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☆ JPMorgan's acquisition strategy is coming under fire. Here are the 15 fintech and consumer-focused deals done by the bank since 2020.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-13 | by ( Carter Johnson | Rebecca Ungarino | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +19 min

NutmegDeal details: JPMorgan announced the acquisition in June 2021, paying approximately $1 billion. cxLoyaltyDeal details: JPMorgan said it would buy cxLoyalty's global loyalty division in December 2020. ProxymityDeal details: JPMorgan, Citi, HSBC, and other firms together invested $20.5 million in Proxymity in May 2020. Viva WalletDeal details: JPMorgan said it would acquire 49% of Viva Wallet in January 2022, pending regulatory approval. Christian Petersen-Clausen/Getty ImagesRenovite TechnologiesDeal details: JPMorgan announced on September 12 it plans to acquire Renovite.

☆ Bernstein says crypto industry set to rebound from this latest 'winter' like it has before
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-03 | by ( Tanaya Macheel | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

If history is any indication, crypto prices will rally exponentially when this crypto winter is over, according to Bernstein. "Prior to 2022, crypto has gone through two winters in its 13-year history and the track record of buying into crypto stress has been spectacular," said Bernstein analyst Gautam Chhugani in a note Monday. "Crypto as an industry has a great track record of fighting back from its lows and taking punches when down." "Today, crypto touches less than 5% of total internet users with significant headroom for application led adoption." "Crypto today has 200 million holders, but around 10 million monthly active wallets using apps," he added.

Critically, experts say, nothing that's transpired in the crypto market in 2022 undermines the inherent value of the blockchain. "So while this has been a shock to the market, a lot of people in the space remain sanguine about the future of blockchain technology." He said stock trading, buying and selling real estate, and borrowing and lending money remain ripe for disruption by blockchain technology. "The ethereum blockchain could turn out to be this major infrastructure layer for the future of technological services," Abner said. He said prospective crypto users must prepare for a steep learning curve going forward, because it ultimately involves trusting only yourself to be in charge of your assets.

☆ The crypto investing outlook for 2023 after a 60% decline in bitcoin this year
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-24 | by ( Tanaya Macheel | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

The other was the riskiest of risk assets, whose moves mirrored those of tech stocks. It won't happen overnight, but investors more than ever want to see a crypto market driven by utility rather than speculation . Barclays analyst Benjamin Budish said his team believes "crypto assets are likely to continue to behave like high-beta risk assets going forward." Investing in the next two quarters Bitcoin has fallen more than 60% this year and sits roughly 75% off of its all-time high from November 2021. When there's a pullback in that growth, as there was this year, bitcoin tends to struggle, Alden explained.

☆ Kraken's incoming CEO shares 5 major crypto trends for 2023, including what he believes will be the leading use-cases
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-18 | by ( Laila Maidan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

David Ripley says crypto price drops tend to expose those that aren't following proper protocol. Earlier this year, FTX swooped in to try and save the distressed firms, posing as the blue-chip of crypto companies. David Ripley, COO at crypto exchange Kraken and incoming CEO of the firm, says price drops tend to expose those that aren't following proper protocol. It will take the crypto from being just a global payment mechanism to a fast and low-cost global payment network. As for major providers in the space, trusted and reliable crypto companies will see an increase in their market share to fill the demand, he said.

☆ Blockchains Founder Lists Two Lake Tahoe Homes for $45 Million
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-15 | by ( Libertina Brandt | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Jeffrey Berns, founder of the technology company Blockchains, has listed two of his Lake Tahoe properties for $45 million. The properties sit next to each other along the eastern shore of Lake Tahoe, in Glenbrook, Nev. The larger property can also be purchased individually for $39.995 million, and the smaller home for $7.995 million.

☆ Blockchains Founder Lists Two Lake Tahoe Homes for Combined $45 Million
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Libertina Brandt | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Jeffrey Berns, founder of the technology company Blockchains, has listed two of his Lake Tahoe properties for a total of $45 million. The properties sit next to each other along the eastern shore of Lake Tahoe, in Glenbrook, Nev. The larger property is listed individually for $39.995 million, while the smaller home is asking $7.995 million.

☆ Crypto winter end in sight as Ethereum looks to shake the chills- analysts
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-12 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

J.P.MORGAN:"We believe that the Ethereum Merge and really the Ethereum Surge could be a big factor in terms of increasing the use-cases for blockchain into new areas, including financial services," analysts said in an early December note. The Ethereum Merge was a major software upgrade to the Ethereum blockchain that went live in September and reduced its energy usage by 99.95%, according to developers. "We continue to see the Ethereum Surge as a catalyst for development in the cryptocurrency markets, which appears at least 6-12 months away." "From the China crackdown to the several price crashes in earlier 2022, crypto mining has shown an approximately 1-to-1 price-power relationship. Norwood expects the crypto market to pick up in about six months.

☆ Crypto winners and losers from the FTX fallout, according to Bernstein
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( Tanaya Macheel | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Bernstein has sifted through the various sectors of the crypto industry and identified winners and losers for 2022. Crypto suffered the added handicap of the financial contagion from the collapse of Terra in the first half of the year and FTX currently. Binance, which operates in a regulatory gray zone, will eventually become the "global consolidator" of smaller off-shore exchanges, Bernstein said. While FTX taught investors about the risks of storing crypto holdings with centralized entities, revelations in the stablecoin sector went the other way around. Solana, on the other hand, took a hit, stained by the fallout of FTX, a big and early backer of Solana.

☆ Crypto exchange Coinbase says Apple has shut down the ability for users to send NFTs because it can't collect the 30% in-app fee
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-01 | by ( Morgan Chittum | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Apple wants 30% of all NFT gas fees to be paid through their In-App Purchase system, the crypto exchange said. "You might have noticed you can't send NFTs on Coinbase Wallet iOS anymore," the crypto exchange tweeted. Apple's mobile store can typically charge up to 30% commission on in-app purchases, but gas fees don't occur within the app. Gas fees, which are the charge a user pays to perform a function on a blockchain, keep its network running. "Apple's proprietary In-App Purchase system does not support crypto, so we couldn't comply even if we tried."

Proof of work and proof of stake are the two main ways cryptocurrency transactions are verified. Proof of stake requires participants to put cryptocurrency as collateral for the opportunity to successfully approve transactions. Proof of work is more secure than proof of stake, but it's slower and consumes more energy. Proof of stake requires network participants to stake cryptocurrency as collateral in favor of the new block they believe should be added to the chain. While proof of stake avoids the massive energy consumption of proof of work, it hasn't been proven to be as secure and stable as proof of work at scale.

Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX’s 30-year-old founder, became the face of the company and, to some, crypto at large. The first red flagsNot long after Bankman-Fried started FTX, crypto began to boom. Venture capital money flooded into all things blockchain and crypto, and crypto platforms moved to attract customers beyond the technologists and blockchain evangelists that once fueled its rise. These digital tokens use blockchain technology, in which computers contribute to a shared ledger that can be used to track digital assets. Graeme Sloan / Sipa USA via APThe Wall Street Journal and CNBC, also citing anonymous sources, reported that Alameda had used FTX funds for trading.

☆ Crypto’s Transparency May Be Part of the Problem Right Now
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-17 | by ( Telis Demos | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Crypto holders were likely already on high alert when concerns about FTX began bubbling up, after the collapse of tokens and the bankruptcies of firms holding customer money. In cryptocurrency markets, a little bit of knowledge is proving to be very dangerous. For many digital assets, transactions can be recorded in what is essentially a public forum, on networks known as blockchains. It isn’t necessarily clear who is transacting, but movements of currency from place to place can be visible. If you can match an address to a name, it can give what looks like a detailed picture of a trader or exchange’s comings and goings.

☆ Cathie Wood's ARK Invest keeps buying more crypto assets despite FTX bankruptcy
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-15 | by ( Jesse Pound | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Cathie Wood's Ark Invest is not backing away from cryptocurrency after a steep drop in prices and the collapse of FTX. The Ark Next Generation ETF bough 315,259 shares of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust on Monday. There is no pure-play bitcoin ETF, and the Grayscale vehicle is seen as a proxy to gain exposure to the most popular cryptocurrency. The Next Generation Internet ETF is down 61% year to date, and the flagship Ark Innovation ETF (ARKK) is down nearly 49%. The Next Generation Internet ETF has seen outflows of more than $500 million this year.

☆ AnChain.AI: 2022 Top Startups for the Enterprise
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-07 | by ( Cnbc.Com Staff | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Founded by cybersecurity veterans from FireEye and Mandiant in 2018, AnChain.AI's Web3 risk prevention and security platform aims to establish trust around blockchains and cryptocurrencies and is used as a backstop by exchanges, hedge funds and regulators. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission awarded AnChain.AI a multi-year contract in September 2021 to provide a platform for analysis and tracing to support the SEC's efforts to monitor risk, improve compliance and inform policy on digital assets and cryptocurrencies. The company closed a $10 million funding round in September 2021 led by SIG Asia Investments. The 2022 Top Startups for the Enterprise list is powered and inspired by the members of CNBC's Technology Executive Council (TEC). Learn more about CNBC Councils.

☆ Internal forums, major deals, and employee exits: Inside BlackRock's long road to embracing crypto
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-07 | by ( Rebecca Ungarino | Morgan Chittum | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +13 min

A group of employees at the firm organized and started holding a forum to discuss crypto, five people familiar with the group told Insider. Eager, usually more junior, staff members huddled around to hear industry experts talk about crypto and blockchain. A junior employee touched off BlackRock's crypto effortsThe blockchain working group and the informal crypto-asset forum will end up being key footnotes in the firm's history. Leaving BlackRock for cryptoLader left BlackRock in June 2021 for Uniswap, the world's largest decentralized-exchange protocol, where she is now the chief operating officer. She was "very, very central" to the firm's crypto efforts," a former employee said.

☆ Here's an exclusive look at the 19-slide pitch deck a Tesla alum used to raise a $2.5 million seed round for his Web3 climate-tech startup
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-04 | by ( April Joyner | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Return lets people buy carbon credits to offset their crypto activity. What jumped out at White, however, was another line of business at Tesla: the sale of carbon credits. Companies, organizations, and individuals buy carbon credits to offset greenhouse-gas emissions from their activities. Several projects — such as Toucan Protocol, with which Return has partnered — aim to bring transparency to carbon credits by listing them on blockchains. Here's an exclusive look at the pitch deck that helped White raise seed funding:

☆ Shopify's startup investments this year include millions into companies that focus on NFTs, Web3 apps, customer-engagement, and financial services
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-03 | by ( Madeline Stone | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

In its press release announcing the new funding, Wati said the investment was Shopify's first in a startup operating in Southeast Asia. The goal is to make Thirdweb's tools available to Shopify merchants who want to bring Web3 products and experiences to their online stores. Shopify recently participated in Gorgias' $30 million Series C round, which valued the startup at $710 million. According to the company, merchants using its technology report a 96% increase in sales on average. Flexport announced it had received a strategic investment from Shopify as part of its $935 million Series E on February 7.

Hivemapper Inc, which announced $18 million in fundraising from investors in April, said it has so far sold over 5,500 dashcams across 66 countries. As drivers record road signs and storefronts, they mint tokens that Hivemapper named Honey. Hivemapper Chief Executive Ariel Seidman said U.S. regulations limit him from discussing how and when Honey can be spent. While some investors such as Hivemapper backer Multicoin Capital are bullish on Web3 efforts, skeptics worry about currency speculation and fraud. Mapmaker HERE, owned in part by German automakers, is evaluating Hivemapper's imagery for potential use, including for up-to-date speed limit data.

☆ JPMorgan Hires Crypto Policy Head From Celsius Network
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-19 | by ( Mengqi Sun | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +3 min

JPMorgan Chase & Co., whose chief executive recently expressed skepticism of cryptocurrency, has hired a crypto policy head from bankrupt cryptocurrency lender Celsius Network LLC. Aaron Iovine has joined the bank as executive director of digital assets regulatory policy, a spokeswoman for JPMorgan said on Wednesday. Mr. Iovine served as head of policy and regulatory affairs at Celsius between February and September of this year. Mr. Iovine was its head of policy and regulatory affairs when he left the bank. Bloomberg Law first reported the hire Wednesday, saying Mr. Iovine joined JPMorgan this week.

☆ Crypto startup Edge & Node's newly named interim CEO has a plan to make Web3 easier for software developers to build in
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-12 | by ( April Joyner | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Edge & Node, the startup behind the Web3 protocol The Graph, has a new interim CEO, Brandon Ramirez. The same goes for the developers seeking to build decentralized apps, or dapps, as they're commonly called. Companies such as the decentralized-finance startups Sushi and Lido and the crypto research startup Messari have used The Graph for their development. Like many blockchain developers, Ramirez earned his programming chops in enterprise software. Ramirez, Tal, and Pohlmann founded The Graph in 2018 to help create some of that basic infrastructure.

☆ Former Google ads boss launches ‘Web3’ search startup with backing from Coinbase, top VCs
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-12 | by ( Ryan Browne | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

The round was led by Paradigm, a prolific crypto and "Web3" dealmaker, while Coinbase, Sequoia and Greylock — where Ramaswamy is a partner — also invested. Nxyz was conceived earlier this year by a team of engineers at Neeva, a search engine that doesn't include any ads and blocks online tracking tools. In a March blogpost on Neeva's website, nxyz is described as "an experiment bringing the same user-first ethos of Neeva search to web3." Unlike Neeva and Google — the "Web2" behemoth Neeva wants to disrupt — nxyz's Web3 search software isn't targeted at consumers. "I think it'll be a very different trajectory" to Web3 and crypto companies that have run into financial troubles, he said.

☆ Cryptoverse: Hack jitters push bitcoin investors back to the future
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-11 | by ( Hannah Lang | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

The global hardware wallet market, valued at $245 million in 2021, is expected to swell to over $1.7 billion by 2030, according to market research firm Straits Research. Reuters GraphicsBLOWING HOT AND COLDAlthough hot wallets are usually free and offer quick access to crypto, they can be vulnerable to hacks. In August, nearly 8,000 crypto wallets on the Solana blockchain were hit by hackers who made off with more than $5 million in crypto. loading"Users are strongly encouraged to use hardware wallets," Solana said at the time. France's Ledger, another hardware wallet maker, said it saw a spike in sales after the Solana wallets heist.

☆ Binance-linked blockchain hit by $570 million crypto theft
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-07 | by ( Jennifer Korn | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

A Binance-linked blockchain was involved in a $570 million hack late Thursday, a company spokesperson confirmed to CNN Business on Friday. Binance temporarily suspended its blockchain network, BNB Smart Chain, “due to irregular activity,” the company tweeted Thursday. The company said Friday that hackers had stolen two million BNB cryptocurrency tokens – which are issued by Binance – worth about $570 million at the time. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao initially tweeted that an estimated $100 million worth of crypto had been stolen. This latest attack put the BNB blockchain offline for about nine hours.

☆ Crypto miners turn to infrastructure consultancies like Sabre56 to help them avoid costly mistakes
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-28 | by ( Parisa Hashempour | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Kazi Awal/InsiderLimited power and infrastructural and logistics issues have led to inefficiencies in cryptocurrency mining farms. Sabre56 is a cryptocurrency mining consultancy working to plug a hole in this sector's problems. Companies like Sabre56 aim to help crypto miners avoid mistakes and make good choices in terms of infrastructure and planning. While many investors who populate the crypto mining industry have access to capital, Harvey says millions of dollars are often spent buying equipment without considering essential infrastructural issues. Designing a successful crypto mining facilitySabre56 has consulted on projects as varied as re-routing excess power from Abu Dhabi's nuclear projects to sustainably-sourced mining in Norwegian and Canadian hydroelectric dams.

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