Staff Writer

·Sep. 14, 2020

Learnings from Microsoft & Visa integrating personal financial data into Excel, and the open ecosystems of Google Sheets and MetaMask

At $13 billion of revenue and 800 million users in 2016, Office 365 roughly generated $20 per user. That's like Monzo, but with the user foot print of Ant Financial.

You might think the comparison is daft. But let's dig a bit deeper. Excel, and spreadsheets more generally, are the default behavior for managing personal finances. Even for financial advisors, who are supposed to be the precise niche leveraging financial planning software, Excel is the default "do nothing" option. If you are not paying for digital wealth software as an advisor, you are doing it in Excel.

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News Roundup

·Sep. 14, 2020

Should the UK’s Loan Guarantee Scheme, a Lifeline to Fintech, Be Extended?

[Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Ryan Weeks, formerly with Dow Jones and AltFi, covering fintech. This is...

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artificial intelligence Fractals & reflexivity philosophy

·Sep. 11, 2020

The nature of Consciousness, artificial intelligence, and how we see Finance Sep 11, 2020 1

The question of consciousness goes to the root of why we build, what we create, and how we decide what is valuable and what is not. And if we can control our self-conception and the modeling we do of the world, the texture of life becomes better. A recurrent theme in our writing is that systems don’t care about their agents per se. There are many game theoretical equilibria where agents suffer, but systems perpetuate. So figuring out how an agent within a system reflects on happiness is paramount.

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decentralized finance philosophy venture capital

·Sep. 7, 2020

How signalling explains SoftBank’s $4 billion call option trade, SushiSwap’s vampire attack, and why we make Art

This week, we look at:

PayPal and Square being larger than Bank of America and Goldman Sachs
The SoftBank $4 billion in tech oligopoly call options, and why people feel uneasy
Uniswap vs. SushiSwap, and Bitcoin vs. Litecoin, and why these forks felt wrong
How understanding signalling can help make better decisions

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big tech decentralized finance enterprise blockchain

·Sep. 1, 2020

J.P.Morgan’s Quorum becomes part of ConsenSys, putting Ethereum at heart of commercial and financial infrastructure

The main driver of today's entry is the news -- which has largely percolated -- that ConsenSys acquired Quorum from J.P. Morgan, as well as received an investment from the bank in the company. There is a lot of jargon in the blockchain industry, and I want to try to pull this news apart to explain why it is interesting both to incumbent financial services players, as well as meaningful to the developing decentralized finance industry.

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Crypto decentralized finance exchanges / cap mkts regulation & compliance

·Aug. 28, 2020

Maturation of institutional crypto custody and prime brokerage with BitGo’s Mike Belshe

In this conversation, we talk with Mike Belshe, CEO of BitGo and expert technologist about custody, prime brokerage, and the evolution of the institutional digital asset industry.

I often mention that crypto is still all about capital markets trading (i.e., manufacturing) and not about wealth management (i.e., distribution). This conversation touches on where we are in the maturity of market infrastructure, the role of fiduciaries, and the path forward. If you are sitting in a RIA, investment fund, or other asset manager, pay attention!

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decentralized finance Embedded Finance philosophy

·Aug. 24, 2020

The absurdity of how the Internet is both beautiful and awful, and the memetic infection of Finance

This week, we get philosophical and look at:

Embedded finance and how it will be woven into the fabric of the Internet
Applying the philosophies of existentialism, nihilism, and absurdism to Finance
Parsing symptoms in decentralized finance (Based Protocol) as artistic protest
Finding Dadaist beauty in chaos

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central bank / CBDC Crypto decentralized finance ICO / IEO IPO / SPAC stablecoins

·Aug. 21, 2020

Decentralized Finance 101 with Kerman Kohli

In this conversation, we go through the essentials of Decentralized Finance with Kerman Kohli, who is a serial entrepreneur and the writer of the DeFi Weekly newsletter. We discuss the mechanics of issuing stablecoins, decentralized lending, decentralized exchange, automated market makers, and the increasing complexity of synthetic assets that have grown the sector to nearly $7 billion in August of 2020.

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digital lending digital securities / STO neobank

·Aug. 17, 2020

How Monzo, Revolut, and Starling get to break-even, and comparison with WeChat and Facebook

This week, we look at:

The financial model behind Monzo, and comparisons to Revolut and Starling
How the Eastern super apps inspired the marketplace model, and why that success is hard for neobanks to replicate
Paths from losing $100 million per year to break-even and enabling digital assets and other financial products
Facebook Financial forming to take over payments and commerce

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digital lending neobank paytech

·Aug. 14, 2020

Millions of users and millions in losses — analyzing neobanks Monzo, Starling, and Revolut

In this conversation, we break down recently published annual reports from Revolut, Starling and Monzo, three of the leading European digital banks. There are some fascinating insights to be drawn from the documents, especially in the context of the broader global fintech market. This is rich subject matter, and we surely didn’t cover everything.

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