Bloomberg Crypto

At the height of NFT mania, everyone from athletes like Tom Brady to celebrities like Justin Beiber seemed to be buying (or talking about) collections like Bored Ape Yacht Club. Non-fungible tokens aren’t just pictures of monkeys though - they exist on the blockchain, and buying or selling them typically requires paying in some kind of cryptocurrency, often Ether. While the link between NFT prices...

Venture capitalists and certain people in the music industry are enthusiastic about the potential for artists to benefit from technology like the blockchain and NFTs. But there isn’t universal agreement, especially among musicians themselves, that any of this is necessarily a good idea. What are the big trends, and the big areas of disagreement? Bloomberg reporter Lucas Shaw joins this episode fro...

The gaming industry is bigger in revenue terms worldwide than the film and television industries combined. But it also continues to deal with hard and necessary conversations over who benefits from those profits, over work and labor conditions, and (as always) about intellectual property. Adding blockchain and NFT's might just complicate things a bit more. Bloomberg reporter Cecilia D'Anastasio jo...

With every additional bankruptcy filing or accusation of insider trading in crypto, regulators seem to turn up the heat ever so slightly when it comes to their focus on the digital asset industry. But who is planning on doing the regulating? What would that even look like? And what does it mean that regulators themselves don’t seem to entirely agree? Joining this episode to bring us up to speed on...

If you’re an avid online shopper, you’ve probably realized that digital "buy now, pay later" options from companies like Klarna and Afterpay have skyrocketed over the last several years. Now, BNPL has come for crypto through a decentralized finance lender called Teller. Is this even…a good idea? Bloomberg reporter Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou joins this episode on how “buy now, pay later” fits into the...

It’s safe to say that Coinbase has had a rough couple of months. The threat of federal regulation of some of its tokens has been looming for more than a year, but really started heating up over the last few months. And in late July things got even worse. A former Coinbase product manager, his brother, and a friend were arrested by federal prosecutors on an insider trading allegation, and the Secur...

One of the most interesting conversations in crypto right now is all about definitions, and especially the definition of a so-called security. Who better to tackle this than Bloomberg Opinion columnist Matt Levine, a former practicing lawyer and investment banker who has written extensively about securities, securities law, insider trading, all things that are very much topical in crypto right now...

Picture this: you’re the FBI, trying to track down the digital keys that will give you access to illicit or stolen crypto. In 2021 alone, cops in the U.S. and U.K, seized billions of dollars in Crypto-assets from various different criminal busts. With so much money on the line, enforcement agencies around the world have had to learn quickly how to spot these digital assets and seize them from accu...

Those who are new to the world of crypto might find themselves intimidated by (or attracted to!) the volatility, complexity, and  frantic pace of an asset class that quite literally never sleeps. The job of Bloomberg editors is to assess all these perspectives and determine how (and whether) they become stories. This episode of “Friday in the Editor’s Room” features a conversation with Crypto Seni...

Earlier this year,  pop music duo The Chainsmokers released 5,000 nonfungible tokens for free. These NFTs gave fans a 1% cut of the streaming royalties from their latest album, as well as priority access to concert tickets and free merchandise. The Chainsmokers aren’t the first musicians to experiment with crypto, NFTs or blockchain, and they’re unlikely to be the last.  Royal, a startup that's lo...

There’s a fascinating tension in crypto: there's the prevailing belief in the necessity, indeed the superiority, of decentralization. Then, there’s reality: when things hit the fan, folks respond by seeking a bailout, and hold fraudsters accountable. In an industry prone to spectacular scams and expensive hacks, this tension is ever-present. Bloomberg Reporter Emily Nicolle joins this episode for...

There’s an old joke in finance: when companies fight, lawyers win. And right now in crypto, lots of companies are fighting - some for their corporate lives. Kirkland + Ellis, one of the biggest law firms in the world by revenue, has emerged as a major player in crypto. Earlier this month, the firm signed on to work on the bankruptcy filings for both Celsius Network and Voyager Digital. There's rel...

Mary-Catherine Lader has a story to tell. She was a rising star at Blackrock when she left Wall Street and TradFi for crypto and DeFi. She's now chief operating officer at Uniswap Labs, creator of the world’s biggest decentralized exchange protocol. She joined Bloomberg Reporter Olga Kharif to talk about her belief in blockchain, what comes next after the Terra collapse, and how she sees decentral...

While there’s a perception that ideas like the blockchain are novel and groundbreaking, the reality is there’s lots of precedents for concepts like DAOs, or Initial Coin Offerings. This is particularly clear right now, as crypto experiences its own version of a “Bear Stearns moment”. Which all begs the question: Is DeFi just reinventing TradFi with more complexity and a sprinkling of blockchain? O...

The crypto winter of 2022 has claimed several casualties so far, but as of late, there’s one name that’s on everyone’s lips: Celsius Network, the crypto lender that’s now trying to save its skin through Chapter 11 bankruptcy. As prices spiraled and customers rushed to withdraw their crypto from the platform, Celsius buckled under the weight. Now we know it’s amassed around $5.5 billion in liabilit...

What do Rapper Jay-Z and former CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey have in common? No it's not music... It’s Bitcoin.  If you spend enough time around people who believe that crypto can transform society, you’ll eventually hear them make an argument about financial inclusion. Jay-Z has teamed up with Dorsey on what they’re calling Bitcoin Academy, with the goal of educating and empowering people  through...

As investors around the world grapple with the reality of sustained declines in prices across crypto markets,  stakeholders are asking the question: what’s next? And in some cases, who’s next? In this episode of Bloomberg Crypto, reporter Emily Nicolle speaks with Alston Zecha, partner at global venture fund Eight Roads, for his perspectives on how the crypto winter is affecting sentiment and mark...

You could argue that crypto is no stranger to a recession: in fact, it was the financial crisis of 2008 that birthed the idea of Bitcoin In the first place. But this recession is a little different: in the decade or so since that formative Bitcoin whitepaper, crypto has experienced spectacular growth. Rising and record prices led to investor FOMO, or fear of missing out. But now, in the midst of t...

Every day, around the world, the reporters and editors who work on crypto at Bloomberg wake up (often at the crack of dawn) and start figuring out how we’ll tackle the biggest and most important news events of the day. Crypto is a 24/7 asset class: it doesn’t stop trading, and it doesn’t take holidays. It’s our job to assess both the big trends and the small moments, and to figure out how to trans...

Since the founding document that led to the invention of Bitcoin first appeared in 2008, Bitcoin’s true believers have adopted a philosophy that resembles “one for all and all for one." Bitcoin is often mentioned as a means to improve financial inclusion, to allow people oppressed by their governments to maintain or reclaim a sense of freedom. In Bitcoin, everyone’s equal - or so the theory goes....

If you want an example of the intense optimism of certain crypto investors, here’s one: Some investors are still buying the token known as Luna Classic, which has flatlined towards zero in the aftermath of the collapse of the TerraUSD stablecoin. Why are people so willing to buy up zombie coins? In this episode, Bloomberg  senior editor Mike Regan and Bloomberg reporter Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou sto...

Depending on who you ask, crypto’s volatility is either a bug or a feature. Wild, unexpected or aggressive price swings make this an asset class that is ill suited to anyone who’s less experienced at managing risk. It’s clear that these swings can be challenging, but is there a world in which they’re perceived as a benefit? And if so, what’s the upside?  In this episode, Bloomberg Opinion columnis...

Jump Crypto burst onto the scene less than a year ago, with the appointment of a former intern named Kanav Kariya as its founding president. Within just a few months, Jump Crypto has found itself spending hundreds of millions bailing market participants out because of a major DeFi hack, and having to navigate the collapse of the TerraUSD stablecoin. Undeterred by critics, Kanav Kariya believes tha...

It feels like every country in the world is figuring out how they want to regulate crypto - or if they’ll even allow it to exist at all.  India is seen as one of the fastest-growing markets for crypto trading, something which its government isn’t too keen about. Bloomberg reporter Sidhartha Shukla joins me today to discuss India’s complicated history of crypto regulation, why they’re turning to ta...

Sorare is one of several companies attempting to take the idea of collectibles like baseball cards and bring them into the digital context. In May, Sorare announced a partnership with Major League Baseball in the US. And Serena Williams is a member of their advisory board. Why is Sorare betting big on sports? Do collectibles really need to be on a blockchain? Will baseball players benefit from tha...