Grid

Part of my network, Jim Richards posted an update on LinkedIn the other day which was measured and interesting. Jim is former Executive Vice-President of Financial Crimes at Wells Fargo, and knows a thing or two about the way banks work. I asked if I could share his post here, and Jim said yes, so,…

I’m talking so much about decentralised finance (DeFi) these days. I guess because I’m grappling with whether DeFi can replace CeFi (centralised finance). This tension is real. Can a world without borders on a global network replace the world with borders in a centralised network? It’s hard to say, but it’s fascinating to watch. A…

I don’t write often about the Wild West cases of  Cryptoland – well, I do actually – but this latest one is a pearler so, here we go! I’m adding this to the ten (no, twenty, thirty, forty, hundred or more) cases of bad actors in the Cryptoland. In this case Alex and Krissy Mashinsky, a…

Growing up hi-fi was High Fidelity, the best way to hear music. In 2022, HyFi is hybrid finance, the best way to use money. HyFi combines CeFi with DeFi. I don’t believe you can just have one. DeFi works for small things; CeFi is required for big things; HyFi allows both to work seamlessly. What…

I found a very interesting column on Forbes by Caitlin Long. She compares banking to the telco industry twenty-five years ago, and that the big telecoms firms all went bankrupt because they didn’t predict or see the impact of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol). I really enjoyed the article but, at the same time, found it…

This week’s main blog discussions include … If finance was a football team I had this strange dream the other night where I wondered what a financial institution would look like as a football team. Sure, it’s a weird thing to dream about, but it made sense, so I woke up and wrote down the…

I had this strange dream the other night where I wondered what a financial institution would look like as a football team. Sure, it’s a weird thing to dream about, but it made sense, so I woke up and wrote down the dream before going back to sleep again. Here is that dream: Welcome to…

Do we just end up with another standard? This cartoon strip amused me … … shared by my friend Theo. In fact, I blogged a while ago [2016] about “Standards – which one do you want?” The thing is that standards strike at the heart as to why blockchain has not really worked yet [I also…

I spotted an update from a colleague the other day, questioning the future of the big card processing companies. For me, they are a duopoly. Processing more than three-quarters of world card payments, and terminals and paypoints everywhere online and offline, I cannot see Visa or MasterCard (MasterChip?) disappearing in the near-term. That leaves a…

We’ve seen failures of systems in Zimbabwe, Venezuela and other nations. What if it was here? You think everything is stable, secure, reliable and resilient, and then suddenly it isn’t. Does this sound far-fetched? Well, it’s not. It could happen anywhere. I’ve been lucky enough to be in mostly positive worlds, where governments have ruled well…