As bitcoin, ethereum and other cryptocurrencies get increasing attention from investors, Wall Street and its traditional banks continue to adjust to the shift. Catch up on this week's top stories highlighting the intersection of these old guard and new school areas of finance with this recap compiled by The Fly.
RIPPLE SUES YOUTUBE: Alphabet's (GOOG, GOOGL) YouTube is being sued by blockchain firm Ripple, which claims that the platform allowed cryptocurrency 'giveaway’ scams using fake social media accounts to lure victims into sending funds, Reuters’ Katie Paul reported Tuesday. Ripple alleges that fakers on YouTube have been impersonating Ripple and CEO Brad Garlinghouse to trick viewers into sending them thousands of dollar worth of cryptocurrency XRP. The scammers promise to return up to 5M XRP but victims in the schemes never receive any money. “For every scam, giveaway, fake conspiracy that is taken down, multiple more pop up nearly immediately,” Ripple said. “YouTube and other big technology and social media platforms must be held accountable for not implementing sufficient processes for fighting these scams.”
MCDONALD’S, STARBUCKS JOIN DIGITAL YUAN TRIAL: McDonald’s (MCD), Starbucks (SBUX) and Subway are part of a number of companies in a new pilot program for China’s upcoming digital yuan, CNBC’s Evelyn Cheng and Arjun Kharpal reported Friday. The companies are the only U.S. firms among the 19 participating in the trial, which is being held in Xiong’an, an area southwest of Beijing in the Hebei province. The People’s Bank of China has been developing the digital yuan for the past few years, but has not officially launched the currency.
BAKKT APPOINTS INTERIM CEO: Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) announced Thursday it has appointed David Clifton as interim CEO of Bakkt, the digital assets trading and payments platform that is majority-owned by ICE. Clifton replaces Mike Blandina, who is leaving the company to pursue a new opportunity. Adam White, who was appointed President of Bakkt earlier this year, will continue in his role. Clifton joined ICE in 2008 and is currently ICE's VP, M&A and Integration.
COINBASE APPOINT INSTITUTIONAL HEAD: In a Monday blog post, COO Emilie Choi said Brett Tejpaul, a former Barclays (BCS) markets veteran, has joined the company as head of institutional coverage. In the role, Tejpaul and his teams will be focused on the continued institutionalization of crypto, including expanding the institutional client base, building out the coverage team, introducing new features and services and continuing to educate the institutional community. The COO said, “Brett joins Coinbase at a time when we’ve never been better positioned to serve institutional and professional investors. Across the company, our teams have been working tirelessly to build a suite of institutional-grade products and services designed in a way that’s familiar to professional investors, yet specialized enough to take advantage of everything that makes crypto a truly unique asset class.”
GOLDENSAND COMPLETES TZERO INVESTMENT: tZERO (OSTK) announced Tuesday that GoldenSand Capital, a private equity firm based in Hong Kong, has completed its $5M equity investment in tZERO. GoldenSand Capital Chairman Sonny Wu said, "tZERO is building the next generation capital markets platform, capable of tokenizing, trading and settling digital securities, and we are pleased to be joining them to further build this capability. We plan to continue to collaborate with tZERO on strategic opportunities and are interested in partnering our wealth of industry connections across Asia with tZERO's tokenization protocol technology. Our portfolio of digital assets, including GoldenSand Bank, are the low-hanging fruits for synergistic partnerships with tZERO."
CRYPTO STOCK PLAYS: Cryptocurrency revenues have been pointed to as reasons to be bullish on Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Nvidia (NVDA) in select research. Overstock, DPW Holdings (DPW), Kodak (KODK), Ideanomics (IDEX), Riot Blockchain (RIOT), Pareteum (TEUM) and Social Reality (SRAX) are other stocks that have been touted, or promoted themselves, as a way to play the crypto theme.
PRICE ACTION: As of time of writing, bitcoin rose roughly 6% this week to $7,472 in U.S. dollars, according to TradeBlock.
