♪ emily: i am emily chang and san francisco and this is bloomberg technology. bitcoins surges past $50,000, and coinbase is not the only exchange riding the wave. a smaller rival crack and is raising money at a potential $10 billion crack in. -- $10 billion valuation. we speak to the ceo about where the market is going.

spacex for a high altitude flight test. this is the spaceship that the company hopes will bring cargo and people to the moon and mars. there have been a few failed attempts over the last few days. we will talk about the latest mission. enterprise identity management company okta is buying on of its -- one of its leading but smaller rivals in a $6.5 billion deal. we will speak to an investor in auth0 about why now. we will get to that in a moment. but first, a look at the market. the selloff in highflying giants like apple and amazon outweighing gains in banks and energy. the nasdaq 100 slumping to a new -- two month low. our ed ludlow has the story. ad -- ed: the story is that big tech is under pressure and

tech stocks, one of the biggest declining by sector standards on wednesday. investors taking into account rising bond yields mean in the context of stretch valuations. big tech had outside earnings growth in the most recent quarter. the s&p 500, down by 1.3%. the nasdaq 100 is a tech heavy gauge and the index of tech stocks, you really see the declines coming from tech, same with semiconductors, which is also under pressure. in terms of specific names, you nailed it. it is those big cap tech stocks like amazon and microsoft who sought earnings growth in the most recent report. paypal as well, down more than 5%. it was in the news tuesday, reports that it is in talks to buy a cryptocurrency storage and transaction facilitator. a lot of interest around the future of cryptocurrencies and e-commerce but under pressure nonetheless today. i want to focus on snowflake, this was one of the hottest ipos

back in september but shares falling after earnings showed its growth in sales, really not where investors were hoping. it did beat consensus estimates, but the hope was that you would see outside earnings growth of around 10%. we did not get to that level. you see there, the philadelphia semiconductor index down 6% over the last week, under pressure as investors weigh the global chip shortage which is affecting all kinds of industries. emily: meantime, we are watching for deals, pounding the pavement in the autonomous car space. what are we expecting? ed: this is interesting. according to sources, a self-driving unit majority owned by general motors is in talks to acquire voyage. voyage is interesting because it is one of the few autonomous startups. it is revenue generating. it runs two pilot programs,

one in florida and one in california, where it charges retirees, communities and retirement communities, a share. -- a fare. if you take a cruise, valued at $30 billion in its most recent value, it is not revenue generating. it seems like it would be an interesting acquisition. we are familiar with cruise. you see test vehicles all around but they don't have a commercial service, so we hear from sources that they are in talks to acquire voyage, and in talks to learn from voyage's experience in running a commercial product. but as we say and are bloomberg news story, no done deal yet and like all talks, it could fall apart. emily: ed ludlow, thanks for the roundup. we will follow your reporting. president biden agreed to moderate democrats' demand to narrow eligibility for stimulus, but party leaders in the senate are resisting a push to trim extra unemployment benefits.

i want to bring in bloomberg's emily wilkins with the latest. last-minute changes are being made to the legislation. tell us what's changing and why. emily w: this all has to do with those $1400 checks. these are direct payments to americans that make less then certain thresholds and that is the thresholds we are seeing here. it is only american to make the $75,000 or less, who will get the full amount of the check. above that, it begins phasing out. it used to phase out up to $100,000. now it will be more targeted. it is only if you are an american who makes, a single american making more than $80,000, you won't get the check. that is an agreement from moderates. buffer progressives, they got to keep their unemployment insurance supplemental, and that is going to increase with $300 per week. assuming no additional changes will be made, it is $400 per week.

emily: when will the vote be? emily w: there is a chance we could see things start moving tonight. otherwise we are planning on seeing them tomorrow. because democrats aren't using the normal legislative process for this, they are in this situation where republicans can offer a bunch of amendments to the bill. this is the voterrama that you might remember from a couple weeks back. there might be a chance votes, amendments on this could go from thursday all the way into friday, potentially into you saturday. heard republicans say they will offer numerous amendments and you also have one senator, ron johnson from wisconsin, a republican, who is threatening to have democrats read the entire 600 plus page bill. that is going to take 10 hours in and of itself. republicans can't block the bill but they are going to try to

inflict as much pain on democrats during the process. emily: let's talk about dates and when you expect this might be passed. talk about what's next. emily w: i think we are talking friday or saturday when we are looking for the senate to go ahead and pass the stimulus package. from there, it has to go back to the house. the house passed it prior, but the senate made changes. the house will need to approve those changes. we did here earlier this week from one of the democratic leaders, majority leader steny hoyer, who says he is confident the bill will be able to pass the house even with the changes in the senate, such as limiting -- eliminating the $15 minimum wage raise and taking out certain infrastructure projects. emily: emily wilkins. we will continue to follow your reporting. thanks so much. new york city says it could offer covid-19 vaccines to all residents by late april. this would be vital to opening up the economy.

this would also breathe some life into tech companies hit hard by travel restrictions, companies like airbnb, disney with their cruise lines. joe weisenthal has a look at some other comeback stories in the entertainment world. take a listen. >> cruises, concerts, live music venues. while the businesses are not at pre-crisis levels, shares of companies in this facebook, absolutely rocketing back in recent months. royal caribbean has quadrupled off the lows back in march. bookings already gathered steam. this is before the virus is really gone. take a look at shares of live nation, near all-time highs. this was one of the first stocks to tumble about a year ago when fears of the virus started to these days, it is on a tear. people are even ready to go back in nightclubs. shares of rci hospitality take a

rick, unbelievable ryan, -- and believable run, well above pre-crisis highs. the global vaccine rollout, gathering steam, reopening optimism in full swing. over 245 million shots administered globally today. some countries, really making significant gains. >> this is only the beginning because we will see more and more countries as we want to reopen our tourist sector and we want to have our airlines functioning a bit more normally, fill them up with people who have been vaccinated. joe: reopening trade is red-hot but if you think back to 11 months ago, there was talk about bailouts and credit backstops, they would prop up zombie companies that weren't going to thrive in the new economy. turns out, there was nothing really broken about any of these business models. they were massively disrupted by a once in a century pandemic and it looks like consumers are ready to splurge on what they are offering yet again. emily: our joe weisenthal there. coming up, crypto's wild ride and the exchanges that make it

possible. we will talk about funding regulation and bitcoin with the founder and ceo of kraken, next. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ >> a decade ago, less than one cent. now, millions of times higher. what about bitcoin's future? >> our fundamental work shows that bitcoin should be worth about $400,000. >> it doesn't have any fundamental value. >> people in the know don't seem to know where it is headed next. once the province of nerds, libertarians, and drug dealers, today, the $1 trillion market is drawing millions from hedge funds and wall street giants.

bitcoin isn't the only crypto game in town, but it is the biggest and the best known. bitcoins first mega-run was in 2017, rising from under $1000 to almost $20,000 area then it fell -- $20,000. then it fell off a cliff. it was mostly retail traders back then, as many in finance wouldn't trade bitcoin in a hazmat suit. >> if we had a trader trade bitcoin, i would fire them in a second. [laughter] >> for two reasons. it is against our rules and they are stupid. >> today it is gaining respectability. you can trade bitcoin futures and jp morgan says it will hit six digits. the most famous cryptocurrency still has detractors. >> the market is illogical. right now bitcoin seems to be utterly illogical. >> will bitcoin continue to shoot for the heavens, or come crashing back down to earth?

emily: bloomberg's matt miller there. bitcoin is back above $50,000 but can momentum hold? the coin reached all-time highs last month as institutional investors began pouring in. coinbase, the largest crypto exchange in the u.s., announced they would be going public through a direct listing. meantime, bloomberg is reporting kraken, a u.s.-based exchange, is in talks to raise funding that could double the company 's valuation. with me now is kraken ceo jesse powell. thank you for joining us. let's start on the price, above $50,000 now. where is it going? jesse: thanks for having me. of course, we can only speculate but when you measure it in terms of dollars, you have to think it will go to infinity. this national currency is only 50 years old. it is already showing extreme signs of weakness and i think people will start measuring the

price of things in terms of bitcoin. the true believers will tell you it is going all the way to the moon, to mars and eventually, will be the world's currency. we won't be measuring the price of bitcoin in terms of dollars but in terms of what else you will be buying with it, probably planets in other solar systems. emily: let's try to put a number on it. what do you mean by infinity, the moon or mars? jesse: the people that are believers and bitcoin see it is going to replace the world's currencies. that means whatever the market cap of the dollar is, the euro, all of that combined is what bitcoin could be worth. i think in the near term, people see it surpassing gold as stored value. so i think $1 million as a price target within the next 10 years is very reasonable. to some extent it comes down to the pace of which the u.s. continues to print money.

bitcoin has absorbed a lot of that inflation. i think people are increasingly looking to bitcoin as a safe haven asset when the value of their quote-unquote savings account, which is returning very little per year, not even making up for inflation or even close to it, is looking more like a losing account. i think we will continue to see more people pile into it. the younger demographic is taking notice and they see it as a better version of gold. and something to protect them against inflation. emily: we are reporting the round you are raising will put the valuation of the company at $10 billion. it could potentially double if there is demand. what can you tell us about that? is that a step towards going public? jesse: we are certainly on track to go public. we have had a lot of inbound interest in financing and people buying shares in the company.

personally i think $10 billion is a low valuation. i wouldn't be interested in selling shares at that price. we are talking to interested parties. we may do a primary financing. the company's cash flow positive. we have a strong balance sheet. there is not really a reason to raise new capital other than possibly to accelerate the pace of acquisitions. emily: when might you go public? coinbase just filed for their direct listing and there is lots of momentum. jesse: it is something we are exploring. probably not this year, possibly next year. we have stacks lined up around the corner beating down our door. i think that is an unlikely possibility for us given the size of the company relative to the size of these stacks. we will probably do a direct listing, hopefully sometime next year. but no guarantees.

emily: of course, there are skeptics, including potentially even the guy who will run the sec, one of our opinion columnist wrote this. there is a saying that the best way to make money in a bubble is to sell pickaxes to gold miners. that is coinbase's business. bitcoin exhibits a lot more fragility than true believers admit or realize. bitcoin is all about confidence and confidence has a funny way of disappearing in a flash. does the fragility concern you at all? does the uncertainty make you waiver? jesse: it doesn't make me waver at all. the bitcoin programming has been the same. there have been minor upgrades over the last 10 years that make it more robust. the adoption has increased steadily over time. the system has continued to prove itself. i'm not worried about the price

going up or down day today. -- day to day. if you look at the 10 year chart, it is outperforming everything else in the universe. in my view, i am a long-term holder. there is no reason to sell bitcoin. i think a lot of other people are just waiting to buy the dip. these poddlers of last resort, they call themselves. there are people who will never sell bitcoin and they are waiting to be able to spend it. i'm not worried about it. i think there are a lot of weak hands out there, they day trade, and they do not understand the fundamentals of bitcoin, there are enough people out there that see that bitcoin is the future and are holding long-term. i think if you are buying into bitcoin out of speculation, you should be committed to holding for five years because the price could move up and down 50% on any given day, and you have to have strong convictions to hold through that.

emily: we launched our show 10 years ago and if you bought $100 in bitcoin back then, it would be worth $5 million today. jesse powell, kraken ceo, we will keep our eye on you. thank you. coming up, more "bloomberg technology." okta buying an all stock deal for auth0. we will talk to an early investor in auth0 next. this is bloomberg. ♪ when you switch to xfinity mobile, you're choosing to get connected to the most reliable network nationwide, now with 5g included. discover how to save up to $300 a year with shared data starting at $15 a month, or get the lowest price for one line of unlimited. come into your local xfinity store to make the most of your mobile experience. you can shop the latest phones, bring your own device, or trade in for extra savings. stop in or book an appointment to shop safely

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♪ emily: okta says it will be buying auth0 for $6.5 billion. the deal is said to represent a homerun for auth0's early investors. david cowan of bessemer joins us

now, and early investor in aut h0. auth0 interestingly is a rival to okta, although a small arrival. why do you think this deal makes sense? david: in the management market, it is a big market. think about everything that has to do with how you identify yourself to any computer asset. okta has been the leader in helping big companies deal with the different applications they have. think of single sign-on, where an employee can use one password to get into all of their enterprise assets. okta has excelled in a different aspect, specifically helping developers build advanced trust features into their applications. security can no longer be an afterthought. there are things we see in the login page, like password resets and multifactor authorization, -- authentication, and auth0 is the leader in doing that on that outsourced basis for cloud

developers. so really, this is a combination of two identity leaders who have addressed different aspects of the same market. emily: okta shares are down 10% after hours, they reported earnings and on the back of this deal, what you make of that? -- david: anytime you see a mega david anytime you see a mega deal like this, it is common for : the stock to drop especially when they are safe -- paying such a premium for the company they are buying. i think it will take time for the market to understand the strength of the combination. emily: a lot of new avenues for companies looking to exit, whether it is a dl, which coinbase is doing. what is your take on this trend? there are critics that say this is a way for subpar companies to make a lot of money for their sponsors. david: right. a spac is just another way for a company to go public. clearly, it is a way for companies to go public in an

earlier stage in their development. in many ways it is like what we saw in the dotcom wave in the 1990's, where markets were clamoring for higher growth companies. in many ways, spac is just like an ipo. before a business is acquired by the spac, there is a roadshow just like an ipo where sophisticated institutions make sure they like the deal. in the case of a spac, this is able to share long-term projections with those institutional buyers. it is suitable to companies who may be have no revenue today, but they have ambitions to develop technology that could generate $1 billion in sales. there is nothing inherently evil or great about it.

if you are thinking of investing in a spac or company post-spac, you have to look at the business and see if it is a good business. it is reasonable to expect some of these will disappoint, and we will see a pushback like you saw in the dot-com bubble, but many of these companies will be important. keep in mind one of those dotcom companies was amazon and today, they are doing ok. emily: we will talk about a space spac coming up, a company called astra. that is a space you are invested in. david cowan, thank you so much for stopping by. we will continue to follow the okta-auth0 deal. we will interview the okta ceo todd mckinnon tomorrow. coming up, a deal going public at a deal that values a health insurance start up at $7 billion, not a start up anymore. we will hear from the cofounder and ceo from the trading floor, next.

this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: welcome back to "bloomberg technology." i'm emily chang in san francisco. oscar health, the health insurance company cofounded by josh kushner, off to a bumpy start. after its trading debut, raising $1.4 billion in its ipo. scarlet fu spoke with the ceo and cofounder mario schlosser today. >> if there is one maxim we live by, we choose the hardest path. we choose the most difficult health care system, the u.s. health care system, the most difficult health care segment in the united states.

and our technology stock went after member engagement, the uncracked code of the health care system. i felt the same way when we decided, do we go public? we went the most traditional route that requires the most disclosure and tells the story best to as many people as possible. i'm glad we did it. it is not an easy process but it was a great one. i love demo'ing the products and showing what oscar does. i could do it as many times in the last couple weeks. >> you sound like you have so much energy for the rest of the day, even after this grueling process. now by listing the traditional ipo, you got to build up relationships with banks and bankers. there are 10 banks that underwrote your ipo led by goldman sachs, morgan stanley, allen and co. and wells fargo. what specific financial and strategic benefits or flexibilities does that give your company? >> so the bankers know the investor world.

i will say it that way. they are investor whispers. they know the big shareholders, how they act, who to trust, who will hold the stock the longest and who is in it for what reason, who is doing what in the capital markets. that is it i found the most useful, to understand do you want this or that investor? we want to close this particular group of people in the stock. the think i -- the thing i am most proud of, last night i , we finalized locations. i think we have a fantastic group of people who own the stock and i think they will be with us for many years. i told the story before about, when we decided in 2012 who the first investors should be, we didn't let anybody in who didn't know what the u.s. health care system would be over a decade or two. we are at the end of the first decade. we want them to be with us for the next decade. that is the value the bankers bring. reporter: interesting. and of course by going public in a global pandemic, you were

holding roadshows, but they were all zoom as well. talk about the challenges. did it bring any benefits? >> one benefit is, i was in the otherwise closed oscar office by myself. the cfo was next door in a different room, really socially distanced. we could do more meetings. you can do an hour of demoing and talking, then you do another meeting. then you go on the phone for half an hour in the next meeting. i think that was a grueling schedule, but i love it. i might be the only ceo in the history of roadshows that runs his own slides, from his own computer, because i demo oscar as well. i switch between the slides and the product demo. i pull up dashboards, i can pull up code if i have to. i want to show that we have something really amazing. that is the advantage. the disadvantage is that it is a lot of work for sure. you see a lot of folks and tell the story many times.

i think, i don't think we will go back to the days of where you have a plane and fly around the country and collect money that way. reporter: in your perspective, you and your cofounders so you created oscar because of your frustration with the u.s. health care system, which is bigger, more expensive and has worse outcomes than other rich countries. what is the most important way in which oscar creates better outcomes? >> i think what we have done well is member engagement is higher than anybody else. members look for new physicians through oscar. they can pick a primary care physician in the cloud. we put different drug tiers out there. everything we build in the company is geared towards affordability in the care you have. emily: oscar health ceo mario schlosser there. sticking with their ipo, it has been quite a payday for thrive capital, josh kushner, who

is the brother of jared kushner, former president trump's son-in-law, who controls 32 point $9 million in shares worth, -- million shares worth, 32.9 almost $1.3 billion. part of a group that includes founders fund and general catalyst that puts $40 million into oscar health's initial fund raise. i want to bring in tom maloney who has been covering this. shares ending today, down almost 11%. what do you make of the reaction? tom: it is unusual. we have seen many big ipo pops lately, with a bit of a tech angle. i think it was unexpected. the company is still worth $7.1 billion so it is not a bad result, but it was unusual to see a drop after an ipo like this. emily: elaborate on the kushner connection. tom: jared kushner is donald trump's son-in-law, one of the key advisors for him.

josh kushner, the cofounder of oscar is jared's younger , brother. he runs thrive capital, the venture-capital capital film -- firm that manages $9 billion. jared used to be on the board of thrive but left when he joined the trump administration. the connection is interesting because oscar set itself up to work under obamacare so dismantling obamacare was a major focus of the trump administration, but they weren't able to get that done. emily: what is your outlook on the company and thrive in general, especially under a new administration? tom: i think when you talk about the biden administration potentially being a more positive catalyst for the company, i think they feel like they turned the corner a little bit and that is probably one of

the reasons why the ipo is happening now, under the new administration. there is more certainty in the health care marketplace. it is still a challenge for the company. they have never made a profit like a lot of other tech companies, they have a history of losing money, their losses increased last year by about 50%. so it is still a challenging environment. health care is challenging. but i think obviously they are focused on their tech platform, and they feel like they are trying to bring a better experience to customers through that. emily: we will continue to follow that. bloomberg's tom maloney, thanks so much. coming up, the first rocket company since the 1990's to announce they are going public. we will hear from the cofounder and ceo about details around the deal spacex's starship scrubbed . spacex's starship scrubbed its flight test today with the next

launch expected potentially today as well. a look at what to expect, next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: the space race is back with more companies and investors looking for ways into the industry. astra is the first rocket company since 1992 announce it will go public via spac. we took a look at the company and when space is expected to be profitable. >> 15, 13, 12. >> from home garage to rocket

company, astra is the latest upstart looking to make a name in the space race with big ambitions, to ramp up to a rocket launcher day, delivering things like satellites, supplies and other cutting-edge technology to space within the next four years. to raise capital and fast, the ceo plans to capitalize on the spac craze and take company public in a merger with a company run by former telecom mogul greg. >> astra wants to be the most efficient and fastest way to get to space. it would be natural we would want the most efficient and fastest path to markets. >> astra would be the latest space spac since virgin galactic. astra wasn't founded by a billionaire. it started operations in a san

francisco garage with limited funding. the company designs, tests and manufactures a last -- a line of small, relatively cheap rockets at its factory over the bay bridge in alameda, california. a former naval base served as a jet engine research facility and gained popularity as the site of discovery channel's "mythbusters." >> it was designed for rocket manufacturing and testing. the city and the whole community has embraced astra. we have taken these -- this campus, we renovated old buildings and we have about 20 acres where we can build and scale the business without having to move. >> the team occupies a quarter of a million square-foot research facility where researchers, engineers and scientists can work under one roof, eliminating the need for complex logistics. >> that was one of the game changers. it meant we wouldn't have to travel to another facility or go out in the middle of the desert to test everything. the engineers can design something, make it right here, walk across the street and

test it, learn, redesign re-manufacture, re-test and , there are cases where we have done that twice in one day. >> in december, astra successfully launched their 3.2 rocket from kodiak, alaska in alaska. they nearly missed the orbit target. he says minor tweaks will allow astra to fly again this summer. spacex is currently the dominant maker of large rockets designed to carry thousands of pounds of payload into orbit but it comes with costs, charging roughly $60 million per launch. by comparison, rocket lab, founded in new zealand, starts at around $6 million per launch. astra is now only capable of smaller payloads, but will charge just $3 million per launch. >> over the next few years at this facility, we will increase production of rockets from monthly this year, to weekly in 2023, to biweekly in 2024, to a full daily production rate in 2025.

by launching one rocket a day, we will be able to bring the price point down to about $500,000. >> the first and last rocket company to go public was orbital sciences corporation in 1990. it has merged into a subsector of northrop grumman. astra will be the only publicly traded company focused solely on building and launching rockets when it begins trading later this year, if kemp can execute his building. >> 50 years in the future, i see a platform emerging in space. above the thin blue line, i see competition, ecosystems that are global. i see standards emerging and icy really an exciting opportunity -- i see an exciting opportunity for a trillion-plus dollar economy. >> opportunities will become an -- abundant for investors, but questions remain over whether -- when the industry starts

making money. morgan stanley believes the global space industry could generate more than $1 trillion in revenue or more in 2040, up from $350 billion right now, over half the growth coming from satellite and broadband technology. as rocket launches get cheaper and more companies look to commercialize the space profitability may soon be taking , off. emily: fun to watch, for sure. spacex scheduled to launch their starship rocket earlier, aborted the flight test due to limiting thrust factors. we are standing by for another test of the rocket within the next hour. joining me, ed ludlow has been covering the launch. what's the latest? ed: they tried the initial launch earlier, and one of the thrusters failed during the mission. a lot of this process is autonomous, because the whole point is that the vehicle has to be able to launch, enter orbit, refuel, travel six months to mars, land, then take off again autonomously using onboard

artificial intelligence. that is what happens. they will go for a second attempt. this is just an incremental step, sending starship 10 kilometers, six miles above the earth come a step towards a bigger project. they are in research and development phase, and back when they were only sending starship up 150 meters, i remember getting excited. they have a long way to go in the context of what the starship project is. as elon musk has publicly said, there is only a 50%-60% chance they will successfully send it up and get it back down again. it is about learning around the economics of this, which is making the rockets fully reusable so it is cost effective. how about that, interplanetary transport? emily: we will be -- it will be out there with bitcoin if it

goes to the moon and mars, as jesse powell said earlier. what will happen next if they can't get to 32,800 feet, and what is the next step? ed: we have a few hints. the first is it is some point in the next two years, which seems a long way away, spacex does want to send a test vessel, and unmanned mission, to mars. elon musk has talked about the first manned mission being around 2026. that is the timeframe we are talking about. as you know, elon musk has a tendency to over-promise and under-deliver. what is interesting is, in this incremental step i'm talking about, it is different to how the vessel would travel to mars anyway. what spacex plans to do is send

starship up into orbit on a booster, then send a second vessel, which is a refueling vessel, straight after it. the starship would then dock in earth's orbit with the refueling vessel, get more fuel, then from that point, launch from earth to orbit and take the six month journey to mars, where it would land autonomously and hopefully refuel on mars before heading back. what i'm sure there are details spacex has to iron out but that gives you a sense of the work that has to go into this. emily: are you interested in going to mars? like esther dyson, who told us she was ready to retire there? ed: what is it elon musk said? he wanted to die on mars, not on impact. that says everything. there is this ambition for humans to travel to mars. it is part of what perseverance, the rover, is doing, currently on mars. one of the experiments they are doing is using the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and turning it into oxygen aboard the rover itself.

there is a lot of astro-biology that takes place. that is the ambition, it is the score of -- it is the core of spacex's long-term mission. there is a lot around commercial payload, a lot around the work spacex is doing for nasa. if you go on their website, it is clear as day that the mission is for human space exploration, specifically interplanetary travel. if it goes a few times successfully, i might consider it. emily: [laughter] we will hold you to that. i think you will have to ask me again in 20 years because i'm not quite ready. thank you. ed ludlow, as always. still ahead, people are paying millions for digital sports trading cards that can be viewed for free. we will talk to the ceo of so rare, and online fantasy startup that lets fans own and play blockchain powered digital collectibles like a unique work of art. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: benchmark a venture , capital firm that was an early backer of uber and twitter let a $15 million investment into sorare, a global fantasy network where fans can collect, buy, trade and manage a virtual team with digital cards. sorare uses blockchain technology that allows collectors to exchange them on several marketplaces. other investors include alexis ohanian and an angel investor. ceo nicolas julia joins us now. your goal is to become the game within the game. how does this work? nicolas: simply put, you can collect unique goods and then play them in the company. we have to bridge the real

world, where you have -- you can't only collect the goods, but also play them. so it is not just collecting, it is playing. emily: last month, you sold the cristiano ronaldo card for $102,000. i want to talk more about these unique tokens or digital assets that generate value because they are unique. critics say the nft market is just another speculative frenzy, that will fizzle. what is your response? nicolas: for sure, there is a lot of interest regarding our collectibles. just last week, we sold more than 12 million of these nft's.

but there is a utility value. that is within the game. we put the game first. you don't just invest and collect in the nft's, but you use them. we have crazy retention. it is more than 70% of the users that keep on playing after three months. this is important for us. you can consider nft's as an access to real-world experiences, so maybe if you own the token, the nft of cristiano ronaldo, you can have a discount to go to the stadium or chat with him. it is more than investing or collecting. it is digital and real-world world experiences. emily: you partnered with game maker ubisoft.

tell us about the deal and what it means for the fantasy soccer community. nicolas: it is a game changer with these nft's. the first thing is the digital properties that you can collect, and you can collect something digital for the first time. the second thing is we break the boundaries of existing games. today if you buy a skin on fortnite or on a videogame, you can only use it in this specific game. you don't really own your game item, you are locked into an ecosystem. with our cards, you can move them freely like a physical item. if you want to use that in our game that's fine, if you want to use it in other games that is , that is fine. yesterday ubisoft released all cards and other experiences on top of our cards. it is a platform, it is more

than collecting, more than a game, it is a platform. emily: just about a minute left, soccer is not as big in the u.s. as it is in europe, south america, certainly the teams not as good either. what are your plans to expand your reach here? nicolas: in europe, south america, we have players across the globe. 20% of our revenue comes from the u.s. it is a very important market for us, and it is the biggest sports in the world. soccer is growing fast in the u.s. 4 billion fans. it is important for us to grow the interest for the sport in the u.s., because the future for collecting and playing fantasy is here. emily: it is a fascinating slice of the fantasy sports world. we will keep watching. sorare ceo nicolas julia, thank you. that does it for "bloomberg

technology." tune in tomorrow and we will have todd mckinnon, ceo of okta talking about the big deal. stay tuned. this is bloomberg. ♪

>> the following is a paid program. the opinions and views expressed do not reflect those of bloomberg lp, its affiliates, or its employees. announcer: the following is a paid presentation brought to you by rare collectibles tv. ♪ >> the $10 indian head gold eagle containing nearly half of an ounce of pure gold, is one of only two coins that the legendary sculptor augustus saint-gaudens was responsible for designing.