Coin News

• Elon Musk said on Wednesday he will help pay to fix the water in every house in Flint, Michigan, that has contamination levels above FDA guidelines.

• "Please consider this a commitment that I will fund fixing the water in any house in Flint that has water contamination above FDA levels. No kidding," he said on Twitter.
• On Tuesday, Musk said he had already helped Flint, but didn't elaborate on what he did. 

Elon Musk said on Wednesday he will help pay to fix the water in every house in Flint, Michigan, that has contamination levels above FDA guidelines.

"Please consider this a commitment that I will fund fixing the water in any house in Flint that has water contamination above FDA levels. No kidding," he said on Twitter.

Musk was responding to a Twitter user who said he had been told Musk wouldn't be able to help bring clean water to Flint, whose residents have suffered from lead-poisoned water.

On Tuesday, Musk said he had already helped Flint, but didn't elaborate on what he did. 

Musk had also offered to assist the Thai government when it was attempting to rescue 12 boys and their soccer coach from a cave. Each of the team members and their coach was rescued alive.

Musk sent a child-sized submarine and engineers from two of his companies — SpaceX and The Boring Company — to Thailand, and traveled to the country himself before the rescue was completed, though the submarine was not used in the rescue operation.

On Wednesday, Musk expressed frustration at those who criticized his efforts to help with the rescue, saying it had "shaken my opinion of many people."

"We were asked to create a backup option & worked hard to do so. Checked with dive team many times to confirm it was worthwhile. Now it’s there for anyone who needs it in future. Something’s messed up if this is not a good thing," he said on Twitter.

SEE ALSO: Michigan says it will no longer provide free bottled water for Flint

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: An early investor in Airbnb and Uber explains why he started buying bitcoin in 2009

• Citigroup has hired a quant trading and derivatives exec from Credit Suisse.
• The bank has hired Jeff Berton to lead Citi Investment Strategies (CIS), a global team within the bank's Markets & Securities Services division focused on quantitative index strategies
• Berton will also be the head of exotics trading in North America.
• This is the latest in the rash of moves in equity derivatives, a corner of Wall Street that's become an intense hiring battleground. 

Citigroup has hired a quant trading and derivatives exec from Credit Suisse, the latest in the rash of equity derivatives moves across Wall Street.

Jeff Berton, formerly the head of Quantitative Investment Solutions (QIS) in the Americas at Credit Suisse, is joining Citi to run a similarly focused unit on a global scale, according to people familiar with the matter. 

Berton will lead Citi Investment Strategies (CIS), a global team within the bank's Markets & Securities Services division focused on quantitative index strategies, and he'll also be the head of exotics trading in North America, the people said. 

Spokesmen for Citi and Credit Suisse declined to comment. Berton could not be reached for comment. 

Prior to joining Credit Suisse in 2016, Berton worked at JPMorgan Chase, where he started his career in 2003, according to FINRA records. 

Competition for equities talent has been fierce in 2018 amid a rebound in volatility that has revived banks' stock-trading businesses, a trend that has been epitomized by the equity derivatives sector.

Equity derivatives traders have become the focus of an intense Wall Street hiring battleground, with more than 40 moves at the level of vice president or higher in equity derivatives in the US this year. Multiple factors are driving the trend, but the catalyst that opened the floodgates was the blowup of the Cboe Volatility Index — known as the VIX — earlier this year, according to industry insiders.

Citi, which underwent a structural reorganization of its equities division earlier this year, in May hired Seok Yoon Jeong, formerly of JPMorgan Chase, as its head of flow volatility trading in the Americas. 

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: An early investor in Airbnb and Uber explains why he started buying bitcoin in 2009

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

Crypto exchange WEX – formerly known as BTC-e – saw its BTC/USD market spike to nearly $9,000 on Wednesday.

The bitcoin price has been largely flat on Wednesday, rising approximately one-half-of-one percent on the global markets. At one Singapore-based exchange, however, the flagship cryptocurrency is soaring by thousands of dollars — and critics are sounding the alarm. The exchange in question is World Exchange Services, better known by its acronym, WEX, where the bitcoin

The post Bitcoin Prices Broaches $9,000 on Crypto Exchange WEX; Critics Cry Foul appeared first on CCN

• Jeffrey Wernick is an independent investor whose portfolio includes early holdings in Uber and Airbnb. Wernick was also an early investor in bitcoin. He started buying it in 2009, the year it was created.
• Wernick's initial interest in bitcoin was not just speculation that the price would rise. He believes bitcoin's value comes from its ability to solve the biggest problems with fiat money.
• Wernick believes the ability to run large deficits and debase the currency changes the relationship between the government and its citizens. He believes it gives the government the ability to do things without the consent of the people.
• Wernick says bitcoin solves these problems because it is a "people's currency, it's defined by the people, and it's defined by rules and a protocol that people trust."

Jeffrey Wernick is a hard money advocate and an independent investor. His angel investment portfolio includes early holdings in Uber and Airbnb. Wernick serves on the advisory boards of DataWallet and Qtum. He started his career at Salomon Brothers and the National Bank of Detroit. Wernick founded, then sold, the risk management firm AVI Portfolio Services Company, Inc. before focusing on his private investment portfolio. Following is a transcript of the video.

Sara Silverstein: We've been good friends since 2010 and ever since I've known you, you've been telling me to buy bitcoin. When did you actually buy bitcoin?

Jeffrey Wernick: I initially acquired bitcoin in 2009.

Silverstein: Wow, so the first year that it was around?

Wernick: Yes.

Silverstein: And what made you think that bitcoin was going to be the future?

Wernick: Well, that has to go back prior to bitcoin itself, and really with my first interest in hard money. My interest with hard money really began in 1971 when Nixon suspended convertibility of dollars into — gold into dollars. In I think August of '70 — of 1971, I was someone as a — young, as someone in junior high, high school, and actually in elementary school, I became, very kind of, obsessed with the Constitution, the initial period, and prior to the Constitution, the Articles of Confederation, some of the debates during the Constitution between the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists, and the debates between Hamilton and Jefferson regarding the national bank, and also within the Constitution, there was a specific definition of the dollar in terms of gold and silver. So when that link was officially terminated in 1971, my belief was, and I was only 15 years old at the time, that that would cause a debasement of our currency, where we'd have high inflation and that's when Connally famously said that it's our currency, but their problem, to Europe. And it's also when Simon and Kissinger went to meet with the Saudis and began the petrodollars.

So we had to create another reason for people to hold dollars, since we couldn't do it through good monetary fiscal policy, we'd do through force by basically having the all of oil invoice in dollars, so that way, central banks would not — they would basically collateralize by oil rather than gold. So that began the terms of when we had a period of high inflation and complete debasement of our currency, and I became very, very interested in basically a strong currency for multiple reasons. Because what was one of the reasons that drove that was we began to have the periods of deficit finance.

So throughout our history, we basically had run a reasonably balanced budget and a reasonably small government, and now we were at war, we had the welfare state, and we started running big deficits, and debasing our money. So I thought that it was changing the relationship between the citizen and the governed, and who governs us. And I much prefer when a government gets the consent of the people for whatever it does, and the consent means, "I want to spend this money. Will you pay the taxes to support this spending?" And I think that builds a much better relationship than one where the government says, "I'm going to spend whatever I spend, but don't worry about it. I'm going to borrow money and I'm going to run a monetary policy, that'll mean don't ever worry about, you ever thinking that you'll ever have to pay this debt off, it's all a game anyway." So that basically has ended the relationship. Now the government can do a lot of things without the consent of the people, because as long as the people don't have to pay for it, they feel that they're less interested in it.

Now the government can do a lot of things without the consent of the people, because as long as the people don't have to pay for it, they feel that they're less interested in it.

So initially my interest in it was not just economic, it was also an issue of the fact of what would foster a good relationship between citizens and the government. And if the government doesn't — and if the government debases its money, what should a citizen have the right to do to preserve itself when the government is acting not in the citizen's best interest? So I became very, very interested in the issues of money, and that's also why I chose to study at the University of Chicago, because you wanted to go to school where...  where monetary economics, you know, Milton Friedman was there, and the monetarists, and the quantity theory of money.

So I became very, very interested in gold and monetary theory. And I was very anti-Keynesian and very anti — against governments trying to manipulate and manage aggregate demand. When I got to Chicago, though, I got disappointed, because ultimately I saw at U of Chicago, they also liked to manage aggregate demand, they just thought fiscal policy was less effective than monetary policy. And so I was very disappointed with the fact of, one is I really didn't support independent central bank. I don't support central banking to begin with, but if we're going to have central banking, I'd rather have it accountable to society than a completely unaccountable, you know, run by technocrats. For people that espouse limited government, it's sort of like, weird to have a central bank that's not accountable to anybody or anything. So for me, Friedman's support of an independent central bank seemed very inconsistent with his, quote, libertarian rhetoric. So I think, ultimately, central banking is what's enabled governments to grow as much as they have because they enable governments to spend with absolutely no discipline involved.

Silverstein: And what problem with money does cryptocurrency solve for you?

Wernick: I think that with respect to — there's several issues with money that crypto solves. I think first is: Who issues it? Okay, it's decentralized. So right now, nobody knows who Satoshi is, so essentially there's no author. We were delivered a protocol and we were delivered a protocol with incentives for people to produce it. And the people who produce it, produce it just based upon the design that incentivizes them to produce it. And the incentive mechanism is so well designed up to now, even though I know some people are concerned about some level of concentration, that it has avoided the double spending problem that, essentially, it can't be — it hasn't been counterfeited. So nobody's been able to go in and counterfeit a digital currency yet.

So we have a currency that can't be counterfeited, that we kind of know the rules under which how it’s created, and we know there's a hard budget constraint in how many are gonna be issued. And its distribution through the system is not determined by any authority.

So it's a people's currency, it's defined by the people, and it's defined by rules and a protocol that people trust.

So it's not like somebody says, "If I need to have economic growth, I'm going to give this institution money, and they're going to transmit it to a certain universe of people." Okay, that ultimately, everybody has the same access to it at any point in time, just different units of it according to whatever their own personal budget constraints are. But nobody has privileged access to it, except, you could say, maybe the miners who pay to produce it and they take a business risk associated with it and anybody could choose to get into the mining business.

So it's a people's currency, it's defined by the people, and it's defined by rules and a protocol that people trust. And I think in a world where people don't trust anything anymore, that it's good to have protocols that people trust that they control themselves, that are not controlled by third parties.

Join the conversation about this story »

Cryptocurrency values have taken a hit as of late, but movement on the regulatory front has lifted many observers’ spirits. One crypto startup executive believes bitcoin’s price could hit $60,000 this year, despite its dip from a near $20,000 high in December to the $6,000 range. Julian Hosp, co-founder and president of TenX, a crypto

The post Crypto Wallet Founder Believes Bitcoin Could Hit $60,000 This Year appeared first on CCN

• Daimler will launch an autonomous ride-hailing service in California during the second half of 2019, the company announced on Wednesday. 
• The service will operate in Silicon Valley on pre-selected routes, but Daimler did not disclose which city it will use. 
• The ride-hailing service will be free for users during its pilot phase, a Daimler representative confirmed.
• The representative also said the company will use Mercedes-Benz vehicles with human backup drivers for the pilot.
  

Daimler will launch an autonomous ride-hailing service in California during the second half of 2019, the company announced on Wednesday. 

The automaker, which is the parent company of Mercedes-Benz, will team with the auto manufacturer Bosch for the project and use self-driving technology from Nvidia. The service will operate in Silicon Valley on pre-selected routes, but Daimler did not disclose which city it will use. 

The ride-hailing service will be free for users during its pilot phase, a Daimler representative confirmed. The representative also said the company will use Mercedes-Benz vehicles with human backup drivers for the pilot.

Daimler will also test a fleet of autonomous vehicles outside of the ride-hailing service.

Daimler and Bosch announced a partnership to work on self-driving vehicles in April 2017. Daimler provides test vehicles and facilities, which Bosch makes self-driving hardware. The companies plan to have self-driving technology ready for mass production by 2020. Nvidia will provide an artificial intelligence platform and software for the vehicles.

Michael Hafner, Daimler's head of automated driving, said safety is a priority for its autonomous driving program.

"Safety has the highest priority, and is the constant theme of all aspects and development stages on our way to the start of series production. If in doubt, thoroughness comes before speed," he said in a press release.

Daimler will join a handful of other tech and automotive companies that plan to debut autonomous ride-hailing services this year and next. Google's Waymo plans to launch an autonomous ride-hailing service in Phoenix by the end of this year, and General Motors' Cruise plans to do so in 2019. Jalopnik has reported that Cruise will locate its service in San Francisco.

Uber had planned to launch an autonomous ride-hailing service in 2019 before one of its self-driving vehicles hit and killed a pedestrian in Arizona in March. The company stopped testing autonomous cars on public roads after the incident, but plans to resume testing this summer after finishing a review of its self-driving program.

Ride-hailing services allow companies to restrict the areas where their autonomous vehicles can drive so they can avoid challenging features like snow and poorly marked roads.

SEE ALSO: We visited a Tesla showroom and a Mercedes-Benz dealership — here are the biggest differences between the two

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: An early investor in Airbnb and Uber explains why he started buying bitcoin in 2009

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.

UBS analyzed the emotion in 118,000 earnings calls — and the results suggest great news for stocks this earnings season

It's no secret that an upbeat earnings call likely means good things to come for a company's stock.

So UBS set out to analyze the conference call from every S&P 500 company in the US and Europe from every quarter for the past seven years to see just how often this is true. The resulting data set of 367 million words from 118,000 calls signals yet another earnings blowout this season, the bank said after analyzing the emotions behind executives' language in the calls.

"The positive momentum in net sentiment, an 8%+ Q1 earnings surprise and a solid macro backdrop reinforce our US Equity Strategy expectation for a Q2 beat of 3%+ in the US," a team of analysts led by James Arnold said in a note to clients this week. "Furthermore, the trend also reinforces the optimism seen in terms of corporate spending and increased corporate flow through share buybacks, dividends and M&A."

NYSE blasts upstart IEX's claims that it's misleading its listed companies in brutal letter

Just when we thought the war tearing apart Wall Street couldn't get any more heated, it just did.

The New York Stock Exchange has submitted a brutal letter to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, responding to accusations made by IEX in its own comment letter about a pilot that would shake up US stock trading.

The so-called transaction fee pilot would ban exchanges in certain instances from using rebates, which are incentives to lure traders to their venues. Upstart exchange IEX has long-called for the elimination of rebates, but most recently it blasted rival NYSE for calling on its listed companies to urge the SEC to pump the brakes on the pilot.

More here. 

In markets news

• Another signal that Bank of America is watching for a bear market has been triggered, and the countdown is on

• A 2nd person has been charged for allegedly manipulating Fitbit's stock price by announcing a fake acquisition offer
• JPMorgan CEO Dimon issues stark warning about 'catastrophic' events if Italy leaves the euro

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: An early investor in Airbnb and Uber explains why he started buying bitcoin in 2009

• Pharmacy startup Blink Health has a new approach for how it provides discounts to patients paying for prescriptions in cash. 
• After its relationship with pharmacy benefit manager MedImpact soured and major pharmacies left the Blink network, Blink helped set up a new middleman to manage its relationships with pharmacies, called Blue Eagle.
  

For healthcare startup Blink Health, shaking up the prescription drug industry hasn't gone as planned. 

Two of the largest pharmaceutical chains in the US stopped working with Blink in 2017, and its relationship with its biggest business partner soured shortly after.  

New York-based Blink, which provides prescription drug discounts to patients through a free app and has raised $165 million in venture funding, is now taking matters into its own hands.

Blink said on Wednesday it is creating an alternative to large pharmaceutical middlemen known as pharmacy benefit managers, which negotiate drug prices on behalf of health plans and employers. President Donald Trump in May called out the middlemen in the pharmaceutical industry as part of his plan to tackle high drug prices.

The new company, called Blue Eagle, is working in partnership with Blink to manage a network of pharmacies where Blink's discounts can be used. 

"If we were going to create an alternative to the prescription management industrial complex, we needed to create a system that worked for pharmacies, worked for patients, and worked for manufacturers," said Blink CEO Geoffrey Chaiken. 

In the US, patients are feeling the effect of higher drug prices. Health plans with high deductibles —the amount of money paid out of pocket before insurance kicks in — are leaving patients on the hook for close to the full price of a medication. It's led to people paying as much as a mortgage payment for a monthly supply of the live-saving diabetes medication insulin, while others have turned to crowdfunding sites like GoFundMe to cover the cost. As of 2017, there were about 28 million Americans who didn't have health insurance. 

Patients are now looking for discounted cash rates as an alternative to the amount they'd pay under their insurance plan. That's where companies like Blink come in. 

When Blink launched in 2016, users paid for their prescription through the Blink app and received a card, which they could then bring to the pharmacy. The pharmacy would then ring up the card and give the user his or her prescription. At the time, that included more than 60,000 pharmacies. However, in March 2017, Walgreens withdrew itself from Blink's network, meaning patients couldn't use the pre-paid prescriptions at Walgreens pharmacies. In October 2017, CVS pharmacies departed from the Blink network as well.

Blink Health is able to offer discounts by setting up a list of prices with pharmacies that it agrees to pay when a patient fills their prescription using a Blink card. That list of prices and the network of pharmacies that have agreed to it are managed by a pharmacy benefit manager. 

But with the departure of the two largest pharmacy chains from its network, Blink was left in a tricky position. Blink also broke off a relationship with MedImpact, the pharmacy benefit manager it had been working with to connect with pharmacies, leaving Blink's business model in flux. 

Here's how it works

So beginning this year, the company started to make some big charges. 

In March, Blink made a switch to a new benefit administrator, Blue Eagle, which is run by former Express Scripts executives. Blink had a hand in creating Blue Eagle, and officially has a strategic partnership with the organization. 

Blink also hired Susan Lang, the former head of supply chain at Express Scripts, as its chief strategy officer. In addition, Blink has been building up its executive ranks with other pharmaceutical and travel industry veterans including former Kayak chief marketing officer Robert Birge. 

When it comes to lowering prescription costs, there are a number of different approaches startups are taking, from comparing the price at one pharmacy to another nearby, to adding on delivery components.

Blink Health operates a little differently.

• Say you need to pick up a prescription for your medication, but you have a high deductible plan that requires you to pay $3,000 out of your own pocket before your insurance starts picking up the rest of the tab. Instead of going to the pharmacy and accepting whatever price they offer (which can vary from pharmacy to pharmacy), you could download the Blink Health app, or go to the company's website.
• In the app, you can find your prescription and purchase it directly through the app. In return, you get a card with details about the prescription.
• Then, when you get to the pharmacy counter, you show your phone to the pharmacist who rings it up instead, much like how they might ring up your insurance information. Because you've paid through Blink, you don't owe anything at the pharmacy.

Instead of having people shop around for the best price among the pharmacies in their area, Blink Health negotiates to get the same price at different pharmacies for generic medications and some branded diabetes medications. While Walgreens and CVS are no longer options, Chaiken said there are about 35,000 pharmacies — independent pharmacies, pharmacies in grocery store chains, and Walmart — that are part of the Blink network.

To sweeten the deal, if patients are willing to switch their prescriptions, 5,000 pharmacies have a cheaper, "Blink Smart Deal" option. Blink's also introduced a price-match guarantee, in which if patients can find a lower price, Blink will match it. 

It's been a busy year for Blink, on both the business side and legally. 

Litigation between Blink and MedImpact over the breach of contract has been ongoing since November 2017, when Blink filed a complaint alleging that MedImpact allowed major pharmacies including CVS to leave its network. MedImpact denied these allegations in March and filed a counterclaim against Blink. In May, Blink turned up the heat on that lawsuit, alleging the PBM is a "peddler of opioids." Blink in March also filed a $250 million lawsuit against a startup it claims is an "unlawful copycat scheme."

SEE ALSO: Meet the 30 healthcare leaders under 40 who are using technology to shape the future of medicine

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: An early investor in Airbnb and Uber explains why he started buying bitcoin in 2009

We’re hiring a Research Associate to join Business Insider Intelligence’s Fintech team in our London office.

At Business Insider Intelligence, we’re passionate about making market research that industry leaders use to make strategic decisions. To accomplish that goal, we hire great writers with an unrelenting curiosity to uncover the deeper truths in industry news and craft them into compelling narratives on what the future will look like and what companies can do to get there first.

This is a role for someone with 1-3 years of relevant work experience, who is passionate about fintech and loves to write.  

About Business Insider Intelligence

Business Insider Intelligence is Business Insider’s real-time, premium research service focused on digital disruption. We publish market data, trend analysis, and proprietary survey data for executives in many industries.

Desired Skills & Experience

• Ability to quickly sort through masses of data and pull out what really matters to professionals and why

• Ability to write clearly and concisely about data-driven trends, consumer and business-to-business markets, and the larger tech industry

• Diligence and persistence in researching

• Ability to work in a team-oriented, fast-paced, and rapidly-changing environment

• Attention to detail

• Proficiency in MS Excel required

• Solid grounding in business analysis fundamentals

• Strong communication and writing skills

• An interest in data-driven visual storytelling

• Internships in market/consumer research, consulting, tech research, or relevant experience in a similar position is helpful but not required

If this is the right opportunity for you, please apply online and tell us why you're a good fit for the role.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: An early investor in Airbnb and Uber explains why he started buying bitcoin in 2009

• A woman is suing United Airlines for allegedly failing to protect her from being groped on a July 2016 flight from Hong Kong to San Francisco.
• According to the lawsuit, which was filed on July 5 in Denver federal court, plaintiff Anne Maureen Dowling was allegedly touched sexually without her consent three times by Monte Wedl.
• Dowling claims she suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and had to take time away from her job as a result of the incident.
• Wedl was acquitted of criminal assault charges based on Dowling's allegations in 2017.

A woman has filed suit against United Airlines for allegedly failing to protect her from being groped on a July 2016 flight from Hong Kong to San Francisco.

According to the lawsuit, which was filed on July 5 in Denver federal court, plaintiff Anne Maureen Dowling claims she was touched sexually without her consent three times by Monte Wedl. Dowling claims she became concerned about Wedl when he allegedly told a flight attendant he missed his wife and was "horny" after spending two months away from his home. The lawsuit claims Wendl consumed three or four vodka sodas and took Ambien before touching Dowling in a sexual manner on three separate occasions while she was sleeping.

Dowling then asked a flight attendant to move her to a new seat, but the flight attendant "suggested" Dowling return to her original seat and talk to Wedl, according to the lawsuit. After Dowling spoke with the head flight attendant, she was given a new seat in the same row as her original seat, but further away from Dowling, the lawsuit alleges.

According to the lawsuit, Dowling suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and had to take time away from her job as a result of the incident. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages over $75,000.

Wedl was acquitted of criminal assault charges based on Dowling's allegations in 2017, according to the lawsuit.

A United representative told Business Insider the airline was unable to comment on the case.

"We can’t comment on this case because of pending litigation, but safety is our top priority and we’re always looking for more we can do to ensure the safety and security of the hundreds of thousands of people who fly United every day," the representative said.

Here is the filing in its entirety:

SEE ALSO: Mysterious airline fees are costing passengers hundreds of dollars and no one knows what they go to pay for

FOLLOW US: on Facebook for more car and transportation content!

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: An early investor in Airbnb and Uber explains why he started buying bitcoin in 2009

Ripple said today that it will have Kahina Van Dyke, who previously worked at Facebook, as its new senior VP of business and corporate development.

Three of the most respected economists in the world – Kenneth Rogoff, Nouriel Roubini and Joseph Stiglitz – have repeated their past criticisms of bitcoin, saying governments will regulate it “into oblivion” in an effort to fight money laundering and tax evasion. The three, all of whom have criticized bitcoin in the past, now claim

The post Top Economists Stiglitz, Roubini And Rogoff Renew Bitcoin Doom Scenarios appeared first on CCN

• A Morgan Stanley broker who ran Los Angeles-area branches is out amid numerous sexual-harassment claims at branches he managed, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.
• The broker, Robert Perry, is not accused of sexual harassment, according to the report.

A broker leading some of Morgan Stanley's most profitable branches has left the firm amid allegations of sexual harassment at branches he ran, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Robert Perry, who left the investment bank this week after an investigation into his behavior and management style, managed money for high-net-worth Los Angeles-area clients like Elon Musk and Katy Perry, according to the report.

A Morgan Stanley spokeswoman confirmed Perry's departure from the firm.

Perry could not be immediately reached for comment.

Over the course of the past year and a half, numerous women have alleged sexual harassment or workplace hostility at the four branches run by Perry, The Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter and court documents. The Journal said Perry had not been accused of any sexual harassment himself.

Read the full report here>>

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: An early investor in Airbnb and Uber explains why he started buying bitcoin in 2009

Subsequent to a 5 percent drop in a 24-hour span, the bitcoin price has struggled to rebound from the $6,350 mark, despite optimistic momentum indicators. Bearish Trend While bitcoin has broken Relative Strength Index (RSI) trendlines and has demonstrated a neutral zone at 44.3 RSI, the overly strong downtrend of the dominant cryptocurrency led its

The post Bitcoin Price Struggles to Rebound at $6,350 After Big Fall, Corrective Rally Unlikely appeared first on CCN

Litecoin is reporting gains on Wednesday, following news that its foundation has acquired a stake in a German bank.

Oliver Hart won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2016 for his work in contract theory, the study of how contracts and incentives influence decision-making and business relationships. Hart sat down with Business Insider's Sara Silverstein at UBS's Nobel Perspectives Live event in Brooklyn. Hart talks about the rise of blockchain-based smart contracts. He explains that smart contracts don't solve the problems of incomplete contracts that his work is focused on. Following is a transcript of the video. 

Sara Silverstein: You won the Nobel Prize for your work in contract theory. Can you tell me at all about what you think about smart contracts that we're seeing now? Are they gonna revolutionize everything? Do they solve all the problems that you were working on?

Oliver Hart: That's right, they're gonna take the prize away. It's all gonna be irrelevant.

I must admit — first, that I know little about smart contracts. I'm trying to understand more about them as I am about bitcoin, blockchain, all the rest. It's all a bit mysterious. I'm doubtful that it's going to be a cure-all. I mean, it seems that for some things it could be quite useful 'cause it can automate certain things. And so, you know, if I have some sort of insurance contract which says that if a certain event happens then I'm gonna get paid something, then we can sort of make that automatic so it just comes right into my account. I don't have to check on anything or call up the insurance company. So, things like that can certainly help but they're not going to solve — unfortunately the problems I've been particularly concerned with are contracts that are written for the long-term and where people are in long-term relationships and economic relationships and they're trying to anticipate what might happen in the future which is very difficult to do, and write a contract which takes into account these eventualities. They can't do it because the future's very uncertain, many things can happen that we don't really expect, or are able to predict. I don't see how smart contracts are gonna solve that problem. Or to be more concrete, I mean, if we have a long-term economic relationship I think it's important that we're on the same page, we understand each other, if something unexpected comes up we have some reasonable way of dealing with it that makes us both comfortable, happy. I don't — that's much more about communication between us I think, at the time we write the contract than it is about any sort of automated device.

Silverstein: And last question can you give an example of the types of incomplete contracts and the bad incentives that those create?

Hart: I use the example of a power plant that locates next to a coal mine and wants to use the coal to burn to make electricity. And this is a real example — I mean there's empirical work on things like this and the thing is once you've located next to the mine, you really want that relationship to work out, because it's very costly to now ship the coal in from somewhere else. But many things can happen during the course of this relationship so just deciding ahead of time, you know, exactly what kind of coal, how much, how much I should pay you, and all that. Very difficult given that the world's going to be changing. New sources of energy, solar power gonna come along and that's gonna affect the industry but we probably can't anticipate that and write that into the contract. And so later on we may get into some argument about: "I want a different kind of coal," and the question is how much should I pay for it and this can be costly, this kind of argument and distort incentives and, you know ... I don't think a smart — you know — I'd love to see a computer solve that problem, but I think we're some way away from that.

Join the conversation about this story »

All is not lost for the bulls as BTC could create a major bullish reversal pattern over the next few days.

Litecoin Foundation, the non-profit behind the popular cryptocurrency, says it now owns part of a German bank thanks to a new deal with TokenPay.

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.