Techmeme
February 9, 2022, 9:45 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, Metacurity, Wall Street Journal, VICE, New York Times, CoinDesk, BuzzFeed News, CoinDesk, Decrypt, Security Affairs, New York Times, Cointelegraph, The Economic Times, CoinDesk, CryptoSlate, Reuters, Webb Chatham Report, Fortune, CNBC, Cryptonews, Bloomberg, Input, File411's Newsletter, crypto.news, TechSpot, Kristaps Mors, In Bitcoin We Trust Newsletter, Gizmodo, Engadget, and PC Gamer
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 …
Wall Street Journal:
Visa, usually the exclusive Olympics payments partner, is competing with China's e-CNY during the Winter Olympics, as the government tests the digital currency  —  For decades, the U.S. card giant was the only electronic-payments provider at the Games.  Not this time.  —  in Beijing and AnnaMaria Andriotis
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 …
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Sony's second PS5 beta adds a “Hey PlayStation” voice command feature, for US and UK accounts at first, alongside party chat changes and new UI settings  —  Sony is also making changes to the way parties work  —  Sony announced that it will begin rolling out its second PS5 software beta …
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.
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 …
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 …

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