Weekly Roundup
Bitcoin ETFs
Discussions continued on Bitcoin ETFs, with further delays at the SEC reported, following approvals recently in Latin America, Canada, and Europe.
Decentralized Finance
Further industry participants joined the decentralized finance push, with GTS, Hudson River Trading, Jump Trading and Virtu among the automated trading firms working to giving everyday investors unprecedented access to data feeds via the blockchain, potentially disrupting conventional banking and markets.
Cybersecurity
Attention to cybersecurity policy continued, with the SEC probing SolarWinds clients over cyber breach disclosures.
Review of Market Structure
SEC Chair Gensler further highlighted his agenda on review of equity market structure, including gravitation of trading off exchanges into alternative trading systems such as dark pools, and impact on pricing for retail investors. This raises questions over whether the minimum tick size of a penny should be reduced to under apenny to make the exchanges more competitive in pricing.
In the Mix: This Week’s Top FinTech Thought Leader
- Robert Smith, CEO of Vista Equity Partners, spoke about building capital in the African American community.
- Kathy Pretz, authored an op-ed on promoting responsible artificial intelligence among financial community.
- Jonah Peretti, CEO and co-founder of BuzzFeed, discussed plans to go public through a SPAC, targeting atargeting a $1.5 billion valuation.