Meme Stock Mania, A16z Funding Adam Neumann's Startup

else is back? Adam Newman. Yes, we work, founder who lost billions for investors in one of texts most spectacular flame out. He's just raised money yet again, getting the biggest check ever. Written by Andres and Harowitz. Silicon Valleys water cooler is all a buzz. We will take you there. And big tech companies like Microsoft and Amazon have pledged to go green, but critics say they're also helping big oil prolong the fossil fueled age. We'll tell you how.

Let's take a look now at a three week chart of Bed Bath and Beyond. The stock up four d despite at least three downgrades on Wall Street. Shares were halted after spiking this morning. A Shore sign the meme traid is alive and well, I want to bring in Richie Conna, now CEO of stock twits, a social platform for investors. So Richie, curious what kind of activity you saw on stock twits ahead of this surge. Hey, Emily,

thanks for having me on um. Yeah, so we saw, you know, kind of at the end of July, beginning of August, we saw bed Bathroom Beyond rocket up to uh, you know, one of on the top leader boards in terms of activity. So since August first, it's been second only to a m C and activity and you know, historically lastics once bed Bathobyond has not cracked the top you know, ten twenty um. And also since August first, we've seen it grow it's followers by thirty you know,

approaching fifty thou followers on stock twits. And I think the most interesting thing also has been the stocked with social sentiment over the last you know, four or five months.

Since about April has been mostly negative on bed Bath and Beyond, and then there was a spike in early July in its sentiment, and then since August first, it has moved to an extremely positive position and has maintained that position and you kind of see that correlated with a run up in price, you know, from the five dollars that it's been at for most of the last uh, you know, six plus months to I don't know where

it closed that today twenty bucks. Right, So we've seen a lot of really interesting activity and activity that started in July onto bed Bath and Beyond side. So here's a question, why why are retail investors on this train? Yeah? I think you know, there's a couple of factors in bed Bath Beyond is probably the interest one. But overall, meme stocks that you know we've seen over you know, has has seen less capitulation and um in the retail markets then some of the other ones. So AMC has

maintained its position, you know, game Stop has been steady. Uh, and so the interest there from the retail world has has maintained better than some of the other stocks, uh, you know, Bed Bath and Beyond. I think there's probably a lot of factors at play here. There's you know, the short interest report that came out at the end of July. Uh. You know, I think the Ryan Cohen news obviously today yesterday was probably a big catalyst and factor.

And you know, in the summer we've had generally speaking, you know, low low volumes uh and uh, and so I think all these pieces come together, and retail definitely still seeks out these you know, kind of um opportunities. Retail trainers and investors seek out these opportunities of dislocations, whether it's short interest or or just price movements. And Bed Bath and Beyond has been the beneficiary as a stock over the last you know, three weeks, I guess, right.

So we'll talk a little bit about the power of Ryan Cohen in particular. Obviously he's the chair of of Game Stock, which is sort of the original meme stock. But how much of this is driven by him and how much of this is truly driven by general retail investor sentiment. Um. You know, I think definitely in the in the retail fanning community, the Wall Street best community, you know, the the kind of meme stock community, Ryan Cohne seems to have uh, some pretty significant sway on

the markets. You know, I don't know personally, I can't speak to anything of that nature, but you know, I think if you look at you know, when he takes when he takes positions, the markets move, right. So the move we saw today and that Beth and beyond after already a massive move. Uh. You know, it can probably highly be attributed to the news that he took, you know, the out of money call auctions. Uh. You know, I think that came out last night or this morning or

whatever it did. But so, you know, it's he's an interesting person in this place obviously, uh, kind of first with the game stop, but you know, uh, you know, has has made a lot of moves over over the last eighteen months that have definitely been followed by the retail community in the investing community. So you know, I think you can't ignore what he does, at least in short term bursts. In general. You know, we're hearing you know, we've seen this talked about on Reddit, We're seeing the

stuff talked about on Twitter. What would you say the role is of social media in stock pork at movements these days? You know, I think the rule of social media and you know, kind of social platforms in general is uh, you know, we do disseminate, you know, information quickly, We allow you know, kind of the communication and sharing

of ideas. Uh. And and I think you know, the ability for retail, especially to you know, kind of communicate, you know, in some extent they've organized in the past, right like as as we remember in the uh kind of the major meme stock Moment of of twenty one.

Uh And I think, you know, social media has a strong role to play, and you know, platforms like stock twits to you know, kind of give retail a place to you know, learn to collaborate, to share and uh and and you know ideally to you know, kind of do it in a way where they where they profit from it and they learn in a positive way. So uh,

it's it's a powerful tool. I think, you know, it can be used for good and bad and and uh you know, but there's a lot of uh, you know, education and learning and you know, partnerships that kind of come out of it from from a community perspective. I think any regulatory concerns for stock twits h at a moment like this, um not, you know, no, not not so much. I mean, we're we're you know, we do we have our house rules and stuff, but those are our rules and uh, um, you know, we cooperate where

you know, there are issues you know, potentially on the board. Um, you know, we do know obviously some of the bigger agencies like the SEC and stuff are are paying attention. But no, I mean, you know, we don't you know, see any massive regulatory issues um, you know, along the lines of social media. Not in not in the current kind of environment. I don't think. All right, uh rich kind of CEO of stock Twitz, thank you for joining us on the latest addition to the meme craze. All right,

coming up. Silicon Valley's best known venture capitalist just wrote its biggest check ever to controversial We Work founder Adam Newman, sparking an outcry about yet another tech guy failing up. This is Gloomberg. Tech venture capital pioneer and reason Harrowitz has just made one of its biggest ever bets on the man behind we Work. Will someone call it the we Work disaster? The firm writing it's the largest single check investment million dollars to Flow, a residential real estate

startup founded by Adam Newman. According to Mark entres and Flow is rethinking the entire value chain, from the way buildings are purchased and owned, to the way residents interact with their buildings, to the way value is distributed among steakholders. Joining me now to discuss Bloomberg Businessweeks. Max Chafkin a lot of tweets today about this. Max, a lot of tweets, what's Adam Newman's angle here and why is Mark Andreason

betting on it? Right? Well, it feels like and again the details here are are so sketchy, and I think that's part of the reason that that there's a lot of skepticism. It feels like Adam Newman is trying to do something very similar to what he did with We Work, which is to take a traditional real estate business. With We Work, of course it was commercial real estate offices. Here we have with flow residential real estate apartments and kind of give it a text sheen, and that worked

for for uh, you know, quite a while. With We Work. We saw the valuation climbed to something like fifty billion dollars um and then of course, um, as you said, it kind of fell apart and and what we have now is a much more conventional real estate company that a lot of investors lost a lot of money in. So it's sort of hard to understand why Mark and Reason, why Andreas and Horrowich would be writing such a large check, although you you just have to think they see this

as you know, another long shot. Bet you know, maybe this is a contrarian angle. It kind of seems weird to have, you know, backing a billionaire as a contrarian angle. But you know, Mark Andres is more successful than I am, so maybe he knows something I don't. Well, mass actually sound lost almost nine billion dollars on we work. Why do you think, Mark, Why does Mark Andreason think that's not going to be his fate? I mean, is he the smartest VC ever or is he also being hoodwinked? Well?

I mean, you know, of course, Adam Newman, you know, if you if you read some of the published accounts, was very effective at talking rich people out of their money, and so so that maybe, um, part of what's going on here. Andres and clearly has you know, a soft spot for trolling and that sort of thing, So so

maybe that is playing into it. Um. You also, if you read between the lines of the blog post he wrote that was published yesterday, it sounds like there's gonna be some sort of crypto or tokenized the angle here, which of course Andres and Horowitz has been um very into. I mean, I think the jury is still very much

out on whether or not that's gonna work. Um, but it feels like, hey, maybe we've got we work, but with apartments and a little bit of crypto mixed in and you know, yeah, you be the judge of whether that's a good idea or not. Sounds like a recipe for something, all right, Bloomberg's Max Chafkin, thanks for weighing, and we're gonna get some more reaction to this now.

The real question, of course, is in a valley where it is notoriously hard for some founders to raise money, why is it so easy for some founders who failed or messed up to raise money again. Alison Buyers, an early stage founder and angel investor, tweeted, I'm obviously outraged by the A sixteen Z news. If you follow me, rage is likely all over your feet. I'm also not surprised at all. This isn't new, it is how VC operates. Joining me now, Alison Buyer's founder and CEO of Scrubys

Allen Alison, why do you feel so much rage? Yeah? So uh. Whenever something big like this comes out a big funding round, a lot of underrepresented founders, particularly women people of color, are asked why why the outrage? Why do you have this emotion? Uh, well, it's because only two percent of VC dollars go to women, two percent go to Latin X founders, point six seven percent go to black founders, and there are less than one hundred black women total who have raised more than a million

in DC funding. That's the outrage. It's visceral. It hits you, but then it also quickly becomes a muted rage because, as they tweeted, it is expected. It is not a surprise. We are used to it. But you you have to feel that rage when you are part of that community that is just historically blocked from accessing this funding. That's it. We waved out to a lot of female investors today. Privately they feel like you. Publicly they don't want to

talk about it. Why do you think that is? Uh well, it is really difficult to talk about in any industry where you are marginalized, or where you can have repercussions for speaking out, it can be a scary thing to do. Right. There's risks. There's risks to my business, there's risks to those who associate with me when I am outspoken. But I also really believe that in order to have any kind of change or awakening of these reactions within other

populations and segments. You can do something about it. You have to talk openly about it. And to me, it's just a clear choice in the community that comes around in and opportunities like this that come from it is how you catalyze public discourse and really make a change. So here's what Mark Andreson wrote about this. He says, Adam is a visionary leader who revolutionized the second largest

asset class in the world, commercial real estate. Adam and the story of lee work have been exhaustively chronicled, analyzed, and fictionalized, sometimes accurately. We understand how difficul that is to build something like this, and we love seeing repeat founders build on past successes by growing from lessons learn.

What's your response to that? So my response to that is, regardless of anything or what you believe may or may not have been fictionalized, he knowingly perpetrated fraud and lost billions of dollars. It's a fact. What is a major

prestigious investment house doing backing fraud a second time? There is no excuse for that, and there has to be the ability to separate what is a good business idea that has the potential to be a good investment from the person who is behind that idea and executing on it. And what I would say is, let's let's think about where does and Reason's money come from or any investment house. It comes from endowment, it comes from wealthy individuals, it

comes from pensions, it comes from other fiduciary backers. Is that where those people want their capital to be deployed? And Reason is the steward of that capital? Do they want three hundred and fifty million dollars in a single check, the largest check written to go to a person who knowingly committed fraud and lost billions of investor dollars to me, I don't know how you justify that. Taking on and Reason Harrowitz Allison is bold. I mean you might never

get a check from them. Why take that risk? Okay? I honestly what is signaled to the world and particularly to underrepresented founders. Again, only two of females have written two percent of VC dollars go to women. I don't think I am getting a check from them, But also so it signals that their check is not for me. Unfortunately, it signals that venture may not be for many founders,

and that's just not true. Um, But you do have to be intentional and realistic about where you put your time as a founder if you want to build a successful company, and intentional about whose money it is that you're taking. For me. Ethics, business ethics and competency and honesty are paramount along with the viability of the idea of my business and the difference that I want to make in this industry. I do not want investors who

don't believe in that. I do not want an investor who clearly says it is okay that you overstated yourself and your business. We're still going to write you a check. We're ignoring that to the exclusion of others who have more viable business ideas and better business ethics. You allude to that in your jet where you say founders value your time. Getting a meeting does not equal getting a check.

Choose widest ly. You also told to Crunch you could be mad about this all day long, but you have a lot of other female founder you know what to do. What do you what do you mean by that? I assume you're talking about all the extra bird and that comes with being a female founder what's all this extra female founder stuff. Yes, of course, I think it's that sentiment again, it's that muted rage. It's the it's the known element for anyone who is on the receiving end

of this that this is how it is. And if we're going to run our businesses, we have to run our businesses. It is harder for us. The numbers don't lie. We do not get the funding, we do not get the resources, we do not have the access to the networks. Are metrics that we are assessed by for signals of growth and potential are much harder than others. And this goes for women, but also a lot of other underrepresented groups. Uh, and you just have to keep going. I don't have time.

I don't have time for this to consume my day. I'm building a successful business and I'm going to earn a profit for my investors. So yeah, I have my bleek to do. I gotta go do it. Let's talk about that. Your company, SCRUBYUS helps companies, helps people with their own pitching. What's your big idea? Yeah, so, um, thank you for bringing up SCRUBYUS. Um. So, our company

it's two years old. We're started to extem from my last experience where I did successfully raise ten million for a startup medical device company that I help launch and co run, where I experienced extreme gender bias during the

fundraising process. So with scrubyus UH, we are product tizing what you would get from working with a pitch coach or having access to resources that teach you how investors think, so that you can present yourself as an investible because if you have been traditionally blocked from accessing those resources, whether by network or whether because of funds, because those are very expensive things to access for quality material, you don't know that you are not presenting in a compelling way.

It is not intuitive to understand how investors think. UH. And then on the other side of that, we are building, not yet launched. We have launched that founder side, a data driven way to curate in a hyper curated way what investors see that so that it will speak to them and what they want to write checks to both the idea and the person, which is where we need the checks from at the early stage. Allison, thank you for having the current to talk to us today, UM

and for sharing our story. Appreciate you stopping by. Thanks founder and CEO Alison buyers a few other stories we're watching. Coin Bay shares fell as much as seven percent today after announcing in a blog post that it will temporarily pause new Ethereum and the r C twenty token deposits

during the merge. It is a temporary precautionary measure. Theorium anticipates the merge will be completed on or around September and after a number of delays, Apple has set us September fifth deadline for its corporate workers to be in the office at least three days a week. COVID surges delayed the company's plans multiple times. Apple has been making

other COVID related adjustments. It's also dropped its mask mandate in office common areas, and according to people familiar with the matter, Apple is laid off many of its contract based recruiters. In the last week. About a hundred contract workers fired at the world's most valuable company were told these cuts were made due to changes in Apple's current business needs. We reported last month the company was joining many other tech firms and hitting the brakes on hiring.

Welcome back to lumber Technology and Emily Changin's fan Francisco President Biden has now signed the seven billion dollar healthcare, Climate and Tax bill into law, capping more than a year of negotiations, as Democrats had into mid terms this fall. Known as the Inflation Reduction Act, the bill aims to reduce inflation while encouraging greener industries to develop. And big tech has been vocal about wanting to go green for some time now, except big tech has actually been helping

big oil make more profits than ever. Let's hear more about how Bloomberg's Mark Bergen, who covers Alphabet, joins US. Now, So, Mark, is there some hypocrisy here? I sense that's certainly the criticism from both from outside environmentalists and then from you know, even employees at these companies. So Microsoft actually has been the leader and the energy market UM Paul, coming closely

behind mine by AWS, Amazon, UM. You know, these companies will say and have said multiple times that the reasons that they're purnering with the oil and gap industry is to help them with the energy transition to clean, renewable sources of low carbon. We know we started off this report to sort of interrogate that idea. It looks like so far a lot of the work has been their existing oil and gas production, whether that's making that more efficient in some cases, you know, the the oil and

gas companies say they're lowering the carbon footprint of those operations. UM. You know, there's there's certainly evidence that they haven't slowed down oil production. And especially now when you're seeing gas prices but so high this summer, there's there's political demand for the oil companies to be producing more UH, and the cloud companies are really there's powerful data assets that

let them do that more efficiently. I recently spoke with Thomas Carrie, and the head of Google Cloud, about Google Clouds deal with Saudi around COO. Take a listen to what he had to say. We work with their system integration division to provide our technology to customers in different parts of the Middle East. We said that again and again that we don't work with the oil and gas division within the ram cole or with the system integreation of our outcome. Does what do you say? Said? They're

underscore what UM you're trying to explain here? I think so. I mean, you know, there's certainly employees at Google have been very vocal about this, UM as of employees in Amazon and Microsoft and in some ways, if you're you know, just a Google shareholder, you might think, well, I want

them to be more active in the industry. Like there's a lot of money in the oil and gas sector right now, whether that's their their regular sort of production and exploration businesses, and even some of this, you know, the Chevron and and VP and these big majors have talked about a big game about investing a lot of money in reeable energy. And so I think in some ways Google is sort of and behind this sector. Whether or not that's because they intentionally sort of put one

arm behind their back as far as limiting their their work. Um, but I do think that's that's attention, you know, but it doesn't seem to be slowing down Microsoft and Amazon. And in their defense, they're saying that, you know, these oil companies wouldn't be able to move into the renewables and clean energy as quickly without us. Interesting, all right, We'll continue to watch your coverage on this, Bloomberg's Mark Brikin, thank you well. The Inflation Reduction Act, the lower drug

costs as well. I want to bring in Jason Kelly, now the CEO of the biotech firm Get Go bioworks to discuss. So, Jason, how is this bill being signed into law impact your corner of the biotech universe. Yeah, there's actually two reason bills. So there's the Chips in Science Act and then the Inflation Reduction Act. Both both of them are relevant in biotech. Um. So, on the Inflation Reduction Act, you saw these you know, forty tax credits being expanded. You know that that's really to create

you know, a growing market for carbon capture. And and I think biology if you like look out the window right now, you will see plants out there pulling CEO two out of the air and fixing it. Um you know, uh, and and so biology we see as one of the few really scalable technologies for doing carbon capture. But I think the Chips Bill actually is just as important from my standpoint. Why do you think it's so important? Yeah, So, so if you look at if you look in that bill,

I think two things are critical. So one, I think you see the U s sort of kind of getting our mojo back when it comes to like industrial policy and the and the government saying hey, this sort of technology is important for us to have on shore. Um you know, actually get Ginko. We just acquired a company on in California. Are announced that we're gonna acquire a company in California called Examergen. You know, this is a really build on the foundry technology we have at Ginko.

You know, my view is we we want to be doing that so that we're not doing a bio chips bill, you know, twenty years from now and having to bring that back on shore. These types of growth of these bio foundries here in the US, I think is important, and you see that reflected in the bill. You know, they it directs a National Engineering Biology R and D Initiative where OSTP is is supposed to direct NSF and d O E and d O D to spend on this.

And then also that has the OSTP established a National Genomic Sequencing strategy, So you actually see bio in the bill alongside chips. So so I think it's a really uh it's a good signal by the government that these types of technologies are critical for the U. S. You've become a sort of regular voice for US through the pandemic. What are the biggest post pandemic storylines in biotech right

now that aren't being talked about enough. Yeah, So I think the big one UM is going to be certain types of technologies that got built out in the during the pandemic are going to stick around for ongoing prevention. So we actually just announced yesterday morning, UM is up to sixty one million dollar contract with the Centers for Disease Control here in the US to do monitoring on an ongoing basis at airports in the US where we basically collect samples from plans that come in internationally and

then sequence the DNA to look for new variants. And this program we did as a pilot with the CDC caught the first cases of b A two and b A three uh in the US that we're sequenced. Well, now now that CC is funding this up to have it stick around, I mean to me, this type of thing eventually will be kind of like a smoke detector, right it we should be on the lookout for infectious disease. And that's a change. I think that happened because of COVID,

But we'll stick around after COVID. Are we prepared to go back to school? You know? As a parent, I feel like there are still conflicting messages about masks. No masks testing, Like, what are the rules supposed to be? Yeah, so so CC did just update some some guidance on this. So I think where we're headed towards is I think you're gonna see the SAC starting to reflect a little

more how people have been operating. I think you're gonna see you seeing relief in some of the things like the distancing rules and mask wearing making it easier where if you had an exposure, you don't need to quarantine, you know, just to be clear, if you have COVID you still need to quarantine, right, So I think there's been some misinterpretation a little bit on that. You know, so if you're a positive or COVID, you should quarantine, but for folks that have been exposed you don't need to.

That's gonna help a lot um in terms of having classes full. I think the regular monitoring what you know, which we do, and as you know, like you know ten or fifteen states across the country where you're doing

weekly testing in a group. This actually allows for schools to stay open, right because you can identify, you know, if there's a positive case in the class, you can pick it out, send that one student home to quarantine but not the whole class, and then prevent big outbreaks in schools, which I think if we let it just kind of rip, you will see a lot of that type of disruption, you know, in various places. And so so I think you'll end up seeing monitoring stay, you know,

masking go, distancing go. And then the big wild card is is there some new variant that flips that all on its head and that's certainly still in the range of possibilities. Well, on that note, do you think there will be a universal COVID vaccine in the future or no? Because you know, the virus is just gonna keep changing. So I mean, you know, I think you will see the virus keep changing. UM. You know, I think people

are working on this. There's ways to get at it in the in the scope of biotech, you know, like over the next tense what of years, I think we should will get dramatically better at this UM. But we you know, obviously we've been fighting flu and we do updated vaccines annually. I think you'll see things like that

in the near term. But folks are definitely working on that UM and and so you know, we you know, we can hope, but I'd say in the near term it's more likely to be just updated versions of the vaccine. All right, well, we can hope, indeed can go. Bioworks CEO Jason Kelly always good to have you, Jason, thanks for stopping by. Alright, coming up, why is Jesse Pale still so bullish on bitcoin? More on that and wider institutional sentiment on crypto next, Mrs Bloomberg. It's hard to

know what the private markets, you know. Obviously we were not tracking the price UH on a minute by minute basis like markets are, so it's it's really hard to know. You know. We haven't been out raising capital. We've got a very long runway cash in the bank. We're profitable, so we don't need to go do another financing anytime soon. I think we'll probably wait for the market to improve before we do another another round. It is time now

for our crypto report. And that was cracking CEO Jesse Powell talking about what he thinks of the current crypto bear market in an interview earlier on bloom Box Crypto Show with Kaylee Lines. Let's talk about it more with our own crypto contributor, Snelli Bosti. CHANNELI give us an update on the crypto markets and whether Jesse Powell is right by just waiting it out. Well, Jesse Powell had bought in more out about eighteen thousand, and you saw

bitcoin did reach twenty five thousand for a bit. This month it has come down below two thousand again. So where does that leave us, Emily? It doesn't leave us at the price that he thought it would hit it last year. Do you remember he told you and me that bitcoin would be worth Lamborghini. But even though it has not hit that price, you do see it about half the price it was at this time last year,

but double where it was two years ago. It'll be interesting to see the market kind of sort out the natural price of bitcoin as you make it through another cycle. I wanted to also point out a theoryum on the month, because you do see again on the month, you do see the price rising because of that anticipation of the merge. But in more recent days that excitement has worn off just a little bit. You have it rolling around eighteen

thousand seven d seven right now. It did peak above two thousand this month with that anticipation, anticipation of the merge. I know we're going to talk a little bit more about that next um alright, shall I stick with us? I want to talk about this more and how bitcoin startups are trying to secure capital as as the crypto winter continues. Um our investors buying the industry back up? Are they staying cautious? Let's talk about that with at

least Kill Lean, founder managing partner of still Marks. So at least are you on the bullish side like Jesse Powell or somewhere else on the spectrum. We're varia bullish both about Bitcoin, the asset and the underlying protocol, and we have to be because entrepreneur activity has never been

more robust. In fact, we've seen a pickup in sort of the tests that people are willing to take during this period when the market is more quiet, When we're in the bearer market and there's less consumer activity, it's a great time to both dig into the metrics that you've produced in bull market times as well as to experiment. And that's what we're seeing now from top founders. What do you make of the merge because you saw this news coming out about coin based really looking to pause

transactions in and around the merge. Clearly there's going to be some technical difficulties around it as people try to scam others. That was a warning that they sent out. What are you thinking will be near term issues and what is a long term prospect? Well coin base coin bass is note that they're pausing deposits and withdrawals for eight I think is something that's expected, but it points out to us the tradeoffs is using a centralized exchange

to hold to your cryptocurrency. Of course there's some opportunities and using a custodian, but the advantage is to people using self custody that they themselves set the rules for how they use their Bitcoin or their eth or other forms of crypto assets. Now, looking ahead to eat two point oh, I think that we know we know that there's risks and that the etherean community is hoping that there's great reward. But one of the things to look out for is the centralizing forces of moving from proof

of work to prove a stake. Of course, we know that the majority of the states, the vast majority of the state is belonging to these large institutions, and so those folks, of course are exposed to US regulators and have been tested very recently with O fact coming out against Tornado cassion, and the same institutions that comprise the majority of state each in fact, are those that have

complied within days to O fact sanction of Tornado. I'm so glad you brought up Tornado cash because earlier today Jesse Powell did say that the shutdown was unconstitutional. I'm wondering how you see this debate really playing out in the market, the good, the bad, and what behaviors might not be accepted among these companies moving forward. It's hard to know what regulators are going to do, but it's easy to know how centralized institutions are going to respond.

They're going to comply, and that's the value, of course of decentralization. So you know, the bitcoin leads with decentralization. What that means is that when looking at how the protocol is secured, Bitcoin finds it most important to make sure that the protocol is secured in a decentralized fashion and that any individual user can do two things. One, they can validate the code bitcoins, um core protocol and its payments and more. Protocol or open source users can

know the rules the software rules of these systems. But number two, users can participate in validating the accuracy of the ledger themselves. That's something that's much easier to do in Bitcoin than in other protocols, and one of the reasons it's important to be able to do that is sort of being demonstrated by the news of the last couple of weeks and the implications of UM governments imposition of UM regulations, for instance, regulations to prevent things like

money laundering. We're seeing that happen now with Tornado Cash, and you know that some of the most critical services in the dearium space has has felt the need to compline have quickly done so, making users that have received even passively transactions from Tornado cash UM sort of lose access to services that they depended on. Alice I recently sat down with coin based CEO Emily Choi to talk about their partnership with black Rock. Take a listen to

what she had to say. I have wanted to do that black Rock partnership since the day I joined coin Base, So for this to come together now, actually during the crypto winter, is such an incredible testament to where we are, where they are, where their customers are. And I think the most important point is it speaks to institutional customers, very traditional institutional customers wanting to get crypto acid exposure. She said, to expect more partnerships like this, but every

day there are more bumps in the crypto road. You know, how is this all impacting? Give us a temperature of investor sentiment, institutional sentiment. So the black Rock and coin Based partnership will launch bitcoin only a black Rock is dealing, is allowing its institutional investors to participate, to buy bitcoin and to trade bitcoin via coin Based, while still using black Rocks software for management and for risk analysis. This

I think was a response. We see it as a clear response to the demand of the very traditional institutions that are served by black Rock. Now it's important to note here is that providing a new on ramp in a familiar environment and with familiar tools is likely to

act as a very significant catalyst for institutional adoption. I want to flip this for a moment, though, Emily and say that, well, while we're seeing traditional institutions adot bitcoin like black Rock, we know that some of the most significant and important adoption of bitcoin and of bitcoin's payments network is happening in emerging markets. And so these two forms of adoption are happening simultaneously and I think add to sort of the fundamental value of the coin that

Jesse from Crackman spoke to earlier. Mm hmm. Alice, Colleen still Mark Capital, thank you so much for sharing your views with us today as well as our own. Amazon is fighting back against the FTC, and a filing made public on Monday, Amazon claims that FTT staff have made unduly burdensome demands on the e commerce giant as it keeps investigating its subscription services here for more on this, bloom ex Emily Berm bomb with us now and Amazon also claiming that the FTC is harassing Jeff Bezos. How

so yeah. So. In this filing made public yesterday, Amazon claims that UM the FTC has been overreaching in their ongoing consumer textion investigation into Amazon subscription services. So that includes Prime and it's actually expanded to include Audible, Kindle and some other of Amazon's UH services. So they UM the FTC issued what's called civil investigative demands UM, which are essentially subpoenas UM to twenty former and current Amazon employees.

They served them at their houses and that includes Jeff Bezos and Andy Jazz, the two top executives at Amazon. UM and they say it was unnecessary to give them to Jasse and Bezos. UM. These are about a lot of different parts of the business. These are the highest level executives. UM. You know, there's nothing this is what Amazon says. They say, there's nothing that Jasse and Bezos can give you that you can't get from documents and

lower level executives. Is this unusual? It's actually extremely unusual, UM in how confrontational it is. What's typical is that companies will always fight to narrow down subpoenas and civil investigative demands that they get from the government. UM. But what's atypical is how public this is, how aggressive they are in their rhetoric, you know, calling this very unusual, perplexing UM, and UM asking the FTC to par it down in such a public way. Remind us why the

FTC is investigating Amazon and the status of this case. So, the FTC has been investigating Amazon UM for several years now. It actually began under the Trump administration UM when they were given the power to investigate Amazon over antitrust UM concerns. UM. It's gotten broader since then. This particular investigation that we're talking about is a consumer protection investigation into whether Amazon makes it too difficult for consumers to opt out of

Amazon Prime or other subscription services. But this is only one part of a sweeping investigation that looks at all parts of Amazon's business, including cloud, including UM streaming. So when could we expect this US to draw to some sort of conclusion. The filing says that the FTC intends to make a decision about whether to sue Amazon over

the subscription issue by the fall. UM. This is probably going to prolong it, so it's probably going to take UM more time than that, you know, a couple of months, UM. But what's clear from the filing is FTC staff are under a lot of pressure by UM the commissioners, including FCC chair Lena con to get something done by the end of the year. All right, Well, we'll continue to follow your reporting on this. Bloomberg's Emily Burnbaum for US

in Washington. Thank you. Adding so that doesn't for this edition of Bloomberg Technology Wednesday, we've got ARM CEO Renee Has joining us about the chip landscape and the latest with their possible I P O and don't forget to check out our podcast. Wherever you get your podcast, you can find it on the Terminal, online, Apple, Spotify, our Heart Radio, and more. I'm Emily Changing in San Francisco. This is Bloomberg four