Finance

Crypto startup Ripple has agreed to buy prime brokerage firm Hidden Road for $1.25 billion the company’s biggest acquisition to date.
It marks one of the largest deals in the digital asset space to date, topping Stripe’s $1.1 billion deal to buy stablecoin payments platform Bridge.
Hidden Road plans to use Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin — which launched in December — as collateral across its prime brokerage products.

Jakub Porzycki | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Ripple on Tuesday said that it’s agreed to buy prime brokerage firm Hidden Road for $1.25 billion, in the crypto startup’s biggest acquisition to date.
Founded in 2018, Hidden Road offers clearing, prime brokerage and financing services across foreign exchange, digital assets, derivatives, swaps and fixed income. It currently clears more than $3 trillion annually across markets with over 300 institutional customers, including hedge funds.

The acquisition marks one of the largest deals in the digital asset space to date, topping Stripe’s $1.1 billion February deal to buy Bridge, a platform that makes it easier for businesses to take payment via stablecoins.
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said the deal came together after Hidden Road found itself “constrained” in growth due to balance sheet limitations and began looking for external capital.
“This is a big deal for Ripple — but also a big deal for the industry,” Garlinghouse told CNBC by phone.”As the entire crypto industry gets more into traditional finance, we need top tier infrastructure to be able to support the financial institutions that want to come in.”
Ripple, which was last valued at $11.3 billion in a 2024 share buyback, said that once the transaction closes the plan is for Hidden Road to use its RLUSD stablecoin — which launched in December — as collateral across the company’s prime brokerage products.
“Collateral is key” in the prime brokerage services industry, Garlinghouse said. Hedge funds and other institutional investors typically require collateral o take out loans or complex trading positions, such as short selling.

Ripple’s acquisition of Hidden Road remains subject to necessary regulatory approvals. Garlinghouse told CNBC he expects the deal to close no later than the third quarter of 2025.

Regulatory tailwinds

Ripple scored a major victory last month, when the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commissioned dropped a protracted legal case against the company that accused it of conducting an illegal securities offering.
The crypto industry has been generally boosted by the re-election of Donald Trump as U.S. president, who has touted the benefits of crypto and promised favorable policies for the industry.
Asked whether this more pro-crypto regulatory environment gave Ripple added impetus for its prime brokerage takeover, Garlinghouse said that “deals like this make a lot more sense when you have a supportive regulatory environment — as opposed to the open warfare legal tactics.”
The crypto chief has previously been critical of the SEC and its former leader Gary Gensler, who oversaw aggressive legal actions against multiple crypto firms, including Ripple. More

Companies are facing a new threat: Job seekers who aren’t who they say they are, using AI tools to fabricate photo IDs, generate employment histories and provide answers during interviews.
The rise of AI-generated profiles means that by 2028 globally 1 in 4 job candidates will be fake, according to research and advisory firm Gartner.
Once hired, an impostor can install malware to demand a ransom from a company, or steal its customer data, trade secrets or funds.

An image provided by Pindrop Security shows a fake job candidate the company dubbed “Ivan X,” a scammer using deepfake AI technology to mask his face, according to Pindrop CEO Vijay Balasubramaniyan.
Courtesy: Pindrop Security

When voice authentication startup Pindrop Security posted a recent job opening, one candidate stood out from hundreds of others.
The applicant, a Russian coder named Ivan, seemed to have all the right qualifications for the senior engineering role. When he was interviewed over video last month, however, Pindrop’s recruiter noticed that Ivan’s facial expressions were slightly out of sync with his words.

That’s because the candidate, whom the firm has since dubbed “Ivan X,” was a scammer using deepfake software and other generative AI tools in a bid to get hired by the tech company, said Pindrop CEO and co-founder Vijay Balasubramaniyan.
“Gen AI has blurred the line between what it is to be human and what it means to be machine,” Balasubramaniyan said. “What we’re seeing is that individuals are using these fake identities and fake faces and fake voices to secure employment, even sometimes going so far as doing a face swap with another individual who shows up for the job.”
Companies have long fought off attacks from hackers hoping to exploit vulnerabilities in their software, employees or vendors. Now, another threat has emerged: Job candidates who aren’t who they say they are, wielding AI tools to fabricate photo IDs, generate employment histories and provide answers during interviews.
The rise of AI-generated profiles means that by 2028 globally 1 in 4 job candidates will be fake, according to research and advisory firm Gartner.
The risk to a company from bringing on a fake job seeker can vary, depending on the person’s intentions. Once hired, the impostor can install malware to demand ransom from a company, or steal its customer data, trade secrets or funds, according to Balasubramaniyan. In many cases, the deceitful employees are simply collecting a salary that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to, he said.

‘Massive’ increase

Cybersecurity and cryptocurrency firms have seen a recent surge in fake job seekers, industry experts told CNBC. As the companies are often hiring for remote roles, they present valuable targets for bad actors, these people said.
Ben Sesser, the CEO of BrightHire, said he first heard of the issue a year ago and that the number of fraudulent job candidates has “ramped up massively” this year. His company helps more than 300 corporate clients in finance, tech and health care assess prospective employees in video interviews.
“Humans are generally the weak link in cybersecurity, and the hiring process is an inherently human process with a lot of hand-offs and a lot of different people involved,” Sesser said. “It’s become a weak point that folks are trying to expose.”
But the issue isn’t confined to the tech industry. More than 300 U.S. firms inadvertently hired impostors with ties to North Korea for IT work, including a major national television network, a defense manufacturer, an automaker, and other Fortune 500 companies, the Justice Department alleged in May.
The workers used stolen American identities to apply for remote jobs and deployed remote networks and other techniques to mask their true locations, the DOJ said. They ultimately sent millions of dollars in wages to North Korea to help fund the nation’s weapons program, the Justice Department alleged.
That case, involving a ring of alleged enablers including an American citizen, exposed a small part of what U.S. authorities have said is a sprawling overseas network of thousands of IT workers with North Korean ties. The DOJ has since filed more cases involving North Korean IT workers.

A growth industry

Fake job seekers aren’t letting up, if the experience of Lili Infante, founder and chief executive of CAT Labs, is any indication. Her Florida-based startup sits at the intersection of cybersecurity and cryptocurrency, making it especially alluring to bad actors.
“Every time we list a job posting, we get 100 North Korean spies applying to it,” Infante said. “When you look at their resumes, they look amazing; they use all the keywords for what we’re looking for.”
Infante said her firm leans on an identity-verification company to weed out fake candidates, part of an emerging sector that includes firms such as iDenfy, Jumio and Socure.

An FBI wanted poster shows suspects the agency said are IT workers from North Korea, officially called the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Source: FBI

The fake employee industry has broadened beyond North Koreans in recent years to include criminal groups located in Russia, China, Malaysia and South Korea, according to Roger Grimes, a veteran computer security consultant.
Ironically, some of these fraudulent workers would be considered top performers at most companies, he said.
“Sometimes they’ll do the role poorly, and then sometimes they perform it so well that I’ve actually had a few people tell me they were sorry they had to let them go,” Grimes said.
His employer, the cybersecurity firm KnowBe4, said in October that it inadvertently hired a North Korean software engineer.
The worker used AI to alter a stock photo, combined with a valid but stolen U.S. identity, and got through background checks, including four video interviews, the firm said. He was only discovered after the company found suspicious activity coming from his account.

Fighting deepfakes

Despite the DOJ case and a few other publicized incidents, hiring managers at most companies are generally unaware of the risks of fake job candidates, according to BrightHire’s Sesser.
“They’re responsible for talent strategy and other important things, but being on the front lines of security has historically not been one of them,” he said. “Folks think they’re not experiencing it, but I think it’s probably more likely that they’re just not realizing that it’s going on.”
As the quality of deepfake technology improves, the issue will be harder to avoid, Sesser said.
As for “Ivan X,” Pindrop’s Balasubramaniyan said the startup used a new video authentication program it created to confirm he was a deepfake fraud.
While Ivan claimed to be located in western Ukraine, his IP address indicated he was actually from thousands of miles to the east, in a possible Russian military facility near the North Korean border, the company said.
Pindrop, backed by Andreessen Horowitz and Citi Ventures, was founded more than a decade ago to detect fraud in voice interactions, but may soon pivot to video authentication. Clients include some of the biggest U.S. banks, insurers and health companies.
“We are no longer able to trust our eyes and ears,” Balasubramaniyan said. “Without technology, you’re worse off than a monkey with a random coin toss.” More

Monte dei Paschi di Siena downplayed the potential impact of ongoing market turbulence on its 13-billion-euro offer for Mediobanca, telling CNBC it expects to complete the deal this summer.
Analysts have been divided over the benefits of the deal, with some warning that there are limited synergies in combining two different banks.
Acquiring Mediobanca will allow the world’s oldest bank to once again be a “protagonist” in a second round of consolidation, Monte dei Paschi CEO Luigi Lovaglio said.

Siena, ITALY — Monte dei Paschi di Siena is holding firm on its plans to acquire Mediobanca for 13 billion euros ($14.3 billion) despite ongoing market turbulence, telling CNBC it will complete the deal in July.
The world’s oldest bank still in operation, surprised investors in January by making an all-share offer for Mediobanca, a prestigious institution focused on wealth management and investment banking. Mediobanca has rejected the proposal, denouncing it as a “destructive” move that is devoid of financial rationale.

Monte dei Paschi has faced several challenges over the years, most notably when it was bailed out by the Italian government in 2017 after it failed to raise much-needed cash from private investors. The Italian government has sold its majority stake in Monte dei Paschi and it currently represents less than 12% of ownership.
The bank’s CEO Luigi Lovaglio told CNBC on Monday that Monte dei Paschi “is back” and “in control of our destiny.”
When asked if the ongoing market turbulence could be a problem for its expansion plans, Lovaglio said: “The [market] situation will not impact our deal.”
“On the opposite, [the market situation] is confirming that size matters, [it] is confirming that you need to diversify on revenues,” he said, adding that if they were already a combined entity, they would “be stronger” and “have capability to react much quicker.”
The recent market volatility has led some companies to put some deals on hold. British private equity firm 3i Group Plc has reportedly postponed a sale of the maker of pet food MPM, while fintech company Klarna has put its IPO plans on hold.

Analysts have been divided over the benefits of the deal between Monte dei Paschi and Mediobanca. Deutsche Bank, for instance, said in mid-March the market was ignoring some potential opportunities for Monte dei Paschi, including a bigger distribution policy.
Other analysts warned about limited synergies in combining two different banks. Barclays, for example, said Monday that it was cutting its price target for Monte dei Paschi, taking a more skeptical view on the potential gains from a deal with Mediobanca. “Should Monte dei Paschi decide to spend more to convince majority of the Mediobanca institutional shareholders, the excess capital could reduce,” Barclays said.
Speaking to CNBC, Lovaglio was adamant the offer for Mediobanca presents a “fair price” and did not comment on whether the company would sweeten the deal to make it more appealing for Mediobanca shareholders.
“Hopefully within July, we can complete the deal,” he added.
Amid a pullback in global equity markets on Monday, Monte dei Paschi and Mediobanca shares both closed around 5% lower. Since Monte dei Paschi announced its intention to buy Mediobanca on January 24, the latter’s shares have lost about 14% of their value and the former about 8.5%.

Larger Ambitions

Monte dei Paschi’s offer for Mediobanca came at a time of wider consolidation efforts in Italian banking. UniCredit announced last year an offer to buy rival Banco BPM for about 10 billion euros.
Lovaglio said these bids represent the first wave of domestic consolidation for Italian banks.
“I believe this is the first phase [of consolidation] and, probably, we will have a second phase two years from now. That’s why, by combining Monte [dei] Paschi with Mediobanca, we will be in a position to be again a protagonist,” Lovaglio said. More

Plunging markets are normally unnerving because they reveal how quickly sober-minded investors can give in to terror. Just now the scariest thing is how rational those scrambling to sell appear. Share prices around the world have been cratering since Donald Trump announced his latest and biggest suite of tariffs on April 2nd. Although many market participants have held out hope that the new barriers would be swiftly lowered, perhaps after Mr Trump had used them to extract concessions from trading partners, it now looks increasingly likely that America’s president really means it. Indeed, on April 7th he announced additional tariffs of 50% on China, unless Xi Jinping withdraws his retaliatory levies. More

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said tariffs announced by President Donald Trump will likely boost prices on both domestic and imported goods, weighing down a U.S. economy that had already been slowing.
Dimon addressed the tariff policy in his annual shareholder letter.
He’s the first CEO of a major Wall Street bank to publicly address Trump’s sweeping tariff policy as global markets tumble.
“Markets still seem to be pricing assets with the assumption that we will continue to have a fairly soft landing,” Dimon said. “I am not so sure.”

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said Monday that tariffs announced by President Donald Trump last week will likely boost prices on both domestic and imported goods, weighing down a U.S. economy that had already been slowing.
Dimon, 69, addressed the tariff policy Trump announced on April 2 in his annual shareholder letter, which has become a closely read screed on the state of the economy, proposals for the issues facing the U.S. and his take on effective management.

“Whatever you think of the legitimate reasons for the newly announced tariffs – and, of course, there are some – or the long-term effect, good or bad, there are likely to be important short-term effects,” Dimon said. “We are likely to see inflationary outcomes, not only on imported goods but on domestic prices, as input costs rise and demand increases on domestic products.”
“Whether or not the menu of tariffs causes a recession remains in question, but it will slow down growth,” he said.
Dimon is the first CEO of a major Wall Street bank to publicly address Trump’s sweeping tariff policy as global markets tumble.
Though the JPMorgan chairman has often used his platform to highlight geopolitical and financial risks he sees, this year’s letter comes at an unusually turbulent time. Stocks have been in freefall since Trump’s announcement shocked global markets, causing the worst week for U.S. equities since the outbreak of the Covid pandemic in 2020.
His remarks appear to backtrack earlier comments he made in January, when Dimon said that people should “get over” tariff concerns because they were good for national security. At the time, tariff levels being discussed were far lower than what was unveiled last week.

Trump’s tariff policy has created “many uncertainties,” including its impact on global capital flows and the dollar, the impact to corporate profits and the response from trading partners, Dimon said.
“The quicker this issue is resolved, the better because some of the negative effects increase cumulatively over time and would be hard to reverse,” he said. “In the short run, I see this as one large additional straw on the camel’s back.”

‘Not so sure’

While the U.S. economy has performed well for the past few years, helped by nearly $11 trillion in government borrowing and spending, it was “already weakening” in recent weeks, even before Trump’s tariff announcement, according to Dimon. Inflation is likely to be stickier than many anticipate, meaning that interest rates could remain elevated even as the economy slows, he added.
“The economy is facing considerable turbulence (including geopolitics), with the potential positives of tax reform and deregulation and the potential negatives of tariffs and ‘trade wars,’ ongoing sticky inflation, high fiscal deficits and still rather high asset prices and volatility,” Dimon said.
The JPMorgan CEO has been sounding a note of caution since at least 2022, when he said a “hurricane” was heading for the U.S. economy, thanks to the unwinding of Federal Reserve policies and the Ukraine war. But propped up by high government and consumer spending, the U.S. economy defied expectations until now. The election of Trump in November initially boosted hopes around what a pro-growth administration would do.
Dimon struck a somewhat ominous note in his letter Monday, considering how much U.S. stocks have already fallen from their recent highs. According to the JPMorgan CEO, both stocks and credit spreads were still potentially too optimistic.
“Markets still seem to be pricing assets with the assumption that we will continue to have a fairly soft landing,” Dimon said. “I am not so sure.”

‘Critical crossroads’

 Under Dimon’s roughly two decades of leadership, JPMorgan has become the largest U.S. bank by assets and market capitalization. Last year was its seventh in a row of record revenues, he noted.
But the bank is reliant on “whether the long-term health of America, domestically, and the future of the free and democratic world are strong,” Dimon said. Both the U.S. and world are at a “critical crossroads,” he said.
While the word “Trump” didn’t appear once in his 59-page letter, Dimon affirmed several of the president’s priorities, including immigration; addressing trade imbalances, especially with China; and deregulation.
But Dimon argued for deep reform and strengthening of a global system that has led to decades of peace and prosperity, led by America since the end of World War II, rather than abandoning that order.
“If given the opportunity, that is exactly what our adversaries want to happen: Tear asunder the extensive military and economic alliances that America and its allies have forged,” Dimon said.
“In the multipolar world that follows, it will be every nation for itself – giving our adversaries the opportunity to set the rules and use military and economic coercion to get what they want.”
Dimon had several prescriptions to meet the challenges of the day, including restoring civic pride, acknowledging and addressing problems including immigration and unfair trade policies with common sense, and maintaining the U.S. military “at whatever cost.”
“Economics is the longtime glue, and America First is fine,” Dimon said, “as long as it doesn’t end up being America alone.”

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DURING HIS inaugural address eight years ago, Donald Trump spoke of “American carnage”. In recent days he has spread something similar across the world economy: a problem he alone could fix, in his words, has become something he alone has globalised. More

Risks of an intense U.S.-China trade war are rising rapidly, according to analysts, after Beijing responded more forcefully than many had expected to U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest tariffs.
In a shift in tone, China also dropped its call for negotiations on trade in a weekend statement that condemned U.S. levies, raising the prospects of an extended period of tariff escalation.
“Beijing’s aggressive posture signals that future retaliation will be more forceful, setting off an escalatory spiral and raising the odds of unmanaged decoupling in 2025,” Eurasia Group said in a note.

China’s and U.S.’ flags are seen printed on paper in this illustration taken January 27, 2022. 
Dado Ruvic | Reuters

BEIJING — Risks of an intense U.S.-China trade war are rising rapidly, according to analysts, after Beijing responded more forcefully than many had expected to U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest tariffs.
In a shift in tone, China also dropped its call for negotiations on trade in a weekend statement that condemned U.S. levies, raising the prospects of an extended period of tariff escalation.

“China has taken and will continue to take resolute measures to safeguard its sovereignty, security, and development interests,” China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Saturday.
Beijing on Friday retaliated with levies of 34% on all U.S. goods — matching the latest duties by the Trump administration. Those came on top of the 10-15% tariffs China levied in March and February, which had focused on agricultural and energy products imported from the U.S.
“Raising tariff on all U.S. imports by the same amount as Trump’s latest tariff demonstrates China’s determination to go all the way to wherever the U.S. wants to be,” said Andy Xie, a Shanghai-based independent economist.
As part of the broad retaliatory measures, Beijing also placed export curbs on key rare earth elements, prohibited exports of dual-use items to a dozen of U.S. entities, mostly in defense and aerospace industries, and put 11 more U.S. firms to its “unreliable entities list,” subjecting them to broader restrictions while operating in China.
“Beijing’s aggressive posture signals that future retaliation will be more forceful, setting off an escalatory spiral and raising the odds of unmanaged decoupling in 2025,” a team of analysts at Eurasia Group said in a note.

China’s response will likely prompt further rounds of tariffs from the U.S. in an effort to discourage similar moves from other trading partners, Eurasia Group analysts said, noting that “some Trump officials view this as a unique time to double down on China in an effort to accelerate a decoupling of commercial ties.”
Beijing’s swift response came on the back of Trump’s announcement of additional 34% tariffs on China, raising the U.S. weighted average tariff rate on China to as high as 65%, according to Robin Xing, chief China economist at Morgan Stanley.
That could stunt the world’s second-biggest economy by 1.5 to 2 percentage points this year, Xing estimates, citing slower exports growth and entrenched domestic deflation.

Negotiation standstill

Beijing’s shift toward a more “aggressive, escalatory” stance makes a near-term deal to end the trade war between the two superpowers “highly unlikely,” said economists at Capital Economics.

Until last Friday, Beijing’s actions were considered relatively restrained and measured. Trump had also made warm comments praising Chinese President Xi Jinping and expressed interests in arranging a bilateral meeting.
“The abandonment of restraint” in Beijing’s latest retaliatory measures likely reflects Chinese leadership’s “diminished hopes for a trade deal with the U.S., at least in the short term,” Gabriel Wildau, managing director at Teneo said in a note.
Trump derided China’s latest response as an act of panic. In a post on social media platform TruthSocial, he said “China played it wrong, they panicked — the one thing they cannot afford to do!” The president has said that he would consider lowering tariffs on China if Beijing approves the sale of short video app TikTok to U.S. investors.
Yet Beijing may not be onboard with the sale. “National dignity is Beijing’s key consideration on TikTok, but exchanging TikTok for relief from newly imposed tariffs would carry the unmistakable whiff of China’s leaders yielding to bullying,” said Wildau.
Analysts at Eurasia Group, however, suggested Beijing still desires a deal and is prepared to negotiate. “Strong, asymmetric, tit-for-tat tariff retaliation is a precondition for Beijing to come to the negotiating table,” they added.
Without ruling out negotiations with the U.S., state-backed publication People’s Daily in an opinion piece said Beijing was “fully prepared in all aspects to handle potential shocks” with ample policy room to defend it economy.
People’s Daily, which is frequently used to convey official policy views, outlined Beijing’s plans to counter the economic fallout by boosting domestic consumption “with extraordinary strength,” lowering key policy rates whenever needed and further fiscal easing.
The diminishing prospect of a deal between Beijing and Washington has exacerbated a global market rout, sending the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index — which tracks Chinese shares listed in Hong Kong — down over 13% Monday, setting it on course for its worst day since the global financial crisis.
The yield on China’s 10-year government bonds plunged 9 basis points to 1.634%, according to LSEG data, while the offshore yuan weakened 0.35% to 7.3212 per dollar. More

Jakub Porzycki | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Bitcoin fell below the $78,000 level as investors braced for more financial market volatility after U.S. equites suffered their worst decline since 2020 on the rollout of President Donald Trump’s restrictive global tariffs.
The price of bitcoin was last lower by 6% at $77,730.03, according to Coin Metrics, after trading above the $80,000 for most of this year — barring a couple brief blips below it amid recent volatility. It’s off its January all-time high by 28%.

The flagship cryptocurrency usually trades like a big tech stock and is often viewed by traders as a leading indicator of market sentiment, but last week it bucked the broader market meltdown – holding between $82,000 and $83,000 and rising to end the week as stocks tumbled and even gold fell.
Other cryptocurrencies suffered bigger losses overnight. Ether and the token tied to Solana tumbled about 12% each.
Bitcoin’s down move triggered a wave of long liquidations, as traders betting on an increase in its price were forced to sell their assets to cover their losses. In the past 24 hours, bitcoin has seen more than $247 million in long liquidations, according to CoinGlass. Ether saw $217 million in long liquidations in the same period.

Stock chart icon

Bitcoin has traded mostly above $80,000 in 2025

Rattled investors dumped their holdings of cryptocurrencies, which trade 24 hours, over the weekend as they anticipated further carnage, after Trump’s retaliatory tariffs raised global recession fears and caused investors to sell all risk.
The duties on all imports, in addition to custom tariffs for major trading partners, have sparked worries of a global trade war that could lead the U.S. into a recession. Growing concerns about the far-reaching impact of the tariffs sent markets reeling worldwide.

In the two sessions following the tariff announcement, global stocks wiped out $7.46 trillion in market value based on the market cap of the S&P Global Broad Market Index, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices.
That figure includes $5.87 trillion lost in the U.S. stock market over those two sessions and another $1.59 trillion loss in market value in other major global markets.
Bitcoin is down 15% in 2025 and, absent a crypto-specific catalyst, is expected to continue moving in tandem with equities as global recession fears overshadow any regulatory tailwinds crypto was expected to benefit from this year. More