Posts tagged OCC
How the OCC is building Crypto America and saving banks from extinction
How the OCC is building Crypto America and saving banks from extinction

This week, we look at:

  • How banks and financial advisors have failed to deliver on $1 trillion in capital appreciation for their clients over the last 12 years

  • The role of bank regulators in the United States, and the tensions between state and federal agencies

  • How the OCC is laying the groundwork for national banks to custody crypto assets, bank stablecoin reserves, run blockchain nodes, and use crypto payment networks

And instead of financial advisors or other CFAs guiding the retail market in good decision making, a newsfeed of *what’s popular* has driven Apple, Google, Tesla and the other John Galt hallucinations to the stratosphere. Don’t get us wrong. We love the robot as much as the next Fintech commentator. But it is clear to us that “the masses” are not being “advised”. And that the capital appreciation that matters — cementing the next trillion dollar networks for global future generations in work yet to emerge — is misunderstood and misrepresented by most financial professionals to their clients.

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open banking / PSD2, neobank, central bank / CBDC, crypto, stablecoins, decentralized finance, regulation & complianceLex SokolinOCC, Treasury, IRS, BitLicense, Wyoming
5 Reactions to Messari's 134 page crypto report
5 Reactions to Messari's 134 page crypto report

Sometimes more is more, and sometimes less is more.

In that spirit, we strongly urge you to check out Messari’s Crypto Theses for 2021. It is a mammoth work of 134 pages, covering each and every development in the ecosystem.

If you don’t want to fuss around with the email gate, the direct link is here.

We are going to pick out five things that are interesting to us substantively and provide a view below. By pick out, we mean screenshot and respond.

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decentralized finance, NFTs and digital objects, crypto, stablecoinsLex SokolinKraken, OCC, FTX, Blockfolio, Fireblocks, Curv, Bitcoin, USDT, Ethereum, SuperRare
Square's Robinhood competitor and Robinhood's Square competitor are rented from API providers, delegating billions
Square's Robinhood competitor and Robinhood's Square competitor are rented from API providers, delegating billions

I look at two mental models explaining why and how financial APIs have led to the creation of billions in enterprise value. The driving news is that Square Cash is competing with Robinhood in free trading, powered by trading API company DriveWealth. Last week, we saw that Chime, Robinhood, and Monzo were powered by payments API company Galileo. Should these enablers be worth the billion-dollar valuations of their clients? Are APIs inevitable technology progress? Or are we just seeing venture financing spilling desperately into a rebundling play to find profitability?

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embedded finance, neobank, digital investingLex SokolinTink, Codefi, Hydrogen Platform, Revolut, OCC, DriveWealth, Galileo, Plaid, The Bancorp, Green Dot, Current, Metropolitan Commercial Bank
Wealthfront's $1 Billion of Cash in Two Months
Wealthfront's $1 Billion of Cash in Two Months

In news of cross-selling financial products across categories, roboadvisor Wealthfront has gathered a nifty $1 billion of deposit assets for its 2.29% interest-yielding non-bank cash account. Given that the firm has a little over $10 billion in managed investment assets, charges somewhere between 0 and 25 bps on those assets, and took years of wiggly pivoting to get to the current stage, it is fair to consider this influx a big win in terms of client traction. It is also $22 million of annual interest payments. A couple of things come to mind that are worth pulling apart.

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embedded finance, roboadvisor, marketing, neobankLex SokolinWealthfront, SynapseFi, Revolut, Cambr, Mambu, Chime, SoFi, OCC, SEC