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 People may well remember 2017 as the year that blockchain broke. After years of development and flickering just outside of mainstream consciousness and acceptance, record high prices for the most popular blockchain-based cryptocurrencies Bitcoin and newcomer Ethereum, and an embrace of the technology’s core principles by some of the world’s largest institutions may mean that… Read More

Welcome to Finance Insider, Business Insider's summary of the top stories of the past 24 hours.

Markets are taking a backseat today, as the tragic events in Manchester, England, dominate the news agenda. Back here in the US, Trump's budget proposal is the story of the day. Here's what you need to know:

• Trump's budget calls for staggering cuts to Medicaid, food stamps, and many other domestic programs
• Trump's budget asks for $1.6 billion to build the wall along the US-Mexico border
• Trump's budget only works "if you believe in tooth fairies"
• The White House is proposing to sell half of the US's huge oil stockpile

In other news, new home sales in the US fell much more than expected in April.

Traders can make a killing chasing the "smart money." And these are the 14 VIP stocks that matter most to hedge funds, according to Goldman Sachs. 

A consumer-protection rule that had been delayed by Trump is set to go through.

Fidelity is allowing clients to see digital currencies on its website. The startup trying to bring blockchain to Wall Street has raised $107 million. And we got a look inside a vast Icelandic bitcoin mine.

The Fed's actions speak louder than its words, which is why bond buying is here to stay. And "duck and cover" is the new art of dealing with bond markets, according to Aberdeen Asset Management. 

Here are 200 Excel shortcuts that'll make your life a lot easier. And doing a great job is necessary to get ahead at work, but it's not enough, according to Morgan Stanley’s chief risk officer.

Mark Fields was ousted as CEO of Ford on Monday, not quite three years into his tenure. Here's the latest:

• Ford is no longer just a car company
• Ford's new CEO will have to tell Wall Street a different story
• The auto industry is facing "unprecedented change" — and Ford needs to move faster
• There's a simple reason Ford's CEO was pushed out — and it has nothing to do with self-driving cars
• Ford claims its new CEO has deep ties to Silicon Valley — but the company still has a big self-driving-car problem

In related news, Google's Waymo could eventually be a $70 billion company.

Elsewhere, the chain hailed by Wall Street as a "retail treasure" runs the most disastrous store we've ever seen.

The ceiling of this new Airbus private jet is one giant screen. Boeing is taking extreme measures to make sure Bombardier does not become another Airbus.

The VC firm that made early bets on Uber and Snap is investing in a marijuana breathalyzer. Silicon Valley is getting interested in healthcare — here's why that could be a good thing. And here's how rich you would be if you invested $1,000 in Netflix when it first went public 15 years ago.

Lastly, this is the new best whiskey in the world, according to an international spirits competition.

SEE ALSO: The 27 most important finance books ever written

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NOW WATCH: Trump is reportedly selling his Caribbean estate for $28 million — take a look inside

ShapeShift CEO Erik Voorhees and Blockchain CEO Peter Smith took on the topic of bitcoin's market moves today.

Source

The CEO of one of the largest private companies in the US is in love. At Consensus 2017 today, Abigail Johnson, chair and CEO of Fidelity Investments, went public with her enthusiasm for blockchain technology, bitcoin, ethereum and what the future holds for both open-source, public blockchains and more private alternatives. In her talk, Johnson discussed […]

Source

Here is what you need to know.

Trump's budget is out. The White House's 2018 budget calls for massive cuts over the next 10 years to social safety net programs like Medicaid, food stamps, and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) while increasing the budget for the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Defense.

The British pound is slipping after the Manchester bombing. The pound trades down 0.2% at 1.2972 against the dollar after an explosion following an Ariana Grande concert killed at least 22 people while injuring more than 50.

Greece still doesn't have a deal. A meeting between Greece and its creditors failed to iron out details of a new debt deal, with the IMF reiterating its claims any framework must grant debt relief, Reuters says.

Eurozone growth holds at a 6-year high. Flash eurozone PMI held at a 6-year high of 56.8 in May with IHS Markit saying, "Job creation also perked up to one of the strongest recorded over the past decade amid improved optimism about future prospects."

Bitcoin plunges and then recovers. The cryptocurrency fell more than $300 a coin from Monday's record high of $2,298 before recouping its losses. Bitcoin now trades up almost 2% near $2,190.

Apple and Nokia settle their patent dispute. Apple will pay Nokia an undisclosed upfront cash payment and additional revenues and the two sides agreed to collaborate further, Reuters says.

Global smartphone sales jumped. The global smartphone market grew by 9.1% in the first quarter versus a year ago, but Apple and Samsung saw their marketshares fall, TechCrunch reports, citing Gartner data.

Stock markets around the world trade mixed. China's Shanghai Composite (-0.5%) lagged in Asia and Germany's DAX (+0.4%) is out front in Europe. The S&P 500 is set to open up 0.2% near 2,398.

Earnings reporting is light. AutoZone and Toll Brothers are among the names reporting ahead of the opening bell.

US economic data flows. US Markit PMIs will be released at 9:45 a.m. ET and new home sales will cross the wires at 10 a.m. ET. The US 10-year yield is down 1 basis point at 2.25%.

Join the conversation about this story »

Here is what you need to know.

Trump's budget is out. The White House's 2018 budget calls for massive cuts over the next 10 years to social safety-net programs like Medicaid, food stamps, and the Children's Health Insurance Program while increasing the budget for the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense.

The British pound is slipping after the Manchester bombing. The pound trades down by 0.2% at 1.2972 against the dollar after an explosion following an Ariana Grande concert on Monday night killed at least 22 people while injuring more than 50.

Greece still doesn't have a deal. A meeting between Greece and its creditors failed to iron out details of a new debt deal, with the International Monetary Fund reiterating its stance that any framework must grant debt relief, Reuters says.

Eurozone growth holds at a 6-year high. Flash eurozone PMI held at a six-year high of 56.8 in May, with IHS Markit saying, "Job creation also perked up to one of the strongest recorded over the past decade amid improved optimism about future prospects."

Bitcoin plunges and then recovers. The cryptocurrency fell by more than $300 a coin from Monday's record high of $2,298 before recouping its losses. Bitcoin now trades up by almost 2% near $2,190.

Apple and Nokia settle their patent dispute. Apple will pay Nokia an undisclosed up-front cash payment and additional revenue, and the two sides agreed to collaborate further, Reuters says.

Global smartphone sales jumped. The global smartphone market grew by 9.1% in the first quarter versus a year ago, but Apple and Samsung saw their market shares fall, TechCrunch reports, citing Gartner data.

Stock markets around the world trade mixed. China's Shanghai Composite (-0.5%) lagged in Asia, and Germany's DAX (+0.4%) is out front in Europe. The S&P 500 is set to open up by 0.2% near 2,398.

Earnings reporting is light. AutoZone and Toll Brothers are among the names reporting ahead of the opening bell.

US economic data flows. US Markit PMIs will be released at 9:45 a.m. ET, and new-home sales will cross the wires at 10 a.m. ET. The US 10-year yield is down by 1 basis point at 2.25%.

Join the conversation about this story »

Bitcoin is going nuclear.

The digital currency is hitting all-time highs, with a single coin going for more than $2,197.

It's an epic bull run that has accelerated in recent months: Just a year ago, it was sitting at just $443.

This is great news for bitcoin miners, the people responsible for creating new bitcoins.

Their mining infrastructure is the backbone of bitcoin. Anyone who contributes computing power to help process transactions on the network is rewarded with the chance to "mine" bitcoin.

In plain English, in return for helping keep the network up and running, they have the chance of being given a newly created piece of the digital currency.

This payout makes the entire process — with the right equipment — incredibly lucrative. It has helped spawned a huge and surreal industry.

You can mine at home, and many people do. But companies dedicated to mining have also sprung up, some worth tens of millions of dollars.

These companies build huge data centres, or mines, that consume vast amounts of power and perform insane computations on the hunt for digital gold.

Here's a look inside one ...

These photos are from Genesis Mining, a cloud mining company. It lets customers mine using its "cloud," without having to buy specialised hardware.

Here's its website.

It's technically possible to mine on just about any computer, but it's not profitable to do so unless you have the right kit. Many people do mine themselves, often joining large pools to improve their odds. But Genesis' model is another option.

The company had early mines in Bosnia and China, and most of its operations are now based in Iceland.

Good morning. Here's what you need to know in markets on Tuesday.

1. At least 19 people have died and 59 others were injured in an explosion at Manchester Arena on Monday evening in what police are treating as a terrorist attack. Police have not confirmed the cause of the explosion, which occurred around 10:30 p.m. local time (BST) at an Ariana Grande music concert.

2. Sterling extended losses in response to the suspected attack. The pound eased 0.1% to $1.299, extending Monday's 0.3% loss.

3. Japanese stocks were flat overnight as a risk-averse mood kept investors sidelined following the explosion, which lifted the safe-haven yen and depressed some export-oriented shares, Reuters reports. The Nikkei share average fell 0.1% to 19,662.91 in midmorning trade. Airline shares was the worst performer on the board, falling 1.3% on concerns that overseas travel may be hit.

4. Greece’s creditors failed to reach a deal on debt relief for the country during seven hours of talks on Monday night, leaving the euro area locked in a race against time to finish the negotiations before Athens faces crippling repayment deadlines in July, the FT reports. Talks broke up as Germany, Greece and the International Monetary Fund sparred over the next stages of the €86 billion (£74.4 billion) bailout, and notably over how to ease the country’s debts once its rescue programme expires in 2018.

5. Meanwhile the euro held gains made after German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the currency was "too weak," Reuters reports. The German chancellor was at a Berlin secondary school when she said that huge export earnings were being boosted by the euro’s exchange rate and the oil price.

6. Merkel's conservatives widened the lead over their Social Democrat rivals, according to a poll published on Tuesday, which showed her party and the pro-business Free Democrats winning enough seats to govern together ahead of the federal elections in September, Reuters reports. A coalition of Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) and the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) would likely take a more fiscally conservative stance, especially on aid to Greece, than the current CDU-Social Democrat (SPD) government.

7. Donald Trump will on Tuesday call on Congress to push through $3.6 trillion (£2.77 trillion) of spending reductions including deep cuts to anti-poverty programmes as he promises to balance the federal budget over a 10-year horizon, the FT reports. In his first major budget since taking office, the president proposes a range of cuts in welfare outlays and healthcare support for poorer families, while sheltering the military, social security and Medicare from the axe.

8. Royal Bank of Scotland is racing to avert a high-profile court case by offering £200m in compensation to thousands of investors who claim they were misled into buying the bank’s shares in the run-up to its taxpayer bailout, the Guardian reports. Round-the-clock discussions are under way to reach a deal that would prevent the case being heard in London’s high court and release Fred Goodwin, thecontroversial former RBS boss, from having to give evidence next month.

9. TransferWise is branching out beyond its core business of online international money transfer, launching a new business account and planning a foreign exchange debit card later this year. TransferWise, one of Britain's few tech unicorns, announced on Tuesday that it is launching a new "borderless account" — an online account that can hold multiple currencies.

10. Bitcoin hit another high on Tuesday. The cryptocurrency topped $2,000, $2,100, and $2,200 for the first time on Sunday night/Monday morning. It was trading up 4.64% at $2,199.00 at 6.30 a.m. BST (1.30 a.m. ET).

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