Crypto firms are scrambling to find institutions to bank with after the collapse of Signature Bank and Silvergate Capital, two lenders that were friendly to digital currency companies.

Some of these companies have turned to crypto-friendly Swiss banks, flooding them with requests for banking services, according to multiple industry insiders who spoke to CNBC.

Typically, the crypto industry has found it difficult to access banking services from traditional lenders, who don’t want to touch anything that does not have a clear regulatory framework. This has included blockchain and crypto firms, who have instead had to turn to specialist banks.

But with two of the biggest lenders, along with SVB, now out of the picture, cryptocurrency firms have turned to Switzerland, which has sought to market itself as a crypto hub with solid regulation.

“We have been inundated with requests,” said an advisor at a private Swiss bank, who preferred to remain anonymous due to the sensitive nature of the matter.

The advisor said on the Monday after Silvergate and Signature Bank’s winddown this month, the private lender had more requests in a single day than ever before.

“It is just nuts,” the advisor said.

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew appealed directly to the app’s users ahead of what’s expected to be a heated grilling in the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee this week, in a video posted to the platform Tuesday.

Filming from Washington, D.C., Chew emphasized the large scale of TikTok users, small and medium-sized businesses and its own employees based in the U.S. that rely on the company. The message may preview his appeal to lawmakers Thursday, where he will be faced with questions about the ability of its Chinese parent company ByteDance, and the Chinese government, to access U.S. user information collected by the app.

TikTok says it has worked to create a risk mitigation plan to ensure that U.S. data doesn’t get into the hands of a foreign adversary through its app. The company has said U.S. user data is already stored outside of China.

But many lawmakers and intelligence officials seem to remain unconvinced that the information can be safe while TikTok is owned by a Chinese company. TikTok said last week that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., which is reviewing risks related to the app, is pushing for ByteDance to sell its stake or face a ban.

Chew disclosed in the video that TikTok has more than 150 million monthly active users, or MAUs, in the U.S., representing massive growth from August 2020, when it said for the first time that it has about 100 million MAUs in the country. That number includes 5 million businesses that use the app to reach their customers, with most of those being small or medium-sized businesses. He also said TikTok has 7,000 U.S.-based employees.

“This comes at a pivotal moment for us,” Chew said, referencing lawmakers’ threats of a TikTok ban. “This could take TikTok away from all 150 million of you.”

Chew then appealed to users directly to share in the comments what they want their representatives to know about why they love TikTok.

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WATCH: TikTok and ByteDance spied on this Forbes reporter

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates says that OpenAI’s GPT AI model is the most revolutionary advance in technology since he first saw a modern graphical desktop environment (GUI) in 1980.

Before that, people used their computers through a command line. Gates took the “GUI” technology and based Windows around it, creating a modern-day software juggernaut.

Now, Gates sees parallels with OpenAI’s GPT models, which can write text that resembles human output and generate nearly usable computer code.

He wrote in a blog post on Tuesday that he challenged the OpenAI team last year to develop an artificial intelligence model that could pass the Advanced Placement Biology exam. GPT-4, released to the public last week, scored the maximum score, according to OpenAI.

“The whole experience was stunning,” Gates wrote. “I knew I had just seen the most important advance in technology since the graphical user interface.”

“The development of AI is as fundamental as the creation of the microprocessor, the personal computer, the Internet, and the mobile phone. It will change the way people work, learn, travel, get health care, and communicate with each other. Entire industries will reorient around it. Businesses will distinguish themselves by how well they use it,” he continued.

Gates is the latest big name technologist to take a position on recent advancements in AI as a major shift in the technology industry. He joins former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos who have predicted that data-based machine learning could change entire industries.

Current CEOs also see major business opportunities in AI applications and tools. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said on Tuesday that the field is experiencing an “iPhone moment,” referring to the time when a new technology becomes widely adopted and entrepreneurs see opportunities for new businesses and products.

Gates and Microsoft have close ties to OpenAI, which developed the GPT model. Microsoft invested $10 billion in the startup and sells some of its AI software through Azure cloud services.

Gates suggests that people talking about AI should “balance fears” of biased, wrong or unfriendly tools with its potential to improve lives. He also believes governments and philanthropies should back AI tools to improve education and health in the developing world, because companies won’t necessarily choose to make those investments themselves.

The entire post from Gates is worth a read over at his blog.