On March 23, the biggest crypto theft to date took place when crypto currencies worth roughly $625 million were stolen from the Ronin blockchain, that backs “Axie Infinity” a play-to-earn crypto game. A Thursday announcement from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said that the hacking took place in North Korea. The crypto heist has been attributed to the Lazarus Group in the same country.

The agency also said that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s (DPRK) Lazarus Group and APT38 were responsible for the theft that was reported on March 29th. The group was reportedly laundering the money for North Korea’s ruler Kim Jing Un. The federal law enforcement agency said that the US Treasury Department has been working to stem the flow of funds, by whatever means possible.

The Lazarus Group is the most notorious gang in North Korea. It is believed to be responsible for hacking over a billion dollars worth of crypto currency and cash. Hacking has become an abundant source of revenue in North Korea (DPRK) which has been facing sanctions from many countries around the world, from decades.

According to the Ronin Network, the hackers were able to access 173,600 ether and 25.5 million in USDC, which is a stable coin linked to the U.S. dollar.

The crypto is being laundered through Tornado Cash. This service lets people hide the place where the crypto comes from. Tornado Cash was also used by the hackers who had stolen $34 million, in January, from the website Crypto. It is still not known if the federal authorities are in the process of shutting down this service.

Ronin Network, owned by the developer group Sky Mavis, said that were “still in the process of adding additional security measures” and the bridge that was blocked off after the hacker attack, would be back by the end of the month. The bridge facilitated transfer of funds between Axie Infinity and other blockchain networks.

On Wednesday, Amazon Inc. announced that third party sellers on its online platform would have to pay a five percent surcharge for costs due to fuel and inflation. It is supposed to begin on April 28 and will apply to those who use “Fulfilled by Amazon” service. The service stows, packs and delivers these third party sellers’ goods. Analysts think that the surcharge will be added on to consumer prices by the sellers.

The website of the Seattle based retailer mentioned the levy of five percent for fuel and inflation that will be put on online merchants who use Amazon for their shipping. These third party sellers use its fulfillment services and the company believes that the rise is in sync with the rates offered by other shipment services such as UPS and FedEx, its main competitors.

The giant retailer also said that the rates were “subject to change” and would be applied across products including apparel and non apparel. The company explained that costs had gone up during the pandemic and it had tried to absorb these costs.

It mentioned that wage increase, construction of additional warehouses and hiring of workers had increased. It said that it was only increasing its levy to deal with what it termed as “permanent costs” and those that are incurred as they face competitors.

Amazon also said that there had been an increase in costs after the pandemic due to challenges from fuel and inflation which is at an all time high.

Stacy Mitchell, the co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance said that Amazon was taking advantage of the moment and that the retailer was taking money from third-party sellers and adding it to its business, according to a report in ABC News,

About 22 percent of the giant retailer’s revenue comes from fees it collects from third party sellers. Amazon has been accused of copying popular items and products by making “knockoffs.” It also boosts these made by Amazon on its site and has faced a few legal suits or memes mocking the company. Has it found another new way of making money without much effort as suggested by Mitchell of the anti monopoly organization? In the current situation where fuel prices have skyrocketed due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it is a point to ponder.

Elon Musk (NASDAQ:TESLA) had recently disclosed in a Securities and Exchange (SEC) filing that he had bought an over 9 percent stake in the social media platform Twitter. As a majority shareholder, he was offered a seat on the board but refused it. This lead to speculation that he was looking for a hostile takeover. He also took potshots in his different style of communication at Twitter. The speculation seem to have come true as he has made a takeover cash offer of tens of billion of dollars.

Musk filed an updated 13D on Thursday, with the SEC which stated that he would pay $54.20 in cash per share. He sneaked in a 420 in his offer, adding more speculation as he was in trouble with the SEC in 2018 when he said that he would take Tesla private at $420 but that tweet proved to be a false and misleading statement, as per later investigations on that matter, leading to a fine and more.

According to Bloomberg, Twitter has a value of $37 billion. Musk has offered to buy it for approximately $43 billion as per the stocks recent share price but this would not dent his fortune. According to Forbes, Elon Musk is the richest man in the world and is about $100 billion ahead of the second richest man in the world.

Elon Musk has used Twitter for almost all his posts similar to former president Donald Trump. He has not been suspended from the platform like Trump. However, he also calls himself an advocate of “free speech” mentioning it as one of the reasons he wants to takeover the company and make it private.

Elon Musk sent a letter on April 13, to Bret Taylor, the Chairman of Twitter (NASDAQ:TWTR). He mentioned that he was offering $54.20 per share. He said that he would unlock the extraordinary potential of Twitter and would have to reconsider his position as shareholder if his offer was not considered.

Meanwhile, Tesla stock fell by almost 2 percent as Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, The Boring Company and Neuralink had grandiosely told Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter that it would be difficult to run big companies simultaneously. Incidentally, Musk is running 4 big companies and now wants to take over Twitter. This might be making Tesla shareholders wary?

The board at Twitter acknowledged that Elon Musk had made an offer for the social media platform. The company has reportedly called for a board meeting today; to discuss the offer.

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CNN+ launched its paid streaming service on March 29. It is reportedly facing teething problems as the number of viewers who sign up on a daily basis are less than 10,000, according to sources. The cable news network has not as yet released any data on the matter. It was available on Roku only on Monday and is still not streaming on Android TV.

The subscription news streaming service of CNN was launched by CEO Jason Kilar two weeks before Warner Bros. merged with Discovery. He had been upbeat about the numbers in an interview with CNBC but had not shared the numbers. He left the company, a few days ago.

A CNN spokesperson told CNBC that they continued “to be happy with the launch and its progress after only two weeks.” However, people familiar with the matter told the outlet that fewer than 10,000 people were using the recently launched streaming service, on the condition of anonymity, as the data is nonpublic.

According to a report in Axios, around $300 million has been spent on the streaming service, including marketing. The news channel had planned a billion dollar investment in the next four years but the outlet said that hundreds of millions of those dollars will no longer be spent.

CNN will be lead by Chris Licht from May 1. Many decisions including the new budget and more will be discussed when he is at the helm. There could be many changes including resignations as well as job cuts if the budget is cut. There could also be a decrease in the projected viewership if funds get limited.

Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav has not commented publicly on CNN+ after the merger. In February, he told CNBC that he had not got a business review on what CNN+ was going to be and how it was going to be offered.

People familiar with the matter said that it could be offered as a part of a bundle that also had the popular streaming platforms HBO Max and Discovery+, which already have millions of subscribers.

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