News

On November 22, in this week's speech, Chicago Federal Reserve Chairman Austen Goolsbee and Federal Reserve Board Member Michelle Bowman expressed starkly different views on the theoretical neutral interest rate level. The neutral interest rate is the level that allows the Fed to balance all economic goals. Goolsbee emphasized that the Fed still needs to further cut interest rates to reach this level - he called this rate "far below our current level". Meanwhile, Bowman stated, "We may be closer to a neutral policy stance than we currently think." Will Compernolle of FHN Financial pointed out that given in September's forecast, anonymous estimates from Fed officials put the range of neutral interest rates between 2.375% and 3.75%, such divergence is not surprising.

On November 22, the decentralized prediction market platform Polymarket announced a temporary suspension of access for French users. This move comes several weeks after the French National Gaming Authority (ANJ) launched a gambling compliance investigation into the platform. Reportedly, this investigation originated from a large bet made by a French trader on the platform regarding Trump's victory in the 2024 U.S. presidential election. Although Polymarket has implemented IP blocking, according to The Big Whale, a French cryptocurrency news website, users can still access the platform via VPN. As of press time, Polymarket's terms of service have not yet been updated with related restrictions. (CoinDesk)