Foo Fighters’ World Domination Expands to Metaverse with Super Bowl Sunday VR Concert
For those not particularly invested in sports, Dave Grohl has a different idea for Super Bowl Sunday. Following February 13th’s big game, Foo Fighters, somehow still finding new ways to infiltrate every aspect of society, will play a virtual reality concert in Meta’s Horizon Venues app. “Foo Fighters love a challenge — from playing the biggest stages in the world to the tiniest clubs to making movies and miniseries… We’ve pretty much done it all,” Dave Grohl said in a statement. “But we’ve never collaborated with Mark Romanek on a conceptual set of songs (including one being played live for the first time ever) for a worldwide audience, where everyone has the best seats in the house thanks to the most badass VR tech… until now. Join us when we cross that one off the FF bucket list!” Foo Fi...
Majority of US consumers say no to Meta owning metaverse data: Survey
A survey of 1,000 United States consumers around growing interest in the metaverse has revealed some interesting results. In a survey commissioned by nonfungible token and metaverse infrastructure provider Advokate Group, 87% of respondents preferred a decentralized metaverse on a blockchain over some of the mega projects planned by tech giants. This became more evident when 77% of the respondents shared concerns over Facebook’s entry into the metaverse, especially since it owns users’ metaverse data. Facebook’s tainted past with mismanagement of private user data has already dismantled its early plans of launching a stablecoin called Diem. The stablecoin project faced heavy scrutiny from the U.S. Congress, and the project eventually came to a crashing end. A similar concern ha...
Bitcoin bounces at $36.6K as Meta adds 20% losses to US tech stock rout
Bitcoin (BTC) recovered above $37,000 on Feb. 3 after a stocks rout took the wind out of bulls’ latest attempt to crack $40,000 resistance. BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView “Extraordinary moves” for stocks Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD staying lower after briefly hitting $36,650 on Bitstamp Wednesday. The weakness followed shock losses for U.S. equities at the Wall Street open on Wednesday, with major names such as PayPal shedding huge portions of their value after underwhelming performance reports. Major stocks have been experiencing extraordinary moves post earnings after hours this season Netflix -22%Apple +7%Google +11%Paypal -20%Facebook -22%Spotify -23% Liquidity and the Fed’s put are both go...
Aussie billionaire sues Facebook over crypto scams with AG’s consent
Australian billionaire Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest is taking Facebook to court over scammy cryptocurrency ads that he alleges used his name to defraud victims. The Fortescue Metals chairman is accusing Facebook of breaching Australia’s money-laundering laws, claiming that it “knowingly profits from this cycle of illegal ads” that it failed to remove. An initial court hearing in the Western Australian Magistrates court is scheduled for Mar. 28, with a committal hearing expected later in 2022. Forrest is bringing forward the charges under Part 10 of the Commonwealth Criminal Code, with the consent of the Attorney-General Michaelia Cash. According to the filings, one Australian victim lost $952,000 AUD after falling for the scam. The court documents stated that the scam “defrauded victims out of ...
Diem stablecoin co-founder praises Bitcoin for censorship resistance
Shortly after Meta, formerly Facebook, officially gave up on its stablecoin Diem, some of the key people in the project have become increasingly vocal about the uncensorable nature of Bitcoin (BTC). David Marcus, a co-founder of Diem — originally known as Libra — took to Twitter on Tuesday to predict that Bitcoin will be the No. 1 asset in the next two decades. It’s become clear to me that #Bitcoin will be the one asset and L1 still around in 20+ years with increased compounding relevance over time. The #2 slot (for a different use case) is still tbd. #Ethereum is in the lead for now, but #Solana and others nipping at their heels. 1/2 — David Marcus – dmarcus.eth (@davidmarcus) February 1, 2022 “It’s become clear to me that Bitcoin will be the one asset and L1 still around in 20+ yea...
Meta calls it a wrap on Diem project, pockets $182M from its sale
Rumours about the Menlo Park-based tech company looking for a buyer of the project started circulating last week The project, formerly Libra, faced many regulatory stumbling blocks throughout its life, prompting a rebrand to Diem at some point Last week’s unconfirmed reports of Meta looking to sell assets and intellectual property under the Diem project have been verified. Yesterday, the Diem Group revealed it was abandoning the stable coin venture after agreeing to a $182 million sales deal of its technology. The Facebook-backed digital currency project was bought by Silvergate Capital, a California-based innovative financial infrastructure solutions and services provider with a keen interest in the digital currency industry. The company wrapped the deal by paying $50 million and is...
Diem project to sell assets amid looming end, reports suggest
Diem, previously Libra, was proposed by Facebook before its rebrand to Meta The stablecoin project has not seen many good days since its launch It now seems the Diem Association has finally given up on it The Diem stablecoin project pioneered by Meta in October 2019 was mooted as a stablecoin to eventually be used across Meta’s applications. These expectations have seemingly gone to the pack. Bloomberg reports that the project executives have been speaking to investment bankers to initiate a sale of its assets and return the money to the initial investors. However, the talks are still in an early stage, and finding a buyer is not guaranteed. The group is also seeking new employment opportunities for its engineers following the imminent close of business. Worth noting, the project is ...
Zuckerberg’s Diem reportedly weighing sale after stablecoin plans falter
Meta-backed crypto initiative “Diem” is reportedly trying to sell its assets, seemingly calling time on Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s grand ambitions for a stablecoin to act as the internet’s currency. Diem — which was previously known as Libra — is Meta Platform’s cryptocurrency initiative. According to insider sources speaking with Bloomberg, it is considering selling assets to return capital to its investors. The sources said that Diem is in discussions with investment bankers to determine the best way to sell its intellectual property and cash out on whatever value the project has maintained. It’s unclear how the company will be valued, and there is no guarantee that they will be able to find a buyer. According to the source, about a third of the venture is owned by Meta. The rema...
Meta unveils Metaverse AI supercomputer, claims it will be world’s fastest
Facebook’s parent company Meta says that its newly-created artificial intelligence (AI) “Research SuperCluster” (RSC) will “pave the way” towards building the Metaverse. The social media giant said that it believes RSC is already one of the fastest supercomputers in the world and will snag the top spot when it’s fully operational in mid-2022, according to a Jan, 24 blog post unveiling the hardware. “Developing the next generation of advanced AI will require powerful new computers capable of quintillions of operations per second,” wrote the company. “Ultimately, the work done with RSC will pave the way toward building technologies for the next major computing platform — the metaverse, where AI-driven applications and products will play an important role.” CEO Mark Zuckerberg added in a Jan....
Meta exploring NFTs integration, with a marketplace reportedly in plans
Meta will support digital art creators by introducing monetisation for their collectibles Social media giant Meta plans to take advantage of the growing hype in the NFTs industry, according to recent reports. NFTs burst into the scene last year, ballooning to surpass a figure of $40 billion in trades as of the end of 2021. A Thursday report from the Financial Times detailed that ‘several people familiar with the matter’ have suggested that Facebook and Instagram are eyeing NFT integration with talks of an NFT marketplace also in the air. It is worth noting that following the transformation of Facebook into Meta, CEO Mark Zuckerberg indicated that his company would explore the idea of bringing NFTs into the Meta universe. A ‘space’ for creators to exhibit their work ...
Meta poaches staff from Microsoft and Apple for Metaverse plans
Employees from Microsoft and Apple are jumping ship to join Meta Platforms as the company sets its sights on creating the Metaverse. According to former employees of Microsoft quoted by the Wall Street Journal, around 100 people have ditched the tech giant’s augmented reality team over the past year to join Meta Platforms. They claim that Meta has been particularly focused on snapping up people who have worked on Microsoft’s HoloLens augmented reality (AR) headsets. According to the WSJ, Linkedin profiles show that more than 70 people who were part of Microsoft’s HoloLens team have left the project over the past year, with more than 40 of them taking on new positions at Meta. Microsoft’s first mover advantage in the AR space makes its employees valuable assets to Meta. Microsoft announced ...
Bored Ape Yacht Club is a huge mainstream hit, but is Wall Street ready for NFTs?
Within months after its launch in April 2021, Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) has become one of the main reasons Wall Street should take the emerging nonfungible token (NFT) market seriously, thanks to its recent sales turnover of over $1 billion. Celebrities ape into BAYC For the uninitiated, BAYC is a collection of 10,000 cartoons of anthropomorphic apes with stylish clothes and disreputable expressions. Each ape is practically an image file that should be worthless in a sane world. Nonetheless, they have been managing to fetch astonishing sums, sometimes from some of the world’s most renowned celebrities. For instance, Jimmy Fallon, a popular American TV host, bought the image of a Bored Ape that wore a striped T-shirt and heart-shaped shades for almost $220,000 in November ...
