Intel backs robotics startup, Twitter loses money, and fintech shows signs of life

• Stocks are largely down around the world following weak Chinese economic data for the second quarter. We’re also heading back into an earnings cycle, so get ready to hear from Tesla and Netflix this week, among other major names.
• In crypto-land, the XRP/Ripple partial victory drove a short-lived boomlet for many crypto tokens; XRP is the clear winner from last week.
• Twitter is cash-flow negative, per its CEO, but the company intends to double-down on paying individual tweeters for their high-view activities.
• While Twitter molts, Threads continues to grow like a weed. Speaking of Meta, the company is in trouble in Norway.
• On the startup front, Intel invested in Figure, which we think is quite neat, and Thunes is now nearly a unicorn!