May 11, 2023 | "Irreverent, but never irrelevant" | | | John Lothian Publisher John Lothian News | |
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Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff I was disappointed yesterday at the ISDA conference when Gary Gensler did not appear in person, but rather by video for his speech to the attendees. Chairman Gensler was rather animated with his hands during the speech, but his eyes were aimed down reading the text at a level below the camera. I decided to snap a few pictures of him to get some we could use in the future and I put them together in a video montage. Gary has some great facial expressions and hand maneuvers that I thought I would share. He would have been much better in person, but we had him on the small screen and this was some of his body language. Doug Cifu, the CEO of Virtu, followed Gensler with a virtual presentation, blaming his absence on a hockey playoff game for the team he is associated with. I like Doug, but I found his speech to be way off target. I thought he spoke down to his audience. I thought he was disingenuous, calling Virtu a "small firm." I thought the language he chose to use would have been better suited for a populist Florida Trump rally than an international derivatives group meeting in Chicago. His attack on Chairman Gensler for his equity market reform proposals, blaming them on nothing more than politics, came across as more political than Gensler could ever hope to be. Cifu, whose colleague Vinnie Viola was to be President Trump's army secretary (before saying, "I don't need this") just read the room wrong and missed an opportunity to deliver an effective response to Gensler. I had to walk out on the crypto panel due to a call from my wife. My daughter's car died on her drive back to West Virginia. However, I was amazed at some of the cognitive dissonance that I was hearing relative to state of crypto, with one panelist seeming to focus on possible legislation rather than the sledge hammer that has come down from the SEC that has even given Jane Street and Jump Trading jitters about crypto trading. It turns out my daughter's 2001 Honda Odyssey's days are done. It was a hand-me-down from my late father-in-law and only had 107,000 miles on it. Kat has driven it for nine years, mostly to and from college and to and from West Virginia to the Boy Scouts high adventure base, the Summit Bechtel Reserve. She is the assistant camp director this summer at the Summit during a year the Scouts are having the National Jamboree at the camp this July. It is a big job that she has earned her way up to since starting to work there in 2018. She is sad about losing her "golden beast." She said it was like having to put down a pet, leaving the car in Indiana last night. She wants to buy a Subaru to replace the Honda. As a "Leave No Trace" trainer, she gets a $3000 discount on a new car from Subaru. Scout training has its benefits. Have a great day and stay safe and treat people the same way you want to be treated: with respect, equality and justice.~JJL ++++ DOJ: Crypto Assets 'Touch Every Aspect of Criminal Activity We Investigate' Pedro Solimano, Stephen Graves - Decrypt From ransomware payments demanded in cryptocurrencies to state actors using digital assets to circumvent sanctions and other restrictions, the Department of Justice (DOJ) is raising the alert that crypto is expanding into every area the agency is exploring. "We are seeing cryptocurrency and digital assets really touch every aspect of criminal activity we investigate," stated the DOJ's director of National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team (NCET), Eun Young Choi at a recent conference hosted by the Financial Times. /jlne.ws/3I3lEz8 *****Crypto is the currency of choice for the criminal class. That should not be a surprise.~JJL ++++ Lawmakers Say Crypto Turf War Between SEC and CFTC Is an 'Industry-Fueled Narrative' Andre Beganski - Decrypt A joint hearing on Capitol Hill sought to measure the regulatory gaps in crypto on Wednesday. The criteria for determining whether a token should be considered a security or a commodity highlighted how wide those gaps have been. The topic has been a sticking point for years, and a puzzle piece for determining to what degree the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) or the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have authority over the digital assets industry. /jlne.ws/3Bh2phP ****** The SEC thinks they own the CFTC. It may be industry-fueled, but that is because we have all heard the stories of the SEC arrogance towards the CFTC.~JJL ++++ JPMorgan's Dimon says debt ceiling standoff could cause panic - report Reuters JPMorgan Chase & Co's CEO Jamie Dimon said the congressional standoff over the U.S. debt ceiling, and a potential U.S. default, could create a financial panic, according to an interview with Punchbowl News published on Wednesday. "Panic isn't necessarily a rational thing," the website quoted Dimon as saying. "People panic. And (when) you see people panic -- that's '08, '09 again, and that's really what you want to avoid." /jlne.ws/41rjvUL ****** Maybe another bank will become available for JPM to buy?~JJL ++++ Don't show off, don't lecture: how to negotiate with someone more powerful; Whether on the world stage or at home, it's complicated. Here's how to do it. Simon Kuper - Financial Times Next weekend's G7 summit in Hiroshima is, in part, a dealmaking retreat for leaders of different status. Each participant's standing derives from some combination of their country's size, GDP and military might, plus the leader's charisma and electoral prospects. The biggest beast at the summit is always the American president. /jlne.ws/42yIiYI ****** Great suggestions and real life examples of great failures.~JJL ++++ Wednesday's Top Three Our top story Wednesday was Jane Street, Jump Pull Back Crypto Trading Over US Regulatory Uncertainty, from Bloomberg. Second was Wall Street Leaders Warn of 'Unthinkable' Fallout If US Defaults, also from Bloomberg. Third was The Billion-Dollar Ponzi Scheme That Hooked Warren Buffett And The U.S. Treasury, from The Atlantic. ++++ MarketsWiki Stats 27,317 pages; 244,769 edits MarketsWiki Statistics ++++
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Lead Stories | Man Group Appoints its First Female CEO in 240 Years; Robyn Grew, the firm's president, to take over on Sept. 1; Anne Wade set to become its first female chairman this year Nishant Kumar - Bloomberg Man Group Plc has appointed its first female chief executive officer in its 240 years of existence. Robyn Grew, 54, will take over from Luke Ellis, 60, who is stepping down from the helm of the world's largest publicly listed hedge fund firm on Sept. 1, according to a statement Thursday. Grew, who joined Man Group in 2009 and is currently its president, will move to the UK for the role but will continue to spend a substantial proportion of her time in the US. /jlne.ws/44UNVSj Ken Griffin's Hand-Picked Math Prodigy Runs Market-Making Empire; Citadel Securities CEO Peng Zhao left for college at age 14, caught Griffin's eye early in his career and built systems now mopping up market share Katherine Doherty - Bloomberg Among all the tales Wall Street leaders tell of pivotal moments that led them to their powerful perches, Citadel Securities Chief Executive Officer Peng Zhao's may be the only one that involves sifting through trash. It starts with youthful hubris and ends as a parable about perseverance - something the firm will need to realize its ambitions amid a slew of proposed US regulations. /jlne.ws/3LNIoV2 Hong Kong Exchange Poised to Propose Trading During Typhoons Kiuyan Wong - Bloomberg Hong Kong policymakers are preparing a proposal to allow stock trading on days with extreme weather, doing away with a long-held tradition in the Asian financial hub, according to people familiar with the matter. A working group from the Hong Kong's stock exchange, the city's market regulator and central bank is drafting a plan to allow trading as normal during typhoons and rainstorms, following up on a government initiative announced in the budget in February. /jlne.ws/3LVNsGT FIA Tech partners with Symphony to enhance capital markets data workflows; The firm's Databank Network will integrate into the Symphony platform through a new FIA Tech Bot - due to go live in Q2 - providing improved access to data sets. Wesley Bray - The Trade Technology provider FIA Tech is partnering with markets' infrastructure and technology platform Symphony to enhance data query workflows in capital markets. FIA Tech's Databank Network will integrate into the Symphony platform via the introduction of a new FIA Tech Bot, which will provide access to data sets including contract specifications, exchange fees, position limits, cash and collateral management data, clearinghouse calendars and corporate actions through queries. The new bot will go live in Q2 of this year. /jlne.ws/44QBqqY Stock Clearinghouse Leaked Sensitive Data, Trading Firm Says; Traders worry Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. data feeds could reveal when large investors are buying or selling stocks, a charge DTCC rejects Alexander Osipovich - The Wall Street Journal The clearinghouse that processes U.S. stock trades is selling data that sophisticated traders can use to profit at the expense of more traditional investors, according to a report from an institutional brokerage firm. The Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. is "leaking sensitive trading data" via two little-known data feeds, brokerage Themis Trading said in the report, which it circulated to clients earlier this week. /jlne.ws/3nS30DG SEC's Gensler Warns About 'Lasting Effects' of US Debt Default; Default would send markets on 'roller-coaster,' he says; White House, Republicans to meet again Friday to hash deal Lydia Beyoud - Bloomberg The head of Wall Street's main regulator says a US default could cause deep and lasting damage to markets. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler on Wednesday warned that a failure by Democrats and Republicans in Washington to reach a deal on raising the US debt ceiling would impact trading, the ability of businesses to raise money, and investors. Gensler, a Democrat who was appointed by President Joe Biden, said the standoff has already affected short-dated US Treasury bills. /jlne.ws/3O0v5TL Banking Crisis And Crypto Boom: The Next Black Swan Event Benzinga The unfolding of the banking crisis since March has exposed the weakness of the global financial sector, driving a massive influx of investment toward decentralized finance (DeFi) assets and cryptocurrencies. But as central banks around the world plan to reverse the aggressively hawkish monetary stance to ease liquidity fears, the popularity of alternative assets could skyrocket further, potentially disrupting the financial market in the near term. /jlne.ws/3O1Cdj4 Robinhood to Launch 24-Hour Trading on Weekdays in Stocks and ETFs; The online brokerage says all customers will have access by next month Alexander Osipovich and Hannah Miao - The Wall Street Journal Users of Robinhood Markets increase; green up pointing triangle' popular app will soon be able to trade Tesla shares in the middle of the night. Robinhood said Wednesday that it will offer 24-hour trading of selected stocks and exchange-traded funds, five days a week. The move is part of a growing push in parts of the financial industry to expand trading beyond traditional Wall Street operating hours. The brokerage plans to allow round-the-clock trading between 8 p.m. ET Sunday and 8 p.m. ET Friday in 43 securities, including some popular stocks such as Amazon.com, Apple and Tesla. /jlne.ws/3nKokuV LCH to Launch Crypto Derivatives Clearing as Regulation Grows Shanny Basar - MarketsMedia LCH SA, London Stock Exchange Group's European clearer, will provide a new segregated clearing service for digital asset derivatives venue, GFO-X, as more trading in the asset class is expected to move to regulated venues. In April this year LCH DigitalAssetClear said it will provide clearing services for cash-settled Bitcoin index futures and options contracts traded on GFO-X, a venue approved as a multilateral trading facility by the UK Financial Conduct Authority. The service is expected to go live in the fourth quarter of 2023. /jlne.ws/44T2PbE Jamie Dimon Says US Needs to 'Finish' the Bank Crisis; JPMorgan's chief executive officer predicts more rules are coming to an industry already struggling. Jennifer Surane and Francine Lacqua - Bloomberg Jamie Dimon said it's time for regulators to help put an end to turmoil in the banking industry, but he's already predicting policymakers will take away the wrong lessons from this year's upheaval. /jlne.ws/42rKSzz JPMorgan Convenes Weekly War Room Over US Debt Ceiling Standoff Jennifer Surane - Bloomberg JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said his company has convened a weekly war room to plan how it would react to a potential US default amid protracted negotiations in Congress over the debt ceiling. The US inching closer to a potential default could spark panic among investors, Dimon said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. That could ultimately impact other markets outside of the US, he said. /jlne.ws/41sgGTB U.S. Internal Revenue Service Files Claims Worth $44 Billion Against FTX Bankruptcy Tracy Wang - CoinDesk The United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has filed claims worth nearly $44 billion against the estate of bankrupt crypto exchange FTX and its affiliated entities. According to bankruptcy filings dated April 27 and 28, the IRS put forth 45 claims against FTX companies, which include West Realm Shires (the legal entity of FTX.US), Ledger Holdings (the parent company of LedgerX and LedgerPrime) and Blockfolio, among others. The largest of the claims includes a $20.4 billion and a $7.9 billion claim against Alameda Research LLC and two claims totaling $9.5 billion against Alameda Research Holdings Inc. /jlne.ws/3MiOE8P Xi Urges Financial Institutions to Move to New Flagship City Bloomberg News President Xi Jinping has reaffirmed his commitment to creating a dazzling high-tech hub neighboring Beijing, calling on state-owned enterprises and financial institutions to relocate to the flagship city. The Chinese leader on Wednesday visited the sprawling Xiong'an New Area, located in Hebei province about 100 kilometers (62 miles) southwest of the capital, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. He arrived at the Xiong'an Railway Station by high-speed rail from Beijing, a journey that takes about 30 minutes. /jlne.ws/3O164rD Regulators Asked If Credit Suisse Bond Wipeout Should Trigger Insurance Payout Giulia Morpurgo, Laura Benitez and Erin Hudson - Bloomberg Two months after many investors were caught off guard by the writedown of Credit Suisse Group AG's Additional Tier 1 bonds, the securities are once again at the center of a market debate. This time the divide is over whether the event will trigger an insurance payout. Funds including FourSixThree Capital and Diameter Capital Partners have been buying credit default swaps linked to another set of junior Credit Suisse bonds, betting that the derivatives panel tasked with overseeing the market will rule that a credit event has occurred. Traders at Citigroup AG and Barclays Plc told clients on Thursday that the AT1s are likely to be deemed more junior to the subordinated notes linked to the CDS, making a payout unlikely. /jlne.ws/42rFIDH ISDA happening!; The determinations committee has been summoned Robin Wigglesworth - Financial Times While plebs wonder if UBS is now too big, and rubes muse whether global banks can ever really be smoothly wound down, the crediterati have been speculating whether Credit Suisse actually defaulted in its forced merger with its Swiss rival. And now it looks like we might find out. A Bloomberg news spike alert made Alphaville scurry over to the website of the International Swap and Derivatives Association's determinations committee and, lo: /jlne.ws/3LSuctX Man Group Names Robyn Grew as Next CEO MarketsMedia Man Group, the global, technology-empowered active investment management firm, announces that Luke Ellis has informed the Board of his decision to retire and that Robyn Grew will be appointed as the next CEO of Man Group. /jlne.ws/3VWjIhH Man Group appoints new CEO as Luke Ellis announces retirement; Incoming CEO has been at the investment manager for the last 14 years, having previously held senior positions at Barclays Capital, Lehman Brothers and LIFFE. Wesley Bray - The Trade Man Group's current chief executive officer Luke Ellis has announced his retirement, with Robyn Grew set to replace him effective from 1 September 2023. Grew currently serves as president of Man Group and a member of the senior executive committee, based in the US. /jlne.ws/3nUUtzW Backlash against the EU's new active clearing account requirements continues as sell-side voice concerns; Almost 90% of sell-side clearing managers believe the proposals will increase costs for their clients, an Acuiti report has found. Annabel Smith - The Trade Around two thirds of sell-side clearing managers do not support the EU's recent proposals to implement active account requirements for Euro denominated swaps under Emir 3.0, according to Acuiti's latest Clearing Management Insight Report. Proposed in December last year, the changes require all relevant market participants to hold active accounts at European CCPs for clearing at least a portion of certain derivative contracts. /jlne.ws/3O1kkRp Abu Dhabi Royal's Firm Shorts US Stocks on Global Recession Fears; Royal Group has built short position worth billions of dollars; Firm helps manage one of the world's biggest family fortunes Ben Bartenstein and Dinesh Nair - Bloomberg An investment firm controlled by a top Abu Dhabi royal has built a short position worth billions of dollars in US stocks, people familiar with the matter said, in a bet that growing fears over a recession will pressure markets. Royal Group turned more negative on equities at the start of the year and has shifted more of its portfolio into short-term US Treasuries, the people said, asking not to be identified because the matter is private. /jlne.ws/3VVxd11 Carl Icahn's Firm Faces Federal Inquiry; The billionaire activist investor's company said that U.S. prosecutors had asked for information about its operations after a short seller's report took aim at the way the firm is run. Maureen Farrell and Matthew Goldstein - The New York Times The investment firm controlled by the billionaire activist investor Carl C. Icahn has fielded questions from federal prosecutors about its management and operations, according to a securities filing made on Wednesday. On May 3, federal prosecutors in Manhattan requested documents from Mr. Icahn and his firm just one day after his publicly traded company, Icahn Enterprises, became a target of Hindenburg Research, the short-seller firm that has made its name in recent years by taking on the Indian tycoon Gautam Adani and the Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey. /jlne.ws/3VSeovU Memes Are Wreaking Havoc on Cryptocurrency Apparently Justin Ray - Robb Report Cryptocurrency has had some tough times recently, from FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried's criminal charges to the crash that has caused digital currency holders to rush toward investments that are more stable. Now they're facing a new challenge: memes. /jlne.ws/3Mid0PR We Need Regulatory Clarity to Keep Crypto Exchanges Onshore and DeFi Permissionless Jack Solowey, Jennifer Schulp - CoinDesk At Consensus 2023, Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) and Congressman Patrick McHenry (R-NC) voiced their goals of developing legislation to clarify crypto market structure in the United States, with a House proposal expected in the next two months. /jlne.ws/3LWuAaN Biden's crypto crackdown makes it 'very difficult' to do business in US, says Binance James Titcomb - The Telegraph Binance, the world's most popular cryptocurrency exchange, has attacked the Biden administration's crackdown on the industry and said it hopes to gain regulatory approval in the UK. Patrick Hillmann, the company's chief strategy officer, said it was a "very difficult time" to do business in the US and that the situation had been "very confusing over the past six months". /jlne.ws/3MfMl6o
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Ukraine Invasion | News about the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and its military, economic, political and humanitarian impact | Russian Central Bank Has $8.3 Billion Held in Switzerland Hugo Miller - Bloomberg Russian central bank assets worth 7.4 billion Swiss francs ($8.3 billion) are held across Switzerland, the government said following new reporting obligations introduced as part of the latest European Union sanctions package. The 7.4 billion-franc figure represents all central bank reserves and assets reported in Switzerland to date and those funds have been immobilized, the government specified in a statement on Wednesday. /jlne.ws/3VVT9JB Russia's losses are worse than anyone thinks Hamish de Bretton-Gordon - The Telegraph It was a curious sight. Russia's annual Victory Day parade, a display of military might and a celebration of its role in defeating Nazi Germany, could only muster a solitary T-34. The serried ranks of tanks seen in recent years were absent; many of them will be lying burned out in the Donbas. Putin's speech, meanwhile, was desperate, even delusional. He claimed civilisation was "at a decisive turning point"; that a "real war has been unleashed against Russia"; that the West seeks the "disintegration and destruction" of Russia. The only person driving towards that goal is Putin himself. /jlne.ws/42nmXBc Zelensky Says Ukraine Needs More Time Before Launching Counteroffensive; President says Kyiv still waiting for more weapons deliveries to maximize gains, minimize casualties Matthew Luxmoore - The Wall Street Journal Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine needs more time before it can launch a much-anticipated counteroffensive against Russia, because its military hasn't yet received equipment pledged by Western allies and the cost in lives could be too great if it were to proceed now. /jlne.ws/3BejqJE
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Exchanges, OTC & Clearing | Top news from exchanges, clearing, settlement and trade execution facilities | John McMahon re-appointed NZX Board director NZX The NZX Board today announced that experienced markets practitioner and former NZX director John McMahon has been re-appointed as a NZX Board director, effective immediately. NZX Board Chair James Miller said he was delighted Mr McMahon was re-joining the NZX Board. "John is an extremely talented individual with a passion for and great understanding of New Zealand's capital markets," Mr Miller said. "Alongside his impeccable stock broking experience, John also brings funds management expertise." /jlne.ws/41quz4M
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Fintech | A roundup of today's market tech news and a look at tomorrow's disruptors | The likely winners of the generative AI gold rush; Small, specialist models that are cheap to train and fast to run may win out over the broader Big Tech offerings John Thornhill - Financial Times The latest Californian gold rush is about a mad scramble over generative AI. The big US tech companies, such as Google, Microsoft, Meta and Palantir, as well as a swarm of venture capital firms, are all manically digging for new seams of digital treasure. But the big, and as yet unanswerable, questions are: who's going to end up spitting dust and who will bag the most gold? /jlne.ws/41uPNhE Crypto Derivatives Protocol Vega's Mainnet Goes Live for Futures, Options Trading; The blockchain, called Alpha, is said to be built mainly to support decentralized trading. Shaurya Malwa - CoinDesk Crypto derivatives protocol Vega on Wednesday launched its Alpha mainnet, a blockchain built specifically to handle decentralized derivatives trading of financial products such as futures and options. Alpha offers support for a range of market types and assets, including futures, spot swaps, options and perpetuals that track the prices of various tokens - allowing users to deploy strategies to profit from their price gyrations. /jlne.ws/3nRJqr3 How blockchain gaming can break out of its niche and win over more people Tim Dierckxsens - Forkast While early conversations of Web3 centered around rising cryptocurrency prices and million-dollar JPEGs, blockchain gaming has since grown into an entire industry in its own right. This has inspired stalwarts of the traditional gaming industry to explore the benefits that blockchain technology can bring to game development. The reason for this? Blockchain-based games are a radical departure from traditional gaming platforms because they provide players with the means to own in-game assets through NFTs. Through this innovative rewiring of traditional gaming, the blockchain gaming market is predicted to be worth US$65.7 billion by 2027. /jlne.ws/3puwKXC Revolut finance chief leaves fintech 'for personal reasons' after 2 years; Mikko Salovaara's departure adds to last year's exodus of executives from the group's UK banking team Siddharth Venkataramakrishnan - Financial Times Revolut said that its chief financial officer Mikko Salovaara is leaving, the latest departure from the fintech still awaiting a UK banking licence and whose culture has drawn scrutiny from regulators. Salovaara is departing the London-based fintech "for personal reasons" after two years in the job, Revolut said on Thursday. /jlne.ws/3nPobWQ AI Needs Specialized Processors. Crypto Miners Say They Have Them; Previous Ethereum miners look to repurpose glut of GPUs for AI; Some miners snapped up high-end chips during boom in crypto David Pan - Bloomberg When the Ethereum blockchain moved away from using a technique for verifying transactions known as proof of work last September, crypto market demand for the specialized processors that performed these calculations disappeared virtually overnight. /jlne.ws/44LPkLb
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Cybersecurity | Top stories for cybersecurity | Industry skepticism about a Defense Department cybersecurity policy is only growing Tom Temin - Federal News Network Perhaps you have heard of CMMC, the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program. Now in its 2.0 version, it is supposed to lay minimum cybersecurity standards on contractors doing business with the Defense Department. But it is like a storm on the horizon that never really arrives. Some company executives are skeptical. Federal Drive with Tom Temin spoke with one such skeptic: Matt Hodson, the Chief Information Officer of Valeo Networks. /jlne.ws/3NXrx4H Cybersecurity experts expect surge in AI-generated hacking attacks Joseph Menn - The Washington Post Earlier this year, a sales director in India for tech security firm Zscaler got a call that seemed to be from the company's chief executive. As his cellphone displayed founder Jay Chaudhry's picture, a familiar voice said "Hi, it's Jay. I need you to do something for me," before the call dropped. A follow-up text over WhatsApp explained why. "I think I'm having poor network coverage as I am traveling at the moment. Is it okay to text here in the meantime?" /jlne.ws/3LZ9MPU EU Eyes Cybersecurity Plan Aimed at Keeping Cloud Data in Europe Jillian Deutsch and Alberto Nardelli - Bloomberg The European Union is weighing a plan that would require cloud providers to store all of their data within the bloc in order to qualify for its highest cybersecurity certification. ENISA, the EU's cybersecurity regulator, is drawing up the new, stricter requirements to ensure that no foreign government can interfere with EU data, according to a draft of the proposal seen by Bloomberg. /jlne.ws/42nmv5Y
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Cryptocurrencies | Top stories for cryptocurrencies | DeFi Broker Prime Protocol Introduces Bridgeless Cross-Chain Token Transfers Elizabeth Napolitano - CoinDesk Prime Protocol, a decentralized finance-based (DeFi) prime brokerage, has released an asset-based lending services that aims to eliminate the need for inter-blockchain token transfers, according to a Tuesday press release. /jlne.ws/3MhBGIl 'Crypto Bros Are Certainly a Problem': Ripple Managing Director Ryan Gladwin - Decrypt The crypto bro stereotype comes from the unfortunate truth that the crypto industry isn't quite as diverse as it could be. Ripple's managing director Sendi Young wants to fix that. "Crypto bros are certainly a problem," Young said at the Financial Times's Crypto and Digital Assets Summit. "You look at a lot of people coming [to] crypto are either from tech or finance or everything in between. And those historically have diversity challenges." /jlne.ws/3nVpIe3 Chris Giancarlo talks US Digital Dollar Status, CBDCs, Stablecoin Privacy & Crypto Regulations Thinking Crypto - YouTube Chris Giancarlo is a former CFTC Chairman, Author, and cofounder of Digital Dollar project. In this interview we discuss the latest with the US digital dollar cbdc, CBDCs globally, Ron Desantis Florida CBDC ban, Stablecoin privacy concerns, crypto regulations and more. /jlne.ws/3nPgRKP Biden's crypto crackdown makes it 'very difficult' to do business in US, says Binance; Digital exchanges face increased scrutiny in the continued aftermath of FTX's collapse James Titcomb - The Telegraph Binance, the world's most popular cryptocurrency exchange, has attacked the Biden administration's crackdown on the industry and said it hopes to gain regulatory approval in the UK. Patrick Hillmann, the company's chief strategy officer, said it was a "very difficult time" to do business in the US and that the situation had been "very confusing over the past six months". Meanwhile, he said the company would do "everything we possibly can" to secure approval in the UK. /jlne.ws/42rc15H This artist just made a memecoin that skyrocketed to a $77 million market cap. He mostly used GPT-4 Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez - Fortune Rhett "Mankind," a digital artist based in Australia, created a popular new meme cryptocurrency over the course of a week-but he didn't do it by himself. With step-by-step instructions and dozens of lines of code written by OpenAI's $20-per-month artificial intelligence chatbot GPT-4, along with some input from Twitter followers, the artist created and launched the Turbo cryptocurrency over the course of a week. /jlne.ws/3BhSys1 Web3 Represents a Strong Alternative to Today's Internet Glenn Williams, Nick Baker - CoinDesk With all of the back and forth regarding the efficacy of cryptocurrencies, I find myself more and more looking for use cases outside traditional "currency" definitions, i.e. that which is used primarily for transactions, where a unit of account is traded for a product or service. Doing so often brings me to arenas that while well known to many in the crypto community, are still relatively green space for me. As a markets-based professional, I attempt to be transparent in my crypto journey. While there are many topics that I have a significant degree of comfort with, Web3 is an area where I see opportunities to increase my base of knowledge. /jlne.ws/42MBjek
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Politics | An overview of politics as it relates to the financial markets | Joint U.S. House Hearing on Crypto's Future Opens With Discord Jesse Hamilton - CoinDesk The unusual joint meeting of the two most crypto-relevant committees in the U.S. House of Representatives was called to work out the best legislative approach to digital assets, but one of the top Democrats questioned whether Congress should be writing a bill at all. The hearing of both the House Financial Services Committee and House Agriculture Committee was called Wednesday as an urgent response to the lack of government oversight of a financial sector that's passing through a period of turmoil. The group included the Republican chairs and ranking Democrats of the committees and the subcommittees doing the work, among them Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.), the senior Democrat on the digital assets subcommittee, who threw cold water on the idea of legislation. /jlne.ws/3I2dyqN Can New York AG's Crypto Proposal Offer Investors Greater Protection? Andre Beganski - Decrypt Crypto regulation could soon take a step forward in the Empire State, as lawmakers weigh new rules proposed by New York Attorney General Letitia James. The goal is to make a nascent industry look a bit more like Wall Street, at least in terms of how it's overseen. /jlne.ws/42IX5zw Republicans Are Putting Our Standard of Living at Risk Mike Lofgren - The New York Times Opinion Since 1960, Congress has acted 78 times to increase the statutory debt limit to avert a government default. Indeed, when I worked in Congress, from the mid-1980s to 2011, after a bit of posturing, Congress always increased the debt ceiling - and created the expectation that debt-limit fights were a seasonal Washington ritual, like the cherry blossoms or the Marine Corps marathon, of no existential importance. /jlne.ws/3BjZOUt George Santos Faces 13 Felony Charges, Including Fraud and Money Laundering Corinne Ramey and James Fanelli - The Wall Street Journal Rep. George Santos, accused of fabricating much of his life's story to secure public office, was indicted Wednesday on federal charges that he embezzled contributions, fraudulently obtained unemployment benefits and filed false federal disclosure forms. The New York Republican, who was elected last year to represent parts of Long Island and Queens in Congress, surrendered to authorities Wednesday morning and pleaded not guilty in federal court in Central Islip, N.Y., in the afternoon. /jlne.ws/41q1kiw U.S. House Considers Resolution Calling for Russia to Release Evan Gershkovich William Mauldin - The Wall Street Journal The Republican-led House of Representatives is considering a resolution calling on Russia to free jailed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R., Texas) is leading the effort with Republicans and Democrats. A strong vote in support of the measure could strengthen the Biden administration's efforts to get Mr. Gershkovich returned to the U.S. /jlne.ws/41ouePT New Rules on Sharing Crypto Tax Data 'Unanimously Supported' by EU Members Jack Schickler - CoinDesk New European Union rules allowing tax authorities to share data on people's crypto holdings have been unanimously supported by the bloc's member states, meaning formal agreement on the law is likely next week, a senior official has said. Last year the European Commission proposed to curb tax evasion using crypto via an eighth amendment to the Directive on Administrative Cooperation (DAC8), widening an existing law that is intended to prevent taxpayers from stashing taxable assets in hidden overseas bank accounts. /jlne.ws/3nUflqM Brussels backtracks on financial advice inducement ban; Leaked document indicates EU will allow asset managers to continue to pay commissions to advisers Chris Flood - Financial Times Brussels has backtracked on plans to ban asset managers and insurers from paying financial advisers for recommending their investment products, bowing to intense industry lobbying and in spite of warnings from consumer groups. An analysis by the European Commission last year concluded that an EU-wide full ban on incentive payments made by investment product manufacturers to financial advisers would be the most effective way to remove conflicts of interest and improve results for end-investors. /jlne.ws/3MfXGCn The West Needs Russia to Power Its Nuclear Comeback; U.S., Europe add reactors but still heavily dependent on Moscow for crucial ingredients to produce fuel Jennifer Hiller, Daniel Michaels and Kim Mackrael - The Wall Street Journal Nuclear power in the West is having a long-awaited revival, with new reactors opening in the U.S. and Europe and fresh momentum toward building more soon. A gaping hole in the plan: The West doesn't have enough nuclear fuel-and lacks the capacity to swiftly ramp up production. Even more vexing, the biggest source of critical ingredients is Russia and its state monopoly, Rosatom, which is implicated in supporting the war in Ukraine. /jlne.ws/3py2lry
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Regulation & Enforcement | Stories about regulation and the law. | IOSCO publishes a report to help its members enhance SPAC regulations International Organization of Securities Commissions The Board of the International Organization of Securities Commissions today published a final report on Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs), which aims to help IOSCO members review or improve their approach to these companies. The recent surge in SPACs raised concerns for many IOSCO members about investor protection and market integrity. /jlne.ws/41AmpHa SEC Serves Bitcoin Mining Firm Marathon Digital With Subpoena, Again Andrew Asmakov - Decrypt Bitcoin mining firm Marathon Digital Holdings said it received a subpoena from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) related to alleged violations of securities laws. "The Company received an additional subpoena from the SEC on April 10, 2023, relating to, among other things, transactions with related parties," Marathon said in a filing Wednesday. "We understand that the SEC may be investigating whether or not there may have been any violations of the federal securities law." /jlne.ws/44RILqf FINRA and NFA Discuss Crypto Assets at Special Summit; FINRA, NFA Expand MOU to Include Information Sharing, Collaboration FINRA FINRA and NFA recently held a special summit focused on crypto assets and agreed to expand their Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to address crypto activities that fall within their respective regulatory mandates. During the day-long summit held at FINRA's San Francisco office, crypto and blockchain experts from both organizations met to share regulatory intelligence and ways to leverage new technology. /jlne.ws/3W1zvMf Carl Icahn's Icahn Enterprises stock falls 15% after company discloses federal probe Josh Schafer - Yahoo! Finance Carl Icahn's Icahn Enterprises (IEP) stock tanked on Wednesday after the company revealed in an SEC filing it's under investigation from federal prosecutors. The U.S. Attorney's office for the Southern District of New York contacted Icahn the day after Hindenburg Research released a short-seller report accusing Icahn Enterprises of a "Ponzi-like" structure. /jlne.ws/3OiEs1B Remarks before the Municipal Securities Disclosure Conference Chair Gary Gensler - SEC Good morning. It's a pleasure to welcome you to the Securities and Exchange Commission's Municipal Securities Disclosure Conference-our first in nearly three years. I'd like to start with a disclosure of my own: My views are my own as Chair of the SEC, and I am not speaking on behalf of my fellow Commissioners or the staff. On May 27, we will mark the 90th anniversary of the Securities Act of 1933, the first of the federal securities laws. /jlne.ws/42Erkb2 The Next "Century of Progress": Remarks before the International Swaps and Derivatives Association Annual Meeting Chair Gary Gensler - SEC Good afternoon. I'm pleased to be back for what I'm told is the fifth time speaking before the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA). As is customary, I'd like to note that my views are my own as Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and I am not speaking on behalf of my fellow Commissioners or the staff. May 27 marks 90 years since President Franklin Roosevelt signed the first of the federal securities laws: the Securities Act of 1933. /jlne.ws/3I1P4ho Remarks at the 2023 SEC Municipal Securities Disclosure Conference Commissioner Jaime Lizarraga - SEC Thank you, Adam [Allogramento], for that kind introduction. I would also like to thank Dave Sanchez, director of the Office of Municipal Securities, and SEC Chair Gensler for convening today's conference. To OMS staff and all of today's panelists, thank you for contributing your time and expertise. The market for municipal securities plays a critical role in U.S. capital markets and in our economy. State, city, local, tribal, and territorial governments and other jurisdictions depend on the securities they issue to finance their priorities - hospitals, roads, schools, affordable housing, and other infrastructure. A well-functioning municipal market benefits issuers through lower borrowing costs. The public also benefits through lower project costs and fees. /jlne.ws/3VWhK0S SEC Settles Fraud Charges Against Brazilian Reinsurance Company SEC The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that IRB Brasil Resseguros S.A., a publicly-traded Brazilian reinsurance company, agreed to a civil injunction to settle charges that the company had planted a false story with the media and disseminated false documents in order to influence IRB's stock price. /jlne.ws/42rJuNk SEC Charges Tennessee Resident and Company with Selling Fraudulent Promissory Notes SEC The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Brentwood, Tennessee resident Clayton R. Thomas and the now defunct entity he controlled, Personalized Healthcare Solution, LLC, with selling fraudulent promissory notes and misappropriating investor funds. /jlne.ws/3pzSkd7 CFTC Orders The Bank of Nova Scotia to Pay a $15 Million Penalty for Recordkeeping and Supervision Failures for Widespread Use of Unapproved Communication Methods CFTC The Commodity Futures Trading Commission today issued an order simultaneously filing and settling charges against The Bank of Nova Scotia, a provisionally registered swap dealer and Scotia Capital USA Inc., a futures commission merchant, (collectively BNS Affiliates). The order charges BNS Affiliates with failing to maintain, preserve, or produce records that were required to be kept under CFTC recordkeeping requirements, and failing to diligently supervise matters related to their businesses as CFTC registrants. /jlne.ws/3O1jaVP
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Investing & Trading | Today's top stories from equities, indices and FICC (fixed income, currencies and commodities) | The Home Buyer's Quandary: Nobody's Selling Nicole Friedman - The Wall Street Journal Many Americans who want to move are trapped in their homes-locked in by low interest rates they can't afford to give up. These "golden handcuffs" are keeping the supply of homes for sale unusually low and making the market more competitive and pricey than some forecasters expected. The reluctance of homeowners to sell differentiates the current housing market from past downturns and could keep home prices from falling significantly on a national basis, economists say. /jlne.ws/44PYl5K New Calls for Short-Selling Ban Has Experts Defending the Tactic; Practice brings attention to overvalued companies in sector; Shares of healthy companies don't go to zero: Steve Sosnick Carmen Reinicke - Bloomberg For all the latest calls to prohibit short selling amid the banking turmoil, there's an argument to be made that such a ban would actually hurt investors. Short sellers may have reaped billions of dollars this year by betting against banks, but some market pundits say they're also helping to shed light on overvalued companies in the sector. /jlne.ws/42OjUlz Short Seller Hindenburg Hits Out Again at Carl Icahn, Adds Bet Against Bonds Ben Scent - Bloomberg Short seller Hindenburg Research hit out again at Carl Icahn's investment firm, saying the famed corporate raider failed to disclose enough in response to questions raised in its critical report. Icahn Enterprises LP's response to Hindenburg didn't provide any additional color on its "opaque book of private investments" or their valuations, Hindenburg said on its website Thursday. The group also failed to address Hindenburg's charge that its dividends weren't supported by free cash flow, it said. /jlne.ws/42J0xKu Carl Icahn's company lost $2 billion after revealing that it is facing legal scrutiny Ananya Bhattacharya - Quartz Investors were spooked by the news that federal prosecutors put Icahn Enterprises on their radar, which caused the stock to take yet another tumble. The publication of a Hindenburg Research report earlier this month, which accused the conglomerate created by legendary Wall Street investor Carl Icahn of inflating assets by more than 75%, among other things, caused the shares to hit their lowest point in more than a decade. Icahn's net worth lost $10 billion, according to Bloomberg. /jlne.ws/44Twq4Q There is nothing typical for stocks when the Fed stops raising rates; Analysis shows an extraordinary range of outcomes since the S&P 500's inception in 1928 Liz Ann Sonders - Financial Times Whether the recent rate rise by the US Federal Reserve caps off the most aggressive tightening cycle in four decades is still being debated. The CME FedWatch Tool - which tracks the probabilities of rate changes implied futures trading data - indicates that investors believe that there is about an 95 per cent likelihood of no change to rates at the June monetary policy-setting meeting of Federal Open Market Committee. /jlne.ws/3pyirRV
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Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance | Stories about environmental, social and governance investing | ESG and climate change: 'Woke capitalism' or smart business? Jessica Guynn - USA Today Smart business or "woke capitalism"? Democrats and Republicans squared off over environmental, social and governance investing again Wednesday, this time during a House Oversight Committee hearing. /jlne.ws/3VXsEDK Europe's energy majors have a black box problem; Trading profits are bolstering returns but doing little to narrow the valuation gap with US peers David Sheppard - Financial Times Shell's trading arm is a colossus, estimated to have generated about a fifth of the company's record profits last year. But ask your average investor in the company and you could forgive them for knowing very little about it. /jlne.ws/44NIvbL ESG concerns grow with AI popularity. What investors need to know Hakyung Kim - CNBC Wall Street has eagerly rallied around companies making notable strides in artificial intelligence. However, several investors warn that the increasingly widespread deployment of AI has opened a Pandora's box of concerns about environmental, social and corporate governance, or ESG. /jlne.ws/42tMxEC Recent ESG Problems Include Fund Underperformance And Data Inconsistency-And How The US And Europe Differ In Approach Carrie McCabe - Forbes Some fractures are appearing in global ESG investment, with market size estimated by Bloomberg Intelligence to hit $50 trillion in 2025. As reference, $50 trillion represents nearly a threefold increase from AUM levels of 2014. /jlne.ws/3HZuaz6 BNP Paribas to stop funding new gas projects as litigation risk mounts; Bank pledges to step away from some fossil fuels ahead of annual meeting of shareholders Sarah White in Paris and Kenza Bryan - Financial Times BNP Paribas has said it will no longer finance new gasfield projects, further restricting some of its funding for fossil fuels, as campaigners pursue lawsuits against the eurozone's biggest bank for supporting the sector. /jlne.ws/3nOVb1B
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Banks, Brokers & Managed Funds | The latest from banks, brokers, hedge funds and managed futures | BankThink When it comes to de novos, the Fed's rhetoric doesn't match its actions Katie S. Cox and Caitlin Long - American Banker The member of the Federal Reserve Board representing community banks, Gov. Michelle W. Bowman, recently gave a speech urging the Fed to encourage the formation of de novo banks by "right-sizing regulatory requirements, improving transparency, and supporting regulatory approaches that support new banks." We agree with Gov. Bowman's sentiment - but, respectfully, where was she when the Fed recently treated a de novo community bank applicant in the opposite manner? /jlne.ws/44SsTny Companies Are Allowed to Do Bad Mergers; Block/Tidal, First Citizens earnings, banks had a good quarter and capital call financing. Matt Levine - Bloomberg As a first approximation, if you are the chief executive officer of a big public company, you can do whatever you want. You are the boss, you write the checks, and if you want to spend your company's money on buying yourself a nicer office chair or upgrading the corporate jet, you can. If you are the CEO of a ball bearings company and you want to open a film studio so that you can hang out with movie stars, sure, you're the boss. /jlne.ws/3ppRAY1 Franklin Templeton to List Blockchain Fund Targeting Institutional Investors Jamie Crawley - CoinDesk Franklin Templeton, which has some $1.4 trillion in assets under management, plans to add to its crypto market offerings with a second blockchain fund, according to a Wednesday filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). /jlne.ws/3pzTCVv Hedge Fund Manager Wadhwani Says US Default Risk Worse Than 2011; Manager and former BOE official says markets too complacent; CIO of PGIM Wadhwani lowers risk profile as cycle draws to end Dani Burger - Bloomberg Sushil Wadhwani warns a deeply divided Congress may push the US to the brink of a default and credit downgrade before it resolves its standoff over the debt ceiling. Wadhwani, a veteran hedge fund manager and advisor to UK Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, says a market shock akin to 2011 - or worse - is needed to spur US lawmakers to action. /jlne.ws/3NUFyAi Protecting deposits in the era of digital bank runs; Insurance has a role - but lenders must be more robust in the first place Financial Times "The hard-earned savings of the majority of our people who are only able to deposit in one bank must be protected". These were the words of US Representative Henry Steagall in hearings preceding the creation of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in 1933. With depositors losing about $1.3bn over the Depression, consensus towards providing insurance - then at $2,500 per depositor - grew to help rebuild confidence in banks. /jlne.ws/41n0keN Hedge Funds Drive Credit Suisse CDS Higher on Bets of a Payout Laura Benitez, Erin Hudson and Luca Casiraghi - Bloomberg An illiquid corner of swaps insuring Credit Suisse Group AG debt surged back to life this week as some hedge funds make the case they should be triggered. Funds including FourSixThree Capital and Diameter Capital Partners have been buying swaps insuring Credit Suisse's subordinated bonds with the idea that the controversial writedown of the firm's AT1 securities could prompt a potential payout of the derivative contracts, according to people familiar with the matter. /jlne.ws/41sJjzV
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Work & Management | Stories impacting work and more about management ideas, practices and trends. | Microsoft Bets That Fusion Power Is Closer Than Many Think; Startup backed by OpenAI founder Sam Altman agrees to provide tech giant with electricity by 2028 Jennifer Hiller - The Wall Street Journal Many experts believe fusion power remains decades away. Microsoft thinks it could be just around the corner. In a deal that is believed to be the first commercial agreement for fusion power, the tech giant has agreed to purchase electricity from startup Helion Energy within about five years. Helion, which is backed by OpenAI founder Sam Altman, committed to start producing electricity through fusion by 2028 and target power generation for Microsoft of at least 50 megawatts after a year or pay financial penalties. /jlne.ws/42IuWbQ Google unveils AI-powered search engine to rival Microsoft's Bing; US tech giant seeks to make up lost ground in race to embed powerful new language models Madhumita Murgia - Financial Times Google has launched a revamped search engine powered by artificial intelligence, as it rushes to make up lost ground in the race to bring powerful new language models to the internet search business. The US tech group on Wednesday unveiled an overhaul of its search engine to incorporate AI advances that have been sweeping through the tech world since the launch of Microsoft-backed OpenAI's ChatGPT six months ago. /jlne.ws/3I3r4Kx
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Wellness Exchange | An Exchange of Health and Wellness Information | As Covid Emergency Ends, Surveillance Shifts to the Sewers; With other virus tracking efforts winding down, wastewater data is likely to become increasingly important in the months ahead, scientists say. Emily Anthes - The New York Times When the Covid-19 public health emergency expires in the United States on Thursday, the coronavirus will not disappear. But many of the data streams that have helped Americans monitor the virus will go dark. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will stop tabulating community levels of Covid-19 and will no longer require certain case information from hospitals or testing data from laboratories. And as free testing is curtailed, official case counts, which became less reliable as Americans shifted to at-home testing, may drift even further from reality. /jlne.ws/3nKCBrr
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Regions | Stories of local interest from the Americas, EMEA and Asia-Pacific regions | Japan looks to regain its rightful place in the cryptocurrency world pecking order Will Fee - Forkast The Big Sight conference venue in Odaiba, central Tokyo, provides the venue for the NexTech conference, though it was clear that Artificial Intelligence was the belle of the ball, occupying the entire ground floor of the airplane hangar-sized exhibition hall. Blockchain, quantum computing and others squeezed into corners on the second floor. /jlne.ws/3MjTtyK Argentina Is Going Broke to Stall a Full-On Currency Collapse; Central Bank has more liabilities than assets on balance sheet; Gross reserves have slumped to $34 billion, a seven-year low Scott Squires - Bloomberg Argentina's fight to prevent its problematic currency from a total meltdown is leaving the central bank, by some estimates, broke. The South America nation has already spent all of its liquid international reserves, plus another estimated $1 billion, according to Buenos Aires-based consulting firm 1816 Economia & Estrategia - raising the stakes as the nation contends with a historic drought and impending recession. /jlne.ws/3nOmaub Brazil's unlikely bid to become a global crypto hub Leo Schwartz - Fortune Daniel Walter Maeda Bernardo is not quite the Gary Gensler of Brazil, but he's close. As the superintendent of institutional investor oversight at the Comissão de Valores Mobiliários (CVM)-the Brazilian equivalent of the Securities and Exchange Commission-Maeda is one of the leading financial regulators in the country. But that's where the comparisons stop. /jlne.ws/41I7wmd
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Miscellaneous | Stories that don't quite fit under the other sections | JPMorgan Workers Flagged Epstein and 'Girls Gone Wild' Charges to Bosses Kate Briquelet - Daily Beast JPMorgan raised red flags about its banking relationship with Jeffrey Epstein as early as 2006 and held meetings with former executive Jes Staley-who is accused of sexually abusing at least one woman in Epstein's orbit-about his friendship with the multimillionaire sex-trafficker, new court exhibits reveal. /jlne.ws/3I3Oyzb
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