Fintech and DeFi Research Archive — The Fintech Blueprint

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

In this conversation, we talk with Mike Belshe, CEO of BitGo and expert technologist about custody, prime brokerage, and the evolution of the institutional digital asset industry.

I often mention that crypto is still all about capital markets trading (i.e., manufacturing) and not about wealth management (i.e., distribution). This conversation touches on where we are in the maturity of market infrastructure, the role of fiduciaries, and the path forward. If you are sitting in a RIA, investment fund, or other asset manager, pay attention!

crypto, exchanges / cap mkts, decentralized finance, regulation & complianceLex SokolinAugust 28, 2020BitGo, Lumina

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

This week, we get philosophical and look at:

Embedded finance and how it will be woven into the fabric of the Internet
Applying the philosophies of existentialism, nihilism, and absurdism to Finance
Parsing symptoms in decentralized finance (Based Protocol) as artistic protest
Finding Dadaist beauty in chaos

philosophy, decentralized finance, embedded financeLex SokolinAugust 24, 2020QAnon, Nietzsche, Ray Dalio, Albert Camus, Based Protocol, Something Awful, 4chan, Weird Twitter, Reddit, Marcel Duchamp, Dada

Decentralized Finance 101 with Kerman Kohli

In this conversation, we go through the essentials of Decentralized Finance with Kerman Kohli, who is a serial entrepreneur and the writer of the DeFi Weekly newsletter. We discuss the mechanics of issuing stablecoins, decentralized lending, decentralized exchange, automated market makers, and the increasing complexity of synthetic assets that have grown the sector to nearly $7 billion in August of 2020.

crypto, decentralized finance, stablecoins, central bank / CBDC, ICO / IEO, IPO / SPACLex SokolinAugust 21, 2020Ethereum, Yearn, MakerDAO, Curve.fi, Set Protocol, Binance

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

This week, we look at:

The financial model behind Monzo, and comparisons to Revolut and Starling
How the Eastern super apps inspired the marketplace model, and why that success is hard for neobanks to replicate
Paths from losing $100 million per year to break-even and enabling digital assets and other financial products
Facebook Financial forming to take over payments and commerce

digital lending, neobank, digital securities / STOLex SokolinAugust 17, 2020Monzo, Revolut, Starling, Square, SoFi, Curve, Robinhood, Schwab

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

In this conversation, we break down recently published annual reports from Revolut, Starling and Monzo, three of the leading European digital banks. There are some fascinating insights to be drawn from the documents, especially in the context of the broader global fintech market. This is rich subject matter, and we surely didn’t cover everything.

neobank, digital lending, paytechLex SokolinAugust 14, 2020Revolut, Starling, Monzo, Square, Goldman Sachs, Marcus, Tinkoff

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

The tech companies will become the storefront to absolutely everything.

There is no Internet, there is only Google.

There is no commerce, there is only Amazon.

There is no finance, there is only WeChat / Tencent?

I don't know about you, but I cannot pay for anything in cash in London anymore. COVID has made the city go cashless. For China, QR codes have long replaced the need for paper money. And if there is no cash, what is the point of ATMs, and ATM fees, and bank branches, and bank branch staff? Financial firms no longer need to be the place where you shop for financial product.

big tech, neobank, digital transformationLex SokolinAugust 10, 2020Google, Apple, Amazon, Tencent, PayPal, Affirm, Mobeewave

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

Within a decade, the form factor for computing will radically change from staring at screens with flat imagery, to participating in embedded virtual worlds with fully navigable, hyper-realistic environments. Those environments will be filled with software agents, some hybrid human and others entirely AI, that are entirely unrecognizable as anything but real to 90% of the population.