who’ve lost their children,” Ahmed said. “I chose to take on the biggest companies in the world, to hold them accountable, to speak truth to power. There is a cost attached to that. My family understands that.

“The only time I felt any sadness at all is last night when my wife told me that our child said her sixth word, and then I cried a bit.”

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Every year, TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield pitch contest draws thousands of applicants. We whittle those applications down to the top 200 contenders, and of them, the top 20 compete on the big stage to become the winner, taking home the Startup Battlefield Cup and a cash prize of $100,000. But the remaining 180 startups all blew us away as well in their respective categories and compete in their own pitch competition. 

Here is the full list of the cybersecurity Startup Battlefield 200 selectees, along with a note on why they landed in the competition.

AIM Intelligence 

What it does: AIM offers enterprise cybersecurity products that both protect against new AI-enabled attacks and use AI in that protection. 

Why it’s noteworthy: AIM uses AI to conduct penetration tests of AI-optimized attacks and to protect corporate AI systems with customized guardrails, and it offers an AI safety planning tool. 

Corgea 

What it does: Corgea is an AI-driven enterprise security product that can scan code for flaws as well as find broken code intended to implement security measures such as user authentication.  

Why it’s noteworthy: The product allows the creation of AI agents that can secure code and works with, it says, any popular language and their libraries. 

CyDeploy 

What it does: CyDeploy offers a security product that automates asset discovery and mapping of all the apps and devices on a network.  

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Why it’s noteworthy: Once the assets are mapped, the product creates digital twins to sandbox testing and allows security orgs to use AI to automate other security processes as well. 

Cyntegra 

What it does: Cyntegra offers a hardware-plus-software solution that prevents ransomware attacks. 

Why it’s noteworthy: By locking away a secure backup of the system, ransomware doesn’t win. It can restore the operating system, apps, data, and credentials in the minutes after an attack.  

HACKERverse 

What it does: HACKERverse’s product deploys autonomous AI agents to implement known hacker attacks against a company’s defenses in “isolated battlefield.” 

Why it’s noteworthy: The tool tests and verifies that vendor security tools actually work as advertised.  

Mill Pond Research 

What it does: Mill Pond detects and secures unmanaged AI. 

Why it’s noteworthy: As employees adopt AI to assist them in their jobs, this tool can detect AI tools that are accessing sensitive data or otherwise creating potential security issues in the organization. 

Polygraf AI 

What it does: Polygraf AI offers small language models tuned for cybersecurity purposes. 

Why it’s noteworthy: Enterprises use the Polygraf models to enforce compliance, protect data, detect unauthorized AI usage, and spot deepfakes, among other examples. 

TruSources 

What it does: TruSources can detect AI deepfakes, be they audio, video, images. 

Why it’s noteworthy: This tech can work in real time for areas like identity authentication, age verification, and identity fraud prevention. 

ZEST Security 

What it does: AI-powered enterprise security platform that helps infosec teams detect and solve cloud security issues. 

Why it’s noteworthy: Zest helps teams speedily keep up with and mitigate known but unpatched security vulnerabilities and unifies vulnerability management across clouds and apps.

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Photo by Fahim Muntashir / Unsplash

Just like the human brain, the development and strengthening of neural connections in AI models requires a stream of information. Data amplifies or attenuates signals, thereby training AI ​​models and enabling them to make accurate predictions. That is why the quality of the data directly impacts the performance of AI tasks. 

News APIs enable a continuous supply of trustworthy data during the training process. This can be both real-time data that is constantly changing and structured historical data. In this regard, the Web Search API acts as a powerful pump, ensuring seamless data transfer for custom AI models. It accelerates AI model development by using pre-built features that deliver data in a machine-readable format.

Why Custom AI Models Need News Data

Building effective training data ecosystems is one of the key tasks in machine learning. No matter how vast the datasets you use, without news content, such AI models can become outdated even during development. This is especially true for AI-based software designed for trading, business, marketing, journalism, and other industries where real-world situations are constantly changing.

In contrast, unhindered access to news allows AI to update data in real time and make effective decisions. This will also enable AI-based chatbots to send alerts to consumers on a variety of important events.

Key Features to Look for in a News API

Custom AI models are developed for various business needs, so choosing a News API requires careful consideration. Thus, if you’re developing AI models for healthcare, tourism, finance, and other market niches, they should take into account industry-specific nuances. News APIs should deliver content relevant to different industries from a wide range of reputable sources. Still, there are general guidelines you should consider when choosing a News API:

• Broad news coverage. A Web Search API should definitely deliver news from major global outlets, but that’s not enough. It should also provide data from smaller, authoritative sources in their niches.
• Global reach. If your AI models need to take into account country-specific issues, your API must deliver news in multiple languages.
• Efficient filtering system. Working with large databases will be faster and more efficient if the API allows filtering data by multiple criteria, such as date, location, keywords, author, etc.
• The extent of news coverage. Some APIs only provide access to headlines and snippets, which is insufficient for training AI models. Ensure that the news API provides access to full-text articles, videos, infographics, etc.
• Complete documentation. To get the most out of your News API, documentation should be comprehensive and easy to follow. This will also give you more independence from the API’s developer and the ability to resolve any issues that arise quickly.

Integrating News API into ML Pipelines

If you want to develop a robust solution for analyzing real-world data, your custom AI models should be trained on large data sets. Integrate News APIs in several steps to optimize machine learning processes:

1. Choose the best News API that provides access to a large volume of current and historical news content.
2. Integrate this News API with your AI model.
3. Select news categories that are relevant to your AI model.
4. Configure additional filters, such as keywords, data, location, etc.
5. Train your AI models on the preprocessed dataset, providing them with challenging tasks.
6. Evaluate AI performance based on various metrics, such as F1-Score, Accuracy, Precision, Recall, etc.

The performance of your AI model will depend on the quality, reliability, and representativeness of the news data. So, if you want to refine training results, choose news APIs with global coverage and deep content.

Challenges in Using News Data (and How to Solve Them)

Despite the obvious benefits of using news to train custom AI models, there are technical and ethical challenges that must be addressed:

• News APIs provide access to a wide range of content, which developers use to train and refine their AI models. However, publishers’ copyright can be violated, especially if this information is subsequently used without providing attribution to the authors of the content. One possible compromise solution in this case is to link to the website that served as the source of information.
• There’s also the problem of remuneration for websites that provide news information. Custom AI models are used by businesses to increase their profits, but should they share this profit with news outlets? As a compromise, they can provide links to websites they use for the extraction of information. This can help increase their traffic and conversion.
• Technical challenges can also arise if the data supplied by a News API is not normalized for use in AI models. The solution to this situation is to select more effective and proven News APIs.

Conclusion

A news API performs many more tasks than simply searching for and presenting news to train AI models. It also implements analytical functions, helping to classify and structure information. Furthermore, it improves and preprocesses data to ensure its format is suitable for machine learning. That is why Web Search APIs are indispensable when developing custom AI-based software. They not only simplify the work of developers and facilitate faster time-to-market for models, but also reduce the cost of creating custom AI models.

Updated

December 26, 2025

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By CHRIS MELORE, US ASSISTANT SCIENCE EDITOR

Published: 13:34 GMT, 26 December 2025 | Updated: 14:01 GMT, 26 December 2025

A winter storm warning has been issued to over 20 million people in the Northeast on Friday as several areas could see their largest snow totals in over three years.

The National Weather Service (NWS) has warned that residents in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut are in the direct path of the storm that is expected to slam the region starting around 4pm ET.

Parts of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, and West Virginia have also been placed under a winter weather advisory and could see snow this weekend.

New York is expected to take the brunt of the storm, with four to eight inches of snow predicted in the heart of the city.

According to Matt Brickman of NBC 4 New York, Friday’s storm could deliver the most snow New York has seen since January 2022.

Up to a foot of snow has been predicted for northeastern Pennsylvania and parts of upstate New York.

AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Tyler Roys warned: ‘This fast-moving storm will pack a punch in the Northeast right after Christmas. Holiday travelers should prepare for major slowdowns on roads and at airports.’

Travelers in the New York area have already been impacted by the storm as over 200 flights have been cancelled at John F Kennedy, LaGuardia, and Newark Liberty International Airports Friday morning.

This is a breaking story. More details to follow.

The National Weather Service has issued a winter storm warning for the Northeast, including New York City, where four to eight inches of snow may fall Friday night

New York City has not seen this much snow since January 2022 according to meteorologists (Stock Image)

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has already announced that an official ground stop or delay may be issued at all three major airports in the New York City area starting at 4pm.

A record 122million Americans were expected to travel at least 50 miles during the final two weeks of December. Nearly 110million of those holiday travelers will be driving, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA). 

AccuWeather meteorologists have forecasted that the Tri-State Area, including New York City, New Jersey, and Connecticut could see nine inches of snow fall by Saturday afternoon.

The fast-moving storm is expected to clear out by 1pm on Saturday, but not before impacting millions of post-Christmas travelers returning home this weekend. 

Before the storm reached the East Coast, the AccuWeather team noted that travel disruptions due to icy roads are also expected to hit the Great Lakes region, West Virginia, Virginia, and Maryland.

‘Travel plans could be delayed or disrupted for millions of people trying to visit loved ones or returning home after Christmas. The busy period for shopping, gift exchanges and returns after Christmas may also be impacted,’ Roys added in a statement.

NWS has also issued an ice storm warning throughout central and western Pennsylvania, potentially causing blackouts as ice weighs down local power lines and causing dangerous road conditions. 

‘Freezing rain, sleet, and snow are all on the table for this system. Travel will become treacherous after the onset of precipitation,’ NWS officials in State College, Pennsylvania posted on Facebook Friday morning.

The National Weather Service has issued winter storm warnings (Pink), winter weather advisories (Blue), and ice storm warnings (Purple) throughout the Northeast on Friday

Friday night’s snowstorm is expected to impact millions of holiday travelers driving and flying this weekend (Stock Image)

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Major winter storm to pummel millions with the most snow since 2022

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When Nigeria’s currency began stabilising this year after months of volatility, many observers were cautious about calling it a turning point. But for Itana, a privately-run digital special economic zone designed to attract tech startups, services companies, and foreign investors, the shift became a timely catalyst for investor commitment.

“Once someone decides to come into the country to find out for themselves, that’s one of the greatest signals,” says Nkechi Oguchi, Itana’s chief community officer. Over the past year, she says, interest has shifted from casual inquiries to founders and investors physically visiting Lagos to evaluate the ecosystem. Improvements in visa processing have helped; so has a more predictable FX regime.

Touted as Nigeria’s first fully operational digital free trade zone, Itana’s growing pull offers a contrast to many other zones across the country that remain underdeveloped or inactive. It emerges as a reference point for what policy certainty and execution can unlock in Nigeria’s broader free zone experiment. 

Itana, which says it now hosts about 50 companies since it began operations in September 2023, is positioning itself as the 21st-century successor to Nigeria’s traditional free zones—structures that have historically catered to oil, gas, logistics, and heavy manufacturing. Itana seeks to serve digital businesses that prioritise seamless onboarding, virtual company formation, flexible capital movement, and a policy environment aligned with tech-driven scaling.

Itana’s users echo this sentiment. “Overall, it has been a very positive experience for us,” says Varun Giridhar, CEO and founder of Circular Energy, a sustainable energy solutions company that focuses on Battery-as-a-Service, which moved to Itana in 2025. “The Itana team has been beneficial and responsive. It makes a big difference when you feel like there are real people on the other side trying to help you get things done rather than slow you down.”

A zone designed for new economy companies

Nigeria has between 42 and 52 licenced free economic zones, but only around 22 are active. Many, such as the Abuja Technology Village Free Zone (2007), Olokola Free Trade Zone (Ondo & Ogun States, 2004), and Centenary Economic City (FCT, 2014), were launched during periods of strong economic growth but now face challenges such as stalled infrastructure, low activity, or weak governance. Between 2000 and 2014, Nigeria’s economy grew at an average real GDP rate of 6–7% annually, with some years even reaching double-digit expansion, creating the optimistic environment in which these projects were initially conceived. This history raises a common question: Is Itana another flash in the pan?

Oguchi acknowledges the concerns but says comparing Itana to older zones misses the point.

“Most of the regular special economic zones were designed for traditional businesses like oil and gas, manufacturing, and heavy industry,” she explains. “Itana is designed for a different set of businesses: startups and service-based companies that need intentionality in building an environment that is suitable for them.”

Itana’s model is particularly advantageous for companies like Circular Energy, Giridhar notes. Though his company is registered in the zone, it is not required to operate physically from it. “We run most of our day-to-day work from Lagos Island,” he says. “In a city like Lagos, that makes life a lot easier and saves huge amounts of time on commuting.”

Nkechi Oguchi explains that while Itana is privately owned, it operates under a 35-year-old Nigeria Export Processing Zones Authority (NEPZA) framework, which has endured through multiple administrations and cannot be easily overturned by any government.

What’s driving the surge in interest

Itana’s growing appeal is being driven by a surge of interest from three key groups: African diaspora founders, foreign founders and investors, and local Nigerian startups seeking more predictable operating conditions. According to Oguchi, nearly half of the companies in the zone are owned by members of the diaspora, while roughly a quarter are led by foreign founders or investors. 

“People leave, but people are also coming back,” Oguchi says. “They are seeing signs of stability and projections for what Africa could be.”

Foreign companies like Circular Energy say the structure addresses friction that typically deters investment. “From a business point of view, the forex access and repatriation framework is a big plus for us,” Giridhar says. “We are deploying dollar capital into Nigeria. It gives our investors more comfort and removes a lot of the uncertainty around moving money in and out.”

Itana has amplified this momentum through its “Doing Business in Africa” tours, which bring investors into Lagos for curated deep-dive sessions. The first tour welcomed a single visitor, while the most recent in October—organised as part of Moonshot by TechCabal—hosted 15 participants, with another group scheduled for December.

The tours are already yielding real outcomes, according to Oguchi. She disclosed that one foreign investor who attended hired Nigerians to make up 80% of his global team after seeing the quality and cost efficiency of talent firsthand.

Inside Itana’s incentive stack

One of the key incentives Itana offers is its FX flexibility. Companies operating in the zone can legally hold multicurrency accounts, collect revenue in dollars or any currency they prefer, retain capital for as long as they choose, and repatriate 100% of their investment when exiting. In an ecosystem where startups are often constrained by FX shortages, these provisions are highly significant. 

“You can collect your revenue in USD, keep it in USD, and repatriate your capital when you need to,” Oguchi explains. “It makes companies more attractive to investors.”

Businesses operating within the zone benefit from a suite of corporate tax reliefs and exemptions from selected federal and state levies, lowering operating costs and improving long-term viability. These incentives typically include waivers on:

• the standard 30% Companies Income Tax (CIT), 
• the 7.5% Value Added Tax (VAT) on goods and services—including imports into the customs territory,
• withholding tax (WHT) of about 2.5–10% on payments such as services, rent, interest, and dividends, 
• the 10% Capital Gains Tax (CGT) on asset disposals, federal stamp duties, and 
• the 3% tertiary education tax on assessable profits.

They can also import equipment and tools duty-free, a boost that improves cash flow and makes early-stage scaling less capital-intensive. These incentives help create a more predictable and supportive environment for growth-oriented digital companies.

In Nigeria’s broader business landscape, founders often have to navigate a maze of regulatory bodies—from the Corporate Affairs Commission and Federal Inland Revenue Service to immigration services, the Central Bank of Nigeria, National Information Technology Development Agency, and several others. Itana simplifies this complexity by centralising these interactions into a single interface. 

“You only need to engage with Itana,” Oguchi explains. “We take the operational headaches and deal with the agencies to ensure you’re compliant.” This streamlined process is particularly beneficial for fintech companies, many of which require numerous licences that typically take months—sometimes over a year—to obtain. Itana says it is actively advocating for policy reforms to shorten regulatory approval timelines.

The zone is also developing a physical district designed to offer the infrastructure essential for modern, high-performance businesses. This district aims to provide stable power, high-speed internet, security, and a community-focused layout that supports collaboration and growth. Oguchi likens the vision to what made Silicon Valley successful: a deliberate mix of strong educational roots, reliable infrastructure, and a concentration of skilled people. “That is what we’re trying to build,” she says.

Can the Itana model outperform traditional zones?

Nigeria’s free zones have attracted more than $30 billion (₦43.5 trillion) in investment and delivered ₦650 billion ($448 million) in government revenue. They contribute meaningfully to industrial output, but their impact remains largely confined to manufacturing and oil-driven activity.

Two startup founders, who requested anonymity to speak freely, argue that the manufacturing focus is precisely the concern: free zones are optimised for capital-heavy industries—export factories, refineries, and logistics hubs—not for startups whose core assets are laptops, talent, and cloud infrastructure. 

“It’s very ambitious,” said one of the founders. “I’ve not seen it work anywhere before, and I don’t know how Nigeria/Lagos holds up to such promises, especially when a change of government (in Lagos) will happen in 2027.”

They also point to Itana’s location, noting that commute times could become a deterrent for workers whose companies choose to operate from the district.

Babatunde Akin-Moses, co-founder and CEO of Sycamore, a peer-to-peer lending platform, echoes this view, suggesting that free zones were never built with digital-first companies in mind.

“The free zone concept was originally meant to encourage exports,” he says. “For digital companies, it feels counterintuitive.”

While he acknowledges the tax advantages on offer, he questions whether the broader incentives translate into meaningful value.

“The FX benefits are not very clear. It’s still the same CBN—it’s not like the zone has its own central bank,” he explains. “And when you factor in the cost of setting up there, your tax bill has to be big enough for the relief to matter. Otherwise, the incentives don’t feel tangible.”

Akin-Moses adds that many Nigerian tech workers already operate remotely for foreign employers without relying on any free-zone structure.

“For physical businesses, free zones make a lot of sense—close to a port, lower duties, fewer levies,” he says. “But for digital businesses, the benefits are not yet clear or well-communicated. And individuals still pay personal income tax unless the zone says otherwise.”

His concerns reflect a broader sentiment among some founders: until the incentives become usable, verifiable, and cost-efficient, widespread adoption will remain limited.

Giridhar offers a contrasting perspective grounded in his company’s capital-intensive model. Circular Energy builds distributed energy-storage and battery-as-a-service systems for telecoms, data centres, cold-chain logistics, and healthcare. Nigeria’s unreliable electricity supply, he says, makes the country an ideal environment for innovation.

“Being based on the ground in Nigeria allows us to design solutions that actually work here,” he notes. “And the digital free-zone structure lets us raise capital and structure the business in a way that also works for international investors.”

Oguchi argues that Itana is being built around metrics that matter in a digital economy—revenue growth, job creation, talent export, and improved startup survival rates.

“We want your chances of survival to be better in Itana than anywhere else,” she says. “Funding should be easier, licences faster, partnerships more accessible.”

She adds that Itana is designed as a live–work–build district that supports a more balanced lifestyle for teams based on the site.

“For people choosing to commute from other parts of the city, there are options,” Oguchi says. “And ongoing upgrades to the road network will significantly cut travel times.”

Risk mitigated, not eliminated

Oguchi is clear-eyed about the limits of what Itana can control. When asked which risks the zone can genuinely eliminate, she is quick to clarify that no business environment is entirely risk-free. 

“No risk can be eliminated, but they can be reduced,” she says. Regulatory uncertainty, for instance, is softened by Itana’s grounding in NEPZA’s decades-old framework and by the zone’s ongoing engagement with government stakeholders. Infrastructure-related risks are being addressed through the development of the Itana District, which is designed to provide reliable power, connectivity, and secure facilities. Currency exposure is mitigated by allowing companies to operate multicurrency accounts and repatriate capital freely, while operational risks are reduced through Itana’s one-stop compliance model, which removes much of the administrative burden from founders.

Still, Oguchi acknowledges that some challenges remain firmly outside Itana’s reach. Policy shifts, economic volatility, and fluctuations in global tech funding cycles continue to shape the broader business landscape. These are risks the zone can help cushion but not eliminate.

Traditional FTZs often operated as enclaves with weak domestic linkages. Itana insists its model is different.

“There are no restrictions,” Oguchi says. “Companies in the zone can do business with anyone in Nigeria.”

Ultimately, Itana’s success will be judged not by ambition or headlines, but by whether it can turn stability into durable company survival, capital inflows, and jobs, while embedding digital firms into Nigeria’s wider economy rather than isolating them from it.

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Photo by Justin Morgan / Unsplash

For years, Gmail users have been stuck with the email address they chose on day one. Unlike many third-party email services, Google never allowed users to edit or update an @gmail.com address once it was set. That long-standing limitation now appears to be changing.

According to an updated Google support page, the company is gradually rolling out the ability to change a Google Account email address even if it ends in @gmail.com. The change lets users pick a new Gmail username while keeping their existing Google account and its history intact.

When the feature becomes available, it will appear under Personal info → Email in your Google Account settings. If you see a “Change email address” option, you’ll be able to choose a new Gmail ID, as long as it isn’t already tied to another Google Account.

Google wants you to stop using passwords for Gmail — here’s what to use instead

Phishing is up, password reuse is rampant, and now Google’s pushing passkeys as the safer, smarter way to log in.

Google says the update doesn’t affect account data. Emails, photos, Drive files, messages, and other content remain unchanged after the address is updated. There are, however, clear limits. After changing your Gmail address, you won’t be able to change or delete it again for 12 months. Each account is also capped at three changes in total, allowing up to four Gmail addresses over the lifetime of the account.

The rollout appears to be gradual. The updated wording currently shows up in select regions and languages, suggesting Google is testing the feature before making it widely available. Not every account will see the option immediately.

For users stuck with outdated, awkward, or regret-filled Gmail usernames, this is a meaningful shift. It doesn’t reinvent Gmail, but it finally removes a frustration many users assumed would never be fixed.

Gmail is adding a Purchases Tab to keep track of your orders

It should help put all your order receipts, shipping updates, and delivery estimates in one place.

Updated

December 26, 2025

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So, how was 2025 for your household? Was it really all as good as you pretended it was on Facebook? Full of A-grades for the kids and riotous themed fancy dress birthday parties for the grownups? Or was it a sea of disappointment with only occasional fun flotsam? And was any of it actually real, or are we all now seven-fingered AI slop beings with Sydney Sweeney’s teeth?

I have gathered my thoughts (and the Diamond household) together, whether they wanted to or not, to reflect on the most important thing in any given year: which video games we enjoyed the most. Without further ado:

Game eldest daughter played the most: Just Dance 2024/Horizon Zero Dawn/Pikmin

“Can’t you pick just one?”

“It’s not my games column.”

On her phone, meanwhile, she’s been playing Cityscapes and “trying to find decent healthcare”.

“In the game?”

“In real life.”

Overwatch … respect. Photograph: MJB/Blizzard

Game middle son played the most: Overwatch
“I don’t play games on my phone.” He was offended that I even asked him that question. I respect that.

Resident Evil Biohazard. Photograph: PR Company Handout

Game youngest daughter played the most: Resident Evil Biohazard
She is trying to get into theatre school, but when she wasn’t singing, she was playing Resident Evil. She also went on in great detail about her achievements on The Sims, where the Shark has a thriving utopia with infinitely better healthcare than her big sister has in real life.

‘A marathon’ … Crash Bandicoot: It’s About Time. Photograph: Activision Publishing

Game the wife played the most: Crash Bandicoot: It’s About Time
She started the year at 60% completion and ended it at 82%. It’s a marathon not a sprint for her. On her phone: something called Woodle, where you have to unscrew pins.

Never too old … Minecraft. Photograph: Microsoft

Game I laughed at my kids for still playing: Minecraft
Any time I see my 21-year-old son playing Minecraft, I set about him like a cross between Steve Martin with that guy in the pub in Roxanne, and Joe Pesci with Spider in Goodfellas. When he complains, I reply that I am doing this to toughen him up so he can be a man and play games for grownups. It’s a very Scottish father/son relationship.

A winner … Just Dance 2024. Photograph: Ubisoft

Most impressive gaming family member 2025: Eldest daughter on Just Dance 2024
There was no contest for this one. She is a machine. Even better than I was at the Cure’s Lovecats on Dancing Stage MegaMix in my prime.

Game I played the most: Marvel Snap
Nothing came close to the hours I spent on this insanely well-crafted deck building wizard’s poker, with its constantly evolving range of cards and game variations.

‘Love turned to hate’… Marvel Snap. Photograph: Marvel

Game I wish I had played less: Marvel Snap
The worst thing about games that constantly evolve their range of cards and variations is you wake up one day and realise it is all just an attempt to suck you into fomo-fuelled microtransactions. So love turned to hate halfway through the year and it went into the bin.

‘A classic’ … Doom: The Dark Ages. Photograph: Bethesda

Game I wish I had played more: Doom: The Dark Ages
Glorious reinvention of a classic. Immersive atmosphere from the off. I wish I could eviscerate my demons so effectively in real life.

‘Beautiful and unique’ … Blue Prince. Photograph: Raw Fury

Game I wish I had played more (cerebral edition): Blue Prince
I refuse to rush this beautiful, unique game and I just didn’t have the time or headspace to give it what it deserved earlier this year. My mother is staying with us over Christmas and the New Year, so I will be playing this in the wee small hours after I have prosecco’d her into oblivion.

‘The high-water mark of gaming’ … Balatro. Photograph: LocalThunk/Playstack

Game that saved my soul when I needed It: Balatro
I know Balatro was 2024’s breakout game, but I was late to it. And it is remarkable. It just gets every single thing right. Crazy Poker is a wonderful concept, but the powers behind the different joker cards are so imaginative it has become a game I literally would play any time of the day or night. Throw in the wittiness of the card design, and this is an absolute high-water mark of gaming. I dream of being stuck in a broken-down lift for hours just so I have nothing to do but play it.

‘A gargantuan gaming achievement’ … Outer Worlds 2. Photograph: Obsidian Entertainment

Game I got the most criticism for criticising: Outer Worlds 2
I experienced a minor pile-on when I wrote about how the Paintress boss battle bug in Clair Obscur ruined the whole game for me, but it’s still a gargantuan gaming achievement in terms of art, sound, acting, battle gameplay and ambition – which I appreciated even more after slogging through Outer Worlds 2. So thank you to the reader who took the time to email me personally, through my website, to say that my Outer Worlds 2 review was “bitter, confused resentment because YOU DON’T GET THE GAME OLD MAN and your son is an idiot as well sorry to inform you.” I present that in the exact way it was written, because I appreciate the effort, and he is obviously an excellent judge of character where my son is concerned.

‘Not a gaming experience I want in my mid-fifties’ … Hollow Knight: Silksong. Photograph: Team Cherry

Game everybody loved that I just didn’t get: Hollow Knight: Silksong
Sure. Give me a bastard-hard Metroidvania-esque thing and don’t tell me what I am supposed to be doing, except “explore”. Great fun. I get that it looks ace and is perfection if you are into this kind of thing, but I cannot think of a gaming experience I want less of in my mid-fifties. I was around back when all games were like this, and I’ve had enough. It was fine when I was a kid, but so was polyester.

Biggest gaming scandal of 2025: Toss-up between EA getting in bed with Jared Kushner and the Saudis, and Outer Worlds 2 costing £70. Both morally indefensible and repugnant.

Clair Obscur. Photograph: Sandfall Interactive

Games I would name my children after, if I was ever stupid enough to have more: Clair Obscur, Despelote and Bananza would all sound good bellowed from the doorstep at tea time.

Part of my body that aches most from gaming: Right thumb joint. Seriously. I don’t know if it’s because of video games or doomscrolling on my phone, but it burns like the mines of sulphur in the mornings now. I knew I should have got my thumbs insured back in the 90s.

Game I am looking forward to the most in 2026: GTA 6.
And it will come out in 2026, even if we have to make 2026 last until the heat death of the universe.

Game I am looking forward to the most in 2036: The Witcher 4.

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From Jim Carrey to Ricky Gervais, there are some people who are just plain funny. 

But do you have what it takes to be the next big comedian?

Scientists say there are four key humour styles – and have even come up with a test to reveal which ones you possess. 

The test, called the Humor Styles Questionnaire, includes 32 questions to assess your levels of affiliative humour, self–enhancing humour, aggressive humour, and self–defeating humour. 

If you score highly for affiliative humour, this suggests you love cracking jokes and engaging in spontaneous witty banter. 

A high score for self–enhancing humour indicates you have a generally humorous outlook on life. 

Aggressive humour relates to the use of sarcasm, teasing, and ‘put–downs’, while self–defeating humour involves excessively self–disparaging humour. 

So, what’s your humour style? Take the test to find out. 

The test, called the Humor Styles Questionnaire, includes 32 questions to assess your levels of affiliative humour, self–enhancing humour, aggressive humour, and self–defeating humour

If you score highly for affiliative humour, this suggests you enjoy sharing humour with other people – much like Michael McIntyre

The Humor Styles Questionnaire was created back in 2003 by researchers from the University of Western Ontario. 

‘The Humor Styles Questionnaire assesses four dimensions relating to individual differences in uses of humor,’ the team, led by Rod A. Martin explained in their study, published in the Journal of Research in Personality. 

‘These are: relatively benign uses of humor to enhance the self (Self–enhancing) and to enhance one’s relationships with others (Affiliative), use of humor to enhance the self at the expense of others (Aggressive), and use of humor to enhance relationships at the expense of self (Self–defeating).’

The questionnaire includes 32 statements, describing different ways in which humour might be experienced. 

Participants are asked to read each statement carefully, and indicate the degree to which they agree or disagree with it. 

The statements include things like: ‘I usually don’t laugh or joke around much with other people,’ ‘I laugh and joke a lot with my friends’, and ‘I enjoy making people laugh’. 

At the end of the test, you’ll be given your score for each of the four humour styles, and told how that compares against the rest of the population. 

If you score highly for affiliative humour, this suggests you enjoy sharing humour with other people – much like Michael McIntyre. 

People like Greg Davies who score highly for self–enhancing humour, tend to maintain a humorous outlook on life, even during difficult times

The 4 humour styles

1. If you score highly for affiliative humour, this suggests you love cracking jokes and engaging in spontaneous witty banter. 
2. A high score for self–enhancing humour, indicates you have a generally humorous outlook on life. 
3. Aggressive humour relates to the use of sarcasm, teasing, and ‘put–downs.
4. Self–defeating humour involves self–disparaging humour. 

‘They often tell jokes and funny stories to amuse others and make them laugh, and they enjoy laughing along with others,’ the researchers explained. 

‘They do not take themselves too seriously, and can laugh about their mistakes without feeling too badly about them. 

‘Research shows that those who are high on affiliative humor tend to be cheerful, outgoing and friendly, and tend to have enjoyable relationships with others.’

People like Greg Davies who score highly for self–enhancing humour, tend to maintain a humorous outlook on life, even during difficult times.

‘They always look on the funny side of things and use humor to cheer themselves up,’ the researchers explained.

‘Even when they are alone, they are often amused by the absurdities of life. 

‘Research indicates that those who are high on self–enhancing humor tend to be emotionally well–adjusted, and do not easily become discouraged, anxious, or depressed. They cope well with stress and tend to be optimistic.’

Meanwhile, people like Jimmy Carr who are high on aggressive humour often tease, put down, and manipulate other people. 

People like Jimmy Carr who are high on aggressive humour often tease, put down, and manipulate other people

People like Nish Kumar who score highly for self–defeating humour can be quite funny, but often go too far in making jokes at their own expense

‘Although they may be very witty, their humor tends to involve ridicule or sarcasm,’ the researchers said. 

‘They like to tell racist or sexist jokes, and are not concerned about how their humor might be hurtful to others. 

‘Making fun of others is a way they try to enhance their own self–esteem. 

‘Research indicates that people who are high in this humor style tend to be generally aggressive and insensitive to others. 

‘Their levels of self–esteem and emotional well–being are no higher or lower than the average person. 

‘Those who are low on this humor style tend to have more satisfactory relationships.’

Finally, people like Nish Kumar who score highly for self–defeating humour can be quite funny, but often go too far in making jokes at their own expense. 

‘They tend to laugh along with others when being ridiculed or made fun of,’ the researchers explained. 

‘They try to make other people accept them more by allowing themselves to be the butt of others’ humor. 

‘They also tend to use humor to hide their true feelings from others, putting on a happy face even when feeling unhappy inside. 

‘According to research findings, people who are high in this style of humor tend to have low self–esteem, and are often unhappy and anxious. 

‘They are often dissatisfied with their relationships.’

Worst offenders: 20 punny ‘dad jokes’ guaranteed to elicit groans and shaking heads

1. Elevators terrify me… I’m taking steps to avoid them. 
2.  I got an e–mail saying ‘At Google Earth, we can even read maps backwards’, and I thought… ‘That’s just spam…’
3. What do you call a man with no shins? Tony.
4. Me and my friends put a band together, we named it 999 megabytes. Still don’t have a gig though.
5. I got into a fight with 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9. The odds were against me.
6. I had a dream the ocean was filled with orange soda. It was a Fanta Sea.
7. Just got hospitalized due to a peekaboo accident. They put me in the ICU.
8. In college I was so broke I couldn’t afford the electricity bill. Those were the darkest days of my life.
9. I went to the Doctor with hearing problems. He said ‘Can you describe the symptoms?’ I said: ‘Homer’s a fat dude and Marge has blue hair.’
10. I said to my wife: ‘When I die I’d like to die having sex.’ She replied: ‘At least it’ll be quick.’
11. I’ve decided I want a pet termite. I’m going to call him Clint. Clint Eatswood.
12. So many people these days are too judgmental. I can tell just by looking at them.
13. How many tickles does it take to make an octopus laugh? 10–tickles.
14. ‘Dad, can you tell me what a solar eclipse is?’ No sun.
15. I figured out why Teslas are so expensive. It’s because they charge a lot.
16. Guess who I bumped into on my way to get my glasses fixed? Everybody.
17. My wife blocked me on Facebook because I post too many bird puns. Well, toucan play at that game.
18. Did you hear about the new Origami Porn channel? It’s paper view only.
19. I was really angry when I ran into my friend Mark who stole my dictionary. I said, ‘Mark, my words!’
20. I used to make loads of money clearing leaves from gardens. I was raking it in.

Courtesy of @dadsaysjokes on Twitter.  

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Big banks are paying closer attention to crypto again. Not because of hype, but because their biggest clients are asking for it. As rules around digital assets start to look clearer in the US, institutions that once stayed cautious are reassessing what they offer. That shift helps explain why JPMorgan is now exploring crypto trading for its institutional customers.

JPMorgan Chase is looking at what its markets division could realistically support, including direct crypto trading and possibly crypto derivatives. These talks are still early, and nothing has been officially launched, but the fact that the conversation is happening at all marks a notable change for one of the world’s most influential banks.

The interest is coming largely from clients. As regulations in the United States begin to settle, large investors are asking their banks for clearer access to crypto markets through familiar, regulated channels. JPMorgan is weighing whether there is enough demand, whether the risks can be managed, and whether the current regulatory environment allows it to move forward without exposing the bank to unnecessary trouble.

Algeria bans crypto use, exchange and mining of the digital asset

This isn’t the North African country’s first attempt to clamp down on crypto.

For a long time, banks avoided crypto trading because the rules were vague and enforcement was unpredictable. That has started to change. In recent months, US regulators have taken steps that make it easier for banks to act as intermediaries for crypto assets. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has clarified that banks can support certain crypto activities, and new stablecoin laws have added more structure to the market.

Jamie Dimon’s evolving stance on crypto

JPMorgan’s interest in crypto is especially notable given CEO Jamie Dimon’s past comments. He has repeatedly criticized Bitcoin, once calling it a “pet rock.” But in recent years, his tone has softened. While he still questions the value of cryptocurrencies, he has made it clear that clients should be free to buy and use them if they choose.

That more pragmatic approach is now shaping how the bank operates. JPMorgan has already been active in blockchain technology through projects like JPM Coin and Onyx. It has also arranged blockchain based bond settlements and plans to allow institutional clients to use Bitcoin and Ether as collateral for loans. Adding crypto trading would be another step in treating digital assets as a service to be managed, not an idea to be dismissed.

Stripe reintroduces crypto payments with USDC

The news comes six years after the payments company ceased Bitcoin transactions due to its volatility.

JPMorgan’s exploration of crypto trading is part of a broader shift across global finance. Standard Chartered recently launched spot Bitcoin and Ether trading for institutional clients in the UK. Goldman Sachs has run a crypto derivatives desk for years. BlackRock now manages tens of billions of dollars through its Bitcoin exchange traded fund. Even traditionally conservative European banks have begun buying and holding Bitcoin through in house trading desks.

JPMorgan has not committed to a launch timeline, and it may still decide not to move forward if demand or regulatory clarity falls short.

If JPMorgan does move ahead, it could make crypto trading feel more familiar and accessible to large investors who prefer trusted banks over standalone crypto platforms. More broadly, it signals that crypto’s next phase may be less about hype and more about infrastructure, compliance, and long term integration into global finance.

PayPal rolls out one-time payment links with crypto support on the way

It could make sending or requesting money as effortless as dropping a text.

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This summer, I found myself battling through traffic in the sweltering streets of Marseille. At a crossing, my friend in the passenger seat told me to turn right toward a spot known for its fish soup. But the navigation app Waze instructed us to go straight. Tired, and with the Renault feeling like a sauna on wheels, I followed Waze’s advice. Moments later, we were stuck at a construction site.

A trivial moment, maybe. But one that captures perhaps the defining question of our era, in which technology touches nearly every aspect of our lives: who do we trust more – other human beings and our own instincts, or the machine?

The German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously defined the Enlightenment as “man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.” Immaturity, he wrote, “is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance from another”. For centuries, that “other” directing human thought and life was often the priest, the monarch, or the feudal lord – the ones claiming to act as God’s voice on Earth. In trying to understand natural phenomena – why volcanoes erupt, why the seasons change – humans looked to God for answers. In shaping the social world, from economics to love, religion served as our guide.

Humans, Kant argued, always had the capacity for reason. They just hadn’t always had the confidence to use it. But with the American and later the French Revolution, a new era was dawning: reason would replace faith, and the human mind, unshackled from authority, would become the engine of progress and a more moral world. “Sapere aude!” or “Have courage to use your own understanding!, Kant urged his contemporaries.

Two and a half centuries later, one may wonder whether we are quietly slipping back into immaturity. An app telling us which road to take is one thing. But artificial intelligence threatens to become our new “other” – a silent authority that guides our thoughts and actions. We are in danger of ceding the hard-won courage to think for ourselves – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to code.

ChatGPT was launched only three years ago, and already one global survey, published in April, found that 82% of respondents had used AI in the previous six months. Whether deciding to end a relationship or who to vote for, people are turning to machines for advice. According to OpenAI, 73% of user prompts concern non work-related topics. Even more intriguing than our dependence on AI’s judgment in daily life is what happens when we let it speak for us. Writing is now among the most common uses of ChatGPT, second only to practical requests such as DIY or cooking advice. The American author Joan Didion once said: “I write entirely to find out what I am thinking.” What happens when we stop writing? Do we stop finding out?

Worryingly, some evidence suggests that the answer might be yes. A study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography (EEG) to monitor the brain activity of essay writers given access to AI, search engines like Google, or nothing at all. Those who could rely on AI showed the lowest cognitive activity and struggled to accurately quote their work. Perhaps most concerning was that over a couple of months, participants in the AI group became increasingly lazy, copying entire blocks of text in their essays.

The study is small and imperfect, but Kant would have recognised the pattern. “Laziness and cowardice,” he wrote, “are the reasons why so great a proportion of men … remain in lifelong immaturity, and why it is so easy for others to establish themselves as their guardians. It is so easy to be immature.”

Sure, AI’s appeal lies in its convenience. It saves time, spares effort and – crucially – offers a new way to offload responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the rise of fascism could be explained in part by people preferring to surrender their freedom in exchange for the reassuring certainty of subordination. AI offers a new way of surrendering that burden of having to think and decide for yourself.

AI’s greatest allure is that it can do things our minds can’t – sift through oceans of data and process it at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to trust the machine instead of my friend in the passenger seat (a decision she took as an insult). With access to all the data, surely the app must know best – or so I thought.

The problem is that AI is a black box. It produces knowledge, but without necessarily deepening human understanding. We don’t really know how AI reaches its conclusions – even the programmers admit as much. Nor can we verify its reasoning against clear, objective criteria. So when we follow AI’s advice, we are not guided by reason. We are back in the realm of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that may become our future guiding principle.

AI can be a formidable ally to humans in rational inquiry. It can help us invent drugs, or free us from “bullshit jobs”, or doing our taxes – tasks that demand little thought and offer little satisfaction. All the better. But Kant and his contemporaries did not plead the case of reason over faith just so humans could build better shelves or have more spare time. Critical thinking was not just about efficiency – it was a practice of freedom and human emancipation.

Human thinking is messy and full of errors, but it forces us to debate, to doubt, to test ideas against one another – and to recognise the limits of our own understanding. It builds confidence, both individually and collectively. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never just about knowledge; it was about enabling people to become agents of their own lives, and resist domination. It was about building a moral community grounded in the shared principle of reason and debate, rather than blind belief.

With all the benefits AI brings, the challenge is this: how can we harness its promise of superhuman intelligence without eroding human reasoning, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy itself? That may be one of the defining questions of the 21st century. It is one we would do well not to delegate to the machine.

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Across Africa, 2025 added new scale and texture to an already active tech ecosystem. Long-running conferences returned with bigger ambitions, while newer festivals carved out space for focused conversations around artificial intelligence (AI), data, policy, and startup growth.

From government-backed summits outlining national digital strategies to developer-led gatherings exploring frontier tools, tech conversations moved fluidly between policy rooms, pitch stages, and community workshops. Cities like Marrakech, Lagos, Algiers, Kigali, and Cape Town played host to events that reflected the state of Africa’s tech ecosystem and its future.

Here are some of the major tech events across the continent in 2025.

1. Africa Tech Summit Nairobi (Nairobi, Kenya, February 12–13)

The 7th Africa Tech Summit, held in Nairobi, brought together over 2,000 tech leaders at the Sarit Expo Centre and was organised around four distinct pillars: the Africa Money & DeFi Summit, the Africa Climate Tech & Investment Summit, the Africa Startup Summit, and the Africa Mobile & App Summit. 

Around 80 exhibitors showcased their solutions while 65 speakers took to the stage, creating a dynamic environment where mobile operators rubbed shoulders with crypto founders, investors scouted for the next big opportunity, and regulators engaged directly with innovators. The summit’s Investment Showcase became a hub for deal-making, with fireside chats and masterclasses running throughout the event. 

2. Lagos Tech Fest (Lagos, Nigeria, February 19–20)

For its fifth year, Lagos Tech Fest convened more than 2,000 participants at multiple venues across Lagos, including Four Points by Sheraton, Club House, and the Landmark Event Centre. The two‑day festival, headlined by Mastercard, combined a welcome party, Nigeria’s Tech Leadership Roundtable, and the main conference program to spotlight opportunities across fintech, venture capital, crypto and DeFi, payments and banking, e‑commerce, and digital infrastructure.

3. GITEX Africa (Marrakech, Morocco, April 14–16)

The third edition of GITEX Africa returned to Marrakech under the theme “Accelerating Africa’s Digital Transformation,” drawing over 45,000 visitors from more than 130 countries and featuring around 1,400 exhibitors showcasing innovations in AI, cloud computing, fintech, cybersecurity, smart cities, healthtech, agritech, and connectivity.

4. Africa AI Festival (Lagos, Nigeria, May 31)

The Africa AI Festival convened one of the continent’s largest gatherings focused on AI and its role in African markets and society. Held under the theme “AI for Africa: Scaling Innovation and Inclusion,” the event drew over 5,000 attendees from more than 20 countries, including founders, investors and industry leaders. 

The festival featured over 50 speakers and startup exhibitors, covering practical AI applications in healthcare, finance, education, and enterprise services, while sessions on ethical AI, data infrastructure, and investment models highlighted the continent’s unique challenges and opportunities.

Side discussions, workshops, and networking sessions facilitated direct engagement between startups and investors, with the Founder Showcase and Investor Lounge providing platforms to translate AI concepts into scalable African solutions.

5. Kids Tech Fest 2025 (Lagos, Nigeria, June 14)

Africa’s first large-scale AI summit for children and parents took place at the Landmark Event Centre in Lagos, drawing over 5,000 attendees. Organised by Digital Equity Africa, the summit aimed to introduce young learners to AI through interactive sessions, hands-on workshops, and family-focused learning experiences.

The event covered practical and socially relevant AI topics, including how AI works, ethical considerations, digital safety, and responsible technology use. Separate tracks for parents and educators explored how to support children in developing AI literacy and navigating the digital world safely.

The summit also served as a launch platform for two educational initiatives. Bud AI, a child-safe AI learning companion with parental oversight, and the Future Minds Online AI Learning Community, designed for children aged 6 to 16, were introduced to provide ongoing learning opportunities beyond the event.

6. AI Summit for Africa (Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, August 17–20)

The AI Summit for Africa convened technology leaders, policymakers, academics, and industry experts in Victoria Falls under the theme “AI‑Powered Transformation: Unlocking New Frontiers for Sustainable Socio‑Economic Growth.” 

The multi‑day event focused on how AI can drive inclusive development across Africa’s key sectors, including healthcare, education, agriculture, and financial services.

The summit also served as a platform for Zimbabwe’s government to outline progress on its National AI Strategy, highlighting initiatives to strengthen digital skills, expand connectivity, and promote responsible AI adoption. 

7. GITEX Nigeria (Abuja & Lagos, September 1–4)

GITEX debuted in Nigeria with the theme “Forging the Rise of Digital Nigeria,” bringing together policymakers, enterprise executives, founders and investors across two of the country’s most strategic cities. 

The opening day in Abuja focused on the Government Leadership & AI Summit, where discussions centred on building and future-proofing digital infrastructure, scaling AI responsibly in public services, and upskilling talent for research and innovation.

In Lagos, the Tech Expo & Future Economy Conference served as West Africa’s largest tech “super‑connector” event, convening more than 3,000 professionals and over 100 exhibitors to explore how technologies such as artificial intelligence, fintech, cybersecurity, and Internet of Things solutions are shaping national and regional markets. The conference’s executive track examined enterprise digital transformation, frontier cybersecurity strategies, and future networks, while investment‑oriented sessions discussed new funding paradigms for entrepreneurial innovation and growth, diaspora engagement in local scaling, and strategies for building homegrown unicorns.

Running alongside the Tech Expo, the GITEX Nigeria Startup Festival showcased over 1,000 curated startups and more than 300 investors, featuring pitch opportunities, matchmaking programmes, and the Supernova Challenge, which offered founders visibility and potential funding connections. 

8. Seamless Africa (Johannesburg, South Africa, September 8–9)

The conference aimed to explore the world of digital commerce. The premier event, which was held at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg, focused on financial services, banking, retail and e-commerce across all sectors on the African continent, with almost 6000 participants in attendance.

9. Africa FinTech Summit (Accra, Ghana, October 8–10)

The fintech event gathered Africa’s finest investors, innovators, entrepreneurs, and regulators to shape the future of financial services across the continent. It was held in Kempinski Hotel Gold Coast City, Accra, Ghana and featured conversations spanning topics such as the future of cross-border payments in Africa, Web3 and Blockchain, the rise of mobile money and investment trends in African fintech.

10. AgentCon Accra (Accra, Ghana, October 9)

AgentCon Accra 2025, themed “Agents of Change: Building Ghana’s Intelligent Future,” offered a developer‑focused forum on autonomous AI agents, positioning Ghana as a hub for practical AI innovation. Part of the AgentCon 2025 World Tour, the one-day event brought together engineers, researchers, and creators to explore the design, deployment, and scaling of autonomous software systems capable of performing tasks with minimal human intervention.

Sessions and workshops focused on agentic workflows, integration of AI agents into real-world systems, open-source frameworks, and tools for building intelligent assistants and autonomous services.

11.  Moonshot by TechCabal (Lagos, Nigeria, October 15–16)

Lagos came alive in October when Moonshot by TechCabal hosted its third edition at the Eko Convention Centre, under the theme “Building Momentum.” The two-day event brought together over 4,000 founders, investors, creatives, and policymakers from more than 15 countries, creating a vibrant hub for dialogue, collaboration, and deal-making.

With more than 140 speakers and nine content tracks spanning AI, climate tech, the creative economy, and emerging sectors, Moonshot blended the structure of a summit with the energy of a festival. Participants engaged in workshops, hands-on sessions, and fireside chats that focused on practical strategies for scaling startups, attracting investment, and leveraging technology for measurable impact.

Deal rooms were abuzz as investors connected with promising founders, while curated sessions highlighted emerging trends and showcased innovative solutions across African markets.

12. DataFest Africa (Lagos, Nigeria, October 18)

DataFest Africa 2025, themed “AI in Africa: Solving Today’s Problems, Building Tomorrow’s Systems,” brought together over 4,000 attendees, 50 speakers, and more than 30 sponsors and exhibitors in Lagos for a one-day festival focused on practical applications of AI and data science. The event highlighted how data-driven technologies can address challenges in finance, healthcare, agriculture, and public governance across Africa.

Sessions and workshops explored agent-based systems, AI for social good, data governance, and ethical AI, providing participants with hands-on opportunities to experiment with real-world solutions.

The event also showcased ecosystem initiatives, including efforts by the Nigeria AI Collective to develop national AI repositories, curated datasets, and platforms for research and innovation. Attendees engaged in hackathons, product demonstrations, and practical workshops, turning AI potential into actionable, scalable solutions.

13. Mobile World Congress Kigali (Kigali, Rwanda, October 21–23)

The third edition of Mobile World Congress Kigali, held at the Kigali Convention Centre, brought together over 3,000 delegates from 109 countries, including government officials, telecom executives, regulators, and technology leaders. The event ran under the theme “Converge, Connect, Create,, positioning connectivity, policy, and emerging technologies as central to Africa’s digital growth agenda.

The event’s programming was focused on four core areas. Connected Continent sessions examined broadband rollout, spectrum policy, and infrastructure financing. The AI Future explored responsible AI adoption, data readiness, and the development of African language models. Fintech discussions centred on mobile money, digital payments, and regulatory alignment, while Africa’s Digital Frontier highlighted technology applications across public services, health, education, and entertainment. 

14.  Blockchain Africa Conference (Johannesburg, South Africa, October 22)

The 11th annual Blockchain Africa Conference convened practitioners, innovators, and industry leaders in Johannesburg under the theme “Ready for Business.” The one-day event drew around 270 attendees from 10 countries and featured 27 speakers, focusing on practical applications of blockchain and digital assets across African markets.

Sessions explored finance, digital banking, enterprise adoption, tokenisation, and regulatory frameworks. Panel discussions addressed topics such as stablecoin adoption, institutional digital asset infrastructure, and operational challenges in blockchain implementation, offering actionable insights for businesses, regulators, and developers.

15. Africa Tech Festival (Cape Town, South Africa, November 11–13)

The 28th edition of Africa Tech Festival transformed Cape Town into a continental tech hub, drawing 15,000 attendees, 450 speakers, and over 300 exhibitors to the Cape Town International Convention Centre. The festival combined four major events into one integrated programme: AfricaCom, focused on telecoms and connectivity; AfricaTech, highlighting enterprise innovation; AfricaIgnite, championing startups; and The AI Summit Cape Town, exploring commercial AI applications.

16.  Cairo ICT (Cairo, Egypt, November 16–19)

The 29th edition of Cairo ICT brought together governments, multinational tech companies, startups, and investors under the theme “AI Everywhere.” The four-day event was held at the Egypt International Exhibition Centre in New Cairo, featuring over 500 exhibitors and attracting over 160,000 participants from across Africa, the Middle East, and beyond.

The summit included multiple specialised tracks, including PAFIX for digital payments and financial inclusion, AIDC for AI, data centres, and cloud computing, Connecta for youth and entertainment technologies, Innovation Arena for creative solutions, and Cyber Zone for cybersecurity engagement. 

Over the four days, the event featured 96 panel discussions with 491 speakers, covering AI applications, cybersecurity, 5G and connectivity, digital identity, cloud computing, and smart infrastructure. Connecta hosted 84 sessions focused on youth innovation and entertainment tech, while other areas showcased digital education initiatives and startup exhibitions.

17. African Startup Conference (Algiers, Algeria, December 6–8)

The fourth African Startup Conference brought together more than 25,000 participants from across Africa and beyond. The three‑day event ran under the theme “Raising African Champions,” convening entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers, and ecosystem builders to explore how African startups can scale, compete globally, and contribute to economic growth.

Organised by the Algerian Ministry of Knowledge Economy, Startups, and Micro‑Enterprises, with support from Algeria Venture, the conference featured over 200 exhibitors, 150 investors, and more than 300 international experts showcasing solutions in fintech, AI, climate tech, creative industries, and enterprise applications.

The conference concluded with the Algiers Declaration, a commitment by ministers and ecosystem stakeholders to promote fair, secure, and responsible digital platforms across Africa.

18. Google Devfest (Lagos, Nigeria, November 18-22, 2025)

Google’s DevFest is an annual developer conference organised by Google Developers Groups (GDGs) across the world. The 2025 edition in Lagos featured over 100 speakers and tech professionals from across all stages of their careers. The first day featured a ‘student day’ for students and aspiring tech professionals; other tech categories, such as AI & cloud, Web 3 and design, were allocated to other days. 

On all five days, the event concluded with networking, an opportunity for tech enthusiasts to build community.

19. Tech in Ghana (Kumasi, Ghana, December 4-5)

Tech in Ghana, a UK-Ghana platform, held one edition of its annual conference on the African continent. Organised twice annually, in London and Accra, the conference seeks to empower the country’s tech talent to create impact on a global stage. The 2025 conference, held at the Jubilee Hall, Manhyia Palace in Kumasi, spanned over two days. 

The ‘Royal’ edition, which was one of its kind, took place at His Royal Majesty Otumfuo Osei Tutu II’s Jubilee Hall to explore how traditional industries, including manufacturing, education, and agriculture, are evolving with cutting-edge technologies.

20. AfricArena Grand Summit (Cape Town, South Africa, December 2–3)

Acting as the grand finale of a year-long world tour, the AfricArena Grand Summit took place at the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC). Beginning with five hybrid events across four regions, acting as semi-finals to scout the continent’s top talent, it culminated in the Grand Summit in Cape Town on December 2–3, 2025. 

At the Grand summit, over 50 startups pitched over two days, from seed to growth-stage founders, paired with insights from the top minds shaping Africa’s tech and investment landscape. 

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