Stocks flop, crypto defies gravity

Bitcoin is strutting, another record high under its belt, about to breach $53K. Ethereum like a rogue hair is holding tight under the nose of $2K. But, wow, check out the gains made by exchange tokens.

Binance Coin jumped 40% in 24 hours as of Friday at 6:45 a.m. (EST). Huobi Token (HT) is up 24% in that period. HT has rallied 200% in the past three weeks. Increased trading volumes and strong DeFi integration have helped spark a red-hot February (Cointelegraph).

Speaking of rallies, DigiByte has risen 170% across a rollicking 30-day stretch. DGB, 70th-largest crypto by market cap, fell 2.7% on Friday to $0.074.

The S&P 500 Index fell 0.44% on Thursday. That's a third straight negative day, a losing streak not seen since December.

Technology stocks got hammered on Thursday, even Qualcomm (QCOM). Its robotics engineers helped NASA put an automobile-sized rover on Mars but its share price sank 0.58%.

A mission to Mars – that hasn’t fully sunk in. That rover contains a four-pound drone. Two years of red planet exploration to which to look forward. Perseverance, baby!

Facebook is a tall poppy, as they say down under. Yesterday, it and some other "big tech" poppies were getting cut down like Queensland sugar cane in July.

What new technology opportunities might be harvested?

The robotics industry will be showcased during the Mars mission. Back on this planet, there’ll be more automated, mobile, un-caged (“collaborative”) robots rolling into warehouses and e-commerce distribution centers, while driverless truck pilot programs become as natural and ubiquitous as the hydrogen that powers them.

At J.P. Morgan, a more exciting sub-set of tech beckons: fintech. In a client note, J.P. Morgan said “fintech innovation and increased demand for digital currencies are the real Covid-19 story with the rise of online start-ups and expansion of digital platforms into credit and payments.”

According to J.P. Morgan’s estimates, there are now 58 fintech companies with a market cap over $1 billion.

Meanwhile, J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon still doesn't care for Bitcoin (Decrypt).

These are some scary times. It’s still difficult to digest what we just witnessed on Capitol Hill. We're talking about the Congressional hearings into the Game Stop episode.

Held yesterday afternoon, the not-that-illuminating spectacle put stadium-sized lights on the practice of payment for order flow, or when app-based brokerages get paid for sending customers' trades to high-frequency shops that are market-makers ("dealers") wrapped inside hedge funds.

Brokers can send orders directly to centralized exchanges like the NYSE; it’s just more expensive for their clients.

Michael Blaugrund, COO of the NYSE, told CNBC that “all of this trading in private dark venues means liquidity is becoming less accessible for institutional investors and the price discovery process is becoming degraded.”

Under the current system, trades aren’t just instantly completed like on some fancy blockchain. Brokers pass them to clearing houses. Settlement is reached, attained, deemed to have been established. It takes two days. Did we mention that NASA landed a spacecraft on Mars?

In his testimony, Vladimir Tenev, CEO of Robinhood, advocated for real-time settlement, instead of two-day, to help combat some of the chaos that occurred during the GameStop frenzy.