The US Federal Reserve is continuing its research into a "digital dollar" and has unveiled a technical specification for how it might work, The Washington Post has reported. Researchers designed a system that can handle more than 1.7 million transaction a second and settle payments in under two seconds, while operating 24/7 without service outages, according to a new paper on the subject. 

The "Project Hamilton" research into a central bank digital currency (CBDC) was developed strictly to test the feasibility of a digital currency and not to give any recommendations as to whether the Fed should create one. It's based on the open-source research software OpenCBDC, according to the researchers from MIT's Digital Currency Initiative and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. 

The team said they aimed to solve the technical challenges of an CDBC, while making it flexible, depending on how policymakers decided implement a digital currency. If it was ever adopted, it could allow people who lack bank accounts to gain financial services, while making cross-border payments easier and more secure. The work is still in the early stages, however, and issues like privacy and ease of exchange with foreign currencies still need to be studied. 

The Federal Reserve has been publicly investigating a digital currency for just a short time, having announced plans to carry out research in May of last year. The US has been behind other nations, particularly China, with the development of digital currencies. Central banks control CBDCs, making them more stable than cryptocurrencies, which can have wild swings in value over short periods of time. 

Last month, the Fed released a study detailing the pros and cons of a central bank currency. It deliberately avoided taking a stance on whether it should pursue the technology, as any such decision would be made by Congress and other policymakers. Rather, it focused on the potential benefits and pitfalls. It said on the one hand that a digital currency could make financial services more inclusive, but also warned that it would need to protect privacy, guard against financial crimes and be resilient. 

Along with the results, the researchers have open-source code for the platform, with the aim of gaining input from the public. "There are still many remaining challenges in determining whether or how to adopt a central bank payment system for the United States," said MIT's Digital Currency Initiative director Neha Narula. 

Nearly five years after going public, Snap is finally profitable. The company shared the milestone in its fourth-quarter earnings report, where it reported $23 million in positive net income.

That may be a tiny percentage of its $4.1 billion in quarterly revenue, but it’s an important step for the company which has at times struggled with user growth. But those challenges appear to be firmly behind Snapchat, as daily active users climbed to 319 million, an increase of 13 million for the second quarter in a row. DAUs were up 20 percent overall in 2021.

The news for shareholders was particularly welcome as Snap’s results came a day after Meta reported that Facebook’s daily active users had declined for the first time in its history. The resulting stock slide wiped more than $200 billion off the company’s market cap.

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If the bonkers preorder numbers for both the hybrid Maverick and the EV F-150 Lightning weren't enough of an indication, Ford's Q4 earnings results are plenty proof that the company's electrification efforts are already paying dividends. 

“Financial performance is obviously critical,” President and CEO Jim Farley said in a release Thursday. “We’re also proud that customers see how Ford is taking EVs mainstream, and have already ordered or reserved more than 275,000 all-electric Mustang Mach-E SUVs, F-150 Lightning pickups and E-Transit commercial vehicles – and we’re breaking constraints to deliver every one of them as fast as we can.”

In fact, the company reports that sales of its EVs in January "grew almost 4 times faster than the overall electrified segment" (13,169 units in total), making Ford the current number 2 retailer of electric vehicles in the country behind Tesla (and the country’s top-selling automaker overall), prompting a promise from Farley to double the company's global production capacity for EVs "to at least 600,000 by 2023." He expects EVs to "represent at least 40 percent of its product mix by 2030."

In all, Ford saw revenue of $37.7 billion, a net income of $12.3 billion and $2 billion in EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes) in Q4 2021. The company sold 6,513 Mavericks in January alone — with 3,549 of these sold as hybrids — along with 2,370 Mach-Es, 27 percent of which were of the GT variety. Ford also saw strong interest in its new Transit line of commercial EVs with more than 300 American businesses placing orders for 10,000 vehicles. And, while not wholly electrified, Ford did point out that its pickup lines — the F-150, Ranger, and Maverick — with combined sales of 62,293, outsold GM’s pickups in January. 

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Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse pivot is off to slow start. The company now known as Meta lost just over $10 billion on its Reality Labs division in 2021, according to its fourth-quarter earnings report.

“This fully realized vision is still a ways off,” Zuckerberg said of Meta’s metaverse investments. “And although the direction is clear, our path ahead is not yet perfectly defined.” Zuckerberg said the company planned to launch a new "high-end" VR headset as well as a mobile version of its Horizon VR experience.

It’s the first time the company has shared the financial performance of the AR and VR division that’s central to its metaverse ambitions. That the metaverse isn’t yet turning a profit isn’t a surprise. The company said last quarter that its AR and VR investments would result in a $10 billion loss for the company. But combined with flat user growth and continued hits to its advertising business, the company’s fourth-quarter results sent Meta's stock into a nosedive.

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Facebook’s daily active users (DAUs) declined from 1.93 billion last quarter to 1.29 billion, a change that Zuckerberg attributes in part to increased competition from TikTok. “We're in the middle of a transition on our own services towards short form video like Reels,” Zuckerberg said. “Reels is now our fastest growing content format by far.” But he added that Reels doesn’t yet monetize as well as Stories or feeds.

Though Facebook’s ad business is still incredibly profitable — it made $32.6 billion in the last quarter — the company warned that Apple’s iOS 14 privacy changes will have a significant impact in the next quarter. “The accuracy of our ads targeting decreased which increased the cost of driving outcomes,” COO Sheryl Sandberg said on the call. Zuckerberg said improving the company’s ads despite Apple’s changes was one of Facebook’s top priorities, and that it was “rebuilding a lot of our ads infrastructure.”

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Sony is still struggling to make enough PlayStation 5 consoles to keep up with demand. During its key holiday fiscal quarter, it shipped 3.3 million units for a total of 17.3 million since launch, the company said in its earnings report. That's considerably behind the 20.2 million units the PS4 had managed at the same point in its life cycle.

Because of that, Sony reported 813.3 billion yen ($7.09 billion) in revenue for its gaming division, down from 883.2 billion yen ($7.703 billion) over the same quarter last year. However, operating profit rose 12.1 percent to $810 million, because Sony actually loses money on each PS5 console sold. 

Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki said in an analyst webcast that people want to buy PS5 consoles, but partners can't supply components due to the ongoing chip shortage. Sony expects that situation to continue during the coming year, meaning PS5s may not be any easier to find, particularly in the first half of 2022. 

Sony lowered its forecast for PS5 shipments for the fiscal year to 11.5 million units, down from 14.8 million. As such, it dropped its full year revenue estimate for its Game & Network Services (G&NS) division by 170 million yen ($1.48 billion). At the same time, it expects 6 percent more profit despite lower game sales, thanks to the aforementioned unprofitable consoles.

Sony's gaming division is its biggest money maker, accounting for around a quarter of its overall revenue and profits this quarter. However, its imaging division also fared well in fiscal Q3, with a 22 percent increase in revenue year-over-year, thanks to sales of its premium smartphone image sensors. Its movie division, meanwhile, saw a large jump in revenue to $4.02 billion due in large part to the success of Spider-Man: No Way Home. 

Withings is today announcing that it is buying 8fit, a personalized fitness and nutrition-planning app for an undisclosed fee. The deal will enable Withings, which makes a broad ecosystem of devices, to build a subscription revenue product that ties into its ecosystem. In a statement, the company said that it will now be able to develop “personalized programs” combining data, collected from its hardware, “with actionable insights that empower users to modify behavior.” CEO Mathieu Letombe added that it was time for the company to “enter the era of the ‘product-service-data’, combining personal health data with personalized wellness plans.”

It is the second acquisition that Withings has made in recent months, after Impeto Medical, which has built a method for detecting peripheral neuropathies. This technology has already been incorporated into the new Body Scan, with the promise that the device can identify poor nerve function and offer remedial advice. Withings has also pledged to invest more than $30 million over the next three years to develop its ability to offer customized, tailored support to enable users to get healthier and achieve their fitness goals.

The acquisition also reiterates the gravity of the current situation for pretty much every wearables business in the space. Selling single pieces of hardware, or devices on a multi-year cycle, does not provide the revenue necessary to keep the business’ operating long term. Apple, Fitbit, Oura, and many others, have pivoted to a device-and-recurring-revenue model, offering a subscription service to unlock the full power of the devices you have bought. It’s likely that we’ll see many of 8fit’s features integrated into Withings’ class-leading Health Mate app over time, for a cost. Speaking of which, 8fit presently costs $80 a year after an initial free trial.

Google's lineup of Pixel phones has usually been some of our favorite Android devices since the first Pixel arrived back in 2016 — but they've never been big sellers. While Google still doesn't compare with Apple and Samsung, the company says the Pixel just had its best sales quarter ever. 

On the Alphabet earnings call today, CEO Sundar Pichai addressed the company's hardware performance. "In Q4, we set an all time quarterly sales record for Pixel," he said. "This came in spite of an extremely challenging supply chain environment." All of Google's competitors had similar issues, but it's reasonable to think the company could have sold more phones if not for the supply chain.

Specifically, Pichai noted that the Pixel 6 was proving to be popular with both customers and carrier partners. In our estimation, the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro are probably the best Pixel phones Google has released in years, and it seems that these sales records back that up. Unfortunately, Google doesn't break out sales figures, but it's hardly alone in that regard. 

Pixel sales are lumped into a category simply called "other," which covers all Google hardware (among other things). Revenue from the "other" category improved 22 percent year-over-year, totaling $8.2 billion for the quarter. That's a small piece of Google's overall revenue — the company pulled in $75.3 billion in revenue overall in Q4 of last year, up 32 percent year-over-year. That speaks more to the health of the company's massive search ads business. 

In other financial news, Alphabet is splitting its stock. It's a 20-for-1 split, which means one Alphabet share will soon count for 20 much cheaper shares. Given the company's stock price ended the day at $2,757.57, this split means the stock will be much more affordable. Apple and Google have split their stock before, but a 20-to-1 split is pretty unusual. 

We're tuned into the Alphabet earnings call and will update this post with anything else we hear.

Strong sales of its existing pickup and SUV lines in Q4, despite decreased sales numbers due to the semiconductor shortage and supply chain constrictions, have GM positioned for a strong start to 2022 as the company works to electrify and automate its vehicle offerings. 

"With an improving outlook for semiconductors in the U.S. and China, we expect our 2022 results will remain strong," GM CEO Mary Barra wrote in a letter to shareholders Tuesday. "In fact, we expect our EBIT-adjusted earnings to remain at or near record levels in the range of $13 billion — $15 billion, all while investing more year over year in our growth businesses like Cruise, BrightDrop and our rapidly accelerating portfolio of electric vehicles."

Barra points to strong demand for GM's burgeoning line of EVs running on the Ultium battery platform — such as the currently available Hummer EV as well as upcoming Silverado, Equinox, Sierra and Lyriq EVs — with a portion of the company's financial performance. GM's Brightdrop EV6000 commercial vehicle is also seeing healthy interest from FedEx, Merchant's Fleet and Walmart as green additions to their respective delivery and cargo fleets, the company reported Tuesday.

The Hummer EV itself has reportedly seen more than 59,000 paid reservations to date. "Not surprisingly, some of the first owners are very prominent figures in the sports and entertainment industries," Barra said during Tuesday's call "Their initial feedback has been just incredible.” The company has also seen 110,000 Silverado EVs reservations so far, Barra explained, "including reservations for more than 240 fleet operators, and the numbers keep growing every day." 

GM's $35 billion EV and autonomy investment announced last June, is already beginning to pay dividends. "Battery cells will not be a constraint to our long term EV growth," Barra noted. The company expects its first battery cell manufacturing plant in Lordstown Ohio by the middle of the year, with two more expected to commence operations by the end of next year and the location of a fourth site set to be announced later this spring. These will work in tandem with the automaker's Michigan-based Factory ZERO and Orion EV assembly plants. 

On the autonomy front, GM has nothing but good news as its Cruise self-driving taxi service officially began offering driverless rides to the public in San Francisco Tuesday.

"This major milestone brings Cruise even closer to offering its first paid rides and generating $50 billion in annual revenue by the end of the decade," Barra noted. "It also means that the SoftBank Vision Fund will invest — as planned — an additional $1.35 billion in Cruise. This is another strong vote of confidence in the Cruise team, its technology and services."

The company also reiterated three of its ambitious climate goals during Tuesday's earnings call: going "carbon neutral in our global products and operations by 2040," eliminating "tailpipe emissions for new light-duty vehicles and offer all-electric heavy-duty vehicles by 2035" in line with California's upcoming emission vehicle sales ban, and sourcing 100 percent of its production power requirements "from renewable sources by 2035, and by 2025 in the US." 

While interest in GM's line of electrifieds helped propel sales, the lack of available processors to put in them hurt the company's overall numbers. GM delivered 441,000 vehicles to American consumers in Q4 2021, does from 447,000 in Q3 and 771,000 in Q4 of 2020. Still, that dip only translated into a minor drop in overall revenue of $3.2 billion from $3.4 billion the previous quarter. 

Looking ahead, GM expects the first of its Cadillac Lyriq to begin in less than 60 days while the first batch of its Hummer EV Pickups are already en route to their buyers. The company expects production on the EV600 to begin later this year with an initial capacity of around 30,000 units annually. 

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Microsoft was most likely ready for rigorous anti-trust scrutiny around the world when it decided to purchase Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. The deal is the tech giant's biggest yet, and it's also set to become the largest all-cash acquisition ever. In the US, the proposed acquisition will be reviewed the Federal Trade Commission instead of the Justice Department, according to Bloomberg. The two agencies are in charge of investigating mergers in the country and typically decide between themselves which one will take charge of a case. 

FTC's investigation will reportedly take a close look at how Microsoft's ownership of Activision could harm rivals by limiting access to the developer's biggest games. Activision owns hugely popular IPs, including Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and Candy Crush. It's unclear if Microsoft has plans to release titles exclusive to Xbox and Window PCs in the future, but it's worth noting Sony is still ahead of Microsoft in terms of gaming hardware sales and that a large chunk of Activision's revenue comes from PlayStation gamers.

Microsoft expects to close the acquisition by June 2023, and it's probably not going to be easy for the company. As Bloomberg notes, the FTC vowed to adopt a more aggressive approach towards investigating mergers and acquisitions last year under new chairperson Lina Khan. In December, the FTC sued to block NVIDIA's $40 billion purchase of ARM over concerns that the deal would stifle competition for various technologies, such as those for data centers and car computers. 

A more recent Bloomberg report said NVIDIA is making preparations to walk away from the deal and that current ARM-owner SoftBank is looking to take the company public if the acquisition falls through. Still, the Microsoft seems to be confident that the acquisition will take place — Reuters says the tech giant committed to paying a $3 billion break fee if the deal fails to go through. 

This week, America’s first blockchain-based stock exchange obtained regulatory approval from the Securities and Exchange. In a filing the SEC uploaded to its website on late Thursday evening, it said the Boston Security Token Exchange (BSTX) could use the nascent technology to offer faster trade settlements. Compared to a traditional exchange where it typically takes two days to settle a trade, BSTX will offer same-day and next-day settlements. It will also use a private blockchain to offer a market feed that will allow members to see their own trades, as well as that of others, on an anonymous basis.

What it won’t offer members is the option to trade digital tokens, meaning it’s not a new venue for buying and selling cryptocurrencies and other virtual assets. Jay Fraser, a director with BSTX, told Reuters the exchange plans to potentially allow trading of stock tokens at a later date. BSTX had planned to exclusively focus on tokenized securities, but the SEC rejected those plans in a prior filing. Still, Fraser said the goal is to create an exchange that eventually looks more like Coinbase than something like the NASDAQ or NYSE. Until then, BSTX will operate more like a traditional exchange when it opens before the second half of the year.