Techmeme
February 9, 2022, 9:00 AM

Top News

Devlin Barrett / Washington Post:
The US DOJ arrests two people in New York and seizes ~$3.6B worth of bitcoin allegedly stolen in a 2016 Bitfinex hack, its “largest financial seizure ever”  —  The Justice Department announced Tuesday it had seized more than $3.6 billion in bitcoin allegedly stolen as part …
More: Bitfinex, Wall Street Journal, VICE, New York Times, U.S. Department of Justice, CoinDesk, BuzzFeed News, CoinDesk, Decrypt, Security Affairs, The Economic Times, CoinDesk, Cointelegraph, New York Times, Reuters, CryptoSlate, Reuters, In Bitcoin We Trust Newsletter, Fortune, CNBC, Gizmodo, Bloomberg, Input, crypto.news, TechSpot, Kristaps Mors, and Engadget
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
As Meta dips under a $600B market cap, it may avoid antitrust liability since it falls below the threshold set by recent US House bills as a “covered platform”  —  - Facebook owner Meta closed with a market cap below $600 billion on Tuesday for the first time since May 2020.
Darren Loucaides / Wired:
A deep dive into the CEO and history of Telegram, which has about 30 core employees, minimal content moderation, and, until recently, no ongoing revenue  —  Hundreds of millions of users.  No algorithm.  No ads.  Courage in the face of autocracy.  Sound like a dream?  Careful what you wish for.
Bloomberg:
Sources: Microsoft is in talks to acquire cybersecurity research and incident response company Mandiant, whose stock closed up 17.86% on Tuesday  —  Microsoft Corp. is considering making a bid for cybersecurity-research and incident response company Mandiant Inc., according to a person familiar …
Bloomberg:
As crypto tokens fall, FTX and Crypto.com will run Super Bowl ads, seeking new customers; research shows $112.9M+ has been spent on crypto TV ads since 2020  —  It's a testing time for crypto exchanges to be making their Super Bowl ad debuts.  —  Recruiting new users can be simple when prices are skyrocketing.
Biz Carson / Protocol:
A profile of Sequoia's Roelof Botha, who seeded the idea of Sequoia Capital Fund, which holds stakes in companies past the traditional 10-year VC fund cycle  —  109. One billion dollars.  —  Roelof Botha used to write 109 on the corner of his notepad every week when he started at Sequoia 19 years ago.
Justine Calma / The Verge:
The WWF hyped and then canceled plans to raise money for conservation with NFTs on Polygon's “eco-friendly blockchain”, a fraught claim dismissed by experts  —  WWF thought it picked a less polluting blockchain  —  Within a few days last week, the World Wildlife Fund hyped …
Olivia Little / Media Matters for America:
TikTok continues to allow ads encouraging ADHD self-diagnosis and medication, geared towards young users and likely violating its medical misinformation policy  —  RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM GIDEON TAAFFE, KAYLA GOGARTY & ABBIE RICHARDS  —  A swarm of advertisements encouraging attention …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Apple plans to improve benefits for full- and part-time US retail workers, including doubling paid sick days and increasing PTO, amid a tight labor market  —  Apple Inc. plans to significantly increase its benefits for U.S. retail store workers as it grapples with a tightening labor market …
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Leaf Logistics, which uses AI-based tools to predict shipping disruptions, raises a $37M Series B led by Sozo Ventures, bringing its total funding to $60.7M  —  The pandemic continues to impact logistics and transportation firms, causing a range of disruptions including flight cancellations and buildups at ports of call.
Bloomberg:
Sumco, a key supplier of semiconductor silicon wafers, says it has sold out production capacity for 300mm wafers until 2026; wafer prices rose 10% YoY in 2021  —  Sumco Corp., a key supplier of silicon wafers for the semiconductor industry, said it has already sold out its production capacity through 2026 …
The Intercept:
Purchase records and docs show that 14 of the 15 US Cabinet departments and several other federal agencies bought Cellebrite phone hacking tools in recent years  —  Investigators with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service frequently work to thwart a variety of environmental offenses …
Tage Kene-Okafor / TechCrunch:
Egypt-based Thndr, an investing app for stocks and mutual funds in the Middle East and North Africa, raises a $20M Series A led by Tiger Global and others  —  The MENA region has about 400 million people with $500 billion in annual savings.  But as a relatively young population …
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
A review of digital advertising in 2022, which has shifted from a Google-Meta duopoly to one where Amazon and potentially Apple are major forces  —  Six years ago tomorrow, in The Reality of Missing Out, I wrote that the digital advertising market was settled, and Google and Facebook won:
Shubham Agarwal / The Verge:
Interviews with over a dozen rapid grocery delivery workers in India show they spent months healing after road accidents and had to pay their own medical bills  —  India's instant delivery apps are pushing drivers into accidents  —  Mahesh knew he was running out of time.

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Jay Peters / The Verge:

Earlier Picks

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