Reddit wants to develop its own NFT-based marketplace, Hertz buys 100,000 Tesla cars worth $4.2 billion, and Blue Origin announces its own space station.
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It’s all the tech news that’s trending right now, welcome to Hashtag Trending! It’s Wednesday, October 27, and I’m your host, Jori Negin-Shecter.
Reddit apparently wants to develop its own NFT platform to trade digital goods. NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, use blockchain to certify the authenticity of digital goods. Reddit’s new venture was tipped off by a quiet job posting that asked for a senior engineer. According to the post, the company wanted someone to help design and build the backend for a merchant platform for NFT-backed digital goods. There’s only one vacancy so far, but the post suggests that more will soon follow.
Rental car company Hertz has just bought 100,000 new Teslas in a shocking deal. At an estimated $4.2 billion in value, this is the single largest order for electric vehicles ever, according to Bloomberg. The scale of the deal is even more electrifying considering Hertz went into bankruptcy just last year but was saved by a $5.9 billion investment. This isn’t the end for the company either; Hertz eventually wants to electrify all of its 500,000 cars in its fleet. The first batch of Tesla Model 3s will be available for rent in the U.S. and EU starting early November. On the other end of the table, the news briefly jolted Tesla’s market cap to over a trillion dollars.
Finally, Jeff Bezos wants to take his space venture a step further by building a full-on space station. Bezos’ space company Blue Origins announced plans to build Orbital Reef, a space station in low Earth orbit, for research, manufacturing, and even as a hotel. The station promises reusable space transportation, smart design, accompanied with advanced automation and logistics. Notably, Blue Origin isn’t alone in the project, as other partners include Boeing, Redwire Space, and Arizona State University, who have each been tasked with developing a part of the station. Besides the announcement and simple mockup images, Blue Origin has remained tight lipped about the project for now.
That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Hashtag Trending is a part of the ITWC Podcast network. Add us to your Alexa Flash Briefing or your Google Home daily briefing. Make sure to sign up for our Daily IT Wire Newsletter to get all the news that matters directly in your inbox every day. If you have a suggestion or tip, please drop us a line in the comments or via email. Thanks for listening, I’m Jori Negin-Shecter.