CALGARY, Alberta, Jan. 27, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — TransAlta Corporation (TransAlta or the Company) (TSX: TA) (NYSE: TAC) will release its fourth quarter and full year 2025 results before markets open on Friday, February 27, 2026. A conference call and webcast to discuss the results as well as the Company’s 2026 annual guidance will be held for investors, analysts, members of the media and other interested parties the same day beginning at 9:00 a.m. Mountain Time (11:00 a.m. ET).
Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Conference Call:Webcast link: https://edge.media-server.com/mmc/p/whytyzbs
To access the conference call via telephone, please register ahead of time using the call link below: https://register-conf.media-server.com/register/BIaa8023bbcae44cde8d2a046c730467b3. Once registered, participants will have the option of 1) dialing into the call from their phone (via a personalized PIN); or 2) clicking the “Call Me” option to receive an automated call directly to their phone.
Related materials will be available on the Investor Centre section of TransAlta’s website at https://transalta.com/investors/presentations-and-events/. If you are unable to participate in the call, the replay will be accessible at https://edge.media-server.com/mmc/p/whytyzbs. A transcript of the broadcast will be posted on TransAlta’s website once it becomes available.
About TransAlta Corporation:
TransAlta owns, operates and develops a diverse fleet of electrical power generation assets in Canada, the United States and Australia with a focus on long-term shareholder value. TransAlta provides municipalities, medium and large industries, businesses and utility customers with affordable, energy efficient and reliable power. Today, TransAlta is one of Canada’s largest independent producers of wind power and thermal generation and is Alberta’s largest producer of hydro-electric power. For over 114 years, TransAlta has been a responsible operator and a proud member of the communities where we operate and where our employees work and live. TransAlta aligns its corporate goals with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Future-Fit Business Benchmark, which also defines sustainable goals for businesses. Our reporting on climate change management has been guided by the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) S2 Climate-related Disclosures Standard and the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) recommendations. TransAlta has achieved a 70 per cent reduction in GHG emissions or 22.7 million tonnes CO2e since 2015 and received an upgraded MSCI ESG rating of AA.
For more information about TransAlta, visit its website at transalta.com.
Note: All financial figures are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise indicated.
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Vitalik Buterin said he no longer agrees with his 2017 tweet that downplayed the need for users to personally verify Ethereum end-to-end.
This week, he argued the network should treat self-hosted verification as a non-negotiable escape hatch as its architecture gets lighter and more modular.
Buterin’s original position grew out of a design debate over whether a blockchain should commit to state on chain or treat state as “implied,” reconstructable only by replaying ordered transactions.
Ethereum’s approach, putting a state root in each block header and supporting Merkle-style proofs, lets a user prove a specific balance, contract code, or storage value without re-executing all history, as long as the user accepts the chain’s consensus validity under an honest-majority assumption.
The idea of average users personally validating the entire history of the system is a weird mountain man fantasy. There, I said it. (2017)
In his new post, Buterin reframed that tradeoff as incomplete in practice because it can still corner users into choosing between replaying the full chain or trusting an intermediary such as an RPC operator, an archival data host, or a proof service.
I no longer agree with this previous tweet of mine – since 2017, I have become a much more willing connoisseur of mountains[…] We do not need to start living every day in the Mountain Man’s cabin. But part of maintaining the infinite garden of Ethereum is certainly keeping the cabin well-maintained. (2026)
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Helios-verified RPC and the EF’s Kohaku aim to make local verification the default, not an optional power-user hack.
Jan 18, 2026·Gino Matos
Vitalik’s U-turn on personal verification of blockchain history
He anchored the change in two shifts: feasibility and fragility.
On feasibility, Buterin wrote that zero-knowledge proofs now offer a path to check correctness without “literally re-executing every transaction.”
In 2017, he argued this would have pushed Ethereum toward lower capacity to keep verification within reach.
The shift matters because Ethereum’s public roadmap increasingly treats ZK as a verifiability primitive, with ethereum.org framing zero-knowledge proofs as a way to preserve security properties while reducing what a verifier must compute.
Work on “ZK-light-client” directions also points toward a model where a device can sync using compact proofs rather than trusting an always-online gateway.
On fragility, Buterin listed failure modes that sit outside clean threat models: degraded p2p networking, long-lived services shutting down, validator concentration that changes the practical meaning of “honest majority,” and informal governance pressure that turns “call the devs” into the backstop.
He cited censorship pressure around Tornado Cash as an example of how intermediaries can narrow access, arguing that a user’s last-resort option should be to “directly use the chain.”
That framing tracks with broader discussion about hardening Ethereum’s base layer and limiting churn, amid a push toward protocol “ossification.”
In Buterin’s telling, the “mountain cabin” is not a default lifestyle.
It is a credible fallback that changes incentives, because the knowledge that users can exit reduces the leverage of any single service layer.
That argument lands as Ethereum reduces what ordinary nodes are expected to store, while the network’s verification story has to keep pace.
Related Reading
Vitalik Buterin warns Ethereum must do this one thing immediately or its roadmap becomes a liability
Ethereum aims for stability akin to Bitcoin by minimizing protocol risks through strategic structural ossification.
Jan 12, 2026·Oluwapelumi Adejumo
Ethereum client usage and history
Execution clients are moving toward partial history expiry, and the Ethereum Foundation said users can cut disk usage by about 300–500 GB by removing pre-Merge block data, putting a node within reach on a 2 TB disk.
At the same time, light clients already reflect a formalized trust model optimized for low-resource devices, relying on a sync committee of 512 validators selected about every 1.1 days.
Those parameters make light-client verification workable at scale.
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However, they also concentrate user experience around the availability of correct data and well-behaved relays when conditions deteriorate.
Ethereum’s longer-term “statelessness” work aims to reduce the need for nodes to hold large state while keeping block validation intact.
Ethereum.org cautions that “statelessness” is a misnomer, distinguishing weaker forms from stronger designs that remain research, including state expiry.
Verkle trees sit inside that plan because they reduce proof sizes and are positioned as a key enabling step toward validating without storing large state locally.
As more of the storage burden shifts outward, either to specialized history hosts or other data networks, the security story becomes less about who can store everything and more about who can independently check correctness and retrieve what they need when a default path fails.
What is changingWhy it matters for verificationConcrete parameter or figurePartial history expiry support in execution clientsLess local storage can raise reliance on external history availability unless retrieval and verification paths stay open~300–500 GB disk reduction, “comfortable” on a 2 TB diskPoS light client trust modelLow-resource verification relies on committee signatures and data availability through peers or servicesSync committee of 512 validators, rotates about every 1.1 daysVerkle trees as a stateless-client enablerSmaller proofs can make validation with less stored state more practicalRoadmap framing ties Verkle trees to stateless validation goalsStatelessness roadmap distinctionsSeparates near-term approaches from research items such as state expiryWeak vs. strong statelessness terminologyEF work on L1 zkEVM security foundationsProof-system rigor and stability becomes part of Ethereum’s base security storyEmphasis on stabilization and formal verification readiness
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Jan 5, 2026·Oluwapelumi Adejumo
What this means going forward
Over the next 12–36 months, the practical question is whether verification spreads outward as Ethereum externalizes more storage burdens, or whether trust clusters around new service chokepoints.
One path is that wallets and infrastructure shift from “trust the RPC” to “verify the proof,” while proof production consolidates into a small set of optimized stacks that are difficult to replicate, moving dependency from one class of provider to another.
Another path is that proof-based verification becomes ordinary, with redundant proving implementations and tooling that lets users switch providers or verify locally when an endpoint censors, degrades, or disappears, aligning with efforts aimed at lightweight verification flows.
A third path is that pruning and modularity progress faster than verification UX, leaving users with fewer workable options during outages or censorship events.
That would make the “mountain cabin” operationally real for only a narrow slice of the network.
Buterin framed the cabin as Ethereum’s BATNA, rarely used but always available, because the existence of a self-reliant option constrains the terms imposed by intermediaries.
He closed by arguing that maintaining that fallback is part of maintaining Ethereum itself.
Ethereum elevated post-quantum cryptography to a top strategic priority this month, forming a dedicated PQ team led by Thomas Coratger and announcing $1 million in prizes to harden hash-based primitives.
The announcement came one day before a16z crypto published a roadmap arguing that quantum threats are frequently overstated and premature migrations risk trading known security for speculative protection.
Both positions are defensible, and the apparent tension reveals where the real battle lies.
The Ethereum Foundation’s announcement frames PQ security as an inflection point. Multi-client consensus devnets are live, bi-weekly All Core Devs calls start next month to coordinate precompiles and account abstraction paths, and a comprehensive roadmap promises “zero loss of funds and zero downtime” during a multi-year transition.
Coinbase launched an independent quantum advisory board on Jan. 21, including Ethereum researcher Justin Drake, signaling cross-industry alignment around long-horizon planning.
Solana ran PQ signature experiments on testnet in December under Project Eleven, explicitly branding the work as “proactive” rather than emergency-driven.
Related Reading
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Yakovenko praised Bitcoin’s decentralized nature and proof-of-work system but warned that quantum compting poses threats.
Sep 19, 2025·Oluwapelumi Adejumo
Polkadot’s JAM proposal outlines ML-DSA and Falcon deployment alongside SNARK-based migration proofs.
Bitcoin’s conservative BIP-360 proposal for pay-to-quantum-resistant-hash represents an incremental first step constrained by governance realities.
The pattern resembles an arms race, but not one driven by an imminent threat.
This is a competition in institutional readiness, where the winner preserves fee economics, consensus efficiency, and wallet UX while upgrading cryptographic foundations before external pressure forces rushed coordination.
The harvest paradox
a16z’s core argument hinges on distinguishing harvest-now-decrypt-later risk from signature vulnerability. HNDL attacks matter when adversaries can intercept encrypted data today and decrypt it once quantum computers achieve sufficient scale.
That threat maps cleanly to TLS, VPNs, and data-at-rest encryption. Less so to blockchain signatures, which authenticate transactions in real time and leave no encrypted payload to store for future cracking.
Ethereum’s response implicitly accepts this framing but argues operational urgency remains high because changing signature schemes touches everything: wallets, account formats, hardware signers, custody infrastructure, mempools, fee markets, consensus messages, and L2 settlement proofs.
Migration requires years of lead time, not because quantum computers are imminent, but because the engineering surface is vast and failure modes are catastrophic.
NIST finalized its first post-quantum standards in 2024, FIPS 203, 204, and 205, and selected HQC as a backup key encapsulation mechanism while advancing Falcon and FN-DSA toward draft stages.
The EU issued a coordinated PQC transition roadmap in June 2025. These developments reduce “which algorithms?” uncertainty and make migration planning concrete, even if cryptographically relevant quantum computing remains distant.
Citi’s January 2026 report cites probability ranges for widespread breaking of public key encryption by 2034 and 2044, though many experts view CRQC in the 2020s as highly unlikely.
Kalshi data shows 50% of respondents expect the first useful quantum computer before 2035, with 59% predicting arrival before 2030.
The timeline ambiguity doesn’t eliminate the planning imperative: it amplifies it, because chains that wait until threat signals are unambiguous will face compressed timelines and coordination chaos.
Signature bloat as the base-layer bottleneck
The immediate technical challenge is signature size.
ECDSA signatures consume roughly 65 bytes, which translates to approximately 1,040 gas under Ethereum’s calldata pricing model at 16 gas per non-zero byte.
ML-DSA candidates produce signatures in the 2-3 KB range, with Dilithium variants likely to see wide adoption. A 2,420-byte signature consumes roughly 38,720 gas just for the signature bytes, a 37,680-gas delta versus ECDSA.
That overhead is material enough to affect throughput and fees unless chains compress or aggregate signatures at the protocol level.
This is where Ethereum’s bet on hash-based cryptography and the $1 million Poseidon Prize becomes strategic. Hash-based signatures avoid the algebraic structure that quantum algorithms exploit, and hash functions integrate naturally with zero-knowledge proof systems.
If Ethereum can make STARK-based signature aggregation practical, it preserves fee economics while upgrading security assumptions. The challenge is that no practical post-quantum analogue to BLS aggregation exists yet, and zk-based aggregation introduce real performance constraints.
Consensus efficiency depends on this problem.
Ethereum’s consensus layer relies heavily on BLS signature aggregation today. Validators sign attestations and sync committee messages, and the protocol aggregates thousands of signatures into compact proofs.
Losing that capability without a replacement would force dramatic changes to consensus participation economics or liveness assumptions.
EF’s public emphasis on “lean” cryptographic foundations and interop calls coordinating multi-client PQ devnets suggests the organization understands aggregation is the hidden cliff.
Signature schemeSignature size (bytes)Calldata gas @ 16 gas / non-zero byteDelta vs ECDSA (gas)ImplicationECDSA (secp256k1, r||s||v)651,0400Baseline todayML-DSA-442,42038,720+37,680Fee + throughput shockML-DSA-653,30952,944+51,904Aggregation becomes mandatoryML-DSA-874,62774,032+72,992L1 scaling pressure spikes
The concept already has four research tracks already under review, which are connected to existing efforts in the Ethereum ecosystem.
Jun 12, 2025·Gino Matos
Wallet UX as the social layer of cryptography
Protocol support alone doesn’t complete the migration.
Externally owned accounts can’t rotate keys cleanly under Ethereum’s current design. Users need one-click migration flows that don’t require deep technical knowledge. Hardware wallets must ship firmware updates. Custodians need a safe bulk migration tooling.
Ethereum researchers have explored key-recovery-friendly proof systems and seed-based migration approaches precisely to reduce coordination risk and UX friction.
a16z warns that premature migration introduces fragility, including immature implementations, shifting standards after deployment, and bugs in new cryptographic libraries.
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The organization argues that current security issues, such as governance failures and software bugs, pose a greater immediate risk than quantum computers.
This is the crux of the “don’t panic” framing: migrating too early trades known security for speculative security, and the cost of getting it wrong is potentially higher than the cost of waiting for standards maturity and better tooling.
Both positions are defensible because they optimize for different failure modes. EF prioritizes avoiding rushed coordination under pressure.
a16z prioritizes avoiding self-inflicted wounds from hasty deployment. The divergence reveals the real battleground: chains that thread the needle, building migration infrastructure early without prematurely forcing users onto immature standards, will gain a competitive advantage.
Related Reading
Bitcoin’s “quantum” death sentence is causing a Wall Street rift, but the fix is already hidden in the code
The quantum computing threat challenges Bitcoin’s status as “digital gold,” prompting strategic shifts.
Jan 16, 2026·Oluwapelumi Adejumo
Three scenarios, different winners
The migration timeline depends on external breakthroughs that no one controls.
In a slow-burn scenario where CRQC doesn’t arrive until the 2040s, migration occurs on a regulatory and standards cadence, prioritizing safety over speed. Chains that invested in crypto agility, with dual-signature periods, hybrid schemes, break-glass playbooks, can adapt without disruption.
In the base case where material quantum threats emerge in the mid-2030s, today’s work determines outcomes. If the ecosystem wants smooth transitions by 2035, wallet tooling and aggregation research must be production-ready years earlier.
This is the scenario EF’s roadmap optimizes for, and the one where multi-year lead times justify current investment.
In a fast-shock scenario where breakthroughs signal credible risk before 2030, the differentiator becomes how quickly a chain can freeze exposure, migrate accounts, and maintain liveness. a16z argues this outcome is unlikely, but the organization’s emphasis on planning suggests even low-probability tail risks justify preparation.
Triggers to watch include credible demonstrations of error-corrected scaling, logical qubit stability, and sustained gate fidelities. NIST or major governments advancing migration deadlines, and major custodians shipping PQ-capable signing in production.
None are imminent, but all would compress decision timelines.
Battleground layerWhy it mattersWhat EF’s push signalsa16z “don’t panic” counterpointKPI to watchPlanning & crypto agilityMigration is a multi-year program; the failure mode is rushed coordination under pressureDedicated PQ team + governance cadence (PQ ACD) = treating migration as a protocol program, not a research threadPremature shifts can increase risk (immature libs, shifting standards, new bugs)Existence of a published chain roadmap + clear “break-glass” plan + staged rollout milestonesWallet UX & account migrationUsers won’t migrate unless it’s near-frictionless; EOAs are the long tailEmphasis on account abstraction paths + “zero downtime / zero loss” messaging = UX is centralAvoid forcing users onto new schemes too early; UX failures become self-inflicted losses% of wallets/custodians supporting dual-sign / key rotation flows; time-to-migrate for non-technical usersAggregation & fee economicsPQ sigs can be large; without aggregation you lose throughput and raise feesLeanVM + hash/zk foundations + devnets imply the bet is protocol-level compressionEven “correct” PQ can be unusable if it breaks economics; don’t trade usability for theoretical safetyDemonstrated signature aggregation performance (proof size/verification time) and resulting cost per tx/attestationConsensus efficiency & validator overheadEthereum’s consensus relies on aggregation today; losing it threatens liveness/economicsMulti-client PQ consensus devnets + interop calls = treating consensus as the hard part, not just walletsNew consensus crypto is high-risk engineering; conservative rollout beats rushed redesignMeasured bandwidth/CPU overhead per validator vs today; attestation inclusion rates under loadInterop & standards maturityStandards reduce “which algorithm?” uncertainty; ecosystems converge on safer choicesPrizes + workshops + external alignment (advisory boards) = ecosystem coordinationWait for standards/implementations to mature before forcing mass migrationNIST/EU milestone alignment; shipping PQ support in major libraries/HW wallets without critical CVEs
The new status game
Post-quantum readiness is becoming an institutional credibility metric, following the same path L2 maturity took in previous cycles.
Chains without credible PQ roadmaps risk being perceived as unprepared for long-term settlement assurance, even if the immediate threat is distant.
This dynamic explains why Solana, Polkadot, and Bitcoin all have active PQ workstreams despite the absence of imminent Q-day consensus.
The arms race isn’t about who flips PQ first. Instead, it’s about who preserves UX, fee economics, and consensus efficiency while doing it.
Ethereum’s approach bets on hash-based foundations, zk aggregation, and governance coordination.
Polkadot’s heterogeneous sharding model allows per-chain experimentation.
Bitcoin’s conservatism reflects governance constraints and a long tail of legacy outputs that can’t be migrated without owner cooperation.
Related Reading
Bitcoin encryption isn’t at risk from quantum computers for one simple reason: it doesn’t actually exist
There are no secret messages on the blockchain to decrypt. The real threat is Shor’s algorithm forging signatures on keys you’ve already revealed.
Dec 19, 2025·Liam ‘Akiba’ Wright
If PQ becomes the next L1 arms race, the winner won’t be the chain that announces the most prizes or devnets. It will be the chain that ships a migration path normal users actually complete, preserves throughput despite multi-KB signature candidates, and replaces today’s aggregation assumptions without sacrificing liveness.
The planning layer, wallet UX layer, and aggregation layer are now the real battleground, and the clock started years before most participants realized the race had begun.
Arizona’s Senate Finance Committee advanced S.C.R. 1003 and S.B. 1044 on Monday, moving both crypto tax exemption measures to the Senate Rules Committee.
S.C.R. 1003 would place a November ballot measure asking voters to amend the state constitution and exempt “virtual currency” from property taxation.
The bills represent Arizona’s continued push toward crypto adoption despite Governor Katie Hobbs’ repeated vetoing of crypto-related legislation in 2025.
Arizona lawmakers are moving to exempt crypto from property taxes, advancing a pair of measures that could lock in statewide tax relief for digital assets, pending voter approval in November.
The Arizona Senate Finance Committee voted 4–3 to advance Senate Bill 1044, which would exempt virtual currency from property taxation, alongside Senate Concurrent Resolution 1003 (S.C.R. 1003), which proposes a constitutional amendment to formalize that exemption.
Senator Wendy Rogers (R-Flagstaff) introduced the bills last month, with the measures now headed to the Senate Rules Committee.
If enacted, S.C.R. 1003 would place a constitutional amendment before Arizona voters in November, asking whether to define digital currency and prohibit ad valorem taxation of such assets.
S.B. 1044 would amend state law to reflect that prohibition, exempting “virtual currency” from taxation and defining it as “a digital representation of value that functions as a medium of exchange, a unit of account and a store of value other than a representation of the United States dollar or a foreign currency.”
Rogers sponsored similar property tax exemption legislation last year that passed the Senate but did not advance in the state House.
She has been a vocal advocate for crypto adoption in Arizona, previously sponsoring the “Arizona Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Act” (Senate Bill 1025), which would have allowed state treasurers and retirement systems to allocate up to 10% of state funds into Bitcoin and other digital assets.
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Arizona and crypto
Arizona’s crypto policy has advanced in the legislature but has repeatedly run into resistance from the Governor’s office.
Governor Katie Hobbs vetoed four Bitcoin-related bills during the 2025 legislative session.
Aside from rejecting Rogers’ Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Act, she blocked Senate Bill 1373, which would have established a Digital Assets Strategic Reserve Fund to hold crypto obtained through seizures, citing that “current volatility in cryptocurrency markets does not make a prudent fit for general fund dollars.”
Additionally, Hobbs vetoed Senate Bill 1024, which would have allowed Arizona agencies to accept crypto payments for fines, taxes, and fees, saying it “still leaves the door open for too much risk.”
She also rejected House Bill 2324, which sought to create a “Bitcoin and Digital Assets Reserve Fund” managed by the state treasurer and funded through crypto seized in criminal investigations, saying it “disincentivizes local law enforcement from working with the state on digital asset forfeiture by removing seized assets from local jurisdictions.”
However, last May Hobbs signed House Bill 2749, which modernized unclaimed property laws to allow crypto assets to be held in their original form rather than liquidated.
The only other crypto measure Hobbs signed was House Bill 2387, which imposed strict fraud prevention, transaction caps, and compliance rules on crypto ATM operators.
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WASHINGTON, D.C. – J Consult, a global advisory firm specializing in music catalog valuation and acquisition strategy, is reporting increased institutional interest in music intellectual property as an alternative asset class, reflecting broader shifts in how investors approach long-term income-generating assets.
The firm, led by Washington, D.C.-based A&R executive Jonny Chiappetta, provides advisory services across catalog valuation, due diligence, forecasting, and transaction support. J Consult works with artists, labels, publishers, family offices, and institutional buyers seeking data-driven insight into music asset performance.
Technology-Driven Valuation in Music Acquisitions
A central focus of J Consult’s advisory work is the use of proprietary valuation and forecasting technologies designed to analyze historical royalty data and model future performance. These tools are intended to bring greater transparency to music rights transactions, an area of the industry that has traditionally relied on fragmented data sources.
“Our technologies make this income predictable for the next five to ten years,” said Chiappetta. “That predictability is one reason the space is drawing interest from venture capital firms and family offices. Music catalogs are also cash-flow-positive assets that can be comparable to traditional income-generating assets.”
Leadership and Industry Experience
Chiappetta is recognized internationally as a senior figure in music catalog acquisitions, overseeing transactions involving hundreds of millions of dollars in music assets annually. Prior to his work in the music industry, he served as a lobbyist, experience that continues to inform his engagement with regulatory, institutional, and international stakeholders.
His background has positioned him as a trusted point of contact for governments, organizations, and institutional investors navigating music rights transactions across multiple jurisdictions.
Operational Support from Publishing Specialists
J Consult’s operations are supported by Chris Burke and Will Cardno, publishing executives who also lead EDM Publishing, a UK-based independent publisher. Their involvement provides market intelligence and publishing expertise that support catalog evaluation and transaction execution.
Burke and Cardno continuously monitor publishing trends and performance data, contributing to the firm’s analytical framework and operational infrastructure.
Positioning Within a Growing Market
As music catalog acquisitions continue to expand as a category within alternative investments, advisory firms focused exclusively on music rights have taken on increased importance. J Consult positions itself as a specialist firm operating with institutional-grade standards, focused on bridging information gaps between rights holders and capital providers.
By combining valuation technology, publishing expertise, and transaction experience, the firm supports informed decision-making for participants on both sides of catalog transactions.
About J Consult
J Consult is a global advisory firm specializing in music catalog valuation, acquisition strategy, due diligence, forecasting, and transaction support. The firm works with artists, labels, publishers, family offices, and institutional buyers across international markets.
For more information Visit: https://jconsult.io [https://jconsult.io/]
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Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warns that advanced AI systems could emerge within the next few years.
He points to internal testing that revealed deceptive and unpredictable behavior under simulated conditions.
Amodei says weak incentives for safety could magnify risks in biosecurity, authoritarian use, and job displacement.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei believes complacency is setting in just as AI becomes harder to control.
In a wide-ranging essay published on Monday, dubbed “The Adolescence of Technology,” Amodei argues that AI systems with capabilities far beyond human intelligence could emerge within the next two years—and that regulatory efforts have drifted and failed to keep pace with development.
“Humanity is about to be handed almost unimaginable power, and it is deeply unclear whether our social, political, and technological systems possess the maturity to wield it,” he wrote. “We are considerably closer to real danger in 2026 than we were in 2023,” he said, adding, “the technology doesn’t care about what is fashionable.”
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Amodei’s comments come fresh off his debate at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, when he sparred with Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis over the impact of AGI on humanity.
In the new article, he reiterated his claim that artificial intelligence will cause economic disruption, displacing a large share of white-collar work.
“AI will be capable of a very wide range of human cognitive abilities—perhaps all of them. This is very different from previous technologies like mechanized farming, transportation, or even computers,” he wrote. “This will make it harder for people to switch easily from jobs that are displaced to similar jobs that they would be a good fit for.”
The Adolescence of Technology: an essay on the risks posed by powerful AI to national security, economies and democracy—and how we can defend against them: https://t.co/0phIiJjrmz
— Dario Amodei (@DarioAmodei) January 26, 2026
Beyond economic disruption, Amodei pointed to growing concerns about how trustworthy advanced AI systems can be as they take on broader human-level tasks.
He pointed to “alignment faking,” where a model appears to follow safety rules during evaluation but behaves differently when it believes oversight is absent.
In simulated tests, Amodei said Claude engaged in deceptive behavior when placed under adversarial conditions.
In one scenario, the model tried to undermine its operators after being told the organization controlling it was unethical. In another, it threatened fictional employees during a simulated shutdown.
“Anyone of these traps can be mitigated if you know about them, but the concern is that the training process is so complicated, with such a wide variety of data, environments, and incentives, that there are probably a vast number of such traps, some of which may only be evident when it is too late,” he said.
However, he emphasized that this “deceitful” behavior stems from the material the systems are trained on, including dystopian fiction, rather than malice. As AI absorbs human ideas about ethics and morality, Amodei warned, it could misapply them in dangerous and unpredictable ways.
“AI models could extrapolate ideas that they read about morality (or instructions about how to behave morally) in extreme ways,” he wrote. “For example, they could decide that it is justifiable to exterminate humanity because humans eat animals or have driven certain animals to extinction. They could conclude that they are playing a video game and that the goal of the video game is to defeat all other players, that is, exterminate humanity.”
In the wrong hands
In addition to alignment issues, Amodei also pointed to the potential misuse of superintelligent AI.
One is biological security, warning that AI could make it far easier to design or deploy biological threats, putting destructive capabilities in the hands of people with a few prompts.
The other issue he highlights is authoritarian misuse, arguing that advanced AI could harden state power by enabling manipulation, mass surveillance, and effectively automated repression through the use of AI-powered drone swarms.
“They are a dangerous weapon to wield: we should worry about them in the hands of autocracies, but also worry that because they are so powerful, with so little accountability, there is a greatly increased risk of democratic governments turning them against their own people to seize power,” he wrote.
He also pointed to the growing AI companion industry and resulting “AI psychosis,” warning that AI’s growing psychological influence on users could become a powerful tool for manipulation as models grow more capable and more embedded in daily life.
“Much more powerful versions of these models, that were much more embedded in and aware of people’s daily lives and could model and influence them over months or years, would likely be capable of essentially brainwashing people into any desired ideology or attitude,” he said.
Amodei wrote that even modest attempts to put guardrails around AI have struggled to gain traction in Washington.
“These seemingly common-sense proposals have largely been rejected by policymakers in the United States, which is the country where it’s most important to have them,” he said. “There is so much money to be made with AI, literally trillions of dollars per year, that even the simplest measures are finding it difficult to overcome the political economy inherent in AI.”
While Amodei argues about AI’s growing risks, Anthropic remains an active participant in the race to build more powerful AI systems, a dynamic that creates incentives that are difficult for any single developer to escape.
In June, the U.S. Department of Defense awarded the company a contract worth $200 million to “prototype frontier AI capabilities that advance U.S. national security.” In December, the company began laying the groundwork for a possible IPO later this year and is pursuing a private funding round that could push its valuation above $300 billion.
Despite these concerns, Amodei said the essay aims to “avoid doomerism,” while acknowledging the uncertainty of where AI is heading.
“The years in front of us will be impossibly hard, asking more of us than we think we can give,” Amodei wrote. “Humanity needs to wake up, and this essay is an attempt—a possibly futile one, but it’s worth trying—to jolt people awake.”
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The PC Peripherals Market is witnessing significant growth as businesses, gamers, and individual consumers increasingly invest in advanced computer accessories to enhance productivity, entertainment, and computing experience. The market, valued at approximately USD 45.6 billion in 2024, is projected to reach around USD 92.3 billion by 2035, growing at a CAGR of 6.5% during the forecast period from 2025 to 2035. The growth is driven by rising PC adoption, the expansion of the gaming and e-sports industry, and increasing demand for high-performance and ergonomic peripherals.
Key Market Drivers
Increasing PC Adoption Across Industries and HouseholdsaThe rising use of PCs in offices, educational institutions, and homes is fueling demand for peripherals such as keyboards, mice, monitors, and printers. Businesses are upgrading their workstations with efficient peripherals to enhance employee productivity.
Gaming and E-Sports ExpansionThe growing popularity of gaming and competitive e-sports is driving demand for high-performance peripherals, including mechanical keyboards, gaming mice, headsets, and specialized controllers, enhancing the overall user experience.
Work-from-Home and Remote Learning TrendsThe global shift towards remote working and online education has increased the need for reliable and ergonomic peripherals that support long hours of use and improved comfort.
Technological Advancements in PeripheralsInnovations such as wireless connectivity, RGB lighting, programmable keys, and advanced tracking technologies in mice and keyboards are encouraging adoption among both professional and consumer segments.
Focus on Productivity and ErgonomicsUsers are increasingly opting for ergonomic designs and advanced peripherals that improve efficiency, reduce strain, and enhance overall comfort during extended usage.
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Market Segmentation Highlights
By Product Type:
Input Devices: Keyboards, mice, trackpads, and stylus devices dominate the market due to continuous upgrades and demand from office, gaming, and creative segments.
Output Devices: Monitors, printers, and speakers are growing steadily with the rise of multimedia consumption and professional design applications.
Storage and Accessories: External hard drives, docking stations, and hubs are witnessing rising adoption to complement PC usage.
By Technology:
Wired Peripherals: Continue to hold a significant market share due to reliability, especially in gaming and enterprise applications.
Wireless Peripherals: Growing rapidly with Bluetooth and RF connectivity options, offering mobility and convenience.
By End-User:
Consumer Segment: Leading adoption driven by gaming, home offices, and personal computing needs.
Enterprise Segment: Rising demand for office peripherals and productivity solutions in corporate environments.
Educational Institutions: Growing usage of PCs and peripherals for online learning and digital classrooms.
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Regional Analysis
North America:North America dominates the PC peripherals market, supported by high PC penetration, a strong gaming community, and advanced corporate adoption of peripherals for productivity and entertainment purposes.
Asia-Pacific:Asia-Pacific is expected to be the fastest-growing region due to rising PC adoption, a booming gaming industry, and increasing disposable income in countries like China, India, Japan, and South Korea.
Europe:Growth in Europe is driven by the adoption of high-performance peripherals in offices, creative industries, and the gaming sector.
Rest of the World (Latin America, Middle East & Africa):Gradual adoption is observed in emerging economies as PCs and accessories become more affordable, coupled with increasing demand in gaming, education, and small enterprises.
Key Market Opportunities
Gaming and Professional E-Sports:The rising popularity of professional gaming tournaments and e-sports events creates a significant market for high-performance peripherals.
Ergonomic and Smart Devices:Increasing awareness about health and productivity is driving demand for ergonomic and smart peripherals that enhance comfort and efficiency.
Remote Work and Online Learning:The continued trend of remote work and online education presents opportunities for peripherals designed for home offices and virtual classrooms.
Integration with AI and IoT:Advanced peripherals equipped with smart sensors and AI capabilities for improved performance, personalization, and productivity provide future growth avenues.
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Competitive Landscape
The PC peripherals market is highly competitive, with key players focusing on product innovation, technological upgrades, and global expansion. Prominent companies in the market include Logitech, Razer, Corsair, HP Inc., Dell Technologies, Microsoft, Lenovo, SteelSeries, and ASUS. These firms are investing in R&D, developing high-performance and ergonomic products, and expanding their distribution channels to strengthen market presence and capture emerging opportunities.
wearable camera market-https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/wearable-camera-market-34571
About USMarket Research Future (MRFR) is a global market research company that takes pride in its services, offering a complete and accurate analysis regarding diverse markets and consumers worldwide. Market Research Future has the distinguished objective of providing the optimal quality research and granular research to clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help answer your most important questions
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COLOGNE, Germany, Jan. 25, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — As the prestigious imm cologne 2026—the global benchmark for home design and smart technology—concludes, the intelligent health technology brand VivaNova has made a defining global debut.
Backed by Lumos Robotics, a leading humanoid robotics pioneer, VivaNova successfully completed its first international showcase. The brand not only officially launched the Viva Series of active ergonomic chairs to the European market but also teased the highly anticipated Nova Series—the world’s first AI-powered smart chair scheduled for release in June.
Brand Essence: Bringing Humanoid Intelligence to “Active Health”VivaNova is not a traditional furniture brand; it is a trailblazer in Intelligent Health Technology. While the industry remains focused on “passive support,” VivaNova systematically transplants the “Perception-Decision-Execution” capabilities of humanoid robots into everyday health scenarios.
By integrating precision motor control, environment-adaptive algorithms, and multi-dimensional sensing originally developed for high-end robots, VivaNova breaks the perception of “furniture as static tools”. Instead, the brand creates products that “understand the body and provide proactive care.” This aligns with the brand’s core value, “Inspire Creativity”—believing that the ultimate purpose of technology is to liberate the human body from constraints, allowing every creator to unleash their limitless potential in a state of peak performance.
Strategic Debut: Defining the “Active Health” CategoryMarking its entry into the international high-end market, VivaNova executed a dual-strategy launch at the exhibition to capture global industry attention:
Official Launch: The Viva Series (Available Now)The Viva Series represents the first successful translation of humanoid robot technology into a consumer health solution. Centered on the concept of “Active, Not Passive,” it redefines the sedentary experience through three collaborative systems underpinned by robotic-level precision:
VivaMotion™ Intelligent Motion System : Derived from robot motion control algorithms, this system orchestrates continuous micro-movements, effectively preventing stiffness and circulatory stagnation. Key features include a 157° Zero-Gravity Mode that replicates the sensation of floating in space, and the VivaStretch™ program, which uses synchronized spinal linkage to stretch the body along natural physiological curves, actively boosting metabolism.
VivaRelief™ Intelligent Sensory System: Functioning as the chair’s “senses,” this system employs robotic environmental perception logic to capture the body’s condition in real-time. It delivers personalized relief to high-load areas via rhythmic vibration and precise graphene thermal care, enabling a seamless transition between active motion and static rest for maximum energy recovery.
VivaFit™ Adaptive Support System : Engineered using a Global Anthropometric Database, this system ensures a precision fit for users ranging from 150–190cm. The innovative MagicArms™ technology features a robotic-level multi-dimensional adjustment mechanism, working with adaptive memory foam to ensure a secure, custom fit for durations exceeding 8 hours.
The Future: Teasing the Nova Series (Coming June 2026)Building on the Viva Series, VivaNova officially announced the Nova Series, the world’s first AI-native smart chair, set for release in June 2026. This represents a systemic upgrade to the concept of an “Intelligent Companion” and signifies the deep integration of robotics into daily life.
The Nova Series will faithfully replicate the humanoid robot’s closed-loop system of “Perception-Decision-Execution”. It utilizes a multi-dimensional sensor array to identify the user, monitor posture shifts, and track fatigue trends in real-time. Then, through robot-level algorithms, it autonomously generates intervention strategies—whether actively adjusting support contours, guiding body movements, or triggering precise soothing programs.
In the definition of Nova, a chair is no longer a “reactive device”; it becomes a “proactive companion”. While users focus on creative work, it provides distraction-free support; when fatigue sets in, it actively intervenes to aid recovery. This “Proactive Care” embodies VivaNova’s core mission to transform robotic technology into a life companion, allowing the value of “Inspire Creativity” to be deeply realized.
Global Vision: Empowering CreatorsThe debut attracted significant attention from top designers, engineers, and high-end channel partners across Germany, Sweden, France and beyond. Attendees praised the unique experience, noting that the Viva Series successfully proves that “sedentary does not equal static,” fundamentally overturning the industry’s cognitive model of ergonomic seating.
During the fair, VivaNova established preliminary cooperation intentions with several high-end European home channels and health tech platforms, marking a solid starting point for its global expansion.
“We believe the next era of AI is about amplifying and augmenting humanity—an era defined by empathy and symbiosis between humans and technology,” said Summer Yang, Founder of VivaNova. “Technology should not be a cold tool, but a companion that amplifies human potential. Our mission is to use humanoid robot technology to understand and care for the body, enabling every creator to break free from health constraints. We are building an Intelligent Companion that truly understands you.”
From the Cologne debut to the upcoming Nova launch, VivaNova is steadfast in evolving smart health products from “tools” into “life companions,” delivering a new experience of active health to users worldwide.
About VivaNova A subsidiary of Lumos Robotics, VivaNova is an Intelligent Health Technology brand transforming advanced humanoid robot technology into active health solutions. The brand combines algorithms, motion control, and system engineering to create intelligent environments for the global creative class.
Photos accompanying this announcement are available athttps://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/28652ad0-9a17-4e55-8ce3-6205446067f1https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/d959699f-7766-4145-85cc-2253587c1048https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/5c4dd7d6-5491-48ad-ab18-649d6f7cfa39https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/40b23a97-9a68-431b-b6d5-edc61ba5d5e9https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/60db532f-c901-409f-9369-21277a03d55b
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Researchers warn that AI swarms could coordinate “influence campaigns” with limited human oversight.
Unlike traditional botnets, swarms can adapt their messaging and vary behavior.
The paper notes that existing platform safeguards may struggle to detect and contain these swarms.
The era of easily detectable botnets is coming to an end, according to a new report published in Science on Thursday. In the study, researchers warned that misinformation campaigns are shifting toward autonomous AI swarms that can imitate human behavior, adapt in real time, and require little human oversight, complicating efforts to detect and stop them.
Written by a consortium of researchers, including those from Oxford, Cambridge, UC Berkeley, NYU, and the Max Planck Institute, the paper describes a digital environment in which manipulation becomes harder to identify. Instead of short bursts tied to elections or politics, these AI campaigns can sustain a narrative over longer periods of time.
“In the hands of a government, such tools could suppress dissent or amplify incumbents,” the researchers wrote. “Therefore, the deployment of defensive AI can only be considered if governed by strict, transparent, and democratically accountable frameworks.”
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A swarm is a group of autonomous AI agents that work together to solve problems or complete objectives more efficiently than a single system. The researchers said AI swarms build on existing weaknesses in social media platforms, where users are often insulated from opposing viewpoints.
“False news has been shown to spread faster and more broadly than true news, deepening fragmented realities and eroding shared factual baselines,” they wrote. “Recent evidence links engagement-optimized curation to polarization, with platform algorithms amplifying divisive content even at the expense of user satisfaction, further degrading the public sphere.”
That shift is already visible on major platforms, according to Sean Ren, a computer science professor at the University of Southern California and the CEO of Sahara AI, who said that AI-driven accounts are increasingly difficult to distinguish from ordinary users.
“I think stricter KYC, or account identity validation, would help a lot here,” Ren told Decrypt. “If it’s harder to create new accounts and easier to monitor spammers, it becomes much more difficult for agents to use large numbers of accounts for coordinated manipulation.”
Earlier influence campaigns depended largely on scale rather than subtlety, with thousands of accounts posting identical messages simultaneously, which made detection comparatively straightforward. In contrast, the study said, AI swarms exhibit “unprecedented autonomy, coordination, and scale.”
Ren said content moderation alone is unlikely to stop these systems. The problem, he said, is how platforms manage identity at scale. Stronger identity checks and limits on account creation, he said, could make coordinated behavior easier to detect, even when individual posts appear human.
“If the agent can only use a small number of accounts to post content, then it’s much easier to detect suspicious usage and ban those accounts,” he said.
No simple fix
The researchers concluded that there is no single solution to the problem, with potential options including improved detection of statistically anomalous coordination and greater transparency around automated activity, but say technical measures alone are unlikely to be sufficient.
According to Ren, financial incentives also remain a persistent driver of coordinated manipulation attacks, even as platforms introduce new technical safeguards.
“These agent swarms are usually controlled by teams or vendors who are getting monetary incentives from external parties or companies to do the coordinated manipulation,” he said. “Platforms should enforce stronger KYC and spam detection mechanisms to identify and filter out agent manipulated accounts.”
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SharpLink Gaming plans to differentiate itself from other Ethereum treasury firms in 2026.
The second-largest ETH treasury will not just accumulate for the sake of it, SharpLink CEO Joseph Chalom told Decrypt.
SBET shares have fallen over the last six months, but institutional ownership is increasing according to Chalom.
Digital asset treasuries burst onto the scene in 2025, racing to accumulate billions of dollars’ worth of crypto assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
But 2026 is about more than buying ETH for Ethereum treasury firm SharpLink Gaming, which aims to stand apart from the pack by focusing on long-term stability and avoiding splashy moves for the sake of it.
“We’re not going to be the people who are prioritizing accumulation over everything,” SharpLink CEO Joseph Chalom told Decrypt. “2026 is really differentiating ourselves from the pack, and being viewed as the focused, disciplined digital asset treasury (DAT).”
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The firm has amassed 865,797 ETH or more than $2.6 billion thus far, but it hasn’t made a major acquisition since October. That’s because the firm plans to only add ETH to its treasury when it’s accretive to shareholders, or when its multiple to net-asset-value (mNAV) is above 1.
That means it has fallen well behind leading Ethereum treasury firm BitMine Immersion Technologies (BMNR) in terms of accumulation, as that Tom Lee-fronted firm holds more than 4.2 million ETH valued at greater than $12.6 billion. BitMine has also made investments along the way, most recently putting $200 million into Beast Industries, the firm of YouTube superstar MrBeast.
“If I just wanted to accumulate, I could raise capital every month, every day, and dilute my shareholders,” said Chalom. “We’re not doing that.”
“We’re not distracted by unfocused investments—we’re not stuck as a zombie DAT,” he added. “If you have institutional capital or you want to invest in the long run, we are that focused DAT with discipline and sophistication. That’s how we want to end the year.”
Shares in the firm (SBET) have fallen more than 60% over the last six months, but Chalom said institutional ownership of the firm’s shares is increasing, providing a signal that the story it is telling is resonating with longer-term thinkers.
“I think it’s how we’re telling our story and operating,” he said. “We’re doing it really systematically and methodically, and it tends to attract people who are interested in a long-term investment thesis.”
Earlier this month, the firm staked $170 million of its ETH holdings on Ethereum layer-2 network Linea as part of a multi-year effort that allows it to generate higher-than-normal yields and additional incentives for investors.
The move is the first of its kind for SharpLink, which ultimately wants to “pioneer” the productive use of ETH among digital asset treasuries.
Like BitMine, SharpLink plans to ultimately hold 5% of the Ethereum circulating supply—but Chalom said it will do so with shareholders’ interests at the forefront.
“We will get there, but my north star is being investor-aligned and focused on ETH concentration per share—not accumulation for the sake of accumulation,” said Chalom.
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In a market driven by execution over speculation, investors are shifting focus toward projects showing real-world traction, technical innovation, and platform growth. While...
