WHAT’S INSIDE

👇️ Feature: Uber Launches The New Micro Gig Economy

Uber’s “Digital Tasks” Program - Drivers Do AI Data Labeling, Palmer Luckey and MrBeast Start Crypto Banks, Regional Banks, US/Aus Minerals Deal + More

• Company Watch: Suno, Erebor, OpenEvidence, Airwallex, MrBeast Financial

• Buzzy Tools: Latest Buzzy tech, AI and financial tools

• Deep Tech: The latest in deep tech, biotech, futurism and more

• Space Tech: Latest news in the space race and aerospace tech

• Crypto: Blockchain and crypto policy and startups or protocols to watch

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TECH IN THE NEWS

Regional Banks — Investors still worry about credit risks in regional banks as the KBW Regional Banking Index drops. Mixed earnings reports highlight concerns as the Fed faces a decision on rate cuts halting economic data.

Mineral Deal — Donald Trump secured an $8.5B minerals deal with Australia to combat China's dominance in rare earth supply. It aims to bolster U.S. Gallium self-sufficiency and enhance national security.

AWS Outage Chaos — A major AWS outage affected global sites like Snapchat and Reddit for over nine hours. Originating from US-EAST-1, the disruption highlights the need for better fault tolerance in the cloud.

China's Economic Slowdown — China's GDP grew 4.8% in Q3, its slowest pace in a year, amid weak domestic demand. While industrial output rose, retail sales hit a 10-month low. Structural reforms and infrastructure investment are being considered.

Cyber Clash Intensifies — China accuses the U.S. National Security Agency of cyber breaches at its national time centre, claiming data theft via a foreign smartphone's messaging service.

NVIDIA's Domestic Leap — NVIDIA has produced its first Blackwell wafer in the US at TSMC's Arizona facility. This enhances domestic chip production, reduces costs, and addresses geopolitical risks, while boosting AI infrastructure investments.

Climate Funding Freeze — The Trump admin has canceled $720M in grants to climate startups for battery recycling and synthetic graphite.

Uber Launches The New Micro Gig Economy

TechBuzz Editorial

Uber launched its new “digital tasks” program in the US this week. This new approach shows how the next version of the gig economy is forming in real time. Drivers can now earn by tagging photos, recording voice clips, or verifying bits of data that train Uber’s AI systems. The same people who once drove passengers are now training the software that will one day drive itself.

Uber says this program gives drivers new ways to earn between rides. The market behind it is growing fast. Data labeling, the process of feeding AI models with human-tagged examples, is already worth about $5B and could reach $17B by 2030. Uber’s pilot in India and Latin America is now expanding to the US. The company has built its AI task system on the same app that millions of drivers already use, giving it an instant workforce.

Venture Capital Bets on Micro-Labor

Venture capital is following this shift. Scale AI, valued at $14B, and Appen built early businesses around human data labeling. Uber’s move takes that idea to a global consumer platform. Analysts at Andreessen Horowitz say blockchain verification will make microtasks a mainstream form of income, allowing anyone to complete work that can be tracked and paid automatically.

Fintech Lays the Money Rails

The infrastructure to handle these tasks and the payments is forming just as quickly. Stripe has become a central player. It now supports stablecoin payments for subscription services and just co-developed the Tempo blockchain, which raised $500M last week from investors including Paradigm and Thrive Capital. Tempo works with OpenAI, Visa, and Shopify to process fast, low-cost digital payments — building the foundation for what some call “machine-to-machine commerce.”

Why Not Just Start a Bank?

Others are trying to reinvent banking itself with crypto. Palmer Luckey’s Erebor, backed by Peter Thiel and Joe Lonsdale, has just received approval to operate as a crypto-friendly bank serving tech founders and Web3 firms. Even YouTube creator MrBeast has this week filed trademarks for MrBeast Financial, which would offer credit cards and crypto accounts linked to his brand.

The Big Tech Payment Battle

Meanwhile, the giants of AI and search are still fighting to control the next layer of transactions. As we recently covered, OpenAI is building tools that let AI agents make purchases directly, in partnership with Shopify and just last week with Walmart. Google is integrating similar “agent payments” into its systems with support from Paypal and just last week added Affirm, which adds buy-now-pay-later features to the mix. Both companies see payments as the connective tissue between automation, commerce, and identity.

Work Without Bosses… Or Rights

According to McKinsey, about 80 million jobs could be restructured by 2030 as routine work shifts to automation. Microtask systems could potentially help people earn across borders or between jobs, but they could also deepen economic instability and precariousness for gig workers if pay becomes even more unpredictable.

For example, Scale AI just settled four lawsuits from former California contractors who alleged misclassification and underpayment, claiming workers were denied benefits and paid below minimum wage. Scale still faces an ongoing lawsuits and is under investigation by San Francisco labor regulators for working conditions.

A More Decentralized Approach

The more positive spin is that verification standards could make this model fairer and more decentralized. Digital identity tools, Agentic commerce, and blockchain tracking can create more transparent systems. They would show exactly who completed each task, how much time it took, and ensure instant payment. Such a peer-to-peer system would eliminate the huge commissions no-doubt kept by the likes of Uber, and make microtask work more transparent and viable than ever before. 

Some decentralized micro task apps already exist, but none have really reached critical mass of adoption. HUMAN Protocol’s hCaptcha, for example, routes labeling tasks and small human checks, then pays on-chain. hCaptcha was the first large-scale app and is now used on about 15% of the internet, which is a huge installed workforce and there is a steady demand for micro-tasks.

Humans, Algorithms, and the In-Between

If the traditional gig economy is facing massive disruption due to AI as the Uber case suggests, it may be that they finally have their moment. For now, Uber’s drivers are the first to be living through this precarious transition. Part of their day still involves passengers. The rest is spent helping train the algorithms that may one day make drivers unnecessary.

The micro gig economy is not a distant vision. It is already here, growing from the same apps that defined the last decade of work. How fair and sustainable this new gig economy is will likely depend on the extent to which it is controlled by these apps, or disrupted by new and more decentralized challengers. AI may well force more and more workers into the latter option.

COMPANIES TO WATCH

[Open Deal] BillionToOne — The CA-based molecular diagnostic test developer targets a $2.42B valuation in its U.S. IPO, aiming to raise $211.5M by offering 3.8M shares. Revenue surged to $125.5M in H1 2025, up from $69M the previous year.

Suno Inc. — The AI music generation startup is negotiating over $100M funding at a valuation above $2B. With $100M ARR, Suno is in talks with major record labels to address copyright issues, as the industry seeks frameworks for AI-generated content.

Erebor — Palmer Luckey's digital banking startup has received conditional regulatory approval to operate. Backed by investors like Joe Lonsdale and Peter Thiel, it aims to provide stable banking for tech firms via cash & stablecoin deposits.

Anthropic — Reid Hoffman defends the AI company against David Sacks' criticism, highlighting a Silicon Valley divide over AI regulation. Hoffman supports responsible AI development, while Sacks favors deregulation.

OpenEvidence — A medical AI tool providing quick answers to medical queries, has raised $200M at a $6B valuation. Based in the US, it nearly doubled consultations to 15 million monthly since July, with funding led by Google Ventures.

Uber — Launched a digital tasks program for drivers to earn extra income by completing online tasks to train AI models. Originating from a successful beta test in India, this initiative targets the growing $17B data labeling market by 2030.

Airwallex — The global billing software company, located in Australia, is acquiring OpenPay to boost its U.S. presence. This move, backed by recent funding, supports their goal of reaching $1 billion ARR and expanding in Latin America.

MrBeast Financial — MrBeast filed a trademark for a banking and crypto services app under Beast Holdings LLC. The app plans to offer financial services and a credit card, marking a potential first for influencer-led banking.

SignalPulse — Read the Top signals, Startups + Deals From Last Week

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BUZZY TOOLS

Buzzy Tech Tools To Watch & Use

Anthropic — Claude for Life Sciences AI drug discovery AI + Claude Code web app.

Woz Inc. — AI platform with human oversight to create business-ready apps.

Stripe — Tempo blockchain for high-throughput payments raises $500M+ Stablecoin subscription payments.

Samsung — AI-based video newsroom enhances corporate communications.

Wi-Fi 8 — Enhances AI workloads with spectrum efficiency and roaming capabilities.

PromptStorm — Chrome extension w/ expertly crafted content generation prompts.

BUZZY TECH

The Latest Deep Technology & Trends To Watch

Vision-Restoring Smart Glasses — Smart glasses restore vision for 80% patients.

X Link Experience — Keeps engagement buttons visible; introduces Grok.

Symphony Wave Power — Efficient underwater converter captures wave energy.

FinalSpark Living Computer — World's first human brain organoids computer.

Origami Robots — 3D printed robots with magnetic muscles crawl, deliver meds.

CRYPTO WATCH

Bitcoin Surge — Bitcoin has soared above $110,000 due to favorable macroeconomic conditions and institutional inflows. A 98.9% likelihood of a U.S. interest rate cut boosts optimism, with U.S.-China tensions as potential risks.

Stacking XRP — Evernorth, backed by Ripple, plans to raise over $1B via a Nasdaq listing through a SPAC merger. It will form the largest publicly traded XRP treasury, with backing from SBI and Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen.

Japan's Crypto Shift — Japan's Financial Services Agency is contemplating reforms allowing local banks to trade and hold cryptocurrencies and register as crypto exchanges. Aims to regulate crypto trading, mitigate financial risks.

Erebor Bank — A new bank, Erebor, received conditional US approval to operate, targeting technology and cryptocurrency sectors. Founded by Palmer Luckey and Joe Lonsdale, it aims to support emerging tech firms in crypto and AI sectors.

Stripe's Tempo — Stripe's blockchain project Tempo raised $500M at a $5B valuation, co-led by Greenoaks and Thrive Capital. The hiring of Dankrad Feist, an Ethereum developer, has sparked debate on decentralization's open-source ideals.

Daylight — Raised $75M led by Framework Ventures, with $15M in equity and $60M as a loan. Funds will develop a decentralized energy network and launch DayFi, linking energy infrastructure to DeFi for yield generation from electricity revenues.

OneLayer Series A — The private network security startup, raised $28M in series A funding, totaling over $43M since 2022. Serving 30+ clients like Southern Linc and Evergy, it enhances 5G network visibility for sectors like manufacturing and logistics.

Better Payment Network — Secured a $50M seed led by YZi Labs to enhance onchain liquidity pools and market-making systems for stablecoin transactions. The funding aims to improve cross-border settlement times and reduce costs.

Maximum Frequency Ventures — Mo Shaikh and cofounders raised $50M for this new crypto venture fund. Despite market downturns, they've invested $5M in six global startups, emphasizing an active role in supporting founders.

SPACE_RACE

Artemis 3_NASA opens competition after SpaceX delays; Blue Origin, Lockheed in

ASAT Technologies_Nations develop anti-satellite weapons; Russia raises concerns

Cards Against Humanity_Wins case vs SpaceX over property rights dispute

Innospace Orbital Launch_South Korea's 1st private commercial launch approved

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