Utility company Xcel locked 22,000 Colorado users in an energy saving program out of their smart thermostats for hours on August 30 citing an “energy emergency” (Jaclyn Allen/TheDenverChannel.com)

Esteban L. Hernandez / Axios:
Governor Jared Polis announces that Colorado residents can now pay state taxes with cryptocurrencies; Polis is also selling NFTs to fund his reelection campaign  —  Gov. Jared Polis made good on a promise earlier this year by announcing Monday that Colorado residents can now pay state taxes with cryptocurrencies.

Rakteem Katakey / Bloomberg:
NRG Energy agrees to buy Utah-based Vivint, which sells smart thermostats, locks, lights, and more, for $2.8B in cash, a ~33% premium on Monday’s closing price  —  NRG Energy Inc. agreed to buy Vivint Smart Home Inc. for $2.8 billion to accelerate the US power producer’s strategy of diversifying …

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge:
The Connectivity Standards Alliance releases the Matter 1.0 standard for smart homes and opens its certification program  —  The smart home standard is open for certification at last.  We could see Matter devices in our homes as soon as this month. … The Connectivity Standards Alliance …

Mike Wheatley / SiliconANGLE:
Tel Aviv-based 4M Analytics, which aims to be the Google Maps of the US’ underground utility infrastructure, raised $30M, bringing its Series A total to $45M  —  Subsurface infrastructure mapping startup 4M Analytics Ltd. said today it has closed on an additional $30 million in funding …

Xinyi Luo / CoinDesk:
Alameda-backed DeFi projects Maps.me, a maps app for travelers, and “DeFi Prime Brokerage protocol” Oxygen say 95%+ of their native tokens are locked up at FTX  —  Alameda Research led funding rounds into both companies in 2021.  —  Maps.me and Oxygen, two decentralized finance …

Daniel Levi / Tech Startups:
Colorado-based ColdQuanta, which uses cold atom tech to build and integrate quantum computers, sensors, clocks, and networks, raised a $110M Series B  —  The internet has changed over the years.  But the groundwork for today’s internet was laid in 1973 by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).