The FTX and BlockFi Deal, and Abortion Misinformation Online

thinks there are synergies between the two businesses. Plus misinformation moment one week on from the U. S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, doctors tell Bloomberg potentially deadly abortion advice is spreading online and Tesla test The ev makers expected to report quartly production numbers this weekend. A hot streak of records is on the line as Shanghai shutdowns and supply chain snags leave Wall Street to cut forecasts. Let's continue the week, Let's switch to crypto. Fd X

sign an agreement with block fire today. The deal includes an option to purchase the crypto lender for as much as two hundred and forty million dollars. Sam Bankman Freed, co founder of FDx, spoke exclusively with Bloomberg Shinnaldi Bassak about how the deal and the companies will align. H I think that there are a lot of ways that our products can work together and can mesh together in a way that's sort of better than you know, either

would be independently. And I will also say that you know, they've been working really productively with regulators on you know, building out regulated yield products and licensed yield products, which which you know were it stated about and excited that they've been doing it in a regulated way. I think that's the healthy way to do it. And I think that's to serve them well, um, you know long term, um. And it's something that you know worksage work with as well.

You know you told political that f TX is looking for opportunities to bail out, you know, places where customers would otherwise be underwater. But are you worried here about moral hazard at all that bailing out a company may not actually be what's best for the industry at large. It's a good question, and you know, and and guessing what you're getting at there is like does that bail out a company that really should have failed? And and teacher is the wrong lesson to that company. Um. And

I think what I would say, there's two things. First of all, I'm way more excited to bail out customers than shareholders, right. And so the focus of this is not how do we deliver as much shareholder value do troubled assets as possible? Right, It's how do we protect customers? And I think those imply pretty different things. Um uh. So that that's that's one thing that will say. And I think that one of them is way more important for the ecosystem and the other is the one that

has the biggest moral hazard. Um. The other thing is that um uh, is that you know, we are trying to find who were the responsible players who were building out you know, a good business you know, how to sustainable model and you know would use short term liquidity um and and and and that that could help protect customer funds fundamentally built you know, a a a real valuable business that I think, um, you know, had something real to offer to customers rather than you know, which

companies honestly should never have existed probably and um and you know as of today, you know, maybe we should just let let them sort of uh you know, diet quiet death joining me. Now is Bloomberg shallybas act for more and I mean sly what strikes me this is a guy who who's just strengthening his grip on this industry, right, talk us about, talk to us about I guess the importance of this deal in the landscape. Yeah, it's it is a really interesting deal because remember there are other

firms that have paused withdrawals. A lot of people talking about how Black five was one that, with the help of sam BANKM and Freedom f TX, has been able to make it through and be there for their clients even in the midst of these really tumultuous times. I want to point out also what's happening with Voyager, because they are suspending certain operations and you do you they

have the withdrawal issue as well. And remember another sam Bankman Free entity had lended them credit line as well, So that question of moral hazard is a real one. Who will make it through and who won't. It's interesting on block Fire as well, Like if I slept through the last year, I thought this was a three billion dollar company. This seems to value them at a much

lower evaluation. Yeah, absolutely, And you know, you think about it when from three billions to potentially one billion, and now you have them much low or four million dollars with the credit line, as well as that money that you had been talking about here two million dollars with that option to purchase, and you think about it. And when we spoke to Sam, he really said opportunistic buying

valuations were really a big reason here. But he also hinted that really some firms will just simply not get back to their former glory. Yeah, I think on the Bloomberg Tamino, I'm seeing this guy's name over and over again. What did he have to say about M and A. In fact, why don't we just take a listen, because you asked in directly about some recent reports on interesting robin hood. Would we do a large acquisition if it did make sense and if all the parties were aligned

on it, you know we could in theory. Um, you know, we we have you know, a few billion on our balance sheet right now. We are profitable. Um, you know, we are able to further capitalize if we need. Tom I mean no name check, but takeaway, yeah, I mean the idea that they could buy something. He said, we could buy something for billions of dollars, not thirty billion dollars, but billions of dollars is certainly possible. Here we talked about by versus build because f t X has traditionally

built before. Of course, you know robin Hood fast growth company with a lot of employees under their employee base and f t X runs really really lean ed and so does that really fit together at the end of the day, he has a lot of ambitions, remember a firm like robin Hood. He also talked about potentially distressed crypto minors. But again it's got to be a strategic fit at the end of the day when you take a look at what's happening between this potential robin Hood wanderlust,

the block FI option to purchase maybe crypto miners. The question at the end of the day is who does Sam Bankman Freed want to be uh And it's got to be more than JP Morgan when you look at a company that is coming out of this crypto winter merging trade FI and defy and looking to the future for for what this new market structure could be under a new regulatory regime. Right bloom Motion Alie Bassett, my

good mate, thank you. We'll see you later in the show and Crypto will also be on the minds of those. Next week in some valley little road trip for us, Bloomberg will be there, starting to lie sick for the number of great guests, including so far's Anthony no To twenty three and me c O and Wijki, Event Brights, Kevin Harts, and many others. You don't want to miss it. Today marks one week since the U. S. Supreme Court overturned Row v. Wade, which allowed women to access an

abortion if they needed one. In one week's time, medical professionals have told Bloomberg that they've seen an uptick in the number of social media posts promoting various herbs, tonics, and other dangerous substances and not viable substitutes for abortion. For more and all of this, including social media's role in the conversation on abortion, I'm joined by Bloomberg's Alex Brinker along with David Kirkpatrick, founder of Techonomy. Ali gonna

start with you, what have we learned from doctors? What is it that they're seeing and where are they seeing it? Yeah, and these doctors are are kind of sounding the alarm um a lot earlier, maybe because they are now used to this pattern. We have a a health issue. We saw it with COVID, we saw it with baby formula, and we have social media a place where people go

to find the latest hack. The problem is, um, we're seeing some of these hacks, Um, some of these at home solutions start to bleed into really serious health issues like lack of abortion care for women. So already in less than a week, we have seen at home tonics, herbs, things that doctors Bloomberg talked to said are dangerous, potentially fatal. We've seen these posts and content pop up across TikTok,

across Twitter, across Facebook and Instagram. So it's basically everywhere if you know where to look, or if you just happen to be passively scrolling through your feed and have some of this, um what doctors would call misinformation pop up in your social media. Well, I get what you mean. Right when you're scrolling through Instagram, even when you're on Twitter, any social media platform, you come across something that doesn't seem to be of any substance. It's it's kind of

packaged in a lighthearted way. David, how many times have we've had this conversation about a number of topics are you surprised that the platforms weren't sort of more proactive in thinking about this kind of information and how it's

being shared. That is an understatement, and as Alex points out, I mean, we all unfortunately have gotten used to this pattern pretty much whenever it comes to any kind of misinformation because, for for several reasons, social media generally and met US companies in particular, UM have designed their systems in a way that make it very hard for them

to detect and remediate misinformation of any type. And then separately, they really have a disincentive to do so because they get revenue from eyeballs and attention and also from ads, many of which shouldn't be there in the first place. For example, you know, Meta allows prescription drug ads to go to anyone above eighteen in the United States. They don't even have to do that. They could have said

a much higher limit for that. And you know, prescription drug ads are only consumer directed in the United States and New Zealand of all developed countries. So you know, we have a lot of problems, Alex. When Bloomberg was speaking to medical professionals, they raised an issue, which is that you know, it's often easier to seek information or advice online than it is to book an appointment to

go and see your practitioner or whatever. Can you explain the concerns that doctors had with that respect, of course, and I can break it into a couple of groups. Let's say you are a an individual in a state that still has access to abortion. It might take seven weeks to get into see your primary care doctor. But if you're somebody who is seeking an abortion in the state where it is suddenly not available, you don't your options.

You don't know where to look, but you're used to, you know, getting your advice from everything firm how to style your outfit, to you know what the healthiest meal is you can put on your dinner table. You're gonna turn to social media. It's there. It's passive and these this information is kind of being packaged in this um entertainment meets advice, UM, kind of passively going through your eyeballs into your brain in a way that feels um much with it feels like it has a lot more

levity than the serious of this information. So um. You know, even if you're somebody who still has access and you see a quick fix for something that is a really serious health issue. You know, folks are used to getting this information in this way right now, I think, so I want to stick with you. Move to another story. Tik Tik TikTok confirming that Chinese nationals will have some access to US user data. Can you explain what the latest is? I know this is the story you've been covering. Yeah,

absolutely so. TikTok responded in a letter today to UM nine senators who had basically asked TikTok a lot of questions that we are starting to hear a lot in regards to the company who has access to US users data? Do any China employees have access to US users data? What about the Chinese government? And hey, what about the algorithm? Where does that fall? So there was a big report

from BuzzFeed a couple of weeks ago. Senator sent a letter to them, and TikTok CEO came back today with the response basically clarifying and confirming that yes, some employees in China do have access to publicly available data for TikTok users. This includes things like your videos, comments. But he's also saying the company is developing something called Project Texas.

Basically this is their solution that they're working with the US government to court and off US users data, but only specific US users data, um the the identifiers, the names, the addresses, things that or what we can expect. So they're basically coming back saying, hey, this is where we stand. Look, this letter came through today. There are folks in the US government who are already coming back saying this is

not enough. I can guarantee you. As we start to end closer to things like the mid terms, and questions around the veracity of information and is their influence from China and US voters start to sneak into uh the into the ether here, these questions will continue to get louder from US officials. David, your reaction to that, please, Well.

While I seldom agree with anything, Marsha Blackburn says, I have to say that he was quoted by Alex in her story today saying that pretty much, if you use TikTok, you should assume your data is in the hands of the Chinese government. And unfortunately, that is what a lot of US observers have recognized for a long time. The fact that TikTok's management is directly confirming that today in effect,

is what is really news here. So you know, it amazes me that people aren't We're concerned about this, and this is an area where I think these Republican congress people and Republican FCC members are really rightly focusing on a real issue. David, I want to bring you some news just crossing the Bloomberg terminal, Google saying that it's going to begin deleting location history and its systems that

it identifies as being personal information. It gives the example of certain medical facilities, for example, the change dudes come into effect in the coming weeks. Facilities could include counseling centers or domestic violence shelters, abortion clinics, fertility centers. Seems to be linked to, you know, search and maps and when one might be seeking a destination. What's your sense of how Alphabet and Google handling data and privacy at this time. Well, I think that's very good news, and

I'm really glad you told us that. I think Google is handling data and privacy better than it used to. And I think it's feeling a lot of pressure from Apple in particular, because Apple is so rigid about this and so principled about privacy. So I think it's great to see Alphabet and Google moving more firmly in the direction of by default trying to protect user data. That's really welcome. David, very quickly, give twenty seconds, give me your big tech outlook right now. What's the one thing

you're watching? Oh my gosh, the the exaggeration of the metaverse actually is the thing that I find the most kind of satisfying. I think there is absurd over promising going on right now about where the kind of consumer Internet is going in the near term. There's no way it's going to be metaversity in anytime soon. So I find that amusing. There's plenty of other things going on.

I mean, obviously the stocks are not great opportunities for the short term because they got so valued, so highly valued, I couldn't resist. Sorry. Technology Teconomy founded David Kopatrick and my mate bloombergs Alex Brinka. Good to see you. Thanks to you both. And just coming up on Tuesday, we'll have FCC commission a Brending car on the show, where we'll ask him about TikTok. Coming up, Spotify's bet on podcasting rather than music streaming. Has it paid off? We'll

discuss this is Bloomberg. Let's take a look at Spotify, the music streaming platform. Stock is down almost six this year, even after spotify buys move into podcasts made it the world's biggest audio service. The idea podcasting offers Spotify exclusive material, forcing other tech giants to carry its service, and creating a revenue stream music labels can't touch. So why is it in trouble? Let's break it all down with Bloomberg's Lucas Shure, who wrote about this in quite a lot

of detail and a fantastic Business Week piece. The strategy working, you know, I'd say it's a mixed bag right now. It's it's working in the sun that more and more people are what are listening to podcasts on Spotify? About nine million of Spotify's users listen to podcasts. The revenue that it generates from podcasting is growing at a at a big clip. But Spotify has spent a lot of money, more than a billion dollars so far. And you spend all that money and podcasting makes up about seven percent

of listening and two percent of revenue. And they've done a lot of expensive deals with big name talent that hasn't gone anywhere, and so there are a lot of people inside and outside the company who are questioning where some of that money is going. At the heart of any good story is is a name a person, And for Spotify, that's dull on ostrof Right, What's what's her role be and how successful has she been? So she's the chief content officer, she also oversees the advertising business.

A long time TV executive who didn't have a lot of background in music or in podcasting before she joined Spotify. You know, she's the a in a lot of ways, the architect of the strategy. There's some people who work for her who were very instrumental in it as well, but she in particular has been a big drive. Are

these deals with big name talent? Uh? You know, the the Obama is an higher ground, the Royals, some filmmakers, some social media celebrities, Kim Kardashian and there have not been a lot of big shows to come out of those deals. The big names are important, right and thinking about Joe Rogan, shout out, Draymond Green show have been a big one for me over the last few months. The Obamas, we'll slippa forward. Are they just going to have to sign up more names to keep this going.

You know, a lot of it is going to come down to how big the advertising business can get and how much Spotify can start to replicate. Uh, you know, a service like YouTube, those big name shows are really great for getting people in and for marketing. But the core and of that Spotify business is supposed to be the mass of podcasts. You know, they host four million podcast give or take right now right, they said that by I think they want to have like fifty million

creators on the platform. That is a lot of people. And they figure if they have that many people posting, they will kind of hoover up all the demand and they'll be able to sell ads against all these all these users, and their ad business is growing, but it's still only about of the overall high Alright, bloom Bog's Lucas Shore out in l A all Things Spotify, Thank you very much. Welcome back to Bloomberg Technology. I'm Ed

Lovelow in San Francisco. Tesla ends the week in the green, but it's been slipping, making it one of the worst weeks of the year. This is the company is still dealing with delivery issues with its Shanghai factory remaining in lockdown. For more on all of this, I'm joined by Bloomberg's Shawn o'caine out in Austin, Sean. The expectation we get quarterly delivery figures this weekend what you're looking for? I mean, the consensus seems to be in the high two thousands,

maybe around two and sixty thou or so. Which if that's the case, we're talking about a quarter that is about ut or so delivery short of around where the last two quarters, as were an elon Musk at the end of que one had said that they expected basically a flat quarter to quarter change or or no change. So if there is a drop, then we can see pretty much just how much we should attribute to the Shanghai lockdowns and the trouble that they've had over at that plan. So so what is the latest and what

test is dealing with? Right? We haven't heard from me a little mosque for a little while. He's not sent any tweets. But in Shanghai things have been tough. I mean, their story is still about growth as it kind of always has been. I mean they're set up to open or have already sort of opened new factories both here in Austin and in Berlin. Uh Musk recently made in

comments in an interview at the end of May. Uh maybe the claim that both of these new factories are money furnaces, and really what he means by that is, you know, he said they're losing billions of dollars right now. The point he was trying to make there is that as they scale up production and try to get from a hundred units a week or a hous and vehicles a week, they're going to be spending far more money on building out as factories than they are making any

money back from them. And you know, I think a lot of people looked at that is possibly negative. The thing that keep in mind with that is that, like, that's just the nature of it, and it's not going to slow Tesla down. Tesla's actually still working on expanding, especially the factory here in Texas, even though it doesn't have production up to the level that he wants it at yet. Well, let's talk about it. For those that

don't know, Sean is out in Austin. He's awesome. If you don't follow him on Twitter at s O Kane one, I work with him every single day towards me about Austin, Like, what is the grand master plan for Austin? What how

is this Tesla factory change that city? I mean, right now, it's still feels very much like the times that I went to uh outside Reno when the Giga factory was still in its first few years there, the original one where you know, certainly you see a lot of Tesla cars here more and more every day, but it is now a topic of conversation. It's the kind of thing that it's an easy conversation to strike up with people

who have lived here and worked here. Everybody has a different opinion on it um, but it is it is something that is sort of you know, it is a very large facility, but it's also something that looms sort of metaphorically in people's minds now that it's up and running even right sort of in a in a small volume. So it's it's something that is changing what is going on here. I think the bigger question about like what Elon Must actually wants to do in Austin still is

an answered. Although we've seen some reporting, including from our own Sarah McBride at Bloomberg News, about all the different things that he needs to do with other companies like the boring company here. I mean, he has a lot more plans that he's really publicly led on too for this city, right Bloomberg Shawn O'Kaine, awesome, Thank you very much. Let's go from public market pain to private markets gain. It's been a wild week in the world of venture capital.

Despite recession fears volatility, new funds are popping me up around the world. One report, so KOA Capital is trying to raise two point two five billion from investors for two new funds. Canada, CIBC Innovation Banking launched a new one point five billion dollar venture fund, and around the world money seems to be flowing to earlier stage startups, but deal counts down. That's a lot's take on board joining us to discuss. Kathie gaw, partner of Sapphire Ventures.

I mean, the world is a bit crazy right now. But you, as a venture capitalist, how are you seeing things? Well? First of all, it's so great to be back here, ed um, wow, it's still I first right, just they made it, We made it. You know. The past six months have been the worst six months, as you reported on earlier in the stock market for over fifty years. There's a lot of turmoil in the markets. And I always say this that uncertainty is a foe of the markets.

From my seat in the private markets, we haven't fully seen the impact of the effect on the public markets flow into the private markets. That's a good point. We've got this chart that looks at deal count, basically the number of rounds or venture backed startups bringing in fundraising, and between the first quarter in second quarter, there is this dip, you know, we see it on our screens, particularly pronounced in early stage, but there still seems to

be money flowing to early stage. I mean, where are you looking right now in the world. Is now a great time to fund young startups? Or are you looking at later stages. That's a very complicated situation for me personally. I focus on the Series B all the way up to pre I p O stage. When we think about what's been happening in the markets, all this volatility, everything from you know, record high interest rates to rising inflation and even geopolitical risk. We saw that impact in the

public markets. The next group of assets to be affected are the very late stage private markets companies like Karna and instat cart and then it's kind of my stage. My stage is a little bit frozen right now, because, on one hand, a lot of companies raise a lot of money in they might have thirty months of runway. They don't need to absolutely raise now. On the other hand, investors don't know where the valuation is going to set at all quite just yet. I would to bring you

up on that point. Down rounds. You know, we've seen a few. What's your read on that it's not necessarily a bad thing. But what's your take? It's definitely not necessarily a bad thing. I think it's inevitable given some of the run ups that we saw in and it might feel really bad, you know, with all the headlines

we're seeing around layoffs and everything like that. But this is an opportunity for companies to re evaluate what they're actually worth and prepare themselves for future rounds that they may have to raise. I want to ask you about opportunities, but we just showed some of your portfolio companies on the screen. What are you telling your founders, you know, what advice are you giving to them if there is a recession looming about how they manage their businesses? About

their cash. You're telling them, you know, in any times with uncertainty, there's so many things they can't control, But what can they do to gain ball control? Right to control their own destiny. So the top two things are Number one, cash is king in a recession. Keep a very very sharp eye in cash and a related matter, really focus on efficiency, take a hard look at your go to market and overall burn efficiency and make changes if you have to. And also it's an opportunity to

play offensive. You know, we always talk about some of these great companies. Are you always come in with a smile on your face, You're you're optimistic about opportunity. Where do you see the opportunity? Oh, I'm very very optimistic. I mean at a high level, we're very very bullish on general cloud based staff. I think the transformation to cloud is still in this early endings. And there are many pockets that I am focused on in my firm, sapphires focus on that I think are going to be

doing well regardless of any market. You know, things like cyber security right always going to be a hot topic. Things like future of work, things like healthcare and how technology can transform healthcare. With the greatest respect cloud sas cybersecrazy that these things always come across in a lot of abstract you know, the president in everyday lives. How do you deter I mean, what's a real company, one that's product is going to thrive with those things being

important to Corporate America the world. Yeah. We look at two things very very closely UM. The first one being how do customers actually use a product and do they love the product? This is where being a later stage investor is a little bit easier than a super early stage investor because the companies I'm looking at they have real customers. So we spend a lot of time talking to the customers and understanding, hey, is this solution really

solving an important pain point for you? And importantly are you willing to pay for this solution. The second thing we look at is a proxy of how strong the product market fit is, and that's how efficiently can you sell your product very quickly? Are you optimistic about the second half of UM. I think it's going to take some time for the changes to flow through the market. I think we're in for some hard times ahead. I don't know if it's going to be one quarter, two quarters,

three quarters, or more. But again my message to everyone is this is an opportunity to look inwards, you know, get your house and shape and be ready for the future. Sapphire Ventures, Cafe Gow, thank you, such a pleasure to have you here. Coming up crypto lawsuits from deceitful marketing to pump and dump schemes. Why there's an uptick in retail investor lawsuits and what the app called Do Not Pay wants to do about it? More on that. Next, this is gloom Bug. How do you take on a

crypto lawsuit? People are dying to know, even VC investor Channa Pella Avatia reference one Bloomberg article on the battle of an investor with finance. Is it tried to sue the crypto platform and take a listen, lost one point two million dollars who wanted to file a lawsuit and they have every right to do that. UM couldn't even

find the corporate entity to to actually file. This lawsuit against crypto has generated more than two hundred class action lawsuits and private litigation cases up more than fifty since the start of according to law firm Morrison Cohen, which attracks the activity. Our next guest, Joshua a Browder, CEO of Do Not Pay the Legal services chatbot that wants to help the average crypto investor get their money back, along with our crypto Contributortionalie Bassett back with us, Joshua,

thank you for having me answer that question. How do you tackle a lawsuit like that? So everyone talks about class actions, but in all of these big companies, like Celsius's terms of service, they say that you can't actually sue them in federal court, but there's a loophole which says that you can sue them in small claims court. And so what my company does is we automate small

claims court lawsuits. And so it's almost fitting that the answer to decentralized crypto fraud is thousands of small claims decentralized lawsuits. So, Joshua been excited to speak to you because you know that I went to law school and it was never cut out to be an attorney. Just bring me back to basics. He is laughing in New York and shes bring me back to basics. What is a chat bought lawyer? So do not pay his messioners

to empower the consumer to fight back. We've been operating for about six years taking on big companies like Equifax and Comcast. When United doesn't refund your money, consumers come to us. And recently we decided why not help consumers get justice against these crypto companies that are freezing people's money like Celsius. Well, why have you chosen to move

over to crypto companies? Obviously there are a lot of them right now, and if many of them that are freezing withdrawals at this point in time, and if you're a crypto customer, that is part of that pain. It's not like you have a lot of money left over to spend on a lawsuit like this. So why have you moved over from other forced arbitration clauses into into this world? So All Claims Court is an amazing tool. It can get consumers between ten and twenty five thousand

dollars and it's a very easy process. A judge will often side with a consumer in their local jurisdiction just because they feel bad for them. And so if Celsius doesn't show up to all these small claims court lawsuits across the country, the consumer wins by default. And so because it's such an easy process, it only takes about a month or two, and it allows the consumer to get justice before these companies declare bankruptcy, which is looking

very likely. What's the likelihood of really recouping funds here and how costly do you think it could be for a from like Celsius. So Celsius has to send someone in every single case, even if it's for ten thousand dollars sount So Do Not Pay has initiated over one thousand, five hundred lawsuits against Celsius in different parts of the country,

even in rural towns. They have to stand a lawyer just to defend themselves, and in my opinion, I don't think they will and the consumers will when so even an average of ten tho dollars a lawsuit, these these small claims lawsuits are going to cost them millions um. But these are small retail investors who are getting their money back, and once a judgment has gotten in small claims court, you're actually at the front of the line

in the bankruptcy proceeding. So it's very good that small retail investors can be ahead of the institutional investors if things really go bad with these big platforms. Joshua, can we talk about Twitter Yes, I spend a lot of time on Twitter. You spend quite a lot of time on Twitter. Yes, I'm addicted to Twitter. I'm not gonna

go as far as to say I'm addicted. But there's a lot of tweeting about cryptocurrencies from very well known people, Elon Musk probably being the easiest example, through two accounts with very few users. But markets seem to move on tweets. Yes, what's your take on that. I think everything you say on Twitter is has to be legal and everything and the same standards as everything you say in real life.

People think that just because it's an online platform they aren't held to the same standard it, but they really are, and we're seeing this in crypto fraud. We've used tweets in the past in small claims law lawsuits, and it's the same with moving markets and sec violations and things like that. Well, that's a fascinating question too, about tweets and where it falls in regard to customers getting bunny back,

any any distortions in the markets. There's a lot of questions about even some of the advertising some of these crypto firms had done prior to pausing withdrawals. I mean, what type of um evidence does that create for the retail investor in terms of being encouraged to put their money into something that was not going to work out later, Well, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. And a lot of these platforms one advertising the risks

of getting interest rate properly. They were saying things like your money is safe and secure, you can get it back very quickly. And even though they buried in the times of service, they have all of these special clauses that's really not clear and consent based on like FTC guidelines, and so if you're not clear with the consumer, you will face all of this litigation and regulatory problems if

things go badly. We're seeing a pretty ugly chart on the screen Bitcoin year to date one year, it's down a lot. That's been a part of the story. I'm going to use Shinnali's favorite word, regulation, you reckon that we'll see some more regulation in this space. I think we will. I think so many people will lose so much money that everyone is going to write to their

congressmen do not pay. Also, does that to get as much regulation as possible be more specifical there, what exactly is do not pay asking for for regulation here, especially because you know there is a sense that the SEC might come down harder on the enforcement side than it will on the actual regulatory side in creating new rules. So all of these crypto companies generally have money transmitter licenses, which is a very low standard of regulation. What they're

actually doing is something called being a broker ealer. And so at the very least, we would want them to all be licensed as broker dealers versus money transmitters. And I think that would lead to more disclosures and consumers feeling like they're better protected. And there are lots of legitimate companies like coin base who would probably go in that direction. But last legitimate players like Celsius that are

speculating with funds um might not survive all right. Joshua Browder, CEO Do Not Pay, and Bloomberg's Shinnali Bassek thank you to you both. More news in the app store ecosystem, Google reached an agreement with US developers that will let consumers subscribe to services outside the company's play store. This after Apple made a similar deal last year with small developers. Bloomberg's scoop Dogg German joins us for more on this mark.

How does this impact Google the for having me? Well, it doesn't really impact Google that much, right, So if they're gonna start allowing, just like Apple has allowed starting recently, is they're gonna allow if you're a third party developer to point users to the web essentially to subscribe to

your services. Right. I still think a lot of people that are gonna want to subscribe to services within the actual apps themselves, which then they still have to use the Google Play processing engine, which then we'll give Google a percentage there, right, So I think most consumers are not going to want to go to the web to sign for applications, So I don't really think it's going

to hurt Google long term at all. Obviously, a ninety million dollar payout is probably an hour's worth the revenue for Google, so that's not really gonna hurt them elsewhere. They also decided that they're going to keep that fifteen percent revenue share feed long term. That's for developers that make up to two million dollars per year on the Google Play Store. They never really said they would get rid of it, but at least they now have in

writing as part of the settlement. They're not going to get rid of it, so you're not going to see that fifteen percent go up to act to any point soon. So that is an interesting little, you know, piece of the pie right there. Right, It's that's the kind of business side. This is about consumer choice, right drawl the parallel with Apple. What has the difference been since Apple made that same move last year? Yes, so right now, Apple and Google in terms of their app store distribution,

in their policies, they're nearly at an identical point. The only differences is that Apple's fiftcent program where they charge a developer off the costs instead of that's only up to a million dollars in sales, Googles is going to be up to two million dollars of sale. So it's about doubles. That's really you know, the loan hold out

big difference. You're seeing app removal transparency reports from both companies. Now, you're seeing the ability from both companies now to allow developers to advertise lower pricing from outside the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store. You're seeing this idea where they can go to the web to sign up

for subscription services. You see that happening on both platforms, so they're really unequal footing right now in terms of consumer behavior, do we see any material fact like is it made consumers go out and and make different choices and they would have otherwise had to make when they were forced to stay within those platforms? You know, I think consumers only really care if they're going to be

paying more money or less money. Right if Netflix is charging ten dollars a month if you sign up through their app, or if they're charging ten dollars a month if you go to sign up through their website. If I'm just a consumer, I'm going to just sign them through the app because it's much easier. Right, Apple and Google already have my billing information on hand. I don't need to go and make an account and sign up

online and put my credit card information again. Right, So from a consumer choice perspective, I don't really think that's, you know, changing much. I think developers are need to adjust their pricing and tell consumers, hey, if you go to the web and in put your credit card information through the web and you go through that process, we're going to charge you seven dollars a month instead of

ten dollars a month. But if pricing is equal on both platforms, I think any you know, normal consumer is going to go right through the absolutely Google play story. All right, Bloomberg's Mark German out in l A thank you that doesn't for this edition of Bloomberg Technology Rules Wall Street Week is up next from my colleague David Western. Next week Bloomberg and me will be in live in

some Valley, Idaho. Media moguls, billionaires, and some of the biggest names from tech, media and business will converge on July six. Will bring you live reports from the ground and interviews with some of the n t S attendees, with Sophi c O nt NO to twenty three c O and with Jicky event Brights, Kevin Harts, and many others you definitely don't want to miss it. Will be there Tuesday onwards. This is Bloomberg