5 things to start your day

[Bloomberg]( Trump not ready to cut a trade deal, EU and U.K. look to choose new leaders, and Alibaba weighs $20 billion Hong Kong offering. Big in Japan President Donald Trump was in Japan for the Memorial Day weekend where he attended several events with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as the Asian nation continues to try to avoid becoming the [next White House tariff target](.  Trump seemed happy not to open a new front in the trade war, instead concentrating on [keeping the pressure on China]( by saying the U.S. is “not ready” to make a deal and that tariffs could go up “very, very substantially, very easily.” The other potential target of trade measures, the European Union, has rejected a U.S. suggestion that a [quota be placed on car exports]( to America. New faces [The race]( to be next leader of the U.K. Conservative Party is widening as [more candidates]( throw their hats into the ring. The party’s [dismal performance]( in the European elections may force the next leader to take a harder stance on Brexit, while opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn was forced to promise a referendum after Labour also lost seats. In the rest of the European Union horse trading has begun in earnest over the division of the top jobs following the election, with leaders [meeting this evening]( to discuss the next European Commission and European Central Bank president. Sponsored Content by MongoDB Application Modernization Factory Organizations are under pressure to be better, faster, or cheaper than the competition – but companies encumbered with legacy systems can find it impossible to stay relevant with more nimble opposition. MongoDB is helping thousands of organizations to free themselves from legacy systems. [Learn how](.  Alibababillions Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is considering [raising $20 billion via a second listing in Hong Kong](, according to people familiar with the matter. Amid trade tensions and associated political risks, the move certainly [seems to make sense]( for the company. For Hong Kong, [getting the listing]( is a coup, but there are [risks associated]( with such a large float, as some economists warn the demand for liquidity will push local currency interest rates higher. Markets slip Overnight the MSCI Asia Pacific Index climbed 0.3% while Japan’s Topix index closed 0.3% higher with electronics firms and carmakers leading the gains. In Europe, the Stoxx 600 Index was 0.3% lower at 5:50 a.m. Eastern Time with banks leading the losses. S&P 500 futures pointed to a [slight decline at the open](, the 10-year Treasury yield dropped to 2.287%, the lowest in 19 months, and gold was down. Coming up... U.S. Case-Shiller home price data for March is due at 9:00 a.m., with May consumer confidence at 10:00 a.m. and Dallas Fed manufacturing at 10:30 a.m. The Treasury is selling 2- and 5-year notes today. It might be worth keeping an eye on [U.S. weather reports]( as the severe rain and [storms]( that have hampered U.S. crop production seem set to continue, with corn now trading near a three-year high. What we've been reading This is what's caught our eye over the long weekend. - Odd Lots: meet the [godfather of crypto]( who has been working on digital currencies since the 80s. - Trump says [aircraft carrier design]( is “wrong,” plans overhaul. - Illinois lawmakers paved the way for [higher taxes on the state’s richest residents](. - The Chinese government’s first [seizure of a bank]( in more than two decades is spooking investors. - [Massive layoffs]( may be only the beginning of Ford’s problems. - Romania’s most powerful man [sent to prison for corruption](. - Major step forward in the production of 'green' [hydrogen](. And finally, here’s what Joe's interested in this morning Bitcoin was introduced to the world about 10 years ago as a [Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System]( and ever since then, people have been trying to figure out where it might go next. Maybe someone would invent a faster Bitcoin? Maybe banks could adopt the technology? Maybe the technology could be used to [track tomatoes](? None of this has really panned out though, so perhaps instead of looking toward the future, a look back into Bitcoin's pre-history might be more interesting. On the latest episode of the [Odd Lots Podcast](, Tracy Alloway and I talked to [David Chaum](, a crypto pioneer who's been working on anonymous digital money since the early 1980s. His original vision was a bit different from Bitcoin. Chaum imagined and built a system whereby users could withdraw digital dollars from their bank account, but then spend them anonymously, so that no third party entity could know your private transactions. It didn't take off obviously, but the fact that he was thinking about the problem of transaction privacy over three decades ago shows just how ahead of the curve he was, given the salience of this issue in modern life. I asked him how he anticipated current privacy concerns so far back, and he talked about how in the early days, it wasn't clear how the internet would unfold -- would it be open and free, or would it be a walled garden of 500 pre-set channels that we could access? The free and open web won out, but one could argue that in our Facebook and Amazon and Alphabet-dominated world, a more centralized, structured vision is winning (or already has won) out. As such it makes sense that a philosophical battle that raged in the early days of the internet, and played out with various people attempting to reinvent money, is raging once again. Like Bloomberg's Five Things? [Subscribe for unlimited access]( to trusted, data-based journalism in 120 countries around the world and gain expert analysis from exclusive daily newsletters, The Bloomberg Open and The Bloomberg Close. 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