The International Monetary Fund said on Thursday it has a number of economic and legal concerns regarding the move from El Salvador to make bitcoin a parallel legal tender. Reuters reports: El Salvador has become the first country in the world to adopt bitcoin as legal tender, with President Nayib Bukele touting its use for its potential to help Salvadorans living abroad to send remittances back home. "Adoption of bitcoin as legal tender raises a number of macroeconomic, financial and legal issues that require very careful analysis," said Gerry Rice, an IMF spokesman, during a scheduled press briefing. "We are following developments closely, and we'll continue our consultations with the authorities." Rice said the Fund will later on Thursday meet with Bukele to discuss the bitcoin law. El Salvador is in discussions with the IMF seeking a near $1 billion program. Hours after his announcement, Bukele instructed the state-owned geothermal electric company "to put up a plan to offer facilities for Bitcoin mining with very cheap, 100% clean, 100% renewable, 0 emissions energy from our volcanos."

phalse phace writes: A non-fungible token of a digital artwork called a "CryptoPunk" was sold for $11.8 million on Thursday, according to a tweet by auction house Sotheby's. The NFT was sold as part of the Sotheby's online auction "Natively Digital: A Curated NFT Sale," which runs from June 3-10 and features work by 27 digital artists. CryptoPunks are a series of 10,000 unique pixel-art characters made by Larva Labs in 2017. The individual one sold by Sotheby's -- "CryptoPunk #7523" -- is of the sought-after Alien variety with blue-green skin, and wearing a medical mask. Two other Alien CryptoPunk NFTs have sold for more than $7 million each in previous sales. According to Reuters, it was bought by Israeli entrepreneur Shalom Meckenzie, who is the largest shareholder of digital sports company DraftKings.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Thursday said he is initiating a review of recent high-profile cyber attacks on governments and businesses to find out whether a legislative response is needed. From a report: "Today I am asking Chairman Gary Peters of our Homeland Security Committee and our other relevant committee chairs to begin a government-wide review of these attacks and determine what legislation may be needed to counter the threat of cyber crime and bring the fight to the cyber criminals." Schumer noted that the New York City subway system was the victim of a computer hack in early June. This came on the heels of Colonial Pipeline having to shut down some operations, resulting in disrupted fuel supplies in the U.S. Southeast, as a result of a cyber attack.

House Democrats are set to introduce a package of five bills as soon as this week that would prohibit tech giants like Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google from discriminating against rivals or buying potential competitors, two individuals familiar with the discussions told POLITICO -- the most serious effort yet to rein in Silicon Valley's power after years of complaints from Congress. From a report: The most controversial bill would let prosecutors sue to break up major tech companies by forcing the platforms to sell off lines of business if they represent a conflict of interest. POLITICO obtained drafts of all five bills. The legislation aims to enact the recommendations from a blockbuster House Judiciary Committee report last fall on competition in digital markets, which found that the four tech giants have monopolized various aspects of the online economy. It also represents a major test for Congress: Can the lawmakers of both parties who have condemned the tech companies as abusive monopolists come together to do something about it? Democrats on the House Judiciary antitrust panel circulated the draft bills to potential co-sponsors this week. They hope to lure at least some GOP members into supporting the bills, particularly Colorado Rep. Ken Buck, a critic of the large tech companies and the top Republican on the panel.

Amid an intensifying drought, Lake Mead in Nevada, the nation's largest reservoir by volume, reached its lowest level since the 1930s late Wednesday. From a report: The record low is due to a combination of years of punishing drought that's worsening across the Southwest, as well as challenges in managing water resources for a burgeoning population. The record-low reading, as well as expected subsequent drops in the lake, are almost certain to trigger a federal "water shortage" declaration later this summer, which would set off cuts in water allocations to several states. Lake Mead, which sits along the border between Nevada and Arizona, is part of the vast Colorado River basin that provides water for agriculture and human consumption to seven states, and also generates electricity at the massive Hoover Dam.

Cuts in water supplies, to be determined in August, would affect the region's farmers, residents of sprawling cities such as Las Vegas, and others. Already, the Hoover Dam is operating below its maximum capacity, and it could see a further reduction in power generation as the summer goes on. Years of unusually dry conditions along with a growing population and water resource decisions have helped lead to the situation. As of Thursday morning, the Bureau of Reclamation showed Lake Mead's hourly water levels dipped to 1,071.48 feet Thursday, and remained below the previous record set on July 1, 2016.

Amazon.com is getting U.K. antitrust scrutiny into how it uses data from smaller sellers on its site, the Financial Times reported, citing three people with knowledge of the matter. From a report: The Competition and Markets Authority has been analyzing Amazon's business for months, according to the newspaper. While the regulator hasn't yet announced an investigation, it may focus on whether Amazon favors merchants that use its logistics and delivery services, the report said. Silicon Valley giants are the focus of a vast array of European probes into how internet giants increasingly govern the terms of what people do online, often gaining insights into user behavior that no-one else can match. The U.K. move adds to European Union and German probes of Amazon's business and follows multiple investigations into Google, Facebook and Apple.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Washington Post: JBS, the world's largest meat supplier, confirmed Wednesday that it paid the equivalent of $11 million in ransom to hackers who targeted and temporarily crippled its business. The company confirmed making the payment in a statement Wednesday, saying it did so after most of its plants started operating again last week. The company consulted with its own tech workers and external cybersecurity experts, it said, and decided to pay to make sure no data was stolen. "This was a very difficult decision to make for our company and for me personally," JBS USA CEO Andre Nogueira said in a statement.

JBS was hit by a ransomware attack last week that temporarily halted operations at its nine beef processing plants in the United States and caused disruptions at other facilities. The FBI attributed the attack to a Russian-linked ransomware group known as both REvil and Sodinokibi. The payment was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. JBS got many of its plants operating again by the end of last week, but Nogueira said it decided to make the payment to "prevent any potential risk" for customers. JBS said Wednesday that it spends more than $200 million annually on information technology and employs more than 850 IT workers worldwide. The company said experts are still investigating the hack, but preliminary findings indicate that no employee or customer data was compromised.