Amazon's Latest Gadgets, Circle and Robinhood

have the details in a moment. Plus, Amazon devices get a facelift and a good night's rest. The company unveiled a bedside sleep tracker, as well as a new Kindle, updated ring cameras, and echo products. I'll discuss with Amazon Senior VP of Devices and so cause, Jeremy Alaire talks about the latest announcements from their Converge twenty two conference, including its new partnership with Robin Hood. Bloomberger has learned Apple is backing off plans to increase production of its

new iPhones this year. The company had expected a surge in demand, but that hadn't happened, according to sources. Bloomber's Mount German joins me from l A with the details. Mark, what is our latest reporting on what's going on? So for two, Apple set out to build and sell through ninety million new iPhone fourteen units. That's across the four models, the fourteen, the fourteen plus, the Pro, and the Pro Max.

But recently they sort of had this extra credit idea I'll call it for an extra six million phones on top of that ninety million. But like you said, that extra six million no longer necessary because the concerns about that extra demand not happening in two. I would say that probably has to do with some recession pressures inflationary pressures as well. That people are experiencing the iPhone fourteen and fourteen plus not significant upgrades over the thirteens, but

the pros that's where the big upgrades are. That's what people want to buy. So I think people are holding off on buying the phone until they're able to buy that fourteen Pro or Pro Max for when it makes sense for them to upgrade to those price here and quite frankly far better versions of the device market. Seems to be some evidence some data that consumers around the world of going to the higher price point pro. What

have we learned about early demand. Yeah, early demand tells us that the iPhone fourteen Pro and particularly iPhone fourteen Pro Max, that's where it's at this year. People want those devices. If you just look at on your over year level, the move from the iPhone thirteen to the fourteen and the non Pro models extremely minimal. I would say the thirteen to the fourteen smallest upgrade in the

iPhone's history, but Pro to Pro very big upgrade. Fort makeapixel camera on the back, the dynamic island system that you're showing on the on the on the screen right now. The satellite connectivity is available on both models, but some of those video upgrades, those are all on the Pro models, and so I think that's what people really want to

hold out for. If you look at the Apple online store, you can see in particular there the shipment delay times for the Pro models far longer than the regular models. That's a very good indicator of demand. Also, this is not an exaggeration. You go to an Apple store, there have been lines around the block for days still for the Pro Models. You ask people which phone are you

here to line up for? You ask fifty people, I would say, maybe forty eight or forty nine of them are there for the pro phones, not the regular fourteen all right, thanks to bloombugs Matt Gum and I want to stick with this story and bring in forest to research. Vice president Julie asked, Julie, this is interesting because no matter what the environment, people buy iPhones around the world. What's your read on what bloombug reported over overnight? Yes,

thank you. So I think there's a number of factors. So I think the first one is always you know, we know that Apple's iPhone owners and buyers are more affluent than the of and Android. Even if you just look in the U S alone, the average household income of an iPhone owner is eighty eight thousand dollars versus seventy nine for Android. UH. Thirty two percent of households that own an iPhone have a household income of more than a hundred thousand dollars a year. For Android, that's

twenty three percent. UH. And final point there is, if you look at households with an income of over three thousand dollars annually, three percent for the iPhone and only one percent for Android. So I think that's you know, the top of the list. We know, and there's a lot of data that shows that simply iPhone owners are more affluent than those that are purchasing an Android. I think the second thing that comes into the mix is

the upgrade cycle. Last year and this year has been an interesting time because a lot of carriers shut down three G and they forced an upgrade. So when we look at our data across the United States and Europe, anywhere from twenty five of consumers have purchased an iPhone in the past year, and I think it's a really substantial number, especially when you take into account that iPhone represents under fifty percent of share in each of those

market once you get outside of the United States. And then, finally, to echo what Mark was saying, you know, when we look at it, we talked to our consumers. Six one of consumers expect that a recession is coming, and so they are slowing spending. We've got thirty of US online adults saying we are going to spend less on electronics in the upcoming year. So there's a little bit of hesitation in the market um and consumers are pulling back on spending. Julie, we love having you on because you

crunch the numbers. Let's take a step back, let's zoom out here. A lot of cell siders seem to be saying, well, I was always modeling nine units anyway, So what's changed. Yeah, I think it's it's hard to say, you know what, you know, the analysts were modeling. I think it's um. You know, certainly, there's always good reasons to think about

why they could have grown the market. Um, certainly. You know, for example, one of the things that we know that if of consumers who buy Apple products only buy Apple products. So if they're buying a watch, if they're buying a tablet, if they're signing up for Apple one, they're more likely to be a smartphone owner, you know, an io as smartphone owner. So you know, it's fair to expect that Apple could have you know, predicted that they would have

converted more Android users this year. And they've also got a very deep lineup that's capable of doing that and competing at lower price points. So again, I don't know what was going on when they did the end when they did the forecast, but there's you know, you know, six millions not a big number on top of ninety. You know, it's it's more than it's more than five, but it's not Demper said, it's not a big number.

When we talk about global technology the prospects of a recession, we're trying to look for clues, right of what's happening with the global consumer. What do you see broadly in the smartphone market globally? Are their markets where the consumers weak? Are they're spending habits that are changing? Yes, so I think, you know, certainly when we look at the numbers and we're talking to consumers, where are you you know what

concerns you write? Food is more expensive, you know, rents are up all right, Right, there's a few categories you know that I would say are certainly more essential than having the latest and greatest smartphone. Um but again, like you know, keep in mind, you know, the upgrades, like these phones are amazing, amazing feats of engineering. There are amazing devices, whether it's an iPhone device or it's you know,

one of the latest Android devices. Consumers are hanging onto these vices for you know, two, three, four years, and so that we saw consumers in United States buy an iPhone in the last twelve months is astounding on its own, and so that also could be contributing to a little bit of softer demands at you know, all of the price points as we go into the end of all right, forest to Research Vice President Julie Arsk, Thank you very much.

Coming up Amazon's ambient intelligence, how the company is looking to a more personalized and proactive future in its devices. Our conversation with Amazon's Dave Limp. Next, This is Bloomberg. On Wednesday, Amazon held its full Hardware event, where announced a bunch of new gadgets. I caught up with Dave Limp, amazon senior vice president for Devices and Services, right after

the event and also about the company's strategy. With so much competition in the space, what we're trying to do is build devices and services that mostly focused on the home, although increasingly in the car. That follow the pattern of what we call ambient intelligence, which is the ability for devices to be very very useful to customers when they're in the foreground and when they need it, but when you're not using it, they kind of disappear in the background.

And when we're doing when we're at our best, we're allowing customers to pick their heads up, enjoy the real world, enjoy their families, and let technology help that rather than being you know, absorbed in their phones or out in some metaverse somewhere. With inflation such as it is around the world, higher input costs. How conscious a decision was that with pricing to not raise prices with certain product lines.

I think we're always trying to you know, since the very beginning, our first Kindle, we've we have fifteen years ago, we've tried to make our products as affordable as possible, you know. We our strategy has been the same since the very beginning, which is we want to make money when customers use their products, not necessarily when they buy them. And so uh, we we are obviously looking always looking

at commodity costs. But but part of the ability to pass on that value to customers is that the businesses at a scale where we can buy in volume and and we want to give that value back to customers wherever possible. You mentioned the Kindle. It's a bit of a throwback, right, the first Amazon device, and you've added a stylus interesting products. What's the strategy with that. Do

you think that this is going to be a volume seller? Well, Kindle Scribe is in some ways, it's the Kindle we've always wanted to build, you know, and we have some great kindles we just announced some last last two weeks ago that are at but this one, as you mentioned, it's the first kindle you can write on, and it has a ten point three inch display that's incredibly high resolution. I but also as a stylist, and one that doesn't have a battery. You don't have to sink. It just works.

And when write on Kindle Scribe, it really does feel like you're writing on paper. It's something that's amazing. You kind of have to try it to see it. And uh, you know, I never try to predict volumes. Uh. What we try to do is build great products and let customers speak for themselves. I know for sure that I will be buying one of these, You'll be buying one.

But around the world that the consumer is feeling pain and at the same time there's evidence that consumer is all still spending at the higher end of the market. What are you saying in the markets that you operate in and the spending habits of consumers where they are putting cash awar to holding back. Yeah, obviously, we our first signal was a couple of months ago with Prime Day. We had we had a good Prime day. For my

part of Amazon's business, we uh. I think customers tend to look for value in times when the economy is tougher. It's hard to predict what's going to happen as we go into queue four. There's no question that there is tightening in the economy. Um, But I think what the best thing we can do is get our inputs right and build products that we think customers are gonna love. Price them, as you mentioned earlier, crisply so that they're affordable, and then you know the rest is going to be

up to up to the consumer. But I have I'm internal optimists, but I have a high level conviction there's going to be a lot of echoes and kindles and other products under people's trees this year. The deal with I Robot, I think we've got used last week that the FTC has made a second request for additional information. How optimistic are you that deal gets done and how

important is I Robot. Well, obviously we have to go through approve the approval cycles around the world, and until we do get through, those will continue to operate at arm's length as separate companies. But you know, I wouldn't have ever kind of sat down with Colin, if we didn't have optimism that we could get the get the

transaction done. Colin, who's the CEO of I Robot, is the kind of the most missionary entrepreneur, one of the most missionary entrepreneurs I've ever met, and I look forward to once we consummate the transaction to working with them even closer. You have really expanded the devices offering in recent years. There's so many product lines, product type. We didn't even get onto the new TVs um and some of the other devices aimed at kids. But all that

makes me think about your manufacturing footprint print globally. Now let's talk semiconductors. You know, how is supply chain for you? How is manufacturing and how are access to key chips that you need to go into these devices. I think we're coming out at the other end of at least for the products that are under my purview, of the

worst of the supply train crisis. I don't think it's by any means over We still see disruptions in the worldwide transportation network, especially if you're throwing things on ocean. UH and certain chip sets are still in shorter supply, but some of the more critical components, UH, you know, systems on a chip, the actual processors and our products. The supply looks brighter for them. When you look at UH display panels for things like tablets and TVs, that

supply looks better than it did a year ago. So again, I don't think we're through it, but I can start seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. That was Amazon's Dave Limp. Let's stick with Amazon's product unvailing and bring in Tom Forte if d a Davidson Tom a lot of products, some of them are faceless, right upgrades to existing lines. Some of them are You did any of that move the needle for you? Sure? So when I think about their strategy, I think of them as the low cost or one of the low cost

providers of hardware and the consumer electronics space. I think it's about time, and I think it should be a very popular product that they're adding a stylus to the Kindle. When I think of their different lines of consumer electronics products, Kindle's probably probably we're we would say Amazon is most dominant. Otherwise, when you think about a lot of their echo devices.

The good news is that Amazon makes a lot of devices that leverage Alexa, but a lot of other consumer electronic companies do too, So I think when you think about the products that are leveraging Alexa, it isn't just what Amazon is doing on the Echo device line, but the fact that so many manufacturers think so Nos as an example, are making products integrated with Alexa. That's the important thing there. So that was kind of my initial

take on their new hardware offering. And I'm fascinated at the Astro and I'm glad you talked to him about the i robot acquisition. So what is it about the roomba that attracted Amazon and why does it feel like it needed to make an acquisition there rather than extend what it's already doing with the Astro line up. The timing of this is interesting because we've just had news of a second Prime Day essentially next month. Do you expect consume is right now around the world to rush

out and alot these Amazon devices? Yes and no. So so let's start with the second prime Day in one calendar year. So it's a long time student of Amazon. I remember when they had the first Prime Day and it was in July, and the reason was they wanted to test their logistics to see if they were ready for their big sales days Black Friday Cyber Monday. So, in my opinion, having two Prime days encounter is actually

a sign of weakness. It means that they need a sale because their sales are not doing as well as they hope for. I also think they want to leverage their logistics to get as much of a return on that investment. So do I think investors or consumers rather will gobble up their consumer electronics devices at a second Prime Day? Generally speaking, they do well with Amazon devices on Prime Day, but as it pertains to the sales trends in general on the stock, I'm concerned that they're

having two sales in one year. I think that's a negative sign. Tom. I wouldn't you give me an explanation of why we care about Amazon devices business. They price them competitively, right, But it seems to me the idea here is just to bring more people into Prime, more people using Alecta products. They're not actually so focused on making money through the hardware, are they. You know, they're definitely the opposite of Apple, where Apple makes the majority

of its revenue from its hardware sales. For Amazon hardware is essentially an enabler. What can I give a consumer that will make it easier for them to buy products on Amazon? What can I give a consumer that will make it easier for them to watch videos on Amazon? So, in that regard, not the profit neutle mover. Certainly it is for Apple, but it can have a positive impact on their e commerce sales to the extent that everything they do makes it easier for the consumers to buy

products through Amazon. Hey, Tom, really quickly, you were concerned about the mixed reception for Rings of Power. I've been watching Rings of Power. Have the episode so far changed your mind? Okay, So I'm publishing a note tomorrow where I'm gonna talk about how I essentially felt sleep in episodes one, three, and four, and have a much episode five. Yet, So with approval rating and written Tomatoes, I'm very concerned about the billion dollars investment been made. Tom Forte, harsh

critic of d A. Davidson. Of course, thank you very much. Elon Musk asked a federal appeals court to throw out the deal he made with the SEC in eighteen over a so called Twitter sitter. Since a Tesla lawyer has screened all of Musque company related tweets. We believe after a tweet about taking Tesla private forced the SEC to act. Musk calls the Twitter Sitter agreement and a legal effort to muzzle him, adding that it's hindering his freedom of speech.

A judge refused Musque's last plea to end the Twitter sist a deal back in April, and Tesla's did Joe Gibier as a board member. Gabier is the co founder of Airbnb and last fourteen years has helped launch Airbnb's design studio and airbnb dot org, the company's nonprofit foundation. He recently stepped back from his full time role in

operations to pursue other ventures. Gibier replaces Larry Ellison on the board, and General Mills, the maker of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Annie's Box Pastors, is backing food tech startup grub Market. San Francisco based grub Market has raised a hundred and twenty million dollars in new equity from General Mills and other investors, including Tiger Global, and a two

billion dollar valuation. The startup offers software and an e commerce platform connecting farmers and key food suppliers with customers. Grub Market operates all across the US, South America, Asia, Europe, and Africa, and i p O could also be on the horizon with grub Market holding talks with underwriters. Bloomberg has reported this is Bloomberg Technology. I'm Ed Ludlow in New York. The popular messaging platform WhatsApp is more than

just an encryptive messaging app connecting people worldwide. It's become a major part of Wall Street communication. That's why regulators reach settlements with a dozen banks for failing to monitor employees communications on on unauthorized messaging apps like WhatsApp. Wall Street has been hit with more than two billion dollars of fines and what's become called the WhatsApp investigation. Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and City Group were among those penalized.

Bloomberg Street are Naturation is covering this story. Let's go back to the beginning. What is the activity and which apps are we talking about here? Again? And that's important because why we call it the WhatsApp problem. It's important that listeners understand that what we're really talking about is something that's dubbed or WhatsApp broke effectively, regulators want banks to ensure that they're monitoring all these messaging apps. They

are worried about the unauthorized use of these apps. So WhatsApp is one prominent example, but it could be Signal, could be telegramed, it could be any one of these apps that have gotten pop so popular in recent years. A lot of the communication between bankers and traders, their clients just inside the film has gravitated to these platforms. But archiving these chats, monitoring these chats, and compliance has

not kept pace with the growth and technology. There is this a pandemic story where we're all sort of at home, out of your office and communicating with each other in new ways. Or does it pre date that the pandemic is an accelerator for sure, But I think it's more of a technology story. You have just gotten used to the idea that people are just more comfortable using these

apps to communicate. Even someone sitting two seats down from you, you're more likely to send them a message rather than pick up the phone and call them or email them. That's why there's so much focus on these apps. And of course the pandemic played a role because you had a disparate situation where everyone left the officers, the officers

emptied out, and everyone is at home. And when you're at home, you're more likely to be more comfortable with the kind of apps you use anywhere when you're outside your usual eight to six schedule. These fines, seeing big, big numbers, why so hefty? It's extraordinary? Two billion dollars

cost your mind. Eight years back, when Mark Zuckerberg wanted to buy WhatsApp, we were all scratching our heads as to why they would buy something like that for twenty billion dollars in two Now we're talking about a fine that cruise as much as two billion dollars that in some ways it's truly crazy, because the previous highest fine for something like this, which is effectively a record keeping laps, was fifteen million dollars one five for Morgan Stanley back

in two thousand and six. Now each and every bank, at least the big banks are coming out there and paying two million dollars. This is the kind of fine you play pay when you find some sort of wrongdoing, when you bring down an insider trading cartel or something like that. But this, honestly is the reflection of the reality today, which is the Biden administration's approach to regulation. And that's what you're saying, playing out some of those

fines somewhat eye wars ring so bigger than others. I guess they like you see it on your screen. There there's a big institutions right that we're talking about the kind of paying the price for this. I guess the question is what happens next? What's the reaction? Tell me about the WhatsApp cop? Is a WhatsApp cop on wool Street. That's a mouthful that that certainly seems to be the funny byproduct of the saga. But we've created a new

compliance roll. All the banks that have that are part of the settlement have agreed with their SEC and CFTC to install a new confluence official whose role, effectively is to make sure that there are archiving and monitoring these communications properly. And we're more than happy to dub that role as the WhatsApp cop. What was the frustrations within the banks themselves? I think you know, they would argue, perhaps this is kind of a commonplace practice, but there's

a caution retail as well. It is it is a cautionary deal and of course, you can see the frustration, right Look look at everything that the regulators have put out there. When they talk about the messages they found, they talk about the great volume of messages. But it's

not like the unearthed some sort of fraud. It could very well have been everyday communication, could have been about work, but just that a regular everyday communication, whether it's about a new bond deal or something else that's going on. They shifted the platform from an email or an ib that they would normally use to these messaging apps. The regulators frustrations came through because they've got't necessarily monitor it and they just want to make sure that banks are safe.

And sorry, right well, Bloomberg, trida natarada, naturaja, and thank you very much. The European Union's foreign policy chief is warning of retaliation for any attack on Europe's energy networks. The EU suspects damage to two nord Stream underwater natural gas pipelines running from Russia to Germany was sabotage and

that they will support any investigation. Meanwhile, the CEO of dark Trace, one of the largest cyber security firms in Europe, says there is significant demand for business since the Russian War in Ukraine. Here's some of what Poppy Good Stuffson

told Bloomberg's Tom mckenn in London. Critical infrastructure is an area that absolutely has to be right at the cutting edge of adopting sort of cyberth principles because they are so so many businesses rely on their their products, whether that's energy or other sort of supplies, and this isn't something that new that's necessarily come out today, even with things like sort of Russia and crane earlier in the year, we have had seen significant demand for our products from

the critical national infrastructure sector purely for that reason because they are at heightened risk and there is such a dependence from that on their supply to so many other businesses, which particular areas isn't utility companies as energy companies and one of the specific demands that they need, the specific challenges they need addressed. It's all of the about just think about how many businesses depends on the services that

they supply, so utilities and energy. We have seen heightened demand in CROs in terms of Europe and in US, and that's because they're an easy target. If you are operating a business that typically can be reliant on very old legacy systems that have been around for decades. They're

not necessarily at the cutting edge of capability. But also, if you are looking to enact your cyber gains and use that to the nefarious reasons, there are a very high profile target where the consequences can be felt very very quietly, and therefore it makes a sort of ideal victim feeling you seeing you monitor this obviously on a daily, hourly basis, are you seeing a tick up of attacks

emanating from Russia. We're not in the business of attribution necessarily, so we're not necessarily saying this is coming from one nation or the other. But since the invasion of Ukraine we have seen an optic and attacks across the critical infrastructure sectors, particularly in Europe and the US in this environment of higher interest rates and slower growth recession concerns. Are you seeing reluctance from clients and customs? Are you

start need to see that? Ever way, I've answered, because I'm in past, I think to be honest, we are as a business, we're still quite a poor indicator of demands. More broadly, because we are still very much as supply constraint rather to man's constraints. So the our business growth so quick that I bring people in, so we're not necessarily a good proxy about what is happening in the market. More broadly, mark perspective, we're still seeing very strong demand

for our acquisition costs. Are they inevitably going to be moving higher in this environment? I think you're seeing inflating costs that are all over predominantly in terms of you see that in terms of employee costs and things like that. Okay, a few months ago Toma Bravo was in conversations with them, of course about the potential takeover. It didn't come to pass. Can you give us some some detail as to why

ultimately they walked away? I mean I had to be some fair as you can understand them phonily limited about what I can and can't say. But what I will say is we've loved being a public company and there's a whole ton of ideas. Was a question of pricing or do they find something that they didn't like? I would say it's no. These conversations leaked at the very very earlier stage of engagement with Tom Bravo that unfortunately became public, and you know, in September we said that

those conversations had ended. We have a legal obligation to explore any such office. But you know, if I was st where Termer Bravo is, I'll be looking across at the UK thinking, you know, it's a very cheap area to be able to come protect you decent takeover. Does the collapse of the pound make you a more attractive target? And arguing conversations with anyone else, I would speculate that if I was in the U S side looking over here at the UK, I would say, yeah, the the

UK does look cheap. But from my perspective and from my business, we're just really prioritizing or exploring all of the opportunities that we see ahead of us, and we've got a whole bunch of ideas, a whole bunch of innovation. We had new product launch over the summer and we're just really excited to get back to businesses year. That was Dark Tray CEO Poppy gas Staffson that the Bloomberg Text Summit in London coming up. Circle and robin Hood team up to offer its stable coin to retail traders.

Will discuss with the CEO of Circle next this is Bloomberg time now for our crypto report. Today we have the CEO behind one of the most populous stable coins in circulation. For that, we turned to Bloomberg's crypto contributor Sali. Thank you so much, Ed. And today we have Circle founder and CEO Jeremy Alaire. Thank you so much for joining us because you have this new deal. You've struck

this partnership with robin Hood. And I'm wondering, you're somebody that already works with so many institutions, what does this do to really add to your base of retail customers. Yeah, thanks, thanks so much for having me on. Um, we we announced a broad partnership with robin Hood. Here today it converge our first platform ecosystem conference. We've got thousands of people here in San Francisco, which we're pretty excited about.

And UM, this morning, UM, you know, on stage, uh, Robin Hood CTO you know, talked about this and what I can say is, you know, robin Hood is an amazing retail in best or platform. They have twenty three million users. UM. It really is sort of represents the kind of mainstream user participating in this more democratized financial system. And what we've done with robin Hood is a few things. I think the first is just making USDC one of the digital currencies that people can trade on on robin Hood.

They started with some of the you know, kind of traditional popular cryptocurrencies, but USDC has just become such a critical part of anyone that's operating in the digital assets space, whether you're using exchanges while it's defy and so just having that built into robin hood and their twenty three

million users is really powerful. The second thing really was, you know, they've launched a new wallet, a Web three wallet, and you know they're really trying to bring that huge user base they have into Web three and you know, making fiction lists fast and easy payments is a is a core part of what people want to be able to do in Web three and USDC is a core part of that value proposition and and built in part

of that. Well, for me, as you think about how core USDC is and the stable coin ecosystem is when it comes to the linkage between the traditional financial system and the crypto world, let's quick listen to her of what that church your own parallel had to say. Given that there's so much regulatory attention to take a listen to this sound bite. There's a real need for more appropriate regulation so that as as a DeFi expands and starts to touch more and more retail customers and that

sort of thing. Uh, so that appropriate regulation is in place. And I'm really curious here, who do you think is going to take the biggest lead here and really stepping in and setting the groundwork for the US And how soon do you expect it? Well, I mean, I think this is a critical issue, and I think there's bipartisan support for this idea that payment stable coins such as U s DC are a critical piece of how the

dollar is going to compete on the Internet. And the focus of policymakers, regulators like the FED and Treasury and others is we need to have a clear set of statutes for dollar stable coins in the United States, both to manage the risks but also to make it clear that this is a new model for using dollars on

the Internet. And I think that with that is going to come tremendous legitimacy for not just stable coins, but for the advancement of of digital assets as a as a core part of the financial system, core part of the financial system, and think about what's happening in China and hundreds of millions of accounts when it comes to the digital one already very early to really get behind a central bank digital currency. Do you think the US

is falling behind? You know, we like to say that the US is already winning the digital currency space race. Dollar digital currencies are the most widely used digital currencies on the Internet today, which says something which is the preference for the dollar, the power of the open innovation of blockchains, the power of private sector innovation in the space. That's all. He created a leadership position for the dollar

and for the United States. Now, what the United States needs to do is codify that and and solidify that so that these digital currency dollars like USDC and others that many other firms will likely issue, can become the foundation for how financial products and services and payments and commerce are going to work on the Internet. And so really this is an opportunity for the U S who

sees that existing leadership position and strengthen it. Well, we're also coming at this conversation at a time of just tremendous strength in the dollar. And if you look at something that Sam bankmen, Freed tweeted just earlier this week, Boy, would the world be thinking differently about crypto price moves if they measured it for verse is world currency baskets instead of just US dollars. I'm wondering how you interpret that and what that means for currencies around the world

in relationship cryptocurrency. I mean, look, it's a it's a fascinating time from a macro perspective. UM, I'm gonna be talking in a few minutes here. It converged with Larry Summers about that macro outlook and out the role of the dollar and what role the dollar is playing not just in currency markets today, but the role that the dollar is going to play on the internet. UM. I think right now it's a pretty it's a pretty pivotal moment.

And um, I think the structure of the international monetary system is at stake, and there's a new kind of

competition that's happening in currencies. And I think, you know, payment stable coins and this form of digital currency aligns with these kind of changing macro dynamics, and so I think play together give us some more specificity here, what does the future look like in a world where currencies have been kind of all over the place more recently, A lot of people really worry about the value of what they're holding. So what role very specifically does a

stable coin play. Especially outside of the US, We've we've seen an incredible amount of adoption of dollar digital currencies like USDC all around the world. The demand for being able to transact in the dollar and using it as a medium of exchange on the internet is very high. I think that says a lot about the strength of

the dollar as an international currency. And I think the growth of these networks, the growth of these blockchain networks, the proliferation of more and more of these digital wallets like robin Hood or coin base or so many other products that are out there. Um are are you know, are going to make these kinds of fiat digital currency is even more popular in the world, And I think that's you know, I think that's a you know, it's a tremendous opportunity for the United States. Now, A question

for you just about circle itself. Do you have any fundraising plans? What's next for you guys as you grow, and what's the status of going public? Yeah, so, um circles in a really strong financial position. We've been growing pretty rapidly over the past couple of years. You can see that in in sort of the growth in USDC. The company's more than doubling in size this year, and we're we're in in the best financial position that we've

really ever been in. We are in a registration process with the SEC to become a public company, and we continue to go through that process of becoming qualified to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange and and hopefully we'll get there in the near future. What's the competitive landscape here? Do you think that USDC we'll look see us d T very soon tether in market cap? Why do you think that hasn't happened yet? And when

will it happen? Do you think? Yeah, I don't like to make you know, timeframe predictions or things like that.

I think we've always just been very heads down focused on building something with a lot of trust and transparency, doing it in a regulated environment, partnering with great institutions, with great companies to continue to build this out, working with the developer community to grow this and I think if we continue to do that, the rest the rest of the work kind of gets done and so we're in the very early stages of the adoption of of

dollar stable coins and technology like this. You know, we think the total addressable market for this kind of technology is M two money, which is in the tens of trillions of dollars globally, and so it's super early stage. UM, We're just focused on just trying to build infrastructure that works for developers, businesses, people, users all around the world, and we'll just keep trying to improve that. Jeremy Lair, that Circle's founder and CEO, on the heels of a

new big deal with Robin Hood. Thank you so much for your time. Add back to you. Thanks so Nali. Now to the latest with Congress is battle to regulate big tech. Supporters of a landmark bill to restrict Internet giants from favoring their own products has a tough road ahead now lawmakers are trying to jam the legislation through the brief lane duck period after the elections. Here to discuss is Bloomberg's Emily burn Baum. Emily, why haven't we

voted on this yet? Hi? Thanks so much for having me. UM. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer pledged earlier this year that he would put this legislation on the floor for obviously been months, and that Um, we're hearing that he simply doesn't think it has the votes. The supporters of the legislation, such as Minnesota Democrat Amy Klobshar, say they absolutely do have the votes. You just have to put it on the floor to test that. Um. Schumer is uncomfortable with that.

He doesn't want people vote ahead of the mid term. So that's why it has gone this long without going to a vote. Emily, I'm reading your story on the Bloomberg terminal on bloomberg dot com title big text fos Pin fading antitrust hope on Lane Duck vote. Now, I think I'm right in saying that this final push for legislation was plotted over pretzels and beer. Give me the background. Yeah, So there was an October Fest, theamed Happy Hour gathering

UM last week. Basically, Uh, it was activist UM Congressional Aid supporting the legislation, FTC chair Lena Cohn, d O j ANTI Trust head Jonathan Cantor so some of the most important people in the Biden administration and in Congress, as well as Elizabeth Warren UM plotting out how are we going to get this bill across the finish line before the end of the year. UM. It looks likely

that the GOP is going to retake the House. UM, the GOP is not going to take up this bill in its current form, especially under a potential speaker Kevin McCarthy. So they they were just trying to strategize and get together. Well quickly, Emily, how do they regroup? So are really pushing for the lame duck vote? They think, fine, have the mid terms pass and then there's no reason for

vulnerable Democrats not to want to take this vote. They're going to spend the next couple of months firming up the whip count UM and getting people on the record saying I support this legislation. UM, in a lastic effort. All right, Bloomberg's Emily burn Boum, thank you for that. That does it For this edition of Bloomberg Technology Thursday, we have Desmond Limb from Workstream to talk employment, particularly with frontline workers. Don't forget you can check out our podcasts.

You can find it on the terminal as well as online on Apple, Spotify and also on I Heart Radio. This is Bloomberg