Today’s Tech Digest: Bitcoin value surges after Elon Musk investment

Bitcoin is now worth more than the ruble, claims The Telegraph. The value of Bitcoin has surpassed the market cap of Russia’s ruble after the price of the digital coin surged on the back of a $1.5bn (£1.1bn) investment by the world’s richest man Elon Musk. The total price of all Bitcoin in circulation is now $860bn, according to data from Coinmarketcap. 

The NHS Covid-19 test and trace app has now told 1.7 million people in England and Wales to self-isolate. Data reveals that about 16.5 million people are currently actively using its contact-tracing tool thought that’s 24% below the app’s latest download tally! The discrepancy is likely to be down to people uninstalling the app, turning off its contact-tracing capabilities, or simply failing to have activated it in the first place. See full story here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-55985562

The parents of Alex Kearns, a 20-year-old Robinhood user who committed suicide after mistakenly believing that he had lost a fortune, plan to sue the trading app over his death. Dan and Dorothy Kearns told CBS News that they will file a lawsuit accusing Robinhood of wrongful death, negligent infliction of emotional distress and unfair business practices. Robinhood has soared to more than 13 million users thanks to its easy trading interface, and says that it is on a mission to “democratise finance”. See story here: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2021/02/08/robinhood-sued-suicide-young-trader-thought-had-lost-730000/

Facebook has finally banned misinformation about all vaccines following years of harmful, unfounded health claims proliferating on its platform, writes The Guardian. As part of its policy on Covid-19-related misinformation, the social media monolith will now remove posts with false claims about all vaccines, the company announced in a blogpost on Monday. “We will begin enforcing this policy immediately, with a particular focus on Pages, groups and accounts that violate these rules,” said Guy Rosen, who oversees content decisions. These new community guidelines apply to user-generated posts as well as paid advertisements, which were already banned from including such misinformation. Instagram users will face the same restrictions.