Coinbase Faces Backlash on No Politics at Work Stance, Fintechs Should Sell Financial Health Not Financial Services, Us Charges Bitmex for Failing To Prevent Money Laundering

U.S. prosecutors on Thursday filed criminal charges accusing four founders and executives of BitMEX, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency derivatives exchanges, of evading rules designed to stop money laundering.

After the chief executive of cryptocurrency startup Coinbase banned some forms of political speech in the workplace, a number of other Silicon Valley leaders spoke up with to challenge – or applaud – his decision.

Bitpanda, a crypto assets platform, has closed a $52 million Series A funding round from Valar Ventures, a venture capital firm backed by Peter Thiel. Vienna-based VC Speedinvest also participated, alongside other unnamed investors. Claiming 1.3 million users, Bitpanda has previously been trading digital assets and tokenizing precious metals.

Kakao Pay is set to be the first South Korean FinTech working with mobile payments to undertake an IPO. The company is likely to be valued at $8.5 billion.

QUIN, a Berlin-based investment advisory service, has raised €1 million in seed funding to provide a non-custodian platform empowering people to invest safely and rationally. The round was led by sino AG, other investors include Runa Capital, APX and a number of angel investors.

Fintechs should stop providing financial services and start providing financial health. This may seem to be just another buzzword for embedded finance strategists, but I think it is more than that. It’s a way of thinking about the next generation financial sector.

A new report from Deloitte highlights that, despite some progress, women remain generally underrepresented in the fintech sector.

The fintech industry expects financial services to increasingly be embedded into nonfinancial platforms over the next decade.

In the middle of a pandemic when customers are often wearing plastic gloves to stores alongside their face masks, Amazon’s physical retail team is introducing a new biometric device that will allow shoppers to pay at Amazon Go stores using their palm.

We initiate coverage on Square and see its current share price as a good entry point for investors who want exposure to a winner in the fast-growing fintech sector.

It’s 2020, we’re in the midst of a global pandemic and in and out of lockdown, Kanye West (with Elon Musk’s blessings) tried to run for president, and the word ‘cryptocurrency’ is no longer a niche reserved only for people within the tech sphere.