The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) announced on Nov. 28 that it has fined Facebook developer Meta €265m for breach of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Specifically, the commission stated that it had fined Meta for failing to design Facebook in such a way that it would protect users from data breaches. The announcement followed a more than year-long investigation that began in April, 2021. The breach itself occurred even earlier, in late 2019. Data Protection Commission announces decision in Facebook “Data Scraping” Inquiry: https://t.co/xW9nVqiJ2Y pic.twitter.com/6iDYnyVk5R — Data Protection Commission Ireland (@DPCIreland) November 28, 2022 The data …

The word “Metaverse” is one of three in the running to be crowned the Oxford "Word of the Year” (WOTY) in a competition run by the Oxford University Press (OUP), the publisher of the Oxford English Dictionary. OUP officially announced the launch of the competition and its three finalist words for 2022 on Nov. 22 with this year marking the first time the public can participate in voting for the WOTY. “Metaverse” will compete against the terms “#IStandWith” and “Goblin Mode”. 1️⃣ metaverse Usage increased as we discussed #hybrid working, debated the ethics, and wondered about the feasibility of an …

Attention is the lifeblood of Dogecoin (DOGE) and other memecoins. Much like earnings drive the price of corporate shares, the size and quality of attention captured by memecoins drive their price action. Successful crypto traders understand that DOGE and its kin are not just chips in the “great shitcoin casino” but are, in fact, tradable derivatives of human attention. They are tradable assets backed by zeitgeists. Trading memecoins isn’t just about spinning the wheel but about weighing the coin’s valuation against the amount of attention it’s receiving. As crypto influencer Cobie said, “Smart traders start selling as ownership and valuation …

Who would’ve thought that the implosion of Terra, the collapse of Three Arrows Capital and the bankruptcies of Celsius and Voyager wouldn’t be the most terrible crypto stories of 2022? In retrospect, crypto’s day of reckoning — and the new low for the cycle — hadn’t arrived even after all these tumultuous events. The industry’s cyclical execution occurred this week when FTX — the world’s second-largest crypto exchange — was feared to be insolvent and on the brink of collapse. Those fears stemmed from FTX’s incestuous relationship with Alameda Research, a trading firm founded by FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried — …

Bitcoin (BTC) crashed below $16,000 on Nov. 9, driving the price to its lowest level in two years. The 2-day correction totaled a 27% downtrend and wiped out $352 million worth of leverage long (buy) futures contracts. To date, Bitcoin price is 65% down for 2022, but it's essential to compare its price action against the world's biggest tech companies. For instance, Meta Platforms (META) is down 70% year-to-date, and Snap Inc. (SNAP) has dropped 80%. Furthermore, CloudFare (NET) lost 71% in 2022, followed by Roblox Corporation (RBLX) and Snapchat (SNAP), both down 70%. Inflationary pressure and fear of a …

The Facebook parent company Meta announced that about 13% of its current workforce has been cut in the first mass layoff in the company’s history. In a letter to his employees, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the layoffs and also reiterated that the hiring freeze, which began earlier this year, will be extended into the first fiscal quarter of next year. According to the statement published through Meta’s newsroom, the layoffs terminated 11,000 jobs. The initial rumors of layoffs emerged over the weekend on Nov. 6 via Wall Street Journal report from inside sources. Zuckerberg says he takes full responsibility …

Social media and tech giant Meta is reportedly gearing up for “large-scale layoffs” this week amid rising costs and a recent collapse of its share price. According to Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report on Nov. 6 citing people familiar with the matter, the planned layoffs could impact thousands of employees in a broad range of divisions across Meta’s 87,000-strong workforce. It is not currently understood whether the firm's Reality Labs division, which registered a $3.7 billion loss in the third quarter, would see staff cuts. Last week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that the company would be focusing its investment …

Since the introduction of ICQ — the progenitor of online chat applications — the expectation from instant messaging (IM) services has never changed. Users simply want them to work, which apparently turned into a tall order, given the frequent downtimes most popular chat apps experience nowadays. Launched the same year as Bitcoin (BTC), WhatsApp is one of the most widely used chat apps on the planet. Owned by Meta (the stable of which also boasts Instagram and Facebook), WhatsApp stands as the epitome of centralized services. That’s why when the service goes down, it has a much broader impact than …

October may have seen a decline in nonfungible token (NFT) trading volume and sales, but analytics firm DappRadar says an 18% growth in monthly unique NFT traders shows the market is still in “great demand.” According to a Nov. 3 report from DappRadar, the number of monthly unique NFT traders in October reached 1.11 million, increasing 18% from September, of approximately 950,000. This is despite trading volumes falling 30% to $662 million in October, the lowest registered in 2022, while the sales count decreased by 30% to 6.13 million, the firm said, adding: “The rise in the unique traders’ count …

Polygon (MATIC) emerged as the best-performing asset among the top-ranking cryptocurrencies on Nov. 3 as the market's attention turned to the latest Instagram and JPMorgan announcements. Polygon in high-profile partnerships Notably, Meta, the parent company of Instagram, named Polygon as its initial partner for its upcoming nonfungible token (NFT) tools that allow users to mint, showcase, and sell their digital collectibles on and off the social media platform. Meanwhile, banking giant JPMorgan used Polygon to conduct its first live trade (worth about $71,000) on a public blockchain, marking a concrete step toward integrating cryptocurrencies into the traditional financial frameworks. MATIC, …

Social media platform Instagram is set to introduce a number of nonfungible token (NFT)-related tools that will allow creators to mint, show and sel NFTs. Instagram parent company Meta said on Nov. 2 during its Creator Week 2022 event that the platform would allow its creators to make “digital collectibles” and sell them “both on and off Instagram.” Meta says creators will have an “end-to-end toolkit” from creating, showing, then selling NFTs within the platform and has chosen the Polygon (MATIC) blockchain as an initial partner for this functionality. It says a “small group” of United States-based creators will be …

It’s been just over a year since social media giant Facebook rebranded as Meta at the Facebook Connect conference on Oct. 28, 2021. The name change reflected the company’s growing ambitions to transcend past social media and into the world of Web3, crypto, NFTs, and the Metaverse — virtual worlds where consumers are likely to spend more of their time for both work and play. The company has been busy. In December 2021, Meta debuted its Horizon Worlds virtual reality social networking project, while it also opened up advertising for more crypto ads on Facebook. In April 2022, reports emerged …