Fintech Focus For July 26, 2021

Quote To Start The Day: "You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.”

Source: Mark Twain

One Big Thing In Fintech: Crypto exchange Binance US could go public, Binance CEO Changpeng "CZ" Zhao has said.

"Our partner in the U.S. is looking at the potential IPO [initial public offering] route," Zhao said on Friday at the "Redefine Tomorrow" event organized by SCB 10X — the venture arm of Thailand's oldest Siam Commercial Bank. The IPO route, however, "is not 100% fixed yet," he said.

Source: Block

Other Key Fintech Developments:

• Plaid taps former bank executives.
• Credit union regulator eyeing DeFi.
• Paystone raises $23.8M financing.
• JPM unlocked retail crypto access.
• Paystand adds $50M for payments.
• FIA Tech expands Atlantis platform.
• State Street is launching AlphaSM.
• State Farm looks to Invesco fintech.
• Uniswap restricts access to tokens.
• Thorchain hit by $8M hacking loss.
• Amazon hiring crypto product lead.
• FTX lowers limit on leverage trade.
• BNPL giant Klarna bought Stocard.

Watch Out For This: China’s crackdown on cryptocurrencies will probably intensify and may even lead to an outright ban on holding the tokens, according to Bobby Lee, one of the country’s first Bitcoin moguls.

Source: Bloomberg

Interesting Reads:

• U.S. in wrong direction with COVID?
• Evergrande’s failure is stress tested.
• Clubhouse platform now out of beta.
• Trading apps make markets a game.

Market Moving Headline: After a short sell-off, volatility ebbs as equity index futures trade higher.

- Unpacking factors lending to the volatility.

- Jitters ahead of Federal Reserve meeting.

- Earnings outlook up. Priced to perfection?

- COVID-19 resurgence to not limit mobility.

- Analyzing tightening and the shift to fiscal.

Big Picture Perspectives: "The impressive growth in value across many asset classes is projected to taper off within the next couple of years as supportive policy is unwound. The 10-year Treasury yield will rise above 2% by 2022 and the fiscal tailwinds will also have faded by then.” - Moody's

For Next Week's Trade: Ahead of the upcoming Federal Reserve meeting, participants will want to temper their expectations on future volatility and focus their attention on where the S&P 500 trades in relation to the $4,384.50 low volume area (LVNode) pivot, a prior all-time high (ATH).

Source: Physik Invest