Digital Financial News

Bitcoin breached the $45,000 mark for the first time since April 2022. What led to the high? Will the rally sustain in 2024? Here are 10 things to know about recent developments in the crypto space:

Official Chinese media sources have raised concerns regarding the exploitation of cryptocurrencies by corrupt officials for illicit activities. 

Garena Free Fire is a popular battle royale game that gives players the chance to prove their survival skills in 10-minute matches. The vibrant graphics and addictive gameplay of Garena Free Fire have made it a household name among the gaming community worldwide. Adding to the game's wild appeal is the developers' tactic of releasing the redeem code daily, unlocking a world of in-game goodies for free.

This series, the Class of 2024, aims to simplify the way to navigate the world beyond the campus by talking about the sectors with opportunities, ways to use online platforms and preparing resumes, among other things.

Mint digs deeper into the issue. Virtual digital assets or cryptocurrencies are based on blockchain technologies, exist on decentralised networks, and are anonymous at the point of creation. This allows them to be outside the control of governments and centralised authorities.

The hottest technology of 2023 had a busy last few weeks of the year. On November 28th Abu Dhabi launched a new state-backed artificial-intelligence firm, AI71, that will commercialise its leading “large language model" (LLM), Falcon. On December 11th Mistral, a seven-month-old French model-builder, announced a blockbuster $400m funding round, which insiders say will value the firm at over $2bn.

John Yaros wants to hear from a wide range of people with an interest in financial technology – and wants them to listen to each other – as he develops oversight policies.

Pine Labs, which is based in Singapore, plans to seek board approval this quarter to move its parent company to India, according to people in the know. Business-to-business (B2B) ecommerce firm Udaan is considering a similar move in view of its plans for an initial public offering (IPO) in 12-18 months, they said. The two join several other well-funded and highly valued startups that are moving their overseas holding companies to India — or ‘reverse flipping’ — ahead of listings, especially in the central bank-regulated fintech sector.

SoftBank, which of late has not been signing new startup funding deals in India and is preparing to offload stakes in IPO-bound Ola Electric and FirstCry, still holds $1.1-1.2 billion worth of shares in its listed portfolio companies here. The Japanese investor has sold stakes worth $1.8-1.9 billion during the public offerings and through post-listing sales in four Indian startups — Paytm, Zomato, PB Fintech and Delhivery — that went public in 2021 and 2022. It had invested a total of $2.3-2.4 billion in these four new-age companies.

PepsiCo is considering more than one executive for the role of president and chief executive officer for its India business, including a candidate from its global system, said executives directly aware of the developments. Earlier, PepsiCo India's current senior vice president and general manager, beverages, George Kovoor, was believed to be taking over the top role to succeed Ahmed ElSheikh. The developments follow PepsiCo's current president ElSheikh, who is expected to move to a global role within the company this year, making way for the leadership transition. Executives cited a combination of reasons for the recent developments.

Microsoft India president Puneet Chandok has set for himself, to accelerate the Seattle-headquartered technology giant's cloud and artificial intelligence push in the country. “The plan in the next 90 days is to do 100 boardroom conversations with top enterprises in India and demystify AI,” Chandok told ET in his first media interview after joining the company in September. He added that he had already met 100 customers over the last 100 days.

In the ever-evolving landscape of cryptocurrencies, Filecoin (FIL) has recently emerged as a notable player, capturing the market’s attention with its significant price surge and growing utility.

In 2023, the Department of Justice (DOJ) emerged as a leading force in defining the boundaries of the cryptocurrency industry through high-profile criminal prosecutions. 

disastrous landing, an Air India flight was involved in a rough landing incident in Dubai on December 20, but fortunately nothing bad happened. The plane that went through the hard landing was a 5.5-year-old Airbus A320neo (VT CIQ) which did not suffer structural damage when it made the heavy landing (3.5 G) and came to a stop safely, TOI reported.

MGNREGA workers reportedly to be done only through an Aadhaar-based system, the Congress on Monday hit out at the Central government, saying that it should «stop weaponising technology», especially Aadhaar, to deny the most vulnerable Indians their social welfare benefits. Congress General Secretary (Communications) Jairam Ramesh said the Modi government is continuing with the 'destructive experiments with technology' as the Ministry of Rural Development did not extend the December 31 deadline for implementing Aadhaar-Based Payment System (ABPS), which requires Aadhaar details of workers to be seeded to job cards. In a statement, Ramesh said that there are 25.69 crore MGNREGA workers of which 14.33 crore are considered active workers and of this, 34.8 per cent (8.9 crore) and 12.7 per cent (1.8 crore) respectively are ineligible for ABPS. He said the government has gone ahead with it despite workers, practitioners and researchers having highlighted the problems. «The Prime Minister's well-known disdain for MGNREGA has translated into a slew of experiments designed to use technology as a weapon to exclude — such as the digital attendance (NMMS), ABPS, drone monitoring and the proposed integration of facial recognition to NMMS.

Nifty 50 settled at 21,741.90, up 11 points, or 0.05 per cent. The BSE Midcap index hit its fresh all-time high of 37,171.97 while the BSE smallcap index touched its all-time high of 43,094.79 during the session. After the robust gains in the last two months on expectations of rate cuts in light of favourable macros, the market is expected to see some consolidation due to rich valuations.

Past Lives' will soon be available for live streaming in the US. Its makers are upbeat after it got a 96% critic approval rating from Rotten Tomatoes and earned the right to be one of 2023's top ten films by the American Film Institute and the National Board of Review. The film made its debut at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival before being launched in US theaters in limited release on June 2.

In the ever-shifting landscape of cryptocurrency, Bitcoin (BTC/USD) stands at a crucial juncture, currently trading at $42,279 with a modest increase of 0.28% on Monday.

Fyllo said it is in talks to partner corporates such as Coromandel International and Dhanuka Agritech among others to widen their reach through a large set of farmers with their strong channel and forces on the ground. The company said revenues tripled this year driven by new products such as Nero and building channel partners to boost sales. It expects sales to grow four times in 2024. «We have a strong product market fit with 100% customer retention.

By Mehak Srivastava

Telecommunications Act 2023 has beefed up the dispute resolution framework by ringing in an online grievance redressal system. The objective is to speed up resolution of disputes between telcos and consumers and make the redressal process transparent. Post-inquiry, a telco in breach of licence/service terms, can face stiff penalties, cancellation of spectrum holdings, service restrictions or even be barred from offering telecom services, depending on the gravity of the contravention.