The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has opened an investigation into 2.4 million Tesla vehicles equipped with the controversial Full Self-Driving (FSD) software following reports of four collisions, one of which resulted in a fatality. This preliminary evaluation marks a critical step for the regulatory agency, which may seek a recall if it determines that these vehicles pose an unreasonable safety risk.
Growing Concerns Over FSD Technology
The NHTSA’s scrutiny comes at a pivotal time for Tesla. CEO Elon Musk has been vocal about pivoting the company’s focus toward advanced self-driving technology and robotaxis, amidst increasing competition and declining demand in the automotive sector. Last week, Musk unveiled an ambitious concept for a two-seater robotaxi named “Cybercab,” designed without a steering wheel or pedals, relying entirely on cameras and artificial intelligence for navigation. However, deploying such a vehicle would require NHTSA’s approval due to its lack of traditional human controls.
The investigation was prompted by crashes where the FSD system was engaged under challenging visibility conditions, such as sun glare, fog, or airborne dust. One particularly tragic incident involved a pedestrian being struck and killed by a 2021 Tesla Model Y in Rimrock, Arizona, in November 2023. Another crash resulted in reported injuries, raising alarms about the FSD system’s performance in adverse conditions.
Scope of the Investigation
The NHTSA’s investigation encompasses a range of Tesla models from 2016 to 2024, including the Model S, Model X, Model 3, Model Y, and the recently introduced Cybertruck. While Tesla has not yet commented on the investigation, shares rose slightly by 0.1% in early trading.
Tesla emphasizes that its FSD software requires active driver supervision and does not render its vehicles fully autonomous. The NHTSA is evaluating whether FSD can adequately detect and respond to poor visibility scenarios. The agency is also investigating if Tesla has made any modifications to the FSD system that could impact its performance in these conditions.
Previous Safety Concerns and Regulatory Actions
This investigation is not Tesla’s first brush with regulatory scrutiny. In December, the company recalled over two million vehicles in the U.S. to install new safety features in its Autopilot system. However, the NHTSA continues to probe whether this recall effectively addresses concerns regarding driver attentiveness during the use of automated features.
Moreover, in October 2023, Tesla disclosed that the U.S. Justice Department had issued subpoenas related to its FSD and Autopilot systems, indicating that legal challenges may loom ahead. Two fatal accidents involving FSD technology, including a deadly incident in April where a Tesla Model S struck and killed a motorcyclist, have further fueled the spotlight on the company’s autonomous capabilities.
Industry Implications and Future Challenges
Experts warn that Tesla’s reliance on a “camera-only” approach to autonomous driving could present challenges in low-visibility conditions. Industry analyst Jeff Schuster of GlobalData cautions that weather factors can impact camera performance, which may complicate the near-term rollout of Tesla’s ambitious robotaxi plans. Competing firms in the robotaxi market often utilize more expensive sensors like lidar and radar, which provide additional layers of environmental detection.
As Tesla navigates these challenges, investors are left wondering about the company’s future trajectory in the rapidly evolving landscape of autonomous vehicles. With regulatory scrutiny intensifying and public safety concerns mounting, Tesla’s path forward may be more complicated than ever.
In conclusion, the NHTSA’s investigation into Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software highlights significant safety concerns and regulatory challenges that could affect the company’s ambitions in the self-driving market. As Tesla strives for high automation, the results of this investigation may be pivotal in shaping the future of autonomous driving technologies.
During the 2025 edition of the Paris Blockchain Week, BeInCrypto sat down with Alexis Yellow, CEO of Yellow, a crypto project working on an entirely new paradigm based on Satoshi’s initial vision for Bitcoin.
He talks about the upcoming Yellow Tokens, a new smart contract mechanism, and making crypto projects more utility-driven.
Alexis, can you introduce yourself?
I’m Alexis, a software engineer by background. I worked at the European Space Center early in my career, but my crypto journey started quite unexpectedly.
Back in 2013, an old friend from school reached out—he was working at Goldman Sachs and told me about a project that needed help. He said, “There are 12 people in Silicon Valley printing fake money.” That project turned out to be Ripple.
Ripple ended up being our first client, and that experience really helped me grasp the potential of crypto.
Despite the skepticism surrounding the space, I saw real innovation. Ripple’s CTO was a Bitcoin Core contributor, and Vitalik Buterin was involved with the team before Ethereum.
Actually, Buterin was planning to join Ripple. He was especially excited about their consensus mechanism, which inspired me, too.
One thing that always stuck with me was Satoshi’s idea: We need systems where trust isn’t a prerequisite. That idea shaped a lot of my thinking.
Around 2018–2019, I decided to start Yellow. We later merged with a French exchange technology company called OpenWare. Combining my market experience with their tech, we launched Yellow Network.
So, it’s a trading infrastructure designed to let institutions, like Société Générale, trade directly with major players like Binance without needing to trust them.
Trading with exchanges like Binance without trusting them, do you mean trust as a counterparty?
Exactly that’s at the core of Satoshi’s vision. At Yellow, we’re working on a different model of trustlessness using state channels, which represent a new paradigm compared to traditional blockchain systems like Bitcoin or Ethereum.
In those systems, you have tens of thousands of nodes, say, around 30,000, validating each transaction. It’s a powerful model for security, each validator has a financial incentive to be honest, and there’s no way to roll back a confirmed transaction.
The same applies to staking networks. But that structure just doesn’t work for high-frequency trading. You can’t have 30,000 nodes verifying every microsecond trade. It’s simply too slow and inefficient.
For example, some networks try to solve this by reducing the number of validators to 21, but that compromises the level of trust and decentralization. Our approach is fundamentally different. The Lightning Network inspires it, but we’ve taken it in a new direction.
With the Lightning Network, you can move money instantly by opening a state channel. At Yellow Network, we use similar state channels but instead of transferring funds directly, we transfer profit and loss in real time.
For instance, if you buy a Bitcoin for $100,000 and it rises 5%, the $5,000 profit is immediately transferred to your wallet. The trade is settled instantly, peer-to-peer, with cryptographic proof.
To ensure security and fairness, we’ve built a smart contract called ClearSync. If a counterparty refuses to settle, as we saw with the HyperLiquid issue recently, ClearSync can step in and arbitrate the trade.
It verifies the claim and, if valid, ensures the rightful party receives what they’re owed. So, it’s a trustless system that still allows for the speed and flexibility traders need.
1/ $JELLYJELLY on @HyperliquidX and what happens when we rely on trust.
No, it’s peer-to-peer trading. Nothing is faster or more efficient than a direct state channel between two parties. Profit is transferred instantly. That’s the core of this new paradigm: trustless trading, where settlement happens in real time.
Let’s say we’re trading and the connection drops, no problem. If I made a profit, it’s already secured. I might not receive the asset, like Bitcoin, but my profit in dollars is locked in. There’s no need to trust the other party to settle correctly.
Is it effective profit or a claim to profit?
It’s effective profit, denominated in dollars or whatever currency is locked as collateral. Here’s how it works – two parties lock in $20,000 to trade Bitcoin. That amount represents the maximum they’re willing to risk.
If the trade results in a $5,000 profit for one side, that amount is instantly settled, even if the other party refuses to finalize the trade.
If both agree to settle, I send you $100,000, you send me one Bitcoin, and both our collaterals unlock.
Can you switch to stablecoin?
Absolutely. In fact, we’re working with stablecoin issuers to create partnerships and potential investments in Yellow.
Can you give us an idea of the size of the Yellow Group? How many people are there? How many transactions do you process ?
We haven’t officially launched. Before the war in Ukraine, we had a large team of over 100 people. Many have since relocated, mostly to Poland, but we still have staff in Ukraine. Right now, we’re about 50 people globally.
Meanwhile, you can track activity on our analytics site, BundleBear. On Polygon, we’re already the fourth most active app. On Linea, a new protocol by Consensys, we’re number one with over 229,000 users despite not being live yet.
We can see on your website that you are offering your technology so that you can list any token without going through a CEX or a DEX. Is that part of the project?
Exactly. The Yellow Wallet is like a Layer 3; it lets users interact with any chain seamlessly. It now supports cross-chain swaps, like moving tokens from Polygon to Binance Smart Chain, with zero fees. It’s designed to remove friction from cross-chain trading.
Seamless cross-chain swaps, all in your Yellow Wallet!
Swap between BNB, Base, Arbitrum, AVAX, Polygon, OP, Linea, and Scroll with ease.
No, not for the state channels themselves. We don’t monetize trades directly. The Yellow token plays a security role, a “necessary evil,” like ETH or BTC.
Your security deposit gets burned if you behave badly and refuse to settle. It ensures honesty in a peer-to-peer environment. Think of it like a miner losing their reward for trying to cheat.
How do you make money from the usage of your service?
The token economy is the foundation. Just like ETH or BTC derive value from usage and network participation, the Yellow token does too.
It’s needed to place security deposits in the network, and over time, its utility and adoption by industry players will drive its value.
If someone cheats, their token gets burned—creating deflationary pressure and reinforcing good behavior.
Is the token already traded?
Not yet, but we’re planning to launch in the next couple of months. We’ll mint 10 billion Yellow tokens; ideally, that number stays close to that.
If too many tokens get burned, it could indicate issues in the system. It’s a built-in signal to monitor the health and integrity of the network.
Are you going to start it with an airdrop or something of the sort?
No, we’re focused on utility-based distribution. Most tokens will be sold directly in the markets where they’re used. Ethereum didn’t launch with an airdrop. Neither did Bitcoin.
This is a B2B infrastructure project—just like Ethereum and Ripple. While the network is open to everyone, our core users are businesses and institutional players.
That said, the beauty of crypto is that the ecosystem is open. Anyone who believes in the project can get involved and benefit from the network effect, without needing to be a developer or an insider.
Anything important that we left out?
Yes, very few cryptocurrencies are used in the real world today. Bitcoin has proven its value as a store of wealth.
Ethereum demonstrated its utility during the ICO boom. USDT fills a vital gap in places where dollars are hard to access.
We believe Yellow can become the fourth pillar. It’s solving a real need in crypto markets: scalable, trustless, high-frequency trading. And we’re making it open source so the whole industry can benefit.
It’s obvious that Web3 applications will need infrastructure to reach the scale of platforms like Twitter or YouTube.
At Pragma today, @Yellow‘s Louis Bellet shared the secret weapon Ethereum already has to achieve this today.
I think this approach, state channels for speed and smart contracts for resolution, will redefine how trading infrastructure works. It’s ideal for gaming and other fast-paced applications where blockchains never truly fit.
Blockchain isn’t always the answer, especially if you’re using 30,000 nodes to validate a game move. That’s just not efficient.
With Yellow, the trading side is handled through cryptographic state channels not full decentralization. But if something goes wrong, we still fall back to a smart contract to arbitrate. That’s the balance we’re bringing.
Also, we’re working on a new ERC standard for this. In the next 3–4 years, I expect that 10–20% of new crypto projects will adopt this architecture.
Overall, We’re not just building a product, we’re introducing a new philosophy for how decentralized systems can operate more efficiently.
World (formerly Worldcoin) suffered a legal blow in Kenya after the High Court ruled that its biometric data collection practices violated constitutional privacy rights.
The court’s decision marks a landmark victory for digital rights advocates in the country and beyond and comes amid growing global scrutiny of the controversial crypto and identity project.
Kenyan High Court Slams Sam Altman’s World Over Privacy Violations
In a judgment delivered on Monday, Justice Aburili Roselyne granted a judicial review application filed by Kenya’s Katiba Institute. The court ordered the Worldcoin Foundation and its agents to terminate all biometric data processing.
The court also ruled that all previously collected data from Kenyan users should be permanently deleted.
“An order of prohibition [is issued] restraining Worldcoin Foundation and its agents from further processing, collecting or dealing in Biometric data without undertaking (or using an inadequate) Data Protection Impact Assessment… or using consent obtained by inducement of a cryptocurrency — Worldcoin,” Katiba Institute reported, citing the ruling.
The judge issued a certiorari order, effectively quashing World’s decision to collect and process such data in Kenya. She cited violations of Kenya’s Data Protection Act, 2019.
A third order of mandamus compels the foundation to delete all biometric data obtained within seven days permanently. The court called out Worldcoin for breaching the law in this regard. The Data Protection Commissioner will supervise the implementation of the order.
“High Court orders Worldcoin to delete biometric data collected in Kenya within 7 days,” local media reported.
High Court orders Worldcoin to delete all biometric data of Kenyans unlawfully collected using its orb, under the supervision of the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner pic.twitter.com/A6AiSSr1HD
ICJ Kenya, committed to protecting and promoting human rights, reiterated the news in a post. It highlighted the court’s determination that constitutional rights, especially the right to privacy, must be upheld even in the digital age.
“The Court affirmed that Worldcoin commenced data collection without valid consent from the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC) and without conducting the required DPIA, in breach of Sections 25, 26, 29, 30, and 31 of the Data Protection Act, 2019,” wrote ICJ Kenya
This break comes nearly two years after the Katiba Institute filed the case in August 2023. The organization, which promotes the implementation of Kenya’s Constitution, challenged Worldcoin’s data collection practices.
Constitutional lawyer Joshua Malidzo Nyawa, who spearheaded the prosecution, did not immediately respond to BeInCrypto’s request for comment.
Worldcoin Collecting Biometric Data From Kenyans
In hindsight, the data collection process was controversial. As it happened, Worldcoin offered Kenyans $50 worth of WLD tokens per person. In exchange, they had to volunteer to scan their irises using the Orb device, effectively signing away their biometric data.
The institute argued that this inducement compromised the legitimacy of user consent. Specifically, it failed to meet Kenya’s legal thresholds for data protection.
“The owner of Worldcoin, Sam Altman, is banned from collecting this data in his home country, the US, why do we allow him in Kenya,” parliament majority leader Kimani Ichung’wah said.
The ruling is likely to reverberate across jurisdictions where World operates. Similar concerns have already led to regulatory suspensions in Indonesia. As BeInCrypto reported, authorities halted Worldcoin’s activities over potential violations of data protection laws.
Despite this growing resistance, the project is pushing forward in the US. It recently launched in six cities, including Atlanta, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
These legal developments had a swift impact on investor sentiment. Worldcoin’s native token (WLD) dropped nearly 10% in the past 24 hours. According to BeInCrypto price data, WLD was trading at $0.88 as of this writing.
HashKey Group Chairman and CEO Xiao Feng kicked off the 2025 Hong Kong Web3 Festival on Sunday with a keynote address highlighting blockchain technology’s transformative impact on global financial infrastructure.
Speaking to an early morning crowd at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center, Xiao described blockchain as “a new generation of financial infrastructure” that fundamentally changes how financial transactions are recorded, settled and governed.
“Any industrial revolution must wait for a financial revolution,” Xiao told attendees at the four-day event hosted by his company.
Xiao emphasized historical parallels between technological and financial evolution: banking credit supported the British Industrial Revolution, stock markets enabled the electrical revolution in America, and venture capital fueled Silicon Valley’s information revolution.
“Cryptocurrency finance will become the core financial innovation supporting the fourth industrial revolution.”
The executive highlighted key differences between traditional and blockchain-based finance, including the shift from bank accounts to digital wallets and the move from batch settlement systems to instantaneous transaction completion.
Regulatory Changes and Market Evolution
Xiao noted the significance of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s recent decision not to classify dollar-backed stablecoins as securities, suggesting this allows more institutions to participate in monetary creation processes.
HashKey Group Chairman and CEO Xiao Feng at Keynote speech of 2025 Hong Kong Web3 Festival. Courtesy of Web3 Festival
He also pointed to major stock exchanges moving toward 23-hour trading cycles, compared to blockchain markets that operate continuously.
“Traditional exchanges will eventually need to adapt to compete with cryptocurrency markets that have operated 24/7 since day one,” Xiao predicted.
Hong Kong’s Strategic Role
The event features several high-profile regulators, including Paul Chan Mo-po, Financial Secretary of the Hong Kong Government; Joseph H. L. Chan, Under Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury; Christina Choi, Executive Director of Investment Products at the Securities and Futures Commission; and George Chou, Chief Fintech Officer of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority.
While mainland China maintains strict prohibitions on cryptocurrencies, analysts view Hong Kong’s supportive stance as a strategic testing ground for the technology’s potential. This approach effectively creates a regulatory breathing space where blockchain innovations can develop under controlled conditions, potentially informing future policies across the broader Chinese economy.
The Web3 Festival continues through Wednesday with industry panels, demonstrations and networking events, bringing together blockchain developers, investors and technology enthusiasts from around the world.
1/ $JELLYJELLY on 
