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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.

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Crypto exchanges / cap mkts Investing

·Oct. 30, 2020

Understanding Robinhood, Derivatives, and Market Makers with Paul Rowady of Alphacution

In this conversation, we talk with Paul Rowady, who is the Director of Research for Alphacution Research Conservatory. Paul has a deep background in capital markets, derivatives, and the macro structure of the industry. He has been uncovering the transformation of that structure with data driven analyses, making visible the economics of market makers like Citadel and retail order flow aggregators like Robinhood. This is a rich discussion of what trading stocks is really like. And make sure to check out Alphacution.

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big tech China Investing IPO / SPAC paytech

·Sep. 21, 2020

Is Ant Financial the best Fintech in the world? Let’s analyze the IPO!

In this conversation, Max Friedrich of ARK Invest, Will and Lex break down Ant Group’s highly anticipated IPO.

Ant, a spinout from Alibaba and the parent of Alipay, one of China’s leading payments companies, filed papers to IPO in Shanghai and Hong Kong.

Max, Will and Lex dig into Ant’s business, from the origins to today, discuss growth opportunities and potential headwinds and explore the multi-faceted relationships between Ant and other big tech companies and national governments.

We cannot understate how impressive Ant Financial has become, connecting 700 million people and 80 million merchants in China, with payments, savings, wealth management and insurance products integrated in one package. The company also highlights the likely road for traditional banks — as underlying risk capital, without much technology or client management.

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Crypto decentralized finance Investing philosophy roboadvisor

·Jul. 20, 2020

How Robinhood makes $90MM from order flow, and how DeFi is different

Looking into the statistics of gambling is illuminating and depressing. The UK, where gambling is more widely accepted than in the US, sees rates of 40-60% across all adults according to 2016 research. Revenues for casinos are over $100 billion annually, and global gambling revenues, including sports betting and the national lotteries, amount to over $400 billion. That's like the equivalent of the entire software cloud industry. And it asymmetrically addicts and disadvantages the already disadvantaged (see academic research here, here, and here).

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Crypto Investing IPO / SPAC

·Jul. 13, 2020

How Coinbase Pre-IPO Economics Could Get a $15 Billion Valuation

Coinbase is going to go public.

The news hit Reuters, then Coindesk, and then the rest of the world. It feels like big news! The crypto broker is beating Robinhood, Acorns, Stash, Revolut, Betterment, and Wealthfront to the public markets. It's even beating SoFi, which is trying to get a national bank license (and who doesn't want to own a bank!).

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acquisition digital transformation Investing roboadvisor

·Jul. 10, 2020

Personal Capital is Acquired for $1 Billion, Lemonade IPOs and PayPal Joins the Crypto Club

Robo 1.0 success Personal Capital was acquired for nearly $1 billion by Empower, a major retirement savings manager. Softbank-backed insurtech darling Lemonade IPOed at less than $2 billion, in a successful fundraise and listing, and has since seen its market cap rise to over $4 billion. The IPO is a landmark for an insurtech industry in desperate need of successes. And PayPal announces the impending launch of crypto trading to its 325 million users. The move isn’t overly interesting in its own right, but the implications for the crypto space are worth exploring.

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digital lending eCommerce Investing neobank roboadvisor

·May. 29, 2020

Brex Raises Again, Shopify Launches Bank Accounts and M&A Ideas for Goldman

Welcome back to the Fintech Blueprint / Rebank podcast series hosted by Will Beeson and Lex Sokolin. In this episode, we talk through a few recent events that are indicative of the Fintech world right now. Brex raised an additional $150 million at a slightly improved valuation vs. its last round just as Monzo is reportedly looking at a 40% down round. Why? Shopify launched bank accounts for its merchants and announced the Shop app, basically an Amazon competitor plus Klarna, just as it worked with Facebook to support the launch of Facebook Shops and joined the Libra Association. Lots going on. Lastly, we discuss why Goldman’s M&A activity over the past couple years leads to the natural conclusion that they should buy Schwab.

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acquisition digital lending digital transformation financial advisors Investing neobank roboadvisor

·May. 18, 2020

Goldman is trying to build a Fintech powerhouse, and this is how they should do it

This week, we put on the Goldman hat and go shopping for companies. We buy a little bit of Folio and sell some Motif. We look at Personal Capital and the $1 billion it wants for its $12 billion of assets. We examine the private markets with Addepar / iCapital and SharesPost / Forge, and then move over to the banking sector. Should we buy Wells Fargo, as rumored, or some digital wallet apps? Read on for how to acquire a best-in-class Fintech.

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Crypto decentralized finance Investing roboadvisor

·May. 11, 2020

$700B Franklin Templeton buys wealth tech AdvisorEngine, while digital investing DeFi revolution only starting

This week, I pause to reflect on the sales of (1) AdvisorEngine to Franklin Templeton and (2) the technology of Motif Investing to Schwab. Is all enterprise wealth tech destined to be acquired by financial incumbents? Has the roboadvisor innovation vector run dry? Not at all, I think. If anything, we are just getting started. Decentralized finance innovators like Zapper, Balancer, TokenSets, and PieDAO are re-imagining what wealth management looks like on Ethereum infrastructure. Their speed of iteration and deployment is both faster and cheaper, and I am more excited for the future of digital investing than ever before.

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covid pandemic Investing macroeconomics neobank roboadvisor

·Apr. 27, 2020

Betterment launches bank accounts into a world that has changed completely

This week, we look at Betterment launching a bank account and payments feature. They are not the first, but they could be the best! Still, it feels like the world has moved on. Barriers to entry around digital finance have collapsed, and shifted industry goal posts. Hundreds of companies are integrating API-based solutions that connect to banking and investment entities. Amazon, Google, and Apple are there already. And let's not forget the incredible pressure from the COVID recession: 20MM+ unemployed, $100 billion decrease in global remittances, 1 in 8 banks being unprofitable. Is it time for incremental improvement, or a sea change?

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