Opinion

February 23, 2021 @ 2:22 pm By JD Alois  |  

Last year, it was reported that Transferwise (recently rebranded as Wise) had been approved in the UK to offer investment services for retail accounts. According to the FCA registry, “TIVN” is approved to offer various retail investment services. At that time, it was expected that… Read More

February 23, 2021 @ 8:10 am By Omar Faridi  |  

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen stated on Monday (February 22, 2021) that Bitcoin is an “extremely inefficient” way to settle financial transactions. Yellen commented on how the digital currency’s price fell sharply (as usual) during morning trading hours, but then stayed above the $53,000 mark… Read More

February 22, 2021 @ 8:52 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

JP Morgan says that Bitcoin (BTC) is like an “economic side show” when compared to the emergence of many new Fintech businesses. The bank’s analysts have argued that Bitcoin is a poor hedge against the falling equity prices. The world’s leading digital currency is trading… Read More

February 20, 2021 @ 12:15 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Zoe Adamovicz, CEO and Co-founder of Neufund, recently explained how a blockchain or distributed ledger tech (DLT)-powered fundraising platform actually works. Neufnd was established in 2016 and its main value proposition involves democratizing access to funding for  entrepreneurs and also to make it more convenient… Read More

February 19, 2021 @ 3:39 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Ledger Vault has reportedly entered into agreement with Nexo in order to secure and protect clients’ funds. Ledger Vault aims to provide institutional-grade self-custody to Nexo. Through the partnership, which was announced on February 10, 2020, the companies will be focused on providing clients with… Read More

February 19, 2021 @ 10:44 am By Oliver Woolley  |  

Social media-hyped stocks took a beating on 18th February, with shares of game retailer GameStop (NYSE:GME) closing at around $40. The share price dove from an all-time high of $483 earlier this month, ending a wild ride for amateur investors still holding their position. The… Read More

February 18, 2021 @ 1:05 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Bitcoin (BTC), the flagship cryptocurrency, keeps surging to all-time highs.  On Wednesday (February 17, 2021), which was just a day after the digital asset surpassed the $50,000 mark, the crypto had again set a new record above $51,000. Bitcoin is trading at around $51,490 at… Read More

February 17, 2021 @ 11:01 am By JD Alois  |  

Yesterday, JOFF Fintech (NASD:JOFFU) filed an 8-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in regards to its initial public offering (IPO) that floated on the Nasdaq on February 9th. The SPAC indicated that it had raised $414 million, including warrants, in a hunt for… Read More

February 16, 2021 @ 7:41 pm By Lee A. Schneider  |  

Fellow DeFi adherents, let’s slow down on the outrage about GameStop (NYSE:GME) and the traditional finance system (TradFi).   Blockchain and DeFi offer lots of advantages over TradFi, but TradFi is not completely broken and DeFi is not necessarily vastly superior.  Two core characteristics make… Read More

February 16, 2021 @ 7:35 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

The developers of The Graph, which serves as an indexing protocol for “organizing and efficiently accessing” data from blockchains and storage networks, claim that the decentralized finance (DeFi) boom is just the beginning of the massive Web 3.0 innovation that’s about to take place in… Read More

February 15, 2021 @ 8:27 am By Omar Faridi  |  

We recently caught up with Dr. Joshua Ellul, the Chairman of Malta Digital Innovation Authority and Director of Centre for DLTs, University of Malta. Dr. Ellul discussed how blockchain-based smart contracts are streamlining routine business processes. He also talked about his research interests which include… Read More

February 14, 2021 @ 10:33 am By JD Alois  |  

Last month, the Capital Markets Modernization Taskforce in Ontario, Canada, issued its final report as to how to improve capital formation and affiliated economic growth and prosperity. The Taskforce’s goal was to “address the issues of tomorrow’s capital markets with bold and innovative recommendations that… Read More

February 14, 2021 @ 9:18 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Blockchain.com, a leading crypto wallet provider, block explorer service, and trading platform,  recently noted that there had been signs that “showed” Anthony Scaramucci that Bitcoin was “ready for institutional investment.” Last week, the team at Blockchain.com had welcomed Anthony Scaramucci, founder of SkyBridge Capital and… Read More

February 12, 2021 @ 9:37 am By JD Alois  |  

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez is going all-in on Bitcoin as he announced via Twitter that he has requested the city manager to research a vendor to facilitate Bitcoin payments as well as paying employees in Bitcoin. Crypto insiders quickly embraced the move with Anthony Pompliano… Read More

February 7, 2021 @ 5:53 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Chintai, which offers digital asset technology for capital markets, recently explained why it’s important to know about “geo-fencing” when engaging with regulated crypto-assets and related products and services. Chintai claims that EOSIO software, which powers major blockchains such as EOS,  and ProFi (or programmable finance,… Read More

February 6, 2021 @ 3:38 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Jeffrey Amico, Counsel at VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, notes that cryptocurrency protocols are supposed to be governed by these so-called “decentralized” communities of stakeholders. Amico explains that it’s not necessarily the case that decentralized communities are more efficient, or “important” for various ideological reasons, but… Read More

February 5, 2021 @ 1:01 pm By JD Alois  |  

Recently, the SEC’s Office of the Advocate for Small Business Capital Formation (OASB) shared a presentation outlining the performance of securities exemptions during 2020. The presentation reviewed the utilization of Reg D, Reg A+, and Reg CF as these are the main avenues to raise… Read More

February 5, 2021 @ 8:51 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Balaji S. Srinivasan, a prominent angel investor and entrepreneur, says that Fintech is “the frontend,” while crypto is like “the backend.” Balaji, the former CTO at leading digital asset exchange Coinbase, points out that Fintech and blockchain/crypto technologies have been “built mostly in parallel over… Read More

February 5, 2021 @ 8:07 am By Omar Faridi  |  

  Garrick Hileman, Head of Research at Blockchain.com and visiting fellow at the London School of Economics, says that the future “doesn’t look like Robinhood.” Hileman writes in a blog post that “disgust over GameStop’s trading shutdown” will most likely accelerate the adoption of decentralized… Read More

February 5, 2021 @ 7:52 am By Omar Faridi  |  

The team at Bondora, a European peer to peer lending platform, states that the first month of 2021 is “setting the tone” for the year to come. Bondora notes that the Fintech sector is still growing steadily. including Portugal’s financial technology industry as the country… Read More