Private Equity Moris Beracha Wuani

By Tanya Abrosimova While Russian lawmakers are dawdling on passing a law on financial digital assets, business is looking cryptocurrency and blockchain technology adoption.  Thus, a prominent Russian billionaire and the owner of Norilskiy Nickel Vladimir Potanin in a recenet interview announced the plans to launch blockchain-based platform and potentially issue a crypto token backed by palladium, Bloomberg reports.  Being the world’s top producer of palladium, Nornikel wants to inspire innovations in the industry and lead the new technology adoption and inspire. Currently, the company plans to issue tokens via its Switzerland-based palladium fund and holds the talks with the Swiss government.   “People more and more tend to use decentralized networks and platforms that don’t have a main operator,” he said. “We want to be active participants of this process,” as trading in digital tokens has many advantages, Potanin...

Bruce Flatt put Wall Street’s biggest private equity players on notice that the Canadian juggernaut was coming for them three years ago. The head of Brookfield Asset Management Inc. told Bloomberg Television then that his firm -- pushing into private equity -- should be mentioned in the same breath as Blackstone Group LP , Carlyle Group LP and KKR & Co. It was an unusually brash statement from the understated Winnipeg native. He’s more than backed it up. On Wednesday, Brookfield Asset Management agreed to buy a majority stake in Oaktree Capital, a move that will create a $475 billion alternative-investing behemoth. That’s more assets under management than any of the other blue-chip buyout firms reported at year-end. The transaction caps a flurry of deal-making across Flatt’s investing empire of four publicly traded companies focused on real estate, infrastructure, renewable energy and private equity. “I don’t think Brookfield has grown quickly,...

Blockchain News In a bid to showcase some of its technological advancement and show its support for the blockchain technology, North Korea has announced plans to hold a blockchain and cryptocurrency conference. This comes on the heels of a similar conference held in August. The country announced that plans are already in the works for them to host some of the foremost experts in cryptocurrency operations and blockchain technology from all over the world to speak and share some of their knowledge in the Pyongyang Blockchain Conference, which is slated to hold for a whole week. Within this week, guests and delegates will also be treated to a tour of the country, the Independent UK reports. A promotional website for the event says experts in the “blockchain and crypto industry will gather for the first time in Pyongyang to share their knowledge and vision, establish connections and discuss business opportunities” However, it is also important to note...

By Adrian Zmudzinski  Analysts at Bloomberg Intelligence predict that Bitcoin ( BTC ) “has further to fall,” Bloomberg reported Nov. 16. “Bitcoin’s no longer boring” declares Bloomberg, before stating that analysts predict the price could fall as low as the $1,500 point, a further 70 percent drop in the coin’s price. Bloomberg cites hedge fund founder Travis Kling saying that he “didn’t sleep well” because of the potential turmoil in wider crypto markets due to the recent Bitcoin Cash hard fork : “There’s a small chance that, it’s difficult to estimate, that something really bad could happen related to Bitcoin Cash that could then impact the entire crypto market.” Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Mike McGlone continued the argument, saying the recent market crash “was sparked by the pump for the Bitcoin Cash hard fork.” As Bloomberg reports, he explains that the “pump that began a few weeks ago, got the market a bit too offsides with speculative longs ...

By William Suberg   Cryptocurrency markets could increase ten times over from 2020, blockchain investment firm and hedge fund Pantera Capital’s co-CIO told Bloomberg Tuesday, Oct. 16. Speaking in an interview, co-CIO Joey Krug said that scalability improvements for Bitcoin (BTC) were essential to spark a shift in the deflated prices seen throughout this year. He told the network: “These are all markets, and so if you don’t have scalability, you don’t have market makers.” The comments came days after new developments on the institutional trading side of Bitcoin markets, with Fidelity Investments revealing it was testing a regulated custody solution for investors and hedge funds. While reactions from finance figures such as Galaxy Digital’s Michael Novogratz were positive, the news failed to shift market sentiment or prices in Bitcoin. For Krug, this is because sentiment requires signs of adoption of Bitcoin in the current climate, which in turn depends on capacity...

Featured image from Youtube/Bloomberg. By William Suberg Investor and cryptocurrency bull Mike Novogratz has fine-tuned his Bitcoin price outlook, repeating to Bloomberg Monday, October 15, that it would not break $10,000 in 2018. The Galaxy Investment Partners creator, who is known for his optimism about Bitcoin’s future, had previously called a “bottom” in the market in mid-September. Now, he thinks more time is required for momentum to build to take prices higher, and the long-anticipated wave of institutional investors piling into the cryptocurrency space will only occur next year. “...I think Q1 [or] Q2 [2019] if the institutions start coming in, we’ll put in new highs,” he told the network. Novogratz was speaking the day Fidelity Investments announced it would release a custody solution tailored to such institutional investors looking for security when interacting with cryptoassets. While this was a boon for Bitcoin, Novogratz said, the solut...

By Pawel Kuskowski During the summer, an agent at the US’s Drug Enforcement Administration, Lilita Infante, said the ratio of legal to illegal activity in bitcoin has inverted. Talking to Bloomberg , she said illegal activity is now a problem in about 10 percent of transactions - not the 90 percent she saw five years ago.  Lilita thinks that it is speculation driving the cleaning up of transactions. We’ve also seen, over that five-year period, regulation coming into force, the professionalisation of exchanges and increasing numbers of individuals trading and investing paying attention to the anti-money laundering (AML) and know your customer (KYC) aspects of doing so.  But, even if regulations are in place, there are - as is the way with illegal activity in any industry - things to look out for that will be hidden. Whether you’re making payments in crypto, are involved in initial coin offerings (ICOs) or using any blockchain-based payment processes...

By Justin Villamil Mexico’s upstart stock exchange needs private equity to go public. The Bolsa Institucional de Valores, the bourse known as Biva that began operations in July, is trying to gain market share from the dominant Bolsa Mexicana de Valores by focusing on private equity managers ready to exit their investments and sell shares. The industry has grown 15 percent annually over the past decade, according to a report by El Financiero. “The story of private equity is very recent in Mexico,” Biva Chief Executive Officer Maria Ariza said in an interview at Bloomberg’s offices in Mexico City. “Companies are starting to mature, they’re starting to leave, and they’re starting to look for an opportunity to exit their investments. Ideally, one of the ways to do that is through the capital markets.” Companies controlled by private-equity firms tend to alre...

By William Suberg U.S. banking giant Morgan Stanley is planning to offer clients Bitcoin trade swaps, anonymous sources told Bloomberg Thursday, September 13. Citing “people familiar with the matter,” the publication reveals the U.S. multinational will follow in the footsteps of fellow Wall Street players in pursuing Bitcoin exposure options. According to the sources, Morgan Stanley “will deal in contracts that give investors synthetic exposure to the performance of Bitcoin.” “Investors will be able to go long or short using the so-called price return swaps, and Morgan Stanley will charge a spread for each transaction,” they added. The news marks the latest commitment to Bitcoin interest from Wall Street giant, Goldman Sachs last week refuting claims it had dropped plans for a Bitcoin trading desk. A Morgan Stanley spokesperson declined to comment to Bloomberg about the plans. In addition to the unconfirmed Morgan plans, the past week has also seen banking giant Citigroup inside...