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Failing Allbirds Shoe Company Pivots to "AI Computing Infrastructure" (and Stock Soars)

Failing Allbirds Shoe Company Pivots to "AI Computing Infrastructure" (and Stock Soars)

Plus prediction market players head to Ninth Circuit today in key legal battle.

Bruce Carton
April 16, 2026

People

Leif Dautch, former Deputy Attorney General in the Cal. AG, has joined Morrison Foerster as a partner in the firm’s San Francisco office.

Justin Wales is the new Chief Legal Officer of Crypto. com.

Rebecca Lutzko, former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, has rejoined BakerHostetler as a a partner in the firm’s Cleveland office.

Clips ✂️

Allbirds Stock Rises After Rebranding as NewBird AI

Allbirds Inc., the once-buzzy maker of wool sneakers valued at more than $4 billion in its heyday, announced a new business plan just days before it was set to close down for good: AI computing infrastructure.

And in a stock market that’s reacted in knee-jerk fashion to just about anything related to artificial intelligence, it did just that — sending Allbirds shares up 582% by the time the trading day ended Wednesday.

by Bloomberg

As Matt Levine explains in his Money Stuff column:

Of course there are two levels of analysis here. One is, sure, Allbirds is pivoting its business to AI compute infrastructure. That seems like a competitive and capital-intensive business in which Allbirds has no obvious expertise but, whatever, nostalgic fondness for the sneakers, maybe it’ll work out.

The other level is that Allbirds is pivoting its stock to being an AI meme stock. That definitely worked out! The stock closed yesterday at $2.49 per share, for a market capitalization of about $22 million. Allbirds previously agreed to sell its sneaker business for $39 million and pay out the net proceeds to shareholders as a dividend; the $22 million market capitalization represented, roughly, the expected value of the dividend. At noon today, the stock was at $18.82, up 655% from yesterday’s close, for a market cap of about $164 million. That represents, uh, I guess it represents the expected value of the future AI-native cloud solutions business? Let’s go with that.

👉Personally, I’m having a flashback to when the failing Long Island Iced Tea Corp. decided to pivot to “Long Blockchain Corp.” back in 2017, which apparently makes me a “crypto unc” (translation—an old uncle). Good luck, Newbird AI!

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Atkins Faces Ticking Clock as He Reshapes Rules for Wall Street

When Paul Atkins took the helm of Wall Street’s top regulator, he came with a long to-do list: craft rules for the cryptocurrency industry, make initial public offerings “great again” and ease financial reporting for public companies.

A year into the job, there are few check marks next to those big tasks.

That’s been a disappointment for some industry players, who cheered when President Donald Trump nominated Atkins to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission. A familiar face in the building, he was known for favoring light-touch regulation as an SEC staffer in the 1990s before becoming a commissioner during pivotal moments like the fallout from the Enron Corp. accounting scandal and the start of the financial crisis.

That agency experience and years as a private-sector consultant cast him as an ideal candidate to get a pro-business agenda rolling, knowing rules can take around 18 months to two years to complete due to the necessary votes and public input. But even a Washington insider like Atkins can get off to a slow start.

by Bloomberg

👉 Stephen Cohen of Sidley told Bloomberg that Atkins “has clearly projected an intention to be careful and deliberate. He’s not looking to score the max number of points in the first 12 months.”

Prediction Markets, Nevada Take Preemption Odds to Appeals Court

Lawyers for Kalshi Inc., Crypto.com, and Robinhood Markets Inc. will duel with their Nevada counterparts Thursday in an appellate battle over who has regulatory control of the growing sports prediction markets: a federal agency or the states.

The companies will implore the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to reverse trial court decisions siding with Nevada gaming officials, arguing the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission is the sole overseer of federally-licensed markets. The agency, which stands in charge of US derivatives trading, is in the companies’ corner, maintaining the home of America’s gambling capital and other states are encroaching on its turf.

“The appeal places a number of different arguments on the table,” said Barnes & Thornburg LLP’s Paige Lohse. Its ruling “will affect regulation in an important circuit going forward until this gets to the Supreme Court.”

by Bloomberg Law

Bitcoin can be used as cash, but capital gains taxes turn even a cup of coffee into a mountain of paperwork

You can buy a cup of coffee with bitcoin easily enough in the U.S. — and get a tax headache thrown in for free.

The form-filling burden is enough to deter users from using the largest cryptocurrency to pay for real-world transactions, according to the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank known for its support of free markets, limited government and individual liberty. Abolishing capital gains tax could change that, it said.

“It’s never been easier to use Bitcoin as money,” Nicholas Anthony, a research fellow at the institute’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives, wrote in a report. “Yet, at the same time, the tax code puts an incredible burden on law-abiding citizens. Something as simple as buying a cup of coffee every day with Bitcoin can result in over 100 pages of tax filings.”

by CoinDesk

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