Macro, money, and the forces reshaping the financial system. The stories behind the headlines.
1,003 posts
Metaplanet completed a ¥200M (~$1.3M) inaugural BitBond raise on Aug. 13, paying 4.0-4.3% annually over three years. The bonds are senior unsecured obligations with no Bitcoin coll…
K33 Research's Vetle Lunde reports Norway's Government Pension Fund Global now holds an indirect Bitcoin equivalent of 11,549 BTC worth ~$725M, an all-time high driven almost entir…
MSCI has opened a formal consultation proposing to exclude 'non-operating companies' from its Global Investable Market Indexes. Strategy fails all five proposed financial screens.…
The SEC killed its August 14 Reg Crypto vote with a vague 'scheduling issue.' The White House is set to convene crypto and prediction market executives the day before the CFTC's in…
The Babylon Bee and Alliance Defending Freedom filed a federal lawsuit August 11 against New Mexico's HB 182, a 2024 law requiring state-mandated AI disclaimers on political satire…
UBS Group AG disclosed roughly 2.5 million IBIT shares worth approximately $90 million as of June 30, 2026, per a Form 13F filed with the SEC on August 13. The position jumped 230%…
A Singapore-based maritime crewing agency is reportedly offering tanker crews a Hormuz transit bonus equal to one additional month's full salary on top of base pay, signaling that…
July 2026 headline PPI printed flat, pulling the annual rate from 5.5% to 4.7%. The entire deflationary move came from gasoline and energy. Strip that out and services are still cl…
The SEC's Division of Investment Management issued a no-action letter on August 12 allowing Franklin Templeton's registered funds to hold the FOBXX tokenized money market fund, val…
The Blockchain Association filed an amicus brief August 13 backing Custodia Bank's Supreme Court petition, warning that existing lower-court rulings give federal regulators a ready…
The CFTC invoked emergency authority to keep Kalshi running after New York's $36 billion lawsuit, and used a hypothetical Bitcoin position to make the contagion case. That preceden…
The EIA's August 2026 Short-Term Energy Outlook extended its Hormuz disruption assumption from 'a few weeks' to at least 16 months of residual supply loss. The IEA followed a day l…
B Treasury Capital AB (BTC AB) is set to make what is being called Europe's first Bitcoin-backed preferred-stock dividend payment, distributing a 10% annual yield from its 172 BTC…
Goldman Sachs agreed to acquire NEOS Investments for up to $2.25 billion on August 12, 2026, picking up 19 options-income ETFs including BTCI, a Bitcoin covered-call fund. The deal…
Arthur Hayes published 'Yen-quake' on August 10, arguing the Fed's FIMA Repo Facility is the next tool in the U.S.-Japan currency stabilization playbook, and that any cap expansion…
The SEC posted a Sunshine Act notice scheduling an open meeting for August 14 to vote on proposed rules under Regulation Crypto. A decentralization off-ramp that could let projects…
U.S. household debt fell $13 billion in Q2 2026, the first quarterly contraction since the COVID lockdown quarter. Subprime auto originations hit a record high as 90-day delinquenc…
Block disclosed 9,117 BTC in corporate treasury holdings as of June 30, 2026, per its Q2 8-K. The company held its purchase mandate through more than $260M in H1 paper losses and e…
BlackRock's Robbie Mitchnick confirmed IBIT's in-kind conversion minimum dropped 96% to $1 million, opening Bitcoin-to-shares swaps to mid-sized institutions and signaling the firm…
South Korea's Cabinet approved eliminating the 1 million won (~$720) Travel Rule threshold on August 11, 2026, extending information-sharing requirements to every VASP-to-VASP tran…
The Commoner
Independent writing by Marty Bent at TFTC since 2017. Money, markets, AI, energy and privacy, delivered free to your inbox.
Free, every weekday. Unsubscribe anytime using the link in each newsletter. By subscribing you agree to our Terms and acknowledge our Privacy Policy. Read recent issues.