High-frequency traders are the whiz kids of Wall Street. They either code scripts to execute quick trades to eke out small profits that, multiplied by one or ten thousand times over, result in serious cash. Or they’re able to act milliseconds faster than competitors to score big bets on market swings. Speed is paramount, which is why HFT traders have created their own private networks of internet cables—now, a crypto project called DoubleZero wants to do the same to speed up blockchains.

“We can use a whole different set of technologies that have basically been standard and de facto in the high-frequency trading world… but are not available over the public internet, so they’ve never been applied to blockchain before,” Austin Federa, cofounder of DoubleZero and a former executive at the Solana Foundation, told Fortune.

Federa’s project, which has the same obsession with speed as the firms in Michael Lewis’s famous HFT book Flash Boys, has already attracted capital. DoubleZero Foundation, one of the entities behind the project, announced in early March that it had raised $28 million in a seed round led by marquee crypto investors Multicoin Capital and Dragonfly Capital. Other venture capital firms that contributed were Foundation Capital, Reciprocal Ventures, DBA, Borderless Capital, Superscrypt, and Frictionless. In exchange for their cash, investors received token warrants, or promised allocations of a yet-to-be-launched cryptocurrency, Federa said. 

CoinDesk Solana or Ethereum are like Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud—but decentralized. 

And like any cloud computing network, blockchains have physical servers that process users’ transactions and run programmers’ apps. Currently, when servers that power the Solana blockchain, for example, need to communicate with each other, those signals run over public internet infrastructure, said Federa. DoubleZero aims to create a private network of cables to speed up a blockchain’s processing power.

Jump Crypto, the digital assets subsidiary of HFT firm Jump Trading, and Malbec Labs are the engineering entities behind DoubleZero. They won’t be laying down physical cables to construct the network, said Federa. Not yet, anyway. Rather, the company is cobbling together underutilized bandwidth from HFT firms, private companies, and even individuals to build out a faster physical network of cables than what is currently available for blockchains.

And to make sure that, just like a blockchain, this physical network is decentralized, Federa’s foundation plans to launch its own cryptocurrency to reward those who contribute bandwidth to the project.

Federa’s other cofounders are Mateo Ward and Andrew McConnell. Ward is the former CEO of Neutrona Networks, a portfolio company of Jump Trading that specialized in building private internet networks. And McConnell was a former top engineer at Jump.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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In an automotive market that is rethinking the speed of electrification, BMW has renewed its backing of its EV strategy during the release of its full 2024 group report. However, with a significant drop in revenue compared to 2023—the last year has clearly been a tough one.

The BMW Group’s 2024 profits before tax were €10.971 billion, a fall of 35.8% over 2023. This was driven by a fall in automotive revenues of 5.6% to €124.917 billion. Eliminations (transactions between subsidiaries) also rose 49.9% to €24.333 billion.

Although BMW’s sales of electric vehicles have been flying in Europe, and even overtook Tesla’s in July 2024, shipments have not fared so well in China. The company’s combined sales of BMW and MINI cars in China fell 13.4% to 714,500 units, despite the overall Chinese market for passenger cars increasing by 23.1%. This has been attributed to much stiffer competition from domestic Chinese domestic brands.

Overall, BMW Group saw a 4% fall in automotive deliveries, with the biggest drop in its MINI brand of 17%, while Rolls-Royce shipments were down 5% and BMW’s down 2%. The company has stated that it is expecting further negative impacts in 2025 from the growing implementation of tariffs. Those levied so far have been included in its forecast of an earnings margin from 5 to 7% in 2025.

Despite the challenging 2024 and 2025 outlook, BMW Chairman Oliver Zipse was optimistic about the group’s future in his presentation of the 2024 report. A lot of this revolves around the company’s Neue Klasse strategy, a radical rethink of the brand’s designs, platforms and drivetrain focus revolving around sustainability, a key focus for BMW. The name harks back to the BMW Neue Klasse of the 1960s, which revived the company’s fortunes.

Most automakers agree that battery electric vehicles (BEVs) are the future. However, the pace of change has come into question amid the economic difficulties of the last few years. BMW has navigated these challenges more effectively than some automakers. While the company now has BEV offerings across most of its range, it has continued to produce most of these on platforms shared with vehicles powered by internal combustion, enabling an easier match between supply and demand.

Neue Klasse refocuses on BEVs primarily, but BMW still isn’t putting all its eggs in the electric basket. The company plans to develop internal combustion engine vehicles and hybrids for some markets, depending on customer demand. BMW is keeping its options open and is still promising a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle in 2028. The company has been road testing a hydrogen-powered version of its X5 SUV since 2023.

BMW committed to the Neue Klasse in 2020 during the pandemic, a bold move for such uncertain times. It’s certainly putting money into the strategy. In 2024, BMW invested €9 billion in research and development and €11.8 billion in capital expenditure. Not all of this has gone into electrification, with some going into digital transformation and production facility development.

The first Neue Klasse car will be arriving this year, in the same category as the popular X5 and iX SUVs (which BMW calls Sports Activity Vehicles). Initially, this will be built in modernized plant in Debrecen, Hungary. The SAV will be followed quickly by a sedan in the BMW 3-series segment, built in Munich, and then four more new models within two years of the start of production. Neue Klasse cars will also be manufactured in Shenyang, China, and a brand-new plant in San Luis Potosí from 2027.

Although 2024 was a challenging year for BMW, and the turbulent tariff-led start to 2025 has sent shocks through automotive supply chains, the company is still looking towards a positive future with its Neue Klasse BEVs taking an increasingly important role.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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