Random

decentralized finance

covid pandemic decentralized finance exchanges / cap mkts fixed income macroeconomics philosophy

·Mar. 16, 2020

Slowing GDP growth by 1.5% is like another 10 million people getting infected with coronovirus, and other analysis on financial fragility

I hope that you and yours are OK, socially distanced and stocked on essentials. Whether you feel it yet or not in daily life, the world is bracing for coronovirus impact. In this week's analysis, I look at the difficult trade-offs between health and economy, and try to quantify the impact of the likely slow-down. We look at some grim but useful concepts, like (1) the value of a statistical life, (2) what happened to the Soviet economy and life expectancy after perestroika, and (3) how our financial machines (NYSE, Robinhood, Maker DAO) are cracking at the edges. If you can do one thing -- be kind and gracious with each other as some things inevitably break.

Read Full Story

decentralized finance NFTs and digital objects regulation & compliance Social / Community

·Mar. 29, 2021

Are the NFT and DeFi markets recreating traditional human hierarchies through new social capital?

This week, we look at:

The fundraises of Jumio ($150MM), Feedzai ($200MM), and Chainalysis ($100MM) and the function they perform in the fintech industry
The nature of human competition and hierarchies, and why inequality is recreated across the various economic networks that exist
How the NFT markets have higher engagement than DeFi, which is more participatory than Fintech, which is more participatory than finance
The emergence of signalling in the crypto economy that resembles digital citizenship and social capital

Read Full Story

civilization and politics Crypto decentralized finance enterprise blockchain regulation & compliance

·Feb. 26, 2021

$60B digital capital markets, crypto law and regulation, and Ethereum Layer 2 scaling, with Pat Berarducci

In this conversation, we talk with Patrick Berarducci of ConsenSys, about the valuations and multiples of capital markets protocols in Decentralized Finance on Ethereum, now making up over $60B in token value. Additionally, we explore the nuances of scaling Ethereum and its solutions, such as Metamask and the emerging Layer 2 protocols.

We also discuss law and regulation, including a fascinating story about Bernie Madoff from when Pat was a practicing attorney. This leads into a conversation about the embedded compliance nature of blockchain and crypto technology, the early days of ConsenSys, the path of crypto brokerages like Coinbase, and Metamask exhibiting emerging qualities of a neobank.

Read Full Story

DAOs decentralized finance philosophy venture capital

·Sep. 30, 2019

You don’t get to cheat just because you like to win — on WeWork, Politics, and Fintech

Feelings and emotions at industry events matter. The narrative at the more traditional conferences is that Fintech innovation is just incremental improvement, and that blockchain has struggled to bring production-level quality software and stand up new networks. This isn't strictly true -- see komgo, SIX, or any of the public chains themselves -- but the overall observation does stand. Much of Fintech has been channeled into corporate venture arms, and much of blockchain has been trapped in the proof-of-concept stage, disallowed from causing economic damage to existing business.

Read Full Story

central bank / CBDC Crypto decentralized finance neobank Open Banking regulation & compliance stablecoins

·Jan. 11, 2021

How the OCC is building Crypto America and saving banks from extinction

This week, we look at:

How banks and financial advisors have failed to deliver on $1 trillion in capital appreciation for their clients over the last 12 years
The role of bank regulators in the United States, and the tensions between state and federal agencies
How the OCC is laying the groundwork for national banks to custody crypto assets, bank stablecoin reserves, run blockchain nodes, and use crypto payment networks

And instead of financial advisors or other CFAs guiding the retail market in good decision making, a newsfeed of *what’s popular* has driven Apple, Google, Tesla and the other John Galt hallucinations to the stratosphere. Don’t get us wrong. We love the robot as much as the next Fintech commentator. But it is clear to us that “the masses” are not being “advised”. And that the capital appreciation that matters — cementing the next trillion dollar networks for global future generations in work yet to emerge — is misunderstood and misrepresented by most financial professionals to their clients.

Read Full Story

Crypto DAOs decentralized finance Investing Metaverse / xR paytech

·Dec. 3, 2021

Origins of Metamask’s 20 million Web3 users, with co-founder Dan Finlay

In this conversation, we chat with Daniel Finlay – a former Apple software developer, co-founder and co-lead developer on MetaMask – a non-custodial Ethereum wallet, allowing users to store Ether and other ERC-20 tokens and make transactions. Further. With the growth of DeFi and NFTs over the past year, MetaMask has increased in prominence as an entry point for novice users. So much so that its user base is now over 20 million monthly active users.

More specifically, we touch on how Dan went from teaching kids to code to having an app rejected by the Apple App Store to MetaMask, the philosophy behind e-government, questioning the role and job of software engineers, how crypto wallets compare to neobanks, and so so much more!

Read Full Story

Crypto decentralized finance regulation & compliance

·Jul. 6, 2020

The Soviet Pyramid Scheme eating 10% of Ethereum and 50% of Paxos Stablecoin

Let me introduce you to MMM. While decentralized finance and digital asset companies bend over backwards to be customer centric and reform financial services (each in their own way), MMM is a pretender. It is a pretender that has stolen the language of the crypto economy to create a cancer in its body.

Read Full Story

artificial intelligence augmented reality Crypto decentralized finance enterprise blockchain Metaverse / xR narrative zeitgeist NFTs and digital objects regulation & compliance venture capital

·Nov. 27, 2020

Jamie Burke of Outlier Ventures on DeFi and NFT investing and acceleration

In this conversation, we talk with Jamie Burke of Outlier Ventures. This is a fascinating and educational conversation that covers frontier technology companies and protocols in blockchain, IoT, and artificial intelligence, and the convergence of these themes in the future. Jamie walks us through the core investment thesis, as well as the commercial model behind shifting from incubation to acceleration of 30+ companies. We pick up on wisdom about marketing timing and fund structure along the way.

Read Full Story

asset management decentralized finance Investing roboadvisor

·Nov. 20, 2020

How roboadvisors, B2C fintechs, and high tech giants are causing deep shifts in wealth management

We are syndicating a deep conversation across roboadvice, high tech and payments, and fintech bundling that we had with Craig Iskowitz of Ezra Group Consulting.

Check out Ezra Group Consulting here to learn more about digital wealth and Craig’s consulting practice. He is one of the sharpest software consultants in the RIA space, and his firm works with wealth management firms and fintech vendors to provide technology strategy and market research.

We had a lot of fun in this conversation and cover TD & Schwab, Wealthsimple, M1 Finance, Ant & Tencent, and Robinhood, among others. The full transcript is provided along with the recording — worth a read for the illustrations alone.

Read Full Story

central bank / CBDC decentralized finance enterprise blockchain governance regulation & compliance

·Mar. 9, 2020

Why Facebook’s Libra needs to change course, Ethereum’s Fintech promise, and a look at JP Morgan’s blockchain analysis

I anchor around the issues Libra is seeing in trying to develop a money, and what alternate strategies are available. We also analyze elements of a JP Morgan 2020 blockchain report, which highlights the differences between running a financial products (like a money) and a financial software (like a payments processor). In light of this necessary pivot for the regulated Facebook, we look again at Ethereum's decentralized finance ecosystem and the types of challengers it has created for Jack Henry, Finastra, Envestnet, TradeWeb, and other infrastructure providers.

Read Full Story