Snapchat's New Monetization, Biggest Crypto Fine, and Locked Out of All Accounts

💰 Creators: Mid-Roll Ads Give Creators a Cut of Ad Revenue

🏦 Crypto: BlockFi Gets a $100 Million Fine

🔒 Product: You Don’t Own Your Logins, Story of Getting Locked Out

Snapchat Mid-Roll Ads Give Creators a Cut of Ad Revenue#

Snapchat is introducing mid-roll advertisements later this year. It’ll only be available for Snap Stars initially, who are creators who have large followings. I believe this is the first time Snapchat is enabling monetization that is a cut of ad revenue, and feels like a direct contrast to how TikTok operates, specifically how TikTok (and Snap currently) have avoided giving creators a percentage of ad revenue by putting ads BETWEEN creator content - not on top or in conjunction with individual content. See my post last week and Hank Green’s video for more on that.

BlockFi Hit With Big Fine#

BlockFi agreed to pay $100 million in fines yesterday. The two primary allegations are that BlockFi misrepresented how safe or over-collateralized their loans were, and that the company was not registered to offer securities, yet still did. BlockFi intends to register its new lending product correctly with the SEC, and if approved will be the first “proper” interest-bearing crypto security (in the eyes of the government).

Losing One Login Could Lock You Out of Everything#

A popular Hacker News post today detailed a user’s experience responding to spam in their gmail inbox and immediately having their account locked. This prompted a conversation about how valuable one’s email is to work, authentication, records, receipts, etc.

With your gmail and Google account locked, chances are you’re also locked out of several other services, especially if you haven’t set up a secondary method of access with important services. I have a proposal that Sign in with Cryptographic Key should become as prevalent as social logins in the near future. Or at least an option for account recovery. It’s one of the few items you can totally control — you can’t really say that about phone numbers, social logins, or emails.