Philip Stafford

The frightening world without the dollar What will the global economy look like if it loses its monetary anchor?

A world without a risk free rate means everything has a risk premium built in, points out @martinsandbu.ft.com
www.ft.com/content/65a6...

Tony Blair’s staff took part in ‘Gaza Riviera’ project with BCG Former UK prime minister’s institute participated in meetings on plan to turn shattered enclave into trading hub

NEW: Tony Blair's staff took part in a BCG project for the redevelopment of Gaza along the lines of the 'Trump Riviera' plan www.ft.com/content/0b1b...

Snap.

The whole story is dark but this might be the darkest corner.

Astonishing story. Huge questions over the company culture that allowed this. www.ft.com/content/c0e6...

It looks rather like a 1990s Russian style privatisation scheme, but fewer legal comebacks.

"Can you build a house on the land you owned? No, we sold it to a hotel developer, they own it now.

Ok, so the land was worth more than the token we gave you. You could sell it? Ah, no liquidity. And the IT infrastructure's been bombed.

Hmm...you still have a tokenised right to a house!"

Peter Thiel joins tech billionaires backing new lender Erebor to rival Silicon Valley Bank Start-up named after the dragon’s mountain in ‘Lord of the Rings’

Tech bros help trigger run on SVB, causing its collapse, before realising they needed an SVB.

More pertinently: crypto is looking to firmly relink itself to the US banking system with FDIC insurance for stablecoins

www.ft.com/content/8c90...

Exclusive:  DOGE now targeting SEC policy, eyes SPAC rules, sources say President Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency initiative has pushed the U.S. markets watchdog to loosen Wall Street rules around blank-check companies and confidential reporting by private investment funds, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Those famously onerous US Spac rules
www.reuters.com/legal/govern...

Colorado funeral home owner accused of stashing nearly 190 bodies to be sentenced for fraud Jon Hallford, owner of Return to Nature Funeral Home, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud last year and faces a maximum of 20 years in prison.

That's quite the opening paragraph
www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

Deterioration in US financial regulation is bad news for everyone, given the size of it and the exposure of all the rest of the other nations' financial systems to the US.

When one door opens, another and another open up too.

The FannieFreddieFail memecoin gains if this all collapses are going to be insane

It's like falling through a wormhole back to 2015

Brussels set to disregard ECB warnings over stablecoin rules European Commission poised to propose treating stablecoins issued outside bloc as interchangeable with EU versions

The 🇪🇺 commission is set to give equivalence to non-EU-issued stablecoins, disregarding ECB warnings that it may threaten financial stability. Story with @staffordphilip.bsky.social www.ft.com/content/97c7...

Jane Street Boss Says He Was Duped Into Funding AK-47s for Coup The indictment reads like a cinematic plot: A Harvard Fellow and another activist allegedly wanted to buy AK-47s, Stinger missiles and grenades to topple South Sudan’s government. What they lacked was...

Oh yeah, that old phishing trick
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

A montage including generic crypto coins and Russian rouble notes. Overlaid text reads: FT exclusive – A crypto coin for Russian shadow payments has moved $9bn in four months

The A7A5 token, billed as the first stablecoin pegged to the rouble, was launched in February by a fugitive Moldovan oligarch and a Russian defence sector bank. www.ft.com/content/1c71...

Spac revival puts spring in step of investors in New York Blank cheque companies are enjoying a fresh moment in the sun as the traditional IPO market struggles

And one industry is driving the Spac resurgence more than any other, according to the Cayman Islands-based lawyer. “Right now it’s all crypto,”
www.ft.com/content/1e09...

When stock markets and crypto come together:

Stablecoin operator Circle Internet up another 19% today, at $238. It listed just over two weeks ago at $31.

Yes, and without these too!

I see it more a repeat of his CTFC/post-DF "hammer to the banks" role but totally agree, zero backing this time round.

Fair. I think I'm probably in the same place. Till crypto came along, I got the impression a lot of plans were tossed into the air to see if a political wind carried it.

Trump SEC chair scraps proposed market rules as he charts new path Paul Atkins bludgeoned more than a dozen outstanding proposals from his predecessor’s regulatory programme

Handily, many seemed to chime with the desires of industry lobby groups.

www.ft.com/content/0853...

Elon Musk’s X to offer investment and trading in ‘super app’ push Foray into financial services could include introducing credit or debit card, CEO Linda Yaccarino says

I would not be surprised if X considers the tool to make it all work is a stablecoin
www.ft.com/content/3615...

Crypto group Tron to go public after US pauses probe into billionaire founder Deal involving Justin Sun’s digital asset venture orchestrated by investment bank linked to Trump’s sons

Coming to a US stock market near you: Justin Sun's Tron

www.ft.com/content/13a6...

France's The Blockchain Group shareholders agree to let it raise more than €10bn (yep, really) to Buy More Bitcoin.

www.theblockchain-group.com/wp-content/u...

Founder of Cryptocurrency Payment Company Charged with Evading Sanctions and Export Controls, Defrauding Financial Institutions, and Violating the Bank Secrecy Act Earlier today in Brooklyn, a 22-count indictment was unsealed charging Iurii Gugnin, also known as Iurii Mashukov and George Goognin, 38, a resident of New York and citizen of Russia, with wire and ba...

The excerpt is from the DoJ case www.justice.gov/opa/pr/found...

When you google “signs you may be under criminal investigation”.
Anyway, what are the signs you may be under criminal investigation. Are they like 7 signs of ageing?

US accuses Russian crypto entrepreneur of money laundering and sanctions evasion Founder of payments group said to have operated ‘a covert pipeline for dirty money’

Prosecutors allege Gugnin facilitated nearly $2bn of transactions, and that many of his customers were in Russia and held funds in sanctioned Russian banks.
www.ft.com/content/8c2a...

I was not aware of this fabulous example, many thanks

At times, you think "this is stupid". Then you see the share price moves of Metaplanet or Strategy or Tesla and you think: "If someone told me crypto was a straightfaced satire of traditional financial markets, I'd only nod my head and admire the execution of the joke".