This week's list of top stories in fintech:

Plaid Pushes Into Payments Business After Scuttled Visa Deal

• Teaming up with Square, Stripe, Marqeta and others
• Competes directly with Visa, MC and Amex
• Plaid says it is a compliment, not a competitor
• Makes payments more efficient, cheaper for consumers and better for SMBs for more sales

SEC-approved Bitcoin futures ETF goes live

• ProShares bitcoin futures ETF goes live
• Big moment for crypto, though overall stance from the SEC has not yet changed
• the fund will allocate “approximately 25 percent” towards buying month-out bitcoin futures contracts traded on the CME

Facebook selects Coinbase as custody partner for its Novi cryptocurrency wallet

• Novi users will be able to transact paxos dollar, a stablecoin whose value is pegged to the US dollar.
• Coinbase is custody partner
• David Marcus, head of Novi, chose USDP because it is fully backed by the US dollar and is held 100% in cash and cash equivalents

PayPal is in late-stage talks to acquire Pinterest

• PayPal has discussed acquiring the company for a potential price of around $70 a share, which would value Pinterest at about $39 billion
• Shopify pressure in part why PayPal is doing the deal
• Growing social commerce space

Two Crypto-Lending Firms Ordered Shut by New York’s James

• Crypto lending firms ordered shut by NY AG
• AG sent three other platforms letters with questions about their operations
• Nexo and Celsius - though it seems Nexo was incorrectly sent to them
• Regulators stance toward space continues to be confrontational

Fixed-income titan Pimco is starting to embrace cryptocurrencies, CIO says

• Pimco has dabbled in cryptocurrencies and plans to gradually invest more in digital assets
• Speaking to investors, taking baby steps 
• You have to understand decentralized finance, because it will be disruptive, and it very well may disrupt our industry, in our business in particular

FTX Trading Gets $25 Billion Valuation in $420 Million Funding Round

• FTX’s user base has reportedly grown 48% and its average trade volume has increased by 75%
•  FTX US, acquired LedgerX, and has recently launched a global NFT marketplace, FTX NFTs.
• MLB and NFL sponsor, spend a lot on marketing to consumers

Challenger bank N26 raises $900 million at $9 billion valuation

• Big jump in valuation from their last round, 2.5x larger
• 7 million users in 25 countries
• Refocusing on EU
• It gives us a lot of time over the next three to four years to line up for an IPO - co-founder and CEO Valentin Stalf