Philip Stafford

Two days ago...and now

Companies House suspends online filing after glitch put personal data at risk ft.trib.al/19Tdywj

When people say to me, ‘Oh, would you rather be thought of as a funny man or a great boss?’ My answer's always the same: to me, they're not mutually exclusive.

www.ft.com/content/e5fb...

Yeah, that's a fair comparison too.

Sure - they're similar to binary options in the UK, till they were banned. It was more a comment on the rabbit hole (and regulatory black hole) this market had crawled into.

Ultra-short-term bets add ‘even more mania’ to crypto trading Five and 15-minute contracts have surged in popularity as cryptocurrencies have fallen from recent peaks

What are we even doing here?
www.ft.com/content/af1f...

US intervention in oil futures would be ‘biblical disaster’, CME warns Terry Duffy says any attempt by the government to lower prices using derivatives market would erode confidence

US intervention in oil futures would be ‘biblical disaster’, CME warns ft.trib.al/nbQMvbw

A google maps view of the area around the Strait of Hormuz, with crude markup showing the 4 steps to successfully clearing the strait: 1. Build up speed 2. Hit Trampoline 3. Cool backflip 4. Nail the landing The boat is illustrated using a clip art yacht, and the trampoline is also just kind of floating there.

wait. wait. everyone hold on. i've solved it

The Fifa peace prize winner.
He creates a desert, calls it peace.

Eat your heart out, @jayrayner1.bsky.social!

(Gift link good for 300 clicks below)

as.ft.com/r/63cc137e-5...

Can't even pretend to be mad about this. It's too funny

I emailed Mandelson’s lawyers yesterday to ask if he was contesting the £547,000 severance point and….didn’t hear back from them

🚨 U.S. ENERGY SECRETARY CHRIS WRIGHT REMOVES POST ABOUT NAVY ESCORTING OIL TANKER THROUGH THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ

Maybe the real treasure was the "oil at $120" story research we did along the way

Stablecoin = Fracturedcoin If stablecoins are the future of money, the BIS reckons the future looks a bit rubbish

A slight twist on the stablecoin trilemma:
You can have too much decentralisation as economics splits the market between users who want security and those after cheap fees.
www.ft.com/content/4724...

Meanwhile, for some a good crisis is an opportunity to unveil their "drone-roll up/publicly traded golf courses" play

www.wsj.com/politics/nat...

At the risk of boring everyone,a little context.

$100 oil in isolation isn’t that bad. It averaged around that level from 2011-2014 without severe economic ramifications*.

It’s the pace of the rise that has people spooked. And not knowing where it might stop.

Make 'em laugh

fintechdystopia.com/chapters/cha...

I was sooo cynical and yet somehow not even close to cynical enough

Where things stand with the Department of War A statement from Dario Amodei

I think one of the most staggering industry shifts in my 16 years as a tech reporter is that it’s not become a question of “should our product help the government kill and/or surveil people?” but “to what extent?”

www.anthropic.com/news/where-s...

Trump Defends Addition Of   Ballroom To    Air Force One

Trump Defends Addition Of   Ballroom To    Air Force One https://theonion.com/trump-defends-addition-of-ballroom-to-air-force-one/

‘Is This Insider Information?’ The Prediction Market Bets Driving a Campus Frenzy Kalshi and Polymarket pour money into deals with social-media influencers and students, who try to parlay rumors into cash.

This piece is great but also insane.

Polymarket has offered to pay fraternities, in exchange for signing up users, money that can be spent on throwing “epic parties”—one frat raised $30,510 over a two-week period.
www.wsj.com/business/med...

Kalshi employees "kind of understand that without the tweets and the streamers and all of the social-media stuff that the traders do for them, usually just for free, their marketing would be a lot harder," said Jack Campion, 20, a junior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Kalshi affiliate. In September, Kalshi briefly signed up a 15-year-old videogame streamer who goes by vertid online to promote its brand on X as an affiliate. A week later, Kalshi ended the partnership. "Yo brother, legal team confirmed that we can't work with minors rn," a Kalshi employee wrote to the user in messages reviewed by the Journal. "Kinda sad tbh."

what the fuck are we doing

www.wsj.com/business/med...

2 young billionaires are behind the prediction market boom. They hate each other The 20-something billionaires who run Kalshi and Polymarket are battling it out to be the top prediction market company. Observers and former insiders say the feud is just heating up.

At the center of the prediction markets boom is a bitter rivalry between two 20-something billionaire fintech bros vying for their companies to be distinct, despite everyone constantly lumping them together

"For them, it's existential," a former Kalshi employee told me

www.npr.org/2026/03/06/n...

Axel Springer poised to buy Telegraph in £500mn deal German media group has gatecrashed a proposed acquisition by the owner of the Daily Mail

Massive UK media scoop - Germany's Axel Springer is poised to agree a shock £500mn deal for the Telegraph in a move that will scupper the acquisition of the UK newspaper group by the Daily Mail. W/ the FT's finest @JFK_America @ArashMassoudi

www.ft.com/content/e5cb...

bravo

NYSE Owner Invests in Crypto Exchange at $25 Billion Valuation Intercontinental Exchange Inc. is acquiring a stake in OKX in a deal that values the cryptocurrency exchange operator at $25 billion.

Scratching my head at this one.

OKX isn't one of the leading players, esp in the US, and a year ago settled for $500m for AML rules violations, when DoJ estimated $5bn of suspicious trades went though OKX.
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Wealthy Dubai residents race back to UAE to avoid tax bills Some risk spending too few days in the emirate and too many in the UK

The forgotten victims of war.
"Some are turning to private jet hire in order to prevent them being disqualified from the UAE’s generous tax status"
www.ft.com/content/80bf...

Federal Reserve grants Kraken access to payments system in first for crypto group Digital assets company will be able to connect directly into key parts of central bank’s infrastructure

This is a big deal for crypto, something it's lacked since the Silvergate network went down in 2023.
www.ft.com/content/d84a...

And I thought removing the Ayatollah without any other plan was the worst idea I'd heard this week.