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 Blockchain Bulls, Larry Inc., and the Future of Cable News
Good afternoon and welcome back to The Daily Courant, highlighting the latest and most important journalism from our team of reporters at Puck. Today, William D. Cohan reveals the inside conversation on Wall street about FTX’s new crypto fund, Jamie Dimon’s blockchain FOMO, Goldman’s bonus fever, and Larry Fink’s $10 trillion milestone.
Plus, below the fold, don’t miss the newest episode of Puck’s own The Powers That Be podcast, featuring Teddy Schleifer, Matt Belloni, and Dylan Byers rhapsodizing on the Golden Globes disaster, what Hollywood really thinks of Jeff Bezos’ girlfriend, and what CNN’s streaming deal with Audie Cornish portends for the future of cable news.
What’s really going on between Wall Street’s blockchain envy, bonus season at Goldman, and Larry Fink’s god complex. You don’t need to watch that ridiculous Matt Damon commercial on loop to understand that the crypto markets have been on fire. Venture firms, in particular, are placing huge new bets on the crypto market: FTX, the crypto exchange, just launched a $2 billion fund, competing with similarly sized funds from a16z ($2.2 billion) and Paradigm ($2.5 billion) last year. On the other side, however, Jamie Dimon says “cryptocurrency has no intrinsic value” and called bitcoin “worthless.”
There are a couple of different things going on here. The VCs are focused on the Next Big Thing and believe that the blockchain technologies behind digital currencies, smart contracts, and NFTs will lead to a whole new architecture for the Internet and a wave of important new businesses that could become the next Google, Amazon, or Meta. They are raising these big funds, or have already raised them, with the intention of placing lots of bets on what they hope this future will look like.
The Big Banks, on the other hand, are trying to shore up economic moats that are slowly but surely being eroding. You can see the concern growing at JPMorganChase, for instance, which is feeling increased competition in both its payments and consumer-lending businesses. On Friday, Jamie announced that the bank would “spend a few bucks” to defend its turf. Talk about an understatement…
FOUR STORIES WE’RE TALKING ABOUT 
The Disney C.E.O.’s “relentless focus on our audience” is generating a lot of chatter, but, as always, there’s an alternative motive.
MATTHEW BELLONI 
Is Washington losing its luster to the media-content machine? Plus: Ted Cruz’s confession and the return of Beto O’Rourke.
PETER HAMBY 
Some thoughts on whether Netflix is trying to steal ESPN’s playbook, and Axios’ turning point. Plus some other dish.
DYLAN BYERS 
Among stock traders, it’s common knowledge that you can’t consistently beat the market unless you have an edge…
ALEX KANTROWITZ
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