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• Facebook announced major changes to its platform, which will refocus the News Feed on content from friends and family.
• Advertisers and investors were worried about how the changes would affect advertisements and revenue.
• Watch the company's shares trade in real time here.

Facebook said on Thursday it would be adjusting its primary newsfeed to focus more on content from friends instead of publishers, a decision that wiped close to $25 billion off the company's market capitalization on Friday.

Speculation about the financial impacts of the move was immediate and plentiful, but despite the stock move, most Wall Street analysts agreed it will ultimately be good for the company.

Facebook gets a vast majority of its revenue from advertising on its platforms. Any change in Facebook's News Feed could potentially affect its ability to sell advertisements against the feed, which is likely what initially spooked investors and sent shares tumbling. Facebook ended the day about 4.2% lower on Friday.

The company later sent an email to its media partners that explained the changes in a bit more detail. The company told publishers that their pages may see a decline in organic reach but that posts that start meaningful conversations will be less affected by the changes. It also said you won't be able to throw money at clickbait posts to buy reach.

Once analysts had a chance to digest the news, many came around to the potential benefits, but said near-term uncertainty will likely remain as the company enters its quiet period before reporting earnings on January 31. 

"In our view, making the feed more relevant should boost user and engagement growth over time," Mark Mahaney, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, wrote in a note to clients. "Facebook is making the service more social and less media, and that’s likely a positive for the vast majority of users."

Facebook is betting that making its platform a place people actually like visiting is better than trying to maximize engagement metrics like reactions and comments.

Sam Kemp, an analyst at Piper Jaffray, said even if advertising on the platform declines, it could just be shifted over to Instagram. The two platforms share the same backend so companies could easily spend their ad budgets on Facebook's sibling if ad volume wanes or prices move higher.

The company's announcements didn't mention a reduction in the ad load, which its brought up in the past as a way to highlight the company's loyalty to users instead of advertisers, Kemp pointed out. He took this to mean the number of ads on Facebook is likely to stay consistent after the changes.

Brian Nowak, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, is certain Facebook will continue to grow its revenue in the long term. 

"FB has multiple levers of ad revenue growth (falling ad load on core, offset by rising ad unit pricing and an increasing ad load on Instagram)," Nowak wrote in a note to clients.

Whatever the exact changes are, Facebook is likely to be helped by its popularity among advertisers. Nearly 60% of advertisers think their return on investment on the platform has increased in the last six months, according to Mahaney. And a recent survey of ad buyers found that 96% of them would rather buy ads on Instagram instead of Snapchat.

And even after the sharp decline on Friday, Facebook is down just 0.87% this year.

Read about the email Facebook sent to its media partners here.

SEE ALSO: 'You should not focus on engagement baiting': Here's how Facebook is explaining its sweeping News Feed change to advertisers

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NOW WATCH: Why bitcoin checks all the boxes of a bubble

• Shares of media conglomerate Viacom spiked as much as 12% just before the closing bell Friday after TheWrap reported it was in talks to merge with CBS. The stock closed up 7%. 
• The news website said CBS chairman Les Moonves is now open to the consolidation, reversing his previous stance, citing three individuals with knowledge of the talks.
• Viacom was formed in 2005 out of a split from the previous iteration of the company, with the predecessor re-branded as the CBS Corporation. Viacom currently operates production studios including Paramount Pictures and Paramount Television; TV stations including BET, Comedy Central, and Nickelodeon; and ratemyprofessors.com.
• The two companies have previously attempted to merge at the request of majority stakeholder National Amusements, but the deal was called off in December 2016.

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NOW WATCH: THE BOTTOM LINE: Bitcoin mania, a Nobel Prize-winning economist talks Trump, and a deep dive on unstoppable tech stocks

US stocks climbed to a new record as a handful of banks reported earnings, including JPMorgan, which gained on speculation that tax cuts will boost profits.

The S&P 500 increased 0.7%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average spiked 0.9% and the more tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 rose 0.7%.

First up, the scoreboard:

• Dow: 25,803.54, +228.81, (+0.89%)
• S&P 500: 2,786.05, +18.54, (+0.67%)
• Nasdaq: 7,261.06, +49.28, (+0.68%)
• US 10-year yield: 2.55%, +0.02
• WTI crude oil: $64.40, +$0.60, +0.94%

1. A key metric shows the stock market is at 'extreme' levels that are the most stretched in 20 years. Morgan Stanley said that the indicator will coincide with a correction once the market has fully topped.

2. Goldman Sachs reveals a strategy that will help traders crush earnings season using 20 stocks. The firm recommends buying options straddles that will capture the days around an earnings period, and are also cheap relative to past moves.

3. JPMorgan beats earnings expectations after accounting for a $2.4 billion hit from tax reform. The firm is the first of the big banks to report in what is expected to be an unconventional earnings cycle for the industry.

4. JPMorgan lost $273 million on a single client in the fourth quarter. The firm confirmed the loss was connected to the South African retailer Steinhoff International, which is embroiled in an accounting scandal.

5. Facebook slides after saying it will shift its newsfeed function so it's actually 'good for people'. The company said that it will alter its news feed algorithm to prioritize content from users' friends rather than brand or publisher pages.

ADDITIONALLY:

The only female investment partner at $20 billion hedge fund Canyon has left

The US government will auction off $53 million of bitcoins

Nike is going into 'battleship' mode to launch itself to the top of the hot athletic apparel market

Wall Street is embroiled in a war over data — and it's having an impact on Americans' savings

Lowe's is popping after reports of an activist investor stake

Paul Ryan is already giving up on his biggest goal for 2018

SEE ALSO: A key metric shows the stock market is at 'extreme' levels that are the most stretched in 20 years

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NOW WATCH: PAUL KRUGMAN: Bitcoin is a more obvious bubble than housing was

• Shares of Lowe's, the home improvement retailer, jumped more than 6% after Bloomberg reported an activist investment from D.E. Shaw, a quantitative investment firm, on Friday.
• The size of the investment is unknown, but a 0.12% stake in the company was disclosed by D.E. Shaw in November, according to Bloomberg.
• D.E. Shaw plans to use its investment in the company to ask for changes that could increase shareholder value, Bloomberg said, citing unnamed sources.
• Lowe's is expected to report earnings of $0.86 per share on revenue of $15.335 billion. 
• Rival Home Depot also jumped after the news, gaining about 1.89%.
• Watch shares of Lowe's trade in real time on Markets Insider.

SEE ALSO: JPMorgan beats earnings expectations after accounting for $2.4 billion hit from tax reform

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NOW WATCH: Why bitcoin checks all the boxes of a bubble

• House Speaker Paul Ryan has long wanted to enact entitlement reforms through cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security.
• Ryan said in December that he wanted to tackle the issue in 2018.
• On Friday, Ryan admitted that these programs would not see changes in the upcoming legislative year.

House Speaker Paul Ryan on Friday admitted that his biggest "wish list" item isn't likely to happen in 2018.

Ryan has long wanted to enact reforms to entitlement programs — which usually takes the form of cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security. But at an event in Wisconsin on Friday, he said entitlements wouldn't be addressed by Congress this year.

"I don’t see us tackling it this year," Ryan said.

Ryan said throughout December that he was hoping to get entitlement reform done in 2018, but there was little appetite from other Republican leaders and President Donald Trump heading into a midterm election year.

The Wisconsin Republican said the GOP's slim 51-to-49 majority in the Senate prevents any significant overhaul because Democrats are not on board and could filibuster any cuts. Also, Ryan said, any bill dealing with Social Security can't go through the process of budget reconciliation, which allows a bill to pass the chamber with a simple majority.

Given that reality, Ryan said Democrats have to be on board with any changes to the three major programs.

"No matter what you do you're going to have to find bipartisan consensus to fix these thorny, long-term problems, and we don't have that right now," Ryan said.

In addition to the tricky congressional calculus, Trump promised during the 2016 presidential election that there would be no cuts to the programs. He was hesitant to support entitlement reform measure during a press conference with Republican leaders at their Camp David policy summit.

Ryan said that while the issue won't be addressed in the short-term, he stressed the need to address them in the future because they are "going bankrupt," a characterization disputed by some policy experts.

"I would like to find a way — and I don't know what exactly that's going to be — how do we get bipartisan consensus to fix these looming, debt problems we've got on the horizon," Ryan said.

SEE ALSO: Steven Mnuchin says he's 'concerned that consumers could get hurt' by bitcoin investing

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NOW WATCH: The biggest risks facing the world in 2018

The post Next Up, Paying Uncle Sam Taxes in Bitcoin appeared first on CCN

The ink is barely dry on President Trump’s tax legislation, and a new bill has surfaced in Arizona that kicks things up another notch. The bill proposes using bitcoin to pay state income taxes, and it was submitted by Senators Warren Petersen and David Farnsworth as well as Reps. Travis Grantham and Jeff Weninger, all

The post Next Up, Paying Uncle Sam Taxes in Bitcoin appeared first on CCN

• A Royal Caribbean cruise that departed from Baltimore on January 2 had 47 reported cases of "gastro-intestinal illness."
• The cause of the illness is not known.
• The outbreak follows over 500 reported cases of illness on Royal Caribbean cruises in December.

Passengers on a Royal Caribbean cruise have reported 47 cases of "gastrointestinal illness," according to a company spokesperson. The Grandeur of the Seas cruise ship departed from Baltimore on January 2 with 2,859 passengers and stopped in Charleston, South Carolina; Orlando, Florida; and the Bahamas.

The cruise was set to return to Baltimore on Thursday, but a mechanical issue has forced the ship to postpone its return until Saturday. The Royal Caribbean spokesperson also said that the guests who reported illnesses were treated by the ship's doctors.

Royal Caribbean does not know what caused the outbreak of illness.

"We're taking steps like intensive sanitary procedures to minimize the risk of any further issues," the spokesperson told Business Insider in a statement. "The ship will undergo special cleaning procedures before it departs Saturday for her next cruise."

Two Royal Caribbean cruises in December left more than 500 combined passengers sick, according to USA Today. A cruise from Singapore to Australia that ended on December 7 had over 200 reported cases of illness, and 332 cases of illness were reported on a cruise from Florida that returned on December 16.

SEE ALSO: Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship Reeking Of Vomit Docks In NJ After 600 Fall Sick

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NOW WATCH: A crypto expert explains the difference between the two largest cryptocurrencies in the world: bitcoin and Ethereum

Welcome to Finance Insider, Business Insider's summary of the top stories of the past 24 hours. Sign up here to get the best of Business Insider delivered direct to your inbox.

JPMorgan Chase released the results from its fourth quarter on Friday, beating analyst earnings expectations on an adjusted basis with $1.76 a share. Wall Street analysts had been expecting $1.69 a share.

But in an already wonky quarter, JPMorgan reported an unusual loss not related to the new tax law: Its equities team took a $143 million loss from a single client. JPMorgan confirmed the loss was connected to the South African retailer Steinhoff International, which is embroiled in an accounting scandal.

"It is by far and away the largest loss in that business we've seen since the crisis," CFO Marianne Lake said in an analyst call.

Elsewhere in bank news, Wells Fargo's profit jumped after a one-time boost from tax reform. And Morgan Stanley just announced its 2018 managing director promotions.

In hedge fund news, the only female investment partner at $20 billion hedge fund Canyon has left. And skeptics are betting against Wingstop — the CEO told us why they don't get the company. Legendary investor T. Boone Pickens is shutting down his energy-focused hedge fund.

In markets news, a key metric shows the stock market is at "extreme" levels that are the most stretched in 20 years.

In crypto news, a Wall Street consultancy eviscerated crypto in a massive report — and it should strike fear into the heart of every bitcoin bull. There will soon be a new way to bet on the technology behind bitcoin. And the CEO of a cryptocurrency platform offering 100x leverage told us why he turns down investor cash.

In deal news, Dropbox needs to find a new "ethos" and more business customers for an IPO home run. And big pharma's getting ready to spend tax reform dollars on big deals.

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NOW WATCH: A crypto expert explains the difference between the two largest cryptocurrencies in the world: bitcoin and Ethereum

• There's a lot of anticipation for big-ticket pharmaceutical mergers and acquisitions to take off in 2018.
• That's in large part because of the tax reform that passed in 2017, which frees up cash companies have overseas and lowers the corporate tax rate. 
• "We'd love to use the cash to buy and partner to expand our pipeline," Eli Lilly chief financial officer Josh Smiley told Business Insider.
• The first two weeks of 2018 have been slower that some might have expected, but one analyst expects there's much more to come. 
• "There's a potential for another round of change within the pharmaceutical sector, given there's this much money overseas and that's got a chance to be repatriated," GlaxoSmithKline US pharmaceuticals president Jack Bailey told Business Insider.

Every year, the biggest names in the pharma industry head to San Francisco to the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference. And almost every year, a couple of big industry deals get announced at the event. 

This year, the expectation of M&A was especially pronounced. That's in large part because of tax reform in the US, which in addition to offering companies based in the US a lower corporate tax rate allows them to repatriate some of the cash they have overseas and put it to use. The life sciences is one of the industries with the most cash overseas that'd be eligible for repatriation. 

"There was a big, big expectation that there was going to be some big M&A announced," UBS senior healthcare analyst Jerome Brimeyer told Business Insider.

On Sunday, biotech giant Celgene acquired Impact Biosciences in a $7 billion deal. And the Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk made a $3.1 billion bid for the biotech company Ablynx, which was rejected.  Based on the conversations Brimeyer's heard in San Francisco this week, the deals announced this year far have been underwhelming. "There was almost a disappointment that there wasn't more M&A," Brimeyer said. 

That disappointment won't last forever, he said. "I think given tax reform, there's much more to come. I think that's going to be an important factor for the performance of biotech and pharma this year. "

Cash waiting to be used 

It's something that's on company's radars, Brimeyer said, especially as they think of ways to use that repatriated cash. Other options besides acquiring companies with new medications in the works include share repurchasing programs, increasing dividends, and in some cases paying down debt. 

Eli Lilly chief financial officer Josh Smiley told Business Insider that the company has about $9 billion in cash overseas that will be repatriated over the next few years. While an estimated $3.5 billion will be paid in taxes to the US, the remaining money will ideally be used to build up the treatments Lilly has in the works. 

"We'd love to use the cash to buy and partner to expand our pipeline," Smiley said. Ultimately, the hope is to have one-third of Lilly's pipeline of medicines that are in development coming from outside the company.

But the changes that tax reform brings doesn't necessarily mean there's going to be an across-the-board flood of new deals, since some major pharmaceutical companies aren't based in the US to begin with. 

"You can't just say 'OK, it's going to trigger M&A in pharma,' I think it's going to be very company specific," GlaxoSmithKline US pharmaceuticals president Jack Bailey told Business Insider. The cash could also be used for other purposes, such as internal investments and dividends, he said.

"What we do know is there's a potential for another round of change within the pharmaceutical sector, given there's this much money overseas and that's got a chance to be repatriated," Bailey said. "So I think it's going to be fascinating to watch, much like the pricing and reimbursement, legislative actions, and regulatory actions."

SEE ALSO: The first female big pharma CEO had the perfect response to a question about women in leadership

DON'T MISS: The billion-dollar startups revolutionizing healthcare you should be watching in 2018

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NOW WATCH: A crypto expert explains the difference between the two largest cryptocurrencies in the world: bitcoin and Ethereum

• Shares of Aflac plummeted on Friday after the company was alleged to have "exploited workers, manipulated its accounting, and deceived shareholders and customers."
• Aflac's shares were down 7.84% to $84.50 a share on Friday. 
• The investigative news site The Intercept first broke the news, interviewing nine former employees who have sued the company over the claims. 
• Aflac released a statement calling the allegations false. The insurer said it had investigated the claims and "found them to be without merit." It intends to file for a dismissal of the lawsuit.
• Aflac's stock was down 3.14% year-to-date.

Read about the SEC's bust of a $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme that bilked senior citizens.

SEE ALSO: The Feds say they just blew up a $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme aimed at thousands of elderly people in Florida

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NOW WATCH: THE BOTTOM LINE: Bitcoin mania, a Nobel Prize-winning economist talks Trump, and a deep dive on unstoppable tech stocks

• Retail stocks are up, some over 3%, on solid numbers from the National Retail Federation. 
• Sales rose 5.5% last November and December compared to the previous year. 

Americans spent 5.5% more in November and December 2017, reaching $691.9 billion, than they did the previous year, the National Retail Federation said Friday.

The holiday season was expected to be one of the best in a decade thanks to higher-than-usual consumer confidence and an increasingly lower unemployment rate, but the numbers released by the industry group were still a shock.

Here’s how some of the country’ largest retail stocks were doing in trading midday:

• Nordstrom: +2.91%
• Target: +1.25%
• Kohls: +3.78%
• Foot Locker: +2.27%
• Gap: +1.93%
• Amazon: +2.01%

"We knew going in that retailers were going to have a good holiday season but the results are even better than anything we could have hoped for, especially given the misleading headlines of the past year,” the National Retail Federation’s President and CEO Matthew Shay said in a press release.

"Whether they shopped in-store, online or on their phones, consumers were in the mood to spend, and retailers were there to offer them good value for their money. With this as a starting point and tax cuts putting more money into consumers’ pockets, we are confident that retailers will have a very good year ahead."

Building materials and supplies stores posted the biggest sales increases, rising by 8.1% over the previous year. Home furnishings and electronics/appliance stores came in just below at 7.5% and 6.1%, respectively.

SEE ALSO: A Wall Street analyst says Under Armour could suffer the same fate as Reebok (UA, UAA, DKS, HIBB, KSS, DSW)

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NOW WATCH: THE BOTTOM LINE: Chipotle vs. Qdoba, the bear case on Apple, and diagnosing a bitcoin bubble

• Google had an impressive 2017 and its momentum could push it even higher in 2018, a UBS analyst notes.
• The company's plays in mobile computing, AI and its cloud services have positioned it well for growth.
• To view Google's stock price in real time, click here.

Google had an impressive run in 2017 and that momentum may help it overshadow competition in the new year. 

The stock is up 5% year-to-date, and has traded north of $1,000 per share since October.

UBS Analyst Eric Sheridan has named Google a top pick for growth in 2018, given the Silicon Valley giant's sustained operating performance, capital allocation, and its potential big boost from cash repatriation under the new tax law.

Sheridan also believes that Google is nailing four themes that could keep it at its highs:

1. Mobile Computing. Google is expected to spend more money in its shift to mobile computing, telling investors that it expects higher traffic acquisition costs, or the amount of money needed to pay PC makers, phone manufacturers and websites to promote its services and direct people to its sites, in the future. However, some analysts believe the spending may be necessary in order to boost revenue.
2. Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning. While many tech giants are increasingly investing in AI to power their offerings, Google is doing a great deal better than its competitors, according to three Chinese researchers. 
3. Media Consumption. Big tech firms may have shirked away from describing themselves as "media companies," but Google and its competitors have actively played large roles in becoming the go-to news destination for consumers.
4. Cloud Computing. Google recently signed a partnership with Cisco to migrate the data and applications of Cisco's users to its Google Cloud platform. The alliance will likely help Google compete against Amazon Web Services and Microsoft's Azure.

To read more about how Google and Facebook's online advertising dominance may be worth trillions of dollars, click here. 

SEE ALSO: Google and Facebook's share of the online ad market could eventually be worth trillions of dollars

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NOW WATCH: PAUL KRUGMAN: Bitcoin is a more obvious bubble than housing was

Welcome to Crypto Insider, Business Insider’s roundup of all the bitcoin and cryptocurrency news you need to know today. Sign up here to get this email delivered direct to your inbox.

It's about to get a lot easier to bet on the price of bitcoin. Grayscale's Bitcoin Investment Trust, a vehicle that seeks to track the price of the cryptocurrency, announced a 91-for-1 split that will bring the price of a single share down from $1,860 to roughly $20.

Here are the current standings:

• Bitcoin (BTC): $13,575.96 (+2.01%)
• Ethereum (ETH): $1,232.53 (+8.18%)
• Ripple (XRP): $1.97 (+2.07%)
• Bitcoin Cash (BCC): $2,535.39 (+4.00%)

What's happening:

SEE ALSO: A popular bitcoin stock announced a 91-for-1 split that could make it more accessible to the masses

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: The CIO of a crypto hedge fund shares the 3 biggest risks of investing in cryptocurrencies

Welcome to Crypto Insider, Business Insider’s roundup of all the bitcoin and cryptocurrency news you need to know today. Sign up here to get this email delivered direct to your inbox.

It's about to get a lot easier to bet on the price of bitcoin. Grayscale's Bitcoin Investment Trust, a vehicle that seeks to track the price of the cryptocurrency, announced a 91-for-1 split that will bring the price of a single share down from $1,860 to roughly $20.

Here are the current standings:

• Bitcoin (BTC): $13,575.96 (+2.01%)
• Ethereum (ETH): $1,232.53 (+8.18%)
• Ripple (XRP): $1.97 (+2.07%)
• Bitcoin Cash (BCC): $2,535.39 (+4.00%)

What's happening:

SEE ALSO: A popular bitcoin stock announced a 91-for-1 split that could make it more accessible to the masses

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: The CIO of a crypto hedge fund shares the 3 biggest risks of investing in cryptocurrencies

Welcome to Crypto Insider, Business Insider’s roundup of all the bitcoin and cryptocurrency news you need to know today. Sign up here to get this email delivered direct to your inbox.

It's about to get a lot easier to bet on the price of bitcoin. Grayscale's Bitcoin Investment Trust, a vehicle that seeks to track the price of the cryptocurrency, announced a 91-for-1 split that will bring the price of a single share down from $1,860 to roughly $20.

Here are the current standings:

• Bitcoin (BTC): $13,575.96 (+2.01%)
• Ethereum (ETH): $1,232.53 (+8.18%)
• Ripple (XRP): $1.97 (+2.07%)
• Bitcoin Cash (BCC): $2,535.39 (+4.00%)

What's happening:

SEE ALSO: A popular bitcoin stock announced a 91-for-1 split that could make it more accessible to the masses

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: PAUL KRUGMAN: Trump can't take credit for the soaring stock market

Welcome to Crypto Insider, Business Insider’s roundup of all the bitcoin and cryptocurrency news you need to know today. Sign up here to get this email delivered direct to your inbox.

It's about to get a lot easier to bet on the price of bitcoin. Grayscale's Bitcoin Investment Trust, a vehicle that seeks to track the price of the cryptocurrency, announced a 91-for-1 split that will bring the price of a single share down from $1,860 to roughly $20.

Here are the current standings:

• Bitcoin (BTC): $13,575.96 (+2.01%)
• Ethereum (ETH): $1,232.53 (+8.18%)
• Ripple (XRP): $1.97 (+2.07%)
• Bitcoin Cash (BCC): $2,535.39 (+4.00%)

What's happening:

SEE ALSO: A popular bitcoin stock announced a 91-for-1 split that could make it more accessible to the masses

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: PAUL KRUGMAN: Trump can't take credit for the soaring stock market

• Since 1951, Oregon and New Jersey have been the only two US states to require gas station attendants to pump people's gas.
• As of January 1, Oregon residents are now required to do it themselves.
• Some New Jersey residents aren't taking the news so well, fearing their state could be next on the chopping block.

Shateera Israel doesn't care if you call her spoiled — the New Jersey native simply isn't interested in pumping her own gas.

"Besides handling gas station pumps being unsafe and accident-prone, I find them extremely dirty and unsanitary," the public relations account executive told Business Insider. "The last thing I want to do when I am in a rush or dressed up in a my nicer clothes is to have to get out of my car to pump my own gas."

Israel has a great deal of company in the Garden State, currently the only US state where residents are required by law not to pump their own gas. Following the January 1 news that Oregon would no longer be New Jersey's only ally in such a law, some New Jerseyans are anxious about the prospect of self-service.

A 1949 law is under threat

In speaking to Business Insider, the most common complaints from New Jerseyans invoked the inconvenience of leaving their car to fill up, the perceived danger involved, and the inevitability of lost jobs.

"These guys work hard for their money and are out in the cold or heat all day and night, similar to what we do on our work sites," Anthony Rinaldi, CEO of the New Jersey construction firm The Rinaldi Group, told Business Insider. "Many of them have families to support too."

Before January 1, Oregon and New Jersey were the only two states to have such a law on the books. The product of heavy lobbying from service-station owners, New Jersey's law first took effect in 1949. Oregon's law came two years later.

In the half-century since, residents of both states have fought a long-standing battle against people from the other 48 states, who sometimes look upon Oregonians and New Jerseyans as overly timid in performing what seems, to most, like a regular chore of driving.

Not all New Jerseyans necessarily disagree.

"The only time I've been thankful I don't pump my own gas is in the winter," Erin Fisher, a New Jersey resident, told Business Insider. "Every other time, even in the rain, I feel like it would be faster and more efficient if I did it myself."

'We're all somewhat inherently lazy'

But many New Jersey residents still side with Rinaldi and Israel in not wanting to go the way of the 49 other states. Bill Metzger, account executive at the PR firm 5W, pointed to the luxury of staying put, such as "when you're at the station and need to respond to an email, text, or just don't want to get out of the car."

"Yes, it's laziness," he said, "but when people are complaining about their Amazon package not coming in exactly two days for a product that you can easily buy at say a CVS, we're all somewhat inherently lazy."

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie proposed a self-service law in 2009, but was met with vehement disapproval from the public. He last addressed the issue during a 2016 town hall meeting, in which he declared the preference largely one of gender: A poll showed 78% of New Jersey women preferred to stay in their cars, the New York Times reported. He has yet to propose a second measure.

Shateera Israel is perfectly happy with that.

"I myself was actually shocked when I read that the news that Oregon will now be allowing residents to pump their own gas," she said. "On the flip side, it also makes me that much more proud to a Jersey native."

SEE ALSO: Oregon now lets people pump their own gas — and some Oregonians are freaking out

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NOW WATCH: A crypto expert explains the difference between the two largest cryptocurrencies in the world: bitcoin and Ethereum

The future is now

• A technical indicator called the "relative strength index" is the most stretched it's been in 20 years, and the second-most extended since 1928, according to Morgan Stanley.
• While this doesn't necessarily spell impending doom for stocks, it should give investors caution as they consider adding to positions.

The further an asset climbs, the more likely it is to fall back down.

That's the logic behind a technical indicator called the "relative strength index," which Morgan Stanley says is the most stretched it's been in 20 years when it comes to the benchmark S&P 500. In fact, the measure's current reading of 93 is the second-highest since 1928.

Make no mistake, the S&P 500 has been trading above the 80 level that signals "overbought" condition for the better part of the last year. But as it's continued its precipitous move higher, it's shifted from simply overbought to historically stretched.

So what does that mean for the future of the stock index? Well, it's certainly not good, although it's not necessarily an outright bearish signal either, says Morgan Stanley. Rather, it's an indicator that will coincide with — rather than cause — a correction once the market has fully topped.

"In the near-term, be aware of extreme sentiment and overbought conditions," Morgan Stanley chief US equity strategist Mike Wilson wrote in a recent client note.

The question now becomes, when will the RSI truly peak? Morgan Stanley finds that following past instances when the gauge exceeded 80, an average correction of 3.5% has followed one month later.

"A pullback feels close and it is now just a matter of time," said Wilson. "We would be buyers of that pullback but think it is prudent for investors who are looking to add risk to wait at this point."

Here's a summary of past instances when RSI has been similarly overextended:

SEE ALSO: GOLDMAN SACHS: There's a strategy that will help you crush earnings season using these 20 stocks

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NOW WATCH: PAUL KRUGMAN: Bitcoin is a more obvious bubble than housing was

• A new Brookings Institution report projects substantially worst student loan defaults than previous estimates.
• The report predicts as much as 40% of students could be in default by 2030.
• There are $1.4 trillion in US student loans outstanding, making it the second biggest source of household debt after housing.

The US financial crisis that resulted from a ruptured housing bubble is now ten years old, and investors fretting over a serially record-setting stock market are searching for pockets of risk in various corners of the financial system.

The first spot they tend to look is at student loans which, while only a fraction of the housing market, can still have a significant economic impact on consumers and businesses. 

A new Brookings Institution report offers startling results that suggest "the looming student default crisis is worse than we thought."

The analysis “suggests that nearly 40% [of borrowers] may default on their student loans by 2023,” according to Judith Scott-Clayton, a non-resident senior fellow at Brookings and author of the report.

At nearly $1.4 trillion in loans outstanding, student debt is now the second-largest source of household debt, after housing, and is the only form of consumer debt that continued to grow in the wake of the Great Recession, the report says.

The racial breakdown of the statistics is startling.

Debt and default among black college students "is at crisis levels, and even a bachelor’s degree is no guarantee of security," the report says. "Black B.A. graduates default at five times the rate of white B.A. graduates (21% versus 4%), and are more likely to default than white dropouts."

The worsening default pattern is most acute at for-profit colleges, the Brookings study said. Out of 100 students who ever attended one, 23 defaulted within 12 years of starting college in 1996 compared to 43 of those who started in 2004. This contrasts with an increase from just 8 to 11 students of 100 among entrants who never attended a for-profit, the report said.

The author argues that "diffuse concern with rising levels of average debt is misplaced" and that policymakers should rather "support for robust efforts to regulate the for-profit sector, to improve degree attainment and promote income-contingent loan repayment options for all students, and to more fully address the particular challenges faced by college students of color."

SEE ALSO: Americans have more debt than ever — and it's creating an economic trap

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The post The ‘Bitcoin Bucket’: KFC Canada Accepts Bitcoin for Fried Chicken appeared first on CCN

The biggest name in fried chicken has launched a cryptocurrency-themed “Bitcoin Bucket,” and yes, you can pay for it using the flagship cryptocurrency. KFC Canada Launches ‘Bitcoin Bucket’ KFC Canada began the publicity stunt on Thursday, advertising the Bitcoin Bucket on social media and livestreaming its price in bitcoin, which constantly fluctuates based on the

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Legacy remittance provider MoneyGram will form a strategic partnership with distributed ledger fintech Ripple to pilot XRP, the cryptocurrency used on Ripple’s network, in MoneyGram's “payment flows,” as well as some other Ripple offerings.

The firms didn’t specify how many of MoneyGram’s transactions will be included in the test, or whether the partnership will become a permanent part of MoneyGram’s business, according to Bloomberg, but both parties are optimistic it’ll improve services. It’s worth noting that this news comes just after rumors that Western Union, MoneyGram’s biggest competitor, would forge a similar relationship.

The move comes as legacy remittance players seek out ways to better compete with digital upstarts. Digital-first remittance players are still much smaller than dominant legacy providers, but they’re growing more quickly, and could represent a substantial threat down the line.

That’s likely because these firms can take the costs they save from not operating brick-and-mortar locations and pass them onto consumers — something popular at a time when remittance volume is growing and costs are high. If legacy firms want to remain atop the industry, they need to find ways to compete.

This pilot could show if enlisting blockchain and technology is a viable way of doing so.

• Blockchain technology, and Ripple in particular, could increase speed and efficiency. Right now, MoneyGram’s process relies on “pre-funded accounts” in the markets it operates in across the globe. These accounts, and the transfers between them, can be time-consuming to operate and often tie up capital for these firms, according to Fortune. Ripple, and platforms like it, change that by giving players a more efficient, and often less expensive, way to transact.
• That could help the firm find level ground. The retail costs that legacy players must maintain make it hard for them to compete with upstarts on pricing. So if they want to do so, they’re going to have to find other places to trim costs. Looking toward methods like Ripple could free up funds for legacy players, which they could then use to pass on cost savings to consumers directly, or save and re-invest in other types of digital innovation.

If the firm ultimately sticks with Ripple, it could be a big win. The announcement comes just after MoneyGram terminated Ant Financial’s billion dollar acquisition following regulatory hurdles; Ant Financial's purchase of MoneyGram would have drastically boosted MoneyGram’s digital capabilities at a time when it, in particular, is struggling to keep up. MoneyGram’s ongoing innovation, and interest in finding ways to compete, could point toward a bright future, with stronger digital growth and improved industry positioning on the horizon.

Ayoub Aouad, research analyst for BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, had put together a detailed report on digital remittance that:

• Quantifies how large the remittance market currently is. 
• Discusses what some of the barriers to growth have been for the remittance industry in recent years. 
• Identifies what factors are going to lead to continued growth going forward.
• Considers ways digital-first startups have begun to disrupt traditional remittance companies and bring down fees. 
• Breaks down what legacy firms are doing to hold off these challengers, while also evolving with the changing technological trends occurring globally. 
• Explores what firms in the industry will have to do going forward in order to avoid being outperformed in an industry that is becoming increasingly saturated. 

Interested in getting the full report? Here are two ways to access it:

1. Subscribe to an All-Access pass to BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report and over 100 other expertly researched reports. As an added bonus, you'll also gain access to all future reports and daily newsletters to ensure you stay ahead of the curve and benefit personally and professionally. >> Learn More Now
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• AMD shares have risen on confusion as to whether its CPUs were affected by the Spectre flaw.
• The company has clearly said its chips are affected, and the stock is sliding.
• Watch AMD shares trade in real time here.

AMD is trading 1.61% lower to $11.93 after the company cleared up confusion about whether its products were affected by the CPU security flaws that have been rocking the tech world this year.

The security issues known as Spectre and Meltdown were first announced by Google engineers on January 3. The engineers said the flaws could be used to exploit Intel, AMD, and ARM-based chips.

The confusion came when AMD said its chips were not affected by all three variants of CPU flaw, which some people took to mean its chips were invulnerable. AMD clarified its susceptibility late on Thursday, saying its chips were affected, but only by two of the three variants.

Confusion around the Spectre and Meltdown flaws have been rampant as many of the major tech companies rush to patch their products. Intel and AMD have been working on patches for their processors while Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon, and others have been working to patch their servers and operating systems.

Even GPU makers got dragged into the fray temporarily. Nvidia confused investors when it said it released patches for the CPU flaws, even though its GPUs are not vulnerable. Nvidia later clarified that the patches were simply precautionary measures, and its chips are not affected by the flaws.

AMD's stock rose more than 20% in the past month as investors jumped on the company when the CPU flaws seemed to only affect Intel chips. Intel shares are flat for the month, and down 2.06% over the last week.

There is still a lot to be learned about the CPU flaws and how they will affect modern computing. Because the root of the security issues stem from a crucial part of how modern computers run, it will likely take a long time to know how it will affect the tech world in the long-run.

Read more about the Spectre flaw here.

SEE ALSO: Intel and AMD are sliding after Microsoft says significant slowdowns can occur after Meltdown and Spectre updates

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NOW WATCH: THE BOTTOM LINE: Bitcoin mania, a Nobel Prize-winning economist talks Trump, and a deep dive on unstoppable tech stocks

• AMD shares have risen on confusion as to whether its CPUs were affected by the Spectre flaw.
• The company has clearly said its chips are affected, and the stock is sliding.
• Watch AMD shares trade in real time here.

AMD is trading 1.61% lower to $11.93 after the company cleared up confusion about whether its products were affected by the CPU security flaws that have been rocking the tech world this year.

The security issues known as Spectre and Meltdown were first announced by Google engineers on January 3. The engineers said the flaws could be used to exploit Intel, AMD, and ARM-based chips.

The confusion came when AMD said its chips were not affected by all three variants of CPU flaw, which some people took to mean its chips were invulnerable. AMD clarified its susceptibility late on Thursday, saying its chips were affected, but only by two of the three variants.

Confusion around the Spectre and Meltdown flaws have been rampant as many of the major tech companies rush to patch their products. Intel and AMD have been working on patches for their processors while Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon, and others have been working to patch their servers and operating systems.

Even GPU makers got dragged into the fray temporarily. Nvidia confused investors when it said it released patches for the CPU flaws, even though its GPUs are not vulnerable. Nvidia later clarified that the patches were simply precautionary measures, and its chips are not affected by the flaws.

AMD's stock rose more than 20% in the past month as investors jumped on the company when the CPU flaws seemed to only affect Intel chips. Intel shares are flat for the month, and down 2.06% over the last week.

There is still a lot to be learned about the CPU flaws and how they will affect modern computing. Because the root of the security issues stem from a crucial part of how modern computers run, it will likely take a long time to know how it will affect the tech world in the long-run.

Read more about the Spectre flaw here.

SEE ALSO: Intel and AMD are sliding after Microsoft says significant slowdowns can occur after Meltdown and Spectre updates

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NOW WATCH: PAUL KRUGMAN: Bitcoin is a more obvious bubble than housing was

• Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the Treasury is closely following the growth of cryptocurrencies, particularly bitcoin.
• Mnuchin addressed the possible government shutdown, the debt ceiling, and the new tax law during a talk at the Economic Club of Washington DC.
• Mnuchin also said that going to a rally with President Donald Trump is "like showing up with Mick Jagger to a Rolling Stones concert."

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Friday that he is concerned about the risks to consumers associated with the recent surge in cryptocurrency investing.

Mnuchin was asked during an event at the Economic Club of Washington, DC, about the recent uptick in interest in cryptocurrencies, specifically bitcoin, and whether the Treasury is planning to regulate trading of the asset.

Mnuchin said the Financial Stability Oversight Council, a group within the Treasury that assess risks in financial markets and recommends regulation, has established a working group on bitcoin and cryptocurrencies to evaluate the risks to investors and possible negative uses of the asset.

"I am concerned that consumers could get hurt," Mnuchin said.

The former hedge fund executive said that while there are existing laws to track the use of cryptocurrencies, he is worried about some of bitcoin's usage.

"We want to make sure that bad people cannot use these currencies to do bad things," Mnuchin said.

The Treasury Secretary also said that there was no need for a "digital dollar" or an established crypto alternative to the US dollar.

Mnuchin also hit on a variety of policy topics. He said:

• There will be no shutdown — he said either Congress will pass a full funding bill by the January 19 deadline or a short-term extension.
• Congress should raise the debt ceiling, but he would not commit to abolishing the limit altogether.
• The Internal Revenue Service will need to hire "a significant number of people" to implement the new GOP tax law.
• The IRS is looking into technology to fill the "tax gap" between what the government should collect and the lower amount it actually typically does collect.

In addition to policy, Mnuchin also talked about his relationship to President Donald Trump. According to Mnuchin, attending his first rally with Trump was "like showing up with Mick Jagger to a Rolling Stones concert."

Mnuchin said that when the pair flew on Marine One — the president's helicopter — Trump has said "your building is bigger than my building," in reference to the Treasury building that sits adjacent to the White House.  

SEE ALSO: The IRS just blew millions of dollars on a project that already failed before

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NOW WATCH: Former White House photographer describes what is was like to capture Obama on the worst day of his presidency

Many experts mock cryptocurrencies because they see flaws but not the real potential.

• GBTC, a bitcoin investment trust, tries to track the price of bitcoin with its stock price.
• The company announced a 91-for-1 stock split, which will bring down the price of a single share dramatically, making it more accessible to retail investors. 

Grayscale Investment’s Bitcoin Investment Trust, a stock that seeks to mirror the price of bitcoin, announced Friday a 91-for-1 stock split that would drastically reduce the price of shares, making them more accessible to retail investors.

GBTC is up about 13% on the news, trading at $1,937 per share Friday morning.

At current prices, the split would make the new price for a single share of the bitcoin trust just above $21 per share.

The split won’t affect GBTC’s market value, which is about $3.19 billion on the OTC market, but it will make shares more accessible to retail investors who may be more likely to buy the stock at the new lower prices than the old higher ones. 

GBTC was the second most popular stock on millennial trading platform Stockpile last year. The app allows users to buy fractional shares of expensive companies. Through this stock split, the company may be able to capitalize on younger investors' interest in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

A GBTC spokesperson declined to comment on the announcement.

The company holds 0.0918 BTC for every share of the company, according to its website, and shares regularly move in-line with the price of bitcoin — both of which are down about 13% in the past week.

Shareholders will receive their 90 new shares on January 26, which will leave the company with 174,410,600 shares outstanding. 

Shares of GBTC are up 1700% in the past year. Bitcoin is up 1659% in the same period. 

SEE ALSO: Sign up to get the most important updates on all things crypto delivered straight to your inbox.

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NOW WATCH: The chief global strategist at Charles Schwab says stocks will keep soaring in 2018

• GBTC, a bitcoin investment trust, tries to track the price of bitcoin with its stock price.
• The company announced a 91-for-1 stock split, which will bring down the price of a single share dramatically, making it more accessible to retail investors. 

Grayscale Investment’s Bitcoin Investment Trust, a stock that seeks to mirror the price of bitcoin, announced Friday a 91-for-1 stock split that would drastically reduce the price of shares, making them more accessible to retail investors.

GBTC is up about 14% on the news, trading at $1,947 per share Friday morning. At current prices, the split would make the new price for a single share of the bitcoin trust just above $21 per share.

The split won’t affect GBTC’s market value, which is about $3.19 billion on the OTC market, but it will make shares more accessible to retail investors who may be more likely to buy the stock at the new lower prices than the old higher ones. 

GBTC was the second most popular stock on millennial trading platform Stockpile last year. The app allows users to buy fractional shares of expensive companies. Through this stock split, the company may be able to capitalize on younger investors' interest in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

A GBTC spokesperson declined to comment on the announcement.

The company holds 0.0918 BTC for every share of the company, according to its website, and shares regularly move in-line with the price of bitcoin — both of which are down about 13% in the past week.

Shareholders will receive their 90 new shares on January 26, which will leave the company with 174,410,600 shares outstanding. 

Shares of GBTC are up 1700% in the past year. Bitcoin is up 1659% in the same period. 

SEE ALSO: Sign up to get the most important updates on all things crypto delivered straight to your inbox.

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NOW WATCH: THE BOTTOM LINE: Chipotle vs. Qdoba, the bear case on Apple, and diagnosing a bitcoin bubble

The post Ripple Price Earns MoneyGram Bounce as Market Recovers from Mid-Week Dip appeared first on CCN

The cryptocurrency markets achieved a near-comprehensive advance on Friday, bolstered by several reports that South Korea was not currently seeking a blanket ban on cryptocurrency trading. The ripple price headlined the day after MoneyGram revealed that it would adopt XRP in an open-ended pilot, while every other top 15-coin or token rose against the dollar … Continued

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The post InsurePal Welcomes Bitcoin Pioneer Charlie Shrem to Its Advisory Board, Sold-Out Pre-ICO appeared first on CCN

This is a sponsored story. CCN urges readers to conduct their own research with due diligence into the company, product or service mentioned in the content below. InsurePal, the world’s first social proof insurance platform, is proud to welcome Bitcoin pioneering evangelist, Charlie Shrem to its illustrious advisory board. Charlie Shrem joins InsurePal as business development … Continued

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Privacy-focused cryptocurrency zcash is solidly bid against the dollar and could soon see a spike against bitcoin.

• JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, and PNC reported earnings before the bell on Friday.
• Despite beating earnings expectations, bank stocks barely moved on the news.
• To see when all the banks report, view our earnings calendar here.

The initial wave of big banks released earnings this morning and beat analysts' expectations, but financial sector stocks have been mostly flat in early trading.

The S&P 500 financials index was up 0.47% in pre-market trading. The KBW Bank Index was up 0.70%.

JPMorgan was the first of the big banks to report fourth-quarter earnings on Friday, reporting $1.76 adjusted earnings per share, beating Wall Street analysts' expectations of $1.69 a share. Though the bank reported a solid quarter after taking into account the effects from tax reform, it also revealed that it took a $143 million loss from a single client in the fourth-quarter.

Wells Fargo also beat expectations with an adjusted EPS of $1.16 versus analysts' estimates of $1.07 a share, according to Thomson Reuters data. The company posted an 18% profit boost due to a one-time tax benefit from President Donald Trump's new tax reform.

PNC reported earnings of $2.29 adjusted EPS, also beating Wall Street expectations of $2.19 per share. 

Some of the big banks are listed below with their current trading price. Click on each name to go to their real-time chart. You can also see when the other big banks report their earnings here.

• JPMorgan (JPM) +0.38% @ $111.43
• Wells Fargo (WFC) -1.22% @ $62.25
• PNC (PNC) -0.13% @ $151.29
• Bank of America (BAC) +0.20% @ $30.72
• Citigroup (C) -0.25% @ $75.37
• Key Corp (KEY) +0.44% @ $21.28
• Capital One (COF) +0.65% @ $68.30
• BB&T (BBT) +0.06% @ $53.19
• SunTrust (STI) +0.52% @ $68.21
• Goldman Sachs (GS) -0.45% @ $254.73
• Morgan Stanley +0.96% @ $54.72

SEE ALSO: JPMorgan lost $143 million on a single trading client in the fourth quarter

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NOW WATCH: THE BOTTOM LINE: Bitcoin mania, a Nobel Prize-winning economist talks Trump, and a deep dive on unstoppable tech stocks

• JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, and PNC reported earnings before the bell on Friday.
• Despite beating earnings expectations, bank stocks barely moved on the news.
• To see when all the banks report, view our earnings calendar here.

The initial wave of big banks released earnings this morning and beat analysts' expectations, but financial sector stocks have been mostly flat in early trading.

The S&P 500 financials index was up 0.47% in pre-market trading. The KBW Bank Index was up 0.70%.

JPMorgan was the first of the big banks to report fourth-quarter earnings on Friday, reporting $1.76 adjusted earnings per share, beating Wall Street analysts' expectations of $1.69 a share. Though the bank reported a solid quarter after taking into account the effects from tax reform, it also revealed that it took a $143 million loss from a single client in the fourth-quarter.

Wells Fargo also beat expectations with an adjusted EPS of $1.16 versus analysts' estimates of $1.07 a share, according to Thomson Reuters data. The company posted an 18% profit boost due to a one-time tax benefit from President Donald Trump's new tax reform.

PNC reported earnings of $2.29 adjusted EPS, also beating Wall Street expectations of $2.19 per share. 

Some of the big banks are listed below with their current trading price. Click on each name to go to their real-time chart. You can also see when the other big banks report their earnings here.

• JPMorgan (JPM) +0.38% @ $111.43
• Wells Fargo (WFC) -0.62% @ $62.62
• PNC (PNC) -0.39% @ $150.91
• Bank of America (BAC) +0.20% @ $30.72
• Citigroup (C) -0.25% @ $75.37
• Key Corp (KEY) +0.44% @ $21.28
• Capital One (COF) -2.15% @ $102.17
• BB&T (BBT) -4.95% @ $50.53
• SunTrust (STI) +0.52% @ $68.21
• Goldman Sachs (GS) -0.45% @ $254.73
• Morgan Stanley +0.96% @ $54.72

SEE ALSO: JPMorgan lost $143 million on a single trading client in the fourth quarter

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NOW WATCH: Bitcoin can be a bubble and still change the world

• Sterling climbs to its highest level since the Brexit referendum.
• Hits a high of 1.3693 against the dollar.
• Bloomberg report that Spanish and Dutch finance ministers have agreed to work together to push for a Brexit deal that keeps Britain as close to the European Union as possible appears to be the catalyst.

LONDON — The pound has climbed to its highest level since the day after the Brexit referendum in June 2016 on Friday after reports that two eurozone finance ministers are working to ensure a soft Brexit that keeps the UK close to the EU once Britain leaves the bloc.

Bloomberg reported on Friday afternoon that "Spanish and Dutch finance ministers have agreed to work together to push for a Brexit deal that keeps Britain as close to the European Union as possible."

That news pushed the pound sharply higher, with sterling climbing as high as $1.3693 against the dollar. By 2.15 p.m. GMT (9.15 a.m. ET) it has pulled back a little, but remains close to 1% higher on the day, as the chart below illustrates:

Earlier on Friday, analysts at Nomura argued that the pound could climb as much as 4% to trade at 1.40 against the dollar if a second Brexit referendum is announced within the next year.

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NOW WATCH: The 5 issues to consider before trading bitcoin futures

• Snap stock price is slipping after Aaron Kessler of Raymond James downgraded the stock.
• Kessler doesn't think the coming app redesign will be a good thing for the company, as it separates ad-rich content from what users are actually spending their time doing.
• Watch Snap's stock price move in real time.

Snap is undergoing the biggest app redesign in the company's history in an attempt to better monetize its platform, but according to one analyst, it could have the exact opposite effect.

"Recent data points released this week indicate solid engagement on chats and Snaps, though engagement is much more limited for other activities," Aaron Kessler, an analyst at Raymond James said in a note to clients. "Historically, chat/messaging apps have been difficult to monetize."

Kessler downgraded Snap to an "underperform" on Friday, and the company's stock slipped 3.15% in early trading to $14.14 per share.

Snap's redesign attempts to more clearly separate content made by users' friends from content made by brands and celebrities. The app will start sorting its content algorithmically, which could allow for more opportunities for the company to sell sponsored content and advertisements in its feed.

The problem with the redesign is that even if there are more opportunities to place ads next to content from brands and celebrities, Kessler said that users are less likely to view the content now that it isn't in the same place as the content from friends.

Snap is putting content from brands and publishers in the app's "discover" section, and even before the redesign, only about 20% of users viewed content from that section, according to a story from the Daily Beast. That number is likely to fall after the redesign, Kessler said.

Kessler also said that even if the highly-monetizable section of the app still attracts users after the redesign, the people using Snap are often teenagers, which are a less attractive demographic for advertisers due to their lower incomes. In a recent survey of ad buyers from Cowen, a staggering 96% of those surveyed said they'd rather buy ads on Instagram.

Snap is currently trading for $14.30, which is 15.8% below its IPO price of $17.

Read more about Cowen's survey of ad buyers here.

SEE ALSO: No one wants to advertise on Snapchat, and the stock is suffering

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NOW WATCH: THE BOTTOM LINE: Bitcoin mania, a Nobel Prize-winning economist talks Trump, and a deep dive on unstoppable tech stocks

• Prices of all cryptocurrencies took major hits this week after a data site shifted its sources and South Korean regulators mulled a possible ban on trading. 
• Most coins are up Friday, but only Ethereum is on track to finish the week with significant gains. 

The world’s largest cryptocurrencies are struggling to stay in the green this week after a possible clampdown on exchanges by South Korean regulators sent the total market cap of all digital coins down by almost 25%.

Bitcoin, the largest and most well known cryptocurrency, is up 5% Friday. Second-place Ethereum is up 11%, and third-place Ripple's XRP is up 7.80%.

But the past day's gains may not be enough for the cryptocurrencies to finish this week in positive territory. Bitcoin and Ripple's XRP are down 13% and 34%, respectively, over the last seven days.

Ethereum, on the other hand, is up 19% over the past week, putting it on track to be one of the few cryptocurrencies to finish this week with gains.

Bitcoin Cash, the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, could also finish the week in the green if it can hold on to its gains seen in the last day. The coin is up 5.42% in the past 24 hours, and is now barely above breaking even for the past seven days.

South Korean regulators put quite the chilling effect on cryptocurrencies this week. Reuters reports that the possible move to an outright ban of cryptocurrency trading exchanges in the country has divided its population between those who see the nascent technology as a means for upward mobility, and those who see it as a gateway to gambling, drugs and other illicit activities.

"The latest idea to ban it all seems to have come out of a fear that when the bubble bursts and things go wrong, it will be all on the government," Yun Chang-hyun, an economics professor at University of Seoul, told the wire service.

Cryptocurrencies have been known to trade at hefty premiums on South Korean exchanges thanks to the country’s tight controls on capital. CoinMarketCap.com, one of the most heavily trafficked pricing data sites, caused an uproar earlier on Monday when it unexpectedly removed South Korean sources from its data, causing prices to show dramatic drops and inducing fearful sell-offs that further drove down prices.

SEE ALSO: Sign up to get the most important updates on all things crypto delivered straight to your inbox.

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NOW WATCH: PAUL KRUGMAN: Bitcoin is a more obvious bubble than housing was

• Prices of all cryptocurrencies took major hits this week after a data site shifted its sources and South Korean regulators mulled a possible ban on trading. 
• Most coins are up Friday, but only Ethereum is on track to finish the week with significant gains. 

The world’s largest cryptocurrencies are struggling to stay in the green this week after a possible clampdown on exchanges by South Korean regulators sent the total market cap of all digital coins down by almost 25%.

Bitcoin, the largest and most well known cryptocurrency, is up 5% Friday. Second-place Ethereum is up 11%, and third-place Ripple's XRP is up 7.80%.

But the past day's gains may not be enough for the cryptocurrencies to finish this week in positive territory. Bitcoin and Ripple's XRP are down 13% and 34%, respectively, over the last seven days.

Ethereum, on the other hand, is up 19% over the past week, putting it on track to be one of the few cryptocurrencies to finish this week with gains.

Bitcoin Cash, the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, could also finish the week in the green if it can hold on to its gains seen in the last day. The coin is up 5.42% in the past 24 hours, and is now barely above breaking even for the past seven days.

South Korean regulators put quite the chilling effect on cryptocurrencies this week. Reuters reports that the possible move to an outright ban of cryptocurrency trading exchanges in the country has divided its population between those who see the nascent technology as a means for upward mobility, and those who see it as a gateway to gambling, drugs and other illicit activities.

"The latest idea to ban it all seems to have come out of a fear that when the bubble bursts and things go wrong, it will be all on the government," Yun Chang-hyun, an economics professor at University of Seoul, told the wire service.

Cryptocurrencies have been known to trade at hefty premiums on South Korean exchanges thanks to the country’s tight controls on capital. CoinMarketCap.com, one of the most heavily trafficked pricing data sites, caused an uproar earlier on Monday when it unexpectedly removed South Korean sources from its data, causing prices to show dramatic drops and inducing fearful sell-offs that further drove down prices.

SEE ALSO: Sign up to get the most important updates on all things crypto delivered straight to your inbox.

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NOW WATCH: PAUL KRUGMAN: Bitcoin is a more obvious bubble than housing was

• Ray Dalio, the founder and chairman of Bridgewater Associates — the world's largest hedge fund — says investors must keep an eye on what a Jeremy Corbyn premiership would look like for the markets.
• Speaking to the Financial Times, Dalio said investors must now look beyond traditional market events like central bank meetings.

LONDON – Ray Dalio, the founder and chairman of Bridgewater Associates — the world's largest hedge fund — said investors must keep an eye on what a Jeremy Corbyn premiership would look like for the markets in a new interview with the Financial Times.

Dalio said that the world's investment landscape must change to reflect growing political unrest and uncertainty sweeping major economies, singling out Jeremy Corbyn in the UK as a particular point of interest.

"[These days] there’s not the same volatility of inflation, growth and interest rates. So political issues are more important than macro [economic] issues," he told the FT's Gillian Tett, adding that investors must look beyond traditional points of interest like central bank meetings and statements, and look instead to events like "the next election in France or in the UK, or how hospitable will Jeremy Corbyn be to capital?"

Dalio believes that this shifting landscape has fundamentally altered the way he looks at investing, saying that Bridgewater has created algorithms to track and forecast these notoriously unpredictable political developments.

"You can convert whatever you are thinking into an algorithm," he said.

"We’ve created a conflict gauge looking at words [in the media] and things. We’ve done examinations of all political conflicts in the past and their impact on markets [for models]."

The potential for Prime Minister Corbyn has been the subject of much hand wringing in the UK's financial markets, with Morgan Stanley in December warning that for the markets "domestic politics may be perceived as a bigger risk than Brexit," highlighting the potential for a drastic shift in economic policy under a Labour government.

Should he get to power Corbyn is expected to carry out a major programme of nationalisations, as well as ramping up government spending on services and infrastructure, with the National Health Service a major focus.

Morgan Stanley's comments sparked an angry response from Corbyn, who criticised Morgan Stanley for its role in the 2008 financial crisis, labelling it as one of the "speculators and gamblers who crashed our economy."

"Their greed plunged the world into crisis and we're still paying the price," he said.

"Nurses, teachers, shopworkers, builders, just about everyone is finding it harder to get by, while Morgan Stanley’s CEO paid himself £21.5 million last year and UK banks paid out £15 billion in bonuses."

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NOW WATCH: We talked to Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman about tax reform, Trump, and bitcoin

The post Portuguese Bank Santander Totta Blocks Bitcoin-Related Transactions appeared first on CCN

Banco Santander Totta, the Portuguese branch of Spanish bank Santander, is reportedly halting bitcoin-related transactions, according to local publication ECO. Per the publication, the bank has recently started blocking transactions from various cryptocurrency exchanges, claiming these exchanges are transacting in non-regulated financial products. In an email the bank sent to a client who complained he

The post Portuguese Bank Santander Totta Blocks Bitcoin-Related Transactions appeared first on CCN

• Shares of Facebook are down 4.3% ahead of Friday's opening bell after the social network announced it would once again alter its news feed algorithm to prioritize content from users' friends rather than brand or publisher pages.
• "We feel a responsibility to make sure our services aren't just fun to use, but also good for people's well-being," CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a post on his Facebook page Thursday, as part of an announcement regarding the company's focus on "meaningful interaction." His 2018 resolution was to fix systemic problems on the site, like harassment.
• The move is worrying for publishers, many of which have expressed concern, as the feed is a massive source of traffic and revenue for them.
• Facebook stock has gained 48% over the last year, and could grow another 18% to $213, analysts polled by Bloomberg predict. The company will report earnings on January 31. 
• Watch Facebook's stock price move in real-time on Markets Insider here>>

SEE ALSO: Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook is changing its news feed so it's actually 'good for people'

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Why bitcoin checks all the boxes of a bubble

• T. Boone Pickens announced Friday that he was closing down BP Capital, his energy-focused hedge fund. 
• He cited health issues and a "roller coaster ride" while running the company.

T. Boone Pickens said Friday that he was shutting down BP Capital, his energy-focused hedge fund, and transitioning towards a family-office structure. 

Pickens, 89, cited health concerns and a loss of interest in trading oil for this decision in a letter. The oil crash that began in 2014 roiled several energy-focused funds as prices fell by more than 70%. 

Of BP Capital, which he launched in 1996, Pickens wrote: "it has been one hell of a roller coaster ride," adding that oil trading was no longer "as intriguing" as it once was. The firm's assets totaled about $1 billion in recent years, The Wall Street Journal reported. 

Pickens said he was recovering from a series of strokes he suffered late last year, and a "major fall" during the summer. 

"I am creating a new plan that will include turning my full attention to recovering my health and continuing to invest in personal passions like promoting unbridled entrepreneurship and philanthropic and political endeavors," Pickens said. 

The new family-office structure would help his fund sidestep some of the regulatory oversight it was under while managing a broader range of clients.  

SEE ALSO: I asked legendary tycoon T. Boone Pickens for financial advice ― his answer was surprisingly simple

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NOW WATCH: PAUL KRUGMAN: Bitcoin is a more obvious bubble than housing was

Dave Lutz, head of ETFs at JonesTrading, has an overview of today's markets.

• JPMorgan reported earnings today.
• US markets are trading higher.
• Gold is at four-month highs.

Here's Lutz:

Morning, and Happy Friday!  The “Melt Up” continues as Airlines keep propelling Transports, while JPM is up 1%, setting the pace for BLK, WFC, PNC this AM.  Nasdaq lagging as AMD falls 3% and FB 4%, but the QQQs are still bid.  Overseas, the “DAX and FTSE impressively holding onto gains as Euro and £ trade at highs for the year” notes our team in Mayfair.  Germany is up 20bp as Consumer leading to upside, while Fins are holding recent gains, while FTSE is up 20bp as Melrose for GKN helps, but those Consumer stocks are squeezing again.   In Asia, TOPIX lost 60bp with industrials and consumer discretionary stocks under pressure despite Fast Retailing - Hang Seng jumped 1% as Energy shares rallied - Shanghai up small, adding to it’s longest winning streak (14 days) in 25years - Taiwan added 60bp - KOSPI up 30bp, and Aussie flats despite Miners jumping 1.3%

Ahead of US CPI, Bund Yields are retreating from 61bp but remain higher, while the US 10YY drifts near 2.55% as we await the week’s most important print.   Dollar sharply weaker as Euro thru $1.21 to 3Y highs as Merkel forms a coalition - Sterling seeing relief from recent Brexit-related selling - Aussie nearing 80c.  The Weaker Greenback Propelling Gold to 4M highs, but Copper in the red as Ore hit for 2.2% in China.   Energy mixed, as Natty continues yesterday’s bid, while Brent is retreating from $70 as Reuters reports Trump punts the Iranian Sanctions decision to Congress 

Here are the 10 things you need to know today.

SEE ALSO: 10 things you need to know before the opening bell

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: THE BOTTOM LINE: Chipotle vs. Qdoba, the bear case on Apple, and diagnosing a bitcoin bubble

Here is what you need to know.

JPMorgan beats earnings expectations after accounting for $2.4 billion hit from tax reform. They're the first of the big banks to report in what is expected to be a unconventional earnings cycle for the industry, mostly on account of the late-arriving tax reform that has caused many banks to book losses on deferred tax assets that declined in value.

There's a strategy that will help you crush earnings season. It involves the purchase of options straddles that are cheap relative to history and that capture a company's earnings period, and it's provided outsize returns for the past two decades.

An infamous mystery trader refuses to give up on a bet that the stock market will go nuts. A trader just rolled over a massive volatility bet that could pay out $262.5 million if all goes according to plan.

$10 billion Dropbox has filed the paperwork for an IPO. The company, which grabbed a $10 billion valuation during a 2014 funding round, plans to list shares in the first half of the year, the report says.

Nomura says there's a 1 in 4 chance of a second EU referendum, and that it would send the pound surging. Talk of a second referendum — long favoured by Remain backers — has come to the fore in recent days after Nigel Farage, one of the architects of Brexit, said he believed there is now an argument to say one should be held.

The CEO of a cryptocurrency platform offering 100x leverage explains why he turns down investor cash. "When we need the VCs the most they didn't want to be associated with bitcoin or cryptocurrencies," he told BI.

A Wall Street consultancy eviscerated crypto in a massive report — and it should strike fear into the heart of every bitcoin bull. Quinlan & Associates put out a report Thursday titled "Fool's Gold: Unearthing The World of Cryptocurrency" in which they outline a case for bitcoin dropping to $1,800 by December 2018.

Stock markets around the world trade mixed. China's Shanghai Composite (+0.10%) eked out a gain, while Germany's DAX (+0.07%) did as well. The S&P 500 is set to open up 0.18% near 2,774.50.

Earnings reports start in earnest. JPMorgan already released quarterly earnings (see above), while BlackRock, Wells Fargo and PNC are also scheduled to report before the market open.

US economic data is light. CPI and retail sales will be released at 8:30 a.m. ET. The US 10-year yield is down 2 basis points at 2.53%.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Bitcoin can be a bubble and still change the world

Here is what you need to know.

JPMorgan beats earnings expectations after accounting for $2.4 billion hit from tax reform. The firm is the first of the big banks to report in what is expected to be an unconventional earnings cycle for the industry, mostly on account of the late-arriving tax law that has caused many banks to book losses on deferred tax assets that declined in value.

There's a strategy that may help you crush earnings season. It involves the purchase of options straddles that are cheap relative to history and that capture a company's earnings period, and it has provided outsize returns for the past two decades.

An infamous mystery trader refuses to give up on a bet that the stock market will go nuts. A trader just rolled over a massive volatility bet that could pay out $262.5 million if all goes according to plan.

$10 billion Dropbox has filed the paperwork to go public. The company, which grabbed a $10 billion valuation during a 2014 funding round, plans to list shares in the first half of the year, the report says.

Nomura says there's a 1 in 4 chance of a 2nd EU referendum and it would send the pound surging. Talk of a second referendum — long favored by Remain backers — has come to the fore in recent days after Nigel Farage, one of the architects of Brexit, said he believed there had come to be an argument to say one should be held.

The CEO of a cryptocurrency platform offering 100x leverage explains why he turns down investor cash. "When we need the VCs the most they didn't want to be associated with bitcoin or cryptocurrencies," he told Business Insider.

A Wall Street consultancy eviscerated crypto in a massive report — and it should strike fear into the heart of every bitcoin bull. Quinlan & Associates put out a report Thursday titled "Fool's Gold: Unearthing The World of Cryptocurrency" in which it outlined a case for bitcoin dropping to $1,800 by December.

Stock markets around the world trade mixed. China's Shanghai Composite (+0.10%) eked out a gain, while Germany's DAX (+0.07%) did as well. The S&P 500 is set to open up 0.18% near 2,774.50.

Earnings reports start in earnest. JPMorgan already released quarterly earnings (see above), while BlackRock, Wells Fargo, and PNC are also scheduled to report before the market open.

US economic data is light. CPI and retail sales will be released at 8:30 a.m. ET. The US 10-year yield is down 2 basis points at 2.53%.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: THE BOTTOM LINE: Chipotle vs. Qdoba, the bear case on Apple, and diagnosing a bitcoin bubble

• In an already wonky quarter, JPMorgan reported taking a $143 million loss in its equities trading department from one single client.
• The department had strong equities performance apart from that one client loss.

After accounting for effects from tax reform, JPMorgan posted a solid quarter, announcing earnings of $1.69 share Friday.

Its trading business, expectedly, declined — fixed income revenues dropped 27% after including effects from tax reform.

But it was the equities team that posted the most interesting figure: It took a $143 million loss from a single client.

Apart from that hit, the equities business actually had a solid performance. Here's what JPMorgan said about the peculier loss in its earnings presentation (emphasis ours):

"Equity Markets revenue was flat compared to a strong prior year and included the impact of a mark-to market loss of $143 million on a margin loan to a single client. Excluding the mark-to-market loss, Equity Markets revenue was up 12%, driven by strength in Prime Services, Cash Equities and corporate derivatives."

We expect to hear more after JPMorgan reports earnings to investors and takes their questions.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: The 5 issues to consider before trading bitcoin futures

The post Ripple Price Surges 18%, as MoneyGram Finds Use Case for XRP appeared first on CCN

Over the past 24 hours, the price of Ripple’s native cryptocurrency XRP has increased by more than 18 percent, recovering back to $2 after dipping below $1.7 during a major cryptocurrency market correction that occured on January 11. Ripple Surges in Value Analysts have attributed the recent increase in the value of XRP to the

The post Ripple Price Surges 18%, as MoneyGram Finds Use Case for XRP appeared first on CCN

• JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said this week he regrets calling bitcoin a "fraud," but he's still not interested in the cryptocurrency.
• Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett said his firm has no interest in investing in cryptocurrency and thinks it "definitely will come to a bad ending."
• Meanwhile, Adam Ludwin, the cofounder and CEO of Chain, argues that while it's easy to believe cryptocurrencies have no inherent value — or conversely, that they will disrupt banks and tech giants — neither extreme is true. 
• Ludwin says Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are an important new asset class enabling decentralized applications.
• The probability of mass adoption may be small, but the impact would be very large, which Ludwin says justifies the high valuations. 

This piece was originally published in October 2017 on Chain's blog, after Jamie Dimon called bitcoin a fraud in September. Dimon has since said he regrets the comment, but maintained he is not interested in bitcoin. 

Dear Jamie,

My name is Adam Ludwin and I run a company called Chain. I have been working in and around the cryptocurrency market for several years.

Last week you said a few things about Bitcoin:

It's easy to believe cryptocurrencies have no inherent value. Or that governments will crush them.

It's also becoming fashionable to believe the opposite: that they will disrupt banks, governments, and Silicon Valley giants once and for all.

Neither extreme is true.

The reality is nuanced and important. Which is why I've decided to write you this briefing note. I hope it helps you appreciate cryptocurrencies more deeply.

Let me start by stating that I believe:

• The market for cryptocurrencies is overheated and irrationally exuberant
• There are a lot of poseurs creating them, and some scammers, too
• There are a lot of conflicts of interest, self-serving hype, and obfuscation
• Very few people in the media understand what's going on
• Very few people in finance understand what's going on
• Very few people in technology understand what's going on
• Very few people in academia or government understand what's going on
• Very few people buying cryptocurrencies understand what's going on
• It's very possible I don't understand what's going on

Also:

• Banks and governments aren't going away
• Traditional software isn't going away

In short: there's a lot of noise. But there is also signal. To find it, we need to start by defining cryptocurrency.

Without a working definition we are lost. Most people arguing about cryptocurrencies are talking past each other because they don't stop to ask the other side what they think cryptocurrencies are for.

Here's my definition: cryptocurrencies are a new asset class that enable decentralized applications.

If this is true, your point of view on cryptocurrencies has very little to do with what you think about them in comparison to traditional currencies or securities, and everything to do with your opinion of decentralized applications and their value relative to current software models.

Don't have an opinion on decentralized applications? Then you can't possibly have one on cryptocurrencies yet, so read on.

And since this isn't about cryptocurrencies vs. fiat currencies let's stop using the word currency. It's a head fake. It has way too much baggage and I notice that when you talk about Bitcoin in public you keep comparing it to the Dollar, Euro, and Yen. That comparison won't help you understand what's going on. In fact, it's getting in the way. So for the rest of this note, I will refer to cryptocurrencies as crypto assets.

So, to repeat: crypto assets are a new asset class that enable decentralized applications.

And like every other asset class, they exist as a mechanism to allocate resources to a specific form of organization. Despite the myopic focus on trading crypto assets recently, they don't exist solely to be traded. That is, in principle at least, they don't exist for their own sake.

To understand what I mean, think about other asset classes and what form of organization they serve:

• Corporate equities serve companies
• Government bonds serve nations, states, municipalities
• Mortgages serve property owners

And now:

• Crypto assets serve decentralized applications

Decentralized applications are a new form of organization and a new form of software. They're a new model for creating, financing, and operating software services in a way that is decentralized top-to-bottom. That doesn't make them better or worse than existing software models or the corporate entities that create them. As we'll see later, there are major trade-offs. What we can say is simply that they are radically different from software as we know it today and radically different from the forms of organization we are used to.

How different? Imagine the following: you grew up in a rainforest and I brought you a cactus and told you it was a tree. How would you react? You'd probably laugh and say it's not a tree because there's no point in a tree being a stumpy water tank covered in armor — after all, water is abundant here in the rainforest! This, roughly, is the reaction of many people working in Silicon Valley to decentralized applications.

But I digress. I owe you an important explanation:

What is a decentralized application?

A decentralized application is a way to create a service that no single entity operates.

We'll come to the question of whether that's useful in a moment. But first, you need to understand how they work.

Let's go back to the birth of this idea.

It's November 2008. The nadir of the financial crisis.

An anonymous person publishes a paper explaining how to make electronic payments without a trusted central party like Chase or PayPal or the Federal Reserve. It's the first decentralized application of this kind ever proposed.

It's a decentralized application for payments.

The paper is titled Bitcoin.

How does it work? How is it possible to send an electronic payment without a designated party who will track and update everyone's balances? If I hand you a dollar that's one thing. But data is not a bearer instrument. Data needs intermediation and validation to be trusted.

The paper proposes a solution: form a peer-to-peer network. Make it public. Announce your transaction to everyone. In your announcement, point to the specific funds on the network you want to spend. Cryptographically sign your announcement with the same software key that is linked to those funds so we know they're yours.

It almost works. We need one more thing: a way to make sure that if you broadcast two competing announcements (that is, if you try to spend the same funds twice) that only one of your attempts counts.

Bad solution: designate a party to timestamp the transactions and only include the transaction that came first. We're back to square one. We have a trusted intermediary.

Breakthrough solution: let entities compete to be the "timestamper!" We can't avoid the need for one, but we can avoid designating one in advance or using the same one for every batch of transactions.

"Let entities compete." Sounds like a market economy. What's missing? A reward for winning. An incentive. An asset.

Let's call that asset Bitcoin. Let's call the entities competing for the right to timestamp the latest batch of announced transactions "miners." Let's make sure anyone can join this contest at any time by making the code and network open.

Now we need an actual contest. The paper proposes one. On your mark, get set: find a random number generated by the network! The number is really, really hard to find. So hard that the only way to find it is to use tons of processing power and burn through electricity. It's a computing version of what Veruca Salt made her dad and his poor factory workers do in Willy Wonka. A brute force search for a golden ticket (or in this case, a golden number).

Why the elaborate and expensive competition to do something as simple as timestamp transactions for the network? So that we can be sure the competitors have incurred a real financial cost. That way, if they win the race to find the random number and become the designated timestamper for a given batch of transactions, they won't use that power for evil (like censoring transactions). Instead, they will meticulously scan each pending transaction, eliminate any attempts by users to spend the same funds twice, ensure all rules are followed, and broadcast the validated batch to the rest of the network.

Because if they do indeed follow the rules, the network is programmed to reward them…

… with newly minted Bitcoin, plus the transaction fees, denominated in Bitcoin, paid by the senders. (See why they are called miners and not timestampers, now?)

In other words, miners follow the rules because it is in their economic self-interest to do the right thing.

You know, like Adam Smith said:

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self interest.

Crypto assets: the invisible hand… of the internet.

Bitcoin is capitalism, distilled. You should love it!

And since these miners have debts to pay (mostly electricity bills), they will likely sell their newly earned Bitcoins on the open market in exchange for whatever real currency they need to satisfy their liabilities. Anything left is profit. The Bitcoin is now in circulation. People who need it can buy it. And so can people who just want to speculate on it. (More on the people who "need it" vs. those who are speculating later.)

Eureka! We have killed two birds with one stone: the financial reward that substitutes our need for a trusted central party with a marketplace of competing yet honest timestampers is the same asset that ends up in circulation for use as a digital bearer instrument in an electronic payments network that has no central party (it's circular, I know).

Now that you understand Bitcoin, let's generalize this to decentralized applications as a whole.

In general, a decentralized application allows you to do something you can already do today (like payments) but without a trusted central party.

Here's another example: a decentralized application called Filecoin enables users to store files on a peer-to-peer network of computers instead of in centralized file storage services like Dropbox or Amazon S3. Its crypto asset, also called Filecoin, incentivizes entities to share excess hard drive space with the network.

Digital file storage is not new. Neither is electronic payments. What's new is that they can be operated without a company. A new form of organization.

One more example.

Warning: this one is a bit confusing because it's meta.

There's a decentralized application called Ethereum that is a decentralized application for launching decentralized applications. I am sure by now you have heard of "initial coin offerings" (ICOs) and "tokens." Most of these are issued on top of Ethereum. Instead of building a decentralized application from scratch the way Bitcoin was, you can build one on top of Ethereum much more easily because a) the network already exists and b) it's not designed for a specific application but rather as a platform to build applications that can execute arbitrary code. It is "featureless."

Ethereum's protocol incentivizes entities to contribute computing resources to the network. Doing so earns these entities Ether, the crypto asset of Ethereum. This makes Ethereum a new kind of computing platform for this new class of software (decentralized apps). It's not cloud computing because Ethereum itself is decentralized (like aether, get it?). That's why its founder, Vitalik Buterin, refers to Ethereum as a "world computer."

To summarize, in just the last few years the world has invented a way to create software services that have no central operator. These services are called decentralized applications and they are enabled with crypto assets that incentivize entities on the internet to contribute resources — processing, storage, computing — necessary for the service to function.

It's worth pausing to acknowledge that this is kind of miraculous. With just the internet, an open protocol, and a new kind of asset, we can instantiate networks that dynamically assemble the resources necessary to provide many kinds of services.

And there are a lot of people who think this model is the future of all software, the thing that will finally challenge the FANG stocks and venture capital to boot.

But I'm not one of them. Because there's a problem.

It's not at all clear yet that decentralized applications are actually useful to most people relative to traditional software.

Simply put, you cannot argue that for everyone Bitcoin is better than PayPal or Chase. Or that for everyone Filecoin is better than Dropbox or iCloud. Or that for everyone Ethereum is better than Amazon EC2 or Azure.

In fact, on almost every dimension, decentralized services are worse than their centralized counterparts:

• They are slower
• They are more expensive
• They are less scalable
• They have worse user experiences
• They have volatile and uncertain governance

And no, this isn't just because they are new. This won't fundamentally change with bigger blocks, lightning networks, sharding, forks, self-amending ledgers, or any other technical solutions.

That's because there are structural trade-offs that result directly from the primary design goal of these services, beneath which all other goals must be subordinated in order for them to be relevant: decentralization.

Remember that "elaborate and expensive competition" I described? Well, it comes at the cost of throughput. Remember how users need to "cryptographically sign" their transaction announcements? Well, those private keys need to be held onto much more securely than a typical password (passwords can be recovered). Remember how "no single entity operates" these networks? The flip side is that there is no good way to make decisions or govern them.

Sure, you can make decentralized applications more efficient and user friendly by, for example, centralizing users' cryptographic signing keys (i.e., control of their coins) with a trusted entity. But then we're mostly back to square one and would be better off using a service that is centralized.

Thus, bitcoin, for example, isn't best described as "Decentralized PayPal." It's more honest to say it's an extremely inefficient electronic payments network, but in exchange we get decentralization.

Bottom line: centralized applications beat the pants off decentralized applications on virtually every dimension.

EXCEPT FOR ONE DIMENSION.

And not only are decentralized applications better at this one thing, they are the only way we can achieve it.

What am I referring to?

Censorship resistance.

This is where we come to the elusive signal in the noise.

Censorship resistance means that access to decentralized applications is open and unfettered. Transactions on these services are unstoppable.

More concretely, nothing can stop me from sending Bitcoin to anyone I please. Nothing can stop me from executing code on Ethereum. Nothing can stop me from storing files on Filecoin. As long as I have an internet connection and pay the network's transaction fee, denominated in its crypto asset, I am free to do what I want.

(If Bitcoin is capitalism distilled, it's also a kind of freedom distilled. Which is why libertarians can get a bit obsessed.)

And for readers who are crypto enthusiasts and don't want to take my word for it, will you at least listen to Adam Back and Charlie Lee?

So while we can't say "for everyone Bitcoin is better than Visa," it is possible that for some cohort of users Bitcoin truly is the only way to make a payment.

More generally, we can ask:

For whom is this the right trade-off?

Who needs censorship resistance so much that they are willing to trade away the speed, cost, scalability, and experience benefits of centralized services?

To be clear, I'm not saying you have to make this trade-off in order to buy/speculate on crypto assets. I am saying that in order for decentralized applications themselves to have utility to some cohort, that cohort must be optimizing for censorship resistance.

So, who are these people?

While there is not a lot of good data, actual users of decentralized applications seem to fall into two categories:

1. People who are off the grid: that is, in countries where access to competently operated traditional services is limited (for any number of reasons) but where internet is not
2. People who want to be off the grid: that is, people who don't want their transactions censored or known

With that framework in mind we can ask:

• For whom is Bitcoin the best/only way to make a payment?
• For whom is Filecoin the best/only way to store a file?
• For whom is Ethereum the best/only way to compute code?

These are the questions that get at the heart of the value proposition of the technology.

So far, most decentralized applications have very little use relative to traditional services. Bitcoin, for example, has fewer mainstream merchants accepting it as a payment option in the U.S. today than in 2014. And for all the talk of Bitcoin's value as a payments system in developing countries or emerging markets like China, it is traditional software (i.e., apps) like AliPay and Paytm that are actually driving sweeping change in these places.

At the same time, use of Bitcoin on the dark web and for ransomware is evident, even if it is hard to get good data.

But aren't people using Bitcoin as a "store of value?" Sure, which is just another way of saying people are investing in Bitcoin with a longish time horizon. But remember I'm not talking about investing in the crypto asset yet. I'm talking about whether there are people who find a decentralized application for payments (which is enabled by that asset) useful. Real estate is only a good store of value in the long run if people live and work in the buildings. The same is true of decentralized applications.

What should we make of Ethereum evaluated through the "censorship resistance" lens? After all, it seems to be getting a ton of use by developers. Since Ethereum is a developer platform for decentralized applications, does that mean it is developers who have been censored or blocked somehow? In a way, yes. Developers and start-ups who wish to build financial products do not have open and unfettered access to the world's financial infrastructure. While Ethereum doesn't provide access to that infrastructure, it does provide a different infrastructure that can be used to, for example, create and execute a financial contract.

Since Ethereum is a platform, its value is ultimately a function of the value of the applications built on top. In other words, we can ask if Ethereum is useful by simply asking if anything that has been built on Ethereum is useful. For example, do we need censorship resistant prediction markets? Censorship resistant meme playing cards? Censorship resistant versions of YouTube or Twitter?

While it's early, if none of the 730+ decentralized apps built on Ethereum so far seem useful, that may be telling. Even in year 1 of the web we had chat rooms, email, cat photos, and sports scores. What are the equivalent killer applications on Ethereum today?

So where does this leave us?

Given how different they are from the app models we know and love, will anyone ever really use decentralized applications? Will they become a critical part of the economy? It's hard to predict because it depends in part on the technology's evolution but far more on society's reaction to it.

For example: until relatively recently, encrypted messaging was only used by hackers, spies, and paranoids. That didn't seem to be changing. Until it did. Post-Snowden and post-Trump, everyone from Silicon Valley to the Acela corridor seems to be on either Signal or Telegram. WhatsApp is end-to-end encrypted. The press solicit tips through SecureDrop. Yes, the technology got a little better and easier to use. But it is mainly changes in society that are driving adoption.

In other words, we grew up in the rainforest, but sometimes things change and it helps to know how to adapt to other environments.

And this is the basic argument that the smart money is making on crypto assets and decentralized applications: that it's simply too early to say anything. That it is a profound change. That, should one or more of these decentralized applications actually become an integral part of the world, their underlying crypto assets will be extremely valuable. So might as well start placing bets now and see how it goes. Don't get to hung up on whether we see the killer apps yet.

That's not a bad argument and I tend to agree.

I would summarize the argument as: in the long-run, a crypto asset's value is driven by use of the decentralized application it enables. While it's early, the high valuations are justified because even if the probability of mass adoption is small, the impact would be very large, so might as well go along for the ride and see what happens.

But how do we explain the recent mania?

Bitcoin is up 5x in a year, Ethereum is up 30x. The total market cap of all cryptocurrencies is ~$175B, up from $12B just a year ago. Why?

As in every mania in history, it is currently rational to be irrational.

To understand what's going on, let's look at the buyer and seller mentality right now, starting with the buyers.

If you invested early in Bitcoin or Ethereum, you are sitting on a windfall. It feels like you are playing with "house money," a well-known psychologicaleffect. You feel smart and willing to risk more than you otherwise would if it was "your money." Might as well diversify a bit and parlay your gains into the next crypto asset, or two, or three.

If you didn't invest, the fear-of-missing-out continues to build until the "screw it" moment when you buy in. Maybe you read about Bitcoin, didn't understand it, and followed Warren Buffet's (good) advice not to invest in things you don't understand. Some of your friends made money but you still ignored it. Then you read about Ethereum, which you really didn't understand, also passed on buying, and later found out that your friends are planning to retire because they did. The lesson seems to be anti-Buffet: only invest in things you don't understand. This is causing people to check their judgement at the door when the latest all-time high finally convinces them to jump into the market.

And that is not good.

Because there will be sellers to fill the demand, especially the demand coming from people who have decided they will never understand this stuff so will just place bets on things that sound complex and impressive.

Let's think about these sellers. And by sellers, I don't mean people selling their holdings of existing crypto assets. I mean new issuers. Teams launching new crypto assets.

The basic model is to pre-sell some percentage of the crypto assets the proposed network will generate as a way to fund the development of the decentralized application before it launches. The project founders tend to hold on to some percentage of these assets. Which means that raising money for a project this way is a) non-dilutive as it is not equity and b) not debt, so you never have to pay anyone back. This is basically free money. It's never been this good for entrepreneurs, even in the 90s dot-com boom. Which makes it incredibly tempting to try and shoe-horn every project that could perhaps justify an "initial coin offering" to go for it, even if they aren't actually building a decentralized application. After all, an ICO lets you exit before you even launch.

And there is a pervasive narrative out there that supports entrepreneurs looking to create new crypto assets. The idea is that by selling assets to users before your network launches, you create "evangelists" who will be early users and promoters you wouldn't otherwise have if there were no financial incentive to participate in your community.

The problem with this line of thinking is that it conflates early investors with early users. The overlap between people who buy your crypto asset and people who actually want to use the service you are building is likely very, very small, especially during market manias like this one. It creates a false sense of "product-market fit." Yes, people are buying your crypto asset. But that's because the "market" are people who want to get rich and the "product" you are selling is a "way to get rich."

But "this is fine."

Everyone's making money. For now.

It's currently rational to be irrational.

As long as that blue line keeps going up.

Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked.

At the same time, I wouldn't bet against crypto assets.

He who lives by the crystal ball will eat shattered glass.

Consider the following. The total market cap of crypto assets has been increasing by an order of magnitude every few years. Where will they be in 2022? It's certain that many (most?) of the crypto assets launching today won't make it. But neither did most of the ones that were launched back in the 2013/4 boom (when they were referred to as "alt coins"). Though an important alt coin from 2014 did stick around and drove the most recent boom to new heights by being the platform to power all the others: Ethereum.

So, Jamie, what's the bottom line?

Allow me to summarize.

• Cryptocurrencies (which I prefer to call crypto assets) are a new asset class that enable decentralized applications
• Decentralized applications enable services we already have today, like payments, storage, or computing, but without a central operator of those services
• This software model is useful to people who need censorship resistance which tend to be people that are either off the grid or who want to be off the grid
• Most everyone else is better off using normal applications because they are 10x better on every other dimension, at least for now
• Society's embrace or rejection of new technology is hard to predict (think about encrypted messaging)
• In the long-run, the value of a crypto asset will rise and fall in proportion to the use of the decentralized application it enables
• In the short-run, there will be extreme volatility as FOMO competes with FUD, confusion competes with understanding, and greed competes with fear (on both the buyer side and the issuer side)
• Most people buying into crypto assets have checked their judgement at the door
• Many sellers of new crypto assets aren't actually building decentralized applications but are instead shoe-horning an ICO into their service because of the market mania; that doesn't mean decentralized applications are bad, it just means people are capitalizing on the confusion and are probably themselves confused
• Don't bet against crypto assets in the long-run: as we approach the 10 year anniversary of the Bitcoin paper it is clear that they aren't going anywhere and that decentralized applications may very well find an important place alongside all the other forms of organization we have come to take for granted.

Best,
Adam

p.s. — You may have noticed that I didn't use the word "blockchain" in this note. The word now tends to confuse more than enlighten.

p.p.s  —  There is another, related market I didn't talk about: cryptographic ledgers for the enterprise. My perspective on that is here.

SEE ALSO: 97% of all bitcoins are held by 4% of addresses

DON'T MISS: Paying taxes on bitcoin isn't nearly as hard as it sounds

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NOW WATCH: A certified financial planner explains just how risky of an investment bitcoin is

Bitcoin is back around $14,000 and could be in for a phase of rangebound trading as the markets come to terms with regulatory noises from South Korea.

• The US Census Bureau recently released population estimates for the 50 states and DC.
• The release included data on how many people moved into and out of each state.
• The Northeast and Midwest tended to have more people move out than move in, while the South and West tended to have the opposite.

The US Census Bureau recently released its 2017 population estimates for each of the 50 states and Washington DC. In addition to data on how state populations grew or shrank overall between 2016 and 2017, the Bureau also included information on the components of population change.

One of those components is net domestic migration, or the number of people who moved into a state from another state, minus the people who moved out of that state. Unlike other parts of population change like natural change from births and deaths or international migration, domestic migration is by definition zero-sum: Everyone who moves to a state from another state leaves their state of origin.

Northeastern and Midwestern states tended to lose population to domestic migration, as more people moved out than moved in. Meanwhile, Western and Southern states mostly saw gains from other parts of the country. That is consistent with population migration trends in the US that go back decades.

Here's each state's net domestic migration between July 1, 2016 and July 1, 2017, adjusted for the state's 2016 population:

SEE ALSO: If you can solve one of these 6 major math problems, you'll win a $1 million prize

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NOW WATCH: Why bitcoin checks all the boxes of a bubble

• Goldman Sachs has formulated a strategy for earnings season that has provided outsized returns for the past two decades.
• It involves the purchase of options straddles that are cheap relative to history, and capture a company's earnings period.
• The firm provides a list of 20 well-positioned companies, including Netflix, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Wells Fargo.

Earnings season is upon us, and if Wall Street forecasts are to be believed, it should be a joyous occasion for stock investors.

But if you really want to crush it, Goldman Sachs has a strategy for you — one that's been a true money-maker for more than two decades.

It centers around buying options straddles, which involves the purchase of both call and put contracts. If a company's stock price moves up dramatically, a trader can use the call option to buy shares at a big discount, while if the price drops far enough, the put option will instead turn a profit.

And that's just part of it. Goldman isn't recommending any old straddles — it's only interested in those that both capture an earnings period, and are also cheap relative to past moves.

The strategy goes as follows: if the closest listed at-the-money straddle for a stock is less expensive than it has been historically, buying it five days before earnings and closing it the day after has produced an average return on premium of 24%. That dwarfs the 2% return for the entire universe of stocks.

As the chart below shows, the price of cheap straddles is even lower than usual heading into this earnings season:

With that established, Goldman has gone a step further and identified 20 stocks whose straddles are attractively priced for their upcoming earnings reports. Here are two specific options trades Goldman recommends, followed by a list of the other 18 companies:

1) Buy IBM (IBM) January $165 straddles — It captures the company's upcoming earnings report and an additional six trading days, but costs 20 basis points less than the amount the stock has moved over the past eight quarters.

2) Buy Microsoft (MSFT) weekly $88 straddles expiring on February 2 — This allows an investor to position for a possible spike in earnings volatility expectations. It also costs just 0.2% more than the average over the past eight quarters, despite capturing 16 extra days.

And the 18 other stocks for which Goldman Sachs says it's worth pursuing similar straddle strategies:

• Wynn Resources (WYNN)
• Royal Caribbean Cruises (RCL)
• Edwards Lifesciences (EW)
• Yelp (YELP)
• eBay (EBAY)
• Bank of New York Mellon (BK)
• Kinder Morgan (KMI)
• Akamai Technologies (AKAM)
• Netflix (NFLX)
• Hasbro (HAS)
• FireEye (FEYE)
• Corning (GLW)
• Xilinx (XLNX)
• CSX (CSX)
• Procter & Gamble (PG)
• Wells Fargo (WFC)
• TransDigm (TDG)
• Las Vegas Sands (LVS)

SEE ALSO: An infamous mystery trader refuses to give up on a bet that the stock market will go nuts

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JPMorgan Chase is expected to release the results from its fourth quarter at 7 am Friday.

JPMorgan is the first of the big banks to report in what is expected to be a unconventional earnings cycle for the industry, mostly on account of the late-arriving tax reform that has caused many banks to book losses on deferred tax assets that declined in value.

JPMorgan is expected to take a one-time hit of $2 billion in the fourth quarter from the new tax law, equivalent to $0.57 per share.

Nonetheless, Wall Street analysts are expecting the investment bank to report earnings of $1.69 per share.

Here's what else analysts will be looking for:

• Fourth-quarter revenue of $25.5 billion
• Net income of $5.9 billion
• How much will tax reform ultimately cost the bank in the fourth quarter, and any guidance on longer-term impacts.
• Any early signs of impact from the newly implemented European regulatory reform known as MiFID II.
• Trading has suffered all year, how much will revenues drop in the fourth quarter?
• On the retail side, how's profitability from the uber-popular Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card coming along?

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Hey, good morning! We've just crowned the best in show at CES 2018. Capping off our third day of coverage at the tech show, we also heard how Kodak is getting into bitcoin and, naturally, continue our reportage on the best new tech to be found in Las...

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Ukrainian authorities have formed a working group comprised of major government watchdogs, authorities and the central bank to introduce ‘comprehensive regulation’ of the cryptocurrency sector. A statement released by Ukraine’s security council yesterday reveals a prolonged discussion on the advent of cryptocurrencies in Ukraine during a meeting centered on matters related to the security and

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• Peer-to-peer crypto contract trading platform BitMEX says it has notional daily trading volume of more than $1 billion on its platform.
• CEO Arthur Hayes told BI he "absolutely" has interest from venture capitalists but he is not interested.
• "The mining firms, the trading platforms — they don't need VC money," he said.

LONDON — The CEO and founder of a Hong Kong-based bitcoin platform says he has no interest in taking an venture capital investment, despite interest from funds.

Arthur Hayes, the founder of BitMEX, a peer-to-peer platform for trading cryptocurrency derivatives, told Business Insider he has "absolutely" had interest from VC funds looking to invest.

BitMEX lets people trade cryptocurrency derivative contracts such as futures with other investors. Founded in 2014, the company is registered in the Seychelles but has operations in Hong Kong and the US.

BitMEX offers leverage of up to 100x on its bitcoin futures products and Hayes says billions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency are being traded on the platform every day.

"In December of last year, we did $2 billion of notional trading per day on our platform," said Hayes, a Wharton graduate who worked for Deutsche Bank in Hong Kong before setting up BitMEX. "It's down a bit in January but we're still in the $1 billion+ notional traded per day."

BitMEX only accepts bitcoin as collateral and charges a fee of 0.05% for trades placed on its platform and Hayes confirmed that BitMEX charges fees on the notional values traded, suggesting revenues of at least $500,000 per day.

"We're doing OK," Hayes said when asked how much BitMEX is making. "We're not doing as well as some of the other exchanges that charge higher fees but its definitely a profitable business."

The huge volume, the bulk of which comes from North Asia, has understandably attracted attention from investors.

"When we need the VCs the most they didn't want to be associated with bitcoin or cryptocurrencies," Hayes told BI. "Now that all of these platforms are making all of this money, all the VCs all of a sudden need to have a bitcoin or crypto strategy."

BitMEX was funded by "a very small amount of friends and family money via some convertible note structures," Hayes said, and he has no desire to take any outside investment.

"Unless there are some strategic reasons to do so [take outside money], most of what I see is a bunch of people who have money but have no other thing to add but some money," he told Business Insider. "If you don't need money, then you really have no value as an investor. You just create more work and you have more people that are annoying you."

"The mining firms, the trading platforms — they don't need VC money. They're perfectly capable of funding capex and opex from retained earnings."

The company is registered in the Seychelles to take advantage of the lax regulatory environment.

"They don’t have very many restrictions on what you can do, as long as you don’t offer your products to the local citizens," Hayes said.

"If you look around a lot of online FX trading houses are located in the Seychelles. And then obviously, strong corporate secrecy and no corporate tax. There’s a lot of benefits. And English common law — so proper, internationally recognised, codified contract law,” he added.

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• Anxiety over pay and economic security is widespread, according to a report by think tank the Royal Society of Arts. 
• Inflation is higher than wage growth, meaning a fall in real wages. Employment is no longer a guarantee of economic security, the report said.
• Falling real wages comes at a time of Brexit uncertainty and concerns about automation, despite record levels of employment. 

LONDON — Anxiety over future pay prospects and living standards is widespread throughout the UK, according to a new report by think tank the Royal Society of Arts (RSA).

Four out of five working people are worried that inflation will mean a drop in their real wages in the future, the RSA found. Despite record levels of employment, fears about inflation, against a backdrop of increasing economic inequality, Brexit uncertainty and fears over increasing automation means workers feel economically insecure, the report said.

"Having a job is no longer a guarantor of economic security: more than seven million people in working households live in poverty, wage growth lagged behind inflation for most of the last decade, and close to eight million people in the UK live with problem debt," Atif Shafique, a senior researcher at the RSA, told the Guardian.

"Ten years after the crash, and we need a step change. Community, place, identity and personal responsibility all have an important role to play," he said.

Between 2008 and 2014 inflation outstripped pay, causing real wages to fall. Although this was reversed in 2015 and 2016, last year saw a renewed fall in real wages following the Brexit referendum and drop in the value of the pound. Inflation, which was at 0.5% in June 2016, rose to 3.1% in November 2017. Meanwhile, wage growth was 2.4% in October 2017.

Since the 2008 financial crisis, employment has not been a guarantee of economic security, warned Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the RSA.

In September last year, the TUC found private sector employers were sticking to a 2% ceiling on nominal pay increases, in contrast to the 4% norm that had prevailed before 2008. Part of the problem, it said, was insecurity at work, meaning that workers are less willing to demand higher pay.

This year, the Institute for Fiscal Studies found the increase in the National Living Wage — which is set to rise from £7.20 per hour for the over 25s to £8.56 by 2020 — may inadvertently incentivise employers to automate jobs as they try to control labour costs.

The RSA's report is based on a survey of more than 2,000 adults.

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NOW WATCH: A crypto expert explains the difference between the two largest cryptocurrencies in the world: bitcoin and Ethereum

• Japanese bank Nomura sees a 25% chance of a second Brexit referendum.
• Were a second referendum to be called, the pound could climb as high as $1.40, it's highest level since the day before the vote.
• The prospect of a second vote has come to the fore in recent days after Nigel Farage, one of the architects of Brexit, said he believed there is now an argument to say one should be held.

LONDON — The pound could climb as much as 4% to trade at 1.40 against the dollar if a second Brexit referendum is announced within the next year, analysts at Japanese bank Nomura said.

Talk of a second referendum — long favoured by Remain backers — has come to the fore in recent days after Nigel Farage, one of the architects of Brexit, said he believed there is now an argument to say one should be held.

"Maybe I am reaching the point of thinking we should have a second referendum on EU membership," Farage said during a TV appearance on Thursday.

Estimates from Nomura's UK economics team, led by George Buckley, suggest that sterling would pop up to around $1.40 (still around 5-6% lower than pre-referendum) should a second vote be announced.

"We assume that if a second referendum were to be announced, the market would conclude, like us, that ‘Remain' would have a good chance of winning," the team writes, pointing to the chart below:

"In terms of GBP/USD we would look for a move into the 1.40s on the back of a second referendum."

Nomura's team is keen to caveat their forecast with the argument that they see just a 25% chance of a second vote, arguing that Farage's intervention hasn't "materially increased" the likelihood of one happening.

"In any event, even though we don’t think this intervention has materially increased the chances of a second referendum, it does serve to bring it into the market consciousness," the note says.

"We stick with our view from our year-ahead report in December, namely that 'While our base case is that the UK will leave the EU, we see a 25% likelihood that the UK will stay, likely via a second referendum'."

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• Minister met to discuss the future of construction giant Carillion, amid fears the struggling firm is approaching collapse.
• The company is fighting net debts of more than £900 million, following a crisis sparked in July last year when it issued a profit warning.
• As well as employing 19,500 people in the UK, it is one of the government's biggest contractors.

LONDON — Senior ministers met on Thursday to discuss the future of construction giant Carillion, amid fears the struggling firm is approaching collapse.

The FT reported that Cabinet Office minister David Lidington met more than 10 ministers on Wednesday including business secretary Greg Clark, transport minister Jo Johnson, and chief secretary to the Treasury Liz Truss.

The scale of the meeting reflects the huge implications that the collapse of Carillion, one of the government's biggest contractors, would have on the UK economy and wider public services.

As well as employing 19,500 people in the UK, it is one of the main contractors for HS2, the government's flagship infrastructure project, and provides services for schools, the armed forces, and road projects for the Highways Agency.

The government would have to negotiate new contracts for all those services should collapse.

The company was once valued above £2 billion but is now fighting net debts of more than £900 million, following a crisis sparked in July last year when it issued a profit warning, suspended its dividend, and said key contracts were not losing money as debt rose.

It is also under investigation by the Financial Conduct Authority over the content of financial statements it issued before July's profit warning.

A further meeting will be held on Friday between Cabinet Office officials, pensions regulators, and Carillion pension scheme trustees to discuss the future of the pension scheme, which has a £590 million deficit, the FT reported.

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NOW WATCH: We talked to Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman about tax reform, Trump, and bitcoin

The post China’s Bitcoin Miners Begin Exodus amid Government Crackdown appeared first on CCN

Some news reports have started to emerge indicating that China may discourage bitcoin mining operations in the country by curbing their access to electricity. The move, however, may not affect all miners as the People’s Bank of China has only laid down a plan affecting a small subset of all mining companies in a meeting

The post China’s Bitcoin Miners Begin Exodus amid Government Crackdown appeared first on CCN

Ripple wants to make the financial system more efficient, not replace it. Its critics think that's all wrong.

Ripple wants to make the financial system more efficient, not replace it. Its critics think that's all wrong.

Bitcoin Core contributor and maintainer Jonas Schnelli is on a mission to make running full nodes easier for non-geeks. Decentralization is at stake.

• Brexit will inevitably have an impact on economies in Europe outside the UK.
• A "group of economic geographers" used complex datasets to try and map the potential impacts Brexit could have on the EU-27 countries.
• Ireland's economy will understandably be worst hit, while Germany and the Netherlands are also at risk.

LONDON — Brexit will damage the British economy. That's something that most respected forecasters and analysts agree on.

There is already clear evidence that the domestic economy has slowed markedly, and faces uncertainty from all corners.

That uncertainty has pushed businesses to delay spending, and inflation caused by the weak pound has made spending more expensive for consumers.

Less clear is the impact Brexit will have on the economies of other countries in the EU, particularly in a hard Brexit scenario where the UK's trading relationship with the bloc fundamentally changes.

In a recent note from the investment bank Jefferies, economists David Owen and Marchel Alexandrovich point to a study by a "group of economic geographers" who used complex datasets to try and map the potential impacts Brexit could have on the EU-27 countries.

According to Owen and Alexandrovich, the study "looks beyond export and import figures which may only scratch the surface of the potential hit, to complicated supply chains at a regional (NUTS-2) level, importantly across the EU-28," creating a reasonably clear picture of the potential economic hit to individual nations.

This hit is quantified in terms of what proportion of each country's GDP is at risk in the event of hard Brexit.

Jefferies' economists then put the data into a chart, which can be seen below:

"The fact that the UK and Ireland come off worst is hardly surprising, nor the hit to the trading hubs of Belgium and the Netherlands. However, of the larger countries in the EU-27 it is Germany that is hit worst, with Italy and Spain impacted a lot less," the economists note.

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NOW WATCH: We talked to Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman about tax reform, Trump, and bitcoin

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

1. Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was "shrewd and mature" and had won the latest standoff with the West over his nuclear and missile programs. "I think that Mr Kim Jong Un has obviously won this round. He has completed his strategic task: he has a nuclear weapon, he has missiles of global reach, up to 13,000 km, which can reach almost any point of the globe," Putin told Russian journalists at a televised meeting.

2. Saudi Arabia has shortlisted New York, London and Hong Kong - singly or in a combination of two or even all three - for the international portion of the listing of national oil company Aramco, two sources with knowledge of the discussions told Reuters. The initial public offering (IPO) will also include the Saudi stock exchange, Tadawul, and is still set for late 2018, the sources said.

3. Asian stocks resumed their ascent on Friday, supported by U.S. earnings optimism and a rise in oil prices while the euro edged higher as the European Central Bank signalled an end to its massive stimulus. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.2%, following two straight sessions of decline.

4. The global airline industry is flashing a positive indicator about the world's economy. According to the International Air Transportation Association, or IATA, the amount of cargo and passengers whizzing through the skies continued to grow strongly in November, a hard economic indicator that suggests the global economic recovery is continuing to build momentum.

5. Donald Trump has cancelled his planned visit to the United Kingdom in February 2018. The US president had been due to open the new American embassy in London, but has pulled out because he is "unhappy about the arrangements and scale of the visit," according to a new report from The Daily Mail.

6. Elon Musk attended a now-notorious Silicon Valley event that has been called a "sex party," his spokesperson told Business Insider. Musk insists he thought it was a "corporate party" and saw no sign of sex when he left at 1 a.m. He spent apparently his time there talking about "technology and building companies."

7. An exchange-traded fund that bets on companies with blockchain technology is set to start trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market on Wednesday January 17, according to a person familiar with the matter. Exchange operator Nasdaq and Reality Shares, an ETF issuer and index provider, unveiled an index in November designed to capture the growth of blockchain technology. The new The Reality Shares Nasdaq Blockchain Economy ETF by Reality Shares will be based on that index and is anticipated to start trading Wednesday, a source told Business Insider.

8. Morgan Stanley on Thursday announced a new class of 153 new managing directors, according to a person familiar with the matter. Of the new promotions, 64% came from the Institutional Securities, Investment Management, and Wealth Management divisions. Ninety-five of the new MDs work in the Americas; 38 in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa; and 20 in Asia. 

9. There's one area of the stock market where trading is even crazier than bitcoin, where big trades can have a sizeable impact on the price of a stock, according to Don Ross, CEO of PDQ Enterprises, operator of CODA Markets, a Chicago-based dark pool. That's US small caps. "Trading small caps can be like 'sticking your hand in a fan to see if it’s running.' You may get your trade done, but you’re likely to be bloodied," Ross said.

10. German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives and Social Democrats (SPD) worked through the night on Thursday to resolve differences on taxes, migration and other issues blocking formation of a new "grand coalition" government. Negotiators had vowed to decide by Friday whether to launch formal coalition talks, but no agreement was in sight around 5:30 a.m., after more than 20 hours of discussions.

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• Quinlan & Associates put out a massive report that should strike fear into the heart of every bitcoin bull.
• The consultancy laid out a bear case for bitcoin that puts it at just $1,800 at the end of 2018.

A Wall Street consultancy is predicting a massive crash in the cryptocurrency market this year.

Quinlan & Associates put out a report Thursday titled "Fool's Gold: Unearthing The World of Cryptocurrency" in which they outline a case for bitcoin dropping to $1,800 by December 2018.

The 156-page report argues that bitcoin's current price near $14,000 is far above what it is worth as both an investment asset, akin to gold, and a payment mechanism. Here's the report:

"As an asset, we valued Bitcoin using a cost of production approach and a store of value approach, resulting in values of USD 2,161 and USD 687 respectively. To value BTC as a currency, we estimated its utilization for both legal, retail transactions payments, as well as payments in the black market. After significant testing, we calculated the price of BTC 1 to be USD 1,780."

At its current valuation, the consultancy concludes bitcoin is a bubble "waiting to burst." If bitcoin is not adopted as payment method, the firm predicts a major bitcoin correction to $1,800 that'll also drag the cryptocurrency market down 70% to $223 billion later this year from its current position above $700 billion.

"‘Despite fulfilling most of the characteristics of a traditional fiat currency, cryptocurrencies are largely being utilized as speculative investment assets, leading to considerable volatility in their value," said Benjamin Quinlan, chief executive and managing partner, in a statement shared with Business Insider.

Here's an illustration of the consultancy's prediction:

The firm's long-term outlook for bitcoin is even more dreary. According to the report, it sees bitcoin trading at just $810 in 2020.

Still, it sees room for growth after the crash for the cryptocurrency market as a whole.

"While we anticipate valuations to decline in the short-term in response to the widespread unwinding of the digital currency space, the price of utility cryptocurrencies is likely to recover and dominate the market in the long-term," the report said.

It expects the cryptocurrency market to rebound — driven by those cryptos with a clear utility — and reach $407 billion by 2020.

This reporter owns a fraction of bitcoin.

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Fried chicken chain KFC Canada is accepting bitcoin for a limited time for a so-called "Bitcoin Bucket."

• Tesla is starting to bring production versions of its mass-market Model 3 electric sedan to retail stores as customer deliveries begin.
• The first ones are showing up at Tesla's California retail locations in the Los Angeles suburb of Century City, and Palo Alto in the San Francisco Bay Area.
• Customer deliveries have begun, but Tesla has encountered some production challenges in the last several months that have prompted delays.
• Tesla says it hopes that putting the Model 3 on display at its stores will give customers a chance to experience the car while they wait to take delivery.

CENTURY CITY, California — Tesla is starting to bring its mass-market Model 3 cars to its retail stores in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area.

The Model 3 is Tesla's first offering in the entry level luxury segment. With customer deliveries officially underway, the company says it wants to give some of its roughly 455,000 reservation-holders and potential customers a chance to see the car in the metal for the first time inside its stores.

Starting Friday, people will be able to sit in the cars, kick the tires, and learn about the features and equipment from Tesla staff, but test drives aren't happening just yet. That's coming later, the company said in a press release.

The first Model 3s will show up at Tesla locations in the Los Angeles area, beginning with its Westfield Century City store.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, you can catch the Model 3 at the Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto.

It's no secret Tesla has encountered some Model 3 production challenges in the early going. It produced only 260 Model 3s out of the projected 1,500 in the third quarter of 2017. And in the fourth quarter, Tesla produced 1,550.

Tesla announced last week that it would slash Model 3 production targets in half for the first quarter of 2018. The company says it expects to crank out 2,500 Model 3 cars per week by the end of Q1 2018, and 5,000 cars per week on the tail end of the second quarter.

Despite the lag, the company set a sales record for 2017, delivering 101,312 Model S and Model X vehicles alone during the year — the first time Tesla crossed the 100,000-vehicles-sold benchmark in 14 years.

SEE ALSO: Tesla's largest US Supercharger station has a plush, private customer lounge in the middle of a folksy California town — take a look inside

DON'T MISS: Tesla's Model 3 deliveries were awful — but the company still set a sales record for 2017

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NOW WATCH: We talked to Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman about tax reform, Trump, and bitcoin

 French tech media company Next INpact just launched an interesting project today. Kimetrak is a simple browser extension that lets you see how your favorite website is tracking you and selling your privacy. The upcoming ePrivacy and GDPR regulations in Europe have been a wake-up call in many ways. Arguably, bitcoin-mining scripts and Spectre Javascript examples have also made people realize… Read More