Oil climbed to a six-week high on Wednesday as a threatened Houthi naval blockade of Saudi Arabia pushed a second Middle East shipping chokepoint into the market’s risk calculation. Brent crude futures rose 4.2% to $94.83 a barrel at 09:38 GMT after touching a session high of $95.24, according to Reuters, while West Texas Intermediate gained
FinWise Bancorp has acquired the technology platform behind its co-branded credit card programs, ending a nine-month arrangement in which a third party ran the infrastructure and shared the economics. The Murray, Utah lender, listed on Nasdaq as FINW, said the deal gives it end-to-end ownership of card issuing from application through servicing. The move is
Sometimes the most interesting regulatory changes are not the ones that create new rules. They are the ones that quietly remove existing ones. That is what happened on July 17, when the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) eliminated the routine daily reporting requirements for large physical commodity swaps under Part 20 of its regulations. The
Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said his X account was hacked and that a thread promoting real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, which circulated for days as apparent thought leadership, was written by an attacker and heavily AI-generated. The now-deleted posts argued that tokenization could make buildings, bonds and funds easier to divide, trade and settle, and referenced
Most networking in the online trading industry happens around conferences. Conversations are squeezed between panel sessions, scheduled meetings and exhibition stands, often competing with packed agendas and hundreds of other attendees. Finance Beach Mixer was built around a different idea: remove the conference altogether and make networking itself the main event. The inaugural edition took
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has accused a North Carolina commodity pool operator of orchestrating a $14 million investment fraud that allegedly concealed catastrophic trading losses through fabricated account statements and Ponzi-like payments to investors. The civil enforcement action highlights the regulator’s continued focus on fraudulent commodity pools that increasingly blur the line between traditional
Binance closed out June with its busiest month of derivatives trading this year, recording roughly $1.63 trillion in futures volume even as spot activity stayed thin and broader market sentiment turned cautious. The reading, highlighted by CryptoQuant analyst Maartunn, stands as Binance’s highest monthly futures total of 2026 and runs against a backdrop that would
Lawson will launch Japan’s first point-of-sale integrated stablecoin payment trial in August, testing whether yen-denominated digital money can work inside the normal checkout flow of one of the country’s largest convenience store chains. The pilot will take place at Lawson’s Takanawa Gateway City store in Tokyo’s Minato Ward and will use JPYC, Japan’s regulated yen-pegged
The stablecoin market has lost about $10 billion in value since May, marking its largest retreat since the Terra collapse and raising fresh questions about liquidity conditions across digital asset markets. According to CoinDesk, the pullback has been driven mainly by the two largest dollar-pegged tokens. Tether’s USDT has fallen to roughly $184 billion in
Brent crude oil surged more than 4% at the weekly open after renewed fighting between the United States and Iran reignited fears of supply disruption in the Gulf, while Bitcoin prices remained comparatively steady despite the sharp geopolitical escalation. Brent futures rose about 4.3% to $79.31 a barrel on Monday, according to Reuters, while U.S.