Latest news with #J.D
Coin Geek
2 days ago
- Business
- Coin Geek
US bill elevates CFTC, but no one works there anymore
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... America's plan for a digital asset market structure regulatory framework envisions a major role for a regulator that's having serious trouble staffing its upper echelons. On Wednesday, United States Vice-President J.D. Vance gave the keynote address on day two of the BTC 2025 conference in Las Vegas. Vance addressed a number of subjects, including his belief that Congress needs to pass digital asset market structure legislation and get a finished bill on President Trump's desk for signing into law ASAP. The following day, the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee (FSC) issued their new digital asset market structure bill, which they've christened the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act. (Section-by-section summary here.) The bill is an updated version of the FIT21 bill that the House passed last year but wasn't addressed by the Senate before Congress adjourned for the 2024 federal election. In announcing the bill, FSC chair French Hill (R-AR) offered the necessary homilies to consumer protection, regulatory clarity, and 'American innovation.' CLARITY is billed as having bipartisan support, citing Democrat co-sponsors Warren Davidson (R-OH), Angie Craig (D-MN), Ritchie Torres (D-NY), and Don Davis (D-NC). CoinGeek's intrepid James Field will be along any moment now with a deeper dive into CLARITY's nuts and bolts, but as with FIT21, CLARITY establishes the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) as the primary regulator of digital assets that aren't considered securities. So, basically all digital assets, given the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) doesn't believe any digital assets are securities. To underscore that systematic disengagement, the SEC announced on May 29 that it wasn't interested in regulating 'protocol staking activities,' because someone somewhere will presumably ensure these activities are conducted fairly. (The sole remaining Democrat commissioner at the SEC believes the regulator is doing 'more harm than good by purporting to carve out broad categories of crypto products without analyzing the realities of how they really work.') CLARITY does envision the SEC having anti-fraud authority over stablecoins that are allowed to operate under the new rules proposed by bills in the Senate (GENIUS) and House (STABLE). The SEC will also take point on digital asset activity by 'SEC-registered broker-dealers and national securities exchanges where such registrants are exempt from registration with the CFTC.' However, the SEC is not allowed to touch 'certain decentralized finance activities related to the operation and maintenance of blockchain networks.' These activities include 'validating or providing incidental services with respect to a digital asset, providing user-interfaces for a blockchain network, publishing and updating software, or developing wallets for blockchain networks.' That will likely come as a relief to the SEC, as it will spare staff from having to craft a separate press release denying any responsibility for overseeing DeFi activities. If you want to get ahead of next week's disavowal, a lobby group just asked the SEC to ignore decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), so 5…4…3…2…1… CFTC exodus leaves no one manning the gates Looking to the CFTC to shoulder the regulatory burden is complicated by the fact that nobody seems to want to serve as a CFTC commissioner anymore. Incoming Chairman Brian Quintenz has yet to be confirmed by the Senate, but when he finally takes his seat in the corner office, he'll find himself staring at a lot of empty chairs where commissioners usually sit. This will be the last week on the job for commissioners Summer Mersinger and Christy Goldsmith Romero, while Caroline Pham has announced her plan to depart once Quintenz is confirmed. Kristin Johnson is also headed for the exits, although she promised to stay until 'later this year,' likely just long enough for her replacement to be nominated and confirmed. With former Chair Rostin Behnam having resigned on January 20, Quintenz will have the CFTC all to himself, at least, until Trump gets around to nominating new commissioners. It's a good thing that CLARITY gives the CFTC/SEC a 360-day window following passage in which to figure out who's looking after what. (In the interim? Crypto Thunderdome, apparently.) Despite having pulled her own ripcord, Romero appeared a little uneasy over the mass exodus at a Brookings Institution event this week. 'What happens if the CFTC gets down to one and gets new authority for crypto? It's going to be really, really hard, right? You're not going to have the same push and pull … I worry about that at the CFTC, and I worry about that at other agencies as well.' As befitting America's public-private revolving door, Mersinger is leaving to become CEO of the Blockchain Association industry lobbying group. Pham is also returning to the private sector, although she said didn't 'have any specific plans' to announce. Back to the top ↑ Will Trump's crypto ventures thwart legislative progress? Vance's Vegas speech expressed optimism that the Senate could 'move quickly on passing a clean GENIUS Act and for the House to follow-up and do the same.' The 'clean' reference reflects the hope that when the Senate brings GENIUS to the floor for debate (likely next week), it will largely ignore the 53 proposed amendments to its text. As for Vance's urging of Congress to act with similar haste to bring a finished market structure bill to Trump's desk, concerns are mounting that the president's seemingly endless list of self-interested crypto ventures could discourage support for legislatively blessing these money-making moves after the fact. While the crypto sector and pro-crypto pols previously suggested that both stablecoin and market structure legislation could be on Trump's desk by Labor Day, the rising outrage over Trump's increasingly brazen crypto cash grabs could complicate that timeline. One unnamed 'crypto executive' told Politico this week that these concerns could mean market structure legislation 'won't move forward until after the midterm elections next year.' Speaking of, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) announced Wednesday that he'd launched a probe into Trump's recent dinner at his Virginia golf club for the top 220 holders of his $TRUMP memecoin. The Washington Post reported that Raskin's probe is focused on who paid big bucks to breathe the same air as Trump, even though reports suggest that nobody in attendance got much in the way of Trump facetime. Raskin believes that publicly releasing the list of Trump's deep-pocketed dinner guests will 'let the American people know who is putting tens of millions of dollars into our President's pocket so we can start to figure out what—beyond virtually worthless memecoins—they are getting in exchange for all this money.' As with similar Democrat-led probes by the likes of Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Dems lack the votes to progress these probes beyond the press release stage. Until their Republican colleagues relocate their lost capacity for outrage, these efforts are purely performative. Back to the top ↑ Tokenized retirement? Meanwhile, the Trump administration continues to expunge any and all Biden-era rules and regs that might impede 'number go up.' On May 28, the Department of Labor's Employee Benefits Security Administration formally rescinded Biden-era guidance that has deterred employers from including digital assets in their employees' 401(k) retirement plans. The guidance in question was issued in March 2022 and urged 401(k) plan sponsors to exercise 'extreme care' before including digital assets alongside more traditional financial investment options. The new guidance neither endorses nor disapproves of tokens in 401(k) plans, just reaffirms the department's 'neutral stance.' Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer said the Biden administration 'made a choice to put their thumb on the scale,' but the new sheriffs in town are 'rolling back this overreach and making it clear that investment decisions should be made by fiduciaries, not D.C. bureaucrats.' There was nearly $9 trillion dollars held in 401(k) accounts at the end of 2024, with over one-third of Americans contributing to the plans. The ongoing upheaval in the stock market due to Trump's on-again/off-again tariffs has many contributors looking at alternative investment options, although prominent tokens like BTC haven't been spared this volatility. For what it's worth, the fact that BTC has fallen 5% this week—during the year's biggest pro-BTC event, and despite announcements by multiple new entrants launching BTC 'treasury' strategies that will see them spending billions of dollars acquiring tokens—should give any 401(k) manager pause regarding the wisdom of injecting additional volatility into workers' retirement schemes. Back to the top ↑ Saylor told Trumps to mortgage Mar-a-Lago and buy BTC Among the entities announcing new BTC treasury strategies this week was Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), the parent company of the Truth Social platform. TMTG is raising $2.5 billion to buy BTC, swiftly elevating itself to the upper tier of companies that have gone down this road. Day 2 of the BTC Vegas shindig saw the president's sons, Donald Jr. and Eric Trump take the stage to discuss TMTG's BTC buying plans, including the revelation that they were both egged on and inspired by Michael Saylor, founder of Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) (NASDAQ: MSTR). Strategy bought another 4,020 BTC on Monday, boosting its treasury to 580,250 tokens, and almost immediately announced plans to raise even more debt to buy even more BTC. Strategy's strategy has been mimicked by a growing number of firms, including former meme-stock GameStop (NASDAQ: GME), which announced Wednesday that it had spent $512 million buying 4,710 BTC as the first step in launching its own BTC treasury. Eric Trump told the Vegas audience that Saylor had long been urging the Trump family to 'do what I'm doing,' going as far as to suggest they mortgage Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. (To be fair, Saylor has been telling everyone to mortgage their homes to buy BTC since 2021.) Trump opted instead to use TMTG to make his BTC bet, but so far, the market's reaction has been anything but positive. TMTG's DJT stock briefly spiked in the wake of its BTC announcement but has since fallen below $21, a low it hasn't touched since early April. This is by no means an isolated incident. GameStop's shares surged to nearly $37 in the wake of its BTC announcement but closed Thursday below $30. Like Strategy and its clones MetaPlanet, Twenty-One Capital, and others, there's little in the way of fundamentals behind these companies, rendering them slaves to BTC's random surges and plunges. In TMTG's case, the company's high profile belies a nonexistent business model, with revenue in the first three months of 2025 failing to surpass $1 million. The company's share price values the company at a multiple of 1,800x its annual revenue, meaning if it wasn't attached to the President of the United States, it would have been taken out behind the barn and put out of its misery ages ago. But that was yesterday, and Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore. Back to the top ↑ Watch: Teranode is the digital backbone of Bitcoin title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen="">
Miami Herald
3 days ago
- Sport
- Miami Herald
Making NCAA tournament ‘released some pressure' for Hurricanes. Now, it's time to play
There were mixed emotions inside the Miami Hurricanes baseball team's locker room on Monday. Excitement. Nerves. Anticipation. The team knew it had the talent and a case to make the NCAA tournament this year but also understood it didn't do itself any favors with a slow start to conference play or a sluggish finish to the regular season. So it was easy for jitters to turn to relief when Miami found itself as the No. 3 seed in the Hattiesburg (Mississippi) regional hosted by No. 16 Southern Miss, the second of 16 regionals announced. 'That kind of released some pressure,' shortstop Jake Ogden said. And now, the Hurricanes can focus solely on what's ahead. Miami (31-24) begins the tournament against No. 2 regional seed Alabama (41-16) at 3 p.m. from Pete Taylor Park, with the game televised on ESPN2. No. 1 seed and host Southern Miss (44-14) and No. 4 seed and Ivy League champion Columbia (29-17) round out the field. The Hurricanes will clearly be an underdog, but this team went through hard times during the regular season to get to this point. So their thought process going into the tournament: Bring it on. 'We've had our ups and our downs, but there's never been a hangover from the night before, from a game before, anything like that,' second-year Hurricanes head coach J.D. Arteaga said. 'Every day's been a new day. We've shown up to the ballpark with a great attitude, top of the mountain. We didn't always end there, but we're 0-0 every day when we wake up and we've got a chance to be 1-0 at the end of the day and start over the next day. Yesterday's hits don't help us win today's game, and vice versa.' The Hurricanes making the field is due in large part to a late-season surge. Miami was 15-15 in early April and had won just two of its first nine games in Atlantic Coast Conference play. After that, UM went on a tear in conference action. The Hurricanes won five consecutive conference series against Pittsburgh, Duke, Georgia Tech, Boston College and North Carolina State, going 15-3 overall in that stretch (including midweek games) to significantly boost its RPI and get into good enough standing to be a contender to make the tournament. A sluggish finish — getting swept by Virginia, dropping two of three to Notre Dame and a first-round exit in the ACC tournament to Cal — eliminated any slim hopes of Miami getting a host bid or even being a regional No. 2 seed but wasn't enough to knock the Hurricanes out of making the tournament all together. 'Nothing's too big,' said redshirt junior pitcher Brian Walters, who began the season as the No. 3 starting pitcher in Miami's weekend rotation before converting to closer midseason and racking up eight saves down the stretch. 'We've come back in some crazy games and we've held some leads in some crazy games. ... We're excited to go put that on display in a new place.' Added sophomore third baseman Daniel Cuvet, who is experiencing the NCAA tournament for the first time after Miami missed the field in 2024 during his freshman campaign: 'We've obviously been on the very low side of the season and the very high side of the season, but we've been sticking together. ... That's what's going to help us in the playoffs.' Hattiesburg Regional schedule Friday 3 p.m.: No. 2 Alabama vs. No. 3 Miami 7 p.m.: No. 1 Southern Miss vs. No. 4 Columbia Saturday 3 p.m.: Loser of Game 1 vs Loser of Game 2 9 p.m.: Winner of Game 1 vs. Winner of Game 2 Sunday 3 p.m.: Winner of Game 3 vs Loser of Game 4 7 p.m.: Winner of Game 5 vs. Winner of Game 4 Monday TBD time: Winner of Game 6 vs. Loser of Game 6 (if necessary)
Business Wire
3 days ago
- Business
- Business Wire
American Express Ranks No. 1 in the J.D. Power U.S. Credit Card Mobile App and Online Satisfaction Studies
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The American Express ® App and the American Express (NYSE: AXP) website both rank number one in the J.D. Power 2025 U.S. Credit Card Mobile App and Online Satisfaction Studies. This is the fifth year American Express ranks as the top credit card mobile app in the study, since 2018, and marks the third time American Express ranks as both the top credit card website and mobile app since the inaugural J.D. Power 2019 U.S. Online Credit Card Satisfaction Study. The J.D. Power 2025 U.S. Credit Card Mobile App and Online Satisfaction Studies measure the overall satisfaction thousands of customers have with the digital offerings of their primary credit card issuers. American Express customers who used the mobile app and website rate it highest in all four categories measured by the study, including navigation, visual appeal, speed, and information/content. 'For 175 years, American Express' commitment to customer satisfaction has been the cornerstone of our brand. We strive every day to exceed the expectations of our customers at every touchpoint and in everything we do. That's why we continuously innovate to create intuitive, personalized experiences within our mobile app and Card Member website,' said Howard Grosfield, Group President, U.S. Consumer Services. 'This recognition was made possible by the exceptional talent across our product, design, engineering and analytics teams. Their focus on delighting our customers ensures we deliver world-class digital products that enhance the membership experience.' American Express' ongoing focus on improving our customers' digital experiences ensures consistent elevation of the visual appeal, navigation and performance of our website and mobile app. Enhancements over the past year include: Seamless Activation: A simpler and more intuitive way for mobile app and website users to activate their Amex Cards. Improved Look and Feel: A refreshed design system and use of enhanced designs which optimizes the visual appeal of the website. Streamlined Navigation: Introduction of a Customer Overview experience on the website that allows users to quickly see all of their relationships with Amex, improving ease of navigation and access to critical account information. Personalization: Launch of content tailored to the customer such as notifications of unused benefits, recognition of membership anniversaries, and lounge push notifications. We have seen record digital engagement in the U.S. as we continue to enhance the American Express mobile app and website experience, with monthly active users of the mobile app and website rising 8% over the past year 1. Customer satisfaction among U.S. consumers extends beyond the mobile app and website with Amex recently ranking No. 1 in customer satisfaction in the J.D. Power 2025 U.S. Consumer Lending Satisfaction Study 2. The company also ranked #1 in the J.D. Power 2024 U.S. Small Business Credit Card Satisfaction Study. ABOUT AMERICAN EXPRESS American Express (NYSE: AXP) is a global, premium payments and lifestyle brand powered by technology. Our colleagues around the world back our customers with differentiated products, services and experiences that enrich lives and build business success. Founded in 1850 and headquartered in New York, American Express' brand is built on trust, security, and service, and a rich history of delivering innovation and Membership value for our customers. With a hundred million merchant locations on our global network in over 200 countries and territories, we seek to provide the world's best customer experience every day to a broad range of consumers, small and medium-sized businesses, and large corporations. For more information about American Express, visit and Location: U.S.
Hindustan Times
7 days ago
- Business
- Hindustan Times
Xi Jinping's plan to beat America at AI
On May 21st J.D. Vance, America's vice-president, described the development of artificial intelligence as an 'arms race' with China. If America paused out of concerns over AI safety, he said, it might find itself 'enslaved to PRC-mediated AI'. The idea of a superpower showdown that will culminate in a moment of triumph or defeat circulates relentlessly in Washington and beyond. This month the bosses of OpenAI , AMD, CoreWeave and Microsoft lobbied for lighter regulation, casting AI as central to America's remaining the global hegemon. On May 15th president Donald Trump brokered an AI deal with the United Arab Emirates he said would ensure American 'dominance in AI'. America plans to spend over $1trn by 2030 on data centres for AI models. The 'DeepSeek moment' in January, when the Chinese firm unveiled a large-language model (LLM) matching the capabilities of an OpenAI model, confirmed that China is snapping at the heels of America. Yet a recent meeting of the Communist Party's leadership suggests it is preparing for a different kind of strategic race. 'American firms focus on the model, but Chinese players emphasise practically applying AI,' says Zhang Yaqin, a former boss of Baidu, a tech giant, now at Tsinghua University. This focus on practical applications–in factories and for consumers–is how China stole a lead in e-commerce and e-payments. On May 19th Jensen Huang, the boss of Nvidia, a chip firm, warned America could be left behind again. If American firms do not compete in China as it builds a 'rich ecosystem', Chinese technology and leadership 'will diffuse all around the world', he told Stratechery, a newsletter. America's view of AI is often abstract and hyperbolic. LLMs are expected to match humans' cognitive abilities, with boosters believing this rubicon of artificial general intelligence (AGI) will be crossed in a couple of years. Sam Altman, the boss of OpenAI, reckons the next step could be superintelligent systems that actually surpass human abilities in cognitive tasks. Being the first to develop a model that can recursively improve itself (some call this 'take-off') may create a decisive advantage comparable to being the first to develop a nuclear bomb. Barath Harithas of CSIS, a think-tank, notes that American planners think 'the first country to secure the AGI laurel will usher in the 100-year dynasty'. America's export controls on semiconductors are there to ensure China comes second. It is true some Chinese entrepreneurs are also believers in the arms race. Liang Wenfeng, DeepSeek's founder, has made developing AGI his firm's mission and also reckons it may arrive as soon as in two years. Less noticed is that the government is betting on a different approach. Mr Liang's exploits won him a meeting with Li Qiang, the prime minister, in January. But days later a vice-premier in charge of the party's science effort seemed to rebuke the American approach, stating: 'China will not blindly follow trends or engage in unrestrained international competition.' Last month Qiushi, the most authoritative Communist Party journal, described AGI as a tool 'to promote human understanding and transformation of the world'. In China the term for AGI, tongyong rengong zhineng, typically refers to a 'general-purpose AI' that is applied and has multiple uses, rather than to the Western concept of a superhuman, or self-improving system. In April the party's Politburo met for its second-ever study session on AI (the first was in 2018). At the meeting, Mr Xi told his lieutenants that China should focus on how it can be applied to everyday uses: more like electricity than nuclear weapons. At least a dozen prominent researchers and government officials have aired scepticism over the reasoning ability of LLMs. Wu Zhaohui, a former minister of science and the current vice-president of a state think-tank, suggests China needs to explore different paths to AGI. Chinese experts generally expect AGI to take longer to arrive than do their American counterparts, notes Mr Zhang of Tsinghua. 'While American tech leaders often frame AI with utopian aspirations, China's government appears more focused on using it to solve concrete problems like economic growth and industrial upgrading,' says Karson Elmgren of RAND, a think-tank. The government's annual work report in March mentions a new campaign called 'AI+', which prioritises firms adopting AI in their existing operations, including physical facilities using automated robots. This mimics the 'Internet+' campaign a decade ago to create a more sophisticated digital consumer economy than the West. This application-oriented approach reflects a shortage of AI talent and chips, or 'basic theory and key core technologies,' Mr Xi said in April. 'We must face up to the gap.' Liu Zhiyuan of Tsinghua University compared China's approach to an argument in 'On Protracted War', a series of lectures by Mao Zedong in 1938: a weak opponent can tire out a strong one, and outlast them. On May 8th Qiushi published an article by Tang Jie, also of Tsinghua, advocating China be a fast follower of American innovation, focusing on being cheaper and quicker to create applications. Alongside the push to deploy AI faster and more cheaply there is an effort to create moonshots that bypass America's trillion-dollar bet on LLMs. 'If we merely follow the well-worn American path—computing power, algorithms, deployment—we will always remain followers,' said Zhu Songchun, boss of the Beijing Institute for General Artificial Intelligence, a state-run laboratory dedicated to advanced AI, in a speech last month. In April the Shanghai government offered funding for researchers advancing towards AGI using new kinds of architectures, such as models that interact with the real world through imagery, others that can control computers with the mind, or as-yet theoretical algorithms to emulate the human brain. Will China's approach work? A new IMF study concludes AI could boost America's economy by 5.6% in ten years' time, compared with 3.5% for China, largely because China's relatively small services sector means that, even if AI diffuses fast in manufacturing, the productivity gains are capped. Yet what is clear is that China is accelerating down a different track. One sign of this is Apple: in order to reverse a decline in its revenue in China it desperately needs a local partner to provide AI services which customers now expect. But recent reports suggest the American government may block it from doing so. Without local AI applications, American tech products, such as the iPhone, risk becoming also-rans in China, and perhaps, in time, elsewhere. Get 360° coverage—from daily headlines to 100 year archives.
Economist
25-05-2025
- Business
- Economist
Xi Jinping's plan to overtake America in AI
On May 21st J.D. Vance, America's vice-president, described the development of artificial intelligence as an 'arms race' with China. If America paused out of concerns over AI safety, he said, it might find itself 'enslaved to PRC-mediated AI'. The idea of a superpower showdown that will culminate in a moment of triumph or defeat circulates relentlessly in Washington and beyond. This month the bosses of OpenAI, AMD, CoreWeave and Microsoft lobbied for lighter regulation, casting AI as central to America's remaining the global hegemon. On May 15th president Donald Trump brokered an AI deal with the United Arab Emirates he said would ensure American 'dominance in AI'. America plans to spend over $1trn by 2030 on data centres for AI models.
