What MercadoLibre’s fundraising says about fintech in Latin America
/
Goldman Sachs announced a $233M loan to Latin American e-commerce giant MercadoLibre. Similarly, Citigroup lent $375M to them last year.
Read More
Fintech News Stories
Climate change complicates bitcoin mining in Texas
/
ERCOT, 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 MoreVoyager’s misleading marketing in regulators’ crosshairs
/
Crypto 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 MoreCrypto crash fuels acquisition spree, raising privacy concerns
/
Nexo, a crypto-lending platform with over 4 million users, has offered to acquire Singapore-based crypto services firm Vauld. Vauld management said in a blog post that Terra-Luna’s coin crash and Three Arrows Capital’s loan default sparked its financial difficulties.
Read MoreSCOTUS might halt financial regulation
/
The US Supreme Court ruled last week against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), limiting its powers to interpret or enforce laws without explicit Congressional authority. Two top Republican lawmakers told the Financial Times that the ruling will soon affect financial regulators as well.
Read MoreDespite tempered hiring plans, Meta still bets on metaverse
/
Meta, Facebook’s parent company, announced it would reduce its engineer hiring goals by 30% this year. It will recruit between 6,000 and 7,000 engineers, down from an envisioned 10,000.
Read MoreCrypto hedge fund defaults on $670M loan
/
Cryptocurrency hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC) has failed to make payment on a loan issued by crypto broker Voyager Digital. This marks the largest institutional crash of the current “crypto winter.”
Read MoreIs a recession really coming?
/
A recession is defined as a “significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and lasts more than a few months.” The uncertainty of the term, as well as improving supply-chain conditions in the auto industry, suggest a slump isn’t inevitable.
Read MoreA crypto gaming company crashed. Nobody will be held accountable.
/
Axie Infinity, a “play-to-earn” video game in which users receive tokens for playing on the platform and trading characters as NFTs, has seen the value of its tokens decline by more than 90%. Hackers also robbed Axie’s creators of more than $620M in cryptocurrencies.
Read MoreCrypto’s market cap fell below $1T. Now what?
/
Bitcoin’s value dropped as much as 17% after crypto lending platform Celsius froze withdrawals on its platform. Bitcoin fell to its lowest value since December 2020, contributing to crypto’s aggregate value sliding from a high of $3T to below $1T.
Read MoreBinance hosted billions in illicit crypto, exposé reports
/
Investigative work by Reuters suggests Binance has processed more than $2.35B in crypto originating from hacks, fraud, and illegal drug sales. The volume of illicit crypto processed by Binance has plummeted since it established KYC/AML protocols, but the crypto exchange has still failed to cooperate with cybercrime investigators on several occasions since then.
Read MoreWhat’s in the bipartisan Senate bill on crypto?
/
Senators Cynthia Lummis (R., WY) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D., NY) introduced a bill called the Responsible Financial Innovation Act, which proposes a “complete regulatory framework for digital assets.”
Read MoreWhat’s behind the VC crypto push?
/
Binance Labs, the venture arm of Binance, the crypto exchange, announced a $500M fund to invest in Web3 and blockchain technologies. The raise comes a week after Andreessen Horowitz launched a $4.5B crypto fund.
Read MoreIs Robinhood’s crypto push bound to fail?
/
Reporting by Business Insider exposed a woefully delayed pivot to crypto trading by Robinhood. An overly cautious legal team and leadership churn further contributed to the slow pace.
Read MoreSWIFT, Capgemini eye interoperable CBDCs
/
The international payments network, in partnership with Capgemini, a French IT services company, is testing how to interlink domestic Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) for international payments.
Read More
