Issue 326 August 26th, 2021

When it comes to planning for your finances, who do you turn to? Friends? Family? Colleagues? Or the Internet? With global fintech investment reaching US$98 billion across 2,456 deals in the first half of 2021 alone, one would have thought that planning for longevity wouldn’t be such a shot in the dark. In this episode of One Vision, Theo and Bradley chat with Rhian Horgan, Founder and CEO of Silvur, about the state of retirement planning today and her journey towards helping baby boomers navigate retirement.

Anatoly Yakovenko, Founder/CEO of Solana, updates Kevin on the latest advancements of the Solona blockchain. They discuss the development doors opened with lighting fast L1 blockchains like Solana in the finance world. The implications of Neon Labs' deployment of a cross-chain Ethereum virtual Machine on Solana and purpose build Hardware development specifically for blockchains. And, of course, Kevin dives into NFT's on the Solana Blockchain.

Expectations of future central bank actions can always move markets but never more so than today. Investors need to watch for any potential shift in thinking. If balance sheet reduction becomes a priority, then the implications for global markets are profound.

Matt Hougan is the investing chief of $1.5 billion crypto asset manager Bitwise. Hougan lays out why he's "extraordinarily bullish" on ethereum. He also shares his views on rival tokens Solana (SOL) and Cardano (ADA).

The wallet’s launch will coincide with the “launch” of the country’s BTC law. Users will be able to withdraw their Bitcoin in El Salvador’s ATMs (“Cajeros Chivo). It will have a function to convert Bitcoin into Dollars.

While most BTC wallets are in profit, it’s also important to point out that the high values of the indicator may suggest that the traders will take profit soon because the market is getting oversaturated and they do not want to be victims of a potential market retrace.

Additionally, while Bitcoin’s development activity rises (according to Santiment’s data) and it highly correlates with its price, the 35-day intensive price increase may lead to skepticism among market influencers and participants. In conclusion, both technical indicators and market data suggest a slight overheat in the market.

Substack, an online content platform through which writers can make money from subscriptions, has integrated bitcoin as a payment option. The option is currently available only "to a select group of crypto-focused publications," a Substack spokesperson told The Block, adding: "We're looking forward to exploring broader availability depending on feedback and demand."

It’s a good time to be a fintech-focused VC. Over the past six months in Europe, there have been €22.6bn worth of exits, making a lot of investors mighty rich, according to PitchBook data.

Among the biggest exits were Wise’s £8bn direct listing and Visa’s planned acquisitions of Tink for €1.8bn and Currencycloud for £700m.

€22.6bn is already an all-time record and compares to less than $2bn in 2020, where there was an unexpected dearth in M&A activity.

An overview of the consequences of the fintech innovations on the banks balance sheets. The Open Banking wave that originated in Europe is now spreading to the whole world. Open Banking makes it possible for third parties to develop applications using banking data. This obviously presents a threat to revenue sources that banks have controlled for a long time. This article looks into the impact of Open Banking on the banking revenue structure and what role the prevailing low-interest environment could play in that.

Linktree, the popular “link in bio” service with more than 16 million users, is partnering with PayPal to expand its recently launched “Commerce Links” tools for direct payment on Linktree globally. The Melbourne-based startup says creators in over 200 countries where PayPal operates can now accept payments through the transaction tools.

Visa has bought CryptoPunk 7610 as it enters into the world of NFT commerce. “NFTs are an intersection of culture and commerce,” Visa’s head of crypto Cuy Sheffield told The Block.

Fintech services and neobanks have been established for many years now and have risen up to take on traditional banks, and they’ve done so smartly, recognizing wide and gaping gaps in the service and experience that today’s customers have demanded for some time.

Bank of Nova Scotia (Scotiabank) (BNS.TO) and Bank of Montreal (BMO.TO) kicked off Canadian lenders' third-quarter reporting on Tuesday by exceeding profit expectations, but BMO's revenue-driven results sparked more optimism than Scotiabank's.

Ever try to buy something online that's in high demand, like a new phone, only to get shut down because you can't get the page to load? You're a victim of distance. Your request had to go all the way to the regional data center and back, and it can't go faster than the speed of light.

Edge computing can help cut down that distance. Here are five things to know about edge computing.