TikTok Security and ARK's Latest VC Fund

a security deal, but negotiations have all but stalled. Plus, Kathy Wood's new venture fund targets liquid assets. It's arks first for eight into private investments and essentially gives retail traders venture capital market access. Will ask arcs chief futurist about the strategy, and Bitcoin maximalist Jack Mallars joins me to discuss Strike's latest funding round and his push to

make bitcoin the currency for cross border transactions. The Biden administration and TikTok are working on an agreement that would let the video sharing site keep operating in the US, but Bloomberg's learned that talks have stalled over concerns the company's Chinese ownership poses a national security threat, according to sources. If an agreement is reached, it could impose more restrictions

on how TikTok stores data from US users. Meanwhile, TikTok has stepped up it's lobbying efforts in d C, but has had little engagement with Republican naysays Bloomberg BusinessWeek reports. Joining me now, Bloomberg's Alex Brinker Adam Adam Kovakovitz, Chamber of Progress CEO, Alex, I'm going to start with you. What is your latest reporting about talks between the US

government and TikTok. That's right. This is to allay concerns around US users data, particularly in regards to Chinese government, which owns which China is where TikTok's parent company is based. So far, in these negotiations, TikTok has said that they're going to partner with Oracle throughout all US users data through their servers. They're also going to allow Oracle to audit its algorithms and its content moderation policies. Now the hiccup ed has come in because the deal still needs

to kind of get over the line. Scythians is the governmental body that's investigating it um it is an inter agency body, and the Justice Department in particular, the individual who is on that panel for the Justice Department is still concerned that this deal does not go far enough to keep data out of the hands of the Chinese government ed So that seems to be the sticking point according to our reporting, that is dragging this process on

perhaps a little bit longer than TikTok would like. Adam, you're the CEO of the Chamber of Progress, and one of the goals of the Chamber of progresses to make the tech industry acts fairly and responsibly, particularly towards consumers. So when you hear Alex go through the latest reporting,

is this good news or bad news. I'm not sure we've ever seen a service like TikTok before that it's become so popular with Americans and yet is owned by the Chinese, and that's a unique problem and challenge for government policymakers. Alex talked about the concessions that are on the table in terms of the company's negotiations with the Biden administration. I'm not sure any of those conditions really solve this question of Chinese government access problem. Of access.

So long as TikTok is owned by a Chinese company, the Chinese are are almost certainly going to have access to American user data no matter where it's stored. They don't come in through the front door, they come in through the back door. That's just the reality of how

China operates. And as far as the Oracle you know, suppose is an audit look Oracles on the verge of having a massive cloud hosting deal with TikTok, right, they're going to have a financial incentive to look the other way regarding China's control, and Oracle is not a branch of the US government. It's obligated to do what's best

for its business. So I think there's a I think that one of the big questions surrounding this, As you said, some of the buy Administrations figure figures involved, I think are doubting whether this is tough enough. And frankly, I think there's a concern that if they do a partial compromise on certain aspects of their business that doesn't really get the fundamental national security and even propaganda concerns that that that could be seen as avoiding the deep, bigger,

deeper issues that TikTok uh opposes Alex. The talks between TikTok and US government a kind of the hair and now. But you've got a fantastic piece in Bloomberg Business Week magazine about the kind of bigger picture efforts of TikTok and I gotta bring up a child on the screen now that kind of shows how TikTok is kind of stepping up and bites onto its parents company, its parent company,

and it's low being efforts. But then we're near what Meta, the parent company of Facebook's doing tolkd us through what you've learned, Yeah, they are nowhere near. But TikTok did clock it's biggest quarter in terms of lobbying spend. And my colleague and I wanted to take you guys behind the scenes a little bit to see what's going on in d C with TikTok's efforts to charm the belt Way. What we learned from a mix of sources in DC around the company is that they've taken hundred and thirty

meetings with congressional offices. Uh, it's TikTok ceo. We heard last week was even at a football game of lawmakers versus the Capitol Police, but there's a really important group

of folks that they are not meeting with. We heard that Um McCarthy and thieves, the leads in the House, the key Republicans in the House, Josh Holly and Mark A. Rubio in the Senate, these senators that all Republicans who have been really large detractors and have approached the company with a lot of skepticism have been notably left off the formal meeting lists for the company. Now, the company told us that they are having productive conversations with lawmakers.

They said they are not meeting with folks who seemed to be unswayed by facts. So ed read into that what you may, but it does seem that TikTok's charm offensive has missed some of the biggest detractors in the

belt Way. And I'll tell you, if this Synthius deal doesn't go through, or if it drags on and these voices continue to get louder, it could cause some problems for them as they're trying to kind of resolve some of these really big concerns and get this deal over the line out of what's your reactions what you've just said about so s well, being efforts. Look, I there's no doubt I live here in Washington. I see what they're trying to do. They're trying to highlight the ways

people are using TikTok. They're trying to portray themselves as good citizens, and probably do the same affaire with them. I'm sympathetic to the U S employees of TikTok who currently, frankly have to spend a lot of time dancing on the head of a pin about the Chinese government's role

in the app and in their Chinese ownership. I don't think there's any doubt that their jobs as lobbyists and as as a company would be much easier, and frankly, that our national security concerns would be a lot less if TikTok were sold um to an American owner. But of course that's a big you know, that's a big challenge. I mean, I think Beijing officials in Beijing know what a powerful platform this is. You've got at one point

four billion people on TikTok. I think the reason that you know, they don't let Chinese citizens use TikTok, I think that's a recognition of how powerful it is. But we know the Chinese government isn't the business of spreading propaganda online, but they did this during the Olympics. They've done this with influencers, and so I think there's a

beyond even the question of data access. There is a big question about is TikTok like the next version of urt you know, which we kicked out of this country after Russia invaded Ukraine. Right much to discuss still. Bloomberg's Alex Brinka and Chamber Progress founder and CEO Adam Kobakovitch, thank you both. Twitter is complaining that Elon must legal team hasn't turned over this text with Morgan Stanley CEO

James Gorman ahead of next month's trial. Twitter lawyers want to sanction Musk and his lawyers for not producing text with Gorman, as well as Oracle chairman Larry Ellison. According to Twitter, Muskers we've held four text with Gorman, including some from April, the day the company announced it was accepting masks offer. Our Investment Management has launched is long awaited our venture fund. They will target in liquid assets, investing in both private and public companies. Along with other

VC funds. The fund limits how and when investors can cash out, but a minimum investment of five dollars means potentially any individual US investor can buy in. Here to explain the funds goals is ARC chief futurist Brett Winton Brett, what are the goals? Well, we aimed a democratized venture capital and think you just described exactly what we're trying to do. Anybody can right now. You can go into your browser and you can type an ARC dot VC and you can download the tight NAP and you can

invest five dollars today into venture capital. I think it's if you think about venture as an asset class, it's really been held apart from a lot of individual investors. These are not assets that should require you to be rich in order to invest in them, nor should you have to, you know, fill out a lot of PDFs and um only be able to get into the top

funds if you're the Yale Endowment. We think that every individual should have access to venture capital, uh if if within their risk tolerance limits, and we think this vehicle provides a mechanism by which they can do so. So we've been waiting on this mechanism, as you called it, for a little bit of time. All bloom Bag Intelligence et F analyst Eric Baucina, So you guys know Well has a note out in response to your launch titled Cathy Woods Venture Fund Burdened by tough timing High Phase.

Let's start with the timing. It's it's been brutal for both public and private markets of late. How do you get around that this is the perfect timing? This isn't tough timing, this is there's never Bill Gurley said it the other day there's never been a better moment to start a business. And I think there's never been a better moment to put your risk capital into a venture

product like this one, and into innovation companies generally. So UM, we think that there's roughly eight trillion dollars in market cap attributable to the innovation platforms that we focus on, and that's going to more than two trillion. So there's incredible technological tail winds in play. And so UM, when everybody's running for the exits, is exactly the time to be putting your capital to work. It's so about phase then.

I think typically existing ETFs carry a fee of seventy five basis point zero point right, and and in this case it's a fee of two point seven and it's expense ratio there for full point that seems high. What why is it set at that level? Well, think about the comparable products you could get if you're investing adventure where you're paying two percent management fee plus carry. So this is a much more efficient exposure then you would get if you were in a top quartile venture fund UM,

which I've done quite well. Uh. And so the UM investment vehicle itself restricts our ability to UM charge carry. That's how we could democratize this, and so we believe we're charging an extremely efficient rate for getting access to top tier companies. This is the likes of Epic Games UM, the likes of Mosaic mL, which is really UM delivering UM machine learning and advanced AI software to mid market businesses. These are companies that UM a typical investor couldn't get

access to. And so by just going to art dot VC right now, you can invest in this fund and get access to these kinds of great innovation companies. Redemptions capped right at five percent of net asset value on a quarterly basis. And what's so interesting here is that it the split is seventy percent private public, but Traditionally, capital is locked up in VC funds for a very extended period of time. You guys are also looking at investing in other VC funds. How do you manage that?

You know, some redemptions with the need to lock up capital in the private sector, So redemptions are capped at five across the entire fund. But if an individual investor UM wants to UM sell their position and the overall request for redemptions or below five percent, they'll get their entire position UM sold out a net asset value. It's only if UM if request to redeem exceed five percent in a given quarter, then redemptions happen on a pro

rata basis. UM. Another difference between UM our fund and typical adventure is that UM the money that inflows into the fund can get allocated to innovation assets immediately. In the public markets, UM as we're negotiating private market deals and so you know, at equilibrium, we're seeking to be UM like you said, targeting seventy private exposures. But on an individual technology basis, we will play arbitrages between the

public and the private markets. And in some technologies, it's very clear to us that the private markets are undervalued relative to the public markets and vice versa, and so UM we think this is a really interesting way to get exposure to innovation tail winds UM that will allow us to invest in these companies early and carry them all the way through I p O into the public market.

Book of the portanfol we just showed a shot there if the SMP five hundreds out performance relative to our innovation e t F Right, this is a different strategy. But how do you convince investors that this is right to use this new mechanic in this new way of getting access to private markets and private companies. I think that any innovation exposure should be measured over a business

cycle length um performance basis. So when we underwrite our positions in the private market and in the public market, we look forward five years and say, you know what is an in market investor going to pay five years forward? Who's not even a technological optimists like us, but just playing paying a market multiple for the cash flow generation

capabilities of those businesses? Right? I think that given particularly given what's happened with rates and with innovation assets across the board, UH investors are are short innovation today, maybe unintentionally so the disruptive technologies that we think are going to penetrate the marketplace are going to totally turn over the business models of incumbents that people have in their pore portfolios. All of the problems that we're seeing in

the world today. Innovation solves those problems, and so owning a share of the businesses that are going to solve those problems is a way to generate our performance, our invests. Chief futurist Brett Winton has been a pleasure to have you on. Thank you. Coming up, Netflix has a game plan. The tech giant is creating its first in house video game studio, but when will the company be seen as

a gaming competitor? We discussed next This is Bloomberg. Netflix is creating its first in house video games studio in a push to be less reliant on third party creators and expand is gaming offerings. The streaming service platform is seeking to increase engagement and differentiate itself with games, but Bloomberg Intelligence believes there won't be a significant impact, at

least in the near term. BI media and list geter anger Nathan joins us now to discuss a gee you actually put research out before the news of his own in house studio, Hit the Bloomberg does change anything to you, Well, unfortunately, not really, ad and thanks for having me. So, you know, Netflix has kind of been taking baby steps really in this space of gaming. They now have about thirty games

or so. It's been on their platform for about ten months, but so far we've seen that, you know, the uptake has really been fairly lackluster. We just recently saw a report from Autopia which said that less than one percent of their subscriber base has actually engaged with the games um and so, you know, I think it's going to be a case of, you know, too little, too late. Uh. This whole news about them developing their their own studio is pretty much taking a page out of the same

playbook that they followed for their original video content. Right, they created, They've created their own studios. They have their own originals, whether it's you know, A Stranger Things or a Witcher. But I think with the video game market, it's the dynamics are totally different. It takes years and years to create a viable slate of good games, and I think Netflix is going to find that out or

getter to illustrate that point. We've got this chart which shows that in the third quarter based on app downloads. You could just take Candy Crush. We all know, Candy Crush more than thirty nine million downloads every single Netflix game that's available, josh a five point five million. And I think in your research you point out there are some technological restrictions in so far as you can only get Netflix games through the mobile app, right, what's the

problem there? Yeah, absolutely, I think there's you know, so much of the problem with why the uptake has been so slow, it's because of discovery, right, or or the lack of discovery so to speak. So, first of all, it's only available on mobile. Remember of Netflix viewing happens on connected TV, and there's really no option there to even play a game, so you have to be on

your mobile device. And then once you're on your mobile device and you do wish to, you know, kind of engage with the Netflix game, you actually have to leave the app and go and download the the mobile gaming app separately. So there's kind of quite a bit of friction there. So it's not exactly the most user friendly right now, and I think that's been one of the other reasons that has inhibited kind of that uptick, All right, get regn a from of Bloomberg Intelligence. Good to catch up.

Thank you for joining us. This is Bloomberg Technology. I'm Ed Ludlow in New York. Meta says it has blocked thousands of inauthentic accounts, pages, and groups from Facebook and Instagram that originated in Russia and China. Meta says the Russia accounts spread propaganda about the war with Ukraine, and China based accounts were targeting US users in regards to mid term elections. Sarah Fryer leads our big tech coverage here at Bloomberg News. So, Sarah, what do we know

about the accounts that were frozen by Meta? Well, the thing that was the most interesting to me about this report is that UM Meta made a rare disclosure of the amount of advertising that these accounts spent around a hundred and five thousand dollars from Russia to spread propaganda

about the war in Ukraine. And that's significant because this company has of course come under criticism for receiving advertising dollars from Russia around the US election back in They still don't have a way to to block this from happening. Um even though it's against their rules. Even though they've built up this security team, they have said that that they will continue to have problems like this, they will

try to catch them early. But the fact that there was that level of advertising campaign shows that they're still work to do right. Sarah, over the last four years, I remember, you know, sitting with you looking at these kind of blog posts from what was then Facebook now met her about the work they were doing and this idea that they're trying to be more transparent. Are they being more transparent with what they're doing. I do think that they are being more more open out what they're

finding and taking down. UM, But I think that that is still, you know, not the major issue here. The issue is not that you know, this stuff exists. The fact is that they still have a platform where this stuff can go viral, that it can be easily gained. UM. They have groups where they can um, where these kinds of foreign governments can build followings around top. But that the fundamentals of how Facebook works has not changed, UM, and so they're going to continue to play whackable until

until that changes. And I think that um, you know, the disclosure is is a good thing, but it's only one part of the problem that's pivot to TikTok. Your team has been writing about what TikTok and in its parent company Bye Dance, have been doing in Washington, d C. What is the strategy there, what is the latest Well, speaking of transparent, they mean people into in DC have

a lot of questions about TikTok. There. They are under fire from from publicans, democrats, everyone around, UM around their their issues with their algorithm, UM, whether there's a national security risk in the fact that they are owned by the Chinese, by a Chinese based a China based company. UM. The problem is TikTok has not been willing to to speak with some of its loudest critics UM and what it has spoken with them and hasn't gone over well.

So reporters Alex Brink and Emily Burnbaum spoke with multiple sources to give the behind the scenes look of of how this is working in d C. They know TikTok knows that they have some trust issues there UM and that they're going to have to work on their credibility. That it's going to be difficult UM. There. There's also a decision on Scythius blooming UM. So so it's a little difficult for them to really come out with a strong plan before knowing what that action might be from

the federal government. Um and in the meantime, their critics are only growing louder. All right, Bloomberg, Sarah Fryar, thank you very much. Some other Meta news. Cheryl Samberg got an applause as she exited the Meta headquarters in Menlo Park, California, on Tuesday. This was her last week as CEO, after announcing she'd stepped down back in June. Samberg joined the company then known as Facebook in two thousand and eight.

She will remain on the board of directors now. Sam Bankman Freed says his m and A spree, including many deals with traditional financial firms, will not hinder f t x is profitability this year. He's also said he's got more cash to burn. Here's some of Bankman Fried's conversation

earlier on Bloomberg Crypto. We've tried to be somewhat judicious frankly, with you know, the deals that we've been doing, and you know, obviously that's not going to be perfect, and you know, there we have obviously needs an expenditure through that, like you know, we have not you know, we have not used the majority of the cash that we have on our own balance she you know, that's not necessarily

to say that there are other things imminently here. Um. You know, so much is that we want to be flexible, and you know, we want to be in a position where we are you know, looking forward at uh you know, what we can be doing, where we can be most helpful, um, and where we grow the most. So you know, I think how we describe us right now is as exploring. And you know, I don't know if that's going to necessarily read anywhere. It might it might not, um, but

you know we're going to continue poking around, you know. UM. It reminds me of one of the other cool things that Bravo said in the ft. He thinks that a lot of people in the industry are disturbing in terms of their lack of transparency. You're not one of those people. Obviously, he is willing to invest in you. Again. How much cash is on your balance sheet? What kind of free cash flower you're generating? How much are you burning through? Yeah, it's a good it's a good question. And you know

we were you know, we were profitable last night. You know expect that you know, we'll like to be profitable this year as well. UM. And you know, I mean you can look, we raised, you know, all things considered a couple of billion dollars last year. UM. You know, we have done a number of acquisitions, We've generated some

you know pre cash flow GISTs with you with revenue. UM. You know, when you kind of try and combine all of those things together, at the end of the day, I think you're left with UM, you know, upwards of a billion dollars UM and UM. You know, there's some definitionalsues here which are worth noting around regulatory capital and other things which make it not tricky able to define exactly what the right number to talk about is. UM. But uh, you know we still have some uh fairpet

of drawing power. Well, Sam, you said regulatory. So I do want to talk about regulation now, especially as we've had a number of stories just circulating in the last forty eight hours or so, including New York Attorney General. Here in New York, Latitia is accusing NEXTO of falsely claiming that it was a licensed broker dealer. Then in South Korea you have prosecutors freezing sixty seven million dollars worth of assets tied to do quon who they are

seeking to arrest. You also have Etherean's latest upgrade, known as the Merge, that could be triggering widespread tax confusion in the UK. And on top of all of that, we hear from the Chairman of the Federal Reserve earlier today talking about the need for more crypto oversight. Just take a listen to what he said. 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. So more regulation is needed. But of course you already know that, and that's something you've been working on for some time. Now. Do you feel like we're getting closer to some kind of real framework or at least having organized jurisdiction what the CFTC and SEC each control separately too. I do think that there's been a lot of progress made, and I, you know, I'm really excited for that that that's a keeping you know, for the industry going forward. And I do think that

we've made, you know, a lot of progress. You look at where we were a year ago with very little going on on the regulatory side. You know, you look today where there are you know, proposals in Congress to provide clarity for a spot cryptocurrency assets UM, where the SEC and CFTC are both working on regimes where you have stable point bills going through UM. You know, we obviously have been applying for licensure you know, UM with with the CFTC, and and you're an active discussions with

the SEC as well. It's it is really a world of difference, and I think that's pretty exciting UM. And you know, I agree that that, you know, there needs to be clear federal overtight here UM to really protect consumers and at the same time to be able to provide clarity for the industry to operate. That was f t X CEO Sam Bankman, Freed and Celsius and f t X the growing list of crypto executives that have resigned. Alex Maschinsky stepped down as Celsius CEO two months after

the crypto lender fault for bankruptcy. Maschinsky lawned Celsius launched Celsius in twenty seventeen, pitching it as a safer and better alternative than traditional bank and f t x U s S President Brett Harrison has also stepped down to transition to an advisory role. We've seen a ton of turnover in cryptos since the Downtown. Just last week, Cracking CEO Jesse Powell announced his resignation. Coming up, Strike CEO Jack Mallers on his fresh funding for the mobile payments platform.

This is Bloomberg now. Strike has just struck eighty million dollars in new funding. The mobile payments platform, which uses the Bitcoin Lightning Network, played a big role in El Salvador's bitcoin push. Now it wants to use the new cash to grow its partnerships and launch new ones. So let's bring in Strike CEO Jack Mallers to discuss. Jack, congrats on the round. What does it mean for you? What are you gonna use that parlor cash for? Thank

you my find Sarah. I appreciate Bloomberg having me back. What am I going to use the money for? To continue to improve payments? We think Lightning network and Bitcoin is some of the biggest and most broadstroke innovation in the history of payments, and there's a lot to do because it's one of the biggest industries in the world. So it's a cool moment. We're very proud of it, but we have our work cut out for us, and there's a lot, a lot, a lot to do to

solve payments globally. Jack, take me back to basics. What is the pitcoin Lightning Network. I think it's like helpful for the audience to know what it is that it kind of underlines what your company does. Yeah, so we're gonna kiss keep it simple, stupid. Uh. The Lightning network allows bitcoin to move instantaneously and it relatively no cost. And to the novice on the couch, you'd probably go like, Wow, who's this kid in a hat? Why is that important?

I don't care, Yeah, but you might care because bitcoin is a digital instrument, it's actually value, it's globally recognized as value. And then the fact that it could move in real time and settle instantly is something that no payment network has ever been able to do in the history of payments. You have payments that actually take weeks to settle, they're very expensive to settle, they involved two

to ten parties. And the fact that bitcoin could be digital, global recognizable value and move at the speed of light and at relatively no cost. You have to put your thinking cap on and be like, huh, I bet we can do a lot of cool stuff with that. And from a very high level, that's why the technology is fascinating and that's why I founded the company, is because we've got to use that technology and make it commercially

viable for people in the real world to realize those benefits. Jack, we focus a lot on the volatility in bitcoin in recent months. I'm just thinking at a one year chart on my Bloomberg But if you go from sort of June to where we are now, we've traded in a more narrow range of around twenty thousand U S dollars. We've called you a bitcoin maximalist, you know, give us

your take on what's happening with with bitcoin specifically. Yeah, So, I think what's interesting when we think of bitcoin and payments, we actually use it to ask a value and we don't care about the volatility. So the services that my company offers, we allow you to move dollars over it, or euros over it, or any fiat currency over it.

So volatility doesn't matter to our customers because our customers are never subjected to holding the actual asset now as a bitcoin holder is someone who holds bitcoin in my portfolio. I mean, what you want to talk about bitcoin, You want to talk about Netflix stock, if you want to talk about the British pound. I mean, the macro environment is a little bit of a mess, and I'm happy to talk about it. But the real main point, this

is the one I want to stick. Uh. The reason that bitcoin is an attractive asset, and it's an attractive money to hold, and it carries the properties that are enticing to someone that wants to store wealth in it have not changed and that's by design. No one can change them. And so the theory and the thesis on why bitcoin is important to the world, and increasingly so so is as profound and as sound as it's ever

been and it will always remain that way. Uh. And so I think Bitcoin's got nothing but time on its side. And as the macro environment kind of continues to play a game of twist and figure itself out, Bitcoin is going to do its thing. It's very simple, supply demand metrics. When when you know that the supply is fixed and demands the only thing that sets the price. So Jack, bitcoin is going to do its thing. I think you

know the other consideration. We're always focused on the regulators, and thankfully fed Chared your own power has been speaking about crypto. Let's have a listen. We think that the central bank is and and will always be the main source of trust behind money. Stable Coins essentially borrow that trust from the underlying issuer, and in many cases these are dollar stable coins, so they're really borrowing that trust. Jack.

I appreciate he was talking about stable coins and that example, but he's essentially saying that trust has to come from central banks. Your system and your thesis is kind of the opposite of that, right, Yeah, trust has to come from central banks. The guy that runs a central bank and happened to say that, did he? I mean, come on, let me tell you some I'm an individual, I'm an American. Trust and money comes from whatever I want my money to be held in and who I want to trust.

That's not defined for anyone other than myself. UM's democracy. Uh. I appreciate the comment, Mr Powell, but I'm going to decide like who I trust in what assets I want to hold, unless that's all of a sudden illegal or not it is frowned upon. So oh, that's my take. Listen, I I like a system that's bounded to the physical realities of the world. Money cannot just be created out of thin air. Creating money cannot be free. What do

I want the cost to create money? I really like a natural resources that's bound to the physical world, like energy. I think that that's an awesome way to understand who gets to create money, the expense to which, and create it in a programmatic adjustment in a distributed network to see how hard it is. So I don't know, I mean, call me crazy. I prefer something like that. All right, Well, we're grateful to have you on strike. Founder and CEO

Jack Malice, thank you, but you're welcome Southeast Asia. Right sharing and delivery. Giant Grab expects revenue to slow sharply as it targets profitability. In speeding up efforts to reverse years of losses, the company will focus on expanding into new areas such as groceries, banking, and advertising. I caught up. We see Etho peter O e to discuss. We have this marketplace that we can continue to create efficiency and monetization at the same time, and part of this is

serving our merchants. We have over four million registered merchants on our platform, whether they're the small businesses, medium sized businesses, or even franchise restaurants, buick service conglomerates. That's on our platform today. But how do we serve them better? And advertising is one of those elements that we can serve them better. We have a lot of data on our merchants, we have a lot of data on our consumers, so

how do you put those two together? And we've seen very early wins in advertising, will be continuing to expand on that. We continue to develop the technology behind that. So we feel very strongly that actually advertising as part of our future growth will benefit the ecosystem, especially our merchants. Today's Southeast Asia, Hey Peter. On the right hailing and delivery front, it looks like the competition is coming for you. You know in key markets like Singapore, a lot of

names entering the market. How do you pull off this profitability goal and defend market share at the same time. Our competition has always been intense in Southeast Asia. Were acknowledge that, but we're very focused in making sure that our super app, our product and our services continues to be one that our consumer will continue to use and we've seen engagement, We've seen continuing interaction with our super app our drivers also at the same time as well

as our merchants. So we're going to continue to be very heads down and continuing to create this ecosystem because it creates stickiness. Also, despite what we see around us, whether it's new competitors or sisting competitors that we have, we also have one of the strongest balance sheet that we have here in something is there run for all these players? Do you see some consolidation happening in Southeast Asia? Hey what about M and A. Again, your growth is

very key for us. We're going to continue to focus on growing the ecosystem. We've got all those new initiatives that we talked about, and we're going to continue to develop new products and services, and we're going to continue to the broaden our tom our TAM is also broadening as we have these new services that we're creating, things like digital banks that we've never had before, advertising that

we've never had before. So we'll continue to focus and just execute on organic growth and again part of that is making sure we're up strategy it continues to flourish. You in Southeast Asia, you mentioned the balance sheet. There was a time where six billion dollars seemed like a lot of money. It doesn't seem like a lot of

money anymore. You're gonna need to raise more capital. Capital l castion framework was one of the topics actually that we were discussing during our invest today today, and one of the first pillar that I alluded was cash preservation. And we're very disciplined in making sure that every penny counts and every cost in our business also is being optimized, and we will continue to be very discipline in making sure that cash is preserved. It's at the debt markets.

We actually have a term loan b that we have currently in existence. We have at one point eight term loan bit facility and we've that's we've it's been in place now for the last for the last two years, and it's part of our capital allocation framework and different

capital structure works. And we're in a very good spot right now in terms of where we are with our balance sheet and as with the future growth and also with the future free cash flow that we can generate as we get to break even in the future, we feel that our balance sheet actually will continue to be strengthened in the future years. That was Peter Oe grab CFO. Meanwhile, the arcade game Asteroid has come to life, and NASA spacecraft has successfully crashed into an asternoid asteroid about six

point eight million miles from Earth. It was a test to determine if the impact can nudge the space rocks slightly off course. The U s. Space Agency is in the early stages of a plan to protect the Earth from asteroids. If measurements show the asteroid course was even slightly altered, NASA will consider the mission a success. That does it. For this edition of Bloomberg Technology Wednesday, we'll hear from Circle CEO Jeremy Allier about USDC and the

future of fintech. Don't forget to check out our podcast. You can find it on the terminal as well as online on Apple, Spotify, and as always iHeart Radio. This is Bloomberg