Techmeme: FTX US wins the auction for bankrupt crypto brokerage Voyager Digital's assets with a bid valued at ~$1.4B, including an “additional consideration” worth ~$111M (Bloomberg)

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September 27, 2022, 8:25 AM

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Bloomberg:

FTX US wins the auction for bankrupt crypto brokerage Voyager Digital's assets with a bid valued at ~$1.4B, including an “additional consideration” worth ~$111M — FTX US, the digital-asset exchange founded by billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, won the auction for the assets of bankrupt crypto brokerage Voyager Digital Ltd.

Michael McSweeney / The Block:

California, New York, and other states take action against crypto lender Nexo, from sending cease and desists to suing, focusing on interest-bearing accounts — A group of U.S. state regulators announced an array of legal actions against crypto lender Nexo on Monday.

More: CNBC, NY State Attorney General, South Carolina Attorney General, Decrypt, Crypto Daily, Cryptonews, Washington State Department …, Reuters, crypto.news, Crypto Briefing, Bitcoin News, Watcher Guru, Protocol, CoinJournal, and The Economic Times

Tweets: @kr00ney and @jacqmelinek

Angus Whitley / Bloomberg:

As the Optus hacker appears to release data of 10,000 customers, Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin says the Australian police are investigating a ransom demand — Australian mobile-phone company Optus said authorities are investigating an online ransom demand following a major data hack …

Jonathan Vanian / CNBC:

Meta begins testing a single interface to manage Facebook and Instagram accounts and streamlines registration to help users create accounts on both services — - Meta is testing new features intended to help people more easily manage their Facebook and Instagram accounts via one interface.

More: Meta, Android Headlines, Pocket-lint, Social Media Today, PYMNTS.com, TechCrunch, Neowin, Engadget, Seeking Alpha, Lifewire, and The Verge

Tweets: @metanewsroom, @jason_kint, @wongmjane, and @marismith

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:

Flatfile, which automates onboarding, structuring, and cleaning data, raised a $50M Series B led by Tiger Global, bringing its total funding to $94.7M — Data cleansing — prepping data for applications like predictive analytics — takes time. In fact, data scientists spend an estimated 60% …

More: SiliconANGLE

Jamie Crawley / CoinDesk:

Study: in January 2022, 62.4% of bitcoin mining electricity came from fossil fuels, contradicting the Bitcoin Mining Council's estimate that ~59% is sustainable — The CCAF uses publicly available data to run a theoretical model to estimate the environmental footprint of bitcoin mining.

Source: Cambridge Judge Business …. More: The Block, The Economic Times, Cointelegraph, Cambridge Judge Business …, and CoinMarketCap Alexandria

Tweets: @wublockchain and @wublockchain

Mike Masnick / Techdirt:

A subreddit with 1.5M members, r/PoliticalHumor, challenges Texas' content moderation law by mandating that comments include “Greg Abbott is a little piss baby” — Last year, I tried to create a “test suite” of websites that any new internet regulation ought to be “tested” against.

Tweets: @mmasnick, @genefortexas, @tentonheart, @peteccde, @espiers, @oneunderscore__, and @mmasnick

On Substack:

Substack launches Reader for the web with search, keyboard shortcuts, dark mode, recommendations, and an “Add RSS feed” feature for non-Substack publications — Revenge of RSS — There's a new reading experience waiting for you at Substack.com.

More: The Verge. Tweets: @marshallk, @sirsteven, @ashadornfest, @martinsfp, @adamsinger, @substackinc, @jacobgrier, @substackinc, @libertyrpf, and @hamishmckenzie

Justin Ling / Wired:

A look at the vote on the new head of the UN's International Telecommunications Union between a US and Russian candidate, and its implications for the open web — UN countries are preparing to pick a new head of the International Telecommunications Union. Who wins could shape the open web's future.

More: lowyinstitute.org. Tweets: @ngleicher, @justin_ling, @vestager, @trengriffin, @jgriffiths, and @jmulvenon

Financial Times:

A look at South Korea's Zepeto, owned by Naver and considered one of Asia's largest metaverse platforms with 15M-20M MAUs, as it plans a global expansion — Asia's largest metaverse platform, Zepeto, is stepping up its global expansion as it looks to compete against the Big Tech groups …

Tweets: @crsdavies

Reuters:

Milan-based app developer Bending Spoons, which makes Splice and Remini, raised $340M+ from Italian banks Intesa Sanpaolo and Banco BPM, Ryan Reynolds, and more — Italian app developer Bending Spoons has raised more than $340 million from investors including Hollywood actor Ryan Reynolds and Kerry Trainor …

Tweets: @tobdea and @ncsh

Financial Times:

South Korea's science minister says a “sense of crisis” has gripped the country's chip industry, as new legislation aims to boost its global competitiveness — Lee Jong-ho says new legislation will boost competitiveness in supply chain and security

More: Protocol. Tweets: @crsdavies and @chadbown

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From Mediagazer

Sara Fischer / Axios:

60 Minutes' CECOT segment, pulled by Bari Weiss, was mistakenly aired in Canada via an app owned by Global Television, which airs 60 Minutes in the country

Ali Watkins / New York Times:

Channel 4 says Jimmy Kimmel will share a message on Christmas Day as part of its Alternative Christmas Message show, emphasizing the importance of free speech

Reuters:

Israel's cabinet votes to shut down popular national radio station Army Radio, saying it has become a platform for views that “attack” its armed forces

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Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:

Paris-based Regate, which offers an all-in-one platform to manage invoices, expense reports, and payments, raised a $20M series A led by Valar Ventures

Chloe Xiang / VICE:

Text-to-image generation systems like DALL-E and Midjourney use datasets built by scrapping images without explicit permission and it's not easy to opt out

More: PetaPixel. Tweets: @adam_k_levin, @secularstudents, @motherboard, and @vngnc

Anuchit Nguyen / Bloomberg:

Thailand's LINE MAN Wongnai, which provides food delivery and runs an e-commerce platform for businesses, raised a $265M series B led by GIC at a $1B+ valuation

More: LMWN, DealStreetAsia, DealStreetAsia, and Tech in Asia

Munsif Vengattil / Reuters:

Samsung launches a co-branded credit card with Axis Bank in India, where it has 175M customers, offering 10% cashback to customers buying Samsung products

Source: Samsung Newsroom. More: TechCrunch, TelecomTalk, Business Standard, India Today, Fossbytes, SamMobile, SamNews 24, GSMArena.com, iThinkDifferent, Sammy Fans, and The Economic Times

Evelyn Cheng / CNBC:

China-based Well-Link Technologies, which is building a real-time cloud rendering technology for video games, has raised a $40M Series B2 led by Temasek

More: FinSMEs, Game Industry News, PingWest, and Tech in Asia

Cheri Faulkner / NME:

Netflix plans to open a new game studio in Helsinki “built from scratch” and led by ex-Zynga Vice President and General Manager Marko Lastikka

More: About Netflix, Silicon Republic, TechRadar, Engadget, Game Developer, Stevivor, BGR India, Press Start, Phandroid, GamesIndustry.biz, TechCrunch, Gamereactor UK, Pocket Gamer.biz, Variety, Mobilegamer.biz, and VentureBeat. Tweets: @eric_seufert

Earlier Picks

Yogita Khatri / The Block:

Sources: crypto derivatives exchange Deribit raised ~$40M from existing investors at a $400M valuation; source says it raised $100M in 2021 at a $2.1B valuation

More: Coinspeaker. Tweets: @wublockchain

Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer:

Researchers found 75 apps on Google Play and 10 on Apple's App Store that engaged in ad fraud and collectively had 13M installs; Apple and Google removed them

More: HUMAN, iThinkDifferent, PhoneArena, SiliconANGLE, 9to5Mac, Dark Reading, iPhone in Canada Blog, MacRumors, 7NEWS, Digital Information World, and IT之家

Tweets: @fosspatents, @thezedwards, @lapcatsoftware, and @securewithhuman

Ben Thompson / Stratechery:

A look at Nvidia's issues, including crypto mining demand collapsing and GPUs flooding second-hand markets, and opportunities, including gaming and data centers

More: Game Developer. Tweets: @stratechery, @thecompoundnews, and @firstadopter

AnandTech:

Review of the $699 AMD Ryzen 9 7950X, built on Zen 4 with 16 cores: higher single- and multi-threaded performance and superb efficiency helps beat Intel's chips

More: VideoCardz.com, VideoCardz.com, Tom's Hardware, Puget Systems, VideoCardz.com, Eurogamer.net, Ars Technica, The FPS Review, Club386, Wccftech, Forbes, TechPowerUp, The Verge, PCMag, Neowin, Appuals.com, HotHardware, Ars Technica, Gizmodo, VideoCardz.com, and Trusted Reviews

Tweets: @gavbon86, @ericjhonsa, @tapbot_paul, @ryansmithat, @firstadopter, @firstadopter, @anandtech, and @tomwarren. Thanks:@gavbon86

Stephanie Bodoni / Bloomberg:

The UK's ICO could fine TikTok £27M after provisionally finding that the company may have breached data protection rules by failing to protect children's data

Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer:

London police arrest a 17-year-old and charge him with computer misuse and breach of bail offenses; some speculate he is behind the Uber, Rockstar, and 2K hacks