The latest Market Talks covering Financial Services. Exclusively on Dow Jones Newswires at 4:20 ET, 12:20 ET and 16:50 ET.
2243 GMT - Many real-estate owners who financed property acquisitions before a sharp rise in interest rates that began in 2022 now face hurdles as they will soon have to refinance those assets, Marc Lipschultz, co-CEO of credit and real-estate investor Blue Owl Capital, says during an earnings call. "This refinancing wave in real estate is here; it is coming," Lipschultz says. He notes that property owners' refinancing needs exceed the capital available in the market, creating opportunities for his firm. "We are seeing a very significant backlog of opportunities, a very significant pipeline. We absolutely like the risk-reward on what we are seeing," he says. "For lack of a better term, frankly, it is a buyer's market." Blue Owl ended September with $329.9 billion in assets, including $18.5 billion across real-estate-credit strategies. (luis.garcia@wsj.com; @lhvgarcia)
1703 GMT - BTCS SA's Wojciech Kaszycki has "never seen a worse day for Binance" after hackers swiped $6.3 billion from the crypto exchange's digital wallets. "It was a failure of basic corporate security," Kaszycki says in a note. The exchange's preliminary findings show that one Binance engineer's laptop was compromised, which gave attackers access to the system that processes withdrawals, he says. A single device should never be able to move money, and a device with that kind of access should never leave the building, Kaszycki says. (dean.seal@wsj.com)
1648 GMT - The breaches at Binance and Polymarket will make recovery spending a budget priority, presenting a potential boon for Rubrik's identity and data recovery products, Wedbush analyst Steven Wahrhaftig says in a research note. The increasing frequency of attacks widens the set of buyers for whom recovery is a necessity rather than an option, and rising incident costs are boosting the value of platforms that can provide clients with a clean restore, the analyst says. He expects Rubrik's annualized recurring revenue from net new subscriptions, and its count of customers spending $100,000 or more, will accelerate over the next two quarters as more breach-driven recovery budgets are approved. Rubrik shares are down 10% at $119.28. (dean.seal@wsj.com)
1634 GMT - In the wake of the $6.3 billion Binance breach, Brickken co-founder Ludovico Rossi is joining Bitget CEO Gracy Chen in calling for more consistent coordination between exchanges, issuers and DeFi platforms in responding to crypto exchange hacks. "The Binance hack simply highlights how much recovery still depends on issuers being able to intervene quickly," Rossi says in a note. He highlights ERC-7943, an Ethereum standard designed to unify tokenized real-world assets, as the kind of safeguard that can help. "If adopted and integrated, that could make it easier for platforms to recognize restrictions and act quickly," Rossi says. (dean.seal@wsj.com)
1604 GMT - The long-term investment thesis for crypto isn't changed by the $6.3 billion Binance hack, but the bar is raised for platforms that want to ride the next wave of growth, Moon Pursuit Capital's Utkarsh Ahuja says in a note. Investors will start to favor platforms that demonstrate robust security, transparency and independently verifiable safeguards, rather than just liquidity and execution, he says. "Trust can no longer be assumed; it has to be earned," Ahuja says. (dean.seal@wsj.com)
1601 GMT - The $6.3 billion Binance hack is a reminder that the biggest vulnerability in crypto is the infrastructure and operational controls around the blockchain, not the blockchain itself, Moon Pursuit Capital's Utkarsh Ahuja says in a note. For institutional investors, it highlights the need for independent custody, segregated assets, multi-layered transaction authorization and limiting exposure to a single exchange, he says. For retail investors, this should advance the conversation around safer custody solutions for everyone, Ahuja says. (dean.seal@wsj.com)
1600 GMT - The recent crypto selloff from the Binance breach may be the last major opportunity for investors to accumulate bitcoin under the $80,000 mark before the next bull market takes hold, ZX Squared Capital's CK Zheng says in a note. Zheng has been predicting that bitcoin could rise to $150,000 next year. Exchange hacks have historically only had a short-term impact on bitcoin prices, driven by traders' psychological reactions rather than any deterioration in bitcoin's underlying fundamentals, he says. "I believe this latest selloff represents the final capitulation phase of the 2026 crypto bear market," Zheng says. (dean.seal@wsj.com)
1529 GMT - Bitget CEO Gracy Chen, responding to news of the $6.3 billion Binance hack, is calling for faster coordination between exchanges, issuers, blockchain security firms and law enforcement to crack down on crypto cyber attacks. "When an attack happens, those relationships need to work in minutes, not days," Chen says in a note. The industry's biggest challenge is the speed at which stolen assets can move across different networks, she says. Some funds can be frozen, but others can be converted into assets that can't be frozen, Chen says. (dean.seal@wsj.com)
1521 GMT - Bitget CEO Gracy Chen says she knows just how difficult the initial response period is for Binance as it reckons with the fallout of a $6.3 billion hack. Bitget dealt with its own headline-making security breach last month, in which hackers stole roughly $388 million. The crypto exchange's priority was to contain the incident, protect users and communicate openly about what had happened, Chen says in a note. Bitget covered the financial impact with its Protection Fund and user balances weren't affected, she says. "Right now, the focus should be on supporting Binance's recovery efforts and protecting its users," Chen says. (dean.seal@wsj.com)
1459 GMT - The biggest risk from Binance's $6.3 billion hack is a confidence shock to centralized crypto infrastructure, Bitget Wallet's Lacie Zhang says in a note. Prolonged withdrawal restrictions or doubts about exchanges' reserves could cause lenders and market makers to retreat, draining liquidity across platforms, Zhang says. Any depegging of stablecoins or deterioration of market depth would show that the contagion is spreading, she says. The initial reaction from bitcoin has been more contained than during previous cyber incidents, but long-term confidence will depend on restored withdrawals, independently verified reserves and transparent accountability, Zhang says. (dean.seal@wsj.com)
1408 GMT - There isn't evidence yet that the attackers used artificial intelligence in the Binance hack, but cybersecurity experts warn that AI is making these kinds of large-scale intrusions more common. AI is helping attackers find and exploit weaknesses faster than companies can fix them, The Hashgraph Group's Stefan Deiss says in a note. Cyber threats are becoming more sophisticated and widespread alongside the rise of AI, Absolute Security's Andy Ward says in a note. It's only a matter of time before a larger hack with greater financial fallout makes headlines, Ward says. (dean.seal@wsj.com)
1401 GMT - News of a major crypto hack has left bitcoin and other digital assets in a difficult position, Trade Nation's David Morrison says in a note. Binance, one of the world's biggest crypto exchange, suspended transactions to investigate what is expected to be the largest-ever crypto heist. Bitcoin had done a solid job in holding on to support around $80,000 over the past six weeks but has now broken well below that level, Morrison says. "The next big level of support is $75,000." A break below that level would open up the possibility of a retest of summer lows, he says. Bitcoin falls 2.1% to $77,182, having reached a six-week low of $76,368 overnight, LSEG data show.
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