Good morning. Any bank will tell you that processing financial transactions is a tricky business that requires constant vigilance for fraud, hackers, regulatory compliance, and countless other challenges. In the wild world of crypto, doubly so.
That’s what makes Leo Schwartz and Ben Weiss’ latest investigation into Binance so striking. The crypto exchange, founded by the now-pardoned Changpeng Zhao, has been under scrutiny for weeks for firing internal investigators who had informed management about more than $1 billion that flowed through the exchange to Iran-linked wallets. (Binance has said the firings were unrelated and that the company maintains a rigorous compliance program, per its 2023 plea deal with the U.S. government over lack of effective anti-money laundering and sanctions programs).
The latest details reported by Schwartz and Weiss raise serious questions about how effective Binance’s compliance programs are. According to the report, $439 million in crypto tokens were transferred from a Binance VIP account registered to a 79-year old resident of China. The tokens were transferred to an outside wallet, with most of the funds then forwarded to other outside wallets later determined to be connected to sanctioned organizations linked to Iran like the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
As a former federal prosecutor who is now an executive at a crypto compliance company told Fortune, that kind of transaction is not something that goes unnoticed: “This is not merely a red flag, it is an immediate escalation trigger.” You can read the full story here.
Today’s tech news below.
Alexei Oreskovic
@lexnfx
alexei.oreskovic@fortune.com
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Meta's Avocado problems
Nine months and $14.3 billion after hiring Alexandr Wang and forming an AI super team, Meta's AI masterplan is looking increasingly shaky.
The company's latest AI model, code named Avocado, is apparently being delayed until May, instead of launching this month, according to a report in the New York Times on Thursday. While Avocado performed better than Meta's previous AI model, and better than Google Gemini 2.5, its performance lags the newer version of Gemini, 3.0, which came out in November, as well as the latest models from OpenAI and Anthropic.
Even more stunning, Meta's leadership has apparently discussed licensing Gemini from Google on a temporary basis until Avocado is up to snuff, according to the NYT report. Yes, that's Google, Meta's arch-rival in the AI race (not to mention their competition in advertising, online video, and smart glasses).
These two companies are not frenemies engaging in a bit of co-opetition. And the notion of Mark Zuckerberg asking Google's Sundar Pichai for permission to use Gemini is almost impossible to imagine. (The NYT report, which is based on anonymous sources, isn't clear whether Meta executives discussed the plan internally or discussed it with Google, but either way, it's a damning indictment of Meta's AI efforts.)
Then again, Google has already seen another of its biggest rivals humbled on the AI battlefield, when Apple announced it would use Gemini for Siri.—AO
Adobe CEO to step down after 18 years
Adobe is searching for a new chief executive after CEO Shantanu Narayen said Thursday that he plans to step down after 18 years in the role. Narayen, who has been since 2007, announced that he will step down once a successor is appointed. He will remain chair of the board.
Narayen’s departure comes as Wall Street debates whether artificial intelligence could reduce demand for some traditional software tools. In early February, a broad sell-off in sell-off in SaaS and cloud stocks—labeled by some investors as “SaaS-mageddon”—reflected fears that agentic AI could undermine per-seat software pricing.
Google adds Gemini to Maps
Google is rolling out a new feature called Ask Maps that lets users pose complex, conversational queries inside its navigation app. Such as: "Where can I charge my phone without waiting in a long coffee line?" Results are personalized based on past searches and saved trips. The feature, which is powered by the company's flagship Gemini AI model, launches Thursday in the U.S. and India on Android and iOS, with desktop to follow.
The move is part of Google's broader push to embed Gemini across its product suite. Maps, which hit 20 years old last year, counts more than 2 billion monthly users and the company is billing this update as its biggest navigation upgrade in over a decade. —Beatrice Nolan
More tech
—Microsoft launches Copilot Health. Analyze data from wearables, labs, and health records.
—xAI poaches Cursor bigwigs. Elon Musk sets sights on AI coding.
—DoD Emil Michael says Anthropic could 'pollute' military supply chain. 'Not meant to be punitive'
—Meta, YouTube addiction trial winds down. The verdict wait begins.
—Amazon is moving Prime Day to July. Is nothing sacred anymore?
—‘What will our kids do?’: The question that dominated Morgan Stanley’s AI conference
