Tech Brew Ride Home - Thu. 05/13 – Elon Rekt Crypto

Starting point is 00:00:00 On April 4th, 2023, around 2 in the morning, a man was found stabbed multiple times on a sidewalk in downtown San Francisco. Hey, who did this to you? What happened next turned the story into a political firestorm. Reports have identified the victim as Bob Lee, the founder of Cash App. From Bloomberg Podcasts, this is Foundering, the Killing of Bob Lee, beginning April 16. Welcome to the Tech Meme Ride Home for Thursday, May 13th, 2021. I'm Brian McCullough today. The whims of Elon Musk go both ways when it comes to crypto markets. SpaceX signs a deal with Google Cloud to do battle with AWS and the Kuiper Project. Colonial Pipeline reportedly paid the ransom and is now getting back online. Will Facebook's Crypto Project ever end up seeing the light of day, part 12? And the Ethereum creator donates crypto to help India. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. So Elon Musk did a thing. Last night, he announced an abrupt change in policy. Mere weeks after saying Tesla would accept Bitcoin as payment for Tesla vehicles,

Starting point is 00:01:17 Musk said Tesla would no longer accept Bitcoin for vehicle purchases due to Bitcoin's high environmental cost. Musk said he is now on the hunt for more environmentally friendly cryptocurrencies, which, yeah, we've been kicking around articles debating the environmental cost of proof-of-work blockchains, And so there were not a few people who pointed out the, shall we call it, contradiction of Tesla, the company whose stated mission is to wean the automotive world off of fossil fuels embracing a technology that many think is too energy hungry. Quoting the verge. Musk also said that Tesla will no longer sell any more of the $1.5 billion stash of Bitcoin

Starting point is 00:01:59 that it purchased earlier this year. Tesla had sold some of that Bitcoin in the first quarter of 2021, which wound up helping pad the company's quarterly profit figures. Tesla says it would resume accepting Bitcoin and would consider selling more of it once the process of mining Bitcoin, quote, transitions to more sustainable energy, according to the statement. The company is also, quote, looking at other cryptocurrencies that use less than 1% of Bitcoin's energy slash transaction. As of this writing, Tesla's website indicates it will still accept Bitcoin for transactions. Quote, cryptocurrency is a good idea on many levels, and we believe,

Starting point is 00:02:35 leave it has a promising future, but this cannot come at great cost to the environment. Musk's statement reads, Bitcoin uses up as much electricity annually as the Netherlands, according to one estimate. All that energy comes with a huge carbon footprint, and there's no simple fix because the blockchain that the cryptocurrency is built on is purposely energy inefficient. That clashes with Tesla's mission to, quote, accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy, end quote. Remember how Dogecoin plunged last weekend when Elon Musk went on Saturday Night Live? Well, this time, the damage was more widespread. Cryptocurrency markets across almost all coins fell.

Starting point is 00:03:17 Bitcoin, Ether, XRP, all cumulatively lost around $365 billion in value overnight. Quoting the verge, at around 6 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday, when Musk makes me, the announcement, the value of the whole cryptocurrency market stood at around $2.43 trillion, according to data from coin marketcap.com. By 8.45 p.m., the market capitalization had dropped to around $2.065 trillion, wiping off around $365.8.5 billion. The market has since paid some losses, and by around 6.30 a.m., the cryptocurrency market had seen around $235 billion wiped off its value since Musk's tweet. Bitcoin was down around 12% at around $49,624, according to Coin desk data dipping below the $50,000 mark for the first time since April 24th, end quote.

Starting point is 00:04:11 I know that I swore we would not report on Bitcoin price again on the show until it hit either $100,000 a coin or $10,000 a coin, but I think it's worth making an exception for the reasons Rob Pagoraro mentioned on Twitter, quote, The nice thing about the U.S. dollar and other currencies issued by generally functional governments is that they don't lose over 10% of their value overnight after one rich guy's tweet, end quote. Live by the meme lord, get wrecked by the meme lord, I guess. Staying on all things Elon related for one more second here, SpaceX has signed a satellite connectivity deal with Google Cloud,

Starting point is 00:04:55 as part of which SpaceX will install Starlink terminals at Google's data centers around the world. quoting the verge. The Starlink Google Cloud capabilities, which includes secure data delivery to remote areas of the world, will be available to customers by the end of 2021. Google said in a press release Thursday morning. SpaceX will install the first Starlink terminal at Google's New Albany, Ohio Data Center, a spokesman said, adding more plans on the partnership will be shared in the coming months. The deal is a natural alliance for Elon Musk's SpaceX and Google, which in 2015 invested $900 million in the space company to cover an array of technology, including Starlink satellite manufacturing. So far, SpaceX has launched 1,625 Starlink satellites with about 1,5th century currently

Starting point is 00:05:42 in orbit. A Starlink beta program that began last year has at least 10,000 users across the U.S., Canada, and a few European countries, with at least 500,000 deposits of $100,000 placed by potential customers of the service. Competition is fierce between Musk's Starlink. Network and the budding Kuiper project from Jeff Bezos's Amazon, which aims to launch more than 3,000 satellites in roughly the same orbit as Starlink to also provide global broadband internet. The Google SpaceX deal marks another competitive win for Google in its own rivalry with Amazon's behemoth cloud services unit Amazon Web Services. Amazon executives have said they aim to leverage internet connectivity from Kuiper to supercharge its AWS cloud services, end quote.

Starting point is 00:06:33 Colonial Pipeline says it has restarted operations after being shut down for five days due to DarkSides' alleged ransomware attack. The company says it will nonetheless apparently take several days, or perhaps a week or more to get things flowing normally again. Sources are also telling Bloomberg that Colonial indeed paid around $5 million in ransom in cryptocurrency within hours of the original attack, but the hacker's decrypting tool was so slow that that's been what's been behind the delay in getting things up and running again. Not entirely coincidentally, President Biden just signed an executive order to strengthen U.S. cyber defenses, including the development of cybersecurity standards for software companies

Starting point is 00:07:17 that sell to the government, quoting the Washington Post. The executive order does not specifically address critical infrastructure such as oil and gas pipelines, but it directs the Commerce Department to craft cybersecurity standards for companies that sell software services to the federal government. A move that officials say they hope will ripple across the private sector nationally and globally and improve cybersecurity for critical systems, too. The colonial pipeline incident is a reminder that federal action alone is not enough, the White House said in a statement. The critical systems that deliver water and power are owned by the private sector, a senior administration official said, we simply cannot let waiting for the next

Starting point is 00:07:56 incident to happen to be the status quo under which we operate, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, underground rules set by the White House. The order also directs agencies to move toward a digital security approach that stresses authenticating users based on behavior rather than just a password or their location. It would use multiple ways to confirm identity and detect cyber threats through anomalous behavior rather than depending primarily on firewalls to keep hackers out. The 34-page document, unusually long for an executive order, calls for the reporting of severe cyber incidents within three days, the creation of a board to review significant incidents,

Starting point is 00:08:34 the removal of contractual barriers to reporting federal agency breaches, and strengthening a program that allows a federal agency to test a product security before it is sold to the government. It also makes clear that contractors are required to report incidents at federal agencies to the Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Homeland Security, cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency, or Sisa, end quote. Don't forget to keep an eye on Roku as the dark horse in the streaming wars, obviously because they have such a powerful platform that a lot of the streaming players

Starting point is 00:09:14 actually have to live on, but also because as anticipated, Roku has launched its original programming slate, including the Quibi content that Roku recently acquired. Anyway, the Roku channel is going to start featuring original programming starting May 20th, quoting TechCrunch. Among the better known quibby shows that will now be joining Roku are Chrissy Teagan's Chrissy's Court, Comedy Central's Reno 911, Kevin Hart's Die Heart Action Series, Emmy-winning free Ray Sean documentaries, Blackballed and Big Rad Wolf, and reality show reboot Punked. These and others will become Roku's first original programs joining the over 40,000 other free movies and TV shows on the Roku channel.

Starting point is 00:09:59 This free streaming hub has been growing rapidly in part due to the pandemic, which forced people to stay at home, but also because of broader demand for free streaming content. In the fourth quarter of 2020, the Roku Channel reached 63 million people in U.S. households, up more than 100% year over year. Streaming hours also doubled year over year, growth that's twice as fast as the overall Roku platform itself, the company notes. In the first quarter of 2021, the Roku channel grew to reach an estimated 70 million people, end quote. So earlier in the week when I read that essay about Apple and its ad ambitions combined with its ad tracking jujitsu vis-a-vis Facebook, I mentioned in passing that Apple had just hired Antonio Garcia-Martinez, which was notable because Garcia Martinez was famously someone who helped build Facebook's ad products back in the day. But the news also garnered a lot of eyebrows-raised emojis because it seemed like an unusual hire for Apple to make. not just for the ad angle. I've never interacted with him personally, but Garcia Martinez is someone

Starting point is 00:11:09 who has a reputation for being outspoken, especially on social media, where I've seen him get into some high-profile debates with folks, especially on Twitter and Clubhouse. I slacked someone earlier this week that I guess AGM will be taking a bit of a Twitter breather with his new job, because, you know, you don't often see a lot of Apple folks tweeting off the cuff very often. Well, word came overnight that Apple says it is parting ways with Garcia Martinez after an employee petition circulated internally at Apple, citing Garcia Martinez's allegedly, quote, misogynistic statements, end quote. Here's Axios. Employees had circulated a petition Wednesday calling for Apple to explain its hiring of Garcia Martinez. While petitions aren't uncommon at Google and some other companies, it is rare for Apple employees to organize publicly on any issue. let alone an individual hiring. Apple confirmed Axios that Garcia Martinez was no longer employed by the company and said in a statement that it has, quote, always strive to create an inclusive, welcoming workplace, end quote. Apple did not say what exactly Garcia Martinez's position was, but sources said he was hired for a lower level engineering role and started last week. In the petition first reported by the verge, employees write, quote, we demand an investigation into how his published views on women and people of color were missed or ignored, along with a clear plan of action to prevent this from happening again, end quote. So they're referring to Garcia Martinez's book about his time at Facebook titled Chaos Monkeys. There's apparently passages in there

Starting point is 00:12:44 that folks aren't happy with. That book's actually one of the rare books of technology history that I've never read, so I can't really comment. I've never read that. I've never read no filter, the book about Instagram, and also the Infinite Machine, which is the book about the Ethereum Project. Those are the three big holes in my reading history that stare at me every time I open my Kindle library. Anyway, my point here is that this is weird all the way around. If Apple is trying to ramp up its ads business without attracting overly much attention to such ambitions, AGM was a high profile hire that would seem to have been at cross purposes with that intention.

Starting point is 00:13:25 And shouldn't whoever recruited AGM have at least had an idea that he might have had some controversial passages, not saying if hiring him was right or wrong. I'm just saying that, I mean, this was like a New York Times bestselling book. It's not like his views and opinions on things weren't already widely disseminated. Anyone remember Libra? The whole Libra project, actually more specifically DM, because that was the name that Facebook swapped the project to. Doesn't it feel like that whole thing was maybe Vaporware?

Starting point is 00:14:04 all these months on. Much ado about maybe nothing. Facebook's DM says it has withdrawn its application for a Swiss payments license and will shift its operations to the U.S. via a California State Chartered Bank, quoting CNBC. While our plans take the project fully within the U.S. regulatory perimeter and no longer require a license from FINMA, the project has benefited greatly from the intensive licensing process in Switzerland and the constructive feedback from Finema and more than two dozen other regulatory authorities from around the world convened by FINMA to consider the project. Stuart Levy, DM's CEO said in a statement. Diem says it plans to move its operational headquarters from Geneva to Washington, D.C., where its U.S. unit is based.

Starting point is 00:14:49 Following the announcement, Finma said DM's application for a Swiss license had been at the advanced stage, but that the group now planned to launch its payment system from the U.S. Formerly known as Libra, Facebook's vision for a digital currency was met with a severe backlash from regulators when it was first announced in June 2019, with central bankers and politicians worried it could undermine sovereign currencies like the dollar, enable money laundering, and infringe on users' privacy. The organization has since lost several key backers, including Visa MasterCard and PayPal, and suffered a number of notable executive departures, end quote. And operating in the island of famously financial neutrality that is Switzerland was supposed to be

Starting point is 00:15:30 a feature, not a bug, right? So maybe. that's the point. The project needs to show it's going to hug tightly to regulatory regimes, not try to float through the liminal spaces. So leaving Switzerland and planting the flag firmly in the U.S. is either indicative of the project's diminished ambitions or else a sign of maybe prudency and maturity. Finally, today, we started with crypto, and we'll close with it. Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin has donated around a billion dollars worth of cryptocurrencies to help fight the COVID-19 surge in India, quoting TechCrunch. Buterin, the creator of Ethereum, transferred 500-Eath and over 50 trillion Shib, Shiba Innu,

Starting point is 00:16:18 which is a different cryptocurrency, a meme coin worth around $1.14 billion at the time of the transaction to the India COVID-Crypto Relief Fund. The transaction prompted a panic among some investors contributing to over a 35% drop in Sheep's price on Wednesday, and its value continues to fluctuate. Sheeb, named after Shiba Inu and Dogalan Mars, or Elon, another meme currency Boutterran donated on Wednesday, are alternative cryptocurrencies that have exploded in popularity in recent months. Sheep is a joke on Dogecoin, which itself was created as a joke.

Starting point is 00:16:55 Sheep has successfully courted retail investors in China and other markets, following recent surges in the Dogecoin cryptocurrency. It has managed to garner billions. worth of investment in recent days before Wednesday's crash. The causes Boutherin is supporting our no joke, however, and the volatility of the meme coins could result in less liquid money for the relief fund. Buteran's offloading of several dog-themed meme coins, which were sent to him without his consent in the first place, comes at a time when India is grappling with a surge in the coronavirus infections. The relief fund, which has so far used the prior donation funds

Starting point is 00:17:29 to send oxygen cylinders and other medical supplies to Indian hospitals, said it plans to do a quote, thoughtful liquidation to meet its goals. We have decided to convert the donations slowly over a period of time, the official Twitter page of the fund wrote. Boutarin, who became the youngest crypto billionaire at the age of 27 earlier this month, also transferred Ethereum and Dogalan Mars worth $336 million to Methuselah Foundation, a nonprofit that supports efforts in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine therapies, and over 13,000 ETH to give well, a nonprofit organization that works to curate the best charities around the world. Buteran also donated to get coin community, MRI, and Charter Cities Institute, end quote.

Starting point is 00:18:21 Nothing really to share today, though I do want you to be on the lookout tomorrow night for one of our usual Twitter spaces at the usual time. I think we're going to explore the whole idea of tipping as the fuel for the new creator economy paradigm, among other things. Talk to you tomorrow.

Tech Brew Ride Home - Thu. 05/13 – Elon Rekt Crypto

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