Plus, bitcoin ETFs soar in their first year of trading. And electronic-trading network Liquidnet is fined by US watchdogs. James Rundle hosts.
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[00:00:26] shopify.com slash setup. Here's your TNB Tech Minute for Friday, January the 10th. I'm James
[00:00:35] Rundle for The Wall Street Journal. TikTok seemingly failed to convince the Supreme Court during oral
[00:00:41] arguments today that it should stop a federal law requiring its Chinese owner to divest it by January
[00:00:46] the 19th or face a ban in the US. TikTok argued that the law violated its First Amendment rights,
[00:00:52] but Justice Elena Kagan said that it was targeted at ByteDance, its foreign owner, which doesn't have
[00:00:58] such protections under US law. Chief Justice John Roberts also said that the court can't ignore
[00:01:03] congressional concerns that the app, which is used by over 170 million people in the US,
[00:01:08] could be used to spread propaganda and stockpile sensitive data. Here's Roberts during the proceedings.
[00:01:14] Are we supposed to ignore the fact that the ultimate parent is in fact subject
[00:01:19] to doing intelligence work for the Chinese government? The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case on an
[00:01:24] expedited schedule to rule before the January 19th deadline. If the law is upheld, TikTok will disappear
[00:01:30] from app stores in the US unless ByteDance divests ownership, which it has said it cannot and will not do.
[00:01:36] A host of new Bitcoin exchange-traded funds from companies such as BlackRock and Fidelity
[00:01:41] attracted about $37 billion of total net flows in their first year of trading. Their popularity helped
[00:01:48] fuel a rally in Bitcoin that saw it cross the $100,000 per coin price for the first time in December.
[00:01:54] The US Securities and Exchange Commission approved the launch of the products, known as Spot ETFs,
[00:01:59] a year ago. These allow retail investors to purchase Bitcoin in their brokerage accounts
[00:02:04] just like they buy stocks. BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust became the most successful ETF
[00:02:09] launch in history based on inflows, and is now the largest Bitcoin fund in the world,
[00:02:13] with $53 billion in assets. And the electronic trading network LiquidNet has agreed to pay a
[00:02:19] $5 million fine to resolve allegations that it failed to protect confidential data and had improper
[00:02:25] controls over market access. That's according to the SEC, who said that LiquidNet, owned by London-based
[00:02:31] financial services firm TPiCap, failed to adequately limit employee access to confidential subscriber
[00:02:36] trading information. The regulator also alleged that LiquidNet violated its rules by setting inappropriate
[00:02:42] credit limits for years. LiquidNet settled the charges without admitting or denying guilt.
[00:02:47] For a deeper dive into what's happening in tech, check out Monday's Tech News Briefing Podcast.