Finland began using the swastika in its Air Force insignia years before the Nazis appropriated the symbol, and continued to use it after Hitler’s regime was ashes. It dropped the swastika from its Air Force logo in 2020, but after joining NATO in 2023, things got a bit awkward with its new military allies when certain unit flags flew. And so the last of them are being phased out.

“Undeniably, we’ve had to explain from time to time the history of the (Finnish Air Force) swastika that dates back to 1918,” [Brig. Gen. Jari] Mikkonen said. “It caused misunderstandings with our foreign partners, so continuing to use it was considered inappropriate and unnecessary.”

The swastika is an ancient symbol and a religious icon in many cultures dating back thousands of years.

But for a brief alliance of convenience against the Soviet Union during World War II, Finland was never under Nazi control and “adamantly refused to comply with demands from German authorities to hand over its own Jewish citizens for deportation.” Nonetheless, Finland’s use of the swastika had a Nazi connection in the form of Swedish aristocrat Eric von Rosen, who later joined the movement.

The Finnish Air Command swastika emblem dated back to March 1918, when the Finnish Air Force was created. Finland declared its independence from Russia a few months before, on Dec. 6, 1917. Swedish Count Eric von Rosen donated to Sweden’s newly independent neighbor the first plane in air force, a Thulin Typ D reconnaissance plane with a blue swastika — the count’s personal good luck charm — painted on the wings. … Von Rosen, an upper-class explorer and ethnographer, was the brother-in-law of Hermann Goering, a decorated World War I German fighter pilot who became an early Nazi Party member under Hitler

According to Wikipedia, the Nazis had already adopted the symbol by the time of Goering’s association with von Rosen. All the same… awkward.

Just imagine some British Major General turning up at an air base in Kokkolaäteritsiputeritsipuolilautatsijänkä or wherever to hang out with their new allies and popping a vein seeing the flags. Bally hell what year is it!?

Giggle Academy and American Legion Charities have announced a $2 million partnership to launch a new scholarship initiative aimed at supporting American service members with collapsed disabilities through blockchain and AI education.

The program offers educational grants of up to $20,000 to military families, particularly disadvantaged students in services affected by death or disability in their duties. At the heart of this is the annual competition centered around practical blockchain and AI questions under the theme of “What’s broken and how do you fix it?”

Giggle Academy was founded in 2024 by Changpeng Zhao (CZ), founder of Tech Antrepreneur and Binance, offering an AI-powered education platform that is given free gaming that focuses on real-world work-rich skills such as emotional intelligence, finances, negotiations and technical literacy, without barriers to formal or expensive passage.

“I have chosen to start this scholarship program with children from US military families because I know what service these young people look like,” CZ said. “They have seen the costs up close, they have courage, discipline and often sadness, but they also have a culture of selfless leadership.

The initiative, which includes US 9/11 post military children and 750 million illiterate adults around the world, is aimed at addressing the long-standing educational gap, according to the announcement. American Legion has been supported by veterans for over a century and brings legacy and trust to this mission.

“Military families are sacrificed at the expense of serving, but often overlooked, especially when uniforms are removed,” American Legion said. “We are grateful that Giggle Academy has been joining us, giving life to our freedom and telling our children, ‘You will never forget.’ ”

The scholarship program links military children to next-generation learning tools and adaptation curriculum built for those facing the most challenging challenges of life.

“This partnership with Giggle Academy will help us to bring that commitment into the future, supplementing the old-fashioned service with cutting-edge access to education,” added American Legion. “Together, we are not only respecting sacrifices, we are not only building opportunities, we are one child at a time.”

The CEO of Robinhood, Vlad Tenev, says that the trading app giant is planning to launch a highly secure blockchain for real-world assets (RWAs).

In a new interview on Bloomberg Television, Tenev says that Robinhood is working diligently on launching its own blockchain for RWAs, the tokenization of traditional assets on distributed ledgers, or the issuance of traditional asset classes in the form of digital tokens.

“We have been working on our own chain, the Robinhood chain, and we’ve been hard at work. We’d like to have that powering the underlying infrastructure and all the DeFi (decentralized finance) elements. We want it to be the best chain optimized for real-world assets, which I think is an important niche that’s missing in the market.

And for that, it has to be secure, basically, military grade security, it has to be fast, low cost. So we felt like that didn’t really exist. And so, we’re excited to bring that to market.”

Tenev also says the company has already launched tokenized versions of US-listed stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) using the layer-2 scaling solution Arbitrum (ARB) for its customers in the European Union.

According to Robinhood, European customers now have access to more than 200 US stock and ETF tokens.

“With tokenized stocks, our European app transitions from being a crypto-only app to an all-in-one investment app powered by crypto.”

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Coinbase’s sponsorship of the military parade in Washington, D.C., on June 14 has sparked a debate about whether crypto has lost sight of its original ethos.

The parade, which was held to commemorate the U.S. Army’s 250th birthday, took place amid the country-wide ‘No Kings’ protests. The protestors voiced their opposition to President Donald Trump’s immigration policy and mass deportations, calling the parade, which coincided with Trump’s 79th birthday, the behavior of a dictator.

Coinbase, the largest crypto exchange in the U.S. and the third-largest in the world, joined tech giants like Amazon in sponsoring the military parade, which drew a meager and largely quiet crowd.  The parade had a total of 22 corporate sponsors, among which was Palantir, the big data analytics firm tasked with compiling data on Americans across federal agencies using an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered system.

Coinbase, which had previously donated $1 million for Trump’s inauguration in January, also received a shoutout from the event MC towards the end of the parade. Coinbase’s sponsorship, which was construed as support and endorsement for the heavily criticized event, has sparked a debate among the crypto community: Has crypto lost touch with its anti-establishment roots?

How crypto might be straying from its original ethos

When Satoshi Nakamoto mined the first Bitcoin (BTC) in January 2009, he left a message in the Genesis block. The message pointed to an article by The Times on how the U.K. was planning to bail out banks in the aftermath of the 2008 economic collapse.

Therefore, Nakamoto’s invention of Bitcoin, which essentially gave birth to the crypto industry, was a form of protest. With Bitcoin, Nakamoto offered an alternative to traditional currency controlled by central banks and governments that constantly put the burden of bailing out companies on citizens.

Bitcoin was designed to bypass governments and establishments that control the supply of traditional currencies, allowing individuals to transact via a decentralized medium called blockchains. It tracks, therefore, that the earliest adopters of Bitcoin and crypto were tech enthusiasts and libertarians opposed to control and surveillance by centralized authorities, including banks and governments.

Coinbase’s sponsorship has, therefore, rightly sparked a debate about whether crypto has lost its way. As Felix Jauvin, director and host of the Forward Guidance podcast, wrote on X:

“Bros I don’t think crypto is a counter culture movement anymore”

Counterculture movements propose values that are different from or opposed to mainstream culture. Crypto was once viewed as a means of defying the mainstream culture of dependence on centralized financial authorities.

But with Coinbase sponsoring the military parade that celebrated the U.S. Army, which serves as a prime symbol of centralized power and authority, Jauvin’s question about crypto’s evolution has struck a chord with many.

What the crypto community is saying

Several crypto community members agreed with Jauvin, with many proclaiming that crypto drifted away from its original goal a long time ago or that it “never was.” For instance, one X user stated that crypto has not been a counterculture movement for three years, adding:

“There will always be parts of crypto that are counter culture, though, and others that aren’t.”

Several users also questioned the need for corporate sponsors when it is estimated that the parade would cost approximately $45 million in public funds. One user tauntingly asked if Coinbase would also sponsor the repairs of D.C.’s “tank mangled streets.”

Others were not surprised by Coinbase’s move. One X user wrote:

“It makes sense, like 30 percent of the crypto community went from libertarian types to some boot-licking version of MAGA.”

Several users also dissented with Jauvin’s claim, with one user noting that a bottom-up, permissionless system will usually evolve in ways that participants do not agree with. The user added:

“Better this than specific groups dictating what should and shouldn’t be.

We can’t eat our cake and have it too!”

Many crypto holders also viewed Coinbase’s sponsorship as a way to maximize gains, while withholding judgment.

Mentioned in this article

If you need more reasons to use pen and paper instead of a computer or favor cash while you shop at a local shop, we’ve got your back: Those big parades thrown with the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army as an excuse? The ones designed to give off pheromones that give wanna-be royalty stiffies? They’ve got the backing of some of the largest tech companies in the world.

From Gizmodo:

According to a press release from the America250 Foundation, the congressionally appointed nonprofit organization designated to handle the securing of funding for all of the planned festivities, companies including Oracle, Coinbase, Palantir, and Amazon have all signed on as “landmark corporate commitments” for the cause. The organization also said that “Many of these sponsors will support the upcoming grand military parade being held in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, June 14,” though it did not confirm which companies will specifically put their money and potentially name on the show of military strength.

I mean, OK. We already knew that the CEOs of these companies were just a cackle away from being super villains. But they’re not even trying to hide it any longer. Oracle’s Larry Ellison is friends with President Trump, Jeff Bezos never met a worker he didn’t want to exploit, and the CEO of Palantir, Alex Karp, is, well, the CEO of Palantir. Greasy people doing greasy things for a greasy administration.

Let’s hope this Saturday’s a lovely day for a protest.

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United States Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) says elements of the nation’s uniformed leadership are now “big supporters” of plans to build a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve (SBR), marking the first time a sitting law-maker has publicly claimed high-level military backing for the project.

Bitcoin Reserve Gains Military Support

“There are generals, especially in Southeast Asia, who believe it is important to have strategic Bitcoin stockpiles, because we are in an economic war with China,” Lummis told Bloomberg Television late Tuesday. “All we need to do is look to the leadership of the current US military to find support for a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.”

Lummis reiterated her plan to accumulate 1 million BTC — roughly 5 percent of the supply — and hold it for twenty years. “My purpose is to… illuminate half of the US debt,” she said. The senator’s first funding tranche would rely on Bitcoin already in federal custody: “The place to start is to use the money held by the US Marshals Service… asset-forfeiture monies in the form of digital assets. That can be the basis for year one of a strategic Bitcoin reserve.”

Lummis’ remarks land two months after President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 14233, creating a SBR capitalised with all BTC forfeited in federal cases and instructing agencies to transfer their holdings to Treasury-run cold wallets.

The House and Senate are now considering companion “BITCOIN Act” bills that would codify the reserve in statute and authorise Treasury to purchase additional coins with “no incremental cost to taxpayers.” Even so, Lummis conceded legislation to expand or finance the reserve directly is unlikely to surface this session.

“I don’t think we’re going to get to this bill in 2025, because our next priority is market-structure,” she said, referring to the looming fight over jurisdictional boundaries between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Responding to concerns that a BTC build-up might displace bullion, Lummis stressed she has “never proposed selling any of our gold or hard assets.” Instead she would re-value Treasury’s 1934-vintage gold certificates at fair-market prices and swap the accounting uplift into BTC: “convert[ing] our gold certificates to current fair-market value and use those to convert to Bitcoin.”

Asked about JPMorgan Chase chief Jamie Dimon’s call for Washington to hoard “bullets, drones and rare earths” instead of BTC, the senator fired back: “Even the United States military disagrees with him… We have to prepare for a guns-and-bullets war, but we need both.”

Notably, Lummis wants the reserve to be Bitcoin-only. “Bitcoin is based on proof-of-work,” she argued, indicating no appetite to diversify into proof-of-stake assets or stablecoins at the sovereign-reserve level.

At press time, BTC traded at $105,494.

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Facepalm: Signal likes to present itself as the most private and secure messaging service around, but the nonprofit likely didn’t design the app for sharing classified plans regarding imminent military action. Yet earlier this month, senior U.S. government and military officials did just that. Signal’s president later defended the service amid renewed comparisons to WhatsApp.

Signal president Meredith Whittaker reiterated the messaging service’s commitment to secure encryption and privacy after top government officials reportedly discussed a classified military operation using the platform. The conversation, which included highly sensitive information, was leaked when the U.S. national security advisor accidentally invited The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief into the chat.

Jeff Goldberg, editor of The Atlantic, said he didn’t believe he’d been invited to an online meeting about upcoming attacks on the Houthis in Yemen – until the strikes occurred just hours after being mentioned in the chatroom.

I wouldn’t say that Will and I are battling but I do disagree. Because there are big differences between Signal and WhatsApp.

Signal is the gold standard in private comms. We’re open source, nonprofit, and we develop and apply e2ee and privacy preserving tech across our system… https://t.co/ZU60z2vVHy

– Meredith Whittaker (@mer__edith) March 25, 2025

During the exchange, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth, Vice President J.D. Vance, and other senior officials reportedly discussed specific targets, weaponry, and other sensitive details. Goldberg declined to publish those specifics, citing concerns about endangering military and intelligence personnel. A national security spokesperson later confirmed the authenticity of the message chain.

Beyond the sensitive information shared, the messages also revealed candid insights into the officials’ private opinions and communication styles. Vice President Vance reportedly expressed disagreement with President Trump over the strikes, arguing that they benefited Europe more than the U.S

After the operation, several officials celebrated with emojis, including a fist, a flexed bicep, an American flag, and a flame.

While U.S. officials often use Signal for routine communication, the app is not authorized for transmitting classified information. Such discussions are typically conducted on secure devices within protected facilities. Legal experts suggested that sharing classified details over Signal – particularly with the service configured to erase messages – may have violated the Espionage Act.

President Trump later defended the use of Signal, saying it was the best tool available at the time, as accessing secure facilities can be cumbersome.

In response to comparisons with WhatsApp, Whittaker emphasized Signal’s end-to-end encryption and privacy-first approach. The company also minimizes the amount of data it can disclose under subpoena.

By contrast, she pointed out that while WhatsApp uses Signal’s encryption technology under license, it does not protect metadata, contact lists, user IDs, or profile photos. Despite Signal’s encryption safeguards, devices using the app remain vulnerable to hacking and theft. The incident with Goldberg also highlights the persistent danger of human error.

What just happened? Microsoft’s troubled mixed-reality headset project for the US Army has come to an end. The Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) program is being taken over by Anduril, founded by the same man who founded Oculus VR and designed the Oculus Rift, Palmer Luckey, who has ambitious plans for the initiative: he wants to “turn warfighters into technomancers.”

The defense-tech startup still needs approval from the Department of Defense before the agreement is confirmed. Based on a post on his personal blog, Luckey appears confident that the deal will be approved.

“For me, this announcement is deeply personal,” Luckey wrote. “Since my pre-Oculus days as a teenager who had the opportunity to do a tiny bit of work on the Army’s BRAVEMIND project, I’ve believed there would be a headset on every soldier long before there is a headset on every civilian.”

The IVAS units combine high-resolution night, thermal, and soldier-borne sensors into a heads-up display. They use augmented reality to provide wearers with real-time battlefield information, including being able to identify drones.

“Tactical heads-up-displays that turn warfighters into technomancers and pair us with weaponized robotics were one of the products in the original Anduril pitch deck for a reason,” Luckey wrote. “The past eight years we have spent building Lattice have put Anduril in a position to make this type of thing actually useful in the way military strategists and technologists have long dreamed of, ever since Robert Heinlein’s 1959 novel Starship Troopers.”

Anduril is taking over IVAS, and we don’t have time for business as usual.

Whatever you are imagining, however crazy you imagine I am, multiply it by ten and then do it again. I am back, and I am only getting started. https://t.co/t2ayvBHtuA pic.twitter.com/XZX2f6r2AN

– Palmer Luckey (@PalmerLuckey) February 11, 2025

The current IVAS is based on the Microsoft HoloLens headset. The company discontinued Hololens 2 production late last year. With it handing over the Army version to Anduril, Microsoft has confirmed to The Verge that it is leaving the hardware development side and shifting its focus to cloud and AI tech, “which will serve as the foundation for IVAS as a situational awareness platform.”

Back in 2018, Microsoft began prototyping the IVAS augmented reality glasses and was awarded a $480 million contract by the Army for 100,000 units. The initial agreement was expanded in March 2021 when Microsoft secured a 10-year contract worth nearly $22 billion to build more than 120,000 headsets.

The project has faced significant challenges from the outset. Initially set for a fiscal year 2021 rollout, the Army’s IVAS goggles were delayed until 2022, though military officials insisted they remained committed to the deal. However, concerns soon mounted.

In April 2022, the Department of Defense warned that the large-scale purchase could be a waste of taxpayer money. Later that year, an Army tester raised alarms about the headsets’ light emission, which could expose soldiers’ positions to enemy forces.

Other issues emerged, including restricted peripheral vision, headaches, eye strain, and nausea – symptoms reported by 80% of testers within three hours of use. The headsets also failed to perform essential functions, further diminishing confidence in the project. In response, Congress rejected the Army’s $400 million request to purchase 6,900 units in 2023, instead allocating just $40 million for Microsoft to develop an improved version.