Tech this week: El Salvador rejects IMF call to drop Bitcoin use and Snap shares surge 50% | Euronews

adminAugust 29, 2022

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The government of El Salvador on Monday rejected a recommendation by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to eliminate Bitcoin as legal tender in the Central American country.

The finance minister, Alejandro Zelaya, angrily said that “no international body is going to force us to do anything, nothing at all.”

Reading: Salvador rejects imf call to bitcoin

zelaya told a local tv station that bitcoin is a “sovereignty” issue.

“Countries are sovereign nations and make sovereign decisions about public policies,” he said.

The IMF had urged El Salvador to eliminate bitcoin as legal tender and better regulate the digital wallet that the government created and promoted among its citizens at the end of January.

“However, the adoption of a cryptocurrency as legal tender carries great risks to market and financial integrity, financial stability and consumer protection,” it said in a statement.

zelaya said that el salvador has complied with all regulations on financial transactions and money laundering.

The IMF also recommended removing the $30 (€26.19) offer as an incentive for people to start using the goat digital wallet and increasing digital wallet regulation to protect consumers. consumers.

suggested there might be benefits to using goat, but only using dollars, not bitcoin.

“in the short term, the actual costs of implementing goating and operationalizing bitcoin law outweigh the potential benefits,” the report says.

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele had been dismissive of the IMF’s recommendations on bitcoin.

Government officials told the IMF that the goat launch had significantly increased financial inclusion, drawing millions of people who previously lacked bank accounts into the financial system.

They also talked about the parallel tourism promotion aimed at bitcoin enthusiasts.

The government did not see the need to reduce the scope of its bitcoin law, but the agreed regulation could be strengthened, according to a report.

bukele promoted the adoption of bitcoin as legal tender along with the US dollar. El Salvador’s legislative assembly made the country the first to do so in June with the bitcoin law coming into effect in September.

snap recovers from apple privacy changes, shares increase 50%

snap said Thursday that its advertising business has recovered from the effects of Apple’s privacy changes faster than it expected.

The company’s shares soared 50% after it provided a first-quarter outlook that beat analysts’ estimates.

The results were welcome news for a tech sector that has been hit this week by bleak prospects and concerns that Apple’s privacy updates, which were introduced last year and allow users to prevent apps from track your online activity for advertising purposes, harm advertising revenue.

Flash forecast first quarter revenue between $1.03 billion (€899.7 million) and $1.08 billion (943.4 million), and daily active users between 328 million and 330 million.

guidance for both metrics beat analyst estimates, according to ibes data from refinitiv.

Digital bulletin board company pinterest also reported better-than-expected earnings on Thursday and its shares rose 20 percent.

Earnings reports from both snap and pinterest contrast with those of meta owner facebook, whose shares fell 26% on Thursday in what could be the biggest loss in market value in a single day for usa uu. company, a day after it said the impact of Apple’s privacy changes could be “on the order of $10 billion [€8.74 billion]” this year.

meta said apple updates hurt advertisers’ ability to target ads to potential customers and measure ad effectiveness.

a large portion of snap advertisers began using new ad measurement tools late in the fourth quarter, and parts of snap’s ad business began to recover from apple’s changes “faster than we expected” said snap chief financial officer derek andersen. .

However, global supply chain disruptions and labor shortages hurt advertising demand for consumer packaged goods and restaurant brands, it added.

snap revenue for the fourth quarter ended December 31 was $1.3 billion, an increase of 42% from the prior year quarter. The figure exceeded analysts’ expectations of 1.2 billion dollars (1.05 billion euros), according to Ibes data from Refinitiv.

daily active users on snapchat increased 20% year over year to 319 million, beating consensus estimates of 316.5 million.

snap still has a long way to go compared to bigger tech rivals. has developed a strategy to attract new users in Latin America, Europe and Asia. meta reported Wednesday that Facebook has 2.91 billion monthly users worldwide, showing no growth compared to the previous quarter.

snap also reported its first quarter of positive net income since its initial public offering, with a profit of $22.5 million (€19.65 million) in the fourth quarter, compared to a net loss of $113 million. dollars (98.69 million euros) in the former. -quarter of the year.

Tesla recalls over 800,000 vehicles due to seat belt buzzer issues

tesla is recalling more than 817,000 vehicles in the us. uu. because seat belt reminder chimes may not sound when vehicles are started and the driver has not fastened their seat belt.

The recall covers the 2021 and 2022 Model S sedans and Model X SUVs, as well as the 2017-2022 Model 3 sedans and 2020-2022 Model Y SUVs, according to documents released Thursday by safety regulators. .

us federal motor vehicle safety laws. uu. require that the chimes sound when the vehicle is started and the sound stops when the front seat belts are fastened.

Recall documents released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) say the problem occurs only if the driver left the vehicle in the previous drive cycle while the chime was sounding.

Tesla will fix the problem by shipping an over-the-air software update early this month. the safety agency says that without the chime, a driver may not know their seat belt is unbuckled, increasing the risk of injury during a crash.

The company says in the documents that it is not aware of any accidents or injuries due to the problem. a visual seat belt reminder is still displayed.

the usa withdrawal uu. It’s the largest in Tesla’s history and comes as the company faces increasing scrutiny from the NHTSA.

The agency also said this week that Tesla would recall nearly 54,000 cars and trucks because its “fully autonomous driving” software allows them to drive through stop signs without coming to a complete stop.

Recall documents released Tuesday say that Tesla will disable the feature with a software update. the “rolling brake” feature allows vehicles to pass through intersections with stop signs in all directions at speeds of up to 9 km per hour. the feature would work as long as the owner chose to activate it and the car did not detect any “relevant” moving cars, pedestrians or cyclists.

Selected owners are testing Tesla’s “full self-driving” software on public roads. Despite its name, it cannot drive itself, and the company cautions that drivers must be ready to intervene at a moment’s notice.

the nhtsa is also investigating a driver’s complaint that “full autonomous driving” software caused an accident in california.

On top of that, it’s also investigating why Teslas using the company’s less sophisticated “autopilot” driver assistance system have repeatedly crashed into parked emergency vehicles on highways.