US officials seize $3.6b in Bitcoin from 2016 Bitfinex hack - Agents arrested two individuals, married couple Ilya "Dutch" Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan, in New York on this week on charges they conspired to launder proceeds from the Bitfinex hack in 2016. The DOJ release alleges the two conspired to launder these proceeds and heavily implies, but does not claim, they were the original hacker(s). Read more
Apple announces a way to buy stuff by tapping iPhones together - The new Tap to Pay feature effectively turns iPhones into point-of-sale terminals without additional hardware. Apple said that Stripe would be the first payment operator to offer the service, and that it would be integrated into Shopify’s point-of-sale product. Read more
Binance, led by the world’s richest crypto billionaire, is taking a $200m stake in Forbes - The move shows the increasing real-world influence of the crypto sector, which has seen surging valuations and minted a new class of billionaires amid global interest in digital assets. While crypto companies have gone public, affixed their names to sports arenas and flooded airwaves with celebrity endorsements, this is the sector’s first big investment in a traditional U.S. media property. Read more
Connecting with small shareholders remains a challenge for companies - Executives are turning to new methods, such as tools that analyze reams of data and social-media platforms, to determine just who their small investors are and how to reach them, while also using traditional approaches like shareholder letters and meetings. But with individual investors growing in number and scattered across the country or even the world, connecting with them can be much more difficult than communicating with institutional investors. Read more
Crypto’s aspiring Washington kingmaker - Cryptocurrency exchange FTX is grabbing headlines for an upcoming Super Bowl ad campaign and a Tom Brady endorsement deal, a sign of the digital currency industry’s increasingly mainstream ambitions. But the company’s executives are quietly emerging as crypto kingmakers in the nation’s capital as they spend millions to launch super PACs, bankroll congressional campaigns and recruit former government officials with an inside track on looming crypto regulations. Read more
Credit Suisse securitizes yacht loans to oligarchs and tycoons - The Swiss lender quietly sold on a slice of the risk related to $2b of its “ultra-high-net-worth” client loans at the end of 2021. The securitization of the portfolio of loans to tycoons and oligarchs backed by their “jets, yachts, real estate and/or financial assets” was made by a unit of the bank that has previously been plagued with sanctions-related issues. Read more
A Florida home to be auctioned as an NFT has attracted more than 7,000 potential bidders - The Gulfport, Fla., house will be auctioned on Thursday, with a starting price of $650,000, through a partnership between real estate companies Propy and Heckler Realty. The winning bidder will get an NFT, a digital token that, in this case, will record that person’s ownership of a limited liability company on an online ledger. The LLC’s only asset is the house. Read more
Betterment enters the cryptocurrency market by acquiring Makara - Rather than having users individually pick the coins they want to invest in, Makara offers up “baskets” or indexes of vetted cryptocurrencies and does the work behind the scenes of rebalancing assets and shifting to currencies its algorithms recommend. The acquisition will provide consumers and financial advisors the ability to invest in expert-built, diversified crypto portfolios alongside their existing investments, through an easy-to-use customer experience. Read more
American Express launches its first all-digital consumer checking account - The new offering, American Express Rewards Checking, is currently available for eligible U.S. Consumer Card Members. The launch comes as the emergence of digital banking services is causing traditional banks to enhance their digital strategies and offer more competitive banking offerings. Read more
Messenger’s ‘Split Payments’ feature is rolling out to all users in the US - The company began testing the feature late last year as a way for users to share the cost of bills and expenses through the app. Meta sees the new feature as a “free and fast” way to handle finances through Messenger. Read more
Europe fintech giant Klarna considers raising fresh funds - The Stockholm based company is likely to attract sovereign wealth and pension funds as new investors, and could potentially fetch a valuation of roughly $50b to $60b based on preliminary estimates. Read more
Major crypto firms and groups form coalition aimed at promoting 'market integrity' - In an announcement this week, market surveillance firm Solidus Labs and exchanges including Bitstamp, Coinbase, BitMEX and CrossTower said they would be launching the Crypto Market Integrity Coalition, or CMIC, asking all other companies involved in the crypto space to follow their example. According to the CMIC, members must pledge to encourage “a fair digital asset marketplace to combat market abuse and manipulation and promote public and regulatory confidence” in crypto. Read more
Top Latin American exchange Bitso officially expands to Colombia - Founded in 2014 in Mexico, Bitso is now officially present in Argentina, Brazil, El Salvador and Colombia. Read more |
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