Prediction Market Bets on Wildfires Scrutinized by Senators

A group of Democratic senators urged the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to rein in prediction market trading on wildfires, expressing concern that individuals could be tempted to commit arson to make their bets pay off.

“As the United States faces yet another record-breaking fire season this year” the CFTC “cannot allow these prediction markets to offer unrestricted betting on wildfires,” Senator Jeff Merkley and others wrote in a letter to Chairman Michael Selig.

by Bloomberg Law

FBI Agent Is Accused of Taking Cryptocurrency From Suspect’s Accounts

An FBI counterintelligence agent is accused of taking about $1 million worth of cryptocurrency from the digital accounts of an overseas suspect in a U.S. criminal investigation, according to court documents.

Patrick Yaroch, a Federal Bureau of Investigation supervisory agent who works in Washington, D.C., came forward late last week to confess, telling a Justice Department employee that it was “eating him up inside,” and he wanted to “get it off his chest,” according to the documents from the criminal case against him.

The agent told colleagues he started taking the money in 2024 or 2025 and made 10 to 12 withdrawals by using passcodes for the suspect’s accounts that the FBI had obtained during its probe, the affidavit said.

Yaroch said he had been “spinning out of control,” suggesting he had taken the money because he was “frustrated that the FBI could not or would not act against adversarial cryptocurrency accounts,” the affidavit said. The court papers don’t identify the adversarial nation.

by WSJ

Dallas debuts new ‘Tex-ee’ stock exchange, plans to rival Wall Street

A new rival to Wall Street officially debuted on Friday as the Texas Stock Exchange went fully live for the first time with trading available for all of its listed tickers.

The Texas Stock Exchange, which is based in Dallas, is the first new major stock exchange to launch in the US in decades. The TXSE, called the “Tex-ee,” is looking to compete with the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq Composite for listings.

The exchange boasts several prominent financial backers, including BlackRock, Goldman Sachs and Charles Schwab, among others.

It currently plans to begin corporate listings later this year and intends to facilitate initial public offerings (IPOs) starting in 2027. The TXSE sees the economic rise of Texas and a broader swath of the South that it’s calling the “Boom Belt” as being the “center of gravity for American capitalism” and a market it can tap into for IPOs.

by NY Post

Big Law’s New Elite Will Build Institutions, Not Just Buy Talent

That is why the firms pulling away from the rest of the market increasingly resemble sophisticated global enterprises rather than collections of successful individual practices. The firms that separate themselves will combine outstanding lawyers with institutional capabilities. They will build proprietary knowledge accumulated over decades of client work. They will develop AI capabilities informed by that knowledge. They will create cultures that encourage lawyers to share expertise rather than hoard it. They will invest in leadership, operations, and technology that make every lawyer inside the firm more effective. In other words, they will build platforms that amplify human talent rather than attempt to replace it.

That has profound implications for how firms think about growth. Lateral recruiting will always remain an essential part of a great law firm. But the firms that define the next generation of Big Law will build knowledge that compounds over decades....

by Bloomberg Law

Why Jim Cramer’s quantum panic isn’t rattling bitcoin as price holds steady around $64,000

Jim Cramer wants out of bitcoin and the crypto community’s reaction is positive.

The "Mad Money" host said this week that he plans to sell all of his bitcoin holdings due to concerns that advancements in quantum computing could threaten cryptocurrencies within the next three to four years.

The comment followed his July 31 interview with IBM Chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna, who told Cramer that quantum computers could challenge modern cryptography within that window and that investors should be "paranoid" about the risk.

Neither the size of Cramer's bitcoin stash nor any wallet tied to him has been disclosed, or tracked by analytics firms, so there's no way to independently verify whether he actually holds BTC or has started selling his coins.

by CoinDesk