Fintech Focus For December 23, 2021

One Big Thing In Fintech: “If you look longer down the road, we would absolutely like to get involved in other asset classes, and to become a global liquidity venue across the board.”

That's according to Sam Bankman-Fried, the 29-year-old billionaire co-founder of FTX and Alameda Research.

Bankman-Fried has his sights on the opacity, tight control, and intermediation of traditional financial ecosystems.

In learning more about Bankman-Fried's mission to lower the barriers to traditional and emerging financial ecosystems, see below.

Source: Benzinga

Other Key Fintech Developments:

• Ant Money adds a $20M round.
• Mastercard buys Dynamic Yield. MA
• Prime Trust sees record growth.
• DeFinity, Cobalt are partnering.
• Monese has purchased Trezeo.
• Crypto companies raised $25B.
• PollenPay plans to push BNPL.
• Tomochain, Pastel partnered up.
• Acorns co-founder raises $20M.
• Uniswap is now live on Polygon.
• Paydrive, CMT are teaming up.
• B.Protocol adds $2.2M backing.
• RadioShack to intro crypto offer.

Watch Out For This: In the last quarter, 61% of Robinhood's total PFOF payments came from this one source. It was larger than PFOF from all other sources combined!

In 2020, it generated almost 46% of the TOTAL revenue!

Yet, it is rarely talked about.

Most of the PFOF debate concentrates on the more popular stocks and equities, even though they account for only 26% of the revenue.

Whereas the 46% chunk largely remains neglected…

Source: Grit Capital

Interesting Reads:

• Triller is going public via a SPAC. SEAC
• Zillow adds FaceTime SharePlay. Z
• Biden adds to repayment pause.
• Tesla seeks US battery graphite. TSLA
• Tech’s payment push scrutinized.
• Fact-checking stable coin myths.

Market Moving Headline: The coronavirus crisis permanently changed the way the world works, catapulting consumers and businesses into the digital age much faster and deeper than otherwise would have been the case.

Dismissing innovation strategies as “stay at home” glosses over a crucial point: innovation solves problems in a way that consumers and businesses adopt with relief, enthusiasm, and delight.

Critical to investment success will be moving to the right side of change, avoiding industries and companies caught in the crosshairs of “creative destruction” and embracing those on the leading edge of “disruptive innovation.”

Source: Ark Invest