Weekly Notes, 031.
August 6, 2025
👋 Readers, this is 31 straight weeks of Weekly Notes!
This week I’m hitting send from beautiful Scottsdale, Arizona 🌵, where the dry heat temp is sitting at a cool 113°. Anyway, back to the notes!
Headlines this week continue to focus on trade and tariff policies, AI and digital assets, and the ongoing pressure on Iran, TCOs, DTOs, and Cartels.
Below, you’ll find directly sourced links to information that I’ve been consuming since last week and using to get smarter on issues of interest.
I hope these weekly notes are useful, and I would appreciate any feedback you might have.
Interesting issues and news across the US economic and national security landscape.
Analysis: Pressure on Brazil through economic sanctions and tariffs aims to address the unusual and extraordinary policies and actions harming US companies and individuals. While global conflicts persist, the Trump Administration continues with a very deliberate foreign policy, trade, and national security agenda. There is a velocity of action and consistency of targets.
Regional focus, along with country and bad actor specificity, should provide risk managers with extraordinary clarity in assessing the geopolitical landscape and, in plain English, what is important to this Administration’s agenda.
Here are seven (7) links sourced directly from the White House and the US Department of the Treasury.
Treasury Sanctions Alexandre de Moraes
Treasury Takes Massive Action Against High-Profile Iranian Network
Treasury Sanctions Global Network Supporting Iran’s Military UAV Program
Interesting issues and news across finance, technology, risk, regulation, and financial crime.
Analysis: The intersection of finance and technology, and really innovation, is center stage. This Administration, in short order, has prioritized American innovation across finance (crypto/digital assets specifically) and AI. However, some friction remains between conventional banking giants, FinTech innovation, and how scammers and bad actors continue to exploit advances in financial systems faster than we can thwart them.
Tons of action this past week, and an article from a16z that is particularly interesting (titled Chokepoint 3.0!)…
Here are seven (7) links sourced directly from the White House, the US Department of the Treasury, Congressional committees, regulators, and market-leading companies.
Treasury Secretary Bessent Remarks at the Launch of the White House Digital Assets Report
Chairman Hill Introduces Bipartisan Bill to Promote Artificial Intelligence in Financial Services
Coinbase and JPMorgan Chase join forces to make it even easier to access crypto
Statement by Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle W. Bowman
Interesting reports.
McKinsey Technology Trends Outlook 2025
Interesting charts of the week.
🎧 The Business of FinCrime: S2, Ep. 04 on The Perspective Podcast with Vic Maculaitis