♪ announcer: from the heart of where innovation, money, and power collide, in silicon valley and beyond, this is "bloomberg technology" with emily chang. emily: i am emily chang in san francisco. this is "bloomberg technology." -- plus, grayscale claps back at the sec after rejecting a bitcoin etf. i will speak with its cto about their legal challenge and ongoing friction between gary gensler and the crypto community. plus, andrew yang joins us to

talk about the state of tech entrepreneurship in a downturn. plus, his outlook for president in 2024. all about in a moment. but first, let's get a look at the markets. we were so, so close, yet so, so far. the nasdaq 100 falling in the last five minutes of trading to carry on a horrid streak of losses. bloomberg's ed ludlow has the movers. and ed, just last could not close the door. ed: yeah, they say it is the hope that kills you. we are down three tenths of 1% on the s&p 500, just flat. less than that. we are bracing for a cpi print on thursday, or inflation data for the month of september. that will give us an indication of how much further the fed will go with raising rates and how much more pain this market can take. really interesting, continuing to see selling in semiconductor stocks, which have suffered amid tensions between u.s. and china, but also concerns about slow

down, the end use cases for those semiconductors. yields did pull back this wednesday. intel has been an interesting story. a bloomberg scoop, you see the pain it suffered over the last six sessions. it rose slightly on wednesday. according to sources intel will , lay off thousands of people, as soon as this month we could get an announcement, in areas like sales and marketing, where according to sources they will reduce headcount by 20%. no official comment from the company, but they have earnings on october 27. that is what we are paying close attention to. the s&p 500 falling for the lowest level since november 2020. there was not a lot of big movement when it came to tech. netflix up 3%. no news behind it. the mega caps, there were muted declines. nothing pulling in either direction. and twitter continues to basically trade sideways as we wait to see will this deal with elon musk close before october 28. in the meantime, we are at that

price per share. emily: ed, that is the big question. will the deal be sealed before that date? thank you. this bloomberg businessweek cover story focuses on the roller coaster ride that has been the musk twitter deal. kurt wagner writes that for twitter there are no good outcomes no matter what path a deal with elon takes. musk has publicly trashed twitter's top management and alienated thousands of its employees, vowed to slash rules that were put in place after miss information threatened election integrity and wants to make twitter the everything app but can't really explain what that means. here to discuss, bloomberg's kurt wagner. the headline is twitter only faces bad outcomes if this deal closes. >> yeah. emily: why do you say so? >> yeah, well, remember emily, there are two options here. one, the deal falls apart and its stock that has been artificially inflated is going to crash.

um, employees who have spent the last six to nine months in this total state of uncertainty will have to pick up and pretend like nothing ever happened. or if things go the way twitter wants, then they get the guy in charge who for the last three months has been saying twitter has been lying about its user base. and, you know, doesn't have the right business model and all of these things, right? so it feels to me that there is not really a lot of good outcomes here. now, i got a lot of fan mail after this story came today for people who disagree, that they think the free speech vision elon musk keeps talking about will make twitter a much better place very shortly. but you know, even that, i would probably argue it will create a lot of other headaches for this platform very soon. emily: well, and look, musk does have millions and millions of fans. so that is certainly not out of the question. some folks will be very happy if this deal gets done. >> right.

emily: you used the words "very shortly." say the deal gets done before october 28, could elon musk make significant changes to the platform before the midterm elections, before november 8? kurt: i mean the deal is supposed to close by the 28th. to me, that means elon musk would be in charge. he could start making [indiscernible] are they going to be present? it is possible, but how much of an impact that not going to have? i don't really know. right? but i do think there could be changes to some of these policies. they could say all the folks who had been looking for misinformation or hate speech or voter misinformation, stand down, don't bother, don't do your job. all of a sudden we could have a different level of content on the platform very soon. emily: what is the latest on negotiations between the two parties? what are they actually talking about right now?

kurt: yeah, i mean, there has been some stuff that we reported at bloomberg that despite the fact that both sides want the same deal price, there have been some hangups. specifically it sounds like elon musk wants to reserve his right to possibly sue some of these executives once the deal closes to go after people personally as a way to say, hey, you have been misleading investors and me this the potential buyer this whole time. right? twitter does not want to have that. they are also worried about this debt contingency that elon will add to the negotiation. i imagine at this point both sides are trying to iron through those details. right? they claim they want the same price. the debt is for the most part locked up. and so, you think like, ok, they are really at the end here, where they are going over those very minute elements with the deal. emily: all right. kurt wagner, thanks for keeping

us updated as always. and check out that story in the latest edition of bloomberg businessweek. all right. coming up, just how big was this latest prime date or not? we will hear from the head of amazon prime, next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: this week's amazon prime flash sale may not be all it is chalked up to be. third-party researchers are saying the prime day a sale is generating the same traffic as any regular day. ed ludlow asked jamil ghani about the data.

here is how he responded. jamil: i don't know if that is the accurate read. we have really been impressed with how many prime members are showing up, how they are engaging with the event, and how they are shopping. they are shopping entire stores. some of the favorite categories so far are electronics, toys, home, apparel, health and personal care. top brands like apple, hp, shark, and many others, including items off our curated top 100 list. so, we have been really happy with the event so far. our members can engage through midnight tonight. so i encourage them to check it out. ed: what is amazon tracking to do for this october window in dollar terms relative to july? can you give us some granularity about the impacts of the second window in the same calendar year? jamil: yeah, prime day this year was the largest we have ever had, $1.7 billion in savings for

our members around the globe. so what we are trying to do with this event is give our prime members yet another opportunity to save. we know that our members are always looking for savings, but no more so than now where the macroeconomic environment has everybody trying to make the dollar stretch a little further. and so, this is an opportunity for 48 hours for our members to get an exclusive jump on their holiday shopping. it is needs and wants across the entire store, and so far, the engagement has been really strong. it is too early to tell, but i expect there will be deals throughout the event. that is something we learned in prime day, that are members like top brands. and they like having deals throughout the entire event. you will continue to see that through midnight tonight. ed: so this window will not be as big as the july window? jamil: it is too early to tell. we are excited by the early engagement. it is a kick off to the entire holiday season. we are going to have deals and discounts throughout the entire period. black friday, cyber monday continue to be incredibly important.

but we wanted to take care of our most important customers first, those are our prime members. this is the kickoff to the season. ed: that is interesting, the idea around the pull forward in holiday spending. can you talk about how that might clear out industry ahead some inventories ahead of the holiday season? jamil: this event is not about inventory. this, we built this event on the top brands that we know our members are looking for into the shopping season. so this is an exclusive 48 hours for prime numbers to get a jump on their holiday shopping, ensure they get those must-have items, get some of the holiday rush out of the way earlier in the season. but we will continue the discounts for all of our customers, including prime members going into black friday and cyber monday. ed: what are you learning about the consumer based on what they are buying? it seems through third-party data they might be going for the

sort of cheaper end of the spectrum in terms of the items they are buying. is there any sense that the consumer is feeling the pain of inflation? jamil: i think all of us as americans are feeling the pinch of inflation. all of us want to stretch our dollar as far as we can. what we saw in prime day was is that members engaged across all sale prices, from consumables and everyday essentials, all the way way up to electronic devices. it is needs through wants. that is why we built prime early access sale so that members can meet those needs and wants. we have got top brands in health and personal care all the way to toys, home, apparel and electronics, which are clearly a member favorite every holiday season. and so, we are seeing the same in engagement now. and we expect that to continue over the next several hours to through midnight tonight.

emily: amazon's head of prime, jamil ghani, with our own ed ludlow. for more on this i want to bring in our bloomberg reporter who , of course, covers amazon. so spencer, let's talk about a potential disparity in what the third-party folks are saying and what amazon is saying. just how good has this prime day actually been so far? spencer: yeah, what we are hearing is a slight live from the usual day. we are getting some revised data from what we had earlier. slight lift from the typical day, but not nearly the same amount of lift as they had in the summer prime day. i am not sure we are that far off. if you listen carefully to what the amazon executive said, he used words like shop and engagement. and so, he doesn't use words like "buy" and "spend." you know, so engagement could be a cute way to say they are

coming on the site, looking around at this, that and the other but are not buying a whole lot. emily: what does this tell us about the state of the consumer, potentially more broadly leading into the holidays, or does it tell us something more about amazon? spencer: well, i think it is a little of both. right? it is not a secret that consumers are pulling back, they are dealing with higher food and fuel prices, things they have to buy and have less money to spend on things they want to buy. and then on amazon, we are learning, we are seeing some of the top categories are household essentials and pantry items. they are spending to stock up on things they would otherwise buy and not necessarily splurging on things like electronics and whatnot. in terms of amazon, they figured we will do another sale. it was interesting, he said it wasn't about inventory, it is about inventory. that is why amazon is able to spin this thing up so quickly. a lot of merchants, the inventory is already there. they have it.

emily: meantime, there have been some developments in unionization efforts at an amazon warehouse in california. what is the latest on that? spencer: yeah, this is interesting to watch. there is one warehouse in the inland empire. that is a real stronghold for amazon. that is where they have probably the most concentrated number of facilities and employees. and so of them just submitted , one signatures to push for an union election affiliated with this amazon labor union which is the one that won approval for a union in staten island. which amazon is still contesting. and there is another vote coming up in albany. starting to look like this thing is spreading. amazon is having a hard time containing it. emily: all right. spencer soper, thank you. coming up, weeks after the massive adobe figma deal, another software enterprise startup has news.

howie liu is with us next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: the collaboration software startup air table just announced its biggest launch of the year at its inaugural air table leaders forum, coming up with a new connected app platform that will help company's like netflix and linkedin share data, manage work floor flows, track product maps and more. ceo and cofounder howie liu joins us now for more on this. talk about the trends you're seeing in enterprise software and why this announcement in your mind is important. like, what problems does this solve? how we: it is best to explain it as where we came from and where

we are going. 10 years ago, we created air table to empower the teams closest to the work in every company to be part of that disruption, to build the apps for themselves that they needed. now we have seen this bigger problem in enterprise where it is not enough to have individual apps, but those apps need to be connected and allow the entire enterprise to all share a source of truth, while enabling those individual teams to be flexible and agile. it is the next frontier of airtable, combining what we already have done literally and in these connected apps across the enterprise. emily: airtable benefited from some of those pandemic tailwinds, the shift to hybrid work. has that kept up? what sort of workplace trends are you seeing now? howie: i think there is this huge need to rethink how work is being done, especially in today's economy, it is not about just throwing more people at every problem. you can't just double your headcount in every department to get more output.

that is -- it is only showing up in how we see our customers adopt airtable, it is really about enabling more agility and more output. we talked about this customer case study during our event earlier today, of equinox actually accelerating content production efforts by 400% with the same team. and during a pandemic when they were all working from home, nonetheless using airtable as and connected apps. emily: how do you see competition shaping up? there are others vying to be the project management tool of choice. what is airtable's advantage? howie: yeah, i think the whole idea behind declaring our northstar of connected apps is we are elevating ourselves out of that world of project management. we don't care as much about the task management small team use cases that i think a lot of the other products are going after.

and instead, we are trying to solve this bigger problem across an entire enterprise where you you need these high-value -- for example, netflix wanting to manage all their marketing, their legal rights management, workflows across that data set. so it is really us going out and taking on more companies, even salesforce with their app efforts, when we think about apps across the enterprise, not just doing projects or tasks. emily: i think some people are still recovering from the shock of the big adobe figma deal, $20 billion. i'm dying to hear your thoughts on it given airtable is one of the few "hot" enterprise startups often mentioned in the same breath as sigma. what is your take on this deal? howie: i think figma is an incredible product, company, has a great team. they started around the same time as us.

so weirdly we have been parallel. we both started around 2012. both spent years building a technically interesting product. before launching. these were not projects that were built overnight is a hack project, but deliberately taking on a large market opportunity. ultimately i think the trend that has benefited both of us is for the first time on the web when we both started, you could build these really rich desktop-grade experiences. you could not build that level of experience in the web, nor could you build air table in the web.. i think we are both at the right place right time to take on large market opportunities and disrupting some incumbents as a result. emily: is getting acquired like that something that is attractive to you? are you on the ipo path instead? howie: i think the best companies have to think about how to build an independent business. right? when you look at figma, one of

the reasons why it was so attractive as a business is because they could not go it -- they could go it alone. it is growing quickly, it is an amazing business. there is a massive tam. and it is truly a disruptive and the light for product. if you can go out and build a company that is capable of being a star independent business on the ipo path, that raises your attractiveness through a m&a deal. we have been squarely focused on building the best product and company that we can. we are not optimizing for an acquisition. emily: we have seen valuations of tech startups fall across the board. you raised at an almost $12 billion valuation at the end of last year. does that number hold up in downturn or is airtable in the rare category of startups like figma potentially where that number potentially goes up? howie: so the way i have always thought about it is the short-term valuation is a point

in time. and what really matters for us as team members working on this company, for shareholders who may consider investing in airtable, what is the long-term expected value of this business? especially since we are private and don't have a public liquid value right now. what do we think this company will be worth in one year, two years years? , threeand as a business, what can we do to drive the best possible result? so i think as we push into connected apps and bigger possibilities of solving a problem for enterprises at large, actually generating multimillion dollar contracts repeatedly, and even driving up retention, i think we feel very good about the clear path we can get to building a really extraordinary business that is highly differentiated, has the economics to support a really premium multiple. and whether there is overall multiple compressions of the market in the near term, i think the great businesses that ultimate go after large tam's

can outgrow that depression because they keep growing and growing. emily: interesting response. airtable co-founder and ceo howie liu. good to have you back on the show. thank you for stopping by. coming up, our conversation with former presidential candidate and tech entrepreneur andrew yang. his outlook on how startups survive in a downturn, crypto, tech regulation and more, coming up next. and later in the show, the grayscale joins us to talk about the legal challenge with the sec over a $12 billion etf. this is bloomberg. ♪ this... is the planning effect.

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emily: welcome back to "bloomberg technology." i'm emily chang in san francisco. the global selloff and semiconductor shares continues, but one name in japan is bucking that trend. our ed ludlow is back at a look. ed? ed: we don't often talk about japan but let's look at them in the context of this big selloff we have seen in global chip stocks. it had its debut in japan on wednesday. jumping 15%. a lot of investor interest generating around ¥67 billion of or $456 million of proceeds. what is so interesting about this name, it is the maker of chips or logic processors, for

want of a better description. there is a lot of appetite for what it is offering in a market where we have a lot of questions about global chip demand. this was the biggest ipo in japan so far this year on a gross proceeds generated basis. the fourth ipo for a chipmaker out of japan this year. it is really interesting to see that name buck the trend. we are also getting data points out this wednesday that see retail investors taking a keen interest in the chip space even if we see institutional money sitting on the sidelines or pulling out because we have concerns about a global slowdown. in speaking about those concerns, we look at this terminal chart, investors are pulling back earnings expectations for the chip sector. we have had bad news for a broad range of names. we are concerned about a slowdown in demand for consumer electronics, memory chips, and the pc market. that scoop overnight from bloomberg that intel is going to cut thousands of jobs because of the pc slowdown. welcome this is the result, the market pulling back its expectations. but one name in japan, socionext, bucking that trend. emily: all right, ed, thank you. a name we do not normally hear about. appreciate it. i want to zoom out now a chip

stocks and get back to the broader macroenvironment with rising inflation and a falling market, the state evaluations, venture capital, startup innovation, all top of mind at the greenwich economic forum. that is underway right now. our next guest, andrew yang, entrepreneur and former presidential candidate, joins us from there now. so, andrew, obviously so much talk about what is going to happen with this economy. are we or are we not going into a recession. given your venture firm america background, i am curious what your outlook is, if you are an entrepreneur, trying to get started in a downturn. andrew: well, if you look at the track record of high-growth companies, emily, and you know this full well, most of the really meaningful companies get started in a downturn like this one, for a host of reasons. uh, the fact is an enterprise that succeeds in this time will be poised to really mushroom as soon as the climate starts turning more positive. so i do think this will be a

very tough time but guaranteed we are going to see tons of meaningful firms come out of this period. emily: what is your sense of how this tough time will compared to, let's say, the financial crisis, or even the dotcom bust? is there something different about it? andrew: no, i think we have a ways to go on the downslope. myself, we can all see very clearly that the fed will be jacking up interest rates for the foreseeable. and there are a lot of valuations that do not make as much sense in that environment. so we are all going to find out together how this compares to some of the tough times of the past. but, i, i certainly think that folks should try and keep some powder dry. you know? make sure that you have enough cash to make it through for a little bit longer than you might hope. emily: san francisco is one city

that is having a tough time recovering from the pandemic, and now there is this downturn. you have companies going remote, you have companies moving to austin or miami. do you think the center of innovation, the fundamental center of gravity is actually going to shift and become more distributed, or is it too early to say that? andrew: you and i both have friends who have decamped to austin or miami. and i am a big believer that innovation and growth will follow wherever the talent goes. so, if you have people who have permanently settled in austin, i think you are going to see a permanent shift, truly. now, the bay area, in my view, still has the highest concentration of tech talent, so it's still going to be the envy of many other cities. but i do think we're in a permanently different time where talent is going to be more distributed and because of that you are going to see be more

capital be more distributed and growth companies come out of places where they might not have otherwise. emily: congress has been trying to rein in big tech and big tech has retaliated by spending a ton of money to kill one of the most aggressive oversight bills in years. what is your thought on whether that bill potentially needs to be revived, and whether strong regulation is really needed? andrew: it is interesting, emily, the political climate has changed such that tech now is a bit of a punching bag for both parties. um, and i'm of the belief that there have been some excesses that regulation would be appropriate for, and a lot is going to hinge upon what the political climate is after these midterms. right now, the senate is a tossup, by most accounts. republicans are slightly favored in the house. and i think that might change the prospects of some of the bills that we are talking about.

emily: you have been very vocal about data collection. you launched the data dividend, products to help americans take control of your data. how are you feeling about how tech companies are handling that data right now, and especially going into an election? andrew: uh, you know, it is fascinating, emily. as you know i championed the cpra and data privacy regulations in california where you are. and because california has now set a higher bar, national legislation is increasingly likely and on the table in part because tech companies wanted to supplant and replace the rules in california. our data is being used not to our benefit. it's $200 billion-plus a year industry. it is eroding our democracy, our

kids' mental health. i'm someone who thinks we should own our data, and not only have it used more to our benefit, but if there is going to be market value gained, then we should join in that benefit. um, so, that's where i would like the national approach to go. europe has new rules that are coming online in 2024, which is right around the corner, and i think that is going to increase pressure on the states to have a more modernized approach. emily: you have been branching out into crypto and web 3.0, and i am curious how much of a role you think crypto will play in fundraising going into 2024, and if you think democrats or republicans have more of an advantage. andrew: i think the single best biggest donor of the last cycle is --, who you probably know well. web 3.0, in my view, is going to be a very fascinating political force to be reckoned with. um, right now, they are concerned obviously with the regulation of crypto itself.

but i think that you are going to see more people pushing into politics because now the interaction with d.c. is going to be one of the main drivers of whether enterprises are able to grow and operate successfully anywhere, but certainly whether they are going to be headquartered here in the u.s. emily: you also launched lobby3 earlier this year. i am curious, how many people have bought into the tokens, and what positions is lobby3 going to be advocating for? andrew: yeah, lobby3 has been a great, energized community of people who want to push for common sense regulation out of d.c. that is intelligent, sophisticated, and is not try does not try to throw different types of assets together that has one regulator instead of kind of a hodgepodge. and it's been awesome getting to know people who want the best things for creators and

entrepreneurs in this space. any time i go to a web 3.0 gathering there are some folks who are part of the lobby3 community and it has been a lot of fun. emily: as a former presidential candidate and the co-chair now of the forward party, i would love to see into your crystal ball. do you think a biden/trump faceoff in 2024, is that inevitable? andrew: it is the most likely match up right now. the odds are that trump declares at the end of this year after the midterms and then biden declares either q1 or q2 next year. i will say that those two candidates will have a combined age of 159 in 2024, and 58% of americans are not excited about either of them. so the question is whether unity ticket or some independent effort arises. and a group called no labels has very publicly invested $53 million ballot acts for a

potential unity ticket. i think there'll will be a lot of enthusiasm for some alternative after the people face the reality it is a rematch in 2024 between trump and biden. emily: so, let's say biden does not run. do you think the democrats have a strong enough bench? who is on that bench? would you consider running again? andrew: well, i think joe biden likely declares because he feels he is the only one who can defeat donald trump because he did it once. and you cannot argue with the fact that he did defeat trump once. but is also tough to slot in another democrat who you have the same confidence in necessarily, if you are joe or even if you are anyone, because right now it is unclear who the democratic nominee would be. um, i think that is one reason why joe is going to run again, honestly. emily: so, how are you going to spend the next couple of years if you are not running again? you know, where are we going to

see you place your energy and efforts and priorities, given the very critical election coming up? andrew: uh, the forward party has endorsed a number of candidates around the country, including a u.s. senate candidate who i'm going out to campaign in utah for this weekend. i think we need to change the underlying incentives for our lawmakers and leaders by doing away with closed party primaries and replacing them with primaries were anyone can vote for anyone through ranked choice voting. if there is anything you remember from this interview out there, if you're not into politics, ranked- choice voting is the way out of this mess. it is the way anyone can vote for anyone with no spoiler effect and it rewards more moderate, reasonable, collaborative candidates who actually come through for 51% of voters. um, so i am going to be trying to make ranked choice voting the law and as many places as possible, and i am happy to say it is spreading around the country. emily: all right.

uh, andrew yang, always great to have you with us. entrepreneur, obviously a former presidential candidate, cochair of the forward party. thank you, andrew, for stopping by. ♪ emily: coming up, the latest salvo comes from grayscale versus the sec. the grayscale ceo joining us next to talk about the case for a bitcoin etf. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: crypto asset manager grayscale management says there is no justification for the sec's rejection of a bitcoin etf earlier this year. the firm saying the rationale raises more questions than answers and will undermine trust in crypto. here to explain is grayscale ceo michael sonnenshein. michael, thank you so much for joining us. give us the latest. where does the lawsuit with the sec stand at this moment? michael: last night, we filed our opening brief for the lawsuit. so this lays out our initial legal arguments to the court and is really the first substantive document as part of the litigation process. so, it is important to remember this is a case about bitcoin but we are putting in front of the court system really straightforward common sense arguments. i think one of the new arguments laid out here has to do with this idea of a significant market test which the sec has applied to bitcoin etf

applications. they have applied this very stringently to spot bitcoin etf applications like grayscale and other spot bitcoin etf's that had been denied, but very leniently. there's been no justification as to why this test is the only test that the sec should be using. and we have also never seen him use a test like this before when it comes to evaluating new products to bring to market. emily: have you spoken at all with gary gensler directly? michael: you know, we have regular dialogue with really everyone in d.c. my legal team and myself are down in d.c. almost weekly these days, so we speak with all different parts of the sec and other regulators. emily: now, look, recently there have been a ton of cases, fraud, d and bankruptcy in crypto. terra, celsius, three hours. why is now the right time to prove to the sec that this market is no worse in terms of market manipulation than others?

michael: well, that is exactly the point. this significant market test of sec has laid out they believe protects investors from fraud and manipulation, and they got comfortable with that when it comes to bitcoin futures. well, the interesting thing and the flaw in that logic is bitcoin futures derive their pricing from the underlying spot bitcoin market which underpins gbtc and any other applications that has become in front of the sec and has ultimately been rejected or denied. i think what we are seeing in d.c. is the most engagement and understanding we have ever seen around crypto. you have bipartisan support now with a variety of bills passing across the floor of congress. and i think we and other industry, you know, heavyweights are calling on our regulators, calling on our legislators to really develop new frameworks, because otherwise we are squandering innovation here in the united states. emily: the winklevoss brothers were the first to try this spot

bitcoin etf. it did not fail. the road is littered with carcasses of others who have tried and failed. how is grayscale, with its huge scale, in your view, different? michael: that is a great question, emily. today, ticker gbtc is the largest bitcoin fund in the world. a recent counselor there are more than 850,000 investors who owns shares of gbtc in the u.s. alone and that represents all 50 states. so when we as an asset manager are taking a product that has been in the market, has billions of dollars of assets, hundreds of millions of dollars in daily trading volume, has voluntarily become a reporting company, and we know that the right thing for investors to protect them, to put additional disclosures and surveillance in place by becoming an etf is the right thing to them, but our regulator is really shunning the

opportunity to do so, well, we certainly take issue with that. so our team has been putting the entire resources of the firm behind this etf initiative and we are as committed as we have ever been to it. emily: what kind of timeline do you see for a resolution of this case? michael: well, we filed a lawsuit earlier this summer and at that time we were guided to believe it could be anywhere from nine to 12 months, although it could be longer or shorter. what you are going to see now that grayscale has filed its opening brief is over the coming weeks you will see a variety of amicus briefs. so these are other parties that are filing briefs with the court to put in front of the judge presiding over the case to really talk about their point of view on the issues at hand, and then ultimately you will see a brief from the sec a couple weeks later with their responses to the arguments that our legal team has outlined. emily: we're also in the middle of what could be a really massive economic downturn. we just heard from andrew yang, who said he thinks we have a lot

further down where to go. what is your outlook, and what it means for crypto? michael: we are certainly in a crypto winter, and a crypto winter is characterized now by sustained lower prices. we are seeing from the investment community though that the lower prices are not causing them to shy away from the asset class. in fact, we are seeing investors continue to diversify. so a lot of investors now have that core position in bitcoin , core position in ethereum or both, and they are now looking at other opportunities. one of them is infrastructure. just last week our team launched a totally new offering, grayscale digital infrastructure opportunities llc, a company operating company investors can put capital work in that is buying bitcoin mining hardware, plugging it into the network and distributing that value back out to shareholders. so, for a lot of investors they had that token exposure now and now it is time to think about the underlying infrastructure that secures the network. and so, there is a lot of

opportunity and activity going on despite the sustained lower pricing environment we find ourselves in. emily: speaking of the underlying infrastructure, the ethereum merge ended up being kind of a nonevent. what do you think the next big event is going to be that will catalyze changes in potentially blockchain technology? michael: you know, emily, respectively, as someone who has been in crypto for nine years, it actually was a big event. because this was a question mark hanging over ethereum for a long time. could we see a very well known, very well trafficked digital , very will utilize digital asset protocol move and make such a meaningful move from proof of work to a ethereum stake, and if ethereum did it. as we are seeing the outcome of that, it's very early days and we are starting to see the development of more and more staking around ethereum and other assets. what's coming next is other upgrades to the ethereum network, things like the ability

to un-stake assets that were put into the network for staking and other updates that will come down the line. i certainly think it's an accomplishment for everyone who put a lot of time and many years of planning and energy into getting the ethereum to make the switch over. emily: all right, point taken. michael sonnenshein, grayscale ceo. we are going to continue to follow your challenge to the sec. i appreciate you stopping by. we are going to be right back with more "bloomberg technology." this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: apple is withholding its latest employee benefits from staff at its only unionized retail store. the reason given? but excluding unionized stores

from new benefits is not a new trend. starbucks also rolled out a series of new perks at nonunion stores including raises and student debt coaching, while saying it cannot legally provide them unilaterally to sites with union activity. spacex plans to announce two new space tourists slated to fly. on the starship rocket. the world's first-ever space to rest in 2001 and his wife. they paid an undisclosed amount to fly around the moon on the vehicle is complete. they will travel with 10 other undisclosed passengers on a roughly week-long journey. the trip does not include a landing on the lunar surface, and it is unclear if the other passengers have been chosen yet. ♪ and that does it for this edition of "bloomberg technology." on thursday, we have tron's justin sun on all things crypto and web 3.0. and don't forget to check out our podcast wherever you get your podcasts. i am emily chang in san francisco. this is bloomberg. ♪

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