Also, LinkedIn now has Instagram story feature lookalike, and Microsoft, Google vow to train Southeast Asia’s future tech workers

Bitcoin value has been declining and now somewhere around US$4,358 [e27]

Bitcoin has suffered a significant decline in value, now reportedly around US$4,358. In total, the market has crashed for 16 per cent in value, something that’s arguably unexpected for the crypto community.

Bitcoin’s drop is followed by other crypto coins like Ethereum (now US$24, 14.85 per cent dip to US$138), Litecoin (now US$4.88, a 12.35 per cent to US$34.55), and Bitcoin Cash has plummeted by 19.96 per cent to US$211.

A factor that likely plays a part in this are the Bitcoin Cash fork resulting in unmitigated war between the old and new Bitcoin cash called Bitcoin Cash ABC (the old one) and Bitcoin Cash SV (the new one). A quickening pace of ICOs converting their coins to fiat currencies because of US Securities and Exchange Commission’s decision to fine two blockchain companies can also be another reason.

The currency’s volatility has been under fire since early September to mid-November when Bitcoin’s price has been around US$6,000s and now it comes to US$4,000s, causing worry that it might continue to tumble after staying on its current range.

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What may worry investors hoping to buy the dip is that the volatility index has also dropped. Today it is at 2.06 per cent, which is on par with a slow decline from 3.84 per cent in July.

Bitcoin’s today’s drop comes just six-days after the required fork.

LinkedIn now has Instagram stories lookalike [Techcrunch]

There’s now a slideshows on LinkedIn app in the professional social media’s latest effort to be relevant with younger audiences. As a first step, LinkedIn launched “Student Voices” just for university students in the U.S. that will appear atop the LinkedIn home screen and lets students post short videos to their Campus Playlist.

Just like the stories’ rule, the videos will disappear from the playlist after a week while staying permanently visible on a user’s own profile in the Recent Activity section. Students can engage with other schools through this new feature by watching their school’s own slideshow and the ones of nearby universities.

“We’ve created this new product to help students connect with one another around shared experiences on campus to help create a sense of community and to help students share their academic experiences like internships, career fairs, and class projects that they’d want to show off to recruiters as part of their personal brand,” said the company’s Product Manager Isha Patel, which is kind of ironic with the fact that it will disappear in a week.

LinkedIn is now prototyping youth-centric options like GIF comments, location sharing in messages, and reactions-style buttons such as “Clap,” “Insightful,” “Hmm,” and “Support.”

Microsoft, Google to train roughly 20 millions Southeast Asians youth by 2020 [South China Morning Post]

Microsoft, Google, and other major names in tech have vowed to provide trainings in digital skills for 20 million Southeast Asians by 2020. This initiative is to make the market’s working-age population is ready for future job market.

In the World Economic Forum’s “Asean Digital Skills Vision 2020” initiative, there will be plans to provide Southeast Asian (ASEAN) with training, funds for scholarships, internships, and shaping the curricula of technology and computing courses, among other measures.

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Other companies pledging training include Cisco, Grab, Lazada Group, Sea Group, and Tokopedia along with leading countries’ ministers like Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore and Vietnam. Google pledges to train 3 million small-to-medium-size enterprise employees across ASEAN.

The increased adoption of technology could potentially displace up to 28 million jobs in the region by 2020, which would require employees to be reskilled. Meanwhile, the level of skills among workers in the digital field in ASEAN is not as good as it needs to be to capture this digital opportunity.

Tencent-backed Chinese travel startup secures US$180M in Hong Kong IPO [Bloomberg]

Tongcheng-eLong Holdings Ltd., a Chinese travel website backed by Tencent Holdings Ltd., has raised US$180 million after its Hong Kong initial public offering (IPO). The company had slashed its fundraising goal from an original target of US$800 million to US$1 billion, placing bottom at the marketed range.

The company is based in Jiangsu and priced its sale of 143.8 million shares at HK$9.80 (US$1.25) apiece. The shares were offered at HK$9.75 (US$1.24) to HK$12.65 (US$1.62) each.

Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and CMB International Capital Ltd. are joint sponsors of Tongcheng-Elong’s listing.
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Image Credit: PR Newswire

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