Allegations. Global news, 24 hours a day, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries. Im Alisa Parenti. This is bloomberg. Bloomberg technology is next. Emily im emily chang. This is bloomberg technology. A new number two. Coinbases Insider Trading suspicions. Investigation into a sudden spike in bitcoin cash just before it was officially introduced on one of most americas most popular cryptocurrency exchanges. Apple 2018 plans for a custom application that works effectively on the iphone, ifad, ipad, and mac. First, uber has a new number two. The worlds most valuable startup has named Bonnie Hartfords chief operating officer Bonnie Hartford its chief operating officer. She is the second highprofile hire by the over ceo. Move,n interesting considering the other uber news out early wednesday. Top courtan unions has officially ruled that the right Healing Service should be regulated ridehailing service should be regulated as a transport company, not a tech o ne. Joining us now from london, Frederic Court and eric newcomer. Lets start there. Who is this, and why is he right for this job . He has a long history with dara cautious ascii long history with the ceo. I think thats part of it. A did a good job at orbitz, deadly company. He was able to get a good exit, selling it to daras expedia. Orbitz andnce at expedia is super relevant to over. Its relative expertise, having a Good Relationship with the ceo. He was doing this advisor role to feel the company out. Emily he wrote a series of tweets saying over already got more uber arlready and provides more Flexible Work opportunities than any other company in the world. A formere hire of Airline Industry expert imply about the direction they want to take this company . I think it shows the global ubersnd seriousness of business as an employer, for one. His tweets speak to the amount he thinks about over uber about a global employer. I think that will be a top right party for him. Top priority for him. The Airline Industry is a parallel that uber does not love. Barney made the point to me that airlines are doing much better these days. They are more profitable businesses. But certainly that expertise as a Business Model comparison, but also as a Similar Service industry is useful background to bring to uber. Emily i want to talk about this in the context of the news out of the eu that uber will be regulated as a transport company, not a tech company. This is a big blow to uber. What does this mean . Its bad for over because it means more regulation, more potential that they could have to pay their drivers more, have more regulated rules around how they pay their drivers, instead of being this digital platform that is super disconnected from the rules of local regulators. On the other hand, uber is already regulated as a Transportation Company in london and paris, two of its most profitable markets. It has already started to deal with this. Daras stance has generally been we are going to work with local regulators to allow them to regulate us as they want. Obviously, we are going to have input. This is bad in uber and uber has lobbied against it, but the company is prepared to deal with what they saw coming. Emily as a longtime investor in europe, what do make of this decision, given the challenges that uber is facing, in london specifically, where you are . Its interesting. It is confirmation that the arel regulators in europe looking at these Tech Companies and saying, we have rules and you have to operate within the context of those rules. In the shortterm, it doesnt change too much for uber, because they have to operate within those parameters, but it does cap the potential. There appeared to be a service they were hoping to launch across multiple countries. There were countries they were hoping to enter just with peertopeer. That will not be possible. That restricts possibilities. Its an interesting time. As a user, the experience, the uber experience for consumers has been diluted. Drivers canceling. Its almost as if a change of guard, change of management, maybe relief of the pressure has had an impact at the level of the customer experience. I think bringing new management will tighten the grip on the business again. Its highly needed. In the shortterm, uber has got to focus on its core. Emily what signal do you think this sends from european regulators about the gate innomy gig economy general . There are talks that it could expect a company like airbnb in the future, it may be regulated more like a hotel than a home rental site as they would prefer. There is a sort of general move and realization across europe that many of the Tech Companies that are global, that have launched very Successful Services that have become dominant across europe have done that by pushing the boundaries too much. They are not paying their fair share of taxes. Its fair to expect a tightening of the grid. Also a realization by the local authorities that they do need to create a level Playing Field for the local operators as well. And force certain rules, but on top ofl discipline those companies who have been able to use ireland as a place to do some invoicing. We see that changing with facebook as well. Change. Wave of politicians,s and from the local services and hey, maybe to say, we have been too open. China has been very good at closing those doors. Maybe europe needs to do that as well. Has been know dara traveling a lot. How do you think this ruling will impact his strategy . I think there is a lot of europe that still needs to get figured out. With hiring barney, it is a statement, ok, internally, somebody else who is as skilled as me needs to run the internal business because there is so much to do outside. The situation in south east asia, competing there is a question whether uber will come to source of some sort of troops or truce or acquisition. Questions. F i think he is very much going to be the public face, traveling around and establishing themselves better in markets, cutting deals, or making an apology as necessary. Emily interesting. Eric newcomer who covers bloomberg covers uber for bloomberg technology. Frederic court, thank you for stopping by. On the earnings front, blackberry is raising expectations it can hit its growth target by the end of the fiscal year in march. It won new customers from government and the private sector in the third quarter. Blackberrys estimates the estimates be estimates beat estimates. Stitch fix had its biggest decline on wednesday since becoming a public company. This, after reporting its spending more money than it it is spending more money than stitch fixexpected to expand inw apparel categories. One of the most popular cryptocurrencies on the planet is facing its biggest controversy to date. Why coinbase is investigating possible Insider Trading on its platforms. Bloomberg technology is livestreaming on twitter. This is bloomberg. Emily it has been a wild 24 hours at coinbase. The platform is investigating allegations of Insider Trading in the hours before the Company Announced it would enable bitcoin cash. Meantime, the volatile cryptocurrency market is gaining the attention of local global institutions. It has increased significantly in value, but it is not connected to the core of the Financial System in general, so it is not levered. Orders of magnitude is less than the market cap. Half the market cap of apple. Its in that order of magnitude. Its more like an equity type risk that has spread fairly widely around the world. Emily to wrap up all the news in cryptocurrency, lets bring in editor atlarge cory johnson. Whats happening at coinbase . Cory this is the great fear of an unregulated market, which is that someone will take advantage of that to do something illegal or maybe not illegal, just deceptive. Its a great fear for coinbase, certainly, and a great fear for anyone involved in this trading. The regulated trading that we are used to, that has Investor Protections built into it, centuries of Investor Protection built up over time are not extant in the world of trading in these cryptocurrencies. Some could have jumped in there ahead of trade. Emily the fear is that coinbase employees are front running . Cory or someone. We know coinbase was being attacked by hackers. There were denial of service attacks across the industry. We dont know who could have gotten into their systems. We dont know how their systems work. We know they are not regulated and monitored. Anytime anyone uses the word regulation in any context, we can at least think regulations it is regulations exist as protections. Investor protections and Market Monitoring that happens across most of the trading world, certainly in the united states, doesnt happen with boy with bitcoin. Emily there has been a lot of chatter about this. , also alio manager bloomberg columnist, tweeted, my own personal view is coinbase is a zero over the next three years due to sketchy stuff that will take them down. Thats strong. Cory it is strong. This is the issue. When you make a market, a fair and orderly market, a principal, guiding rule, letting investors know they are going to get a fair and orderly market it could destroy the business of coinbase. This kind of reputational issue is extraordinarily serious. Emily interestingly, as you have more novice investors getting into this, some of the alternative coins are becoming more and more popular, the cheapest going, for example cheapest coin, for example. Cory across the board, all of these sold off. Bitcoin declined by about 2. 5 . Others were down today, 1. 5 to 2 . The total size of market capitalizations, as we heard in that soundbite, are mindboggling. Ripple well have the ceo of ripple on. Hold on to your seats. The ceo will come on next week to talk to us. The ceo of ripple controls most of the ripple currency. They decided, as they build a real business around the currency and around the blockchain technology, they will sell off those pieces of ripple in regular fashion to take that risk out of their business and let people know whats coming to the marketplace. On some level, it seems to me what ripple is saying, we dont want to be in the business of holding on to coin. We want to be in the business of actually allowing this to be used in some interesting way so business can transact on ripple networks. Emily meantime, north korea is allegedly behind a big bitcoin heist on south korea. On a south korea exchange. Tell us about that. Cory it shows us that some of the leaders in global hacking our finance focus on financial crime. As rudimentary as most of the technology, industry, Power Systems are in north korea, theyve had tremendous abilities when it comes to hacking. Years exactly this time of three years ago when we saw the hacking of sony. We saw the release of all those inled to sony executives getting year three years ago when we saw the hacking offired, all about thish james franco that made fun of the leader of north korea, yet that seemingly ridiculous incident led to big changes in hollywood, but also showed us the power of north korean hackers in the past. Those efforts have gotten only stronger as u. S. Sanctions have gotten tougher on north korea. Emily the u. S. Has officially blamed north korea for the want to cry attack the wannacry attack. Coming up, there is a big change coming to apples mac and ios users. How it is planning a onestop shop or all of your app needs for all of your app needs. On the bloomberg. Watch us live. If you miss an interview, you can go back to it. Play along with the charts we show you on air. This is for bloomberg subscribers only. Emily could walmart be getting ready to ditch checkout lines and cashiers . That could be the future for the superstore, according to a report from recode. Store number eight is looking to reimagine the business. You can walk out with any item and walk out with any cash changing hands. Itll happen automatically. People will supposedly be able to shop via text message. A glimpse of one of the longawaited projects products, a mixed reality headset. E goggles punkesqu come with a controller and computer pack to wear around your waist. Theyre facing increased competition from the likes of google and apple in the augmented reality realm. Bloomberg has previously reported that year with costs between 1500 and the betweenld cost 1500 and 2000. Apple will ditch having different apps for ios and macs os. One single app will work with a touchscreen or mouse and trackpad, depending on which devices being used. For more, i want to bring in who else but bloombergs mark gurman. What exactly does this mean . Mark developers will want to write more apps, make more money from apps, sell more of them. Will consumer consumers will only have to buy one set of apps. No matter what apple device you have, the apple will work app will work. Emily how will it work . Mark you will be able to download one application. It will automatically download and sink to all your devices. On an iphone, it will work with a touchscreen. On an ipad, a bigger touchscreen. Will be extended and work with a trackpad, keyboard, and mouse, instead of a touchscreen. Emily does it imply that mac might have a touchscreen in the future . Mark i think it does. Its part of a longterm initiative to make mac more like it it is part of a longterm initiative to make macs more like iphone and ipad. Emily apple was not the first to you this to do this. Mark no, they were not. Google android have google and microsoft have looked into this. Google with the new pixel book, you can download android apps. Its pretty integrated. Apples approach will be slightly different. It will be one type of app that expands to a different interface depending on the device you use it on. Emily im curious about your thoughts about these magically articles magic leap gogg les. Mark its going to be expensive, between 1500 and 2500. Their big and bulky they are big and bulky. It seems pretty involved. Im not sure most people will want to wear that. Its a mixed reality headset, which is basically ar. It loops the real world and Virtual Worlds together. The concept of ar is enticing for a headset. You want glasses with ar, so i could walk around say hi to you and see other things. How weird would it be if i walked up with that big thing and tried to talk to you . Its too early. Google and apple and amazon in the future will set the stage for real ar that people will want to use. Emily this company has raised 1. 9 billion already, and they are walking into a fairly competitive market. However, there has not been a breakout success. Mark good luck to their investors is what i have to say. We will see how it plays out. They have been hyping up nothing until now. Now they are saying they are going to have a headset soon, but it is still just concept photos. It seems a little suspicious, but we will see. Emily he will wait for your review. Mark gurman, we will wait for your review. Mark gurman, thank you. More on ubers new coo. How he could help turn the company around. You can listen to the listen to bloomberg on the radio. This is bloomberg. Retail. Under pressure like never before. And its connected technology thats moving companies forward fast. Ecommerce. Real time inventory. Virtual changing rooms. Thats why retailers rely on comcast business to deliver consistent Network Speed across multiple locations. Every corporate office, warehouse and store near or far covered. Leaving every competitor, threat and challenge outmaneuvered. Comcast business outmaneuver. Alisa im Alisa Parenti in washington, and you are watching bloomberg technology. Lets start with a check of your first word news. President trump says the fight against Islamic State in iraq and syria is almost over. Trump today, the coalition to defeat isis has recaptured nearly 200 100 of the territory once held by the Islamic State in iraq and syria. We will be finished pretty soon with the isis situation in those two countries. Insa trump called the king saudi arabia to express wasdarity after a misslile supposedly fired at his residence. The former president of brazil says he is not worried about the upcoming decision of an appeal over his conviction on corruption and money laundering. He had previously served two terms. He said he will remain a president ial candidate until hes officially barred. A human rights watchdog says 92 people were killed during kenyas month of election turmoil. The opposition linger leader has accused Kenyan Security forces of killing scores of his supporters. The incoming president won the election with 98 of the vote. Has accused Kenyan Security global news, 24 hours a day, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries. Im Alisa Parenti. This is bloomberg. Its just after 5 30 p. M. Here in washington, 6 30 thursday morning in hong kong. We i are joined by Sophie Kamaruddin. Good morning. Global news, 24 hours a day,sopd traders have lost the holiday spirit. Treasuries retreating after the passage of the u. S. Tax bill in congress, extending the glow oil global selloff. Asian stocks are set for a soft start after a mixed session in the u. S. More gyrations ahead for the japanese market as they count down to the bojs last policy meeting of the year. After the picking up biggest decline in two weeks. The boj does expected to stay in a Holding Pattern close out the quietest year for policy since 2013. Bitcoins looking for a third day. 58. Rading above im Sophie Kamaruddin in hong kong. Up next, more of bloomberg technology. Emily this is bloomberg technology. Im emily chang. Back to the top tech story of the day. Uber has tapped into the travel industry yet again, naming Barney Harford as its new coo. Will ov