Binance Admits Hackers Used Cross-Chain Bridge to Steal At Least $100M • TechCrunch

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Friday!

How’s that for brevity on newsletter launches? Let’s get down to business so we can kick off a liquid death and let the week sag into the murky distant memory sooner rather than later. — Christine and hey

The TechCrunch Top 3

• uh-oh: Binance, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, confirmed it found a blockchain breach where hackers got away with $100 million. Karly has more.
• Evolution from elephants to unicorns: annie reports that Kenya’s tourism-focused startup studio Purple Elephant Ventures is raising $1 million in upfront funding to modernize the industry.
• What until you see the picture: Amazon’s Scout makes you want to go and smack him. Unfortunately, you may not have the opportunity to do so. After three years of unveiling the robot, the delivery giant said it would cut the program, brian reports.

Startups and VCs

Wildfires have become an increasing threat as homes are built closer together and the increasing effects of climate change wreak havoc on natural landscapes. In response, entrepreneurs have begun developing technologies designed to minimize the magnitude and damage of these natural disasters. Convective Capital is a new VC firm she wants to back and has raised $35 million to do so. becca reports.

hey I’ve been really bored with startups taking liberties with market size and complaining that your total serviceable market as a car dealership isn’t the value of the cars you’re selling (that’s the SOM for the automaker). Your SOM is the total value of sales commissions, service plans, aftermarket goods and services, and anything else that actually makes you money.

And we have five more for you:

7 investors discuss how agtech can solve agriculture’s biggest problems

Of all global industries, perhaps none is more vulnerable to the dangers of climate change than agriculture.

There is a consensus among serious scientists that the amount of CO2 we put into the atmosphere exacerbates extreme weather events. How does this affect how agtech VCs operate during a downturn?

To find out more, we asked:

• Brett Brohl, Managing Director of Techstars Farm to Fork and Managing Partner at Bread and Butter Ventures
• Monica Varman, Partner at G2 Venture Partners
• Jinesh Shah, Managing Partner at Omnivore
• Adam Anders, Managing Partner at Anterra Capital
• Ting Ting Liu, Investor, and Ashutosh Sharma, India, lead Prosus Ventures
• Camila Petignat, Partner at The Yield Lab

Three more from the TC+ team:

TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and start-up teams stay ahead of the competition. Here you can sign up. Use code “DC” for 15% off an annual subscription!

BigTech Inc.

Google plans to open its first data center in Japan by 2023, Ivan writes. The center is part of a $730 million infrastructure fund and will be the search giant’s third in the region.

In the meantime, kyle and amanda looked at music generators powered by artificial intelligence and their place in an industry where it generally pays to be able to harness your natural, human abilities.

And five more for you:

• Sharing is caring: A new Twitter feature encourages users to share the tweet instead of taking a screenshot of it and then posting it to other social media. Ivan writes.
• press pause: A judge ruled that the trial between Musk and Twitter can be temporarily suspended while the two parties work out a deal. amanda reports.
• It’s Mariooooo: amanda gives you a glimpse of the new The Super Mario Bros. Movie, in which she writes, “So far, Chris Pratt’s Mario looks more like Andy Dwyer than Star-Lord, and we love that for him.”
• make adjustments: Shopify has agreed to add some consumer safety features to its app in Europe, including a faster and easier way for national consumer regulators to report issues, Natasha L reports.
• Open a cold one: Pepsi is on the front lines to get some of the first Tesla Semi shipments, Kirsten writes.