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Plus, the Old Navy style staple she bought for Paris and Nicky in the early aughts.

The series of hateful vandalism prompted a chorus of outrage from New York pols, including Mayor Zohran Mamdani, City Council Speaker Julie Menin and Gov. Kathy Hochul.

The commerce secretary, who lived next to Epstein on the Upper East Side from 2005 to 2019, said he didn’t have any “personal” or “professional” relationship with his neighbor.

'Still So Early On This Journey': Morgan Stanley Launches Lower-Cost Crypto Trading

Just a week after Amy Oldenburg, Morgan Stanley’s head of digital assets, spent the better part of an hour making a case for bitcoin that few clients have heard in full (a gap she says is the industry’s most urgent problem), the bank announces the launch of crypto trading on E*Trade, charging 50bps in a pilot that undercuts rivals like Coinbase, Robinhood, and Charles Schwab.

CoinDesk reports that Morgan Stanley’s Head of Wealth Management, Jed Finn, said the initiative goes beyond offering cheaper crypto trading and is aimed at “disintermediating the disintermediators,” framing it as a broader structural shift in how clients access digital assets.

The investment banking giant plans to roll the service out to all 8.6 million ETrade customers later this year.

The latest offering builds on a series of crypto-related moves in recent months, including the launch of a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund, with planned products tied to ether and solana.

Morgan Stanley has also advanced efforts on the infrastructure side, applying for a national trust bank charter that would enable it to directly custody digital assets.

Sources told Bloomberg that the bank is also mulling services that enable conversation of crypto holdings into exchange-traded products without selling and is preparing for potential tokenized equity trading later this year.

These moves are set to amplify competition in a market where Coinbase generated $3.32 billion in consumer transaction revenue in 2025, while Robinhood reported nearly $1 billion in crypto-related revenue.

But, as Bitcoin Magazine reports, the education problem runs deep, according to Oldenburg.

Oldenburg: Bitcoin has an education problem 

Many investors still associate bitcoin with its early history of use by bad actors, and struggle to see past that frame when weighing an allocation. 

Oldenburg said that when clients ask about yield or structured exposure, her team tries to be direct: “you can present it as a yield, but the underlying asset is bitcoin.” That clarity, she said, is still missing from most conversations in the market, and there is “so much more work to do.”

MSBT pulled in more than $100 million in its first week of trading, a strong early signal for a product the bank describes as designed for the full spectrum of its client base rather than a narrow segment. 

But Oldenburg was quick to put that number in context. All of the initial flows came through self-directed accounts, because the fund had not yet been made available on the advisory platform.

She noted that the bank has announced a 2–4% crypto allocation recommendation, and that even with that guidance in place, take-up through advisors has been slow.

The product, she reminded the audience, has been on the market for less than a year.

To bridge that gap, Morgan Stanley is working from the inside out. Oldenburg said the firm is rolling out internal training so that financial advisors can speak to clients on bitcoin with confidence, and that her team spends “hour after hour after hour” on the phone walking clients through models and allocation frameworks. 

She said the bank designs products for clients with different needs and wants its platform to cover each of those needs, including clients who want a direct ETP wrapper, and that spot crypto trading is coming for those on the wealth management side.

On custodians, Oldenburg acknowledged the complexity of the decision. The market has no shortage of providers, and choosing among them was not straightforward, which led the firm to work with more than one. Morgan Stanley ultimately tapped Coinbase and BNY Mellon as custodians for MSBT.

When the conversation turned to high-beta bitcoin plays, Oldenburg called Strategy, the Michael Saylor-led company formerly known as MicroStrategy, “a good friend of Morgan Stanley,” and said the bank has worked alongside it through its evolution. 

She said most of the exposure in that vehicle so far is coming from retail and that “digital credit” as a category will take time to develop.

Morgan Stanley buying bitcoin is “not out of the question”

On the question of banks holding bitcoin on their balance sheets, Oldenburg said it is “not out of the question” if regulatory progress continues, but was measured in framing it. 

The U.S. needs greater alignment among its financial regulators, she said, and for a global firm like Morgan Stanley, the picture is more complex still — each jurisdiction comes with its own framework.

She closed where she began: on the need for research with reach. The market has commentators and personalities that investors trust and follow, she said, and the work ahead is to bring that kind of accessible, grounded analysis into the mainstream. 

“We are still so early on this journey,” she said. “So little allocation. It’s still really early.”

Tyler Durden Wed, 05/06/2026 - 14:40

'Don't Even Think About Selling': Mr. Gold Warns US 'Officially A Banana Republic'

Via Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com,

Last time financial writer and precious metals expert Bill Holter (aka Mr. Gold) was on USAW, he said don’t even think about selling any gold or silver.  One of the big reasons why he is still saying this is the news last week that the US debt to GDP ratio is now at 100%. 

Mr. Gold says, “I have talked for years about how the entire world runs on credit.  What we started this off with is the United States is officially a banana republic.  It’s 100% debt to GDP..."

"When I was in school in the early 1980s, the definition of a banana republic is when it hit 100% debt to GDP. 

In this instance, it is the issuer of the world’s reserve currency that is admitting it is officially a banana republic.  

Everything runs on credit.  The biggest issuer of credit is the United States, and if their credit card gets declined, then what does that do to the real economy? 

Nothing will work.  There will be nothing on shelves.  Stores will be dark. 

Should you store food? 

The answer is yes because something really bad is right in front of us.  It’s a credit collapse.”

So, the Trump Administration is not going to just let everything collapse. 

What is the contingency plan? 

Mr. Gold says, “I think the contingency plan is oil..."

"They went after Maduro.  So, they have taken control of the Venezuelan oil supply.  They want to do the same thing elsewhere. 

I mean President Trump said in his own words, he said basically we are pirates, and we are going to take Iran’s oil. 

I think that’s the plan. 

It is to control more oil and keep the petrodollar system alive.  Is it going to work?  I think, ultimately, it will not work because the numbers are far too upside down at this point.  If you really look under the hood, the Federal Reserve itself is insolvent.  And we have not even talked about derivatives. 

Derivatives are the gorilla in the room.  In the derivative market, you are looking at $2 quadrillion in derivatives.  Once you get things off sides, and an example of that is look at the British yields, they are back to pushing 7%.  They are back to rates that are the same as in 1998.  So, all of the easing is gone. 

Everything runs on credit, and once you gum up credit, you start affecting the real economy.  Then, there is less cash flow in the real economy, and that spills over into the financial economy and financial markets.  Derivatives are the biggest danger.  Warren Buffett calls them mass financial destruction. 

It should not go unnoticed that Berkshire Hathaway is now sitting on $400 billion of cash, which is the biggest hoard they have ever had.  In 1998, the financial media called him an idiot, and what happened in 2000?  Buffett was an idiot again in early 2008.  What happened in late 2008 and 2009? 

Buffett is not an idiot, and for him to say now that there is nothing out there of value to buy and I’d rather have cash, that tells you a pretty big story.”

On silver, Holter says, “I think we are reloading for a much larger event than we saw in November to January."

"That 90 days was spectacular, but I think this next move is going to dwarf that.”  Holter says many big analysts are predicting silver much, much higher by the end of the year.

There is much more in the 42-minute interview.

Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog as he goes one-on-one with financial writer and precious metals expert Bill Holter/Mr. Gold as the “credit collapse” in the financial system begins for 5.5.26.

Tyler Durden Wed, 05/06/2026 - 14:20

Blue Energy & GE Vernova Bet On Gas Bridge-To-Nuclear For AI Power

Blue Energy announced a collaboration with GE Vernova to develop the world's first gas-plus-nuclear power plant in Texas.

The project will use two GE Vernova gas turbines to deliver roughly 1 GW starting around 2030. Steam supply will later shift to GE Vernova Hitachi BWRX-300 small modular reactors for up to 1.5 GW of nuclear capacity by 2032. 

Work at the Texas site could begin as early as this year, with a final investment decision expected in 2027.

The plan is similar to other announcements from companies like Oklo and Liberty Energy that plan to deploy gas power turbines at proposed energy sites to initiate power delivery and revenue collection while the longer leg of building the reactor continues in the background. 

Easier said than done, though. The NRC would normally never be involved in a gas energy project, but if it will share facilities with a future nuclear project, then things get a little more interesting. This is why Blue Energy submitted a plan, and recently received approval, for how to involve the NRC with the construction of a gas-to-nuclear site. 

This new sequencing of gas-to-nuclear allows for power delivery to the data center or grid to begin in under four years, compared to as many as ten years if it was a purely nuclear project. 

Depending on the location, it may be too little too late. Especially on the east coast…

Next summer the Eastern seaboard will look like North Korea at night thanks to chatbots pic.twitter.com/NEY97pa1LB

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) May 6, 2026

This is where people usually start pointing fingers at the data center for creating the problem. Blaming hyperscalers though requires looking away from the fact that new power generation is also being delayed to connect to the grid. 

Constellation's restart of the Three Mile Island Reactor is currently facing a four-year delay from PJM. The reactor will be ready to provide clean energy to the grid in 2027, but has been told to wait until 2031 to actually connect. 

Extreme demand from data centers is not the source of the problem. Decades of neglect with grid upgrades are the real reasons for the grid's inability to bolt on new supply and demand, and is now driving costs through the roof. 
 

Tyler Durden Wed, 05/06/2026 - 14:05

The "Total Eclipse of the Heart" singer was in Portugal when the shocking health scare occurred.

The "Total Eclipse of the Heart" singer was in Portugal when the shocking health scare occurred.

Shohei Ohtani goes five weeks without hitting and suddenly his entire being as a two-way player is under examination again.

Workers check whether residents are properly separating food waste, recycling and trash.

Rana accused executive director Lorna Hajdini of drugging him and forcing him into repeated sexual encounters

There is no mention of reforming any taxation on EVs on Mahan's campaign website.

Lisa Marie tragically passed away from a small bowel obstruction in January 2023 at 54.

Lisa Marie tragically passed away from a small bowel obstruction in January 2023 at 54.

Seven Chinese companies blacklisted by the US for engaging in horrific forced labor practices saw a multi-million dollar boost in investments from New York City’s pension funds during ex-City Comptroller Brad Lander’s tenure, The Post has learned. Lander — who is running in the Democratic primary to unseat Rep. Dan Goldman — oversaw increasing the...

"I think the worst thing you can do to a kid is say, 'You don't have to work,'" the "Every Breath You Take" singer declared.

"I think the worst thing you can do to a kid is say, 'You don't have to work,'" the "Every Breath You Take" singer declared.

Brian Windhorst isn't so sure Luka Doncic traveled to Spain last month to get treatment on his ailing hamstring.

JPMorgan has strenuously denied the claims, and said they are entirely fabricated.

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