constant

From Dominance to Compliance

Last Tuesday saw Binance settle its long-running legal disputes with several U.S. government agencies, including the Department of Justice (DoJ), the Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). However, they failed to reach an agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding their pending charges. As part of the settlement, Binance has agreed to pay an eye-popping fine of $4.3 billion. Furthermore, Changpeng Zhao (CZ), the CEO of Binance, will step down

Crypto Chaos

Despite the second-largest bank failure in US history, the Federal Reserve continued its interest rate hike strategy last week. This caused markets to react by pricing in continued monetary tightening, pushing back their expectations of rate decreases to 2024. Some have perceived this move as necessary to combat inflation, even if it comes at the cost of breaking the banking sector. Unfortunately, this sober outlook suggests that the rest of the year may be marked by more sideways action in the markets rather than a steady recovery. Meanwhile, in the

Paribus. Trust Less.

One month ago, Jerome Powell, head of the Federal Reserve in the US, announced that the banking system was sound and robust despite the collapse of several large banks. After raising rates a further 0.25%, he said, “We’re committed to learning the lessons from this episode and to work to prevent events like this from happening again.” As we prepare for another potential 0.25% rate hike on May 3rd, another major bank in the US, First Republic Bank, has collapsed. Its collapse is part of a larger trend of consolidation