Home

Bitcoin

Latest

Bitcoin

Crypto eCommerce paytech

·Mar. 1, 2021

The Federal Reserve Payment Processor, its $100B of revenue, and whether blockchains and L2s can match the value it settles

Let’s do some math homework. It’s good for you:

The Federal Reserve money movement system broke for several hours. We look deeply into its volumes and transactions, and value it like a Fintech unicorn.
The Ethereum ecosystem is throwing around as much volume in settlement as the Fed check processing system. We explore scalability barriers and solutions.
Can eCommerce fit into our emerging infrastructure? We anchor to the market numbers in China and the United States.

Things break.

Sometimes the things that break are the US Federal Reserve ACH service, Check 21, FedCash, Fedwire, and the national settlement service. They were down for a few hours — discovered at 11AM on Feb 24th and still in trouble at 3PM that day. Everything is now up and running again.

Read Full Story

Crypto decentralized finance NFTs and digital objects stablecoins

·Dec. 11, 2020

5 Reactions to Messari’s 134 page crypto report

Sometimes more is more, and sometimes less is more.

In that spirit, we strongly urge you to check out Messari’s Crypto Theses for 2021. It is a mammoth work of 134 pages, covering each and every development in the ecosystem.

If you don’t want to fuss around with the email gate, the direct link is here.

We are going to pick out five things that are interesting to us substantively and provide a view below. By pick out, we mean screenshot and respond.

Read Full Story

Crypto neobank paytech

·Oct. 12, 2020

The Harvard Endowment and alternative assets, Square buys $50MM of Bitcoin, Killer Mike launching a Bank and Akon building a $6B smart city

In this conversation, Will and I break down a few important pieces of recent news. MetaMask, the crypto wallet, hit 1 million month active users in yet another sign of the acceleration of retail adoption.

Square’s market cap is now equal to that of American Express, and the former also announced it has purchased $50 million of Bitcoin with its balance sheet. What do these pieces of news mean?

Greenwood Financial launched, a neobank led by Andrew J. Young, a civil rights legend, Killer Mike, a rapper and activist, and Ryan Glover, founder of Bounce TV network. How much scope is there for financial services for affinity groups instead of traditional geographical or product coverage areas?

Read Full Story

Fintech USA

·Aug. 3, 2020

Bitcoin Extends Gains for 2020 to 65 Percent

Stock markets have had quite the year in 2020 and bitcoin, which is always volatile, has also had a big...

Read Full Story

Fintech USA

·Jul. 27, 2020

Behind the Cryptocurrency Buying Frenzy

In his weekly Forbes column, Ron Shevlin looks at the increase in trading volume of the major cryptocurrencies in 2020;...

Read Full Story

civilization and politics covid pandemic Crypto generational change macroeconomics philosophy

·Jan. 4, 2021

What do Bitcoin, Ethereum, GDP, unemployment, and Covid have in common in 2021?

This week, we look at:

The spectacular price increase in crypto assets, hitting new records for Bitcoin, as well as the comparable statistical situation around Covid cases
An explanation of the $1.5 trilion income effect in 2020, and how it has led to both capital acumulation and inequity (thanks NY Times!)
A discussion of all-time-highs and all-time-lows, why we need them, and their connections to the macro-economy, computer code, music, and the universe itself

One wonderful takeaway from Watts, which of course is not his, but beautifully plagiarized into the English language, is the duality of experience. The need for polar opposites, in a clock-like cycle. To have black, you must have white. To have the top of the wave, you need the bottom of the wave. To have a melody, you need equally the presence of the notes, and their absence in silence. To breathe in, you need to breath out. It is meaningless to have a data point without the context in which it exists.

Read Full Story

central bank / CBDC China Crypto macroeconomics paytech

·Nov. 9, 2020

Will the Blockchain Economy run on Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Central Bank Digital Currency?

This week, we look at:

The Bitcoin money supply being worth as much as the M1 of several countries
The Visa/Plaid deal DOJ anti-trust filing and the PayPal integration of Bitcoin
Understanding Central Bank Digital Currencies in the context of card networks, payment processors, and digital economies
Chinese CBDC and how it could relate to stopping the $34B Ant Financial IPO
How a CBDC ecosystem is like an operating system, rather than a payment rail

Read Full Story

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

Read Full Story

Asia/Pac Europe Fintech News Roundup USA

·Aug. 3, 2020