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Future

An economic catastrophe and an apology

I got hauled up the other day by someone who thought I was very insensitive in blogging about this crisis as an economic one, but not a catastrophic one. What I actually wrote was (I’ve amended it slightly since): Someone wrote the other day that this pandemic is like a world war. It’s not. A world…

This is no Black Swan (Part Two)

I was having a bit of ding-dong over my article about the coronavirus pandemic being perfectly predictable and not a black swan. There are many who believe the reaction to the pandemic is a black swan, as in the lockdown of Planet Earth. Hmmm … what reaction did we think we would have to a…

Is the whole system about to fail?

I’m a simple guy. I don’t trade or invest much. That may seem surprising for a FinTech guy, but most of what I’ve invested in seems to lose value. As a result, I collect rare comics instead as Batman, Spiderman and Ironman are forever. That being said, I do follow some of the leading figures…

2020: No Vision (I thought we were an autonomous collective)

Like many, I’ve watched 2020 unfold with a mixture of shock and horror. It began with Australian bushfires followed rapidly by the coronavirus pandemic and now the Black Lives Matter demonstrations. My real shock was that there could be so many global demonstrations during a major global lockdown. Do rules matter? Not really. But then…

I’m not a futurist

The other day, I said that I was confused about the future. Some folks said that seems strange for ‘a futurist’, but I’m not a futurist. I’m just a guy who looks to the future and tries to understand and predict what I can. We often get predictions wrong. The future isn’t what it used…

2030 arrives in 2020

I got a chart this week that made me smile. This is it … In one month, retail sales jumped massively from 16% to 27% of all sales. The end of main street is nigh. Other facts and figures that made me smile were Amazon’s retail sales jumping 26% in Q1 2020, Zoom moving from…

The end of main street

Wondering about the future. Always wondering about the future. Thinking about where things are going. It’s the only thing we don’t know. We know the past; we live in the present; we wonder about the future. What’s my future? What’s your future? What’s the future for our children and our children’s children? What’s the future?…

Goldman Sachs compare bitcoins to tulips, and cryptofolks aren’t happy

Goldman Sachs just became the bad boy on the block in the bitcoin brethren by saying bitcoin has nothing behind it. Remember last week when we were all bullish for the Goldman Sachs Bitcoin call? L pic.twitter.com/W5lRyx1L5Y — Zack Voell (@zackvoell) May 27, 2020 However, when you look at their presentation … … they don’t…

What happens to customers who don’t want digital?

Living in a digital world, it’s hard to imagine being disconnected. Yet, some people are. According to a recent survey by Which? Magazine, four percent of consumers don’t have a mobile phone. Personally, I cannot imagine living without a mobile phone, but some people are happy to be off the network. However, there’s an issue…

The future of payments post-pandemic (free research report)

During this quiet period of time, it’s a good time for reflection and I was lucky enough to be commissioned to produce some research on how European FinTech influencers see the future of payments post-pandemic. I’m releasing the report today and here’s the opening summary: When the Covid-19 pandemic hit Europe in early 2020, it…

What is the future?

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