Anyone watching Fintech over the last decade has recognized an increasing shift of power from product manufacturers to the platforms where those products are sold. In the case of Amazon, Google, and Facebook -- finance is just a feature among thousands of others. I've made this point since 2017, when Amazon launched lending into its platform. Brett King has been a bit more generous in the categorization, calling the shift "embedded banking". This means that banking products are built into you life's journey, not accessed in a separate customer center location. The financial API trend is a tangible symptom of this vector.
In this conversation, we talk with Jon Helgi Egilsson about his incredible journey to becoming Chairman and a co-founder of Monerium.
Jon is a former chairman and vice-chairman of the supervisory board of the Icelandic Central Bank, a former adjunct professor in financial engineering and MBA lecturer at Reykjavik University, a visiting scholar at Columbia University, and co-founder of four software companies. Additionally, we explore the various concepts of digital money in the framework creating a competitive yet unified environment between fiat money, banking based on fractional-reserve, and the token economy.
artificial intelligenceaugmented realityCryptodecentralized financeenterprise blockchainMetaverse / xRnarrative zeitgeistNFTs and digital objectsregulation & complianceventure capital
·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.
central bank / CBDCChinacovid pandemicmacroeconomicsregulation & compliancesmall businessstablecoins
·This week, we look at cash -- blockchain cash. The war for money is just starting to ramp up, as Facebook Libra explains its new regulated plan, the Chinese national Blockchain Service network goes live, Ethereum stablecoins reach historic market caps in the billions, and the Financial Stability Board recommends to go heavy on global stablecoin arrangements. In 2008, Bitcoin threw a rock through the window of the financial skyscraper, and today we are starting to see the cracks. As the US government runs out of $350 billion in small business bail-out money and gets ready to print more, where do you stand?
The use of messaging apps raises compliance issues that SnipperSentry addresses. This issue is not going away for fintechs and banks.
We talk about OnlyFans, and how its bank vendors pressured it to try to ban adult content, and how and why that failed. We also discuss the crypto tax provisions in the Senate version of the $1 trillion infrastructure bill, and their impracticality. These themes are tied together with a metaphysical hypothesis about the role of financial services, anchored in a discussion of the Platonic model of the mind. How are rationality, emotion, and social context involved to define the shape of our industry?
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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.
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
exchanges / cap mktsgaming & sportsgovernanceidentity and privacyMetaverse / xRNFTs and digital objectsregulation & complianceSocial / Community
·We discuss the top-down and bottoms-up approaches to innovation and project building. For the former, we reference Australia’s draconian surveillance laws, and the integration of US driver’s licenses into Apple’s wallet. For the latter, we dive into the Ethereum-based Loot project and its incredible derivatives, $500MM token, and $200MM of volume. Last, we conclude by highlighting the role of creators on the coming wave of Fintech.
Money Laundering is a perpetual thorn in the side of financial institutions. BIS reports that AI and use of networks could be way forward.
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