Venrock partner Cami Samuels has a bold prediction going into 2019: "Moderna will exit at a $3 billion valuation next year."

Moderna debuted on the public market on December 7 after raising more than $600 million in the biggest initial public offering in biotech history. While the IPO valued Moderna at $7.5 billion, it's currently trading well below its IPO price with a market value of $5 billion.

By the end of 2019, Samuels expects that to drop even further to a market value of $3 billion, less than half of its valuation at the IPO.

"It's hard for me, looking at their pipeline, to figure out why they're valued five times, six times [as much as] other companies with the same pipeline," said Samuels, whose firm makes investments in technology and healthcare companies.

Which isn't to say she's not interested in the science.

Moderna is developing medical treatments based on messenger RNA, and the company is still in the early days of human trials for its treatments, which include cancer treatments as well as a vaccine for cytomegalovirus, or CMV. The idea is that by putting messenger RNA into the body, it can turn the body into a drug factory, pumping out the proteins needed to fight a particular disease.

"Having said that, I do think that they're at the beginning of RNA and gene-editing RNA being emphasized almost as much as DNA gene-editing, based on all the startups I've been seeing," Samuels said.

Read more: 6 top VCs give their best 2019 predictions for healthcare, from a biotech correction to a 'shadow cash economy' stepping into the light

Samuels joined Venrock in 2014 and is currently invested in Unity Biotechnology, a company developing treatments related to aging. She has a few other predictions as well for the coming year.

For one, she's ready to get back to the basics in biotech.

"I'm enthused by the correction," Samuels told Business Insider. Over the past five years, the Nasdaq biotech index is up 25%, though recently stocks have taken a tumble, putting them well into correction territory, a term that refers to a 10% or greater decline from a stock's most recent peak.

In 2019, she said, she's anticipating a return to the basic biotech business model. That is, instead of a broad platform with six or more drugs in the works, a more straightforward focus on one or two lead programs that a company knows super well.

The correction in turn will drive that because there will be less available capital pouring into early-stage companies, forcing them to have a more zoomed-in approach.

"I remain an optimist on the fundamentals of biotech, but the industry has gotten so enthusiastic as to be undisciplined," Samuels said.

On the policy side, Samuels said she expects to see the biopharma industry make a concession on drug pricing to appease the administration of President Donald Trump. That said, she doesn't expect it to have broad implications.

Lastly, she sees exhaustion with financing cancer-drug makers sinking in, with interest picking up for other diseases that have been left at the wayside.

Two of the scientific areas she's most interested in at the moment: mitochondrial RNA-based medicines (a similar area to the work Moderna's in) and antiaging biology, particularly an area she refers to as "inflamm-aging."

It was a shocking bet even when it was made during bitcoin's sharp rise last year: $1 million that by the end of 2018, bitcoin would be worth more than $50,000.

The bet, made by the crypto hedge fund BlockTower Capital, would have given the manager the chance to buy 275 bitcoins at $50,000 apiece — any time before Friday, when the call options expire, a purchase that would have cost $13.8 million. The manager spent just under $1 million on those call options.

Bitcoin is currently trading at less than $4,000 per coin — a drop of more than 80% from its peak of $19,783, when BlockTower made its bet.

BlockTower — a Stamford, Connecticut-based manager that runs more than $130 million in client assets and has a minimum investment of $1 million — defended the purchase of the options at the time as a way to "risk a little to win a lot," according to the manager's cofounder Ari Paul. In a CNBC interview a week after the firm bought the options, Paul said "it was not a bet that something will happen, but a bet that something could happen," and that he liked the odds and payout of the move.

In an email to Business Insider earlier this month, Paul wrote that "we were not betting on or expecting" a bitcoin rally.

"In contrast, the options were a way for us to maintain exposure to an extreme rally while reducing overall crypto exposure," he wrote.

Paul declined to say if he had any other options out of bitcoin's future price.

Markets Insider

The PlayStation Classic is considered one of the most underwhelming video-game releases of 2018, disappointing fans with a lackluster list of built-in games and subpar technology. Now, perhaps in an effort to goose sales, the PlayStation Classic seems to have already gotten a price drop at most major retailers — from $99 to $60.

You can snag it at Best Buy, Amazon, and Walmart. Other retailers have similar deals, too. We've reached out to Sony to see if the price drop is permanent and will update if we hear back.

When Sony announced the PlayStation Classic in September 2018, it seemed to be an effort to catch onto the retro-console wave started by Nintendo's NES Classic in 2016. Nintendo repackaged the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and Super NES for nostalgic fans, and both miniature consoles were major retail hits. Like Nintendo's classic consoles, the PlayStation Classic was preloaded with 20 memorable, old-school games and two controllers, but it was slightly more expensive, at $99.

The PlayStation Classic is small enough to fit in your palm. Sony

However, there were some stark differences in how the final product functioned when compared with Nintendo's releases. First, fans were upset with the 20 games picked for the system, feeling that a number of can't-miss PlayStation games were left off the final list. Later on, fans realized that different regions were getting different games; in Japan, the PlayStation Classic had seven games that were not on the American console, and vice versa. Then it was determined that several games on the American console were actually running the European version of the game — which, for technical reasons, means that they literally run slower than they should.

Read more: The 7 best and worst things about using Sony's $100 mini PlayStation 1, the PlayStation Classic

Even more curiously, players eventually discovered that the PlayStation Classic was running a version of PCSC, a free emulator used to play PlayStation games on computers. Furthermore, the emulator menu could be pulled up using specific USB keyboards, allowing players to enter cheats and alter other hidden game settings. This was particularly confusing considering that, otherwise, the PlayStation Classic lacked many basic features as compared with the Super NES Classic.

The PlayStation Classic's menus are pretty bare bones. Sony

Finding value in a botched launch

So now, after that lukewarm response to the launch, major retailers are offering the PlayStation Classic for 40% off. But even at the reduced price, the PlayStation Classic's shortcomings haven't changed. So why should you consider buying it at $60?

The biggest benefit of buying the PlayStation Classic at a reduced price is the hardware. The PlayStation Classic's replica controllers are regular old USB devices and can easily be used for PC gaming, too. Wired controllers of similar quality cost at least $20 each and wouldn't be this perfect of a match for the original PlayStation pad. While the lack of analog sticks makes them less than ideal for everyday use, retro-gaming fans can probably get value from them.

Additionally, since the PlayStation Classic has USB ports in the front, modders have already found ways to change the games that are installed on the console. If one has the patience to find and implement the right hacks, they can customize the PlayStation Classic game list to suit their own taste, as with the Super NES Classic before it.

So, if you have your heart set on playing games from the original PlayStation, now will likely be the best time to buy the PlayStation Classic with a discount and get the full system for the price of a single game. Just remember, while nostalgia helps ease the memories, not every game from the late '90s was a classic.

Millions of people have invested in the future of "Star Citizen," the wildly ambitious, crowdfunded video game project being developed by Cloud Imperium Games.

Six years after launching its initial Kickstarter campaign, "Star Citizen" is now the most-supported crowdfunding project ever.

In late November, Cloud Imperium announced that crowdfunding had exceeded $200 million for the immersive space exploration game. With another recent private investment bringing $46 million to the table last week, Cloud Imperium believes the game's single-player campaign "Squadron 42" will finally be ready to launch in 2020 for its community of more than 2 million backers.

That money, combined with the crowdfunding proceeds, means that fans and investors combined have put some $256 million into the promise of "Star Citizen."

Star Citizen has been in development since 2011.Imgur/Nehkara

In October 2012, the then-new Cloud Imperium Games launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise $500,000 for "Star Citizen," a new space simulator and the follow-up to founder Chris Roberts' previous games, "Wing Commander" and "Freelancer." Like most crowdfunding campaigns, "Star Citizen" had a number of stretch goals in place, should the project exceed the $500,000 mark. However, the overwhelming number of backers led the development team to reconsider the scope of the project entirely.

Cloud Imperium Games reports that the project now has more than 2,200,000 backers, and they've helped push the budget to $212,623,319, as of December 26, 2018. With a budget exceeding $200 million, "Star Citizen" is already on track to be one of the most expensive video games ever made, rivaling all-time best-sellers like "Grand Theft Auto V" and "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2."

Read more:See Why People Have Pledged More Than $200 Million For This Epic Space Game

"Star Citizen" strives to be a complete sandbox set in space, allowing players to define the game for themselves. Gameplay will include flight simulation, first-person shooting, exploration, and roleplaying elements like quests and player progression.

The game promises an interactive world with a scale that is unmatched by any video game released thus far, taking players between planets and space station hubs. As more funding has come in, the development team has been consistently adding new layers of depth to the game. Backers can participate in the game's alpha test, which regularly incorporates newly developed content and offers a preview of the full game.

Cloud Imperium recently announced that South African billionaire Clive Calder and his son, "Blindspotting" director Keith Calder, had invested $46 million in exchange for a 10 percent share of the company. With the investment, Cloud Imperium itself is valued at $496 million, just under half a billion dollars.

"We were impressed by the vision and passion that Chris and the formidable global team he has assembled have put into building Star Citizen, and we think that the direct and transparent relationship they have built with their players is a strong foundation for a next-generation gaming company," the Calders said in a statement at the time.

With "Star Citizen" in the works since 2011, Cloud Imperium has displayed an impressive amount of transparency regarding the funding and the game's development process. While the lengthy development time has become a running joke among some gamers, daily communication from the team behind the game has helped maintain trust with the game's community.

Mark Hamill, famous for playing Luke Skywalker, will play a key role in "Squadron 42," the single-player campaign set in the "Star Citizen" universe. "Squadron 42"

With this most recent investment, Cloud Imperium Games has announced that the single-player "Star Citizen" campaign, named "Squadron 42," is set to launch in 2020. "Squadron 42" has a star-studded cast that includes Mark Hamill, Gary Oldman, Gillian Anderson, and Andy Serkis, among others. In a post on Cloud Inperium's site, Roberts said the plan was to finish the campaign content in 2019, then use the first six months of 2020 as an alpha test to finish polishing the final project. After the alpha phase, "Squadron 42" would enter beta prior to official release.

Cloud Imperium's road map for "Star Citizen" includes specific improvements scheduled through the second quarter of 2019. The full "Star Citizen" game is currently in alpha testing but has still has no scheduled release date.

Linkedin co-founder and Greylock Partner's investor Reid Hoffman apologized Wednesday for funding a group linked to a misinformation campaign during Alabama's 2017 special election for the US Senate.

It was the first time that Hoffman, a prominent Silicon Valley billionaire, acknowledged his donation to the group, called American Engagement Technologies, or AET.

AET allegedly funded another project, called New Knowledge, which used social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to boost support for Democrat Doug Jones in his ultimately successful campaign against Republican Roy Moore.

Hoffman donated $750,000 to AET, according to the Washington Post, who first reported Hoffman's statement Wednesday.

Hoffman, a vocal democratic donor, said in the statement that he was not aware of the group's work with New Knowledge before it was reported last week.

"I find the tactics that have been recently reported highly disturbing. For that reason, I am embarrassed by my failure to track AET — the organization I did support — more diligently as it made its own decisions to perhaps fund projects that I would reject," Hoffman said in the statement.

Hoffman's apology comes one week after the New York Times reported details of the project, known as Project Birmingham.

Project Birmingham involved creating Facebook pages aimed at conservative Alabamians, according to the Times. The page was used to try to divide Republicans and encouraged them to endorse a write-in candidate. It also involved a scheme to link Moore to Russian bots, according to the Times.

While many of us know full well that we should be saving our money, it can be easy to reach zero — or darn close to it — by the month's end. After all, there are bills to pay, food to put on the table, and other financial obligations that get in the way of saving up for emergencies, vacations, or holiday spending.

But what about squirreling away your hard-earned cash without having to think about it?

That's where Digit comes in. As a money-app junkie, I've checked out my fair share of apps to help me with my finances. And the one that tops my list to help save money is Digit.

The company charges users $2.99 a month, a relatively small fee that features many potential benefits. Since I signed up for the app in March 2016, I've easily saved over $20,000 with it.

Here's how the Digit app has helped me save:

How Digit works

Digit is a super-easy, no-brainer way to stash away cash. When you sign up, all you need to do is link your Digit account to your checking account. From there, Digit handles the rest. It uses algorithms to learn about your spending patterns, and about how much you can reasonably save. These algorithms are primarily influenced by your checking-account balance, upcoming income, upcoming bills, and recent spending. It saves money for you when you can afford to, and hits the "pause" button when you can't. Because Digit keeps your money socked away in a separate account, I conveniently forget I have that money stashed away. This "set-it-and-forget-it" approach prevents me from being tempted to tap into my Digit account. Plus, because it generally takes a few days to transfer funds back into your account, I use it for only big-ticket items and emergencies.

The handful of times I have pulled money from my savings were to help me pay a credit-card balance, to take a trip, and to buy a new laptop when mine broke down while traveling.

How much you can expect to save

Your savings will depend on a number of variables, including how much money you keep in your checking account and what your spending and saving patterns are. According to Digit's website, the average user sees an average of two to three transfers per week. The company has said its average savings transfer is $18, but can be anywhere from $5 to $30. If you're saving $10 a week, that's $520 a year.

How did I manage to save over $20,000 in three years' time? While you can set up a savings schedule or manually transfer funds into different goals, I saved entirely through Digit's auto-saving feature.

How much I saved depended on how much of a cushion I had in my linked account. As a freelancer, my income fluctuates. And I saved anywhere from $40 to $3,500 in a single point. But on average, I was able to save roughly $600 a month through the app.

It helped me stay on top of my spending

Digit

Another one of Digit's features that I love is the daily texts I receive from it. These let me know how much money is in my bank account. Plus, the app sends me friendly "heads up" texts when money is being transferred among my bank accounts and notifications of recent transactions. I can also keep tabs on my savings, see when a check has cleared, and create new personal goals through the app.

Read more: 11 financial experts reveal their favorite money apps

Saving for specific goals

Like any solid money-management app, Digit allows you to set up different money goals. Predesigned goals include saving for an emergency cushion, crushing credit-card debt, paying off student loans, setting up a travel fund, or splurging on gifts guilt-free. You can also come up with your own savings goals. To up the fun factor, you can assign an emoji to each goal.I've set up a few goals, such as traveling to a wedding in Florida (used the "bunny" emoji) and traveling to a work conference (assigned the "ghost" emoji). But I've generally socked everything away in a "Rainy Day Fund," which is Digit's default account. I wanted to use Digit as a general savings fund. I've made withdrawals for trips, to help with my down payment for a new car, to get through the holidays, and to add a cushion to my checking account.

Noteworthy features

Digit

Besides setting your savings on autopilot and providing a separate account to safely stow your money away for important money goals, here are some of my favorite features of the app:

If your checking falls below that amount, Digit will automatically transfer some cash from your Rainy Day Fund to top it off. For instance, let's say you set that number at $200, and your balance falls to $150. Digit will then send $50 to your checking account.

A few downsides

The video game Fortnite Battle Royale was the star of the year 2018; more than 200 million players worldwide are registered online. (Photo Illustration by Chesnot/Getty Images)

Travis Kalanick, co-founder and former chief executive officer of Uber Technologies Inc., speaks during the TiE Global Entrepreneurs Summit in New Delhi, India, on Friday, December 16, 2016. Kalanick said the company will introduce Uber Moto across India. Photographer: Udit Kulshrestha/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Juul Labs, the maker of the popular e-cigarette brand that has recently come under fire from health officials over its popularity with young adults, plans to introduce a line of lower-nicotine pods. Photographer: Gabby Jones/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Magic Leap’s flagship product, the Magic Leap One AR headset, began shipping to consumers this year.

Magic Leap is real and it’s a janky marvel

Founder and CEO of Instacart Apoorva Mehta and moderator Megan Rose Dickey speak onstage during TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2016 at Pier 48 on September 14, 2016 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Steve Jennings/Getty Images for TechCrunch)

SoftBank-backed Katerra says it’s brought in more than $1.3 billion in bookings for new construction ranging from residential to hospitality and student housing.

Yet another SoftBank investment, San Francisco-based Opendoor is also backed by Fifth Wall Ventures, GV, Andreessen Horowitz and more.

Uber competitor Lyft expanded aggressively in 2018, raised hundreds of millions in additional venture capital funding, and filed confidentially to go public.

Automation Anywhere raised a monstrous $550 million Series A in 2018, with support from the SoftBank Vision Fund.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – SEPTEMBER 06: Peloton Co-Founder/CEO John Foley speaks onstage during Day 2 of TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2018 at Moscone Center on September 6, 2018 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Kimberly White/Getty Images for TechCrunch)

5 unicorns that will probably go public in 2019 (besides Uber and Lyft)

We will be holding a small event during CES in Las Vegas and we want to see you! We’re looking to meet some cool hardware and crypto startups, so the good folks at Work In Progress have opened up their space to us and 200 of you all to hold a meetup and pitch-off.

The event will be held at Work In Progress, 317 South 6th Street on Wednesday, January 9, 2019 between 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM PST.

There are only 200 tickets, so if you want to come, please pick one up ASAP. The meetup is open to everyone, so head over if you’d like to talk tech. You can pick up a ticket here.

If you’d like to pitch at the event, I’ll be picking 10 companies that will have three minutes to pitch without slides. Because this is a hardware event I recommend bringing a few of your items to show off. If you’d like to pitch, fill this out and I will contact those who will be coming up onstage.

See you in Vegas!

Amazon appears to be discouraging its sellers who use the Fulfillment by Amazon program from sending more dangerous items into its warehouses.

FBA is a program in which third-party sellers send their goods to be stored in Amazon warehouses before they are sold on Amazon.com. Items are then shipped out like a normal order by the e-commerce giant.

Amazon announced on its seller forum last Wednesday that it will be introducing a new fee for "dangerous" items like aerosol cans and lithium-ion batteries that sellers send to Amazon warehouses. The fees are higher than the regular fees Amazon charges for using Fulfillment by Amazon.

For example: a normal item with a shipping weight of between 10 and 16 ounces and is considered small would qualify for a fee of $2.48, while a "dangerous" item the same size would carry a charge of $3.45.

Amazon has a full list of items it considers "dangerous," which mostly consists of items that are "flammable or pressurized aerosol substances and items that contain lithium-ion batteries."

The new fees will go into effect on February 19, 2019, according to a note on Amazon's forum for sellers. Amazon did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for further comment.

Amazon may have made it more expensive to sell and fulfill these risky items to discourage FBA sellers from sending them to warehouses. Earlier this month, a can of bear spray fell off a shelf in Amazon's warehouse in Robbinsville, New Jersey. The can released fumes into the fulfillment center, injuring workers.

Read more: 54 workers became sick and one is in critical condition after a can of bear repellent released fumes in an Amazon warehouse

Twenty-four people were sent to local hospitals, and one was in critical condition, local officials said. In total, 54 workers were affected by the incident.

Those affected reported having difficulty breathing and experiencing a burning sensation in the eyes and throat. Bear repellent is mostly made of capsaicin, the chemical found in hot peppers.

This isn't the first time a can of bear repellent has exploded in an Amazon warehouse, according to Wired, which reported that two other similar incidents occurred in 2015 and earlier this year.

With the markets in turmoil, shedding loads of value seemingly by the day across the board, it's no longer a sure thing to bet on the tech sector or even its most prominent companies.

It used to be that investors could put some money in the famous FAANGs — Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google parent company Alphabet — and be assured of doing well. But Apple and Google's stocks are down for the year, and Facebook's has fallen off a cliff. While both Amazon and Netflix's shares are still up for the year, they're way off their highs.

Read this: Dow drops 640 points for the worst Christmas Eve trading day on record

What's more, Wall Street analysts are forecasting that the technology sector's profit growth rate will slow dramatically next year after being boosted by President Donald Trump's tax cut this year, said Dan Morgan, a long-time tech investor with Synovus.

Going into 2019, "you just have to be very discerning in the tech sector," said Morgan, a portfolio manager at Synovus Trust. He continued: "You have to do your homework and zero in on some of [the] trends."

So what's an investor to do? What are the big trends to watch?

Many tech sectors are looking uncertain right now, said Morgan. Although he's not predicting a recession next year, he does think economic growth will slow, and that will hit some areas harder than others.

The consumer sector in particular looks shaky right now, because many of the big companies face other obstacles in addition to a potential economic slowdown, he said.

Apple's stock, for example, is highly dependent on its ability to sell iPhones, and those sales have started to decline, he noted. Google and Facebook's business models, built around collecting highly personal information from consumers, have come under increasing scrutiny of late amid a series of privacy and other scandals.

Netflix and Amazon's stocks and businesses have held up, but both look to be the exceptions in the consumer technology sector that prove the rule, he said.

So Morgan's advice is to look to the cloud.

Spending on cloud services is growing at a rapid rate as businesses of all sizes increasingly shift their technology spending to them and away from their own data centers, Morgan said. The industry will soon see a $10 billion windfall from the US Defense Department, which is planning to move some of its own computing infrastructure to the cloud as part of its Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) program, he noted.

"That's an area that's still very strong," he said.

In fact, he thinks the prospects for the area are so good, his theme or 2019 is "roll into the cloud."

With that in mind, here are Morgan's top picks in tech going into 2019:

Holiday shopping used to mean going to a store, fighting for a parking spot, hoping what you wanted was in stock, waiting in line, then getting home. Online shopping has turned that nightmare into a couple of clicks you can make in your pajamas from bed.

To make things even easier, we've even done the work of finding the perfect gifts for you.

If you're shopping for someone who wished they read more but "doesn't have the time," a gift subscription to Audible is a very thoughtful choice. Audible's audiobook library has over 425,000 titles from every era and genre, so it's likely that many of the titles on their "to read" list are available.

Gift memberships start at $15 for one month, $45 for three months, $90 for six months, and $150 for 12 months. Your giftee will receive one "credit" per month, which they can spend on the book of their choice, plus two free "Audible Originals," which are shorter books and stories exclusive to the service. They'll also get a couple of additional Audible member benefits for the duration of their membership: a 30% discount on all audiobooks, and free audiobook exchanges.

Facebook

Once they've made a book selection, it's extremely easy to start listening whenever and wherever, without losing their spot.

They can use the Audible app, which is available on iOS and Android, a built-in Audible player on Amazon's Fire Tablets, or the Kindle Paperwhite and Kindle Oasis. They'll also have the ability to import Audible books into iTunes, and there's a cloud player on Audible's website. They can even ask an Amazon Echo to play it.

Audible will automatically remember and sync their place between devices, so if your giftee listens to part of a book on their phone during a morning commute, they can pick up exactly where they left off on their office computer.

One of the best features of an Audible subscription is that you don't lose access to your audiobook library when your subscription ends. If the person you gift a subscription to really loves Audible, they can continue their subscription immediately after the gift period is over. If not, they can continue to listen to the audiobooks as many times as they'd like.

This lack of pressure is part of what makes an Audible subscription such a great gift. The person you gift it to will never feel the pressure of having to continue their subscription, and there are no penalties if they don't.

Whether the lapsed reader in your life is worried about not having enough time read, or doesn't have the space to carry around books all the time, an Audible subscription is a wonderful gift that fixes both of their problems. They'll have it with them at all times, and it'll help them turn their downtime into an opportunity to hear an interesting story or learn something new.

Gift an Audible subscription from $15 here >>

Looking for more gift ideas? Check out all of Insider Picks' holiday gift guides for 2018 here.

Money will have the look, and heft, of dumbbells as the economic cycle turns. Expect an abundance of small, seed checks at one end, an abundance of massive checks for clear, breakout companies at the other, and a dearth of capital for expanding companies with early proof points and market traction. Read more on how to best prepare for this inevitable future. (Image courtesy Flickr/CircaSassy)

Even as the overall number of deals decrease below 2012 levels, the overall dollars invested into startups continue to soar. The 200+ “seed-stage” funds formed since 2012 will continue to chase nascent companies. Meanwhile, the increasing number of mega-funds will seek breakout companies into which to make $100 million+ investments. Companies with early traction seeking ~$20 million to grow will be abundant and have difficulty accessing capital.

Image courtesy Getty Images

Like Apple and its iPad Pro, Google also made a special keyboard and stylus that work specifically with the Pixel Slate.

The Pixel Slate starts at $600, the Pixel Slate Keyboard costs $200, and the Pixelbook Pen costs $100.