Techmeme
January 31, 2022, 4:15 PM

Top News

Brendan Sinclair / GamesIndustry.biz:
Sony Interactive Entertainment announces it is buying Bungie, which makes Destiny and other games, for $3.6B; Bungie will become an independent subsidiary  —  Destiny studio will remain multiplatform, able “to self-publish and reach players wherever they choose to play”
Connie Loizos / TechCrunch:
Ryan Breslow, co-founder of one-click checkout startup Bolt, steps down as CEO and becomes executive chairman, after his tweets bashing YC and Stripe went viral  —  Ryan Breslow, who founded the “one-click” checkout tech company Bolt as a Stanford student and dropped out of college to build it …
Sam Byford / The Verge:
Joe Rogan posts a video to Instagram defending booking contentious guests, apologizes to Spotify for the backlash, and says he may book more “experts”  —  'I'm very sorry that this is happening to them.'  —  Joe Rogan has issued a response to the ongoing controversy …
Daniel Ek / Spotify:
New York Times:
Current and former Meta employees say the company's metaverse moves have caused disruption and uncertainty, as some feel funneled towards AR and VR initiatives  —  Shifting a 68,000-person social networking company toward the theoretical metaverse has caused internal disruption and uncertainty.
Kim Lyons / The Verge:
Meta rolls out updated 3D avatars across Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram Stories in the US, Canada, and Mexico  —  It's a step toward the company's concept of the metaverse  —  Facebook parent company Meta is introducing 3D avatars to Instagram Stories and direct messages and updating …
Frank Chaparro / The Block:
Crypto exchange FTX raises a $400M Series C from SoftBank, Paradigm, Tiger Global, and others at a $32B valuation, up from $25B in October 2021  —  The frothy venture capital market continues to buoy the empire of billionaire trader and entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried.
Yogita Khatri / The Block:
Phantom, a Solana wallet similar to Ethereum's MetaMask, raises a $109M Series B at a $1.2B valuation, debuts an iOS app, and promises Ethereum support in 2022  —  Quick Take  — Phantom has raised $109 million in Series B funding and is now a unicorn.  — The Solana wallet is looking …
Bloomberg:
Gay dating app Grindr disappears from Apple's App Store in China as well as Tencent's and Huawei's Android app stores  —  Operators of the Grindr gay-dating service in China removed the app from Apple Inc.'s App Store, citing difficulties keeping it in compliance with the country's Personal Information Protection Law.
Jeff John Roberts / Decrypt:
Coinbase adds Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke to its board; Lütke says the promise of Web3 is that “opportunity exists for the many, not the few”  —  Coinbase announced on Monday that Tobias Lütke, who leads the ecommerce giant Shopify, will be joining its board of directors.

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