Federal authorities have accused former Coinbase product manager Ishan Wahi of insider trading in the first-ever such case related to cryptocurrency. Wahi is accused of sharing confidential information with brother Nikhil Wahi and friend Sameer Ramani, resulting in about $1.5M in illegal profits. The Wahi brothers were arrested on Thursday in Seattle, and Ramani remains at large. More: - Prosecutors in Manhattan filed wire-fraud charges against the three men, and the SEC also brought a civil case against them.
- The SEC alleges that nine cryptocurrencies, including seven currently available on Coinbase, are unregistered securities.
- Attorneys for the Wahi brothers say the charges are meritless. They accuse federal prosecutors of trying to criminalize innocent behavior because they are looking for a scapegoat after so many people have lost money in cryptocurrency recently.
- Coinbase said it conducted its own internal investigation on the three men and provided information concerning them to the Justice Department.
- The crypto trading platform said it fired Ishan Wahi.
- The SEC’s classification of digital tokens as unregistered securities could have wide-ranging effects on the crypto industry and expose Coinbase and other platforms to new legal liabilities and regulatory requirements.
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Twitter released Q2 earnings on Friday, missing expectations on earnings and revenue. The social media company reported $1.18B in revenue, down ~1% YoY; analysts were expecting $1.32B. Twitter pointed to a downturn in the ads market amid a tougher macroeconomic environment and uncertainty related to the pending acquisition deal with Elon Musk. More: - Twitter reported a net loss of $270M, or 35 cents a share, down from a net income of $65.7M reported the same period last year.
- mDAU was up 16.6% to 237.8 million, driven by ongoing product improvements and global conversation around current events.
- Ad revenue totaled $1.08B, up 2% YoY, and Subscription and other revenue came in at $101M, down 27% YoY.
- Twitter shares closed at $39.84 on Friday, up less than 1% for the day.
- On Tuesday, Twitter won its motion for an expedited trial in its lawsuit against Elon Musk.
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 New customer added QoQ for Verizon Verizon Communication Inc revised its annual profit forecasts after witnessing lower than anticipated subscriber growth in the second quarter. Compared to earlier annual adjusted earnings estimates ranging between $5.40 to $5.55 per share, the firm's revised forecasts have fallen to between $5.10 and $5.25. Verizon's shares were trading below the $44 per share mark at mid-day, indicating a 7.6% drop. More: - During the second quarter, it only added 12,000 new monthly wireless phone customers, below analysts' expectations of 167,200.
- While the company gained 227,000 business customers and 256,000 wireless internet subscribers, its wireless customers declined by 215,000 in the second quarter.
- Per revised estimates, the company expects revenue from its services to be down 1%.
- Verizon's revenue for the second quarter amounted to $33.79B, in line with analysts' expectations of $33.75B.
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Germany has agreed to a €15B ($15.3B) bailout package for energy group Uniper and will take a 30% stake in the company. The energy company has been on the brink of collapse after Russia cut its natural gas supplies to Europe. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz stressed the importance of Uniper to the country’s economy and securing energy supplies to companies and residential customers. More: - Uniper is Europe’s largest buyer of Russian gas and has been losing tens of millions of euros a day since Russia’s Gazprom reduced gas supplies to Germany.
- German officials worry that Uniper’s collapse might trigger a Lehman Brothers-style impact on the entire German energy sector.
- As part of the financial package, Uniper will have access to up to €7.7B ($7.9B) in government support and an increased credit line from €2B ($2.04B) to €9B ($9.18B) from German state-owned bank KfW.
- The government will also be represented on Uniper’s supervisory board.
- Uniper will be legally entitled to pass on higher energy costs to customers starting October at the latest.
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 S&P Global Flash US PMI Composite Output Index For the first time since June 2020, U.S. private sector output contracted in July owing to high inflation and rising interest rates. S&P Global's U.S. Composite PMI Output Index dropped to 47.5, sliding down from 52.3 in June. More: - The contraction was largely seen in the services sector, which dropped to 47.0, as opposed to 52.7 the month prior.
- As for the manufacturing sector, it dropped from 52.7 to 52.3, indicating the sector was still growing but now at its weakest pace since July last year.
- The U.S. gross domestic product has decreased at an annualized rate of 1%, according to S&P's chief business economist, Chris Williamson.
- He added, "Excluding pandemic lockdown months, output is falling at a rate not seen since 2009 amid the global financial crisis."
- The economy contracted by 1.6% in the first quarter due to inventory issues.
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Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess will step down from his role at the end of August. Oliver Blume, who currently heads VW's subsidiary Porsche, is said to be taking over the role from Diess. The reason behind Diess' exit was not given by the board, which decided on the management change on Friday. More: - Deiss took over the reins of Volkswagen in 2018 and was instrumental in steering the company through the "dieselgate" scandal.
- As CEO, Deiss transitioned the automaker into the electric vehicle market.
- His relationship with the board deteriorated when he warned them that the company could lose up to half of its workforce from the Wolfsburg factory unless the automaker accelerated its transition to electric vehicles.
- Consequently, some of his responsibilities were reduced in December, and his management team was reshuffled.
- His replacement, Blume, is a long-standing VW executive and has held positions across its subsidiaries, namely Audi, Seat, Porsche, and Volkswagen itself.
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- Hyundai Motor Co.'s subsidiary SMART Alabama LLC was found to have employed underage workers, with a few of them as young as 12 years old. SMART operates a metal stamping plant that supplies parts to Hyundai's assembly line in Montgomery, Alabama.
- British Airways' salary hike announcement prompted two unions to call off their planned strike at London's Heathrow airport. Staff represented by GMB and Unite are set to receive 8% and 13% increments in their respective salaries.
- Sam Bankman-Fried has presented Voyager Digital LLC with a restructuring plan, under which his company Alameda would pay cash for all of Voyager's digital assets and loans at market value, and FTX would give Voyager's customers the option to claim their shares by opening a new account at FTX.
- Airbnb has hired former White House press secretary Jay Carney to head policy and communications. Carney worked in the Obama administration from 2009 to 2014. Carney has been at Amazon since 2015, leading the e-commerce giant's lobbying and media relations team.
- China's Evergrande Group has fired its longstanding CEO and CFO after discovering both men were involved in a borrowing scheme than led to banks seizing $2B from a key subsidiary.
- The right metrics make a difference. Read our fact sheet and learn what you should be measuring to prove marketing impact.*
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 |  | Vanessa Omeokachie is a Researcher at Inside. Her interests include finance, tech, and startups. In her free time, she enjoys reading, hiking, attending music festivals, and traveling. Connect with her on Twitter @VanessaOmeo or through email at vanessa@inside.com |  | | Editor | Aaron Crutchfield is based in the high desert of California. Over the last two decades, he has spent time writing and editing at various local newspapers and defense contractors in California. When he's not working, he can often be found looking at the latest memes with his kids or working on his 1962 Ford. | |
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