Ontario teachers pension plan risks losing investments in crypto exchange collapse, TikTok readjusts its ad revenue target, and Amazon loses US$1 trillion in market valuation.
For all these tech news trending right now, welcome to Trending Hashtags. It’s Friday, November 12th, and I’m your host, Tom Lee.
Collapsing crypto exchange FTX is now looking for any financial lifeline it can find. The platform halted withdrawals and onboarded new customers as it tried to manage the massive influx of withdrawal requests. In response, Reuters reported that FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried is looking to raise a $9.4 billion rescue package for the platform. Meanwhile, the Bahamas Securities Commission froze the assets of FTX Digital Markets. The crypto market felt the shockwave. According to the Globe and Mail, bitcoin and ether prices fell to new lows this week. Additionally, a US$95 million investment in the platform, held by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, is at risk of evaporating.
Source: globe and mail
The Financial Times has reported that TikTok has cut its global advertising space target by US$2 billion due to declining sales. The company isn’t in the proverbial hole just yet, though, as it’s struggling to meet its advertising revenue forecast. The company blamed its employees for the poor performance, but its employees say the company is also at fault for wasting money unnecessarily. According to four unnamed sources who spoke to the Financial Times, TikTok often offered inflated salaries to junior employees to poach them from competitors. It also spent lavishly on luxury venues to host events.
Source: business Insider
Amazon has shed nearly $1 trillion in market valuation this year. According to Gizmodo, the company fell from its mind-boggling $1.9 trillion valuation on June 21 to its current $878 billion. At its peak, Amazon briefly overtook Apple as the world’s most valuable company. The company’s lower-than-expected revenue disappointed investors. In addition, the company forecast a slower-than-usual holiday sales season and year-over-year growth of between two and eight percent. But, unlike Meta and Twitter, Amazon hasn’t aggressively cut staff yet, although it has extended its hibernation freeze.
Source: gizmodo
With Twitter in complete chaos, the smaller microblogging site is seeing a resurgence of users. Tumblr, founded in 2007, has recently attracted some big names like Ryan Reynolds and Lynda Carter. To jab at Twitter and play on one of the hottest topics currently on the web, Tumblr has launched its Blue Checkmark. The checkmark, which Tumblr calls the Important Blue Internet Checkmark, does absolutely nothing to a user’s account and simply adds two blue checks next to a blog. There isn’t even a subscription. Checkmarks can be had for a one-time payment of $8.
Source: ledge
This is all the tech news that is trending right now. Hashtag Trending is a part of the ITWC Podcast Network. Add us to your Alexa Flash Briefing or your Google Home Daily Briefing. Be sure to sign up for our daily IT Wire newsletter to get important news straight to your inbox every day. Plus, check out the next episode of Hashtag Tendence, our weekly hashtag trending episode in French, which drops every Thursday morning. If you have any suggestion or tip, drop us a line in the comments or via email. Thanks for listening, I’m Tom Lee.
