#7. Britain’s Brexit divide

With the disastrous turnout for the Conservatives and Labour party in the European elections last week the chances of more extreme Brexit outcomes have gone up, Bloomberg reports. According to Bloomberg Economics, the difference of a no-deal or a no Brexit outcome is about 7% of the UK's GDP by 2030.


#6. Roblox is eying China

On Wednesday, there was news about kids gaming platform Roblox. It seems the company has set its sights on China since it announced a strategic partnership with Chinese tech giant Tencent, TechCrunch reports.

The joint venture will be based in Shenzhen and it will initially focus on education - coding fundamentals, game design and digital citizenship in particular - and entrepreneurial skills, according to the same TechCrunch article. 


#5. Devon Energy exits Canada

Also on Wednesday, US oil and gas producer Devon Energy said it will sell its Canadian assets to Canadian Natural Resources Ltd for $2.81 billion in cash, Reuters reports. Instead, the company will purely on the US production. 

International oil companies such as Royal Dutch Shell and ConocoPhilips have been cutting down their assets in Canada for several years now as limited pipeline space has reduced the prices and limited growth prospects, according to the same Reuters article.


#4. Lending start-up SoFi’s funding round

Online lending start-up SoFi, better known as Social Finance, closed a $500 million funding round this week. The round was led by Qatar Investment Authority and valued the personal finance company at $4.3 billion, CNBC reports.

SoFi plans to use the $500 million to invest more in growth and to strengthen its current balance sheet of $2.3, according to the same CNBC article.


#3. Pokémon Sleep

After its success with Pokémon Go in 2016 - reaching 28.5 million users in no time - the company now hopes to do the same thing with a new game called Pokémon Sleep, the New York Times reports. The game will track sleep patterns and change the game based on how long the user sleeps and what time they wake up.


#2. Asia’s growing chocolate demand

A growing number of chocoholics in Asia is driving the demand for cocoa beans, resulting in more shipments from Africa and South America, Bloomberg reports.

The production of beans in Asia jumped by more than 25% in the past four years, and grindings were up almost 10% on the year in the first quarter while the Asian market for chocolate has grown by an annual rate of 5% in five years according to the same Bloomberg article.

In New York, cocoa futures are trading close to their highest level in almost a year.


#1. Bitcoin trading often a hoax

A study from Bitwise found that no less than 95% of spot bitcoin trading is faked by unregulated exchanges, CNBC reports.

Bitwise - an asset manager trying to list the first-ever bitcoin ETF - analysed the top 81 crypto exchanges by volume and reported an aggregated $6 billion in average daily bitcoin volume; only $273 million of which is legitimate, according to the same CNBC article.


And voila, the 22nd week of 2019 all captured in Tweets. As always, we'll continue to track Twitter and bring you the top financial micro-messages from the web. See you back here next week.

Source: www.scoopnest.com.