Hey Waivly Crew! 🌊 In today’s edition, Meta’s Threads achieves a milestone with 175 million users in its first year, while Consensys bolsters MetaMask security through the acquisition of Wallet Guard

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Here’s what’s on the horizon today:

Let’s dive in!

STORIES MAKING A SPLASH

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Meta ordered to stop training AI on Brazilian data

Brazil’s data protection authority (ANPD) has banned Meta from using Brazilian personal data to train its AI models, citing serious risks to users. This decision follows Meta's privacy policy update in May, allowing the use of public data from Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram for AI training.

A Human Rights Watch report revealed that LAION-5B, a large image-caption dataset, contains personal photos of Brazilian children, raising concerns about deepfakes and exploitation. ANPD emphasized the imminent risk to users' fundamental rights and ordered Meta to comply within five days or face daily fines of 50,000 reais ($8,808).

Meta claims its policy complies with Brazilian privacy laws and argues the ruling hinders AI innovation. Despite Meta's assurance that users can opt-out, ANPD highlights significant obstacles in the opt-out process.

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Important, Not Important

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Threads gains 175 million users in first year

A year and a half ago, Threads was just an idea for Mark Zuckerberg. Now, Meta's rival to Elon Musk’s X boasts over 175 million monthly active users, as announced by Zuckerberg. This milestone comes as Threads nears its first anniversary, having launched on July 5th, 2023, during Musk's tumultuous takeover of Twitter.

Monthly active users tell only part of the story for any social network, including Threads. Unlike Meta’s other platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, Threads hasn’t shared daily user numbers, indicating many users are not yet regulars.

Financially, Threads remains a loss leader for Meta, which can afford to support it indefinitely. Executives are considering introducing ads next year, potentially integrating with Instagram’s ad system. Meta’s focus on lighthearted content makes Threads an appealing, brand-safe option for advertisers compared to X.

WEB3 SPECIAL

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Consensys buys Wallet Guard to enhance MetaMask security

Consensys, the developer of MetaMask, has acquired Wallet Guard to enhance the security of its popular non-custodial web3 wallet. Wallet Guard’s browser extension is known for real-time scam and wallet drainer detection.

Consensys plans to integrate Wallet Guard’s technology to protect MetaMask users’ wallets and assets from theft and fraud. The integration will improve drainer detection through transaction validation and client-side heuristics, offering users protection against malicious dapps and scams.

This acquisition follows Consensys’ previous efforts, including integrating Blockaid security alerts into MetaMask across multiple blockchain networks earlier this year. The move is part of Consensys’ strategy to prevent significant cryptocurrency losses due to scams, which totaled over $1.7 billion in 2023 alone.

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Bitcoin miner Riot Platforms hash rate booms 50% in June

In June, Riot Blockchain significantly boosted its hash rate by 50%, reaching 22 exahashes per second (EH/s) and mining 255 Bitcoin (BTC), valued at approximately $60,434 each. This increase was driven by new miner installations at its Corsicana and Rockdale facilities.

Riot's CEO, Jason Les, hailed June as a "historic month," surpassing the firm's mid-year hash rate target of 21.4 EH/s. By the end of the month, Riot had accumulated a total of 9,334 Bitcoin, worth about $561.6 million.

Despite a 45% year-on-year decline in mined Bitcoin due to the halving event, Riot now ranks as the second largest Bitcoin miner by hash rate, trailing only Marathon Digital. The company aims to expand its self-mining hash rate to 31.5 EH/s by the end of 2024 and targets reaching 100 EH/s by 2027, contingent on future MicroBT purchases.

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THE WAVES

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More Stories Surfing The Web

📱 Google Pixel 9 could ship with a Microsoft Recall-like feature

💵 Microsoft settles California probe over worker leave for $14M

🚗 Tesla quarterly deliveries fall less than expected

🛡️ ‎‎‏Cloudflare launches a tool to combat AI bots‎ ‎‎

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SAIL INTO A NEW CAREER

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Waivly Work Highlights

👩‍💻 Senior Account Manager at Xapo Bank

👩‍💻 Junior Data Analyst at Enveritas

👩‍💻 Recruiting Lead at OP Labs

👩‍💻 UI/UX Designer at Acelab

BACK TO THE SHORE

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That wraps up today’s newsletter

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