Image Of The Weekend, 29-30 of September: Daily Hodl, Market Watch, CNBC and Others
We're presenting "image of the weekend". Bitnewstoday.com has chosen the most important news about the digital economy and virtual currencies. Only the most valuable stories from only the trusted sources. Each and every event from this list will change the world of the digital economy either way. The most important stories of this weekend in the most indicative quotes are below!
1. STAR POWER (Daily Hodl)Ashton Kutcher and sound ventures strive for social impact through ripple for good
Ashton Kutcher is adding some star power to a new venture from Ripple.
Kutcher says his venture capital firm Sound Ventures is proud to work alongside Ripple to support Ripple for Good, a “corporate social impact program that will support mission-driven organizations and initiatives with the potential to expand financial inclusion worldwide.”
Speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco in September, Kutcher and Effie Epstein, the firm’s managing partner, revealed the kind of analysis they apply before deciding to support an entrepreneurial enterprise. Kutcher says the key is remaining agile and opportunistic because “the next great change isn’t going to fall perfectly into a PowerPoint.” Epstein explained that finding a sound project could be counterintuitive. “What’s scary to people? What’s a little bit uncomfortable to think about as an idea or to have a conversation around?”
2. COST OF A WORD (Market Watch)
Ransomware on the rise again
Earlier this year, Slack said it had detected and patched a vulnerability that would have given hackers full access to chat histories, shared files, and other features. The bug was discovered by the security company Detectify and had been fixed before any information was leaked.
“Forget corporate espionage — workforce chat logs are often a treasure trove of embarrassment and blackmail,”- said George Avetisov, the chief executive officer of the security company HYPR. Which is worrisome since ransomware attacks — malware that encrypts data until victims pay up — have been on the rise, and now a new form of crypto extortion is also increasing: Blackmail attacks. Hackers are going after compromising photos, chats, and emails, and demanding funds to keep them under wraps.
3. THIS IS AN OUTRAGE! (Yahoo finance)
TechCrunch founder outraged at US SEC
On Sept. 29, Michael Arrington, the co-founder of TechCrunch, announced that his venture capital firm had decided to move out of the US and relocate to Asia after the SEC had sent two subpeonas to XRP Capital.
“We received a second subpeona from the SEC, again collecting information from us as investors in a U.S. company. The legal costs of dealing with these are not insignificant. We will not invest in any further U.S. deals until the SEC clarifies token rules. Pivot to Asia,” Arrington said. Outraged by the decision of the SEC to crackdown on local companies and investment companies, Arrington added: “the U.S. has already been left behind.”
4. HIGH STAKES (CNBC)
72-year-old “Fidelity” bets on the future with blockchain, virtual reality, and AI
Although the 72-year-old, family-controlled firm is known for managing retirement plans and mutual funds, by many measures, Fidelity is a tech company. The firm is spending billions of dollars to compete in new technologies like blockchain, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality. According to executives, Fidelity wants to measure itself against tech firms like Nvidia, not its more traditional Wall Street rivals like Charles Schwab.
Fidelity had been doing fintech before fintech was cool, as CEO Abigail Johnson explained it during a panel presentation at the company's headquarters this month. Her grandfather, Edward C. Johnson, founded the company in 1946 and is still quoted as saying it's better to "take intelligent risks rather than follow the crowd."
5. CHASING STABILITY (The Insider)
The crypto world is going wild for 'stablecoins
A report from the crypto wallet provider Blockchain released this week found that "the number of active stablecoin projects has dramatically increased over the past 12-18 months and more than a dozen project teams have stated they plan to launch in the coming weeks/months." There are now over 50 in development globally.
"Stablecoins" are cryptocurrencies whose prices are linked to a real-world asset. In theory, they could be linked to anything, but the majority is linked to the currencies such as the dollar or euro. There are two main types of stablecoins: the first is reserve-backed stablecoins function a little like the paper money used to when it was linked to the gold standard and the second type of stablecoin is one that is not backed by any reserves but instead controlled by an algorithm.