August 5, 2022

Image: Christopher T. Fong/Protocol
Good morning, and welcome to Protocol Fintech. This Friday: Block and Opendoor earnings, Starbucks and Meta have NFT plans and Coinbase gets a big-time TradFi partner.
Both Block and Opendoor are scrambling to respond to rapid changes in the macroeconomic environment that are having a big impact on home buying and consumer spending overall.
They’re part of a fintech industry that’s particularly sensitive to interest rate changes and inflation — but both companies emerged relatively unscathed coming out of earnings Thursday, despite some investor concerns.
Both companies’ stocks have fallen in recent months, along with the rest of the market, but both have tried to give investors reason for optimism for the rest of this year despite the potential for the economy to get worse.
Block’s earnings beat estimates, but investors were still nervous. Shares dipped 6% after hours Thursday, as investors seemed to fear potential headwinds later this year.
Opendoor’s earnings showed growth despite a volatile home-buying market. The company is trying to adjust by slowing down its home buying.
While the fintech industry has been put through the wringer in the recent stock market downturn, Block and Opendoor offer reasons for optimism — better technology, new approaches to adding customers and growing businesses in their respective markets. They also show some significant reasons for caution going into the fall, with no one having a clear idea of where the economy is headed.
— Tomio Geron (email | twitter) and Veronica Irwin (email | twitter)
They created Digital People. Now they've made celebrities available as Digital Twins: Soul Machines co-founder and CEO Greg Cross and his co-founder Mark Sagar, Ph.D., FRSNZ are leading their Auckland and San Francisco-based teams to create AI-enabled Digital People to populate the internet, at first, and soon the metaverse.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren is questioning crypto banking guidance. Warren wants the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to pull a series of Trump-era interpretations that paved the way for banks to offer services like crypto custody for clients.
Goldman Sachs is facing a credit card probe. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is looking into the company’s credit card practice.
Meta is readying its NFT play. Instagram users in certain countries will now be able to showcase their NFTs, following a testing phase in May.
Starbucks is also brewing up some Web3 plans. The company plans to unveil coffee-themed NFTs at its upcoming investor day event.
Voyager Digital cleared to return some customer cash. A bankruptcy court judge said that the bankrupt crypto lender can return to customers the $270 million held in a custodial account by Metropolitan Commercial Bank.Coinbase said Thursday it has partnered with BlackRock to give the world’s biggest asset manager’s clients access to bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Access to crypto assets will be offered to clients of BlackRock’s Aladdin software through Coinbase Prime, which will provide trading, brokerage and reporting capabilities, according to Coinbase executives.
The company’s stock had recently slipped as Coinbase reeled from the market downturn and Wall Street's concerns about the growing regulatory challenges facing the platform and the crypto industry more broadly. But the BlackRock announcement appears to have restored investor confidence in the company, which went public last year.
The partnership also underscores institutional investors’ growing interest in digital assets despite the dramatic crash of the crypto market, which has shed about $2 trillion this year.
Read the full story on Protocol.com
— Benjamin Pimentel (email | twitter)Total household debt totaled $16.5 trillion in the second quarter, up $312 billion, or 2%, from the year-ago quarter. Mortgage balances, which make up the biggest chunk of household debt, climbed $207 billion to $11.4 trillion. Credit card balances also posted their biggest year-over-year percentage jump in more than 20 years.
They created Digital People. Now they've made celebrities available as Digital Twins: Soul Machines is at the cutting edge of AGI research with its unique Digital Brain, based on the latest neuroscience and developmental psychology research.
Thanks for reading — see you Monday!
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