Aug 11, 2021 Sign Up

by Overheard on Wall Street

"Don’t do anything stupid, and don’t waste money. Let everybody else waste money and do stupid things, then we’ll buy them."  — Jamie Dimon

Good morning! Yesterday, the Senate finally passed a bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure bill, sending the measure to the House. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo resigned a week after an investigation concluded he sexually harassed 11 women. His announcement came as a shock after his lawyer flatly denied claims that he had sexually harassed anyone. Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul will replace Cuomo, becoming the state’s first female governor.

If you have not subscribed to Short Squeez yet, now is the time and this is the link.

1. Story of the Day: $600 Million Heist

In one of the biggest crypto heists ever, hackers stole more than $600 million from a protocol known as PolyNetwork that lets users swap tokens across multiple blockchains. Assets stolen include $253 million in tokens on Binance Smart Chain, $266 million in Ethereum tokens, and $85 million in USDC on the Polygon network.

Decentralized finance aka DeFi, has surged in popularity in the past few years in the wake of a boom in the development of applications that let people trade, borrow and lend funds to each other without intermediaries. About $80 billion is locked in DeFi applications and with DeFi apps attracting billions in investor funds, they’ve become frequent targets of attacks. 

This year, DeFi-related hacks made up more than 60% of the total hack and theft volume of crypto attacks, up from 20% in 2020. At $156 million, the amount netted from DeFi-related hacks in the first five months of 2021 already surpasses the $129 million stolen in all of 2020.

Short Squeez Takeaway: A major criticism of crypto is that its anonymity and ease of use make it suitable for crime, like the ransomware attacks that, by some measures, strike every eight minutes. In June, the FBI got involved to recover some ransom money for Colonial Pipeline. It went against privacy-focused, anti-establishment benefits that some see as crypto’s greatest assets. Looks like Uncle FBI might have to get involved here again.

Source: Bloomberg, Blockworks, NYT

2. Markets Rundown

• US stocks finished at or near records on Tuesday, as the Senate passed the infrastructure bill and investors awaited data due this week on inflation

Movers & Shakers

• (+) Fisker ($FSR) +22% after Morgan Stanley resumed coverage with the equivalent of a buy rating.
• (+) Nucor ($NUE) +10% good news for the steelmaker after the Senate passed the infrastructure bill.
• (–) Virgin Galactic ($SPCE) -11% after WSJ confirmed that the company will raise ticket price for rides on its spaceplane to $450k a seat.

3. Top Reads

4. Book of the Day: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

One hundred thousand years ago, at least six different species of humans inhabited Earth. Yet today there is only one—homo sapiens. What happened to the others? And what may happen to us?

Most books about the history of humanity pursue either a historical or a biological approach, but Dr. Yuval Noah Harari breaks the mold with this highly original book that begins about 70,000 years ago with the appearance of modern cognition.

From examining the role evolving humans have played in the global ecosystem to charting the rise of empires, Sapiens integrates history and science to reconsider accepted narratives, connect past developments with contemporary concerns, and examine specific events within the context of larger ideas.

Sapiens has been recommended by Barack Obama, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg.

5. Daily Visual: Size Matters: The True Olympics Champions Number of inhabitants per medal won at the Tokyo Olympics

Source: Statista

6.  Daily Acumen: Binance Coin (BNB)

One of Binance Coin's chief advantages is that, like Bitcoin, it has a strict limit on the number of tokens in circulation. That limit is 200 million, and it's a big reason BNB has soared to become the fourth-most valuable cryptocurrency in the world.

The native currency of the popular Binance crypto exchange, the coin is up more than 700% in 2021 alone. It has a different model than many of the other cryptocurrencies in the market. The company destroys or “burns” much of its currency on a quarterly basis, using one-fifth of its profits to do so.

With a market capitalization of more than $50 billion, Binance Coin is no longer the instrument of pure speculation that it once was, and as long as the wildly popular Binance platform continues to grow, the BNB crypto has a bullish outlook.

Source: US News

7. Memes of the Day

Love Short Squeez? Share it with your friends!