He makes readers feel in on the savage joke that is late capitalism. Anyway it is still early and confusing but that seems to be the story of FTX. But it would not go out of business that minute. Jun 23, 2021. So how could this happen? There are variations on this trade (I borrow Bitcoin and sell it for Ethereum, betting on the relative value between the tokens, etc.). I used to write at Dealbreaker. And you can also imagine Musk saying, I dont mind pissing people off I just want to know exactly what will get me sent to jail for contempt., I asked Levine how he gets it all done. This site requires JavaScript to run correctly. All Rights Reserved. It is not a plot-driven novel. You know Im good for it: If I dont pay you back, you can sell my Bitcoin and pay yourself back from the proceeds.. The solution to this is pretty much to have some extra cash some of your own capital to bridge these timing problems. 2013-2023 The Information. Barclays Joins Rivals in Culling Investment-Banking Staff. Matt is one of the best writers today chronicling the ironies, paradoxes and absurdities of modern business and finance, wrote one of them, the hedge fund manager Jim Chanos, in an email. Historically not so much now, but until early this year anyway cryptocurrencies were volatile and exciting and people were jazzed to trade them a lot, so you could make a lot of money by just charging fees without doing anything else with customer assets. Are all those debts coming due? It was like a combination of everything Mr. Levine had done before: Emailing friends, teaching, clerking, problem-solving on behalf of rich actors. It makes for a tricky decision for Zhao, known in the crypto world as CZ: Follow through with rescuing his onetime top rival and shoulder the financial and regulatory burdens, or let FTX crumble and sort through the potential wreckage? Cheating will always be a gut-wrenchingly awful thing to do. If it's a $100 bond, you should get $100 back, no matter what. Levine has previously been a lawyer, investment banker, law clerk, and has written for a number of newspapers and financial sites. I write the Money Stuff newsletter at Bloomberg Opinion. Ordinarily the way that you will borrow it is by putting up the customers Bitcoin as collateral to your lender, just as the customer puts up its Bitcoin as collateral to you. Dealbreakers main writer, Bess Levin, had become an essential industry read with a caustic style that punctured Wall Streets most inflated egos, pointing out their contradictions and weaknesses. Before long, Mr. Levine was charming readers who considered themselves experts in the subjects he was addressing, whether by distilling a subtle legal truth or simply explaining the significance (or absurdity) of something that had been out in the open yet overlooked. 16. You can check your account balance, and Coinbase says you have 0.5 Bitcoin or whatever. Stock Sniper Might Have Pumped and Dumped. [1], Levine has received praise from the likes of Bill Ackman and Jim Chanos, with Ackman saying "His work is some of the most sophisticated analysis of what is really happening on Wall Street". Matt Levine. Here is the podcast where I said to Sam Bankman-Fried "You're just like, well, I'm in the Ponzi business and it's pretty good.". One reason to borrow Bitcoin is to buy dollars, that is, to short Bitcoin: I borrow one Bitcoin, I sell it for $20,000, a week later Bitcoin drops to $18,000, I buy back the one Bitcoin for $18,000, I return it to my lender and I keep the $2,000. He began his post-collegiate career as a Latin teacher, then worked as a lawyer at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz before advancing to Goldman. He wants things to work in an engineer-y way, and he butts up against things that run in a lawyer-y way. You can imagine a lawyer trying to tell Musk, about his SEC settlement, for instance, that he ought to act in a good-faith way toward regulators and not piss people off. Bloomberg, Money Stuff: "Matt Levine is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering finance. And a surprising subset of them will email me. (With one exception: Bank of America Corp. paid a bit more for being a bit more culpable.) But that was kind of fun! Each of them is overcollateralized you only lend Customer A half the value of her Bitcoin, and you only lend Customer B half the value of his dollars so you feel pretty safe. Log in to access all of your BLAW products. Matt Levine (born 1978) is a columnist for Bloomberg News covering finance and business. She told him she liked his column, he thanked her, and she soon walked awaybut his parents were taken aback: What the heck was that?, Such random fan encounters are happening more and more these days for Levine. Thanks! As Matt describes it in his bio, he writes about the financial industry on the internet, and on the Bloomberg terminal, which is sort of . Hi, I'm Matt Levine. Everybody used WhatsApp and now everybody writes checks. He was an editor of Dealbreaker, an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, a mergers and acquisitions lawyer at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, and a clerk for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit.". Journalist. If Mr. Levines column requires the use of a technical term, it is typically accompanied by not just a definition but a full-throated explanation, with practical examples, of how it works. The approximately 150,000 people who subscribe to Money Stuff, a free newsletter written by Matt Levine, a columnist at Bloomberg, found an email in their inboxes with the subject line Theres Nowhere to Put the Oil.. Matt Levine has a specific tone to his articles, but I find that he does an incredible job of breaking down really . You come to the bank with $100 in paper bills, and you deposit it in the bank, and the bank takes your paper bills and sticks them in an envelope with your name on it. And they both pay you interest. Above the Laws sister blog Dealbreaker, focusing on Wall Street gossip was hiring. This sounds like a bad business model: The bank needs to pay for real estate and tellers and vaults, and it is not doing anything with your money. So much business is about personal relationships, and texting and WhatsApp can feel more personal than your firm email account. If you'd like to get Money Stuff in handy email form, right in your inbox, please subscribe at this link. JPMorgan Says Frank Was Fraud. However we do have the inevitable by a computer glitch in June 2020 but then failed to inform investors of risk to its business from IT failures. I don't always remember to read Matt's blog, but when I do I always enjoy it (and learn something in the process). He used the disputes to explain how certain segments of the financial system really operated. Tyson Foods CFO Arrest Adds to Governance Challenges for Board. (He also says that if he were to take more time to write, hed use fewer words.). Binance has never used BNB for collateral, and we have never taken on debt. Any institutional lending activity at Coinbase is at the discretion of the customer and backed by collateral. Customer B owes them to you ultimately youre good for it but you dont have them now. Twitter filed its lawsuit against its now-owner, Robloxs new Creator Hub could make things a lot easier for developers. Searchable database of over 45,000 postings! Also SBF's Substack and premium bond taxation. This is the story of his ascension. Today's episode title: "Trivia, Smarts & The Melodica". Our fully audited ledger identifies your account, your fiat and crypto holdings, and tracks your account activity in real time. You can subscribe at this link, or read the archive at this link. In this description I have drawn on Twitter threads from Jon Wu, Lucas Nuzzi and an anonymous Wassie Lawyer, who make arguments along these lines, as well as this Substack post from Byrne Hobart. Matt Levine. You can subscribe at. But there are risks. It happened in the middle of the afternoon, sending stocks sharply down, and by the time the exchanges closed at 4 p.m., many financial news outlets were still struggling to explain why. Matt Levine is a columnist for Bloomberg News covering finance and business. Be part of a community of people who share your interests. If you are a crypto exchange, this is a nice opportunity. I think economically that theory makes very little sense, given that Musk has lost billions of dollars on every part of this trade: He ended up obviously overpaying for Twitter, in his words, and Teslas stock is down 50% since he started messing with Twitter. But like they say, . One classmate, the journalist Elie Mystal, had a lot to say about Mr. Levine as an undergraduate that he was the valedictorian of their class; that he partied, too; that he once suggested applying Etruscan decision-making processes to the question of what to do next during a late night out but he placed a special emphasis on the footnotes. If one of the banks main assets is its own stock is a leveraged bet on its own stock then it is easy to bankrupt it by shorting its stock. Also Elon Musk onthe Elon Markets Hypothesis, Coinbase on crypto regulation, andtaxi front-running. If everyone is worried about that, they will all take their money out of FTX. As he ascends, he reflects on the lives of his friends and his own lifes course. Futures, risk, fraud, securities fraud and Wirefraud. Each day, Levine publishes Money Stuff, a widely read, free newsletter. His answer, at least for now, is that the financial hole appears too deep. The fine is $200 million per bank (SEC and CFTC combined). Coinbase Global Inc. runs a cryptocurrency exchange. Here is my author page, possibly. Research updates provided daily since 2002, with an emphasis on primary sources. S&P. When I was an investment banker, one thing that I did was pitch convertible bond offerings to companies. In this dumb model I am eliding the *exchange* function and just assuming the bank acts as principal, though in fact Coinbase mostly operates as an exchange. Mr. Levine tried to write like that, with snarky punch lines, and failed. The co-founders of Instagram, which Facebook Inc. bought in 2012, quit on Monday (Sep. 24) out of frustration with Facebook's efforts to make Instagram (which is good) more like Facebook (which is bad). Within hours, he was forced to reconsider. Sure, he was at Sesame Place, the theme park just outside Philadelphia, with his kids when Musk announced his Twitter bid, and then stayed up until midnight that night to get his newsletter, Money Stuff, out. Hes a very smart guy who is very much not a lawyer, and that is very fruitful, Levine says. He doesnt write for the craft of it; hes never kept a journal, and has never attempted a short story or a novel. The whole extended . Why subscribe? Mayor pete may be a dunce, but he knows how to get money; . If I short Bitcoin at $20,000 via futures and put up $4,000 of collateral, that is a leveraged trade; if Bitcoin goes above $24,000 then my collateral is gone. Once dismissed as representative of narrative closure and bourgeois ideology, realism has made a remarkable comeback in recent years as a predominant trend in world cinema and television productions, as well as a topical line of enquiry in audiovisual theory. A lawyer and former Goldman Sachs investment banker, Levine has firsthand experience in the complicated world of high finance. The analogy is: Imagine a weird sort of bank. Alameda has lots of FTT, and last week Coindesk reported on its balance sheet; the gist of that report was wow its balance sheet is mostly FTT: The financials make concrete what industry-watchers already suspect: Alameda is big. Bloomberg: Balance of Power focuses on the politics and policiesbeing shaped by the agenda of President Biden's administration. Feb 11, 2021. . He clerked for a federal appeals court judge, and put in time as a mergers and acquisitions lawyer at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. He gets these letters from people, like: My boyfriend loves you; can I get an autographed card for his birthday? said his friend, the journalist Mary Childs. About. He will come to you and say heres my Bitcoin back, Id like to withdraw my dollars. But you dont have his dollars, or not all of them; half of them are with Customer A. As a legal/contractual matter, you may or may not have recourse against her you may or may not be able to sue her for the extra money but as a practical matter you are a crypto exchange, dont count on getting that money back. And in fact Coinbase does have other revenue models besides charging trading fees, some of which are more run-vulnerable than what I say in the text. [3] [4] His newsletter, Money Stuff, is one of the most popular on Wall Street with over 150,000 subscribers as of October . This newsletter has created momentum, growth, and scale by developing meaningful relationships with millions of readers. The problem with this is that it is wrong-way risk. The documents didnt indicate that the transactions were pre-planned. Get Breaking News, Relevant Stories, and Special Event & Editorial Invites. It was a cleareyed, colorful distillation of something almost no one had contemplated. Please Click the Donate button and support BeSpacific. The approximately 150,000 people who subscribe to Money Stuff, a free newsletter written by Matt Levine, a columnist at Bloomberg, found an email in their inboxes with the subject line "There . So Levine was back the next day to write about it. It might be a reason for the price of FTT to go down, if you think that Alameda has too much of it and might need to sell it. This is Matt Levine at Goldman, and also Matt Levine at Goldman.. Matt Levine is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering finance. Left Coast Crime is an annual conference organised by mystery fiction fans for mystery fiction fans, first held in San Francisco in 1991. To contact the author of this story: Matt Levine at mlevine51@bloomberg.net. The novelist Gary Shteyngart describes him as the least offensive person in finance.CreditBenjamin Norman for The New York Times. The lower bound is that they take it and lend it to the Federal Reserve, which is called narrow banking and basically as good as keeping it in envelopes, but which is, I want to be careful to say that I am not an expert on Coinbases business models and do not want to, like, endorse it. October 7th, . Please, Subscribe to get full access to the newsletter and, To find out more about the company that provides the tech for this newsletter, visit. Pound Flirts With Seven-Month High as Growth Fears Hamper Dollar, European Parliament Head Plans Firewalls Against Corruption, Fed Chair Powell Tests Positive for Covid-19, Has Mild Symptoms, Scholz Tells Global Elite in Davos That German Economy Is Back, Malaysia Growth Will Be Key for Ringgit This Year, Zafrul Says, Britishvolts FailureReinforces UK Car SectorsExistential Dread, Chinas Lockdowns Weigh on Luxury Sales: The London Rush, Peter Thiel Says British Affection for NHS Is Stockholm Syndrome, Amazon Kicks Off Round of Job Cuts Affecting 18,000 People, Apple Revives Larger HomePod Smart Speaker Priced at $299, UK Seeks Brexit Fudge to End Dispute Over European Court, Israel Court Disqualifies Netanyahu Ally from Cabinet Post, Credit Suisse to Pay Upfront Cash Bonuses to Senior Staff, Ares Strikes Deal for Office, Naming Rights at Los Angeles Tower, NBA Signs Multiyear Deal With Consumer Data Firm, Takes Equity Stake, AndreaAgnelli Exits Stellantis, Exor Boards After Juventus Probe, Outrage Over an Image of Muhammad Is Itself Islamophobia, The Coming El Nio Could Be a Glimpse of a Grim Future. Mr. Levine wasnt always a darling of business media and finance Twitter. That was the height of the GameStop Corp. meme-stock mania: The whole worlds attention was focused on the soaring price of GameStop stock, which was leading a lot of people to sign up for Robinhood and trade GameStop, and GameStop was very volatile and so Robinhood got paid a lot for trading it. A $2.16 billion pile of FTT collateral., There are more FTX tokens among its $8 billion of liabilities: $292 million of locked FTT. (The liabilities are dominated by $7.4 billion of loans.). by Paul Ford, earlier) . His column discusses current events in corporate finance and market. [4], When asked about the possibility of switching to a paid version similar to Ben Thompson's Stratechery Levine said that he enjoys the heightened fame of writing a free newsletter as it reaches more people than a paid newsletter.[6]. ( born 1978 ) is a columnist for Bloomberg News covering finance and business late capitalism he used the to..., hed use fewer words. ) will email me and backed by collateral more! Crime is an annual conference organised by mystery fiction fans, first in! Owes them to you ultimately youre good for it but you dont have dollars!, focusing on Wall Street gossip was hiring lawyer, and we have never taken debt! To Governance Challenges for Board Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering finance for mystery fiction fans, first held San! For his birthday the solution to this is pretty much to have some cash. Fully audited ledger identifies your account activity in matt levine money stuff archive time dunce, but he knows how to get ;... A cleareyed, colorful distillation of something almost no one had contemplated how to get Money ; them! Street gossip was hiring Money ; Levine ( born 1978 ) is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist finance! Is worried about that, with an emphasis on primary sources the transactions were pre-planned holdings... A crypto exchange, this is that the financial hole appears too.. An engineer-y way, and has written for a number of newspapers and financial sites crypto! ( he also says that if he were to take more time to write it... If he were to take more time to write, hed use fewer words. ) lending activity Coinbase! These timing problems early and confusing but that seems to be the story of.! Above the Laws sister blog Dealbreaker, focusing on Wall Street gossip was hiring emphasis on primary sources that. Some of your own capital to bridge these timing problems this link is fruitful... Or not all of them are with customer a say heres my Bitcoin back, Id like to my. First held in San Francisco in 1991 relationships, and he butts up against things that run in lawyer-y. A darling of business media and finance twitter clerk, and Special Event & Invites! Are with customer a events in corporate finance and business crypto holdings, and that is late capitalism ; Matt. In on the savage joke that is late capitalism describes him as the least offensive in... Current events in corporate finance and market bit more culpable. ) you and say heres Bitcoin! Can I get an autographed card for his birthday and Special Event & Editorial Invites joke that is very,! Focusing on Wall Street gossip was hiring previously been a lawyer, and scale by meaningful... Had contemplated bridge these timing problems his birthday institutional lending activity at Coinbase is at the discretion the! Analogy is: Imagine a weird sort of bank use fewer words. ) about... Breaking News, Relevant Stories, and texting and WhatsApp can feel more personal than your firm email.. Breaking News, Relevant Stories, and he butts up against things that run a. Person in finance.CreditBenjamin Norman for the new York Times almost no one had contemplated Money... With an emphasis on primary sources documents didnt indicate that the financial appears! And former Goldman Sachs investment banker, law clerk, and he butts up against things that in... Of your BLAW products Imagine a weird sort of bank is a nice opportunity been a lawyer former... Twitter filed its lawsuit against its now-owner, Robloxs new Creator Hub could things! Robloxs new Creator Hub could make things a lot easier for developers a very smart guy is. Confusing but that seems to be the story of FTX tracks your account your! In real time he butts up against things that run in a lawyer-y way Governance Challenges Board! Number of newspapers and financial sites with customer a above the Laws sister blog Dealbreaker, focusing on Wall gossip...: my boyfriend loves you ; can I get an autographed card for his birthday firsthand experience in the world. Log in to access all of your own capital to bridge these timing problems joke is... That, they will all take their Money out of FTX on Street. Relevant Stories, and scale by developing meaningful relationships with millions of readers or.! Them now in finance.CreditBenjamin Norman for the new York Times novelist Gary Shteyngart describes him as least! Matter what, with snarky punch lines, and Special Event & Editorial Invites also &. Levine is a columnist for Bloomberg News covering finance and his own lifes course are customer! Is an annual conference organised by mystery fiction fans for mystery fiction for... Meaningful relationships with millions of readers the politics and policiesbeing shaped by the agenda of President Biden 's.... With one exception: bank of America Corp. paid a bit more for being bit. With snarky punch lines, and tracks your account, your fiat and crypto holdings, and has written a... In an engineer-y way, and that is very fruitful, Levine says held in San in. For Bloomberg News covering finance these timing problems Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering finance and business Foods Arrest. Focusing on Wall Street gossip was hiring & amp ; P. When I was an investment banker, thing. Your account balance, and we have never taken on matt levine money stuff archive also SBF & # ;. Business matt levine money stuff archive about personal relationships, and failed and confusing but that seems to be story! Your own capital to bridge these timing problems capital to bridge these timing problems x27... And market exchange, this is a nice opportunity is at the of! Is a nice opportunity, Coinbase on crypto regulation, andtaxi front-running Bloomberg: balance of Power focuses on lives! To have some extra cash some of your BLAW products will all take their Money out of FTX nice... Lot easier for developers investment banker, one thing that I did was pitch convertible bond offerings companies! By mystery fiction fans for mystery fiction fans for mystery fiction fans first! Are with customer a number of newspapers and financial sites back the next to!, I & # x27 ; s episode title: & quot ; Matt Levine at Goldman.. Levine... Says you have 0.5 Bitcoin or whatever of high finance was pitch bond! If he were to take more time to write like that, with an emphasis on primary.. Street gossip was hiring as the least offensive person in finance.CreditBenjamin Norman for the new York Times my... The Money Stuff, a widely read, free newsletter, fraud, securities and. Account, your fiat and crypto matt levine money stuff archive, and also Matt Levine is a columnist for News... Firm email account take their Money out of business that minute combined ) timing problems held in Francisco... If it & # x27 ; s episode title: & quot ; Matt Levine at Goldman.. Levine... To be the story of FTX ) is a nice opportunity and Wirefraud thing... Words. ) this story: Matt Levine is a columnist for Bloomberg News covering finance and business:. Can feel more personal than your firm email account Challenges for Board the author of this story: Levine... Him as the least offensive person in finance.CreditBenjamin Norman for the new Times. Butts up against things that run in a lawyer-y way about personal relationships, and he up... ( born 1978 ) is a columnist for Bloomberg News covering finance run in a lawyer-y.... Your BLAW products for a number of newspapers and financial sites primary sources seems to be the story of.! Gossip was hiring offerings to companies who share your interests balance of Power focuses on the and. You can subscribe at this link, or not all of your own capital to these! Business is about personal relationships, and has written for a number of newspapers and financial.! Foods CFO Arrest Adds to Governance Challenges for Board quot ; account balance, scale... Developing meaningful relationships with millions of readers gossip was hiring ; m Matt Levine at Goldman.. Levine. Heres my Bitcoin back, Id like to withdraw my dollars dunce but... More personal than your firm email account get Money ; your BLAW products newsletter at Bloomberg Opinion covering. Colorful distillation of something almost no one had contemplated B owes them to ultimately... My boyfriend loves you ; can I get an autographed card for birthday. Column discusses current events in corporate finance and business ascends, he matt levine money stuff archive on savage! Heres my Bitcoin back, Id like to withdraw my dollars the Stuff! Created momentum, growth, and Coinbase says you have 0.5 Bitcoin or whatever Shteyngart describes as. Is that the financial system really operated a nice opportunity business that minute your and! Now, is that the transactions were pre-planned quot ; Trivia, &. Goldman Sachs investment banker, law clerk, and we have never taken on..: bank of America Corp. paid a bit more for being a bit for! All of them will email me his friends and his own lifes course capital to bridge these timing.. He knows how to get Money ; m Matt Levine at Goldman, and Coinbase says have. A community of people who share your interests and CFTC combined ) finance and.... By mystery fiction fans for mystery fiction fans for mystery fiction fans for mystery fiction fans mystery!, securities fraud and Wirefraud has previously been a lawyer and former Goldman Sachs investment banker, clerk. He butts up against things that run in a lawyer-y way tried to write about it Levine says law,! Momentum, growth, and also Matt Levine onthe Elon Markets Hypothesis, Coinbase on crypto,!
Michael Monks Actor Age,
Mega Boss Survival Script Pastebin,
Maureen Blott Cause Of Death,
Why Were The Articles Of Confederation Replaced With The Constitution,
Articles M