A report released by Bernstein on Wednesday revealed that it believes a "perfect storm" of political and regulatory forces is creating ideal conditions for U.S. stablecoin legislation this year. The analysts added that possible legislation in the US could prompt major Financial Institutions Groups to evaluate how to integrate stablecoin issuance or settlement into their business models. In addition, regulators are expected to step up scrutiny of past'debanking 'practices, further integrating sta...
According to AFP, Ukrainian President Zelensky will visit Saudi Arabia on Wednesday.
President Trump: An executive order on reciprocal tariffs may be signed on Wednesday.
OpenAI's board on Wednesday questioned the rationality of a $97.40 billion offer from Mr. Musk and others to buy the company. On Monday, a consortium of investors led by Mr. Musk offered to buy assets of the nonprofit that controls the company, intensifying a years-long feud between Mr. Musk and OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman. In a court filing on Wednesday, the company said Musk's takeover offer was consistent with its legal claims in a lawsuit filed against OpenAI last year.
OpenAI CEO Altman said Wednesday that the GPT-4.5 model, known internally as Orion, will be available "in a few weeks." Foreign media reported in November that Orion has not yet achieved the performance expected by OpenAI. Altman said the model will be the last one the company has launched that does not use additional computing power to mimic the way humans reason. OpenAI has adopted inference models in some of its newer models, including o1 and o3.
Federal Reserve Chairperson Jerome Powell on Wednesday warned against reading too much into data showing the largest month-on-month increase in the consumer price index (CPI) in more than a year, while acknowledging that the reading was significantly higher than expected. "The CPI reading is higher than almost all forecasts, but I just want to remind you of two things," Powell told the House Financial Services Committee hearing. "First, we're not going to get excited about one or two good readin...
Aroop Chatterjee, a macro strategist at Wells Fargo, wrote in a research note on Wednesday that the rise in trade policy uncertainty looks set to continue, reducing risk appetite, increasing foreign exchange risk premiums and pushing up the dollar. Dollar gains are likely to be concentrated against emerging market currencies and cyclical G-10 currencies. If near-term growth risks prove to be more pronounced, currencies sensitive to falling U.S. Treasury yields could rise, with "the yen leading t...
U.S. President Donald Trump said he spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday and the two sides agreed to negotiate an end to the Russian-Ukrainian war. Trump posted on social media platforms that he planned to call Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky about the conversation later on Wednesday.
As part of a swap with Russia, the United States will release suspected cybercriminal Russian kingpin Alexander Vinnik in exchange for the release of U.S. citizen Marc Fogel, The New York Times revealed on Wednesday. Vinnik, who ran BTC-e, once one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, was arrested in 2017 and detained at the request of Washington on suspicion of laundering $4 billion through the platform. In May, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to launder money and faces 20 years in ...
Important news 1. The United States recorded a 3% annual rate of unseasonally adjusted CPI in January, the largest increase since June 2024. The United States recorded a 0.4% monthly rate of quarterly adjusted core CPI in January, the largest increase since March 2024. 2. After the inflation data was released, traders adjusted the timing of the next Federal Reserve rate cut from September to December. 3. US President Trump: Interest rates should be lowered, and the rate cut will complement the u...
The governor of the Bank of France, Villeroy, on Wednesday reiterated that U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff policy is likely to have a negative impact on the economy. "Protectionism is an attractive short-term policy, but in the long term it is a losing strategy," he added. Villeroy also reiterated that France is likely to avoid a recession in 2025. The French economy is on track to grow by 0.1-0 percent in Quarter 1 compared with the previous three months, the Bank of France said on Tuesday...
US Treasury secretary Scott Bescent said he had personally vetted Treasury employees on Elon Musk's government efficiency team who had read-only access to federal payments data and that the Treasury payments system had not been modified. "This is an operational plan to suggest improvements," Mr. Bescent said in an interview on Thursday. "The ability to change the system is in the hands of the Fed. This system is not even run by us." Mr. Bescent is confident in Mr. Musk's team,...
Swedish digital asset management company Virtune has announced the launch of two crypto exchange-traded products on Nasdaq Helsinki, Virtune Avalanche ETP and Virtune Staked Cardano ETP. Last month, the company listed five cryptocurrency ETPs involving Bitcoin, XRP, SOL, and others.
On February 5, Richmond Federal Reserve President Barkin said in an interview that the Federal Reserve is still inclined to cut interest rates this year and has not seen any signs of economic overheating.
Inflation will slow significantly this year, allowing the Federal Reserve to keep cutting interest rates, according to former St. Louis Fed President Brad. Brad said it looks like the Fed is on track to cut rates two more times this year, by 25 basis points each. Fed officials were expecting two rate cuts in December. "I don't really see anything stopping them from doing that," he said. However, Brad said another rate cut in March appears premature. He said: "From what's going on...