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How NFTs became a $40b market in 2021 - In the longer term, enthusiasts hope tokens will one day power e-commerce in any metaverse or metaverses, futuristic digital avatar-filled virtual worlds. Here, NFTs could designate ownership of virtual goods, be that clothing for digital avatars or art for the walls of their digital houses. Read more

WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann is becoming an apartment mogul - Entities tied to Mr. Neumann have been quietly acquiring majority stakes in more than 4,000 apartments valued at more than $1b in Miami, Atlanta, Nashville, Tenn., Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and other U.S. cities, according to court, property and people familiar with the transactions. Many of these investments occurred within the past year. Read more

How Shopify outfoxed Amazon to become the everywhere store - A great long-form read from Bloomberg on how Tobi Lütke transformed the Canadian upstart into an e-commerce giant by being the anti-Bezos. How long can Tobi keep the formula working? Read more

‘Buy now, pay later’ loans may soon play bigger role in credit scores - For now, many of these smaller, short-term loans aren’t reported in a consistent way to credit bureaus, so borrowers don’t build a formal credit history by using them. But as the loans become more mainstream, that’s changing. Read more

DAO aims to raise $5m to resurrect Blockbuster Video - BlockbusterDAO, which currently comprises about 9,000 netizens on Twitter and a Discord server who deliberate over how the DAO can achieve its goals, plans on turning Blockbuster into a decentralized film (DeFilm) streaming studio. DeFilm is an experiment launched in July that proposes to “actually make a movie with decision making happening on a blockchain.” Read more

Bank accidentally deposits $176m into people’s accounts on Christmas Day - Thousands of people received a surprise gift on Christmas Day this year when European bank Santander accidentally deposited £130m ($176m) across 75,000 transactions. The mistake happened when payments from 2,000 business accounts in the U.K. were processed twice, meaning some employees saw their wages double, while suppliers also got more than they were expecting. Read more

Cryptocurrency crime hits new high in value - The volume of cryptocurrency transactions grew to $15.8t in 2021, up 567% from 2020, in a sign that the trading of digital assets is becoming increasingly mainstream. Illicit transactions totaled $14b in 2021, up 79% from $7.8b the previous year. But illicit transactions only made up 0.15% of cryptocurrency transaction volume in 2021. Read more

Banks tiptoe toward their cloud-based future - Cloud computing is slowly changing how Wall Street banks handle their business, but banking regulators in the US and Europe have jointly underscored the need for lenders to manage risks and have backup systems in place when they outsource technology to cloud providers. Read more

Global payments firm Adyen rolls out Android POS units in EU, UK, US - The goal is to deliver an all-in-one solution that gets rid of the need for cash registers, barcode scanners and customer-facing displays. Equipped with an app management system, merchants can upload and manage the apps they use for daily operations like inventory management and rewards programs. Read more

Omicron pushes Wall Street toward work-from-home future - The banks are hoping that the Omicron pause is short-lived. But even after Omicron subsides, the companies could find themselves facing a more deep-seated problem. Many of their employees have grown used to more flexible working arrangements and aren’t willing to go back into the office full time. How their return-to-work experiment plays out could set the stage for other white-collar industries. Read more

Financial services firms aim for network modernization in 2022 - Financial services companies are looking to strengthen their technology plumbing in 2022 to improve current product offerings and launch new ones. This involves modernizing networks and tapping emerging technologies like edge computing and decentralized infrastructure, also known as Web3. Read more

Robinhood announces beta launch of crypto wallet - Robinhood explained how the crypto wallet will work, with comments on the design, wallet addresses, and network/gas fees. Read more

China's digital yuan wallet arrives in Android and Apple app stores - China's central bank has launched its CBDC wallet app on the Android and Apple app stores as it gears up for the forthcoming Winter Olympics. Read more