Content organized by publication, date (new to old), and topic:
Cryptocurrencies
Ethereum Is Building the Internet of Value
The internet is at the cusp of entering a new phase, one where entrenched rulers are dethroned, more power is reclaimed by individuals and value moves as freely as cat GIFs.
To understand why we need a better internet in the first place, consider this question: Isn’t it weird the internet isn’t good at money?
Five Years On, Ethereum Really Is the ‘Minecraft of Crypto-Finance’
Almost five years ago on July 30, 2015, part of the Ethereum team had gathered in Berlin to see the network they helped build go live.
A big screen overhanging their worktables served as the countdown clock for when the test network reached block 1,028,201.
Latin America’s Wealthy Families Are Buying Up Bitcoin
The cryptocurrency craze suddenly doesn’t seem so crazy in countries that know a thing or two about hyperinflation.
The Venezuelan bolivar, Carlos Mosquera Benatuil will begrudgingly admit, is a “real” currency. Bitcoin isn’t—it’s basically just a very long line of computer code. Yet there’s no question which the 35-year-old Caracas native prefers.
Making a Killing in Virtual Real Estate
Digital 1,100-square-foot plots in Genesis City are selling for as much as $200,000.
Last month, Ryan Kunzmann went to a bar in New York to see his 58,000 square feet of property. No, it’s not the world’s biggest bar—his holdings are virtual.
YouTube and Facebook Are Losing Creators to Blockchain-Powered Rivals
Some say privacy concerns, censorship, and a coming ban on cryptocurrency ads are driving them away from the big names.
Peter “Furious Pete” Czerwinski has close to 5 million YouTube followers, but they can’t see most of his new videos there. To get 46 of the 71 weightlifting and competitive-eating videos he’s posted in the past two months, fans have to use DTube.
Crypto's Open Secret: Multibillion-Dollar Volume Is Suspect
BitForex rose from obscurity to No. 1 in trading in months.
Four months ago, BitForex was just one of many obscure exchanges offering users the ability to trade cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.Today, the Singapore-based platform is regularly reporting daily transactions that exceed $5 billion -- nearly matching turnover on London’s 217-year-old stock exchange.
Lack of Correlation for Bitcoin Provides Little Relief as Markets Sell Off
Cryptocurrencies’ safe haven aspect proves to be unfounded.
It might seem like Bitcoin’s ties to broader financial markets are strengthening as other risky assets also sell off, but cryptocurrencies are still dancing to their own tune -- even if the song is starting to sound like a requiem.
Ether Tumbles as Concern Increases That ICOs Are Cashing Out
Coin was the currency of the realm for blockchain startups. Projects seen cashing out to cover expenses, hedge market drop.
Initial coin offerings using the Ethereum blockchain are seen as one of the main catalysts for sending Ether’s price surging last year. Now they’re being blamed for its decline.
Bitcoin Speculators, Not Drug Dealers, Dominate Crypto Use Now
Drug Enforcement Administration special agent has seen shift. Total illegal transaction value has jumped in the meantime.
The ratio of legal to illegal activity in Bitcoin has flipped, according to Lilita Infante at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
Bitcoin ETF Dreams Revive With New SolidX, VanEck SEC Filing
Companies want to offer fund for institutional investors. SEC asked providers to pull applications earlier this year.
ETF providers hope to have cracked regulators’ code for creating the first exchange-traded product backed by Bitcoin -- but it’s going to cost you.
Binance's Venture Fund Head Is Waiting for ICO Bubble to Burst
Crypto trading platform plans $1 billion in investments. Ella Zhang says good projects will emerge from the carnage.
Ella Zhang is in charge of investing $1 billion in blockchain-related businesses, yet her view on the market isn’t too rosy.
A Venezuelan Bitcoin Miner on Why He Had To Flee [Podcast]
Bitcoin mining has exploded in Venezuela as the economic crisis deepens, but it’s attracting attention from police who are reportedly extorting miners.
Venezuela's spiraling economic crisis has forced many citizens to seek new ways of making money. This week on Decrypted, Bloomberg's Camila Russo and Brad Stone hear from one businessman who made the decision to quietly start mining bitcoin -- a smart move until it attracted the attention of the police. Authorities raided his office, and he says, tried to extort him -- forcing him to flee the country.
Circle Says Bitmain Leads $110 Million Investment Round
Circle Internet Financial Ltd. closed a funding round led by Bitcoin mining giant Bitmain Technologies Ltd. for $110 million -- and now it wants to build a better U.S. dollar.
The closely held mobile payments and cryptocurrency trading firm said the investment raises its valuation to about $3 billion, from a reported $480 million in 2016.
U.S. Crypto Regulatory Fight Has Everything But Rules: QuickTake
A chunk of Washington has been working to figure out what to make of cryptocurrencies.
For some, the question is how to regulate the digital assets; for others, it’s how to cash in on them by influencing the debate. Lawyers and lobbyists have reinvented themselves and new trade associations have sprouted up across town. But Congress has been reluctant to pass new rules, financial regulators are still sorting out jurisdiction and the White House has yet to weigh in forcefully. That’s left confusion and legal risks for U.S issuers and investors. Here are some of the key policy questions:
Dancing Badgers Draw More Attention Than SEC at Ethereum Meeting
In the crypto world, all eyes are on a meeting today where U.S. regulators may discuss whether Ethereum is a security.
Developers at the center of the network showed few signs of caring at a three-day gathering that ended this weekend, where scaling and security were the main focus.
The @Bitcoin Twitter Account Is at the Heart of Bitcoin's Big Schism
Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash’s most fervent supporters are at it again and Twitter has become a bitter battlefield.
The latest victim? The @Bitcoin Twitter account was suspended.
Venture Capital Surges Into Crypto Startups
As the red-hot initial coin offering market comes under closer scrutiny from regulators, venture capitalist interest in crypto is also picking up.
While ICOs were supposed to disrupt venture capital, such funding in blockchain-based companies is surging, with startups raising $434 million since December, the most ever in a three-month period, according to CoinDesk data.
Technology Meant to Make Bitcoin Money Again Is Now Live
Lightning Network software released by developer group. Jack Dorsey, others invest seed money in Lightning Labs.
A version of the technology that’s meant to make cryptocurrency payments faster and cheaper went live Thursday. The software, called Lightning Network, can now be used for Bitcoin payments after more than a year in which thousands of developers tested it.
Binance’s Decentralized Exchange to List Almost Any Coin, CEO Says
Crypto platform expects to introduce network this year. Zhao says exchange offers freedom, but also chance of scams.
Binance is planning to launch a decentralized exchange in the coming months and almost everyone is invited, founder and Chief Executive Officer Changpeng Zhao said.
Crypto Exchanges Are Raking in Billions of Dollars
Asian firms such as Binance, OKEx dominate trading activity. Ownership of many of the large exchanges remains a mystery.
Digital-asset exchanges are emerging as one of the biggest winners of the cryptocurrency boom. The top 10 are generating as much $3 million in fees a day, or heading for more than $1 billion per year, according to estimates compiled by Bloomberg using trading volume reported on data tracker CoinMarketCap.com and fee information on the exchanges’ websites.
Crypto Legend Who Bought Pizza With 10,000 Bitcoin Is Back At It
It’s one of the best-known cryptocurrency legends: The guy who bought two pizzas with 10,000 Bitcoin back in 2010 to prove the digital currency worked. Now he’s at it again.
This time, early Bitcoin developer Laszlo Hanyecz wanted to test the Lightning Network, a technology that runs parallel to a blockchain like Bitcoin’s network and aims to speed up transactions.
Big Investors Circle Telegram’s ICO While Veteran Crypto Insiders Pass
Sequoia Capital and Benchmark Capital said to be interested. Experienced blockchain funds passing on the offering.
There’s a disconnect among investors eyeing what could be the largest initial coin offering ever. Some of the biggest venture capital firms have signaled interest in an ICO from Telegram, while long-time cryptocurrency investors are skipping it.
To the World, They’re Crypto Bros. To Each Other, a Brotherhood
Bitcoin fosters a global community, at least among young men.
The last time Marc Kenigsberg traveled to London, he messaged his cryptocurrency friends on WhatsApp to ask who would be around. One of the guys in the chat offered to pick him up at the airport.
A Clue to the Latest ICO Scam May Have Been Hidden in the Name
This isn’t the biggest ICO scam, but it may be one of the strangest.
Lithuanian startup Prodeum set out to raise as much as 5,400 Ether (about $6.5 million) in an initial coin offering, ostensibly to revolutionize the agriculture industry and put fruit on the blockchain. That’s not the strange part.
Bitcoin Watchers Are Blaming the Slump on the Moon
If regulatory concerns aren’t enough to explain Bitcoin’s 50 percent slump from its record high reached last month, how about blaming it on the moon?
The Lunar New Year, which marks the first day of the year in the Chinese calendar, is being cited by some as contributing to Bitcoin’s slump.
A Small Fintech Stock Surged 2,600% in a Week After Announcing It’s a Crypto Company
LongFin buys microlender that transacts only in digital coins. Latest small company to see gains based tied to bitcoin mania.
Fintech plus cryptocurrency equals about $7 billion. That’s how much the value of LongFin Corp. surged to after the microcap’s stock rocketed by as much as 2,600 percent since debuting Wednesday.
The Hottest ICOs Are the Ones That Have Done the Least Amount of Work
Those without working projects did best in first trading mont. Almost two-thirds of coin sales with testable projects slumped.
The man known as Bitcoin Baba is, as you might have guessed, a true believer in the power of cryptocurrencies to change the world.
Bitcoin Futures Trading Brings Crypto Into Mainstream
Cboe contracts open Sunday night in wild year for bitcoin. CME futures to start trading Dec. 18 as traders gear up.
The intersection of digital money and traditional finance is at 400 South LaSalle Street in Chicago this weekend. That’s where trading in bitcoin futures opens Sunday evening, as the first major U.S. exchange offers a product pegged to the wildly fluctuating cryptocurrency.
Hedge Funds Try a Quant Approach to Tackling Cryptocurrencies
Portfolio to hold mostly digital tokens from secondary market. Of more than 100 crypto funds, only a few use quant strategies.
A daring few hedge funds are attempting to apply rules and models to the wildest market out there -- cryptocurrencies.
This Is How You Can Short Bitcoin
Bitcoin’s assault on $10,000 has stirred bears who see fresh evidence of a bubble.
There are ways to bet on a crash, but they’re even riskier than trading the cryptocurrency on the way up.
Diary of an African Cryptocurrency Miner
A young Kenyan goes from doing odd jobs on the farm to growing virtual coins, as cryptocurrencies spread across the continent.
Eugene Mutai’s Nairobi apartment is filled with the sound of money: That would be the hum of a phalanx of fans cooling the computers he’s programmed to mine cryptocurrencies around the clock.
Dear Publicists: Stop Spamming My Inbox With Crazy ICO Pitches
This initial coin offering craze is taking over my inbox.
If you report on cryptocurrencies, are involved in technology somehow, or maybe even if you tweeted about bitcoin once, chances are you’re getting bombarded with emails on the latest ICO that will revolutionize the world.
Ethereum Co-Founder Says Crypto Coin Market Is a Time-Bomb
Startups have raised $1.3 billion through digital coin sales. Regulation is biggest threat to digital tokens, Hoskinson says.
Initial coin offerings, a means of crowdfunding for blockchain-technology companies, have caught so much attention that even the co-founder of the ethereum network, where many of these digital coins are built, says it’s time for things to cool down in a big way.
Bankers Ditch Fat Salaries to Chase Digital Currency Riches
Dealmakers and financiers find second wind in cryptocurrency. ‘There’s so much to imagine,’ ex-China Renaissance exec says.
Richard Liu gave up a seven-figure salary this month to get into one of the hottest financial instruments around right now: initial coin offerings.
Stocks & ETFs
Wall Street’s Speed Demons Are Heroes
Academic research favors automated trading firms by 2-1 margin. Contrary to ‘Flash Boys’ image, HFTs improve market quality.
Across the wider world, Wall Street’s speed demons are all too often cast as the villains of the stock market. But in academic circles at least, high-frequency traders are more often treated like heroes.
Investors Are Tiptoeing Back Into One of the World's Biggest Junk Bond ETFs
Flows into struggling JNK pick up after a dismal March. Fund has lost $1.8 billion in assets over the past 12 months.
Investors are returning to the world’s second-biggest junk-bond exchange-traded fund after pulling out nearly $2 billion over the last year.
Rioja Wine Turns Aviva Veteran Into Top Spanish Fund Manager
Fund focuses on value shares and small-cap companies. IBEX Small-Cap up four times more than IBEX 35 since January.
The man beating most Spanish equity managers has a table wine to thank for one of his best investment ideas.
Comatose European Stocks Turn Everything Into a Low-Vol Fund
The sudden tranquility in European stock market is starting to squeeze one of the selling points of low-volatility funds.
A gauge that seeks to isolate the region’s least-turbulent shares this week experienced more price swings than the broader market for the first time in almost 21 months, mirroring a recent trend in the U.S.
Pay Close Attention to What's in Your Ethical Fund
ESG and environmental investing booms to $223 billion. Lack of standards for what counts as ethical starts G-20 probe.
Thinking of putting your money into a fund that describes itself as ethical? You’d better read the fine print if backing Exxon Mobil Corp. and British American Tobacco Plc isn’t your idea of doing good.
Short Sellers’ Futile Year Gets Worse in Europe on Brexit Tumult
Most-shorted stocks fall less, even with worst slump since ’08. Swatch, Ocado and Carillion are the most bet-against.
The U.K.’s decision to leave the European Union spurred the biggest selloff in the region’s stocks since 2008 -- a goldmine for shorts, right? Not exactly.
For Southern Europe Returns, Drop the Macho and Embrace Feminism
Female directors spell big returns in places dominated by men. “It takes just one woman to start to break” male group-think.
Katharina Miller attends the shareholder meetings of almost every big Spanish company, and after others ask about dividends and earnings, she poses a question to what is invariably a male-dominated dais: Why are there so few women on the board?
How Hedging Rises for European Stocks Getting Used to Terror
Options traders on Tuesday bet VStoxx will jump 36% by July. History shows markets recover fast after terror attacks.
The rapid rebound in Europe’s equity markets after bombings in Brussels Tuesday may be a function of how much turbulence is already priced into the region’s shares.
Traders Are Pulling Money From VIX Funds Like Never Before
Even as the securities rise, investors are going for the exit. VIX index of market stress jumps 33 percent in January.
While stocks are having a chaotic start to the year, investors are withdrawing money from securities that profit from higher volatility at the same time as short sellers are piling into bets that tranquility will return.
Short Sellers Making an Even Bigger Killing Than You Think
Most costly U.S. stocks to short underperformed by 26% in 2015. China, Fed, gap between winners vs. rest of market is helping.
Last year was the most profitable ever for short sellers, by one measure. And 2016 is starting off even better for bears.
Europe Tech IPOs Are Beating Silicon Valley Victims of Own Hype
European investors take a longer view when looking at prices. Oberthur Technologies planning year's biggest Europe tech IPO.
For investors craving that old Silicon Valley standby, harvesting fast money from an initial public offering in technology, the place to look right now is Europe.
Stock Traders Reap Promotions and Pay as Bond Brethren Laid Low
Equities executives picked to run trading at three big banks. Stock traders' pay seen up 7%, climbing a third straight year.
Stock traders are overtaking their bond-market peers in Wall Street’s ultimate currencies: promotions and pay raises.
Spain Property Renaissance Gives Life to Stock Turnaround
Property prices headed for first annual increase since 2007. Merlin Properties leads gains in Stoxx 600 real estate index.
Sergio Berdion lived his whole life in Madrid until 2012, when Spain’s real estate collapse drove him to Chile in search of work. Last year he came back.
You're Just In Time to Get In The Abengoa Arbitrage Opportunity
Class B shares have outperformed the A version in recent weeks. `Situation will stabilize,' says analyst at MG Valores.
For investors in Abengoa SA, a renewable energy company that has lost three-quarters of its market value in a year, the riskier shares have become the best bet.
Meet the Man Who Won on Greek Stocks When All Others Failed
MetLife MFC’s Vasileios Antoniadis made money in Greek stocks even as the country’s drawn-out bailout talks with creditors roiled markets. None of his peers did.
Greek Stocks Plunge Most in Decades as Market Reopens to Crisis
Greece’s stock market reopened after five weeks to the most savage wave of selling in decades, underlining a crisis that’s crippled the economy and pushed the country’s euro membership to the brink.
Argentina & Emerging Markets
No. 1 Bond Salesman in Emerging Markets Wants a Tad More Respect
He’s Argentina’s finance minister, selling debt for the biggest bond issuer in the developing world, and he can't believe investors are still doubting the rebound story.
Luis Caputo is getting frustrated with the bond market. He’s guarded about it—he has to be. After all, he’s the finance minister of Argentina, the biggest bond issuer in the developing world, which means he’s constantly hitting up investors for cash.
A Mysterious Death and an Embattled Argentine President
Bond investors in Argentina have become accustomed to all sorts of political drama over the years.
But even for a country that’s defaulted twice since 2001, the latest uproar engulfing President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is one that few could’ve ever imagined.
Argentines Gird for a Financial Storm
Companies dust off coping strategies from 2001.
Eduardo Woznica shuttered his Buenos Aires pharmacy for months after Argentina defaulted on $95 billion of debt in December 2001. He was afraid looters would ransack the business his mother had started almost three decades earlier. At home, Woznica hoarded canned food and avoided going out after dark. “It was a really ugly time,” he recalls. “We lived in fear.”
Argentine Default Chaos Relived as Blackouts Follow Looting
For Dominga Kanaza, it wasn’t just the soaring inflation or the weeklong blackouts or even the looting that frayed her nerves. It was all of them combined.
From Papua New Guinea to Argentina, Bond Risks Are Going on a World Tour
Investors desperate for yield willing to tolerate more risk. Junk bonds now make up half of benchmark emerging-market index.
A serial deadbeat got investors to buy 100-year bonds, Sri Lanka’s latest debt sale was oversubscribed by 10 times and tiny Belarus is poised to issue eurobonds.
An Emerging-Markets Rally Belies Worrying Economic Fundamentals
Debt, budget balances and current accounts raise red flags. Developing nations’ total debt to GDP is highest since 2004.
Emerging-market bulls from UBS Asset Management to JPMorgan Asset Management often say that developing-nation economies are solid enough that they can handle rising rates in the U.S.
Whereabouts Unknown: Chile Money Man Quits `Company, Life'
Alberto Chang is missing from Grupo Arcano, executives quit. Follows questions raised about education, Google investment.
Among the many troubling questions swirling around Chilean investor and Miami personality Alberto Chang-Rajii, the most pressing one is this: where is he?
Forget Angry Birds. This Video Game Targets Angry Investors
It looks a lot like Angry Birds, that addictively silly iPhone game -- only in this version, the target is bondholders.
At a state-run amusement park in Argentina, the government is encouraging children to take aim at virtual vultures, a not-so-veiled reference to the nation’s international creditors.
The Google Search That’s Smoking Hot in Dollar-Starved Argentina
Argentines are more obsessed with the dollar than ever.
Or at least since 2004, when Google began tracking the search data. People in the South American nation are entering the word “dolar” -- Spanish for dollar, of course -- in Google’s search engine at an unprecedented clip.
Buying Art on the Cheap in Argentina, Courtesy of the Government
For Argentines desperate to get their hands on dollar-based assets, this weekend’s art festival in Buenos Aires is a can’t-miss event.
Not only will they be able to buy artwork that’s quoted in dollars with their pesos, but they’ll be granted a favorable exchange rate on the transactions.
Paul Singer's Billion Dollar Hedge Fund Is Going to War Over $58,000
When it comes to hedge-fund manager Paul Singer’s defaulted-debt claims against Argentina, the billionaire has the law on his side. Actually getting paid, however, is a different matter.
Snubbed by Argentina for more than a decade, not even his legal victories in U.S. courts -- or a second default that they triggered in July -- have been enough to compel the nation to repay the $1.7 billion it owes.
Traders Dread Angry Calls in Argentina’s Perplexing Peso Market
Currency trading in Argentina is like nowhere else in the world, a trying process that involves Excel spreadsheets, byzantine tax codes and obtaining clearance from the central bank. And that’s exactly how authorities want it.
Argentina’s government is hampering efforts to buy foreign exchange by doling out progressively smaller amounts of dollars in the three years since implementing currency controls.
In Argentina, Central Bank’s Vanishing Profit Is Bullish
Argentina’s central bank is poised to post its smallest profit in at least a decade this year. And that, curiously enough, may be a good thing.
Here’s why: The declining profit signals central bankers are taking a more aggressive tack in trying to curb an inflation rate that has for years been one of the highest in the world.
Soros’s Argentine Bond Bet Revealed in Lawsuit in London
Less than a month after Argentina defaulted for the second time in 13 years, George Soros has suddenly emerged as a key rival of fellow billionaire Paul Singer in the legal fight over the nation’s debt.
According to court documents filed in London last week, Quantum Partners LP, a fund managed by Soros’s family office, has joined a group of investors suing bond trustee Bank of New York Mellon Corp. for failing to distribute 226 million euros ($298 million) of interest payments on Argentine debt.
Argentina Bond Fight Hits TV as Holdouts Cite 97-Year-Old
Argentina and creditors engaged in a 13-year legal battle are ramping up efforts to sway public opinion with television, newspaper and online advertisements.
American Task Force Argentina, a lobbying group partly funded by hedge funds struggling to collect the $1.5 billion they’re owed from the country’s 2001 default, spent about $1 million in the past week in advertising, according to the group’s co-chair, Robert Shapiro.
Argentina Declared in Default by S&P as Talks Fail
Standard & Poor’s declared Argentina in default after the government missed a deadline for paying interest on $13 billion of restructured bonds.
The South American country failed to get the $539 million payment to bondholders after a U.S. judge ruled that the money couldn’t be distributed unless a group of hedge funds holding defaulted debt also got paid.
Former Goldman Options Trader Becomes Argentina Taxi King
After 23 years trading stock options at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co. and his own hedge fund, Russell Abrams is piling into his most exotic gamble yet: as a Buenos Aires taxi impresario.
Abrams, 48, plans to invest as much as $100 million of his own money to build a fleet of Buenos Aires cabs.
Firebrand With Elvis Sideburns Turns Argentine Dealmaker
Axel Kicillof, the Argentine economy minister who’s accused foreign investors of plundering the country and called defaulted-debt holders vultures, has now become the face of the government’s reconciliation efforts.
Kicillof, 42, last week brokered a $9.7 billion settlement to resolve a dispute with the Paris Club group of creditors dating from the nation’s 2001 default, just two months after orchestrating an accord to compensate Repsol SA for Argentina’s seizure of YPF SA.
Argentina Peso Plunge Becomes Art for Dumpster-Diving CEO
To see the effect of Argentina’s peso devaluation, head to the country’s most popular art show.
Alberto Echegaray, a former adviser to the economy minister who pegged the peso to the dollar at 1-to-1 in 1991, is making his debut at ArteBA with an installation featuring 11 basketball-size glass spheres, each stuffed with 1 million pesos of shredded, out-of-circulation notes.
Argentines Drain Reserves to Stash Dollars Under Mattresses
Jorge Lischetti applied to purchase dollars from the government the day Argentina eased controls. He stashed the $300 he was allowed to buy in January in his Buenos Aires home and did the same on the first day of February.
Argentines like Lischetti, a 24-year-old legal adviser, are contributing to a drop in the country’s international reserves by refusing to deposit the dollars they purchase in local banks.
Porsche 911s at 39% Off Sparks Argentina Sales Crackdown
By exploiting Argentina’s illegal currency market, buyers are extracting 39 percent discounts on luxury imports such as the Porsche 911 Carrera S sports car and creating the biggest foreign auto boom in five years.
It’s also exacerbating the fastest drain on the nation’s dollar reserves in a decade, sparking a government clampdown as it tries to preserve the primary source of cash for creditor payments.