📔 Weekly Journal: Apple pulls it off 🍎👓🤩
[7min read] Your guide to getting ahead on the digital frontier (& the weekend!). Today, the usual market news & treats as well as everything you need to know about Apple's new XR headset.
Welcome to this week’s Weekly Journal 📔, your guide to the latest news & innovation in digital assets, emerging technology, and our exciting path to the Metaverse. This is week 28 of the 520 weeks of newsletters I have committed to, a decade of documenting our physical and digital lives converge.
New subscribers are encouraged to check out the history & purpose of this newsletter as well as the archive.
Enjoy your weekend! 😎
Ryan
Here’s what you’re getting today:
📈 Market update: SEC goes after Coinbase & Binance, Apple releases its XR headset.
🗞️ Interesting news: Open banking coming to ANZ, while banks differ in crypto stance
👓 Read of the week: A short report by Deloitte on the Metaverse, in the context of how the US could benefit
🎥 Video of the week: Cathie Wood and guests talk about the AI revolution
🤖 This week’s AI showcase: A free learning path by Google to upskill on AI
✅ Weekly poll: Help chose the emerging tech topic for Wednesday’s showcase
🤑 DCA with me: Follow my regular $50 weekly investing in an emerging asset class.
Market update 📈
🥝 NZ's biggest banks staying cautious over cryptocurrency. Easy Crypto, a New Zealand non-custodial cryptocurrency exchange, recently accused major banks of refusing transactions and denying bank accounts for crypto-related activities. The banks replied cited cautiousness due to regulatory warnings and previous cryptocurrency scams. Each bank had varying policies, with Westpac being the most risk-averse and Kiwibank & ASB adopting a case-by-case approach. Interesting to see different stances and how they will evolve over time.
🦘The big four Australian banks, ANZ, ASB, BNZ, and Westpac, have been given a deadline until 2024 to adopt open banking standards. The initiative, led by Payments NZ's "API Centre," aims to promote competition in the New Zealand banking sector and provide improved services for consumers. Secure interfaces (APIs) will allow app providers and companies to access banking data and facilitate transactions. The move towards open banking has been encouraged for years, and its implementation is expected to enhance financial management and payment app services for customers (I wrote about it here)
🦅 This week, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), a federal agency that regulates securities and protects investors, filed lawsuits against Binance and Coinbase. Charles Hoskinson (co-founder of Ethereum and Cardano) believes that the SEC complaint against Binance is part of a plan to tighten control over cryptocurrencies in the US, leading to a CBDC and concentrated power in a few banks. Hoskinson suggests the industry should unite to establish sensible regulations and prevent a dystopian future - yikes. Despite the challenges, he remains optimistic about the industry's future as do I.
On a brighter note, more people are using crypto than ever - even in a bear market:
7-day Crypto Heatmap below shows a bounce back after the bad news to end up slightly down for the week overall (size of the blocks are market share, colour & % show the change over the last week)
🎭 Sentiment levels are still stuck on the edge of fear & greed.
Interesting news
Apples release of their mixed reality headset is a gamechanger. Yes its expensive, but prices will come down with scale and if Apple doesn’t, competitors will.
For me the value is in how it fits in with the rest of the Apple ecosystem, their partnerships, and the platform for developers to built on. Lets dive in:
A beginners guide to the Apple Vision Pro: Apple's first spatial computer
Apple unveiled its Apple Vision Pro, a spatial computer that merges digital content with the physical world. It involves over 5000 patents!
Vision Pro features visionOS, the world's first spatial operating system, allowing users to interact with digital content as if it were physically present. visionOS provides a three-dimensional interface controlled by the user's eyes, hands, and voice.
The device's hardware includes an ultra-high-resolution display system, advanced Spatial Audio, and a high-performance eye tracking system. The design is optimised for performance, mobility, and wearability. Custom lens available for people with glasses.
Users can enjoy an infinite canvas for apps, engage in immersive entertainment experiences, and transform any space into a personal movie theater. On the all-new App Store, and developers can create innovative app experiences for spatial computing.
Vision Pro enables users to capture and relive memories with its three-dimensional camera and access their entire photo library.
FaceTime calls on Vision Pro take advantage of the room, and the device helps users stay connected with eyetracking technology.
Apple Vision Pro prioritizes privacy and security, featuring Optic ID for secure authentication and data encryption. Eye tracking movements are not shared with apps.
Partenrships with Unity, Disney, and Microsoft will mean lots of fun things to do right away!
$3499 USD price tag, first released in US, then 4 countries after that. Unsure when in ANZ
Would you buy one?
👓Read of the Week
This weeks read is a short report by Deloitte on the Metaverse, in the context of how the US could benefit. It’s a succinct but comprehensive resource packed with data, charts, and insightful analysis (for example an estimate that the Metaverse has the potential to contribute a staggering $560 billion annually to the US GDP by 2031). Full report here.
Video of the week 🎥
I enjoyed this take on the AI revolution. This “In the Know” episode from ARK Invest’s Cathie Wood discusses the impact of AI on various industries and the scramble to understand its ramifications. From AI hardware (eg Nvidia's growth) to software (eg productivity uplift from AI coding assistance). They believe in a massive revenue potential for software companies, projecting a shift from one trillion dollars in revenue to 14 trillion by 2030. Another interesting discussion is around automation opportunities in contact centres.
Let me know what you think in the comments below.
This week’s AI showcase🎨🤖🎵✍🏼
Each week I showcase something amazing generated by an AI-based tool. AI is disruptive, challenging industries and driving innovation. My vision of the emerging Metaverse predicts the use of many AI tools to enhance how we work, learn, play and socialise.
This I want to feature a free Google learning path that guides you through a curated collection of content on generative AI products and technologies, from the fundamentals of Large Language Models to how to create and deploy generative AI solutions on Google Cloud. If you wanted to upskill for an AI powered future of work, this is a good start!
Weekly Poll ✅
Help choose what you would like to learn about on Wednesday for my weekly emerging tech showcase:
That’s all for the free version this week! If you have any organisations in mind that could benefit from learning about emerging technology, be sure to reach out. Educational workshops are one of many consulting services I offer.
DCA With Me 🤑
Dollar Cost Averaging is an investment strategy in which an investor regularly invests a fixed amount of money into a particular asset/asset class at regular intervals, regardless of its current market price. By doing so, the investor can reduce the impact of market volatility and potentially earn a better return over time. An investor can buy more of the asset when prices are low and fewer when prices are high, which averages out the overall cost of investment (time IN the market beats trying to time the market).
To experiment with this, I invest $50 NZD into a Digital Asset every week. Each week I will choose an asset that seems underpriced in the short term and has positive long-term potential. My timeframe is 3-5 years. I don’t give financial advice but if you want to follow along with me you can use my easycrypto.co.nz referral link to support this newsletter. Let’s dive into this week’s pick:
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