Tech:NYC Digest: September 15

Tech:NYC Digest: September 15

September 15, 2022 • Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes

Thursday, September 15, 2022

In today’s digest, the subway is quickly filling back up, participatory budgeting expands citywide, and The Merge has officially ushered in crypto’s next chapter.

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  • The New York State Dept. of Health announced it will distribute over 15,000 doses of the monkeypox vaccine to eligible New Yorkers, and that the vaccines will also now be made available to all individuals at risk of becoming infected. (Newsday)

  • Subway turnstiles hit 3.7 million entries yesterday for the first time since the pandemic, according to the MTA. Metro-North and LIRR use is also notching new highs.

  • NYC is "reassessing" longstanding procedures that stem from a law requiring the city to shelter unhoused people, following an influx of more than 11,000 asylum seekers who have been bused from Texas. (Gothamist)

  • The New York City Civic Engagement Commission will launch its first-ever citywide participatory budgeting process. This will give all New Yorkers ages 11 and up, regardless of citizenship or incarceration status, a say in how to spend $5 million in discretionary funding to address local community needs. (PIX 11)

  • And don’t miss the moment to take a ride on NYC's vintage trains this weekend!

In other reading:

  • The 4 Ballot Questions Up For A Vote in New York in November (THE CITY)

  • A Life-Changing Clam Pizza — and other important pizza goings-on across NYC (New York Times)

  • The Elite Gymnasts of Gowanus — how a husband-and-wife team turned New York into an unlikely source of sporting talent (Curbed)

At 2:45am Eastern time, the moment finally came: it was time for The Merge. The full transition was completed in about fifteen minutes, with no disruption to users, and the mood across the crypto sector has been celebratory.

We checked that pulse with Hayden Adams, the CEO of Uniswap, an automated Ethereum-based crypto exchange, and he told us:

  • "Proof of stake research was one of the first topics that interested me within web3. Ethereum reducing its energy usage by 99.98% is a game changer in the space, and I think its impact is underestimated. This is the result of a global community spending five years building for the future."

Let’s recap of what happened: Crypto networks rely on “consensus mechanisms” to guarantee the legitimacy of a transaction. The original mechanism, “proof-of-work,” has long been criticized for the energy-intensive computing systems it needs to operate.

  • Today, Ethereum made a transition dubbed The Merge, a move to a “proof-of-stake” framework — a sort of software upgrade that uses barely 1% of the energy being used before. (New York Times)

  • The Merge will reduce usage from about 23 million megawatt-hours per year to just over 2,600 megawatt-hours per year. The Verge described the reduction as “the Eiffel Tower shrinking to the size of a Lego toy person.”

Why it matters: Ethereum is the second biggest crypto network in the world, only behind Bitcoin, and industry leaders are already calling The Merge easily 2022’s biggest cryptocurrency moment. (Axios)

What’s next: The Ethereum Foundation already has a roadmap for how it plans to help increase the scalability of the new framework (a process called “sharding,” for the wannabe-wonks out there). What this means for Ethereum’s price — and the market more broadly — will surely attract a lot of attention in the coming months.

Bonus: Curious about the last-ever block mined before Ethereum made the switch? It was an NFT of a pair of eyes peering out from a black background. (The Block)

In other reading:

  • The Open Office Is Out, ‘Seated Privacy’ Is In as Cubicles Make a Comeback (Wall Street Journal)

  • The number of people working remotely tripled during COVID (Axios)

  • Do CFOs May Have the Toughest Job in the C-Suite? (Bloomberg)

  • Denim, a NYC and remote-based financial enablement platform for the freight and logistics industry, raised $26 million in Series B funding. Pelion Venture Partners led the round and was joined by Crosslink Capital, Anthemis, Trucks VC, FJ Labs, Tribeca Early Stage Partners and Refashiond Ventures. (TechCrunch)

  • Diamond Standard, a NYC-based blockchain diamond commodities company, raised $30 million in Series A funding. Left Lane Capital and Horizon Kinetics co-led the round and were joined by Gaingels and Republic.co. (CoinDesk)

  • FindMine, a NYC-based provider of predictive intelligence and content solutions for brands, raised $9.9m in seed funding. XSeed Capital and Underscore VC co-led the round. (Businesswire)

  • Gameto, a NYC-based cell engineering startup focused on female reproduction, raised $17 million in new funding. Insight Partners led the round and was joined by Future Ventures, Arcadia Investment Partners, Bold Capital Partners, Plum Alley, Myelin VC, TA Ventures, Gaingels, and Korify Capital. (Axios)

  • Valve, a NYC and London-based sales, marketing, and distribution solutions provider for commercial real estate professionals, online booking platforms, and workspace operators, raised $4.5 million in seed funding. Project A led the round and was joined by Discovery Ventures. (Newswire)

  • September 16: In-person: Fundraising School: B2C, with BBG Ventures investor Claire Biernacki, Primary Venture Partners principal Jason Shuman, and Monogram Capital Partners investor Jordan Weitz. Hosted by Brooklyn Bridge Ventures. Register here.

  • September 21 – 24: In-person and virtual: Unfinished Live 2022, with Circle chief strategy officer Dante Disparte, Future\Perfect Ventures managing partner Jalak Jobanputra, Protocol Labs general counsel Marta Belcher, and others. Register here.

  • October 4: Virtual: The Future of How and Where We Work, with NYC Deputy Mayor for Economic & Workforce Development Maria Torres-Springer, Daybase CEO Joel Steinhaus, and others. Hosted by Savills. Register here.

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