Another brutal week for crypto and crypto companies – TechCrunch

by Arthur · July 8, 2022

Hi all! Welcome back to Week in Review, the newsletter where we summarize the most read stories in TechCrunch over the past week. Our goal: If you’ve had some busy days, you should be able to click on this on Saturday, give it a skim read, and still have a pretty good idea of what happened this week.

I want to be AFK for the next two newsletters, with the excellent Henry Pickavet subscribing to me while I’m away. Henry is one of the best people I know – so please!

The most read the story this week, unfortunately, was one of layoffs – specifically layoffs at Coinbase. The crypto exchange announced on Tuesday that it will lay off 18% of the workforce, with CEO Brian Armstrong saying that the company has “grown too fast” in the last year and a half.

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Kaiser broke: Uff. An employee email account hacked, nearly 70,000 patient records potentially revealed. In a message sent to affected patients, Kaiser said the “potentially exposed” data included name, date of service and laboratory test results.

More layoffs: Coinbase was not the only company to reveal layoffs this week. The real estate technology companies Redfin and Compass both confirmed cuts of around 450 employees each, while Canadian fintech Wealthsimple laid off almost 160.

Spotify acquires a voice simulation company: In 2014, Val Kilmer underwent a tracheotomy as part of the treatment for neck cancer. For its role in the recently released “Top Gun: Maverick”, London-based startup Sonantic was asked to recreate Kilmer’s voice with AI. This week, Spotify announced that they are acquiring Sonantic. Why? They do not become too specific, but it is not so difficult to think about how Spotify can use realistic, yet simulated voices – think of indie audiobooks or autogenerated podcast commercials.

Elon sued Dogecoin: Is it Elon’s fault that Dogecoin – a cryptocurrency that started as a joke – increased in value and then imploded? A class action lawsuit filed in Manhattan this week claims Musk “used his shelf as the world’s richest man to operate and manipulate the Dogecoin Pyramid Scheme for profit, exposure and entertainment” and is demanding $ 258 billion in damages.

The SpaceX letter: On Wednesday this week, employees at SpaceX published an “open letter” to the company’s internal chat system that said “Elon’s behavior in public space is a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment” and asked SpaceX to “quickly and explicitly stand out. from Elon’s personal brand. ” On Friday morning, at least one of the employees involved in the letter had been fired, and SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell called it “excessive activism”.

sound stuff

Did the work say it’s time to go back to the office? Do you need something to listen to when you are on a trip? Have you ever wondered what your favorite TechCrunch writer sounds like? Good news! We have podcasts. A whole bunch of them, actually. (Funny fact: given that we are spread all over the world, many of us have talked more to each other on podcasts than we have in real life.)

This week, Lucas and Anita spoke to the incomparable Aaron Levie (CEO of Box) about his thoughts on web3 – specifically why it will not work. Check it out on Chain Reaction.

added things

Want even more TechCrunch? Go on to the appropriate name TechCrunch +, where we get to go a little deeper into the topics our subscribers tell us they care about. Some of the good things from this week include:

Which visa is best to start a startup?: Immigration lawyer Sophie Alcorn is back with another edition of the council column «Dear Sophie», and this time he helps a German founder find out the right way to navigate by starting a startup in the USA

Brex leaves the SMB market. What now?: This week, Brex announced that it is largely leaving the small and medium-sized corporate market, with plans to cut services for its smaller customers on 15 August. Alex and Mary Ann take a look at what this could mean for the market – and Brex’s competitors.

What is the catalyst behind cryptocurrency?: Cryptocurrency prices continued to slide this week. Why? In this week’s issue of The Exchange, Alex provides an overview of some of the biggest “issues currently plaguing the web3 market.”