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Binance, SEC strike deal to keep US customer assets in country

Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange globally, and its U.S. affiliate, Binance.US, have reached an agreement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to keep U.S. customer assets within the United States until the resolution of an ongoing lawsuit.

This information was disclosed in court documents filed on Friday and is pending approval from the federal judge overseeing the case. The agreement aims to prevent U.S. customer assets from being moved offshore and limits access to these assets solely to Binance.US employees.

The SEC filed a lawsuit on June 5 against Binance, its CEO Changpeng Zhao, and Binance.US’s operator, accusing Binance of activities such as artificially inflating trading volumes, diverting customer funds, failing to restrict U.S. customers, and misleading investors regarding market surveillance controls.

This lawsuit, along with a separate one filed by the SEC against U.S. exchange Coinbase, represents an intensified regulatory crackdown on the cryptocurrency industry.

While the agreement does not resolve the SEC lawsuit, it includes measures to ensure that Binance.US officials do not have access to private keys for wallets, hardware wallets, or root access to Binance.US’s Amazon Web Services tools.

The SEC stated that the emergency relief order obtained for Binance.US customers will safeguard their assets and enable them to continue withdrawing those assets.

Also Read: Nasdaq to buy fintech firm Adenza for $10.5 billion

Gurbir Grewal, director of the SEC’s enforcement division, emphasized the necessity of these restrictions, citing concerns about Binance and Changpeng Zhao having control over customer assets and potentially mishandling or diverting them.

Binance responded through a spokesperson, expressing satisfaction that the disagreement over the SEC’s emergency relief request was resolved on mutually acceptable terms while reiterating the commitment to ensuring user funds’ safety on all Binance-affiliated platforms.

“Given that Changpeng Zhao and Binance have control of the platforms’ customers’ assets and have been able to commingle customer assets or divert customer assets as they please… these prohibitions are essential to protecting investor assets,” said Gurbir Grewal, director of the SEC’s enforcement division, in a statement.

In a statement on Saturday, a representative for Binance said, “Although we maintain that the SEC’s request for emergency relief was entirely unwarranted, we are pleased that the disagreement over this request was resolved on mutually acceptable terms. User funds have been and always will be safe and secure on all Binance-affiliated platforms.”

The proposed agreement also entails Binance.US creating new crypto wallets inaccessible to employees of the global Binance exchange, providing additional information to the SEC, and agreeing to an expedited discovery schedule.

In response to the SEC’s request to freeze Binance.US’s assets, the U.S. affiliate suspended dollar deposits and set a June 13 deadline for customers to withdraw their dollar funds.

Sandhya Gupta

I am a law graduate from NLU Lucknow. I have a flair for creative writing and hence in my free time work as a freelance content writer.

HPE to offer cloud computing service for artificial intelligence

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co (HPE) announced the launch of a cloud computing service intended to support artificial intelligence (AI) systems similar to ChatGPT.

While the service is currently being used by a few customers, it is expected to be more widely available in North America by the end of this year and in Europe next year.

This move puts HPE in direct competition with major cloud computing providers such as Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, as they all strive to adapt their data centers to the growing demand for AI-based services like chatbots and image generators.

The increasing focus on AI is reshaping the cloud computing market, as data centers must be designed differently to handle AI workloads. Traditional cloud computing data centers divide a single physical server into multiple virtual machines for rental to customers.

However, AI data centers take a different approach, aiming to connect hundreds or thousands of computers together to create a unified, powerful computing system.

Also Read: Japan’s Suzuki to Make ‘flying cars’ with SkyDrive

HPE has been working on such technologies for years, particularly in the development of supercomputers like the Frontier supercomputer, currently the world’s fastest.

Justin Hotard, Executive Vice President and General Manager of HPE’s high-performance computing and artificial intelligence unit, stated that the company will leverage its expertise in supercomputers to offer a service specifically tailored to large language models, which underpin services like ChatGPT.

Hotard emphasized that HPE’s offering is distinct from its cloud competitors, being neither easily accessible nor trivial in nature.

HPE’s entry into the cloud computing service for artificial intelligence (AI) places the company in direct competition with major industry players like Amazon.com, Microsoft, and Alphabet Inc’s Google.

These technology giants are all striving to adapt their extensive data centers to meet the increasing demand for AI-powered services such as chatbots and image generators, which have gained immense popularity and attracted millions of users.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) is a global technology company that provides a wide range of enterprise solutions and services. Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) already had a presence in the cloud computing market with its HPE GreenLake platform.

One of its prominent offerings, this platform is a hybrid cloud service that allows organizations to consume IT resources on-demand while maintaining control over their infrastructure.

HPE GreenLake is designed to provide a flexible and scalable cloud computing experience, allowing customers to leverage a variety of workloads and technologies. This includes traditional enterprise applications, virtualized environments, big data analytics, and more.

By adopting a consumption-based model, GreenLake offers a pay-per-use pricing structure, where customers only pay for the resources they actually consume.

Sandhya Gupta

I am a law graduate from NLU Lucknow. I have a flair for creative writing and hence in my free time work as a freelance content writer.

Japan’s Suzuki to Make ‘flying cars’ with SkyDrive

Leave a Comment / News, Tech News / By Suhani Jain

For the development of flying cars, Japanese carmaker Suzuki Motor Corporation has agreed upon a deal with SkyDrive Inc. These EVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing) airliners will be produced by both businesses at the former’s facilities in central Japan and the production is planned to begin in the spring of the next year.

Following the arrangement, Suzuki will assist with production arrangements, such as staffing, whereas SkyDrive will form an independent division to build the aircraft.

Multi-rotor aircraft capable of VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) are known as flying automobiles. The vehicles are primarily designed to transport a limited number of passengers, while certain types may also be used on land.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, several prototypes have been constructed employing various flying technology. The majority have been built to use a runway for traditional takeoff and landing. VTOL projects are growing, although only a small number of them have been completed so far.

Also Read: Microsoft notches record high valuation of nearly $2.6 trillion

The central Japanese city of Toyota is home to SkyDrive, whose principal shareholders include the trade corporation Itochu Corp, the technology giant NEC Corp, as well as a division of the energy firm Eneos Holdings Inc. It agreed to collaborate with Suzuki on the study, and development, along with the commercialization of flying automobiles in March, last year.

Both businesses announced in a joint press release previously this year that two will collaborate to establish emerging markets, with their initial concentration on India. The Japanese carmaker will enter the fourth transportation market with its latest agreement, joining the ranks of cars, motorbikes, and marine motors.

Ex-engineers from Toyota founded SkyDrive in 2018, and they want to use their flying cars at the Osaka World Exposition happening in 2025.

One of the transportation sectors with the quickest growth is flying automobiles, with established brands like Toyota & Japan Airlines joining the industry via start-ups with strong development skills.

By the end of this decade, it’s very feasible that flying automobiles will rule the sky. In a recent conversation, Michael Cole, the top executive of Hyundai, UK, said that by the finish of the decade, such cars may be widely available throughout the globe.

“We could see some intra-city type application with the Urban Air Mobility for cargo, but maybe for passengers. But that’s towards the end of this decade and obviously smaller scale,” he said.
Source: auto.hindustantimes.com

Suhani Jain

I am a student pursuing my bachelor’s in information technology. I have a interest in writing so, I am working a freelance content writer because I enjoy writing. I also write poetries. I believe in the quote by anne frank “paper has more patience than person

Microsoft notches record high valuation of nearly $2.6 trillion

Leave a Comment / News, Tech News / By Suhani Jain

Since public enthusiasm over the potential of AI (artificial intelligence) has contributed to lifting the tech conglomerate to a peak market value of 2.59 trillion dollars, Microsoft Corp stocks went up to a new all-time high finish on Thursday.

Because of its substantial funding in OpenAI, which is based in San Francisco that created the hugely successful chatbot ChatGPT, Microsoft has been recognized as a leader in the implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) in the software industry.

To compete with Google, owned by Alphabet Inc., Microsoft started releasing several AI enhancements, such as ChatGPT, the company’s Bing search engine, and Azure cloud services within the past month.

Also Read: LinkedIn to test ad product for video streaming services

On Thursday, Microsoft’s prices increased 3.2 percent and closed at 348.10 dollars for each share. The price of the stock, which has increased by more than 45 percent so far this year, hit its previous record close of 343.11 USD on November 19, 2021. On November 22, 2021, the share’s intraday highest level ever was 349.67 USD.

Additionally, on Thursday, the stock of Apple Inc. closed at a record high of 186.01 USD, while those of the manufacturer of graphics chips Nvidia hit a brand-new intraday record of 432.89 USD.

The increasing demand for Microsoft’s items is being driven by AI, according to JPMorgan experts who increased their price objective on the business’s stock sooner on Thursday. Following data from Refinitiv, 44 of the 53 experts that follow Microsoft suggested purchasing the stock, with a consensus price objective of $340.

“We reaffirm our bullish-outlier viewpoint on generative AI and continue to see it driving a resurgence of confidence in key software franchises,” JPMorgan analysts wrote in a note to clients.
Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com

On June 5, the Microsoft 365 software suite, which includes Teams and Outlook, was unavailable for over two hours to over a thousand customers, with a brief reappearance the next morning. For Microsoft, it was their fourth of these events in a calendar year.

Also Read: Why is Microsoft Teams integration being removed from Win11?

Microsoft has claimed that cyberattacks were to blame for the outages that the firm had during some of the first days of this month, but it claimed that there was no proof that any information about clients had been obtained or compromised.

“Beginning in early June 2023, Microsoft identified surges in traffic against some services that temporarily impacted availability'” the company said in a blog post.
Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com

Suhani Jain

LinkedIn to test ad product for video streaming services

Leave a Comment / News, Tech News / By Sandhya Gupta

LinkedIn, which is owned by Microsoft Corp., announced on Thursday that it was developing a video advertising solution that would enable advertisers to target LinkedIn users as they watched content on streaming platforms.

In an effort to grow its advertising business during a period of economic uncertainty, LinkedIn has released AI technologies to aid marketers in creating ad content.

Penry Price, vice president of marketing solutions at LinkedIn, told Reuters that in-stream video advertisements might alter how businesses and consumers connect with and engage with their audiences.

Also Read: Google launches AI-powered advertiser features

With trailing 12-month sales of over $14 billion and an 8% year-over-year revenue growth as of the third quarter of fiscal year 2023, LinkedIn is doing well.

LinkedIn makes money by selling ads and subscriptions to salespeople, job searchers, and recruiters. A significant revenue stream for LinkedIn is its Marketing Solutions.

This includes advertising and marketing tools such as Sponsored Content, Sponsored InMail, Text Ads, Dynamic Ads, and Display Ads. These offerings enable businesses to promote their content, products, and services to LinkedIn’s professional user base, reaching a targeted audience for their marketing campaigns.

It provides advertising opportunities for businesses and marketers to reach its professional user base. One of the key advertising products available on LinkedIn is Sponsored Content, which enables businesses to promote their content directly in the LinkedIn feed.

Sponsored Content can consist of text, images, and videos, allowing companies to increase brand awareness and engage with their target audience effectively.

Another advertising option is Sponsored InMail, which allows businesses to send personalized messages directly to LinkedIn users’ inboxes. This feature facilitates targeted messaging and can be used to promote events, products, or content.

Text Ads are also available on the platform, appearing on the right-hand side of the desktop version of the app. These ads typically include a headline, description, and a small image.

Also Read: Nasdaq to buy fintech firm Adenza for $10.5 billion

Additionally, it offers Dynamic Ads that utilize a user’s LinkedIn profile data to create personalized and engaging ad experiences. Banner-style Display Ads are another option, appearing on the website and mobile app with images, videos, and interactive elements.

Video Ads, which can be placed within the feed and autoplay while users scroll, are also part of LinkedIn’s advertising offerings. It’s advisable to visit LinkedIn’s official website or contact their advertising team directly for the most up-to-date information on their advertising products and features.

Sandhya Gupta

I am a law graduate from NLU Lucknow. I have a flair for creative writing and hence in my free time work as a freelance content writer.

Nasdaq to buy fintech firm Adenza for $10.5 billion

Leave a Comment / News, Tech News / By Suhani Jain

The financial marketplace, which runs the stock exchanges in Boston, New York, as well as Philadelphia, reached an agreement to pay a total of 10.5 billion USD on Monday for the software firm Adenza.

In addition to being possibly the most pricey trade in the 52-year history of Nasdaq, it also represents the most recent effort by stock exchanges to go outside transaction-related services to include data and risk management.

Treasury management software systems are produced by Adenza, which was formed by the combination of Calypso Technology and AxiomSL. The acquisition of Adenza by Nasdaq from the private equity firm Thoma Bravo was not one of its kind.

Also Read: AI startup Cohere raises funds from Nvidia, valued at $2.2 billion

Nasdaq purchased the owner of the Nordic markets which is OMX, for a price of 3.7 billion USD, invested $1.1 billion in the ISE (International Securities Exchange) in 2016, and paid $2.75 billion for the anti-financial offense software provider Verafin in 2020.

Banks as well as brokerages are the main users of Adenza’s applications, and experts predicted that Nasdaq’s acquisition of the business would enable it to broaden even further from its core business of running stock exchanges.

Thoma Bravo will receive a 14.9 percent share in Nasdaq in fulfillment of the agreement, establishing the private equity firm as one of the stock market operator’s largest shareholders. It is anticipated that Holden Spaht who is a managing partner of Thoma Bravo, will join the Nasdaq board.

“The whole here as part of Nasdaq is worth more than the sum of its parts – there are revenue synergies with Nasdaq, there are expense synergies and Nasdaq is a great global brand that I think will accelerate sales in Adenza,” said Spaht in an interview.
Source: cnbc.com

Investors perceived the agreement as a risky wager, and Nasdaq stocks dropped almost ten percent to $52.39 on Monday. To fund the merger, Nasdaq plans to issue around 5.9 billion USD in debt, which is roughly thirty-one times the business’s EBITDA for this fiscal year. Adenza was appraised at this price by Nasdaq.

Also Read: GameStop ousts CEO, elevates Cohen as sales fall again

The transaction involves 5.75 billion USD in cash plus the common stock’s 85.6 million shares of Nasdaq. By the moment the agreement is finished, Nasdaq’s leverage will be 4.7 times greater thanks to the debt it’s going to issue. Within 18 months from now, Nasdaq wants to reduce leverage amounts to 4 times. In a period of six to nine months, the transaction is anticipated to finalize.

The medium-term organic growth in revenue expectation for Nasdaq’s Services Organisations, which manufacture and create software to manage finances for investors, is anticipated to go up following the acquisition of Adenza from 7 to 10 percent to 8-11 percent.

Suhani Jain

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