No new crypto bankruptcies this week so we can call that a positive. Although we did have the industry’s first insider trading case brought by the SEC. It is looking more likely we will see stablecoin regulation in the near term and SBF says he is happy to be a backstop for the crypto industry. Here are what I consider to be the top ten fintech news stories of the past week.
Stablecoins would get federal rules under emerging House deal from The Washington Post – While crypto regulation is still languishing in Congress there is one area where real movement is occurring: stablecoins. A bipartisan proposal is progressing through the House Financial Services Committee that would limit the issuance of stablecoins to regulated entities such as banks.
FTX’s Bankman-Fried Says It’s Worth Losing Money to Prop Up Crypto Industry from CoinDesk – At a Bloomberg event in New York this week the enigmatic CEO of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, said that he is willing to do “bad deals” to help support the crypto industry.
Instagram’s new payments feature lets users buy products via DMs from TechCrunch – Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced this week that Instagram users will be able to buy products from small businesses directly via a direct message. You will also be able to track orders via this feature.
Former Coinbase Employee Charged in First-Ever Crypto Insider-Trading Case from The Wall Street Journal – A former Coinbase manager has been charged with insider trading after sharing confidential information with his brother and a friend. In a more important development the SEC said that nine of the 25 tokens were securities, Coinbase disputes that.
Minecraft says ‘No F-ing Thanks’ to NFTs from TechCrunch – NFTs have been growing in popularity in gaming but the most popular game of all, Minecraft, will not be part of this trend. The team behind Minecraft, which is owned by Microsoft, said NFTs take focus away from the game and encourages profiteering, so they are out.
Blockchain.com Cuts 25% of Its Workforce Amid Crypto Bear Market from CoinDesk – Another major crypto exchange is laying off a large chunk of its workforce. Blockchain.com is letting go 150 people, 25% of its workforce, with 44% of affected employees in Argentina where it is shuttering its offices. The platform was hit by a $270 million loan loss to Three Arrows Capital.
Why Some Banks Are Still Getting Into Crypto After the Meltdown from The Financial Brand – While only one in ten financial institutions plan to introduce crypto services in 2022, the big three core technology providers are all working on integrating crypto services into their offerings. So banks and fintechs will be able to more easily launch crypto offerings once the dust settles.
Former employees say issues plagued the crypto company Celsius years ahead of bankruptcy from CNBC – This not surprising but former Celsius employees now say they saw problems with what Celsius was doing years ago. A former head of compliance was shocked by some of the practices that were happening. Many of the problems centered around manipulation of the CEL token. Not a good look.
TomoCredit raises $22M at a $222M valuation toward its goal of making credit scores ‘obsolete’ from TechCrunch – Funding rounds are still being closed with TomoCredit revealing they have closed a $22 million Series B that values the company at $222 million. Tomo helps underbanked people build credit fast and has expanded their focus beyond immigrants.
How blockchain could disrupt interbank transactions discussed at Fintech Nexus’ London meetup from Fintech Nexus – I was in London this week where we hosted a meetup with many of the local blockchain and fintech leaders. I interviewed the CEOs of Fnality and Adhara who are building the world’s first blockchain-based real-time settlement system at a central bank.
