Global market update and executive summary of tech industry news headlines, brought to you Hunter Muller and the editorial team at HMG Strategy.
Markets Rally, Despite Rising Inflation
Financial markets seem confident in the future of our global economy, even as inflation continues rising.
“The S&P 500 rose on Friday, extending Wall Street’s strong rally this week, despite inflation hitting a 39-year high. The S&P 500 rose 0.5%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose about 50 points. the technology-focused Nasdaq Composite rose 0.2%. All three averages are up solidly for the week,” writes of CNBC. “Inflation soared 6.8% year-over-year in November to highest rate since 1982, the Labor Department said Friday.”
Computer Scientist Cleared in Bitcoin Case
We still don’t know the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious author of a 2008 white paper that launched the modern cryptocurrency era. But a court case has shed some additional light on the unfolding saga.
“A computer scientist who has claimed to be the inventor of Bitcoin largely prevailed on Monday in a Florida jury trial over whether the estate of a former business partner deserved half of a bitcoin cache worth about $54 billion,” according to a Reuters report published by CNN Business. “The Miami jury cleared Craig Wright on nearly all issues in the dispute, including that half of the 1.1 million bitcoin in dispute belonged to the family of Dave Kleiman, the former partner and computer forensics expert.”
If your tweets tend to go viral, you’ll be happy to know that a “secret” program is working to keep you safe from trolls and bullies.
“Twitter Inc.’s highest-profile users—those with lots of followers or particular prominence—often receive a heightened level of protection from the social network’s content moderators under a secretive program that seeks to limit their exposure to trolls and bullies,” writes Kurt Wagner of Bloomberg News. “Code-named Project Guardian, the internal program includes a list of thousands of accounts most likely to be attacked or harassed on the platform, including politicians, journalists, musicians and professional athletes. When someone flags abusive posts or messages related to those users, the reports are prioritized by Twitter’s content moderation systems, meaning the company reviews them faster than other reports in the queue.”
Kickstarter Begins Move Toward Blockchain
Kickstarter, the global crowdsourcing platform, has announced that it will create an open source protocol that will pave the way for a decentralized version of the platform on a public blockchain.
“Kickstarter is launching a new organization called Kickstarter PBC, which will begin development of the protocol. Kickstarter is funding the project, appointing an initial board for the organization and committing to be one of the first platforms on the protocol, though no specific timelines were offered for when such a transition might take place. The company also announced that they’re establishing an ‘independent governance lab,’ which will publish research and engage with the community on the topic of protocol governance,” writes Lucas Matney of TechCrunch.
