A contractual dispute between Universal Music Group and Gen Z-favored social media app TikTok has resulted in thousands of tracks being removed from the platform this week, with error messages in place of the audio on videos that previously used UMG-controlled songs.
UMG has accused TikTok of intimidation and bullying, complaining that the platform pays artists a tiny amount, despite its growing ad revenue and heavy reliance on music-based content. TikTok in return, has claimed that it is basically a free promotional and discovery vehicle for (UMG) artists, in an attempt to intimidate and bully its way into not adequately paying for use of their product.
But who is not letting the other kids play with their ball, and who expects a free ball (and new kit for the whole team) because 'exposure', in the crypto industry this week. Read on to find out.
We took a look at the prevailing attitude towards crypto among both U.S. politicians and the El Salvadoran general public this week. In the U.S., an increasing number of politicians are prepared to express their pro-crypto stance, although the Senate is proving a tougher nut to crack than the House of Representatives. Meanwhile, in El Salvador, the proportion of the general public actively using bitcoin for payments has halved over the last year, although Bukele is slated to win another term as president this weekend, so more pro-BTC policies are expected.
Airdrop season is still in full swing, Solana’s Jupiter DEX hit the headlines twice this week, the first being when the WEN token dropped, causing Jupiter to spike above Uniswap on daily trading volume. Then, Jupiter dropped its own token, which immediately pumped, making it one of the biggest airdrops of all time at over $700 million.
This week also saw the first phase of decentralized email platform Dmail’s token drop for early adopters, and the Pyth token was pumping on the promise of future airdrops from the oracle provider’s partners.
We took a look at the progress of Lightspark’s Universal Money Address project, which promises ‘email’ style wallet addresses to Bitcoin’s Lightning Network.
After a tough year, former king of NFT marketplaces OpenSea is reportedly open to an acquisition of the right partnership comes along. Meanwhile, Magic Eden released its multichain NFT wallet, which aims to unify the currently fractured NFT experience. Not to be left out, Binance launched its Inscriptions Marketplace in an attempt to capture some of the current interest in all things Ordinal… but will it prove to be too little too late?
Immutable opened early access to its gaming-focused zkEVM chain on mainnet this week. The layer 2 roll up already has over 260 partners developing on the platform.
A $6.5 million exploit of the Abracadabra platform led to its Magic Internet Money stablecoin losing its peg. MIM dropped to $0.84 at one point (or $0.76, depending who you ask). Polygon Labs announced that it was laying off 60 employees, representing an almost 20% reduction in its workforce. The move is reportedly not to cut costs, but to improve operational efficiency.
There was finally movement on creditor repayments from Celsius and Mt. Gox, and FTX suggested that former customers would be paid in full, but conceded that suggested plans for a reboot would not be happening due to the brand’s shattered reputation.
And finally, our Banking and CBDC Roundup looked at digital currency development in the UAE and Japan, and Circle’s launch on the real-world asset-focused platform, Celo.
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