💸 FedNow, now live

“FedNow me”… just doesn’t have the same ring to it. Yesterday the Fed rolled out its instant-payments network, FedNow, to a few dozen financial institutions, including JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, with plans to expand. FedNow lets banks and credit unions transfer up to $500K directly from account to account in seconds, speeding up money movement for businesses and individuals. It runs 24/7, so no need to count “business days.” 

• Very direct deposit: If your bank signs up for FedNow, you can make and receive payments in real time (imagine: paying rent on August 5 at 11:59 p.m.). If your employer also uses the service, your paycheck could hit your account quicker. 

• FedSoYesterday: Banks have been waiting longer than Rihanna fans for FedNow, the Fed’s first new payments network since the ’70s. The UK, India, and Brazil have had instant infrastructure running for years.

There’s (not) an app for that… FedNow doesn’t have a Venmo equivalent (it’s a back-end system designed to be used by banks, not brunchers). Peer-to-peer payment platforms like PayPal and its subsidiary Venmo mostly use the current government-backed network (the Automatic Clearing House) to make transfers. Transfers seem instant when you’re sending from Venmo to Venmo, but moving $$ to bank accounts usually takes days to clear. Still, apps like Venmo won’t be able to directly offer FedNow’s speedy service.

If at first you don’t succeed… try putting it in writing. The Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission proposed new antitrust merger guidelines this week, solidifying their tough stance on corporate consolidation. President Biden pushed for the update in a 2021 exec order aimed at curbing the power of big businesses. The guidelines outline which types of mergers deserve extra scrutiny. Like:

• Killer acquisitions: when companies buy rivals to squash future competition. In 2020, the FTC sued Meta to force it to divest from Instagram and WhatsApp, which it said were acquired in a “buy-or-bury scheme” to maintain social superiority.

• Data dominance: mergers that give platform businesses (like Apple’s App Store and Amazon’s ecomm store) control over data streams that could help them eclipse rivals.

• Worker woes: acquisitions that could harm workers by reducing competition and wages (the DOJ’s lawsuit against the Penguin Random House merger with Simon & Schuster addressed the deal’s potential to harm author pay).

Big swings = lotsa strikeouts… The Biden admin’s ambitious antitrust strategy has led to some notable losses in court for regulators. Last week, an appeals court squashed the FTC’s latest attempt to block Microsoft’s $69B purchase of Activision Blizzard. And earlier this year the agency failed to stop Meta’s acquisition of VR company Within Unlimited. With this more aggressive approach under Biden, antitrust agencies have won just 30% of their merger cases (compared to a 65% win rate between 2001 and 2020).

🤖 Techy… Nasdaq said it’s bailing on plans to offer bitcoin and ether custody to institutional investors. The U-turn comes as crypto’s regulatory status remains in flux — and suggests Wall Street is wary of digi assets. 

💰 Spendy… Binance cut employee benefits while pointing to declining profits after recently laying off 1K+ employees. The world’s largest crypto exchange is facing lawsuits from regulators accusing it of operating illegally.

🌶️ Spicy… Someone on Arkham Intelligence’s new crypto-intel marketplace offered to pay a bounty to anyone who could ID Elon Musk’s crypto wallet. Critics call the marketplace "dox to earn," but Arkham insists it’s democratizing sleuthing.

• Sibs: Johnson & Johnson hiked its annual forecast after strong medtech sales. Its consumer spin-off, Kenvue (which owns bathroom staples like Band-Aid and Listerine), also beat estimates in its first report since IPO’ing. 

• Move: Homebuilders are seeing a surge of orders as high mortgage rates keep owners from selling — and pump demand for new homes. Last month, existing-home sales grew at the slowest pace in 14 years. 

• Bot: Apple’s said to be working on a ChatGPT rival (dubbed: Apple GPT). The AI race heated up this week, with Meta and Microsoft teaming up on a software offering for companies. 

• Puff: Juul wants FDA approval for a new age-verifying vape that can help smokers pivot to (tobacco-flavored-only) e-cigs. Juul narrowly avoided bankruptcy last year after an FDA ban forced it to halt sales. 

• Touch: Amazon’s planning to add its pay-by-palm technology (dubbed: Amazon One) to all Whole Foods by year’s end. The palm-scanning tech is showing up everywhere from football stadiums to Panera.

• Earnings expected from American Express and Comerica

 Authors of this Snacks own ethereum and bitcoin and shares of: Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Tesla