October 15, 2018 @ 11:00 am By Barry James  |  

On the brink of Brexit, whatever happens, and as the USA cedes it, Britain can – and should – be again providing leadership at a historic turning point for the world. However, despite warm words and good intentions, we have started shooting ourselves in the… Read More

April 3, 2018 @ 4:59 am By Barry James  |  

We are entering the era of the digital token.  Or to put it another way a new kind of frictionless economy based on an a new internet of value. We’re already beyond the point of no-return – the ‘token event horizon’ is already well behind… Read More

December 15, 2017 @ 12:00 pm By Barry James  |  

Appearing on the BBC’s news flagship Newsnight the head of the UK’s regulator, the  FCA’s  Andrew Bailey, has drawn mainstream attention to Bitcoin and the world of cryptocurrencies while admitting that they have yet to understand what he called an ‘odd commodity’. While  the BBC’s… Read More

December 4, 2017 @ 2:53 pm By Barry James  |  

It was recently reported that the former chief economist of the World Bank wants Bitcoin banned, saying “Bitcoin is successful only because of its potential for circumvention, lack of oversight” You missed something crucial. Because of the ‘McKinsey’ factor. The operative rules (laws of nature from… Read More

December 1, 2017 @ 1:32 pm By Barry James  |  

Until now ‘Fintech’ has had a rather timid relationship with crowdfunding – and to put it bluntly many Fintech founders would have rather be seen dead in a ditch than crowdfunding a million dollars or two – even as a first step. Until now. Initial… Read More

November 10, 2017 @ 4:52 pm By Barry James  |  

The future is arriving a lot sooner than almost anyone thought as, fuelled by billions in ICO cash, the blockchain revolution moves ten times faster than the internet revolution ever did: Gibraltar, their nimble regulator and Stock Exchange are providing an exemplar that may now… Read More

September 1, 2017 @ 12:11 pm By Barry James  |  

Crowdfunding is about to enter a new and more powerful phase. Having become ensnared in a tangle of aging regulation designed for a disconnected, opaque world of fast-talking strangers Crowdfunding – in all it’s forms but especially Equity (ECF) – has yet to live up… Read More

July 6, 2017 @ 2:26 pm By Barry James  |  

  The thing that has struck more most forcibly is just how much untapped potential there is here – and how badly it is going to be needed. I’ve lived near the leading edge of technology for several decades now and seen how it has… Read More

June 25, 2017 @ 2:44 pm By Barry James  |  

As impact goes it doesn’t get much bigger. Crowdfunding has been much misunderstood and, let’s be honest, has underperformed our best expectations. It was supposed to “democratise finance” – and much more. Much focus has been on equity, regulation and the JOBS Act. The friction… Read More

June 21, 2017 @ 2:58 pm By Barry James  |  

I was asked: How did the book come about? Why did you write it? It has my name on it, but in truth it’s something of a team effort. Fundamentally I wrote it because I need it, my team needs it and the world needs… Read More

May 29, 2017 @ 1:17 pm By Barry James  |  

It may be counterintuitive but the research has been done and the results are now in – and it’s as we’ve been saying for almost five years. Fraud in crowdfunding is not just almost non-existent –  so much so as to be hard to measure,… Read More

December 14, 2016 @ 4:30 pm By Barry James  |  

The time has come for crowdfunding to mature – or die, and be reabsorbed by the body politic (or should that be that body corporate). You don’t hear people talk about “the democratisation of finance” much any more. Why is that? We’ve seen growing pains… Read More

May 15, 2016 @ 9:23 am By Barry James  |  

In August 2014 Chancellor George Osborne set his stall out clearly stating the UK government’s intention to make London the FinTech capital of the world – and so maintain its position as, arguably, the world’s most important financial center in the years to come. It’s… Read More

April 24, 2016 @ 4:16 pm By Barry James  |  

    What defines crowdfunding now – and in the future? Danae Ringelmann commenced a quest to redefine and redesign funding with an entrepreneurial journey that began in 2001. She has been a driving force behind the team that co-founded and launched the first of the… Read More

January 21, 2016 @ 7:51 pm By Barry James  |  

A recent Juniper report suggested that the failure of the Zano campaign was a game-changer, signalling a move away from Kickstarter-style reward crowdfunding toward an equity (and mixed) model. Given the regulatory costs and other issues this is naive at best. Apart from the fact that… Read More

January 2, 2016 @ 9:04 am By Barry James  |  

2015 Was the Year  of Change Crowdfunding became mainstream – in the sense that it was accepted as part of the ‘new normal’ and not a fad that’s going to fade away In the USA the SEC finally, perhaps reluctantly, followed the Fintech leaders in… Read More

November 20, 2015 @ 2:05 pm By Barry James  |  

We asked for short, snappy, helpful video for Crowdfunding Week 2015 and the shortest, snappiest and most helpful of these (so far anyway) is from management consultant and  Crowdfunding expert Tim Wright of twintangibles. Here’s my summary of what he has to say: Crowdfunding is great… Read More

October 12, 2015 @ 2:00 am By Barry James  |  

Crowdfunding and the democratisation of finance where key themes as over 300 experts from banks, startups, technology and finance came together for France’s first conference on FinTech. Perhaps surprisingly, a major centre for MedTech and computer science,  Bordeaux had gone out of it’s way to… Read More

September 15, 2015 @ 11:00 pm By Barry James  |  

Crowdfunding and ‘Alt-Finance’ are of course one of the cornerstones of FinTech as key parts of the ‘Finance’ leg. Although FinTech is broader-based encompassing cryptocurrencies such as BitCoin and related technologies (especially Blockchain) as well as new and faster ways of transacting and transferring ‘legacy’… Read More

September 13, 2015 @ 11:00 pm By Barry James  |  

The First #Fintech World Tour Over the last couple of months my team and I have been in ‘stealth mode’, as they say, quietly touring the world of #Fintech, joining the dots. In two weeks time I will fly from one of the two world… Read More