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More Bitcoin-Linked Visa Cards Than We Thought

Jeff Butts ·

On Apple Context Machine, Bryan Chaffin and I briefly discussed credit and debit cards that are linked to cryptocurrency. It turns out, there are actually 54 such cards already, just in the Visa catalog.

These projects have gained traction — crypto-linked Visa debit cards facilitated over $1 billion worth of transactions across Visa’s 70 million merchants worldwide in the first half of 2021 alone. $1 billion is only a small fraction of the trillion-dollar payments industry, however retail interest in cryptocurrencies is picking up, suggesting the market has room to grow, especially with younger generations.

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Apple Music and Kanye West to Hold Third 'Donda' Listening Party

Jeff Butts ·

Kanye West fans have been clamoring for the artist to finally release his upcoming album, Donda. Unfortunately, the release date keeps changing. Maybe the album will drop next week, during or after the just-announced third listening party on Apple Music. The event is slated for Thursday, August 26 at 10pm EDT, from Soldier Field in Chicago.

While West has recorded and teased or even announced release dates for multiple unreleased albums over the years, “Donda” has had the most public gestation of them all — and of any album by a major artist in history. Some have speculated that he is setting up a release-date battle with Drake — who has said he’s finally finished his long-awaited “Certified Lover Boy” album — similar to his release-date face-off with 50 Cent in 2007.

 

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Since 2015 Cyber Attacks Have Cost Companies Over $25 Billion

Andrew Orr ·

A report on Wednesday shows that the damage from cyber attacks has reached over US$$25 billion since 2015.

The most costly attacks are credential attacks (the theft of an organization or individual’s passwords), which have accounted for $6.4 billion in company losses. Often, these credentials are stolen and then sold on the dark web, which happened in the recent T-Mobile breach. Backdoors, like what was used in the SolarWinds hack, have cost companies $5.6 billion.