#281
Big Tech Floods Gatham

Neighborly to announce the communities chosen for their broadband accelerator on Nov. 15^th - Neighborly received 100+ applications from advocates and elected representatives to participate in their broadband accelerator and will announce the accepted communities on Nov. 15th. Read more

MoneyLion, Team Penske roar into 2019 partnership - MoneyLion, America’s most powerful financial membership, announced a multi-year partnership with Team Penske, beginning with the 2019 NASCAR season. In celebration, MoneyLion has committed to providing racing fans across the country with 5% cashback on tickets to the track. Read more

Gareth Jones to be awarded 2018 British leadership award - We are super proud of the achievements of our very own Founding Partner! Gareth will be receiving the leadership award from the St. George's Society of New York in partnership with the UK's Department for International Trade at the eight annual British Bash on November 29, 2018. Read more

Axoni co-founders honored by Goldman Sachs for entrepreneurship - Greg and Jeff Schvey, founders of portfolio company Axoni, have been recognized as two of the 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs of 2018 by Goldman Sachs at its Builders + Innovators Summit in Santa Barbara, California. Read more

DTCC enters test phase on distributed ledger project for credit derivatives - Portfolio company Axoni has built the infrastructure and smart contract applications for this groundbreaking project.Read more

Google plans Amazon-scale expansion in New York City - Though Amazon's new Long Island City hub is stealing the headlines, Google is also quietly planning a major expansion in Gotham. The company purchased Chelsea Market earlier this year, and will expand its NYC workforce from 8k to nearly 20k. Read more

Chinese headmaster fired over secret coin mining at school - A Chinese headmaster has been fired after a secret stack of crypto-currency mining machines was found connected to his school's electricity supply. Teachers at the school in Hunan became suspicious of a whirring noise that continued day and night, local media reports. Read more

Etherdelta founder fined $400K for operating unregistered securities exchange - Zachary Coburn, founder of Etherdelta, is paying the price for operating a DEX (decentralized crypto exchange) within the US. Read more

Quants are facing a crisis of confidence - Wall Street’s quant wizards often argue that many of their math-driven strategies are designed for the long-term, but with global equities posting the worst run in 6yrs in “Red October,” most quant advocates were forced onto the defensive. Read more

Charge card startup Brex aims for decacorn success - TechCrunch speaks to the founders of Brex about the challenges of scaling quickly, how a Brex card compares to traditional corporate card products and the company’s plan to navigate the ups and downs of business cycles. Read more

Credit Karma acquires Noddle from TransUnion and expands to the UK- Credit Karma has made an acquisition to help it kick-start its first overseas expansion beyond the US and Canada by acquiring Noddle, a UK-based credit reporting service with 4 million users, from TransUnion.  Read more

Lloyds channels inner David Brent in its digital banking drive - A comic article by the FT pointing out that it was tempting to hear echoes of Ricky Gervais’ sitcom office manager in Lloyds Banking Group’s latest jobs announcement. This week it said the bad news was that 6,240 back-office staff would not so much lose their jobs but be subject to “gross role reductions”. Read more

How will algorithms change the art market? - The FT explores how AI and blockchain are moving relatively fast in an industry bound by tradition with the launch this year of "Portion" an auction house that accepts only cryptocurrency and the emergence of Codex Protocol, a new blockchain based registry for fine art, wine, and collectibles. Read more

Crypto coders shun ‘Hodl’ in favor of ‘Buidl’ at Prague event - At Devcon IV, the annual Ethereum gathering, the suits of Wall Street that had plagued the event last year were noticeably absent with Ethereum at $200. Read more

Bitcoin pioneer who gave away over $100m has no regrets - Jeff Garzik started writing software code for Bitcoin in July 2010. In this article he speculates on who Nakamoto really is and explains why he gave away 15,678 Bitcoins about 7 years ago in developer bounties to spur work on the software. Read more

Why Schwab Is giving small RIAs lots of attention - According to the WSJ advisers with under $100 million AUM represent 70% of the addressable market which makes good business sense for the nation’s largest custodian. Read more

N26 expands to Scandanavia - Germany-based challenger bank N26 is bringing its services to Denmark, Norway, Poland, and Sweden - this news comes just weeks after the fintech officially launched in the UK. Read more

The Blockchain wallet plans a $125m airdrop of Stellar Lumens - In order to drive mainstream adoption, Blockchain and the Stellar Development Foundation will be doing the largest crypto public give away ever. Make sure you sign up for a wallet to get your free XLM! Read more

When can token curated registries actually work? A token curated registry - or publicly available list than is generated by participants who stake their tokens - can be a valuable utility with a token that accrues value over time. This article by Wirelines explores the conditions under which such scheme might work. Read more

Morgan Stanley: hedge funds and VCs fueled a $6.4 billion gain in crypto assets in under 2 years - Morgan Stanley has come out and official said crypto is a net new institutional asset class. It estimates that there are now ~220 crypto managers with $7.11bn AUM, split fairly equally between Hedge Funds and VCs. Read more