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Are you ready? These days it really feels like there’s a holiday for everything, including passwords. Thursday is World Password Day, and in honor of the occasion, I want to remind you of a factoid that British intelligence shared with the world in 2019.
The world’s “most hackable” passwords include:
“blink182”
“liverpool”
“superman”
“cowboys1”
“iloveyou”
In today’s edition:
 ETH hits 3k
 Bidirectional charging
 Epic v. Apple
—Ryan Duffy
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Ryan Duffy
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Last night, ether passed the $3k price for the first time. Earlier this morning, the world’s second biggest cryptocurrency by market cap peaked over $3,200.
Ethereum 101
Many Ethereum boosters have referred to it as the next internet—or Web 3.0—because of the programmable nature of the underlying blockchain. It’s essentially one big computer.
Ether is the crypto that runs on top of the Ethereum blockchain, an open-source, distributed global computing platform that powers dapps (decentralized apps), smart contracts (more in a sec), decentralized finance (DeFi), and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
- DeFi protocols let users issue debt, take out loans, or collateralize their crypto holdings without a central intermediary. It’s alternative financial infrastructure, as one author noted in a journal published by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (yep, the central bank).
- NFT-friendly example: The ERC-20 token is an Ethereum-based asset that can be traded, spent, or transferred to someone else. Each token’s utility is determined by smart contracts, i.e., scripts that execute an action when a condition is met.
What explains ether’s rally?
Well, if we knew all the underlying reasons, we’d probably be running a crypto hedge fund. But there are a few signals:
- Buzzword terms like NFTs and DeFi are gaining more traction, judging by the volume of products, active wallets, and funds deployed. The total value locked in DeFi protocols has grown by tens of billions of dollars this year.
- Rising demand from newcomers, including retail traders and institutions. Traditional institutions, such as Visa and the European Investment Bank, have announced Ethereum-based projects.
- Crypto, more generally, is in a bull market. Ether is gaining ground relative to bitcoin, which could be a function of more investors becoming aware of the currency.
- The Ethereum blockchain is undergoing an upgrade to ETH 2.0, which switches from the computing-intensive proof-of-work system to proof-of-stake. This upgrade promises to reduce network congestion, boost network capacity, and reduce “gas” prices (transaction fees).
Zoom out: We’re old enough to remember bitcoin passing $15k last November, or to date ourselves even more, when ETH dipped below $100 in the pandemic-induced March 2020 market crash.
While ETH’s price is unlikely to pass BTC’s, its market cap could. Ether currently sits at ⅓ the market cap of BTC. The latter is down from 70% of total crypto market cap at the start of the year to 46%, while ETH now sits at ~15%. —RD
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Utrecht/Hyundai
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Utrecht, a city in the Netherlands, is touting the world’s “first bidirectional region.” In partnership with Hyundai, the city’s 500 new charging stations and a car-sharing network of Ioniq 5 EVs will support the transfer of electricity from cars to the grid, as opposed to the status quo of vice versa.
The promise of vehicle-to-grid (V2G) charging
Let’s say it’s 5pm and your city is headed into peak usage hours, when the grid is running at full capacity. V2G feeds juice back into the system. At 5am—when consumption is lower—the EV recharges. In a way, your car has become an intelligent metering- and energy storage system.
You’re smoothing the peaks of energy consumption by calibrating supply with demand. This is especially useful for grid systems with a high ratio of wind and solar generation, since these renewable sources produce intermittent power on a non-fixed schedule.
- Generally speaking, you must consume power when you generate it.
- “Smart charging” systems don’t have to be just cars. Tesla wants to turn homes into distributed power plants using its vehicles, solar panels, and battery Powerpacks.
Bottom line: “Smart city” is something that is said much more than it is built—or used euphemistically to describe surveillance projects. But in Utrecht’s case, we have a view of urban technology being deployed in action. —RD
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Give ITProTV a shot with a 7-day free trial today.
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Today, one of the most-watched PR and legal brouhahas in the tech world kicks off in court, “arguably the biggest courtroom showdown Apple has engaged in since its smartphone patent war with Samsung nearly a decade ago,” Protocol writes.
Fortnite parent Epic Games is suing Apple on antitrust grounds. Both Tims will take the stand (i.e., CEOs Tim Sweeney and Tim Cook). 
FAQs
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Who wins? Smart money’s on Apple. Epic blatantly and openly violated App Store rules by building payment rails into its app as a workaround to the App Store’s 30% cut of in-app purchases.
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But is that policy fair? Epic will say this cut of all digital goods and services sold via iOS apps is too high of a take rate. Especially since services like Apple Music—distributed via the very same marketplace—don’t have to pay.
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Apple’s likely response? The 30% tithe pays for App Store maintenance. And you won’t find the same level of security on, say, the Google Play store or side-loaded apps on Android.
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Who else would like a word? Spotify, Match Group, Facebook, and Microsoft, among others, have voiced support for Epic in one way or another. Just one week ago at a Senate Judiciary Antitrust subcommittee hearing, senators grilled Apple for the “tax” on revenues flowing through the App Store.
Live look: Now we head over to Google, which rounds out the so-called app store duopoly. Google right now:
Ryan's meme repository
—RD
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Francis Scialabba
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Stat: Over 30 EU banks and payment processors are forming a pan-European network with the goal of challenging the US “oligopoly.”
Quote: “Regulators have the opportunity early on to shape expectations by working with responsible entities, while taking aggressive enforcement action against bad actors. The window to do so is open for DeFi.”—Kevin Werbach, a Wharton professor, writes that DeFi is the next frontier for fintech regulation
Read: Nikkei takes a look at India’s unicorn spree.
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Intel will focus on building fabs, not share buybacks, CEO Pat Gelsinger told 60 Minutes last night.
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Facebook acquired Downpour Interactive, a VR developer behind the popular multiplayer title Onward.
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Apple will release a foldable iPhone in 2023, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says.
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Neuralink cofounder Max Hodak has departed the brain-machine interface company.
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Baidu is rolling out a (small) driverless robotaxi network in Beijing.
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Dell is selling Boomi, a cloud integration company, to two private equity firms for $4 billion, the WSJ reports.
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THREE THINGS WE'RE WATCHING
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Tuesday: Lyft reports earnings. Unlike Uber, which has aggressively branched out into deliveries during the pandemic, Lyft is a pure-play ride-hail company. As bookings recover, whose business is on a better footing? And will Lyft’s sale of its self-driving division help (or hurt) in the long run? Also—Uber reports earnings on Wednesday.
Wednesday: Facebook Oversight Board will announce its decision on whether to permanently ban former President Trump from FB services at 9am ET.
Thursday: Nintendo reports results for the year through March. Switch sales have turbocharged Nintendo’s business over the past few months, but is the company being affected by the chip shortage in any way?
Bonus round for Friday: As Rebecca Black likes to say, it’s Friday. We’re going to guess an ether price target of $3,212. We’ll check back in then to see how off we were. This is most certainly not investment advice.
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What’s going on with NFTs? We headed to OpenSea, one of the largest marketplaces, to check. Rapper Lil Jon is auctioning 37 animated tokens with a NSFW title. And the Drone Racing League is selling its own NFTs.
Zoë Roth, whose picture smiling in front of a burning house went on to become the “Disaster Girl” meme, sold an NFT on Foundation, a separate marketplace, of the infamous picture for over $500,000. She’ll use the money to pay off student loans and donate to charities.
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Catch up on the top Emerging Tech Brew stories from the past few editions:
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Written by
Ryan Duffy
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