Tootfinder

Coinbase agrees to acquire prediction markets startup The Clearing Company for an undisclosed sum; the startup was founded in 2025 and raised a $15M seed (Yogita Khatri/The Block)
https://www.theblock.co/post/383497/coinbase-to-acquire-…

"Basis Markets": Britische Behörde untersucht Zusammenbruch eines Kryptofonds
Zwei Männer wurden festgenommen, während die britische Betrugsbehörde wegen Betrugs und Geldwäsche gegen ein millionenschweres Kryptowährungsschema ermittelt.

Stock market cuts through to Trump on Greenland in a way allies' messages failed to resonate (Associated Press)
https://apnews.com/article/trump-greenland-denmark-stock-markets-davos-3ec896e5f68f21f8c8b067bc7c31d5fc
http://www.memeorandum.com/260121/p164#a260121p164

Donald Trump’s call to annex Greenland has roiled markets and flabbergasted half the world.
But the felon-president’s supporters in conservative communities
– to the degree that this issue has their attention at all
– are apt to accept his political argument as genuine.
Some conservative leaders have been critical of the Trump administration’s demands for Greenland,
but more often challenge the provocative process than the underlying rationale.
Knuckle-dra…

150 GW in a year: record new wind power capacity installed globally in 2025! Not really evenly spread over the world ;)
China 100 GW (that country where Trump couldn't find a single wind turbine :)
Europe 17 GW
US 7 GW
India 6 GW
Rest of the World 20 GW
<…

GWEC Reports Record Wind Energy Additions in 2025, with Asia Emerging as the Primary Growth Engine
Global wind energy installations are set to cross 150 GW in 2025, driven by rapid growth across Asia, with record additions in India, China and emerging markets.

Two interesting articles about the dubious financials of OpenAI and the recent NVIDIA earnings report (which regardless of positive outcome triggered a sell-off):
The Structural Collapse: How Google’s Integrated Stack Is Dismantling the OpenAI Thesis
https://shanakaanslemperera.substack…

The Structural Collapse: How Google’s Integrated Stack Is Dismantling the OpenAI Thesis
A leaked internal memo reveals the tectonic shift reshaping artificial intelligence, where platform economics are defeating venture-backed innovation at the exact moment markets assumed the opposite.

Panel talking about dark markets on nostr.
Nostr can be quite anonymous and encrypted and connected to payment via bitcoin. Can it therefore do Silk Road? Allow anonymous markets?
Nobody wants to publicly advocate for selling illegal drugs, but yeah, sure, people could do that. There's even protocol types for market places.
Relay owners might get into legal issues if they are forwarding illegal market listings. But this is true in general, there are also illegal images and even illegal text.
Nostr relays and Devs might find themselves in legal trouble anyway, due to the general legal crackdowns on internet requiring age proof and id on websites obstensively to protect kids. These are freedoms we all need to fight for. Perhaps brains will drain to more free jurisdictions? Devs move to where open development is legal? Not the panel at least. They want to say at home.
#nostr #nostrshire #darkMarkets

Verizon offers $10.99 credits to Fios subscribers in Boston, Pittsburgh, and Providence, RI, to cover the loss of Fox and NBC affiliates amid a dispute with Cox (Dan Primack/Axios)
https://www.axios.com/2026/01/23/verizon-refund-customers-boston-pittsburgh<…

Verizon to refund customers in Boston and Pittsburgh for TV channel losses
Verizon FIOS customers in the Boston and Providence, R.I. markets lost access to their local Fox affiliate on Dec. 15.

Starlink says it has reached 9M "active customers" across 155 countries, territories, and other markets, up from 8M on November 5 (Polly Thompson/Business Insider)
https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-starlink-customer-number…

Elon Musk's Starlink is adding 20,000 new users a day as it hits 9 million customers
Customer numbers for SpaceX's Starlink internet have surged by 1 million in the past six weeks, the company said on X.

eu_procurements_alt: EU national procurement networks (2008-2016)
These 234 networks represent the annual national public procurement markets of 26 European countries from 2008-2016, inclusive. Data is sourced from Tenders Electronic Daily (TED), the official procurement portal of the European Union.
This network has 1629 nodes and 3865 edges.
Tags: Economic, Commerce, Weighted, Temporal

Jim Beam,
the country’s largest maker of bourbon,
has announced a one-year pause in production at its flagship facility in Clermont, Ky.,
a stunning move that underlines the immense challenges facing the American whiskey industry after more than two decades of rapid growth.
The decision by the brand, owned by the Japanese conglomerate 🔸Suntory Holdings,
is the latest in a series of production cuts, layoffs and financial crises across the wine, beer and spirits s…

Jim Beam Halts Production at Flagship Distillery as Whiskey and Bourbon Markets Struggle
The bourbon giant is closing its flagship distilling operation for all of 2026.

Forbes plans to launch prediction platform Forbes Predict in February; a widget next to articles will allow readers to make forecasts in exchange for tokens (Sara Guaglione/Digiday)
https://digiday.com/media/forbes-tests-prediction-platfo…

Forbes tests prediction platform as engagement strategies move past search 
Forbes has joined the fray of publishers adding prediction markets to their sites, but as part of a broader strategy to reduce traffic reliance and boost engagement.

Markets plunge as Trump reignites fears of a trade war over Greenland (Steve Kopack/NBC News)
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/markets/stock-market-trump-tariffs-greenland-rcna254918
http://www.memeorandum.com/260120/p116#a260120p116

The Italian 'CIR' is interesting in that it is driven by an effort to enable #EV charging flexibility for various markets by an operator of the user's choice. It defines standard interfaces with the smart meter and the flex operator. But should it be made compulsory, or incentivised?

Ricarica elettrica: arriva il CIR, per valorizzare emobility e rete elettrica
Il Controllore di Infrastruttura di Ricarica elettrica è uno strumento tutto italiano, che potrà conciliare l’interazione tra mobilità elettrica e rete, abilitando vari benefici

Trump wants Venezuela's oil — markets may not care: https://benborges.xyz/2026/01/12/trump-wants-venezuelas-oil-markets.html

Coinbase is rolling out stock trading, more advanced trading tools, prediction markets via Kalshi, and more, amid a push to be a one-stop financial app (MacKenzie Sigalos/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/17/coinbase-prediction-markets-stock-tradin…

Coinbase adds prediction markets and stock trading in push to be one-stop trading app
Coinbase is expanding into stocks, advanced trading, prediction markets, and new tools for businesses, developers, and automated financial guidance.

NFL 'troubled' by sports prediction markets https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/47288011/nfl-troubled-rise-sports-prediction-markets

iPhone-Regulierung: Warum Apple mit Japan besser klarkommt als mit Europa
In Japan tritt am 18. Dezember ein Gesetz in Kraft, das dem Digital Markets Act (DMA) in Europa stark ähnelt. Trotzdem ist Apple entspannt. Woran liegt das?

The European Commission says Apple will bring AirPods-like pairing and iPhone notification access to third-party devices under the DMA in iOS 26.3 in 2026 (Juli Clover/MacRumors)
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/12/22/ios-26-3-dma-airpods-pairing/

iOS 26.3 Brings AirPods-Like Pairing to Third-Party Devices in EU Under DMA
The European Commission today praised the interoperability changes that Apple is introducing in iOS 26.3, once again crediting the Digital Markets...

This is a subtweet...
People who are not anti-capitalist sometimes wonder: "Why is there a monopoly on X life-critical thing?" (E.g., epipens, insulin, web search).
This one is really simple actually: because monopolies are more profitable than competition, and the foundation of capitalism is that capital = power.
Various societies have recognized the necropolitical outcomes of monopolies and have tried to erect barriers to monopoly; we all know that monopolies are bad, death-and-suffering-causing things. But since these societies mostly remain capitalist, they allow these barriers to be eroded by the power of capital (to do otherwise would be to repudiate capitalism because it puts a limit on the power of money). The barriers are ineffective, and the capital = power equation holds, and monopolies result and get to do their killing & maiming thing (remember: even things like social media monopolies that you wouldn't expect to pay for political assassinations like a mining company still profit from inciting genocides). *Sometimes* there are oligopolies instead of monopolies, but instances of really competitive markets are pretty rare for things that are widely sought-after.
The "government will manage the markets to prevent bad outcomes like monopolies" strategy has failed repeatedly, spectacularly, and almost universally. To actually prevent monopolies you need a population that no longer believes that money should equal power, it's that simple. Sadly, it's actually not that simple, since all of the alternatives which equate something else to power, like "the king" or "party loyalty as judged by the supreme leader" have the same problems or worse. The attitude you need to cultivate is "nobody should have power," which is hard because *all* of the power-systems we have constantly propagandize against this attitude in myriad ways. Still, in the future once we've broken free of this age where hierarchy is accepted, people will look back and wonder whether the historical records are even credible given how much needless death and suffering were endured with little resistance.
#anarchy #capitalism

New Trump tariffs collection hits $200 billion, Customs says
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/new-trump-tariffs-collection-hits-200-billion-customs-says/ar-AA1Spkzz?ocid=finance-verthp-feeds

AMS-IX ceasing US operations March 6.
https://www.ams-ix.net/ams/news/us-operations-to-cease-as-ams-ix-refines-strategy-shifting-focus-to-emerging-markets

US operations to cease as AMS-IX refines strategy, shifting focus to emerging markets | AMS-IX Amsterdam
Following a strategic review, we’re shifting focus to regions where our presence can drive greater impact and strengthen global connectivity.

FanDuel and CME Group launch a prediction market app called FanDuel Predicts in five US states, just days after DraftKings rolled out a similar product (Denitsa Tsekova/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12…

Noch einige der zuletzt hier besonders häufig geteilten #News:
Analyse: Verbraucher haben mit dem Digital Markets Act größere Auswahl

"In truth, no Number fully insulates anyone from life’s vicissitudes. Markets crash, health fails, taxes rise, wars and pestilence break out...."
So, pay your taxes and invest in a welfare safety net, is the unspoken part.
The absurdity of bankers’ retirement fund targets - https://on.ft.com/4o2NNbV

Meme coins are now just GoFundMes for the rich.
https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/01/13/former-bitcoin-mayor-eric-adams-faces-usd3-million-rugpull-allegation-after-issuing-nyc-coin

Former 'bitcoin mayor' Eric Adams faces $3 million rugpull allegation after issuing NYC Token
On-chain data revealed that a wallet linked to the token's deployer removed $2.5 million in liquidity, prompting accusations of a possible rug pull.

eu_procurements_alt: EU national procurement networks (2008-2016)
These 234 networks represent the annual national public procurement markets of 26 European countries from 2008-2016, inclusive. Data is sourced from Tenders Electronic Daily (TED), the official procurement portal of the European Union.
This network has 19438 nodes and 23191 edges.
Tags: Economic, Commerce, Weighted, Temporal

‘Architects of AI’ Wins Time Person of the Year, Sends Gambling Markets Into a Meltdown https://www.404media.co/architects-of-ai-wins-time-person-of-the-year-sends-gambling-markets-into-a-meltdown/

Wall Street decries the government putting its thumb on the scale
— except when the thumb belongs to Trump
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/trump-attacks-free-markets-wall-street-1235498727/<…

Wall Street Is Dancing While Trump Assaults Free Markets. It Won’t End Well
Donald Trump has been attacking free markets, including by going after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. It won't end well.

As news outlets treat prediction markets like news, especially heading into US elections, every dip and swing in the odds may end up wildly misleading people (Saahil Desai/The Atlantic)
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/202

America Is Slow-Walking Into a Polymarket Disaster
Why is the media obsessed with prediction markets?

Free markets don't apply to every industry, nor should they. Social infrastructure needs to be handled differently.
https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/social-infrastructure-services

Night markets, unfortunately, are full of meaty things. But they look fabulous.
#Taiwan #Kaoshiung #streetphotography

Analyse: Verbraucher haben mit dem Digital Markets Act größere Auswahl
Zu den ersten Vorteilen, die die neuen EU-Wettbewerbsregeln bieten, gehören laut Verbraucherschützern vor allem mehr Optionen rund um Apps bei Apple und Google.

CoinGecko: over 53% of the 20.2M crypto tokens launched since 2021 are now inactive, with 7.7M tokens failing in Q4 2025, after Oct. 10 "liquidation cascade" (Helene Braun/CoinDesk)
https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/01/1

More than half of all crypto tokens have failed — and most died in 2025
Over 13.4 million tokens have been erased between mid-2021 and 2025, according to a new analysis by CoinGecko.

UK sugar tax to be extended to more soft drinks and milkshakes https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2025/nov/25/sterling-volatility-the-budget-rachel-reeves-german-economy-stagnating-…

I have wondered this myself. Not sure I have enough evidence economics knowledge to accept any theory on it, but I have wondered about the effect of us with 401k’s making broad bets on the markets as a whole and not attempting to judge companies individually. #stocks

Is passive investment inflating a stockmarket bubble? — The Economist
A widely circulated working paper suggests so

Studie: DMA bringt Nutzern keine günstigeren App-Preise
Die Vorschriften des Digital Markets Act (DMA) sollten für mehr Wettbewerb in App Stores sorgen, doch eine neue Studie zeigt: Nutzer sehen kaum Preissenkungen.

Welp I guess the markets don't give a shit.

Powell under attack by Trump, stand his ground, Trump wants to break down all checks & balances on his regime. The reaction of the markets on Monday will be interesting I guess...
https://youtu.be/KckGHaBLSn4?si=sA9CXzs3bzYsMO20

DraftKings launches DraftKings Predictions, a new app that lets customers in 38 states trade contracts on sports and financial events through prediction markets (Ira Boudway/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Muddled.
'Value' has specific meanings in Marxist political economy.
It isn't the appropriate term for what Boillier is discussing.
'Wealth' is closer but still not right.
It's a matter of standpoint: the abundance of nature isn't purely for human use, so those two terms don't apply well, or at all.
Toward a New Theory of Value (and Meaning): Living Systems as Generative - resilience

Toward a New Theory of Value (and Meaning): Living Systems as Generative
The bounty brought by rainfall, fertile soil, and biodiversity cannot truly be expressed through quantitative proxies, prices, algorithms, or markets because this “wealth” doesn’t exist in static, objectified forms or essentialist identities

A breakthrough in green hydrogen just happened in South Australia. Sparc Hydrogen achieved sustained hydrogen production using only sunlight and water—no electrolyzers, no electricity grid needed.
Their photocatalytic process uses concentrated solar energy to split water directly. With green hydrogen markets projected to hit $1.4 trillion annually by 2050, this could be the scalability breakthrough the industry needs.

Sparc hits production milestone at hydrogen pilot plant in Australia
Fortescue-backed startup Sparc Hydrogen has begun producing green hydrogen directly from water using concentrated solar at what it describes as a “first-of-its-kind” pilot plant in South Australia.

WIRED, 2004: The long tail https://www.wired.com/2004/10/tail/ Will The vOICe vision BCI cover more of the long tail of blindness cases than brain implants, retinal implants and optogenetics combined? Think of developing countries, types of blindness, device lifetime, etc. Economy of abundance vs Pareto…

The Long Tail
Forget squeezing millions from a few megahits at the top of the charts. The future of entertainment is in the millions of niche markets at the shallow end of the bitstream.

"This project started as a search problem and ended as something more. The most important result isn’t which neighbourhood tops the rankings - it’s the realisation that platforms now quietly structure survival in everyday urban markets. London’s restaurant scene is no longer organised by taste alone. It is organised by visibility that compounds, rent that rises when discovery arrives, and algorithms that allocate attention long before consumers ever show up. What looks like “choice” is increasingly the downstream effect of ranking systems."
How Google Maps quietly allocates survival across London’s restaurants - and how I built a dashboard to see through it
https://laurenleek.substack.com/p/how-google-maps-quietly-allocates

i feel like my general feelings re: Rigol and people swearing by their Tek are best summarized with the old "rifle is fine" copypasta. as in: if you are skilled in the art you will get things done just as well with the rigol as you will with a tek in the same cateogry that's 10 times* the price. and if you aren't, goddess bless you either way also
* referring me to US secondary markets is classist and i will not be elaborating on this observation

I was thinking this morning, there should be more things like Goodwill, more thrift stores like that everywhere, for even LESS things going to landfills. Just people getting together, even as a trade or barter system, things like flea markets or garage sales-- people do some of this already.
Reusing things is so important, and repair, when possible-- I've been seeing some cool self-repair fix-it meetups on here, too.
As I was talking to my wife about it, and I remembered thi…

"How the 15-Minute Sustainable City Model Cuts Carbon by 98% While Growing Local Food"
#Sustainability
https://happyeconews.com/15-minute-sustainable-city/

How the 15-Minute Sustainable City Model Cuts Carbon by 98% While Growing Local Food | Happy Eco News
A 15-minute sustainable city framework by Concordia University researchers shows neighborhoods can become self-sufficient in vegetables while cutting emissions by 98 percent. The model combines rooftop gardens, solar-powered electric delivery, and local markets. Testing in Ontario proved the system pays for itself in 2.8 years while strengthening community bonds and building food security.RetryClaude can make mistakes. Please double-check responses.

Top U.S. Multifamily Rent Growth Markets — Q3 2025
"As has been the case throughout this cycle, the top rent growth markets over the past 12 months represented several regions, all with varying strengths and characteristics."

Leading Prediction Firms Share a Commonality: Donald Trump Jr. (Sharon LaFraniere/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/15/us/politics/donald-trump-jr-prediction-markets.html
http://www.memeorandum.com/260115/p19#a260115p19

The US CFTC withdraws its 2020 guidance on the "actual delivery" of a digital asset, aiming to support broader access to regulated crypto markets (Micah Zimmerman/Bitcoin Magazine)
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/markets/cftc-scraps-overly-complex-crypto-rul…

CFTC Cuts ‘Outdated And Overly Complex’ Crypto Guidance
The CFTC is withdrawing outdated crypto delivery guidance, paving the way for updated rules amid expanding oversight.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk bats for H-1B visas, says tariffs distort markets
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/02/tesla-ceo-elon-musk-bats-for-h-1b-visa-says-tariffs-distort-markets-.html

Morgan Stanley survey of audio habits in the US: 50% to 60% of listeners aged 18 to 44 reported listening to AI-generated music for 2.5 to 3 hours per week (Luke Kawa/Sherwood News)
https://sherwood.news/markets/morgan-stanley-most-…

Morgan Stanley: Most Gen Zers and millennials in the US listen to about three hours of AI music a week
That’s enough AI music to last the run time of “Avatar.”

Weekend Reads
* 5G in Latin America
https://www.ookla.com/articles/5g-in-latin-america-pockets-of-progress
* Evaluating DNS resiliency

5G in Latin America: Pockets of Progress | Ookla®
Explore the uneven rollout of 5G across Latin America, from Brazil's high speeds to lagging markets. Learn about 5G Standalone (SA), Fixed Wireless Access (FWA), and the critical role of spectrum in the region's progress.

Digital Markets Act: EU-Wettbewerbskommissarin wirft USA „Erpressung“ vor
Teresa Ribera, Vizepräsidentin der EU-Kommission, greift die Trump-Regierung scharf an. Diese setze die EU massiv unter Druck, ihre Tech-Regeln abzuschwächen.

Shares of Super Bank Indonesia, a Grab-backed digital lender, rose by 24% during their stock market debut in Jakarta, after the company raised ~$168M in its IPO (Ismi Damayanti/Nikkei Asia)
https://asia.nikkei.com/business/marke

Superbank trading halted after 24% jump in Indonesia market debut
Grab-backed lender's IPO rides interest in booming digital banking business

The U.S. stock market lags behind dozens of countries, even in a year of record highs (Steve Kopack/NBC News)
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/markets/sp500-stocks-lags-dozens-countries-rcna243088
http://www.memeorandum.com/251111/p108#a251111p108

The Financial Times launches its free newsletter FT Alphaville on Substack to reach younger readers, joining Reach, the Daily Mail, and other publishers (Alice Brooker/Press Gazette)
https://pressgazette.co.uk/newsletters/f…

Financial Times launches first Substack newsletter to target younger readers
The Financial Times joins titles including the Daily Mail in joining Substack, launching a free weekly newsletter on markets and finance.

"Nowhere to move: How climate change became the property market’s biggest nightmare"
#Climate #ClimateChange

How climate change has become the property market’s biggest threat
From plummeting house prices to insurable homes, climate change is impacting the property market around the world.

eu_procurements_alt: EU national procurement networks (2008-2016)
These 234 networks represent the annual national public procurement markets of 26 European countries from 2008-2016, inclusive. Data is sourced from Tenders Electronic Daily (TED), the official procurement portal of the European Union.
This network has 10215 nodes and 11837 edges.
Tags: Economic, Commerce, Weighted, Temporal

DSA und DMA: EU-Digitalgesetze sollen stärker durchgesetzt werden
Die EU-Kommission will die Digitalgesetzgebung rund um Digital Services Act und Digital Markets Act in 2026 entschiedener durchsetzen.
http…

Coinbase sues Connecticut, Illinois and Michigan over state attempts to regulate prediction markets, arguing that they fall under the jurisdiction of the CFTC (Olga Kharif/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20…

Polymarket and Kalshi count Donald Trump Jr. as an adviser, and Trump Media plans to launch Truth Predict, raising ethical questions during Trump's second term (Sharon LaFraniere/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/15/us/politics/donald-…

Leading Prediction Firms Share a Commonality: Donald Trump Jr.
Traders in companies with ties to the president’s eldest son can bet on the outcome of events the president affects.

🚨 A newly created #Polymarket account turned $30K into $400K by betting on Maduro’s ouster
just hours before the U.S. raid
— sparking fresh insider-trading suspicions.
This underscores exactly why we flagged #prediction #markets

The Lever (@levernews.com)
🚨 A newly created Polymarket account turned $30K into $400K+ betting on Maduro’s ouster just hours before the U.S. raid — sparking fresh insider-trading suspicions. This underscores exactly why we flagged prediction markets as a regulatory risk in our earlier coverage.

Amazon launches Amazon Bazaar, a standalone low-cost shopping app in 12 markets in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, with most products priced under $10 (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/07/amaz

Amazon launches a low-price standalone shopping app, Amazon Bazaar, in over a dozen markets | TechCrunch
On Friday, Amazon announced the debut of Amazon Bazaar, a new low-cost shopping destination for Asia, Africa, and Latin America that will be

Betting exchange Matchbook plans to launch a prediction market platform in the UK in January 2026 as a "road test" before a planned US launch as early as March (Justina Lee/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Matchbook to Launch UK Prediction Markets Ahead of US Entry
Matchbook, a sports betting exchange, is launching a prediction market platform in the UK as it prepares to compete with rivals Kalshi and Polymarket in the US.

Trump Media to Enter Booming Prediction Markets Business (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-10-28/trump-media-plans-to-enter-booming-prediction-markets-business
http://www.memeorandum.com/251028/p36#a251028p36

Morgan Stanley survey of audio habits in the US: 50% to 60% of listeners aged 18-44 reported listening to AI-generated music for 2.5 to 3 hours per week (Luke Kawa/Sherwood News)
https://sherwood.news/markets/morgan-stanley-most-gen…

Morgan Stanley: Most Gen Zers and millennials in the US listen to about three hours of AI music a week
That’s enough AI music to last the run time of “Avatar.”

D-Wave Quantum agrees to acquire Quantum Circuits, a developer of error-corrected gate-model technology, for $550M, with $300M in stock and the rest in cash (Luke Kawa/Sherwood News)
https://sherwood.news/markets/d-wave-quantum-agrees-to…

D-Wave Quantum agrees to acquire Quantum Circuits for $550 million to boost gate-model development
D-Wave’s crashing the gate.

Ex-Fed chairs condemn Trump’s bid to weaken central bank’s independence
Statement signed by 13 former senior officials condemns ‘unprecedented’ assault on Fed’s independence

Trump’s attempts to influence Fed risk ‘70’s-style inflation and global backlash’

Nils Pratley: US bond markets should be in revolt. Fed independence matters

Shares of Indian payment startup Pine Labs debuted at ~$2.73, up 9.5% from the ~$2.49 IPO price, after a $440M IPO earlier this week that was 2x oversubscribed (Soumyajit Saha/Nikkei Asia)
https://asia.nikkei.com/business/marke…

Indian fintech Pine Labs rises in trading debut after $440m offering
Payments company had earlier slashed IPO over valuation concerns

A new Polymarket account bet $30K on Maduro's capture just hours before Trump's announcement, renewing questions on insider information in prediction markets (Herb Scribner/Axios)
https://www.axios.com/2026/01/03/maduro-capture-bets-trade-prediction-mark…

Someone made a huge profit predicting Maduro's capture. Here's what happened
The winnings come as the rules governing prediction markets are still evolving.

Someone made a huge profit predicting Maduro's capture. Here's what happened (Herb Scribner/Axios)
https://www.axios.com/2026/01/03/maduro-capture-bets-trade-prediction-markets
http://www.memeorandum.com/260103/p64#a260103p64

SoftBank Group Corp was among the Japanese tech stocks that fell on Dec. 18, as AI infrastructure spending worries on Wall Street crossed into the Asian markets (Lim Hui Jie/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/18/japan-tech-stocks-plun…

SoftBank leads decline in Japanese tech stocks as worries over AI spending spill over to Asia
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite slipped 1.81%, dragged by losses in Oracle, Broadcom, Nvidia and other AI names.

Kalshi and Polymarket have partnered with social media accounts purporting to be breaking news reporters, some of which have repeatedly posted false information (Jordy Fee-Platt/The Athletic)
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6876922/2

Kalshi, Polymarket are partnering with X accounts claiming to be sports insiders
As Polymarket and Kalshi continue to grow in popularity, they have worked with social media accounts claiming to be breaking news reporters.

The European Union, overcoming deep dissension among its members,
gave the green light to a sweeping trade pact with four South American countries on Friday
that would create one of the largest free-trade zones in the world,
connecting markets with more than 700 million people.
The agreement offers a stark contrast to the amped-up aggression on display this week from the Trump administration.
As Europe worked to extend an era of economic collaboration,
th…

E.U. and South America to Form Free-Trade Zone With 700 Million People
The agreement represents a push for deeper global cooperation, in contrast to the United States’ turning to coercion in its dealings with other countries.

The US Senate confirms Trump pick Michael Selig as chairman of the CFTC, as lawmakers consider legislation to give the agency more control over digital assets (Lydia Beyoud/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Senate Confirms Selig as Chief of CFTC and Hill to Run the FDIC
The US Senate on Thursday night confirmed Michael Selig as chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Travis Hill as chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., installing permanent chiefs of two agencies that play critical roles overseeing financial markets and banks.

Dune and Keyrock: bets placed on prediction markets rose from <$100M per month in early 2024 to $13B per month in November, as Polymarket and Kalshi compete (Jill R Shah/Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/bc300579-4b19-4f82-b232-e537e992c310

AppLovin reports Q3 revenue up 68% YoY to $1.41B, vs. $1.34B est., and forecasts Q4 revenue and adjusted EBITDA above estimates; APP jumps 6% after hours (Luke Kawa/Sherwood News)
https://sherwood.news/markets/applovin-q3-2025-earnings-adtech-sec-investi…

AppLovin modestly exceeds sales and earnings expectations in Q3
The adtech company just reported its fiscal Q3 results.

Monzo receives an Irish banking license, allowing the London-based digital lender to offer current and savings accounts across the EU (Aisha S Gani/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-17/monzo-gets-iri…

Amazon now offers same-day perishable grocery delivery in 2,300 US markets and has expanded the service's grocery offerings by 30% since its August launch (Peyton Bigora/Grocery Dive)
https://www.grocerydive.com/news/amazon-sam…

Amazon reaches milestone in same-day perishables delivery rollout
The company has expanded the service to 2,300 markets and said customers who buy perishables through the offering shop twice as often as those who don’t.

Michael Saylor's Strategy creates a $1.44B cash reserve funded by stock sales after cutting full-year profit and BTC yield targets due to bitcoin price drops (Stephen Alpher/CoinDesk)
https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2025/12/0

Michael Saylor and Strategy (MSTR) Raise Cash to Fund Preferred Dividends
Led by Executive Chairman Michael Saylor, the company also added to its bitcoin holdings last week, bringing its total stack to 650,000 BTC.

The US CFTC launches a pilot program allowing BTC, ETH, and USDC to be used as collateral in US derivatives markets (CoinDesk)
https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2025/12/08/cftc-launches-digital-assets-pilot-allowing-bitcoi…

BTC, ETH, USDC as Collateral in CFTC Crypto Pilot
Acting Chair Caroline Pham has unveiled a first-of-its-kind U.S. program to permit tokenized collateral in derivatives markets, citing "clear guardrails" for firms.

Stocks of private companies like OpenAI and SpaceX are being sold via invitation-only markets to the ultrawealthy before their IPOs, creating a two-tier system (Corrie Driebusch/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/finance/investing/priv…

Opera says in the 12 months ending with October, it saw a 88% surge in daily active iOS users across Europe, partly due to the changes mandated by the DMA (Marcus Mendes/9to5Mac)
https://9to5mac.com/2025/11/13/opera-ios-growth-europe-dma/

Opera says DMA contributed to 5x growth of iOS users in Europe - 9to5Mac
Operas iOS user base in Europe has grown by as much as five times since the Digital Markets Act took effect in 2024.

Robinhood plans to launch a futures and derivatives exchange with Susquehanna in 2026 and says it's buying MIAXdx, which clears and executes derivatives trades (Hannah Erin Lang/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.

Robinhood, Susquehanna to Launch Exchange to Expand Prediction Markets Offerings
The new exchange will help Robinhood offer additional prediction contracts tied to sports, elections and other future events

Polymarket is hosting a growing number of contracts related to military conflicts, including China invading Taiwan; possible US strikes in Iran has $18M volume (Denitsa Tsekova/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

AWS announces a commitment to invest up to $50B to build AI and HPC infrastructure for the US government, starting in 2026 and adding nearly 1.3 GW of capacity (Eric Revell/Fox Business)
https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/amazon-invest…

Amazon to invest up to $50B to build AI infrastructure for US government agencies
AWS announced an investment of up to $50 billion to build AI and supercomputing infrastructure for U.S. government agencies starting in 2026 through a new initiative.

A US judge rules that Apple and OpenAI must answer to a lawsuit filed by X and xAI accusing them of conspiring to thwart competition in emerging markets in AI (Madlin Mekelburg/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

World Liberty Financial launches World Liberty Markets, letting users lend and borrow digital assets among one another, supporting its own token USD1 and others (Olga Kharif/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Companies are updating insider trading policies to cover prediction markets; Kalshi and others are pushing for federal oversight, including of insider trading (Rocket Drew/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/polymark…

Polymarket Bets on OpenAI, Google Raise Insider Trading Suspicions
Over the past week, a handful of accounts on Polymarket, the predictions site, bet OpenAI would release a new large language model by December 13. On Thursday December 11, OpenAI released GPT-5.2, and four of these accounts together made over $13,000, according to the trades displayed on their ...

Global smartphone shipments rose 2% YoY in 2025, with Apple capturing the top position at a 20% share and 10% YoY growth, ahead of Samsung's 19% market share (Counterpoint Research)
https://counterpointresearch.com/en/insights/global-sm…

Shares of Shenzhen-based OneRobotics opened flat in their HK debut after the Chinese home robotics maker raised $210M by selling 22M shares at about $9.50 each (Nikkei Asia)
https://asia.nikkei.com/business/markets/ipo/amazo…

Amazon supplier of household robots shares open flat on trading debut
OneRobotics raises $210mn to expand global market presence

Kalshi and Polymarket have partnered with social media accounts purporting to be breaking news reporters, some of which have repeatedly posted false information (Jordy Fee-Platt/The Athletic)
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6876922/2

Kalshi, Polymarket are partnering with X accounts claiming to be sports insiders
As Polymarket and Kalshi continue to grow in popularity, they have worked with social media accounts claiming to be breaking news reporters.

The US CFTC grants crypto exchange Gemini a DCM license, allowing it to launch its prediction markets platform Gemini Titan (Daniel Kuhn/The Block)
https://www.theblock.co/post/382142/gemini-cftc-approval-prediction-market-crypto-future…

Amazon expands its low-cost Haul service to 25 countries and regions globally, rebrands it as Amazon Bazaar in some markets, and plans a two-day sales event (Todd Bishop/GeekWire)
https://www.geekwire.com/2025/amazon-expan

Spotify rolls out music videos to Premium subscribers in the US and Canada, following a beta launch in nearly 100 markets last year (Jaspreet Singh/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/spot…

Robinhood is set to join Indonesia's retail investment boom after agreeing to acquire local brokerages PT Buana Capital Sekuritas and PT Pedagang Aset Kripto (Prima Wirayani/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Robinhood Set to Enter Indonesia Market as Retail Investors Boom
Robinhood Markets Inc. is set to enter the Indonesian market after signing deals to acquire two local brokerages, underscoring the appeal of the Southeast Asian country’s growing ranks of retail investors.

Digital asset treasuries, one of the hottest trends in public markets in H1 2025, saw a dramatic reversal in H2; SharpLink stock has fallen 86% from its peak (Monique Mulima/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20…

Polymarket agrees to its first media partnership to supply Dow Jones outlets, including the WSJ and Barron's, with real-time prediction market trading data (Katherine Doherty/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Polymarket to Distribute Prediction Data to Dow Jones Outlets
Polymarket will supply Dow Jones with trading data under a new partnership, the latest in a string of deals between exchanges and media organizations that are putting prediction markets in front of a broader audience.

Sources: China told some local tech companies to temporarily halt purchase orders for Nvidia's H200 chips while officials deliberate on import conditions (Qianer Liu/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/china-tells-tech-…

China Tells Tech Companies to Halt Nvidia H200 Chip Orders
The Chinese government this week asked some tech companies to temporarily halt plans to buy Nvidia’s H200 AI chips, according to two people involved in the communication, throwing up a possible roadblock in Nvidia’s hopes of restarting chip sales to one of its biggest markets. The instruction ...