The price of Bitcoin came close to $20,000 this month, leaving investors willing to throw money at anything that seems cryptocurrency-related. Including drinks. This week, two beverage companies—Long Island Ice Tea Corp and SkyPeople Fruit Juice—saw huge stock gains after renaming their companies with cryptocurrency terminology. Long Island Ice Tea Corp, now called Long Blockchain, saw a stock boom of more than 500% today (Dec. 21), and SkyPeople Fruit Juice, which rebranded to Future FinTech...

While some holiday shoppers might be ogling the Nintendo Switch or that perfect pair of jeans, savvy folk like you and I understand that deep down your friends and family are secretly hoping to unwrap the gift of a speculative, volatile investment. Bitcoin, the digital currency that JPMorgan boss Jamie Dimon once called “a terrible store of value,” is an appealing mix of danger, value, and zeitgeist for the discerning gift-giver this holiday season. The cryptocurrency has been on a tear this...

When trying to comprehend AI algorithms, it might be easiest to think of them as little artisan workers. Some have been carefully trained to transcribe speech into text like the scribes of early history, while others spent days (an eternity in Algorithm Years) learning to identify objects in images. But they’re only good at their one trade—a key reason why Sophia the robot, the first robot citizen, isn’t actually as smart as a human. The company that makes Sophia, Hanson Robotics, has become...

For Wall Street analysts and investors trying to figure out whether cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ether are destined to deflate, Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin has an answer for you: yes. But just because a bubble pops doesn’t mean it’s the end, he says. It actually might be better for the technology’s long-term growth. “Of course it’s a bubble. Hopefully it’s one in a series of increasingly larger bubbles,” Lubin said at an event hosted by Quartz and Retro Report yesterday (Oct. 24)...