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GitHub may have fumbled one of the biggest first-mover advantages in history

GitHub’s biggest source of growth? AI is attracting thousands of developers to its platform. GitHub’s biggest problem? AI is attracting thousands of developers to its platform…

The world’s largest code repository platform, GitHub, is at a crossroads: AI has led to a coding boom, and therefore more usage of GitHub, but it's also led to a crop of new coding tools, pressuring GitHub’s AI-powered coding feature Copilot (not to be confused with the dozens of other Microsoft Copilot products).

Pioneering the world of AI coding in 2021, GitHub Copilot built on its first-mover advantage in its early years, bundling the then-autocompleting tool in its main cloud suite. However, as more powerful followers like Cursor and Claude Code arrived, Microsoft execs became concerned that if GitHub didn’t adapt, rivals could not only replace Copilot, but the platform itself.

Web traffic data provided by Similarweb to Sherwood News reveals just how quickly Cursor has overtaken GitHub’s Copilot. (Note: As these coding tools tend to be plugged in within developers’ coding ecosystems, this website traffic data better represents interest from new and potential users than existing developers’ usage)

Meanwhile, Github the platform saw a 14x bump in traffic over the past year, per data obtained by The Information, as users rushed to the platform to build projects. In turn, the AI-fueled usage boost has caused outages to the extent that the unit recently posted an apology letter over them, and hit the company’s gross margins, per its most recent earnings.

Microsoft has now announced a transition to a usage-based business model, presumably in a bid to protect margins from power-users sucking up all of the compute. If only it could go back to before the 3C's — Claude, Cursor, and Codex — existed and threatened GitHub’s place in the coding universe.

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Physical attacks on cryptocurrency holders keep ticking up

When you think of crime within the crypto world, your mind likely conjures visions of opportunists conning unwitting victims with too-good-to-be-true investment offers, hackers infiltrating exchanges as they manipulate streams of Matrix-like code, or high-profile cases where figureheads of major players are sentenced to decades in prison for fraud or money laundering.

Blockchain gangs

What you’re maybe less inclined to imagine, however, are kidnappings, violent assaults, and home invasions — like the kind outlined in a Bloomberg report yesterday, or the spree of incidents that swept through Los Angeles and the Bay Area late last year. And yet, physical crimes against crypto holders (or “wrench attacks”) continue to rise around the world.

According to 2025 data from blockchain security company CertiK, cited by Bloomberg, the number of physical attacks related to crypto rose 75% last year to 72 verified incidents. The double dose of bad news for enthusiasts? One: that figure’s thought to be a serious underestimate, given the amount of crimes that go unreported and the ones that are dealt with privately (paid off), and two: according to an update earlier this month, 2026 is tracking to be even worse.

As CertiK noted in their report on 2026 physical attacks so far, if the current rate continues, the year-end verified tally could reach 130 tracked incidents — not far off double the 2025 figure, and more than 3x the 41 incidents it counted the year before that. 

Although that might not seem like that many, the amount of money that the perpetrators are cashing in on the altercations is not to be sniffed at, with the estimated losses this year already totaling over $101 million, per CertiK. And, again, that will almost certainly be an undercount.

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Balancing Pursuit of Income with Equity Exposure 

Seeking income but want to stay invested in stocks? 

As the U.S. options market has grown, more dynamic income strategies have become available through ETFs. Annual options volumes have increased materially over the past decade, where 2025 notched the highest annual volume ever seen. 

The Income Edge℠ Suite from Global X leverages a covered call strategy within two actively managed ETFs. This approach seeks to combine income generation with equity exposure and some equity market upside. 

Global X’s Income Edge Suite℠ comprises EDGX, offering large-cap U.S. equity exposure, and EDGQ, focused on the Nasdaq-100. Both EDGX and EDGQ seek current income by writing call options and targeting weekly distributions.

Discover Global X’s IncomeEdge Suite: Two ETF investments for pursuing income alongside large-cap equity exposure.

Which companies have the best reputations, according to Americans?

Since 2019, Harris Poll and Axios have published an annual ranking based on corporate repute, conducted by asking thousands of Americans one simple question: Which companies have the best and the worst reputations in the country right now?

For the 2026 poll, the market research firm surveyed 6,226 US adults from a nationally representative online sample in December 2025. In its research report, The Harris Poll wrote: “The mid-2020s are drawing comparisons to the mid-1970s — rising gas prices, affordability fatigue [...] In that environment, the companies with the strongest reputations are the ones Americans feel are helping them get ahead.”

That certainly explains the positive attitudes that Americans had towards market-driving tech juggernauts like Nvidia, which placed third in the ranking, as well as car manufacturers that help keep them literally on the move, like Toyota and Honda.

However, the fact that pet supply company Chewy took the top spot this year perhaps has less to do with economic or real-world momentum than the positive association that comes with catering to furry friends. 

While technology companies fared relatively well in the rankings — with Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, and Microsoft all receiving a “Very good” score — respondents had less favorable feelings towards media giants like Fox and Comcast, as well as social media companies including TikTok, X Corp, and Meta, the owner of Instagram and Facebook.

One interesting pattern across the board? More than three-quarters of the top 100 companies fared better in the 2026 poll than they did in the 2025 version, which suggests that, at least at the top level, Americans might be softening on some of the hardest hitters in business. 

Read the full version with more charts on the web

The Global X IncomeEdge℠ suite offers two ETFs with an actively managed income strategy, that target annualized distribution rates – 9% for EDGX and 13% for EDGQ. Explore the IncomeEdge. 

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Off the charts: Which gaming giant’s shares rose for the third session in a row yesterday, something the stock hasn’t experienced since March? [Answer below].

Answer here.

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Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. There is no assurance the Global X Income Edge^SM ETFs will achieve its target annualized distribution rates. The actual distributions the Fund makes over a one-year period may deviate from its intended target annualized distribution rate. Concentration in a particular industry or sector will subject the funds to loss due to adverse occurrences that may affect that industry or sector. Investors in the funds should be willing to accept a high degree of volatility in the price of the fund’s shares and the possibility of significant losses.

An option is a contract sold by one party to another that gives the buyer the right, but not the obligation, to buy (call) or sell (put) a stock at an agreed upon price within a certain period or on a specific date. A covered call option involves holding a long position in a particular asset and writing a call option on that same asset with the goal of realizing additional income from the option premium. By selling covered call options, the fund limits its opportunity to profit from an increase in the price of the underlying index above the exercise price, but continues to bear the risk of a decline in the index. A liquid market may not exist for options held by the fund. While the fund receives premiums for writing the call options, the price it realizes from the exercise of an option could be substantially below the index’s current market price. The funds are non-diversified.

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