Crowd Funding, Micro-funding, New Approach for Investors - Alternatives to Wall Street

As states push forward in their phased reopenings, we’re getting clues that the beleaguered U.S economy might be on its way to recovery. Retail sales spiked by 17.7 percent in May, and the unemployment rate unexpectedly dropped in that month as well — suggesting that Americans were returning to work and opening their wallets earlier than many expected. But experts still think that even if things are starting to look up now, we shouldn’t assume we’ll be back to normal anytime soon. In fact, economists think there are still significant economic risks despite the tentative rebound, including a second wave of COVID-19, an unwillingness to spend from consumers and an absence of an additional fiscal stimulus from Congress.  In partnership with the Initiative on Global Markets at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, FiveThirtyEight asked 34 quantitative macroeconomic economists what they thought about a variety of subjects around the coronavirus recession and recovery efforts. The most recent survey, which was conducted from June 19 through 22, echoed many of the predictions from the last round — though there were also a few new wrinkles in their forecasts.

When we first asked about the shape of the recovery, 58 percent of respondents thought the trajectory of future U.S. gross domestic product looked like a Nike “swoosh” — a sharp downturn followed by a long, slow recovery. This time around, however, a consensus has formed around a slightly different shape: a reverse radical (i.e., a mirrored version of the square-root symbol).  This shape — which 73 percent of our economists predicted for the country’s economic future — implies a steep drop followed by a quick partial recovery and a longer period of slower, mixed growth. But it isn’t necessarily an improvement over the swoosh. “There is nothing standard or smooth about this recovery,” said Lisa Cook, professor of economics and international relations at Michigan State University. In her view, a reverse-radical-shaped recovery could be shaped by a spike in infections and hospitalizations, a wave of bankruptcies as unemployment benefits expire or consumers’ unwillingness to return to gyms, nail salons or other parts of their routine. That could make the bounce back from this recession bumpier than previous recessions.  Twelve of the 17 economists who had predicted a swoosh in our survey in late May changed to the reverse radical this time, leaving just five respondents sticking with the swoosh in this round of the survey. (And no economist switched to the swoosh, another sign that other patterns fit the trajectory of this economic recovery better.)

The European Central Bank has just added to the boatloads of pandemic stimulus out there, credited for shielding stocks and investors from bad news. But stock futures are under pressure, which could threaten yet another winning session for the S&P 500  The index is up 40% from its March 23 lows, and some are nervous. It might be time to hold onto that long-term investing plan with both hands. Our call of the day, from Brad Neuman, investment strategist at equities manager Alger, is banking on 50-year technological revolutions, noting we’ve just finished one that has ended with smartphones and information in the palm of your hand.  “We think that we’re in a new long-term technological revolution, which we call the age of connected intelligence…and that means we think that there’s going to be a lot of connected devices,” Neuman tells MarketWatch. Think the “Internet of Things” and lots more data being produced and processed in the cloud, and more access to that data for everyone at an affordable price.   “Ultimately, all of that data being analyzed by these very advanced hardware and software systems manifests itself in artificial intelligence and better decision making,” he says.

Mobile payments are still in their infancy. While Apple Pay and Google Pay continue to grow at a fast pace, only a small percentage of consumers use them in comparison to credit cards and other established retail payment options.  So with the competition still yet to take hold, the industry is ripe for disruption through blockchain technology and distributed ledgers, but only as long as that process is made as easy, and as quick, as using the incumbent payment methods.  A global payments acceptance platform, Beam, is combining mobile phones and blockchain technology to provide a way of providing that ease-of-use and speed necessary for retail payments. And the company believes the time is right to introduce an alternate mobile payments solution.  “There are examples where adoption has been less slow,” Beam cofounder and CEO Serdar Nurmammedov told me. “In China, 90 percent of consumers use WeChat as payment for offline purchases. Take a place like the UAE, where the phone penetration rate is much higher than average at 228 percent, you’ll find higher rates of mobile payment adoption. In Dubai, for example, we have seen consumers willing to pay using their mobile when incentivized to do so. Over there, merchants have managed to eliminate payment processing fees altogether on the Beam network.”  So why does this need to exist? What’s wrong with the old way of paying for products in-store?

The current retail economy is rife with inefficiencies. According to studies, $4.5 trillion worth of value is extracted from and wasted in the global retail ecosystem by incumbent intermediaries.

Dr. David Brown, Healx's chief scientific officer, founded Healx in 2014 with Cambridge University professor Dr Andreas Bender and Dr Tim Guilliams, who completed a PhD at Cambridge in biophysical neuroscience before becoming an entrepreneur.    

Brown initially developed viagra to treat heart patients but it soon became apparent that it could be used for other purposes. That's essentially what he's trying to do now. Except this time, he wants to find out which existing drugs can be used to treat rare diseases (without too much tweaking).  To do this, Healx has developed a platform called HealNet, which the company describes as one of the world's most extensive knowledge bases for diseases. It's said to contain over a billion unique data points that connect diseases, patients and drugs. HealNet uses machine learning to find new uses for existing drugs. The aim is Healnet will lead to automated, large-scale drug discovery.

UK food regulator the Food Standard Agency (FSA) has successfully accomplished a pilot using blockchain technology according to an announcement published July 2. This was reportedly the first time blockchain has been used as a regulatory tool to ensure compliance in the food sector.  The pilot was implemented in a cattle slaughterhouse, where both the FSA and the slaughterhouse were authorized to access data in order to improve transparency in the food supply chain. In July, the agency is looking to launch another pilot, which will allow farmers to access data about animals from their farm. Sian Thomas, Head of Information Management, said:

“Our approach has been to develop data standards with industry that will make theory reality and I'm delighted that we've been able to show that blockchain does indeed work in this part of the food industry. I think there are great opportunities now for industry and government to work together to expand and develop this approach.”

In the future, the FSA states that they will attempt to replicate the program in other plants. The agency said that in order for blockchain to be permanently implemented, it must be an industry-led initiative, as the current data model is used only for the collection and communication of inspection results.  

Innovation, which is all about change in processes and products, is a challenging and sometimes frustrating process when you don't understand what kind of, and depth of organizational resistance you face in deploying a change into your or another's organization.

• I strongly recommend a review of this video from the Oxford Review's YouTube channel on how to increase adoption of your innovation that your company needs by taking an Evidence-Based approach, in attempting to plan and do that implementation activity, because it is a scientific approach that you can use to learn your way to a successful implementation. 
• If you're involved in Organizational Change, Organizational Development, or just want to learn more about the real nuts and bolts of "Change Agency" that is actually effective, then I strongly recommend, signing up for a subscription at the Oxford-Review, the information, knowledge, "know-how", and outright wisdom you will find that the Oxford-Review is your "Go To Source" for helping you to manage the change process, methods, tools, frameworks and understanding to make your more effective are found here.  I cannot recommend it more highly.   

W hen innovation is the lifeblood, of your company, you can’t rely solely on the fickleness of inspiration. Dow answers these dictates with a systematic blend of Six Sigma, Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) and the creativity method known as TRIZ, which supplants inspiration with investigation. It has proven to be a powerful combination.  “Six Sigma and DFSS bring the kind of up-front decision making that makes sure the problems you’re workingon are important to the business,” said Tom Kling, a longtime Dow employee who served as Master Black Belt for

the installation and start-up of Six Sigma and DFSS in the
company’s 1,700-person corporate R&D department.  TRIZ, on the other hand, “helps you arrive at new solutions by importing technical solutions or scientific principles from other disciplines,” he said. “So you solve design problems much more quickly.”

While Bitcoin ended the day with a 4 percent decline in its value, Ether, the native cryptocurrency of Ethereum, plummeted by 13 percent against the US dollar, becoming one of the worst performing major cryptocurrencies alongside NEO.

Tokens recorded the steepest drop in their value on August 11, as most Ethereum-based tokens such as Theta Token, Aion, Pundi X, Aelf, DigixDAO, WanChain, and VeChain recorded a drop of around 14 to 18 percent.

Bitcoin Breaks 50% Dominance

For the first time in 2018, Bitcoin, the most dominant cryptocurrency in the global market, has obtained 50 percent of the market share, securing its year-to-date (YTD) high on the dominance index.

The sudden increase in the dominance index of Bitcoin which coincided with the spike in the volume of Tether have demonstrated that investors have become reluctant towards taking high-risk and high-return trades, mostly due to the lack of confidence in the short-term trend of the market.

Over the past few weeks, tokens have lost over 50 percent of their value against Bitcoin, which has also fallen by more than 20 percent since late July. For instance, EOS, dubbed the “Ethereum Killer,” has dropped 50 percent of its market valuation in the past 30 days, due to the instability and volatility in the market.

In recent months, the volume of BTC and the rest of the crypto market have substantially decreased. In late July, when BTC initiated a promising run to the higher end of $8,000, its volume neared the $6 billion mark.

As of August 11, the volume of BTC remains below $4.4 billion while the volume of Tether (USDT), a stablecoin whose value is hedged to that of the US dollar, has increased to $2.8 billion, more than $1.2 billion higher than the volume of Ethereum.

Since July, traders have discovered that the price trend of small cap tokens generally follow the price trend of XRP and EOS. In the past 24 hours, Ripple and EOS have dropped 11 percent of their value against the US dollar.

Where Does the Market go Next?

Due to the overly strong downtrend of major cryptocurrencies, in order for the cryptocurrency market to engage in a large mid-term bull run, the market would need to bottom out at a lower price range.

Yesterday, on August 10, CCN reported that analysts see BTC testing a major support level at around $5,800.

“If the price movement of BTC in the short-term plays out the same way as February, April, and May, BTC will likely fall below $6,000 in the upcoming days, possibly bottoming out at $5,700

This is not a riveting topic for many people, but it may surprise you to learn the company has just raised $100 million. It raised the money via a future token sale from institutional investors, and Hedera will use the money to create a new commerce network based on its “hashgraph consensus” technology.  Hedera Hashgraph derives its name from an algorithm. It is based on the “hashgraph consensus” technology that gets around the big trade-off related to blockchain, the fundamental technology behind cryptocurrency. Blockchain can be fast but unsecure, or secure and slow. Hedera Hashgraph aims to build a fast and secure blockchain alternative.  Mance Harmon, CEO of the Dallas, Texas-based company, will use the money to build out the Hashgraph network and set up a micropayment system that uses the core tech. Put simply, the company hopes to disrupt the world’s financial systems, Harmon said in an interview with VentureBeat this week.  “As a technology, it’s a fundamental advance in the world of distributed systems,” Harmon said in an interview with VentureBeat. “It has fantastic performance, and it achieves the best in security one can have in the field.”

He added, “Small systems have achieved this in the past, but never at scale. Bitcoin had terrible performance, but it is reasonably secure. It was always a trade-off. What hashgraph does for the first time is break that trade-off, maximizing both security and performance.”

In its latest move against cryptocurrencies, Google announced its plans to remove all bitcoin and cryptocurrency mining apps from the Play Store. The decision comes just months after banning Chrome extensions that mine cryptocurrency.  Google announced the decision to ban crypto-mining apps on the Play Store’s developer policy page, saying, “We don’t allow apps that mine cryptocurrency on devices. We permit apps that remotely manage the mining of cryptocurrency.”  Although users can no longer mine directly from their devices, Google is still allowing developers to release applications that allow mining to be done elsewhere, like on cloud-based computer platforms.

Popularity of Cryptocurrency Mining

The popularity of cryptocurrency mining surged in late 2017 during the bull run in the crypto markets.  Sales of GPUs skyrocketed to a point where GPU producers, like Nvidia, saw price surges in their stock due to higher than normal earnings.

The process of mining uses up a significant amount of computing power, and the profitability is directly related the amount of processing power a miner can contribute. Access to highly profitable mining rigs is limited due to the tremendous expenses that stem from sizable equipment and electricity costs.

The decision to ban mining extensions from Chrome and mining apps from the Play Store is likely due to the risks they can pose to a device. Both phones and computers can suffer from internal damage due to mining if it is not properly managed. The risks of mining are highlighted by the effects of mining malware that has been circling through public Wi-Fi networks and websites over the past year.

Kaspersky Lab, a Russian security firm, recently reported the effects of merely two days of Monero mining on a laptop.  They reported that the internals of the device showed physical damage, including a swollen battery that damaged the exterior shell of the laptop.

Not Google’s First Move Against Cryptocurrencies

In March, CNBC reported that Google was placing a ban on all cryptocurrency-related advertisements on its platform.  The ban was similar in structure to the bans placed on crypto advertising by social media giants Twitter and Facebook.

The ban was implemented with the goal of reducing the number of scams promoted through Google’s search platform, but it also prohibited legitimate businesses, like Coinbase and Binance, from running ads.

Google’s director of sustainable ads, Scott Spencer, spoke to CNBC regarding the decision, saying:

“We don’t have a crystal ball to know where the future is going to go with cryptocurrencies, but we’ve seen enough consumer harm or potential for consumer harm that it’s an area that we want to approach with extreme caution.”

Less than one month after banning cryptocurrency ads, Google announced that they would no longer accept Chrome extensions that mine cryptocurrency. Google announced the decision on their blog, saying:

“Starting today, Chrome Web Store will no longer accept extensions that mine cryptocurrency. Existing extensions that mine cryptocurrency will be delisted from the Chrome Web Store in late June. Extensions with blockchain-related purposes other than mining will continue to be permitted in the Web Store.”

Bill Gates recently invested $750 million for a majority share in an automated trading software called Bitcoin Trader. The founder of Microsoft expects to double his investment in 6 months. This is thanks to the Bitcoin boom and Microsoft's huge database of machine learning.  Mr. Gates believes in financial freedom for all. Although his ideas seem crazy to many, Bill is proving them wrong year after year. He has been using his wealth to make the world a healthier and happier place. Bitcoin Trader is his latest project. 'I want people to reach financial independence. They shouldn't be slaves of economic booms and depressions', Gates announced in a TEDx talk. That's why he acquired Bitcoin Trader.

What exactly is Bitcoin Trader? It's a financial technology with a plan to redistribute the world's wealth. It takes from the top 0.1% and gives back to 99.9%.  Bill Gates believes wealth is not spread out enough for a good future. Yes, there always will be a rich class but the current situation is not acceptable. It can lead to great social issues in the future. Today, the top 0.1% controls almost 90% of world wealth. Gates believes he can cut that down to 20%.  So how does this affect regular working people like us? This means you will become 2 - 3 times wealthier, and no one except the super-wealthy will take a hit. Sounds amazing, doesn't it?  How does it work? Simple! The richest top 0.1% in the world keep their wealth invested in assets.Wall Street traders trade these assets for them. Bitcoin Trader beats the Wall Street traders at their own game. Bitcoin Trader wins so many trades that Wall Street loses a lot of money over time.  To do this you need better asset prediction than Wall Street. That is where Bitcoin comes in. With the help of a huge machine learning cloud and the volatile Bitcoin price, it's actually already happening! The more often the price of Bitcoin changes, the more chances it has to grab profits from Wall Street. This is why Gates jumped on this technology as soon as he heard about it. It's revolutionary.

Here is a list of some of the areas in financial services that are seeing major overhauls:

Credit Scoring: Undoubtedly, one of the major sectors that has seen unprecedented new solutions leveraging big data is lending and credit scoring. For decades, credit scores provided based on basic financial transaction served as the norm for all credit activities in the financial services space. Essentially, these new sources go beyond the available quantitative data from banks and assess qualitative concepts like – behavior, willingness, ability, etc. The growth in segments such as P2P Lending, SME Financing is a result of these innovative scoring models. Examples of such startups include Credit Sesame, Faircent, OnDeck, Kabbage, LendingClub, Prosper, ZestFinance and Vouch Financial. 

Customer Acquisition: The cost of acquisition drops drastically for customer acquisition when we compare the physical to digital channels providing huge benefits to both financial services firms as well as startups. Place – one of the four Ps of marketing – has been dominated by the digital channel by both customers and clients. Increasingly, the customers’ behavior to use digital channels coupled with low-cost advantages for clients (especially in financial services) makes this a major focus area. Leveraging big data, financial services are moving to digital channels to acquire customers. The growth in number of offerings which are moving online – direct investment plans, online savings/deposit account opening, automated advisory services – provides a clear indication of the importance of digital channels for financial services.

Marketing, Customer Retention, and Loyalty Programs: Contextual and personalized engagements – be it in product/service advertising or discount offerings, have become the norm of many new-age companies. Analytic solutions that combine historic transactional data coupled with external information sources increase the overall conversion rate. Many financial services firms partner/acquire/invest in startups and growth-stage companies, and are actively pursuing these services. Firms are effectively leveraging these solutions to increase the cross-sell and upsell opportunities, understanding customer requirements and providing customized packaging. Card-linked offers, customized reward solutions are some of the offerings that are being provided by FinTech firms.

Some solutions in marketing, loyalty and customer acquisition space are Cartera Commerce, Cardlytics, Truaxis (acquired by MasterCard in 2012), Segmint, Personetics, etc.

Risk Management: World-over, real-time payments have taken center stage in the past decade and hence, there is a requirement for enhanced risk management solutions in this new environment. Predictive analytics that utilizes device identification, biometrics, behavior analytics, etc. are major driving factors (each solution or a combination of each of them) for better risk management solutions in the fraud and authentication space. Firms that execute well on eradicating vulnerable access points would benefit not only in terms of lower losses but it also increases stickiness to their solutions. Apart from banks’ own initiatives, various regulations are also enforcing rules that make it vital for banks to store and manage more information about payments. Hence, apart from just storing this data, banks look at building powerful algorithms that mine this data and provide actionable insights. Some startup solutions in this space are BillGuard, Centrifuge, Feedzai, Klarna, etc.

Investment Management: Investment management as a segment has witnessed innovation on multiple fronts. While robo-advisory solutions take the spotlight in the segment, there are other solutions that are leveraging the power of big-data to provide efficient investment management solutions – the ability to utilize search data, combine multiple macroeconomic factors, quantifying latest news/insights and combining all these to provide potential upside/downside scenarios. Also, there are solutions developed to detect specific market anomalies and provide preventive action steps in the investment portfolio. Specific startup solutions in this space include Wealthfront, EidoSearch, SigFig, Betterment, LearnVest, Personal Capital, Jemstep, etc. 

Bitcoin fell to within touching distance of the $6,000 mark on Friday, a figure not seen since February, following improvement orders from Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) to six of the country’s crypto exchanges.

Bitcoin Continues to Fall

The number one digital currency is seeing its value being chipped away as the integrity of the market continues to be undermined.

Yesterday, it was reported that Tokyo-based cryptocurrency exchange and five others had been handed business improvement orders from Japan’s FSA. bitFlyer, Japan’s biggest exchange, said that it was temporarily suspending its new customer account service as it worked with the agency to solve the identified problems.

Earlier this week, NewsBTC reported on the hack that took place at South Korean crypto exchange Bithumb. Following a change to the exchange’s wallet service, it was reported that it may have resulted in an unexpected hack. As a result, thieves were able to siphon off with over $30 million worth of cryptocurrencies.

A few weeks earlier, fellow South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Coinrail was the victim of a ‘cyber intrusion.’ It’s estimated that 40 billion won, or $37.28 million, worth of cryptocurrencies was stolen. Undoubtedly, these hacks are impacting the reputation of the crypto market, which is being seen across the board in industry prices.

At the time of publishing, Bitcoin is trading at $6,098, according to CoinMarketCap, representing a near 10 percent drop in the past 24 hours. Ethereum is down at $467, a fall of 11.31 percent, whereas Bitcoin Cash is down by more than 13 percent.