On Coinbase’s platform, people can buy and sell Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum, Litecoin, Tether and SushiSwap.

Bitcoin is the king of crypto. The market value of all the Bitcoins outstanding is about $425 billion, according to Coinbase, far more than the $74 billion market value of Ethereum, the number two cryptocurrency.

When Coinbase’s stock begins trading, the company will have its work cut out for it if it wants to keep up with Bitcoin’s price.

The cryptocurrency has risen for seven straight days and now sits at almost $23,000.

That puts Bitcoin up about 218% year to date. It’s been quite a run.

—Al Root

*** Nominations are now open for the 2021 Most Influential Women in U.S. Finance list. Submit a nomination here by Dec. 31.

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Stimulus Deal May Take a Few More Days

With government funding set to expire after midnight Friday, lawmakers are considering passing a stopgap spending bill until they can finalize details of a second stimulus package that would be tied to a longer-term funding bill.

• A key sticking point is who receives relief checks. “Designing that in a way that maximizes the amount that an individual or family can receive and try to target to the people who need it the most, I think is right now one of the biggest challenges,” Senate Majority Whip John Thune said.
• Other remaining issues include potential new restrictions on Federal Reserve emergency-lending programs and how the Federal Emergency Management Agency uses emergency funds.
• The current $900 billion package includes direct payments to Americans, $300 a week in enhanced unemployment insurance, rental assistance, relief for small businesses, and funding for schools and vaccinations.
• On Thursday, White House aides prevented President Donald Trump from issuing a statement calling for stimulus checks of at least $1,200 and as big as $2,000, according to the Washington Post. The current package includes direct payments of approximately $600.

What’s Next: Despite the delay, a stimulus bill appears close at hand. “We’re going to stay right here until we’re finished, even if that means working through the weekend, which is highly likely,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday.

—Anita Hamilton

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Russian Cyberattacks a “Grave Threat”

Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued an alert Thursday calling the cyberattacks that targeted several federal agencies last week, including the U.S. Treasury Department, a “grave threat.” The attacks, it said, compromised federal government agencies, critical infrastructure entities and private sector companies, according to The Wall Street Journal.

• Investigators believe the hackers were working for Russia’s foreign intelligence service and that the attack, previously thought to have been the result of a breach of a SolarWinds product called Orion, was more widespread.
• Citing people familiar with the matter, Reuters reported Thursday that Microsoft’s products were hacked too. In a blog post, Microsoft said it was a SolarWinds customer and did detect and remove the tainted products. “Our investigations, which are ongoing, have found absolutely no indications that our systems were used to attack others.”
• The Hill reported the National Nuclear Security Administration said an infiltration related to the malware was “isolated to business networks only.” The NNSA maintains the U.S. nuclear stockpile.
• Following revelations about Russian cyberattacks targeting federal agencies, Sens. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) and Ron Wyden (D., Ore.) called for a briefing on the attacks from the Internal Revenue Service. Officials called the attacks “significant and ongoing.”
• “It is imperative that we understand the extent to which the IRS may have been compromised,” Sens. Grassley and Wyden wrote in a letter to IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig, citing the sensitivity of personal taxpayer information and the potential theft and exploitation of that data by adversaries.

What’s Next: President Donald Trump has not yet commented publicly on the attack. President-elect Joe Biden issued a statement Thursday calling the attacks a priority: “Our adversaries should know that, as President, I will not stand idly by in the face of cyber assaults on our nation.”

—Connor Smith

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FDA Panel Recommends Moderna Vaccine Authorization

A panel of independent medical experts voted 20 to 0 with one abstention to recommend emergency use authorization of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine for people ages 18 and older.

• Moderna says its vaccine reduces symptomatic coronavirus infections by 94.1% when compared to a placebo. The Food and Drug Administration called it “highly effective” earlier this week.
• Although emergency use authorization is not guaranteed, the agency has already indicated it is inclined to grant it. One concern raised is about serious allergic reactions, but the FDA has said such reactions are not unusual with vaccines in general.
• It may also be hard to discern the long-term efficacy and safety of the shots as carefully controlled trials of the vaccines fracture into unblinded, observational studies. Moderna plans to vaccinate placebo volunteers once it receives emergency use authorization.
• Moderna expects to ship 20 million doses by the end of the year. Combined with the 25 million expected doses of the Pfizer vaccine, that would be enough to fully vaccinate more than 20 million people with the required, two-dose regimen.

What’s Next: If the approval process proceeds as it did for the vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech, the Moderna vaccine could be approved on Friday and inoculations would begin as soon as Monday.

—Anita Hamilton

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Google Hit With Third Antitrust Suit in Two Months

Search giant Google faced yet another legal challenge Thursday when a bipartisan coalition of 38 states and territories filed an antitrust lawsuit asserting the company used anticompetitive conduct to maintain a monopoly both in search and search advertising.

• The suit takes aim at tactics used by Google to block competition, such as using exclusionary contracts to keep makers of devices like smart speakers from giving consumers access to other search engines.
• The suit also alleges that revenue-sharing agreements with mobile providers like AT&T,Verizon and T-Mobile preclude carriers from pre-installing rival search engines and browsers like Microsoft Bing and DuckDuckGo.
• The Department of Justice, along with 11 Republican state attorneys general, filed a similar suit in October. And on Wednesday, a group of 10 Republican state attorneys filed their own antitrust suit targeting Google’s advertising technology services.
• In a blog post responding to the suit, Google said, “this lawsuit seeks to redesign search in ways that would deprive Americans of helpful information and hurt businesses’ ability to connect directly with customers,” adding, “we look forward to making that case in court.”

What’s Next: As with last week’s antitrust suits against Facebook, the latest challenge to Google seeks remedy up to and including breaking up the company. The number of suits reflect a growing backlash against the companies and increases the likelihood that they will be forced to change some of their business practices.

—Anita Hamilton

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Britain and France Gear Up for Year-End Brexit Border Chaos

Without waiting for the outcome of current trade negotiations, long queues of trucks have begun to form at the entrance points of the U.K.’s sea border with Europe, as businesses are rushing to stockpile ahead of the departure of Britain from Europe’s single market and customs union.

• Even if the U.K. and the EU strike a deal on their future trade relationship in the next few days, the traffic of goods over the channel will be affected by new regulations that importers and exporters will have to abide by, new compliance costs, and systematic border checks.
• U.K. businesses and the U.K. government have been blaming each other for an alleged lack of preparation, notably of IT systems, for the new rules to come into effect on Jan. 1, amid persistent uncertainty about the outcome of the trade talks.
• An executive at Girteka Logistics, Europe’s largest truck company, told Bloomberg earlier this week that queues of trucks at the border might reach up to 50 kilometers once Brexit becomes effective, and that his company might have to limit deliveries to the U.K.
• In a rare demonstration of bureaucratic optimism, the chief executive of the French port of Calais said in an interview with Reuters that Brexit might not “necessarily mean chaos (...) if customs declarations are done as they should be, ahead of time.”
• Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator in the trade talks, told the European Parliament on Friday that there were only “a few hours” left to find a compromise in a situation he qualified as “serious and somber.”

What’s Next: The expected disruptions at the EU-U.K. border, deal or no deal, will only be amplified by the restrictions of travel that European governments might strengthen in the weeks to come as they prove powerless to control the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic.

—Pierre Briançon

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Do you remember this week’s news? Take our quiz below and tell us how you did by emailing thebarronsdaily@barrons.com.

1. Which Silicon Valley giant recently announced it’s moving its corporate headquarters to Texas, becoming another high profile defector from California?

a. Alphabet
b. Adobe
c. Oracle
d. Cisco Systems

2. This week saw a wave of dealmaking with several M&A announcements across diverse industries. They included:

a. Marijuana producers Tilray and Aphria are planning to combine their businesses and create the world’s largest cannabis company;
b. Huntington Bancshares and TCF Financial agreed to an all-stock merger;
c. Online tech training company, Pluralsight agreed to a $3.5 billion sale to private-equity firm, Vista Equity Partners;
d. All of the above.

3. Which self-storage REIT has Elliott Management, one of the most feared activist hedge funds, built a significant stake in and privately nominated six directors to the company’s board?

a. CubeSmart
b. Life Storage
c. Extra Space Storage
d. Public Storage

4. Which state’s securities regulators filed a complaint against Robinhood Financial alleging the online brokerage used aggressive tactics to engage inexperienced investors subjecting them to “unnecessary trading risks” and failing to uphold its fiduciary responsibility to act in its customers’ best interests?

a. New York
b. Massachusetts
c. California
d. Vermont

5. In a highly sophisticated cyberattack bearing the stamp of an espionage operation, hackers were able to infiltrate the systems of government agencies and other entities. Which country is believed to be behind the attacks?

a. Russia
b. China
c. Australia
d. Germany

Answers: 1(c); 2(d); 3(d); 4(b); 5(a)

—Pauline Yuelys

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—Newsletter edited by Anita Hamilton, Stacy Ozol, Matt Bemer