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Leo Schwartz

@leoschwartz.bsky.social
2.2K followers 147 following 63 posts

Senior reporter at Fortune Magazine covering the future of money // Writing Term Sheet on Mondays // Past: @restofworld // leo.schwartz@fortune.com

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Leo Schwartz @leoschwartz.bsky.social · 14/11/2025
🧵On May 28, hours after Nevada’s workplace safety agency served notice of more than $400,000 in fines to Elon Musk’s $5.6 billion tunneling startup the Boring Company, the phone rang at Nevada governor Joe Lombardo’s office. Boring Co. president Steve Davis was on the line
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Leo Schwartz @leoschwartz.bsky.social · 09/05/2025
Scoop: Meta is looking to get back into the stablecoin game 3 years after the failure of Libra/Diem. Sources told @bdanweiss.bsky.social and me that Meta is holding early discussions with crypto companies about stablecoin integration with a focus on creator payouts. fortune.com/crypto/2025/...
fortune.com
Exclusive: Meta in talks to deploy stablecoins three years after giving up on landmark crypto project
The social media giant is exploring how to use stablecoins to pay content creators, among other uses, according to sources familiar with the matter.
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Leo Schwartz @leoschwartz.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
A judge denied the prominent short-seller Andrew Left's motion to dismiss an SEC lawsuit against him, which alleged a scheme to defraud his followers by publishing false and misleading statements about his stock recommendations storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
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Leo Schwartz @leoschwartz.bsky.social · 21/04/2025
Gavin Kliger, the DOGE staffer who led layoffs at the CFPB, will have to testify at an April 28 hearing
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Leo Schwartz @leoschwartz.bsky.social · 21/04/2025
Trump keeps threatening to fire Fed chair Jerome Powell — but can he? I spoke with legal experts to understand the Trump administration's attempt to overturn nearly a century of precedent, and whether the Fed really is special: fortune.com/article/trum...
fortune.com
Trump's knives are out for Jerome Powell, setting up a Supreme Court showdown over the Fed’s independence
The Fed is special. Why the Supreme Court may let Trump fire other agency heads—but not Jerome Powell.
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Leo Schwartz @leoschwartz.bsky.social · 21/04/2025
Court filings from Friday detail the DOGE-led, 36-hour scramble to conduct mass layoffs at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau—an action that a federal judge has temporarily blocked fortune.com/article/cons...
fortune.com
Court filings describe DOGE-driven, scream-filled, 36-hour mass layoff scramble at consumer protection agency
As the Trump administration seeks to gut the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, employees are fighting back.
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Leo Schwartz @leoschwartz.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
I spoke with House Financial Services chair French Hill about squaring Trump's tariff strategy with his own free trade background, passing crypto legislation, and Congressional resolutions to defang the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: fortune.com/2025/04/16/f...
fortune.com
Trump’s tariffs can be beneficial in the long term but Congress needs a more active role, says top GOP lawmaker
As chair of the House Financial Services Committee, Hill is helping shepherd key crypto legislation.
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Leo Schwartz @leoschwartz.bsky.social · 14/04/2025
@jessicakmathews.bsky.social and I have a new profile of Bo Hines, the 29-year-old heading Trump's sweeping crypto agenda. We had a chance to interview Hines and review his calendar through FOIA. We also have new details about his deep financial ties to Trump world. fortune.com/article/dona...
fortune.com
Donald Trump’s 29-year-old crypto guru lays out the president’s plans for regulating crypto and rolling back a Biden-era crackdown
Since his appointment, Bo Hines has become a mini-celebrity in the crypto world—with CEOs, billionaire investors, and lobbyists vying for face time.
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Reposted by Leo Schwartz
Leo Schwartz @leoschwartz.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
Scoop: The lead attorney on the SEC's lawsuit against Elon Musk resigned last week, partly over concerns about how the case would be resolved. This comes just days after Musk's DOGE entered the SEC: fortune.com/2025/04/09/s...
fortune.com
SEC lawyer heading case on Elon Musk's Twitter acquistion resigns, cites “heartbreaking” decision
Robin Andrews led contentious litigation against Musk that was filed shortly before President Trump took office.
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Leo Schwartz @leoschwartz.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
Scoop: The lead attorney on the SEC's lawsuit against Elon Musk resigned last week, partly over concerns about how the case would be resolved. This comes just days after Musk's DOGE entered the SEC: fortune.com/2025/04/09/s...
fortune.com
SEC lawyer heading case on Elon Musk's Twitter acquistion resigns, cites “heartbreaking” decision
Robin Andrews led contentious litigation against Musk that was filed shortly before President Trump took office.
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Leo Schwartz @leoschwartz.bsky.social · 08/04/2025
Big scoop from @bdanweiss.bsky.social: The Department of Justice is disbanding its crypto enforcement unit fortune.com/crypto/2025/...
fortune.com
Justice Department scraps crypto unit as Trump further loosens oversight of digital assets
The National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Unit was established in 2021 and prosecuted major crypto-related felonies.
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Leo Schwartz @leoschwartz.bsky.social · 25/03/2025
Over the past few years, Trump's business empire has dramatically shifted from real estate and licensing to his publicly traded Trump Media shares and crypto holdings. Conflict of interest concerns from his first term look quaint in hindsight. From the new mag issue: fortune.com/2025/03/25/t...
fortune.com
What is Trump really worth?
The president is worth at least $4.9 billion, and crypto assets like $TRUMP and World Liberty Financial could add billions more.
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Leo Schwartz @leoschwartz.bsky.social · 12/03/2025
As the Senate prepares for a landmark vote on stablecoin legislation, Sen. Elizabeth Warren is circulating a memo laying out risks, from Big Tech control of the financial system to consumer safety: fortune.com/crypto/2025/...
fortune.com
Senate poised to advance landmark crypto bill, Warren warns of Elon Musk 'controlling' financial system
The Senate is expected to markup a stablecoin bill on Thursday.
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Leo Schwartz @leoschwartz.bsky.social · 10/03/2025
Almost a year ago, the a16z-backed fintech Synapse collapsed, trapping $200 million in customer assets and revealing the wobbly, unregulated infrastructure underlying much of our new financial system. My investigation w/ @agarfinks.bsky.social on what went wrong: fortune.com/2025/03/07/s...
fortune.com
The spectacular Synapse collapse: Inside the ugliest divorce in fintech, which left $200 million in customer money frozen
Is the failure of this buzzy startup a canary in the coal mine for bigger problems in fintech?
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Leo Schwartz @leoschwartz.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
The Senate voted tonight to repeal key financial regulation that would have supervised digital payment platforms for fraud, privacy, and, ironically, debanking. A major win for Silicon Valley and Elon Musk's payment ambitions for X: fortune.com/2025/03/05/c...
fortune.com
In a win for Silicon Valley, Senate votes to overturn key payments regulation that could benefit Elon Musk’s X
The rule was enacted under the Biden administration’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau last November.
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Leo Schwartz @leoschwartz.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
🧵In late November, 26-year-old Suchir Balaji was found dead in his SF apartment. Just a month before, he had gone public with concerns that his former employer, OpenAI, was breaking copyright laws. While officials deemed his death a suicide, his mother has become convinced he was murdered
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Leo Schwartz @leoschwartz.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
Are activist short-sellers going extinct? After Hindenburg Research announced it was closing up shop last week, I spoke with other traders, including Andrew Left, about the increasingly perilous field: fortune.com/2025/01/23/a...
fortune.com
Are famous short sellers going extinct? The exit of Hindenburg Research and Andrew Left shows the risky trade is shrinking
Indicted short seller Andrew Left tells Fortune a “chilling effect” is making “everyone think twice.”
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Leo Schwartz @leoschwartz.bsky.social · 18/01/2025
I feel like this went under the radar yesterday, but one of the last actions by Gary Gensler's SEC was to sue Nova Labs, the developer of Helium, for illegal securities offerings — including its newest product, Helium Mobile
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Leo Schwartz @leoschwartz.bsky.social · 20/12/2024
CoinDesk owners Bullish fired the publication's three top editors, including EIC Kevin Reynolds, this morning following newsroom controversy over the removal of an article about billionaire Justin Sun: fortune.com/crypto/2024/...
fortune.com
CoinDesk ownership Bullish fires top editorial staff amid newsroom controversy
CoinDesk CEO Sara Stratoberdha told editorial staff on Friday that the company that editor-in-chief Kevin Reynolds and two deputies were let go.
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Leo Schwartz @leoschwartz.bsky.social · 19/12/2024
Scoop: Turmoil at CoinDesk after its new owners forced editors to remove an article about billionaire Justin Sun. Matt Murray, former WSJ EIC and new WaPo editor, resigned as editorial committee chair, and staff are raising concerns over independence: fortune.com/crypto/2024/...
fortune.com
Billionaire Justin Sun pushed CoinDesk’s new ownership to remove article about banana-eating, editorial chair Matt Murray resigns
The crypto exchange Bullish purchased CoinDesk in late 2023 for close to $75 million.
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Leo Schwartz @leoschwartz.bsky.social · 16/12/2024
Non-GBTC crypto ads are back. Also, headed to D.C. for the Blockchain Association’s Policy Summit — let me know if you’ll be there too
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Leo Schwartz @leoschwartz.bsky.social · 13/12/2024
This deserves feature-length treatment
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Leo Schwartz @leoschwartz.bsky.social · 11/12/2024
Proponents of the debanking narrative still lack a smoking gun: fortune.com/2024/12/11/d...
fortune.com
As accusations of 'debanking' grip Silicon Valley, the crypto industry is still waiting for a smoking gun
Did regulators prevent banks from working with crypto companies and founders for political reasons?
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Leo Schwartz @leoschwartz.bsky.social · 10/12/2024
If you can't get enough of Hawk Tuah, I broke down the apparent rug pull with input from insiders, blockchain analysts, and a former DOJ prosecutor who says that Welch could face civil and even criminal charges. Sadly, she wouldn't talk with me again: fortune.com/crypto/2024/...
fortune.com
Hawk Tuah girl wanted to reward fans with a memecoin—crypto insiders turned it into a 'one-day pump and dump'
Was Haliey Welch used as a marketing stunt to promote a rug pull?
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Leo Schwartz @leoschwartz.bsky.social · 06/12/2024
Depressing to see Eater decimated when the new business model for restaurant reviews is TikTok influencers who are paid by the places they're "reviewing" Is food criticism doomed?
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Leo Schwartz @leoschwartz.bsky.social · 05/12/2024
Scoop w/ @jessicakmathews.bsky.social: The fintech unicorn Stash laid off 40% of staff in October as its co-founders returned as co-CEOs. It's the second layoff this year for the company, once valued at $1.4 billion, which is closing a new funding round fortune.com/2024/12/04/s...
fortune.com
Exclusive: Fintech unicorn Stash laid off 40% of its workforce after CEO left
The company has had two major layoffs in 2024 and says it’s now cash flow positive.
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Leo Schwartz @leoschwartz.bsky.social · 04/12/2024
I spoke with "Hawk tuah" girl Haliey Welch about her Solana memecoin launching today, and her manager cut in to insist they "don’t want to break securities laws." Submitting for my Pulitzer: fortune.com/crypto/2024/...
fortune.com
'Hawk tuah' girl Haliey Welch launches a crypto memecoin but insists it's not a cash grab
An interview with the viral sensation as she wades into murky legal waters.
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Leo Schwartz @leoschwartz.bsky.social · 03/12/2024
If you want any window into the state of the Synapse catastrophe, the court-appointed trustee just started crying in today's bankruptcy hearing
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Leo Schwartz @leoschwartz.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
It's the end of an era with SEC chair Gary Gensler announcing he'll step down in January. I profiled him and his turbulent tenure last year: fortune.com/longform/gar...
fortune.com
Gary Gensler has remade the SEC into a crypto nemesis and climate warrior. Now a backlash is brewing
The combative former Goldman Sachs banker faces staff burnout, widening criticism from Congress, and a potential reckoning from hostile federal courts.
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Leo Schwartz @leoschwartz.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
Is this a good sign?
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Leo Schwartz @leoschwartz.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
If you're interested in startup and venture news, I'm going to be writing Fortune's dealmaking newsletter Term Sheet every Monday with a focus on the New York scene. Throw me a follow to support my mental health so I leave the pit of doom that is X!
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Leo Schwartz @leoschwartz.bsky.social · 14/11/2024
Is there anyone here?
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Leo Schwartz @leoschwartz.bsky.social · 09/05/2023
Who wants to invite me on their boat at Bitcoin Miami next week
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Leo Schwartz @leoschwartz.bsky.social · 02/05/2023
Was very cool to interview @xychelsea.tv about whether technology is compatible with privacy at Web Summit Rio
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Leo Schwartz @leoschwartz.bsky.social · 01/05/2023
I want to propose a new phrase, “Tweet and skeet,” in which one posts the same thing on both platforms either out of laziness or to see which one performs better
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Leo Schwartz @leoschwartz.bsky.social · 01/05/2023
As if crypto couldn’t get any more confusing, we’re about to have competing blockchains named Sui and Sei
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Reposted by Leo Schwartz
Kylie Robison @kylierobison.com · 27/04/2023
so far from the company we have EIC @alyson.bsky.social Tech reporter covering creators and startups @iamsternlicht.bsky.social Crypto reporter @leoschwartz.bsky.social
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Leo Schwartz @leoschwartz.bsky.social · 26/04/2023
I waded into the CBDC debate for my column today, talking with an ACLU privacy expert about how a government-backed digital currency could be designed to serve as a public good: fortune.com/crypto/2023/04/26/cbdc-…
fortune.com
Can a CBDC be truly private?
Government-backed digital currencies are drawing critics from the left and right.
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Leo Schwartz @leoschwartz.bsky.social · 26/04/2023
Vertex, a new decentralized exchange, is launching today on the Ethereum "layer 2" Arbitrum, promising high-speed transactions and liquidity thanks to prominent backers like Jane Street and Hudson River Trading
fortune.com
Decentralized exchange Vertex launches on Arbitrum | Fortune
The new, self-custodial DEX will offer high-speed spot and derivatives trading.
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Leo Schwartz @leoschwartz.bsky.social · 25/04/2023
Is there Crypto Bluesky?
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Leo Schwartz @leoschwartz.bsky.social · 25/04/2023
I worked on this story with Kylie! You should check it out
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