CRYPTO

No hide needed here

Facebook is ready to launch Novi, its digital wallet, exec David Marcus wrote in a memo Wednesday. He spearheads Diem (née Libra), the Facebook crypto project that kicked off with very grand ambitions.  

Considering those initial ambitions, wallets may seem like a meek starting point for Diem. But wallets underpin everything. They’re indispensable for participation in any part of the cryptocurrency ecosystem, from storing your digital gold in a metaphorical vault to actively minting JPEG images as non-fungible tokens (NFTs). 

What is a crypto wallet? 

Wallets don’t “hold” your crypto so much as store the digital credentials required to access your coins. Your wallet is encrypted proof of ownership, consisting of your public and private keys (long, random alphanumeric strings of characters). Pro tip: Do not ever give away your private key, even if a scammer asks you nicely in the DMs. 

Robust security is everything in cryptoland. Were thieves to gain access to your wallet and siphon away your funds, there’s no centralized intermediary who could roll back the on-chain transaction.

How to protecc, avoid attacc?

From whales to decentralization idealists, many opt for “cold storage” of their keys on hardware wallets. The physical devices allow for safekeeping that’s neither 1) paper nor 2) a hackable, online storage system. 

While hot (internet-connected) wallets are less secure, they still have advantages, like letting traders move funds more freely. There’s a slew of desktop, browser, and mobile offerings in this category, like MetaMask, Coinbase Wallet, and Exodus.  

In a trustless world…

...security and counterparty risks are the sine qua non of digital asset management. 

And while self-custody will remain a key criteria for much of the crypto community, tens of millions of crypto users don’t hold their own keys, instead trusting centralized exchanges to safeguard their credentials. As digital assets move beyond crypto-native dev communities to Fortune 500s and rising fintechs, third-party custody isn’t going away. 

Ultimately, it’s a choice that comes down to personal preferences, risk tolerance, and use cases. 

Click here to read the full explainer.—RD

SPACE

Space spat

In the movies, space battles happen among the stars, on planets far, far away. IRL, they happen in federal courtrooms.

Earlier this week, Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin filed a complaint in federal court against SpaceX, contesting NASA’s decision to award Musk’s space company a $2.9 billion contract to develop a human landing system (HLS) for NASA. On Thursday, a judge issued a stay to NASA, which will stop work on the project until Nov. 1.

• The contract is part of NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to place a person on the moon for the first time since 1972. 

Some no-background: NASA typically funds multiple efforts on the same project, to ensure redundancy, and had initially planned to do the same here. But when budget cuts forced NASA to select only one vendor, it went with SpaceX, which has previously flown astronauts and cargo to the ISS on behalf of the agency.

Blue Origin has been on the offensive since then, even putting out infographics that claim SpaceX’s proposal is expensive, inefficient, and dangerous. It also complained to the Government Accountability Office, which ruled that NASA fairly awarded the contract to SpaceX. 

• Blue Origin also offered to waive up to $2 billion in development costs.

Bottom line: Budget constraints may have already slowed NASA’s plans to get a human on the moon by 2024, but procurement fights could prolong the project even further.—JM 

SPONSORED BY NADEX

Trade With More Control

Newsflash: Investing is pretttyyy complicated.

Follow-up newsflash: It realllyyy doesn’t have to be that way. 

Third newsflash just because: Nadex is a simpler, smarter trading experience for investors looking to diversify their trading.

Nadex's US-regulated exchange offers prediction markets on the world's largest financial markets. Amazing! So what does that mean? On Nadex, contracts are priced between $0-100, and you know the market's perception of the outcome being true or false at expiration.

That also means you can trade in and out of the contract to capture profits, or cut your losses early—you’re in control.

NEWSFLASH (you saw it coming): Nadex lets you trade contracts as short as five minutes or up to one week, meaning you can capitalize on the potential of market moving events and short-term price action. 

Make a first-time deposit of $1,000 or more and receive a $100 account credit today.*

VR

You don’t gotta go to (virtual) work

Yesterday, Facebook announced a new virtual reality conference room app for its Oculus Quest 2 headset. A beta version of the immersive work meetings app, named Horizon Workrooms, is now available for anyone who has the VR headset.

“We shouldn't really have to physically be together to feel present or collaborate or brainstorm,” Zuckerberg said in a press briefing, per Axios.

But...does anyone want this? Twitter reactions would have you believe the answer is a resounding “NO!!” And while things get a little more complicated when looking at other sources, the evidence still points in basically the same direction.

For example, a June Morning Brew-Harris Poll survey found that US adults have mixed feelings about the idea of using AR/VR at work: 27% said they’re very or somewhat excited, 29% said they’re not very or not at all excited, and 31% said they’re neutral.

• Among those who are neutral or excited about using AR/VR at work, nearly 40% said training is the most exciting application, while just 18% said real-time feedback, and 16% said remote collaboration. 

These responses could reflect general priorities (i.e., workers might simply be more jazzed up about development opportunities than collaboration). And, obviously, training sessions can be meetings too. But the data still suggests that relatively few US adults are jumping for joy at the prospect of metaversifying common meetings, like feedback sessions or group brainstorms, a lá Workrooms.

“I don’t think that this kind of remote avatar collaboration...is high on people’s list,” Victoria Petrock, principal analyst at Insider Intelligence, told Emerging Tech Brew. “I think people have gotten used to working remotely, and part of the beauty of working remotely is that you don’t have to be constantly on display when collaborating with people.”

Petrock said more specialized applications of enterprise VR have a better chance of catching on—like training and development, event planning, or even medical professionals using it for certain forms of therapy. 

Zoom out: Facebook’s 10,000+-person mixed reality division ain’t the only organization trying to make immersive remote work happen. 

Microsoft is working on it with its Hololens and Mesh projects, which led CEO Satya Nadella to coin the accursed phrase “enterprise metaverse” in mid-July. And a handful of startups have raised VC cash for similar products: To date, virtual HQ startups TeamFlow, Gather, and Spatial have pulled in $49.9 million, $26 million, and $22.3 million, respectively.—DM

BITS & BYTES

Stat: Crypto startups have pulled in more than $17 billion in venture funding this year.

Quote: “Our result is a significant step forward in understanding what is required for it to work. To me, this is a Wright Brothers moment [in nuclear fusion].”—Omar Hurricane, chief scientist for the Inertial Confinement Fusion Program at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, to CNBC

Read: Rest of World profiled people in the Global South who are making a living in Axie Infinity, a blockchain-based play-to-earn game. 

Ready, set, CRYPTO: On eToro, not only can you browse over 20 cryptocurrencies, you can copy the moves of top-performing traders automatically. Plus, when you buy your first $500 worth of crypto, eToro will send $50 your way. Start investing on eToro today.*

SPONSORED BY TRANSPARENTBUSINESS

How do we like our yields? High. With TransparentBusiness, you can earn up to 20% a year with their High Yield Notes (aka: a higher rate than with most fixed-income instruments). Protect your funds from inflation and invest in the majority owner of the Unicorn Hunters Show. Click for more info.

WEIB

• Tesla hosted its first AI day, where it claimed it would build a robot and pulled back the curtain on the semiconductor underpinning Dojo, its supercomputer.
• GM and AT&T will partner on 5G-connected cars. 
• The FTC filed a new antitrust complaint against Facebook. 
• Toyota is slashing auto production. Even those who stockpiled parts are succumbing to the chip shortage…
• Lordstown Motors’s stock hit a 52-week low.
• Nvidia doesn’t expect its ARM deal to be completed for at least 18 months due to antitrust scrutiny. 

GOING PHISHING

Three of the following news stories are true, and one...we made up. Can you spot the odd one out?

1. The creative genius behind Boaty McBoatface made Boaty McBoatface “McNFTs.” 
2. Tesla’s robot is already doing dishes at its Fremont factory. 
3. Google was mulling a hostile takeover of Epic Games, the Fortnite maker alleges in newly unsealed court docs. 
4. Sen. Thom Tillis signed a letter to constituents about crypto policy with “to the moon.” 

FROM THE ARXIVES

By 2035, half of global passenger vehicle sales will be electric, BloombergNEF estimates. How will we build enough batteries to fuel them all?

A new Nature.com feature asks this question, and the short answer is that we need to get smarter in our use of metals like lithium and cobalt, which power EV batteries. That can happen through recycling metals—rather than mining anew every time—as well as through experimentation with things like cobalt-free batteries. 

ICYMI

Catch up on the top Emerging Tech Brew stories from the past few editions: 

• Meet Giuseppe, an AI system that generates plant-based meat and dairy recipes 
• Q&A with Steve Aoki on NFTs in music—and our cyborg future
• How governments are exploring digital currencies

GOING PHISHING ANSWER

Tesla’s robot doesn’t exist, so it’s definitely not doing any dishes yet. Elon Musk said a prototype of the robot will probably be ready sometime next year. 

✤ A Note from Nadex:

*Trading on Nadex involves risk and may not be appropriate for all market participants.  

*Initial deposit offer terms and conditions

✤ A Note From eToro

eToro USA LLC; Investments are subject to market risk, including the possible loss of principal. This promotion is available in the USA only