Category: Tech

Fidelity Investments Slashing Valuations on Reddit, Stripe, Bytedance and Instacart

It seems like private market valuations for startups are getting slashed because of overall economic outlooks. In the past few months we have seen heavy declines in the public markets and now the private markets are following behind.

Fidelity Investments is cutting some of its portfolio company valuations.

  • Reddit valuation is down by more than a third.
  • Stripe valuation is down by about 13%
  • Bytedance valuation is down by 13%
  • Instacart is valued at half of its value from last year.

These are only private valuations inside of Fidelity and this was back in April – so its expected that these valuations have dropped even more since then.

It’s a tough time economically for everyone!

Apple Tap to Pay is Going to Help Small Businesses Accept Card Payments Immediately – No Hardware or Contracts Required!

Apple announced back in February that they were going to launch Tap to Pay.

Tap to Pay is a new feature that will enable any merchant to accept payments with only an iPhone – this could obviously really hurt companies that take a cut in the middle like Square or Stripe.

This is going to be an amazing feature for small businesses – who wont need any new hardware or contracts. Just an Apple phone and a dream!

Now, it turns out that Apple is already testing the feature at its own Apple Park visitor center in Cupertino.

ClubHouse Offering Music Audio Listening Without Any Music Licensing

ClubHouse has been a popular audio app for some time now, but it seems like they now have audio listening rooms (Pandora style).

It seems like ClubHouse has forgot one huge downside to this and that’s the fact that they don’t actually have any music licensing to be able to offer such a service.

I wonder whether this is part of the ClubHouse strategy or whether this has just become something that is happening inside their app without their control …. I’m not too sure. However, it won’t take very long for music PRO societies to notice this and come calling for an appropriate license.

Coinbase Very Close to Acquiring Brazils Largest Crypto Exchange – Mercado Bitcoin

Report came out today that Coinbase (COIN) is currently in talks to acquire 2TMM, owner of Mercado Bitcoin, Brazil’s largest crypto exchange.

Mercado Bitcoin has reached 3.2 million customers in 2021, of which 1.1 million were added last year, with a trading volume of $7.1 billion in 2021.

Why it matters:

This gives Coinbase a very strong position in a market in which they have been struggling to gain traction. Brazil and South America overall is going to be a very important market in future for cyptocurrencies.

Phantom Wallet – Beginner’s Guide Video with Walkthrough

Solana is a protocol that is on the rise. Adoption of Solana in terms of developers and DApps have been increasing over the past few years at breakneck speeds – and this leads to more users needing a good wallet solution – step in Phantom.

Phantom is a a crypto wallet focused towards the Solana ecosystem. Here is a great beginners guide to the Phantom wallet – how to signup and how to use the wallet in browser.

Apple Will Allow iPhones to Accept Contactless Payments by NFC

Apple is reportedly going to allow iPhones to start accepting contactless payments. This is huge news!

It will dramatically affect any card company and how they collect their fees – as well as companies like Square and other POS services.

Apple has reporting been working on this service since 2020, when it purchased a Canadian startup called Mobeewave. Mobeewave’s technology only needs an app and the phone’s NFC to work.

I expect that Apple will roll out such a service as part of Apple Pay.

Game changer!

China Blockchain Services Network to Launch NFT Minting and Marketplace Service in China

It has been announced that China’s state-backed Blockchain Services Network (BSN) will soft launch infrastructure for NFTs in China.

BSN said the infrastructure, known as BSN-Distributed Digital Certificates (BSN-DDC), would offer “a diverse, transparent, credible and reliable” one-stop-shop for businesses to mint and manage their own NFTs without relying on cryptocurrencies, which are banned in China.

This will be a very interesting experiment from the Chinese Government as the vast majority of NFTs in the world at the moment are based off the Ethereum network.

Does Audius Pay Artists, Musicians and Record Labels for Streams?

No.

Audius has been live for over 3 years now and it is still yet to have a full payment system for artists and record labels.

Audius provide tokens to 5 top artists each week, but that has little to no value for any artist that is going to use their platform with the hopes of reaching more fans and making money from their music.

This feels like it is a completely dead project – even though they have over $1 billion stakes in the platform with a market cap of now less than $500 million.

Best Blockchain, Cryptocurrency and NFT Explanation Videos I Have Seen – Well Worth the Watch

This has to be one of the most interesting Blockchain, Cryptocurrency and NFT video I have ever seen. It runs through a huge amount of topics and structures and explains them in a very simple way.

After watching the video – there are some points that stand out as great points and others which are kind of irrelevant.

Even after the first 10 minutes there are points in which the previous financial bubble seems to be the exact same structure as what is occuring with NFTs at present. Interesting.

However, this is REALLY WORTH THE WATCH

Can Certain Music Distributors Send Music to Stores / DSPs Faster Than Others?

Short Answer = No

All music distributors (RouteNote, CDBaby, Tunecore, etc) take the same amount of time from the moment a track leaves the distributors server and is packaged to be delivered to a DSP (Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, etc). On average the DSPs will take between 24-48 hour to ingest the content once it is uploaded to their servers.

The ONLY way a music distributor can speed up the process is by pushing tracks through its internal moderation process faster.

Is Rippling Available in the UK and Other Countries Outside the USA?

Rippling has one of the best HR based platforms in the world. Its built from the ground up to help companies look after their employees at all stages.

However, it’s only available in the USA!

I run a company in the UK – and I really wish Rippling was available here. I understand there are a lot of complexities around compliance when you are talking about Payroll and HR globally, but it seems like no one has been able to sort that out on a global basis for all employees as of yet.

Tencent Sells Giant Stake in JD.com – Dropping its ECommerce Share

Tencent is a giant in the world of Chinese technology and beyond. Today they have announced that they will be selling most of its stake in JD.com.

Tencent will reduce is staking from 17% to 2.3%.

The proceeds will help Tencent provide shareholders with a $16.4 billion dividend.

After long being JD’s largest stakeholder, Tencent will give the title to Walmart.

This seems to be a Tencent strategy that has paid off in the long term. Instead of Tencent looking to acquire many companies in adjacent industries – they have decided to acquire minority stakes in a huge number of technology companies globally.

Why?

Its far easy to own more when you own a minority. If Tencent were to acquire more companies – they would have issues with Government and regulator approval.

Didi Delisting from the NYSE and Moving to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange

Chinese ride-hail giant DiDi said it will delist from the New York Stock Exchange, following a Chinese government crackdown on foreign listings. (via Axios)

Didi is the Uber of China (and beyond) and it seems as though their progress might be hindered with growing geopolitical tensions between the US and China.

The delisting will occur soon and Didi will move trading across to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

The Hong Kong Stock Exchange has been know to have lower general multiple than its US counterparts.