GSA deputy Stephen Ehikian to ‘transition out’ of current role

A top official at the General Services Administration since the start of the Trump administration is stepping down from his current post, according to an email he sent to staff.

Stephen Ehikian, GSA’s former acting leader who later served as its second-in-command, told employees on Tuesday evening that he will “transition out of that role.”

“It has been an honor and privilege to serve as deputy administrator. As I transition out of that role, I wanted to highlight some successes,” Ehikian wrote in an email. “I look forward to serving as an advisor to the leadership team during this transition and continuing to build upon these successes.”

Ehikian served as GSA’s top official until July, when Michael Rigas, the deputy secretary of state for management and resources, took over as acting GSA administrator. Trump nominated Ed Forst, a banking and real estate executive, to permanently lead GSA.

Shortly after Rigas took over as acting GSA administrator, Public Buildings Service Commissioner Michael Peters also stepped down, just before an agency reorganization was scheduled to begin.

In a statement, Rigas said, “I want to thank Stephen Ehikian for his service and wish him well in his next steps.”

Ehikian is moving on to serve as the next chief executive officer of the tech company C3 AI, according to a press release posted Wednesday afternoon.

“I am honored to join C3 AI at such a pivotal time in the AI era,” Ehikian said in a statement.

Early in the Trump administration, GSA became a focal point for the Trump administration’s plans to streamline government operations. Officials from the Department of Government Efficiency set up camp within GSA’s headquarters.

“From Day One, the Trump Administration has demanded a more efficient, accountable government. GSA is proud to be a central driver of that effort,” Ehikian wrote.

Federal News Network first reported in April that DOGE officials dominated a shortlist of personnel allowed past security on the sixth floor of GSA’s headquarters, where the administrator’s office is located.

Despite DOGE’s presence in the building, Ehikian told employees in a town hall meeting in April that “there’s nobody working for DOGE here.”

WIRED reported in July that DOGE began vacating GSA’s headquarters, leaving behind mattresses and children’s play sets.

Under Ehikian’s leadership, GSA slashed its workforce, shuttered its tech shop 18F, and embarked on plans to shrink the federal government’s real estate portfolio.

Ehikian wrote that federal building occupancy is hovering around 33%, nearly half of a governmentwide minimum occupancy standard.

The USE IT Act, signed into law by former President Joe Biden in January, requires agencies to reduce or consolidate office space if federal building utilization rates fall below a 60% average.

“It’s time we ask the hard question: why are taxpayers funding empty buildings?” he wrote.

At DOGE’s urging, GSA has accelerated plans to sell underutilized federal buildings, and has mass-terminated leases for office space.

GSA under Ehikian’s tenure also struck lower-cost deals for governmentwide services from several companies —including Microsoft, Oracle, Amazon AWS, Box, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Salesforce, Adobe, DocuSign, Uber and Elastic. On Tuesday, GSA also cut a deal with ServiceNow to deliver artificial intelligence tools to agencies at a lower rate.

GSA, under its OneGov strategy, has also taken over the contracting work of several other agencies.

“Too often, agencies buy in silos — duplicating contracts, missing out on volume discounts, and straining both their budgets and our partners in industry,” Ehikian told employees.

In March, GSA launched FedRAMP 20x, an initiative to cut the vetting process for cloud service providers for use within federal networks down to weeks, rather than spending more than a year to gain authorization.

In July, FedRAMP reached a record 114 authorizations for fiscal 2025, more than double the number completed the year prior.

If you would like to contact this reporter about recent changes in the federal government, please email [email protected], or reach out on Signal at jheckman.29

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Fomo’s $75M Raise Shows Big VCs Are Still Betting on Consumer Crypto

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Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. And check out our new daily news show covering all of the top stories in 5 minutes, downloadable on Apple Pod or Spotify.

GM!

Today’s top news:

Crypto majors fall 3-7% as stocks sell off; BTC at $62.3k
Saylor raises $300M in cash; MSTR falls 5%
Fomo app raises $75M at $550M valuation as they expand into everything app
Bitmine, Sharplink and others team up for new R&D project ETHLabs
Trump signs executive orders accelerating U.S. quantum development

📈 Fomo Raises $75M at a $550M Valuation as Big VCs Bet on Consumer Crypto

A consumer crypto trading app just pulled in $75 million from investors who normally steer clear of crypto entirely.

Fomo, a social-first crypto trading app, raised a $75 million Series B led by Index Ventures at a $550 million valuation. Union Square Ventures joined, along with existing backer Benchmark and angels including Zynga’s Mark Pincus, Discord CEO Humam Sakhnini, and Eventbrite’s Kevin Hartz. Founded in 2025 by three former dYdX employees, Paul Erlanger, Se Yong Park, and Prashan Dharmasena, Fomo is built to make onchain trading feel like a normal consumer app: non-custodial, roughly 30-second onboarding, social features like leaderboards and copy trading, and access to more assets than Coinbase across multiple chains without managing wallets, bridges, or gas. Since launching in May 2025 it has crossed 625,000 users and $4 billion in trading volume, is adding around 3,500 users a day, and runs all of it on a team of 17. The round brings total funding to about $94 million.

Index partner Julia Andre said the firm sees a real market shift in consumer blockchain trading and a team that can capture it, putting it plainly that “we’re not doing Fomo because it’s a crypto business.” Co-founder Paul Erlanger was blunt about the problem they’re attacking: “Onchain trading is just impossible.” His goal is for Fomo to not read as a crypto app at all, the same path Coinbase and Robinhood are walking.

There is signal here in who’s writing the check. Index made its name on Figma and Scale AI, and Union Square Ventures rarely touches crypto. Established, non-crypto VCs leading a nine-figure raise for a crypto startup in the middle of a brutal down market is a high-conviction bet that the next wave of users arrives through a clean consumer app, not a clunky exchange. The timing fits too, with retail search and trading volume ticking back up as Bitcoin steadies near $64,000.

And Fomo’s ambition runs past tokens. It added perps in June and wants to be the front end for equities, derivatives, and prediction markets as they move onchain, which puts it on a direct collision course with Coinbase’s “everything app” and Robinhood. Co-founder Se commented how they plan to make acquisitions and build the engineering team with the new funds. They certainly have the warchest to make it happen now…

₿ Strategy Raises $300M in Cash and Buys Just 520 BTC

Strategy sold $335.5 million of MSTR stock last week but spent almost none of it on Bitcoin, buying just 520 BTC (~$35M) at an average of $67,068 to bring its stack to 847,363 coins. The rest went to cash.

Strategy increased its USD reserve by roughly $300 million to $1.4 billion, money set aside to support the credit quality of its preferred shares and cover dividends and debt.

Some are calling this damage control for STRC. Saylor’s dividend-paying preferred stock, the engine he’s used to fund Bitcoin buys, fell to a record low of $83 last week before clawing back, and the selloff dragged down Bitcoin and rattled sentiment across the market. By raising common equity and stockpiling cash instead of buying more Bitcoin, Strategy is signaling that shoring up its balance sheet matters more right now than adding coins.

Strategy Pads Cash Reserves to $1.4B After STRC’s Stumble

Strategy’s CEO even bought $1 million of STRC himself and said he’ll hold it until it returns to par, a public show of confidence as critics question whether the model holds up in a prolonged bear market.

So it’s becoming clear Saylor and Co are going to protect STRC and Bitcoin. And that likely means “sacrificing” MSTR (MSTR fell 3% on Monday while IBIT jumped 2.5%). Concerns of Saylor blowing up are likely exaggerated, but MSTR shareholders are likely in for more near-term pain…

🔬 BitMine, SharpLink, and Joe Lubin Fund a New Ethereum Research Lab

The two biggest ETH treasury companies just put money behind Ethereum’s research itself.

BitMine, SharpLink, and Joe Lubin are the primary backers of ETHLabs, a new independent nonprofit R&D lab staffed by five researchers who came out of the Ethereum Foundation.

ETHLabs’ stated goal is to make Ethereum the settlement layer of the global economy, and its early work is aimed squarely at institutions: faster settlement, native issuance, cross-chain movement, more mainnet capacity, and research grounding ETH’s monetary properties. Beyond the three anchor funders, community backers include Uniswap’s Hayden Adams, Base’s Jesse Pollak, and researchers Justin Drake, Danny Ryan, and Tim Beiko.

BitMine, Sharplink, Joe Lubin Back New Ethereum Research and Development Lab

BitMine and SharpLink are the two largest corporate holders of ETH, so the players with the most ETH on their balance sheets are now bankrolling the research meant to make ETH more valuable. Tom Lee framed it around institutions and AI agents driving adoption and the ecosystem needing more talent and research to support it. ETHLabs is also explicitly targeting value accrual and DeFi’s real-world traction, the exact areas ETH holders have long argued the Foundation underweights in the name of credible neutrality. To keep that money from looking like influence, ETHLabs routes every contribution through an independent grants administrator, putting a buffer between the researchers and the treasuries paying the bills.

This arrives during an Ethereum Foundation talent exodus and a louder fight over who steers Ethereum’s direction and how ETH the asset captures value. ETHLabs is being pitched as complementary to the Foundation rather than a breakaway, framed as two halves of a whole, idealism and pragmatism. The bet is simple: align the institutions that own the most ETH with the researchers who can grow it, and let an independent administrator keep everyone honest.

🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets

Crypto majors are very red this morning alongside stocks; BTC -3% at $62.3k; ETH -6% at $1,660; SOL -7% at $69.10; HYPE -7% at $63
DEXE (+35%), HASH (+15%) and RAIN (+9%) led top movers
Oil -3% at $73.80; Gold -1.5% at $4,140
Stock futures are very red as big Tech sells off; DOW -0.5%, Nasdaq -2.75%
The U.S. Senate passed a housing bill carrying a four-year ban on a Fed CBDC, a win for crypto advocates who oppose a government-issued digital dollar on surveillance grounds
OKX and the NYSE formed a joint venture led by Andrew Cuomo to bridge traditional and crypto markets, aiming to give OKX’s 120 million users access to ICE futures and NYSE tokenized equities
Trump signed two executive orders accelerating U.S. quantum computing and the shift to quantum-resistant encryption ahead of “Q-Day,” a push that also underscores the long-term threat quantum poses to Bitcoin’s cryptography
MoneyGram joined Solana as a validator, deepening its push into stablecoin payments by helping secure the network it’s increasingly building on
Bitcoin OG Adam Back has made a bet that Bitcoin will make it to $500k-$1M by 2028 and believes its market cap will eventually catch gold

Trump Orders Acceleration of Quantum Readiness as Bitcoin Faces Coming Risk

Corporate Treasuries & ETFs

The Bitcoin ETFs saw $68M in net outflows on Monday; the ETH ETFs saw $66M in outflows
The HYPE ETFs saw no net inflows on Monday
BitMine added $92 million of ETH as chairman Tom Lee reaffirmed his belief in a coming “crypto spring”

Meme Coin Tracker

Meme leaders were very red; DOGE -6%, SHIB -3%, PEPE -5%, PENGU -7%, TRUMP -8%, BONK -6%
FARM (+75%) and GTA6 (+240%) led movers on Solana
Base movers included PRVXT (+60%) and SYND (+60%)

📈 Myriad Market of the Day

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

A Wall Street Journal probe found that $1.9 million in Polymarket bets were fake, with none of the wagers shown across more than 1,100 creator videos actually placed
Bittensor’s founder acknowledged the protocol is still centralized, with core development guided by a small leadership group to move faster on AI innovation, but said ownership and the ecosystem are already decentralized and full protocol decentralization and immutability are the goal within 18 months

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

NFT leaders were mostly red; Punks -1.5% at 30.5 ETH, BAYC -1% at 9.18 ETH, Pudgy -3% at 4.65 ETH; Hypurr’s -6% at 213 HYPE
Cow’s (+56%), NPC (+22%) and Cyberkongz (+14%) led top movers

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Gerard Butler’s 98-Minute Sci-Fi Action Thriller Is a Streaming Smash Hit

gerard butler at the angel has fallen la premiere

Even though it wasn’t a huge hit when it was released in theaters in 2026, one of Gerard Butler‘s best movies in years is finding a second life on streaming. The sci-fi and action thriller mash-up stars Butler alongside Morena Baccarin and Roman Griffin Davis, and is currently climbing the streaming charts despite bombing at the box office and being met with divisive reactions from critics at the time.

Released back in January 2026, Greenland 2: Migration sees Butler once again playing a fearless husband and father trying to get his family to safety. The 98-minute apocalyptic film boasts state-of-the-art special effects, white-knuckle sequences that’ll put you on the edge of your seat (the mountaintop scene is absolute gold), and likely one of Butler’s best performances.

Grounded Drama Against a Disaster Epic Backdrop

Greenland 2: Migration picks up following the hugely successful Greenland, which was released back in 2020, and picks up with the Garrity family as they struggle to survive while living in a bunker after a planet-destroying comet hits the Earth. The problem is that the planet is still unstable, and an earthquake forces everybody out and into an unknown wasteland. John (Butler), Allison (Baccarin), and their son Nathan (Davis) must find a way to survive again in a world where the fallout and remaining comet fragments are the least of their problems.

The 2026 sequel closely follows the spirit of the first movie. It is a gripping portrait of a family fighting for survival when their odds are slim. Greenland 2: Migration reprises the first film’s particular approach, which is that the story never feels manipulated in order to depict John Garrity’s journey as overly heroic. He just does what’s needed to provide for his family, and at times, this can mean doing bad things. Greenland 2: Migration is now ranked #7 in the top 10 list of Prime Video‘s most-watched movies globally, standing above major hits like Sydney Sweeney’s The Housemaid and Jason Statham’s Shelter.

Gerard Butler Stretches Both His Acting & Action Muscles

Gerard Butler has always been associated with the action genre, and he’s got more than enough in his catalog to prove it. Films like 300 and the Has Fallen series are some of his most famous works, and fortunately, the 56-year-old actor is not showing any signs of stopping. More recently, films like Den of Thieves and Plane show he’s still got it.

But in the Greenland movies, he has done more than portray the typical action hero. The role demands more from Butler, and a good script draws out his dramatic range. The first movie saw him play a father and husband going against every obstacle out there to protect his family in the middle of the apocalypse. The sequel needed the same formula, but the actor went for more, playing a father and husband whose hope depends solely on giving everything to others.

Unfortunately, his strong performance – and arguably one of his best ever – wasn’t enough to convince audiences to go into theaters. Greenland 2: Migration flopped at the box office. Produced with a budget of $90 million, the film only grossed about $45 million. It was a different result than the one from the first movie, which grossed more than $53 million against a $35 million budget.

Critics were also seemingly not impressed with Butler’s performance, but many still singled out Butler’s performance as one of the best things in the movie. Today, the sequel sits at 48% on Rotten Tomatoes – a poor rating when compared to the 78% the first movie still has on the critics’ website.

Release Date: January 9, 2026
Runtime: 98 Minutes
Director: Ric Roman Waugh
Writers: Chris Sparling, Mitchell LaFortune
Producers: Basil Iwanyk, Gerard Butler, Alan Siegel, John Zois, Sebastien Raybaud, Brendon Boyea

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I opened an Aldi Blind Box. Here’s what was inside

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Consumers who love surprises are in for a treat with Aldi’s Blind Box grocery bundles.

The boxes are filled with fan-favorite products and “fresh picks from across every aisle,” the grocery chain said in a June 15 news release, and shoppers have a chance to get them for free.

A new Aldi Blind Box will be released every day from June 22 to 25. At noon ET each day, customers can visit AldiBlindBox.com to claim that day’s themed box while supplies last. The boxes will be given away on a first-come, first-served basis, the company said in a news release, adding that more than 100 boxes will be given away per drop.

Social media users can visit Aldi’s Instagram page to see which theme drops next. The four themes for the boxes include:

Snack Blind Box: Features premium cheeses, dips, crunchy bites and sweets.
Fiber Blind Box: Features produce favorites and better-for-you picks.
Protein Blind Box: Features satisfying staples and surprising finds.
Mystery Blind Box: Features a surprise assortment of ALDI fan favorites and staples.

“The ALDI Blind Box taps into the excitement our fans already feel walking our aisles,” said Bridget Kozlowski, director of communications for Aldi, in a news release. “Our shoppers come to ALDI for value, but they also come for discovery. From viral ALDI Finds to tried-and-true products shoppers love to tell their friends about, people love the thrill of discovering something new here.”

Watch me open the Snack Blind Box Aldi sent me in the video at the top of this story.

What is in the Aldi Blind Box?

Here is a full list of the 15 items that were included in the box I opened:

Dubai-style pistachio spread
Cookie thins
Hot Honey BBQ or Hot Chili Lime chips
Pretzel slims
Cranberry white cheddar cheese
Goat cheese logs
Organic mini cucumbers
Organic strawberries
Hummus
Feta dip
Hot honey pepperoni or burnt ends dip
Italian dried cured meat
Sourdough pita crackers
Coconut clusters
Organic tortilla chips

“With surprise unboxings more popular than ever, this is our way of helping customers discover even more favorites,” Kozlowski said in the news release.

Gabe Hauari is a national trending news reporter at USA TODAY. You can follow him on X @GabeHauari or email him at [email protected].

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