alisa: i'm alisa parenti in washington, and you are watching "bloomberg technology." let's start with a check of your "first word news." president trump continues to fund the government through december 22. the two week extension was passed last night. presiding over the ceremonial swearing-in of kirsten nielsen as secretary of homeland security at the white house today, president trump's praised statistics showing the declining rate of illegal immigration to the u.s.. nielsen's nomination was confirmed by the senate on monday. vice president mike pence administered the oath of office. nikki haley says

president trump was aware of his decision to recognize jerusalem as israel's capital raise it tons, but he did advance peace in the middle east. the trump administration has been working on a new peace plan. ambassador haley gave no details. allies in the un security council are criticizing president trump's decision on this. britain's ambassador called it unhelpful to bees. siu'weden and japan's ambassador's opposed unilateral measures. local news 24 hours a day, powered more than 27 hundred journalists in more than 120 countries. "m alisa parenti, and bloomberg technology" is next. ♪

emily: this is "bloomberg technology." bitcoin mania. the battle is not cooling down. a look at its wild week and a major milestone coming up. plus, nintendo continues its successful year. we will hear from the company about its plans for the holiday season and 2018. hisdraper talks about position on bitcoin. this later on the show. ,nother wild week for bitcoin the world's most valuable cryptocurrency. $17,000an flirting with this week. this intensifies the debate on whether or not bitcoin is the real thing. care less for how it trades. if you are stupid enough to buy you will pay the price for it. >> this is irrational exuberance. this is, as greenspan's famous

phrase. of course he then found that the market kept on going up after he said it should stop. an unusual market. it shows we are not in the normal two-way trading market that you normally have. >> it is a scam for criminals round world. how muchn shows you demand for money laundering there is an world. >> if it was 20 years forward i could tell you why it worked out. but i am not guessing it will work out. isthe bottom line is that it a religion. you have to believe in it or not. i certainly do not think of as a fraud. is it a bubble? maybe. we've gone too. where there is a big run-up before a correction. a point where an comes back to limit. i would like to bring in -- --singh, ceo of it pay

bitpay. also with us, cory johnson. how do you think that will change the game? >> should be exciting. never a dull moment in bitcoin. i think it really makes bitcoin legitimate for institutional buyers, as well as regular retail. believe it or not, it is hard to buy bitcoin. my father calls me and asks me how to buy? it, and i have to it's when the process. buyers and institutions can get into this. >> we heard from gary cohn this c and e.t the take a listen to what he had to say earlier. approved a couple futures contracts. it will allow people the ability to short it and never bid in a transparent market and bitcoin.

we will see what goes on. it is an evolving market. >> how do you think the market will evolve, corey? >> this is going to be unusual. i don't know that we've ever had such high level of interest in such a then market. story ona great bloomberg terminal that talks about how 40% of that coin is owned by a handful people and does not trade. the trading is very thin. you will have options and futures based on this very illiquid market. it is also not very up. we do not know how the trading takes place. we do not know what the spreads are. so it could lead to some really unusual things. a small trader in bitcoin can affect the price a lot. but right now, there's only one way. by a tercel. you cannot short. so it is going to add leverage on a very thin market.

theoretically, it would reduce volatility. >> the irs's asking questions. is it the taxes you? >> good question. people of may capital gains on bitcoin want to pay their taxes. nobody wants to pay taxes. they're willing to. >> accounting firms do not quite know what to do these people. in the case of bitcoin futures, it is short now too. is going to go out gradually. the banks are taking a wait and see approach over the next couple of weeks. it will eventually open the door to get them more involved. it could also open the door for the etf eventually. this really is the ground one, where can go and play. >> will that be? >> it opens the door for a lot of retail buyers throughout the country. it is like etf's for gold and other things.

my dad can definitely by now. >> which things up a good point about consumer protection. such an illiquid market, where he do not know or the prices are moving. you do not know if their front running. it is frustrating for people who are used to seeing stocks. you see them move against you all the time. when you trade stocks, back in the day i used to watch these things happen. i used to watch bloomberg real-time trading. bitcoin -- with bitcoin, one does not know what is going on. there's always been fraud. i do not know that is happening seeitcoin, but people can an order. >> sonny, there are risks. are you worried about hacking? sonny: i think a lot of the

exchanges are making people more security-focused. there are more regulations coming into play. you are seeing it harder to happen. security is getting better. $30ou guys just raised million. >> this year, we raised from alkaline -- >> a different kind of investor. >> we have more money than we raised. our growth margins are more impressive. they give us professional services. >> if you are not worried about packing, then what are you

worried about? sonny: four years ago when i said, hey, bitcoin has some potential. people have come to the conclusion that that coin is here to stay. the government is not going to shut down. it really is global. but it is happening in india, japan, korea, argentina. we feel like it is number one because we hear and see about it everyday. it is global. you hear about the other exchanges offering products. so it really is here to stay. >> corey, 2018 will be the year of what? the year of sexual harassment finally being the issue that came out of the dark. so who knows about

cryptocurrency. day.y is such a crucial sonny said something interesting. but this is the same thing happening in the financial markets. the markets will be able to trade bitcoin in a public way. we'll see a big change on monday. this onll be all over monday as you know. thank you so much. coming up, uber making headlines overseas. not all of them good. beyond, next. 5:00 p.m. in new york, 2:00 p.m. in san francisco. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ >> more legal troubles for uber in the u.k.. the ride hailing giants license is shut down in sheffield england. operate, continue to but it becomes more trouble for the world's biggest startup. tion hason revokeca yet to be resolved. max, what do we do or not do now? max: it appears to be a technical problem. they did not change the name of the executive on their operating license at sheffield. it seems like a small story. sheffield is england's ortho largest city. it is not a huge city. ze as the same si

tucson, arizona. it shows how uber is having to play defense around the world. you have regulators watching the news in the united states, seeing how the company faces scandal and being harder on it. we saw uber lost its license in london. had thishe fact we technicality as the reason for it, it would not be wrong to see uber's rand problems having played into sheffield revoking the license. >> will this have broader business implications, that uber fights these kind of battles in other cities around the world? max: it is just a small cut. for uber is that it is a money losing companies that it is. sleep trying to get to a profitable place so that it can go public in 2019.

thesetime we have one of situations, whether in london or it createsr brazil, more expense and makes it harder for the company. this is not something that dara khosrowshahi would've wanted. it seems like a forced error for the company and embarrassing if you screw up your paperwork and it knocks you out of an important market. that is not a good look. that dollar has been to london to work on the licensing issue there. how does this reflect on his short tenure there? a much of a honeymoon. does he get? so much of what is happened since he got there, you can date it back to the travis kalanick regime. was the head of their u.k. operation, who had been there when london took away the license. you can put this on travis callan it.

monthsl have a few before people start to blame dara, but it is an unforced error. >> same time uber is getting a goodlifet, this is not for the singapore grand prix. it looks to be a situation where uber is retreating. do you see a broader pattern, again, emerging here? max: two things are going on. been on this long march to take over the world. they planned on dominating every market. beginning with the deal in china, they have been on the retreat, cutting deals with local players.

this story also has a clean-up component because uber sold to a taxi company in singapore, funding a joint venture. that company had been embroiled in a scandal, so it was another potential problem area for the ngmpany that by selli majority interest it is a way to make things a little tidier. to move on from that scandal and also have a better shot of competing in southeast asia. >> last question for you, max. we've been covering sexual harassment against to jabbar.

and yet, he has completely denied these allegations as more women have come forward. what do you make of the tactic that pressure bar has taken? -- pishevar? max: it is either four or what it chess feels like to me personally is a bit of grasping. there has been a lot of apparently erratic behavior coming out of him over the past year, including this weird battle over his close friend, travis callan it. -- kalanick. this is an attempt to muddy or distract from these

allegations. the people at uber dealing with the shareholder battles are just wanting this guide to go away. it is just yet another issue creating problems for this company that until recently was successful. >> max, thank you. coming up, it is blockbuster season for video games. how nintendo plans to keep up with the demand of its switch console next. this is bloomberg. ♪

is blockbuster time for video games. while there been a new slew of video games released, the real strength may be in the hardware. nintendo has added hardware and software to its lineup.

the switch console may be the hardest ring to get a hold of this season. supply could be an issue. i caught up with the nintendo america president to ask him a season is going, so far. >> sales have been robust. the nintendo switch has been one of the hottest selling items all year. our focus has been on making sure we have enough hardware and stores to satisfy the demand. we are fortunate. we have four games that are motivating consumers to pick up our hardware. zelda: breath of the wild. super mario odyssey. sales are strong, but there are still several weekends to go to make sure we have a great holiday season. you mentioned, the switch is one of the hottest tickets in town. is it still meeting demand, or are you behind? product is flowing into

retail stores and flowing into our.com retailers on a daily basis. tellingthing we keep consumers is, when you see a nintendo its which, by it. upcannot aaron t we can keep with the demand continuing to the holiday season. -- guarantee. >> the switch is out for nine months. what if you learned? what do you see about how people are getting this into their lives? ggie: you said an important point about how people are getting this into their lives. i would say the first thing we learned is that we have been very strong in communicating the nintendo switch proposition, a home console you can play on your big screen tv and un-docket. consumers are responding to that proposition. we also learned that the work we've done toward enabling strong development environments is really paying off for us. we are getting strong support

from the big publishers like are getting strong support from the independent developer. that content is really important as it looks to help us with the overall reason for consumers to pick up the hardware. are a couple of key learnings we are looking forward to continuing, driving our momentum not only through the holiday but into 2018 as well. >> can we expect the switch to launch in china as well? >> china is a big market. it is a market we continue to evaluate. in terms of what we might do and when we might do it, where in the process of looking through a range of alternatives in a range of different ways to just making sure that more and more consumers have our intellectual property available to them. here, but china is a market like brazil and the number of very large markets that we continue to look at. let us talk about animal

pocket crossing can't. sales have struggled. one of you learn from that. about: i would be careful your characterization. the game has only been out a couple of weeks. the monetization element will continue to develop over time. what we have seen is that consumers have downloaded it, and played it an exceptionally long time. that bodes well for us. we launched the newest seasonal aspect of that game tying into the holiday season. that is a key element of animal crossing on our dedicated handheld device. there is much more to come with animal crossing, and i believe that as we look to next year in 2018, we will see the same type of positive trajectory that for example we saw with heroes. thing parts.k construction has started in

japan, but not florida. what is the status of florida? how will it be different from japan? the details of the thing park exactly when construction might start or what it will look like, we will let our partner at universal studios share all of those details. what i can tell you is that, you know, the first park will open in osaka japan ahead of the 2020 olympics. that is the key focus of the team. we are thrilled to be partnering with universal studios. believe isething we another example of how we are making sure our intellectual properties are touched by his many consumers as possible. me.hat was reggie meza coming up, techcrunch reporting

the acquisition of shazam by apple. how it fits in the bigger music strategy next. this is bloomberg. ♪ ♪ retail.

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♪ >> i am alisa parenti. you are watching "bloomberg technology." let us start with the check of the news. after six months of negotiations between the u.k. and european union, both sides have a deal in place to move ahead to the next phase of the divorce. theresa may arrived in brussels to announce the breakthrough, which she says will be welcomed by the business sector. >> millions of jobs depend on the future trading relationship we will determine. i am optimistic about the discussion ahead. reaching this agreement makes sure businesses will be able to make investments.

>> the agreement paves the way for eu leaders at a summit next week to open the second phase of brexit negotiations covering the transition. the breakthrough includes a guarantee from britain that there will be no hard border between the republic of ireland and northern ireland. the irish minister praised of the deal and said it is time to look at the future. >> by its nature, it has strained relations between the ireland and the u.k. our role now is to make sure we get through that and reestablish those friendships that should exist between britain and ireland and the governments. >> angela merkel is emboldening her critics of her 12-year-old on power. the chancellor wants a rerun of her previous coalition with the

social democratic party, but hard lines say that is too high of a price to ensure four more years. they are pushing for a minority government that angela merkel considers to bring to much uncertainty. peacekeepers were killed from tanzania. the united nations peacekeeping mission in the congo is the largest in the world. it is the deadliest single attack on the peacekeeping mission in recent memory. excuse me. president trump has approved an emergency declaration in california where wildfires have raged for most of the week. it orders federal assistance and aid for response efforts. wildfires in southern california stretch for a couple of hundred miles from san diego to north of los angeles. the biggest fire has grown to 206 square miles in ventura

county, destroying more than 400 buildings. global news 24 hours a day powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries. this is bloomberg. i am alisa parenti. this is bloomberg. here is "bloomberg technology." ♪ emily: welcome back to "bloomberg technology." apple is close to buying shazam according to a techcrunch report. this comes at a time when companies are spending to grab a bigger share of the streaming music market. i want to bring in our bloomberg tech reporter who covers apple. alex, what do we know? him >> since the initial story, we have confirmed it with sources. we don't know the valuation. techcrunch is reporting $300 million. that is not good for investors.

emily: shazam investors? >> yes. for apple, it does not make a difference. you can use siri to recognize a song for you, but it prevents it from going to competitors and differentiate why people buy apple. emily: how do you think this fits into apple's broader strategy around music? >> we have seen apple making inroads into content, but not 100% clear what their direction is when it comes to video content. we have seen them hiring tv executives and whatnot, but on music, they have had more success when it comes to other streaming services. on the music side along with other streamers, they have been doing well.

emily: what do you think his next here? >> they are building out some sort of video service. the thing about the music service is that it is adding revenue, but you have a share of that revenue, which is not the case for the video service. it is infinitely scalable. what shazam might do, it is a similar rationale for why google has a phone them of the access point to direct you towards music. it will push you towards apple music and drive more subscriptions. emily: we have tencent music and spotify making an investment in each other. what do you make of that? >> it is such a competitive area right now. you can see this battle of

streaming services that my colleague has been writing about for bloomberg for a while now. especially with a growing market, tencent has a lot of investments on the technology side. i'm sure it would be a great boost for them. we have been reporting about youtube trying to find a new music service potentially called remix and revise its chances of getting into music streaming. it is a very competitive area right now. emily: apple announced today that the long time designer at apple who took a step back to focus on designing the new campus is taking control again that the design team. what do you make of it? >> the head of industrial design and user interface, these two guys were listed on the executive bio page, and they disappeared. they were reporting to tim cook.

now they report to jony ive. jony ive's always been in control. emily: does it signal anything about issues with design. >> it is about how important is jony ive's influence. they have always emphasized it is a team effort. the patents apple files, there are 20 people on that. so they see it as a team effort. it might not make a huge difference. emily: the iphone x is a huge design shift. do you imagine he was involved with that? >> he definitely goes into that

studio every now and again and makes a call on what he is in favor of. it formalizes what has been less formal. emily: alex webb and our guest in los angeles, thank you. investing from a venture capitalist. what he is looking at, next. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ emily: for 30 years, tim draper has been one of the most successful venture capital investors in silicon valley. he is now turning his attention to how to make it easier for tech startups to go public starting with a special-purpose acquisition vehicle. bloomberg spoke with him about it at the nasdaq earlier today. >> we have been suffering real liquidity block for a long time, ever since the surveys came out in 2004, and all the break relations that followed that have made it more and more difficult for big companies to go public. growth companies to go public. very super large companies can still go public because they don't mind spending $10 million a year to stay public. now that has been a real, it has been a real detriment to the start of community, and four

years we had real liquidity problems, and people have filled in many different ways. there have been lots of different creative solutions. my friend came to me with this solution and i went for it. it has been a way for a company to go public with out all the pain of having to go through the roadshow and the hassles. they can take the money, be public, and we think this is a great solution for the group of companies that are in the $500 $500,000 -- half a

billion to $5 billion range. we think there is a range of companies. >> there is demand? >> they want to go public, but they don't want to go through all the hassle and spend all that money come going through this big, long checklist of things they have to do before they go public. >> have you targeted any particular companies yet? >> we are in a search. we had 70 companies all that were of interest from our standpoint or from their's and we will see which one is the perfect fit. this first one is a real winner, because we want to make sure that we come to market with a real winner because we have hopes and ambitions for ventures to fill that market position between $500 million and $5 billion market cap.

>> i want to talk about mffj. there has been upheaval as steve left. he sat on the board of a couple of companies including tesla and spacex. do you know who will be replacing him? >> no. steve has been a fantastic investor and great partner for 22 years. i'm sure everything will work out fine. there is a transition when anybody does anything differently. i had a transition. i managed back with dfj, and the money i invest forward is with draper associates. it allowed me to go after things like fintech and govtech where a

fund like dfj would have trouble because they think he is doing this and now we have to go in that direction. i have freed them of that. >> you are still an investor in dfj. what are investors being told since he left? have you been getting information about how the transition will take place? >> dfj is a great entity, a big institution. it will live on and on and there will be changes and partners will move and come back and move in, and it will be a great success for years to come. i feel like all the investors pretty much feel that. >> that is the feedback you are getting from them too? >> oh come yeah. emily: tim draper with our own emma chandra. here is a look at in events around the world.

a central bank meeting in the u.s., england, and europe. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ emily: when it comes to holiday party cocktail chatter, it might be hard to top elon musk. the ceo revealed the company is making its own ai chips to power its self driving cars. elon musk offered no details but claims the hardware will be the "best in the world."

bitcoin rose by $3000 to $17,000 today before falling back. tim draper has long been an enthusiast. he owns 30,000 bitcoins. we ask if he is concerned about a bubble. >> i am wearing my time because it is a global currency that is frictionless. it has that trusted third party that is not subject to the whims of some political force. >> you have been a bitcoin bull for years. you said it would reach $10,000. it has surpassed that this year. what is driving the frenzy in growth. >> i feel like i made it by just one month. it was a three prediction a $10,000, and it hit $10,000 in november. i was getting a little nervous my prediction would not be fulfilled.

once it hit $10,000, now it will find a real market value. people are recognizing it is a really important part of our global society. it helps thanks be un-banked and gives you a currency that does not have to float with the political winds. if you are in nigeria and you know it will drop 30% a year, why would you want to use that as your currency. why wouldn't you use bitcoin? or if you are in argentina where the trust has been shattered because 10 years ago they had a total debt crisis and did not pay it back. now there is a currency that is not tied to the political winds, and that is really powerful. >> there are a lot of people concerned as we have seen this huge growth and this huge amount of volatility this week. people like jamie dimon and say it is a bubble waiting to burst.

>> his whole life he is totally controlling everybody's regular fiat cash. do you think he's going to say bitcoin is a good thing? it should scare him. he is seeing people take money out of his bank and put it into coin base. of course he is going to say that stuff. you have to look at who is the messenger. >> there are a lot of people who are worried that because of its volatility that it is not a great store of value the way it is being touted. do you think they have a point? >> i would say volatility against what? people ask me if i'm going to sell my bitcoin. into what? it's like taking gold and turning it into shells again. we know the future of currency will be this kind of currency, a cryptocurrency.

there is no reason to go back in time to fiat when you can move forward and say this is the new currency of the future. the volatility is the panic in the other currencies saying wait, this is a better way for all of us to do commerce. this is a better currency. so why are we in this old currency? so they will bounce around relative to the cryptocurrency. it is backwards from the question you asked. >> is there anything that would give you pause about bitcoin? >> i am just so excited that the world is going to benefit from this new technology. i just think it is fantastic. and yeah, there are other cryptos that might be pretty interesting out there. we have others and i think they could change the way the

currency world works. i think the currency will go the way the internet did. http was not the best technology, but it is the one everyone standardized around when they were building out the internet. bitcoin is not the best technology now because of a lot of new technologies that have come, but it is the standard everyone is building around. the fact it is the standard and a major brand is going to make sure that that ends up being the currency, but there is always the possibility something else will happen. >> we have seen a number of copycats come at many of them this year. there are 2000 of them. are there some you would recommend to other people to stay away from? is it of are going to the standard as you are describing bitcoin? >> i would say in general that

people should think that if they are going to participate in an ico and buy some tokens, i think they should think who is behind it. who are the entrepreneurs? what is their movement? i think just starting an ico to raise money is not quite in the spirit of it. i think an ico should be a movement, a sociological transformation come a something people can say, yes, this is something we all need. yes, we need a better environment. we need more peace in the land, whatever, or we need a new kind of a product for us or whatever. i see that corporates are for the good of the shareholder, and nonprofits are for the good of society. well this is a new thing. it is for the good of a future customer. it is a little like a kickstarter.

so that is the way i look at him and these and i think that people who want to put their money in and by these coins, -- by these coins, they should be thinking, is this the future i want to see? is this the future? are they moving toward something? >> are they putting that kind of thought into it as they are buying it? >> i am encouraging it. i don't know what people are thinking when they do it. maybe they are thinking, this is fun, better than playing the lottery and i might end up earning money. i don't know why we have the lottery. it is like a tax on making stupid decisions. >> you are holding? >> i am maniacal about this. this is so important for the world. it helps borders to dissolve, helps us get along better. having a global currency is like magic. >> it is taking a big step this

sunday with the launch of futures for it. there are concerns it will be used as a move to short bitcoin. is that something you are concerned about? >> no, i think it is actually great because it is a currency and people should be able to monitor whether it is too high or too low. it will stabilize and become an even more useful currency. the volatility you spoke of will be lessened by having a futures market. emily: venture capitalist tim draper with bloomberg's emma chandra. that does it for this edition of "bloomberg technology." we are live streaming on twitter. check us out weekdays at 5:00 p.m. in new york, 2:00 p.m. in san francisco. this is bloomberg. ♪ that is all for now.

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