SEC Probes First Republic Bank Executives for Insider Trading; Lawmakers Dump Bank’s Shares Before Collapse

After the second largest bank failure in history, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is reportedly investigating First Republic Bank executives for allegedly engaging in insider trading. Two sources have claimed that the securities regulator is scrutinizing the bank’s executives…

Pacwest Stock Plummets Over 35% Following Release of Q1 Earnings Report Amidst Turmoil in Banking Industry

Following the acquisition of First Republic Bank by JPMorgan Chase, several regional banks such as Pacwest and Western Alliance experienced a significant drop in their stock prices. On Tuesday afternoon, all four major U.S. benchmark stock indexes are in decline as…

Coinbase Shares Wells Response, Challenges SEC’s Change in Attitude Towards Its Core Businesses

On April 27, Coinbase, the crypto exchange based in San Francisco, made public the disclosure of its response to the Wells notice it had received from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) back in March. The company maintained that the…

Latam Insights – Inflation Skyrockets in Argentina, El Salvador Processes Digital Assets Licenses, Venezuelan Crypto Corruption Probe Continues

Welcome to Latam Insights, a compendium of the most relevant crypto and economic development news from Latin America during the last week. In this issue: Inflation in Argentina goes over 100%, El Salvador issues its first digital assets licenses, and the…

Committee Advises SEC to ‘Aggressively Assert Authority’ Over Crypto — Says Virtually All Crypto Tokens Are Securities

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Investor Advisory Committee has advised the SEC to “aggressively” assert authority over crypto assets that are securities. The advisory committee believes that “virtually all, if not all, crypto tokens are securities,” urging the regulator to…

Economists Expect the Fed to Reveal Another 25bps Rate Hike Before Pausing for the Rest of 2023

After the March rate hike by the Federal Reserve, economists believe that the recent move by Saudi Arabia and several members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to cut oil production could complicate the central bank’s mission. Additionally,…

US Dollar Could Lose Most of Its Value in 5 Years, Investment Manager Warns

Investment manager Larry Lepard has warned that the U.S. dollar could lose most of its value within five to 10 years. Following the onset of the Russia-Ukraine war, “the U.S. did something which I perceived to be very stupid, which is…

Value Locked in Defi Holds the Line at $50B, After Temporarily Shedding $8B in Mid-March

The total value locked (TVL) in decentralized finance (defi) during the first week of April is about $50 billion, roughly the same as on March 1. The value locked dropped to $42 billion on March 12 but has since rebounded as…

‘Panic of 2023’: James Corbett Explains How Bank Crisis Could Lead to CBDC ‘Nightmare of Total Monetary Control’

Investigative journalist James Corbett has recently referred to the ongoing global banking crisis involving SVB, Signature Bank, Credit Suisse and others as the “Panic of 2023,” drawing comparisons to what he views as historical precedents, and pointing ahead to an inevitable…