tl;dr
• France's Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF) is coming under serious fire for approving Binance• FTX says there is much ado about nothing where Robinhood is concerned• Head of the European Central Bank (ECB), Christine Lagarde, is calling for regulation of DeFi lending• Ebay announces metaverse...
• France's Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF) is coming under serious fire for approving Binance
• FTX says there is much ado about nothing where Robinhood is concerned
• Head of the European Central Bank (ECB), Christine Lagarde, is calling for regulation of DeFi lending
• Ebay announces metaverse patents and trademarks on the heels of their KnownOrigin purchase
• TikTok owner, ByteDance, merges with a virtual social company to form WaveParticle Technology
• Circle, parent of USDC, has approved New York Community Bancorp to be a custodian of USDC
• Cathie Wood and I agree on algorithmic stablecoins
There is much ado about nothing when it comes to Robinhood. Here is what is on my mind today.
1. I knew there was a disdain for crypto in France, but the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF) is coming under serious fire for approving Binance. Think about this. I reported France's approval on May 4th and the AMF is still taking a lot of negative comments. Not to mention, there was a report by Reuters alleging there was over $2.35B in illicit transactions on the platform. Of course, I turn around and ask what are the numbers for the traditional banking system? How much money has been facilitated through other legal avenues like real estate transactions, etc.? I guess the establishment doesn't like change.
2. Yesterday, there was a lot of noise about FTX being interested in buying Robinhood. Well, FTX has stated there are currently no M&A talks underway. FTX owns about 7.6% of Robinhood. The investment put them at the table, but doesn't mean anything immediate is going to happen.
3. The head of the European Central Bank (ECB), Christine Lagarde, is calling for regulation of DeFi lending. I love the backward recommendations. Think about it. Crypto has been here for a while now and it is only when disruption to traditional finance begins to happen do any of the governing bodies want to act. Yes, I do believe there should be some guardrails in the space. That said, I think a soft touch will be good enough. Regulation has to be implemented that takes in account the individual's control over their own finances and not being beholden to traditional financial firms.
4. One has to think ebay knew it was about to be downgraded. Why else would they be making metaverse moves? I actually pretty neutral on ebay but totally get why Goldman Sachs downgraded them earlier this month. So when I look at the metaverse patents and trademarks they filed for I am still unimpressed. I am impressed by their purchase of KnownOrigin though. I am very interested to see what they do with that.
5. I am not sure what ByteDance's play in the metaverse will be, but they owner of TikTok has merged with a virtual social company. The emerging company has been dubbed Waveparticle Technology. This is following ByteDance's large investment in VR gear.
6. Circle, parent of USDC, has approved New York Community Bancorp to be a custodian of USDC. The partnership, as noted in their press release, also notes there are plans to develop low cost financial solutions for the underserved and unbanked communities. This follows in the footsteps of The Bitcoin Academy, in terms of education. I am interested to see what solutions are actually built.
7. Cathie Wood and I agree on algorithmic stablecoins. Neither of us think there is much of a future for them. I mean, she is way smarter than I am, but it has always struck me as a misnomer given my thought of how can you be stable based on an algorithm? We also on the same page when it comes to the future usefulness of NFTs, especially where it comes to the ability to lift people out of poverty.