Crypto News: Super fund consolidation surge

Good morning, it's Paul-Alain from Bloomberg's Melbourne bureau. Here are the latest headlines…

Today's must-reads:
• Superannuation funds set to consolidate
• WiseTech's founder survives as company takes no action
• Mike Cannon-Brookes and the trappings of billionaire life

What's happening now

Australia will have around half the number of superannuation funds by the end of this decade as regulation forces a ramp up in the speed of consolidation, according to a report from Mercer.

WiseTech won't take any action against founder Richard White even though an investigation found he failed to fully disclose personal relationships with an employee and a supplier. Last month, most of the board quit amid the controversy.

Mike Cannon-Brookes — co-founder and chief executive officer of enterprise software business Atlassian, and Australia's fifth-richest person with a $13.2 billion fortune — says he is suffering a " deep internal conflict" about taking on the trappings of the billionaire lifestyle. That won't save the world, writes David Fickling for Bloomberg Opinion.

Mineral Resources' share price slumped Wednesday after another truck hauling iron ore crashed on Monday. It was just the latest challenge for the miner, which has its founder and MD, Chris Ellison embroiled in controversy, while commodity prices hit earnings.

What happened overnight

Here's what my colleague, market strategist Mike "Willo" Wilson says happened while we were sleeping…

The US Federal Reserve followed the Bank of Japan, leaving interest rates unchanged, the combined effect of which saw the dollar and stocks rise as the central banks said they were in no rush to ease or hike, respectively. The kiwi and Aussie ended the day little changed ahead of Australian employment data for February, where job gains are likely to have slowed after recent strength. A stronger-than-expected result could see Australian dollar top year-to-date high.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy agreed to a proposal for a mutual halt to strikes on energy assets as an initial step in President Donald Trump's effort to end the war that began with Russia's full-scale invasion three years ago.

China's stock rally may face a "meaningful correction soon" given its similarities with the 2015 boom and bust cycle, according to strategists at BofA securities.

An Indonesian state-owned lender scrapped a planned sale of dollar bonds after a stock market rout in the country quickly spread to other asset classes.

Elon Musk's social network X has raised close to $1 billion in new equity from investors, according to people with knowledge of the matter — a deal that gives the company a valuation in line with when Musk took it private in 2022. The deal values X's equity at roughly US$32 billion.

What to watch

• 11.30 a.m. Australian Jobs Report

One more thing...

As companies seek to extract critical minerals used in electric vehicle batteries and other green technologies from the deep sea, a showdown is underway over when and whether to allow mining of untouched, biodiverse ecosystems.

A Greenpeace International activist from Fiji displays a banner reading "Stop Deep Sea Mining" in front of the Maersk Launcher, a ship chartered by DeepGreen, one of the companies spearheading the drive to mine the barely understood deep sea ecosystem. Photographer: Marten van Dijl/Greenpeace United Kingdom

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