America’s oldest bank is entering crypto

Slow and steady wins the race

Caroline Butler joined Bank of New York Mellon as managing director of depository services two years ago to ensure the assets of the nation’s oldest bank’s customers are safe and secure.

That job may soon become much more challenging: The bank announced it will begin holding crypto assets for select clients, marking a major move by a traditional financial services giant into the controversial crypto market.

Institutional investors will still have access to crypto despite the crypto crash, which led to the bank entering the space. Butler told Protocol’s Ben Pimentel that the bank has been looking for a way into digital assets for two years, with the increase in demand as the catalyst to actually do so.

• Because “the vast majority” of BNY’s clients were already invested in digital assets in some way, and no other traditional institution offered anything similar, it made sense to become a one-stop shop, Butler said.
• “[I]It was very important to be able to go to a provider that could offer services across the different assets in their investment portfolio, whether it was traditional assets or a combination of digital assets,” she told Ben.

BNY’s move does not come without challenges. Butler said increased cyber security is critical to keeping the bank’s digital assets safe: “[U]Like the traditional room, if you lose the keys to digital assets, you actually lose the assets.”

• In security, Butler is focused on wallet management and infrastructure. Interoperability “across the digital and traditional space” is also something the bank wants to get right. “It goes back to that client experience,” she said.

Entering this space cannot be rushed. Although the fintech industry criticized traditional banks for their pace, BNY is slowing down to be “measured and targeted, bringing our capabilities to the market in a very disciplined way.”

• And despite the reluctance of traditional banks, Butler said BNY’s institutional clients need a safe place to test the crypto waters. “They need our institutional standards to enter this market to help mature it in a safe and responsible way.”

Read more: How Caroline Butler is helping America’s oldest bank with crypto.

Save the whales

The offshore wind industry could threaten the survival of one of the most endangered whale species on earth, the Protocol’s Lisa Martine Jenkins writes.

Boat traffic and the offshore infrastructure must skyrocket to meet the Biden administration’s goal of developing 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030.

• But North Atlantic right whales face one “unusual mortality event” which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration largely attributed to “rope entanglements or vessel strikes” in a recent report.
• Underwater noise from construction can also damage whales’ hearing and behaviour.

Startups work to find solutions. Vineyard Wind, an offshore wind developer, and Greentown Labs, a startup incubator, created an accelerator program for companies developing technology to protect marine life.

• Some of the innovations include aerial drone systems for marine inspection and night vision cameras that can be adapted to work on offshore turbines.

The government also wants to help. The Department of Energy and the State of Maryland have funded the marine mammal research group SMRU Consulting for its work on an “acoustic coastal buoy for ocean wind.”

• The buoys detect high-frequency whale calls to pinpoint their position, allowing a sea window developer to know when to slow or stop construction.

The risk to right whales shows the need to balance climate change mitigation and conservation – and how people are trying to use technology to keep their weight stable. Whether this effort is enough remains to be seen.

Read more: A version of this story appeared in The protocol’s climate newsletter. sign up here.

The itch for something new

Brad Olson spent six years growing Peloton’s subscription business into a mainstream household product. Now he wants to “do it all over again”. Last month, Olson became CEO of Sollis Health, a subscription-based concierge healthcare startup that gives members 24/7 access to doctors, urgent care and urgent care with no wait times.

Olson is a first-time CEO, but his last two roles in Peloton prepared him “uniquely” to run Sollis, he told me in an interview.

• Olson served as chief business officer and chief membership officer during his time with the company, giving him skills such as B2B sales, program management and cost management.
• He also learned how to grow a subscription business: While at Peloton, Olson helped grow membership by 100 times.

Leaving Peloton was less about Peloton itself, and more about scratching “the itch to join a former company,” Olson said.

• “There has been so much growth in concierge medicine, and Sollis to date is the only player in the market that addresses urgent care and urgent care,” Olson said. “So in a similar way, the co-founders here at Sollis created a new category – just like the founders at Peloton.”
• And Olson has seen firsthand that the American health care system needs help. “I live with multiple sclerosis,” he said. “I’ve seen the best and the worst that American health care has to offer, and emergency and emergency care can be intimidating, especially for people who have underlying conditions.”

But firstmover advantage doesn’t last forever, he told me. To maintain a successful subscription-based business with growth, you must put your members first. “If you make your members your North Star, and put them at the center of every decision, you can’t go wrong,” he said. “It’s this kind of virtuous cycle: If it’s good for the members, it’s good for the business, it’s good for the employees, because it creates growth and opportunity.”

Read more: How Brad Olson Decided to Leave Peloton.

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People talk

Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg said the use of electric cars would require drivers to accept shorter range:

• “[W]e tend to buy cars for our longest trips, not our most frequent trips. It will take some time before we close the gap between the range we think we need and the range we actually need.”

Investor Chris Sacca said so climate investments is “recession proof”:

• “[T]the truth that clean energy and clean products are reaching price parity is just a massive tailwind that we’re trying to keep up with, frankly.”

SAP has reached one “tipping point” in skyrocketing growth and profits, CEO Christian Klein said:

• “Actually two years ago, we started the transformation of SAP where we said, ‘Hey, we want to move our portfolio completely to the cloud, because that’s where we can best serve our customers.'”

The iPhone will switch to USB-C as a result of a recent EU decision, Apple’s Greg Joswiak said, but he doesn’t sound thrilled about it:

• “Of course we have to comply, we have no choice.”

Making moves

AWS CEO Pravin Raj is leaving Amazon. Raj is one of several of the cloud giant’s top executives named in a discrimination and harassment lawsuit filed by a former employee.

Alexander Höptner is resigns as CEO of crypto exchange BitMex after about two years with the company. Stephan Lutz has been appointed interim CEO.

EV startup Faraday will cut wages by 25% to conserve cash. The cuts, which will last from November 1 until the end of the year, come as the company seeks funding to release its first car.

The memory chip manufacturer SK Hynix is cut investments by more than 50% due to “unprecedented deterioration” in demand for the hardware.

In other news

Apple said it would new investments in wind and solar projects in Europe, as well as encouraging its suppliers to decarbonise the production of their products.

Elon Musk plans to close the Twitter deal by Friday, in accordance with a court ruling in Delaware, according to Reuters.

Amazon is testing Venmo. All US customers will be able to use the service by Black Friday.

India fined Google 113 million dollars for anti-competitive practices to restrict app developers in the country from using third-party billing or payment processing services.

Twitter is losing some of that power users. At least, if you count heavy hitters as those who account for less than 10% of monthly total users but generate 90% of all tweets and half of global revenue.

Alphabet’s revenue fell short of Wall Street’s expectations as the digital advertising industry continues to decline.

Microsoft reported that slowest income growth in five years. Weakening device demand hasn’t helped, but even cloud revenue was lower than expected.

Amazon warehouse workers in Southern California abandoned its plans for a union election after the union’s defeat in New York last week.

Uber drivers enter New Zealand won a class action lawsuit declaring them employees, rather than independent contractors.

The celebrity deepfake promo

Deepfakes by someone from Empty cruise to Elon Musk has started to get into advertising. While some of the ads are parodies, the continued development of deepfake software could create a legal gray area as celebrities navigate new forms of unauthorized use of their likeness. “We have a hard enough time with false information,” said one expert The Wall Street Journal. “Now we have deepfakes, which look increasingly convincing.”

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