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Catch up on the weekend's top five stories with this list compiled by The Fly: 1. Fresenius (FSNUY) decided to terminate the company's merger agreement with Akorn (AKRX), citing Akorn's "failure to fulfill several closing conditions." The company said in a statement, "Fresenius' decision is based on, among other factors, material breaches of FDA data integrity requirements relating to Akorn's operations found during Fresenius' independent investigation. Fresenius offered to delay its decision in order to allow Akorn additional opportunity to complete its own investigation and present any information it wished Fresenius to consider, but Akorn has declined that offer." Responding to Fresenius announcement, Akorn said in a statement that "We categorically disagree with Fresenius' accusations. The previously disclosed ongoing investigation, which is not a condition to closing, has not found any facts that would result in a material adverse effect on Akorn's business and therefore there is no basis to terminate the transaction. We intend to vigorously enforce our rights, and Fresenius' obligations, under our binding merger agreement." 2. Tencent Music Entertainment Group is preparing what would be one of the biggest technology IPOs ever, according to The Wall Street Journal. The digital-music business of Tencent (TCEHY) plans to interview potential underwriting banks over the next month, sources told the publication. 3. There has been a tension between the world's largest tech companies - Alphabet (GOOG; GOOGL), Amazon (AMZN), Facebook (FB), Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Baidu (BIDU), and Alibaba (BABA)-and the chip companies they rely on, especially Intel (INTC) and Nvidia (NVDA), Tiernan Ray wrote in this week's edition of Barron's. While the giants buy massive quantities of Intel's microprocessors, and Nvidia's graphics chips, or GPUs, to power their data centers, they are also in an arms race to have the best artificial-intelligence-based machine-learning functions, the report noted, adding that there was always the possibility they may decide to buy fewer off-the-shelf parts and make their own custom chips to get an edge on one another. 4. Paramount's (VIAB) horror sensation "A Quiet Place" reclaimed the number one spot in its third weekend of release, with $22M for a domestic total of $132M. Rated PG-13, the pic directed by John Krasinski earned a B+ CinemaScore and sports a 97% Rotten Tomatoes score. 5. Enterprise Products Partners (EPD), Magellan Midstream Partners (MMP), MPLX (MPLX), Plains All American Pipeline (PAA), Carnival (CCL), Royal Caribbean (RCL), Norwegian Cruise Line (NCLH), Walt Disney (DIS), General Mills (GIS), Delta Air Lines (DAL), General Motors (GM), and Tapestry (TPR) saw positive mentions in Barron's.

As bitcoin, ethereum and other cryptocurrencies get increasing attention from investors, Wall Street and its traditional banks continue to adjust to the shift. Catch up on this week's top stories highlighting the intersection of these old guard and new school areas of finance with this recap compiled by The Fly: 1. NY AG OPENS INQUIRY: On Tuesday, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced the launch of a "Virtual Markets Integrity Initiative," a "fact-finding inquiry into the policies and practices of platforms used by consumers to trade virtual or 'crypto' currencies like bitcoin and ether." As part of a broader effort to protect cryptocurrency investors and consumers, the Attorney General's office sent letters to thirteen virtual currency trading platforms requesting information on their operations, internal controls, and safeguards to protect customer assets. 2. AMAZON WINS BITCOIN-TRACKING PATENT: The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has approved an Amazon Technologies' (AMZN) patent that can correlate different data streams, including bitcoin transactions, and sell the combined feed as a subscription to those who want to track the data, CNBC reported Friday. The filing described "a data stream that publishes or includes global bitcoin transactions, or any crypto currency transaction," and discussed how a law enforcement agency may want to track data on global bitcoin transactions that are linked to internet and physical shipping addresses. 3. COINBASE ACQUIRES EARN.COM, NAMES EXECS: In a Monday blog post, Earn.com said, "Earn.com is being acquired by Coinbase! The Earn.com product is going to get bigger and better as a consequence of this deal...With this acquisition, we allow users to also earn crypto by doing things they already know how to do-like replying to emails and filling out surveys...Open the Earn.com app in any country-and receive a personalized, targeted list of paid microtasks and emails just for you. Thanks to the blockchain, anywhere there's a phone, there's a job. We think that's an exciting vision and we're going to work hard on achieving that at Coinbase!" Following the announcement, Coinbase named Earn's co-founder and chief executive officer Balaji Srinivasan as the company's first chief technology officer and on Wednesday, the company announced it had hired Alesia Haas, who previously chief financial officer of Oz Management, as CFO. 4. BARCLAYS GAUGING CLIENT INTEREST IN CRYPTO: Barclays (BCS) has been gauging client interest in the bank starting a cryptocurrency trading desk, possibly joining Goldman Sachs (GS) in developing a new business on Wall Street, Bloomberg reported Monday. The bank, which currently has no concrete plans to begin trading digital currencies, has done a preliminary assessment of demand and feasibility. 5. SEC SUBPOENAS RIOT BLOCKCHAIN: Riot Blockchain (RIOT) received a subpoena from The Securities and Exchange Commission requesting "certain information," according to a Tuesday regulatory filing. Riot said it "intends to fully cooperate with the SEC request." The company has notified its insurance carrier but cautions that there can be no assurance that the costs of compliance with the subpoena or any related matters will be eligible for insurance coverage. Riot Blockchain added, "The company believes that many companies engaged in blockchain and cryptocurrency businesses have received subpoenas from the SEC which presents an additional industry risk. The existence of an investigation of the company specifically and the industry generally could have a materially adverse effect on the company, its business or operations, and the industry as a whole." In addition, chairman and CEO John O'Rourke said, "We continue to focus on the expansion of our cryptocurrency mining operations and the active investigation of launching a cryptocurrency exchange in the United States. We see a strong integration opportunity of supply and demand between our mining operation and a potential exchange." CRYPTO STOCK PLAYS: Cryptocurrency revenues have been pointed to as reasons to be bullish on Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Nvidia (NVDA) in select research. Overstock (OSTK), DPW Holdings (DPW), Long Blockchain (LBCC), Kodak (KODK), Seven Stars Cloud Group (SSC), Riot Blockchain, Longfin (LFIN), Pareteum (TEUM) and Social Reality (SRAX) are other stocks that have been touted, or promoted themselves, as a way to play the crypto theme PRICE ACTION: As of time of writing, bitcoin rose roughly 4.3% this week to $8,476 in U.S. dollars according to CoinDesk. WANT BITCOIN NEWS ALERTS?: To receive alerts on stories relating to bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, Fly subscribers can enter "Bitcoin" into the "Add symbols" box of their portfolios.