The U.S. Senate Banking Committee Advances the "Financial Transparency and Regulatory Compliance Act"

According to people familiar with the matter, Anthropic is working to market its shares to UK retail investors via the investment platform RetailBook. (Bloomberg)

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced it will host an industry roundtable on December 15 to discuss the feasibility of implementing 24/7 trading in derivatives markets. The roundtable follows the CFTC’s earlier summer public comment process on extending trading hours for standard futures contracts and introducing perpetual contract mechanisms. It will address topics including overnight trading, asset tokenization, infrastructure development, staffing, and operational readiness, exploring how to advance financial innovation while protecting market participants’ rights and interests and preserving the integrity and resilience of the U.S. derivatives market. CFTC Chair Selig noted that regulators will not take a "one-size-fits-all" approach to 24/7 trading, instead seeking input from all industry stakeholders to advance the development of trading mechanisms for different asset classes in a prudent, responsible manner. The meeting will be held at the CFTC’s Washington, D.C. headquarters, with a public live stream available. Specific agendas, speakers, and registration details will be announced at a later date.

Bloomberg — Market monitoring firm Solidus Labs found that during the sharp volatility of international oil prices from March 8 to 10 amid the Iran conflict, a trader used two accounts on Hyperliquid to place abnormal orders worth over $170 million, suspected of manipulating crude oil perpetual contract prices via spoofing. The trader repeatedly placed and canceled large orders on one side of the order book while executing trades on the opposite side, with the ratio of canceled order value to executed opposite trades standing at around 30:1, generating roughly $119,000 in profit over the three days. In a March 9 transaction, the trader canceled approximately $17 million in sell orders in a short period while executing about $425,000 in buy orders. The activity was concentrated mainly on Brent crude perpetual contracts, and also involved WTI crude oil and natural gas contracts. Solidus noted that the actions align with spoofing characteristics, but the manipulation intent has not yet been confirmed. Hyperliquid Labs responded that all order, cancellation and transaction records on the platform are publicly recorded on the blockchain, accessible for review by market participants and regulators.

Apple has released an overhauled MacBook Pro featuring a touchscreen.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stated that the Iranian armed forces are fully prepared to defend the country at all times, but Iran remains open to the success of diplomatic efforts. Iran is in close, continuous communication with mediators to review relevant proposals, aiming to implement the "Seven-Day Plan" within less than a week.

Semiconductor research firm Culper today published analysis stating that Cerebras’ Wafer-Scale Engine (WSE) and its routing architecture are indeed fully capable of resolving yield issues, as the company has claimed. The key uncertainty is how long the wafer will function in real-world operation, the report points out. Cerebras’ design relies on a large number of redundant interconnects to address manufacturing defects, but all these BEOL (Back-End-of-Line) wiring significantly increases the effective area susceptible to TDDB (Time-Dependent Dielectric Breakdown), which may lead to greater long-term reliability risks. TDDB can cause short circuits, which are more hazardous than open circuits in this design. Dielectric layer thickness determines the probability of TDDB occurrence, and variations in this thickness may be spatially correlated across the wafer, meaning many interconnect failures are likely concentrated in specific regions. It remains unclear how Cerebras detects these short circuits and avoids faulty interconnects. In conclusion, the firm estimates CBRS wafers will fail after roughly 2 years of use, a product lifespan that is disruptive to the company’s overall business.