Fintech 🤝 crypto #7

The future of money, Square becomes Block & will checkout-free solutions become a new norm

Dec 8, 2021

Hi 👋

Time flies, right?

We are slowly approaching the end of 2021. This year was really good both for Fintech and DeFi / Crypto. The enormous amount of money was injected into the crypto-space and into the new fintech companies that were looking for funding.

How will 2022 look like? I’ll try to answer that next week…

But today - welcome to “Fintech 🤝 crypto” - episode #7!

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Shibetoshi Nakamoto @BillyM2k

if you don’t wanna talk to someone, just start talking to them about crypto

Let’s go! 🚀

Happened last week 👀

1) Square changes name to Block 🔲

In short:
- One of the biggest American fintechs - Square - has announced changing its name to Block in an apparent reference to the blockchain.

Square @Square

We’re changing our company name so we can give the full @Square brand to our Seller business. So now we need a name to tie @Square, @CashApp, @TIDAL, and @TBD54566975 together into one. That name is “Block.” Why?

Block @blocks

Block is @Square, @CashApp, @spiralbtc, @TIDAL, @TBD54566975, and our foundational teams who support them. We’re here to build simple tools to increase access to the economy. https://t.co/CkVKxHPkqy https://t.co/RMOnxCLP9Y

My comment:
- This rebranding is not a huge surprise - Square’s CEO Jack Dorsey is a bitcoin fanboy. The new name - Block - leaves more room for growth into the “decentraland” and it will be easier for the company to expand their portfolio with DeFi services.
- It’s a good move. The rebranding and the idea behind it sound well-thought and well-planned. It all adds up. In contrast to “Meta” by Facebook…
- Can we expect more fintechs to embrace DeFi and to change their names in the next 12 months?
- Oh, and please do check out the design of Block’s website: https://block.xyz 👀

2) Asia’s richest man - Mukesh Ambani - thinks metaverse will unlock the next generation of value creation 🤔

In short:
- The richest man in Asia, Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani is majorly bullish on blockchain as the country prepares to introduce a bill to regulate the crypto sector.
- Ambani also believes that the metaverse will unlock a new decade of “tremendous value creation” where “ideas and innovations will become more valuable” rather than the amount of physical capital an entrepreneur has access to.
My comment:
- It’s interesting (and positive) that some big TradFi whales, like Mukesh Ambani, are starting to see the potential behind DeFi, crypto & metaverse economy.

3) Contactless stores are coming - New York, JFK Airport, Paris & London 💸

In short:
- Checkout-free solutions popped out in different cities all over the world in the last weeks:
  🇺🇸 Starbucks and Amazon open joint checkout-free outlet in New York;
  🇺🇸 JFK airport gets contactless grab-and-go convenience store;
  🇫🇷 Carrefour opens its first contactless store in Paris;
  🇬🇧 Sainsbury’s lets customers ‘just walk out’ of a contactless store in London;
My comment:
- This trend - checkout-free stores - is a strong one and it will not go away.
- The customer gets a frictionless shopping experience, the merchant - lower operating costs. A win-win situation.
- A lot of merchants have been playing with this idea in the last months but it feels like 2022 could be the year of much bigger adoption of this solution. At least in some countries. The rest will follow in the next 3+ years.
- It’s a huge market opportunity for fintechs that will provide checkout-free experience software to merchants.

4) Korea Stock Exchange executive wants to more legislation for crypto

In short:
- The CEO of Korea’s stock exchange said that it’s time to embrace virtual assets and called for proper regulation to help institutionalize the asset class.
My comment:
- This news is here just to show you that more and more countries are thinking about crypto and how the whole market can be regulated (in one way or another).
- It might seem like bad news (“we don’t need a regulation! regulations are evil!”), but it is not. This is good. As long as the govs are not fully banning crypto (like China did, very poor decision), wise regulations could even make the adoption of DeFi faster.
- The majority of people who are using DeFi & crypto right now are adventurous. That’s fine and natural. These types of people are always eager to test out new frontiers. Less risky ones are waiting for a more regulated market. They are just not willing to take that much risk.

Great reads worth your time 📚

📘How Klarna’s Attack on the Payments System Could Impact Banking (by Steve Cocheo)

Is Klarna really a ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ company? Or maybe Klarna is slowly building & engineering parallel payments and banking networks?
Short article about how Klarna is doing in the US market and what might be their end goal. In short: BNPL could be just a starting point for many BNPL companies…

📕 The Father of Web3 Wants You to Trust Less - Interview with Gavin Wood (by Wired)

Good interview with Gavin Wood - cofounder of Ethereum, creator of Polkadot - who coined the term “Web3” in 2014.
It’s a conversation about where Web 2.0 went wrong, Gavin’s vision of the future, and why we all need to be less trusting. Plus it might help you understand what Web3 is all about.

📙 Real-Time Payments threat to Visa/Mastercard? Not really (by Noyes Payment Blog)

Interesting take on the Real-Time Payments "threat" to VISA & Mastercard's networks.
"There is no consumer value proposition in real-time payments. Paying a merchant faster is not something consumers want.”
"A 20% improvement in consumer value is required to change behavior";

📒 The Future of Money: 20 Predictions (Coindesk)

Coindesk reached out to some of the brightest minds in crypto to share their predictions on “the future of money”. The question was very open so the answers vary and that’s a good thing.
Definitely worth reading! You probably won’t agree with some predictions, others can be obvious to you, but maybe, just maybe, one of them can lead you to an idea of a new product? It’s just a 5 min read.

📗 Americans’ top brands of 2021 show the rising importance of fintech

Well-written piece that summarizes the results of a new study from Morning Consult about the fastest growing brands of 2021. Fintech companies are among them.
Below is a quick summary of fintech companies that “made it” and appeared in the study.
Gen Z (1995-2010):
- Zillow (real estate)
- Coinbase (crypto)
- and… Bitcoin (sic!)
  SOURCE: MORNING CONSULT
Gen Y - Millenials (1980 - 1995):
- Venmo (Payments)
- Cash App (Payments)
- Afterpay (BNPL)
- Affirm (BNPL)
- Credit Karma (Personal Finance)
SOURCE: MORNING CONSULT
Gen X (~1960 - 1980):
- Venmo (Payments)
- Chime (Neobank)
SOURCE: MORNING CONSULT
Baby Boomers (~1940 - 1960s):
- only one: Cash App (Payments)

Fastest Growing Brands 2021: Baby Boomer — SOURCE: MORNING CONSULT

Gold Tweets 🏅

Storing & moving money often come together. Not true anymore?

Jason Mikula @mikulaja

It's been a given that STORING money (deposits) and MOVING that money (payments) typically come together. But with growth of A2A & real-time payments, that may not hold. Success of Affirm's Debit+ is a good indicator to watch on this.

Nice chart showing the market cap of top 10 proof-of-stake blockchains / top 10 proof-of-work blockchains. The ratio is very close to 1.0…

Tascha @RealNatashaChe

The flippening is near.

In the first issue of “Fintech meets crypto”, I informed you that Ethereum surpassed (by market cap) the largest bank in the world (JPMorgan Chase). Back then the value of these two was around $500B. And now…