Apple — Fintech and DeFi Research Archive

Posts tagged Apple

Origins of Metamask's 20 million Web3 users, with co-founder Dan Finlay

In this conversation, we chat with Daniel Finlay – a former Apple software developer, co-founder and co-lead developer on MetaMask – a non-custodial Ethereum wallet, allowing users to store Ether and other ERC-20 tokens and make transactions. Further. With the growth of DeFi and NFTs over the past year, MetaMask has increased in prominence as an entry point for novice users. So much so that its user base is now over 20 million monthly active users.

More specifically, we touch on how Dan went from teaching kids to code to having an app rejected by the Apple App Store to MetaMask, the philosophy behind e-government, questioning the role and job of software engineers, how crypto wallets compare to neobanks, and so so much more!

paytech, metaverse, crypto, decentralized finance, DAOs, digital investingLex SokolinDecember 3, 2021MetaMask, Apple, Ethereum

Why Facebook is domain squatting on the Metaverse

We discuss the Facebook pivot into the metaverse and its rebrand into Meta. Our analysis touches on the competitive pressures faced by the company from big tech players, other ecosystem builders, and limits to growth for a $1 trillion business that likely motivated this refocus. We further dive into network effects around platforms, and why super apps and financial features are attractive, and how owning the hardware is a required defensive strategy. Lastly, we discuss these development through the crypto and Web3 lens, deeply disappointed with Facebook trying to domain park a generational opportunity with a centralized solution.

central bank / CBDC, metaverse, decentralized finance, NFTs and digital objects, big techLex SokolinNovember 3, 2021Facebook, Meta, Apple, Amazon, Google, Cryptovoxels, The Sandbox, Libra / Diem

Financial Mythmaking with $200MM of Loot NFTs and their growing world

We discuss the top-down and bottoms-up approaches to innovation and project building. For the former, we reference Australia’s draconian surveillance laws, and the integration of US driver’s licenses into Apple’s wallet. For the latter, we dive into the Ethereum-based Loot project and its incredible derivatives, $500MM token, and $200MM of volume. Last, we conclude by highlighting the role of creators on the coming wave of Fintech.

identity and privacy, governance, metaverse, NFTs and digital objects, gaming & sports, exchanges / cap mkts, social & community, regulation & complianceLex SokolinSeptember 6, 2021Apple, Australia, DocuSign, Ethereum, Loot, Step

Grab's $40 billion SPAC in the context of Uber's borked neobank, Apple's iOS, and Ant Financial's superapp

This week, we look at:

The economics of Southeast Asia’s largest super-app and its $40 billion SPAC valuation
The industrial logic of building out financial features adjacent to the core business of transportation and delivery
Why this model has not worked for Uber, but has worked for Apple, and the broader impact on financial services.

IPO / SPAC, neobank, super appLex SokolinApril 19, 2021Grab, Uber, Apple, Reliance Jio

Who are the customers of Embedded Finance, and what do they reveal about Stripe, Affirm, DriveWealth, and Green Dot?

This week, we look at:

Embedded finance as a growing theme with the $10B Affirm IPO and Stripe's launch of Treasury
The customer types that each of these firms is attempting to convert into their product, and what this tells us about economic growth
A framework for understanding the emerging value chain of digital finance, and the role of platforms and marketplaces

embedded finance, digital lending, paytech, big techLex SokolinDecember 7, 2020Affirm, Stripe, Shopify, Green Dot, Finicity, Galileo, DriveWealth, Zwift, BBVA, Santander, Uber, Apple, Stash, Wealthfront, Intuit, WooCommerce

Google banking shows that tech giants are the storefront for everything, and other distributors will fade away

The tech companies will become the storefront to absolutely everything.

There is no Internet, there is only Google.

There is no commerce, there is only Amazon.

There is no finance, there is only WeChat / Tencent?

I don't know about you, but I cannot pay for anything in cash in London anymore. COVID has made the city go cashless. For China, QR codes have long replaced the need for paper money. And if there is no cash, what is the point of ATMs, and ATM fees, and bank branches, and bank branch staff? Financial firms no longer need to be the place where you shop for financial product.

big tech, neobank, digital transformationLex SokolinAugust 10, 2020Google, Apple, Amazon, Tencent, PayPal, Affirm, Mobeewave

OpenAI, backed with $1B+ by Elon Musk & MSFT, can now program SQL and write Harry Potter fan-fiction

This week, we look at a breakthrough artificial intelligence release from OpenAI, called GPT-3. It is powered by a machine learning algorithm called a Transformer Model, and has been trained on 8 years of web-crawled text data across 175 billion parameters. GPT-3 likes to do arithmetic, solve SAT analogy questions, write Harry Potter fan fiction, and code CSS and SQL queries. We anchor the analysis of these development in the changing $8 trillion landscape of our public companies, and the tech cold war with China.

big tech, artificial intelligence, civilization and politics, China, metaverse, visual artLex SokolinJuly 27, 2020Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, China, GPT-3, OpenAI, Elon Musk

Cash App, Venmo, Digital Wallets and Challenger Banks with ARK Invest

Welcome back to the Fintech Blueprint / Rebank podcast series hosted by Will Beeson and Lex Sokolin. Max Friedrich is a fintech analyst a ARK Invest, a public markets investment manager focused on disruptive technologies including autonomous tech, robotics, fintech, genomics and next generation internet. Max recently published a report on digital wallets, including Venmo and Square’s Cash App, which is available for download on ARK’s website. In this conversation, we explain why Cash App has seen exponential growth.

neobank, paytech, eCommerceLex SokolinJune 5, 2020ARK Invest, Square, Venmo, WeChat Pay, Ant Financial, Samsung, Apple, Goldman Sachs, Zelle, PayPal, N26, Bitcoin, Gen Z

Apple's augmented reality leak, and what Fintech should do for the coming Multiverse

This week, let's dive into the Apple augmented reality glasses leak, the Magic Leap $350 million financing, and the uncanny imagery created by Epic Games' Unreal Engine. We summarize and pull apart the thesis of the Metaverse -- a virtual world as realistic and economically important as our own -- and how media and financial companies should think about the opportunity.

augmented reality, metaverseLex SokolinMay 25, 2020Disney, Netflix, Unreal, Fortnite, Alethea, Magic Leap, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Stadia, Epic Games, Tencent

Inside The Decision to Shutter Moven’s B2C Business, with Brett King

Today we're joined by Brett King, founder and executive chairman of Moven, one of the world's original digital banks, and Lex Sokolin, global head of fintech at ConsenSys. Lex and I discussed Moven's recent announcement to shutter its B2C business on episode 170 of Rebank. And we're happy to have the opportunity to connect with Brett directly to discuss the decision in more detail.

digital transformation, neobank, venture capitalLex SokolinMay 5, 2020Moven, Brett King, Google, Apple, Simple Bank, TD Bank, Westpac, Monzo, CBW Bank, The Bancorp, TxVia, Revolut, Chime, MoneyLion, ACH, N26

Apple and Google help with government contact tracing, setting stage for war over Data

This week, we dive into the social, economic, and financial implications of data in a post-COVID world. As Apple and Google work to build out the government's contact tracing apps to combat pandemic, what Pandora's box are we opening without consideration? As Plaid reaches into payroll data to accelerate small business bailouts, what power do we hand to aggregators? Will dignity-preserving solutions come to market in time? The opportunity for decentralized identity and data storage is clearer than ever. Or will fear drive us to make permanent compromises?

philosophy, macroeconomics, covid pandemic, embedded finance, identity and privacyLex SokolinApril 13, 2020Apple, Google, Covid, Napster, Plaid, IPFS / Filecoin

Unicorn valuations are bad for your health -- the Prisoner's Dilemma of WeWork and Magic Leap

Why are high valuations bad? You've heard me talk about how the trend of Fintech bundling, and the unicorn and decacorn valuations led by SoftBank and DST Global, are creating underlying weakness in the private Fintech markets. Of course, they are also creating price compression and consolidation in the public markets (e.g, Schwab/TD, Fiserv/First Data) across sub-sectors. But public companies are at least transparent and deeply analyzed. Private companies have beautiful websites, charismatic leaders, and impressive sounding investors. Often when you look under the hood, it's just a bunch of angry bees trying to find something to sting.

philosophy, venture capital, game theoryLex SokolinDecember 16, 2019SoftBank, DST Global, WeWork, Magic Leap, Snap Inc, Apple, Google, Brex

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