Tech Brew Ride Home - Wed. 03/09 – The Regulatory Era For Crypto Starts Today

Episode Date: March 9, 2022

That telegraphed Executive Order for Crypto is being signed, probably as we speak. Is Congress pressing criminal charges against Amazon? LimeWire is back, but for the NFT era. And a deep dive look at that mind boggling new M1 Ultra chip that Apple announced yesterday. Sponsors: Composer.trade Smith.ai promocode techmeme for $100 off signup Links: Biden Orders Study of Cryptocurrency Risk, Creation of U.S. Digital Currency (WSJ) Amazon Flagged to Justice Department for Possible Criminal Obstruction of Congress (WSJ) Twitter Launches Tor Onion Service Making Site Easier to Access in Russia (Motherboard) Lumen, a second major American Internet carrier, pulling out of Russia (Washington Post) EU Says Russia, Belarus Sanctions Extend to Crypto (CoinDesk) LimeWire Is Making a Comeback, But Not As You Know It (Bloomberg) Apple Announces M1 Ultra (AnandTech) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 TechMeme right home for Wednesday, March 9th, 2020. I'm Brian McCullough today. That Telegraphed executive order for crypto is being signed. Probably as we speak, is Congress pressing criminal charges against Amazon. Limewire is back, but for the NFT era. And a deep dive look at that

mind-boggling new M1 alter chip that Apple announced yesterday. Here's what you missed today in the world of tech. As I write this, it hasn't happened yet, but signs are pretty solid that it is going to happen. and so I'm going to treat it like it's likely a done deal by the time you hear these words. At some point today, President Biden will sign an executive order instructing federal agencies to study the risks posed by digital assets, such as undermining sanctions, and also to investigate the possibility of a digital dollar, quoting the Wall Street Journal. The executive order will urge federal regulators to review the risks, a roughly $1.75 trillion crypto market presents to consumers, investors, and the broader economy.

Federal agencies will have several months to prepare a report with their findings, which will then inform any new regulatory actions by the White House, a senior administration official said. About 16% of adult Americans or roughly 40 million people have invested in, traded or used cryptocurrencies, according to a White House fact sheet. That growing prevalence of digital assets, which include volatile cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and so-called stable coins, pegged to assets like the U.S. dollar, has pushed the Biden administration to centralize its work on the top. White House officials have been working with the crypto industry and experts for several months to prepare the executive order. The Biden administration will also formally consider the creation of a possible U.S. digital currency, a cryptocurrency backed by the Federal Reserve, according to a White House fact sheet. The Federal Reserve is already evaluating the possibility of a digital currency, which some other countries, including China, have already adopted. A person familiar with the matter said the executive order will ask the Justice Department to study whether Congress would need to authorize the creation of any digital. digital currency. Bitcoin's dollar value jumped more than 9% from its 5 p.m. Eastern Time level Tuesday

to $42,118 on Wednesday, according to Coin desk. Most of the climb came before the formal announcement of the White House's plans after the Treasury Department accidentally published a statement on the executive order from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. Ms. Yellen said the President's order will support responsible innovation in digital assets while also addressing the risks related to illicit finance. The statement was taken down after being published in error, a Treasury spokeswoman said, and was later reposted Wednesday morning, end quote. By the way, that's sort of a market reaction. Bitcoin being up on the news should be familiar to anyone on Wall Street. Often traders worry about regulation until the very moment that the regulation

actually shows up and then stop worrying because it stops being an unknown unknown and starts being known. Once you know what sort of regulation is coming, you can plan for it. Also, to be honest, having some sort of settled regulatory regime might be bullish for crypto if you take the we need to find a way to mainstream this stuff point of view. This morning, the journal was also reporting that a bipartisan group of lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee have asked the Department of Justice to investigate Amazon and its executives over the possibility of obstruction of justice. The letter dated March 9th and viewed by the Wall Street Journal was sent to U.S. Attorney

General Merrick Garland by Democratic and Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee. The letter accuses the Seattle-based tech giant of refusing to provide information that lawmakers sought as part of an investigation by the body's antitrust subcommittee into Amazon's competitive practices. The letter alleges that the refusal was an attempt to cover up what it calls a lie that the company told lawmakers about its treatment of outside sellers on its platform. Amazon couldn't immediately be reached for comment. In the past, a spokesman has denied that the company or its exact. executives misled the committee and has said that internal policy prohibits using individual seller data

to develop Amazon products. Amazon investigates any allegations that the policy might have been violated, the spokesman has said throughout the investigation, quote, Amazon repeatedly endeavored to thwart the committee's efforts to uncover the truth about Amazon's business practices, the congressional letter says, for this it must be held accountable, end quote. The letter says it is alerting the Justice Department to, quote, potentially criminal conduct by Amazon and certain of its executives, end quote, though it doesn't specify which individuals. At issue are Amazon's responses to lawmakers' inquiries about how it uses the data of third-party sellers on its platform when creating private label products and how it treats those Amazon brands in its search results. Amazon

executives repeatedly told members of the House Committee in testimony and written responses that it doesn't use the data of individual third-party sellers to inform the vast lines of its own and doesn't privilege its own products in the search results on its platform. But a journal investigation published in April 2020 citing internal documents and interviews with former Amazon staffers found the company's employees routinely used such seller data to develop products for its own brands. Subsequent reporting from Reuters, Politico, and the markup showed employees using this data and Amazon preferencing its own products in search results. Lawmakers have said they also gained similar information through their own interviews with people, including former Amazon employees.

when he appeared before the House Antitrust Committee in July 2020. And what was his first time testifying before Congress, Amazon founder and executive chairman Jeff Bezos, said he couldn't guarantee that its policy was always followed. He agreed to share with members of the panel the results of an internal investigation Amazon was conducting, following the journal article, end quote. Twitter has launched a tour onion service using a modified version of the Enterprise Onion Toolkit, letting users access Twitter via any Twitter.

compatible browser. That you can guess why. Quoting motherboard. The Russian government may have blocked Twitter earlier this month, but now users in the country may have another way to bypass that censorship and access the social network. On Tuesday, a cybersecurity expert announced that they had helped implement an official Tor Onion service version of Twitter, meaning that Russian users should be able to use the Tor anonymity network to reach the site. The site stands to be one of the most significant Tor Onion services ever launched, given that it comes during the invasion of Ukraine and Russia's aggressive clamping down on access to social networks and independent media. Users will need to have the Tor browser or another version of Torr installed to access the site.

Because Tor may route a user's traffic outside of their country they are currently in, the network can allow people to access content that is blocked by their domestic internet service providers or other forms of censorship, end quote. Speaking of things like this, I don't know why, but I didn't anticipate this happening. Lumen has become the second U.S. backbone internet provider to exit Russia completely after cogent. That means that Russia's remaining international data sources for the internet are in Sweden, Italy, and the UK. So could the Russian internet go dark to the rest of the world completely? Quoting the Washington Post. Taken together, these moves are likely to make it harder for

Russians to gain access to international services such as news sites and social media based in the West, telecommunications experts said. Access to international networks within Russia would not be affected. Lumen said in a statement posted to its website, we decided to disconnect the network due to increased security risk inside Russia. We have not yet experienced network disruptions, but given the increasingly uncertain environment and the heightened risk of state action, we took this move to ensure the security of our and our customers' networks, as well as the ongoing integrity of the global internet, end quote. The company tried to downplay its importance to the Russian market, saying, quote, the business services we provide are extremely small and very limited, as is our physical

presence. However, we are taking steps to immediately stop business in the region, end quote. But telecommunications analysts say it is one of Russia's top sources of data from international sources. The company's customers include some of Russia's biggest providers of internet to companies and customers base there, including the nation's state-owned telecommunications companies, Rastalcom and trans-telecom. We're in uncharted territory here, said Doug Madori, director of internet analysis at Kentik. This is going to add up. It would be noticeable, I think, end quote. At the same time, the EU has clarified that its round of sanctions placed on Russia and Belarus do in fact extend to crypto assets, as these are transferable securities that could be used

for things like loans and credit. Quoting CoinDesk, crypto assets fall into the category of transferable securities and are therefore clearly included in the scope of sanctions imposed on Russia for its invasion of the Ukraine and on Belarus for its involvement. Loans and credit can be provided by any means, including crypto assets, the EU said on Wednesday. Concerns have been raised by U.S. lawmakers that crypto could be used by Russia as a means to evade sanctions, but the extent of this is debatable. Salman Benet, head of public policy for blockchain analysis firm. Chain analysis told CoinDest TV, it was, quote, unlikely this was happening, end quote.

But I should probably have anticipated this, or at least something like it happening. Two Austrian entrepreneurs have acquired the assets of LimeWire, the Controversial Music Sharing Service, shuttered back in 2010, and plan to relaunch it as a music-focused NFT service, quoting Bloomberg. LimeWire, one of the earliest iterations of web-based music consumption with a reputation as a haven for illegal downloads, ended in controversy in 2010 after a judge shut down the business over inducing copyright infringement, which was then followed by a $105 million out-of-court settlement between major record companies and LimeWires, then-C-E-O-Wire's then-C-Eau-Gorton. Now, brothers Paul and Julian Zetmayr are hoping to use LimeWire's fame to attract users to their new Cryptosphere platform, with the two spending most of last year, steadily acquiring the various parts of LimeWire's branding.

Launching in May, with no affiliation to LimeWire's original team, the new company LimeWire GMBH will offer musicians a chance to gain more revenue from their music, than they might on other sites such as Spotify or Apple Music. It's a very iconic name. Even if you look on Twitter today, there's hundreds of people still being nostalgic about the name, said Julian in an interview, who will act as co-CEO alongside Paul. Everybody connects it with music and we're launching initially a very music-focused marketplace, so the brand was really the perfect fit for that with its legacy, end quote. Limewire will debut with support for buying and trading music-related non-fungible tokens such as exclusive songs,

merchandise, graphical artworks, and experiences like backstage content. The startup will also launch its own utility token via a private sale within the next three weeks, which Paul said would be used like a loyalty program. Unlike other NFT marketplaces that transact predominantly in cryptocurrencies, all assets on LimeWire will be denominated in U.S. dollars so as to expand its marketability to mass audiences with payment accepted in crypto or fiat currency. The platform will also offer Bitcoin and Ether wallets and custodial services for the tokens themselves, facilitated through a partnership with blockchain payments firm Wire Inc, end quote. And finally today, if you ask me, the big news at the Apple event yesterday was that new

M1 Ultra Chip. If you want to read a long read and deep dive into how Apple managed to combine two M1 max chips into one, here you go. It's a very, very long article from Anantec, who else? And so I'm not going to try to summarize it, but I am going to give you some disjointed quotes that sort of sum up what I find interesting here. You're going to hear one long quote, but I am jumping around in the piece. So read the whole thing for the bigger picture here. Quote, back when Apple announced the M1 Pro and the ridiculously powerful M1 Max last fall, we figured Apple was done with M1 chips. After all, how would you even top a single 432 millimeter square chip that's already pushing the limits of manufactureability on TSM's N3C's N3. five process. Well, as the answer turns out to be, Apple can do one better, or perhaps it would be

more accurate to say twice as better. As for the company's final and ultimate M1 chip design, the M1 Ultra, Apple has bonded two M1 max dice together onto a single chip with all of the performance benefits doubling their hardware would entail. The net result is a chip that, without a doubt, manages to be one of the most interesting designs I've ever seen for a consumer system on a chip. As we'll touch upon in our analysis, the M1 Ultra is, not quite like any other consumer chip currently on the market. And while double-dye strategies benefit sprawling multi-threads CPU and GPU workloads, far more than it does, more single-threaded tasks, an area where Apple is already starting to fall behind, in the process they are re-breaking

new ground in the GPU front. By enabling the M-1 Ultras two dyes to transparently present themselves as a single GPU, Apple has kicked off a new technology race for placing multi-dye GPUs in high-end consumer and workstation hardware. Starting with speeds and feeds by placing two M1 Max dyes on a single package, Apple has doubled the amount of hardware at their disposal in virtually every fashion. That means twice as many CPU cores, twice as many GPU cores, twice as many neural engine cores, twice as many LPDDR5 memory channels, and twice as much I-O for peripherals. On the CPU front, this means Apple now offers a total of 20 CPU cores. This is composed of 16 of their performance-focused firestorm cores and four of their efficiency-focused ice storm

cores. Given that M1 Ultra is aimed solely at desktops, unlike M1 Max, the efficiency cores don't have quite as big a role to play here since Apple doesn't need to conserve energy down to the last jewel. Still, as we've seen, they're fairly potent cores on their own and will help add to the CPU throughput of the chip in heavily threaded scenarios. The doubled memory chips also allow Apple to double the total amount of memory available in their hardware, whereas M1 Max topped out at 64 gigabytes, M1 Ultra tops out at 128 gigabytes. This is still less memory than could be found on a true high-end workstation such as a Mac Pro, but it puts Apple ahead of all but the highest-end PC desktops and should be plenty sufficient for their content creator crowd, which brings us to the

most interesting aspect of the M1 Ultra, the GPU. With 32 GPU cores, M1 Max was already setting records for a monolithic integrated GPU, and now Apple has doubled things to 64 GPU cores on a single chip. The secret ingredient that makes this all possible and which Apple has been keeping under wraps until today is that M1 Max has a very high-speed interface along one of its edges. An interface that with the help of a silicon interposer allows two M1 Max dies to be linked up. Apple calls this packaging architecture Ultra Fusion, and it's the latest example in the industry of 2.5D chip packaging. While the details vary from implementation to implementation, the fundamentals of the technology are the same. In all cases, some kind of silicon interposer is put beneath two chips

and then signals between the two chips are routed through the interposer. The ultra-fine manufacturing capabilities of silicon means that an enormous number of traces can be routed between the two chips, in Apple's case over 10,000, which allows for an ultra-wide, ultra-high bandwidth connection between the two chips. Thanks to UltraFusion, Apple has become the first vendor to ship a chip that transparently combines two otherwise separate GPUs. And while we'll have to wait for reviews to find out just how well this works in the real world, Apple is understandably excited about their accomplishment and the performance implication thereof. The net result is that Apple has announced a system on a chip that has no peer in the industry across multiple levels.

Going multi-dye, multi-chip in a workstation is a tried and true strategy for CPUs, but to do so with GPUs will potentially put Apple on a level all their own. If their transparent multi-GPU technology works as well as the company claims, then Apple is going to be even farther ahead of their competitors, both in performance and in developing the cutting-edge technologies needed, to build such a chip. In that respect, while Apple is trailing the industry a bit with their UltraFusion 2.5D chip packaging technology, what they're attempting to do with it is more than making up for lost time, end quote.

Another busy day over here. Child care issues have continued all week, as you might have heard them screaming in the background yesterday as I was editing. Anyway, got to get them home from school. Talk to you tomorrow.