*By Tanaya Macheel*
Blockchain, the London-based crypto wallet and exchange, will distribute $125 million of Stellar tokens to users this week in the company's first major airdrop giveaway.
Similar to the concept of airdropping photos or other files, airdrops of crypto assets can place different tokens in the hands of many — Blockchain has nearly 30 million registered wallets, though it's unclear how active its users are — rather than the privileged few, easily, and for little to no fee. In this case, the giveaway of lumens, the native digital currency of Stellar, is free. For the last, year cryptocurrencies have drawn serious interest and money from institutional investors, but Blockchain is also aiming to grow the adoption of crypto among everyday retail investors ー to drive use and functionality of crypto networks.
Stellar has that in common with Blockchain. It’s an open financial network focused on both enabling low cost and near-instant cross-border payments and improving financial services for developing countries and unbanked populations. Earlier this year, it partnered with IBM ($IBM) on a Stellar-powered cross-border payments product for IBM’s large corporate partners. Still, it maintains that private-blockchain networks are basically useless if they can’t interact with the rest of the world.
"The smaller your group of people is, the more likely you should just use a database," Jed McCaleb, co-founder of the Stellar Development Foundation, told Cheddar in September. "That's what Stellar gives you — a way to have your permissioned group but still interact with everyone else in the world.”
But accessing crypto assets hasn’t been seamless for retail investors. Exchanges can be costly; ICOs, or initial coin offerings, can be shady or vulnerable to scams, and both require people to invest their own money in something they may only know little about. In other words, mining crypto is just difficult.
The lumen was trading at 26 cents at the time of Blockchain’s announcement.
One of the most self-made and success stories in the country, Emma Grede, has worked along with the Kardashian Jenner family on many of their best-known brands. Grede, CEO and co-founder of Good American, gave back to the next generation of business leaders as a featured speaker at the Chase for Business Make Your Move summit last week. She spoke with Cheddar News about her career, her company's fashion brand, working with the famous Kardashian-Jennifer family and balancing her own family life.
Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate run by businessman Warren Buffett, reported its operating earnings in its most recent quarter jumped more than 40% from a year ago but posted its first net quarterly loss in a year.
Elon Musk's company XaI has announced a new chatbot called Grok.
SAG-AFTRA said over the weekend that it received the studios' last best and final offer following a meeting on Saturday, with the union saying it's reviewing it and considering a response "within the context of the critical issues addressed in our proposals."
Stocks rose slightly as Wall Street looks to continue its momentum with earnings season winding down.
Tyson Foods is recalling about 30,000 of its dino-shaped chicken nuggets after some consumers reported finding small metal pieces in those nuggets.
Google on Monday will try to protect a lucrative piece of its internet empire at the same time it’s still entangled in the biggest U.S. antitrust trial in a quarter century.
Before the SAG-AFTRA strike, this was the weekend “Dune: Part Two” was supposed to open. When Warner Bros. and Legendary pushed that opening back to March 2024 and no other blockbuster stepped in to take its spot.
A growing number of Californians are planting agave to be harvested forz use in spirits. The trend is fueled by the need to find hardy crops that don’t need much water and a booming appetite for premium alcoholic beverages.
Big Business This Week is a guided tour through the biggest market stories of the week, from winning stocks to brutal dips to the facts and forecasts generating buzz on Wall Street. This week we highlight Paramount, Maersk, Starbucks, Uber, Lyft and Beyond Meat.
