2020 has seen plenty of fintech M&A - LendingClub buying Radius Bank, Intuit acquiring Credit Karma and of course with Visa buying Plaid. You might think the current crisis would reduce activity but it could create more opportunities.
There’s quite a lot of technical lingo in this Unfiltered. We know that’s not really our style, but we’re talking about some big ideas here. If you’re into crypto and keen to see what else we know, get in touch. This is taken from our Unfiltered newsletter. Subscribe now for a no BS, uncensored analysis of fintech news and hot topics delivered to your inbox each fortnight.
This past weekend an estimated 177m people tuned in as Matthew Stafford’s (strong surname BTW) LA Rams defeated the Cincinnati Bengals at Super Bowl LVII.
Providing the best service to have the largest market share. That’s what banks want to be and want to have. And for a very long time they did.
What. A. Year. Suffice to say, 2020 has been a year like no other. Some industries have been dealt a crushing blow by the pandemic, and while fintech hasn’t come out of it unscathed, parts of the industry have flourished.
As July continues apace, brands all over the world are rolling up their rainbow logos and packing them away for another year.
There is huge growth projected for digital financial services in Southeast Asia but up to 50% of the population are unbanked and will therefore remain excluded from this explosion.
By now we’ve surely all heard of NFTs. Seemingly overnight they’ve grown from a niche internet phenomenon to a household buzzword with everyone from Gary Vaynerchuk, Tim Berners Lee, Banksy and even Lionel Messi having a piece of the pie.
Crypto is democratising finance and it’s a beautiful thing to see.

TL;DR None of the challenger banks use blockchain, the guy who’s leading the most popular smart contract platform (Ethereum) say’s it’s a bad idea. So, I mean read on…but. No, don’t use a blockchain or smart contracts for the love of god.

It’s about trust. Why do banks insist on having everything? Because they think if they only insist on some, they’ll never get the rest.

As you may have noticed I’ve been doing a lot of teasing around this for the last few months. Well today...right now...is the grand reveal as we celebrate the public launch of our 11:FS values.

The challenges (and opportunities) ahead for enterprise applications of distributed ledger tech.

Let’s start by calling Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) what it is - debt. Debt, of course, has many faces. But ‘credit, pay in instalments, pay nothing today, etc.’ are all just debt. This is taken from our Unfiltered newsletter. Subscribe now for a no BS, uncensored analysis of fintech news and hot topics delivered to your inbox each fortnight.

The Pulse team spends their time trawling through the world of banks and fintech apps, sorting the good from the bad so you don’t have to.

We. Are. Here. Today we bring you: a live bonus episode! Mauricio Magaldi is joined live on stage at Blockchain Rio by some great guests from Ibmec, BNDES, COINFABRIK and NEKTRA to discuss what the state of blockchain is currently like in Latam. All this and much more on today's Blockchain Insider!

EL. EF. GEE. Today we bring you: Latin American crypto firm Ripio launches prepaid crypto card in Brazil, Steven Bartlett’s web3 creator platform Thirdweb raises £20m, and Netflix enters Decentraland metaverse promoted by Ryan Gosling. All this and much more on today's Blockchain Insider!

A little bonus to end the year, we're not all perfect here at Blockchain Insider. To prove it Simon's got a quick cut of some of the funniest mistakes we made this year.

We. Are. Here. Today we bring you: a very exciting deep dive: this time - into film and web3. How do films and filmmaking change and work in web3? Does web3 have the power to revolutionise the process of filmmaking as we know it, and could it encourage more diversity and inclusivity? All this and much more on today's Blockchain Insider!

David M. Brear is joined by some great guests, from Floor NFTs, Nestcoin and The Cryptocurrency Revolution, to discuss the design of crypto products for traditional finance audiences.

EL. EF. GEE. Today we bring you: hackers drain £5m from 8,000 wallets linked to Solana crypto network, Nomad crypto bridge loses $200 million in ‘chaotic’ hack, US Senators push bill to make small crypto transactions tax-free, and Revolut partners with Polkadot to launch “Learn to Earn” feature. All this and much more on today's Blockchain Insider!

We. Are. Here. Today we bring you: another deep dive: this time - into remittances. What role can crypto play in this sector, and what might the future hold? All this and much more on today's Blockchain Insider!

We. Are. Here. Today we bring you: a special bonus interview with author and presenter Jamie Bartlett, where we chat about all things Missing Cryptoqueen, and his new book: “The Missing Cryptoqueen: The Billion Dollar Cryptocurrency Con and the Woman Who Got Away with It”. All this and much much more! All this and much more on today's Blockchain Insider!

EL. EF. GEE. Today we bring you: UK Treasury to introduce stablecoin regulation within weeks, MakerDAO members vote on $100M DAI vault for bank, and the FBI adds missing Cryptoqueen, Ruja Ignatova, to top ten most wanted. All this and much more on today's Blockchain Insider!

We. Are. Here. Today we bring you: an episode focused on ownership. Ownership is web3’s ability to prove that digital assets are owned by users. But how exactly does it work? How is it different from the world of web2? And what changes can we expect to see in the world now that assets are on-chain? All this and much more on today's Blockchain Insider!

EL. EF. GEE. Today we bring you: Key US senators introduce crypto bill outlining sweeping plan for future rules, the crypto community says the UK's FCA is finally starting to listen, and Jay-Z and Jack Dorsey launch 'Bitcoin Academy' at rapper's childhood home in Brooklyn. All this and much more on today's Blockchain Insider!

David M. Bear is joined by some great guests, from Fintech Business Weekly and Railsr to ask what can the crypto industry learn from traditional finance?

We. Are. Here. Today we bring you: a deep dive into real world use cases. We'll take a look at what real life use cases really means, cover some fantastic case studies and discuss what the role of wallets is within all of this. All this and much more on today's Blockchain Insider!

Mauricio Magaldi and Simon Taylor take a deep dive into the Terra/LUNA story for this very special bonus episode of Blockchain Insider.

We. Are. Here. Today we bring you: Terra terror: Luna nosedives under $2 and algo Stablecoin TerraUSD loses 98% of its value, ex-Meta crypto chief launches Bitcoin payments start-up while Meta’s Instagram partners with Polygon in NFT push, and regulation is a hot topic again, with countries like the UK, Germany and Portugal unveiling new plans. All this and much more on today's Blockchain Insider!

The UK banking battlefield has never been more competitive. Customers expectfinancial apps that are personalised, seamless, and that genuinely make a differenc...


The UK banking battlefield has never been more competitive. Customers expectfinancial apps that are personalised, seamless, and that genuinely make a differenc...

