Cryptocurrency exchange Binance reportedly mixed its revenue with customer funds at a US bank in 2020 and 2021. A source said to have direct knowledge of company finances told Reuters that commingling happened almost daily in Binance accounts at Silvergate Bank and concerned sums that ran into the billions.

The news agency said it reviewed records showing that, in February 2021, Binance mixed $20 million from a corporate account with $15 million from one into which customer funds were placed. Reuters noted that it found no evidence of client funds being stolen or lost. Still, under US financial regulations, customer money must be kept separate from business revenue.

Binance has denied commingling customer funds and its revenue. “These accounts were not used to accept user deposits; they were used to facilitate user purchases” of cryptocurrencies, Binance spokesperson Brad Jaffe told Reuters. “There was no commingling at any time because these are 100 percent corporate funds.” Jaffe added that users weren't depositing funds when they sent money to the account, but instead were purchasing BUSD, a stablecoin issued by Binance and Paxos that's pegged to the US dollar.

However, in late 2020 and during 2021, Binance's website is said to have stated that customer dollar transfers were "deposits" that were credited to trading accounts in BUSD. The site also reportedly informed users that they'd be able to "withdraw" deposits in USD. Former US regulators suggested to Reuters that the language "created the expectation that clients’ funds would be safeguarded in the same way as traditional cash deposits."

Binance is already in hot water with US authorities. In March, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission accused the company of operating in the US illegally and said it had broken several financial laws. In its complaint (PDF), the CFTC said Binance had "commingled funds." The agency is seeking permanent trading and registration bans against the defendants, who include Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao. In a blog post, Zhao claimed that Binance blocks US users on several bases, including nationality, IP address (including common VPN access points) and mobile carrier.

Earlier this month, reports suggested the Justice Department was investigating the company over potential violations of sanctions imposed on Russia. Binance also recently said it would exit Canada due to tighter cryptocurrency regulations.

If the prospect of a cryptocurrency exchange mixing customer and company funds sounds familiar, that's because it's one of the many crimes US authorities have accused FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried of. Bankman-Fried has claimed he didn't knowingly commingle funds and has pleaded not guilty to fraud charges. On Tuesday, it emerged that federal prosecutors have accumulated over 6 million pages of evidence (including emails and Slack messages) as part of their criminal case against Bankman-Fried. 

FTX’s collapse late last year was triggered by a bank run on the company that Binance initiated. Binance planned to snap up FTX but pulled out of the deal after taking a look at the latter’s books.

Good news for parents with teens: Venmo is rolling out what it calls Venmo Teen Accounts. This lets parents create accounts for minors aged 13 to 17. It comes with a Venmo Teen Debit Card, which gives parents or guardians an insight into spending, lets them send money and allows them to manage privacy settings.

According to Venmo, over 50 percent of parents are interested in using apps to help their children learn about money. The company also claims that over 45 percent of Gen Z want to have a conversation with an adult about managing personal finances. The Venmo Teen Account should hopefully bridge that gap for many parents or guardians out there.

Venmo says that the Venmo Teen Account has no monthly fees and that the debit card will have no-fee cash withdrawals at ATMs. Of course, the account will be able to send and receive money from family and friends. Parents and guardians will be able to see friends list, transaction history, account balance, and be able to manage the debit card’s PIN, lock and unlock it and block users from interacting with the account.

And since it’s separate from the parent or guardian’s account, teens will be able to independently track their own spending and learn financial responsibility. Venmo says that teen accounts will be eligible for direct deposit, which is great for those with part-time jobs.

Signing up for a teen account is pretty straightforward. Parents or guardians will need to sign into their personal Venmo account and tap Me > (Your Name) > Create a teen account. From there, you’ll need to add a name, address, and date of birth, and choose a debit card style from a selection of a few colors.

Venmo Teen Accounts will be rolling out to select users in June of 2023 and will be available on a wider scale in the weeks following.

Meta could turn to Magic Leap for help to stay ahead of Apple and other new entrants in the soon-to-be crowded AR space. According to the Financial Times, the two companies are in talks to sign a multi-year IP licensing and manufacturing pact. Details on the negotiations are few, but according to the outlet’s sources, a potential partnership is not expected to produce a jointly developed headset. Instead, a deal could see Magic Leap provide Meta with access to some of its optical tech. The partnership could also see the startup assist with manufacturing Meta devices, thereby allowing the tech giant to produce more of its VR headsets domestically at a time when there’s more pressure for US companies to lessen their dependence on China.

Meta did not immediately respond to Engadget’s comment request. Magic Leap told the Financial Times partnerships were becoming a “significant line of business and growing opportunity for Magic Leap.” Additionally, in a blog post titled “What’s Next for Magic Leap,” CEO Peggy Johnson said late last year the company had “received an incredible amount of interest from across the industry to license our IP and utilize our patented manufacturing process to produce optics for others seeking to launch their own mixed-reality technology.”

The timing of the report is notable for a couple of reasons. Meta is under pressure from investors to show something for all the money it has spent pursuing CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s vision for the future of computing. The company does not expect to make a profit from all of its metaverse projects for another few years. At the same time, it is burning about $10 billion annually on its Reality Labs division. Separately, Apple is widely expected to enter the AR headset market next month when the company holds its WWDC developer conference.

You could be going on heists, stealing cars and competing in races in Grand Theft Auto VI sometime next year. Rockstar's parent company, Take-Two, has shared its projections for the future along with its yearly earnings report. And apparently, it's gearing up to release projects that it believes will take its "company to even greater levels of success." The company expects the titles it's releasing in the fiscal year 2025 to help it achieve $8 billion in net bookings, or the net amount of products and services sold. While it didn't explicitly name those titles, the Grand Theft Auto franchise has historically been one of Take-Two's biggest moneymakers. 

As IGN notes, Take-Two's net bookings for the previous fiscal year reached $5.3 billion, and it's thanks to the company's Zynga acquisition. Before that, it was earning around $3 billion a year. An almost $3 billion jump in net bookings is massive, and unless Take-Two is making another huge acquisition, GTA is the franchise that would enable it to achieve that goal. IGN asked Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick whether we're going to see GTA 6 as soon as next year, but the executive refused to confirm or deny it. 

Part of the company's press release reads:

"Looking ahead, Fiscal 2025 is a highly anticipated year for our Company. For the last several years, we have been preparing our business to release an incredibly robust pipeline of projects that we believe will take our company to even greater levels of success. In Fiscal 2025, we expect to enter this new era by launching several groundbreaking titles that we believe will set new standards in our industry and enable us to achieve over $8 billion in Net Bookings and over $1 billion in Adjusted Unrestricted Operating Cash Flow. We expect to sustain this momentum by delivering even higher levels of operating results in Fiscal 2026 and beyond."

Take-Two's fiscal year 2025 starts in April 2024 and ends on March 31st, 2025. Even if the Rockstar doesn't release GTA 6 in 2024, it could still be coming out in the first three months the year after. Bottom line: We don't have to wait that long for the game to arrive. Since 90 videos of GTA 6 gameplay footage leaked late last year, you probably already know what you can expect. The clips, which Rockstar confirmed as legit, showed two playable protagonists, including a female character named Lucia, committing crimes in a fictionalized version of Miami.

Doing your taxes in the United States can be famously convoluted. It can also be expensive: on top of paying their tax bills, Americans who have more complicated finances often have to pay for software to help them navigate the US tax code. That might change soon: a report from the Washington Post says that the Internal Revenue Services is preparing to roll out a free direct filing system that will allow Americans to complete their taxes digitally.

The first version of the direct filing system could be available as soon as next year, according to the report, with a pilot program launching for a small group of taxpayers in January of 2024. That would arrive just a year after the IRS publicly started exploring the option, when the tax agency tapped the New America think tank to help explore the feasibility of an agency-run filing program. That effort was kicked off in February of this year, after the Inflation Reduction Act earmarked $15 million to the IRS to research a "multi-lingual and mobile-friendly" free direct e-file system.

That focus on a user-friendly system might be the point. The IRS already offers a Free File Online tool, but according to the Government Accountability Offices, it's used by less than 3% of eligible taxpayers. If the program is a success, it could make filing taxes easier and more affordable for millions of Americans. If not? Well, TurboTax and H&R Block probably aren't going anywhere. After all, the US tax prep and filing industry is still worth about $14 billion.

Canadians will no longer have access to the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world. Binance has announced that it's withdrawing from the Canadian marketplace due to new stablecoin and investor limits in the country. Back in February, the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) released new guidance that gives crypto trading platforms operating in the region 30 days to register or to leave. The crypto firms that decide to register and stay will have to adhere to stricter rules, such as seeking the CSA's approval before allowing users to buy or deposit stablecoins. 

According to CoinDesk, Binance will have to pass authorities' due diligence checks before it gets approval. The crypto exchange has been under intense scrutiny in North America over the past years. In the US, the DOJ and the Internal Revenue Service have been looking into reports that Binance is being used for money laundering schemes since 2021. It's also reportedly under investigation for allowing users to bypass sanctions against Russian financial institutions. In March this year, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission charged Binance for allegedly offering unregistered crypto derivatives, among other things. 

In its announcement, Binance said it put off the decision as long as it could "to explore other reasonable avenues to protect [its] Canadian users." Indeed, Bloomberg says its Canadian affiliate filed paperwork to begin its registration process in March. But in the end, it had decided that continuing its operations in the country is "no longer tenable."

Binance ended its announcement with a note saying it's confident it will return to Canada, it's CEO Changpeng Zhao's home country, someday. It also said it hopes to continue engaging with Canadian authorities when it comes to forming a "thoughtful, comprehensive regulatory framework."

Electric vehicle brand Polestar plans to reduce its headcount by 10 percent as part of an effort to cut costs. It will also institute a global hiring freeze and it has trimmed production guidance for 2023. Polestar now expects to produce between 60,000 and 70,000 vehicles this year, down from the previous figure of 80,000.

The brand cited a delayed start to production of the Polestar 3 and "the economic environment affecting the automotive industry" as key reasons for the changes. The electric SUV is now expected to enter production in early 2024.

Polestar says Volvo (which, as Autoblog notes, is Polestar's vehicle producer and largest shareholder) needs more time for software development and testing of the new electric platform. Volvo has delayed the start of production of the EX90 for the same reason. Production is slated to start in the first half of next year.

There are no changes to the Polestar 4 schedule as things stand. Polestar expects to start production of that EV for China in the fourth quarter of this year and in early 2024 for other markets.

Polestar said in its latest earnings report that it delivered 12,076 cars in the first three months of 2023, an increase of 26 percent from a year earlier. More than 100,000 of the brand's cars are now out in the wild. Polestar's revenue rose to $546 million, up from $452.2 million a year earlier, while the net loss for the quarter was $9 million, compared with $274.5 million in Q1 2022.

There's enough cash in the kitty for Polestar to make it through this year, the company previously said. It received a $1.6 billion injection from Volvo and fellow major shareholder PSD Investment in November. Polestar had $884.3 million cash on hand as of March 31st, though it expects to need more funding over the next few years.

Other nascent EV players have also been struggling to manage their expenses. Last month, Lucid said it would lay off 1,300 workers to cut costs, accounting for 18 percent of the total workforce. Rivian has also laid off more than 1,000 workers since last summer.

A "one-app experience" that combines Disney+ and Hulu content will launch in late 2023, Disney CEO Bob Iger has announced during the company's latest earnings call. He said the company will continue offering Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ as standalone options, but combining services "is a logical progression" of its direct-to-consumer offerings "that will provide greater opportunities for advertisers, while giving bundle subscribers access to more robust and streamlined content..."

Since Comcast still owns 33 percent of Hulu, this announcement suggests that Disney could be thinking of buying the cable TV and media company's stake. Iger didn't elaborate on the company's plans, though, and only said that Disney has had "constructive" talks with Comcast about the future of Hulu. 

In addition to announcing the combined streaming app, Iger has also revealed that Disney+ is getting another price increase after adding $3 on top of its ad-free streaming tier's monthly fee in December. He didn't say when the company is raising the service's prices, but when it does, the ad-free and ad-supported tiers will cost more than $11 and $8, respectively. 

While Disney reported (PDF) a 26 percent decrease in operating losses for its streaming business, a $659 million loss is still massive. The price hike's announcement didn't come out of nowhere, seeing as the company promised investors that the business will be profitable by the end of the 2024 fiscal year. The question is whether the combined Disney+ and Hulu app could convince new users to pay for a subscription — or for old subscribers to come back. Disney+ lost 4 million subscribers in the first quarter of 2023 after shedding 2.4 million users in the previous quarter.

After selling 23 million Switches two years ago and 18 million in the last year, Nintendo expects demand for the aging console to continue to fall. It's forecasting sales of 15 million for next year (fiscal year 2024) and isn't even confident of that figure, the company announced in its latest earnings report. "Sustaining the Switch’s sales momentum will be difficult in its seventh year," said President Shuntaro Furukawa in a call. "Our goal of selling 15 million unit this fiscal year is a bit of stretch." 

To achieve that, the company said that it will focus on selling second and even third consoles to people who already own one. "We try to not only put one system in every home, but several in every home, or even one for every person." 

For the last full year (fiscal 2023 for Nintendo), the company saw sales drop 5.5 percent from 1.695 trillion yen ($12.57 billion) to $1.601 trillion yen ($11.87 billion), while profit dropped 14.9 percent to 504.3 billion yen ($3.74 billion). Net sales for its last quarter were down 18 percent year-over-year to 306.5 billion yen ($2.27 billion), indicating that it's on a slippery downward slope. 

Switch sales for the quarter were 3.06 million (with exactly half being OLED Switch units), one of the company's worst sales quarters for the console to date. However, Nintendo did predict this would happen, saying last year at this time that it expected sales of the console to keep slowing down. 

That's to be expected for a six-year-old console that has sold extremely well in its lifetime (125.62 million units, third best of all time) and effectively saturated the market. Consumers may also be waiting for the company's next-gen console, whatever that turns out to be.

Luckily for Nintendo, we're just days away from the new Zelda release, which will likely drive game sales and inspire extra console demand. It's not looking too good for the Switch overall though, especially next to Sony which just had a second consecutive blockbuster quarter, selling 6.3 million PS5s and easily beating its forecast of 18 million for the year. 

The Bank of Canada wants the public’s opinions on a potential digital Canadian dollar. Although the country’s central bank says a national digital currency isn’t yet needed, it wants to remain flexible and ready should that ever change.

“As Canada’s central bank, we want to make sure everyone can always take part in our country’s economy. That means being ready for whatever the future holds,” said Senior Deputy Governor Carolyn Rogers in a press release published today. The bank cites the diminishing use of cash, potential competition with cryptocurrencies and national economic stability as reasons to prepare for the potential shift.

“The Bank has been providing bank notes to Canadians for more than 85 years,” its announcement states. “Cash is a safe, accessible and trusted method of payment that anyone can use, including people who don’t have a bank account, a credit score or official identification documents. However, there may come a time when bank notes are not widely used in day-to-day transactions, which could risk excluding many Canadians from taking part in the economy.”

Although cryptocurrency is less of a threat to traditional financial institutions after last year’s epic collapses, it’s still a looming danger that likely motivated this move. If decentralized currencies ever became widely enough used to reduce demand for the Canadian dollar, that could threaten the bank’s (and government’s) ability to assert control over the economy, maintain stability and implement policies. “A digital Canadian dollar would ensure Canadians always have an official, safe, and stable digital payment option issued by Canada’s central bank,” the bank says. But it also emphasized that, even if it eventually launched a national digital currency, it would still issue bank notes for anyone who wants them. “Cash isn’t going anywhere,” it unequivocally states.

The survey is a standard online questionnaire about how Canadians would likely use digital currency, which security features are essential, and their concerns about accessibility and privacy. “We want to hear from Canadians about what they value most in the design of a digital dollar. This will help us make design choices and ensure that it is secure, reliable and meets the needs of Canadians,” said Rogers. The bank says Canadians’ feedback “will be kept anonymous, confidential, and be reported in aggregate only.”