Chris Beam

NEW for @BW: Prediction market companies pitch themselves as sources of truth. Can they be trusted? (gift link) bloomberg.com/features/2026-…

For August’s Businessweek—The Grift Issue!—I wrote about skyrocketing rates of credit card chargebacks, which are up 46% since 2021. It’s driven by two things: retailers behaving in scammy ways, and shoppers trying to scam them back. Gift link: bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

"It was such a shocking story and he's probably one of the most famous people Peking University produced." bbc.com/news/articles/…

Over at the NYT, @uugwuu has a great piece on the show's run: nytimes.com/2026/07/01/art…

A belated piece on China - on the wonderful, colorful, humorous culture of the northeast (or Dongbei, in Mandarin) and why it’s taken off across the country npr.org/2026/06/27/nx-…

@Knibbs Aw thanks Kate! See you there in 2027

@jcbeam ugh i almost went and now have fomo! great dispatch

Prediction market platforms Kalshi and Polymarket are thriving. Yet the OG prediction market boosters aren't entirely happy about it. My dispatch from this year's Manifest conference in Berkeley (gift link): bloomberg.com/news/features/…

My cheat sheets on key orgs in the Chinese AI bureaucracy: what they do, where they report up to, and strengths / weaknesses as counterparts for the 🇺🇸-🇨🇳 governmental dialogue on AI. All that and much more in my newest piece (see reply for link).

His Ricky Jay profile remains one of my favorite all-time reads newyorker.com/magazine/1993/…

@AlexZozos @malekanoms @patio11 @ccatalini @SecuritizeBilly Thanks for reading, @AlexZozos - that’s a very good point! I’ll reach out if/when I write a follow-up

@jcbeam i enjoyed the article- I think you missed the lede though. Right now, the tokenization landscape is a "hot mess" — but as the article highlights the existing market is "patched together over decades" Every foundational piece of U.S. market infrastructure — MMFs, ETFs, ATSs, prime brokerage, PFOF — started as messy, incremental improvement before it looked like infrastructure. That's not a bug in how markets evolve. It's the pattern. The hot mess is the process

Crypto was supposed to be about eliminating intermediaries. So why are Wall Street incumbents so hyped about putting stocks on the blockchain? h/t @malekanoms @patio11 @ccatalini @SecuritizeBilly bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

Several @business @BW colleagues and I have a big story out today: An inside look at the booming global peptide gold rush, a billion-dollar black market in experimental drugs that RFK Jr may soon make legal. Gift link: bloomberg.com/features/2026-…

.@EswarSPrasad recommends the 5 things you should read to understand the future of DeFi: bloomberg.com/news/features/…

The first 2 episodes of IT WAS A BOOK FIRST are now available to download anywhere you listen! This week, we dive into the blockbuster movie adaptation of Andy Weir's Project Hail Mary as well as Apple TV's take on Rufi Thorpe's Margo's Got Money Troubles. itwasabookfirst.com

this is amazing nymag.com/intelligencer/…

A Mayor, Her Boyfriend and China’s Mysterious Propaganda Machine - a nuanced take by @amyyqin nytimes.com/2026/06/09/us/…

The ETF industry is exploiting the tax break at an unprecedented scale. bloomberg.com/graphics/2026-…

you gotta read @MattCampbell's new book amazon.com/gp/product/059…

Kalshi and Polymarket frequently outperform opinion polls. But the prediction markets typically do better on bigger races and can stumble down ballot. bloomberg.com/news/newslette…

just nine wallets control half of all UMA tokens used for disputed bets on Polymarket. plus: the next-gen oracle project that Polymarket, UMA and Eigen were working on has stalled — no progress made for several months bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

Patrick Dumont bought the Dallas Mavericks in 2023 and proceeded to alienate fans by trading away Luka Dončić. Now, as CEO of casino giant Las Vegas Sands, he wants to turn Dallas into the next Vegas. But to do that, he needs to win back Texans' trust. @AvatarRandall and I profiled Dumont as he takes on Mark Cuban, Texas Baptists, and the ghost of Luka Dončić (gift link): bloomberg.com/news/features/…