I SPY TROUBLE:  CSIS is warning about foreign agents on Canadian soil intimidating Canada's Chinese community.

Lobster: Premium Brands and a group of First Nations are buying the largest holder of shellfish licences and quotas in Canada.

Van Attack: The trial of Alek Minassian, the man responsible for the van attack in Toronto, began yesterday with 'excruciating' video.

Vaccine Love: Meet the husband and wife team responsible for the most promising covid vaccine candidate.

Dr. Opioid: Read how a Philidelphia doctor found himself at the centre of a massive opioid supply chain run by a  biker gang. 

Real Life: Tech CEOs have a habit of taking their cues from science fiction, maybe that's not such a good idea.

Bitcoin has had an unbelievable 2020. From the halving in May, to the wave of publicly traded companies putting Bitcoin on their balance sheet, it seems that the floodgates are finally opening for the world’s most popular cryptocurrency. 

Global macro investor Raoul Pal recently said when speaking about institutional money in Bitcoin, “You can buy bonds or dollars or you can take the life raft - Bitcoin”.

After years of mostly little fishies, it seems more whales are finally getting into crypto.

When whales, institutions, and high net worth individuals get into crypto, they do it via OTC desks.

When buying or selling large amounts of cryptocurrency on an exchange at one time, traders can experience slippage, especially on Canadian exchanges that have lower volume.

If you are looking to buy a larger tranche of digital currency, look no further than Bitbuy. The Bitbuy OTC desk has experienced traders that can provide live quotes over the phone for Bitcoin and other crypto trades over $20,000 CAD. They’ll save you time and fees, and make sure you don't get rekt on slippage.

Reach out to [email protected] to schedule a phone call with a crypto trader today.

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*Past performance does not guarantee future results, this is not investment advice.

The European Commission has brought long awaited antitrust charges against Amazon for their monopolistic practices in the region. Margrethe Vestager, the commission’s vice president for digital issues, is accusing the ecommerce behemoth of unfairly using its size and power to harm smaller competitors.

Amazon Accusations

Lost in the intricacies of government and corporate bureaucracy is the relative simplicity of what Amazon is accused of doing. Amazon collects a massive amount of data on the products which sell through their platform, with this data Amazon is able to launch their own house products to compete with third party sellers and give their house products an edge and lower price.

Amazon’s use of data in its dual role as a retailer and merchant is the root of the antitrust violation.

Although Amazon claims they only account for a tiny portion of global retail, their impact is hard to ignore:

The Road to Justice...Is a long one. The announced charges are considered preliminary, Amazon will now have an opportunity to respond. It could take anywhere from months to years before anything is resolved.

US regulators are getting into the antitrust game with the recent charges against Google and this summer’s hearing featuring big tech leaders. The incoming Biden administration is expected to be supportive of antitrust measures, while investigations area already open into Apple and Facebook.

Europe is tightening its rules in order to avoid future drawn out legal battles. New laws are expected next month which would prohibit self-preference of products and force large tech companies to share data with smaller competitors.

The EU has been clear that if Amazon isn’t stopped now they will only become more powerful.

Huawei will reportedly be exiting one of their smartphone units, Honor, in a deal that will likely further alienate North American customers. It wasn’t that long ago Huawei was the title sponsor of Hockey Night In Canada, remember that?

Deal Details:

Sanctions and Divestment: Huawei is bailing on their booming Honor Smartphone business because of sanctions levelled against the company by the US government last year. The sanctions severely limit Huawei’s ability to procure chips which use American technology, chips which are needed in key products.

Analysts believe that divestment of the unit will free it from sanctions.

Good Reception: Shares in acquirer Digital China rose on the news, analysts are bullish that tucking in the product with the distributor should boost sales in China. Although the sale should get Honor officially out of the sanctions, we’re unsure if the US will give them the all clear.

The pandemic has taken the markets on a rollercoaster ride that sometimes feels tough to track. On the other hand clear winners have emerged including FAANG, along with the ‘pandemic basket’ stocks like Zoom, Peloton and Etsy, which did take a hit with positive vaccine news.

Yesterday, VCs jumped into two deals that may be a sign of our pandemic proof future.

Softbank Takes It Up A Tier
Vision Fund 2 isn’t shying away from high risk bets by leading a $250 million round into European scooter sharing company Tier Mobility. Softbank was joined in the round, which valued Tier at just under $1 billion by Mubadala Capital, Northzone, Goodwater Capital, White Star Capital, Novator and RTP Global.

Rapid Growth: Like other Softbank backed startups, Tier will use the fresh cash for rapid aggressive growth. The scooter company is already in 80 cities across 10 countries with 60,000 available scooters. They also plan to roll out a nifty battery swap program, which will allow users to swap batteries at local partner businesses, to keep the scooters on the road longer.

Softbank Score: Unlike many Softbank portfolio companies, Tier is reportedly EBITDA profitable in the third quarter of 2020. But that may not last as Q3 is scooter season!

Hopin This Rocketship
Elon Musk and Elton John are welcoming a new member to the Rocketman club, Johnny Boufarhat of Hopin. Boufarhat isn’t going to outer space, but making space for virtual events in a world that needs them, and doing so at rocket speed after founding the company in mid 2019.

3..2..1...Liftoff: It’s hard to overstate just how quickly Hopin has gone from launchpad to orbit:

Return to Earth: There must be an outer limit to Hopin’s growth, but digital and hybrid events are here for the time being and likely to stick around well into the future.

Apple used yesterday's One More Thing launch event to unveil one of its most game changing products to date, the M1. The M1 is a 5nm chip which will be used in Apple’s new Macbook Air, Macbook Pro and Mac Mini.

The M1’s efficiency adds some serious firepower to Mac, including a  universal memory architecture, a USB 4 controller, media encode and decode engines and security features which include hardware-verified secure boot, encryption, and run-time protections.

Bored with the tech jargon, think about it this way:

Big (Retina Display) Picture

It’s  a good day for Mac enthusiasts when the computers they love get way better and the price stays the same. This shift does create a headache for third party software developers who will need to update their programs to work with the new M1 chip, Apple says this process should be very quick and is confident that their Rosetta tool will ease the transition.