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Why Bitcoin’s Fundamentals Have Never Been Stronger
Bitcoin’s fundamentals are strengthening as institutional adoption expands and investors seek alternatives amid concerns about inflation, debt and currency purchasing power. Sam Callahan, Director of Bitcoin Strategy & Research at OranjeBTC, joins JD Durkin to discuss what is driving demand for Bitcoin beneath its recent price action.
Callahan points to growing involvement from major financial institutions and argues that concerns around fiscal sustainability, rising bond...
Leaders of the Digital Securities Revolution
One of the most-watched programs in the Blockchain sector and has been seen by over 4-million viewers worldwide. Read Time: 1 minute and 58 secondsOn this segment of FINTECH.TV's Digital Asset Report (DAR), our host from New York City, Vince Molinari, is joined by the digital asset pioneer, Founder of Elevated Returns, Stephane De Baets to discuss the bleeding edge vs the leaning edge covering their experience together from Aspen Coin digital securities issuance to what is coming next.
Trading minority securities positions in real estate is a tricky proposition when looking at public markets. Understanding this dilemma is where Stephane, Vince, and the team could architect a solution that integrated the paradigm, capabilities, and frictionless capabilities of blockchain technologies. The challenges present with issuing a New World security in a digital format, making the digital security then seamlessly tradable, with clearing, settlement, transfer agent, custodian, and similar components integrated for pioneering a frictionless future. Even still, in the Old World, it is very cumbersome to trade private securities issued under the 1933 Securities Act under Regulation D and tradable under the 1934 Securities Exchange Act rules and regulations for exempt sureties.
Stephane, Elevated Returns, and his partners issued the digital security for a portion of the capital stack with a trophy asset in a wealthy MSA. Aspen, Colorado is home to many billionaires, innovators, and entrepreneurs that call the St. Regis home from time to time as extended vacations turn into a work adventure.
The successful issuance of this prized asset in Aspen, Co. proved the concept of trading assets 1:1 without having to liquidate the entire property, investment, or formerly illiquid asset class. Previously, these assets generally qualified for "hard money," bank funds, or institutional capital that tapped into REITs, "big boy" funds, and similar facilities only available to a limited few.Digital securities offer new ways for investors to gain exposure to secure asset classes through innovation using blockchain technology mapped with securities laws, regulation, and compliance requirements. Only if a small bit of the entire value is securitized, tokenized, and similar partial gains, we have gained a milestone event that will eventually prove network theory via Metcalfe and Reed's Laws.
Exchange and regulatory compliance with the right partners that understand how to address - tZero is the leader in this space, says Stephane. Vince adds both Computershare into the mix that worked very closely with FINTECH.TV's Executive Director in NYC to architect their blockchain settlement solution from day one. Always a small world.
We hope you enjoy this informative segment on digital securities, assets being traded on trusted trustless systems using fully compliant technology systems, and how the ecosystem is going from alpha/beta into a commercialized network of buying, selling, issuing, and pricing digital securities unlike ever before.
Watch all the action unfold exclusively on FINTECH.TV by subscribing to our weekly email round-up newsletter and never miss the story unfolding!
To Learn More About Elevated Returns:
https://www.elevatedreturns.com/
Virtual Money
Join the Top women leaders in the new digital economy, where money meets emerging technology in our expanding digital world.
Women in Technology, moving Cryptocurrency, Blockchain Technology, and AI to higher heights, building a better, brighter future!Welcome to Women in Crypto Online Series!
Today's interview is with Justyna Osowka, the CEO and Founder of Women in Blockchain Canada out of Ottawa.
Justyna’s organization works with the Futurist conference and offers virtual events and evangelism of the people’s money, cryptocurrency. Giving people access to money without discrimination. We discuss a virtual reality world and the outlook towards a cashless society in the future and the social impact of crypto.
Cyberspace, Security and Regulations
One of the most-watched programs in the Blockchain sector and has been seen by over 4-million viewers worldwide. On this segment of FINTECH.TV's Digital Asset Report our host from Tel Aviv, Ziv Keinan, is joined by the cyber security expert, CEO of Konfidas, Ram Levi discusses how to be prepared during the increased risk with everyone working from home during Covid-19 for cyber attacks.Ram explains how Konfidas approaches cybersecurity for their clients around the world.
Managed services for small businesses for a cost-benefit solution to secure the enterprise without the prohibitive costs associated with Old World roadblocks. The attacks surfaces have been increased during this work-from-home phenomena as represented by a 60% increase reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigations in the United States of America on cyber attacks.
From remote desktops, to vulnerable networks, to social hacking, June 2020 had more attacks reported than the entire year of 2019. Yes, ransomware attacks have grown to a point of major concern as the majority of companies are no where close to prepared.Similar to Russia attacking Ukraine for political instability, it is not always about money as many times the state actors are disrupting the system and bringing these companies and people to their knees. Small companies are not always reporting these breaches - and overall cybersecurity attacks - unless they are forced to to claim insurance or gdpr protocol or similar forces that bring these issues to light.The nature of DLT as utilized by blockchain architecture is extremely secure. The computers, equipment, and systems that access these distributed ledger technology blockchain systems are absolutely not secure. This is a hacker's dream providing a point of access by leveraging the weakest node in the network of accessing secure data.
Ram Levi and Ziv Kenan had a great time on this exclusive interview on FINTECH.TV and we hope you will enjoy it just as much staying up-to-date on the pulse of security in the digital New World.
To Learn More Konfidas:
https://www.konfidas.com/
Follow Ram Levi on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/ramlevi
Transacting Value
Join the Top women leaders in the new digital economy, where money meets emerging technology in our expanding digital world.
Women in Technology, moving Cryptocurrency, Blockchain Technology, and AI to higher heights, building a better, brighter future!Welcome to Women in Crypto Online Series!
Today's interview is with Janine Moir, Blockchain Assurance Leader with Deloitte Canada. Janine shares with us the benefits of cryptocurrency, recent blockchain initiatives, smart contracts, and developmental directions in which companies are considering when using this technology within their organizations.
Breaking the Silos
Join the Top women leaders in the new digital economy, where money meets emerging technology in our expanding digital world.
Women in Technology, moving Cryptocurrency, Blockchain Technology, and AI to higher heights, building a better, brighter future!Welcome to Women in Crypto Online Series!
Today's interview is with Ingrid Vasiliu Feltes, Innovation Officer with MEDNAX. She heads Innovation in the Healthcare Industry with a focus on AI and blockchain workflow possibilities with Healthcare data.
We discuss the importance of multidisciplined considerations for humanizing AI programming in the long term care of individuals' private healthcare information offering increased quality control.
Internet of Universal Resources
Join the Top women leaders in the new digital economy, where money meets emerging technology in our expanding digital world.
Women in Technology, moving Cryptocurrency, Blockchain Technology, and AI to higher heights, building a better, brighter future!Welcome to Women in Crypto Online Series!
Today's interview is with Lisa Loud, COO of IOUR FOUNDATION, the Internet of Universal Resources.
Lisa walks us through some history of technology and how we got to where we are today with our current Internet. IOUR foundation promotes the development and adoption of new protocols, using blockchain, to enhance the fundamental properties, of our current internet.
COVID-19 Pushed Companies Reinvent Themselves
The effects of COVID-19 have caused businesses and workers alike to completely rethink the way they work and interact with the rest of the world. Zoom meetings and remote work have become the new normal, which is causing businesses to reevaluate the way that they conduct themselves and what type of SaaS offerings they provide.
This is where the world’s view on exciting new technology such as blockchain and cryptocurrency has begun to really show their worth to the world. Prior to this pandemic, these technologies were still slowly making their way into the mainstream - but these strenuous circumstances have caused businesses and large corporations to reconsider the value that this revolutionary technology can bring them.
Visa, Mastercard, JPMC, IBM, Microsoft, and many other Fortune 500s have already begun to test out the crypto waters and are beginning to roll out exciting new frameworks and services that are set to revolutionize the way work is done, payments are handled, and how identity and sensitive data are managed.
While this is true, cryptocurrency is still a hotly debated topic in finance.
Many believe it can provide a real benefit to society while others remain skeptical of its true utility.
Many people found out about cryptocurrencies originally due to the headlines you would see every day about massive investment returns people were cashing out with nearly every week. This hype was well-founded - crypto was actually rooted in advanced and very relevant improvements to the current financial system that resulted in the crash of 2008. At the time, though, this was overshadowed by big money and over-speculation of its true monetary value.
In order to understand how crypto is shaping the future of the remote workforce and even how businesses will function after this pandemic, it is important to understand why cryptocurrency and the underlying blockchain technology is so valuable for society - especially in the current climate.
What is Blockchain Technology?
Bitcoin and its mysterious inventor Satoshi Nakamoto brought with it the concept of “trustless” transactions, among other innovations.
This simply means that there is no trust involved in a bitcoin transaction, as the exchange of value is permanently stored, publicly visible, and verified by multiple parties with an incentive to ensure its verification. Therefore, two untrusting parties can engage in a transaction without the need for a moderator (i.e. the potentially biased banks). As you can see, this is a big improvement to the current monetary system and removes control from a few executives to an entire population.
Cryptocurrency’s ability to conduct private, secure, third-party free transactions is revolutionary, and could truly change the way business transactions are handled as well as how monetary value and data are distributed throughout society. It has the potential to lessen the disparate wealth gap in America, and make complex procedures like loans and financing smarter by making data permanent and unified.
Basically, it can allow strangers to engage in business dealings without worrying about getting overzealous fees, data breaches, or the negative effect that human error can bring.
At its core, it removes the need for banks and corporations to always have a hand in your financial dealings, digital tools, as well as your personal data - which is something the new generation is very concerned with.
The use for Bitcoin has been established - it can, in fact, have the impact it says it will have. The only barrier now is integrating into a society that is still transitioning into a digital age. This has been the question that has caused this revolutionary technology to have such a gradual and slow integration so far.
Blockchain technology has taken a backseat in the media to the currencies it supports. Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Monero, and more have all been hot topics that have brought up heated debates on whether or not they actually contain any value. But, blockchain has not received the popular media attention that the cryptocurrencies it supports have. As it turns out, the underlying blockchain framework that supports these currencies is what gives them value and allows for each of the digital currencies to have so many revolutionary features.
Blockchain allows for a digital distributed ledger to be used to facilitate transactions between two parties that are fraud-free and without any third party manipulation or interference. It can revolutionize the way information is stored, secured, and exchanged between the two parties and remove fraud and trust from the equation while streamlining the process and drastically improving efficiency.
Big Corporations Are Bringing Blockchain to the Mainstream
Many of the world’s biggest corporations are beginning to integrate cryptocurrency and blockchain into their service offerings.
In late July 2020, Visa announced that they will be rolling out a crypto-supported payment system that will support Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, and other prominent currencies. This is huge for the crypto world because it finally shows how these big corporations are realizing the value of the technology. From May 2019 to May 2020 there was over $10 billion of crypto transactions that took place, which shows the. trending popularity of this new monetary system.
This new service from Visa will come in the form of a Visa digital wallet that allows for the use and storage of cryptocurrency easily and securely. With people using cash less and less and the need for banks beginning to dwindle with stay-at-home orders and social distancing norms, this announcement is hardly surprising and very fitting for the time of the announcement.
Just as this announcement was happening, regulators in the U.S. were also announcing that it is now perfectly legal for large institutions to provide cryptocurrency services. Brian P. Brooks, the Acting Comptroller of the Currency, commented recently “This opinion clarifies that banks can continue satisfying their customers’ needs for safeguarding their most valuable assets, which today for tens of millions of Americans includes cryptocurrency.”
This decision shows that the shock of 2020 is beginning to have an effect on the highest level of corporations and regulators in the US, and that they are becoming more open than ever before to new forms of technology that threaten many of the financial and societal norms that have been in place for decades.
Other companies such as IBM have integrated crypto services into their framework to bring about next-generation payment solutions. In 2019, IBM rolled out a service called World Wire that is able to provide a much easier mechanism for cross-border payments between out-of-country businesses. This technology is yet another example of a tool that is completely necessary during a pandemic where many Americans have trouble reaching clients or businesses not located in the U.S. In 2020 so far since COVID, the World Wire service has been critical for many to more easily make payments across the world.
As you can clearly see, the COVID-19 pandemic has been a tipping point for blockchain and cryptocurrency in the mainstream. It has fueled a renewed faith in crypto as the world begins to shy away from paper money and dependence on banks. In fact, one in three millennials now state that they will likely buy and hold bitcoin within the next year, which just shows how deeply this new idea is starting to solidify in our society.
With remote work becoming more prominent, it is looking more and more likely that people will be able to get paid in crypto sooner rather than later. This will help improve the confidence and trust that our generation has in the current financial system and trigger a more independent and self-sufficient workforce that will be more able to withstand the effects of any future pandemics or disasters.
Embedded Finance Continues to Grow
By 2025, it is projected that embedded finance companies will grow 5x by the year 2025, from a $22.5B total market valuation to over $250B. Embedded finance allows businesses to deliver more tailored solutions that improve customer retention and maximize the value of any platform - so it is no wonder the valuation is so high. With financial tools built right into a specific set of services, users can experience a more seamless solution that allows them to transact and handle their business in a more modern and frictionless manner.
Despite the outstanding outlook for embedded finance that many professional projections have shown, it still has a ways to go until it reaches the level of value that has been predicted for it. For example, Uber announced back in 2019 it was going to be investing heavily in fintech upgrades that would include, among other things, UberPay. UberPay was an exciting announcement that was huge for the embedded finance trend. It would have ushered in one of the first mainstream embedded finance platforms that gave users instant payments, digital wallets, and other forward-thinking embedded finance tools.
Despite the hype, Uber recently announced that they had scrapped plans for this rollout, effectively putting a small, yet insignificant, road bump in the path to widespread embedded finance. While they have called it quits on embedded finance, for now, they are expected to re-establish these plans later on down the road when their finances get back on track.
Other companies such as Google, Amazon, Intuit, Shopify, and even WeChat have begun rolling out embedded finance features in the form of instant payments and more exciting features such as investments. These companies are pioneering the embedded finance landscape and have already shown that non-fintech companies can benefit from integrating fintech services into their user experience.
Where Did Embedded Finance Come From?
Aside from the logical integration of payments into various industries and their corresponding platforms, embedded finance was born due to the presence of interconnected technology companies.
This was a result of what is sometimes referred to as the unbundling of banks, which refers to the process of banking becoming more and more decentralized from a singular entity.
These companies, which include ecosystem builders, infrastructure providers, as well as infrastructure embedders, all contribute. All of these different providers consist of essential factors that all contribute to making embedded finance a reality.
One of the best examples of the fire-starters of embedded finance includes Plaid. Plaid was one of the most valuable startups ever with funding rounds, reaching $300 million, and recently they were acquired by Visa for a staggering $5.3B. Plaid was hugely important because it was one of the companies that enabled applications to integrate user's bank accounts into their platform directly.
This enabled banking to be built into nearly any industry. With simple banking at your fingertips, any application or platform could allow users to conduct financial dealings within their walls more efficiently and minimize the steps necessary to transact within their platform.
Why is Embedded Finance So Important?
Embedded finance is critical because it allows for professional and safe financial operations to be directly inputted into any platform. There are a few key reasons this new trend shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon:
Building FinTech Payment Rails is Difficult
When a company brings in legal help, it does make that company a legal company. This is how financial tools work in embedded finance. They are not creating their own financial services (most often). In reality, they are embedding a tool designed to facilitate payments and financial processes on their platform. This is why companies such as Plaid have been able to experience such widespread success; they allow for deep and well-built financial solutions to be easily integrated into any platform. This makes it easier than ever for apps and platforms to offer protected and ready-to-go financial services.
Customer buying habits are changing with the new generation -
Between 2014 and 2018, Amazon's consumer retail and total consumer spend tripled. This illustrates the influx of individuals into online marketplaces and their willingness to take advantage of more convenient and well-built digital platforms. A digital platform economy is emerging, one that is paving the way for radical changes in the way humans conduct work and create value.
Consumers under 55 are more open to new financial providers -
This point is critical - for the new generation's willingness to use platforms other than banks to handle their money and pay for goods and services even further bolsters the valuation for embedded finance. According to research from Cornerstone Advisors, many Millenial consumers are willing to get a checking account from non-banking providers like Amazon, Google, and even Starbucks and Uber.
The Future of Embedded Finance
Many companies are already showing their deep interest in embedded finance technology and are beginning to deliver innovation and creativity in their approach. For example, Shopify is a platform that has always been ahead of the curve when it comes to fintech, but recently they have gone even further. They recently announced an embedded lending service called Shopify Capital that makes it easier for business owners to get loans and simply repay it through their online sales.
Other companies such as Intuit have begun deeply integrating their customer's accounting experiences with embedded finance by creating a Quickbooks bank account for its users. This vertical integration of banking software makes it easier than ever before for users to handle all of their financial dealings within a single platform.
As we can see from these trends, embedded finance is a no-brainer development in fintech that was inevitable due to the extremely simplified workflow, convenience, and evolving habits of younger consumers. Embedded finance is allowing layers of tech-driven financial services to be built on top of traditionally non-fintech companies. As these embedded finance companies continue to unbundle financial processes, the hierarchy of unbundling that we observe will be replicated in ecosystems around the world and will continue to evolve as consumers' habits do.
Decentralized Finance Regulation
One of the most-watched programs in the Blockchain sector and has been seen by over 4-million viewers worldwide. Read Time: 44 secondsOn this segment of FINTECH.TV's Digital Asset Report, our Founder and host, Vince Molinari, is joined by Rebecca Retting, Partner at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips LLP.
Rebecca was recognized in 2019 as one of the top 100 women lawyers in New York City. Lately, she has been advising DeFi companies on regulatory compliance.Global Blockchain Convergence is a Thinktank coming together to speak about blockchain, digital assets, and DeFi.
On Aug. 26, 2020, at 9 AM EST, they will be hosting an online event to speak about DeFi Regulations.
What decentralization means?
How they think and assess risk?
How are they willing to work with the projects, and what that means on a time and cost perspective?
and some of the deeper issues that are surrounding DeFi.
Speakers
Melissa Netram - Chief Innovation Officer and Director LabCFTC
Matt Homer - Executive Deputy Superintendent, Research & Innovation Division New York State Department of Financial Services
Val Szczepanik - Associate Director SEC's Division of Corporation Finance and FinHub
Register Today:
https://hubs.la/H0t-PX20
Disrupting the Advertising Game with Blockchain
Abu Dhabi Edition
One of the most-watched programs in the Blockchain sector and has been seen by over 4-million viewers worldwide. In this segment of FINTECH.TV's Digital Asset Report, our host from Abu Dhabi, Rachel Pether, is joined by the innovative CEO of WOM Protocol and Yeay, respectively - Melanie Mohr.
Melanie explains how WOM has engineered a specific blockchain-based solution for word-of-mouth value reward, tracking, and earning for creators, authenticators, and the brand itself. Therefore, the brand backs the content that has met protocol consensus with alignment for monetizing content, distribution pathways, and the fine-grained controls necessary to give users, advertisers, and humans enhanced capabilities.Rachel and Melanie discuss the pressures from click-farms, monetizing content, and the need for independence, vis-a-vis, decentralization. This reverse-engineered approach for the WOM Protocol is purpose-built for creators to capture the value they add to the world.
There is decentralization - and then there is spontaneous decentralization. FINTECH.TV describes this as "Briding the Grand Canyon" with new "Oracle-based" technologies that enforce smart-contracts, which means systems much trust each other.
As these systems grow to trust each other and establish these new connections, we go from interoperability to the epoch of ubiquity as the Great Reset occurs in a post-COVID world.These veterans discuss how "on-chain" and "off-chain" information flows, tokens and the experience develops as regulations evolve, security matures, and markets shift the paradigm.
Melanie and Rachel had a great time on this exclusive interview on FINTECH.TV and we hope you will enjoy it just as much, learning how blockchain technology is improving the pursuit of happiness worldwide.
Visit WOM on the Web:
https://womprotocol.io/
The DAR Investment Scoreboard:
Per CoinMarketCap, the WOM Protocol token (current pricing of $0.23866) has the following highlights:
ROI since ICO in 2018: ~428.41% as of August 22nd, 2020
Market Capitalization is approximately $23.81M.
Learn more: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/wom-protocol/
WOM & Chainlink are a Match Made in Crypto Heaven:
Recently, WOM announced the successful integration with Chainlink's market-leading decentralized oracle network for price feeds representing a volume-adjusted aggregation from all liquid trading markets and updates in a manner that follows price volatility.
Learn more: https://medium.com/wom-protocol/wom-protocol-launches-chainlink-price-oracle-on-mainnet-e1e16b32ee6c
WOM's Latest News:
Partnering with another global player to further the network effect as WOM breaks down Old World barriers: https://apnews.com/fd1034ae57fc4c34f679ff7d43a8861f
Follow WOM Protocol on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/WOMProtocol
CRE Outlook: Back Up The Truck
TheIMPACT focuses on ESG, Impact Investing, and advancing the 17 United Nations-supported Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The show profiles people and companies committed to changing lives and creating a sustainable world.Read Time: 1 minute, 17 secondsOn this segment of FINTECH.TV's TheIMPACT, our host from New York City, Jeffery Gitterman, is joined by the good doctor, Ph.D. Director of Investor Relations at Edgewood Capital, Bruce Kahn, where they discuss what real estate looks like in a post-COVID world.
Ranging from the retail, hospital, restaurants, rental housing, industrial, and additional asset classes, the illiquid real estate industry that is also the world's largest - valued around $220T before the start of COVID. This is an interview for industry veterans gearing up on how best to allocate, deploy, and balance exposure among their portfolio holdings.Where there is a Great Reset, there exists an unprecedented and once-of-a-lifetime opportunity. Jeff and our guest, Bruce Kahn, unpack the particulars and explore states from North Carolina to Colorado to New York that are purpose-built, address climate change and augment IRR all at the same time!
Energy use consumption, water consumption, and additional considerations allow you to make smart decisions, incorporate physical risks, and engineer specific models that take renovation, new construction, and other strategies into account.
These data-driven approaches use highly sophisticated modeling that is discussed further in the interview.Bruce breaks-down the differential analysis on how climate and real estate investing work, how impact is measured, and the realities of causality as asymmetrical events occur. This interview is an exposure exercise in long-tail risk classification, measurement, and hedging strategies for New World ESG investors.
Bruce and Jeff had a great time on this exclusive interview on FINTECH.TV and we hope you will enjoy it just as much, learning how real estate rescue capital from Edgewood Capital Advisors will impact the next round of refinancing permanent capital after COVID.
Visit Edgewood Capital Advisors on the Web:
https://www.edgewoodcapital.com/
Follow Edgewood on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/edgewood-capital-advisors/
Digital Economy
Join the Top women leaders in the new digital economy, where money meets emerging technology in our expanding digital world.
Women in Technology, moving Cryptocurrency, Blockchain Technology, and AI to higher heights, building a better, brighter future!Lori Souza summarizes today's digital economy, with the 3 main take away's from the Women in Crypto 21 day online interview series.
