Brandon LaRoque kept his life savings in a cryptocurrency account. One morning, as he went to check his balance, he discovered that it was all missing. LaRoque is one of many victims of the unregulated crypto industry, and soon there may be more. President Donald Trump has rolled back regulation of the industry. At the same time, he and his family have earned untold billions of dollars from new crypto ventures. Molly White, a writer focused on the intersections of tech and finance, describes the crypto industry, and explains how this new financial industry is shaping our politics and facilitating corruption within our government. Anne Applebaum: From The Atlantic, this is Autocracy in America. I'm Anne Applebaum. In this new season, I am asking how the Trump White House is rewriting the rules of U.S. politics, and talking to Americans whose lives have been changed as a result. Donald Trump was once skeptical of the crypto industry; bitcoin, he once said, 'seems like a scam.' But since his inauguration, Donald Trump and his family have turned 180 degrees and made hundreds of millions of dollars from their own crypto company, World Liberty Financial. At the same time, Trump has deregulated the crypto industry, making life easier for the oligarchs who run it, and potentially allowing them to harm thousands of ordinary consumers....
Good morning & happy Friday! Today's issue is the best one yet as we're diving deep into OpenAI's App Store, which could be the Apple App Store moment for AI (what it's all about & why it could be huge + bonus deep dives into ACP & OpenAI's quest to become the Super App of the West inside), SoFi that just became the first US bank to issue public blockchain stablecoin (what's the USP here and what value will it unlock + bonus deep dive into SoFi's latest financials & the ultimate list of stables resources inside), and Europe's latest decacorn (Trade Republic's latest secondary share sale, why it matters & what's next + bonus list of 50+ pitch decks of top FinTech startups that raised $2B+ inside). Let's jump straight into the incredible & paradigm-defining stuff '' The BIG News '' $500 billion AI giant OpenAI finally launched its long-anticipated ChatGPT App Directory. While seemingly simple, this represents more than a product update - it could mark a fundamental shift in how consumers interact with digital services....
Good morning & happy Wednesday! Today, all eyes are on Twenty One Capital, the first truly Bitcoin-native company that just debuted on the New York Stock Exchange (what its rocky debut tells us, why it's interesting & what to expect next + bonus deep dive into Circle and their latest financials), and Bill.com, Melio, and Tipalti that now might have a Revolut Problem (why BillPay is interesting and worth paying attention to, what to expect next + bonus dive into Revolut & their approach to AI inside). So let's just jump straight into the finnovative stuff '' Shares fell approximately 20% from the predecessor SPAC's closing price, opening at $10.74 and settling at $11.42 - a stark contrast to the $14.27 level at which Cantor Equity Partners had closed prior to the merger....
Europol confirmed the seizure in a press release, where it called Cryptomixer 'the platform of choice for cybercriminals seeking to launder illegal proceeds from a variety of criminal activities, such as drug trafficking, weapons trafficking, ransomware attacks, and payment card fraud.' Hackers and other criminals use laundering services such as Cryptomixer to obfuscate and hide the provenance of their cryptocurrency. By design, cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum are built on public blockchains that allow law enforcement, as well as blockchain intelligence firms such as Chainalysis and Elliptic, to follow the money over time. Authorities said they seized $25 million euros ($29 million) in Bitcoin, along with three servers, 12 terabytes of data, and the official domain cryptomixer.io, which now displays the customary law enforcement seizure splash page. According to Europol, the site 'facilitated the obfuscation of criminal funds for ransomware groups, underground economy forums and dark web markets,' and claimed its software 'blocked the traceability of funds on the blockchain.'...
