Amazon Prime Data and Grayscale's SEC Feud

Our conversation with a prime executive is coming up. Plus Gray Scale collapse back at the SEC after rejecting a Bitcoin e t F, I'll speak with CEO Michael Sonenshein about their legal challenge and ongoing friction between Gary Gensler and the crypto community. Plus Andrew Yang joins us to talk about the state of tech entrepreneur ship in a downturn, plus his outlook for president Meantime, this week's Bloomberg Business Week cover story focuses on the roller coaster ride that

has been the Musk Twitter deal. Kurt Wagner writes that for Twitter, there are no good outcomes, no matter what path a deal with Elan takes. Musk has publicly trashed Twitter's top management and alienated thousands of its employees. Vowed to slash rules that were put in place after misinformation threatened election integrity and wants to make Twitter the everything app, but hasn't really explained what that means. Here to discuss

Bloomberg's Kurt Wagner. So the headline, Kurt is that Twitter faces only bad outcomes if this still closes, why do you say so? Yeah? Well, remember, Emily, there's there's two options here. One, uh, you know, the deal falls apart, and this stock that has been sort of artificially inflated is going to crash um. Employees who have sent the last six to nine months, you know, just in this total state of certainty, are gonna have to pick up

and pretend like, you know, nothing ever happened. Or if if things go the way Twitter wants, then they get the guy in charge, who, you know, for the last three months has been saying that Twitter has been lying about its user base and it's, uh, you know, it doesn't have the right business model and all these things right, So it's just sort of like it feels to me that there's not really a lot of good outcomes here. Now.

I got a lot of fan mail after this story came today, Emily for people who disagreed that they think you know, the free speech uh kind of vision unmust keeps talking about is going to make Twitter a much better place very shortly. But you know, even that, I would probably argue is going to create a lot of

other headaches for for this platform very soon. Well, and look, Musk does have millions and millions of fans, so that's certainly not you know, out of the question that you know, some folks are are going to be very happy if this deal gets done that side. You use the words very shortly there, and I'm curious, say, say the deal does get done before October, could Elon must make significant changes to the platform before the midterm elections before November eight?

I mean, the deal is supposed to close by, right, and so to me that means that Elon Musk would be in charge, and therefore are they going to be able to, you know, bring President Tromp back on the Twitter within the next week like possibly it is possible. But how much of an impact is that going to have? I don't really know, right, but I do think that

there could be changes to some of these policies. They could say, Hey, all the folks who have been looking for misinformation or hate speech or voter misinformation, stand down, don't don't bother, don't do your job, and all of a sudden, you know, we could have a very different level of content on the platform very soon. What's the latest negotiations between the two parties. What are they actually

talking about right now? Yeah, I mean there has been some stuff that we have reported at Bloomberg that, you know, despite the fact that both sides want the same deal price, there have been some hang ups, right is specifically that you know, it sounds like Elon Musk wants to reserve his right to possibly sue some of these executives, wants to deal closes to go after you know, maybe people kind of personally UM as a way to say, hey,

you've been misleading investors and misleading me, the potential buyer this whole time. Right. Twitter of course doesn't want to to have that in there. They're also worried about this debt contingency that Ellen had to add to um, you know, the negotiations. So I imagine at this point both sides are trying to iron through those types of details, right,

I mean, they claim they want the same price. I think the debt is is for the most part locked up and so you think, like, Okay, they're really at the end here where they're kind of going over those those very minute elements of a deal. All right, Kurt Wagner, thanks for keeping us updated as always, and check out that story in the latest edition of Bloomberg Business Week. This week's Amazon Prime flash sale may not be all

it's chopped up to be. Third party researchers are saying the Prime Day sales generating the same traffic as any regular day. Bloomberg's Had Ludlow asked Jamil Ghani, Amazon's head of Prime about the data. Here's how he responded, I don't know if that's the accurate read. We've been really impressed with how many Prime members are showing up, how they're engaging with the event, and how they're shopping. They're

shopping the entire store. Some of the favorite categories so far are electronics, toys, home apparel, health and personal care, top brands like Apple, lenej HP, Shark, and many many others, including items off our curated top one hundred lists. So we've been really really happy with the event so far. Our members can engage through midnight tonight, so I encourage them to check it out. What is Amazon tracking to do for this October window in dollar turns relative to July.

Can you give us some granularity about the impacts of having a second window in the same calendar year. Yeah, we have to keep in mind that Prime Day this year was the largest Prime Day we've ever had, one point seven billion dollars in savings for our members around

the globe. And so what we're trying to do with this event is give our Prime members yet another opportunity to say, we know that our members are always looking for savings, but no more sort than now where you know, the macro economic environment um has everybody trying to make the dollar stretch a little bit further. And so this is an opportunity for forty eight hours for our members to get an exclusive jump on their holiday shopping, its needs and wants across the entire store. And so far

the engagement has been really strong. So it's too early to tell, but I expect that there will be deals throughout the event. That's something that we learned in Prime Day that our members like top brands and they like having deals throughout the entire event. You're going to continue to see that through midnight tonight. So this window will not be as big as the July window. It's too early to tell, but we're very excited by the early engagement um and it is the kickoff to uh the

entire holiday season. We're gonna have deals and discounts throughout the entire period. Black Friday Cyber Monday continue to be incredibly important, but we wanted to take care of our most engaged, are most important customers first, those are our Prime members, and so this is the kickoff to the season. That is interesting, right, the idea around the pool forward in holiday spending. He told me about how that might help clear out some inventories ahead of the holiday season. Yeah,

you know, this event is not about inventory. This we built this event purpose built on the top brands that are members we know are looking for as they go into the shopping season. And so this is an exclusive for eight hours for our Prime members to get a jump on their holiday shopping, ensure that they get those must have giftable items, get some of the holiday rush

out of the way earlier in the season. But we're going to continue the deals and discounts for all of our customer including Prime members, going into Black Friday and Cyber Monday. You alluded to it earlier, but what are you learning about the consumer based on what they're buying. It seems through third party data they might be going for this sort of cheaper ended the spectrum in terms of the items they're buying. Is there any sense that

the consumer is feeling the pain of inflation. Well, I think all of us as Americans are feeling the pinch of inflation. Um, all of us want to stretch our dollar as far as we can. What we saw in Prime Day is that members engaged across all um sales prices, from consumables and everyday essentials all the way up through the electronic devices. It's needs through wants, and that's why we built Prime Early Access sale to have the top brands across the entire store so that members can meet

those needs and wants. We've got top brands in health and personal care all the way to toys, to home apparel and electronics, which are you know, uh, clearly a member ever every holiday season and so we're seeing the same in engagement now. We expect that to continue over the next several hours through midnight tonight. Amazon's head of Prime there Jamil Ghani, with our own at Ludlow For more on this, I want to bring in our Bloomberg

reporter Spencer, So we're who of course covers Amazon. So Spencer, let's talk about a potential disparity here and what the third party folks are saying and what Amazon is saying. Just how good has this prime day actually been so far? Yeah? I think it's uh, what we're hearing is that there's, you know, slight lift from a usual day. Now we're

getting summer biased data from what we had earlier. You know, some uh you know deep a deeper look slight lift from from a typical day, but not nearly the same amount of lift as they had in the summer prime day. And I'm not sure that we're that far off. I mean, if you listen carefully to what the Amazon executive says, he uses words like shop, and he uses words like engagement, and so he doesn't use words like by and he doesn't use words like spend, you know, so so engagement

can be just a cute way to say people. People are coming on the site, they're noodling around, they're looking at this, that and the other, but they're not really buying a whole lot. So What does this tell us about the state of the consumer potentially more broadly leading into the holidays, or doesn't tell us something more about Amazon? Well,

I think it's a little of both, right. I Mean, it's not a secret that that consumers are pulling back, that they're dealing with higher food and fuel prices, things that they have to buy and have less money you know, to spend on things that they want to buy. And then on Amazon, we're learning like on these kind of things. Some of the top categories are like household essentials and pantry items and things people just kind of spending the stock up on things that otherwise buy and not necessarily

splurging on things like electronics and whatnot. But then in terms of Amazon, is just they figured, hey, what the heck, will do another sale? And it was interesting he said it wasn't about inventory when it What it is about inventory. That's really why Amazon was able to spin this thing up so quickly, is because a lot of merchants, you know, the inventory is already there they have. Meantime, there's been some developments in unionization efforts at an Amazon warehouse in California.

What's the latest on that. Yeah, this is pretty interesting to watch. So there's a one warehouse in Morino Valley in the Inland Empire, and that's a real stronghold for Amazon. That's that's probably where they where they've got the most concentrated number of facilities and employees. And so one of them just submitted signatures to push for a union election affiliated with this Amazon labor union, which was the one that uh, you know, one approval for union in in

Saten Island, which Amazon is still contesting. And now there's another vote coming up next week in Albany, again affiliate with this Amazon labor union. So starting to look like this thing's spreading and and and Amazon is having a hard time containing it all right. Sponsor Soaper who covers Amazon for us, thank you. Coming up weeks after the massive Adobe figmdial, the other hot enterprise software startup has some news. Air Table CEO Howe lou is with us next.

This is Bloomberg, the collaboration software startup. Air Table just announced its biggest launch of the year at its inaugural air Table Leaders Forum, coming up with a new connected apps platform that will help companies like Netflix, linked In, and i heart Media share data, manage workflows, track product

roadmaps and more. Co founder and CEO, Howelu with me now for more on this, So, you know, talk to us about the trends that you're seeing an enterprise software and why an announcement like this in your mind is important, Like what problems does this solve? I mean, I think it's best to explain it in terms of where we came from and where we're going. So ten years ago,

Marke and Reeson said software is eating the world. We created air Table really to kind of execute against that and empower the team's closest to the work in every company to be part of that disruption, to build the

apps for themselves that they needed. Now we've seen this bigger problem within enterprises where it's not enough to just have individual apps, but those apps need to be connected and to allow the entire enterprise to all share a source of truth while enabling all those individual teams to still be really, really flexible and agile. So it's kind of the next frontier of air Table, you know, combining what we've already done literally in these connected apps across

an enterprise. Air Table benefited from some of those pandemic tail winds, the shift to hybrid work has that kept up? What sort of workplace trends are you seeing now? I think a lot of what we're seeing now is that there is this huge need to rethink how work is being done right, especially in today's economy. It's not just about throwing more people at every problem. You can't just you know, double your your head count and every department to get more output. You need to rethink how efficiently

you work. And that's where I think our our enterprise vision of connected apps is really going to come into plan. It's already showing up. And how we sell our table, how we're seeing our our customers adopt air table. It's

really about enabling more agility and more output. Um. You know, we talked about this this customer case study during our event earlier today of Equinox actually accelerating their content production efforts by four with the same team and during a pandemic where they were all working from home, nonetheless using air table and connected apps. How do you see competition shaping up? There's a Sauna, Monday, dot Com others that are vying to be the project management tool of choice.

What is air tables advantage? Yeah, I think the whole idea behind declaring our north star as connected apps is that we're actually elevating ourselves out of that world of

project management. We actually don't really care as much about the task management small team use cases that I think a lot of the other products are are going after, and instead we're really trying to solve this bigger problem across an entire enterprise where you need these shared sources of truth, these high value golden data sets as we

call them. You know, for instance, Netflix having this this master list of all the content titles they're producing and then wanting to manage all of their marketing, their post production, their legal rights management, etcetera. Workflows across that data set. UM. And so it's really you know, us going out and taking on more companies like service Now or even Salesforce with their app cloud efforts. UM. When we think about going and deploying apps across every other part of the enterprise,

not just doing projects or tasks. I think some people are still recovering from the shock of the big Adobe Figma deal twenty billion dollars, and I just I'm dying to hear your thoughts on it. Given that air table is one of the few you know hot enterprise software startups that's often mentioned in the same breath as Figma. What's your take on this deal. I think Figma is an incredible product company, has a great team. Um you know, they started around the same time as us, so weirdly

we've been parallel. I think we both started around both spent years building a pretty technically interesting product before launching. These were not products air Table nor Figma that were built overnight as a hack project, but really a deliberate

taking on of a really, really large market opportunity. I think ultimately the trend that's really benefited both of us is that for the first time on the web, when both of us started, you could build these really rich desktop grade experiences, right Sigma could not have been built. You couldn't build that level of experience in the web,

nor could you build air Table in the web. And so I think we're both bright place right time to take on really large market opportunities and disrupting some incumbents as a result. Is getting acquired like that something that's attractive to you. Are you on the I P O path? Instead?

I think that the best companies have to think about how to build an independent business, right I mean, when you look at Figma, one of the reasons why it was so attractive as a business and why it's valued so much in this steal is because actually they could

go to Long alone. They have the leverage. I mean, it's it's growing very quickly, it's an amazing business, there's a massive tam and it's truly a disruptive and delightful product, right And so I think if you can go out and build a company that is truly capable of being a star in a star independent business on the I P O path, then I think that also raises your attractiveness, in this case for Figma, through M and a deal.

So we've always been squarely focused on just building the best product and ultimately business and company that we can and you know, we're not optimizing foreign acquisition. So we've seen valuations of tech startups fall across the board. You raised at an almost twelve billion dollar valuation at the end of last year. Does that number hold up in a downturn or is air table in the rare category of startups like Figma potentially where that number potentially goes up.

So the way I've always thought about it is the short term valuation is just it's a point in time. And what really matters for both us as team members working on this company, for shareholders who may consider investing in our table is what is the long term expected

value of this business? And especially since we're private and we don't have a public liquid value right now, what do we think this company will be worth in one year, two year, or three years, And especially as the operators within the business, what can we do to drive towards the best possible result? And so I think as we push into connected apps and this bigger and bigger possibility, you know, solving a problem for enterprises at large um

actually generating you know, multimillion dollar contracts repeatedly. Uh and even you know, driving up are already best in class left dollar retention. I think we feel very good about the clear path that we can get to building a really extraordinary business that's highly differentiated as the unit economics

to support a really freemium multiple. And you know, whether there's overall multiple compression in the public markets in the near term, you know, I think the great businesses that ultimately go after really large hands and have durable growth potential can outgrow any of that compression because they just keep growing and growing. All right, interesting, interesting response there, Air Table co founder and CEO, Howelu, good to have you back here on this show. Thank you for stopping by.

Welcome back to Bloomer Technology and Emily Changing in San Francisco. The global self and semi conductor shares continues, but one name in Japan bucking the trend. Are all back with a look at Socio next. Ed. Yeah, we don't often talk about Japan, but let's look at Socio next in the context of this big sell off we've seen in

global chip stocks. It had its trading debut in Japan in Tokyo on Wednesday, jumping a lot of investor interest here, generating around sixty seven billion yen or four hundred and fifty six million dollars of proceeds. And what's so interesting about this name. It's a maker of systems on a chip or logic processes for one of A better description is there's a lot of appetite right now for what it's offering in a market where we have a lot

of questions about global chip demand. If we bring up the next chart, this was actually the biggest I PO in Japan, so far this year on a gross proceeds generated basis. It was the four f p O for a chip maker out of Japan this year. So it's really interesting to see that name buck the trend. We're

also getting data points out of vander this Wednesday. They actually see retail investors taking a keen interest in the chip space, even if we see institutional money kind of sitting on the sidelines or pulling out because we have concerns about a global slowdown, and speaking about those concerns, we look at this terminal chart. It investors are really pulling back earnings expectations for the chip sector. We've had

bad news from a broad range of names. We're concerned about a slowdown in demand for consumer electronics, for memory chips in particular Aro and the PC market that scoop overnight from Bloomberg. The Intel, according to sources, is going to cut thousands of jobs because of the PC slowdown. Well, this is the result the market pulling back its expectations. But one name in Japan's socio next, as we said, m bucking that trend. All right, ed, thank you a

name we don't normally hear about. Appreciate it. I want to zoom out now of chip stocks and get back to the broader macro environment with rising inflation and a falling market. The state of valuations and venture capital and startup innovation on top of mind. At the Greenwich Economic Forum that is underway right now. Our next guest, entrepreneur and former presidential Canada, Andrew Yang, joins us from there. Now, So, Andrew, obviously, so much talk about what is going to happen with

this economy. Are we or are we not going into a recession? Given your Venture for America background, I'm curious what your outlook is if you are an entrepreneur trying to get started in a downturn. Well, if you look at the track record of high growth companies, Emily, and you know this full well, most of the really meaningful companies get started in a downturn like this one for

a host of reasons. The fact is that an enterprise that succeeds in this time is going to be poised to really mushroom as soon as the climate starts training more positive. So I do think that this is going to be a very very tough time, but guaranteed we're going to see tons of meaningful firms come out of this period. What's your sense of how this tough time will compare to let's say, the financial crisis or even

the dot com bust. Is there's something different about it. No, I think we have a ways to go on the down slope myself. I mean, we can all see very clearly that the Fed is going to be checking up interest rates for the foreseeable and there are a lot of valuations that don't make as much sense in that environment. So we're we're going to all find out together how this compares to some of the tough times of the past.

But I certainly think that, uh, folks should try and keep some powder dry, you know, make sure that you have enough cash to make it through for a little bit longer than you might hope. San Francisco is one city that's having a tough time recovering from the pandemic, and now there's this downturn. You've got companies going remote,

You've got companies moving to Austin or a Miami. Do you think this the center of innovation, that the fundamental center of gravity is actually going to shift and become more distributed or is it too early to say that? Now? You and I both have friends who have decamped to Austin or Miami, and I'm a big believer that innovation and growth will follow wherever the talent goes. So if you have people who have permanently settled in Austin, I

think you're going to see uh permanent shift truly. Um Now, the Bay Area, in my view, still has the highest concentration of tech talent, so it's still going to be the envy of many other cities. But I do think we're in a permanently different time where talent is going to be more distributed, and because of that, you want to see capital be more distributed, uh and growth companies come out of places where they might not have otherwise.

Congress has been trying to rein in big tech, and big tech has retaliated by spending a ton of money to kill one of the most aggressive oversight bills in years. Your thought on on whether that bill potentially needs to be revived and whether strong regulation is really needed. Oh, it's interesting, Emily. The political climate has changed such that tech now is a bit of a punching bag for

both parties. UM And I'm of the belief that there have been some excesses that regulation would be appropriate for and a lot is going to hinge upon what the political climate is after these mid terms. Right now, the Senate is toss up. By most accounts, Republicans are slightly favored in the House, and I think that might change the prospects of some of the bills that we're talking about.

You've been very vocal about data collection. You launch the Data Dividend products to help Americans take control of your data. How are you feeling about how tech companies are handling that data right now and especially going in to an

a lot action. Uh, you know, it's it's fascinating, Emily, As you know, I I championed the c p r A and data privacy UH regulations in California, where you are, And because California is now set a higher bar, UH, national legislation is increasingly likely and on the table in part because tech companies wanted to supplant and replace the rules in California. Our data is being used not to our benefit. It's uh two hundred billion dollar plus a

year industry. It's eroding our democracy, our kids, mental health. UM. So I'm someone who thinks that we should own our data UH and not only have it used more to our benefit. But if there is going to be market value game, but we should join in that benefit. UM. So that that's where I'd like the national approach to go. Europe has new rules that are coming online in which is right around the corner, and I think that's going to increase pressure on the States to have a more

modernized approach. You've been branching out into crypto and Web three, and I'm curious what role or how much of a role you think crypto will play in fundraising going into and if you think Democrats or Republicans have more of an advantage. No, I think the single biggest donor in the last cycle with Sam Bankman Freedom you all probably know well. Uh So Web three, in my view, is going to be a very fascinating UM political force to be reckoned with UM. Right now, they're concerned obviously UM

largely with the regulation on crypto itself. UM, but I think that you're going to see more people pushing into politics because now, uh the interaction with DC is going to be one of the main drivers of whether enterprises are able to grow and operate UM succes fully anywhere, but certainly whether they're going to be headquartered here in the US. You also launched Lobby three earlier this year.

I'm so curious how many people have bought into the tokens and what positions is Lobby three going to be advocating for. Lobby three has been a great energized community of people that want to push for a common sense regulation out of dc UM that is intelligent and sophisticated and doesn't try and throw different UM types of assets together, that has one regulator instead of kind of a hodgepodge UM.

And it's been awesome getting to know people who want the best things for creators and entrepreneurs in the space UM. Any time I go to a web gry gathering, there's some folks who are part of the Lobby three community and it's been a lot of fun. As a former presidential candidate and the code chair now of the Forward Party, I'd love to see into your crystal ball. Do you think of Biden Trump face off in? Is that inevitable?

It's the most likely matchup right now, Emily Uh. The odds are that Trump declares at the end of this year, after the mid terms, and then Biden declares either Q one or Q two of next year. UM, I will say that those two candidates will have a combined age of a d Fifty nine percent of Americans are not excited about either of them. So the question is whether unity ticket or some independent effort arises, and a group called No Labels is very publicly invested fifty three million

dollars in ballot access for a potential unity ticket. I think there's going to be a lot of enthusiasm for some alternative after people face the reality that it is a rematch in between Trump and Biden. So let's say Biden doesn't run. Do you think the Democrats have a strong enough bench. Who's on that bench? Would you consider running again? Well? I think Joe Biden likely declares because he feels he's the only one who can defeat Donald Trump because he did it once, and you can't argue

with the fact that he did defeat Trump once. UM. But it's also tough to slot in another Democrat who you have the same confidence in. Uh, necessarily if you're Joe, or even if you're anyone, because right now, UM, it's unclear who the Democratic nominee would be. UM. I think that's one reason why Joe is going to run again, honestly, So, how are you going to spend the next couple of

years if you're not running again? You know, where are we going to see you place your energy and efforts and priorities Given a very critical election coming up, So the Board Party has endorsed a number of candidates around the country, including a US ended candidate named Evan McMullen, whom I'm going out to campaign in Utah for UH

this weekend. We think we need to change the underlying incentives for our lawmakers and leaders by doing away with closed party primaries and replacing them with primaries where anyone can vote for anyone through something called ranked choice voting. If there's one thing you remember from this interview out there, if you're you know, generally not that into politics, ranked

choice voting is the way out of this mess. It's a way that anyone could vote for anyone with no spim er effect, and it rewards more moderate, reasonable, collaborative candidates who actually come through for voters. Um. So I'm going to be trying to make rank choices voting the law and as many places as possible, and I'm happy to say it's spreading around the country all right. Uh,

Andrew Yang. Always great to have you with us, entrepreneur obviously a former presidential candidate co chair of the former party. Thank you Andrew for stopping by coming up. The latest

salvo comes up from Gray Scale versus the SEC. Gray Scale CEO joining Snack to talk about the case for a Bitcoin e t F. This is Bloomberg Crypto Acid manager Gray Scale Investment says there is no justification for the SEC's rejection of a Bitcoin e TF earlier this year, the firm saying the secs rationale raises more questions than answers and will undermine trust in crypto. Here to explain is Gray Scale CEO Michael Son and Shine. Michael, thank you so much for joining us. So give us the latest.

Where does the lawsuit with the SEC stand at this moment? Well, last night, Emily, we filed our opening brief for the lawsuit. So this lays out our initial legal arguments to the court um and it's really the first substantive document as part of the litigation process. So it's important to remember this is a case about bitcoin, but we're putting in front of our you know, in front of the court system,

really straightforward, common sense arguments. I think one of the new arguments that's laid out here has to do with this idea of a significant market tests which the SEC has applied to bitcoin ETF applications. They've applied this very stringently to spot bitcoin e t F applications like gray Scale UM and other spot bit cooin e tfs that have been denied, but very leniently to Bitcoin futures et F applications, which is why we have several of them

in the market. And there's really been no justification as to why this test is the in fact only test that the SEC should be using. And we've also never seen them use a test like this before when it comes to evaluating new products to bring to market. Have you spoken at all with Gary Gainsler directly? You know, we have regular dialogue with really everyone in d C, my legal team and myself for down in d C almost weekly these days, so we speak with all different

parts of the SEC and other regulators. Now, look, recently, there have been a ton of cases fraud and bankruptcy in crypto. There's Tera, there's Celsius, there's three hours. Why is now the right time to prove to the SEC that this market is no worse in terms of market manipulation than others. Well, that's exactly the point. This significant market tests that the SEC has laid out they believe protects investors from fraud and manipulation, and they got comfortable

with that. When it comes to bitcoin futures, Well, the interesting thing in the flaw in that logic is that bitcoin futures derived their pricing from the underlying spot bitcoin market, which underpins GBTC and any other spot bitcoin et F application that's become, you know, in front of the SEC and ulterily been rejected or denied. I think what we're seeing though in d C is probably the most engagement

and understanding we've ever seen around crypto. You've bipartisans support now with a variety of bills passing across the floor of Congress, and I think we and other industry you know heavyweights are calling on our regulators, calling on our legislators to really develop new frameworks because otherwise we're squandering innovation here in the United States. The Winkled Boss Brothers were the first to try this spot bitcoin ETF. It

didn't fail. The road is littered with carcasses of others who have tried and failed, how is gray Scale, with its huge scale, in your view, different? It's a great question, Emily. So today Gray Scale Bitcoin Trust ticker g BTC is the largest bitcoin fund in the world. It owns over three percent of all bitcoin outstanding. A recent count said that there are more than eight hundred and fifty tho investors who own shares of g BTC in the US alone,

and that represents all fifty states. So, when we, as an asset manager, are taking a product that's been in the market, has billions of dollars of assets, hundreds of millions of dollars of daily trading volume, has voluntarily become an sec reporting company, and we know that the right thing for investors to protect them, to put additional disclosures and surveillance in place by becoming an et F is the right thing for them. But our regulator is really

shunning the opportunity to do so. Well, we certainly take issue with that, and so our team has been putting the entire resources of the firm behind the et F initiative and we're as committed as we've ever been to it. What kind of timeline do you see for a resolution of this case? Well, we filed the lawsuit earlier this summer, and at that time we were guided to believe it could be anywhere from nine to twelve months, although it

could be longer, could be shorter. What you're going to see now that Grace Scale has filed its opening brief is over the coming weeks you'll see a variety of amikus briefs. So these are other parties that are filing briefs with the court to put in front of the judges presiding over the case to really talk about their points of view on the issues at hand. And then ultimately you'll see a brief from the SEC a couple of weeks later with their responses to the arguments that

our legal team is outlined. We're also, you know, in the middle of what could be a really massive economic downturn. We've just heard from Andrew Yang who said he thinks we've got a lot further downward to go. What is your outlook and what it means for crypto. We're certainly in a crypto winter, and a crypto winter is characterized now by sustained lower prices. We're seeing from the investment community, though that the lower prices are not causing them to

shy away from the asset class. In fact, we're actually seeing investors continue to diversify. So a lot of investors now kind of have that core position in bitcoin or position in ethereum or both, and they're now looking at

other opportunities, and one of them is actually infrastructure. Just last week, our team launched a totally new offering, Gray Scale Digital Infrastructure Opportunities LLC, which is an operating company that investors can put capital to work in that's actually buying bitcoin mining hardware, plugging it into the network, and

distributing that value back out to shareholders. So for a lot of investors, they've had that token exposure now and now it's time that they think about the underlying infrastructure that secures the network. And so there's a lot of opportunity and a lot of activity going on despite the sustained lower pricing environment we find ourselves in speaking of the underlying infrastructure. The etherory emerge ended up being kind of a non event. What do you think the next

big event is going to be? You know, that will you know, catalyze changes and potentially blockchain technology. You know, Emily respectfully, as someone who's been in crypto for nine years of it actually was a big event because this was a question mark hanging over Ethereum for a long time. Could we see a very well known, very well trafficked, very well utilized digital asset protocol move and make such a meaningful move from proof of work to proof of

steak and Ethereum did it now? I think as we're seeing the outcome of that, it's very very early days and we're starting to see the development of more and more staking around Ethereum and other assets um. What's coming next is other upgrades to the Ethereum network, things like the ability to unstake assets that are put into the network for staking, and other upgrades that will come down

the line. But I certainly think it's an accomplishment for all the developers and everyone who really put a lot of time in many, many years of planning and energy into getting Ethereum to make the switch over. Alright, point taken, Michael sawnashein Gray Scale CEO. We're gonna continue to follow

your challenge to the SEC. Appreciate you stopping by. Apple is withholding its latest employee benefits from staff at its only unionized retail store, the reason given the store needs to negotiate the perks with Apple via their collective bargaining arrangement, but excluding unionized stores from new benefits not a new trend.

Starbucks also rolled out a series of new perks at nine US in union stores, including raises and student debt coaching, while saying that it can't legally provide them unilaterally two sites with union activity. SpaceX plans to pronounce two new space tourists slated to fly on the Starship Rocket, Dennis Tito, the world's first ever space tourist in two thousand one, and his wife. The couple paid an undisclosed amount to

fly around the Moon on Starship. Once the vehicle is complete, they will travel with ten other undisclosed passengers on a roughly week long journey. The trip doesn't include a landing on the lunar surface, and it's unclear if the other

passengers have been chosen yet. And that does it For this edition of Bloomberg Technology On Thursday, we've got Tron's Justin Son on s talk about the future of DOWS and all things crypto and web three and don't forget to check out our podcast wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Emily Changing in San Francisco. This is Bloomberg