A North Carolina resident, Michael Smith, has formally pleaded guilty in a streaming royalty fraud case. He used AI technology to generate songs in bulk and created fake plays through bot accounts to fraudulently obtain over $8.09 million in royalties. He will face sentencing in 2026.

Gate News, on March 19th, AI-driven accounts payable automation and payment platform Ottimate announced the appointment of Shawn Lane as Chief Executive Officer (CEO), responsible for leading the company's next phase of AI-driven growth strategy. Shawn Lane previously served as CEO of LivTech.

Nasdaq's Pranav Ramesh stated that over the past 18 months, AI agents have expanded into market monitoring and compliance areas, with decision-making still requiring human review. He predicted that cryptocurrency trading platforms will be the first to launch AI tools, and multiple companies have already proceeded with AI-driven layoffs. Additionally, the startup Leadpoet, founded by Ramesh and Gavin Zaentz, achieved $1 million annualized revenue in its first quarter.

Gate News reported that on March 19, a Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange announced layoffs of 12%. The exchange's CEO simultaneously issued a warning, stating that enterprises must take rapid action in the artificial intelligence (AI) sector. The specific number of employees laid off, reasons for the layoffs, and detailed comments from the CEO regarding AI have not yet been disclosed.

Micron Technology's stock price increased due to a surge in demand for memory from AI data centers, with revenue reaching $13.6 billion in the first quarter of fiscal year 2026, a 57% year-over-year increase. The company forecasts revenue of $18.7 billion for the second quarter, and the optimistic outlook supports the stock's rise, but potential risks such as a slowdown in market spending need to be monitored.

Gate News reports that on March 19, OpenClaw AI Agent has recently garnered widespread attention in the Chinese market. Both Baidu and Tencent have held related public events to promote the adoption of this technology in the local market. However, OpenClaw also faces some challenges, including security warnings and rising token costs.

0G Labs has partnered with HackQuest to launch the 0G APAC Hackathon with a prize pool of $150,000 across four tracks, supporting AI agents, on-chain trading, autonomous economic systems, and privacy-preserving applications. The initiative provides full-stack technical support and will host networking events throughout the Asia-Pacific region.

Gate News report: On March 19, it was reported that U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth designated Anthropic as a "supply chain risk" on March 3 and ordered the Pentagon to phase out the use of Claude AI in military systems within 6 months. The decision will impact AI application deployments across the entire U.S. Department of Defense.

Cloudflare stock rises over 6%, plans to launch NET Dollar stablecoin aimed at driving AI-powered network transactions. Zerohash is competing to become the issuer, with the stablecoin embedded in network infrastructure to enable efficient micropayments.

Gate News report: On March 19, Visa Crypto Labs recently launched a command-line tool called "Visa CLI" designed to provide secure solutions for AI payment scenarios. The tool operates through a command-line interface and focuses on ensuring the security of cryptocurrency payments.