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Brazil holds tech’s feet to the fire
Plus: 24/7 stocktrading; Kraken’s Venmo clone
Joey Padgett
June 30, 2025
In partnership with
Hey people!
Welcome back to Forests Over Trees, your tech newsletter. It’s time to connect dots and predict the future.
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Brazil holds tech’s feet to the fire
Plus: 24/7 stocktrading; Kraken’s Venmo clone
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⚡ Tech News Takes ⚡
(5 stories)
What’s up: Brazil’s Supreme Court ruled that tech platforms like Meta, X, and Google are liable for user hate speech, racism, or violence.
Companies must move fast to remove content, or risk penalties. The ruling also requires them to create moderation protocols and publish transparency reports.
The US warned of possible retaliation for targeting American tech firms.
So what: In the US, Section 230 shields tech cos from this. They’ll fight tooth-and-nail to stop it from spreading beyond Brazil.
What’s up: The Model Context Protocol (MCP), designed by Anthropic to connect AI models to tools and data, is now a universal plugin system.
It lets apps and tools communicate without dedicated integrations (ex. your budget spreadsheet can talk to your bank, fridge, and thermostat).
Any tool, gadget, or app that supports MCP becomes connected.
So what: “Integrations”, which was a huge time suck for startups, will go away. Instead, they’ll spend more time on their core product. Open standards > walled gardens.
What’s up: Dinari launched dShares — stablecoin tokens backed by US stocks — so users can trade 24/7.
Users can transfer tokens peer-to-peer or on exchanges, but Dinari still owns the underlying stocks in US brokerage accounts.
The US gov approved Dinari’s broker-dealer status June 26.
So what: Tech continues to challenge antiquated trading norms. First fractional trading. Now 24/7 markets and blockchain-based settlement.
What’s up: Uber founder and ex-CEO Travis Kalanick wants to buy the US operations of Chinese self-driving firm Pony.ai. Uber is rumored to be helping fund the deal.
Pony IPO’d last year at a ~$4.5B valuation and prepped the US arm for a spinout.
Kalanick now runs CloudKitchens, a food delivery startup, which could benefit from lower-cost self-driving delivery.
So what: Kalanick wants this, but I doubt Uber will help. They’ve sold direct stakes in self-driving startups, instead partnering with Pony and others to be the booking app.
What’s up: Crypto exchange Kraken launched Krak, an app that lets users send crypto, stablecoins, and fiat across 110 countries — without banks.
The primary goal is to fix “how hard it is to move money”.
Krak also has yield features, like 4.1% rewards on USDG (a stablecoin) and up to 10% on other digital assets.
So what: The US won’t allow yields on stablecoins (per the recent GENIUS Act). But Krak’s cross-border, multi-currency story is still a step up from Venmo and Zelle.
🌲 F/T Shoutouts 🌲
LinkedIn has a feed that ends!? — I don’t know if this is a glitch, a test, or an old thing I’ve finally noticed… But shout out to LinkedIn for having a web feed that doesn’t scroll ‘til infinity.
Neuralink’s state of the union — This is Elon and team’s 2025 update, and it’s pretty crazy. 5 participants in human trials so far, averaging 50 hrs/wk of usage.