Simon Cowell

CEO @zebedeeio

[ZBD @zbdpay]

Growing LTV in churn-heavy models requires rethinking the relationship between the game and the player. That’s where embedded rewards come in.

Ben Cousens breaks down the thinking behind that shift on two & a half gamers 👇

#MobileGames #LTV

[ZBD @zbdpay]

Big news, ZBD just secured $40M in Series C funding from @Blockstream Capital Partners! 🎉
For developers, this means more comprehensive game-native tools that help increase LTV without breaking immersion. For players, it means rewarding experiences where earning and spending real value feels like a natural part of play.

New funding allows us to:
- Scale embedded rewards in games
- Extend our payments infrastructure into the broader creator economy
- Expand our licensing & footprint: NA, EU, LATAM & APAC 🌎

ZBD is building the all-in-one payment stack for games, and this Series C gives us the runway to keep evolving how real value moves through interactive digital experiences in 2026 and beyond.

More in @GamesBeat 👇

https://t.co/8Il89A5plg

#GameDev #Gaming #Fintech

[Christian Moss @MandelDuck]

Can't beleive its already been six years since we started building on Bitcoin

Happy to finaly be able to say that at 122 million transactions a year, that foundation is operating at real scale.

ZBD has raised $40M in Series C funding! 🎉

The Lightning Network is ready to handle the velocity and complexity of payments that modern gaming demands, and, paired with years of our regulatory groundwork, we’re more than ready to give developers more control and players immersive experiences.

Bitcoin is the native currency of the internet, and soon, it could be the native currency of every game.

For taking payments in, and making payments out.

Grateful for the ZBD team, @Blockstream Capital Partners, and the decade of innovation that brought us here.

[zerohedge @zerohedge]

*REEVES EYES £5B BITCOIN SALE TO HELP PLUG BLACK HOLE: TELEGRAPH

And like that bitcoin is officially in the sovereign bailout business

[Prof Sarah-Jayne Blakemore @sjblakemore]

I was explaining to my Ukrainian colleague the phrase ‘There’s no such thing as a free lunch’. She told me the equivalent in Ukrainian is ‘The only free cheese is in the mousetrap’ - which is so much better

[André Neves @andreneves]

Apple Approves First-Ever iOS Game Integrating Bitcoin IAP Microtransactions, Powered by @zbdpay

https://t.co/ogzlkrZq82

[Izabella Kaminska @izakaminska]

Hate to say it, as many understandably find the conclusions in the Sovereign Individual hard to stomach – but the book pretty much predicted where we are now and where things are going.

Recap: Back in 1997, the authors James Dale Davidson and Lord William Rees-Mogg predicted:

1. Governments will grow desperate as their tax base erodes and welfare promises become unaffordable.

2. They’ll turn to wealth taxes and financial surveillance, targeting visible, immobile assets like property.

3. The rich and mobile will escape using encryption, offshore structures, and digital tools.

4. Capital will become ungovernable — jurisdictions will be forced to compete for it.

5. Large welfare states will struggle to adapt, collapsing under debt and entitlement obligations.

6. Welfare beneficiaries will become stranded liabilities in states that can no longer pay them.

7. Mass democracy will destabilize as redistribution fails and public trust evaporates.

8. Violent backlash and protest will emerge from those left behind as promises are broken.

9. In the long run, only states that act like service providers — lean, competitive, and voluntary — will survive.

10. Their advice to governments? Adapt fast, cut entitlements early, and compete for talent like a business.

(I'm not personally keen on the future described in the SI and would rather see nation states revive themselves rather than collapse or become mafia states. But at this stage, the only solution is hyper productivity, which won't happen if high taxes kill off the incentive to invest.)

[Simon Cowell @SECowell]

@MandelDuck Did you tell him not to worry about the mempool unless you look worried

[Cointelegraph @Cointelegraph]

🔥 LATEST: Apple App Store approves Bitcoin video game SaruTobi to use in-app payments.

[André Neves @andreneves]

If you want to add instant payments to your app, game, or platform hit us up @zbdpay 🫡

[Christian Moss @MandelDuck]

Apple Rejected My Game for Using Bitcoin in 2013 — Now They've Finally Approved It in 2025!

When I first added Bitcoin payments to my game SARUTOBI back in 2013, Apple shut it down.

So I flipped the script — and gave away Bitcoin instead.

Now, after 12 years and thanks to the Epic Games lawsuits, I resubmitted the game with Bitcoin payments… and it got APPROVED.

Yep — players can now buy bananas using the Bitcoin they earned in-game.

The future of sub-$1 microtransactions is here — and we’re just getting started. 🚀🍌
https://t.co/nynDVmZTob

[Michael Tidwell @miketwenty1]

Give @stutxo a follow he's going to accomplish great things, you won't want to miss his rise in this space. #bitcoin

[Simon Cowell @SECowell]

@MandelDuck @davepl1968 😂

[Arthur Hayes @CryptoHayes]

And that’s a wrap folks. Buy everything!

[Dr. Parik Patel, BA, CFA, ACCA Esq. @ParikPatelCFA]

BREAKING 🚨: Trump imposes tariffs on exporting to PDF

[Izabella Kaminska @izakaminska]

So, to sum up the current tone of European analysis on all matters American 👇

The scene: A smoky European café, full of cynical intellectuals.

“The Americans are all bastards,
with their burgers and their Americano coffees, They push their films and culture, and dictate left and right. They swagger round the planet as if they own the place
and what have we got in return?”

What have the Americans ever done for us?

Uh… NATO?

What?

They gave us NATO. You know—so we don’t get invaded.

Alright, alright, NATO… fair.

And the internet.

GPS?

And don’t forget the dollar rails—
makes it easier to do global sales.

Well, yes, the dollar rails go without saying. But apart from GPS and broadband cables,
Dollar liquidity that underwrites our three-hour lunches,
A security shield so we can cut defence, while still pretending we’re morally immense…

And what about all the bank bailouts, remember ’08?
We nearly sank and they came to the rescue.

Well, apart from global financial plumbing, Military backup when tanks start coming, All the tech that keeps our startups humming, And American gladiators…

What have the Americans ever done for us?

iPhones?

Right. Those.

Netflix?

Space exploration!

Okay, okay, apart from …. A global Dollar backstop, global defence, Boeing jets and Intel chips, Soft power, hard power, and AI tools, Free speech standards, Hollywood, Swift transactions, Carriers that guard our seas,
And letting us whinge while they foot the fees…

…okay but apart from all that, What have the Americans ever done for us?

American Kraft cheese slices?

Fair. TOTAL Bastards.

[The Founders' Tribune @foundertribune]

"Don't be a Career" by Steve Jobs

[Navalism @NavalismHQ]

"The overeducated are worse off than the undereducated, having traded common sense for the illusion of knowledge."

@naval

[Arjun Khemani @arjunkhemani]

.@naval: “The reality is that opportunities have never been more equal than now.

@elonmusk and @JeffBezos have the same iPhone you do. They don’t have some better version of an iPhone.

They’re eating food that might be marginally better than yours, but it’s basically the same.

You might even have a better diet than them. You probably have more time to go to the gym than them.

They’re not immortal, and they’re not going to be—most likely, not at this time scale.

So you have more youth than them. You have a lot of advantages over them.

The wealth gaps are actually much smaller than people think.

A lot of that is due to mass production, which comes from specialization, labor, and capitalism.

But it’s very easy to overlook that and agitate—because that gets you higher in the status hierarchy with other monkeys.

It makes you look like you’re fighting for noble causes and gives you status, which is really what people are craving these days.

They’re craving status, not money or wealth.

And status is a zero-sum game.

So it’s kind of an evil game to play because there have to be losers for every winner.

And the only way to win is by crushing somebody else down.”