Google's cloud business has turned profitable for the first time in the three years it's been reporting operating metrics. CNBC reports: The segment generated $191 million in operating income on $7.45 billion in revenue in the first quarter, according to Alphabet's earnings statement. In the year-ago quarter, the unit reported a $706 million loss on $5.82 billion in revenue. The cloud business includes the Google Cloud Platform, which rents out cloud infrastructure and services that companies can use to build and run their own applications, as well as Google Workspace productivity software subscriptions. Cloud customers include Deutsche Bank, Major League Baseball, PayPal and UPS.

Public sector workers in an eastern Chinese city are set to be paid fully in digital yuan, as the country makes a significant push to popularize the currency. From a report: Changshu, located in the province of Jiangsu, will start the new payment process in May, according to an official document widely posted on government websites. This is the biggest rollout of the currency, also known as the e-CNY, in China so far, according to state media. Government employees as well as staff at state-owned companies and public institutions such as schools, hospitals, libraries, research institutes and media organizations in the city will be affected. Changshu, a city of 1.7 million residents, was already experimenting with the digital yuan, a form of money that exists only online and is managed and backed by China's central bank. Like cryptocurrency, the digital yuan incorporates some elements of blockchain technology: Every transaction is recorded and traceable in a digital ledger. Since last October, Changshu has been paying the transit subsidies for some government employees in digital yuan. China is already on the verge of becoming a cashless society, but the vast majority of electronic transactions happen on privately owned apps (Alipay and WeChat Pay), outside of the immediate purview of the state.

It was a mix of spiritualism and financial education, remembers one patron of Generación Zoe, which "pitched itself as an 'educational and resource-creating community for personal, professional, financial and spiritual development,'" reports Rest of World: Generación Zoe claimed to make money through trading, and promised a 7.5% monthly return on investment for three years for those who put money into its "trust." In Argentina and other countries, other companies with the Zoe name peddled a similar narrative... It included a "university" that offered courses on ontological coaching, a type of philosophical practice popular in some Argentine business circles...

Over 2020 and 2021, more than ten thousand people bought into Zoe, investing hundreds of millions of dollars between them. Zoe grew rapidly, hyping new tech innovations including the "robots" and a cryptocurrency called Zoe Cash. Its interests and visibility expanded: The Zoe name appeared on burger joints, car dealerships, a plane rental company, and pet shops, all emblazoned with its name. It sponsored soccer teams and even created three of its own... Zoe also spread beyond Argentina to other countries in Latin America and further afield, including Mexico, Paraguay, Colombia, Spain, and the U.S.

Towards the end of 2021, however, the shine began to wear off, as authorities began looking into Zoe's activities... Zoe members reported being unable to withdraw the funds they had put into trusts or "robots," and in early 2022, the value of Zoe Cash plummeted. Angry investors banged on the doors of Zoe's branches, and investigations against Zoe and Cositorto piled up across Latin America, Spain, and the U.S.

By March 2022, a handful of high-profile names involved with Zoe in Argentina had been arrested, or were wanted by the authorities...
Prosecutors now accuse Zoe of being nothing more than a simple Ponzi scheme.

In the U.S., at least three early candidates for president from both parties "want to make it clear they would not support any proposals for a central bank-backed digital US dollar," reports Bloomberg — which may be a little premature, because "A central bank digital currency, or CBDC, is far from reality in the U.S." Some officials at the Federal Reserve have expressed doubt over the need for one, especially for use by everyday Americans. The Fed has also said it would want approval from Congress before moving forward with a digital dollar. But that hasn't stopped the relatively niche issue from emerging as a flash point for individuals eyeing a presidential run.

The idea of a digital dollar has already faced backlash from Wall Street and other banks, because lenders are worried about it acting as a direct competitor to private bank deposits. Digital-asset companies like Circle Internet Financial LLC that issue stablecoins — a form of cryptocurrency traditionally tied to reserve assets like the US dollar or gold and that offers similar features to a retail digital dollar — have also pushed back against certain CBDCs. Circle's Head of Global Policy Dante Disparte said he'd be opposed to a digital dollar if it allows the Fed to control users' access to funds, compromises privacy or disrupts a two-tiered banking and payments system. "I've gone as far as saying that's the version that is un-American," he said in an interview. In a report published last year in response to a Federal Reserve discussion paper, Circle also warned that a digital dollar could "destabilize" the banking sector.

In Congress, Republicans on Capitol Hill have introduced legislation to ban such direct-to-consumer CBDCs, saying they could be used by the federal government to surveil US citizens.

Proponents of a CBDC have argued that it could offer real benefits, including making payments — especially cross-border payments — faster and ensuring the dollar's dominance in the global economy. It could be particularly useful for settling certain financial-market transactions, such as interbank transfers, some Fed officials have said. The government has also indicated it would prefer to have private-sector intermediaries offer accounts and facilitate CBDC payments, rather than taking on that role itself. Supporters have argued it can be tailored in a way to protect consumer privacy, which the Fed has also said is critical if it decides to move forward.
Bloomberg also summarized the analysis of one political consultant specializing in cryptocurrency. "In addition to the potential appeal to libertarian voters and to constituents in banking and crypto, pushing back against a U.S. digital dollar can provide a relatively safe avenue for candidates to attract votes from conspiracy theorists who have rallied around the anti-CBDC movement."

Cory Doctorow just wrote a new thriller "about cryptocurrency shenanigans that will awaken you to how the world really works," according to his publisher. Doctorow calls Red Team Blues "a book about the financial rot at the center of Silicon Valley... a kind of anti-finance finance thriller."

The publisher describes the book's hero as "a self-employed forensic accountant, a veteran of the long guerilla war between people who want to hide money, and people who want to find it. " He knows computer hardware and software alike, including the ins and outs of high-end databases and the kinds of spreadsheets that are designed to conceal rather than reveal. He's as comfortable with social media as people a quarter his age, and he's a world-level expert on the kind of international money-laundering and shell-company chicanery used by Fortune 500 companies, mid-divorce billionaires, and international drug gangs alike.

He also knows the Valley like the back of his hand, all the secret histories of charismatic company founders and Sand Hill Road VCs. Because he was there at all the beginnings. He's not famous, except to the people who matter. He's made some pretty powerful people happy in his time, and he's been paid pretty well. It's been a good life.

Now he's been roped into a job that's more dangerous than anything he's ever agreed to before — and it will take every ounce of his skill to get out alive.
"I write when I'm anxious, and right now these are anxious times," Doctorow explained last month in Publisher's Weekly, describing what he'd learned about selling audiobooks without going through Amazon's service Audible. This time Cory got 4,080 backers to pledge $152,735 to fund an audiobook for Red Team Blues read by Wil Wheaton that his Kickstarter campaign stressed would be DRM-free. ("Every audiobook sold on Audible be wrapped in Amazon's Digital Rights Management technology, which is a felony for you to remove, even if the copyright holder asks you to. It's punishable by a five-year prison sentence and a $500,000 fine!")

Red Team Blues is the first book in a new trilogy, and Cory is now making in-person appearances to promote the book — starting today (and tomorrow) at the LA Times Festival of Books at the University of Southern California. Tuesday he'll be in San Diego, and a week from Sunday he's appearing in San Francisco, before heading to Portland, Mountain View, Berkeley, and Gaithersburg Maryland.

Buzzfeed isn't the only company that merged with a SPAC that's hurting. Of the 365 companies that listed publicly through a SPAC merger between 2020 and 2022, 100 -- or 27% -- were penny stocks trading below $1 as of Thursday's close, according to data firm SPAC Research. From a report: Among the companies now in the cents-per-share club: WeWork, scooter rental company Bird, and aspiring electric vehicle makers including Nikola, Lordstown Motors and Faraday Future. Two-thirds of companies -- 248 -- are under $5 a share, a steep drop from SPACs' standard $10 initial listing price. SPACs, or special purpose acquisition companies, are publicly-listed blank check companies that are intended to merge with private companies and bring them public. Normally a tiny sliver of the financial sector, SPACs exploded in popularity when the markets turned particularly frothy and investors rushed into fast-growing, money-losing young companies. Startups that were years away from producing revenue were able to woo public investors with ambitious goals and revenue projections. Those projections are now being missed en masse. Of those that completed SPAC mergers during the boom, just 28 -- or 8% -- are trading above their initial listing price, according to SPAC Research. Another 28 aren't listed anymore, generally because they were bought by another company or went out of business.

Canada's $190bn Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan says it is steering clear of the cryptocurrency sector after writing off a $95mn investment in FTX, the failed digital currency exchange. From a report: OTPP was among a number of big-name money managers to back FTX, with investments in 2021 and early 2022. The move was widely seen as a sign that high-profile, blue-chip investors were giving their stamp of approval to the fast-growing but lightly regulated crypto sector. But in November 2022 OTPP wrote off its entire stake, following FTX's dramatic collapse. The exchange's high-profile founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, is now facing fraud charges. "We're still working through what exactly happened there and you're going to be careful," OTPP chief executive Jo Taylor told the Financial Times. "It'd be unwise for us to rush" into another crypto investment based in part on "feedback from our members," he added.

Across the software development field, founders are experiencing an income tax season that has become an existential threat to their company's survival. Software startups say they were blindsided by shocking tax bills as a result of a change in law related to research and development costs, and if Congress does not provide a retroactive fix, business failures will spread throughout the industry. From a report: The root of the issue is the inability of lawmakers to extend a key tax provision that had bipartisan support at the end of last year that allows for full expensing of research and development costs under Section 174 of the tax code. That did not come out of nowhere, and was a big disappointment to major corporations that had lobbied for the measure. But for many small business owners who often wear multiple hats, don't have lobbying arms or relationships with big four CPA firms, the change to require R&D amortization over a period of five years first became known this spring when accountants showed them the massive tax bills they owed the government. As word has spread throughout the software community, some owners remain too afraid to look at the full tax cost as they file for tax extensions and accountants revise their returns.

The pain is being felt from the smallest software developers of a dozen or less employees to large venture-backed companies sitting on pre-2022 frothy valuations, with tax bills rising to a level where cash flow is being drained, forcing painful financial decisions. Startups need to take out loans or extend lines of credit at a time of tighter bank lending and higher rates, ask VCs for more money during the worst fundraising environment in over a decade, freeze hiring and contemplate layoffs -- if they have not started making them already within a sector leading the economy in job losses and running at a rate higher than the worst layoffs of the dotcom bubble. Many software firms will make it through this year, but if R&D full expensing treatment is not brought back, they say survival will become an issue. The software development field is the starkest example of the fallout from the R&D tax change because its biggest expense is software development talent. Developers don't come cheap, and until tax year 2022, these companies could fully expense those costs as R&D rather than having to amortize them over multiple years. Industry success relies on the contribution of software talent, but when that cost overwhelms cash flow and profits, it potentially makes the business model untenable.

Netflix is planning a "broad rollout" of the password sharing crackdown that it began implementing in 2022, the company said today in its Q1 2023 earnings report (PDF). MacRumors reports: The "paid sharing" plan that Netflix has been testing in a limited number of countries will expand to additional countries in the second quarter, including the United States. Netflix said that it was "pleased with the results" of the password sharing restrictions that it implemented in Canada, New Zealand, Spain, and Portugal earlier this year. Netflix initially planned to start eliminating password sharing in the United States in the first quarter of the year, but the company said that it had learned from its tests and "found opportunities to improve the experience for members." There is a "cancel reaction" expected in each market where paid sharing is implemented, but increased revenue comes later as borrowers activate their own Netflix accounts and existing members add "extra member" accounts.

In Canada, paid sharing resulted in a larger Netflix membership base and an acceleration in revenue growth, which has given Netflix the confidence to expand it to the United States. When Netflix brings its paid sharing rules to the United States, multi-household account use will no longer be permitted. Netflix subscribers who share an account with those who do not live with them will need to pay for an additional member. In Canada, Netflix charges $7.99 CAD for an extra member, which is around $6. [...] Netflix claims that more than 100 million households are sharing accounts, which is impacting its ability to "invest in and improve Netflix" for paying members.

After placing an early bet on OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, Microsoft has another secret weapon in its arsenal: its own artificial intelligence chip for powering the large-language models responsible for understanding and generating humanlike language. The Information: The software giant has been developing the chip, internally code-named Athena, since as early as 2019, according to two people with direct knowledge of the project. The chips are already available to a small group of Microsoft and OpenAI employees, who are testing the technology, one of them said. Microsoft is hoping the chip will perform better than what it currently buys from other vendors, saving it time and money on its costly AI efforts. Other prominent tech companies, including Amazon, Google and Facebook, also make their own in-house chips for AI. The chips -- which are designed for training software such as large-language models, along with supporting inference, when the models use the intelligence they acquire in training to respond to new data -- could also relieve a shortage of the specialized computers that can handle the processing needed for AI software. That shortage, reflecting the fact that primarily just one company, Nvidia, makes such chips, is felt across tech. It has forced Microsoft to ration its computers for some internal teams, The Information has reported.

Bank of England Deputy Governor Jon Cunliffe said regulators may need to impose a limit on using so-called stablecoins for payments as policy makers try to balance the need for innovation with its accompanying concerns. From a report: Cunliffe raised the prospect that rapid innovation in payment systems could bring new risks for customers and financial markets as a whole. "While, from a public policy perspective, we want competition and innovation in payments we need to guard against rapid, disruptive change that does not allow the financial system time to adjust and could therefore threaten financial stability," Cunliffe said Monday in a text of remarks at an event hosted by fintech industry body Innovate Finance. Regulators would need to decide "whether there should be limits, initially at any rate, on stablecoins used for payments." Stablecoins, which are currently issued by non-bank businesses, are pegged to the value of an asset. They are designed to maintain a stable value, unlike cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, while using ledger technology to record and transfer ownership. Cunliffe noted that "so far their use has been confined to facilitating trading and other transactions in the world of crypto assets," but that there were proposals to use them for other, broader payment purposes. "Stablecoins offer the possibility of greater efficiency and functionality in payments," Cunliffe said. But they currently do not fit into any regulatory framework, unlike the existing payments systems and money issued by commercial banks.

Online tax-filing services from TurboTax and H&R Block "want to blab your tax return secrets," warns the Washington Post. "Why? To help them make more money." If you prepare your taxes online with TurboTax or H&R Block software, at some point you'll see a message that I found confusing. "We can help you do more," TurboTax says. In this case, that "help" is funneling the private information from your tax return to Intuit — the company that owns TurboTax, Credit Karma and accounting software QuickBooks. H&R Block offers to "personalize your H&R Block experience."

If you say yes, you're going to see email and other marketing from Intuit and H&R Block or its business partners that are tailored to what's in your tax return.

That might include how much money you make, how much you owe in student loans, the size of your tax return and your charitable contributions. For example, a credit card company might pay Intuit's Credit Karma to show offers to high-income people. Intuit knows that information from your tax return. The Washington Post technology columnist Geoffrey A. Fowler wrote last year about how these two companies grab for your secret tax return information. He dubbed it "the Facebook-ization of personal finance."

In a way, the tax prep companies are more aggressive than Facebook. What they're doing is mission creep. You might already be paying TurboTax and H&R Block to prepare or file your tax return. Now they also want your permission to pass along your secrets to make even more money off you.

The stock market, real estate and cryptocurrencies did poorly in 2022, but the global luxury goods market grew 20 percent. People may have had less, but they spent more on fine arts and collectibles that serve no function except to provide pleasure. From a report: The culture is bursting with new material -- every day, thousands of new books are published and 100,000 new songs are released on Spotify -- but the old stuff offers a sweeter emotional payoff for many. It could be tapes or posters or pictures or comics or coins or sports cards or memorabilia. It might be from their childhood or the childhood they never had, or it might merely express a longing to be anywhere but 2023. The common element is this: People like to own a thing from a thing they love. For Mr. Carlson and millions like him, the nostalgia factory is working overtime.

When Mr. Carlson first began to look for sealed VHS cassettes, they were considered so much plastic trash. "Back to the Future," "The Goonies," "Blade Runner," were about $20 each on eBay. He put them on a shelf, little windows into his past, and started an Instagram account called Rare and Sealed. Then tapes began to get scarcer and much more expensive. People trapped at home had lots of money to spend during the pandemic. But it was more than that. Objects with a bit of history have an obvious attraction in a high-tech world. The current cultural tumult, with its boom in fake images, endless arguments over everything and now the debut of imperious A.I. chatbots, increases the appeal of things that can't be plugged in. At the same time, advances in technology mean it is ever easier to buy expensive things online. Bids at auctions routinely reach tens, even hundreds, of thousands of dollars.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: South Korea is to offer reclusive youths a monthly living allowance of 650,000 won ($490) in order to encourage them out of their homes, as part of a new measure passed by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family. The measure also offers education, job and health support. The condition is known as "hikikomori," a Japanese term that roughly translated means, "to pull back." The government wants to try to make it easier for those experiencing it to leave the house to go to school, university or work.

Included in the program announced this week, which expands on measures announced in November, is a monthly allowance for living expenses for people aged between nine and 24 who are experiencing extreme social withdrawal. It also includes an allowance for cultural experiences for teenagers. About 350,000 people between the ages of 19 and 39 in South Korea are considered lonely or isolated -- about 3% of that age group -- according to the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs. Secluded youth are often from disadvantaged backgrounds and 40% began living reclusively while adolescents, according to a government document outlining the measures.

The new measures aim to strengthen government support "to enable reclusive youth to recover their daily lives and reintegrate into society," the government said in a statement. Among the other types of support are paying for the correction of affected people's physical appearance, including scars "that adolescents may feel ashamed of," as well as helping with school and gym supplies. South Korea also has a relatively high rate of youth unemployment, at 7.2%, and is trying to tackle a rapidly declining birthrate that further threatens productivity.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: The hackers who breached data storage giant Western Digital claim to have stolen around 10 terabytes of data from the company, including reams of customer information. The extortionists are pushing the company to negotiate a ransom -- of "minimum 8 figures" -- in exchange for not publishing the stolen data. On April 3, Western Digital disclosed "a network security incident" saying hackers had exfiltrated data after hacking into "a number of the Company's systems." At the time, Western Digital provided few details about exactly what data the hackers stole, saying in a statement that the hackers "obtained certain data from its systems and [Western Digital] is working to understand the nature and scope of that data."

One of the hackers spoke with TechCrunch and provided more details, with the goal of verifying their claims. The hacker shared a file that was digitally signed with Western Digital's code-signing certificate, showing they could now digitally sign files to impersonate Western Digital. Two security researchers also looked at the file and agreed it is signed with the company's certificate. The hackers also shared phone numbers allegedly belonging to several company executives. TechCrunch called the numbers. Most of the calls rang but went to automated voicemail messages. Two of the phone numbers had voicemail greetings that mentioned the names of the executives that the hackers claimed were associated with the numbers. The two phone numbers are not public.

Screenshots shared by the hacker show a folder from a Box account apparently belonging to Western Digital, an internal email, files stored in a PrivateArk instance (a cybersecurity product), and a screenshot of a group call where one of the participants is identified as Western Digital's chief information security officer. They also said they were able to steal data from the company's SAP Backoffice, a backend interface that helps companies manage e-commerce data. The hacker said that their goal when they hacked Western Digital was to make money, though they decided against using ransomware to encrypt the company's files. [...] If Western Digital doesn't get back to them, the hacker said, they are ready to start publishing the stolen data on the website of the ransomware gang Alphv. The hacker said they are not directly affiliated with Alphv but "I know them to be professional." Western Digital said they're declining to comment or answer questions about the hacker's claims.

Federal authorities are making arrests and seizing funds with the help of new tools to identify criminals through cryptocurrency transactions. From a report: James Zhong appeared to have pulled off the perfect crime. In December 2012, he stumbled upon a software bug while withdrawing money from his account on Silk Road, an online marketplace used to hide criminal dealings behind the seemingly bulletproof anonymity of blockchain transactions and the dark web. Mr. Zhong, a 22-year-old University of Georgia computer-science student at the time, used the site to buy cocaine. "I accidentally double-clicked the withdraw button and was shocked to discover that it resulted in allowing me to withdraw double the amount of bitcoin I had deposited," he later said in federal court. After the first fraudulent withdrawal, Mr. Zhong created new accounts and with a few hours of work stole 50,000 bitcoins worth around $600,000, court papers from federal prosecutors show.

Federal officials closed Silk Road a year later on criminal grounds and seized computers that held its transaction records. The records didn't reveal Mr. Zhong's caper at first. Authorities hadn't yet mastered how to track people and groups hidden behind blockchain wallet addresses, the series of letters and numbers used to anonymously send and receive cryptocurrency. One elemental feature of the system was the privacy it gave users. Mr. Zhong moved the stolen bitcoins from one account to another for eight years to cover his tracks. By late 2021, the red-hot crypto market had raised the value of his trove to $3.4 billion. In November 2021, federal agents surprised Mr. Zhong with a search warrant and found the digital keys to his crypto fortune hidden in a basement floor safe and a popcorn tin in the bathroom. Mr. Zhong, who pleaded guilty to wire fraud, is scheduled to be sentenced Friday in New York federal court, where prosecutors are seeking a prison sentence of less than two years.

Mr. Zhong's case is one of the highest-profile examples of how federal authorities have pierced the veil of blockchain transactions. Private and government investigators can now identify wallet addresses associated with terrorists, drug traffickers, money launderers and cybercriminals, all of which were supposed to be anonymous. Law-enforcement agencies, working with cryptocurrency exchanges and blockchain-analytics companies, have compiled data gleaned from earlier investigations, including the Silk Road case, to map the flow of cryptocurrency transactions across criminal networks worldwide. In the past two years, the U.S. has seized more than $10 billion worth of digital currency through successful prosecutions, according to the Internal Revenue Service -- in essence, by following the money. Instead of subpoenas to banks or other financial institutions, investigators can look to the blockchain for an instant snapshot of the money trail.

A new report looks at the firms that quietly move billions around the banking industry each day. Reciprocal deposits enable banks to place deposits with another bank and receive the same value back through technology firms, reshuffling approximately $1 trillion through their platforms. This deposit-swapping allows banks to offer customers more insurance, a priority after Silicon Valley Bank's failure, where 93% of deposits were uninsured. At the end of last year, around 45% of deposits in the American banking system were uninsured.

Invented by Eugene Ludwig in 2002, reciprocal deposits help banks offer greater deposit insurance without forgoing deposit funding. Ludwig's firm, IntraFi, allows banks to place insured deposits around the system while receiving the same value from other locations. IntraFi, the largest firm with 3,000 banks on its platform, has been joined by r&t Deposit Solutions, ModernFi, and StoneCastle Cash Management. These firms are experiencing rapid growth, with reciprocal deposits' value increasing significantly since March.

The story asks: All this deposit-swapping raises the question of whether it makes sense to maintain the federal cap. The private sector has come up with a clever workaround to offer more deposit insurance than mandated. It is conceivable that, with several thousand banks in the network, an account could offer deposit insurance for hundreds of millions of dollars. Indeed, StoneCastle offers an account with $125m in deposit insurance. But there is a difference between a private-sector workaround and a public-sector mandate. It is currently difficult to match banks so that all are able to offer such high limits (most offer just a few million dollars' insurance), and reciprocal-deposit firms levy fees, too. They apply on top of the charges, of between 0.05% and 0.32% of the value of total liabilities, that institutions pay for federal-deposit insurance.

Abolishing the cap would make insurance pricier across the system; these higher costs would almost certainly be passed on to customers in the form of lower interest rates. Still, if enough depositors seek insurance by spreading deposits around, higher costs might be the result anyway.

Amazon has started charging a fee for some returns made at UPS stores. Insider reports: While customers used to be able to drop off their returns at a UPS Store free of charge, Amazon will now charge a $1 fee if customers have another free-return option the same distance away or closer. Customers can still visit those other drop-off locations -- including Whole Foods, Kohl's, and Amazon stores -- and leave their packages for free. The company already charged customers to have UPS pick up returns from their homes or to drop off packages at UPS Access Points, which are located inside third-party businesses, The Information reported. "We always offer a free option for customers to return their item," Amazon spokesperson Steve Kelly told Insider by email. "If a customer would prefer to return their item at a UPS Store when there is a free option closer to their delivery address, a very small amount of customers may incur a $1 fee."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from PC Gamer: Back in 2017, we learned about the biggest heist in EVE Online history: A year-long inside job that ultimately made off with an estimated 1.5 triillion ISK, worth around $10,000 in real money. But now another EVE player claims to have pulled off a heist worth significantly more than that -- and with significantly less work involved. The 2017 heist, like so many of EVE's most interesting stories, relied primarily on social engineering: Investing months or years of time into grooming a target before pulling the rug out from beneath them. But redditor Flam_Hill said this job was less bloody: Instead of betrayal, this theft was dependent upon learning and exploiting the "shares mechanic" in EVE Online in order to leverage a takeover of Event Horizon Expeditionaries, a 299-member corporation that was part of the Pandemic Horde alliance.

Using a "clean account with a character with a little history," Flan_Hill and an unnamed partner applied for membership in the EHEXP corporation. After the account was accepted, Flan_Hill transferred enough of his shares in the corporation to the infiltrator to enable a call for a vote for a new CEO. The conspirators both voted yes, while nobody else in the corporation voted at all. This was vital, because after 72 hours the two "yes" votes carried the day. The infiltrating agent was very suddenly made CEO, which was in turn used to make Flan_Hill an Event Horizon Expeditionaries director, at which point they removed all the other corporate directors and set to emptying the coffers. They stripped 130 billion ISK from the corporate wallet, but that was only a small part of the haul: Counting all stolen assets, including multiple large ships, Flam_Hill estimated the total value of the heist at 2.23 trillion ISK, which works out to more than $22,300 in real money. ISK can't be legally cashed out of EVE Online, but it can be used to buy Plex, an in-game currency used to upgrade accounts, purchase virtual goods, and activate other services.

Bankrupt crypto exchange FTX has recovered over $7.3 billion in cash and liquid crypto assets, an increase of more than $800 million since January, the company's attorney said on Wednesday at a U.S. bankruptcy court hearing in Delaware. Reuters reports: FTX attorney Andy Dietderich said the company is starting to think about its future after months of effort devoted to collecting resources and figuring out what went wrong under the leadership of indicted ex-founder Sam Bankman-Fried. Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty. "The situation has stabilized, and the dumpster fire is out," Dietderich said.

FTX has benefited from a recent rise in crypto prices, Dietderich said. Its total recovery would be valued at $6.2 billion based on crypto prices from November 2022, when it filed for bankruptcy after traders pulled $6 billion from the platform in three days and rival exchange Binance abandoned a rescue deal. As it looks to the future, FTX is negotiating with stakeholders about options for restarting its crypto exchange, and it may make a decision on that in the current quarter, Dietderich said.