Quick News № 26

Losing in its novelty, but still the news about the bitcoin rate opens our digest: at the end of last week it approached the historical maximum. Having surpassed the $60,000 mark, for the first time since April, he got so close to his own record of almost $65,000. Around the same time, the Deputy Head of the Bank of England John Cunliffe identified the “uncontrolled” growth of this cryptocurrency as potentially the main cause of the new global financial crisis. For more information on why bank representatives never recognize bitcoin as a full-fledged currency, see our article on crypto.

While representatives of the largest banking systems continued to accuse cryptocurrencies of undermining global financial stability, WhatsApp, or rather Facebook, which owns it, finally responded to long-standing accusations of transferring almost all data from the parent corporation's messenger. The charges were related to the app update earlier this year, and now, in the fall, the backups of his chats were encrypted for a new level of security —  as follows from the new release of Facebook. Is this only a direct response to allegations of misuse of the received data?

While we are fascinated by digital development, from the other side of the digital border, the hardware suddenly “waved” to us, reminding us that it still has a strong influence on the market. According to experts, sales of smartphones —  one of the main tools for accessing the digital space —  around the world decreased slightly, but decreased. The culprit for the lost percent of revenue is the semiconductor crisis, the shortage of which began at the beginning of the pandemic.

From the news of technology, we are moving on to how the venture capital market, which is close to us in geography, is doing today. So, the past week was especially successful for the company Gitlab, founded by Ukrainian entrepreneurs: it raised $801M during its debut day in the IPO, while reaching an estimate of $11B.

Meanwhile, a relative of Gitlab by origin, Ukrainian startup Party.Space, raised a slightly more modest $1M from TA Ventures, ICLUB and Day One Capital. The platform developed by the project allows users to create their own virtual spaces for corporate events. I wonder if there hadn't been a pandemic that forced the events to go online —  would this round have happened?

On a tangential basis, returning to the topic of cryptocurrencies and IPOs, but going into a more general topic of trading —  the TradingView application for traders, founded by founders from Russia, raised an investment of $298M and an estimate of $3B. Founded in 2011, the application operates on the principle of highly specialized social networks for traders with relevant content and functionality. It is monetized through subscription.

Finally, while still far from home, there are interesting numbers from Crunchbase: their data indicate an atypically rapid level of growth in the volume of the venture capital market in Europe. Compared to last year, only Q3 in 2021 brought growth of 138%. Read the rest of the curious insights —  you can draw useful conclusions.

Have a productive week!