Kraken is the first crypto exchange to become a U.S. bank
FTC preparing antitrust lawsuit against Facebook
Gold-standard fan Judy Shelton doesn’t have the votes to be confirmed as Federal Reserve governor
Our main discussion: The battle for the soul of finance.
In this episode, NLW looks at the power competition between governments on the one hand and the decentralized network-driven finance alternatives that would reshape that power. Interestingly, in this competition corporations may play a role that benefits both sides at different times and in different ways.
The percentage of companies that can’t afford to pay the interest on their debt has reached a new all-time high in the wake of central bank intervention.
MicroStrategy increases its bitcoin reserves by $175 million
The Oracle-TikTok deal starts to smell fishy
The SEC is investigating claims of fraud involving Nikola Corp.
Our main discussion: The rise of zombie firms.
A zombie firm is a company that can’t afford to service its debt from operating income. These companies are made possible by artificially low interest rates, and they drain resources from the economy.
On this week’s Long Reads Sunday, NLW looks at recent statistics suggesting that, based on a comprehensive set of measures of well-being, U.S. citizens are worse off than they were a decade ago.
One potential explanation is the U.S.’ “USD Dutch Disease” - a peculiar set of consequences resulting from the role of the U.S. dollar in the world.
Recapping the biggest stories of the week, including Joe Biden’s China plan, a market holding pattern and, of course, the strange competitive saga of SUSHI.
On this edition of the Breakdown Weekly Recap, NLW looks at:
The “holding pattern economy” – why stocks, jobs and central bank policy seem stuck in place
Why Joe Biden’s China plan shows that, no matter who wins the presidential election, U.S. economic policy towards China is likely to get more aggressive
The surveillance state gets stronger as Amazon appoints a former NSA head to its board of directors
With Ethereum 2.0's much anticipated move to Proof-of-Stake getting closer, CoinDesk Research Analyst Christine Kim spoke with Ben Edgington and Vijay Michalik on what would-be validators need to know.
“There are indeed responsibilities that come with [Ethereum 2.0 staking]. You can’t just stake and leave it. You need to run what we call a client or a validator software.”
That’s Ben Edgington, the product owner of Teku at ethereum venture capital studio Consensys. Teku is one of five software clients currently being battle-tested on the official Ethereum 2.0 test network, Medalla.
These clients will connect users to the highly anticipated proof-of-stake blockchain aimed at significantly boosting Ethereum transaction speeds and throughput. Ethereum 2.0 clients like Teku will also enable users to earn rewards as validators on the new network.
Similar to the role of miners on the current Ethereum blockchain, validators on Ethereum 2.0 will be responsible for processing transactions and creating new blocks. What that looks like in practice, according to Edgington, is keeping client software up and running 24/7 on a dedicated computer device.
As for which of the five clients to run, Vijay Michalik, a strategist for the engineering team behind Teku, explained the technical differences between them all were minor. However, their main distinction between clients in the eyes of Michalik comes down to long-term development vision.
“For Status [the Ethereum messaging company], the Nimbus client is focused on trying to build a client for a low-footprint system. So they’re building for embedded systems such as mobile devices and potential IoT [Internet of Things] in the future,” said Michalik. “At the ConsenSys protocol engineering, we’re trying to lean into our specialization which is building the enterprise grade [Ethereum 2.0 client].”
For more information about Ethereum 2.0, you can download the free research report featuring additional developer commentary about the upgrade on the CoinDesk Research Hub.
The Crescat Capital portfolio manager gives his take on the flashing macro warning signals and why it is an explosive moment for gold, silver and (potentially) bitcoin.
A legacy of artificially low interest rates is not just the death of savings, but a forced buying into the perpetual growth machine of financial asset prices.
The Hedge Fund legend says in a new interview the Federal Reserve’s policies have created a massive asset bubble while making both inflation and deflation more likely.
Critiques of correlation between bitcoin and equities miss the fact that bitcoin adoption within traditional markets has been driven by a fiat collapse concern.
Insider stock selling reached five-year high in August
President Trump promises more aggressive decoupling from China
Our main discussion: Investors and the BTC price dip.
Over the last several weeks, bitcoin has pulled back from $12,400 to around $10,000. This dip has happened alongside a broader retracement in equities, led by falling tech stocks.
While some have levied correlation to equities as a failure of bitcoin, NLW argues this critique misunderstands the narrative that has driven accumulation from new holders over the last six months.
