More bad news this week as many of the stories we have been following for the past month came to a head. Celsius filed bankruptcy, Stripe has officially accepted a lower valuation, Three Arrows Capital has had its assets frozen, Klarna finally closed its latest funding round and OpenSea laid off 20% of its staff. Here are what I consider to be the top ten fintech news stories of the past week.
Crypto Crash Drags Lender Celsius Network Into Bankruptcy from The Wall Street Journal – We can’t say this was a surprise. The embattled crypto lender, Celsius, has been in trouble for over a month; they finally succumbed to the pressure and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Stripe is the latest fintech to falter, taking a 28% internal valuation cut from TechCrunch – The most valuable private fintech company on the planet is worth a little less (just like every other fintech company). Based on their latest 409A filing, Stripe is now worth $74 billion, down 28% from its $95 billion valuation last year.
New York judge freezes assets of Three Arrows Capital as crypto firm’s founders remain underground from CNBC – One day they will make a movie out of the Three Arrows story. One of the leading crypto hedge funds of a few months ago (when they had $10 billion in assets) is also in bankruptcy but its founders are in hiding. So, a New York judge has frozen all remaining assets.
Klarna confirms $800M raise as valuation drops 85% to $6.7B from TechCrunch – Another saga that seems to have been drawn out over many weeks is the latest Klarna funding round. The company closed $800m at a $6.7 billion valuation, down from the lofty heights of 2021 when the company was worth almost $46 billion.
OpenSea Lays Off Roughly 20% of Its Staff from CoinDesk – The NFT market has hit a major downturn just like all other areas of crypto, so it came as no surprise this week when we learned that OpenSea, the leading NFT marketplace, had laid off 20% of its staff.
Plaid adds read-only support for leading crypto exchanges from TechCrunch – Now for some good news. This week Plaid announced that they will be connecting directly to the leading crypto exchanges, with Binance.US, Kraken and Gemini leading the way. More platforms will be added later this year.
DAOs – The Web3 entities that may spark revolutions from Fintech Nexus – I just loved this piece from our Europe-based journalist, Isabelle Castro. If you are curious about DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations) but wonder what all the fuss is about, this article is for you. Isabelle explains how they work, why they are relevant and whether the world is ready to embrace them.
Why Regulation Will Help The Buy Now, Pay Later Giants from Forbes – Ever since the CFPB opened an inquiry into BNPL late last year there has been speculation as to what regulatory changes might be coming. Many experts believe that there will not be any specific BNPL regulation and if there are changes, they will be largely beneficial to the industry.
Quadrata Lands $7.5m Funding Round from Fintech Nexus – There are still companies getting funded, even those in the crypto space. I am a big fan of what Quadrata is building, a web3 passport that captures identity and credit scores, and they just closed their seed round led by Dragonfly Capital.
How Brands Like Home Depot, Coach, And Playstation Will Make Millions Selling Financial Services from Forbes – In Ron Shevlin’s weekly column he looks at a recent survey about embedded finance for retail brands. They found that large numbers of people want their favorite brands to offer some kind of financial services and with advances in embedded finance that is now a real option for these companies.
