Wounded oniers were the search for bergdahl. Hery pelosi continues criticism of the republican tax plan. Yesterday, the republicans unveiled a terrible assault on opportunity for the middle class in america. They want you to believe they are cutting taxes on the middle class but the republicans are plundering the middle class. Global news 24 hours a day, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries. I am a alisa parenti. This is bloomberg. Is next. Technology i am brad stone in for emily chang, and this is Bloomberg Technology. Coming up, a bloomberg scoop. Another bombshell just after announcing a big move back to the u. S. On thursday. We will break down the plans to acquire qualcomm in a deal that could be the biggest takeover of a chipmaker ever. Plus, apple resets the Smartphone Market with the official launch of a 1000 smartphone. We are covering this story from all angles as lines form around the world for the iphone x. And the great bitcoin debate. Is the cryptocurrency a boon or bubble . We will continue the conversation as bitcoin hits 7000 and its market cap crosses the 1 billion mark. First to our lead. Bloomberg has learned broadcom is set to acquire qualcomm in a deal that could be worth 100 billion. This be the largest deal ever for a chipmaker. Shares of qualcomm rose 19 , the biggest intraday move since 2008. Broadcom also rose. Valuing the company at 111 billion. As a major supplier to apple, broadcom says it will return its headquarters to the u. S. From singapore. The Company Already lists san jose, california, as a corporate coheadquarters. Lets get straight into this with ian king. Also with me is brooke sutherland. Ian, first to you. This is an unsolicited bid by broadcom. What is the likelihood this happens . Ian we are in the early stages, it has not been submitted as far as we are aware. Tremendously complicated situation, so many things at play here. The basic thing to think about is you have two Companies Already in the top 10 of Semi Conductor makers worldwide. The will be shooting up to number three. That is something regulators will be showing interest in. Got to be something that customers like apple and samsung will be looking at and deciding whether they really want this to happen. A number of steps definitely have to be taken before this becomes a reality. Brett brooke, you recently wrote a column saying that the ceo was in the oval office in the firm grip of President Trump and announced the move of the headquarters from singapore to the u. S. , but that is about what were hearing about today. Tell us why you think yesterday and today are connected. Brooke i think it is a big part of it, and i think the initial thought when this was announced that they were going to icile backng redom to the u. S. , is this an attempt to smooth Regulatory Approval for the Communications Deal which is still in front of 50th. I think this qualcomm deal would have been virtually impossible if broadcom was still based in singapore. Just looking at the push back they already got on the brocade deal. On the deal attending to acquire company, tightening the i think you will see regulatory push back but i is easier if broadcom is a u. S. Company. Brad how much of yesterday was theater . Ian depends on who you speak to, but a lot of people were being somewhat cynical about what happened as the pending brocade situation. It already had headquarters here. The votto the company that sort of took over broadcom and then changed its name to broadcom was a division of hewlettpackard back in the day. Very complicated situation. A lot of facilities already in the u. S. The government of singapore says, you know what, this does not mean anything. They are not moving anybody anywhere. It is a change of registration. There is certainly no shortage of cynicism about that move. Brooke i think the interesting thing is even after they moved to the u. S. , the tax rate will go up to 10 , 12 at most. Theyre not going to pay even the 20 republicans are pushing in the tax plan. They still get a significant amount of their revenues from china, from asia. It is sort of a symbolic move to the u. S. , but we are now talking about multiples of billions of dollars coming in in extra tax revenue being invested in the u. S. Beyond what broadcom is already doing. Brad what does this mean for the smartphone owner, the iphone owner . There is a broadcom chip in the phone, a qualcomm chip in the phone. That is correct. As you know, the supply chain is very important to what apple does, to what it is capable of bringing to the market. The same is true of samsung, arguably to a lesser extent because a lot of what it uses it makes itself. Particularly from apples point of view, a couple of huge components, the wifi, the cellular, really you have to rely on these companies. When they get together, is that a good thing, a bad thing . Brad apple is already raging waging war against qualcomm. This ongoing litigation to try to reduce qualcomms licensing stranglehold. Ian that is another one of the possible derivatives from this deal. Perhaps broadcom has a better relationship with apple, is more compliant as far as apple is concerned than qualcomm is. They come together, qualcomm goes away, apple gets the deal it wants, qualcomm shareholders get rid of the huge overhang and potentially even chip orders as well. It is a complicated situation. Brad brooke, if you are intel, samsung, or other rivals, how do you see this potential deal between broadcom and qualcomm . Brooke obviously it is a massive deal, the biggest chipmaker combination ever. So i think that does sort of change the playing field, but i think you have to look at this as, are we facing a peak craziness in semi connector dealmaking . There have been so many deals across the sector. When you think about the fact that qualcomm is still trying to close a 40 billion takeover at nxp, and broadcom is trying to , i mean, brocade deal these are just deals piling on top of each other. This is going to be extremely difficult to integrate all of this. That may open up opportunities for intel and other people to take market share away while you have these two companies tied up on integrating multiple deals. Brett ok, brooke sutherland, ian king, thank you for joining us. Coming up, the highly anticipated iphone x hit stores today. Apple ceo tim cook says the Current Quarter will be bigger thanks to the current lineup, we will discuss if apple can keep up with the demand, next. Bloomberg technology is Live Streaming on twitter. Check us out at bloomberg tech tv weekdays at 5 00 p. M. In new york and 2 00 p. M. In san francisco. This is bloomberg. Brad it is safe to say the demand for the iphone x is high, and expectations are even higher. Lines are forming around the world at Apple Retail Stores as they unveiled the new smartphones of the public. High demand for the device also boosted apple stock, briefly dipping into market cap about 900 billion, a first for the u. S. Company. Earlier today, the daybreak Americas Team sat down with longtime apple analyst gene munster and asked him about the company growth. The growth rate for next year is probably going to be closer to 20 , because we will have this big cycle so that really kicks in. That is the iphone x and why i think we will continue to see the stock moving higher throughout the day. People will feel better about what next year looks like. Brad joining me now, mark gurman, who managed to snag the new iphone earlier. Welcome, mark. What is that gleaming rectangle of metal and plastic and glass you are holding . Mark it is an iphone x. I still have the plastic on it. Brad heard you having trouble activating that . Mark we posted a story on the terminal about this. People were having issues own verizon and at t, trouble activating the thing. In order to use it, you need to activate it, one of the restrictions is on the carrier side. Some reporting that the issues are clearing. Up i called verizon and had to have it manually activated, which is not how it is supposed to work. You were supposed to be able to take it out of the box and it works. I had to wait a few minutes on the phone. First world problems, not a big deal, but that is what it is. Brad you and a colleague monitored some of the lines outside stores today. There are long lines. Does that tell us about any demand for the iphone . Mark it tells us about the excitement for the iphone x. A lot of people lined up. This,ot seen lines like and i have been following this since day one of the iphone. There have not been lines like this since the first one in 2007 or the iphone 4 in 2010. This is New Territory for people who have been looking at apple the last four or five years. Brad they do cultivate questions around supply, right . They went out and told customers to arrive early for the new phone. There were about whether they would have enough. To think they orchestrate some of these lines because it is great theater . Mark they definitely wanted lines. The way they look at product launches are, they are the Opening Weekend for a new star wars or batman movie. They want the lines, people to show their friends the new devices. They like doing viral marketing, they call it buzz marketing inside apple. It is all part of the plan. Stories there were already scalpers outside of the store in hong kong reselling the iphone x. You had a line in your story that the store in new york sent out chinese speakers to speak to people in line. You got offense, there were ownle in the line not to and iphone x but for more transactional reasons. How big of a conservation is this that you basically have scalpers waiting to get their hands on this . Mark every time apple comes with a wholly new redesigned product, you will see people from those asian markets coming to the u. S. In order to buy them and resell them. In hong kong, it is more difficult to get an iphone right now because some of them are only sold to the carriers and other places sell them in a s im free environment. Hong kong, you cannot buy that. There is room for the scalpers to make a little business out of that. Brad what do we know about the supply . There were questions about whether the supply chain can be the demand. Everybody in line, they get phones . Do the people who preordered get phones . Mark the supply is surprisingly strong and resilient to demand. The shipping times dropped down to three or four weeks globally as of last night. It started going down three or four weeks in italy and germany and the u. K. , but now it is three to four weeks everywhere, which is not bad. The question is, how long does the three or four weeks shipping on last for . That is when we start to know the supply issues. Everyone i talked to who lined up today did not leave the store emptyhanded. Brad it is amazing. To, seem to have managed there were questions when they were delaying it so far after the release of the 8. What was behind that . Would they have enough . This week, they announced blockbuster earnings. I guess the question is, is there any question right now over whether apple can execute in this quarter . Mark i think tim cook will get to keep his job, but they are doing great, honestly. The Revenue Growth and unit growth yearoveryear for all of their products as well as the different segments and markets, very impressive and very strong for this time of year for them. Brad last question. The one number that jumped out at me was 24 quarter on quarter gross quarter growth in the services business. What is perennially the question mark for apple, and they seem to be executing in that area as well. Mark they did not introduce any new services or features in that segment over the last quarter. Usually when they introduce new products, that hikes up with the of what the revenues are, but they do not do that. This is the existing product or folio. Brad iphone x owner and Bloomberg Technology reporter, mark gurman, thank you for joining us. Coming up, bitcoins never ending seaurge. It is the largest cryptocurrency in the world, but even as its meteor rise continues, naysayers are not going away. That is next. This is bloomberg. Brad a story we are watching. Amazon is expanding up north. The Company Plans to open a new office in vancouver, creating about 1000 new jobs. Amazon plans to open the doors of the new office in 2020. All of this while the Company Currently searches for a second north american headquarters. Now to the story we have been following all year, bitcoins wild ride. The worlds leading cryptocurrency is currently over 7,000. That is a nearly 650 jump since the year started, and it is dominating the cryptocurrency market cap. Right now, it is over 120 billion in total value, that is nearly 100 billion more than its top rival, but concerns remain about bitcoin from big banker doubters to talk of a bubble. To discuss the latest i would , like to bring in the chief commercial officer of bitpay. Welcome. Thank you for joining us. Tell us what this incredible appreciation for bitcoin over the past weeks and months has done for you guys. Great question. Bitpay is the Global Leader in payments across the world. Over 1 billion this year. However, we have only increased 10 to 15 month over month. A lot of people know us, but we also allow a lot of b2b transactions around the world. Fortune 100 companies will use us to have their suppliers in latin america or asia pay their invoices to europe or america where it is cheaper and quicker than a bank wire. That is solving a real pain point around the world. Brad coin base, you are saying there is a little more friction in your market. Sonny our market is different because we are dealing with suppliers and merchants that way, but it is great because everyone that buys bitcoin eventually needs to pay for purchased goods and that will eventually flow to our system so we are processing 1 billion right now. The goldmark is 120 billion right now so we want that to go through bit pay merchants eventually. Brad one big change it seems recently, big institutions getting into cryptocurrencies and bitcoin. Bill miller bringing bitcoin into his value fund. Showing amazing results as a result. What kind of impact are the institutions having on the price . Sonny i think the institutions are the ones driving it up. They have been on the sidelines for a while. But when it started getting a 50 billion market cap, they start to really notice, and 70 billion, 100 billion, they started joining it because it is a big enough market where they can play in it. I met with a global billion dollars hedge fund the other day and they started treating bitcoin 4 months ago and now have a position over 100 million right now and you are starting to see where Family Offices and hedge funds around the world are starting to locate a small amount of portfolio to bitcoin. Again, since it is global and all of these hedge funds are involved, that 1 they allocated to it starts adding up. Brad legitimate asset or bubble waiting to explode . Sonny i think it depends on the use case around the world. We have a Development Team in argentina and they get 100 of their salaries in bitcoin because they prefer bitcoin over the local currency. On the b2b use case, solving a pain point where it is cheaper and quicker than a bank wire. America is not much of a pain point but people use it more for an Asset Allocation method. You are saying different pain points around the world that people are using bitcoin four, so i dont know about the price of it as much, but the uses definitely there. Brad there is a pervasive criticism that transaction times are slow, that there is not much you can do with it other than sort of hold it. Jamie dimon, obviously a big and persistent critic of bitcoin. What do you make of the criticism . Sonny we help some of the largest law firms in america accept bitcoin from the International Clients. We work with one of the largest real estate shops in new york. They wanted bitcoin for their International Clients because they are tech savvy people. A bitcoin transaction may take one hour but that is cheaper and quicker from a bank wire from singapore or hong kong. Jamie dimon and all of them getting involved, it shows that bitcoin is starting to take notice and getting big enough where banks are starting to wonder. Brad these are people who buy the currency, he called them stupid. Sonny not my developers in argentina. They are having a great time. As bitcoin appreciates and the local currency is going down. It depends again where you are located in the world and what your reason for buying it is. Brad this week, i noticed amazon registered three domains related to cryptocurrency. Does amazon start accepting bitcoin soon . Sonny no, because it does not solve a pain point for them. Amazon is moving global amounts of currency in the u. S. Alone, based on other Payment Methods that are worth more than 100 billion. I can see amazon maybe accepting bitcoin for billing payment in brazil or argentina, where someone may not have a credit card that would be accepted. Brad i do not hope to understand this but i will ask anyways. There is an upcoming fork. Very quickly, what does it mean . Could it be a problem for bitcoin and people who hold it . Sonny you are seeing a lot of people actually leaving other currencies and buying into bitcoin for the upcoming fork, hoping they might get another currency. What will happen it is like what happened with bitcoin cash a couple months ago. Hopefully it goes well and transactions i will be quicker and cheaper. That is what we hope for. Brad sonny, thank you for joining us. Sonny thanks. Brad coming up, as the self driving competition heats up, we will take a deeper dive into the Handsfree Technology driving Autonomous Vehicles. This is bloomberg. Who knew that phones would start doing everything . Entertaining us, getting us back on track, and finding us dates. Phones really have changed. So why hasnt the way we pay for them . Introducing Xfinity Mobile. You only pay for data and can easily switch between pay per gig and unlimited. No one else lets you do that. See how much you can save. Choose by the gig or unlimited. Xfinity mobile. A new kind of network desi