asset management — Fintech and DeFi Research Archive

Pioneering Crypto ETPs to $3B in assets in 3 years, with 21Shares CEO Hany Rashwan

In this conversation, we chat with Hany Rashwan – the founder of Amun and 21Shares. Hany built the company that put out the first physically backed crypto Exchange Traded Product (ETP). In simpler terms, he created a vehicle for people to buy crypto assets, such as Bitcoin or Ethereum, on the stock market. Alongside Cathie Wood of ARK, 21Shares recently submitted a Bitcoin ETF to the SEC. While he waits for the US to get on board, Hany's products are already offered all over Europe, with more than $3 billion under management.

More specifically, we touch on his early entrepreneurial mindset which lead him to building successful businesses, how currency devaluation in Egypt pushed him to create 21Shares, what an Exchange Traded Product (ETP) is and how it related to Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), the regulatory landscape for crypto-backed ETPs, and so so much more!

Robinhood's order flow disrupting equities and crypto market structure, with Paul Rowady of Alphacution

In this conversation, we chat with Paul Rowady is the Founder and Director of Research for Alphacution Research Conservatory and a 30-year veteran of proprietary, hedge fund and capital markets research, trading and risk advisory initiatives. Alphacution is a digitally-oriented research and strategic advisory platform focused on modeling and benchmarking the impacts of technology on global financial markets and the businesses of trading, asset management and banking. This data-driven approach allows Alphacution to reverse-engineer the operational dynamics of these market actors to showcase the most vivid and impactful themes among the field of available research providers and platforms.

eToro CEO Yoni Assia on the purpose of investing, crypto assets, and building a $10B fintech

In this conversation, we talk all things capital markets and investing with Yoni Assia, the founder and CEO of eToro, one of the fastest-growing and largest global digital investing companies, brokerages, and applications out there.

More specifically, we discuss the eating habits of Warren Buffet, community-driven investment challenging incumbent investing practices, the purposes of investing and trading, of financial health, of investment education, of gamification of investment strategy, of capital markets and GameStop and the connection between capital, memes and fashion, and finally machine learning’s influence of investment behaviour.

A meditation on capitalism, the grey goo, and the Borganisms

You work. You get money. You take money and invest it. If you are lucky, it becomes larger. Otherwise, it becomes smaller. If you have a lot of money, you can either start a company or not. If you start a company, you invest in your own ability to influence outcomes and in your own transformation function. There are other, personal utility functions also being satisfied in executing the transformation function. Alternately, you focus on the work of getting capital into other companies. For this allocation and selection work, you are rewarded. To this, you can add the capital of others, until you are doing selection on their behalf.

The $2.2 billion Acorns SPAC and a $50 billion fintech roll-up strategy for public funds

This week, we cover these ideas:

The Acorns SPAC deal, including its valuation and detailed metrics
The growth levers and obstacles for point-solutions as they scale into the millions of users and hundred of millions of revenues
What a $50 billion fund should do to roll this stuff up

It is looking like a pretty good time to go consolidating individual financial product footprints. Leaving aside whether consolidated companies are good or bad for some particular reason, the simple observation is that there are just far too many point-solution brands out there. Too many to be left alone to operate. And now a number of them are going to be public, which means that a number of them are going to be up for sale.

IPO / SPAC, digital investing, roboadvisor, asset managementLex SokolinJune 1, 2021Acorns

How M1 Finance's $3B AUM super-app is outcompeting Wealthfront, Robinhood, and Schwab, with CEO Brian Barnes

In this conversation, we talk with Brian Barnes of M1 Finance, about finance “super apps”, the cost-efficiencies of robo-advisors, fractionalized share trading, and tackling the titans of the Wealth Management industry. We also discuss the nuts and bolts of the financial infrastructure making this possible.

M1 Finance bundles together roboadvisory, neobanking and lending into a single “super app”, allowing for combined pricing power (i.e., charging nothing on asset allocation). The firm currently has $3 billion in AUM, a growth of 50% in the past four months and tripling their total in just over a year. Notably, the company has its own broker/dealer and offers fractional shares, and partners with Lincoln Savings bank on the deposit accounts. That makes for a compelling business model from securities lending, interchange, and order flow.

Connecting the $2T in Art owned by UHNW investors, with the rise of crypto art and Beeple's $3.5MM NFT digital art auction

A few delicious morsels for us today, connecting ideas between the automation of the institutional art world, and the rise of non-fungible token art. We are surprised by how things are clicking.

We caught up recently with Lori Hotz of Lobus. Lori used to work in the wealth and investment management businesses of Wall Street (Lehman, Lazard) and comes to art with a background of asset allocation and investment assets. One core narrative in wealth management has of course been roboadvisors and digital wealth, and the automation of the financial advisor process. Whether you are doing client experience, CRM, financial planning, trading, or performance reporting, there are now lots of platforms for everyone from mass-retail to ultra-high-net-worth and family office advisors.

How roboadvisors, B2C fintechs, and high tech giants are causing deep shifts in wealth management

We are syndicating a deep conversation across roboadvice, high tech and payments, and fintech bundling that we had with Craig Iskowitz of Ezra Group Consulting.

Check out Ezra Group Consulting here to learn more about digital wealth and Craig’s consulting practice. He is one of the sharpest software consultants in the RIA space, and his firm works with wealth management firms and fintech vendors to provide technology strategy and market research.

We had a lot of fun in this conversation and cover TD & Schwab, Wealthsimple, M1 Finance, Ant & Tencent, and Robinhood, among others. The full transcript is provided along with the recording — worth a read for the illustrations alone.

Why Peer-to-Peer models fail against oligopoly, with Lending Club shutting down p2p platform, Seedrs/Crowdcube merging, and Morgan Stanley buying Eaton Vance for $7B

This week, we look at:

Lending Club, the peer-to-peer lending innovator, turning off peer-to-peer lending after having a bank in its pocket
Consolidation of the UK's largest crowdfunders, CrowdCube and Seedrs, and their limited economics
The scale of the Morgan Stanley and Eaton Vance deal, creating a $1.2 trillion asset manager
The struggle of peer-to-peer models more generally, and whether the blockchain movement can overcome the Prisoner's Dilemma

Why Fintech Venture Capital firms are not returning your calls and emails

We look at why venture capital investors are slowing down, and the dynamics of how their portfolios work under duress. We talk about the incentives of limited partners to derisk exposure, the implication that has on cash reserves, new deals, and fundraising. We also touch on how the various Fintech themes are responding to an increase in digital interaction while seeing fundamental economic challenges. Shrewd competitors will be able to consolidate their positions and gain share during the crisis, but that will have to come from the balance sheet, not intermittent growth equity checks.

Why $2 trillion is barely enough for the coming unemployment spike, expected 20%+ GDP slow-down, and small business crunch

Another heavy week. It is hard to find the right, or even the interesting, thing to say. I look at why the $2 trillion in US bailouts may not even be enough to stave off the economic damage. In particular, I am alarmed by the large and fast rise of unemployment claims (higher than 2008 peak), estimates that GDP may fall by 20-30%, and the broad impact on small business. Small businesses have 27 days of cash on hand, and power half of our economies through both employment and output. So how do we meet this challenge? What strength should we draw on in the moment of doubt to become the artists of tomorrow?

macroeconomics, covid pandemic, asset management, small business, fixed incomeLex SokolinMarch 23, 2020Covid, GDP, SoftBank

Financial Empires fall -- HSBC to fire 35,000; E*TRADE sells to Morgan Stanley for $13B

I examine the unbelievable transformation and restructuring happening in high finance. Global bank HSBC is planning to lay off over 10% of staff, looking at reductions of 35,000. E*TRADE is being acquired by Morgan Stanley, integrating its 5,000,000 accounts and $360 billion of assets into the Wall Street investment firm. Legg Mason and its $800 billion of assets are being folded into Franklin Templeton for $4.5 billion, less than what Visa had paid for fintech data aggregator Plaid and half of what Robinhood is likely valued privately. How do we make sense of these developments? How do we appeal to the heart?

Can the $4 Trillion municipal bond market be a digital asset in your pocket?

I reflect on ConsenSys acquiring a broker/dealer focused on municipal bonds, and why we believe that blockchain-native platforms are a fantastic fit for this $4 trillion asset class. Can direct holding of franctional munis enable deeper community participation and usage of common resources? Are there new sources of liquidity to unlock? At the same time, there are real dangers. I compare the evolution of digital lenders and their funding sources against the current possibilities in municipal bond markets. We also look into the reasons that some innovative Fintechs have failed to achieve their stated missions, and what can be learned and done better.

Citi launches free roboadvisor, and how roboadvisors are like Twinkies

I discuss Citi's roboadvisor launch and why it took the firm 12 years to get to the party. We break down the difference between financial services ingredients and the organizations that combine those ingredients to manufacture and distribute financial products. We also look at how that consumer prerogative is defining the asset management industry, and the consolidation towards monolithic passive indexing providers. Last, we talk about how people prefer mass produced Twinkies to expensive artisanal desserts. Yummy!

7,000 bank branches shut down and 425,000 jobs lost -- melting Banking into a glass half full

Let's make a collective decision to see the glass as half-full. While physical banking (7,000 US branches gone during 2012-2017) and employment in the sector (425,000 jobs lost since 2013) has been contracting, digital commerce, banking, and investment management have been growing. Even DFA is finally giving in and lowering fees on their $600 billion institutional mutual fund family. Of course, Fintech has been a slow and gradual transformation, not a rapid disruption. We can make a choice to bemoan the loss of the past, or a choice to express an excitement for the future and participate in its making. Which side are you on?

Implications of Schwab's $26 billion acquisition of TD Ameritrade, and Tesla's black swan truck

Well this morning started out as a bit of a bummer! See -- Charles Schwab to buy TD Ameritrade in a $26 billion all-stock deal. The $55 billion market cap Schwab is gobbling up the $22 billion TD Ameritrade at a slight premium. Matt Levine of Bloomberg has a great, cynical take on the question: Schwab lowering its trading commissions to zero is actually what wiped out $4 billion off TD's marketcap a few months ago. For Schwab, the revenue loss from trading was 7% of total, while for TD it was over 20%. Once Schwab dropped prices, TD started trading at a discount and became an acquisition target. You can see the share price drops reflected below in the beginning of October.

How the SEC is wrong about the Internet and the Bitcoin ETF

The Securities and Exchange Comission punted again on allowing a passive Bitcoin ETF to enter the market. It failed to approve the VanEck SolidX Bitcoin Trust, instead opting to open a commentary period to address several questions around Bitcoin price formation and the health of the exchanges. A similar outcome faces the Bitwise Bitcoin ETF. You can tell I am not a fan of this waffling, and there are two core reasons: (1) the years-long delay and uncertainty is responsible for financial damage to both traditional and crypto investors, and (2) the premise of the objections misunderstand the environment of the Internet and the way our world is shaping up in the 21st century.

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