Hi Inside Community, Today we hosted one of our best AMA interviews yet — this time with Jason Fried, the founder and CEO of 37signals. (You’ve probably heard of his products Basecamp and HEY, if you haven’t used them yourself.) Jason is a founder and executive with more than two decades of experience, making this a golden opportunity to ask him about his work with startups, product, and everything else he has done along the way. The AMA kicked off at 11 a.m. PDT, and it’s already packed with insights and answers. —The Inside Team | |  Gia | |
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Michael Saylor, CEO of MicroStrategy, is stepping down from his position as the company takes a $917M charge on bitcoin. Saylor will take on a new post as the executive chairman, and Phong Le, the company's president, will be appointed CEO. More: - MicroStrategy reported its Q2 earnings call; executives at the firm explained how the crypto market crash affected the company's balance sheet.
- An impairment charge is a process in which a company writes off worthless goodwill. These assets' value drops or is lost completely due to economic or political events, rendering them worthless. Impairment charges are found in income statements under operating expenses.
- Microstrategy's Bitcoin holdings showed a non-cash digital impairment charge of $917.8M, which reflects the low price of Bitcoin compared to when it was purchased.
- In the first quarter, the company reported an impairment charge of $170.1M, which significantly increased to $917.8M in the second quarter.
- Microstrategy purchased 129,699 Bitcoin at an average price of $30,000 in 2020. When the price of bitcoin hit $68,000 in late 2021, its holdings were valued at over $8B.
- Bitcoin is now trading at around $23,000, and its holdings are now valued at $2.9B.
- The company lost over $1B due to the crypto winter, and revenue dropped to $122.1M. Net quarterly loss was $1.062B compared with a loss of $299.3B in the second quarter last year.
- Saylor wrote a statement on Twitter saying, "In my next job, I intend to focus more on Bitcoin."
- "MicroStrategy's original strategy and consulting business needs full-time attention ... now Michael can focus on what he does best, promoting Bitcoin." says Henry Elder, head of decentralized finance at Wave Financial.
Decrypt 
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Bankrupt Celsius is trying to bring back its former CFO, Rod Bolger, by offering a $92,000 monthly compensation. The company seeks Bolger's help during the bankruptcy proceedings. He resigned on June 30 following the company's decision to freeze user accounts. More: - The compensation is prorated over at least six weeks.
- A court filing reads: "Because of Mr. Bolger's familiarity with the Debtors' business, the Debtors have requested, and Mr. Bolger has agreed, pending the Court's approval, to continue providing advisory and consulting services to the Debtors under an Advisory Agreement."
- The decision to allow Bolger's rehiring lies in the hands of the District Court of the Southern District of New York. A virtual hearing is scheduled for Aug. 8.
- Bolger resigned from Celsius on June 30 after the company suspended withdrawals on its platform; he served as a CFO for five months and was previously working at RBC Canada as CFO and divisions of Bank of America.
- He earned a $750,000 salary at Celsius with a cash bonus of up to 75% in addition to stock and token options, bringing his total income to $1.3M.
- After Bolger left the company, Chris Ferraro served as the head of financial planning, and within days of his appointment, the company filed for bankruptcy.
- The company is accused of running a Ponzi scheme by paying early depositors with the funds it gained from new users. Celsius owes its users around $4.7B based on the court filings.
- Celsius has over 100,000 creditors, including FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried's trading firm Alameda Research, which is listed as an unsecured creditor.
CNBC
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Solana wallets were attacked by hackers, which drained millions of dollars, with over 7,000 wallets affected in the latest crypto hack. Solana's value dropped by 8% in two hours following the announcement. More: - Solana's Twitter account confirmed that approximately 7,767 wallets were affected in the attack, and "engineers are investigating the root cause" on Wednesday morning.
- The wallets have been drained of just over $5.2M in digital coins, including Solana's native token Sol and USD Coin (USDC), according to blockchain analytics firm Elliptic.
- The hack was still ongoing late Tuesday night and seems to originate on the Solana browser wallet Phantom that compromised user keys.
- Crypto investor and analyst Miles Deutscher said, "There's an unknown $SOL exploit currently draining Phantom wallets ... $6M currently stolen. If you have funds on Phantom, make sure to revoke all permissions and move to a hardware wallet."
- Users are urged to protect their wallets by going onto the site:
- Go to > Settings on your phantom wallet
- > Trusted Apps
- > Revoke Permissions for any suspicious links
- The attack is not limited to Solana; a user wrote on Twitter, "Just had my USDC drained AMA."
- Crypto analysts confirmed that "the attacker is stealing both native tokens (SOL) and SPL tokens (USDC); transferring to a hardware wallet would help protect funds."
BNN Bloomberg
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Robinhood Markets Inc. shares rose despite the company announcing it would cut its workforce by 23%. Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev announced the layoffs Tuesday evening in a blog post. Since then, the online brokerage's stock has increased between 13% and 17%. More: - The announcement comes shortly after the New York State Department of Financial Services fined the brokerage $30M.
- A major point of contention for the NY State regulators was the company's understaffed and insufficiently monitored anti-money laundering and cybersecurity programs.
- According to Tenev, the cuts reflect the "deterioration of the macro environment, with inflation at 40-year highs" and the accompanying "crypto market crash."
- Tenev told workers they would learn about their employment status via Slack message.
- He continued, "While employees from all functions will be impacted, the changes are particularly concentrated in our operations, marketing, and program management functions."
- The company plans to meet with each of the laid-off employees individually. Robinhood will offer them a cash severance, continue medical coverage, and assist them in their job search.
- Robinhood's Q2 revenues dropped 44%, down 73% from its July 2021 IPO debut.
NOTE: Inside.com founder and CEO Jason Calacanis is an investor in Robinhood. Bloomberg
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 A message from WIND RIVER Can the VxWorks real-time operating system fill your embedded system needs? A real-time operating system (RTOS) is an operating system with two key features: predictability and determinism. In an RTOS, repeated tasks are performed within a tight time boundary, while in a general-purpose operating system, this is not necessarily so. Predictability and determinism, in this case, go hand in hand: We know how long a task will take, and that it will always produce the same result. - Determinism: Repeating an input will result in the same output.
- High performance: RTOS systems are fast and responsive, often executing actions within a small fraction of the time needed by a general OS.
- Safety and security: As RTOSes are frequently used in critical systems, such as robotics or flight controllers, they must have higher security standards and more reliable safety features.
- Priority-based scheduling: Actions are scheduled according to their assigned priority; the most important tasks come first.
- Small footprint: Versus their hefty general OS counterparts, RTOSes weigh in at just a fraction of the size: Windows 10, with post-install updates, takes up approximately 20 GB. VxWorks, on the other hand, is measured in the low single-digit megabytes.
In this webinar, we'll go through some of the features of real-time operating systems that can revolutionize your embedded development process, and make sure that an RTOS is the right solution for your use-case. Watch Now
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A bipartisan duo introduced a bill to the U.S. Senate that would give the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) oversight over crypto assets, including Bitcoin and Ether. Democrat Debbie Stabenow and Republican John Boozman from the Senate Agriculture Committee introduced the bill. More: - The motion would not put the CFTC power over all cryptocurrencies, only those considered commodities.
- Crypto securities would remain under the Securities and Exchange Commission's jurisdiction.
- The bill would require crypto-assets, brokers, custodians, and exchanges to register with the CFTC.
- The group would oversee the crypto market to "prevent market manipulation, avoid conflicts of interest, and maintain adequate financial resources."
- Several crypto lobbyists, such as the Blockchain Association and the Crypto Council for Innovation, support the transition.
Reuters
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Kim Kardashian's lawyers have asked the California District Court to dismiss allegations that the entrepreneur and influencer helped inflate the now defunct EthereumMax token (EMAX). The class-action suit targets Kardashian, famed boxer Floyd Mayweather, and several other so-called "influencers." The plaintiffs claim the posts influenced them to purchase the token because social media posts highlighted it. More: - Kardashian mentioned the token in two social media posts.
- In June 2021, she posted to an Instagram story writing, "Are you guys into crypto???? This is not financial advice but sharing what my friends just told me about the Ethereum Max token!"
- Shortly after, the token's conversion rate swelled by 19%.
- The claimants filed the lawsuit alleging they purchased the tokens under false pretenses.
- After purchasing, the token's worth plummeted. It is currently trading at $0.000000004702.
- Kardashian's legal team denies these allegations.
- According to the defendant, "no named plaintiff alleges that they in fact viewed either [of Kardashian's] Instagram post[s] before purchasing tokens during the relevant time period."
- Moreover, there is no evidence Kardashian was paid for her post, nor that she purchased or sold any EMAX tokens.
Benzinga
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 |  | Gia Mattu is based in Calgary, Alberta. She is an entrepreneur with experience in climate technology, drones, AI, machine learning, and blockchain technology. When she's not working, she loves to hike the Canadian Rockies, try new cuisine, and travel. | | | | Editor | Aaron Crutchfield is based in the high desert of California. Over the last two decades, he has spent time writing and editing at various local newspapers and defense contractors in California. When he's not working, he can often be found looking at the latest memes with his kids or working on his 1962 Ford. | |
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For nearly 35 years, VxWorks has been used to ensure the security, safety, and reliability you need to design and build mission-critical embedded systems that simply must work.
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