Top Stories of The Week
Banking giants now forecast at least two interest rate cuts in 2025
Several financial institutions and market analysts are now projecting the US Federal Reserve, the country’s central bank, will slash interest rates from the current target rate of 4.25%-4.5% at least twice in 2025.
The banking forecasts followed a weak August jobs report that saw only 22,000 jobs added for the month, versus expectations of about 75,000.
Analysts at Bank of America, a banking and financial services company, reversed their long-held stance of no rate cuts in 2025 and are now projecting two 25 basis point (BPS) cuts — one in September and another in December — according to Bloomberg.
Economists at investment banking firm Goldman Sachs are projecting three 25 BPS cuts in 2025, beginning in September and continuing throughout October and November.
Trump Media closes Crypto.com deal to build $6.4B CRO treasury
Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of US President Donald Trump’s Truth Social platform, finalized an agreement with crypto exchange Crypto.com on Friday that establishes a new entity to accumulate the exchange’s native Cronos token, beginning with an initial purchase of 684.4 million CRO as part of a joint treasury strategy.
In a Friday notice, Trump Media said it would buy the tokens at a price of approximately $0.153 each, bringing the total initial purchase to nearly $105 million. The transaction will be carried out as an equal exchange of stock and cash between the companies.
The announcement followed Trump Media Group CRO Strategy, a joint venture established by Trump Media, Crypto.com and Yorkville Acquisition Corp., to establish a $6.4 billion crypto treasury of the CRO token.
According to the company, the agreement will allow Truth Social users to potentially acquire CRO on the platform as part of a rewards program.
Justin Sun urges Trump-linked WLFI to unlock ‘unreasonably’ frozen tokens
Tron founder Justin Sun is urging World Liberty Financial (WLFI), a crypto project linked to the Trump family, to unfreeze his token allocation. His wallets were blacklisted after suspicious transactions flagged by blockchain trackers sparked accusations of selling.
Sun’s WLFI token address was blacklisted on Thursday, after blockchain data from Nansen and Arkham flagged the address for a $9 million transfer, Cointelegraph reported.
In a Friday response to the blacklisting, Sun said his pre-sale tokens were “unreasonably frozen,” urging the team behind World Liberty Financial to unlock his investment, in respect to the principles of decentralized blockchain technology.
World Liberty’s decision to block his tokens is a violation of investor rights and risks “damaging broader confidence in World Liberty Financial,” wrote Sun in an X post.
Trump Jr.-linked media company projects $100M Dogecoin mining haul
Trump family-linked media corporation Thumzup plans to acquire 3,500 Dogecoin mining rigs and expects to bring in as much as $103 million in annual revenue, depending on whether Dogecoin hits a dollar.
In a shareholder letter released on Thursday, Thumzup Media Corporation revealed that it has executed definitive agreements, pending shareholder approval, to acquire a Dogecoin mining operation with an initial 2,500 rigs and 1,000 more ordered.
In August, the company said it is pivoting from an adtech platform to cryptocurrency mining through the pending acquisition of DogeHash Technologies, which operates the Dogecoin miners.
The combined company will be renamed Dogehash Technologies Holdings and trade under the ticker XDOG. The firm reported the completion of a $50 million share offering in August.
‘Avoidable errors’ wiped a year’s worth of Gary Gensler’s texts… oops
A US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation into missing text messages from former SEC chair Gary Gensler’s phone between October 2022 and September 2023 has concluded that “avoidable errors” led to their loss.
The SEC Office of Inspector General (OIG) launched an inquiry into how nearly a year’s worth of text messages from Gary Gensler were permanently lost between October 2022 and September 2023, during the height of the agency’s crypto enforcement action campaign.
In a report released on Wednesday, the OIG revealed that the SEC’s IT department “implemented a poorly understood and automated policy that caused an enterprise wipe of Gensler’s government-issued mobile device,” which deleted stored text messages and operating system logs.
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cointelegraph.com