Mission Everywhere

On Saturday, Ukraine's official Twitter account shared two cryptocurrency wallet addresses — a bitcoin wallet address and an Ethereum wallet address. “Stand with the people of Ukraine. Now accepting cryptocurrency donations. Bitcoin, Ethereum and USDT,” @Ukraine wrote. But it’s hard to know for sure who owns and operates these wallets — a public address is just a long string of letters and numbers. They don’t technically belong to anyone as someone can transfer the ownership of a wallet. Stand with the people of Ukraine. Now accepting cryptocurrency donations. Bitcoin, Ethereum and USDT. BTC – 357a3So9CbsNfBBgFYACGvxxS6tMaDoa1P ETH and USDT (ERC-20) – 0x165CD37b4C644C2921454429E7F9358d18A45e14 — Ukraine / Україна (@Ukraine) February 26, 2022 The first logical reaction to a tweet like that is that you should proceed with extreme caution. It is unclear if those wallets are run by a government member, a government agency, someone outside of the government who is informal...

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch : Dutch regulators levy a sixth €5M antitrust fine against Apple over dating app payments, saying no new proposals were received from Apple in the past week   —  Apple still hasn't complied with a Dutch antitrust order to allow local dating apps to have the option to use third party payment tech … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/KCzVFdZ

This combination of file pictures created on January 11, 2022 shows Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Valery Sharifulin, Bertrand Guay/AFP via Getty Images RIA Novosti, a Russian state-run news outlet, published an article saying Ukraine lost to Russia. "Ukraine has returned to Russia," said the article, which has since been removed. Ukraine and Russia are still in conflict. A Russian state-run news agency prematurely published an article that said Russia has taken back Ukraine. "Ukraine has returned to Russia," said the article, which ran on RIA Novosti and has since been taken down. "The West sees the return of Russia to its historical borders in Europe." —Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) February 28, 2022   Ukraine is still in conflict with Russia. The US State Department on Monday accused Russia of "widespread" human rights abuses in Ukraine as its troops reportedly fired missiles at civi...

Kevin Costner in "Yellowstone." Paramount Network "Yellowstone" season four will be available to stream on Peacock on March 28. New episodes of the hit cable series originally air on Paramount Network. Paramount is still taking advantage of the show's popularity, even without the streaming rights. The most recent season of the hit series "Yellowstone" will be available to stream soon. Peacock announced on Monday that the fourth season will come to the service on March 28. The NBCUniversal streamer holds exclusive streaming rights to the show, which airs new episodes on Paramount Network. The season-four finale was watched by 9.3 million viewers, making it the biggest cable telecast since 2017.  Paramount Network announced earlier this month that it had renewed the series for a fifth season . NBCUniversal nabbed the streaming rights to the series in 2020, before ViacomCBS (now Paramount Global) launched Paramount+ in 2021.  But Paramount is...

In 2018, Y Combinator released its first mega list of the top companies  valued at $150 million or more that have gone through the accelerator. Over the past four years, it’s updated the list to reflect the current status of its most valued companies . Valuation isn’t the best way to measure a startup’s success or real-life value, of course, and YC has always admitted that. Yet, as the accelerator points out, “it’s the most commonly available metric to compare companies in the startup world.” Thus, the original list of 101 companies has ballooned to 267 companies as of February 2022 ( YC list isn’t exhaustive; some founders opt out of being listed ). Many factors are responsible for this growth. One is the increasing size of YC cohorts and the acceptance of companies both within and outside the U.S. There were 141 companies from 24 countries in the winter 2018 batch, compared with 377 companies across 47 countries in the summer 2021 group . The second is that companies...

As Ukraine continues to make efforts to mobilize and equip ordinary citizens on the ground to resist Russia’s unprovoked invasion of the country, those who are outside Ukraine who want to help are being asked to get involved in the fight in the virtual world. While the G7 (today with the addition of Japan ) mobilize to shut down Russia’s access to the Swift banking system, the country has been running campaign corralling developers to join an “IT army” tasked with specific cyber challenges. It’s also making specific calls to technology leaders to do their part, too. The “ IT Army of Ukraine “, announced yesterday and already with nearly 184,000 users on its main Telegram channel (and that number is growing – it gained almost 10,000 users in the time I wrote this story), is using that account to name specific projects and call-outs for help to shut down Russian sites, Russian agents and those working in concert with the country, and to mobilize those living in Ukraine around work ...

Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) toasts holding a glass of vodka with Deputy Defense Minister Valery Gerasimov (R) and Presidential Administration Chief of Staff Sergei Ivanov (C). Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images The Biden administration targeted Putin's elite inner circle in Thursday's economic sanctions. It's part of the US' latest efforts to financially cripple Russia following the invasion of Ukraine.  Meet the 10 Russian oligarchs being sanctioned, from oil barons to diamond mining and banking execs. Wealthy oligarchs are the latest target of US sanctions announced by the Biden Administration on Thursday, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Russian Energy Week in Moscow Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images The US Treasury identified 10 Russian elites with close ties to Putin who "leverage their proximity to the Russian President to pillage the Russian state, enrich themselves ... at the expense of the Russian people," per the press release...