Trading platform Robinhood announced the release of a beta version of its web3 wallet. The wallet will be available to 10,000 test users before being released to the public in May.
Read MoreIn early July, El Salvador-based payments startup n1co raised $12M in a pre-seed round. The fintech spinoff of super-app Hugo, n1co launched as its own company in early 2022.
Read MoreReporting by Bloomberg suggests the crypto sectors’ peak market cap of $3T may have been misleading. Crypto’s value now hovers around $1T.
Read MoreA new court filing suggests Celsius Network, the cryptocurrency lender that declared bankruptcy in July, only has enough money to sustain itself until October. At current crypto prices, Celsius holds $2.8B less in cryptocurrency than it owes clients.
Read MoreIn late July, West Virginia State Treasurer Riley Moore announced that BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo were no longer eligible to receive state banking contracts because they “engaged in boycotts of fossil fuel companies” through their ESG policies. The measure does not ban the banks from operating in West Virginia.
Read MoreOver the past 18 months, crypto companies have spent more than $2.4B on sports marketing, namely ads and sponsorships. Though crypto’s push into sports sponsorships has slowed down since the onset of the crypto winter, some crypto firms are still doubling down on big-budget deals.
Read MoreBlackRock announced that its customers also using Coinbase will have access to the crypto exchange’s Prime program, a crypto trading platform for institutional investors. Shares in Coinbase were up 31% in early trading today.
Read MoreIn an interview with CoinDesk, Antonio Garcia Pascual, Deputy Chief of the Global Market Analysis Division at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), said crypto’s nosedive hasn’t caused a similar downturn in the “real economy.” The crypto sector’s market cap has slid from $3T to $873B since November 2021.
Read MoreAccording to the Wall Street Journal, Elliott Management, a $50B hedge fund, is considering an activist-investor takeover of PayPal. PayPal’s valuation has slid from $350B to $89B over the past year.
Read MoreFidelity Investments announced that it’s launching employer-sponsored 401(k) plans that invest in Bitcoin. Fidelity administers retirement plans for approximately 23,000 businesses and manages over $11T in assets.
Read MoreCryptocurrency trading firms Celsius and Voyager Digital crashed earlier this month, trapping clients' funds within their platforms. Voyager’s financials are unknown, but Celsius has $167M in cash on hand to repay over $4.7B in customer deposits.
Read MoreOn July 16, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law that bans the use of digital assets like NFTs and cryptocurrencies to pay for goods and services within the country. It is still legal to trade, buy, and sell those assets.
Read MoreGoldman Sachs announced a $233M loan to Latin American e-commerce giant MercadoLibre. Similarly, Citigroup lent $375M to them last year.
Read MoreERCOT, which operates Texas’s power grid, has requested that bitcoin miners suspend operations during the state’s current heat wave, which has caused a surge in residential and commercial energy demand. Bitcoin miners complied, freeing up to 1,000 megawatts by turning off their machines.
Read MoreCrypto firm Voyager Digital, which filed for bankruptcy last week, previously told customers that their deposits were FDIC insured through a partnership with Metropolitan Commercial Bank. However, customer funds are only protected if Metropolitan Bank fails, not if Voyager fails; the FDIC is now investigating Voyager’s false claims.
Read MoreThe Financial Revolutionist is weekly newsletter and blog focused on the torrid pace of financial innovation. Today, thanks to the exponential rate of technological change, explosion in global trade and new regulations ushered in by the Great Financial Crisis, a new financial revolution is under way. In this battle, virtually every aspect of the greater financial services sector is subject to rigorous challenge. With the Financial Revolutionist, we are aspiring to create a boots-on-the-ground and highly opinionated assessment of important financial innovation developments in the past week.
