Judith Murphy

Judith Murphy is a financial journalist and market analyst covering AI, technology stocks, and emerging market trends. She has contributed to multiple financial publications and brings a data-driven approach to her coverage of the technology sector and its impact on global markets.

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Judith Murphy · Jul 22, 2026 · 5:54 PM

What is token vesting and how it differs from startup equity

What is token vesting? It's the crypto equivalent of startup equity vesting, enforced by smart contracts rather than legal agreements, with unlock schedules visible to every trader watching the blockchain. Understanding how the cliff, tax treatment, and enforcement differ from traditional equity can save founders and contributors from expensive surprises.

Judith Murphy · Jul 22, 2026 · 5:52 PM

Glow raises $180 million at a $1.2 billion valuation to secure the AI agents that CrowdStrike wasn't built to see

Israeli cybersecurity startup Glow emerged from stealth on July 22, 2026, with $180 million raised at a $1.2 billion valuation, backed by Sequoia Capital, Cyberstarts, and Index Ventures. The company is building AI-native endpoint security designed to monitor and control autonomous AI agents and coding copilots , a blind spot it argues CrowdStrike and SentinelOne were never architected to see. Glow already has paying customers in healthcare, retail, and financial services.

Judith Murphy · Jul 22, 2026 · 3:10 PM

Tencent stock falls 7% as gaming fears and an AI rotation hammer China tech

Tencent fell as much as 7.1% on July 22, its steepest single-day drop since April 2025, as fears over slowing mobile gaming revenue collided with a fund rotation into AI stocks. The selloff dragged the Hang Seng Tech Index down 3.5% and pulled NetEase and XD Inc. more than 6% lower, leaving Tencent down roughly 30% year-to-date in 2026.

Judith Murphy · Jul 22, 2026 · 12:30 PM

TSMC's record AI chip profits come with a hidden tax that every founder should understand

Judith Murphy · Jul 22, 2026 · 9:59 AM

Coinbase stock jumps 11% as the CLARITY Act clears its biggest Senate hurdle yet

Coinbase shares surged as much as 13% on July 21 after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent declared the CLARITY Act at the Senate's 'one-yard line,' with exchange and crypto infrastructure stocks outpacing Bitcoin itself as markets bet on a long-overdue regulatory framework finally clearing Congress. The White House ethics deal that had stalled the bill for months appears resolved in principle, though Democrats have yet to see the agreed text and the August 7 recess deadline is tight.

Judith Murphy · Jul 22, 2026 · 7:13 AM

Apple is launching a device leasing program with Klarna on July 28

Apple is launching a device leasing program called Apple Upgrade on July 28, with Klarna handling the credit risk. The move lets customers lease iPhones, Macs, iPads, and Apple Watches on 24 or 36-month terms and marks one of Apple's biggest-ever shifts in how it sells hardware.

Judith Murphy · Jul 22, 2026 · 5:15 AM

OpenAI adds two bank CEOs to its board as IPO signals grow stronger

OpenAI added Nubank CEO David Vélez and BNY CEO Robin Vince to its board on July 21, 2026, with Vince chairing the audit committee. The move follows a confidential May S-1 filing at an $852 billion valuation, and signals the financial governance a public listing would require.

Judith Murphy · Jul 22, 2026 · 3:20 AM

Poolside's Laguna S 2.1 Beats Bigger Rivals on Coding Benchmarks

Poolside released Laguna S 2.1, a 118 billion parameter open-weight coding model that matches or beats several-times-larger rivals on Terminal-Bench 2.1 and SWE-Bench Pro, built in under nine weeks and small enough to run on a desktop GPU. The release positions the Nvidia-backed startup as the West's answer to China's dominance in open-weight coding models.

Judith Murphy · Jul 22, 2026 · 2:22 AM

Tempus AI Stock Sinks After It Agrees to Buy Personalis for $1.5 Billion

Tempus AI agreed to buy cancer-monitoring firm Personalis for $1.5 billion on July 20, 2026, but instead of celebrating, investors sent both stocks tumbling. Personalis fell nearly 15% on a disappointing 6% premium, while Tempus dropped over 9% on dilution and integration risk. Wall Street remains split, with price targets ranging from Jefferies' $35 to BTIG's $80.

Judith Murphy · Jul 21, 2026 · 10:19 PM

Alibaba Says Qwen3.8-Max Beats Fable 5 on Price, but Skips the Benchmark

Alibaba claims Qwen3.8-Max ranks second only to Claude Fable 5 at a tenth of the price, but shipped it with no benchmark table, model card or license. The pricing comparison rests on a temporary promotional subscription discount, not a published per-token rate, and no third party has verified the quality claim.

Judith Murphy · Jul 21, 2026 · 5:54 PM

Gritt Robotics Raises $32.4 Million to Automate Solar Farm Construction

Gritt Robotics has exited stealth with $34 million to build AI software that mounts onto excavators and telehandlers already on job sites, automating solar panel placement and racking assembly. Founded by engineers from Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, and MIT, the company is betting that construction labor, not chip supply, is the real bottleneck in the AI-driven infrastructure buildout.

Judith Murphy · Jul 21, 2026 · 4:20 PM

How to Split Equity Between Co-Founders Without Blowing Up the Company

How to split equity between co-founders comes down to a repeatable framework, not a gut-feel conversation in week one: score contributions, attach real vesting, and plan for the split to change. Most co-founder equity disputes trace back to a split that was decided fast and never revisited.

Judith Murphy · Jul 21, 2026 · 12:48 PM

Cardano's Van Rossem Hard Fork Proves Community Voting Can Run a Blockchain

Cardano activated its Van Rossem hard fork on July 18, the first upgrade to a top-15 blockchain ratified entirely through on-chain voting by DReps, stake pool operators and a Constitutional Committee. The fork honors Max van Rossem, a Cardano governance architect who died in 2025, and now faces a tougher test: keeping voters engaged after the novelty wears off.

Judith Murphy · Jul 21, 2026 · 9:17 AM

Arthur Hayes Sells Ethereum At A Loss Then Buys It Back Higher

Arthur Hayes sold 6,000 ETH at a $606,000 loss in June, then reversed and bought nearly 1,939 ETH back above $1,900 starting July 15 through OTC transfers from Galaxy Digital and FalconX. The reversal raises fresh questions about whether Hayes's public trades are a useful signal or just noise, even as the flow shows institutional ETH demand still moving off exchange.

Judith Murphy · Jul 21, 2026 · 4:52 AM

BlackRock Sells $12 Billion in Bonds to Fund Meta's Texas AI Data Center

BlackRock is selling more than $12 billion in bonds to finance a Meta data center campus in El Paso, Texas, through Project Sopaipilla Holdings, a venture where BlackRock holds an 80% stake. The deal is the latest piece of BlackRock's broader push into AI infrastructure financing, which also includes a roughly $40 billion consortium deal for Aligned Data Centers.

Judith Murphy · Jul 20, 2026 · 7:39 PM

Amazon Japan's Logistics Partner Will Pay 2300 Drivers in Stablecoin

AZ-COM Maruwa Holdings, a key logistics distributor for Amazon Japan, will pay roughly 2,300 subcontractors and truck drivers in JPYC, Japan's first regulated yen-pegged stablecoin. The move, announced July 20, 2026, is the largest corporate payroll use of a stablecoin in Japan to date and comes alongside a separate JPYC pilot at a Lawson convenience store.