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# Follow the Money, Crypto, Sanctions, and Uncomfortable Overlaps, AI Everywhere, Defended by No One
- URL: https://adjacent.media/scan/2026-05-19-am/
- Published: 2026-05-19T10:09:39.000Z
- Updated: 2026-05-19T10:09:39.000Z
- Description: The big stories today sit at the intersection of power and money: crypto flows and sanctions, a $2.5B ad-tech acquisition, and a utility merger that consolidates control over the energy infrastructure AI runs on.
- Author: Jonathan Greene
- Tags: #scan-am, #scan

The big stories today sit at the intersection of power and money: crypto flows and sanctions, a $2.5B ad-tech acquisition, and a utility merger that consolidates control over the energy infrastructure AI runs on. Hackers had a productive week in Berlin, and "radical transparency" is apparently worth exactly $100M to Shein.

> **$2.5B** — Publicis's all-cash grab for LiveRamp is the largest bet yet that first-party data infrastructure is the real moat in AI-driven advertising. *(Beet)*

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### Connected World

#### [Publicis Buys LiveRamp in $2.5 Billion Push Into AI-Driven Advertising](https://www.beet.tv/2026/05/publicis-buys-liveramp-in-2-5-billion-push-into-ai-driven-advertising.html?ref=adjacent.media)

The French holding company is essentially buying the pipes that connect advertiser data to AI targeting — a structural move, not just a media buy. *(Beet)*

#### [NextEra Energy to Acquire Dominion, Creating a Utility Giant](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/17/business/nextera-dominion-deal.html?ref=adjacent.media)

Framed as a power-demand play driven by AI data centers, this deal consolidates control over electricity infrastructure across Florida and Virginia. *(NYT)*

### Connected World

#### [Two Crypto Billionaires Sit Behind Both the Trump Family Token and Iran's Sanctions-Evasion Engine](https://thenextweb.com/news/trump-world-liberty-financial-iran-nobitex-reuters?ref=adjacent.media)

Reuters traced $2.3B in flows from Iranian exchange Nobitex to blockchains tied to World Liberty Financial — a thread unlikely to stay quiet. *(The Next Web)*

#### [Polymarket and Kalshi Continue to Operate in India Despite Government Ban](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-05-18/kalshi-polymarket-defy-india-ban-on-online-betting-platforms?ref=adjacent.media)

Defying a government advisory by routing around it via VPN is a bold regulatory posture, especially while US authorities are already issuing information requests. *(Bloomberg)*

### Machines & Minds

#### [Pwn2Own Berlin 2026: Hackers Earned $1.3M for 47 Vulnerabilities](https://www.securityweek.com/hackers-earn-1-3-million-at-pwn2own-berlin-2026/?ref=adjacent.media)

Successful exploits of AI products including Codex, Cursor, and LM Studio suggest the attack surface on AI tooling is wide open and under-tested. *(SecurityWeek)*

#### [Grafana Refused to Pay Ransom After Hackers Accessed Its GitHub Environment](https://thehackernews.com/2026/05/grafana-github-token-breach-led-to.html?ref=adjacent.media)

A supply chain breach at an observability platform used by thousands of engineering teams is exactly the kind of infrastructure risk that rarely gets headlines. *(The Hacker News)*

#### [Does Google Have a Claude Code Counterpunch?](https://open.substack.com/pub/bigtechnology/p/does-google-have-a-claude-code-counterpunch)

The coding agent race has reshuffled AI competitive dynamics faster than most expected, and Google's response remains the most important unanswered question in enterprise software right now. *(Big Technology)*

#### [The AI Trial of the Century Ends With a Whimper](https://open.substack.com/pub/garymarcus/p/the-ai-trial-of-the-century-ends)

The jury found Musk filed too late — and never had to weigh in on whether OpenAI's nonprofit-to-commercial conversion was legitimate, leaving the biggest governance question in AI unresolved. *(Marcus on AI)*

### Connected World

#### [The Orion PDA Runs on Sunlight and Ignores the Internet by Design](https://www.yankodesign.com/2026/05/18/the-orion-pda-runs-on-sunlight-and-ignores-the-internet-by-design/?ref=adjacent.media)

A solar-powered, offline-first personal digital assistant in 2026 is either the most contrarian product launch of the year or a surprisingly sensible response to notification fatigue — possibly both. *(Yanko Design)*