Talking point: Quebec plans to make electricity expensive for crypto miners, Japanese coin exchanges were ordered to improve their anti-money-laundering measures and a major South Korean exchange was hacked and robbed of US$30 million in crypto. At the end of the June 22 working week, the price of Bitcoin had fallen 7.7 per cent to US$6,194—its lowest point in 2018. Ethereum was down 9.3 per cent to US$475. Ouch. (Quartz)
Talking point: Mobile software was meant to revive BlackBerry after losing smartphone-market dominance, but the company is now forecasting eight to 10 per cent growth next year, compared to 20 per cent in 2018. It may be up to BlackBerry's new interest in self-driving cars to drive it into the future. (Reuters)
Talking point: Child development experts and health advocacy groups, backed by a growing body of research, are worried that the app for children under 13 could have damaging cognitive and social impacts. Another red flag is that Messenger Kids is effectively a vehicle for Facebook to build its next-generation user base. (The Verge)
Talking point: The insurance giant is the latest sign that its sector is following in the footsteps of fintech, opening up its comparatively conervsative multi-trillion dollar global market to tech startups, hubs and accelerators much like banking has. (Waterloo Region Record)
