The abrupt collapse of Silicon Valley Bank has affected the value of the world’s fifth-largest cryptocurrency, increasing fears of a possible ripple effect among Web3 companies. On Saturday morning, USD Coin fell to a record low of $0.87 after Circle, the company that manages the stablecoin, disclosed that $3.3 billion of the approximately $10 billion cash reserves backing USDC was held by SVB.

As The Guardian notes, the drop is unprecedented. As a stablecoin, the value of USDC is supposed to remain stable thanks to its peg to the US dollar. According to data from CoinGecko, USDC’s previous all-time low was about $0.97 in 2018. More recently, the currency fell to $0.99 following the collapse of Three Arrows Capital. As of the writing of this article, USDC is valued at approximately $0.95 cents.

Web3 is Going Just Great creator Molly White suggests the effect from a sustained USDC drop would be “enormous.” A handful of other stablecoins, including FRAX and DAI, use USDC as collateral. On Friday, Circle said it would “continue to operate normally” while it waits for more information on what will happen to SVB’s clients. "As of Thursday, we had initiated transfers of these funds to other banking partners. Though these transfers had not yet been settled as of close of business Friday, we remain confident in the FDIC’s management of the SVB situation and stand ready to receive these funds," Circle said on Saturday, adding $5.4 billion of its cash assets are held by BNY Mellon, "one of the largest and most stable financial institutions in the world."

The sudden collapse of Silicon Valley Bank has put more than a quarter of Roku’s cash at risk. The streaming company had nearly $500 million, representing 26 percent of its cash, in Silicon Valley Bank, the company disclosed in an SEC filing Friday.

The future of those funds is now uncertain as federal regulators have taken over the financial institution amid the second-largest bank collapse in United States history. “The Company’s deposits with SVB are largely uninsured,” Roku wrote in its filing. “At this time, the Company does not know to what extent the Company will be able to recover its cash on deposit at SVB.”

In a statement on Friday, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) said that it will pay “uninsured depositors an advance dividend within the next week” and that “uninsured depositors will receive a receivership certificate for the remaining amount of their uninsured funds.” But there’s still a lot of uncertainty about how long that process will take to play out, and how much of their uninsured funds companies will ultimately be able to recover.

However, Roku’s situation is, at least for now, a lot less dire than many of the smaller startups that relied on Silicon Valley Bank, some of which are now unable to pay their bills or their employees. 

In its SEC filing, the company noted that it has more than a billion dollars in cash at multiple other banks. “As stated in our 8-K, we expect that Roku’s ability to operate and meet its contractual obligations will not be impacted and we continue to have access to $1.4 billion in cash and cash equivalents which are distributed across multiple, large financial institutions,” a Roku spokesperson said in a statement to Engadget.

While Silicon Valley Bank was previously a little-known institution, it was known for its close relationships with startup founders, who made up much of its clientele. But, as Bloomberg’s Matt Levine explains, the bank’s reliance on fixed-rate assets, also made it uniquely exposed to the conditions that ultimately led to a run on the bank Thursday after prominent venture capitalists urged founders to move their money out of the institution.

Roku is not the only major public tech company now facing losses as a result of the bank’s collapse. Roblox had $3 billion, about 5 percent of its cash, at Silicon Valley Bank, the company told the SEC. “Regardless of the ultimate outcome and the timing, this situation will have no impact on the day to day operations of the Company,” it wrote in a filing. Video service Vimeo also disclosed that it had “less than $250,000” with the bank.

Yuji Naka has pleaded guilty to insider trading charges filed last fall. The Sonic the Hedgehog co-creator has admitted to violating Japanese financial law by buying shares in the game studio Aiming before its team-up with Square Enix on Dragon Quest Tact became public. Naka admitted to making a profit over 20 million yen (about $150,000) after selling his investment. He hasn't yet received a penalty for the illegal trade.

The veteran developer signed on with Square Enix in 2018, but abruptly left soon after his one project at the company (the mobile platformer Balan Wonderland) shipped to customers. He sued the company for removing him as director of Balan six months before launch. He was still with Square Enix when he heard about the Dragon Quest Tact work.

Two other former employees, Taisuke Sasaki and Fumiaki Suzuki, were also arrested for buying Aiming shares using insider knowledge. Square Enix says it's cooperating with investigators and has established a system that prevents insider trading. It's not clear how well that protection will work in practice, but the guilty plea theoretically discourages developers from using industry secrets to manipulate the stock market.

Microsoft has reportedly cleared a major regulatory hurdle as it tries to move toward finalizing its Activision Blizzard purchase. The company’s licensing offers to competitors are expected to appease European Union (EU) antitrust concerns about the $69 billion acquisition, according to Reuters. The EU previously said it believed the deal could “significantly reduce competition” in PC, console and cloud gaming.

The EU isn’t expected to demand asset sales to approve the deal. However, the potential sale of Call of Duty has been a point of contention; Microsoft wants to hang onto the property while using the licensing agreements to quell regulators. The company has pledged to keep the franchise on competing platforms for at least 10 years if the purchase closes; it’s even bringing Call of Duty to Nintendo’s consoles.

Microsoft says it’s “committed to offering effective  and  easily  enforceable solutions  that address the European Commission’s concerns.” “Our commitment to grant long-term 100% equal access to  Call of Duty to Sony, Steam,  NVIDIA and others preserves the deal’s benefits to gamers and developers and increases competition in the market,” a Microsoft spokesperson told Reuters.

The company announced the deal in January 2022 to help it compete against industry leaders Tencent and Sony while developing its take on the metaverse. “Gaming is the most dynamic and exciting category in entertainment across all platforms today and will play a key role in the development of metaverse platforms,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said at the time.

Microsoft will still need to appease the US Federal Trade Commission and UK regulators before the deal can be finalized. The company only has until July to sort out the antitrust concerns, or it will need to renegotiate or abandon the purchase (which would mean paying a breakup fee of up to $3 billion).

The threat actors who infiltrated News Corp., the company that owns The Wall Street Journal and other news outlets, apparently had access to its network for two full years. In February last year, News Corp. admitted that it had discovered a security breach a month earlier and that hackers broke into a third-party cloud service that contained employees' information. Now, according to Ars Technica, the company has sent a breach notification letter (PDF) to at least one affected personnel. In it, the company has admitted that "an unauthorized party" gained access to business documents and emails in some employees' accounts between February 2020 and January 2022.

When News Corp. announced the breach, the security firm (Mandiant) that investigated the intrusion said it believes the threat actor was connected to the Chinese government. Further, it said the company was most likely attacked to gather intelligence for the country. In an email to Ars, a representative said News Corp. continues to believe "that this was an intelligence collection," but didn't respond to a question asking if investigators still think the hackers were linked to China. 

The company has revealed in the letter, though, that the bad actors may have gotten a hold of employees' names, birth dates, Social Security number, driver's license and passport numbers, as well as their financial, medical and heath insurance information. "Not all of this information was impacted for each affected individual," it added. News Corp. said that it hasn't heard any incidents of identity theft or fraud resulting from the security breach so far, but it's offering affected employees two years of identity protection and credit monitoring. 

"Our investigation indicates that this activity does not appear to be focused on exploiting personal information," News Corp. wrote in its letter. However, it didn't reveal that details of the documents and emails the threat actors were able to access, and it didn't say if they were specifically looking for information connected to the company's reporting. 

It's not just international police trying to hold Terraform Labs accountable for a collapse that took $40 billion from investors. The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Terraform and its CEO Do Kwon with securities fraud for allegedly running a "multi-billion dollar" crypto asset scheme. The blockchain startup purportedly misled investors by falsely claiming that its TerraUSD asset was a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar, with high yields (up to 20 percent). The firm also fooled people by claiming its Luna token would gain value thanks to a Korean mobile payment app that used the Terra blockchain to settle transactions.

Terraform and Do Kwon didn't provide "full, fair and truthful disclosure" for their crypto asset securities, SEC chair Gary Gensler says. The charges include registration and anti-fraud violations of the Securities Act and Exchange Act.  

TerraUSD and Luna lost their peg to the US dollar in May 2022, with the prices of both plunging to near-zero. Investors lodged complaints accusing Terraform and Kwon of running a Ponzi scheme, and the freefall contributed to the collapse of the crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital. The crypto exchange Binance quickly faced a lawsuit over claims it incorrectly marketed TerraUSD as a safe asset. While Kwon insisted that he wasn't evading capture, he left his native South Korea, refused to face investigators' questions and was put on Interpol's "red notice" list.

The SEC's charges join a string of efforts to crack down on reported fraud among some of the crypto industry's biggest names. Authorities have most notably pursued FTX and its founder Sam Bankman-Fried over that exchange's downfall, while former Celsius Network chief Alex Mashinsky is also accused of defrauding investors. While crypto may still have a future, it's clear government bodies want stricter enforcement of financial laws in this arena.

Paramount+ will get a bit more expensive later this year as it folds in Showtime's streaming service. The Premium tier of Paramount+, which will be renamed to Paramount+ With Showtime, will soon cost $12 per month, up from the current $10, as Variety reports. The ad-supported tier, which will not include Showtime, is going up from $5 to $6 per month.

Paramount Global will increase the prices when it merges the two services, which is expected to happen early in the third quarter of this year (i.e., around July or August). The price hikes will be effective in the US and some other markets, according to The Verge. They'll be the first price increases since CBS All Access became Paramount+ two years ago.

There are now almost 56 million Paramount+ subscribers. The service added 9.9 million members in the last quarter of 2022, with the likes of NFL games, Yellowstone and Top Gun: Maverick drawing new users in. Revenue also increased by 81 percent compared with the same quarter in 2021 to around $800 million. As for the ad-supported Pluto TV service, the number of global monthly active users increased by 6.5 million to just under 79 million.

However, Paramount Global executives warned investors on an earnings call the company ran into significant "headwinds" in 2022 and that this won't be a "robust year" for profits. CEO Bob Bakish said that ,for Paramount+, "we are at peak investment in 2023."

Paramount Global expects to take a writedown of between $1.3 billion and $1.5 billion as an impairment charge as it merges Paramount+ and Showtime in the US. The writedown, according to chief financial officer Naveen Chopra, is "all about content, driven by the fact that when we combine Showtime and Paramount+, we don’t need the kind of content you would need if they were operating on an independent basis." The company hopes that the move will save it as much as $700 million.

Apple will rely on your previous purchases and spending habits to decide how much it will lend you for its upcoming "buy now, pay later" service, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Apparently, the tech giant intends to evaluate your eligibility based on your purchases at its retail stores, your App Store transactions and even the peer-to-peer transfers you've made using Apple Cash. 

Whether or not you've applied for an Apple Card in the past will also reportedly factor into the amount the company will lend you, along with your spending habits using any other card linked to your Apple Pay. The company will take which Apple devices you own into account, as well, Bloomberg says. Apple Financing, the subsidiary the company established last year, is expected to be in charge of conducting customer background checks and loan approvals. 

The tech giant first announced the "buy now, pay later" functionality for Apple Pay at its WWDC event in June 2022 with the intention of launching it later that year. While Apple didn't explain why it didn't arrive with iOS 16 like it originally intended, Gurman said at the time that the delays were caused by "fairly significant technical and engineering challenges in rolling out the service." To test the feature, Apple reportedly gave its retail employees access to it for their own purchases. In Gurman's latest report, he says testers have been seeing loan approvals for as much as $1,000. 

When it first announced the pay later offering, Apple said it will give you a way to split the cost of purchases into four equal installments that you can pay over six weeks. That's a short amount of time, but you at least won't incur any additional interest or fees. The company reportedly plans to offer another option later on that would let you pay for larger purchases over several months, though that one will charge you interest on top of the base amount. 

Lucid’s luxury Air electric vehicle exceeds the thresholds for federal tax credits, but the company is still offering what it’s calling an “EV credit.” Until March 31st, those who buy certain configurations of Lucid Air Touring and Air Grand Touring models will be able to save up $7,500.

"We think our customers still deserve a $7,500 credit for choosing an EV," Zak Edson, the company’s vice president of sales and service, said in a statement. "With this limited time offer, we hope to get Lucid Air into the hands of even more customers so they can experience the best for themselves."

Under the Inflation Reduction Act, the $7,500 federal tax credit applies to electric cars, sedans and wagons priced under $55,000. SUVs are eligible if the sticker price is under $80,000. All Lucid Air models exceed those limits, as the base Pure variant starts at $87,400. Even so, that model is not eligible for Lucid’s so-called credit.

The Lucid Air Touring starts at $107,400 and the Grand Touring version starts at $138,000. While a $7,500 discount will always be welcome, it gives buyers savings of under seven percent. That’s a far cry from Tesla being able to effectively drop the price of a five-seat Model Y Long Range by almost a third from $65,990 with the help of tax credits (Tesla slightly increased the price earlier this month). While Lucid is operating in a different market to rivals that sell more moderately-priced EVs, it seems like the company is doing what it can to keep up with the tax credits that they're eligible for.

Apple has expanded the internal testing for its Pay service's buy now, pay later feature to include its retail employees, according to Bloomberg. When the tech giant's experimental features make their way to its retail staff, that's typically a sign that it's going to be released in the near future. Apple Store workers started testing the company's credit card in 2019 a month before it became available, and staff at its HQ visitor center tested Tap to Pay shortly before the first partner companies like Square and PayPal launched support for the payment solution. 

The tech giant first announced the pay later functionality for Apple Pay at its WWDC event in June 2022. It was supposed to arrive alongside iOS 16, but the company changed its mind and rolled out the new mobile platform without the feature in tow. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reported at the time that the company was having "fairly significant technical and engineering challenges in rolling out the service," which led to delays. 

When Apple introduced pay later, it said the payment option will give users a way to split the cost of purchases into four equal installments paid over six weeks with no additional interest or fees. Gurman now says that the company is also working with Goldman Sachs Group to offer an option that splits up the cost of large purchases into several months with interest on top. Seeing as the company even established its own subsidiary to conduct customer credit checks and approvals, it's not hard to believe that it has plans to introduce more pay later options in the future. 

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