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PayPal Predicts Earnings Growth as Firm Streamlines Businesses Adjusted EPS seen climbing 20% over the long term, firm says CEO Chriss gives investors a first look ‘into the future’ PayPal Holdings Inc. predicted growth in earnings and transaction margins in coming years, as its new leadership continues to streamline the sprawling business. Adjusted earnings per share will increase by a percentage in the low teens by 2027 and by 20% over the longer term, PayPal forecast in an investor day presentation Tuesday. Transaction margin dollars — a key metric for the firm — are expected to climb by high-single-digit percentages over the next two years, potentially reaching 10% or more after that. The figure represents how much PayPal earns from each transaction it processes, after expenses.
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Bybit Hack, Crypto’s Biggest Ever, Spoils Coinbase’s SEC Victory Party Shares of largest US exchange plunge after Bybit is attacked ‘Careful what you wish for’ with deregulation, professor says The crypto industry started its Friday in a jubilant mood, with Coinbase Global Inc.’s announcement that US securities regulators were poised to dismiss a legal case against the nation’s largest digital-asset exchange. The happy vibe didn’t last long, however: Less than three hours later and halfway around the world, the exchange Bybit disclosed that it had been hacked in what analysts say was the biggest-ever theft in the industry with almost $1.5 billion worth of tokens looted.
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South African Firm to Amass Bitcoin Hoard in First for Continent Altvest has applied to raise $10 million for purchases Strategy pioneered by billionaire Saylor is gaining popularity Altvest Capital Ltd. said it will become the first listed company in Africa to adopt Bitcoin as its primary treasury reserve asset, emulating a strategy that propelled a more than 2,400% surge in Michael Saylor’s Strategy.com since it started buying the token. Altvest bought one Bitcoin and has applied to regulators for permission to raise about 200 million rand ($10 million) by selling shares to increase its treasury stockpile, Chief Executive Officer Warren Wheatley said in an interview. He added that no final decision has been made on raising funds. Bitcoin traded at around $97,000 on Thursday.
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Binance CEO Teng Sees ‘Fresh Reset’ for Crypto in New US Regime Says Hong Kong regulatory limits not conducive for big players “A couple” of HQ options under “careful consideration” The US under President Donald Trump has moved on from a crypto regulatory regime marked by “a bit of oppression”, according to Richard Teng, chief executive officer of Binance Holdings Ltd. Digital asset executives have loudly complained that regulators under previous President Joe Biden sought to engage in “regulation by enforcement”, their description for a spate of high-profile lawsuits against and hefty fines levied on companies including Binance, Coinbase Inc. and Ripple LLC.
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Trump’s New World Order Leaves Europe Flailing Ukrainian firefighters work at the site of a strike in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, on Feb. 13. Photographer: Genya Savilov/AFP/Getty Images Welcome to Balance of Power, bringing you the latest in global politics. If you haven’t yet, sign up here. European leaders meeting in Paris today have the weight of history on their shoulders.
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Chinese Stocks Are the Biggest Winners in Trump’s Age of Uncertainty Chinese stocks have beaten every other market since Donald Trump took office last month. Photographer: Fred Dufour/AFP/Getty Images Welcome to Hong Kong Edition. Subscribe here if you like this free newsletter. Or email us with any feedback. This week is mostly about winners. We delve into why Chinese stocks in the city are turning victorious, we talk to a running star about how to excel in a marathon, and we revisit the legacy of Hong Kong’s most famous activist investor. Finally, we review the latest outpost by the chef behind the hit Chinese restaurant Wing.
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Crypto Custody Firm BitGo Said to Weigh IPO as Soon as This Year The firm was valued at $1.75 billion in a 2023 funding round Deal in 2021 to be acquired by Novogratz’s Galaxy was scrapped BitGo Inc. is considering an initial public offering, according to people familiar with the matter, joining a flood of crypto companies anticipating more support for their plans from regulators. The Palo Alto, California-based company is in talks with potential advisers on a listing as soon as the second half of this year, one of the people said, asking not to be identified as the information isn’t public.
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Stripe in Talks for Staff Share Sales at $85 Billion-Plus Value Payments platform was valued at $70 billion last year Investors would buy out existing employee shareholders Stripe Inc. is in discussions to arrange sales of stock by employees at an $85 billion valuation, people familiar with the matter said, a deal that could help the Silicon Valley payments startup regain some of the capitalization it lost during a post-Covid slump. That transaction could add $15 billion to the valuation of one of Silicon Valley’s largest private firms, which was worth $70 billion in a similar tender offer last year. It would still remain a ways off its peak value of $95 billion, when Stripe last raised money during the 2021 technology boom.
Bloomberg Crypto
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Tether Revs Up Deal Machine After Its Embrace by ‘Establishment’ Tether invested in firm in which Lutnick, Sacks owned shares Crypto firm plans to step up dealmaking as earnings rise Paolo Ardoino, the chief executive officer of $140 billion stablecoin giant Tether Holdings Ltd., had a triumphant message for the crypto faithful gathered in San Salvador late last week. The “establishment,” according to Ardoino, had unfairly maligned Tether, which has long been the target of scrutiny among authorities over the use of its token by criminals and terrorists. But that changed when Donald Trump returned to the White House with an administration packed with crypto advocates, just days before Ardoino took the stage at Tether’s annual Plan B Forum.
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MicroStrategy’s Financial Gambit Hits a Bump With New Stock Deal Bitcoin proxy sold preferreds at big discount to pump interest 10% yield shows firm’s maneuver to open a new funding avenue MicroStrategy Inc.’s seemingly limitless moves to raise capital for its Bitcoin purchases have run into their first obstacle. The self-styled Bitcoin treasury company sold preferred stock units — rare, debt-like securities dangling an 8% coupon — last week, but it had to cater to price-sensitive buyers by pricing them at a sizable discount. The shares were sold for $80 apiece, 20% below their marketed price, effectively pushing the yield to 10% for buyers — a steep concession to finalize the deal.
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Trump Memecoin Shows Limits of Crypto’s Democratization Pitch At 9 p.m. on Jan. 17, then President-elect Donald Trump announced to his more than 8 million followers on TruthSocial that he was releasing his own crypto memecoin. The token, called Trump, featured an image of him captured shortly after a failed assassination attempt last year: In it, he’s raising his right fist and looking defiant. Trump’s message on TruthSocial, coming just days before his second inauguration, was simple: “It’s time to celebrate everything we stand for: WINNING!” Within minutes, thousands of speculators began piling into the new token through a platform called Meteora. The frenzied buying drove the price to over $70, sending the market value of circulating tokens close to $15 billion. But before most investors had even started trading in earnest, 21 crypto “whales” — defined here as traders who purchased at least 500,000 tokens per associated crypto wallet in the first hour of the token’s launch — bought and sold millions of tokens as the price skyrocketed. In the first few minutes of trading, those wallets accounted for the bulk of the transactions. In addition, they generated some $214.3 million in gains during the token’s first 48 hours in existence, a Bloomberg News analysis of millions of transactions shows. And among the whales, the gains were unevenly distributed: a single cluster of related wallets generated a whopping $170 million. Memecoins are a highly speculative corner of crypto, one in which the asset offered typically doesn’t have much intrinsic value beyond whatever profits investors anticipate from flipping it. For all of crypto’s public promises to “democratize” finance, memecoins are often a losing proposition for smaller buyers, while proving wildly lucrative for their issuers as well as a few well-resourced traders. At the same time, two Trump-linked entities — CIC Digital and Fight Fight Fight LLC — own 80% of the supply, a holding that will be unlocked over three years according to the official website. That has the potential to put pressure on the memecoin’s price in the future should those entities start selling. “It’s completely abnormal to have a memecoin where 80% of supply goes to founders,” said Shuyao Kong, co-founder of blockchain project MegaETH. “In fact, memecoins take pride in fair launch, meaning no insiders were able to acquire tokens before launch.” By far the biggest winner of all – let’s call it Cluster A – showed an uncanny ability to time their trades, realizing a total profit of $170 million in the memecoin’s first two days, the Bloomberg News analysis shows. Activities performed by Cluster A tell a story of informed and well-timed transactions. First, a single wallet – Wallet A – received transfers totalling about $1.1 million in the form of the USDC stablecoin about two hours before Trump’s post announcing the token. Then, roughly ninety seconds after the post on TruthSocial, Wallet A purchased about 6 million Trump tokens at 18 cents apiece. That single purchase accounted for about 6% of the total available supply of 100 million tokens. Then, a few minutes later, Wallet A sent all of its Trump tokens to a new wallet – Wallet B. That wallet then sent tokens to several other wallets at a rate of hundreds of thousands of tokens per minute. That group of wallets made periodic sales worth millions of dollars over the next two days, including when prices peaked at $78 on Jan. 19. Later that day, as prices came off the intra-day lows to hover around $75, just off the peak, these assorted wallets that comprised Cluster A dumped about 1.7 million tokens over a three hour period. Wallet B sold a total of 650,000 Trump tokens in just three minutes. “Many of the on-chain ‘whales’ are sophisticated traders and prop funds that have automated trading set-ups that allow them to buy new token launches early if the token fits a certain criterion, often related to momentum and liquidity, and then sell when they reach a certain level of return or hit another milestone,” said Rob Hadick, general partner at crypto venture capital fund Dragonfly. By contrast, whether buyers who jumped in later won or lost money on their trades was essentially a coin toss, the analysis shows. In the first two days of trading, one Trump buyer lost as much as $5 million, according to the Bloomberg News analysis; whereas another wallet showed more than $85 million in gains. One thing both winners and losers had in common was their frequency of trading: the wallets that lost the most money and the ones that generated the highest returns all made thousands of transactions in a short amount of time. The two Trump-linked entities — CIC Digital and Fight Fight Fight LLC — have generated at least $11.5 million in fees from trading in the token as of Jan. 31, according to risk modeling firm Gauntlet. CIC Digital has previously generated millions of dollars from licensing Trump’s image on digital collectibles. Representatives for the White House and CIC Digital did not immediately return a request for comment. Interest in the Trump token has waned since that heady first weekend between the launch and the presidential inauguration: as at Jan. 31, the token had fallen more than 60% from its high. But nearly 700,000 wallets still hold the token, and it ranks among the top 40 cryptocurrencies by market value, according to data aggregator CoinGecko — beating out many coins that have been around for years. These patterns of activity and interest make the Trump token a memecoin outlier, even beyond the fact that it was launched by a two-time president who has 100 million followers on X. Edited by: stacy-marie ishmaelPhilip LagerkranserChloe WhiteakerYue Qiu Crypto With assistance from: Jeff Kao Crypto Methodology Data Bloomberg News used tools provided by blockchain infrastructure and developer platform Helius to collect a total of 5.1 million Trump token transactions on the Solana blockchain, executed between 9 p.m. on Jan. 17 and 9 p.m. Eastern time on Jan. 19. Each entry contained a description of the transaction, information about the nature of the transaction (e.g. "SWAP", "TRANSFER", etc.), its unique signature, the original wallet, the receiving wallet, the fees paid, and the decentralized trading platforms where the transaction took place. Bloomberg News collected real-time Trump token price data from Chaos Labs. Data processing For each transaction marked as "SWAP" or "TRANSFER", Bloomberg inferred whether it was a "BUY", "SELL" or "TRANSFER". If the transaction was marked as a "SWAP" and the wallet swapped TRUMP for Solana (SOL) or USDC, it would be coded as a SELL. If the transaction was marked as a "SWAP" and the wallet swapped SOL or USDC for TRUMP, then it would be marked as a BUY. If the transaction was marked as a "TRANSFER" but the transferred currency matched stablecoin USDC or SOL and the receiving wallet matched one owned by a decentralized trading platform (Meteora or Jupiter), it would be marked as a SELL. Conversely, if the transaction was marked as a "TRANSFER" but the original wallet matched an exchange wallet, and the receiving wallet did not match an exchange wallet, then it would be marked as a BUY. In all other cases, transactions would keep their original code. To compute the dollar value of each transaction, Bloomberg matched the timestamp of each transaction with temporal price data, and multiplied the TRUMP amount by the TRUMP dollar value at time of transaction. Bloomberg's analysis excludes any executions on centralized exchanges such as Binance. Identifying whale wallets For the purposes of this story, Bloomberg defined a "whale" as any wallet that held at least 500,000 TRUMP tokens (0.5% of the 100M public supply) within the first hour of the launch (9 p.m. - 10:00PM Eastern time on Jan. 17). Bloomberg identified whales by filtering the data for any wallet that made a purchase of at least 500,000 TRUMP, or any wallet of which net BUYS amounted to 500,000 TRUMP at any minute interval during the first hour of launch. Calculating profits Bloomberg tallied up each whale BUY and SELL transaction in dollar value at time of purchase. Bloomberg substracted the total $USD value of BUY transactions from the total $USD value of SELL transactions to calculate raw profit. For the wallets that still held some TRUMP, Bloomberg calculated each wallet's unrealized profit using the TRUMP value at 9pm Eastern on Jan. 19 ($46.50). Bloomberg added raw profit and unrealized profit to calculate total profit. Bloomberg manually tracked each wallet that Wallet A transferred Trump token to and that did not buy any additional amount and defined them as Cluster A. Bloomberg tallied up each SELL transaction from those wallets to compute Cluster A's net profits.
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Josh Younger and Lev Menand on Why Stablecoins Aren't the New Eurodollars Hello and welcome to the newsletter, a grab bag of daily content from the Odd Lots universe. Sometimes it's us, Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway, bringing you our thoughts on the most recent developments in markets, finance and the economy. And sometimes it's contributions from our network of expert guests and sources. Whatever it is, we promise it will always be interesting. If you like chatting with us, check out the Odd Lots Discord, where you can hang out and talk with us and with other listeners 24/7.
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Czech Finance Minister Warns Against Adding Bitcoin to Reserves Czech Finance Minister Zbynek Stanjura warned against the central bank governor’s proposal to consider investing part of the country’s foreign-currency reserves in bitcoin. Stanjura said he respected the Czech National Bank’s independence and made clear that the government couldn’t interfere in the monetary authority’s decisions. Still, he expressed concern that the cryptocurrency might be unsuitable for reserve holdings because of its excessive volatility.
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Czech central bank to consider holding bitcoin as reserve asset Jan 29 (Reuters) - The Czech National Bank will consider holding billions of dollars worth of bitcoin in its reserves, Governor Ales Michl said on Wednesday, potentially the first shift into the cryptocurrency by a western central bank if it went ahead. Michl said the idea was still under analysis and no immediate decision was forthcoming. Central banks traditionally park reserves in more conservative assets and some have warned about the risks of using cryptocurrencies in public coffers. Since taking the helm of the Czech central bank in 2022, Michl has led a drive to diversify the bank's hefty reserves through the gradual gold purchases and shifting a bigger share of the portfolio into equities to create sustained profits. He plans to present the consideration of including bitcoin to the bank's seven-strong board on Thursday, he told the Financial Times in an interview published on Wednesday. If approved, the bank could eventually hold as much as 5% of its 140 billion euro ($146 billion) reserves in bitcoin, he said. In a later post on X, Michl added more analysis and discussion was still needed before any decision. "No decision is imminent," he said. "Bitcoin has significant volatility, which makes it harder to take advantage of its current low correlation with other assets. "That's why I will ask our team on Thursday to further assess Bitcoin’s potential role in our reserves. Nothing more, nothing less." Separately Michl told the FT it was "very likely" the bank would cut interest rates by 25 basis points next week, resuming an easing drive paused in December. In the FT story, former investment fund manager Michl said investment in bitcoin could prove to be worthless or it could have an "absolutely fantastic value". He said bitcoin would trend higher even without the backing of U.S. President Donald Trump since it is an alternative investment for many people. Bitcoin hit a record high earlier this month when Trump, who has pledged to be a "crypto president", was sworn in. Trump last week ordered the creation of a cryptocurrency working group to draft new regulations and explore the possibility of creating a national crypto stockpile. Bitcoin has more than doubled in value in 2024. Michl, too, highlighted wider investor interest in bitcoin since BlackRock and other firms last year launched bitcoin exchange traded funds, according to the FT. Swiss cryptocurrency advocates recently launched an initiative to make the Swiss National Bank hold bitcoin and gold in its reserves. The SNB has expressed skepticism about holding bitcoin as a reserve. European Central Bank policymakers, too, have been adamant they don't see bitcoin as a possible reserve asset and occasionally compare it to tulip bulbs during a 17th-century trading mania in the Netherlands. In an opinion piece published this month, two ECB advisers said Bitcoin was too opaque, risky and concentrated for the public coffers and that it was a "speculative bubble that will burst". South Africa’s central bank governor also criticized the idea of a bitcoin stockpile on a Davos panel last week, saying that crypto industry lobbyists should not influence which assets governments hold.
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Czech Central Bank Chief Mulls Bitcoin for Reserves, FT Reports Peter Laca Czech central bank Governor Ales Michl said he would propose a plan to include bitcoin in the country’s official reserves, the Financial Times reported, the first such move among western monetary institutions that have been mostly skeptical about crypto assets. The Czech National Bank’s board is expected to discuss Michl’s proposal to buy bitcoin, which could potentially represent billions of dollars of reserve allocation, the FT cited the governor as saying in an interview published on Wednesday.
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Shakeup in AI Sector Casts Cloud Over Crypto Rally Success of Chinese AI startup DeepSeek hurt the Nasdaq 100 Stock slide sapped crypto by eroding investor ardor for risk An upheaval in global markets sparked by Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek triggered volatility in digital assets, raising fresh questions about the outlook for crypto following last year’s boom in prices. Bitcoin traded at $102,316 as of 1:54 p.m, Tuesday in New York, partly paring a 3% drop from in the prior session that came amid a plunge in the Nasdaq 100 Index of US tech stocks. Tokens such as Ether and Solana trimmed deeper selloffs.
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Coinbase's CEO said the company needs to rethink how it lists and evaluates the slew of new tokens getting created each week. Coinbase CEO Says Surge in New Tokens Making Evaluations Harder Coinbase Global Inc.’s CEO said the company needs to rethink how it lists and evaluates the slew of new tokens getting created each week. “There are ~1m tokens a week being created now, and growing,” Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said in a post on X. “High quality problem to have, but evaluating each one by one is no longer feasible.”
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Ethereum Gets a Wall Street Sales Force as Token Lags Bitcoin Ethereum is facing heat for underperforming competitors Startup hopes to become Ether’s sales team to Wall Street Ethereum used to be seen as the most likely challenger to Bitcoin’s status as the preeminent cryptocurrency, and the one best positioned to make the blockchain a more useful technology. But as Bitcoin and many other cryptocurrencies have been soaring in recent months — thanks to President Donald Trump’s embrace — Ethereum has struggled to keep pace, despite hosting the second most valuable digital token, Ether. While Bitcoin has gone up about 160% over the last year, Ether has only risen 40%.
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Crypto Fears Ease in Asia as Officials Aim to Keep Up With Trump Malaysia and Thailand have recently signaled shifts in policy Progress in the region is incremental compared with Trump’s US Lawmakers in some of Asia’s key digital-assets markets are warming to the industry as Donald Trump’s pro-crypto agenda in the US ripples through the region. Officials in Thailand, Malaysia and Japan are among those to have signaled shifts in their treatment of cryptocurrencies since around the turn of the New Year. The Asia-Pacific region already boasts aspiring crypto hubs in Singapore and Hong Kong and a sleeping giant in China, where an industry ban has curbed activity since 2021.
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Ether Trails Rivals as Trump’s Memecoin Debut Bolsters Solana The Ether-to-Bitcoin ratio is at its lowest level since 2021 The second-largest digital asset is falling behind rival coins Ethereum’s cryptocurrency keeps losing ground to rival tokens as it struggles to harness tailwinds created by President Donald Trump’s foray into a highly speculative corner of the digital-assets market. The Ether-to-Bitcoin price ratio — which measures the performance of the second-ranked token against that of the largest — fell to its lowest level since 2021 on Monday, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, while Bitcoin hit a record of $109,241. The native token of Solana, a blockchain that competes with Ethereum, reached fresh highs over the weekend.
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A Memecoin President Is Reigniting Crypto Frenzy Memecoins by a US president-elect and first lady became a reality this weekend with all the bombastic trappings that are bound to characterize Donald Trump's next term in office. “$Trump is currently the hottest digital meme on earth,” Eric Trump wrote on X. “We are just getting started!” Even though the small print on the website states his token isn’t intended to be an “investment opportunity, investment contract, or security of any type,” crypto-minded Trump fans immediately started buying.
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Crypto Industry Lists Regulatory Framework at the Top of Its Trump Wish List As inauguration day approaches, members of the crypto industry are eagerly anticipating a slew of digital asset friendly executive actions at the dawn of a second Trump Administration. Potentially at the top of the wish list would be an executive order prompting the regulatory agencies, including the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission to collaborate on building a framework for digital asset policy. While decisions about how cryptoassets are classified will ultimately be up to Congress, an executive order could spur the agencies to produce research pushing the issue forward. The largest US firms in the sector, from Coinbase Global Inc. to Ripple Labs, have long advocated for clear regulatory guidelines just for digital assets.
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Wall Street’s Complex Trading Strategies Are Off to a Great Start Say what you will about the year so far for markets, it hasn’t been boring. The S&P 500 has posted single-day moves exceeding 1% in nearly half the trading sessions since Christmas, oil briefly touched $80 and Treasuries have proved anything but risk free. The volatility may be disquieting, but it’s what Wall Street has been hoping for.
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Swiss State-Owned Bank PostFinance Expands in Crypto With Ethereum Staking Swiss state-owned bank PostFinance AG expanded its digital-asset offering by introducing staking, allowing holders of the second-biggest cryptocurrency Ether to earn passive income. PostFinance will add staking for other tokens in the “near future,” according to a statement on Thursday. Staking refers to the practice of pledging cryptoassets to validate blockchain transactions and earning more tokens.
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China Weighs Sale of TikTok US to Elon Musk Good morning. Elon Musk may be about to get an even more powerful platform—TikTok. Donald Trump’s team is looking at gradual tariff hikes. And cannabis cocktails are everywhere, but are they actually legal? Listen to the day’s top stories. Elon Musk’s social media empire may be about to expand. Chinese officials are evaluating a potential option that involves Musk acquiring the US operations of TikTok if the app is banned, people familiar said. It’s unclear whether the multibillionaire, TikTok and ByteDance have held any talks. Meanwhile, two Chinese social apps, Xiaohongshu and Lemon8, took the top two positions on Apple's iPhone download charts in the US as users seek an alternative. Could Elon Musk Buy TikTok US?
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Robinhood to Pay $45 Million to Settle SEC Claims Two units of Robinhood Markets Inc. agreed to pay $45 million in civil penalties to settle a range of US Securities and Exchange Commission allegations, the regulator said Monday. Robinhood Securities LLC and Robinhood Financial LLC’s missteps include failing to report suspicious activity on time and not preserving electronic communications records, among other securities law violations, the SEC said in a cease-and-desist order.
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Crypto CEOs Clamor for Access to Trump as Inauguration Day Nears Donald Trump and his inner circle, including incoming White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks, are still weighing potential appointees. Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg Circle Chief Executive Officer Jeremy Allaire said Thursday on X that the stablecoin company contributed tokens worth $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural committee — joining a parade of other CEOs vying for favor as the incoming administration works to form a key crypto industry group. With the inauguration less than two weeks away, industry executives are jockeying for access to Trump himself and for a seat on the planned crypto advisory council, expected to be formed soon after Trump takes office.
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Bitcoin Languishes as US ETFs See Second-Highest Daily Outflow US Bitcoin ETFs suffer second-biggest daily outflow on record Trump’s support for the industry has pushed BTC to new highs After a strong start to the new year that saw Bitcoin retake the $100,000 level, the original digital asset is struggling to maintain momentum. Bitcoin fell as much 1.8% to $92,741 on Thursday, down sharply from a high of $102,733 on two days earlier and about 14% below its all-time record of $108,315 set in mid-December.
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Stablecoin Payments Are Catching on in the ‘Real World’ Ryan Weeks Ryan Weeks explores some of the use cases for stablecoins in real-world transactions. The sale of an $8 million Dubai property. Purchases of Indonesian-made cooking oil by Tanzanian buyers. A cool $100,000 in rental payments for a Palm Jumeirah villa and private yacht.
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Jefferies’ Rothney Gets Ready for a Dealmaking Blitz in Canada Happy new year and welcome to the first 2025 installment of Bay Street Edition, our weekly newsletter devoted to what’s happening in Canadian finance, covering strategy, deals, people moves and a dash of economics. I’m Christine Dobby, Bloomberg’s Toronto-based banking reporter, and you’ll find me in your inbox every Friday. This week, we’re speaking with Jefferies banker Bruce Rothney about what he sees ahead for the year, looking at how Canada’s banks ranked in 2024 and talking Bitcoin ETFs. Plus, one story about people not being terrible. Please share this newsletter with your friends and colleagues, and if it was forwarded to you, sign up here to receive it every week. Bullish Amid the Gloom It’s that time again — time to emerge from the liminal space you lived in from about Dec. 26 to Jan. 2, remember your name and what you do for work, and check back into the world. And what better way to start than by reading an uplifting forecast for Canadian markets, courtesy of Bruce Rothney? The longtime financial services executive is CEO of Jefferies Financial Group’s Canadian unit. The investment banking business he helped launch just over a year ago has had some early successes, particularly in the financial sector. Jefferies wrote the fairness opinion for National Bank of Canada’s board on its landmark acquisition of Canadian Western Bank, and the firm was the lead financial adviser to Abu Dhabi-based Mubadala Capital on its all-cash offer for CI Financial Corp. — a C$4.7 billion ($3.3 billion) deal. Rothney sees the momentum continuing, and here are a few themes he’ll be watching this year. The Economy: A Weak CAD Isn’t So Bad After a year of soft economic growth and rising unemployment, Canadians are in a pessimistic mood to start the winter. About 60% believe the economy will be worse in six months, according to the latest Bloomberg Nanos survey — probably because of Donald Trump’s tariff threats. Yet Rothney is bullish. “Canada is a bit of a laggard, but we believe the tide is turning,” he said, with significantly lower interest rates giving a boosting to growth. In fact, the gap between Canadian and US borrowing costs is rarely this large. Canada's Slower Growth Brings Lower Rates Benchmark government bond yields in the US and Canada Canada has a huge opportunity in artificial intelligence, he said, citing the ties of leading researchers to University of Toronto and other Canadian schools. But to advance the commercial development of the sector, “we need to accelerate the attraction of low-cost, flexible capital that IPO markets bring.” In terms of timing, Rothney sees “quite a number of deals coming to the fore” in the second and third quarters. “I don’t think you’re going to see an explosion in the IPO market, but I think it’ll be constructive.” Value in Unexpected Places “Another area that’s going to be interesting to watch is what I would call ‘embedded infrastructure’ within companies,” Rothney said. “A lot of companies have valuable infrastructure embedded in their balance sheets — including distribution and logistics centers and telecommunications networks.” For example, take Rogers Communications Inc.’s plan to sell a minority stake in parts of its wireless infrastructure to an outside investor for C$7 billion. (Bloomberg and other media outlets have reported that the unnamed party is Blackstone Inc.) “These types of assets have largely been undervalued by the public markets,” Rothney said, adding that alternative asset managers like Apollo Global Management Inc., Blackstone, Brookfield Asset Management Ltd. and Canadian pension funds are now “exploring creative ways to partner with corporates to lower cost and provide flexible capital solutions.” For public companies, that can mean a higher valuation (though the infrastructure deal hasn’t helped Rogers’ share price much yet, maybe because it isn’t done).
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Bitcoin Slips in December as Investors Cash In on Record Rally Bitcoin fell 3.2% in first monthly drop since August It gave 120% gains last year, investors optimistic for 2025 Bitcoin’s record-breaking run faltered toward the end of 2024, leading to its first monthly drop since August. The digital asset fell 3.2% last month as US investors cashed profits after a rally triggered by President-elect Donald Trump’s victory pushed Bitcoin to an all-time high of $108,315 mid-December. Feverish speculation in the crypto market has cooled as expectations for interest-rate cuts from the Federal Reserve waned, eroding appetite for riskier assets.
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BlackRock’s Bitcoin Fund Became ‘Greatest Launch in ETF History’ IBIT has grown to more than $50 billion in assets in 11 months US ETFs played a key role in Bitcoin’s rally over $100,000 An iShares billboard outside the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York in July. Photographer: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg BlackRock Inc.’s iShares unit offers more than 1,400 exchange-traded funds around the world, yet none of them have performed quite like this. The iShares Bitcoin Trust (ticker IBIT) smashed industry records in its launch year of 2024. In just 11 months, it grew to a behemoth with more than $50 billion in assets. Simply put, no ETF has ever had a better debut.
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Solana Pioneer Sued by Ex-Wife for Millions in Crypto Returns Stephen Akridge’s former wife accuses him of reaping millions Couple filed for divorce in 2023 after 10 years of marriage A co-founder of Solana, one of the biggest blockchain platforms in the world, is locked in a legal battle with his former wife over the gains from a cache of lucrative SOL tokens. Stephen Akridge was accused by his ex-wife, Elisa Rossi, in a lawsuit of stealing “millions of dollars” in income yielded from her digital wallet holdings of Solana, the sixth-largest cryptocurrency by market value.
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Singapore Pulls Ahead of Hong Kong in Race to Be Crypto Hub Both cities have tried to attract crypto firms to their shores Hong Kong authorities have been cautious handing out permits Singapore forged ahead with efforts to formulate a digital-assets hub in 2024, while rival financial center Hong Kong has struggled to gain traction. Singapore doled out 13 crypto licenses in 2024 to a range of crypto operators including top exchanges OKX and Upbit, as well as global heavyweights Anchorage, BitGo and GSR. That’s more than double the licenses awarded by the city-state the previous year. A similar licensing regime in Hong Kong has been slow to progress.
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Bitcoin Approaching First Weekly Decline Since Trump’s Victory Digital asset fell as central bank pared rate-cut projections FalconX says looming options expiries may spur more volatility Bitcoin was down more than 7% for the seven-day period through 2:50 p.m. Sunday in New York. Photographer: Justin Chin/Bloomberg Bitcoin is headed toward its first weekly decline since Donald Trump’s victory in last month’s US election as a cautious Federal Reserve policy outlook tempers optimism sparked by the president-elect’s embrace of the crypto sector. The largest digital asset was down more than 7% for the seven-day period through 2:50 p.m. Sunday in New York, the biggest such drop since September. A wider crypto market gauge, encompassing smaller tokens such as Ether and meme-crowd favorite Dogecoin, suffered a sharper decline of about 10%.
Bloomberg Crypto
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Republicans Defy Trump, Pass Bill to Avoid Shutdown Get caught up.
Bloomberg Crypto
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Pro Crypto Lawmaker Hill Eyes Digital Asset, Banking Regulation Hill to lead House Financial Services Committee in January Arkansas Republican has previously backed crypto legislation
Bloomberg Crypto
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S&P 500 at 4200, Bitcoin at $45,000 if US enters recession in 2025
Bloomberg Crypto
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Bitcoin Bolstered by Pro-Crypto Contender to Lead US Agency CFTC Andreessen’s crypto policy lead Quintenz vies to be CFTC head Firming expectations of another Fed rate cut also aid the mood
Bloomberg Crypto
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US Bitcoin ETF Inflows Near $10 Billion Since Trump Election Win Expectations that crypto will thrive under Trump spur demand Bitcoin has posted its longest weekly winning run since 2021
Bloomberg Crypto
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Stablecoin Issuer Circle Internet Financial Makes Some Job Cuts Job losses represent less than 6% of Circle’s workforce Company says it continues to target growth opportunities
Bloomberg Crypto
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Crypto-Rich Russian Networks Moving Oligarch Billions Shut Down by UK NCA uncovers laundromat offering to swap cash for crypto Networks moved funds for organized crime, tycoons, oligarchs
Bloomberg Crypto
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Bitcoin Miner MARA Buys Texas Wind Farm as AI Crowds Out Crypto MARA plans to mine Bitcoin only when the wind is blowing Crypto was considered a big power user until AI came along
Bloomberg Crypto
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Bloomberg Crypto
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The Establishment Takeover of Bitcoin Creates New List of Risks
Bloomberg Crypto
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Howard Lutnick, King of Cantor, Gets a Boss of His Own in Donald Trump
Bloomberg Crypto
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Stocks, Bonds Rise as Traders Embrace Bessent: Markets Wrap
Bloomberg Crypto
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Fed’s Bowman Says Regulators Shouldn’t Rush to Contain AI
Bloomberg Crypto
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Damian Williams plans to leave SDNY post before inauguration Former regulator, lawyer Jay Clayton is Trump’s pick for SDNY
Bloomberg Crypto
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Spain Tinkers With State TV in Political Brawl
Bloomberg Crypto
