Unusual Whales

Citigroup Lets Go of 50 Trading Personnel While Barclays Cuts 200 Positions

Per CNBC Citigroup, based in New York, is cutting 50 trading personnel. The firm is also cutting dozens of banking roles. Barclays, based in London, is cutting 200 positions across its banking and trading desks. CNBC says this move is an example of the annual ritual of what has defined

Jim Cramer Says It's Not a Good Time for the Fed to Slow Rate Hikes

Per CNBC Jim Cramer says there's enough pain in the market for the Feds to slow its rate hike. He pointed to sectors like crypto and software as an example of the damage done by the Feds. Cramer said the reported Amazon layoffs were also an example of

Elon Musk Tells Twitter Employees They can Still Receive Stock Despite Company Now Private

Per CNBC Elon Musk plans to continue the "ongoing compensation plan" for employees to receive stock in the now-private company. Musk said exceptional amounts of shares would be given to people with exceptional performance. Musk said the stock plan would be similar to SpaceX, which has secondary offerings

Crypto lender BlockFi says it has significant exposure to FTX

Cryptocurrency lender BlockFi said on Monday it has significant exposure to Sam Bankman-Fried's crypto exchange FTX, and associated entities, that last week filed for bankruptcy. FTX founder Bankman-Fried also resigned as chief executive, after the biggest blowup in the crypto industry drew calls for tighter regulation. "We

Elon Musk fired a Twitter employee on Twitter

Twitter has seen thousands of layoffs, departures, and resignations since Elon Musk took over, but one of the latest staffing changes appears to have been personal — the company’s new CEO tweeted that Eric Frohnhoefer, an employee who had publicly argued with him on the platform, had been fired. The

Alameda research bought tokens before listed on FTX

Over the course of a year, trading firm Alameda Research amassed swaths of tokens ahead of affiliated crypto exchange FTX saying it would list them, according to an analysis of public blockchain data from analytics firm Argus. On the days that FTX said it would be listing tokens between the

Federal appeals court blocks Biden student debt relief program nationwide

A federal appeals court on Monday issued a nationwide injunction temporarily barring the Biden administration's student loan debt relief program. The ruling by 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis came after the states of Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and South Carolina argued in a lawsut

Amazon plans large cuts

Amazon plans to lay off around 10,000 people in its corporate and technology sectors starting as soon as this week, the New York Times reported. When executed, this would be the largest job cuts in the company’s history. The job cuts are expected in Amazon’s devices organisation,

Eli Lilly Halts Twitter Advertising After Fake Account with Checkmark Announced Free Insulin, Causing Stock to Drop 4.5%

Per Forbes, Investor, Washington Post Eli Lilly said it will stop all Twitter ad campaigns after a fake account, "Eli Lilly and Company," with the company logo and verification mark, said, "we are excited to announce insulin is free now." About two and a half hours

Coinbase CEO Calls for More Crypto Regulation to Avoid FTX Situation

Per CNBC In an opinionated piece, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said crypto markets need regulation. This is to avoid what happened to FTX. The Coinbase CEO said that although they do not have exposure to FTX, they still sympathize with everyone involved. Brian Armstrong explained the FTX situation saying it

Former Boston Fed President Says US is 'Quite Likely' to Head Into a Recession in 2023

Per CNBC Former Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren said a US recession is "quite likely" in 2023. He also told CNBC that to stem inflation, interest rates might need to increase to 5.5%, higher than investor expectations. Rosengren also said the unemployment rate would need to reach

Elon Musk Entertains the Idea of Placing Twitter Behind a Paywall

Per The Verge Elon Musk has discussed placing the whole social media under a paywall. This comes at a time that Twitter is trying to lure back employees that it let go. Economists are saying that the Twitter Blue subscription could end up at a loss for the company. It

Sam Bankman-Fried’s fall cuts off big source of funds for US Democrats

Sam Bankman-Fried stormed on to the US political scene with multimillion-dollar donations that led lawmakers, particularly Democrats, to believe he was ushering in the next generation of donors. But in a matter of days, his business empire collapsed into bankruptcy and the prospect of millions more in donations evaporated. Before

Senator Ed Markey has threatened Elon Musk to "fix" his companies "or Congress will"

A US Senator threatened to “fix” Elon Musk’s companies after the billionaire mocked him in a Twitter spat. Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts had complained to the world’s richest person that a Washington Post reporter had created a fake but verified account in his name on the social

SpaceX just bought a big ad campaign on Twitter for Starlink

Elon Musk’s aerospace business SpaceX has ordered one of the larger advertising packages available from Twitter, the social media business he just acquired in a $44 billion deal and where he is now serving as CEO. The campaign will promote the SpaceX-owned and -operated satellite internet service called Starlink

Kevin O'Leary and FTX

Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary has revealed that his investment in FTX International has gone to “zero” and that he doesn’t want to make any more capital allocations to crypto until one thing happens. In an interview with CNBC, O’Leary, a former paid spokesperson for FTX, says

FTX faces criminal misconduct probe by Bahamas authorities

The Bahamian police said they’re working with the Bahamas Securities Commission to investigate whether there was any criminal misconduct in the collapse of the crypto exchange FTX. “In light of the collapse of FTX globally and the provisional liquidation of FTX Digital Markets Ltd., a team of financial investigators

Hong Kong's crypto exchange, AAX, is suspending withdrawals for up to 10 days

Per CoinDesk: Crypto exchange AAX said it had suspended activity, citing a scheduled upgrade that had been delayed by turbulent markets. The failure of a third-party partner means services will be delayed for as long as 10 days, the Hong Kong-based company said Sunday. The exchange did not identify the

FTX’s downfall could be the “catalyst” government agencies needed to “sit down” and create clear regulations, per Hester Peirce

Per CoinDesk: The crumbling of crypto exchange FTX and its subsequent bankruptcy filing has brought much negative attention for the crypto industry. However, that may be just the wake-up call U.S. lawmakers need, said Hester M. Peirce, a commissioner at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Peirce, who joined

Binance US and Coinbase are among the bidders for the BlockFi credit card program

Binance US and Coinbase are among the bidders for the BlockFi credit card program and its associated customers, Blockworks has learned, while smaller fintech competitor Curve is also in the hunt for the approximately 87,500 BlockFi accounts. BlockFi suspended withdrawals on Thursday November 12, saying that it was not

Democrats will keep their Senate majority for the next two years

Democrats will keep their narrow Senate majority for the next two years, CNN projects, after victories in close contests in Nevada and Arizona. The party defied the historical trend of midterm elections breaking against parties in power and overcame anxiety over high inflation, per CNN. Retaining Senate control is a

Former FTX employees including Sam Bankman-Fried are currently "under supervision" in the Bahamas by local authorities

Per Cointelegraph: FTX former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, co-founder Gary Wang and director of engineering Nishad Singh are understood to be in the Bahamas and are “under supervision” by the local authorities. The source familiar with the matter told Cointelegraph that the three former FTX executives, as well as Alameda Research

Elon Musk said that Twitter will set up a “high-yield money market account so that having a Twitter balance is the highest-yield thing that you can do

Elon Musk outlined plans to offer banking and payments services on Twitter during a nearly hour-long Q&A session with the social media platform’s staff Thursday. During the call, a recording of which was obtained by the Verge, Musk shared his plans to allow Twitter users to maintain

Ukraine government partnered with FTX for crypto to fiat donations

Per CoinDesk, on March 14: The Ukrainian government launched a new crypto donations website on March 14, streamlining its multimillion-dollar effort to turn bitcoin into bullets, bandages and other war materiel. “Aid for Ukraine,” which has the backing of crypto exchange FTX, staking platform Everstake and Ukraine’s Kuna exchange,

Elon Musk says SBF of FTX set off his BS detector

After the epic collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried's entire crypto empire this week, even Elon Musk took a moment from his extremely chaotic week at the helm of Twitter to declare that he never trusted SBF, who stepped down as CEO of FTX on Friday when the company filed