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Crypto exchange Coinbase is reinforcing its European senior positions with a series of new hires and promotions, Bloomberg reports.

Crypto.com’s former general manager has come on board as country director for Ireland. The new director of controls in Germany is Michael Schroeder, leaving behind his position at smaller crypto exchange Bittrex as chief compliance and risk officer. In the UK, Elke Karskens is moving from senior director of marketing to regional director.

The new hires come after, one week ago, Coinbase shares hit an all-time low. Earlier in November, Coinbase said that the company was laying off more than 60 employees. The exchange’s chief product officer, Surojit Chatterjee, will also be stepping down effectively at the end of the month following reorganization.

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Episode 118 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded live with The Block’s Frank Chaparro, Dan Besikof, a Partner at Loeb & Loeb, and Mark Shapiro, a Partner at Shearman & Sterling.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests can be sent to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

In the fourth installment of The Scoop’s continued coverage of FTX’s demise, host Frank Chaparro examines the legal underpinnings of FTX’s bankruptcy and restructuring process with Dan Besikof, a partner at the law firm Loeb & Loeb, and Mark Shapiro, Chair of the Financial Restructuring Group and a partner at the law firm of Shearman & Sterling. In 2008, Shapiro served as the Head of Restructuring for Lehman Brothers, where he guided the sale of the firm’s U.S. assets in chapter 11.

According to Besikof, FTX’s fiduciary will likely attempt to bring money back into the estate through lawsuits:

“One of the things that they’re going to look at is where did money go out where value didn’t come back, and to the extent money went out and value didn’t come back, that’s a natural target for a fraudulent conveyance lawsuit or a fraudulent transfer lawsuit.”

FTX has notified a federal judge it wants BitGo to custody its $740 million worth of digital assets.

While the exact situation of FTX’s finances is still uncertain, Shapiro says the sheer amount of money lost by FTX users is likely to prompt regulators to take a more proactive approach going forward:

“Now that it’s become so public and so much money has been lost, I think the paternalistic side of the government is going to take over and try to do something about protecting investors.”

During this episode Chaparro, Besikof and Shapiro also discuss:

• Why some creditors are more likely to be made whole than others
• How different jurisdictions are approaching the case
• What legal precedents the FTX bankruptcy creates

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Tron, Ledn

About Tron
Founded in 2013, Huobi Global is one of the largest virtual asset exchanges in the world. Huobi Global serves millions of users across international markets. Since its establishment, Huobi Global has committed to providing first class virtual asset investment services. Huobi Global’s robust infrastructure, product innovation and capital strength provides a truly customer-centric and secure trading environment to help our international users to achieve their investment objectives. Please refer to Huobi’s official website for more information: huobi.com.

About Ledn
Ledn was founded on the unshakeable conviction that digital assets have the power to democratize access to the global economy. We help you to experience the real life benefits of your Bitcoin without having to sell it. Start a savings account, take out a loan, or double your Bitcoin. For more information visit Ledn.io

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

ConsenSys and the venture arm of crypto exchange Kraken have backed institutional staking platform Kiln in a €17 million ($17.6 million) round. Blockdaemon and Illuminate Financial led the equity round, which closed in October and featured participation from GSR, LeadBlock Partners, Sparkle Ventures, Alven and Blue Yard Capital. 

Founder Laszlo Szabo declined to disclose the valuation but said it was a significant valuation jump. 

Kiln is part of a group of service providers that has garnered investor interest by enabling institutions to tap into staking, a process of locking up crypto for rewards in return for securing the blockchain. Competitor Figment raised $50 million last year and Staked was the subject of a buyout from Kraken. 

Kiln says it differs from the competition by offering aggregation tooling that allows staking not only on Kiln’s own validators but also those of its competitors. 

“We allow [the user] to spread the stake not only on our validators but also on other validators,” says Szabo. “And, in that sense, the risk will be spread using multiple providers.” 

It also offers a dashboard service used by Binance’s U.S. affiliate which allows companies to monitor staking across different protocols and blockchains — and will, at one point, enable the automation of such processes for exchanges.

“In the future, somebody will stake on the Binance interface — and, in the backend, it talks to our API and everything happens automatically,” said Szabo. 

Staking makes money 

Kiln’s raise is coming at a time of turbulence in the market. Last week, Gemini halted its Earn product after crypto lender Genesis suspended withdrawals, but Szabo believes there’s still space for staking. 

“In staking, you don’t have this risk of counterparties — the counterparty is the protocol,” he said. “Staking in the eyes of everybody now has become the safest yield in crypto.”

Yet amid the downfall of crypto exchange FTX, exchanges such as Gemini, OKX and Crypto.com experienced severe outflows as the sales of non-custodial wallets, such as those offered by Ledger and Trezor, increased. 

Still, Szabo believes Kiln’s diversified its product offering enough to shelter from the storm. The firm also enables wallets, custodians and exchanges to integrate staking services via API and smart contract code. Most recently, it partnered with hardware wallet firm Ledger to offer Ethereum staking, with another partnership with a noncustodial wallet in the pipeline. 

Big-name financial institutions are also starting to show interest in Kiln. Notably, Avon Ventures, a venture fund affiliated with Fidelity Investments — which is looking to offer bitcoin exposure for its retirement plans — participated in the round, said Szabo.

“We’re starting to see more big traditional financial names,” he said, citing the participation of Avon Ventures in the round.

Netting such players from the traditional finance world will also guide its expansion plans with a forthcoming New York office utilized to target such players. 

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Bahamas Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Ryan Pinder said it was “extremely regrettable” that FTX’s new CEO John Ray III “misrepresented the timely action taken by the Securities Commission and used inaccurate allegations,” while also defending the steps taken by the country’s regulators in the aftermath of the exchange’s collapse.

Pinder spoke Sunday night during a national address over Facebook Live, where he urged all international authorities to “exercise at least the same amount of prudence and restraint in their public commentary as we do so as not to prejudice any of the proceedings that are ongoing.”

Tension has been heating up

Tension has been building between authorities in the Bahamas and FTX’s new management, with the Securities Commission of the Bahamas (SCB) stating this week that FTX’s new CEO John Ray III made “intemperate and inaccurate allegations” about its treatment of FTX.

After freezing FTX assets, the SCB said it seized FTX Digital Markets’ assets on Nov. 12 and transferred all its assets to a digital wallet under its control. FTX Digital Markets is the Bahamas-based subsidiary of FTX Trading.

In his speech, Pinder emphasized that “the speed of which the Securities Commission was able to move was remarkable by any standard.”

“Placing FTX Digital Markets in provisional liquidation was not sufficient to protect the customers and creditors of the company,” he said. “Therefore (…) the Securities Commission secured the assets of FTX Digital Markets to be held on behalf of and for the benefit and restitution of clients and creditors of FTX.”

FTX had said it had “credible evidence that the Bahamian government is responsible for directing unauthorized access to the Debtors’ systems for the purpose of obtaining digital assets of the Debtors” in a filing calling for one of the existing FTX bankruptcy cases in Delaware to be transferred to New York — which court-appointed liquidators for FTX in the Bahamas agreed to this week.

FTX and Alameda Research filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in a Delaware court on Nov. 11. Then on Nov. 15, FTX Digital Markets filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy in New York, with FTX’s lawyers calling the move “a blatant attempt to avoid the supervision of this Court and to keep FTX DM isolated from the administration of the rest of the Debtors, which constitute the vast majority of the remainder of the FTX group,” in a filing.

They also said former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was trying to undermine the U.S. Chapter 11 case by tying assets up in the Bahamas.

AG defends the Bahamas

Pinder said the investigation of FTX by the country’s authorities is still in the early stages and that “ill-informed speculation” isn’t helpful.

“Any attempt to lay the entirety of this debacle at the feet of the Bahamas because FTX is headquartered here would be a gross oversimplification of reality,” he said. “It is deeply misguided to conclude that reluctance to communicate the details of an active investigation means that nothing is happening.”

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Jump Crypto’s president Kanav Kariya says a “false messiah captivated an audience broader than ever before,” alluding to FTX’s disgraced ex-CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and speaking about the need for better trust layers in crypto.

“FTX’s alleged fraud would have been seen as fraud 100 years ago. The fact that it’s surfaced in an industry predicated on abstracting trust is a cruel trick,” Kariya said in a tweet on Sunday.

Following the collapse of the centralized exchange, there’s now increased collective pressure to build more robust and faster trust layers, the executive argued.

“In an environment of degrading social trust, crypto and abstractions of trust are more relevant than ever,” he added. “The negative consequences of the dissolution of trust bear heavily on our industry, and in my opinion, greatly outweigh the positives. Low trust slows innovation and progress dramatically.”

Kariya noted that, historically, trust has allowed societies and commerce to scale but had a “long, arduous, and subjective process that doesn’t prevent infractions, but rather penalizes them.”

The concept of trustless systems is a bedrock of crypto, meaning systems where participants do not need to know each other or rely on a third party like a government or a bank.

“Can we trust each other? It’s one of the fundamental questions that, after the still unbelievable demise of FTX, our industry is struggling to answer,” Kariya said.

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Bitcoin and ether moved sideways for the most part last week, as some altcoins moved higher. 

Bitcoin was changing hands at about $16,559 at 8:30 a.m. ET Sunday, representing a decline of about 0.8% over the past week. Ether was doing somewhat better, down just 0.29% in the same period. ETH was trading at roughly $1,214.

Crypto Heatmap chart by TradingView

Other cryptocurrencies fared somewhat better over the week, according to data from TradingView. Ripple’s XRP was up 5.4%, while Tron’s TRX rose 3.4% and SHIB tacked on almost 5%.

Dogecoin and Binance’s BNB were the big winners, soaring 15% and 23% respectively. 

Crypto prices swelled ahead of the Fed’s meeting minutes from Nov. 1 and 2 on Wednesday, dipping after the release — which suggested the pace of rate increases is set to slow — before later gaining again.

Crypto stocks

It was a shorter week than usual on Wall Street because of the Thanksgiving holiday and an abbreviated day of trading on Black Friday. Crypto-related stocks had mixed fortunes throughout the week.

Coinbase fell almost 10% over the week to trade at about $44.28, according to Nasdaq data via TradingView. Shares in the crypto exchange hit an all-time low, below $42, on Monday.

Crypto bank Silvergate was up about 0.66% in the same period, trading around $29.14 at the close on Friday. 

Jack Dorsey’s Block was down more than 8% to $63.38. Elsewhere, Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy rose over 3% during the week, to $183.

The Nasdaq dipped 0.3%, while the S&P 500 traded higher, gaining 1.51%.

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Here are the main stories and events to keep an eye on in the coming week. 

Last week was relatively muted when compared with the previous week. However, things could heat up again after the holiday weekend in the U.S.

Art Basel kicks off in Miami

It’s Miami’s busiest week of the year. Here’s what you need to know if you’re heading to the 305. 

Of course, Art Basel is not just about the actual art. The week has taken on a tech and web3 vibe in the last few years. Whether you want to collect individualized NFTs, test out a decentralized ride-sharing application or do some good old-fashioned networking, The Block has got you covered. Check our guide to Art Basel here. 

The MiamiWeb3 summit kicks off proceedings on Monday.

Sam’s big day out

Janet Yellen, Mark Zuckerberg and Larry Fink are some of the big names set to speak at the New York Times’ DealBook summit on Nov. 30. Sam Bankman-Fried is also on the list of speakers, alongside movie stars and national leaders, despite the collapse and subsequent bankruptcy filing by FTX and its related companies. Despite all that has followed. 

Bankman-Fried took a breather from cryptic tweeting last week, but whatever he has to say for himself on Wednesday, even if virtually,  is sure to be of interest to the thousands of customers and investors left looking for answers.

GBTC discount

Following the collapse of FTX, contagion has gripped crypto markets.

So-called Sam coins felt the heat as the exchange went under, but now one of the crypto market’s most popular financial products is under pressure.

Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust — which offers bitcoin exposure through a fund structure — discount to NAV hit an all-time low of -45.2% last week. The fund’s discount then showed signs of recovering, lifting off its lows throughout the week. However, it ended the week back above -40%.

Uncertainty over Grayscale’s parent company, Digital Currency Group, which also owns troubled crypto lending firm Genesis Capital, is having a negative effect on GBTC. 

In other GBTC-related news, the fund’s issuer, Grayscale, alleged that the SEC harmed investors by rejecting its application to convert the fund to a spot bitcoin ETF. The SEC has until Dec. 9 to respond to the firm’s petition.

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Canadian crypto firm, Coinsquare, shed more light on a “data incident” in an email the exchange sent to customers on Friday, according to a CoinDesk report.

The incident initially occurred on Nov. 19, prompting Coinsquare to undergo “an unscheduled maintenance period” to deal with the issue, Coinsquare said via Twitter, adding that no client funds were at risk.

The email sent days later revealed that, although no passwords were exposed, breached data include “customer names, email addresses, residential addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, device IDs, public wallet addresses, transaction history, and account balances,” according to CoinDesk.

Coinsquare services were restored Friday across mobile and desktop platforms. A bug persists with the visibility of prior transaction history on the application, which engineers are working to fix, according to a status update from the exchange.

Coinsquare did not immediately respond to The Block’s request for comment.

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Miami’s busiest week of the year is about to unfold, with the global jet set due to storm the city just after Thanksgiving for seven straight days of nonstop art and parties anchored by the Art Basel Miami Beach fair. The week is both loved and feared by locals, many of whom worry about how impossible it will be to be everywhere, at once. The FOMO is real.

While first rising to prominence for the actual art, the week has increasingly taken on a tech and web3 vibe, with numerous side events springing up around the city. Whether you want to collect individualized NFTs, test out a decentralized ride-sharing application or just do some good old-fashioned networking, The Block has got you covered. Here’s what we’re looking at:

November 28

• The MiamiWeb3 summit kicks off. Co-hosted by CTH Group and the City of Miami, leaders in venture capital, digital assets, financial services and government will gather to discuss “Going Beyond Crypto to Embrace Web3.” Speakers include City of Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis, Pomp Investments’ Anthony Pompliano and Doodles CEO Julian Holguin. The event runs through Nov. 30.
• Metaverse Miami, billed as a “web3-native, tokenized Metaverse, NFT & Art innovation conference,” opens and runs through Nov. 30 at the Eden Roc hotel in Miami Beach.
• DCENTRAL Miami will also open its doors at the James L. Knight Center in downtown Miami. It’s billing itself as the “biggest defi and NFT web3 conference” and will feature speakers including  Grammy-winning producer Timbaland, Superbowl champion Warren Sapp and Ripple CRO David Schwartz. 

November 29

• Phillips X and Particle host an opening party for their week-long “Streams of Consciousness” exhibition at The Sagamore Hotel in South Beach that will feature works from artists including Blake Daniels, Richard Wathen, Ellie Pratt, Gal Schindler, Maria Sainz Rueda, Julia Bennett and Nina Silverberg. Web3 experts, leaders and artists will participate in panels that run December 1-3.
• nft now, Mana Common, and MoonPay open “The Gateway: A Web3 Metropolis,” a five-day festival that will span 12 buildings and two city blocks in the heart of downtown Miami. Immersive installations and activations will include Instagram (Meta), RTFKT (Nike), Christie’s, Porsche, 9dcc (G-Money) and Art Blocks. Register for a free ticket here. 
• The installations on the beach at the Faena Hotel are always a highlight of Miami Art Week, with exhibits free and open to the public starting up on Nov. 29 and running through Dec. 4. Random International will unveil a web3-focused work that explores “the impact of technological development on the human condition,” and visitors can collect individualized NFTs on Aorist’s marketplace. You can snag a free ticket to the opening evening here. 

November 30

• eMerge Americas, Florida Funders, & Carve Comms host La Casa, an invitation-only event at Cerveceria La Tropical in Wynwood to “underscore the theme that the #MiamiTech community is a welcoming home, featuring a robust support system, for both newcomers and long-standing residents.” Speakers include Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, City of Miami mayor Francis Suarez, sports influencer Jake Paul, Passes CEO Lucy Guo, and Thoma Bravo founder & Managing Partner Orlando Bravo.

• Exchange.ART, a fine art marketplace on Solana, debuts an inaugural presentation at a 6,300-square-foot space next to the Miami Beach Convention Center at 7 p.m. EST. Dubbed “NFTs: Bagatelle or Art?” the exhibition is “designed to explore the intersection of art, technology and emerging cultural trends and bridge the gap from the digital art realm into the physical world.” Curated by Haley Karren, the event will highlight over 40 prominent Solana artists from the Exchange.Art platform including Laura El and John Lê.

December 1

• “Performance in Code: Deciphering Value in Generative Art,” powered by the Tezos blockchain in collaboration with generative art platform fxhash, will be on public view from Dec. 1-3 at Art Basel Miami Beach. The interactive, live-minting experience will enable visitors “to mint and claim a featured generative art NFT in real-time.” The exhibit will feature works from artists including Tyler Boswell, DistCollective and Ivona Tau. Prominent artists throughout the Tezos ecosystem will be featured in a conversation series that “will examine the merging of generative art algorithms and blockchain technology.” Check out the full schedule here.

• BEYOND BASEL, formerly WAGMIAMI, is planning opportunities for web3 community members to connect over three days of digital art displays and music performances. Organized by Trippy Labs in partnership with Club Space and sponsored by MoonPay and Samsung, the festival will take place at Factory Town in Hialeah. Installations throughout the venue will highlight works from artists including Alex Grey, Allyson Grey, Boreta, BT, Fvckrender, Jen Stark, Justin Aversano, Mad Dog Jones, Pussy Riot, Snowfro and ThankYouX. The event runs through December 3.
• Securitize, which has a regulatory compliant platform for issuing and trading digital asset securities, will host investors at the Wynwood Padel Club to discuss investing in fine art, private equity and shares in promising startups.

December 2

• Doodles will be “reimagining” a 20,000-square-foot complex in Wynwood including an outdoor lounge and live entertainment. The “DoodlePutt” experience features a 9-hole mini-putt course “that brings to life the Doodles universe.”

• ARTECHOUSE Miami previews an immersive art exhibition celebrating the Pantone Color of the Year 2023. “The exhibition, which cost $1 million to create, will feature immersive rooms of colors, textures, and interactions that plunge attendees into an array of visual, auditory, and tactile experiences to present not only the Pantone Color of the Year 2023, but also to draw out its many implications.”

• The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA Miami) is going punk, with Yuga Labs’ CryptoPunks hosting a Pussy Riot concert to celebrate the unveiling of Punk #305, which is being donated to the museum’s permanent collection. The free event is open to the public with required RSVP courtesy of CryptoPunks. CryptoPunk holders can receive VIP entry via TokenProof.

December 3

• Art Basel Miami Beach hosts a masterclass entitled “The Story of NFTs” with NYU professor Amy Whitaker and MCA Denver Director Nora Burnett Abrams. The chat is only accessible to Premium+ Card holders and will cover “how to benefit from or engage with NFTs, how they will impact the art sector in the future, and why to collect them.”
   
• Teleport, a decentralized ride-sharing application built by DEC, will unveil the “fantastical and fluorescent” Teleport City, “a bustling, one-night-only metropolis of neon extravagance” where guests “can expect to find themselves in a prism of performance – an art-filled experience that’s part living gallery, part party, part immersive theater.” The company, which just raised $9 million, is hitting Art Basel week to test out its platform and is encouraging users to “skip the Uber and Lyft chaos and Teleport yourself for just $1.” As an Uber or Lyft ride between downtown Miami and the beach can sometimes cost well over $100 at the height of the week’s craziness, you may want to try and sign up here. 

December 8

• And if one week of solid action isn’t enough for you, TechnoArt and Selina will welcome a “community of startups, entrepreneurs, investors and industry leaders to experience a new way of creation, a synergistic ‘coming of the minds’ that drives social and economic change through connection, empowerment, and pleasure.” Taking place at the Oasis in Magic City innovation district, TECHNOART LIVE XSELINA 2022 will host more than 40 startups from all around the world who will pitch their ideas.

Don’t Forget…

• If you’re still looking for more to do, keep an eye on a full listing of the week’s tech events being curated by the Miami Hack Week Team. There’s a Telegram group that you can sign up for constant tips and updates. 
• While you could stay all week in the world of web3, don’t forget to check out the event that anchors the entire week. It’s worth the ticket price to visit Art Basel Miami Beach and wander up and down the isles of the Miami Beach Convention Center. The art is always stunning, and you never know just how someone might try and eclipse the banana that was taped to a wall and sold for $120,000 back in 2019. There’s also a Conversations program that will “embrace the concepts of hybridity, cross-pollination and community” with 35 speakers from Latin America, the U.S., Canada and Europe. Free tickets can be booked here. 
• If you venture over to Art Basel, don’t miss the Design Miami exhibition next door. There are also a number of other art fairs in town including Art Miami, Context, Aqua and Scope. We’re especially looking forward to Pinta Miami, which will inaugurate The Hanger in Coconut Grove with Ibero-American modern and contemporary art. See you there. 

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

At Breakpoint 2021, Solana Labs announced two flagship funds: a $100 million fund focused on decentralizing social media and a $150 million fund to encourage blockchain-based gaming.

The social media fund was in partnership with Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, while the gaming fund was in partnership with blockchain gaming startup Forte and VC firm Griffin Gaming Partners — and was expected to be fully deployed within 18 months.

A year on, the funds have only been partially deployed and the focus has been on small seed round investments, according to Solana Labs CEO Anatoly Yakovenko, speaking in an interview earlier this month in Lisbon at Breakpoint 2022. In terms of the social media fund, Yakovenko said the amount deployed so far is “nowhere near half.”

“We’ve done like a bunch of small investments, like usually our seed level checks from solana ventures are $100K or something like that. So we’re never a big lead,” he said. 

Due to a prevalence of well-capitalized VC funds that are interested in the Solana ecosystem, Solana Labs has been able to be frugal with its investments, he added.

When it comes to social media, Yakovenko said a number of products are in development, including Dispatch, Squads, Dialect and Wordcell, which are effectively decentralized versions of Reddit, WhatsApp, Twitter and other social media platforms.

“So every permutation of social is being tried. It’s still very early, right?” Yakovenko said, adding that the projects have had only had 12 months to build so far and are under the gun to grind for product market fit. “I would love to see like a million users across all of them by next Breakpoint.”

As for the gaming funds, more capital has been deployed there, a spokesperson for Solana Labs chimed in. But it’s the same picture. Yakovenko said only small checks have written and Solana Labs hasn’t had to deploy most of the fund. 

As for the state of blockchain gaming on Solana, Yakovenko said that 37 games are either live or in the process of going live. He contrasted it with the previous Breakpoint, where there was a dearth of gaming teams.

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.