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Bitcoin is up 50% so far in 2023, beating major commodities and stock indexes. Industry insiders said the bank collapses have sent investors looking for alternatives to the traditional banking system and there is also anticipation of a slowdown in interest rate rises, which is helping bitcoin.

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Bitcoin is up 50% this year despite the collapse of major crypto-focused banks, beating major stock indexes and commodities.

On Jan. 1, bitcoin began trading at just over $16,500. On Wednesday, it was hovering around the $25,000 mark, thanks to a rally that began on Sunday.

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The surge in price this year comes after bitcoin crashed 65% in 2022 after a number of major collapses of projects and hedge funds, bankruptcies, liquidity issues and the failure of FTX, one of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchanges.

The recent rise has come as somewhat of a surprise, given the closure of Silvergate Capital and Signature Bank, two of the biggest lenders to the crypto industry. And Silicon Valley Bank, viewed as the backbone of the technology startup industry, also failed.

“Bitcoin’s 50% surge in 2023 is a reflection of how beaten down it was post the FTX collapse, the changing interest rate outlook and the failure (& resurrection) of SVB,” Antoni Trenchev, co-founder of crypto trading platform Nexo, told CNBC.

From its peak of nearly $69,000 in November 2021, bitcoin is still down more than 60%.

Here are some of the main reasons bitcoin is up.

Bank collapses

While the collapse of Silvergate, Signature Bank and SVB sent shockwaves through financial markets, bitcoin’s rebound could also be fueled by those very failures, according to Vijay Ayyar, vice president of corporate development and international at crypto exchange Luno.

“This past week’s events around the failure of SVB and other banks have also shone a spotlight on the power of decentralised currencies that people can fully custody and own,” Ayyar said. “Decentralised finance is beginning to hit home in terms of a concept to many more people now.”

Crypto rallies following SVB collapse

Bitcoin is called a decentralized currency because it isn’t issued by a single entity like a central bank. Instead, it relies on an underlying technology called blockchain and its network is maintained by a community.

U.S. regulators had to step in to guarantee customer deposits at these banks, however.

Nexo’s Trenchev said the intervention “reminded investors about the structural deficiencies of the U.S. banking system and the U.S. dollar underpinning it, reasons why we’ve seen a flight to Bitcoin this week.”

Bitcoin proponents have claimed the digital currency is a way for investors to protect themselves against central bank moves, particularly quantitative easing and looser monetary policy, which they say erodes the value of fiat currency. Proponents point to bitcoin’s finite supply as a key feature of it being a store of value.

Interest rate outlook

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“In the space of a few days we’d turned from a hawkish Powell to an environment where economists were predicting the Fed might not even hike rates in March, benefiting Bitcoin,” Trenchev said.

“It’s been said that the Fed will only stop hiking rates when they break something, and now that something is broken, attention has turned to Bitcoin.”

Bitcoin vs. stocks

Bitcoin has rallied 50% this year. In contrast, the tech-heavy Nasdaq, which bitcoin has been closely correlated to in the past, is up 12% in the year to date. The S&P 500 is up 2.5%.

Gold, which is seen as an asset that investors flock to in times of market turmoil, is up just over 3% this year.

There aren’t many commodities or stock indexes that have beaten bitcoin. In terms of individual stocks, Meta is up around 60% in the year to date.

Among the major digital currencies, ether has rallied 42% this year, while solana is up more than 100%.

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Sony raises profit forecast after earnings beat, lifted by music and imaging divisions

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Sony raises profit forecast after earnings beat, lifted by music and imaging divisions

The Sony Group Corp. logo displayed on a screen at the Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies (Ceatec) in Chiba, Japan, on Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024.

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Sony Group on Tuesday posted a stronger-than-expected rise in second-quarter operating profit and announced a share buyback of up to 100 billion Japanese yen ($648 million).

Here are Sony’s second-quarter results compared with LSEG SmartEstimates, which are weighted toward forecasts from analysts who are more consistently accurate: 

  • Revenue: 3.108 trillion Japanese yen ($20.14 billion) vs. 2.985 trillion yen expected
  • Operating profit: 429 billion yen vs. 398.44 billion yen expected

Operating profit climbed 10% from a year earlier, while revenues were up 5%. Sony shares jumped more than 6% after the earnings release.

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The Japanese technology giant raised its full-year outlook, expecting operating profit to climb by 100 billion yen, or 8% from its previous forecast, led by its imaging and sensing solutions and music segments. The company also lifted its annual revenue projection by 300 billion yen, or 3%, while trimming its estimated losses from U.S. tariffs to 50 billion yen from 70 billion yen.

While Sony has been affected by U.S. President Donald Trump’s global tariff regime launched in April, Tokyo reached a trade deal with Washington in July that lowered duties on Japanese exports to 15% from the 25% initially proposed. The reduced tariffs took effect Aug. 7.

Music and imaging boost

Profit from Sony’s music business increased 27.65% year over year to 115.4 billion yen, while operating profit from its imaging business jumped nearly 50% to 138.3 billion yen, making it the company’s most profitable segment in the quarter.

Sony’s imaging and sensing solutions segment develops and manufactures advanced semiconductor products for a wide range of applications, from smartphones to automotive and industrial systems.

The company also reported strong sales in its game and network services division, which houses its popular PlayStation home console brand. The segment represents Sony’s top revenue driver, but posted a decrease in profits in the September quarter, falling 13.26% to 120.4 billion yen.

Game and network services have performed well in recent quarters thanks to a shift to digital game purchases and the PlayStation Plus subscription service. Growth in hardware shipments has been comparably muted.

KPop Demon Hunters

Despite Sony’s strong earnings showing, profit from its picture business shrank nearly 25% year over year. That was despite Sony Pictures Animation being behind this year’s smash hit production, KPop Demon Hunters, which premiered on June 20. 

The film, which was produced by Sony, has reportedly become the most popular Netflix film ever, and continues to break streaming records, even for its original soundtrack. 

Despite the success, Sony has missed much of this upside due to selling the film’s exclusive rights to Netflix.

While the exact details of the deal are unknown, it was reported that Sony made an initial $25 million profit from producing the film for Netflix.

Netflix saw K-pop Demon Hunters drive significant viewership and even contributed to its 17% revenue jump in its September quarter.

However, in a bright spot for Sony, a sequel to the movie has already been confirmed, with Netflix reportedly providing the Japanese company a $15 million cash bonus for the first film’s performance. 

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Tesla investor support for Elon Musk’s massive pay plan was lower in 2025 than in 2018

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Tesla investor support for Elon Musk's massive pay plan was lower in 2025 than in 2018

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, speaks during the 2025 Annual Shareholder Meeting on Nov. 6, 2025.

Courtesy: Tesla

Tesla shareholders voted last week to give CEO Elon Musk a record pay package, one that could net him about $1 trillion in company stock over the next decade. But Musk received less support than he did for an earlier pay plan in 2018.

Setting aside holdings owned by board members and executives, about 66.9% of shares tabulated in the vote were in favor of the package, according to a filing on Friday. When shareholders voted on the 2018 plan, that number was 73%, according to an analysis by Andrew Droste, head of corporate governance at investment firm Columbia Threadneedle.

In announcing the preliminary results on Thursday at the company’s annual shareholders meeting, Tesla said the plan received 75% support among voting shares. The company count included insiders like Musk, who held around a 15% stake in Tesla going into the proxy and was allowed to vote his shares.

The decline from the prior vote follows a tumultuous stretch for Musk and Tesla. Sales slumped in the first half of the year, in part because of Musk’s inflammatory political rhetoric and his work for the Trump administration, slashing the size of the federal government. Tesla’s brand value has also deteriorated.

Still, Droste said in an email that even at just under 70%, the vote represents “broad support for Elon among Tesla’s shareholder base.” Most investors recognize that Tesla and Elon Musk are “inextricably linked,” he wrote, and were “unwilling to risk his potential departure by allowing this vote to fail.”

Board members recommended shareholders approve the pay plan, which they introduced in September. Top proxy advisors Glass Lewis and ISS had recommended that investors vote against it.

The pay package for Musk, already the world’s richest person, consists of 12 tranches of shares to be granted if Tesla hits certain milestones over the next decade. The first tranche of stock gets paid out if Tesla hits a market capitalization of $2 trillion, about $500 billion more than the current valuation. Awards tied to market cap gains are paired with operational achievements.

Musk could still collect more than $50 billion by hitting a handful of the more attainable goals laid out for him by the board in the new pay plan. There are also a list of “covered events” in the award terms that would allow him to earn his shares without meeting required operational milestones.

Tesla didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Correction: A prior version of this story had an incorrect figure for the vote in support of the pay package.

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CoreWeave’s stock slides on weak guidance even as revenue more than doubles

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CoreWeave's stock slides on weak guidance even as revenue more than doubles

Michael Intrator, co-founder and CEO of CoreWeave, speaks at the Semafor World Economy Summit during the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Spring meetings in Washington on April 25, 2025.

Kent Nishimura | Bloomberg | Getty Images

CoreWeave, a provider of infrastructure for artificial intelligence companies, reported better-than-expected third-quarter revenue on Monday, but the company delivered disappointing full-year guidance. The stock dropped 6% in extended trading.

Here’s how the company did in comparison with LSEG consensus:

  • Earnings: Loss of 22 cents per share
  • Revenue: $1.36 billion vs. $1.29 billion expected

Revenue in the quarter soared 134% from $583.9 million a year ago, according to a statement. The company reported a net loss of $110 million, narrowing from about $360 million in the same quarter last year.

CoreWeave’s growth is tied directly to the AI boom, as the company rents out Nvidia graphics processing units and has won business from leading cloud infrastructure providers, including Google and Microsoft. The company’s backlog now stands at $55.6 billion, with 2.9 gigawatts in contracted power, up from 2.2 gigawatts on June 30, according to the statement.

However, CoreWeave now sees 2025 revenue coming in between $5.05 billion and $5.15 billion, trailing the average analyst estimate of $5.29 billion, according to LSEG.

A third-party data center developer is behind schedule, CEO Mike Intrator said on the company’s earnings call. But he added that the delay won’t affect CoreWeave’s backlog.

“There was a problem at one data center that’s impacting us, but there are 32 data centers in our portfolio,” Intrator said.

During the quarter, CoreWeave announced a $6.5 billion expansion of its business with OpenAI and a six-year deal with Meta worth up to $14.2 billion. CoreWeave also received its sixth contract from “a leading hyperscaler.”

The company remains supply-constrained, Intrator said. The shortage is not in power but instead has to do with the availability of partly completed “powered-shell” data centers in which CoreWeave can set up its own equipment, he said.

Meanwhile, CoreWeave is building its own data center infrastructure from the ground up in Pennsylvania, he said.

“The overwhelming majority of the delay that you’re seeing should be taken care of within Q1 of next year.” Intrator said.

CoreWeave went public on the Nasdaq in March, selling shares at $40 each. On Monday the stock closed at $105.61, representing a 164% return. The Nasdaq has gained 32% over a similar period. CoreWeave shares slipped in extended trading on Monday.

Less than four months after its IPO, CoreWeave announced its intent to acquire data center infrastructure operator Core Scientific for $9 billion, but Core Scientific shareholders voted against the proposed deal.

CoreWeave’s 2026 capital expenditures should be “well in excess of double” the total for 2025, which will end up between $12 billion and $14 billion, said Nitin Agrawal, the company’s finance chief.

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