Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Appfigures: global consumer spending in mobile apps on the App Store and Google Play rose 15.7% YoY to $127.3B in 2024, but app downloads dropped 2.3% to 109.7B  —  The global app economy continued to recover in 2024, after an earlier slowdown in 2022 — at least in terms of consumer spending.

IDC:
Global shipments of wrist-worn wearables hit 139M units in the first nine months of 2024, down 1% YoY; China was the largest market with 45.8M units, up 20% YoY  —  , the global wrist-worn device market shipped 139.0 million units in the first three quarters of 2024, a year-over-year decline of 1.0% …

Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:
Lens, a high-performance layer-2 blockchain developed by Avara for consumer apps, raised $31M led by Lightspeed Faction, and plans to launch Lens v3 in Q1 2025  —  Avara, the company behind Aave, Lens and Family, is announcing a $31 million funding round led by Lightspeed Faction.

SanDisk is now SANDISK. It’s also now Sandisk. The company is announcing a fresh rebranding this week with a new logo that drops the inter-capped styling it’s generally maintained since 1995 with one that is inspired by “a single point of data” or a “pixel.”

In a new video, Sandisk says its “slab serif is back and bolder” and it maintains its open “D” letter, but pairs it with a new “pixel-driven S.” The company says the letters symbolize “the collaboration and partnership required to actualize our purpose and tap into new possibilities.”

As noted in a report by Fast Company, the Sandisk rebranding comes ahead of a spinoff from its parent company Western Digital planned for next year (it was originally planned for this year). Western Digital had originally acquired Sandisk back in 2016.

Last year, Western Digital was embroiled in controversy surrounding the popular, pricey portable SanDisk Extreme SSD, in which publications reported that the product would wipe owners’ data erroneously. It happened to our supervising producer Vjeran Pavic, and Western Digital refused to answer our questions at the time to explain what was happening.

Controversy aside, we’re big fans of “unfinished” logo styles here at The Verge, and it looks like Sandisk did alright with its rebrand. It certainly could do worse -- just look at PayPal, Kia, Paramount. or JaGUar.

Vince Dioquino / Decrypt:
El Salvador plans to scale back its bitcoin efforts under an IMF deal for a $1.4B loan; bitcoin acceptance will no longer be mandatory for the private sector  —  Under the agreement, El Salvador will make Bitcoin acceptance voluntary for the private sector while restricting public sector involvement.