Fintech & Crypto Short Takes: Visa's bet on Central Bank Digital Currency, JP Morgan banks Coinbase, Northern Trust AI, and Monzo's valuation

Hi Fintech Architects --

Welcome back to the subscribers-only letter! Here are the top updates hitting our radar —

1. Fintech ETFs record significant gains as consumers stay home and shop via digital commerce platforms (link here)

2. Monzo faces steep valuation drop in coronavirus funding round (link here)

3. Payments-as-a-Service API platform Modulr raises £18.9m (link here)

4. New research shows 100K+ SMBs won’t recover from COVID-19 pandemic (link here)

5. Goldman Sachs to buy boutique wealth management custodian Folio (link here)

6. Once rivals, secondary market player Forge is acquiring SharesPost in a $160 million cash-and-stock deal (link here)

7. Visa applies for digital dollar blockchain patent (link here)

8. Crypto hedge funds' assets under management doubled in 2019 to over $2 billion, new report indicates (link here)

9. JPMorgan is now banking Coinbase and Gemini (link here)

10. There is a growing link between Ethereum utility and ETH demand (link here)

11. Northern Trust deploys AI for currency management (link here)

12. W…