IBM will begin an “orderly” wind-down of its operations in Russia, according to a memo from CEO Arvind Krishna that was released publicly today. The company suspended business operations in the country back in March, joining a wave of other Western companies that chose to either halt sales or pull out of Russia completely following its invasion of Ukraine. Despite no longer doing business in Russia, IBM kept paying its Russia-based employees. But US sanctions on Russian banks have made it harder for the company to pay its Russia-based workforce, Reutersreported last month.

The wind-down means that IBM will also terminate the employment of its Russia-based workforce. “This process will commence today and result in the separation of our local workforce. Our colleagues in Russia have, through no fault of their own, endured months of stress and uncertainty. We recognize that this news is difficult, and I want to assure them that IBM will continue to stand by them and take all reasonable steps to provide support and make their transition as orderly as possible,” wrote Krishna in the memo.

The company told investors that no longer doing business with Russia will have very little impact on its bottom line. “Russia is a very de minimis part of IBM,” the company’s finance head Jim Kavanaugh said during a first-quarter earnings call in April. Russia accounted for roughly 0.5 percent of IBM’s total revenue last year, or $300 million out of its total revenue of $57.4 billion. 

IBM has a number of high-profile customers in Russia, including federal banks, energy companies and Russian Railways. The company even held its Think Summit in Moscow back in 2019, where it highlighted its many Russian clients. But since March, the company has stopped providing “goods, parts, software, services, consulting and technology” to Russian companies, according to Reuters.

The Winklevoss twins might soon head to court. The Vergenotes retirement savings firm IRA Financial Trust has sued the twins' crypto exchange Gemini over allegations the business didn't adequately protect customers against a February 8th breach where intruders stole $36 million in Bitcoin and Ethereum assets. The company didn't have "proper safeguards" to prevent the theft, according to IRA, and didn't freeze accounts quickly enough to block the thieves from transferring money.

The trust firm specifically rejected claims that Gemini's protections prevented a "single point of failure." Gemini made IRA the parent account for its customers (who use sub-accounts), and gave it a "master key" that was reportedly exchanged in numerous insecure emails. Combine that with security flaws in Gemini's system and you probably know what happened next — hackers got control of IRA's key, moved the crypto into a single user's retirement account, and withdrew the digital cash. The perpetrators also appear to have swatted Gemini during the February incident, making a fake kidnapping call to police. 

Gemini's other security measures didn't hold up, the IRA added. It supposedly shouldn't have been possible to transfer money between accounts if the exchange had either properly implemented two-factor authentication or prohibited transfers between retirement funds. The trust noted that it didn't have the power to freeze accounts itself, and that it took six emails to lock down all affected users. We've asked Gemini for comment.

This adds to mounting problems for the Winkelvoss' outfit. It recently laid off 10 percent of staff to deal with a plunge in the cryptocurrency market, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission sued Gemini for purportedly misleading customers in parts of its exchange and futures contract. While none of these problems may necessarily be fatal, they suggest the Winklevii could face financial trouble for a while to come.

The SEC has reportedly opened an investigation into Binance to find out whether its BNB token was an unregistered security during its 2017 initial coin offering, reportedBloomberg. BNB coins are primarily used to pay transaction fees on Binance, currently the word’s largest crypto exchange. The company is also facing another, separate SEC probe — launched in February — into alleged ties between its founder and two trading firms. The DOJ, IRS and CFTC also opened investigations last year into the company for a number of potential criminal violations, including insider trading and market manipulation.

“As the industry has grown at a rapid pace, we have been working very diligently to educate and assist law enforcement and regulators in the US and internationally, while also adhering to new guidelines. We will continue to meet all requirements set by regulators,” wrote a Binance spokesperson in an email to Engadget in response to a request for comment. Engadget has also reached out to the SEC for comment, and will update if we hear back. 

The SEC over the past few years expanded its crackdown of ICOs for failing to register with the agency before going public. The agency’s specific investigation into Binance also seeks to figure out if Binance.US — an affiliated exchange that launched in the US in 2019 after the latter was banned— is actually a separate entity from the China-based Binance.

Binance reportedly processed at least $2.35 billion in illegal transactions tied to drugs, hacks and fraudulent activity, according to a Reuters investigation published today. The story detailed a number of high-profile hacks of Binance, including a heist from North Korean hacking group Lazarus. Binance in a blog post responded to the Reuters story, writing that it was “rife with falsehoods” and published its email exchange with the news agency. In the exchange, Reuters reporters asked Binance to confirm multiple details from their reporting, including whether the company had taken any action to mitigate any further illegal activity. Based on the published emails, Binance seems to have declined to provide the requested details with Reuters on the record.

“We are sorry that Binance has declined our request for an interview. As we explained earlier, we cannot commit to keeping an entire briefing on background because it would not be ethical for us to withhold important information from an article,” wrote Reuters reporter Angus Berwick in an email to Binance spokesperson Patrick Hillmann.

The world of crypto continues to draw scam artists and fraud. People have reported losing a combined total of over $1 billion due to crypto scams since the beginning of 2021, according to an FTC report released today. From January 2021 through March of this year, more than 46,000 individuals filed a crypto-related fraud report with the agency. The median individual reported loss in these reports was $2,600.

Perhaps ironically, the most common coins used in scams are also the most widely used, as well as a top stablecoin. A total of 70 percent of scams used Bitcoin as the payment method, followed by Tether (10 percent) and Ether (9 percent). Ether is the prime currency of choice for NFTs, a relatively new crypto market where fraudsters and hackers have thrived.

Crypto investment scams were the most common type of scam reported to the FTC, accounting for an estimated $575 million in losses. Normally these scams target amateur investors by promising them large returns in exchange for an initial investment.

“Investment scammers claim they can quickly and easily get huge returns for investors. But those crypto 'investments' go straight to a scammer’s wallet,” wrote the FTC’s Emma Fletcher in a blog post.

Romance scams also account for a large slice of reported scams, totaling $185 million in losses. Many of these scammers reach individuals by social media or dating apps. A type of dating app scam known as “pig slaughtering” — where criminals build a fake relationship with a victim in order to con them into investing in crypto — has become more common, reported CoinTelegraph.

It’s important to note that the FTC report is only a small snapshot of how much crypto fraud has truly occurred, since the agency is relying on direct reports submitted by victims. An FTC paper estimated that less than five percent of fraud victims reported it to a government entity, and likely an even smaller number report to the FTC. As crypto becomes more popular, the number of scams have also increased. Blockchain platform Chainanalysis estimated that illicit addresses received over $14 billion in crypto last year, nearly twice the amount in 2020.

Porsche is strengthening its relationship with EV supercar company Rimac, investing "eight figures" for a total ownership stake of 20 percent, TechCrunch reported. Rimac scored $500 million in total, with additional funds coming in from investment giants Softbank and Goldman Sachs. All of that is a huge vote of confidence in the company, which has become a key supplier and collaborator on EVs built by Hyundai, Porsche and other mainstream automakers. 

Porsche, which invested $83.3 million in Rimac last year, said it's "delighted" that Rimac has gained some new, high-profile investors. "SoftBank is the biggest tech investor in the world, and Goldman is a very big financial investor," said Rimac founder and CEO, Mate Rimac. The money will be used to build a $200 million Rimac campus in Zagreb, Croatia and bolster the company's Rimac Technology subsidiary, which designs and builds EV parts for other automakers. 

Despite the influx of cash from Porsche, Rimac said the overall investment will help it remain independent. "It’s very good for us to have Porsche and Hyundai onboard as shareholders, but we don’t want to be fully dependent on them," the CEO explained. 

Last year, Rimac set up a joint venture with Porsche to run Bugatti after Volkswagen ceded ownership. The new entity, called Bugatti Rimac, recently unveiled the 1,914-horsepower Rimac Nevera EV hypercar that will go from 0-60 MPH in 1.85 seconds and have an estimated top speed around 250 MPH. Apart from Porsche and Hyundai, Rimac Technology develops and manufactures batteries and other components for Koenigsegg, Pininfarina and Aston Martin. 

Elon Musk is facing yet another lawsuit over his planned Twitter acquisition. Reutersreports investors have sued the Tesla CEO for allegedly manipulating stock prices ahead of his $44 billion takeover bid. As in an earlier suit, Musk supposedly saved $156 million by failing to disclose that he'd bought more than a 5 percent stake in Twitter by March 14th, violating SEC rules. The investors said Musk only disclosed his investments in early April, when he revealed that he owned a 9.2 percent slice of the social network.

Musk's post-announcement statements also amounted to manipulation, the investors said. They were particularly concerned about his claim that the deal was "on hold" until Twitter could prove that bots weren't a major problem and represented less than 5 percent of accounts.

The plaintiffs in the case are hoping for class action status, and ask for unspecified damages if they're successful. Twitter has declined comment, and Musk hadn't responded to Reuters' requests for comment.

Musk's hoped-for purchase has already sparked a flurry of legal action. In addition to the previously mentioned lawsuit from April, a Florida pension fund sued Musk for purportedly violating a Delaware law that would bar the merger until 2025. The SEC, meanwhile, is investigating Musk's disclosure timing. There's no certainty any of these actions will succeed, but they still pose serious challenges to Musk's ambitions.

Broadcom isn't done attempting major acquisitions. The chip giant is buying cloud- and virtualization-focused software developer VMware for the equivalent of $61 billion in cash and stock. The move would fold Broadcom's software division into VMware and create a theoretical powerhouse that helps companies run apps in all sorts of environments, including "any" cloud service.

The proposed union would have Broadcom take on $8 billion of VMware's debt. The deal should close sometime in Broadcom's fiscal 2023 (no later than early calendar 2023) if regulators approve the deal. Notably, though, VMware isn't yet locked into the merger — a "go-shop" clause will let it consider and even solicit deals from other companies through July 5th.

If the purchase goes forward, it will represent one of the larger tech acquisitions so far. Appropriately, Dell (whose founder sits on VMware's board) set a record for several years when it bought VMware's then-owner EMC for $67 billion in 2015. Microsoft eclipsed that, though, with its still-pending $68.7 billion buyout of Activision Blizzard.

A play like this isn't completely unexpected. On top of its debt, VMware has seen declining profits and modest revenue gains. This could help the firm overcome those hurdles and help its competitiveness. Broadcom may not want to count on the purchase going through, however. Former President Trump blocked Broadcom's purchase of Qualcomm in 2018 over national security concerns. While the administration and acquisition target are clearly different this time around, it wouldn't be surprising if Broadcom faces similar levels of regulatory scrutiny.

One of Sony's top priorities going forward is to ramp up production for the PlayStation 5 to meet unprecedented demand for the console. In a briefing with investors (PDF), the company said that it expects to close the gap in PS4 and PS5 sales this year after the newer console lagged behind its older sibling in 2021. Sony blamed the lack of PS5 sales on its inability to build enough units due to ongoing supply chain shortages in its quarterly earnings report. There's no lack of demand: Based on the data Sony presented, it takes only 82 minutes to to sell 80,000 PS5 units, whereas it takes nine days to sell the same number of PS4s. 

The company now expects to be able to produce more units as supply chain shortages have eased up a bit, but the pandemic's impact on parts availability still remains a concern. In addition, Sony is worried that the Russian invasion of Ukraine might also affect its logistics and potential parts inventory. To mitigate the impact of those issues, Sony plans to source from multiple suppliers "for greater agility in unstable market conditions." It also has ongoing negotiations to maintain optimal delivery routes for the console. 

With those solutions in place, the company believes PS5 sales can overtake the PS4's again starting next year. Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan said during the briefing that after the initial ramp up, the company is "planning for heavy further increases in console production, taking [it] to production levels that [it has] never achieved before."

Aside from discussing its PS5 production goals, Sony has also revealed that it's expanding PlayStation Studios by acquiring more game studios, as well as increasing its investments in live services, PC and mobile offerings. It's committing to launch 12 live services in the coming years that don't include Destiny, which will be the company's as part of its Bungie acquisition. And it intends to have half of its annual first party releases on PC and on mobile by 2025. "By expanding to PC and mobile, and it must be said… also to live services, we have the opportunity to move from a situation of being present in a very narrow segment of the overall gaming software market, to being present pretty much everywhere," Ryan explained.

A slowing economy continues to affect the tech industry, as NVIDIA has become one of the first chipmakers to announce a pullback on new hiring, according to memos seen by The New Indian Express and confirmed by Protocol. That lines up its comments during its latest earnings release, when it said that it expects sales of GPUs for gaming consoles and PCs to decline in the current quarter. "Overall the gaming market is slowing," CEO Jensen Huang told Reuters. 

NVIDIA actually had a solid previous quarter, with revenue up 46 percent over last year to $8.29 billion. It also noted that its "gearing up for the largest wave of new products in our history" with new GPU, CPU, DPU and robotics processors coming online in the second half of the year. 

However, it forecast lower revenue than the market expected for next quarter. And internally, the company appears to be bracing for a slowdown. "Onsite interviews... continue, but we will raise our standard to the highest levels," it reportedly said in a Slack message. "We were told that leadership wants to take a pause to onboard the thousands of new hires we've recently made." The company also told Protocol that it's slowing hiring "to focus our budget on taking care of existing employees as inflation persists.

NVIDIA will be joining a number of tech companies, including Lyft, Uber and Snap, in announcing hiring slowdowns. Tech companies have been hit particularly hard by economic headwinds cause by COVID lockdowns in China and the war in Ukraine. NVIDIA, however, was expected to weather events due to continued strong demand in the GPU market that has kept prices high and supply short. 

If attendees at Twitter’s annual shareholder meeting were hoping to clear up confusion surrounding Elon Musk’s acquisition of the company, they likely left disappointed. Despite numerous questions about the future of Twitter, the company's executives had little to say about Musk, who did not attend the meeting.

“We’re working through the transaction process,” CEO Parag Agrawal said during the meeting. The status of the deal has been somewhat unclear since Musk announced it was “on hold,” due to his concerns about bots on the platform. Twitter executives have maintained they are moving forward with their plans.

“Even as we work towards closing this transaction, our teams and I remain focused on the important work we do every day to serve the public conversation,” Agrawal said.

Twitter had said ahead of the meeting that it wouldn’t answer questions related to Musk’s acquisition of the company, which will need to be formally approved by Twitter stockholders at a later date. Even so, shareholders tried to get Twitter executives to address the issue. The very first question in the Q&A portion of the meeting asked what will happen to Twitter shareholders’ stock if “someone” buys the company and takes it private. “We aren't able to address these questions today,” Sean Edgett, Twitter’s General Counsel, said, directing people to the company’s previous SEC filings.

Shareholders also raised questions about the future of the company’s content moderation policies. Agrawal said the company remains “focused” on existing its current policies and “decreasing our reliance on user reports.” Though he didn’t directly address comments Musk has made about loosening its rules, he said that “silencing political commentary is antithetical to our commitment to free speech.”

The meeting also marks the end of co-founder Jack Dorsey’s tenure with Twitter. He had stepped aside as CEO in November, but remained on the board of directors until the meeting. As with much of Twitter’s future, it was unclear who will succeed him.