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Within just five weeks last year, the longest bull market on record erased three years worth of stock gains, crashing more than 30% from an all-time high in February to a pandemic low on March 23, the day Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell pledged to use the central banks full range of tools to support the U.S. economy in this challenging time. Exactly one year and trillions of dollars in government spending later, stocks have staged a historic rally, taking investors on a wild ride.

Some highlights: Electric carmaker Tesla is now one of the most valuable companies in the world, the cryptocurrency market has swelled to more than $1 trillion and so-called meme stocks dominate Wall Street commentary with volatile swings that force exchanges to halt trading. Its still unclear how long the new bull market can last, but one year after one of the worst stock market crashes in history, here's a look at its monumental recovery.

The S&P 500 has skyrocketed over the past year, hitting its latest high on Wednesday and marking what LPL Financial Chief Market Strategist Ryan Detrick calls the best start to a bull market ever. It took just five months for the index to recover its steep Covid-induced losses, the fastest recovery ever for a correction of more than 30%. To compare, it took the S&P a staggering 20 months to recover after the index crashed by 34% in 1987. High-flying technology stocks like Amazon, Zoom and Tesla led the market to new highs last year, but this year, energy stocks have been heading up the indexs resurgence. The S&P 500 Energy Index is still about 10% off its prepandemic levels, but its surged 103% over the past year. Materials and financials arent far behind, climbing 92% and 90%, respectively.

The Dow, which counts 30 market leaders in its ranks, has also soared 76% over the past year, though its pandemic low was on March 16, one week before the S&P's trough. A testament to the economys impending recovery, cyclical stockswhich tend to outperform during periods of growth but fall hard during recessionshave driven the index's gains. Top performer Boeing tanked more than 70% in the pandemics early days, but its rocketed 165% over the past year. Meanwhile, storied investment bank Goldman Sachs nabs the Dows second-biggest gain, surging 145% as analysts look toward financials to lead the market this year. Equipment maker Caterpillar, commodities giant Dow Inc. and Walt Disney round out the top five Dow stocks over the past yearall surging at least 125%.

A new stay-at-home normal that catapulted stocks like Peloton, Zoom and Slack helped the tech-heavy Nasdaq climb to meteoric highs during the pandemic, but techs dominance has been threatened in recent weeks. The index is down about 5% from a high on February 12, as rising Treasury yields fuel concerns that investors may sell off high-priced tech stocks in favor of the risk-free asset class. But experts arent too worried yet. Its a buckle-your-seatbelt moment for tech stocks, but we believe this selloff has created a golden opportunity for investors to own secular tech winners for the next three to five years, says Wedbush analyst Dan Ives.

Massive fiscal stimulus spending, including nearly $720 billion in forgivable loans doled out to small businesses, has been a boon to the Russell 2000, a basket of small-cap stocks with market values that are typically less than $1 billion. The index has outperformed the broader market and posted its best quarter ever during the pandemic. With President Joe Bidens lofty $1.9 trillion stimulus plan shoring up fresh funding for the economic recoveryand an even bigger $3 trillion infrastructure plan in the works, Bank of America analysts say they think small caps will continue to outperform larger companies this year.

Perhaps most emblematic of the markets bullish mania are the staggering gains in the meme stocks popularized by an army of Reddit traders in late January. Heading up gains is GameStop, the past years best-performing stock in the Russell 2000. The Grapevine, Texas-based video game retailer reached a meteoric high on January 27, as retail traders coordinated an effort to buy up Wall Streets most heavily shorted companies, stirring a panic among hedge funds that exited their positions with steep losses. Short interest has plummeted since, and the rallys taken a breather, but two months into the frenzy, GameStops still sporting eye-popping gains that have landed prices at more than ten times analysts average one-year price expectations. Meanwhile, meme stocks AMC Entertainment and BlackBerry are also holding up, climbing 300% and 200%, respectively, over the past year.

ViacomCBS, the S&Ps best-performing stock over the past year (save for a couple new additions on MondayPenn National Gaming and Caesars Entertainment), is another testament to the recent retail trading frenzy. The company, founded in 2019 by the merger between CBS and Viacom, has long garnered bearish calls from analysts, but with short interest thats roughly five times greater than the S&Ps average, shares have skyrocketed in the months since Reddit traders started plowing into heavily shorted stocks. Though its Paramount+ streaming service has helped improve its outlook, one analyst last week said the stock has run too far and climbed too high.

The past years raging bull market is not without its losses. The S&Ps worst-performing stock over the period belongs to California-based Gilead Sciences, which surged alongside other biotech companies in January 2020 as the pandemic took hold, but has floundered ever since. The companys Covid-19 treatment, remdesivir, pulled roughly $3 billion in sales last year, and it was even hailed as a miracle treatment by former President Donald Trump, but like with other biotechs last year, investors lost interest. Only four S&P stocks have fallen over the past year, and three of them, including Biogen and Viatris, are biotechs.

Shares of electric carmaker Teslalast years best-performing S&P 500 stockare down for the year and have plunged nearly 25% from a late-January highyet another sign the recently booming market for tech stocks could be over once post-pandemic spending drives growth into other industries. Tesla made its S&P debut in December and now carries about 1.5% of the indexs weight, but some experts are worried the stocks increased volatility could spell trouble for the index-tracking funds that represent trillions in market value.

The price of the worlds largest cryptocurrency has skyrocketed over the past year amid booming institutional adoption and heightened inflationary concerns fueled by massive government spending to combat the pandemic. Just this month, Morgan Stanley became the first big bank to offer up bitcoin exposure to wealthy clients (though its limiting the funds to investors with an aggressive risk tolerance), and Goldman Sachs is also dabbling in the space with a cryptocurrency trading desk that opened up this month.

At $61.55, the price of a barrel of U.S. oil benchmark West Texas Intermediate stands at nearly three times the price of $23.36 one year ago, but the oil markets volatile ride has been anything but a straight shot up. Prices seeped into negative territory for the first time in history last April, when pandemic lockdowns led to a glut in supply that became too expensive to maintain. Now, experts are bullish that prices can continue to bounce back as the world reopens. Were going to need more supply as demand comes roaring back, and add to that all the stimulus thats been pumped out by governments, the massive growth in money supply and I think were headed toward a global synchronized economic recovery thats going to be pretty strong, NOV Inc. Chairman and CEO Clay C. Williams said in an earnings call last month of energys impending boom.

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Bitcoin, Tesla And GameStop: Ten Numbers That Sum Up The Fastest Market Recovery Ever - Forbes

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Global Passenger Hoist Market, By Type (Below 2 Ton, 2-3 Ton, Above 3 Ton), By Application (Commercial, Residential & Industrial (Cement Plants, Refineries, Steel Plants, Mines, Power Plants)), By Region, Competition, Forecast & Opportunities, 2015-2025New York, Feb. 12, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Global Passenger Hoist Market, By Type, By Application, By Region, Competition, Forecast & Opportunities, 2015-2025" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06024100/?utm_source=GNW Global passenger hoist market was valued USD 807.67 Million in 2019 and is expected to grow at a rate of over 4% during the forecast period, 2020-2025. Growth in global passenger hoist market can be attributed to increasing industrialization on the global scale in developing economies and surge in new plans and projects for the construction of various structures in both developing and developed economies. Moreover, future expansions and proposed industrial plants, and upcoming projects for the construction of skyscrapers are promoting the adoption of passenger hoists, globally. Global passenger hoist market can be segmented based on type, application, and region.In terms of type the market can bifurcate into below 2 ton, 2-3 ton, and above 3 ton. Below 2 Ton dominated the market, accounting for 60.76% share in 2019. Below 2 Ton passenger hoists segment accounts for highest share of the market owing to its high efficiency in comparison to others. In terms of application, the market can be segmented into commercial, industrial and residential. Commercial segment dominated the overall market with a share of around 78% in 2019. Also, this segment is predicted to lead the market in the forecast period owing to increasing urbanization, developing construction industry, and industrialization. Asia-Pacific is at the forefront of the global passenger hoist market and is expected to continue its dominance during the forecast period due to the numerous construction projects in APAC countries along with government initiatives to upgrade their infrastructure.Countries such as India, China, Japan and Singapore are leading the Asia-Pacific market with rising commercial infrastructural activities, growing construction of skyscrapers, upcoming proposed industrial plants and increasing governmental funding for public infrastructure. APAC is also expected to witness highest growth in the global passenger hoist market in the forecast period due to the presence of major market players in the region and significant investment by leading industry players considering potential growth opportunities in the region. Zoomlion, GJJ, Alimak, XL Industries, Hongda Construction, Xuzhou Construction Machinery Group, Fangyuan, SYS, Guangxi Construction, Sichuan Construction, GEDA, Jaypee, STROS, Zhejiang Construction Machinery Group, and BetaMax, are among the leading players operating in Global passenger hoist market. Companies operating in the market are using organic strategies such as product and technological advancement through addition of new features, mergers and collaborations to boost their share. Years considered for this report: Historical Years: 2015-2018 Base Year: 2019 Estimated Year: 2020 Forecast Period: 2021-2025 Objective of the Study: To analyze and estimate the market size of global passenger hoist market. To classify and forecast global passenger hoist market based on type, application, company and regional distribution. To identify drivers and challenges for global passenger hoist market. To examine competitive developments such as expansions, new product launches, mergers & acquisitions, etc., in global passenger hoist market. To identify and analyze the profile of leading players operating in global passenger hoist market. To identify key sustainable strategies adopted by market players in global passenger hoist market. To analyze and forecast Global Passenger Hoist Market, both top down and bottom up approaches have been used.Multiple employees from several companies have been interviewed through telephonic conversations to extract and verify the information. A brief study of the major players operating in construction sector was conducted, which included the analysis of information such as detailed estimated investments in upcoming years in construction sector, upcoming projects for the construction of skyscrapers, government funding for proposed industrial plants and various reforms & initiatives for the development of commercial infrastructure, high-rise apartments and Multi Storey buildings. Moreover, detailed and in-depth scrutiny of information was done to understand each policy or external or internal factor which could increase or decrease the demand for passenger hoist, globally. Various secondary sources such as company websites, Annual Reports, White Papers, Investor Presentation, News Articles, Associations, were also studied by the analyst. Key Target Audience: Companies operating in Global Passenger Hoist Market Passenger Hoist Components, raw materials and equipment suppliers Major end users Associations, organizations, forums and alliances related to construction industry Government bodies such as regulating authorities and policy makers Market research and consulting firms The study is essential in delivering useful information to industry stakeholders such as companies operating in passenger hoist market, component and raw material suppliers and end users. The report also provides useful insights about which market segments should be targeted over the coming years in order to strategize investments and capitalize on growth opportunities. Report Scope: In this report, Global Passenger Hoist Market has been segmented into the following categories in addition to the industry trends which have also been detailed below: Market, By Type: o Below 2 Ton o 2-3 Ton o Above 3 Ton Market, By Application: o Commercial o Industrial - Cement Plants - Refineries - Steel Plants - Mines - Power Plants o Residential Market, By Region: o North America - United States - Canada - Mexico o Europe - Germany - Russia - United Kingdom - France - Spain o Asia-Pacific - China - Japan - India - South Korea - Australia o Middle East & Africa - South Africa - Saudi Arabia - UAE - Egypt o South America - Brazil - Argentina - Colombia Competitive Landscape : Company Profiles: Detailed analysis of the major companies present in Global Passenger Hoist Market. Voice of Customer: Price, Brand, Availability, Customer Satisfaction level, and After Sales Service are the major factors affecting decision related to passenger hoist market for various users, globally. Available Customizations: With the given market data, we offers customizations according to a companys specific needs. The following customization options are available for the report: Detailed analysis and profiling of additional market players (up to five).Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06024100/?utm_source=GNWAbout ReportlinkerReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.__________________________ CONTACT: Clare: clare@reportlinker.com US: (339)-368-6001 Intl: +1 339-368-6001

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'Demand to surge': Expert's $70,000 Bitcoin prediction - Yahoo Finance Australia

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told CNBC on Thursday the company discussed but "quickly dismissed" the idea of buying bitcoin with corporate cash like Telsa.

However, Khosrowshahi said Uber would consider accepting cryptocurrencies as payment.

The comments came days after Tesla announced that it bought $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin with some cash on its balance sheet and plans to begin accepting the digital coin as payment for its products. Tesla's moves caught Wall Street's attention, and some wondered whether the electric vehicle maker's decision would be a tipping point for further crypto adoption.

In an interview on "Squawk Box," Khosrowshahi was asked whether Uber had considered similar actions. "It's a conversation that's happened that has been quickly dismissed," he said. "We're going to keep our cash safe. We're not in the speculation business," he added. "The upside in our company is in the business that we've built, not the investments that we invest in."

As of Dec. 31, Uber reported it had $5.65 billion in cash and cash equivalents, along with $1.18 billion in short-term investments.

Khosrowshahi, who took over as Uber's chief executive in 2017, left open the possibility that the ride-hailing and food-delivery provider would accept cryptocurrencies as payment.

"Just like we accept all kinds of local currency, we are going to look at cryptocurrency and/or bitcoin in terms of currency to transact," he said. "That's good for business. That's good for our riders and our eaters. That we'll certainly look at and if there's a benefit there, if there's a need there, we'll do it. We're just not going to do it as part of a promotion."

On Wednesday, Mastercard announced intentions to open up its network to some cryptocurrencies, a move the credit card giant said will allow consumers and merchants "to transact in an entirely new form of payment." Mastercard had already let customers do some transactions with cryptocurrencies, but they took place outside the company's formal network.

The latest financial firm to put its weight behind crypto is BNY Mellon, which said Thursday it's launching a digital assets division later this year. Shares of the oldest bank in America rose Thursday.

Proponents of companies buying bitcoin for their corporate cash argue that despite its day-to-day volatility, the digital coin has appreciated in value over the long term and will continue to do so. For that reason, supporters such as MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor feels it's a more productive investment than keeping hordes of cash on the balance sheet.

Some skeptics worry about the volatility risks of bitcoin, which has enjoyed a massive run in recent months to trade above $48,000 per coin at all-time highs Thursday morning. A year ago, bitcoin traded below $11,000. While bitcoin has seen increased institutional adoption lately, some still believe there's still too much uncertainty about its future.

Like Uber, PepsiCo CFO Hugh Johnston told CNBC on Thursday that the beverage giant has "had the conversation" about buying bitcoin with its cash. "The conclusion we came to pretty quickly was bitcoin is too speculative for the way we manage our cash portfolio," Johnston said earlier on "Squawk Box," shortly after the company reported better-than expected earnings and revenue. PepsiCoreported a fourth-quarter profit of $1.47 per share on revenue of $22.46 billion. Shares dropped Thursday.

As for Uber, its shares were flat Thursday following the company's mixedfourth-quarter earnings results. The stock advanced 6% during Wednesday's session heading into the report. Uber said it lost 54 cents per share in the the fourth quarter, slightly narrower than analyst expectations for a 56 cent loss. Revenue of $3.17 billion was below the $3.58 billion Wall Street had been looking for. The company's overall loss for the quarter was $968 million, an improvement from the $1.1 billion loss in the same period last year.

Uber's two largest businesses offerings ride hailing and food delivery have seen different fates during the coronavirus pandemic. The ride-hailing segment has suffered as people stayed home and traveled less. Conversely, Uber Eats has seen its usage soar as people ordered delivery instead of dining at restaurants.

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Uber wont buy bitcoin with its cash but would consider accepting it as payment, CEO says - CNBC

It was a Saturday morning and Adam was feeling bold.

He'd made thousands of dollars on a single trade the night before, and was feeling lucky. But Adam wasn't trading on the NASDAQ, pumping GameStop stocks or investing in a startup. He was about to sink $2,500 into a cryptocurrency called DeTrade.

It seemed safe. Adam had investigated the coin's development team on LinkedIn, and watched a video of its CEO laying out a roadmap for the coin's future. A newswire piece published on Yahoo touted DeTrade's technology as advanced enough to disrupt cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin is very much back in the zeitgeist. On Monday it reached an all-time-high of over $47,000 thanks to a $1.5 billion investment from Tesla, quadripling its value from this day last year. But while for many people Bitcoin is synonymous with cryptocurrency, it's not what crypto traders like Adam are interested in. Beneath Bitcoin and Ethereum, the second-best-known currency, is a strange underworld of different cryptocurrencies.

Called altcoins or, sometimes, "shitcoins," these are essentially penny-stock cryptocurrencies. And they're crazy. Bitcoin tripled its value recently, but many altcoins explode 30, 40 or 50 times over within days. Arguably the most famous is Dogecoin, which recently shot up thanks to a potent combination of Reddit and Elon Musk, but there are thousands of altcoins, forming an Indiana Jones-esque Cave of Crypto Wonders. The spoils can be life-changing, but there are traps around each corner. Fortunes can be made and lost in seconds. Cons and fraudsters are everywhere, with traders vulnerable to scams at each step of the process.

Case in point: Adam's foray into DeTrade. The touted technology behind it wasn't real. Nothing about the project was. DeTrade, for all intents and purposes, didn't exist. The LinkedIn profiles were fake, and the video of its CEO was a deepfake created with AI. It was a scam. Those behind it, operating in the unregulated world of crypto, vanished. Adam lost his $2,500, but he got off easy. In total, those behind the scam took in around $2 million.

Just a regular day playing with altcoins, says Adam.

Adam got into cryptocurrency in September. When we spoke, it felt like he'd crammed years of trading into two months. He put in $4,000 and lost it in days. Then he turned $3,000 into $90,000. After withdrawing a third of that and then losing just over another third, he now had around $20,000 in crypto.

Adam had seen some tempestuous trading in recent weeks. One person managed to flip $2,000 into over $40,000 on two different occasions, but lost it all to scams both times. Another put $150 in a coin and doubled his money in 15 minutes. Decent result, but his $150 would've turned into $28,000 if he'd waited only one more day.

But despite the community's enthusiasm, there's a small problem. Right now cryptocurrencies don't really do anything.

Bitcoin nearly tripled in price, from $15,000 to over $40,000, in two months. If you invested $1,000 in early November, you could have taken out $2,600 in early February.

Investing in a stock means ascertaining its value -- based on factors like competition, risks and, above all, profit generation -- and then putting money into ones that are undervalued. If other investors follow you, the stock rises, giving you an opportunity to take profit.

Speculation is naturally part of this: The Dot-com Bubble was all about pouring money into "pre-profit" companies in the hopes they'd make money someday. Cryptocurrency, however, takes speculation into the stratosphere. For the most part, cryptocurrency is pure speculation. People are investing in technology that produces nothing, and has no practical application. As I write this, a coin called Meme is selling for $517. That's a little over four times the price of an Apple share. Doge, a coin marketed after the internet slang for "dog,"doubled in value earlier this month after a pornstar tweeted about it. After the price settled, it then rocketed once more when Reddit wanted to make it the GameStop of cryptocurrency.

This disconnect between price and purpose has made many experts understandably skeptical.

David Gerard is one such skeptic. He became interested in Bitcoin in 2013, when it first hit $1,000, and has since written two books on cryptocurrency. His most recent focuses on Libra, Facebook's ill-fated attempt at digital currency.

"The driving force of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency is nothing to do with technology," he told me during a Skype call. "It's all about the chance that people might get rich for free. All of this is about the psychology of get-rich-quick schemes."

In his years working as an IT systems administrator, Gerard's job has been to examine new technology and discern what's useful and what's not. Cryptocurrency, he told me, is not.

"Bitcoin burns a whole country's worth of electricity for the most inefficient payment network in human history," he said.

After launching at around $8 in August, the obscure Meme coin briefly reached a valuation of over $1,750 in September. If, with fantastic luck, you invested $1,000 at $8 and sold at $1,750, you'd be up $217,000. This is the allure of "shitcoins."

That's no exaggeration. Cryptocurrencies are mined using powerful computers, and many enterprising types put together farms of computers used solely for the purpose of mining Bitcoin. As a result, Bitcoin is responsible for more energy consumption than Switzerland.

Gerard says the only thing you can do with Bitcoin is buy it and sell it. He's even harsher on altcoins.

"They're absolutely useless objects. Even by the standards of Bitcoin, altcoins are useless," he said.

This is precisely what makes them so fascinating. Seemingly, all they can do is get internet punters to bet on their success. But this enables average people to become rich. That Meme coin I mentioned before? It was listed at $2.72 and a month later hit an all-time-high price of over $2,000.

Imagine becoming a millionaire from a joke internet coin.

Crypto Spider has made millions with altcoins. Crypto Spider isn't his real name. Like most people in the cryptocurrency community, he goes by a pseudonym.

He's gained renown in some Telegram groups over the past few months thanks to a "2K to 1M" challenge, where he endeavored to see how quickly, and with how few trades, he could turn the first number into the second. In cryptocurrency, you can follow someone's portfolio if you have their wallet number, so the community was able to watch this challenge play out in real time.

Within two months, that $2,000 had grown to over $2 million. Much of that money was made off one trade: He chucked $50,000 into a project which, in the space of around a week, magnified 35 times in value, netting him $1.75 million. After passing $2 million, he cashed out.

"You won't ever see that type of explosive growth if you don't trade in altcoins," he told me, though he also said "95% of these coins are going to be nonexistent in the future."

Like Adam, Crypto Spider has no background in finance or trading. He lists college courses in game theory, basic algorithmics and some economics as useful to his crypto exploits -- but in essence he's a self-taught amateur. He declined to tell me his specific age, only that he was "20ish" when he first got into cryptocurrency in 2017.

He admits he was attracted by the "pretty numbers," by seeing coins magnify in value 30, 40 and 50 times within a short period. He was enthusiastic enough to start a university club around cryptocurrencies, and how they'd be used in the future.

Crypto Spider says cryptocurrency will play a "major part in the future of finance," and speaks with the passion of a believer. He breathlessly transitions from how cryptocurrency is a part of the internet's evolution to the possible use cases of blockchain, the technology behind Bitcoin, in the next 10 years. But despite his enthusiasm, I couldn't help but notice how chunks of what he said echoed Gerard.

Cryptocurrencies are mined using powerful computers. More emissions are produced by global Bitcoin miners than by the entire country of Switzerland.

For one thing, he looks back at all the projects he was excited about in 2017 and realizes most were almost entirely vaporware, technology that's advertised but never delivered.

Gerard calls the cryptocurrency community a pool of scammers. Spider notes that people often invest in altcoins they know don't have a function, because there's enough hype around the project to make money. "It's a bubble," he said, "we're literally swapping money from each other. I somehow was able to game all the other people."

Spider says his performance is 60% luck. He first approached cryptocurrnecy trading with the mentality of, "I'm young, I'm dumb, I can lose all my money and it'll be OK."

Again, it reminded me of something Gerard said: "If you're rich enough that your money is your own problem, fine. If you know zero is a number your investment could go to, fine."

"But a lot of people are being ripped off, and that's really bad."

People really are getting ripped off. Difficult to regulate and subsisting largely on hype, cryptocurrencies are particularly prone to scams.

Take OneCoin, a company that, through a presale for a cryptocurrency that didn't exist, stole $4 billion from people around the world before its founder disappeared. Then there's BitConnect, a coin that reached a $2.6 billion valuation by promising a 1% return on investment every day. It was eventually designated a Ponzi scheme by various authorities around the globe, causing it to lose 96% of its value before getting shut down months later.

Those are two of the biggest instances of crypto-fraud. But millions of dollars are scammed from cryptocurrency markets every day in less dramatic ways. Coins are suddenly discontinued, with owners taking all the money with them in what the community calls "rug pulls." Some have investment contracts, ignored like terms-of-service agreements, that prohibit you from taking your money out of a project. Other times, entire cryptocurrency exchanges -- which sell coins like a stock exchange sells stocks -- vanish.

"I think I've been scammed over 100 times," Crypto Spider said, adding that he lost $250,000 through fraud in December. "Who knows who creates these projects. A lot of people are taking on pseudonyms, because they're almost all money grabs."

But the deepfake used to scam $2 million adds a new vector. Coming into wider use in recent years, deepfakes are mostly used for pornographic purposes, but as the DeTrade scam shows, deepfakes can also be used in financial scams.

OneCoin founder Ruja Ignatova at an event for the "revolutionary" cryptocurrency. Ignatova disappeared around the time OneCoin was discovered to be a fraud: The cryptocurrency the company sold didn't actually exist. It's reported to have scammed over $4 billion from people around the world. Ignatova has yet to be found.

Gerard says he's never seen a deepfake used as part of a scam before. Crypto Spider says he's seen it just once.

"We didn't have that problem in 2017, where people would use deepfakes and rug pull like this," he said. "The internet is evolving, but the scammers are also evolving."

Deepfake technology "is being democratized, and that may not be a good thing," said Julie Inman-Grant. Now commissioner of the Australian government's eSafety Commission, Inman-Grant formerly led public policy teams at Microsoft, Adobe and Twitter.

"This kind of takes the art out of social engineering," she explained, referring to the techniques usually used by scammers to get you to click a fraudulent link or hand over credit card details. "If they're delivering a video of someone you respect and you really have no way of telling by the naked eye or ear if it's fake or not, the potential for misuse could be devastating."

Ironically, it's blockchain, the behind-the-scenes technology, that could be the solution to the burgeoning deepfake problem. In cryptocurrency, the blockchain is an unalterable ledger that tracks every transaction. Once it's on the ledger, it can't be altered. That same technology can be used to track anything -- like the creation and distribution of a video, from studio to iPhone screen. There are already startups working toward this, like Truepic.

When I asked about blockchain's ability to neutralize deepfakes, Inman-Grant wasn't entirely optimistic.

"It's definitely an arms race, but it's not an arms race we're winning right now."

When Bitcoin hit $40,000 in December, before its Tesla-induced all-time-high, it was confirmation to enthusiasts that cryptocurrency is the future. For skeptics, a higher peak just means a more precipitous fall.

"I think they'll become increasingly regulated and less and less interesting," Gerard said of cryptocurrency. That means less of the "pretty numbers" Crypto Spider was attracted to, but hopefully fewer scams.

For Adam, DeTrade actually had a happy ending. One aggrieved victim of the scam analyzed the metadata of the deepfake, which he used to track down the perpetrators. After some naming and shaming across Telegram, the money was returned.

That unexpected $2,500 return was a big deal, equivalent to a few weeks pay. Good timing too: By the time Adam got it, a bad trade saw his crypto portfolio diminish from $10,000 to $2,000.

Just another day trading altcoins, Adam told me.

Correction, 1:30 p.m. PT:Removed incorrect statement that Netflix had yet to turn a profit.

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Beyond Bitcoin: The wild world of altcoin cryptocurrency trading - CNET

Another year, another filing.

A bitcoin-based exchange-traded fund could see the light of day in 2021 after a changing of the guard at the Securities and Exchange Commission and some promising developments in the corporate arena, Jeff Kilburg, founder and CEO of KKM Financial and a partner at Valkyrie, told CNBC on Monday.

At least 10 firms have filed and failed to gain approval for the long-awaited product, with the SEC frequently citing security concerns and the market's immaturity as reasons for its denials.

"It's a similar approach to the way I strategically asked my wife to marry me. Around the 15th or 20th time I asked, she finally said yes," Kilburg told CNBC's "ETF Edge."

With bitcoin soaring to record highs on newfound interest from Tesla and other major companies and the CME Group launching ethereum futures this week, the cryptocurrency space is getting the validation the SEC needs to see, Kilburg said.

"I think this is all coming together here in 2021," he said, calling the CME's move a "huge win" for the bitcoin ETF's chances. Valkyrie, where Kilburg is a partner, filed for its own version of the product in late January.

"If they can offer a solution via an ETF, regulate it and it can trade more accurately to the actual spot price of bitcoin, that's the win-win solution for all active and passive investors, even the 'hodlers,'" Kilburg said.

That solution could be close as ever with Gary Gensler, former head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, being tapped to lead the SEC and the cryptocurrency market gaining legitimacy, ETF Trends' Dave Nadig said in the same "ETF Edge" interview.

"I'm maybe not quite as Pollyanna about it. I think maybe we're still looking at '22. But I do think it's inevitable, and I think we're starting to make that progress towards a sort of fully liquid, fully exchange-traded crypto vehicle of some sort, whether it shows up in a traditional ETF or not," Nadig said.

Nadig, ETF Trends' chief investment officer and director of research, cited the success of over-the-counter stocks backed by large amounts of bitcoin such as the Bitwise 10 Crypto Index Fund and Grayscale Bitcoin Trust.

"I think that that is really going to force the SEC's hand," he said. "When we have companies like Tesla making bitcoin a major balance-sheet asset and we have companies for whom that is their whole balance-sheet asset trading on the pink sheets, I think it's going to get hard for them to say no for very much longer."

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Long-awaited bitcoin ETF could finally get approved this year, market analyst says - CNBC

Yahoo Finances Brian Sozzi, Julie Hyman, and Myles Udland break down todays market action and outlook with Julian Emanuel, BTIG Managing Director & Chief Equity Derivatives Strategist.

MYLES UDLAND: Let's talk a bit more about everything that's going on in the markets right now. Let's bring in Julian Emanuel. He's the managing director and the head of equity and derivatives strategy over at BTIG. Julian, it's great to speak with you. I'd love to just start the conversation. We were chatting very briefly before we came on the air about the meme stocks, the YOLO trades, everything happening in the market. How are you thinking about these dynamics which are so unique and have come into the market seemingly overnight?

JULIAN EMANUEL: Well, it actually hasn't come in overnight, Myles. If you look back-- in fact, this was an appearance that we made at the end of 2019 on Yahoo Finance where I had a conversation with Charles Schwab himself in the green room, and we were basically talking about-- they had announced a week earlier-- the start of zero fee online trading, and that conversation just galvanized our thought process to the fact that this bull market, which is essentially been going on since 2009, was one that the public has never really been enthusiastic about.

All of a sudden, you have zero fee online trading. The public begins to get interested in stocks in January and February of 2020. We all know what happened after that. But incredibly enough, the public came back stronger than ever in the summer of 2020. And in an environment where there's the kind of liquidity that there is, when people ostensibly have more time on their hands, and the interest in asset diversification and investing in a world where yields aren't very attractive, just something that has continued to proliferate.

And from our point of view, when you look at the evolution of bull markets, the fact that we're in a much more speculative stage right now, I wouldn't yet call it any sort of mania. Could we get there? We could. But the fact is that the public has taken a lot of knocks in terms, especially new investors, and has come back stronger each time, and we're seeing it again this week in the cannabis space. It's really a testament to the resilience and the stick-to-itiveness of this new generation of investor.

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JULIE HYMAN: I well remember your Charles Schwab encounter, you talking about it, and how excited you were about that, Julian. So I'm glad that you got some sort of actionable insight out of that as well besides just being psyched to meet him. Julian, you know, there seems to be this sort of attitude on the part of most people we talk to that these retail investors are going to get burned, that all of this is going to end badly, but what you're talking about, this sort of stick-to-itiveness and people still coming into these trades suggests maybe it won't end that way? I mean, is there an alternative ending to all of this?

JULIAN EMANUEL: Over the long term, it is likely to be a very significant net positive because, again, this generation of new investors has been under-invested as a percentage of assets. That's a research that's very well known. In the medium term, there's no question about the fact that we are setting up for the potential for this kind of extreme speculation to become more intense, such as what we saw in 1999 and 2000.

And, obviously, that ended badly for several years, but then we think about it and the NASDAQ-100 topped at 4,800 in March of 2000, and here we are 13,014, 14,000. And so, really, what it does is likely going to be at some point a learning experience with regard to the idea of short term trading, but a more retainable experience on the benefits of long term investing.

BRIAN SOZZI: Julian, look, just given the flow that we've seen into equities that have pushed the Dow to record highs here, comparing that, let's compare that to Bitcoin. Just given how everybody is now invested in the market, would you make the case that Bitcoin is under-invested in? And then, by extension, is it undervalued even though we've seen prices really go through the roof the past month?

JULIAN EMANUEL: Well, look, Bitcoin and blockchain itself, and obviously all the other cryptocurrencies, are in what we would call the price discovery phase. It is essentially a new technology, a new way of looking at the world. And from our point of view, again, we think about it in terms of it's a 70 volatility asset, very, very volatile.

When we launched coverage of cryptocurrencies in late November, Bitcoin was at 18,000. We had a $50,000 year end 2021 price target. People thought we were quite aggressive. The same people are now telling us that we're probably not aggressive enough with this price target.

So the truth lies somewhere in the middle in all likelihood, but when you think about all the incremental buyers coming in, the interest that's building, and, on the other hand, the likelihood that the government is going to begin to look at cryptocurrency more carefully from a regulatory aspect, the long term picture looks very, very sound, and we do think that it is a secular bull market, but there are always pullbacks in secular bull markets.

BRIAN SOZZI: Julian, what's your current price target on Bitcoin? Are you looking to raise it?

JULIAN EMANUEL: We think at the moment, frankly, when you think about the news of the incremental very large buyer that we saw at the beginning of the week, that that type of news was something that the market probably was aware of when the chatter started on social media a month or a month and a half ago.

And so from my point of view, again, similar to what we felt in January when Bitcoin first traded over 40,000, we think the market has come a very long way very quickly. So we're going to watch. We think, actually, it's one of these times where a bit of sideways activity is likely to be healthy in preparation for another leg higher.

JULIE HYMAN: And Julian, you can't say it for compliance reasons, but I can. You're talking about Tesla, of course, when you're talking about that big buyer. In addition to looking at all of these assets on the face of it. You're a derivatives guy, too. So you look at the options market. We have seen also it hasn't just been action and straight up equities.

We have seen a lot of action through options at this time. Does that limit retail investors' downside? And how then does this big surge in options activity, how does that play out through the market?

JULIAN EMANUEL: So it actually does limit retail investors' downside because if you buy a put or you buy a call, it is by definition limited risk, theoretically unlimited reward. But what it does potentially do is, because of that profile, encourage the average investor, certainly if they've had a degree of success, which many of them had the last several months, to trade more than they might otherwise normally.

So the structure itself limits potential losses, but because of all the trading activity-- and the call volumes have been absolutely breathtaking. There's no other way of thinking about it, and option prices themselves, particularly on a lot of these meme stocks, have become very expensive because the volatility started moving. So you really have to think about it in a more balanced perspective.

What we would say is, as an investor just pick your spots carefully, understand what you're doing, and hopefully think about the risk reward aspect of it, and let the market work for you, and know that you have limited risk to the downside in those kinds of structures.

MYLES UDLAND: You know, Julian, before we let you go, is this the most interesting market that you've seen in your career? Because I'm just thinking about the arc of this conversation. I mean, this is, like, this is fascinating stuff that we're discussing here that's very different than what the textbook kind of suggests financial markets are like.

JULIAN EMANUEL: So I've been doing this quite a while. I was a proprietary trader in 1999 and 2000. And, frankly, I thought that I had seen it all at that point, but there's no question about the fact that the last year and in particular the last three or four months have been absolutely fascinating, and the benefits of living in the same house with a 23-year-old and a 20-year-old who are actively engaged in social media and investing themselves have been incalculable in my ability to understand it.

MYLES UDLAND: There you go. That is some good old-fashioned sector level channel checking going on there in the Emanuel household. All right. Julian Emanuel, always great to get your thoughts, chief equity and derivatives strategist over at BTIG. I know we'll talk soon.

JULIAN EMANUEL: Thank you.

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Bitcoin outlook: the long term picture looks very sound - Yahoo Finance

The Adyen logo displayed on a smartphone.

Rafael Henrique | SOPA Images | LightRocket via Getty Images

LONDON Adyen, the European fintech giant processing payments for the likes of Facebook, Netflix and Uber, isn't convinced bitcoin can be used as a mainstream form of payment.

Pieter van der Does, the firm's CEO and co-founder, told CNBC that volatility in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies makes them less attractive for making transactions. He added his firm has no interest in adding crypto as a payment method.

"Bitcoin is more of an investment asset than a payment method," Van der Does said in an interview Wednesday.

"We are interested in payment methods which are being used," he added. "I am wondering if the huge movement in the value of bitcoin is helping it as a payment method."

Tesla announced earlier this week that it had made a $1.5 billion investment in bitcoin, a move that led to speculation as to whether more firms would follow suit. Elon Musk's electric car company said in a filing Monday that it would also start accepting payments in bitcoin in exchange for its products.

Meanwhile, Mastercard said Wednesday that it plans to offer support for some cryptocurrencies on its network this year.

Asked whether Adyen could do the same, Van der Does said his firm's merchants aren't requesting that it adds crypto payment functionality to its platform.

"It might not actually be helping cryptocurrencies if they are more like investment assets than a currency," he said."That makes it less interesting for a merchant to have potential (as a means of payment), you need a stable currency."

Adyen did once let its clients accept bitcoin as a payment option but no longer supports the cryptocurrency.

Cryptocurrencies have been known to be wildly volatile for as long as they've been around. Bitcoin alone has gone through various boom and bust cycles, the most recent of which was a run toward $20,000 in 2017 before a collapse of more than 80% in value the following year.

Bitcoin has made a strong comeback lately, though, soaring past $40,000 to hit record highs on news of Tesla's use of corporate cash to buy bitcoin.

Proponents of bitcoin say it's benefited from an increase in institutional investment. Larger investors are looking to diversify their portfolios and view the digital coin as a potential store of value akin to gold, according to the bulls. Skeptics, meanwhile, fear that bitcoin may be one of the biggest market bubbles in history.

Nonetheless, bitcoin has yet to prove itself as a mainstream form of payment. The bitcoin network has a scalability problem, meaning its transaction processing capacity is much more limited than that of a major network like Visa. There are efforts to to ramp up the use of bitcoin in payments, though.

PayPal is hoping to allow its vast network of merchants to accept bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a means of payment, while projects like the so-called Lightning Network aim to speed up bitcoin transaction times.

Founded in 2006, Adyen's platform lets merchants accept online and point-of-sale payments. The Dutch company debuted on the Amsterdam stock exchange in 2018 and has seen its share price more than double since February last year thanks to a boost to e-commerce volumes during the coronavirus pandemic. Adyen competes with the likes of U.S. firm Stripe and British start-up Checkout.com.

Adyen's shares hit a record high Wednesday after the firm posted annual profits that beat expectations. The firm said its business had proven "resilient" in the latter half of 2020 and saw strong gains in its North American operations.

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Fintech giant Adyen says it has no interest in bitcoin as a payment method and clients aren't asking for it - CNBC

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The dollar headed for its first losing week in three as new signs of weakness in the U.S. jobs market dented investor expectations about the pace of economic recovery from the pandemic.

Bitcoin hit a new all-time high of $49,000 on Friday after BNY Mellon became the latest firm to embrace cryptocurrencies, saying it will form a new unit to help clients hold, transfer and issue digital assets.

"With names like BONY getting in, it's going to lay the groundwork for even more mainstream adoption of bitcoin," said Jeffrey Wang, head of Americas at crypto finance service provider Amber Group.

"Medium term, the momentum is very strong and the market is going to want to test $50,000."

The dollar remained on the back foot on Friday in Asia, pinned near two-week lows, after the release of weaker-than-expected weekly U.S. jobless claims data the previous day.

That added to recent concerns that the dollar's previous rally had priced in too fast a pace of rebound for the U.S. economy.

The dollar index edged up less than 0.1% to 90.49 in holiday-thinned trade due to the Lunar New Year, and was on track to fall 0.6% for the week.

There has been a divergence in views among traders this year over just how U.S. President Joe Biden's planned $1.9 trillion fiscal stimulus package will affect the dollar.

Some see it as bolstering the currency as it should speed a U.S. recovery relative to other countries, while others reckoned it would feed a global reflation narrative that should lift riskier assets at the dollar's expense.

"The U.S. economy will outperform most thanks to fiscal stimulus and faster vaccine deployment, but ongoing reflationary fiscal and monetary policy will leave DXY on a sustained medium term bear trend," Westpac strategists wrote of the dollar index in a client note.

The euro slipped less than 0.1% to $1.2122, consolidating for a third day near that level as it headed for a 0.6% weekly advance.

The dollar was mostly flat at 104.795 yen , down 0.5% from the end of last week.

Bitcoin last traded 1.7% weaker at $47,170 after trading at a record high of exactly $49,000.00 on Bitstamp.

The world's most popular cryptocurrency is on course for a nearly 22% weekly advance, its biggest since the period ended Jan. 3.

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Dollar headed for weekly loss, bitcoin hits record $49,000 - CNBC

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(Bloomberg) -- Stefan Qin was just 19 when he claimed to have the secret to cryptocurrency trading.Buoyed with youthful confidence, Qin, a self-proclaimed math prodigy from Australia, dropped out of college in 2016 to start a hedge fund in New York he called Virgil Capital. He told potential clients he had developed an algorithm called Tenjin to monitor cryptocurrency exchanges around the world to seize on price fluctuations. A little more than a year after it started, he bragged the fund had returned 500%, a claim that produced a flurry of new money from investors.He became so flush with cash, Qin signed a lease in September 2019 for a $23,000-a-month apartment in 50 West, a 64-story luxury condo building in the financial district with expansive views of lower Manhattan as well as a pool, sauna, steam room, hot tub and golf simulator.In reality, federal prosecutors said, the operation was a lie, essentially a Ponzi scheme that stole about $90 million from more than 100 investors to help pay for Qins lavish lifestyle and personal investments in such high-risk bets as initial coin offerings. At one point, facing client demands for their money, he variously blamed poor cash flow management and loan sharks in China for his troubles. Last week, Qin, now 24 and expressing remorse, pleaded guilty in federal court in Manhattan to a single count of securities fraud.I knew that what I was doing was wrong and illegal, he told U.S. District Judge Valerie E. Caproni, who could sentence him to more than 15 years in prison. I deeply regret my actions and will spend the rest of my life atoning for what I did. I am profoundly sorry for the harm my selfish behavior has caused to my investors who trusted in me, my employees and my family.Eager InvestorsThe case echoes similar cryptocurrency frauds, such as that of BitConnect, promising people double-and triple-digit returns and costing investors billions. Ponzi schemes like that show how investors eager to cash in on a hot market can easily be led astray by promises of large returns. Canadian exchange QuadrigaCX collapsed in 2019 as a result of fraud, causing at least $125 million in losses for 76,000 investors.While regulatory oversight of the cryptocurrency industry is tightening, the sector is littered with inexperienced participants. A number of the 800 or so crypto funds worldwide are run by people with no knowledge of Wall Street or finance, including some college students and recent graduates who launched funds a few years ago.Qins path started in college, too. He had been a math whiz who planned on becoming a physicist, he told a website, DigFin, in a profile published in December, just a week before regulators closed in on him. He described himself on his LinkedIn page as a quant with a deep interest and understanding in blockchain technology.In 2016, he won acceptance into a program for high-potential entrepreneurs at the University of New South Wales in Sydney with a proposal to use blockchain technology to speed up foreign exchange transactions. He also attended the Minerva Schools, a mostly online college based in San Francisco, from August 2016 through December 2017, the school confirmed.Crypto BugHe got the crypto bug after an internship with a firm in China, he told DigFin. His task had been to build a platform between two venues, one in China and the other in the U.S., to allow the firm to arbitrage cryptocurrencies.Convinced he had happened upon a business, Qin moved to New York to found Virgil Capital. His strategy, he told investors, would be to exploit the tendency of cryptocurrencies to trade at different prices at various exchanges. He would be market-neutral, meaning that the firms funds wouldnt be exposed to price movements.And unlike other hedge funds, he told DigFin, Virgil wouldnt charge management fees, taking only fees based on the firms performance. We never try to make easy money, Qin said.By his telling, Virgil got off to a fast start, claiming 500% returns in 2017, which brought in more investors eager to participate. A marketing brochure boasted of 10% monthly returns -- or 2,811% over a three-year period ending in August 2019, legal filings show.His assets got an extra jolt after the Wall Street Journal profiled him in a February 2018 story that touted his skill at arbitraging cryptocurrency. Virgil experienced substantial growth as new investors flocked to the fund, prosecutors said.Missing AssetsThe first cracks appeared last summer. Some investors were becoming increasingly upset about missing assets and incomplete transfers, the former head of investor relations, Melissa Fox Murphy, said in a court declaration. (She left the firm in December.) The complaints grew.It is now MID DECEMBER and my MILLION DOLLARS IS NOWHERE TO BE SEEN, wrote one investor, whose name was blacked out in court documents. Its a disgrace the way you guys are treating one of your earliest and largest investors.Around the same time, nine investors with $3.5 million in funds asked for redemptions from the firms flagship Virgil Sigma Fund LP, according to prosecutors. But there was no money to transfer. Qin had drained the Sigma Fund of its assets. The funds balances were fabricated.Instead of trading at 39 exchanges around the world, as he had claimed, Qin spent investor money on personal expenses and to invest in other undisclosed high-risk investments, including initial coin offerings, prosecutors said.So Qin tried to stall. He convinced investors instead to transfer their interests into his VQR Multistrategy Fund, another cryptocurrency fund he started in February 2020 that used a variety of trading strategies -- and still had assets.Loan SharksHe also sought to withdraw $1.7 million from the VQR fund, but that aroused suspicions from the head trader, Antonio Hallak. In a phone call Hallak recorded in December, Qin said he needed the money to repay loan sharks in China that he had borrowed from to start his business, according to court filings in a lawsuit filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission. He said the loan sharks might do anything to collect on the debt and that he had a liquidity issue that prevented him from repaying them.I just had such poor cash flow management to be honest with you, Qin told Hallak. I dont have money right now dude. Its so sad.When the trader balked at the withdrawal, Qin attempted to take over the reins of VQRs accounts. But by now the SEC was involved. It got cryptocurrency exchanges to put a hold on VQRs remaining assets and, a week later, filed suit.Asset RecoveryBy the end, Qin had drained virtually all of the money that was in the Sigma Fund. A court-appointed receiver who is overseeing the fund is looking to recover assets for investors, said Nicholas Biase, a spokesman for Manhattan U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss. About $24 million in assets in the VQR fund was frozen and should be available to disperse, he said.Stefan He Qin drained almost all of the assets from the $90 million cryptocurrency fund he owned, stealing investors money, spending it on indulgences and speculative personal investments, and lying to investors about the performance of the fund and what he had done with their money, Strauss said in a statement.In South Korea when he learned of the probe, Qin agreed to fly back to the U.S., prosecutors said. He surrendered to authorities on Feb. 4, pleaded guilty the same day before Caproni, and was freed on a $50,000 bond pending his sentencing, scheduled for May 20. While the maximum statutory penalty calls for 20 years in prison, as part of a plea deal, prosecutors agreed that he should get 151 to 188 months behind bars under federal sentencing guidelines and a fine of up to $350,000.That fate is a far cry from the career his parents had envisioned for him -- a physicist, he had told DigFin. They werent too happy when I told them I had quit uni to do this crypto thing. Who knows, maybe someday Ill complete my degree. But what I really want to do is trade crypto.The case is U.S. v Qin, 21-cr-75, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan)(Updates with comment from prosecutor and case caption)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.2021 Bloomberg L.P.

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7 public companies with exposure to bitcoin - Yahoo Finance

Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Stefan Qin was just 19 when he claimed to have the secret to cryptocurrency trading.Buoyed with youthful confidence, Qin, a self-proclaimed math prodigy from Australia, dropped out of college in 2016 to start a hedge fund in New York he called Virgil Capital. He told potential clients he had developed an algorithm called Tenjin to monitor cryptocurrency exchanges around the world to seize on price fluctuations. A little more than a year after it started, he bragged the fund had returned 500%, a claim that produced a flurry of new money from investors.He became so flush with cash, Qin signed a lease in September 2019 for a $23,000-a-month apartment in 50 West, a 64-story luxury condo building in the financial district with expansive views of lower Manhattan as well as a pool, sauna, steam room, hot tub and golf simulator.In reality, federal prosecutors said, the operation was a lie, essentially a Ponzi scheme that stole about $90 million from more than 100 investors to help pay for Qins lavish lifestyle and personal investments in such high-risk bets as initial coin offerings. At one point, facing client demands for their money, he variously blamed poor cash flow management and loan sharks in China for his troubles. Last week, Qin, now 24 and expressing remorse, pleaded guilty in federal court in Manhattan to a single count of securities fraud.I knew that what I was doing was wrong and illegal, he told U.S. District Judge Valerie E. Caproni, who could sentence him to more than 15 years in prison. I deeply regret my actions and will spend the rest of my life atoning for what I did. I am profoundly sorry for the harm my selfish behavior has caused to my investors who trusted in me, my employees and my family.Eager InvestorsThe case echoes similar cryptocurrency frauds, such as that of BitConnect, promising people double-and triple-digit returns and costing investors billions. Ponzi schemes like that show how investors eager to cash in on a hot market can easily be led astray by promises of large returns. Canadian exchange QuadrigaCX collapsed in 2019 as a result of fraud, causing at least $125 million in losses for 76,000 investors.While regulatory oversight of the cryptocurrency industry is tightening, the sector is littered with inexperienced participants. A number of the 800 or so crypto funds worldwide are run by people with no knowledge of Wall Street or finance, including some college students and recent graduates who launched funds a few years ago.Qins path started in college, too. He had been a math whiz who planned on becoming a physicist, he told a website, DigFin, in a profile published in December, just a week before regulators closed in on him. He described himself on his LinkedIn page as a quant with a deep interest and understanding in blockchain technology.In 2016, he won acceptance into a program for high-potential entrepreneurs at the University of New South Wales in Sydney with a proposal to use blockchain technology to speed up foreign exchange transactions. He also attended the Minerva Schools, a mostly online college based in San Francisco, from August 2016 through December 2017, the school confirmed.Crypto BugHe got the crypto bug after an internship with a firm in China, he told DigFin. His task had been to build a platform between two venues, one in China and the other in the U.S., to allow the firm to arbitrage cryptocurrencies.Convinced he had happened upon a business, Qin moved to New York to found Virgil Capital. His strategy, he told investors, would be to exploit the tendency of cryptocurrencies to trade at different prices at various exchanges. He would be market-neutral, meaning that the firms funds wouldnt be exposed to price movements.And unlike other hedge funds, he told DigFin, Virgil wouldnt charge management fees, taking only fees based on the firms performance. We never try to make easy money, Qin said.By his telling, Virgil got off to a fast start, claiming 500% returns in 2017, which brought in more investors eager to participate. A marketing brochure boasted of 10% monthly returns -- or 2,811% over a three-year period ending in August 2019, legal filings show.His assets got an extra jolt after the Wall Street Journal profiled him in a February 2018 story that touted his skill at arbitraging cryptocurrency. Virgil experienced substantial growth as new investors flocked to the fund, prosecutors said.Missing AssetsThe first cracks appeared last summer. Some investors were becoming increasingly upset about missing assets and incomplete transfers, the former head of investor relations, Melissa Fox Murphy, said in a court declaration. (She left the firm in December.) The complaints grew.It is now MID DECEMBER and my MILLION DOLLARS IS NOWHERE TO BE SEEN, wrote one investor, whose name was blacked out in court documents. Its a disgrace the way you guys are treating one of your earliest and largest investors.Around the same time, nine investors with $3.5 million in funds asked for redemptions from the firms flagship Virgil Sigma Fund LP, according to prosecutors. But there was no money to transfer. Qin had drained the Sigma Fund of its assets. The funds balances were fabricated.Instead of trading at 39 exchanges around the world, as he had claimed, Qin spent investor money on personal expenses and to invest in other undisclosed high-risk investments, including initial coin offerings, prosecutors said.So Qin tried to stall. He convinced investors instead to transfer their interests into his VQR Multistrategy Fund, another cryptocurrency fund he started in February 2020 that used a variety of trading strategies -- and still had assets.Loan SharksHe also sought to withdraw $1.7 million from the VQR fund, but that aroused suspicions from the head trader, Antonio Hallak. In a phone call Hallak recorded in December, Qin said he needed the money to repay loan sharks in China that he had borrowed from to start his business, according to court filings in a lawsuit filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission. He said the loan sharks might do anything to collect on the debt and that he had a liquidity issue that prevented him from repaying them.I just had such poor cash flow management to be honest with you, Qin told Hallak. I dont have money right now dude. Its so sad.When the trader balked at the withdrawal, Qin attempted to take over the reins of VQRs accounts. But by now the SEC was involved. It got cryptocurrency exchanges to put a hold on VQRs remaining assets and, a week later, filed suit.Asset RecoveryBy the end, Qin had drained virtually all of the money that was in the Sigma Fund. A court-appointed receiver who is overseeing the fund is looking to recover assets for investors, said Nicholas Biase, a spokesman for Manhattan U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss. About $24 million in assets in the VQR fund was frozen and should be available to disperse, he said.Stefan He Qin drained almost all of the assets from the $90 million cryptocurrency fund he owned, stealing investors money, spending it on indulgences and speculative personal investments, and lying to investors about the performance of the fund and what he had done with their money, Strauss said in a statement.In South Korea when he learned of the probe, Qin agreed to fly back to the U.S., prosecutors said. He surrendered to authorities on Feb. 4, pleaded guilty the same day before Caproni, and was freed on a $50,000 bond pending his sentencing, scheduled for May 20. While the maximum statutory penalty calls for 20 years in prison, as part of a plea deal, prosecutors agreed that he should get 151 to 188 months behind bars under federal sentencing guidelines and a fine of up to $350,000.That fate is a far cry from the career his parents had envisioned for him -- a physicist, he had told DigFin. They werent too happy when I told them I had quit uni to do this crypto thing. Who knows, maybe someday Ill complete my degree. But what I really want to do is trade crypto.The case is U.S. v Qin, 21-cr-75, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan)(Updates with comment from prosecutor and case caption)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.2021 Bloomberg L.P.

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Not Just Bitcoin, Paypal's Vision Involves Central Bank Digital Currencies Too: What You Need To Know - Yahoo Finance