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☆ Sam Bankman-Fried is now writing his own newsletter while under house arrest at his parents' $4 million property: 'I didn't steal funds'
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-13 | by ( Phil Rosen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Presumably writing from his parents' $4 million property in Palo Alto, California near Stanford, Sam Bankman-Fried published a lengthy newsletter yesterday, titled "FTX Pre-Mortem Overview." One statement stood out to me: "I didn't steal funds, and I certainly didn't stash billions away." In the note, Bankman-Fried highlighted that both FTX and Alameda Research were raking in billions in profits in 2021. A key to the collapse, he explained, was 2022's crypto bear market that left just about every token worth dramatically less than the year prior. Well, Bankman-Fried yesterday outlined two versions of the hedge fund's balance sheet, one from each of the past two years.

☆ Morning Bid: Money in the bank
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-13 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Kicking off the fourth-quarter corporate results season in earnest, JPMorgan, Citigroup, Bank of America, Bank of New York Mellon and Wells Fargo are among the countries biggest banks updating on Friday. It will take some twist to puncture the optimism on peak inflation and peak Federal Reserve interest rates, however. Futures markets still see rates topping out below 5% by midyear and pencil in a half point of rate cuts between then and yearend. The yen surged on speculation the Bank of Japan could revise its ultra-loose monetary policy again at next week's policy meeting. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

☆ From the Shanghai upgrade to U.S. regulation: Watch these 5 events to see where crypto markets are heading in 2023
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-11 | by ( Tanaya Macheel | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

Unlike in previous crypto winters, however, macro forces outside the crypto industry are the biggest drivers of the market. The Shanghai upgrade Ethereum developers are gearing up for the network's next big upgrade, the "Shanghai" upgrade, which has a target release of March 2023. "The problem right now is if you stake ether into the network, your ether will be locked until the Shanghai upgrade," Lau said. "There will be more liquidity of ether after the Shanghai upgrade," he added. Gox but the expected distribution of the bitcoin recovered from the exchange's 2014 implosion could be a near-term headwind for bitcoin investors.

☆ Venom, Iceberg set up $1 bln fund to invest in blockchain firms amid crypto winter
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-11 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Jan 11 (Reuters) - Blockchain firm Venom Foundation and Abu Dhabi-based investment manager Iceberg Capital Ltd on Wednesday launched a $1 billion crypto venture fund and said it was leading a $20 million funding round in virtual world platform Nümi Metaverse. The fund, called Venom Ventures Fund (VVF), aims to invest in early-stage startups focused on payments, asset management, banking services and gaming on Web3, a much-hyped vision of a future internet built on blockchain. The launch comes at a time when funding for crypto startups has slowed following the global risk off mood and a series of crypto blowups that culminated in the high-profile downfall of FTX and shook investor sentiment. Cryptocurrencies have crept into the new year, licking their wounds with bitcoin steady at $17,421, after tumbling 64% in 2022. Venom Ventures fund is chaired by former BlackRock chief investment officer Peter Knez, and will be operated by investment firm Iceberg Capital that is regulated by Abu Dhabi Global Market - the emirate's international financial center.

☆ Bank of America downgrades Coinbase, says consensus estimates may be 'way too high' given the current crypto outlook
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-11 | by ( Samantha Subin | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Wall Street is overestimating Coinbase 's ability to weather a tough crypto environment, according to Bank of America. The company's shares dipped 4% in the premarket after analyst Jason Kupferberg downgraded the crypto exchange to underperform from neutral, citing the volatile environment for crypto assets. He noted expectations for lower crypto participation in the months ahead as the industry faces more regulation and overcomes its confidence blow. He also expects potentially lower retail transaction volumes going forward. "We have been observing increasing signs of revenue diversification beyond retail crypto trading, a trend we think could accelerate in 2023 and beyond," Kupferberg wrote.

☆ Coinbase to lay off 20% of staff as crypto winter continues
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-10 | by ( Paul R. La Monica | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

Coinbase announced Tuesday that it was laying off 950 people, about 20% of its staff. Coinbase, like many other publicly traded and privately held crypto companies, has been hit hard by the massive plunge in the price of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin is up more than 4% since the start of the year, suggesting that crypto prices may have finally bottomed out. The hope is that bitcoin and other crypto prices may start to stabilize, especially if financial regulators start to provide more guidance and clarity about their stance on cryptos. Several high profile crypto companies have gone belly up, most notably one-time crypto darling (and Coinbase rival) FTX.

☆ Britain to push ahead with readying ground for a digital pound
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-10 | by ( Huw Jones | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

LONDON, Jan 10 (Reuters) - Getting the design of a digital pound right is a bigger priority than a rapid launch, Britain's Financial Services Minister Andrew Griffith said on Tuesday. China has pushed ahead with piloting a digital yuan and the European Central Bank is studying a digital euro, piling pressure on Britain to do the same and keep abreast of advances in financial technology. The finance ministry is due to launch in the coming weeks a public consultation on the attributes of a digital pound. A digital pound raised many public policy issues, he said. The first case use of a digital pound would probably be in the settlement of wholesale financial transactions, he added.

☆ Genesis owner DCG has closed its wealth management unit as the crypto giant battles a stream of troubles
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-06 | by ( Zahra Tayeb | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Crypto giant Digital Currency Group has shut its wealth management unit, reports said Thursday. DCG's crypto businesses include financial services provider Greyscale, in addition to embattled broker Genesis and wealth manager HQ. Troubles have been mounting at DCG subsidiaries after leading crypto exchange FTX's collapse, which shook faith in the crypto industry. Its crypto-lending unit reported it had $2.8 billion in total active loans as of the third quarter of 2022. Meanwhile, DCG is entangled in a tussle with Gemini over $900 million its Genesis businesses borrowed from the crypto exchange's customers.

☆ Bitcoin volatility fell to historic lows this week. Here’s why that might be bad news
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-06 | by ( Tanaya Macheel | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

"An uptick in bitcoin volatility would, rather than trigger concern, be greeted as a positive sign and would most likely be closely followed by a similar move in spot and derivative trading volumes." Sigel also pointed to bitcoin miners who may be selling covered calls in order to monetize profits as much as they can. Bitcoin miners have had a difficult time with the bitcoin price stuck at such low levels. "Each time volatility has been this low, historically, bitcoin prices have bottomed," said Alex Thorn, head of firmwide research at Galaxy Digital. Thorn said that while seeing lenders and exchanges collapse feels unstable, the crypto market will emerge from this period having significantly matured.

☆ Silvergate extends sell-off into 2nd day as Bank of America sees 35% downside after the crypto bank disclosed huge run on deposits
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-06 | by ( Carla Mozée | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

BofA downgraded Silvergate Capital on Friday and said it sees another 35% downside for the crypto-focused bank. Silvergate shares plunged Thursday after it was revealed customers withdrew billions in deposits. BofA whittled down its price objective on Silvergate by 78% to $8 a share from $37. "Silvergate's preliminary 4Q22 results introduced a new overhang on the stock: negative earnings growth," Bank of America analyst Brandon Berman wrote in a note published Friday. It now sees those earnings coming in at $0.67 and $0.90, respectively, primarily reflecting a 50% reduction to its revenue growth forecast.

☆ Crypto just had an awful week
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( Allison Morrow | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

It’s the kind of negative press that the crypto faithful want to either ignore completely or denounce as a fringe, one-off scandal. But crypto is a tight-knit web, and when one corner collapses it puts the whole lot at risk. And we’re not done yet…Also this week:Coinbase, a publicly traded US crypto platform, agreed to a $100 million settlement after a New York regulator found “significant failures” to comply with the state’s anti-money-laundering laws. Bottom line: I’m not here to write crypto’s obit, and I am well aware that there are plenty of legitimate crypto enterprises out there. But no one within crypto agrees on what those regulations should look like, and some dispute the need for regulation in the first place.

☆ How to be a better investor in 2023
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( Jeanne Sahadi | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

New York CNN —If you’re planning to invest your hard-earned money in stocks, bonds and other assets this year, let humility be your guide. In response, stocks and bonds, which typically don’t move in the same direction, moved down in tandem in 2022, with both ending the year deep in the red. Ignore the noiseWhether 2023 is great or awful for stocks — or, more likely, both at different times — that shouldn’t sway your investing decisions. Given recession concerns, Wilson noted that value stocks, which represent companies with strong fundamentals but are considered underpriced, tend to perform better during economic downturns. For those with a long time horizon and a high tolerance for risk, Wilson suggests looking for buying opportunities among stocks that have been hammered.

☆ New York AG accuses Celsius ex-CEO of defrauding crypto investors
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( Rohan Goswami | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

New York Attorney General Letitia James sued former Celsius Network CEO Alex Mashinsky on Thursday, alleging that Mashinsky defrauded hundreds of thousands of investors at his now-bankrupt crypto exchange. At one point, deposits at the crypto exchange were valued at $20 billion, according to the complaint. But Mashinsky's statements were false, James alleges, and became part of the former Celsius CEO's efforts to hide deep losses on risky crypto-lending investments. Celsius investors were left bereft and so despondent that some considered suicide, CNBC previously reported. Celsius entered bankruptcy proceedings with only $1.75 billion in crypto assets, a far cry from the $4.7 billion it owed users.

☆ Fanatics is divesting its 60% stake in NFT company Candy Digital
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-04 | by ( Ian Thomas | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Michael Rubin's sports platform company Fanatics is divesting its 60% stake in NFT company Candy Digital, according to an internal email obtained by CNBC. Candy Digital was founded in June 2021 in the middle of the sports NFT boom, competing with companies like Dapper Labs in the digital sports collectible space. It also released digital collectibles with Netflix 's Stranger Things, WWE , and several Nascar teams. Dapper Labs, the company behind NBA Top Shot and NFL All Day digital trading platforms that ranked No. "Over the past year, it has become clear that NFTs are unlikely to be sustainable or profitable as a standalone business," Rubin wrote.

☆ Coinbase reaches $100 million settlement with New York regulators
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-04 | by ( Allison Morrow | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

New York CNN —Coinbase, one of the most popular US crypto-trading platforms, agreed to a $100 million settlement after New York regulators found “significant failures” to comply with the state’s anti-money-laundering laws. The settlement includes a $50 million penalty Coinbase must pay to the New York Department of Financial Services and a pledge to spend $50 million to strengthen the company’t compliance program over the next two years. The regulator said it had installed an independent monitor to investigate, and that monitor will remain in place for at least another year as needed. Coinbase’s statement included reference to the so-called crypto winter — a chill that hit the industry in 2022, bringing down several companies, including Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX. “We recognize that the crypto industry is at an inflection point right now and that every public move by a crypto company will receive intense scrutiny,” Grewal said.

☆ Bernstein analysts offer a cautious bull case for crypto recovery after a year from hell
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-04 | by ( Emilia David | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Analysts from Bernstein laid out why they're still bullish on the crypto space. But Bernstein analysts Gautam Chhugani and Manas Agarwal offer crypto true believers a few reasons to keep the faith. Crypto keeps bouncing backThe past year was not the first "crypto winter," and crypto always bounced back fairly easily. Much of the crypto space remains decentralized. Chhugani and Agarwal said FTX's collapse had hastened DeFi adoption, which makes DeFi a bright spot in crypto investing, according to crypto VCs.

☆ Crypto had a catastrophic 2022. Here are 3 reasons it will bounce back again, according to analysts.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-04 | by ( Emilia David | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Analysts from Bernstein laid out why they're still bullish on the crypto space. But Bernstein analysts Gautam Chhugani and Manas Agarwal offer crypto true believers a few reasons to keep the faith. In a note published on January 3, they wrote that despite a catastrophic 2022, the larger crypto ecosystem still has potential. Much of the crypto space remains decentralized. Chhugani and Agarwal said FTX's collapse had hastened DeFi adoption, which makes DeFi a bright spot in crypto investing, according to crypto VCs.

☆ Premarket stocks: Here's what will drive markets this year
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-03 | by ( Nicole Goodkind | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

Markets are pushing higher but don’t get comfortable just yet — if last year taught us anything it’s to expect the unexpected. Russia and UkraineIn late February Russia invaded Ukraine and began a prolonged war that would drive global food and fuel prices sky-high. The CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter is now worth $137 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Musk’s $44 billion purchase of Twitter hasn’t helped Tesla’s stock or Musk’s personal wealth, either. Musk, Tesla’s largest shareholder, has sold $23 billion worth of Tesla shares since his interest in Twitter became public in April.

☆ A stock market crash and a Great-Depression-style economy are among the boldest forecasts for 2023.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-03 | by ( Phil Rosen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Now it's full speed ahead into 2023 — and the first Opening Bell newsletter of the year is a doozy. Over the last 12 months, volatility defined global markets. Some of the worst-performing tokens plummeted more than 90%, and one North Korean cyberattack resulted in a $625 million theft. Here is your complete guide to navigating the stock market. Oil (WTI) price on Jan. 3, 2023 Markets Insider10.

☆ Watch: Crowds Mourn Brazil's Pelé Ahead of Soccer Legend's Burial
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-03 | by ( ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

NFT Artist Beeple on the Future of Digital ArtThe artist Mike Winkelmann, better known as Beeple, is one of the most valuable living artists. But now that demand for non-fungible tokens has cooled and the crypto winter has set in, what does he see as the future of NFTs? Beeple spoke with WSJ art-market reporter Kelly Crow at this year’s WSJ Tech Live event. Zoe Thomas hosts.

☆ When Oligarchs’ Superyachts Flee Sanctions, Here's How to Find Them
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-03 | by ( ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

☆ 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.

☆ Watch: Pope Benedict XVI’s Body Lies in State as Mourners Line Up to Pay Respects
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-02 | by ( ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

☆ Watch: Brazil’s Lula Sworn In as President, Vows to Unite Country
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-02 | by ( ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

☆ Solana's slide accelerates — $50 billion in value wiped from the cryptocurrency in 2022
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-30 | by ( Rohan Goswami | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

The token's market cap collapsed from over $55 billion in January to barely above $3 billion at year-end. Bankman-Fried's companies held nearly $1.2 billion worth of the token and associated assets in June, according to documents reviewed by CoinDesk. But the recent slides came after that news had already broken, making Solana's recent slide something of a mystery. During the crypto market's heyday in 2021, Bankman-Fried was hardly alone in his bullishness. Solana's token fell from $141 to a low of a little over $94.

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