(Posted September 2023) A three-judge panel of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals in Washington, DC ruled recently that U.S Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was wrong to reject an application from Grayscale Investments to create a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) which would track its underlying market price, giving investors exposure to the digital asset, without having to buy the currency. The SEC has denied all proposed bitcoin ETFs, including Grayscale’s, on the grounds that they do not meet its bar for preventing market manipulation. Grayscale Investments sued the SEC for rejecting their application, in response to
Category: US Regulators
Fed Speak: Pause vs. Pivot
(This post was posted in Nov 2022) The Federal Reserve’s November 2022 statement contained dovish language, but Fed Chair Powell warned investors not to expect the Fed to stray from its full focus on fighting inflation. Upside inflation led the U.S. Federal Reserve to hike its policy rate by 75 basis points (bps) for a historic fourth time. This brought the fed funds rate up to a 3.75%–4% range, meaningfully above the Fed’s 2.5% median long-run estimate, as inflation continues to justify monetary policy with the objective to tame inflation. In spite of continued inflation, the Fed also indicated
Well Played Mr. President!
Posted May 29, 2020 President Trump’s today issued an Executive Order to address the issue of “Online Censorship” by Social Media “Big Tech” companies. In our opinion, this is a great first step in enforcing “fairness” in Social Media content moderation. Section 230 of Communication Decency Act, also known as “Internet Law” provides a framework for Internet operation granting broad immunity to platforms (such as Twitter) that curate and moderate content from lawsuits. This protection is predicated on tech platforms operating in “good faith” failing which these entities lose their “legal immunity” making them open to litigation. However, in
Anti-Trust, Big Tech, Big Tech Breakup, Corporate Governance, Financial Markets, Tech Leadership, US Regulators
Big Tech Breakup – Considerations and Reality – Our Thoughts
Netflix is an amazing digital success story – starting out almost 15 years ago as a predominantly DVD subscription service, Netflix was able to pivot along the way and take advantage of rapidly evolving mobile technology and ever-improving internet speeds to become one of the largest video distribution networks on the planet. The success of Netflix is an excellent example of “creative destruction,” a term originated in the 1940s by economist Joseph Schumpeter, who described it as the “process of industrial mutation that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new