Sitemap - 2020 - Fintech Blueprint 🤖🏦🧭

Short Takes: Alibaba's no good, very bad day; Goldman's robo; $3B in 2020 crypto venture funding; BitGo's $16B in assets; $240MM in XRP between R3 and Ripple; and Telegram's 500 million users

A Year in Financial Models, Fintech Valuations, Super Apps, Big Tech, Decentralized Finance, CBDCs, Economic Poetry, the Multiverse, Pandemic, Revolution, Crypto Art, and the Nature of the Universe

Short takes: SEC goes after Ripple, Robinhood settles for $65MM; $430MM neobank Xinja shuts down accounts; Bain bets on GoCardless' $13B in annual volume; IBM buys Expertus' $50B of daily pmts volume

Long Take: Crypto regulatory wargames with FinCen, FCA, and the US House of Reps, impacting Paxos, Compound, BBVA, and Northern Trust

Food for Thought: Connecting the $2T in Art owned by UHNW investors, with the rise of crypto art and Beeple's $3.5MM NFT digital art auction

Short takes: SocGen closes 600 branches, Neobank flurry (GoHenry $40M, Tink €85, Cleo $44M), DBS launches digital exchange, BitPay and Paxos look for bank charters, JD.com accepts Chinese DCEP

Long Take: The 2020 guide to Fintech SPACs, and how to get them to like you

Food for Thought: 5 Reactions to Messari's 134 page crypto report

Short Takes: $60B Waddell Reed sold for 0.50% of AUM; TikTok influencer neobank Step raises $50MM; Monzo gets £60MM and Moov $27MM; SEC office for Digital Assets and Stablecoin Bill

Long Take: Who are the customers of Embedded Finance, and what do they reveal about Stripe, Affirm, DriveWealth, and Green Dot?

Podcast Conversation: Anne Boden of Starling Bank on $4B of deposits, 1.8MM customers, and neobank profitablity

Short Takes: Massive $44B IHS Markit / S&P deal; $350MM for Hippo Insurance; Facebook Libra rebrands to Diem; Stripe Capital for Platforms; DeepMind AI folds proteins

Long Take: Mergers and Acquisitions in open-source Decentralized Finance, and its $5 billion market capitalization

Podcast Conversation: Jamie Burke of Outlier Ventures on DeFi and NFT investing and acceleration

Short Takes: Ethereum 2.0 collects $325MM in funds to launch, Affirm to IPO, Big raises (Current $131MM, Addepar $117MM, Chainalysis $100MM), Oranj to shut down, $30MM+ DeFi hacks

Long Take: Google has come to Banking. What does that mean, and what should we do about it?

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

Short Takes: Fintech SPACs and VC funds, TikTok still dancing, $3B China Construction Bank blockchain bonds, DeFi trading & risk mgmt, CoverHound acquired, Niantic 3D maps the world

Long Take: The system versus the individual -- a meditation on the American election, Alibaba's dethroning, and Fintech theater

Short Takes: ING €140MM digital bank mark-down, Starling raising $200MM+, Binance $4B in P2P trading, Lloyds supply chain onboarding, Insurtech chatbots, and China’s Digital Yuan $300MM volume

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

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

Short takes: China CBDC "not a threat" to WeChat & Ant, but Ant IPO suspended; ConsenSys & SocGen partner for French CBDC; $50MM PrimaryBid round; The Graph $12MM token sale; Intuit tax monopoly

Long Take: The AI cluster running on top of the Internet has data mined you, and has some deep fakes to sell you

Short Takes: JPM competes with Square/PayPal and re-launches blockchain unit; Brazillian 60 million consumer bank IPO; Ant Group $35B IPO and Alibaba $4B acquisition of retailer; Bahamas CBDC

Long Take: How IBM spinning-out $18B of managed infrastructure revenue, or Reliance Jio growing to 400MM mobile users, creates a chassis for digital finance

Video Presentation: From Fintech to Augmented Reality Commerce to Artificially Intelligent Agents

Short Takes: Wealthsimple is a unicorn with 1.5mm users, €620B Allfunds launching fund settlement blockchain, RBC's Artificial Intelligence reduces trading slippage

Long Take: Virtual communities and digital worlds are the difference between Finance Incumbents, Fintech, and DeFi

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

Short Takes: MetaMask 1 million users & Swaps, Revolut's 5% interest rate rewards, Mastercard backs API-first issuer Marqueta, $2.2B acquisition of Avaloq by NEC

Long Take: Why Peer-to-Peer models fail against oligopoly, with Lending Club shutting down p2p platform, Seedrs/Crowdcube merging, and Morgan Stanley buying Eaton Vance for $7B

Short Takes: FCA bans and CFTC prosecutes crypto-derivatives, SEC wins Kik ICO case, but Ethereum volumes hit $120 Billion, and crypto funds show strong returns

Long Take: Is Finance asking *interesting* questions? Exploring startups, industries, and the nature of work.

Podcast Conversation: Fintech in the Metaverse, plus NFTs, Crypto Art, and Epic Games

Short Takes: Amazon accepts $ by reading your palm, $5.5B Tinkoff / Yandex acquisition, $1.2B payment card for kids, Ant Financial blockchain trade platform, ConsenSys & Hong Kong CBDC

Long Take: DeFi should take the middle road between the extremes of QAnon and J.P. Morgan

Podcast Conversation: Is Ant Financial the best Fintech in the world? Let's analyze the IPO!

Short Takes: Apple Cash Family, Pulse of Fintech venture slowdown, DAML for Chinese Blockchain Services Network, $MEME, UBS & MSFT HoloLens trading floor

Long Take: Finance blood in the water ($900B wasted on digital transformation) is why neobank Chime is $15B, and why Uniswap could be next

Podcast Conversation: Tech melting down investment banks to mega-mergers (UBS & Credit Suisse), Klarna and dominance of neural networks, and Kraken crypto exchange gets US banking charter

Short Takes: UBS/Credit Suisse maybe merger, Klarna's $10B valuation, Mastercard CBDC, Binance $100MM DeFi fund, YFI on Coinbase, and USDT outpaces Bitcoin

Long Take: Learnings from Microsoft & Visa integrating personal financial data into Excel, and the open ecosystems of Google Sheets and MetaMask

Food for Thought: The nature of Consciousness, artificial intelligence, and how we see Finance

Short Takes: $300MM blockchain Heloc by Figure, DeFi Forks Kimchi & Swerve at nearly $1B in capital, Starling & Monzo charging fees, Wealthfront launches automated savings

Long Take: How signalling explains SoftBank's $4 billion call option trade, SushiSwap's vampire attack, and why we make Art

Short Takes: Digital Yuan leaked by China's Construction Bank, SEC and NYSE Direct listings, Uniswap > Coinbase, 3.5MM Crypto Wallets, and Dystopia!

Long Take: J.P.Morgan's Quorum becomes part of ConsenSys, putting Ethereum at heart of commercial and financial infrastructure

Podcast Conversation: Maturation of institutional crypto custody and prime brokerage with BitGo's Mike Belshe

Short Takes: Schwab free planning, Railsbank buys Wirecard UK, BlockFi raises $50MM for crypto roboadvisor

Long Take: The absurdity of how the Internet is both beautiful and awful, and the memetic infection of Finance

Podcast Conversation: Decentralized Finance 101 with Kerman Kohli

Short takes: Banks shrink 30%, Facebook Financial looms, Fidelity and Envestnet trading tech, $15B DeFi marketcap heating up

Long Take: How Monzo, Revolut, and Starling get to break-even, and comparison with WeChat and Facebook

Podcast Conversation: Millions of users and millions in losses -- analyzing neobanks Monzo, Starling, and Revolut

Short takes: Revolut & Monzo lose £100MM, Robinhood's $500MM ARR, Ellie Mae sold to ICE for $11B

Long Take: Google banking shows that tech giants are the storefront for everything, and other distributors will fade away

Food for Thought: How should Fintech react to Epic raising $2B on Fortnite's 350MM users, NY Times photogrammetric environments, and Apple's AR glasses

Short takes: Fidelity/Schwab subscription wars, Amazon in insurance, $12B Ethereum volume, $9B Fintech quarter

Long Take: The symbolic battle over TikTok, intellectual property, and blockchain-based finance

Podcast Conversation: Growth of brand banking, tragedy of OnDeck vs. Kabbage, and the Indian Fintech war between WhatsApp and WeChat

Short Takes: India battle for Fintech (WhatsApp lending, WeChat banned), OnDeck acquired for $90MM, OCC lets US banks custody crypto

Long Take: OpenAI, backed with $1B+ by Elon Musk & MSFT, can now program SQL and write Harry Potter fan-fiction

Podcast Conversation: The evolution of DeFi with Steven Becker of MakerDAO and Lucas Vogelsang of Centrifuge

Short Takes: Ant Financial 1.3B active users, Robinhood raises $320m, Revolut offers Bitcoin via Paxos, Barclays roboadvisor

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

Podcast Conversation: Figure, SoFi and the Disruption of Finance with Mike Cagney

Short Takes: $200B Ant Financial IPO, SoFi wants to become a national bank, Vanguard launches roboadvisor, and Binance acquires Swipe

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

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

Short Takes: Apple's personal financial management, Lemonade's $4B post IPO valuation, Goldman transaction banking, AAVE blockchain lending

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

Food for Thought: White Obama made by Artificial Intelligence

Short Takes: Empower buys Personal Capital for $1B, 2.6MM UK crypto buyers, Deutsche Bank using Symphony connected to WhatsApp & WeChat

Long Take: Wirecard's collapse hurts Fintech & Crypto start-ups, like Lehman and Enron burned the economy

Podcast Conversation: WhatsApp Payments Halted in Brazil, Stripe competitor Checkout.com is Worth $5.5B, Upgrade raises $40MM

Fintech & Crypto Short Takes: Mastercard buys Finicity for $1B, Wirecard "lost" $2B, PayPal to sell Crypto, Broadridge AI bond trading

Long Take: Everyone should trade the billions in DeFi Structured Products! Or do digital asset derivatives need custodians and regulators?

Podcast Conversation: How to Build a $3.5B Profitable Digital Bank with Tinkoff

Fintech & Crypto Short Takes: Lemonade seeks $100MM IPO, $3B marketcap of DeFi tokens, $1T in robo AUM

Long Take: Amazon/Goldman partnership, TikTok banking license, and Ethereum fintech through the lens of Aggregation Theory & Super Apps

Podcast Conversation: Varo's $240M and Marqeta's $150M Rounds, Should Digital Banks Lend? and Fintech Gets Meta

Fintech & Crypto Short Takes: HSBC AI Index, UBS voice trading platform, Amazon blockchain, and Celsius $1B deposits

Long Take: What can Fintech learn from Elon Musk and SpaceX getting astronauts to space for 90% cheaper than NASA?

Podcast Conversation: Cash App, Venmo, Digital Wallets and Challenger Banks with ARK Invest

Fintech & Crypto Short Takes: TD Ameritrade trading spike, Bolt valued at $2B, Starling raises $40MM, and strong DeFi user growth

Long Take: Black Lives Matter -- structural inequity is the norm, not the exception

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

Fintech & Crypto Short Takes: $135MM Aspiration and $150MM Brex, Facebook/Shopify battle for SMBs, DTCC and Bank of France on blockchain

Long Take: Apple's augmented reality leak, and what Fintech should do for the coming Multiverse

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

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

Podcast Conversation: Technology, Empathy and Finance in a Time of Crisis with TrueAccord

Fintech & Crypto Short Takes: Samsung Pay Card, $72B on Blockchain, Argent DeFi wallet, and Halflife in VR

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

Food for Thought: Artificial Intelligence that writes pop songs and paints portraits

Weekly Fintech & Crypto Analysis: Telegram's billions, Robinhood & N26 & Stash raises, RBS failures, and Chinese tech moves

Podcast Conversation: Inside The Decision to Shutter Moven’s B2C Business with Brett King

Long Take: What Ray Dalio's new research says about American Empire, the US dollar, Gold, and Bitcoin

Weekly Fintech & Crypto Analysis: EY Blockchain strategy, Goldman Marcus $72B deposits, SoFi in Asia, Magic Leap lays off 800

Podcast Conversation: Libra, Stablecoins, CBDCs and the Need for Digital Money

Long Take: Betterment launches bank accounts into a world that has changed completely

Food for Thought: The Grand Theory of the Universe

Weekly Fintech & Crypto Analysis: Google Card leaked, Softbank $16B losses, $25MM DeFi hack, Motif shuts down, Stripe valued at $36B

Long Take: War over Money reaches new heights, as Libra opts into regulation, China launches national blockchain, and Financial Stability Board raises alarm

Weekly Fintech & Crypto Analysis: PayPal, Intuit, Visa, TrueAccord, Portis, Goldman's Marcus

Apple and Google help with government contact tracing, setting stage for war over Data

Weekly Fintech & Crypto Analysis: SoFi & Galileo, Ant Financial, Vanguard, Softbank, MakerDAO

Why Fintech Venture Capital firms are not returning your calls and emails

Weekly Fintech & Crypto Analysis: BlackRock, Revolut, HSBC, Binance, Apple AR/VR

Creativity and courage are the vaccine -- from molecular technology, to digital workspaces, to solving for global health data

Weekly Fintech & Crypto Analysis: Federal Reserve and Senate bailouts, Ant Financial, EY, Bitmex, ING

Why $2 trillion is barely enough for the coming unemployment spike, expected 20%+ GDP slow-down, and small business crunch

Weekly Fintech & Crypto Analysis: $30B Aon acquisition, Morningstar, Boeing, Alipay, and Magic Leap

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

Weekly Fintech & Crypto Analysis: Robinhood, Hyperledger, Waymo, Hololens, and PieDAO

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

Weekly Fintech & Crypto Analysis: Credit Karma, JPM, German Roboadvisors, Square, Bird, and Decentraland

How Coronovirus impacts Fintech, Financial Markets, and the global Economy

Weekly Fintech & Crypto Analysis: Lending Club, Libra, Apple, Sweden, Behavox, and DeFi

Financial Empires fall -- HSBC to fire 35,000; E*TRADE sells to Morgan Stanley for $13B; Legg Mason's $800B of managed assets bought for $4.5B

Weekly Fintech & Crypto Analysis: Varo, BlockFi, Kasisto, Facebook deepfakes, and Apple AR

Worldline's $8B acquisition of Ingenico's $3B revenue would barely pay for Robinhood or Revolut's valuations -- a case of Identity Economics

Can the $4 Trillion municipal bond market be a digital asset in your pocket? +20 key Fintech developments

Citi launches free roboadvisor, and how roboadvisors are like Twinkies. +20 key Fintech developments

How are Central Bank Digital Currencies like Lithium-ion Batteries, and how do you build a CBDC today? +20 key Fintech developments

Is Plaid cheap at $5.3 billion for $500 billion Visa? +20 key Fintech developments

Have Facebook Messenger Chatbots failed for Finance? +16 key Fintech developments

BBVA to sell chocolates on Amazon, while gamer hardware co Razer tries banking in Singapore; plus 12 key Fintech developments