During the 2018 midterm elections, somebody tried to hack Voatz, the blockchain-based voting system used by West Virginia. The attack was unsuccessful, but is under investigation by the FBI, said Andrew Warner, West Virginia’s secretary of state in an Oct. 1 press conference.
After scrapping plans in December for a checking account that paid 3% interest, Robinhood has returned with a refreshed offer for customers—a cash management program that pays about 2.05% interest. It’s an added feature for Robinhood’s stock-brokerage accounts (rather than a separate checking account), and unlike last time, it’s appropriately insured. If it had made it to market, the previous iteration could have put customer funds at risk.
In a recent update to iOS 13.1, Apple’s iPhone operating system, Apple reportedly removed the Taiwanese flag emoji from its keyboard for users in Hong Kong and Macau, China’s two special administrative regions.
The first domino has fallen. PayPal has withdrawn from the Libra Association, the 28-member group Facebook put together this summer to pursue a global cryptocurrency project.
One of Silicon Valley’s hotshot companies could soon face questions from an important financial group.
Block.One, a blockchain development company, agreed to a $24 million settlement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission after raising $4 billion in ether during an unregistered initial coin offering (ICO). While the SEC found Block.One in violation of federal securities laws for the online crowdfunding event it hosted from June 2017 until June 2018, the company agreed to the settlement without admitting or denying the agency’s findings.
Facebook is exploring rolling out money transfers in India and Mexico, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in an internal meeting leaked to the Verge, revealing more about the company’s plans for a financial service—that may or may not include its planned Libra cryptocurrency—than it has said publicly.
Facebook’s privacy settings are complicated, especially when it comes to messaging.
As President Trump stares down an impeachment inquiry, it seems his administration has tried to deflect attention, using China as something of a red herring.
Adam Neumann forced a change, but probably not the one he was expecting.
Although blockchains have been called “truth machines,” the industry surrounding them is anything but straightforward.
Since 1995, David Blitzer has been one of the most influential figures in stock markets around the world. He isn’t a household name, but as longtime chair of the index committee for S&P Global, Blitzer led the team that decides which companies go into the all-important S&P 500 index.
Whether you’re zipping around in a Tesla or crawling along in an old jalopy, the hunt for a parking space is enough to drive anybody crazy. Especially in heavily populated areas, parking is an age-old dilemma.
Women are falling behind at the Fed. In 2018, just 190 of the Federal Reserve System’s 776 PhD economists were women. Between 2014 and 2018, that proportion remained constant at 24%, badly trailing the progress made by rest of the US government, according to a study published Friday (Sept. 20) by the Brookings Institution.
If recent reports are to be believed, China’s central bank is on the brink of launching a digital version of the yuan. According to a Forbes article late last month, the digital edition of the national currency could go live as soon as Nov. 11, coinciding with Singles’ Day, a popular Chinese shopping holiday.
Joichi Ito, director of MIT’s Media Lab, resigned Saturday (Sept. 7) after The New Yorker published an investigation into his attempts to conceal financial contributions from pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Although Ito stewarded MIT’s lab, his work and legacy in the crypto community have largely passed under the radar.
Late on Tuesday local time (Sept. 10), the California Senate passed Assembly Bill 5 in a vote that will dramatically alter the course of the so-called gig economy.
While most of Silicon Valley drools over Apple’s new gadgets, another tech giant is trying to make waves this week. The day before Apple’s special event today (Sept. 10), Google coyly shared an update on Twitter.
Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, hired actors to stage a rap battle about the future of money last week. Inspired by the musical Hamilton, Hoffman said he decided to use music to highlight the “vigorous debate raging between cryptocurrency and centralized currencies.”
Could bitcoin become part of our payments future? Apple seems to think so.
For more than a year, investment management firms have been pushing for a bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), a financial vehicle which would allow retail customers to purchase the cryptocurrency through stock brokerage accounts. To date, though, the US Securities and Exchange Commission has nixed—or delayed decisions on—every proposal for a crypto-linked ETF.
As Hong Kong’s government clamps down on pro-democracy protestors, Carrie Lam, chief executive of the special administrative region, has left open the possibility of shutting off internet access. Doing so would stymie protestors’ organizational efforts and could stanch the flow of information from the region.
Joe & The Juice, a Copenhagen-based international chain of juice bars and coffee shops, has apparently stopped using Square for its payments processing. Instead, the restaurant, which caters to a health-conscious and “edgier” clientele, is using Adyen, a Dutch payments processor that’s on the rise.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey had his account hacked today, with the attackers posting a series of racist and anti-Semitic statements. Calling themselves the “Chuckling Squad,” the hackers tweeted the n-word and Nazi propaganda, as well as a bomb threat directed at Twitter’s headquarters, over the course of about 20 minutes.
