#416
A Tropical Winter

Crypto executives urge light touch as Congress mulls new regulation - Top executives from six major cryptocurrency companies including Coinbase and Circle this week urged Congress to provide clearer rules for the booming $3t industry, but warned that overly tough restrictions would push it overseas. The U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee hearing marked the first time the industry's senior leaders have explained their businesses to U.S. lawmakers amid growing concerns cryptocurrencies may pose systemic risks and hurt investors. Read more

This banker is minting money in the fintech boom - His firm, Financial Technology Partners LP, is on track for some $600m in revenue this year, according to people familiar with the matter. Valuations of similar listed firms would peg its worth at $2b or more. Mr. McLaughlin owns it all, having doled out none of the firm’s equity to its 225 or so employees. Read more

WhatsApp launches cryptocurrency payments pilot in the US - WhatsApp has launched a new pilot that lets a “limited number” of people in the US send and receive money from within a chat using cryptocurrency. The feature is powered by Novi, Meta’s digital wallet that launched as a pilot six weeks ago, with payments made using Pax Dollars (USDP), a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar issued by Paxos. Read more

Monzo valuation hits $4.5b on back of drawing thousands of new customers - British neo bank Monzo’s valuation has surged to $4.5b, an increase of more than 200% since the start of the year, as thousands of new customers helped double revenues. It marks a sharp recovery since warnings that the online bank could struggle to continue as a going concern after a bruising start to the pandemic. Read more

These are the world’s richest families - Bloomberg ranks the top 25 wealthiest families globally and points out that scarcely a day goes by without a massive stock sale hitting the market from one of them. $99m one day, $146m the next, almost $294m last week alone. Read more

Meme stock traders thrilled by DOJ’s criminal probe of hedge funds - The horde of rambunctious individual investors across Reddit, Stocktwits and Twitter are thrilled with a sense of vindication. They’ve long demanded that authorities rein in hedge funds — who they see as part of the Wall Street establishment that bets against companies in a greedy pursuit of profits. Read more

Self-described Bitcoin creator must pay $100m in suit - The brother of Dave Kleiman, a computer security expert who died in 2013, alleged that the late Florida man worked with Wright to create and mine Bitcoin in its early years. As a result, the plaintiffs claimed the estate was entitled to half of a cache of as many as 1.1m Bitcoins worth some $70b, which are thought to be held by Satoshi. Read more

Better.com’s SPAC merger will be delayed by changes it made a day before laying off 900 people on Zoom - The company will seek new regulatory approval after revising the terms of the merger with Aurora Acquisition Corp. That will push back the closing of the transaction, which the companies had previously announced was likely to happen in the fourth quarter. Read more

Kickstarter will move its crowdfunding platform to blockchain - It’s hatching a standalone company to build a crowdfunding system much like Kickstarter’s but based on blockchain technology. When it’s ready, Kickstarter will switch its own website to the new infrastructure, and the new company will make the tools available for anyone to create a competing crowdfunding site. Read more

Visa launches crypto consulting services in push for mainstream adoption - The payments processor said that its crypto advisory practice, housed within its consulting and analytics division, will offer advice to financial institutions, retailers and other firms on everything from rolling out crypto features to exploring non-fungible tokens. Read more

Coinbase launches high-interest DeFi yields to 70 countries - Using the DAI stablecoin, customers can opt in to earn DeFi yield. Customers’ DAI holdings will be deposited with Compound Finance, which Coinbase describes as an “industry leading” DeFi protocol. The interest on this yield is, however, variable. Read more