What we’re reading (2/4)
“SEC Response To Meme-Stock Mania Coming Next Week, Gensler Says” (Bloomberg). “SEC Chair Gary Gensler said Thursday that the agency is preparing to take up a range of policy changes starting next week that would deal with issues raised by last year’s market frenzy, including shortening the time it takes to settle stock trades. The inner-workings of the stock market have become a hot button issue in Washington since last year’s wild trading, prompting a series of congressional hearings.”
“Metamorphosis: Facebook And Big-Tech Competition” (The Economist). “Meta’s troubles reflect two kinds of competition. The first is within social media, where TikTok has become a formidable competitor…[t]he second kind of competition hurting Facebook is the intensifying contest between tech platforms as they diversify into new services and vie to control access to the customer. In Facebook’s case the problem is Apple’s new privacy rules, which allow users to opt out of ad-tracking[.]”
“Amazon, Other Potential Suitors Explore Peloton Deal” (Wall Street Journal). “Amazon has been speaking to advisers about a potential deal, some of the people said. There’s no guarantee the e-commerce giant will follow through with an offer or that Peloton, which is working with its own advisers, would be receptive. Other potential suitors are circling, these people said, but no deal is imminent and there may not be one at all.”
“How $323M In Crypto Was Stolen From A Blockchain Bridge Called Wormhole” (Ars Technica). “This is a story about how a simple software bug allowed the fourth-biggest cryptocurrency theft ever…A lengthy analysis posted on Twitter a few hours after the heist said that Wormhole’s backend platform failed to properly validate its guardian accounts. By creating a fake signature account, the hacker or hackers behind the heist minted 120,000 ETH coins—worth about $323 million at the time of the transactions—on the Solana chain. The hackers then made a series of transfers that dropped about 93,750 tokens into a private wallet stored on the Ethereum chain[.]”
“Cathie Wood's Ark Files For New Fund” (The Street). “Star investor Cathie Wood’s Ark Investment Management has filed for a new fund that would include private companies and would limit when investors can exit the fund. It’s called Ark Venture Fund, and it would require a minimum investment of $1,000, according to the filing, Bloomberg reports. That would make it easy for individual investors to participate.”
