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The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday took aim at Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange. The SEC said Coinbase traded at least 13 crypto assets that are securities that should have been registered, including tokens such as Solana, Cardano and Polygon. More recently, it has taken aim at unregistered crypto broker dealer, exchange trading and clearing activity. Reuters GraphicsFounded in 2012, Coinbase recently served more than 108 million customers and ended March with $130 billion of customer crypto assets and funds on its balance sheet. Tuesday's SEC lawsuit seeks civil fines, the recouping of ill-gotten gains and injunctive relief.

Persons: Binance, Changpeng Zhao, Kevin O’Brien, Ford O’Brien Landy, Coinbase, Nansen, Paul Grewal, Coinbase's, Gary Gensler, Dado Ruvic, Gensler, Kristin Smith, Jonathan Stempel, Hannah Lang, Michelle Price, Lisa Shumaker, Leslie Adler Organizations: YORK, U.S . Securities, Exchange Commission, SEC, Global, Securities, Supreme, Exchange, REUTERS, Beaxy Digital, Bittrex Global, CNBC, Blockchain Association, Reuters Graphics, U.S, Thomson Locations: Manhattan, Solana, Cardano, U.S, Binance, New York, Washington

June 5 (Reuters) - Cryptocurrencies and shares in crypto and blockchain-related companies tumbled on Monday after the U.S. securities regulator sued crypto exchange Binance, another blow to the industry. The SEC crackdown has prompted some crypto companies to increase compliance, spike products, and expand overseas, moves that some marketwatchers said would likely be accelerated by this latest action against the world's largest crypto exchange. In April, the SEC charged crypto exchange Bittrex Inc with operating an unregistered securities exchange, broker and clearing agency, and settled with Kraken in February for $30 million over the exchange's U.S. crypto staking service. Shares of Coinbase (COIN.O) were down 9.1% on the news of the SEC's charges against Binance. Both Coinbase and crypto exchange Gemini launched international exchanges for crypto derivatives in May.

Persons: Binance, Changpeng Zhao, Binance's cryptocurrency, Gary Gensler, marketwatchers, John Reed Stark, Kraken, Bittrex, James Angel, Gemini, Rajeev Bamra, Sinéad Carew, John McCrank, Manya Saini, Hannah Lang, Michelle Price, Leslie Adler, Lisa Shumaker Organizations: U.S . Securities, Exchange Commission, Reuters, SEC, Washington , D.C, Internet, Coinbase Global Inc, Georgetown University, Binance, Inc, Marathon, Mining, Moody’s Investors Service, Thomson Locations: Washington ,, U.S, New York, Bengaluru, Washington

The number of unemployed people jumped by 440,000, the most since November 2010. Reuters Graphics Reuters GraphicsYet the rise in Black unemployment in particular is something critics of Fed policy have been concerned could be a leading-edge sign that the job market was turning sour. Fast initial job losses among Black workers are a feature of U.S. downturns and recessions. Reuters GraphicsDespite the outsized job gains, the details of the report may suggest a labor market "normalizing" after the disruptions of the pandemic. "The fact is that the labor market is still very tight, aided by shortfalls in some service sectors, as well as by historic demographic trends" like population aging, Rieder said.

Persons: Biden, Nick Bunker, Rick Rieder, Rieder, Howard Schneider, Paul Simao Organizations: U.S, Reuters Graphics Reuters, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Reuters, BlackRock, Thomson

Since the release of their last economic projections in March, the unemployment rate has fallen and inflation has largely moved sideways. She expects the Fed to keep its policy rate steady this month "while hinting at potential further hikes," a way to compromise among different views and keep pressure on financial conditions. Fed Chair Jerome Powell and others insist that sort of erratic path is not their base case. The intent, rather, is to reach a "sufficiently restrictive" policy rate and remain at that level until it is clear inflation is falling towards the Fed's 2% target. "I do think they are done" with rate increases, he said, but "I cannot rule out another hike in June."

Persons: they've, Tiffany Wilding, PIMCO, Jerome Powell, Philip Jefferson, Larry Meyer, Ian Shepherdson, Howard Schneider, Paul Simao Organizations: Federal Reserve, Market Committee, Reuters Graphics Reuters, North, Fed, Consumer, Reuters, Reuters Graphics, Labor Department, Pantheon, Thomson Locations: U.S, North American, Washington

Fed officials pointed toward a rate hike "skip" at its June 13-14 meeting, giving time for the central bank to assess the impact of its tightening cycle thus far against still-strong inflation data. U.S. manufacturing contracted for a seventh straight month in May as new orders continued to plummet amid higher interest rates, but factories boosted employment to a nine-month high. "We have made clear that we still have ground to cover to bring interest rates to sufficiently restrictive levels," Lagarde said in a speech. Money markets are pricing in an 85% chance of a 25 basis point hike when the ECB meets on June 15. "There's a sort of narrowing interest rate differential ... when the ECB is expected to hike one or two more times and the Fed is more questionable about that."

Persons: Christine Lagarde, Edward Moya, Patrick Harker, payrolls, Lagarde, John Velis, Hannah Lang, Joice Alves, Rae Wee, Andrew Heavens, Will Dunham, Mark Potter, Leslie Adler Organizations: Federal Reserve, Reserve, European Central Bank, Fed, OANDA, Philadelphia Federal, ADP, Institute for Supply Management, ECB, BNY Mellon, Thomson Locations: OANDA . U.S, Washington, London, Singapore

The rate hike "skip" has now become jargon for an emerging compromise between concerns inflation is not yet controlled with fears the economy may slow sharply as banks pull back on credit. "I don't really see a compelling reason to pause," Cleveland Fed president Loretta Mester said in an interview published Wednesday in the Financial Times. Jefferson acknowledged inflation remains "too high" and that "by some measures progress has been decelerating recently." While Jefferson does not expect a recession, he noted that there are reasons to be careful after 15 months in which the policy rate was raised by 5 percentage points. Reporting by Howard Schneider; Editing by Paul Simao, Nick Zieminski and Daniel WallisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Persons: Philip Jefferson, Jefferson, Jerome, Powell, Krishna Guha, Patrick Harker, Harker, Loretta Mester, Michelle Bowman, Howard Schneider, Paul Simao, Nick Zieminski, Daniel Wallis Organizations: Federal Reserve, Fed, U.S . Senate, Philadelphia Fed, Cleveland Fed, Financial Times, Thomson Locations: U.S, Washington

Meanwhile districts reported that the pace of inflation had slowed, with prices rising "moderately" and contacts in most parts of the country expecting a similar pace of price increases in the coming months. But many Fed policymakers since then have signaled they may rather wait before undertaking any further policy tightening. Fed policymakers have said credit conditions are a key input to their calculations for monetary policy-setting. About half of districts reported no change in economic activity in recent weeks, the report showed, while four reported small increases and two reported "slight to moderate declines." At the St. Louis Fed, banking contacts said loan demand had softened and they expected further weakening ahead.

Persons: Louis, Ann Saphir, Andrea Ricci, Chizu Organizations: Federal, Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, Cleveland Fed, Minneapolis Fed, St, Louis Fed, Thomson Locations: U.S, Silicon

☆ Up to 1.7 billion T. rex dinosaurs lived on Earth, a new study found. But scientists aren't sure where all the bones went.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-27 | by ( Erin Heger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

New calculations suggest that 1.7 billion T. rexes lived on Earth from 65.5-68 million years ago. This dichotomy between how many T. rexes lived and how few fossils we have of them shows us just how rare fossilization is and how much more we have to learn about these majestic creatures. Warpaintcobra/Getty ImagesMarshall was the lead author of an earlier study that estimated 2.5 billion T. rexes once roamed Earth. Of the roughly 1.7 billion, or so, T. rexes who roamed our planet, scientists have only uncovered a few hundred fossils, equating to fewer than 100 total dinosaurs. Despite their prime conditions for fossilization, if Giebeler's calculations are correct, scientists have only found about 0.0000002% of the T. rex that lived on Earth.

May 19 (Reuters) - Auction house Sotheby's announced Friday seven non-fungible tokens from bankrupt cryptocurrency hedge fund Three Arrows Capital sold for about $2.5 million. The auction was part of liquidating Three Arrows, according to a February memo from Teneo, one of the court-appointed liquidators. Singapore-based Three Arrows was the first major crypto firm to go bankrupt in 2022, brought down by the collapse of cryptocurrencies Luna and TerraUSD. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are a blockchain-based asset that represents ownership of a digital item, such as an image, video or piece of text. The market for NFTs exploded in 2021, and auction houses including Sotheby’s and Christie’s joined the craze.

☆ How do you stop a pirate? Put more fish in the sea.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-20 | by ( Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Fishermen in east Africa and the South China Sea turn to piracy when the fish supply is low. As climate change kills fish, the former fisherman grow more desperate in their attacks, the study's authors told Insider. Between 1995 and 2013, Time reported, 41% of the world's pirate attacks took place in Southeast Asia. The increasing water temperatures have benefited fish in the South China Sea, increasing production, but harmed fish off the coast of Africa, decreasing it. "So we have this really great experiment where we show that, essentially, when fish production goes down, piracy goes up.

"The risks of doing too much or doing too little are becoming more balanced and our policy adjusted to reflect that," Powell said. Ahead of a June 13-14 policy meeting "we haven't made any decisions about the extent to which additional policy firming will be appropriate." U.S. policymakers remain on the fence about their upcoming rate decision, and Powell's appearance on Friday was a moment that could have provided clarity. But the central bank will still receive important jobs and inflation data in coming weeks that could sway the debate. If an actual U.S. debt default is the result, the central bank may even be pushed towards emergency steps to ease the burden on the economy.

☆ Deep in the Amazon, scientists race to find unknown bat viruses
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +8 min

Some scientific studies have found that deforestation causes stress in bats, and stressed bats carry more viruses and shed more germs in their saliva, urine and feces. It spiked following the highway’s construction, making the Amazon in the early 1980s a rallying cry for the global environmental movement. When examining spillover risk, scientists use the number of bat species in a given area as a key variable. When humans encroach on their habitat, and bat species commingle, the viral cocktail intensifies. “Odds of it being documented are very slim,” said Caio Graco Zeppelini, an ecologist and bat researcher at the Federal University of Bahia.

WASHINGTON, May 19 (Reuters) - Wall Street, small businesses and potential homebuyers may all breath a sigh of relief if the Federal Reserve chooses not to raise interest rates at its policy meeting next month, as many traders and analysts expect. If an actual U.S. debt default is the result, the central bank may even be pushed towards emergency steps to ease the burden on the economy. "I would say it was a pause, but a pause could be a 'skip,' or it could be a hold," Bostic said. Data on inflation, jobs, and the banking industry since then have done little to clarify the situation, with nothing seeming to change very fast. Reporting by Howard Schneider; Editing by Dan Burns and Paul SimaoOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Inflation "is still too high, and by some measures progress has been slowing," Jefferson said in comments prepared for delivery to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. While his baseline forecast does not include recession, he said he expects job growth to slow and the unemployment rate possibly rise over time. Jefferson did not indicate a preference for holding rates steady or proceeding with further rate increases at the Fed's June meeting, when a rate pause is widely expected. He said, however, he would "consider all these factors" in the context of jobs and inflation data still to be released before the June 13-14 meeting. "There is considerable uncertainty about the magnitude of the impact on household spending and business investment, and this uncertainty complicates economic outlook forecasts," Jefferson said.

At the same time, he said the job market is showing an "unprecedented" break from past behavior with a steady drop in job openings without any rise in the unemployment rate. The big unknown is whether that continued job market health is consistent with inflation falling steadily from its current levels above 4% back to the Fed's 2% target. That could allow the job market to cool without as much of a rise in unemployment as might otherwise be the case. Economists and policymakers at this week's conference pointed to other factors adding to the case for a soft landing. But at this point the "uncertainty" about what's at work in the economy could, some officials feel, mask developments that are working in their favor.

☆ Factbox: Who are the three Russian scientists accused of state treason?
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( Lucy Papachristou | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

May 18 (Reuters) - Three Russian scientists who have worked on hypersonic missile technology face "very serious accusations" of state treason, the Kremlin says. Maslov was detained early in the morning of June 28 last year in Novosibirsk, according to an interview that his sons Nikolai and Alexei gave to local media. He declined to tell them anything about the possible reasons for his arrest, and they learned from his lawyer that he was being charged with state treason. Kommersant newspaper reported that Maslov was accused of divulging state secrets related to hypersonics, but provided no further details. Born in Siberia, he studied in the aircraft engineering department at Novosibirsk State Technical University.

NEW YORK, May 16 (Reuters) - Silicon Valley Bank's former CEO Greg Becker told senators at a hearing that he was unaware the bank was in trouble when he sold stock in the months leading up to the regional U.S. lender's collapse. Becker, who sold SVB shares through the first quarter - the largest sale of which occurred on Feb 27, less than two weeks before the bank collapsed on March 10, triggering a rout in banking shares globally. Responding to questions from senators, Becker painted a picture of an unprecedented, unpredictable crisis at the bank. He said the bank took risk management seriously and had liquidity of around $80 billion at the end of last year. [1/2] Greg Becker, former president and CEO of SVB, speaks at the 2022 Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California, U.S., May 3, 2022.

Barkin said he remained open-minded on whether the Fed at its June 13-14 policy meeting should raise the benchmark policy rate for an 11th straight time or leave it at the current range between 5.00% and 5.25%. I do wonder whether we're not going to need more impact on demand to bring inflation down to where we need to go," Barkin said, laying out a potential case for further rate increases. Barkin said he is comfortable overall with the Fed's move earlier this month to a meeting-by-meeting, data-dependent approach after having raised the policy rate by 5 percentage points since March 2022 in an effort to lower the highest inflation in 40 years. "I'm still seeing data that suggests a hot job market and enduring inflation," he said. "I continue to believe that inflation will last longer than perhaps market measures of inflation compensation would suggest.

But Fed officials on Monday said the jury is very much out. Bostic said businesses in his southeastern U.S. Fed district "are telling me we think you're close to overdoing it ... Investors have consistently bet that the central bank, due to some combination of recession or a faster-than-expected drop in inflation, will be cutting rates by later this year. Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari said the central bank probably has "more work to do on our end, to try to bring inflation back down." In addition, he says the full impact of Fed rate hikes has yet to be felt.

☆ Webb telescope spots water in rare comet
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

CNN —Astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope to observe a rare comet in our solar system, making a long-awaited scientific breakthrough and stumbling across another mystery at the same time. For the first time, water was detected in a main belt comet, or a comet located in the main asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The space observatory detected water vapor around Comet Read, which suggests that water ice can be preserved in a warmer part of the solar system. It’s possible that the warmer temperatures of the main asteroid belt cause Comet Read to lose its carbon dioxide over time, the researchers said. Comet Read might have also formed in a warmer pocket of the solar system without carbon dioxide, Kelley said.

May 15 (Reuters) - Greg Becker, the former chief executive officer of Silicon Valley Bank, is set to appear before the U.S. Congress on Tuesday, two months after the collapse of his bank sparked panic among bank customers and investors, forcing the government to backstop deposits. California banking regulators moved quickly to shut down Silicon Valley Bank on March 10 after depositors withdrew $42 billion in 24 hours. Becker will testify before the Senate Banking Committee alongside Scott Shay and Eric Howell, the former chair and president, respectively, of Signature Bank. When his manager left to work for Silicon Valley Bank, Becker followed, he said on a 2021 Bloomberg podcast. Before becoming president and CEO of SVB Financial Group, Becker co-founded SVB Capital, the company's investment arm.

Reuters Graphics Reuters GraphicsReuters Graphics Reuters GraphicsInvestors and analysts took the Labor Department report on the whole as supporting the prospect that the Fed would pause its rate increases at the June 13-14 meeting. The PCE, which is the Fed's preferred gauge for its 2% inflation target, has been running at more than twice that level. Continued readings like the ones in April could weaken the case for pausing rate hikes. That's how increases in its policy rate influence economic activity. FEDSPEAK: OngoingThe Fed's internal communications rules set a "blackout" period around each policy meeting.

☆ Who are zillennials?
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Terry Ward | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

Along the blurry edge at the cusp of the two generations, between Gen Y and Z, is where zillennials live. Zillennials straddle the generations of millennials, who are considered digital pioneers, and Gen Z, who are considered digital natives who never knew life before screens. While zillennials often feel they don’t fit in with either Gen Z or millennials, Dorsey said the middle zone they occupy has its own advantages. His firm’s research has shown Gen Z to be more connected to social causes than millennials, with zillennials similarly more interested than millennials when it comes to social issues. From a young age, zillennials have learned the effects of climate change, said Carr.

"When you get into higher interest rates ... you look to your collateral," Rodeheaver said in an interview. "We are tightening on price and profitability ... That is going to slow lending a bit." "The economy has started to slow in an orderly fashion" in response to higher interest rates, Jefferson said, calling tighter credit conditions "part of the transmission mechanism of monetary policy." Powell, however, said he felt the impact of the credit shock "remains uncertain," and his own baseline outlook does not include a recession. Bank lending dipped about 1.7% in the two weeks following SVB's collapse, but has risen since then and recouped about a third of the decline.

The path to the pause will roll out in marquee monthly data on the key topics of jobs and prices, but also weekly series tracking emerging concerns about the financial industry. Here's a guide to what's ahead:JOBS: Next release May 5The data calendar will let the Fed receive two monthly jobs reports, covering April and May, before its June 13-14 policy meeting. For the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, the measure used to set the Fed's 2% inflation target, only the April report will be available. Reuters Graphics Reuters GraphicsReuters GraphicsFEDSPEAK: OngoingThe Fed's internal communications rules set a "blackout" period around each policy meeting. The curtain of silence around the May meeting lifts on Friday, May 5, and Fed officials can speak publicly about their views through Friday, June 2.

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