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Turning AI Pilots Into Production

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Turning AI Pilots Into Production

In this conversation, Marco Li Mandri of ING offers a concrete, execution-focused view of what successful AI adoption actually looks like inside a global bank. While many organisations remain stuck in pilot mode, ING has taken a markedly different path. Over the past year, more than 90% of ING’s generative AI pilots made it into production — a figure that immediately sets the bank apart.

Li Mandri attributes this success to a disciplined focus on high-value priorities, regardless of complexity. Rather than spreading AI experiments thinly across the organisation, ING concentrated its efforts where impact would be measurable and meaningful. One of the clearest examples is in retail banking, where the bank developed a hyper-personalisation tool enabling marketers worldwide to create highly tailored campaigns. The result: more than 4.6 million customers received messages personalised to their individual needs, preferences, and behaviours — at scale.

Credit decisioning represents another major breakthrough. ING deployed machine-learning models that allow loans to be approved instantly, significantly improving customer experience while maintaining robust risk controls. Faster access to credit, Li Mandri explains, is one of the most tangible ways AI can improve people’s financial lives.

Customer service has also been transformed. ING was among the first banks to launch customer-facing generative AI chatbots in production. These are now live across most retail countries, automating 65–75% of basic customer queries and reducing friction across everyday interactions. Importantly, this is not the end state. ING is now making these assistants smarter — enabling them to execute actions, explore voice interfaces, and eventually operate as more capable digital agents.

That ambition extends into agentic AI, which ING is approaching with caution and clarity. The bank has chosen mortgages as a starting point — one of the most complex, regulated, and data-heavy products. Here, agentic AI is used to augment human decision-making: extracting data, checking policy compliance, and preparing documentation, while humans remain firmly in control.

In wholesale banking, generative AI is already improving efficiency in KYC processes through automated data extraction, and supporting front-office teams in structuring sustainable finance deals that require extensive benchmarking and analysis. Similar tools are now being tested to help relationship managers prepare meeting briefs, freeing time for higher-value client interaction.

Operations and technology are equally central. ING is using a blend of ML and GenAI to improve AML effectiveness, focusing attention on true risk while maintaining — or increasing — control standards. Meanwhile, more than 5,000 software engineers now use AI as a peer-programming assistant, reporting higher productivity and faster time to market.

Li Mandri’s message is pragmatic: AI delivers value when it moves beyond experimentation and into daily work. ING’s focus is not on hype, but on execution — turning AI into a reliable engine of productivity, scale, and customer impact.

Crypto.com founder Kris Marszalek buys ai.com domain name for record $70 million: FT

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Crypto.com founder Kris Marszalek buys ai.com domain name for record $70 million: FT

Kris Marszalek, the founder and CEO of crypto exchange Crypto.com, spent $70 million to buy ai.com, the highest publicly disclosed price paid for a website domain, the FT reported.

The acquisition signals the executive’s move into artificial intelligence, a sector that reached nearly $1.5 trillion in worldwide spending in 2025, according to Gartner. The momentum will intensify this year, with Bloomberg reporting that the four largest U.S. tech giants alone, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft, plan to invest a combined $650 billion in AI infrastructure this year.

The transaction, finalized in April 2025, was conducted entirely in cryptocurrency, the FT said in its report on Friday, citing Larry Fischer of GetYourDomain.com, who brokered the transaction. The price tag more than doubled the previous $30 million record held by Block.one’s 2019 purchase of Voice.com. Block.one is the owner of CoindDesk’s parent, Bullish (BLSH). Marszalek spent $12 million to acquire crypto.com in 2018.

Ai.com announced the debut of a consumer platform featuring autonomous AI agents. Unlike traditional chatbots, these agents are designed to operate on a user’s behalf — executing tasks such as trading stocks, managing calendars and automating workflows. Marszalek said the platform aims to be the “front door to AGI” through a decentralized network.

“We are at a fundamental shift in AI’s evolution as we rapidly move beyond basic chats to AI agents actually getting things done for humans,” said Marszalek. “Our vision is a decentralized network of billions of agents who self-improve and share these improvements with each other.”

The platform announced its debut with a Super Bowl LX commercial on Sunday, generating a surge in traffic that crashed the website for several hours. Writing on X on Monday, Marszalek cited “insane traffic levels” from the 30-second ad, noting that while the team had prepared for scale, the volume of interest was unprecedented.

Here’s how ‘invisible hands’ likely accelerated bitcoin’s crash to $60,000

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Here’s how ‘invisible hands’ likely accelerated bitcoin’s crash to $60,000

Bitcoin BTC$68,657.39 plunged early this month to nearly $60,000, wiping out large chunks of value across the crypto market and vaporizing some trading funds.

Most observers pinned the slide on macro forces, including the capitulation of spot ETF holders (and potential rumors of funds blowing out their positions). Yet another, quieter force, one that typically keeps trading running smoothly, likely played a major role in crashing the spot price lower.

That force is the market makers, or dealers, who continuously post buy and sell orders in the order book when you trade, keeping liquidity strong so trades happen smoothly without significant delays or price jumps. They are always on the opposite end of investors’ trades and make money from the bid-ask spread, the small gap between the buy price (bid) and the sell price (ask) of an asset, without gambling on whether prices will rise or fall.

They hedge their exposure to price volatility by buying and selling actual assets (such as bitcoin) or related derivatives. And sometimes, these hedging activities end up accelerating the ongoing move.

That’s what happened between Feb. 4 and Feb. 7 as bitcoin fell from $77,000 to nearly $60,000, according to Markus Thielen, founder of 10x Research.

This episode shows bitcoin’s options market increasingly swaying its spot price, mirroring traditional markets where market makers quietly amplify volatility.

According to Thielen, options market makers were “short gamma” between $60,000 and $75,000, meaning they held bags of short (call or put) options at these levels without enough hedges or protective bets. This left them vulnerable to price volatility around these levels.

As bitcoin fell below $75,000, these market makers sold BTC in the spot or futures markets to rebalance their hedges and stay price-neutral, injecting extra selling pressure in the market.

“The presence of approximately $1.5 billion in negative options gamma between $75,000 and $60,000 played a critical role in accelerating Bitcoin’s decline and helps explain why the market rebounded sharply once the final large gamma cluster near $60,000 was triggered and absorbed,” Thielen said in a note to clients Friday.

“Negative gamma means that options dealers, who are typically the counterparties to investors buying options, are forced to hedge in the same direction as the underlying price move. In this case, as Bitcoin declined to the $60,000–$75,000 range, dealers became increasingly short gamma, which required them to sell bitcoin as prices fell to remain hedged,” he explained.

In other words, hedging by market makers established a self-feeding cycle of falling prices, forcing dealers to sell more, which further pushed prices lower.

Note that market makers’ hedging isn’t always bearish. In late 2023, they were similarly short options above $36,000. As Bitcoin’s spot price rose past that level, they bought BTC to rebalance, sparking a rapid rally above $40,000.

Mining difficulty drops by most since 2021 as miners capitulate

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Mining difficulty drops by most since 2021 as miners capitulate

Bitcoin’s BTC$68,657.39 mining difficulty dropped by around 11%, its largest decline since China’s 2021 crackdown on the industry, after a sharp decline in hashrate triggered by plunging prices and widespread winter storm-related outages in the U.S.

Mining difficulty, which determines how hard it is to find new Bitcoin blocks, adjusts roughly every two weeks to maintain a 10-minute block interval on the network.

The latest change brought the metric down from over 141.6 trillion to about 125.86 trillion, according to Blockchain.com data, signaling a steep drop in the number of active machines securing the network.

The decline follows a series of blows to miners. Bitcoin prices have fallen significantly from an all-time high of $126,000 in October to around $69,500.

That price drop forced many miners, especially those running outdated equipment and facing high energy costs, to shut down. Some also repurposed their hardware to focus on artificial intelligence (AI), as megacap firms offer stable contracts and often economically irresistible terms.

Bitfarms (BITF) notably saw its share price surge after saying it’s no longer a bitcoin company, and is instead focusing on data center development for high-performance computing and AI workloads.

Bitcoin mining revenue on a per terahash basis, measured via the hashprice, has plunged from nearly $70 at the time the cryptocurrency was trading at an all-time high, to now stand at little over $35.

Severe winter storms, particularly in Texas, compounded the situation. Grid operators issued curtailment requests to conserve electricity for residential users. Public mining firms scaled back production, with some seeing daily bitcoin output fall by more than 60%.

Although a drop in difficulty might appear alarming, it functions as a self-correcting mechanism. For miners who remain online, the reduced competition can increase profitability and help maintain the business model.

Historically, major difficulty drops have also signaled market capitulation, often preceding a stabilization or rebound in price as miners sell the BTC they mine to cover operational expenses.

Why investors are turning bullish as Bitcoin price stalls near $70,000, analysts say – DL News

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Why investors are turning bullish as Bitcoin price stalls near $70,000, analysts say – DL News

  • Bitcoin jumped 12% over the weekend to reclaim the $70,000 level.
  • It still remains 44% below its all-time high.
  • US economic growth and favourable macro conditions seen to boost Bitcoin further.

Blockbuster US economic growth and improving macroeconomic conditions will propel Bitcoin’s price upward from its current level of $70,000, analysts say.

The Federal Reserve’s buying up of treasury bills to inject more money into the financial system — thus helping asset prices — has been a key catalyst to the bounce, analysts David Brickell and Chris Mills of the London Crypto Club said on Sunday.

“We therefore remain bullish on both equities and crypto over the coming months with a still supportive macro backdrop characterised by robust US growth alongside renewed disinflation and an improving US liquidity pulse,” they said.

In December, the Fed began buying Treasury bills again to ensure sufficient liquidity in the financial system and to control interest rates.

The bullish call comes after Bitcoin’s price jumped 12% over the weekend, amid $245 million in short positions liquidated.

It had briefly dipped to as low as $60,000 on Friday.

To be sure, the top crypto is still down over 44% from its all-time high of $126,000, while other asset classes, such as stocks and gold, are inching back toward their record highs.

Investors have been steadily dumping their spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds, to the tune of $6.5 billion since November, DefiLlama shows

Meanwhile, the S&P 500, a key barometer of the broader asset market, continues to push higher.

That’s despite fears of an artificial intelligence bubble, a broad tech selloff, and political chaos.

“Equities and gold have proved more resilient due to positioning and flows,” Brickell and Mills wrote.

“Equity investors were under-exposed after the April drawdown and were forced to chase performance into year-end, while gold continues to benefit from sustained central bank demand as part of a broader ‘de-dollarisation’ move amid increasing weaponisation of the dollar,” they said.

Fed to ease

President Donald Trump’s nomination of hawk Kevin Warsh as Fed chair dragged crypto prices down, but financial expansion is still inevitable, Brickell and Mills said.

That means they expect the Fed to inject more money into the financial system, which would push up asset prices like Bitcoin.

“In practice, balance sheet expansion is often a necessity rather than a choice when funding markets come under strain — as evidenced by the recent resumption of T-bill purchases,” they said.

“Any push toward a smaller Fed balance sheet is likely to be offset by regulatory changes that shift liquidity provision to private balance sheets rather than drain it from the system.”

Crypto market movers

  • Bitcoin is up 0.5% over the past 24 hours, trading at $69,697.
  • Ethereum is down 3% over the past 24 hours, trading at $2,042.

What we’re reading

Lance Datskoluo is DL News’ Europe-based markets correspondent. Got a tip? Email him at lance@dlnews.com.

Two Victims Lose $62 Million To Address Poisoning Since December

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Two Victims Lose $62 Million To Address Poisoning Since December

Just one victim lost $12.2 million in January by copying the wrong address from their transaction history in an “address poisoning attack,” adding to a similar $50 million attack in December, according to Scam Sniffer.

Address poisoning is when attackers send small transactions, or “dust,” from addresses that look similar to those in the target’s transaction history, hoping the victim will copy the wrong address.

Scam Sniffer added that signature phishing also surged recently, with $6.27 million stolen from 4,741 victims in January, a 207% increase compared to December.

Two wallets accounted for 65% of all signature phishing losses.

Signature phishing is slightly different as it tricks users into signing malicious blockchain transactions, such as unlimited token approvals.

Address poisoning and signature phishing attacks have increased in January: Source: Scam Sniffer

Address poisoning trend not slowing down 

“Address poisoning is one of the most consistent ways large amounts of crypto get lost,” reported security firm Web3 Antivirus on Thursday.

Some of the largest address-poisoning losses it tracked over time ranged from $4 million to $126 million. “Recent incidents show this trend isn’t slowing down,” they stated. 

Related: Stablecoin ‘dust’ txs on Ethereum triple post-Fusaka: Coin Metrics

The researchers explained that address poisoners “generate full addresses that match the same first/last few characters you see, but the middle is different, so it looks ‘identical.’” 

Dust attacks on Ethereum have surged 

Analysts speculate that the Ethereum Fusaka upgrade in December has contributed to the increase in attacks by making the network cheaper to use in terms of transaction costs. 

Stablecoin-related dust activity is now estimated to make up 11% of all Ethereum transactions and 26% of active addresses on an average day, reported Coin Metrics earlier in February. 

The firm analyzed over 227 million balance updates for stablecoin wallets on Ethereum from November 2025 through January 2026, finding that 38% were under a single penny — “consistent with millions of wallets receiving tiny poisoning deposits,” it stated. 

Blockchain intelligence firm Whitestream reported on Sunday that the decentralized DAI stablecoin “has gained a reputation as a preferred stablecoin for illicit actors, serving as a ‘parking place’ for illegally sourced funds.”

“This is due to the protocol’s governance, which does not cooperate with authorities in freezing DAI wallets,” it stated, referencing recent address poisoning attacks. 

Magazine: 6 weirdest devices people have used to mine Bitcoin and crypto