Latest news with #Atkins'
Yahoo
06-08-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
How Policy, Innovation, and Market Dynamics Are Driving Institutional Crypto M&A
The financial services industry is at a crossroads, with an indisputable trend of financial services moving into crypto. Digital assets built on the blockchain are transforming the financial ecosystem and shaping its future. Digital assets are no longer living on the fringe of the global financial system — they are becoming central to its future and to the movement of value through the capital markets and payments rails. The relatively small size of the crypto market pales to traditional financial markets, belying the enormous opportunity for digital assets and their growth trajectory. The total cryptocurrency market cap is approaching $3.8 trillion, approximating one segment of the MSCI World Index and dwarfed by the global market cap for equities, projected to reach $128.07 trillion this year. Yet, the capital markets environment is thriving, evidenced by Circle and eToro IPOs and these notable M&A trends: Partnerships: To deepen digital asset strategies – Kraken / NinjaTrader ($1.5B); Coinbase / Derebit ($2.9B); Ripple / Hidden Road ($1.25B); and JPMorgan Chase linking customers to Coinbase wallets, enabling crypto wallet funding via credit card rewards and direct account funding. Private Equity: To enter new market sectors through a portfolio-based acquisition strategy – Carlyle / SurePay (undisclosed); Bain Capital / Acrisure ($2.1B). Cross-Border Deals: To fortify digital transformation and gain a competitive advantage through broader market reach – Robinhood / Bitstamp ($200M); Swyftx / Caleb & Brown ($100M-200M est.). This activity is being driven by a highly-anticipated shift in policy: Regulatory action by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2024 allowed the inclusion of bitcoin and ether in spot commodity-based ETFs. This action, accompanied by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) clarifying the regulatory framework for options on these ETFs, paved the way for institutional investors to enter the market. In Chairman Atkins' first major policy shift, the SEC inaugurated 'Project Crypto' and approved in-kind redemptions for spot BTC and ETH ETFs, allowing authorized participants to create and redeem ETF shares directly in BTC or ETH. In coordination with 'Project Crypto,' the CFTC Acting Chair Pham has initiated 'Crypto Sprint,' seeking to enable 'immediate trading of digital assets' on CFTC-registered exchanges. Also, the SEC's Division of Corporation Finance stated that liquid staking activities covered in its statement issued yesterday do not involve the offer and sales of securities. Legislative action is taking shape with passage of the GENIUS Act and the CLARITY Act working its way through the Senate. It creates a regulatory framework underpinning 'digital commodities' linked to the blockchain, excluding traditional products (bank deposits, commodities, securities, and investment vehicles) and divides primary regulatory oversight between the CFTC and SEC. Once enacted, regulators will be expected to quickly implement regulations and an interim registration framework. Also, the Senate Banking Committee released a discussion draft of the Responsible Financial Innovation Act to establish a larger role for the SEC than in the Clarity Act in classifying digital assets. The Trump administration heralded a new era for the growth of digital assets, reinforced in a comprehensive policy report released last week by the White House Working Group on Digital Asset Markets, with guidelines and recommendations covering stablecoins, digital asset market structure (including custody, token issuance and trading infrastructure), expanded CFTC regulatory authority and safe harbors for developers. Policy and capital markets activities are aligning. Crypto is no longer on the sidelines, it's becoming core infrastructure for the future of finance. The changes we've witnessed so far this year will undoubtedly lead to a robust finish for 2025.
Hindustan Times
14-06-2025
- Sport
- Hindustan Times
Rhyne Howard hits record-tying 9 treys as Dream down Sky
Rhyne Howard sank a WNBA-record-tying nine 3-pointers and scored a season-high 36 points while leading the Atlanta Dream to an 88-70 victory over the Chicago Sky on Friday in College Park, Ga. Howard, who had 19 long-range attempts, matched the league's single-game trey record held by Kelsey Mitchell , Jewell Loyd and Arike Ogunbowale . Allisha Gray added 15 points while Brionna Jones compiled 13 points and 11 rebounds for Atlanta , which won its sixth game in seven tries. Jordin Canada had 12 points and eight assists in the win. Kamilla Cardoso logged 15 points and nine rebounds for Chicago . Angel Reese had 12 points and nine boards, and Ariel Atkins finished with 12 points. The Sky dropped their third straight game and fell to 1-5 on the road. After trailing by a point at half, Atlanta reclaimed the lead on consecutive 3-pointers by Canada and Howard less than two minutes into the third quarter. Atkins' two free throws gave Chicago a three-point edge with 7:06 left in the third, but Atlanta held the Sky scoreless for nearly five minutes while grabbing a 53-50 lead. Howard's step-back jumper with one second left in the quarter gave Atlanta a 58-54 advantage entering the fourth. An 8-2 spurt to begin the final quarter gave the Dream a 66-56 lead with 8:18 left forcing a Chicago timeout. The run continued after the break with Jones' three-point play and Howard's layup giving the Dream their largest lead to that point at 71-56. After Atlanta took a 15-12 lead into the second quarter, the Sky used a 13-0 run including Rachel Banham's consecutive 3-pointers to take a 31-23 advantage. Atkins' jumper later gave Chicago a five-point edge with 37.4 seconds remaining before Howard's free throws and Gray's mid-range basket in the closing seconds before halftime sliced Atlanta's deficit to 39-38. Reese and Cardoso led Chicago with eight first-half points apiece, while Howard's eight paced Atlanta. Field Level Media
Globe and Mail
24-04-2025
- Business
- Globe and Mail
Michael Saylor Declares New SEC Chair Paul Atkins ‘Is Good for Bitcoin'
Michael Saylor wasted no time calling it. Just two days after Paul Atkins took the helm as U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair, the Strategy (MSTR) CEO dropped a statement on X: 'SEC Chairman Paul Atkins will be good for Bitcoin.' Bitcoin bulls just got a new ally in Washington. Stay Ahead of the Market: Discover outperforming stocks and invest smarter with Top Smart Score Stocks. Filter, analyze, and streamline your search for investment opportunities using Tipranks' Stock Screener. Crypto Leaders Praise Atkins' Appointment Saylor wasn't alone in his optimism. Blue Macellari, head of digital assets at T. Rowe Price, echoed that sentiment in a Bloomberg interview. She noted the SEC's shift in tone since Atkins stepped in, pointing to 'close to six or seven roundtables' with industry professionals. Her take? 'I think that that's gonna feed into the ability to make thoughtful and considerate policies.' Vincent Liu from Kronos Research took it further. Speaking to Cointelegraph, Liu said, 'Under Chair Atkins, finalizing custody rules for digital assets is expected to provide the investor protections that institutions demand.' He added that clarifying whether digital assets are securities or commodities would 'bring much-needed clarity paving the way for the next wave of crypto product innovation.' Critics Question Atkins' Crypto Ties Not everyone is cheering. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren came in swinging during Atkins' confirmation, accusing him of 'staggeringly bad judgment' during his SEC tenure before the 2008 financial crisis. She also took issue with his consulting firm, Patomak Global Partners, which advised FTX before its collapse in 2022. Warren didn't hold back, accusing Atkins of being in a 'prime spot to deliver for all those clients who've been paying you millions of dollars for years.' Liu offered a solution for the brewing conflict. He said, 'To maintain public trust and avoid even the perception of regulatory conflict of interest, it's essential to implement clear guardrails.' That means mandatory disclosures, ethics oversight, and transparent comment periods for all crypto rules. The new SEC chair change is sure to impact crypto sentiment and, in turn, crypto prices. Investors should stay ahead of the curve and monitor market reactions through the TipRanks Cryptocurrency Center.
BBC News
12-04-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Colwyn Bay win JD Cymru North to seal promotion
Colwyn Bay have won the JD Cymru North title to secure promotion back to the JD Cymru went into their final game of the season at Penrhyncoch three points ahead of second placed Airbus UK Broughton and needing only a point to secure the Atkins' first half goal secured a 1-0 win for Bay, who make a swift return to the top-flight after relegation last in the Cymru North, veteran Jamie Reed scored a late goal to secure a 1-0 win for Ruthin Town, who survived at the expense of Bangor 1876.
The Guardian
31-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘My brain reaches for morbidity': inside the unsettling world (and 700 Post-it notes) of artist Ed Atkins
When he was younger and his parents were out of the house, Ed Atkins used to sit on the landing and force himself to imagine all the ways they might die. 'My thinking was that if I imagined it first, then it would be very unlikely to actually happen,' says the 42-year-old artist. Atkins' parents didn't succumb to any of the ways he had invented. But during the final year of his master's course, his father, Philip, was diagnosed with cancer and died six months later, during Atkins' degree show, in 2009. 'It's a huge thing, obviously, losing your father,' says the artist. 'And it started to feed into what I was reading and was interested in. His death, and death generally, is in all of my work.' That fact may not be immediately apparent to those encountering Atkins' work. He has spent the last two decades at the forefront of digital art, creating strange videos that are humorous, creepy – and likely to leave you feeling a little untethered. Atkins likes to inhabit CGI avatars and perform as them. In 2014's Ribbons, he became a bare-chested, tattooed smoker known as Dave with a penchant for singing maudlin Randy Newman songs. In Pianowork 2, from 2023, he took on the role of himself – albeit an uncanny valley version of himself. We watch the virtual Ed trying to pick out the notes of Klavierstück 2, an experimental composition by the Swiss musician Jürg Frey. His sighs, his facial hairs and his pained expressions all appear to be amplified. Atkins' films are often interspersed with poetic soliloquies, cryptic subtitles and intrusive sounds – a burst of tinnitus here, someone farting there. They're both moving and confusing. You're not really supposed to 'get' them, says Atkins. Even he can be unsure of what they mean. What he wants, instead, is to create certain emotional sensations within the viewer – 'a slightly unmoored feeling'. And what could be more unmooring than grief? Atkins' career highlights are about to appear in a survey show at Tate Britain in London. Alongside the digital works will be self-portraits, text pieces, embroideries and a series of Post-it notes he drew on for his daughter's packed lunch boxes during the pandemic. There is also a new work that addresses his dad's death more directly: a two-hour film in which the actor Toby Jones reads aloud the cancer diary Philip wrote during his final months. In the 'beautifully written' journal, Philip discusses fellow patients on his ward, adjusts to life under the care of others and comes to the startling realisation that he had been loved, and that nothing could be more important. 'A lot of weeping and truth,' is how Atkins describes it. 'It's a lot. But it's also universal. Many people are going through that same thing. One of the last lines in the diary is, 'When and how does one begin to think about dying?' That's literally days before he dies. You can never come to terms with it.' People at the very end of life can experience extraordinary clarity. In his final TV interview before he died of pancreatic cancer, the writer Dennis Potter talked about witnessing the 'blossomest blossom'. Atkins hopes he can attain such wisdom before he's dying himself. Perhaps having someone read the diary out loud is an attempt to get there. We meet in Tate Britain's auditorium, a week before the show opens. Atkins – who's wearing a trenchcoat, pinstripe shirt, Adidas three-stripe joggers and a gold hoop in each ear – is extremely affable. But he tends to respond to questions with ideas rather than answers. Talking to him can be like experiencing his art: easy resolutions remain forever out of your grasp. Another way to get to know Atkins is to read his new memoir, Flower. Be warned, however: it is unlike any memoir you've read before – 89 pages long and written as one long paragraph of observations, it reveals its author through a series of likes, anxieties, routines and what he calls 'sexless kinks'. Among other peculiar facts, we learn that Atkins has an inordinately strong bladder, enjoys eating wraps from pharmacies and has a failsafe method for stealing expensive wine from big shops. It can feel thrillingly intimate and honest, even though it is patently absurd. 'Nobody talks about having a strong bladder in their autobiography,' laughs Atkins. 'Not unless their bladder exploded or something. What an insane place to try to find truth! So I was interested in what people qualify as worth telling.' For someone who has long operated behind avatars and technology, Atkins admits that putting this book out there is unnerving, especially as, buried within the stream of mundane information, are morsels of shocking revelation – not least his disordered relationship with food and his hatred of his physical appearance. 'It's hard to say out loud,' he says, tentatively, 'but I don't like my body or the way I look at all. I think about it too much. Some of that is an inheritance, I think, from family stuff.' Was it a struggle to make the self-portraits (his head rendered in red pencil on yellow legal paper, say) that appear in the show? No, he replies. 'What's hard is leaving the hotel this morning. It's got an annoying array of mirrors, so I'm seeing angles of myself where I'm bulging in ways that are just awful. Whereas fastidious attention, trying to capture a bit of razor burn on the cheek, that's really exciting.' He pauses. 'They're going to do photos for this piece in a minute and I will not look at them. I will never look at them.' One thing that does come through in Flower is Atkins' utter adoration for his children (he has a daughter and a son). It's a love so strong not even the memoir's deliberately monotonous and flat tone can mask it. 'A received wisdom is that having children is maybe the end of something,' Atkins says, 'but my best work has all been made since I had children.' Sign up to Art Weekly Your weekly art world round-up, sketching out all the biggest stories, scandals and exhibitions after newsletter promotion Atkins lives with them and his partner in Copenhagen, but he grew up in the village of Stonesfield near Oxford. His mum taught art and his dad was a graphic artist, so it's unsurprising that he displayed a gift for drawing and painting. 'All artists start out because they're good at drawing,' he says, 'and then art school unmoors everything. It takes a long time to get back, if you ever do, to that point of pleasure.' He says having kids helped him get there: 'I love how every gesture that my daughter or son makes on a piece of paper is better than most art, just by dint of its complete freedom.' That's why the 700-odd Post-it notes he drew on for his daughter during lockdown have ended up forming the centrepiece of the show. He never intended these cartoonish missives to go on display, but then he realised: 'It's the thing I can really hang my hat on and say, 'This is me.'' Shortly before this interview, Atkins found himself crying after showing a curator a shot of his son on his phone. Photographs do that to him. 'Maybe this is at the core of some [of the work], the sense of representations being grotesque in relation to the real thing – in relation to a living, beautiful two-year-old.' In Flower, he describes the images he keeps on his phone as pictures of his 'dead children' – a bracing description, given they are very much alive. He says he used that term because looking at flat images of them, when they're not around, makes him spin out. 'My brain immediately reaches for this horrible morbidity: what if they're dead? Even the presence of a phone in my pocket makes me worry it's about to ring with some news. It's sort of ridiculous. And it's not a way to live!' He laughs, then adds: 'Having a kid is like suddenly your heart is living outside your body and it's the most vulnerable thing, you know?' I do. I tell him I'm also prone to morbid thoughts – that sometimes I will look at a photomontage that my phone has generated featuring my kids and feel as if I'm watching it after they've died. Atkins nods. 'The mechanisms used, such as the slow cross-fading and the nostalgic music, is the language of remembrance. It's an 'Oscars in memoriam' situation. It's charged with loss even if no loss exists.' There's something very Ed Atkins about this whole conversation: two men who've just met, sitting in an auditorium talking about their deepest anxieties. I can't tell if it's his manner or something about his work, but Atkins is an easy person to open up to. In fact, it reminds me of one of his most affecting works: The Worm, from 2021, in which we hear a real-life conversation between the artist and his mother. I say real-life although, in the video, Atkins is inhabiting the avatar of a sharply dressed chatshow host from a bygone era, smoking Silk Cut. During their conversation, Atkins' mother talks about her struggles with depression and how it also affected her own mother. She reveals that she's never really felt like a 'bona fide woman' and adds that Atkins' father was never comfortable with the way he looked either. It's delicate stuff: raw and tender. 'That was difficult for me,' laughs the artist, referring to the process of making the video, 'because I was wearing a Lycra onesie and there were two German men in the room next door listening in.' The piece raises all sorts of questions about emotional inheritance, human connection and what constitutes a life. This, really, is the heart of what Atkins does. When he started out, Atkins was often called upon as a spokesperson for digital art – and he was happy to oblige, aware that it provided opportunities to show his work. But the emotional side of what he did was often not at the forefront of these discussions. 'The truth is, technology in and of itself is not interesting to me,' he says. 'I don't actually care at all about computers. Which is tricky because people are always asking, 'What do you think about AI?' And, honestly, I don't think about it.' Atkins actually believes that, for all the giant leaps being made right now, technology will never come close to replicating what it means to be human. 'It sounds almost religious,' he says, 'but I don't think any machine, even in a million years, will be like the real thing. It will never be a person. That's really my faith.' Ed Atkins is at Tate Britain, London, 2 April to 25 August. Flower is published by Fitzcarraldo Editions.
