Monday, June 5, 2023

Apple's expected WWDC reveals / SEC sues Binance and CEO / Spotify to lay off 200 in podcast unit

Plus: Microsoft is ending Cortana support on Windows

Inside Tech

For June 05, 2023

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Apple is expected to reveal its high-end mixed-reality headset, new operating systems, and new Macs during today's Worldwide Developers Conference. The WWDC keynote will stream online starting at 1 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. PT.

The headset:

The rumored Apple Reality Pro is a premium standalone headset with both AR and VR capabilities.
Priced at around $3,000, it's said to include high-resolution displays, color passthrough cameras, a powerful processor similar to the M2, and a sleek lightweight design powered by an external battery pack.
It may have its own app store and a separate xrOS operating system, which could allow users to create AR apps using Siri without coding knowledge.
A late-year launch is anticipated.

What else:

Apple could also announce the 15-inch M2-powered Air — bigger than previous models — and the Apple M-Series Mac Pro.
On the software side, viewers can expect the latest updates to iOS, iPadOS, WatchOS, and TVOS platforms.
iOS 17, the iPhone software update, could include the addition of an Apple-branded journaling app for logging thoughts and activities.

The news: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has cautioned consumers against storing money in payment apps such as Venmo, Cash App, and PayPal.

Why it matters: The watchdog warns that these funds are not automatically insured by the federal government and could be lost if the companies fail. It's advising users to transfer funds from payment apps to bank accounts, such as high-yield savings accounts insured by the FDIC, as a more secure option for storing money.

What the numbers say: An estimated 75% of Americans, and 85% of adults aged 18 to 29, have used popular peer-to-peer apps like PayPal, Cash App, and Zelle. The apps handled $89B in transactions last year, an amount expected to rise to $1.6 trillion by 2027, according to a CFPB report. The warning comes as the digital payments market expands rapidly, reaching an estimated $375B by 2030.

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The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has sued Binance and its co-founder CEO Changpeng Zhao, accusing the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange of commingling customer funds, misleading investors, and engaging in manipulative trading. The SEC's wide-ranging lawsuit, filed in federal court on Monday, accuses Binance of blatantly disregarding federal securities laws.

More:

Following an investigation by U.S. regulators, the SEC has brought a total of 13 charges against Binance, Binance.US., and Zhao, also known as "CZ."
In the lawsuit, the agency claims that Binance mixed customer funds and covertly transferred them to a company controlled by Zhao.
The suit also accuses the exchange of misleading investors about the effectiveness of its surveillance for detecting and controlling manipulative trading on Binance.US.
It claims Binance failed to adequately prevent U.S. investors from accessing its unregulated exchange and sold unregistered crypto asset securities, including its tokens (BNB and BUSD).

Zoom out:

In March, the U.S. Commodities Futures Trading Commission also sued Binance and Zhao, claiming that they operated an "illegal" exchange with a "sham" compliance program.
The moves come after criminal charges were filed against Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of FTX, a significant competitor to Binance in the crypto trading industry until it collapsed and filed for bankruptcy in November.

Spotify announced on Monday that it will lay off 200 employees in its podcast division as part of a "strategic realignment." The reduction, which affects about 2% of the company's staff, comes after Spotify cut 6% of its global workforce in January, citing a slowdown in ad spending.

More:

Sahar Elhabashi, Spotify's VP and head of podcast business, conveyed the news in a memo to the employees, assuring them of generous severance packages.
Elhabashi said the company's strategy shift would allow for better support and monetization for its creator community
In addition to the layoffs, Spotify plans to merge its Parcast and Gimlet podcasting studios into a single Spotify Studios division, focusing on producing original podcasts.
The company will adopt a more tailored approach for each show and creator, as well as expand analytics in Spotify for Podcasters and focus on enhancing its advertising offerings, according to Elhabash.

Zoom out:

As of 2020, Spotify employed 8,359 people worldwide, with 4,332 of them based in the U.S.
Over the past three years, Spotify has made substantial investments in its podcast division, totaling $526M through four acquisitions. Additionally, the company has nabbed significant sponsorship deals with notable personalities, including Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and Joe Rogan.

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) is at the forefront of technological innovation, transforming industries and the way we live and work. The potential of AI is enormous, ranging from enhancing business operations to tackling global challenges like climate change and healthcare. AI's growing impact on various sectors indicates a promising investment opportunity.

Market Growth: The AI market was projected to grow from $58.3 billion in 2021 to $309.6 billion by 2026, representing a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 39.7% during the forecast period, according to MarketsandMarkets.
Business Adoption: A 2020 survey from Gartner found that 59% of businesses have already implemented AI in some form, reflecting the broad adoption and trust in AI technologies.
Impact on Economy: PwC estimated that AI could contribute up to $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030, a testament to the enormous economic potential of AI.

Investment Inflow: According to Statista, global investments in AI startups rose to a record high of nearly $40 billion in 2019, indicating a strong and growing interest in the sector.

Invest in AI

Microsoft will end support for Cortana, its virtual voice assistant, on Windows in late 2023. The company has been gradually pulling back plans for Cortana after it discontinued its iOS and Android apps in 2021.

More:

Now, Microsoft has announced that it will stop supporting the standalone Cortana app installed on Windows PCs.
Cortana remains active in Microsoft Outlook mobile, Teams mobile, Teams display, and Teams rooms.
A support document mentions that AI experiences will still be available in Windows 11.
- It highlights Windows Copilot, the new Bing, Microsoft 365 Copilot, and the new voice access for controlling the PC with your voice in Windows 11.

Zoom out:

The move underscores Microsoft's newfound focus on GPT-4 AI technology over the more basic voice assistant.
Cortana launched in 2014 for Windows Phone 8.1 and Windows in 2015 but never gained the market traction of Apple's Siri or Amazon Alexa.

Google announced an AI update for the Gmail mobile app that aims to make it easier to find specific emails. The machine learning-powered feature displays "top results" when conducting an inbox search.

More:

To curate the most relevant emails, the AI tool considers search terms, recent emails, and other factors.
According to Google, the results are sorted by recency and should be more relevant to better match the user's query.
The company said the "high-requested feature" has opened up to some users on the Gmail app for Android and iOS as of last week.
It will gradually expand to all users over the next few weeks.

Zoom out:

In May, Google announced "Help Me Write," a generative AI tool in Gmail that can write entire emails. The tool for Gmail on mobile is described as a "supercharged extension" of Smart Compose and can draw from previous messages for context.
It's also bringing generative AI technology across its Workspace products, starting with other AI-enabled writing features in Gmail and Google Docs. The AI tools are dubbed "Duet AI."

Community Corner

Last week, we asked our tech community, "Do you believe that society's dependence on technology could ever reverse or plateau?" Here are some highlighted responses we received:

William Badke (p/7billbadke), Associate Librarian at William Badke, answered: "There is no sense, other than through some catastrophe, that our dependency on technology will reverse, any more than our dependency on published information reversed some time after the printing press. When a new information door opens, people rarely abandon it. Tech is our new and future reality. That said, it could plateau. For example, the quest for faster speeds and more storage has already plateaued due to the inception of the cloud. We are in early days in tech, so innovation may well level off as technology becomes more mature."
Michael Oliver (p/mcoliver), Manager at Netflix, answered, "Short of a global emp or asteroid that destroys all electronics, no way. Too much leverage and compound interest with technology."

Join the conversations at Inside.com, and we may shout out your name and business, or contact you for more! ⭐️

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AI and technology writer

Beth is a writer and editor at Inside.com covering artificial intelligence and daily technology news. She has written the Inside AI newsletter since 2019. You can reach her at Beth.Duckett@inside.com.

This newsletter was edited by Eduardo Garcia

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Binance Allegedly Mishandled Funds: SEC Charges

June 5, 2023

The biggest crypto news and ideas of the day

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Supported By

Welcome to The Node! This is Daniel Kuhn, here to take you through the latest in crypto news and why it matters.

In the news: The SEC is suing Binance on 13 counts. Republicans introduce "most significant crypto oversight" proposal yet this year. And a Tether-backed El Salvador mining company raised $1 billion.

The takeaway: Bitcoin columnist George Kaloudis writes why Bitcoin's Lightning Network may not solve all of the network's issues.

By the way, CoinDesk just turned 10. Read about it and what we've learned from a decade of crypto history in Consensus Magazine this week.

Learn more

Binance and Big Personalities

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed suit against crypto exchange Binance and its CEO, Changpeng "CZ" Zhao, on allegations it violated federal securities laws on Monday. The world's largest exchange is charged with operating an unlicensed stock exchange, among other issues, adding to earlier charges brought by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) claiming Binance and Zhao illicitly offered derivatives products in the U.S. The SEC's announcement had an immediate downward effect on the market: Binance saw some $69 million in net outflows in an hour and rival exchange Coinbase ($COIN) saw shares drop 10% (though some decentralized exchanges appear to be gaining). This follows news Binance executive Richard Teng has been appointed the new "head of regional markets" outside the U.S., positioning him as a potential successor to Zhao. Teng, who's resume includes stints as former chief regulator in Abu Dhabi and Singapore, will manage operations in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. He downplayed the move in a CoinDesk interview saying it's "just expanded responsibility to help [CZ] look at certain things."

New Rules

On Friday, Republican leaders of the congressional House Financial Services Commission and Agriculture Committee introduced a draft bill that's being called "the most significant crypto oversight proposal this year." A "discussion draft," negotiated by Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) and Rep. Glenn "GT" Thompson (R-Pa.), doesn't yet have Democratic buy-in, though aims to address whether the SEC or CFTC would be the crypto sector's main regulator. Elsewhere, a group of U.K. lawmakers is calling on the government to appoint a dedicated official to oversee the introduction of dedicated crypto laws. In a Monday report, the multi-party Crypto and Digital Assets All Parliamentary Group (APPG) said the industry is "here to stay" and may need more than just Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) oversight. This comes, more or less unrelatedly, after a $35 million attack on centralized wallet services company Atomic Wallet. The firm, which previously said it was investigating an issue involving user funds, claimed "less than 1% of our monthly active users" were impacted on Monday.

Big Bucks

JPMorgan has teamed up with six Indian banks to settle interbank dollar transactions on its proprietary blockchain Onyx. The pilot project is being run from the investment bank's unit in Gujurat, India, which is gearing up to rival financial hubs in Singapore and Dubai with an experimental regulatory sandbox for finance and tech. Meanwhile, Taurus, the crypto services provider backed by Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank, has gone live on Polygon, the popular Ethereum scaling solution. "Most Tier 1 financial institutions are entering the space and building capabilities to manage tokenized securities," Taurus said in an email, adding those firms want "token-agnostic infrastructure." Last but not least, Volcano Energy announced $1 billion in commitments to build a 241 megawatt bitcoin mine in the Metapán region of El Salvador. Stablecoin issuer Tether joined as a financier while the President Bukele's government will play "a crucial role" in the site's planning and execution.

From privacy to regulation to governance to self-custody, an exploration of vital challenges facing the crypto community based on intimate, curated conversations held at Consensus 2023.

Introducing CoinDesk's First-Ever 'Consensus @ Consensus' Report

Based on intimate, curated group discussions that took place at Consensus 2023, it covers a wide range of pressing issues for the digital assets industry.

Privacy Concerns Dominate CBDC Discussion at Consensus 2023

Some Consensus 2023 participants argue that the economic benefits of CBDCs are not worth the threats to privacy in an excerpt from CoinDesk's first-ever Consensus @ Consensus Report.

The Takeaway: Thunder Follows

On occasion, the Lightning Network earns its name. People love the lightning fast Bitcoin layer 2 protocol – when it works and even when it doesn't. Although it has some potential issues and shortcomings, the network could very well help solve Bitcoin's scaling problems. However, even if promising, all too often bitcoiners view the Lightning Network as a solution for all of Bitcoin's woes.

Transaction fees too high? Lightning Network.

Blocks too small? Lightning Network.

Blocks too slow? Lightning Network.

Governments censoring transactions? Lightning Network.

Soup too hot? Lightning Network.

Soup too cold? Lightning Network.

No spoon? Lightning Network.

You get the point.

With bitcoin fees skyrocketing amid the recent Ordinals and BRC-20 craze, which so luckily lined up perfectly with the annual bitcoin pilgrimage to Bitcoin Magazine's Bitcoin 2023 conference in Miami, the same answer found its way into conversations about some of Bitcoin's problems on- and off-stage and on social media again and again.

But not everyone thinks Lightning is a panacea for every Bitcoin problem. Some even question whether it will be able to solve the particular problem it was designed to solve.

Which is to say: Maybe the Lightning Network isn't the way bitcoin can enable fast, cheap, casual, peer-to-peer transactions.

There's also a group of people who do and don't want layers built on Bitcoin at all and think the base layer should ossify or stop changing.

Putting that aside for now, there's a growing pragmatic view that the Lightning Network is or probably will be good for certain types of payments, but not all types of payments. That doesn't mean either side is completely correct, but at least the hivemind doesn't appear to be in control anymore.

Lightning Network might not solve everything and that's okay. We should still try.

The Lightning Network very much was and still is an experimental technology. Proponents warn to this day to exercise caution when committing hard-earned bitcoin to the Lightning Network since you can easily lose funds if you aren't experienced. And even then, a lot of the more popular Lightning-enabled wallets, like Wallet of Satoshi, work really well mostly because they are custodial.

The Lightning Network spurred many promising Bitcoin startups: THNDR Games, Voltage, CashApp, Strike, River, Amboss, Zebedee, IBEX, to name quite a few. Many Lightning proponents have even positioned the layer 2 protocol as a way to make Bitcoin accessible to billions.

They may be right. In the future, when many people are using Bitcoin, it will be theoretically cheaper to use the Lightning Network for everyday transactions which necessarily makes it more accessible, especially as wealth distribution varies so much across countries.

But the idea that Bitcoin can scale to billions isn't taken for granted these days, and some see it as an outrageous proposition. More people using Bitcoin could be a problem. Nobody knows if the Lightning Network will continue to be cheap if transaction fees start to rise.

There are no panaceas. Not the Lightning Network, not Stratum V2, not your favorite Bitcoin thing.

The end of investing every hope and dream in one Bitcoin spinoff is a good thing. Investing in false gods never works.

Bitcoin is decentralized and, so, it requires decentralized diversity of thought. It's okay to champion the Lightning Network or Liquid or Ark or whatever your other thing might be. But there's always a new project to come on Bitcoin, because it's open-source, and that's a good thing.

– George Kaloudis

@gckaloudis

george@coindesk.com

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Off-Chain Signals

Rocket Pool Launches rETH On zkSync Era – The Defiant
Ethereum co-founder transfers $41 million in ether to address on Kraken – The Block
South Korea Has Traded Way More XRP Than Ethereum This Year – Blockworks
Missing crypto founder Dr. John Forsyth found dead in lake – Business Insider
Exclusive: Crypto giant Binance controlled 'independent' U.S. affiliate's bank accounts – Reuters
Hong Kong's regulatory lead sets it up to be major crypto hub – Cointelegraph

Gensler's Rules?

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以太坊经典上的EVM兼容性，面向Solidity开发人员

以太坊经典旨在通过最终包含来自最新以太坊网络升级的变更，保持与以太坊虚拟机（Ethereum Virtual Machine，简称EVM）的兼容性。这个过程涉及以太坊经典区块链生态系统协调网络升级。

截至本文撰写时，随着ETC激活Mystique (ECIP-1104)硬分叉，以太坊经典支持ETH伦敦升级的EVM功能。

目前，我们正在努力添加对ETH上海升级的支持，预计将在2023年第三季度完成。

对于在以太坊经典网络上部署的Solidity开发人员，重要的是要通过将 目标设置 为伦敦来编译您的智能合约。

例如:

$ solc --evm-version london contract.sol

您可以在Solidity的官方文档网站上找到更多关于此以及其他配置选项的信息。

了解更多有关ETC合作社，欢迎访问: https://etccooperative.org

了解更多有关ETC，欢迎访问: https://ethereumclassic.org

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EVM compatibility on Ethereum Classic for Solidity Developers

Ethereum Classic (ETC) aims to keep compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (a.k.a. EVM) by eventually including changes from the latest Ethereum (ETH) network upgrades. This process implies the coordination of network upgrades by the Ethereum Classic blockchain ecosystem.

At the time of this writing, with the activation of the ETC Mystique (ECIP-1104) hard fork, Ethereum Classic supports EVM features up to the ETH London upgrade.

At this moment, we are working on adding support for the ETH Shanghai upgrade, which we expect will be ready by Q3 2023.

For Solidity developers deploying on the Ethereum Classic network, it is important that you to compile your smart contracts by setting the target to london.

For example:

$ solc --evm-version london contract.sol

You can find more information about this, and other configuration options, on Solidity's official documentation site.