Francis Coppola

Economist Frances Coppola struggles to find a positive in the mini-budget. 'The first thing we've seen is a pretty massive sell off in the pound because the international market doesn't like our currency anymore, they think it is going to inflate.' casawary bird @casawarybird tweeted 'Fantastic prog this morning.Thank you. Can you come up with a new slogan instead of The Poor (which isn't useful & is an untrue representation of inequality) Need to change the onus. eg 'The Rich & the...

Frances Coppola is a former banker, an economist, and blogger who wrote a book called 'The Case for People's QE', which you can buy here: https://www.wiley.com/en-gb/The+Case+For+People's+Quantitative+Easing-p-9781509531301 We chatted about the book and about monetary policy in-depth.

Yesterday, the failed crypto lender Celsius filed a monthy cash flow forecast and a statement of its assets and liabilities held in the form of cryptocurrency and stablecoins. They showed that the lender is deeply underwater and will run out of money within two months.  Today, Celsius presented an update regarding its chapter 11 bankruptcy plans. Reading this, you'd think it was a different company. Liquidation isn't on the agenda. No, they are talking about "reorganization" and and seeking...

Coinbase recently filed its interim financial report. It makes pretty grim reading. A quarterly net loss of over $1bn, net cash drain of £4.6bn in 6 months, fair value losses of over 600k... To be sure, Coinbase is not on its knees yet. It still has $12bn of its own and customers' cash (both are on its balance sheet), and a whopping asset base. In fact its assets have increased - a lot. As have its liabilities. Coinbase's balance sheet is five times bigger than it was in December...

Ursula Le Guin's short story "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" contains a terrible moral conundrum. Many people have agonised over it: to my knowledge, no-one has solved it. Attempts that I have seen all in some way change the framing of the story, whether by justifying blood sacrifice, insisting that there must be a better way, or creating a better alternative. But if you change the framing, you have not solved the problem. You have avoided it.As I read through Le Guin's story to the...

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The collapse of Terra in May sent shock waves round the crypto world, triggering domino-like collapses of crypto companies. One of those companies was the investment fund Three Arrows Capital. At the time, everyone thought 3AC was a conservatively-managed investment company that was simply the unfortunate victim of an unforeseen event. If anyone was to blame for 3AC's collapse, it was Do Kwon.  How wrong they were. Since 3AC was ordered into liquidation by a British Virgin Islands court,...

In this episode we are joined by Frances Coppola, a noted freelance commentator on financial markets and crypto, to discuss the failure of crypto lender Voyager. We also ponder what Scotland can learn from the failings of major stablecoins. 2:45 - the crypto collapse chronology 6:30 - Three Arrows 10:00 - Is it 1907 or 1996 in crypto 13:00 - How Sam-Bankman Fried is the new JP Morgan. 18:30 - Nothing new under the sun 21:00 - Crypto's one utility is being a financial flight simulator...

The crypto lender Celsius has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. This should come as a surprise to absolutely no-one, though the grief and pain on Twitter and Reddit suggests that quite a few "Celsians" didn't want to believe what was staring them in the face. Celsius suspended withdrawals nearly a month ago. So far, every crypto lender that has suspended withdrawals has turned out to be insolvent. There was no reason to suppose that Celsius would be different.  Celsius's bankruptcy filing...

Two days after I published my last post, the ship went down. Voyager Digital filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The bankruptcy filing revealed the extent of its indebtedness. Tragically, most of its creditors are customers, some of whom hold claims worth millions of dollars. But its largest creditor is Alameda Research, to whom it owes $75m. This is the maximum that Voyager could draw down from Alameda's credit line in a 30-day period. So it appears that Alameda did not pull its...